Do People only compete Raw these days?

[PowerliftingRev]

So I've been out of the game for 17 years. Back then, everyone competed in bench shirts and squat suits. Now it seems from looking at results that pretty much eveyrone competes raw. Is this the case?

[arian11]

There's raw divisions, raw with wraps divisions, single ply divisions, and multiply divisions. Raw has more lifters for a number of reasons, one of them being the lower barrier to entry. People still compete equipped though. Like 175 lifters just competed at IPF Open Worlds, which allows single ply equipment. http://en.allpowerlifting.com/result...hips/#r1064265

[FaIIen]

Yeah raw is getting more popular.

[Jason2459]

I think everyone should try lifting and competing in gear at least once. It will give you a much greater appreciation for that style of lifting even if you don't continue with it. It's much more difficult then people think.

[Garage Rat]

It's definitely come around full circle.
When i started raw was in and knee wraps were just coming in back in the late 70's.
Then slowly squat suits and then bench shirts and finally deadlift suits.
These days raw has come back to life.
The last state meet in my state had only a handful of geared lifters with over 100 raw or classic raw(with wraps)competing.
It seems some of the old guys still hang on to their gear but really times have changed.
You can compete in gear but more than likely you'll be the only one in your class.

[JansenStrength]

Gear getting way out of hand + Stan Efferding competing circa 2012 = everyone lifts RAW

[PhantomMaxx]

With the USPA and IPL I can say that Raw is the largest division. After 3 years of competing in the federations I have only come across a few single-ply and multi-ply lifters. Raw (with sleeves) and then second Classic Raw (with wraps) dominate. All the geared lifters I've seen are older, I don't recall seeing any Open Class lifters.

[geoffstgermaine]

Gear getting way out of hand + Stan Efferding competing circa 2012 = everyone lifts RAW

What was the impact of Efferding specifically? Just asking as I know he competed in PL, but not sure what the impact of it was.

I've seen the same. My last two meets (IPF affiliate) were 50 lifters in each. The last one has 2 lifting equipped and the one before had none.

[Butterslax]

I compete raw but thats because Im to cheap to buy the shirt, squat/dead suits. My friend does multi ply and won the WPC in Russia, im pretty sure he might have been the only multi in his flight for weight.

[Perceptionist]

I just recently found my username/pass for this site. I last competed over a decade ago and back then geared lifting was still more popular, although raw was was trending already. From what I see it appears raw has taken over, especially the new generation and some of the veterans that decided to go raw. I can see why though. I wish raw was popular during my days since I always felt competing in single ply did not satisfy my quest to see how strong I could get and doing it on the platform. When I first started powerlifting I met guys that were all competing in USAPL, so it was only natural to go that single ply route. I also felt wierd telling people my geared numbers and explaining to them about suits/shirts, etc. Training also revolved a lot around getting stronger in the gear so till this day I may never know how strong I could have gotten raw if I trained and competed specifically for that.

I've been out of the game for a long time and especially this past year I have been hardly lifting at all. If I am able to train consistently again I would love to compete raw.