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General/News

2020 Para powerlifting went virtual

Posted by Marie Curtis on
2020 Para powerlifting went virtual

This year’s powerlifting season began with gusto as Manchester, Great Britain and Abuja, Nigeria successfully hosted World Cups in the first prat of the years. But soon, the world health crisis brought the world along with the sporting calendar to a complete halt.

The Covid-19 lockdown caused the World Para Powerlifting to come up with a unique form of a virtual series, which went live on March 31. 

This concept of changing into a virtual platform overnight proved to be a key changer and which is more important is that a large boon for athletes trying to stay fit as well as continue training indoors during the epidemic.

With 25 athletes from 11 countries, the first ever online competition was a resounding success. That paved the way for the Online World Cup Series – a whole series of virtual competitions that were presented by BIGSER.

Head of World Para Powerlifting, Jorge Moreno said that when they created the Series, most part of the world was being locked down and full of uncertainties caused by the virus. It was their way to help athletes stay active as well as do something fun in a safe way.

Colombia’s Fabio Torres and Russia’s Vera Muratova were the winners of the first edition in the men’s and women’s events, respectively.

Torres said about his win that the online competition was really good and looked like a real event that helped athletes to remain strong.

The second series was held in May and attracted 40 athletes from 19 countries where Jordan’s Abdelkareem Khattab and Mexico’s Amalia Perez were the winners.

The third series broke the record when it comes to the number of competitors (55) while the fourth competition was the Online World Cup that had most participant nations (21). David Degtyarev of Muratova and Kazakhstan won both these two competitions.

The fifth series held in October broke a new record with 65 athletes in action competing to earn a place in the Online World Cup Series Finals in November.

Degtyarev and Perez finished first once again, followed by other seven athletes to the Finals with male and female weightlifters competing together.

General

Guidelines on how to guide teenagers in weightlifting

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Guidelines on how to guide teenagers in weightlifting

Research shows that teenagers can get stronger if they follow a supervised weightlifting program. Here are several guidelines on how to guide your teens in weightlifting.

Don’t force them to join weightlifting

If your kids show an interest in lifting, encourage them. If not, don’t force them to do it. The reason is that it is a way to instill a dislike for sports later on. They have the rest of their lives to be serious with exercise. Most of the professional weightlifters who have kids have never attempted proactively to get them to lift weights. It is best to have a policy of actively encouraging your kids to lift, instead of forcing them to do so. If they want to, show them how and try to keep the session light and fun.

Keep the weight light

Your kids shouldn’t grind out too heavy singles when they lift. Remember that the focus should be on form rather than the weight lifted. Adult-sized barbells will be too heavy for a child. Get a bar specifically made for kids, weighing about 11 lbs.

Standard barbell weights should be fine for kids. Depending on the lift, most kids should be able to lift a barbell with 2.5-10 lb plates.

If you want to have your kids lift even lighter weights, buying some microplates, which allow you to make .5-2.5 lb increases in load, is a good option.

Keep weightlifting fun and playful

The most important goal when kids start weightlifting or doing any exercise is to help them get the movements down as well as to instill a love of fitness in them. In addition, many young children don’t have enough long attention ability to follow a regimented program. Just let your kids play with barbells and provide feedback on the form. For example, put some weight on the kid bar and bust out several sets, then they may go play something else, before coming back to do another set.

General/News/Powerlifting Equipment

The Two Best Weight Lifting Wrist Supports in 2020

Posted by Marie Curtis on
The Two Best Weight Lifting Wrist Supports in 2020

Any seasoned weightlifter understands that sometimes the little things can make a major difference in your strength. And wrist straps and wraps are great examples. As you progress in strength training, these small accessories become more and more useful. Here we write down the two best weight lifting wrist supports in 2020.

Mava Sports Ventilated Workout Gloves

Exercise gloves with wrist wraps can help you become stronger by acting like additional tendons and ligaments while the wrist is bent backward. They distribute the burden strain throughout your forearms instead of getting your fingers assist all of it.

Developed with optimized consolation in mind, their light-weight suppleness ensures you get pleasure from a pure grip with none bulkiness. The wrist wraps can be regulated to your private consolation. Meanwhile, the open hand design gives air flow retaining your palms dry and you can avoid smelly gloves.

The Mava final grip exercise gloves were designed to cowl your complete palm and thumb while allowing the remainder of your hand to breath when you are doing your exercises, weightlifting classes, or wods.

Rip Toned Wrist Wraps 18″ Professional Grade

Endorsed by 2014 world champion powerlifter Kevin Weiss, this greatest heavy obligation elastic wrist wrap solely weight lifting wraps help remove failed lifts and defend your wrist joints from damage while practicing heavy or max lifts. The wraps with premium stitching and excessive finish sturdy broader velcro are adjustable and mechanically cleanable.

These excessive efficiency straps provide weightlifters with wrist assist and stability while doing cross-fit, powerlifting, planks, push-ups, burpees, and power training. This product present good assist, are extra snug and permits wrist flexibility.

If you want to quickly and safely enhance your lifts as well as maximize your good points, this new set of wraps are the products of your choice. They are straight-forward to use or take away, although they are pretty stiff.

General/News/weightlifting app

The Best Weightlifting Apps of 2020 (part 3)

Posted by Marie Curtis on
The Best Weightlifting Apps of 2020 (part 3)

Best for Beginners: Fitbod

In the beginning, Fitbod asks for your weight, height, abilities, goals, and some more. Then, it bases on the information you input to build a custom weight training program for you by using a super-smart algorithm. As you log more and more workouts, the algorithm will get smarter. It will adapt and create workouts designed to push you harder.

This app literally fills in the sets, reps, and lifting schemes that you need to perform to see results. In addition, it removes any uncertainty or possibility of discomfort. This is the reason why Fitbod is so great for beginners. Fitbod is quite the similar of a digital personal trainer.

Best for Detailed Workout Logging: Gymaholic

Gymaholic is an app for tracking weightlifting workouts. It is no-frills, yet somehow incredibly detailed. You can track any type of workout set, such as supersets, drop sets, tri-sets, circuits, pyramid sets, sets to failure, and more. It also allows you to tag your weightlifting workouts by types, including TRX, strength, and bodybuilding.

In addition, Gymaholic supports tracking of your one-rep maxes, heart rate during workouts, body measurements, body composition, other personal records, and much more. It integrates with Apple Watch and the Apple Health app so you can see all your data wherever you need it.

Best for Minimal Equipment Workouts: Sworkit

Sworkit is one of the best fitness apps for iPhone. It is there for you when you are in an overcrowded gym or in a hotel gym with a lack of equipment, or any other place where you can’t complete your usual routine. Sworkit is also a great app for busy professionals who don’t have much time, parents who need to practice at home, and travelers who often have limited space.

With Sworkit, you can filter workouts by goals, time, and level of difficulty. If you’re feeling creative, you even can create your own workout by pulling from the app’s exercise library.

General

Three Basic Tips for Beginner Powerlifters

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Three Basic Tips for Beginner Powerlifters

If you’re thinking about starting to powerlift then you’ll need to consider everything from how to structure your program to tips for your first competition. It can feel somewhat overwhelming, but in this guide, I’ll share exactly what you need to know to be successful in the sport of powerlifting.

1. Always squat below parallel

How many times have you seen lifters in training squatting high and saying ill get depth on the day, then the comp comes around and everything falls apart because you haven’t trained to the depth.

Now in the grand scheme of a training cycle is one or two high squats going to ruin your prep? Absolutely not! This is mainly aimed at people who are squatting high week in and week out.

2. Practice the pause in the bench at least once a week.

Just like the squat I’ve seen loads of people saying they can bench this and that but when it comes to a comp and pausing the lift there numbers are way back. Do practice the pause enough and it becomes second nature, my pause bench is even bigger than my touch and go bench at this stage.

3. Never touch and go deadlifts or worse bounce them

By killing it dead once again like the other two lifts your practicing the competition movement and re-enforcing your start position which in turn makes you stronger from that position. I worked with one lifter in particular who claimed a 180kgx8 deadlift yet could only pull 190kg for 1. I asked him to show me his deadlifts and there it was, touch and go every rep. All I had him do was dead stop them, within weeks he was pulling over 200kg.

Seems simple but so many people get it wrong! You could go one further and have your training partner or coach give competition commands to really get you use to what’s to come at competition.

Give it a go and I assure you you’ll be much better off on the day of a competition.

General

Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 3)

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 3)

8. Be Loud and Obnoxious

It might be understandable that a powerlifting gym sometimes has some grunting, yelling, which is even necessary in some case. So, it’s no need to complain about the noise. However, be reasonable since there are many other people who are training at the same room and there are also those that might take craziness to the next level.

9. Stink

Whether it is the body funk that makes you smell like you reside in an onion patch, or bad breath that would make anyone nauseous, the people around you are going to notice. So make sure not to be oblivious to the fact that your hygiene is something inconvenient to everybody around you.

Remember to brush, floss, gargle, and shower every day. Apply deodorant and even one or two sprits of cologne (don’t do it too much as this isn’t pleasant either).

Avoid wearing the same clothes more than once without washing and keep your gear clean and smelling fresh.

10. Be Rude

This is one of the most important rules in gym. It is annoying to see someone’s stuff on a machine while they are not in your sight. So just leave it exactly where it is and wait until that person comes back and ask them how many more sets they have.

You might not be too happy if someone else moved your stuff and used the equipment you planned to use.

Being rude by any way is unacceptable and there is a huge difference between standing up for yourself and just being rude. The gym should be a place to encourage and offer help to other people who are on the same path with you.

So, understand that you should be an example no matter the circumstance, no matter how bad someone’s actions may tick you off. Your attitude should reflect the discipline and self-control of your own.

General

Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 2)

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 2)

5. Walk-In Front of somebody During Their Set

Is it really an excessive amount of to ask? If you see someone who is noticeably employing a mirror to make sure they’re maintaining proper form then the polite thing to try to would be to steer around. It doesn’t matter if you walk by fast it’s just good etiquette to not roll in the hay.

6. Leave Your Weights On The Equipment/ Not Rerack

This one might even be worse than not wiping down your equipment after use (also on our list) and it’s one among the most important ways to point out a scarcity of respect for the opposite people within the gym. Nobody wants to unload 10 plates on a barbell or shop around for dumbbells across the gym.

Can it just be that they weren’t taught this once they first started lifting? Maybe these people think that others won’t mind putting their weights back or they only can’t be bothered to try to to it themselves…

Surely though, everyone has seen the signs in just about every gym that requests all gym-goers put their weights back whether plates or dumbbells and from experience we all know that in many gyms, the front staff makes this known when someone signs up.

Don’t be that one that leaves the load on the equipment because this is often not only very rude and inconsiderate but who wants to be exhausted before they even begin their set.

7. Attempt to Be The Gym Coach

Every gym has that one guy who feels the necessity to correct everyone’s form. Although, every now then it’s going to be warranted because you never want to ascertain anyone gets hurt doing reckless movements. But repeatedly, the one handing out tips isn’t an expert and is simply trying to offer out advice supported bro-science which is basically annoying, to be quite honest.

Sensible advice is usually good under the proper circumstances but doesn’t go around trying to correct everyone’s form as you’ll not even be conversant in the exercise or the modification that somebody is trying out.

General

Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 1)

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Ten things you should avoid in a powerlifting gym (part 1)

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With the increasing popularity of the fitness lifestyle, it has become more and more relevant to revisit the fundamentals of fitness. Here is some helpful advice about things that you should avoid in a powerlifting gym in order to not only maximize your success in the gym but also tick off as few people as you can.

1. Use a bar but do not know its purpose

Remember that not all weightlifting bars are created equally. You don’t want to bench or squat with a deadlift bar for instance and there are bars of various quality which shouldn’t be used with chains or for other things. So make certain to ask someone who works there or somebody else who doesn’t seem too busy to elucidate which bar is that purpose as there are usually many various bars.

2. Get Too Close To Someone Lifting

Keep a couple of feet faraway from anyone who is lifting heavy weight or any weight for that matter. Be observant and conscious of the space around you because accidents can and do happen, and you don’t want to be the cause. Not keeping your distance is additionally an honest thanks to getting yelled at.

3. Talk Someone’s Ear Off

Some people like to talk while others don’t. It is normal because we are all different.  But remember that a lot of people within the powerlifting gym try to urge in their workout so that they can leave soon and keep it up with the rest of their day. Not everyone wants too or has the time to speak for an hour between exercises but sometimes the person being held hostage doesn’t want to return off as rude by cutting that person off or telling them that they’d like better to train without interruption.

4. Complain If Someone Is Taking Longer Between Sets

It’s a powerlifting gym and powerlifting usually involves longer rest periods since the main target tends to get on strength. So, thereupon being said, don’t complain and if anything you’ll probably even ask to figure in if you’ll hang with the person lifting as it’d be annoying to require off and replace the weights counting on the strength differences.

But in many cases, there should be several different areas open with the equipment you would like.

General

Top Tips for Weight Lifting Beginners

Posted by Marie Curtis on
Top Tips for Weight Lifting Beginners

Want to make the best use of weightlifting gear that is gathering dust in your basement and obtain in better shape? Here are seven top tips for weight lifting beginners.

1. Choose a goal

Firstly, you must make clear that what you want to achieve through weight lifting. Do you want to slim down, bulk up, or get more defined? Once having known well your goal, set a time-frame and attempt to achieve it as specific as possible.

2. Keep the proper attitude

Once you’ve set up a goal, keep focused thereon. Post it on your wall or set it on your phone alarm to assist you retain your goal in mind. Try to find someone to figure out with to assist keep you focused and accountable.

3. Know your limits

Start light. Remember, even Arnold Schwarzenegger had to start out somewhere! Lifting heavy weights with fewer repetitions helps you build muscle size and mass, whereas lifting lighter weights with more reps tones muscles.

4. Keep increasing the load

Although you’ll need to begin with lighter weights, don’t grind to a halt during a routine where you retain lifting an equivalent amount. Gradually increase the quantity you lift. Try working towards adding 10 pounds every month to your bench presses.

5. Don’t overdo it

Don’t lift a day. You would like a minimum of two days of rest to permit your muscles to heal. Beginners should try lifting every other day. Also, confirm to urge enough sleep, because without adequate rest you won’t build muscle.

6. Keep proper posture

If you’re doing many lifting, but using poor technique, you’re wasting some time. Ask your training partner to critique your technique, or compute ahead of a mirror.

7. Practice proper nutrition

Remember the GIGO principle: Garbage in, garbage out! Drinking a whey protein shake right after understanding helps your body build muscle (without enough protein you can’t build muscle mass) but nutritional supplements won’t replace eating right and doing the diligence of doing the lifting itself.

General

The history of powerlifting

Posted by Marie Curtis on
The history of powerlifting

It all started with the International Powerlifting Federation. the game originated from Weightlifting where the “odd lifts” then became recognized and put into a special format.

The first “genuine” National meet for powerlifting was held in 1964 at the York Barbell Company within the US and therefore the progression began from there within the USA and UK then began to develop in other countries.

In the UK, the first powerlifting federation was BAWLA – British Amateur Weightlifting Association and from that emerged one man to start out the start of the powerlifting revolution within the UK. David Carter.

David Carter left BAWLA and started a replacement federation named British Powerlifting Organization – an “equipped” federation that allowed lifters to wear single-ply equipment and was connected with the planet Powerlifting Congress – who we are affiliated with in the present. He transformed powerlifting within the UK taking it new levels and provided lifts with choice of which federation they lifted in and decided to make a supportive and inspiring environment which is what we learned from him. During this point, other UK federations began to emerge from Davis Carter’s first steps.

The British Powerlifting Organization then made a choice to maneuver far-away from the WPC and that they joined the planet Powerlifting Federation. Thereupon move, the lifters who wanted to remain with the BPC formed a replacement federation by the name of the BPC – British Powerlifting Congress.

The sport had another great breakthrough with the couple Brian and Vanessa Batcheldor heading to make the competitions spectacular and hosted in venues like the NEC and the BIC in Bournemouth. Vanessa Batcheldor was one of the simplest female powerlifters we had squatting more than 200kg at 60kg in bodyweight which remains a record nowadays.

Since then British Powerlifting Union was formed, along with the planet Powerlifting Congress as our administration. It had the stress of bringing back the element of “run by powerlifters, for powerlifters” and the element of support that might be lost at elite levels. Our aim is to progress the game and supply opportunity at the amateur level during structured thanks to encouraging new lifters to the game and supply a grass roots platform in order to develop from to national and international competition at the elite level.