What *has* Westside done for powerlifting?

[OCG]

Basically, I always hear lifters talk about "What Westside has done for powerlifting" and I'm curious as to what they actually mean. Because honestly as far as I can see, they haven't done much.

Maybe I'm just a bit ignorant of their history, but aside from training a few lifters, what have they actually done to grow and help the sport?

InB4 shug telling me "I just don't get it". Yes, I am aware, that's why I'm starting this thread. If you could actually string together a coherent answer then maybe I wouldn't be so confused.

[Meshuggah]

[Christopher Anderson]

I just love this picture of Louie, it sums up his personality so much.

[manveer]

There are some applications for accommodating resistance in raw lifting. I'm sure there's more applicability to single ply lifting.

[Les Hahn]

Westside has done more than train a few lifters. Louie has trained a lot of great powerlifters and now trains other athletes too. Like others said, his system is different, and offers another tool you can potentially use in your training. Raw lifters like Matt Wenning still use something akin to the Westside method, but he has modified it for raw lifting. I am not sure how much he promoted the sport, outside of showing up at meets with a lot of lifters (which does help support local meets monetarily). I think other gyms or coaches (Supertraining, JTS, etc.) have put out more content that supports or teaches people about powerlifting than Westside has, and it is definitely more readily available. But I wouldn't say that Louie has done nothing, since he created his own system, gym, and powerlifting team.

Maybe this documentary will help answer some of your questions. It comes out later this year I think.

[silachoo]

I can't wait for that documentary. My favorite lifting shirt is a westside barbell tank top just because it looks very neat-o.

[hamburgerfan]

Introduced and promoted many new and largely unknown ideas to powerlifting. Dynamic effort, accommodating resistance, reverse hyper, box squats, etc. The usefulness of these methods isn't universally agreed on, but countless powerlifters who don't even use the conjugate method have used the tools he popularized, and I'd argue the sport would be in worse shape without these options being available.

Made a lot of big lifts and set records in the peak years of multiply lifting. Nowadays the quality of their meet lifts has gone far downhill and there is a backlash against geared lifting in general, but this is a major contribution to the sport in my book.

[Tom Narvaez]

Westside has brought countless enhanced athletes to the sport. Countless. Before people took natural lifting seriously, which honestly wasn't even that long ago, Westside was the main introduction to the sport of powerlifting in many instances.

[OZ-USF-UFGator]

I'd say that west side has lured many impressionable young boys to convince themselves that steroids are safe and really really cool. And westside has also popularized the concept of making powerlifting into a sport not focused on raw pristine feats of strength but more on developing strength to function in a way which optamizes the use of tools (suits, shirts, wraps, belts) to move heavy weight. Using tools is a skill , more so than squatting benching and deadlifting alone which are closer to pure feats of strength.

My uneducated 2 cents.

[Les Hahn]

TRT is a fairly common event. Steroids, used properly, are safe.

Furthermore, steroids were involved in weightlifting and powerlifting well before anyone really cared about Louie Simmons.

Exactly, and they have been a part of bodybuilding since their inception.

Oz, you realize that some of these guys can bench over 600 raw before putting the shirts on, right? I would say that is pretty strong.