How much do I lift?

Doris has just asked me this question. I am going to give you the "it depend" answer. It depends on what stage of my training cycle I am in, it depends on weather I am wearing gear, and it depends on what you consider a lift to be. I only record my 3 competition lifts, so I have no idea how much I can do on a bicep curl, or a shoulder lift, and I haven't been on a leg press for 3 years.

However I can give you very accurate power lifting stats. At body weight 55.8kgs, using powerlifting gear I have lifted the following;

Squat 115kgs - (below parallel lift, ie butt lower than knees)

Bench 72.5kgs (1 sec pause with the bar touching the chest before pressing up)

Deadlift 135kgs (bent knees, off the floor with one movement to full shoulders back lock-out)

As I am a competitive lifter and I use belts, suits, wraps when competing, so I train in them most of the time. Therefore I don't know what my raw (non geared) lifts are. If I was pressed to guess I would say approximately Sq 100kgs, B 60kgs, D 125kgs. After this comp I will do a cycle without gear and measure them.

A lot of people ask me this question, and a lot of of them are men. They tell me they can squat or bench a certain number, but it is a different lift as they don't go to PL depth, or they bounce the bar off their chest etc. All this is fine, but you just need to make sure your are comparing apples with apples. Then the other thing to consider when making comparisons is that my official lifts above are under comp conditions - nerves, adrenalin, judges. I see many PLer's train well, but can't bring it on the day.

This is the great thing about Powerlifting - the competition is yourself. You can definitively measure your progress, and to move more weight on the bar often it is not about the strength of your muscles, it is about the strength of your mind.

Lisa