Weightlifting

Weightlifting is something that has become part of my lifestyle. I've been lifting for about five years now. It's something I look forward to during the day, it's a great way to relive stress and get quality exercise. There are two main types of weightlifting, power lifting and bodybuilding.

Power lifting is solely concerned with increasing functional strength as much as possible. Power lifters do not care much about aesthetics, but it will come with time. They mostly perform compound exercises, that is exercises that use more than one joint (Knees and hips for example). The four essential exercises for power lifting are: Bench press, squat, dead lifts, and cleans. These exercises will add total body density and strength. A power lifting routine generally sticks for low repetitions per set, something around 1-5 reps. This is because 1-3 reps are the most conducive to strength, and 4-6 reps is a good range for adding strength and size. Power lifters also take long rests in between sets. This is because they want their muscles to be fully rested so they can use as much weight as possible for each set. Power lifters may not look as strong as body builders, because they don't focus on "beach muscles", but a power lifter can have incredible strength relative to his size.

Bodybuilding on the other hand is mainly concerned with aesthetics, adding as much lean muscle as possible. Bodybuilders also do compound exercises, but they do many more single joint ones than power lifters do. Unlike power lifters, body builders generally do sets with reps of 8-12 repetitions, as this is best for hypertrophy. They usually have very little rest between sets, usually a minute or even thirty seconds. They don't want to give the muscle a chance to recover, causing it to get cut up. It's also not unusual to see bodybuilders perform multiple exercises without rest, helping the muscle to get ripped. This is seldom seen in power lifting, as it's not too conducive to strength gains. Although bodybuilders will look strong because they have so much lean muscle (and they are strong compared to people who do not lift), you can't compare their strength to a power lifters of the same weight.

I've done both types of training, and I like power lifting a little more. Currently I'm doing a hybrid program that follows power lifting principles for compound lifts and bodybuilding principles for auxiliary lifts. Hopefully this will contribute to a good mix of lean muscle, but with lots of strength. It is important to understand that variety is essential when weight lifting, but the most important thing is nutrition, which i will discuss in another blog.