The Three Types of Weightlifters

It's happened on more than one occasion where someone refers to my gym-going-ness as bodybuilding. To say it makes me mad to hear that would be an understatement. That's like asking Roger Federer how his ping-pong training is going. I don't think he'd be too happy. Just because they both require hitting a ball with a similar looking racket, it doesn't make them the same sport.

The exact same thing applies to weightlifting/bodybuilding. Just because they both require lifting weights, they are both pursued for very different goals. Bodybuilding is mainly done for aesthetic reasons. The bodybuilder is training to build and display muscle, and that's it. Many bodybuilders eventually compete where a panel of judges rates them on muscular definition, symmetry, body fat, etc.

They usually take a range of supplements, both legal and illegal in some cases and end up shopping at plus size shops because they're swole boi.

Weightlifting on the other hand can be, at least in my opinion, divided into three categories.

Category one, your typical gym rat who is in there everyday working on his guyceps doing curls for the girls. He is easily spotted giving his fellow gym buddies useless advice he read from a magazine, or he made it up. He is somehow convinced that there are 52 different variations of the biceps curl. He has also been known to workout in jeans, as well as wearing sunglasses in the gym and he has been spotted checking his gelled hair in the mirror while talking on the phone between sets. He usually has a V shape body, NOT upper body (which is something to admire), but his entire body starts off big at the top because it's what receives the most training, and end up with chicken legs because 'he plays basketball so there's no need to train his legs'.

http://static.divbyzero.nl/facepalm/doublefacepalm.jpg

Category two is powerlifting. These are the guys that are just really big and strong looking. How they look is the last thing on their mind, and they train only for strength, and more specifically, functional strength, the kind that comes in handy in day-to-day situations. They compete in three lifts, the squat, the bench press and the deadlift, with only their one rep max counting. These are the guys you will want when your car suddenly breaks down in the middle of the road and you need to push it to the gas station... or if zombies suddenly attack.

The third category is Olympic weightlifting. This is more dynamic and explosive weightlifting and lifters compete in two lifts, the snatch and the clean & jerk. Oly lifters are able to generate more power than the above two, but for overall strength, powerlifters come out on top. I don't know too much about Olympic lifting, and I won't pretend like I do, so I'll stop there. If anything though, it's the coolest looking of the three.

I'll admit there are people that seem to do a bit of everything. I see people in the gym sometimes go from doing 12 exercises for their arms, to squatting or deadlifting, to doing a really crappy version of a clean and jerk.

The first year or so since I started working out, I will admit I probably fell into category one, minus the gelled hair, sunglasses and jeans wearing part, but I focused mainly on the magazine-type exercises. I gradually made the shift over time to more strength training where I still did some category one exercises but learnt the importance of squatting and deadlifting. Since then I've focused only on powerlifting and am happy to say I've made the most progress ever. My lifts have gone up drastically and I've realized and appreciated the importance of training for strength and not superficial looks.