Powerlifting Is a Very Safe and Healthy Sport

Powerlifting tends to get a bad rap, for being a dangerous sport, however, many studies show that powerlifting can be quite beneficial to a person’s health. This article is intended to be a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of powerlifting. One of the major cons is injuries within the sport. So much so that this is part of the reason powerlifting has such a negative stigma, it’s that “pr fail” videos are all over the internet. A PR is a personal record. When someone fails said personal record, they tend to need help getting the weight off of them.

The More One Does It The Safer They Are

The thing about powerlifting is that the more a person practices the form, the safer they are doing a movement. For example, there are many videos of people failing to follow through with the bench press, however, when someone is mindful of their own strength and has a good form they can practice the bench press as much they can in a safe way.

What happens is ego lifters end up trying to lift weights that they know they can’t, and they end up getting hurt. There is a place for trying to push one’s limits but the way that they do it ends up getting them hurt occasionally. Despite all this, powerlifting is a lot safer than others sports.

Safety

“The Epidemiology of Injuries Across the Weight-Training Sports” states that powerlifting at an elite level causes fewer injuries. Here is a quote “The injury rates for the weight training sports appeared considerably lower than those reported for many team sports,” according to the report.

Of course, that study also suggests that there isn’t a complete scientific consensus on that yet, and there need to be more studies. What this ultimately suggests is that compared to sports like football, and basketball where athletes get injured quite often at the elite level, powerlifters are becoming injured less. Powerlifting not only has fewer negative health detriments but it has health benefits as well.

The Health Benefits of Pumping Iron

Powerlifting builds the body in many ways. It makes a person’s bones stronger so they can handle the loads, and it makes their muscles stronger, denser, and bigger. Powerlifting is also another form of general exercise, and there are many great benefits to exercise, like mental and physical health benefits. “Resistance training can increase muscle strength, thereby subjecting the skeleton to higher loads. An exercise-induced increase in muscle mass may also increase skeletal load through increasing gravitational forces, at least on weight-bearing bones,” according to “Bone Mineral Density in Competitive Athletes.”

This makes a lot of sense, particularly because of the way that powerlifters exercise. In the powerlifting community, the effort is put into checking that the lifts are working each muscle is fighting against gravity. Powerlifting is as much a science as it is a healthy hobby.

Bone Health Is Important

Bone Health is important because human beings lose bone growth every year. Some have less than others but without physical activity, the human body erodes and degrades. This process leads to people developing weak bones over time. There are many reasons why this is can be bad. One of the major reasons is that people with weak bones could shatter them with a fall. This is part of why older people falling can be such a dangerous event. Bone health can not be neglected, for all will experience the consequences of letting their bones erode.

Written by Kenneth Mazerat

Biases: The author of this article is a powerlifter.

Sources:

Keogh, J.W.L., Winwood, P.W. The Epidemiology of Injuries Across the Weight-Training Sports. Sports Med 47, 479–501 (2017).

Antonio, J., Leaf, A., Carson, C., Ellerbroek, A., Silver, T., Peacock, C. A., Bommarito, P., Knafo, S., & Tartar, J. (2018). Bone Mineral Density in Competitive Athletes. Journal of Exercise and Nutrition, 1(2).

‌CNN: Combining weight training with another activity could lower your risk of early death, study finds By Kristen Rogers

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First Inset Image by David Poultney for GOC Courtesy of Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License