FAQ: What is power lifting?

Since starting this Challenge, so many people have asked me "What is power lifting?", often following it up with, "Is that where they stand up with the bar over their head?"

So, I thought I'd try to answer it best as I can, in case you're wondering!

Everyone's familiar with running, right?  Well you could say 'running' is a general term for a type of exercise, and then there are different 'sports' that are derived from it, which people can do competitively or just for fun - like the half marathon,  the 100m sprint, or the 4000 metres etc.

Well, much like running, weight training is a general term for a type of exercise and it too has various 'sports' derived from it.  The main three of these are:

1) Power lifting
2) Weight lifting
3) Body-building

What's the difference? 

Power lifting is a total body strength sport, made of three 'lifts' called 

• Dead lift
• Bench press
• Squat

This is an awesome video showing what power lifting is all about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMIGc-PqsBc 

Weight lifting is generally taken to mean the Olympic sport of weightlifting. Like power lifting, it's also a total body strength sport. It's made up of three 'lifts' (with very silly names):

• Snatch
• Clean and Jerk (done as one exercise in Olympics weightlifting)

Body building is a branch of weight training that focus on a specific type of muscle development. The exercises used are targeted to work on single muscle groups and they're designed to 'hypertrophy' (bulk up) the muscles. The 'sport' element of body building is that people compete against a set of aesthetic standards. 

Unfortunately, body building is often what people bring to mind when they hear the word 'weight training', but it is only one sub-group. In fact, some body builders become so hypertrophied that they end up having little functional strength! See the photo below ..... Photoshop anyone? ;)