Unification of lifting and lifting standards. With the recent stuff going on in untested powerlifting…There’s tested powerlifting and there’s untested powerlifting. Tested powerlifting is USAPL. It is 90 percent USAPL powerlifting.
There’s been people leaving just because of political drama bullshit, whatever. Most of the individuals who complete drug tests will compete USAPL because it is the largest pool of competitors and it is the most professional of competitions where it is closest resembling an actual sport. That’s why people go there.
I say unification because then we look at untested powerlifting and it is a broken, splintered whatever. It’s gotten better in the past years because the USPA is actually starting to pay their top athletes. They’re paying for trips to Worlds based on Wilks scores, which is huge.
It’s pulling more people towards it, but there are still competitions where judging is lax, where it’s just different.
There is no standardized method of powerlifting. It’s walked out, mono, 2-meter wraps, 2.5-meter wraps, 3-meter wraps, no limit on wrap length, toes-up-benching, head-up-benching, sync it like no-start command, fast-press commands, the judging on deadlift, the judging on everything, the judging on depths on squat. There is no uniformity and there is no real standard.
A big thing that I would wish would change would be some level of unification like the USAPL has. It is a monopoly and I fucking hate the USAPL because of some of the capitalistic like, consumerism, fucking money-hungry type stuff that they do, but you have to think if something ever gets that big, it’s the whole too-big-to-fail motto or mindset.
If something gets that big and pulls in that much revenue, that’s generally how shit goes. The bigger a corporation gets, the more money that they pull in, and the more money that they pull in, the more money they need to pull in to survive because their actions increase 10-fold or whatever the fuck.
I just wish that something similar would happen in untested powerlifting. I am pretty much exclusively competing in USPA and other larger invitational-style meets that don’t have Federation loyalty, because right now the USPA is the best option for professionalism, and consistency, and rewarding, and caring about their lifters.
Like I say, lift to your own standards, absolutely. Just have some semblance of integrity and you’ll be pretty OK. I just know if I hit a 2100-total in the USPA, that’s a legit as fuck 2100-total.
If you have somebody hits a 2100-total and the SPF or the RPS or the APF or the IPA or whatever, could be legit as fuck, could have clean fucking lifts, because that guy actually walks with his head high, or that lady walks with her head high and has integrity, or you could have your best friends in the judge’s chair and all your lifts could look like dog shit.
You don’t really know, and that it’s a good thing about the Internet because then we can watch that stuff, but that’s not always guaranteed or either. I would just rather have this sport be an actual sport as opposed to just Internet hobby that we like to post on the Internet for validation.