Is Powerlifting Undergoing a Resurrection?

[stef]

by Marty Gallagher

"[A]t a recent power competition in my neighborhood, Columbia, Maryland, an upscale community and hardly a strength hotbed, the local promoter cut entries off at 100. He filled up his quota within 30 days. He then turned away another 100 lifters that had waited too long to sign up."

Article

[Squat1]

I wonder if crossfit is influencing the participation rates of powerlifting as it is in Olympic Lifting?

[TomF]

I wonder if crossfit is influencing the participation rates of powerlifting as it is in Olympic Lifting?

I think so. It's become an "on-ramp" for many to experience the classic lifts with any actual instruction. It's certainly how my family bumped into them, and our local CF gym has gone a long ways towards increasing the number of competing powerlifters in my little corner of the earth.

[Mike Armstrong]

I think that Marty might be stretching things a bit when he says the IPF is considering dropping geared lifting all together. The IPF is notoriously slow to adopt new things, like higher and lower age groups, and now unequipped lifting. Last years Classic Cup was the first actual raw event with an IPF sanction, and the one in Russia in June will be the first one called an IPF Classic Worlds".

Ans don't forget that the IPF makes a fair bit of cash from the equipment vendors for approval of that gear, squat suits and bench shirts. They won't give that up easily.

Thats not to say it won't happen though, we might be 5 or 10 years away from it, but it might happen.

Here in Canada its much the same, the great majority of our meets are raw lifters, I'm holding one next month where i set a 24 lifter limit. I'm 3 weeks from the entry deadline, and had to cut it off at 30, I'm turning people away now. ALL entered lifters are lifting unequipped.

Nationally, the CPU (Canada's IPF affilate) is up 18% over last year, and 38% over 2011. Amazing. We hold our nationals in a week long all combined format, with about 220 lifters. Last year it was about 55% geared, 45% raw. This year (last week in Vancouver) is was the reverse, more raw than geared.

I'm not sure I'd call it a resurrection, it was never dead for us, but its certainly a resurgence.

Mike Armstrong
CPU General Secretary

[Mark Rippetoe]

How many competing federations are there in Canadian PL?

[Mike Armstrong]

A few, but the CPU is by far the largest. The Canadian Powerlifting Federation is mostly in Quebec and the east coast. Some GPC, mostly here in Alberta and 100% Raw, mostly Ontario and some here in Alberta. I'm told 100% Raw is struggling now that the CPU has raw, as most of our meets are going that way.

[Jessie_OSI]

Could be. My little gym held a meet several weeks back and we had a turn out of 73 lifters from all over, along with 50 guests. We've only got about 160 members, so we were actually pretty surprised at how many people showed up, with 2 geared lifters. I think being able to compete raw makes things very, very accessible. Plus we had a hawaiian bbq food truck catering the event.

[Platus]

The article starts off by noting that a recent Maryland USAPL meet sold out in under 30 days. Their April 2014 meet just sold out in under 72 hours.