Can powerlifters stay lean?

[BakTOBasics]

Olympic lifters below the 105kg weight range have awesome powerful and lean bodies - is this the same for powerlifters?

To reach full potential in power lifting, is it necessary to gain fat? Or, is it the same as olympic lifts?

Would love to get into powerlifting but i had a hard time getting lean

[EliteRightist]

You could stay lean and powerlift. I don't know how easy it is going to be for you, b/c of body type and stuff. But mostly depends on your diet. Alot of the little guys are pretty lean. The rest of us just don't care much about it. lol At least I don't. I'd rather gain weight. Besides some extra bulk can help to stabilize the weight better, at least that's what I've read.

[Great wanderer]

Some people, called ecto-mesomorph, can gain strength without putting on too much bodyweight (let it be muscle or fat). But mesomorph and endo-mesomorph cannot. Either they gain strength and size together or starve themselves to sick and weak.

Pure ectomorph and endomorph don't have much talent in strength.

[Porky]

yes they can why couldnt they?

[raffiki]

Most powerlifters admit they eat junk food and lots of it. That is because they don't care about being fat.
Most guys use a combination of CNS training and hypertrophy. So they get bigger and stronger. But in order to increase muscle size you need to eat a lot and that generally leads to fat gain as well.
To increase strength without size you would train with low volume, more frequently with very little assistance exercises.
If you just mean fat gain, then that is 100% diet. Lifting heavy burns more calories than "cardio".

[Skorpius]

Marius Pudzianowski
http://www.sklep.pudzian.pl/sklep/images/intro.jpg

[NewBlackDak]

Marius Pudzianowski
http://www.sklep.pudzian.pl/sklep/images/intro.jpg

That's called anabolic steroids.

[prdo]

steroids are good

[NewBlackDak]

Steriods are good if you have hypogonadism, and you need them to put you into a normal testosterone level. Any other way is drug abuse.

[sculli]

Yes there are cut powerlifters but as stated already a lot of them are fat because they don't care about being lean. But I've definitely seen plenty of lean powerlifters too.

[TheBeginner]

i very much think that every of those prof. strongmen or powerlifters or whatever use steroids. Pro bbers especialy use large amounts of "juice". U barely can get so huge with just food and training.

[Tormented]

I think having a big gut helps on some of the lifts. For benching, the "thicker" you are, the lower your range of motion and higher the weight you can do. For squats, you're supposed to suck air into your stomach and tense it as much as you can to increase pressure and add stability to your lift, which can be helped by being fat. Also, being fat can give you some elastic rebound at the bottom, as your gut will be compressed as you reach parallel.

Think about it, having a large gut must help your lifts at least a little, because otherwise world-class lifters would have a regimented diet yielding very low bodyfat because they would have the advantage of not having to lift 100 extra pounds of fat during a squat or deadlift.

[juicefacekilla]

honestly i dont even think i have ever seen a truly great lean powerlifter? i am sure there are some. as for pudzianowski is he not serving a suspension by the strong man federation for abusing the drug policy?

[sculli]

Ken Lain
http://www.dennisbweis.com/19-MASTER...s/image026.jpg

Scott Mendelson
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...icial%26sa%3DN

[chris mason]

Here are a couple of pics (albeit old ones) of Phil Harrington. He holds the all-time record in the 181 lb class with a 900 lbs squat.

http://www.atlargenutrition.com/phil_harrington.php

By the way, I need to update his total as he has exceeded 2000 lbs in the 181 class.

Phil is strong AND ripped!

[EliteRightist]

I think having a big gut helps on some of the lifts. For benching, the "thicker" you are, the lower your range of motion and higher the weight you can do. For squats, you're supposed to suck air into your stomach and tense it as much as you can to increase pressure and add stability to your lift, which can be helped by being fat. Also, being fat can give you some elastic rebound at the bottom, as your gut will be compressed as you reach parallel.

Think about it, having a large gut must help your lifts at least a little, because otherwise world-class lifters would have a regimented diet yielding very low bodyfat because they would have the advantage of not having to lift 100 extra pounds of fat during a squat or deadlift.

LOL. I really like this explanation.