A participant performing a deadlift during the Nov powerlifting meet. — Casper Watt photos
A spotter (back) stands ready to assist as a participant completes a squat during the Nov competition.
Anthony Choe
KUCHING: Organisers are inviting members of the public to catch the Kuching Open Powerlifting Meet at The Gym Box here commencing at 10am on Jan 31.
Feb 1 is reserved as a “spillover date.”
Five categories will be contested – Under and Over 57kg for women, Under and Over 74kg for men and strongest overall for the meet.
Entry fees are RM30 per person, inclusive of an event shirt.
To encourage younger powerlifters to take part, organisers have waived entry fees for Sub-Junior (15 to 18 years old) participants, with an option to purchase event shirts for RM25.
The event follows on the heels of a powerlifting meet held last Nov and clinics in Dec and January – all held in Kuching.
Powerlifting is governed by the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) which also keeps track of world powerlifting records and rankings.
While it appears similar to Olympic weightlifting and strongman competitions, there are a few characteristics which set powerlifting apart, competition host Anthony Choe told The Borneo Post yesterday.
“Olympics weightlifting has two disciplines (snatch, clean and jerk) while powerlifting has three (squat, benchpress and deadlift).
“Also, unlike in strongman competitions, the final scores are calculated using the Wilks co-efficient formula which takes into account the individual’s bodyweight.
“This means that the heaviest person may not necessarily get the best scores. In fact, it is usually the lighter powerlifters who score well,” Anthony explained.
He attributed the rising interest in powerlifting in recent years to the creation of the raw category (which requires less equipment compared to the equipped category), making the sport more accessible to the general public. The growing popularity of Crossfit has also drawn more attention to the sport.
He added that powerlifting also tended to attract demographics not usually associated with lifting heavy weights including senior citizens and women because of the focus on health, safety and lifting with proper form.
“Lifting weights can help to prevent osteoporosis by strengthening bones, which is especially important for women. Powerlifting also encourages a healthy diet but one that is not as strict as that adopted by bodybuilders. Top level professional bodybuilders aim for 4 per cent body fat but following their dietary requirements will cause powerlifters to lose a lot of strength,” Anthony said.
Nevertheless, he pointed out that powerlifting provides an important athletic base which other sports such as bodybuilding can benefit from.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman trained powerlifting. As a personal trainer, I see people in gyms who want that bodybuilder aesthetic copying what others are doing without having the necessary foundation, and they get frustrated because they are not seeing the results they want,” he shared.
So far 30 individuals have confirmed their participation in next weekend’s showdown, mostly hailing from Kuching but a few coming from as far as Peninsula Malaysia.
Online registration closes today (Jan 22) but walk-in registration will continue until Friday (Jan 30).
Anthony encouraged local powerlifters of all levels and experiences to join the event, especially those who have not competed before.
“Lots of people are curious about powerlifting but they always say “I’m not ready yet”. But honestly, no one is really ready for their first meet. Just show up and enjoy the camaraderie. You get the experience, you get your score. That’s something you work on as you get better at it.
“This is true even for people who have been training powerlifting for a while. They think they’re not ready or strong enough. Again, you have got to go for your first meet. If you don’t do that, even when you think you are finally ready or strong enough, because you don’t know the environment or are familiar with the competition atmosphere, you may end up having a really bad meet. Think of your first meet as getting a headstart on knowing what a good lift looks like and so on.
The competition will be among other events held in conjunction with The Gym Box’s open day weekend. There will also be a no-gi grappling tournament on Jan 31.
Anthony can be contacted via email at [email protected] or through the Powerlifting Kuching page on Facebook.
Further information about the competition including tentative start times for each category can be found on the Facebook event page “Kuching OPEN Powerlifting Meet”.