Powerlifting vs Bodybuilding
This article is a guide to powerlifting vs bodybuilding. After reading this guide, you will have a better idea which activity is right for you!
First, let us discuss each activity in more detail.
What is Powerlifting?
Powerlifting is a sport focused around the squat, bench and deadlift. In competition, lifters aim to lift the maximum weight possible for one repetition in each discipline. Lifters receive three attempts for each lift to build their total.
Lifters are also segregated by age, weight class and gender. The lifter who lifts the most weight overall across the three lifts in each weight class is deemed the winner.
Winning a powerlifting competition requires great strength, but also technical proficiency in the three lifts, good attempt selection strategy and mental fortitude.
How do Powerlifters Train?
Powerlifters primarily train the squat, bench and deadlift. Most lifters train each lift multiple times per week. Lifters train the main lifts for 1-10 repetitions per set. Most lifters train multiple sets of each lift per session.
Lifters generally have long 2-5 minute rest periods between squat, bench and deadlift sets. Since the focus is to improve strength on these demanding movements, they need to rest until they can repeat the next set with full strength.
After completing the primary compound movement of each session, most lifters also perform assistance and accessory work. Assistance work includes exercises specifically programmed to bring up the main lifts. Accessory work includes exercises to add mass to target muscle groups to build strength for the squat, bench and deadlift. Examples of assistance work include lunges, step ups, glute bridges, hamstring curls, rows, pull ups, planks and more.
Further out from a meet, lifters train the main lifts in higher rep ranges and include more assistance and accessory exercises to build muscle. Closer to a meet, lifters reduce total volume and increase intensity on the main lifts to start gearing up to build their one rep maxes.
Most powerlifters train between 4 and 5 times per week.
Some powerlifters include a small amount of cardio or conditioning work. This may include sled pushes or pulls, low intensity sessions on a bike or in a pool, or brisk walking. Most lifters do about 30-60 minutes of cardio one or two times per week. Most lifters begin to reduce cardio close to a meet.
Diet for Powerlifting
Most powerlifters follow flexible dieting and adhere to daily macro and calorie goals.
Typically, powerlifters eat a lot of food to compensate for their demanding training. Most eat about three to five meals per day. Powerlifters also usually eat a lot of protein. Most consume about 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
Some powerlifters diet a bit before meets to make their weight class.
Benefits of Powerlifting
There are many benefits to training or even competing in powerlifting. Powerlifting increases strength greatly. This type of training is guaranteed to increase your strength tremendously from your baseline levels. Strength makes life easier at every stage. Powerlifting also builds strong bones, tendons and ligaments. Powerlifting is also a fun activity that you can do alone or with a group. If you compete, you are sure to experience feelings of personal accomplishment and mastery. Additionally, you will also meet new friends who also like to lift heavy weights. Powerlifting also builds mental toughness, goal setting skills, time and energy management.
Drawbacks of Powerlifting
Despite its positives, powerlifting does have a number of drawbacks. For one, the training does not really improve cardiovascular fitness very much. In this sport, you need to make a conscious effort to get your cardio in, or at least doing some high rep weight training with short rest periods within your training program.
Some lifters are also overweight. If you choose to put on a lot of weight to gain strength, you might find that leads to some negative health outcomes. I would recommend finding a weight class where you can find a balance between strong lifts and good health.
Some powerlifters also find that they have few returns on investment after training this way for a few years. Progress can become very slow and this can be frustrating.
Finally, lifting heavy weights can be very taxing on the body. Using good form and a good program that builds in rest and recovery can help reduce the stress on your body. Still, this is a very taxing sport. However, catastrophic injuries are rare.
What is Bodybuilding?
Bodybuilding is a sport focused on attaining muscular size, symmetry and low body fat. Competitors pose onstage and receive points based on their physique and presentation.
Numerous categories allow each bodybuilder to strive for a particular look that fits them best. For instance, women’s physique is a division mainly devoted to achieving a lot of muscle tissue, and a lean, chiseled body.
The women’s figure division allows for less muscularity, less vascularity, more feminine posing and presentation but still a decent amount of muscle mass.
The women’s bikini division allows for even less muscularity, a bit softer look, and more feminine posing and presentation.
Men have physique categories which emphasizes muscle tone and symmetry and men’s bodybuilding which emphasizes muscularity, vascularity, symmetry, size and leanness.
Competitors can also choose to compete in the NPC/IFBB, where competitors can use any and all drugs without penalty, and natural divisions, where entrants are drug tested.
Due to open drug use, competitors in the NPC/IFBB are much leaner, more muscular and more vascular than in the drug tested divisions like the NANBF.
How do Bodybuilders Train
Bodybuilders still train with considerable loads and aim to increase their weights over time, but they train in primarily the 6-12 rep range per set. They alsorest between 1-2 minutes between sets.
Bodybuilders usually squat, bench and deadlift, but usually also perform a greater variety of exercises than powerlifters.
Like powerlifters, bodybuilders usually train main movements before accessory and assistance exercises.
However, instead of lifting weights primarily for strength, bodybuilders lift weights to build muscle.
Contrary to popular belief, most bodybuilders are also quite strong.
Bodybuilders also usually include some cardio. In the offseason, most bodybuilders do low intensity cardio like walking, biking or using an elliptical between 30-60 minutes one to three times per week.
Bodybuilders often do up to an hour of cardio daily in addition to daily lifting as they aim to lose body fat for the competition period.
Diet for Bodybuilding
Most bodybuilders follow an offseason and in-season diet. Off-season, bodybuilders eat in a calorie surplus to gain muscle and fuel high volume sessions. In the competition prep period, bodybuilders reduce calories to get lean enough for the stage.
Many bodybuilders have to drop to very low calories in the last few weeks of prep to achieve a competitive physique.
Benefits of Bodybuilding
Like powerlifting, bodybuilding has some distinct benefits. Bodybuilding builds muscle and strength, reduces body fat, improves bone density, and improves cardio fitness to some extent. Bodybuilding style workouts are a lot of fun and provide some good variety. This style of workouts also allows you to build muscle and strength. Bodybuilders can find movements that suit them instead of remaining pigeonholed into particular movements.
Drawbacks of Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding and competitive bodybuilding also have some distinct drawbacks.
Dieting down for a contest is really challenging and not very much fun. You will have to train hard while not eating very much food at all and feeling hungry all the time. This extreme dieting can cause hormonal issues for both men and women. From what I have heard, contest prep is really difficult. It is also difficult to maintain a normal adult life with work, friends and relationships during the competition prep period. You may have to turn down social events or may be too tired for fun activities in life.
After the contest is over, these issues do not go away right away. Even once your diet is over, it takes time to resolve health issues, low energy, and depressed hormone levels after the show.
Many times, it is difficult to regain weight and accept your new, softer shape. You may develop body dysmorphia. Many competitors start to binge on food after the competition is over. Some competitors even develop eating disorders during or after the competition prep period.
Because of these drawbacks, I would proceed with caution if you are thinking about competing. For 99.99 % of people, getting lean enough to get on stage just is not worth it.
You can still train like a bodybuilder and improve your physique more slowly without having to get on stage. That way, you can focus on fueling yourself well and maintain a normal social life too.
In case you want to combine some of the positives of powerlifting and bodybuilding together, you can learn about powerbuilding.
What is Powerbuilding
Powerbuilding is a merger between powerlifting and bodybuilding.
Powerbuilders may compete in both disciplines at different time periods. They might compete in one while pursuing the other as a hobby, or they might not compete at all.
These athletes focus on gaining strength in the squat, bench and deadlift, but also aim to gain muscle and improve body composition.
How do Powerbuilders Train?
Powerbuilders train the squat, bench and deadlift for multiple sets of 1-12 repetitions per set. Then they advance to higher rep hypertrophy work with shorter rest periods.
Powerbuilders may train the power lifts on their own days, but may also perform entire sessions devoted to hypertrophy.
They may also include some low intensity cardio one to three times per week.
What do Powerbuilders Eat?
Like most of the current body builders and power lifters, most current power-builders alternate between phases aimed at building muscle and phases aimed at cutting fat.
Most powerbuilders follow flexible dieting, similarly to powerlifters and bodybuilders.
Benefits of Powerbuilding
Powerbuilding combines the best of powerlifting with the best of bodybuilding:
- Build Muscle
- Build Strength
- Build Bone Density
- Build Connective Tissue
- Reduce Body Fat
- Feelings of Mastery and Success
- Long Term Success
Drawbacks of Powerbuilding
Still, focusing on two disciplines at once may have some drawbacks.
For one, workouts can be very time consuming. Also, this type of training can be exhausting. Nobody wants to do four different leg exercises after training heavy squats.
Additionally, focusing on two disciplines might mean that one might suffer in the short term.
Powerlifting vs Bodybuilding Final Thoughts
Hopefully this article gave you some solid information about both powerlifting and bodybuilding, as well as powerbuilding. Before you pick a sport, you should know what you are getting yourself into. What type of training style do you prefer? Let me know in the comments below.
