World Classic Powerlifting Championships

[Eric K]

The problem with the USAPL in Southern California is that the meets sell out in an instant. They're sometimes full in an hour. I have plenty of athletes who have issues with this. That said, there is a huge USAPL representation in SoCal.

Huh. When I signed up for meets in 2014-2015 I looked at USAPL first and couldn't find any that were nearby. I guess it could be that I couldn't see the sold out meets when I searched, but it's really the only reason I went with USPA.

[Mark E. Hurling]

First off, congratulations to Leah and the other competitors.

I have competed in 6 USPA meets. The only reason I picked that federation was on hamburgerfan's recommendation, and he does not like the USAPL. The USPA is thick on the ground on the West Coast, especially SoCal. It appears to get rather thin West of the Mississippi. So accessibility was a real plus for me when I still lived in SoCal. Illinois typically has 1 meet in the Chicago area each year from my own research.

My own experience of them is that the judging is quite good. They don't suffer shallow depth squats and are death on DL form flaws like foot movement and hitching. Even Paul Horn got called for hitching in the 2015 CA state championships where we both competed.

OTOH, some of the venues were taxing in hot weather. Lotta heat and not much cooling. The 2013 IPL Worlds in Las Vegas were in the Golden Nugget, so A/C was not an issue. But I had one loader misload me 4 times out of 9 lifts during that meet. Only time I saw it or experienced it.

As for the numbers of competitors who show up? I can't compare USAPL numbers because I haven't seen or been to one of their meets. But the 2 CA state meets I have been to had 100+ competitors. YMMV, Tom. But there have never been many old folks competing. Nature of the aging beast, I suppose.

EDIT:

The USPA has been fairly progressive (much as I hate that word) in improving the quality of their federation. They upped requirements for the IPL qualifications, and they added a drug tested division since 2013.

[matthewswogger]

When Campitelli decided he wanted to try out doing weigh outs instead of weigh ins he tested it here in Oakland at a meet where it didn't count. Everyone weighed in like normal and those were the official weights he went with; but he also had everyone weight out after there last deadlift.

The results were this, the only people who gained weight over the day were people who purposefully cut weight. In fact, a large percentage lost a pound or two over the day.

He likes weight outs for a few reasons, if I remember correctly. It saves time, you can show up latter in the morning and the first flight is weighing out while the second flight is up, etc. and it keeps people from weighing 210lbs and competing at 198lbs. And because the press is used instead of the bench no one is comparing the results to other feds, it works fine.

[Chris McCarthy]

Weight-outs were done for years for record purposes...as above you weighed in, lifted in your category but if you hit a record you weighed out after to ensure you were in the same class.

Mind you - they also used to weigh the bar and plates after, too...

[Leah Lutz]

The usapl is exploding in CA and we can't keep up with the growing demand here. There are more and more meets every year.

[manveer]

Women's 52kg is pretty close right now going into deadlifts.

[Les Hahn]

Wilks is garbage, honestly. If someone weighed 400kg, they'd have to total some absurdly low number in order to have the best Wilks of all-time. The formula massively disadvantages middleweights.

It seems like a thinly veiled attempt at fitting data to a pre-conceived notion. The equation is a fifth order polynomial for what should be treated as a simple logarithmic function. I realize that nobody cares what I think, but something like Kleiber's law seems more fitting than Wilks (total over mass raised to a fractional exponent; it's simpler and additive [i.e. individual lifts can each be scored the same way and the total score is the sum of the individual lift scores]).

I haven't looked at the best all-time totals lately, but when I checked it a few years ago, Wilks seemed to be pretty accurate showing that the top 20 or so in many of the weight classes had around the same Wilks numbers. I just spotted checked a few right now (American Raw Records, no wraps), and they are all around the 570-580 marker with Eric Lilliebridge being the highest at 600 and Ray Williams just behind him at 594. So it may be skewing a little on the high end.

Eric, using your formula, what would a guy like Eric Lilliebridge (308#) or Ray Williams (396#) needs to tie Kyle Keough? He is 198# and had a 1901# total raw.

[FatButWeak]

Watching these lifts on the computer - i'm fairly impressed by the level of professionalism and seriousness. This meet look like a weightlifting meet, not a freak show. The athletes look like athletes, not death metal coliseum security guard rejects,. As imperfect as this organization may be, it seems like they have their shit together for making a professional looking (and by that I only mean the opposite of amateurish - not so much getting paid) organization and meet. It seems clear they are pushing for Olympic participation. Im only a recreational lifter, so I dont care. But they seem well organized.

[manveer]

Women's 52kg is pretty close right now going into deadlifts.

It was a great fight. Spoiler: Marisa won.

Watching these lifts on the computer - i'm fairly impressed by the level of professionalism and seriousness. This meet look like a weightlifting meet, not a freak show. The athletes look like athletes, not death metal coliseum security guard rejects,. As imperfect as this organization may be, it seems like they have their shit together for making a professional looking (and by that I only mean the opposite of amateurish - not so much getting paid) organization and meet. It seems clear they are pushing for Olympic participation. Im only a recreational lifter, so I dont care. But they seem well organized.

This is way better than Killeen last year.

[Eric K]

Eric, using your formula, what would a guy like Eric Lilliebridge (308#) or Ray Williams (396#) needs to tie Kyle Keough? He is 198# and had a 1901# total raw.

The skewing you refer to is kinda what I'm getting at. The formula was developed to fit the assumption that the best lifters of every weight were about the same strength. That just seems like a weird assumption to me.

To apply it to you examples, if we picked 2/3 as the fractional exponent (an homage to the square/cube law) a 90 kg lifter with a 862.5 kg total would score 42.95. A 140 kg lifter would need a 1,158 kg total, and a 179.6 kg lifter would need a 1,367 kg total.

If we used 3/4 (based on Kleiber's law for metabolic rates), it would be:

862.5 total @90kg = 29.52
Total needed at 140 kg = 1,201 kg
@179.6 = 1,448 kg total

Skewing more towards the heavy guys (using 1/2):

862.5 @ 90 = 90.92
@140 = 1,075 kg total
@179.6 = 1,218 kg total

The middle one seems too high, and the last one is actually below Lilliebridge's best total. I'm partial to the 2/3, personally. Seems like getting a 40 on that scale would be very hard for anyone.