Saw a video of the guy who squatted 800-900 lbs. or something like that. He had a huge round gut and no muscle definition at all, just a large bouncer type of body that looked overweight. I don't get the idea of being able to squat so much weight but looking fat and unhealthy. When he slows down lifting he will get even heavier. I woudl rather have lower body fat and muscular frame than a bulky rounded body that can squat 900 lbs.
You can as well compete or train below super heavy weight, stay fairly lean and lift heavy. It's likely Steffi Cohen and her 56kgs lean outlifts most posters in the Health and Sports forum here, you can become very strong while still lean (like Cyplenkov). Strongman also has several weight categories but most of the publicity and money is in the open weight category, so getting huge seems the way to go for aspiring professional strongmen. Not all are as fat as Shaw either. You can check below all current record holders in IPF ( a drug tested federation, as of January 2018 ) below 105kgs athletes are fairly lean. It's similar in untested feds but with mostly bigger numbers - and possibly leaner athletes, particularly Larry Wheels. The most popular powerlifter at the moment is Larry Wheels, a 24 y o multiple record holders @125k, always very lean, who also won his first Bodybuilding contest, before recently switching to Strongman, where there seems to be more money. Being so strong and lean is more the exception than the rules, but there are plenty of pretty lean strength athletes around 100k. They usually need to control their BF to stay competitive in their weight class. I don't get the motivation of the guys at the gym working on cables and smith machines, lean but also skinny and here at least weak, training seems very boring to me, and the end product very unimpressive. I wouldn't say the same about massive bodybuilders as some of them are quite strong but have absolutely no interest in bodybuilding competitions, it looks like a gay gogo bar show down in Bangkok. Besides you also have the option to try and emulate competitive CrossFit or Calisthenics athletes if you care much about strength and leanness, those guys are monsters in higher rep ranges with lean and muscular bodies. Saying getting strong is for fatsos sounds a bit like a cop out, obviously you won't squat 900lbs@183 but can still move serious weight and work out in that direction - i used to weigh exactly this @30 when lifting about the same weights as now but now definitely prefer the over 220 look.
When it comes to health, and at least injuries, CrossFit has a much worse reputation than powerlifting though, not sure how advisable the sport is. Dunno about calisthenics, but those dudes do crazy stuff while lifting and swinging their bodyweight.
Crossfit should be renamed crossSkill. what are you training your heart or muscle to roll a tire?? rolling a huge truck tire takes skill. how about rolling a little tire the fastest..what does this take..skill. don't see that in any crossfit do you? how about the 40 yard dash? nope don't even get me started on the kipups or the burpees it's facebook
A lot of them also have very impressive 1 Rep Max deadlifts and squats as well as OPlympic lifts. Look at some of the male competitors who are pretty ripped but with size. But there are a lot of powerlifters I see that look like fat offensive linemen haha
What size ? The fat powerlifters, as well as Olympic lifters are in open weight categories, or at least 120+, with size unsuitable for CrossFit or Calisthenics. There's definetely an argument to be made in how strength sports dealing in short efforts, have a space for fat but huge athletes, hence we see them there, while they would be in a world of pain in stuff like CrossFit, but not much in saying 90kgs athletes will be much fatter in powerlifting than in other sports. Back to Steffi Cohen, a physical therapy doctorate and multiple world record powerlifting holder, her hybrid Performance school deals with competitive high level cross fitters and powerlifters, her advanced trainees don't seem to have much fat to shed, plus it takes strength sports in a variety of angles. Your vision of powerlifting seems oversimplistic. It's like saying Olympic lifters look like Talakhadze while lots of lifters in gyms would sell wife and children to look like Dmitri Klokov. https://hybridperformancemethod.com/
Not saying all powerlifters are fat, my original question is I did not understand those powerlifters that ARE fat...what is the point of being so strong if they look so out of shape and unhealthy haha.
what is strength? what is leverage? what is skill? you can 'bench' 300 lbs...what does this measure?? the best i can do is 225 for 5 reps. am i weak?? i can rack 300 but i can't press it, even bouncing it off my rib cake like everyone else my ribs don't have enough bounce i guess? even doing the short 'half -way down''...can't press 300.
Hafthor Bjornsson released a 2 parts video of a full day of eating. Despite his 200+kgs body weight he looks extremely muscular and only moderately fat. I only watched part 2 but mostly because I find his coach Sebastian Oreb painful to watch( Oreb sure knows a lot about lifting though). It s interesting, not sure Thor eats like this year round but he tries to eat very healthy and balanced meals, just a lot more than an average person