The other day, I saw a video on YouTube where one of these fitness celebrities said that powerlifting doesn’t really help in other sports. Well, I agree and disagree, because it depends. You see the factors that cause some powerlifters to lose speed and cardiovascular capacity the longer they train are:

• Excessively heavy weight: I’ve talked about this before. You see, when you lift heavy weight the body recruits muscle fiber. The heavier the weight, the more muscle fiber your body recruits, up to a point. After your body has reached a certain amount of weight, it begins to recruit other muscle to help carry the load. For example: lets say you are squatting 400lbs. You prior PR was 365. Most likely, as you lift the weight you will begin to use more lower back than legs to get the weight up. However, the purpose of the barbell squat is to get your legs under you and drive up, but your body is trying to get the lower back to take some of the slack. In conclusion, its a good thing to use heavy weight however, do not go to far. When you do you will not exercising the muscles you are supposed to be training.
• Long breaks between sets: Bodybuilders and powerlifters often spend 2 to 5 minutes resting in between sets to allow ATP levels to rise. I believe that you should challenge your cardiovascular system by shortening the rest intervals. As a result, you may have to drop the weight and train differently than traditional weight lifters do. If you train with shorter intervals, you will not get slow.
• Remember, gaining strength in a lift is not the goal, in and of itself. Weight lifting should be supplementary to other training. In other words, if you kick box, weight training should help you kick harder and faster. The same should be said about wrestling, football, mma, judo, jiujitsu, etc.

Until next time!