Powerlifting Basics

[DaRkAnGel]

Ok so, for a powerlifting club that i'm starting at my school i decided to make a hand out with the basics for people that have never powerlifted before. This is what i have come up with: (i hope it can either help someone or someone can help me with adding something, but remember this is for completely newbies and i am not wanting to get into depth about any particular thing)

PL Basics
In Competition:
• The three powerlifting competition lifts are: the deadlift, the bench, and the squat.
• It is not necessary to participate in all three lifts although you can.
• Depending on which federation or event, the rules for completion of a lift may be different.
• Bench shirts, deadlift suits, and squat suits can be used in some events, but are not mandatory and not all events will allow their use. Most of the competitions we will participate in will most likely be raw events – no gear allowed.
Training Clarifications
• Unlike bodybuilding, most of the training you will do will be with low reps(triples, doubles, and singles). In other words you will need to be lifting heavy weights – you either want to get strong or you don’t.
• Depending on what type of a program you do, you will need to tone down the intensity (% weight lifted of your max) based on when you feel the need to. When overtraining symptoms arrive (symptoms vary from person to person, but if you are having difficulty fighting off a sickness, a prolonged general feeling of weakness, or headaches) you will need to “deload”. While deloading what you are essentially doing is allowing you CNS(Central Nervous System) to recover which is heavily taxed when training with heavy weights. This is done by decreasing the intensity and/or volume (reps x sets) of your workouts.
• You will need to max out, test the maximum amount of weight that you can use for a number of exercises including the main three powerlifting lifts as well as others for supplementing these lifts.
Training Basics
• You will be lifting (usually) 4 times per week. This may be different depending on if you can work at your house or not and if we get frequent access to the school gym. Essentially you will be lifting 2 days a week dedicated for speed (dynamic effort) and 2 days for maximal strength(maximum effort method). In another simple variation you will lift with three days of the week dedicated to the three main lifts and one day for assistance exercises that help that exercise like tricep pushdowns for your bench. These are obviously not your only choices for a program, but it provides a rough guideline of what you should be doing.
• The three basic training methods of gaining strength are: the max effort method, the repetition method, and the dynamic effort method. The max effort method involves training with weights around 90% intensity(of your max) for maximum strength. The repetition method is a bodybuilding style of training that primarily creates muscle hypertrophy(muscle growth), but is a vital part to gaining strength. Finally, the dynamic method of training involves performing reps at 50 – 70 % intensity with as much speed as possible for the purpose of improved rate of force development. (being able to recruit as many motor units at once as possible)
• Training will be done in a conjugated or linearly periodized manner. In a conjugated periodization program you will be using all three methods used to gain strength in a single week. Eventually you may have some drawbacks using this program so you will need to as stated before “deload” or perhaps take a few pages out of the linear book and dedicate a few weeks to bodybuilding to allow your joints to relax and CNS to recover. Contrary to this, in a periodized program you will instead spread these three methods out into separate weeks for different goals (building muscle, building strength, or building speed for instance) combining into three different cycles: the microcycle, the mesocycle, and the macrocycle.(these are simply groupings and you do not have to know this).