Powerlifting: The complete guide to technique, training, and competition

by Dan Austin, Bryan Mann

The mental and physical demands of powerlifting are unlike any other sport. Athletes must be committed and focused on success. In Powerlifting, Second Edition, powerlifting hall of famer Dan Austin, winner of 10 world powerlifting championships and 18 national championships, teams with strength and conditioning expert Dr. Bryan Mann to offer the most comprehensive powerlifting resource available.

This no-nonsense approach to training and competing in the sport offers over 100 exercises that promote the development of the three primary movements--the squat, bench press, and deadlift--and their related supplemental exercises. Dynamic warm-up routines and recovery techniques get you primed for training, making it a one-stop guide to powerlifting success. The second edition has been updated to address female powerlifters and includes a 14-week competition program, six gender- and exercise-specific training programs, as well as three 8-week off-season training programs. Precompetition checklists give you at-a-glance guides for tasks to complete and items to bring to the meet.

Powerlifting also equips you to fuel for maximum production, providing examples of the best sources of protein and carbohydrates and information on preworkout drinks and common supplements. The psychological side of the sport is addressed with mental health advice and visualization tools and recommendations to use both during training and competition as well as during personal time.

Based on the latest in exercise research and science, Powerlifting is an indispensable resource for competitive lifters or recreational gym enthusiasts looking to take their lifting to another level, making Powerlifting the ticket to a new max.

CE exam available! For certified professionals, a companion continuing education exam can be completed after reading this book. The Powerlifting Online CE Exam may be purchased separately or as part of the Powerlifting With CE Exam package that includes both the book and the exam.

Genres: Fitness, Sports, Nonfiction

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Emelie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, easy to read book about powerlifting written by a powerlifter. I didn't read this book cover to cover, rather jumped around to find the information I was looking for and needed at certain times. I've recently been adding strength back onto my big three (sqaut, deadlift, bench) after an Accutane treatment and injury a year ago that left me losing strength as my back couldn't handle it. Since then, I've been searching for ways to add strength back on, improve my lifts, and get more out of my workouts at the gym. I picked up this book hoping to find information that I couldn't find on my own (as I am hopeless when it comes to internet searches, I end up down a rabbit hole of information mixed with opinions), and found exactly what I needed. I would recommend this book to anyone looking into strength sports or wanting to understand what their friend, family member, or significant other are doing when they head off to the gym. I've added a lot of weight back onto my deadlift, bench, and squat (my bench 1RM is FINALLY in the 100s!!!!) thanks to my own research and the principles outlined in this book. From a cosmetic standpoint, my body composition has shifted and I'm started to look more built, which has been another goal of mine as well. Wonderful, wonderful book.

[Philski · Rating 4 out of 5]

some good nuggets on APRE, visualization, etc. for the more experienced lifter, but the core is aimed at beginners

[Angle Priya · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, easy to read book about powerlifting written by a powerlifter. I didn't read this book cover to cover, rather jumped around to find the information I was looking for and needed at certain times. I've recently been adding strength back onto my big three (sqaut, deadlift, bench) after an Accutane treatment and injury a year ago that left me losing strength as my back couldn't handle it. Since then, I've been searching for ways to add strength back on, improve my lifts, and get more out of my workouts at the gym. I picked up this book hoping to find information that I couldn't find on my own (as I am hopeless when it comes to internet searches, I end up down a rabbit hole of information mixed with opinions), and found exactly what I needed. I would recommend this book to anyone looking into strength sports or wanting to understand what their friend, family member, or significant other are doing when they head off to the gym. I've added a lot of weight back onto my deadlift, bench, and squat (my bench 1RM is FINALLY in the 100s!!!!) thanks to my own research and the principles outlined in this book. From a cosmetic standpoint, my body composition has shifted and I'm started to look more built, which has been another goal of mine as well. Wonderful, wonderful book.

[Barack Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

303-Powerlifting-Dan Austin-Tool-2000
Barack
2020/01/10

" Powerlifting ", first published in the United States in 2000. It focuses on the three major projects in powerlifting, bench press ( Bench Press ), squats ( Squat ), and deadlift ( Deadlift ).

Dan Austin was born in Greenville, South Carolina. Studied at Newberry College and Austin Peay State University. Austin has been involved in weightlifting for 30 years and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2011. Throughout his career, he won 9 world weightlifting championships and 15 national championships, while maintaining multiple world records in deadlift and total weight. He was voted the greatest 148- pound weightlifter of all time and was the first weightlifter to weigh less than 148 pounds and lift more than 700 pounds.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Physiology of Strength and Power Chapter
2: Muscle Fueling Chapter
3: Power Training Preparation
Chapter 4: Squat
Chapter 5: Bench Press
Chapter 6: Deadlift
Chapter 7: Power Periodization
Chapter 8: Foundational Training
Chapter 9: Experienced Training
Chapter 10: Advanced Training

“ Louie Simmons once said that a coach needs to educate each one of his lifters to the point at which the lifter is a coach. That way whenever you're doing a lift, you'll have 10 coaches watching instead of one. ”

In general, human beings learn the fastest way, is under the supervision and guidance of an experienced mentor who has a wealth of guidance. Especially as such powerlifting itself has certain dangerous activities, purely on my own the risk is relatively large. If your budget allows, you can consider asking an experienced coach to bring you in.

" Tamás Aján and Lazar Baroga said that every movement, no matter how new it may seem, is based on previous movement patterns. So the more motor patterns you possess, the more movement patterns you can learn and the more quickly you can learn them. "

When we learn new things, it is often based on old knowledge. Through transfer learning of knowledge, our learning efficiency may be higher. We have the better of old knowledge, then the process of learning new knowledge more quickly, which is why a lot of learning and memory, the basic skills are being repeatedly emphasized.

" Essentially the brain is the CPU that runs the entire body. Nothing happens in the body that the brain has not processed either consciously or subconsciously. When gaining strength at this rate, the lifter does not add any muscle; it takes too long to add any significant muscle to improve strength by this much, this quickly. ”

The author's point of view is probably "use advancement and abolishment." If we do not use a certain skill, the skill will be reduced. So if you want to maintain your level in a certain skill, you must keep practicing repeatedly.

“ When learning a new technique, it helps if you can watch someone who has great technique, be coached on the technique, and then perform the lift yourself. If anything in this sequence has to be dropped, it should be watching someone with great technique. The coaching is crucial. If you don't know what it's supposed to feel like, you won't realize when you are doing it wrong. ”

The point of coaching is to point out the bad things we did. If we do it themselves, the lack of a third party to evaluate our results, we are hard to find ourselves in the wrong place, so that our existence is wrong maybe a straight continue.

“ Once you have learned how to do something, you can do it more efficiently and more quickly. ”

What is discussed here is to perform repeated training. If we want to do one thing well, we need targeted training. Trained more we more able to form muscle memory. The steps of learning in the early stage and the repeated training in the later stage are indispensable. These two processes are that anyone can not afford to save, which is to learn any knowledge have to go through the only way in.

“ When dealing with more complex exercises such as the power lifts, the motor units from different muscle groups have to work together. These lifts are much more complex than a simple single-joint exercise such as the curl. ”

The three major items of powerlifting, bench press, squat, and deadlift, are all systemic exercises, which rely on the coordination of the whole body, not just local muscle groups. This means that, in order for these actions do more standard, it is necessary to control the body to be more precise.

" The muscle that is actively doing the work and producing the force to move the weight is called the agonist. The agonist can be a prime mover, secondary mover, or stabilizer. The antagonist is the muscle or muscle group opposite the agonist. When the agonist is working, the antagonist is relaxing. ”

To train the muscles, it is, first of all, to understand the muscle, understand their own when in motion what should be the muscle force, which relax the muscles as much as possible so as to put action to do right, as far as possible to achieve the most significant sports results. It is naturally effective to practice a pass by yourself, but it may not reach the highest input-output ratio and may be more prone to sports injuries.

“ This model uses the mental routine “See it, feel it, trust it, believe it, and achieve it.” This model works well because the visualization prepares the nerves involved in the movement to fire in the proper sequence. Visualization is a proven method. If you are having a hard time performing an exercise or correcting technique, go back to Cook's model to improve your technique. ”

When we see an event happen, we will think that it can be achieved, and we will go all out to do it without worrying about whether it is possible. I think this is probably why there are many in the history of similar cases, an item once and inventions have technical people can take the lead to do it, then other countries and individuals will be after another has made a breakthrough. This is probably the power of belief.

It is actually quite remarkable to want to insist on believing that this thing works when no one thinks it is feasible. Because they must first convince themselves that this thing can be done before they can convince others.


“ The first step is to see it: You have to see yourself doing the technique properly, like a movie in your head. You must see everything—the weight, the crowd, and the judges. You must see yourself perform the exercise successfully with perfect form, with three white lights on the judges' board. ”

Similar thinking can be adopted for other things. Before actually doing it, it’s best to practice multiple times in your mind, because the cost of conducting such a virtual experiment is the least. Once the actual operation links, more and more sudden unexpected occur. And then later want to adjust, in fact, the cost will be much greater.

“ The next step is to feel it: Feel the weight, the gear, the platform, the crowd, the power, and the muscles firing in the proper sequence. Taste the air and smell the ammonia and liniment in the air. ”

Both look up at the stars and keep your feet on the ground. When the imagination blueprint has been drawn, the next step is to come from the imagination into reality, which will make the experiment, try, and feel. What is needed at this stage is courage. Only with courage can execution.

“ Once those two steps are complete, you must believe you can execute the weight with perfect form and trust yourself to be able to act on it. Next is to simply go achieve it. ”

I think, believing that I can achieve it, maybe the most difficult. Because several other aspects are physically observable, allow yourself to believe or not believe in something, in fact, very difficult. Sometimes waiting, I suspect this capability to what extent can be acquired? And even if this kind of self-confidence can be acquired by training, how strong is it?

I would rather choose to believe that this kind of power of faith can be acquired, I think, this kind of spiritual power is probably the most necessary to achieve it over time, and only years of self-suggestion can achieve the effect, right?

" The body has two main muscle fiber types and an indefinite number of smaller types. The main types are slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers. Slow-twitch muscle fibers are slow. They are primarily endurance fibers that are set to go all day but can't produce much force per contraction. Slow-twitch fibers are used in everyday walking and standing. ”

These two different muscle fibers actually correspond to the muscle groups that we need to use more when we perform aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. Some people are relatively better at aerobic exercise, aerobic exercise can last a relatively long time, often in hours. While others are more good luck with anaerobic moves, anaerobic exercise can last a very short time, often in minutes or even seconds to calculate.

[Huertomuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro sobre el Powerlifting. Es más un libro de consulta, para revisar aspectos concretos de la metodología del entrenamiento. De los pocos peros, en algunos capítulos es un poco repetitivo. La versión española, está supervisada por Lucio Doncel un grande (como persona y entrenador).

[Filcav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great all around knowledge about preparing and competing on all levels.

[Emanuela Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative book. Accessible for beginners but still really technical. The cover doesn’t lie, this is a complete guide to powerlifting technique, training, and competition. Helpful read!