I’m a powerlifter. I’m 175 lbs, 37-years-old, and compete totally raw (not even a belt). At Mark Bell’s gym just over the river, there are guys who can squat my total, and if I ever bench 350 lbs, I’ll buy the world a drink. But, darn it, I’m a powerlifter. I’m also a weightlifter, mountain biker, cross country skier, and martial artist. I lay claim to being a musician, writer, small-time animal activist, business owner, and traveler. I’m a son, a friend, a confidant, and when lucky enough to be deemed worthy, a companion. As the saying goes, I’m only human.

And, yes, I’m a powerlifter.

“Elite” is a word that never sees a sentence involving my name. Those sentences are instead peppered with words like “clumsy,” “smells funny” or “restraining order.” But often my training has been called “hardcore.” One thing I demand from myself and my clients is to know what the frightening discomfort of true intensity is all about. This isn’t a danger zone, nor is this painful in the harmful sort of way. It is the body truly expressing its abilities, and that’s a hardcore, groovy place to be.

Powerlifting is one method to this madness, not the only one and, depending on your goals, not always the best. However, it can be a truly effective tool for the “hardcore” arsenal. Is powerlifting defined by elite numbers, needles in the butt, and shaved heads with beanies? I hope not. I would have been kicked out of that club ages ago. (I look awful with a shaved head.) No, powerlifting is a solitary figure against a loaded bar in three different scenarios (lifts) and that lone person conquering said bar with 100 percent of their ability, regardless of what that bar weighs.

I’ve seen men and women dig deeper to lift a mere 150 lbs (or less) than some competitive powerlifters do with 700 lbs (or more). That’s powerlifting.

Some folks streamline their goals to simply keep those numbers going up. A lot. This is where the word “elite” comes in handy, describing the ranks of the best of these lifters. The talk among these powerlifters is about “building the lift,” meaning that they use other movements and workouts to help their bodies be able to squat, deadlift, and bench better. Make the spine, hips, and legs stronger, and there will be an increase in the squat numbers. The end product is a monster squat, for example.

The philosophy at my training center, Bodytribe, is “let’s build the squat to build us.” Even though many of us are competitive powerlifters and our squat total is one indicator of our ability to generate maximum force, we aim to be well-rounded athletes and humans so it doesn’t end at our squat total. The total is just one of many indicators we have as to the overall performance progress of our machines. If our maximum force development goes up (along with our other indicators), we realize we are simply able to DO more as human beings (which, to again bring it full circle, would include squatting).

In other words, what happens in the gym or on the platform is a means to our goals, not the finished product. Whacky, huh?

“Raw” is the label that we get stuck with. But a term that may be more appropriate is “original,” as in the “origin” of the sport. I’m not here to get my ass kicked by someone who has won the battle of squishing themselves into a double-ply suit. That alone is an extreme sport. Because free thought and personal choice are the flags I cower behind, I’m all for those seeking the big numbers. Gear up and kick ass. I’m simply too much of a wimp because my delicate mental state starts to crumble and twitch when constricted in a wetsuit two sizes too small.

Very little ink is dedicated to getting out of the hole with lifters who aren’t suited up. A classic example is all the raves given to board pressing. Hey, shirtless lifters often aren’t weakest through the second half of the lift so why would board presses be a priority for folks stuck in the hole? A raw lifter might want to dig into a slightly different tool bag, and that’s one thing we’ll get into here.

I do have one request for geared lifters. Stop telling my team how much more they can lift with gear. We don’t care. It’s us against the bar, not us against you or any other lifter in the meet. If our tendons, ligaments, muscles, and nervous systems can’t do it, then we try harder, train harder, and learn more, just like you but without the suit, shirt, wraps, or belt.

But first let’s talk about tension patterns. Our bodies should have a good degree of mobility, symmetrically moving through most of the given space around us. When we focus our movements on repetitive patterns, we soon become limited to those patterns, losing our ability to move freely outside of them.

Here are some simple tests to see if powerlifting has tightened you up into an immobile chunk:

  • overhead squat with shoulder-width (or narrower) stance
  • strict standing overhead press with complete lockout of the elbow joint directly over the ears
  • deep squat with feet together
  • shave your own upper back
  • get your leg high enough to side kick a fifth grader in the head

Point being, powerlifting can also be a very limiting tool, setting your body up for injury or chronic pain at the worst or at least wasting time learning patterns that might not transfer to any other sport or application. Yes, kids, believe it or not, the powerlifts are NOT always the best lifts for every training situation, including the sport of powerlifting. Sometimes we have to actually train the body outside the patterns of the sport just so the constant tension of that sport doesn’t cripple you.

So open up. In fact, the first portion of our workouts are titled “open” because the goal is to open the joints, muscles, and minds to what is coming up next. What we do here is an entirely separate article, but joint mobility isn’t just something martial artists do.

The next portion of the workout gets the title “create” because we’ll be creating tension, force, strength, and muscle. This is where we bleed, puke, or cry. Here’s a small collection of techniques that we’ve used to build our raw lifts.

Push-ups

Yep, that’s right. But humping the ground like a wannebe boot camp private won’t cut it. Powerlifting is one of our indicators of maximum force development. Therefore, we need some explosion from the booby region to help build our bench press.

Clap pushups are always a great, basic exercise, but add a box or two for more entertainment and explode over, off, or onto them.

Iso bench

Combine any of these push-ups with an iso hold bench press for a great combo. I first started playing with these when working with Mel Siff years ago, and Jay Schroeder features these in his Adam Archuleta training video. Although they’re nothing new, they make a great tool for building explosion out of the hole.

With a bar about 70 percent of your max, have someone hold you at the bottom position for about ten seconds while you battle them for the right to lift the darn thing. Then have them let go and crank out about six reps.

Rows

Here’s the deal—if you weigh more than a bear, are as big as an industrial fridge, and can flip my car, then you might not care so much about head-to-toe technique for a deadlift. We mere mortals may take offense to our spines ripping out of our rib cages though and some basic spinal awareness may help.

Next time you feel like standing, let your shoulders relax and round. Chances are your butt will want to tuck under a bit. The opposite is also true. Pull your shoulders back proud, and watch what happens automatically with the tush. Out it goes, nice and arched. Because we covet a good arch, using those spinal muscles to create a nice, tense, and therefore safe, back is a priority. So why not use a cue naturally built into our nervous system? Get those shoulder blades back, and the spinal erectors will be more inclined to turn on. If you need to see it from another point of view, fight the rounding of the shoulder blades so the butt won’t tuck under.

The Rising Moon is what we call the potentially dangerous state of having the hips pop up before the chest, creating more of a straight legged (and most often, rounded back) deadlift position. This happens so frequently in max lifting and competition that we now keep a net on hand to catch the vertebrae as they pop out of the spine. Wanna know a trick to minimize the Rising Moon? Train them damn shoulder blades. Your spine will be so ready to keep the chest in the lead that even if the butt pops up, the spine will stay in a safe, tightly arched position.

Bent rows or squat rows are two of our staples. We avoid too many seated anythings. Rows are no exception. We stand, grab something heavy, and row it. For an added bonus, we might use the body of our farmer’s walk handles for the bent rows so our grip strength doesn’t feel like the neglected stepchild.

Overhead press

Put stuff over your head. Heavy stuff. My personal favorites are strict overhead presses from chains (standing, of course), jerk presses, and leverage club work. There are too many people with too many fears about overhead lifts. Granted, our Western culture is de-evolving from this birthright movement. But let’s not unnecessarily pamper ourselves into marshmallows of limited movement.

Overhead pressing and lifting can be used to rehab shoulders damaged from bench pressing as well as build the integrity of the joint to avoid future issues. Overhead lifting is also a postural developer and analysis tool. You can learn a lot about yourself through overhead pressing like tension patterns or weaknesses in the shoulders, traps, or spine. This, again, is a topic onto itself. In the meantime, just go lift.

Club Chops are a favorite option beside the barbell work. We call these Ninja Chops and we embrace our inner Samurai chopping up all enemy challengers. Clubs are still squeaking out a comeback in the Western countries as an exercise tool, but the rotational elements these can provide offer benefits that Indian wrestlers have been playing with for centuries.

Speed work

Go fast. Any Westside lifter will tell you that, right? Well, raw lifters should take heed as well. But there’s a caveat. The commonly used percentages used by many elite lifters to determine the load of their speed work might not apply to lighter lifters. The popular suggested starting weight of a new speed (or “dynamic”) cycle is 50–55 percent of the one rep max. However, because bar speed usurps priority over strict numbers, treat speed work like your college social life—experiment.

Static work

Set the pins in your rack at your squat depth or right at your chest level for benching. Load a seriously heavy bar (way over your max) on the pins. Get under the bar and PUSH! Keep pushing. If the bar moves up, you have a new max. If not, stop, rest, and do it again.

There are a million variations to this—lower intensity for longer periods of time, short bursts repeatedly, etc. It would be a sucker’s bet that you couldn’t come up with your own ideas here.

Low deadlifts/tire flips

If you deadlift in the 400s or less, use 25-lb plates instead of 45s, giving you a two-inch deficit of bar height. That means getting your ass lower to pick up the bar. This can, of course, be done from a box instead (especially if you’ve run out of space on the bar), but how often do you get to load a bar with that many plates even if they are only 25s?

Snatch grip deadlifts also give you a height deficit while at the same time creating a wonderful lesson for the upper back (remember those shoulder blades).

Tire flipping has become almost trendy in certain circles. From GPP training with lighter tires flipped for miles on end to Strongman training with tires the size of small elephants, tires are being abused across the country. I’m sure the fitness equipment industry will soon be making the adjustable weight “fitness tire” in pretty colors and with various handle options.

Meanwhile get a big tire. Really big. Considerably heavier than your deadlift weight. Then flip it. Watch your deadlift improve.

Release

We finish off the workout with what we call “release,” which has nothing to do with a “happy ending” although it is about letting go of the tension from the workout and embracing a place of recovery and compensation. This doesn’t look too different from the “open” section—working through movement patterns and mobility drills; stealing from yoga, dance, gymnastics, and martial arts; and trying to make it as non-flowery as possible (I have a hard time with flowery).

Program design

Because a ruffie-numbed monkey can teach exercises, the real art lies in putting these tools to use. A simple rule is to throw all stubbornness into the crapper and be willing to get creative. There’s a big difference between being open-minded and practicing free thought. Open-minded people join cults, completely ready to accept the vehement dogma of a charismatic leader. The fitness and strength industries are full of such cults, from the powerlifting cults to the kettlebell cults, entire groups of people who were born with the right to free thought but choose to dismiss that responsibility and let someone else’s words, ideas, and concepts fill their “open” minds.

But embracing free thought means learning how to learn, coveting the ability to discern the useless from the productive. So, in the words of Dan John, put the bar (or dumbbell, sandbag, first wife) on the ground and pick it up a bunch of different ways. Be creative. Turn your training into your own personal ritual. This means coveting GPP work and accepting movement patterns outside of the constant sagital patterns of the three big lifts. The better you feel as an overall strong human being, the better you’ll feel as a powerlifter.