By William Andersen Dr. Thomas Orr, Editor
In this article, I am going to be discussing the psychology of powerlifting, and what all goes into it. The aim of my sharing research about the psychology of powerlifting is to prove that it is the most important aspect of the sport and one in which you can make significant improvements to your total. First, what is powerlifting? Powerlifting is a strength sport, compromised of the back squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. The athlete will take three attempts at each of the lifts, and the heaviest successful attempt of each of the three lifts will be added together to create the total. The largest total in a weight class wins the weight class. Each lift must be performed to technical standards, and in conjunction with the commands that the judge gives you. But we are not here to talk about the physical, but the psychological aspect of the sport.
There are a few main points that I would like to talk about, starting with visualization, goal setting, grit, confidence, and finally getting into the strain of the sport on someone's mental health. For this, I was able to interview Jona Leo, a 4x Bench Press World champion, and my personal coach. First off, I will be talking about visualization and goal setting. What it means to visualize, what it means to have goals set, how to go about it, and how it impacts training and competition. After that I will be talking about grit, and what it means and how important it is in the sport. Then I am going to move into the confidence aspect of the sport. Especially what it means to have confidence in the sport. And then finally I will be talking about the toll that it can take on mental health, and how it affects every aspect of your life. In all these topics, I will also be talking about the divide between equipped and raw lifting, and the difference between the two that each subject presents. First, we need to talk about the difference between the two styles of lifting. Equipped lifting is where the lifter wears a squat suit, bench shirt, and a deadlift suit to complete the lifts. How this equipment works is by stretching a thick layer of canvas in such a way that it wants to return to the lock out position of the movement it is designed to assist. The lifters are also allowed to wear knee wraps, meter long wrist wraps, and a belt. A raw lifter, however, is only allowed to wear neoprene knee sleeves, much shorter wrist wraps, and a belt. So, when lifting raw it is much more just the lifter's own strength, and not the outside equipment.
Getting into visualization, essentially it is extremely important to have your performance almost planned out. Top level lifters will imagine the whole meet happening before it ever happens. This is something that you can find in all high-level athletes. Jona mentioned that having an idea of each attempt that you want to take is extremely important. Having the plan makes it easier to just go in and execute the lifts. The one thing that Jona stressed the most was having experience of the platform, before you compete. He told a story about how in 2015, in Sweden, for bench press worlds, he laid down on the bench a night or two before the meet, to see what the celling looked like, and what the lights felt like. He said that if he had not done that, the heat of the lights would have thrown him off, causing him to lose the meet. He also says that for every young lifter he coaches, they should go out for their back squat, and find a focal point to focus on, same with the bench and deadlift. This is part of why he went to sit down on the bench before the meet. He was trying to find that focal point, to make sure that he was used to the environment, and then he used that image to help with his visualization. Another thing that helps with this process is performing the lifts in the gym to the standard that is expected of you in competition. This can be helpful for a few reasons. The first reason is that doing the movement as close to what it's going to be like on meet day means that your already acclimated to what it is going to be like, for example, pausing your bench press (according to competition standard, the bar must remain motionless on the chest before the head judge gives the press command). This also means that when you are imagining yourself on the bench, going for an attempt, it is the same as imagining that you are going for a heavy bench single in the gym.
But visualization can also take a dark turn. In 2016, at the World Deadlift Championships, Eddie Hall was poised to win the event. For his final attempt, He came out to a colossal deadlift of 500 Kg, or half of a ton. He pulled the deadlift and set the world record. But to do this, he took visualization too far. He was working with a psychiatrist and a hypnotist, to unlock something called hysterical strength. He got himself to such a point mentally where he was no longer pulling a bar off the ground but rather a car off his family. While this makes one stronger, it also affects his mental health. Having to make himself believe that his wife and kids were dying, every time he went to deadlift spun him into a deep depression. It took him months to recover and get back to a semblance of normalcy.
Getting into goal setting, going onto the platform with a solid idea of what numbers you are going to hit, which makes the entire process a lot easier. It means that you can just focus on the attempt that you are currently taking, and not what you are going to take after it. Having the goals set of what numbers you want to hit on the platform can make all the difference in a meet. In my personal experience, having a goal for what numbers you want to hit makes the experience more rewarding. It means that you have a goal that you are working towards the entire time. Each rep you do on and off the platform is done with intent, and purpose, giving you a reason to keep going. Having a goal to work towards makes sure that you always feel like you have a purpose in what you are doing, and not just lifting to lift. This does not apply to just what happens on the day of the meet, but to all the training leading up to it. If I am going into a meet wanting to hit a 200kg (440lbs) deadlift, in my training leading up to that meet I will be a lot more driven to perform well in the gym, so when it comes time to pull 200, I can do it. Having the goal will also motivate you going through your training leading into the meet. As an athlete, there are going to be workouts that you do not want to do, but you must do them. Having a goal to go along with those workouts can make all the difference. If I have a goal set of deadlifting 200kg (about 440.92 lb) on the platform, and I have a 5x5 on deadlifts, the entire time I am doing the workout I remind myself that it is for the sake of the 200kg (about 440.92 lb) pull on the platform. It makes the full process better, because if I am just training, and do not have anything pushing me, it is a lot harder to make sure that I stay motivated to complete the preparation for the meet.
Next, I would like to talk about grit. First, what is grit? Grit is when someone faces adversity, and still finds a way to push through it and make sure that they perform to the best of their ability. It means taking the adversity, and pushing through, being the best that they can be. I think the best example of this in the sport is again, Gavin Adin. Gavin has had 4 total attempts at the world record squat in the 93kg weight class, and the first 3 times he failed. One time he failed on strength, the next time he failed on depth (the IPF requires the hip crease to drop beneath the knee joint for the lift to count), and the third time his lift got overturned after the fact. And each of these times, that squat could have made him the world champion. But he kept coming back with the same mentality that it was just him and the bar. In the most recent international competition he did, Sheffield 2024, he set the world record squat with 337kg (about 742.95 lb). This was his third attempt, and it was after he had already set the record with 331.5kg (about 730.83 lb) on his second attempt. After him, another 93kg lifter, Carlos Petterson-Grifith, set the world record on his second attempt with 332.5kg (about 733.04 lb). This meant that the final attempt Gavin had to take was all or nothing. If he did not get this attempt, he would not get the world record that he had been chasing after for so long.
In addition to this pressure, this also was the lift that made sure he took 4th place in the meet. This is a perfect example of grit, as it shows that even though he failed that record so many times, he was able to execute when it mattered the most. Even though he was feeling every emotion that you would expect from someone in that situation, he still came out to platform and executed the lift perfectly. If you watch the attempts back from the meet, you can see the clear ramp up in energy from first to second to third. He walked out calmly to his first, and at his third he was yelling and getting the crowd loud, getting them to cheer him on. He talked about his mentality on a recent podcast, saying that when he is competing, he does not care about how anyone else is doing, that it does not matter that Carlos hit the world record moments before, all it is, is him and the bar. This mentality I think plays a huge role in how he can deal with adversity, because when he goes out for an attempt, there is no outside pressure to make the lift, it is just him. Without the outside pressure from his opponents, it makes it easier for him to not overthink, and get into his own head. Another thing that he mentioned that I found particularly important to how we need to deal with meet day psychology, is this idea of viewing a meet as just another training day. This approach can make all the difference on meet day. It can help calm nerves that someone has.
Moving into confidence, what it means in the sport, and just how important it is to have it. One thing that I have noticed across all the top-level athletes that I have watched interviews with, is they all have confidence. They all think that they are the best. Panagiotis Tarinidis, better known as Pana, the 66kg world champion said in a podcast that anyone who saw the 66kg podium at worlds without him on top had it wrong. This was after a year of lackluster coemption, where over a full year, he was unable to set a PR at any point. This just shows that even if someone is not doing the best in competition, they must have the confidence to make sure that they can go out on the platform and execute to the absolute best of their ability and show that they are the best. In addition to Pana, another notable example of this is Austin Perkins. Austin Perkins is the most notable 74kg lifter in the world currently. Just to give some perspective, at the most recent Powerlifting America Nationals meet, he won the 74kg class by almost 200kg, setting an unofficial world record and becoming the first 74kg lifter to back squat 700lbs raw in competition. Last year at USA Powerlifting Raw Nationals, he became the first 75kg lifter to total 851, setting another unofficial world record. Coming into the USAPL meet, there was talk of how strong he was. People were doubting him, but he went onto the platform and proved everybody wrong. He became the strongest pound for pound lifter on the planet at that meet, boasting an incredible 851kg (about 1876.13 lb) total at 75kg body weight. Even after that performance, people found reasons to say that he was not going to be able to replicate that performance in Powerlifting America vs. The USAPL. But again, he came to the national meet and only taking 7 attempts to set the world record. He came into both of those meets with absolute confidence in himself and his abilities to prove to everyone that he was the greatest. It was the same thing with Pana, he came into the meet as an underdog, but he had absolute confidence in himself, and he became the 66kg champion.
Every top-level lifter that you talk to about their self-view is going to say that they are the best. They all have the confidence to go out and take what they view as theirs. This is one of the things that is consistent across all top-level athletes. They all have a level of self-confidence that is bordering on delusion. This level of confidence is needed to be the best. You must genuinely believe you are the strongest person on that platform. This also manifests not only in the athlete's belief that they are the best, but that when they get onto that platform, they are going to be able to lift whatever is on the bar. Austin Perkins has said that this can be considered the hardest part of a competition. When talking about confidence, it is also important to talk about the effect that a crowd will have on you. Lifting in front of a crowd is significantly different than lifting by yourself or with a group of friends when in the gym. This has been shown to be a boost to your lifts, as an experienced lifter will gain 10% on each of their lifts during competition, according to Vladimir Zatriosky. Considering this in terms of confidence, the lifter experiences a boost in confidence because all these people are there cheering them on.
Now I want to talk about how powerlifting can affect every aspect of your life. The benefits and harms of sport permeate life and extend throughout our lives. So much more goes into powerlifting than just going to the gym every day. Like any top-level athlete, a powerlifter must be on top of every aspect of their life. They must eat right, sleep right, stretch right, and live their life in such a way to make sure that they can be in the best possible shape to be the strongest version of themselves that they can be. This can become an all-consuming task. You must sacrifice so much to make sure that you are in the best possible shape. You have to go to bed early, you miss out on events with friends and family. You miss out on making those memories with people, but that is the cost of being the greatest. If you really do want to be the best, you must make sacrifices. This can impact a lifter's mental health, leading to feelings of loneliness. These feelings can often give way to depression and cause other mental health issues.
You also have to make sure that you are eating right, to make sure that you make weight, or maintain your body weight. This brings up another thing that can be a toll on your mental health, the weight cutting process. If a lifter competes at 93kg, but their walk around is 98kg, that's 11lbs that they have to lose while keeping their strength. Most lifters opt to do a water cut, but some have to gut cut. This adds all sorts of pressure to a lifter to make sure that they weigh the right amount come meet day, and then if they miss weight, it can have a significant impact on a lifters mental going into a meet. Missing weight means that a lifter cannot compete for any titles or records. If going into a national meet, the first seed lifter in a weight class misses weight, it means that he cannot compete for the chance to represent his country. Anything that lifter does on the platform that day does not mean anything. While most lifters still choose to compete as a guest lifter, any numbers that they do mean nothing. The lifter is going out and trying their hardest, but it means nothing. They are not allowed to count the meet towards anything. For example, if Gavin Adin came into Sheffield missing weight, that would mean that the squat world record that he had been fighting for for years was now unattainable. But then there is the flip side of that equation, if a lifter has a grueling weight cut, they make weight. Something like this happened last year when Nabil Lahlou cut from 78kg to 67.5kg. This drastic of a cut severely affected his physical health, but the outcome was worth the struggle. He went on to set the world record deadlift of 325kg (about 716.5 lb). I was watching this meet on livestream, and we can also use his performance to talk about grit. The 325kg was meant to be his opening attempt, and he came out to take it for his opener, but he failed. He then failed it again on his second attempt but got it on his third attempt. This is a good example of grit because not only did he have to endure a 14% body weight cut, but he almost failed the whole reason he did this in the first place. His entire point in taking such an aggressive cut was to set the world record deadlift. But even though his dream was riding on this lift he had already failed twice, he still came out to his third attempt like it was any other and executed one of the most technically proficient deadlifts I have ever seen. He was able to keep his mentality in check, and still treat each attempt as its own attempt, not letting the one before impact him.
Now I want to spend some time talking about each of these topics, but in the equipped sense. When talking about equipped powerlifting, we have to almost treat it like a different sport. First off let's talk about visualization. When it comes to equipped powerlifting, it is not as different as one might think. In my talk with Jona, we talked about it a little bit, but the general process is the same for raw and equipped. For the example that he gave of laying down on the bench to see what it was like, that was for equipped bench press worlds, and he suggests that all his athletes, raw or equipped do that. So, this process can be the same between both disciplines. Next up on the list is grit. It appears grit is more important in equipped than raw. When benching equipped, there is a greater chance of failing the lift from a technique standpoint, and so being able to go out again and execute like it is your opener is even more important in equipped. This also plays into confidence as well because you need to be confident in your ability to use the bench shirt in the way that it is intended.
As the example above demonstrates, you must control all the variables presented in front of you, and with equipment there are many more to control. I asked Jona if he was going to be more confident going into a max raw bench press, or an equipped max bench press, and he said without hesitation that he was going to be more confident under a raw bench press. He said that because of the reasons that I have already laid out. There are more variables to control with a bench shirt vs just benching raw. When he is taking a raw bench attempt, he says that it is just his body doing the work, and that he knows about where his top end of strength is. He can get under the bar with the knowledge that he can lift it, but with equipment he does not have that knowledge. If he were to fail a lift, it could be for any number of reasons and when he goes to attempt it again, he must have all those reasons in his mind, and what he needs to do to fix all of them. Once he has it narrowed down, then he has to fix it. Especially in equipped, fixing it can mean so many different things, he might have to take his bench shirt off, and put it back on in a different way, or he might have to re-wrap his wrists in a different way, or it might just be the idea of trying to make sure that his butt stays on the bench. Having more factors to worry about is why Jona says that he is more comfortable under a raw bench as opposed to an equipped bench.
When talking about raw and equipped and the differences between the two, it is essential to talk about why raw is more popular than equipped. When watching equipped lifters, you see them squatting 1000+, benching 1000+, and deadlifting 900+, but you see them wearing this suit thing that looks silly to someone who has no experience in the realm of powerlifting, but even to people who go to the gym, they more than likely have no clue what they are looking at. Why raw is more popular can be attributed to the mere-exposure effect. What this means is that people are more attracted to something that they are familiar with. If you take someone who goes to a commercial gym to try and get in shape, and show them equipped and raw powerlifting, they are more likely to watch raw for longer because they are familiar with it. They are also more likely to choose to compete in raw. This is for the same reasoning, because it is how they lift in the gym, so they are more likely to choose the one that feels the most familiar. It boils down to the fact that equipped lifters seek out other ones to lift with. Most of the time, they choose to go to a powerlifting specific gym, instead of a commercial gym.
In conclusion, powerlifting might be an extermly physical sport, but psychology might be more important to succeeding in the sport. I say this because not every top-level athlete trains in the same way, but they all have the same mentality. Everything that I have talked about in this paper has been consistent across almost every top-level athlete in the sport. If you have the hunger to be the best, then your training intensity will follow. Having the mentality that you are the best, and the want to prove it are the most important things in the sport of powerlifting. Someone can train as hard as physically possible, but still not be the best because they do not want to be. If someone has the want and need to be the best, then the necessary training will follow. That is the thing that separates a normal athlete from the best of the best. This mindset of I am the best and I must prove it. Having the right mentality is the single most important thing in powerlifting, and in every sport. If someone just has the raw talent to be great, but they do not want to be great, then they never will be. All the athletes that I have mentioned in this paper all have some form of that mentality. It might not be worded the same from Pana to Gavin, but it all comes down to the fact that they believe that they are the best, and they have a hunger to prove it. Because they have this need to prove that they are the best, they will train as hard as they can, and in the smartest way possible. This is what drives them to keep training as hard as they can. That is the goal they have set for themselves: they want to be the greatest, so they will do everything they can to ensure they become the greatest. Being the best, no matter what the sport, requires all the aspects that I have talked about in this paper. In powerlifting, it really does not matter how strong you are, if you do not have the want and need to be the best, then you never will be.
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Leo, Jona, March 28, 2024, via Zoom