Why Powerlifting Should Not Be in the Olympics

[stef]

by Myles Kantor

A periodic topic in powerlifting discussions is the addition of the sport to the Olympic Games. Through the International Powerlifting Federation (hereafter the IPF), powerlifting is part of the World Games, which operates “under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee.” For some powerlifters, Olympic inclusion is a long-sought dream that would mean great things. In this article, I will discuss why IOC recognition would likely have horrible consequences for powerlifting.

Article (http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/why_powerlifting_should_not_be_in_the_olympics)

Resources Page (http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/resources/)

[mmmsteak]

What an unexpected joy it is to see Ludwig von Mises quoted in an article about powerlifting.

And this:


Whether a lifter uses steroids or not, he should not support a course of action that
would trample upon another lifter’s freedom.

is a beautiful sentiment.

[gzt]

I think this makes great points, but it would be a lot better if it weren't so thick with quotes of libertarian authors (particularly Austrian economists) in the beginning.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I like that about it, actually.

[CPstrength]

It is unfortunate that to unite or gain greater recognition powerlifting must become a monopoly. But, if we want to look at many things the way Myles does in this article, government (in any sense) would also seem to be a monopoly. International track and field is a monopoly. Olympic weightlifting is a monopoly. That is why these things are in the Olympics. Unification will require a social contract. And I'm not sure if valuing individual freedom about drug usage, etc. is more important than seeing the most talented lifters in the world competing on a single stage. It would be interesting to see how many top lifters in untested, multi-ply federations would react to (presumably) single ply, drug tested lifting being placed in the Olympics. I'm guessing many would take off some gear, get clean (if they weren't before), and jump into the possibility of being an Olympic athlete.

[NathanConrad]

Before reading your article I hadn't considered this in such depth, thank you for the insight.

Also, this would make a great verbal presentation to an audience that wasn't clued in to the topic as I myself was wondering where it was going for a minute. Very well done.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm guessing many would take off some gear, get clean (if they weren't before), and jump into the possibility of being an Olympic athlete.

You think Olympic athletes don't use drugs?

[CPstrength]

You're right. Keeping up an appearance of being clean is more like it.

[MylesKantor]

You think Olympic athletes don't use drugs?

This reminds me of a great exchange in The Insider:

Don Hewitt: Are you suggesting that she and Eric [Kluster] are influenced by money?

Lowell Bergman: No, no of course they're not influenced by money. They work for free. And you are a volunteer executive producer.

Specific to Olympic athletes and drugs, Charlie Francis noted back in 1990 in Speed Trap:

"As I tracked the steroid trail--the network of coaches, doctors, and managers known to be involved with drugs--I found that it led to athlete after athlete. I arrived at a central premise that would guide my counsel for Angella [Coon], as well as for Ben [Johnson] and my other top male sprinters when they reached a similar crossroads: An athlete could not expect to win in top international competition without using anabolic steroids. Steroids could not replace talent, or training, or a well-planned competitive program. They could not transform a plodder into a champion. But they had become an essential supplement at the world-class level..."

Or more recently in the context of cycling:

"...dopers such as Thomas Frei and Bernhard Kohl explained in their confessions how easily test results could be manipulated, how they'd been caught only because they'd committed the kind of dumb human blunder any of us eventually would have at some point." (http://www.bicycling.com/news/pro-cycling/lance-armstrongs-endgame?page=1,2)

And remember: Athletes use steroids because they hate our freedom.

Nathan and mmmsteak, thanks for your kind words.

[MylesKantor]

It would be interesting to see how many top lifters in untested, multi-ply federations....

Here's what might be a surprising fact: the majority of affiliates in the IPF are untested. On the bottom of page 15, from the 2010 General Assembly minutes:

"Thus the situation remains that probably less than 40% of IPF nations drug-test and that national positives are heading slightly upwards, rather than down." (http://www.powerlifting-ipf.com/fileadmin/data/Newscontainer/Minutes_GA_2010_HP.pdf)

[MEbigUsmall]

You think Olympic athletes don't use drugs?

I know they do but I am Curious if everyone who is competitive does? I would imagine so.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Competitive at what level?

[MEbigUsmall]

Competitive at what level?

At the Olympic level

[kunnar]

Olympics bad and IPF bad because they do doping tests?? And if powerlifting gets to Olympics then it will be probably united under IPF and then no good place for doping users where to compete? Awful perspective i would say, horrible http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/images/icons/icon10.png

[mkamaryn]

International track and field is a monopoly. Olympic weightlifting is a monopoly. That is why these things are in the Olympics. Unification will require a social contract. And I'm not sure if valuing individual freedom about drug usage, etc. is more important than seeing the most talented lifters in the world competing on a single stage.

Are you suggesting that it is appropriate to strip individual liberty as means to find the strongest lifters? There is no social contract to be signed. There are only people in positions of power that feel the need to limit other's personal freedoms. If you agree to that, then you must not complain when told that you can no longer buy a gas guzzling truck, eat diabetes causing little debbies... It is that kind of freedom stripping, BS legislation, that is put forth under the guise of the social contract.

Why on earth do you want anyone else telling you what you can and cannot do? Are you not an adult?

[Platus]

Myles,

I just wanted to thank you for the article - I have a minor in critical theory and philosophy, and I really enjoy the cross-disciplinary approach that you have taken.

In the Q&A thread, mmmsteak noted that this site attracts a good number of "anarcho-capitalist / libertarian types," but this article crossed the aisle to more liberal types such as myself who, in our own way, also love "heavy things and liberty." 'Localism' is a important value to me - in smaller, self-organized contexts, certain things are achievable that don't always translated well into bigger organizations.

I currently train in the basement of a middle school with about 15-20 other people. All of the 'staff' are volunteer members of the gym. The equipment is york iron, bumpers, and barbells. Everyone there is either training for powerlifting, strongman, the ocassional bodybuilding show, or just trying to get strong for the purposes of health and being able to keep up with their children. When I walk into this gym, I feel a sense of comradery and community that I have never felt in any other gym. We bicker about news and politics, and we often don't see eye-to-eye on many matters, but everyone there is training hard and supportive of each others' goals.

Recently, one of the bodybuilders that trains at the gym has started to get some press and a few bodybuilding blogs have wanted to come document his training at our gym. The bodybuilder in question specifically arranged to do all the shoots at other gyms, for fear that the press would encourage others to flock to the gym. More members could mean more money for equipment and could create good opportunities, but it could also ruin the atmosphere and culture of the gym. It's tough to say no to wanting to expand to elevate the status of what you do, but in doing so we sometimes risk destroying what we love.

[Peter_k]

I'm completely against the banning of any substance (including steroids), but this article misses the point by a mile. Individual freedom is a core value only to the extent that it doesn't infringe on someone else's.

If you allow drug use in competitions you have an unfair advantage over other competitors who do not want to use drugs. So you either compete at a disadvantage or are compelled to take potentially harmful substances against your will. That is not keeping with the spirit of libertarianism.

[MylesKantor]

And I'm not sure if valuing individual freedom about drug usage, etc. is more important than seeing the most talented lifters in the world competing on a single stage.

This is a rather sociopathic outlook. I'm guessing there are people in your life who you love. If all it took for PL to be in the Olympics were the mutilation or killing of just a single loved one, would you offer up this person on the IOC altar? After all, it would enable a coterie of gifted athletes to compete on an Olympic platform. But you probably wouldn't be ok with that (unless you really are a sociopath). I'm likewise not ok with promoting a course of action that has the foreseeable consequence of smashing lifters' rights on a global scale and aggrandizing depraved institutions.

And by the way, monopoly is about banning all competition, so non-IPF drug-tested feds would also face elimination. I'm guessing there's a reason the WDFPF for instance hasn't liquidated itself and merged with the IPF already. These issues are about much more than powerlifting.


I currently train in the basement of a middle school with about 15-20 other people. All of the 'staff' are volunteer members of the gym...When I walk into this gym, I feel a sense of comradery and community that I have never felt in any other gym.

An admirable example of spontaneous order. Thank you for your kind words.

As a follow up to the passage I quoted from Charlie Francis's book, here's something I read tonight in the recently published Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, from a chapter on drug use in baseball and among Dominican players particularly:

"...the more players who use banned substances, the more pressure it puts on others to cheat. If your class is being graded on a curve and you know many peers plan to cheat on the upcoming test, you're probably more tempted to cheat, too, just to keep up. What begins as a result of economic incentives can grow into a self-reinforcing culture in which drug use is not only tolerated but expected. Soon athletes aren't cheating to get an edge; they're cheating simply to avoid falling behind (see professional cycling)."

[mmmsteak]

You made the big time, Myles.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/86598.html

[George Noble]

I'm completely against the banning of any substance (including steroids), but this article misses the point by a mile. Individual freedom is a core value only to the extent that it doesn't infringe on someone else's.

If you allow drug use in competitions you have an unfair advantage over other competitors who do not want to use drugs. So you either compete at a disadvantage or are compelled to take potentially harmful substances against your will. That is not keeping with the spirit of libertarianism.
That's complete bollocks, in my opinion as someone who regularly competes drug free against people who do take drugs.

Some people are willing to train harder in a way that causes more wear and tear on their bodies. Is it unfair (or even, illiberal) that I am "compelled" to eat and train in this manner that is potentially harmful to my body?

Some people are also willing to harm their social lives to get an edge. I am compelled to either do this or be at a disadvantage. What a gross infringement of my freedom of association!

Furthermore, some people are even willing to make financial sacrifices to get ahead. I must be compelled to do this too to compete with them, so my sport is infringing on my right to own property.


Of course all of these examples are complete nonsense because I choose my path with regard to each of them. Just like I choose it with regard to steroids. Yes I have the choice as to whether I can take steroids and win or stay clean and lose, but even here in the UK, I have no positivist "right" to be a winner. So I still have the freedom to socialise, and to train conservatively when I want/need to, and to have a job/education, even though these things hurt my chances in competition. I also have the right to not take steroids.

Now, you may counter by saying that for some people the urge to win is so great that there is no real choice. That these people are incapacitated by their irrationality and thus need to have someone (you?) make the choice for them. You're welcome to say that if you want, but it means nobody will take you seriously when you talk about what is and isn't "in keeping with the spirit of libertarianism," because your view is most certainly not.

[MylesKantor]

Here's an revelatory response to the article from the re-post on Powerlifting Watch (at 7:30 pm on the thread at http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/18800):

"In CANADA the CPU is the IPF member. They now have to use WADA for testing. Tests range from 800-1200$. With no government funding how can the CPU conduct an appropriate amount of tests at that cost?"

Sport certainly is a sociological microcosm.

[MylesKantor]

If you allow drug use in competitions you have an unfair advantage over other competitors who do not want to use drugs. So you either compete at a disadvantage or are compelled to take potentially harmful substances against your will. That is not keeping with the spirit of libertarianism.

My understanding of libertarianism is as a political philosophy based on the non-aggression axiom. I don't see what aggression is occurring when a lifter who doesn't use steroids is defeated by a lifter who uses steroids. As a less ideologically loaded form of performance enhancement, replace "drug use" with "bench shirts." If you enter a single-ply/multi-ply meet and choose to compete without equipment, what crime has the equipped lifter committed against you?

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Why on earth do you want anyone else telling you what you can and cannot do? Are you not an adult?

I can't answer for CPStrength, but I'm an adult. I've lived my whole life--free of any sense that I'm languishing in an Orwellian dystopia--in situations where (a) I'm told what I can and cannot do and (b) I tell others what they can and cannot do. In other words, I've functioned within human society and human organizations. Since I don't subscribe to an anarchistic philosophy, I believe that human organizations require government. In fact, I believe that all human organizations will inevitably sprout a governing body as a part of their natural development, as surely as an embryo sprouts a neural tube. It's what we do. Humans form organizations. Those organizations form governing bodies. Those bodies make rules. Me? I'm glad there are stop signs, laws against child pornography, and some loose rules of conduct for this forum.

Governing bodies naturally tend to hypertrophy and repression. That doesn't make governments or human organizations intrinsically evil, any more than an axe is evil because it could hurt somebody. What's required is maintenance, vigilance and corrective action, usually in the form of aggressive pruning. And the organization or society will values and goes that change over time. This is where the citizenry comes in. The Republic is a beautiful thing if it's not allowed to rot too soon. (Rot it will eventually, of course, because all composite forms do.)

I don't know anything about this IOC/Powerlifting controversy. It certainly does sound like somebody's ox will be gored. I'm less sure that tells us anything about the best way to run the State.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Governing bodies naturally tend to hypertrophy and repression. That doesn't make governments or human organizations intrinsically evil, any more than an axe is evil because it could hurt somebody. What's required is maintenance, vigilance and corrective action, usually in the form of aggressive pruning.


Yet the axe needs no pruning. Government is not an inanimate object, a geological feature that just naturally results from physical law. Government is inherently evil because it is always, everywhere composed of PEOPLE who want power and authority over other PEOPLE. This is why it grows better than it does anything else, and why it does absolutely nothing else well.

[peacerenity]

As a libertarian, I find it somewhat strange that libertarian principles are being used to justify implicitly allowing steroid usage in organized sports through not testing for them. The main issue here is not whether or not it is okay to make lifters choose between performance and health: athletes do that all the time, as others have pointed out. The main issue is whether or not it is okay to make lifters choose between performance and obeying the law. And I don't think it is. If steroids were legal (and I can see the case for their legalization), then it would be a different story.

As much of a free-market-loving Social Darwinist as I am, I can't help but think that sports are supposed to be about a little more than winning at all costs. This may be naive of me, but I think there is such a thing as winning the right way, and trying to win by lying and sneaking around isn't the way to go about it.

[Jacob I. Briskin]

The main issue is whether or not it is okay to make lifters choose between performance and obeying the law.

Fuckin' this.

[AusPEteach]

I have no sympathy for drug feds.

Steroids are not like using a bench shirt, steroids are like implanting a two board into your chest.

Steroids are like reconstructing the hands of lifters to enable an unbreakable grip for deadlifts. Or shortening the femurs to improve squat and deadlift leverages. Or removing or shortening other body parts to optimise the athlete as a whole.

1221
Something like this.

Before they had an unequipped division in IPF I felt the pressure to use equipment and I used it. The pressure to use steroids and other risky behaviors should be minimised in sport. The health and well being of athletes should take priority over people that want to ruin their health to get an advantage.

Just my .02 cents.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

"The health and well being of athletes should take priority over people that want to ruin their health to get an advantage."

WHich sport does that? D3 Rugby and state level judo will beat you to hell. Playing a competitive sport is not about health.

"Steroids are not like using a bench shirt, steroids are like implanting a two board into your chest.

Steroids are like reconstructing the hands of lifters to enable an unbreakable grip for deadlifts. Or shortening the femurs to improve squat and deadlift leverages. Or removing or shortening other body parts to optimise the athlete as a whole."

WHat the fuck? Steroids maximize the affects of training. No training, no results. You can't take steroids, sit on the coach and get stronger.

[Gary Gibson]

Fuckin' this.

It used to be legal to own other people. It used to be illegal to purchase and consume alcohol.

Just because it's law doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd like to think the species as a whole is catching on to that and learning that each individual has an innate right to decide what to do with his person as long as it doesn't harm the person of another.

A federation has the right to say "these are the rules" or whether or not steroids use counts as cheating. But steroid use should not be a criminal matter.

[Carlos Daniel]

The health and well being of athletes should take priority over people that want to ruin their health to get an advantage.

Just my .02 cents.

Then I think the athletes in question should competing altogether, because competitive powerlifting is not conductive to either well being or health. I would like to know how steroids ruins people's health, since you seem to be in possession of information no one else has.

[Abraham Vandiver]

It used to be legal to own other people. It used to be illegal to purchase and consume alcohol.

Just because it's law doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd like to think the species as a whole is catching on to that and learning that each individual has an innate right to decide what to do with his person as long as it doesn't harm the person of another.

A federation has the right to say "these are the rules" or whether or not steroids use counts as cheating. But steroid use should not be a criminal matter.

Gary, you're alive!

[MylesKantor]

It used to be legal to own other people. It used to be illegal to purchase and consume alcohol.

And currently illegal to have a beard in at least one country (which I take rather personally):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3486776.stm

[Patrick]

It used to be legal to own other people. It used to be illegal to purchase and consume alcohol.

Just because it's law doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd like to think the species as a whole is catching on to that and learning that each individual has an innate right to decide what to do with his person as long as it doesn't harm the person of another.

A federation has the right to say "these are the rules" or whether or not steroids use counts as cheating. But steroid use should not be a criminal matter.

Gary, you're addressing a completely different issue than the one that was raised. You answered the question of whether laws are always just and moral, not whether it's fair to make competitors choose between using steroids and risking jail or simply losing to people willing to take that risk. The fact is that steroid use is a criminal matter, and, to me, making guys who want to compete face a Sophie's Choice is pretty lame.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Gary, as a longtime lurker, let me say that your contributions are always entertaining and on the money. You stay away too long.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

There are drug tested federations as well. It's not as if the option is all feds are untested or all feds are tested. You CAN have both.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Myles's article has been translated and published here (with permission, of course)

http://www.fituncensored.com/forums/pure-strength/17905-perche-e-meglio-che-il-powerlifting-non-diventi-sport-olimpico.html



IPB

[Peter_k]

I'm not sure any posters in the pro-drug camp are actually familiar with the effects of anabolic steroids.

They're not a "way to train harder" nor is the question purely one of athletes' health. The fact is that anabolics can elicit muscle growth WITHOUT any training stimulus.

Meaning that,

a. they give athletes an advantage that has nothing to do with their training program

and

b. a drug-using athlete has the potential to beat a non-drug using athlete even though he has an inferior training program, less motivation, etc.

Since the idea of competitive athletics is to see the best man win, this leads to a problem: anyone using drugs will have an unfair advantage. The solution is not to permit drug use, since the point of the sport is athletic competition, not seeing who is better at doping. Steroid use is a potentially harmful practice has NOTHING to do with who is more motivated to win. It gives you an instant advantage that's outside of your training program. In other words, it's cheating, plain and simple. And when you let everyone do it, whatever you're competing in ceases to be a real sport.

[Carlos Daniel]

The fact is that anabolics can elicit muscle growth WITHOUT any training stimulus.

The research done on the subject was done on untrained people, sometimes on old people. Also, I would also raise the possibility that the researchers didn't consider the possibility that the LBM gains were just water retention, not actual muscle gained. With that taken into consideration, I think that the effect of steroids on people that don't train at all might be fairly small and it just wasn't tested on elite athletes, so it's uncharted territory, leaving you with the anecdata of the said elite athletes.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Since the idea of competitive athletics is to see the best man win, this leads to a problem: anyone using drugs will have an unfair advantage. The solution is not to permit drug use, since the point of the sport is athletic competition, not seeing who is better at doping. Steroid use is a potentially harmful practice has NOTHING to do with who is more motivated to win. It gives you an instant advantage that's outside of your training program. In other words, it's cheating, plain and simple. And when you let everyone do it, whatever you're competing in ceases to be a real sport.

The idea that steroids automatically confer competitive advantages over all non-users is the opinion you get from watching a lot of sports on TV, listening to the fucking morons that blather as sportscasters with absolutely no experience in either sports, training athletes, or steroids. This has caused a lot of drug use amongst kids who believe it too.

[newguy32]

The idea that steroids automatically confer competitive advantages over all non-users is the opinion you get from watching a lot of sports on TV, listening to the fucking morons that blather as sportscasters with absolutely no experience in either sports, training athletes, or steroids. This has caused a lot of drug use amongst kids who believe it too.

I just read an article on T-Nation about steroid use. I won't link, but you can go there and search if you want. Basically it's an interview with a competitive powerlifter that declines to to give his name. I take what he says with a grain of salt, but he claims "I know a lot of top 20 lifters who are lifetime drug free." Kind of surprised me, as I had always thought steroids were kind of the price of admission to the highest levels (probably because I was "listening to the fucking morons"). Maybe steroids aren't as magical as I've been lead to believe. I don't plan to be an elite powerlifter, but it does make me feel better about choosing not to use.

[MylesKantor]

I'm not sure any posters in the pro-drug camp...

Perhaps environmental toxins have deformed your sense of manners, resulting in this misrepresentation (with an insinuation of illicitness as well). Because I don't advocate the criminalization of pullover machines or A Million Little Pieces, does that make me pro-Nautilus and pro-James Frey? In a related vein, Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins commented today regarding the Lance Armstrong mess (http://live.washingtonpost.com/lance-armstrong-accused-of-using-illegal-substances-chat.html):

--"I don't think the current anti-drug campaign in sports is working on any front. It's criminalizing athletes without getting at the real problem, or philosophical difficulties or tough questions. How do we convince kids to protect their health better? How do we grapple with the fact that many sports, like cycling or NFL football, are profoundly injurious to the health of the competitors? What is the difference between doping and therapy?"

--"...a few years ago the U.S. anti-doping agency added something called 'a non analytic positive,' which allowed them to build cases against athletes without a definitive result."

To clarify the comment about cycling, Jenkins stated:

"Anyone who has actually seen the Tour de France firsthand has to sympathize with the riders. It's an event of absolutely authentic suffering. I saw a mountain stage once and some of the riders eyes were blood red from the strain. At the finish of the race, they're emaciated."

Incidentally, by contrast, Ivan Abadjiev felt that "muscle tissue of highest quality will be built during muscle efforts at important [weightlifting] competitions" (page four at http://www.mikesgym.org/programs/uploads/abadjiev1.pdf).

[ChrisGibbons]

Something is wrong when the essence of what makes us males has become a criminal offence? After all, many women take estrogen all the time, no problem, right?

[Peter_k]

The idea that steroids automatically confer competitive advantages over all non-users is the opinion you get from watching a lot of sports on TV, listening to the fucking morons that blather as sportscasters with absolutely no experience in either sports, training athletes, or steroids. This has caused a lot of drug use amongst kids who believe it too.

Well, I suppose that if steroids indeed do not "automatically confer competitive advantages" then nobody would take them unless there was a massive conspiracy to convince them otherwise.

However, I just looked out my window and failed to see any black helicopters, so I'm not sure that's what's going on here.

[Jonny Gold]

The idea that steroids automatically confer competitive advantages over all non-users is the opinion you get from watching a lot of sports on TV, listening to the fucking morons that blather as sportscasters with absolutely no experience in either sports, training athletes, or steroids. This has caused a lot of drug use amongst kids who believe it too.

The plain and simple fact is that if you take the top guys off of drugs, they are still going to be the top guys... And they are still going to outperform the guys who call it cheating almost every time...

I know a lot of guys who are on gear and are not very strong... and never will be... Just as the top guys are going to be strong no matter what...

Genetics, my friends... thats the key... Most people should bitch at mom and dad for the fact that they are weak and suck, not at steroid users.