Equipped Lifting

Adam Hindle - EliteFTS UK

Equipped powerlifting, what is it? Many diehard old lifters, myself included, will tell you it’s ‘proper lifting’. Are we dinosaurs and sad old broken fucks that refuse to let go of the glory days? Probably. But equipped lifting whether you are talking single, multi or the new kid unlimited, is just powerlifting. We wear supportive compressive gear comprised of (generally) poly material in layers from 1-as many as you want (I have heard rumour of an american company that have made 6 ply briefs). Believe it or not there is a lot of science behind the super tight constrictive pants and baby grows that you see fat guys with red faces and c-pap mask scars sweating themselves into at meets.

The kit itself- Suits and shirts are MOSTLY made of layers of material with a slight stretch (usually polyester, elastane and whatever man made fibres work). As mentioned they provide compression and support with just enough stretch to still compress the muscles and joints allowing the level of support required to push the heavier weights.

Assistance of mechanics- Simplified, equipped to raw is as pole vault is to high jump, you are essentially just jumping over a bar but you are using equipment to help you jump higher. Kit does this through energy transfer, it provides additional force in points of the lift through the ‘rebound of the kit’.

Increased intra-abdominal pressure- Suits (not so much shirts) provide a kind of external brace, enhancing stability and reducing risk of injury (yes equipped lifting technically speaking is safer than raw) chuck a belt on top of this and you will feel you have the core of Hercules.

Biomechanical alignment - Arguably the most beneficial factor of equipped lifting, when you have proper fitting kit it adds structural integrity to your body, joint alignment, especially hips and shoulders, thus allowing you to be able to lift with more efficiency and integrity!

Psychological benefits - A big one, a really big one. It is hard to explain but when you have kit on you feel more ‘solid’, the added layer of support allows you to feel almost invincible (you're not, believe me) but when you hit that sweet spot it's the best feeling in the world!

Sounds great right? Why doesn't everyone lift equipped!? Funny thing is you go back in time to ancient history (the 90’s and 00’s) when kit really started booming there was really no ‘raw/equipped’ divide, powerlifting was powerlifting, you go to a comp and every fucker in there had a squat suit on, granted said squat suit probably had the structural integrity of one of these new A7 singlets but it was what it was. Fast forward into the 00’s a little further and across the pond the Americans were making huge steps in the quality and thickness of equipment, denim shirts, canvas squat suits, multiple layers of poly etc and there had to come a division. Equipped stayed at the forefront of powerlifting for some time and to be honest it was the only lifting most lifters gave a fuck about. Funny thing is raw was always the majority in the eastern block countries but they were primarily about olympic lifting so it was never so in your face.

What changed was social media, suddenly this underground sport that no one really understood was creeping into the limelight, gaining popularity from all walks of life and the simple fact of the matter is raw is easier, it's easier to train, easier to get right, it’s cheaper and to the general population it’s more measurable and seemingly attainable. So people getting into powerlifting went raw as there was the option to do so. Don’t get me wrong I know there are people out there who genuinely prefer raw therefore will always lift raw and have no interest in kit!

So that was it, mid-late 2010’s equipped lifting seemed to die, there were small pockets everywhere in the country still but that was about it, gone are the days where you’d go to a meet in a shitty little sports hall in Folkestone, stand there and freeze and watch British powerlifting royalty such as Andy Bolton, Craig Coombes, Emma James and Dot Shaw lift huge amounts of weight!

Raw exploded, powerlifting exploded and it was everywhere, raw totals and single lifts being put up you didn’t think possible, men and women of all shapes and sizes pushing the raw limits to the extreme. You have to understand when I started in powerlifting and someone was putting up a 800kg raw total as a heavyweight lifter that was respectable, it still is don’t get me wrong but now you have people like Sharon, Naomi, Sonny and Dave from EFTS UK putting up numbers in their respective weight classes that people in kit never did! Not to mention a whole host of other UK lifters that have performed ridiculous feats of strength.

Maybe equipped did deserve to die?

For me personally after snapping my knee I thought I would never lift equipped again, stupid as it was my fault, I came back and I came back raw, not really sure why I did but the allure of putting on a bench shirt and squat suit was always in the back of my mind, I can’t tell you when I switched back but I can tell you why, I fucking missed it, it is fun and afterall thats what all of us in this stupid hobby are here for, well started it at least.
It was 2017 at The Savage pro invitational that I fell, by this point most of the stalwarts of equipped were dwindling, over the years we would see Andy Bolton getting very ill (and somehow still carrying on), Craig Coombes retired on top (sensible man), we unfortunately lost Dot Shaw, Steve Macneil, one of the regular flag fliers for UK equipped snapped both his arms a few years after.Through all this there was always UK talent in kit but we were on the back burner all the time it seemed.

I will caveat all of this with one factor, the IPF have a single ply equipped division that also took the hit but seemed to stay pretty solid, but even in this when was the last time you saw SBD post a massive picture of Kate, Ellie, Dean and Tony? Raw is more marketable.

We entered the 2020’s and the dormant volcano of equipped seemed to be rumbling harder than it had for a decade, was it the introduction of band shirts? Westside vs the world movie being released? Young blood coming through? Or was it simply the old broken fucks like myself never left we just needed back up? Whatever it was, I am glad it happened, you cannot come into my gym without seeing a tiny female, a mid weight lunatic or a fat sweaty stuffing themselves into a squat suit or bench shirt, you go to meets now and we have equipped DAYS!
The ABPU have done wonderful things and introduced banded shirts which are a whole other level of crazy, as well as encouraging everyone into kit and letting them take centre stage, the IPF equipped scene has grown massively especially in the junior divisions, the WRPF has exploded on the scene and with that WEPF has come along and given birth to another avenue of equipped lifting.

I for one am grateful for these federations and people like Emma and Kalle Ylitalo-James, Shane Brodie, Adam and Amanda Riman for helping us keep equipped alive (or hanging on as it were).

What is next?

As I have said, the last 5 years equipped is back with gusto, multiple avenues and federations, gyms all over the country have huge equipped teams, I myself am hosting Bench Anarchy and Warpath, 2 huge meets for equipped lifters. One incredible thing is that the misconception that geared lifting was purely for big blokes on PED’s is long gone (says the big bloke on PED’s) but more and more women, juniors and tested lifters are coming into the forefront again, decades old records are falling and it’s not amiss these days to go to a qualifier in a little gym and see a 60kg female lacing up an Inzer leviathan ready to squat 3-4x bodyweight.
Elite lifter George Hurt is among a host of UK lifters that over the last few years have lifted at the WPO in America!
With the new talent, the older guys and some of the OG’s still on the scene equipped will again go from strength to strength, and whilst I mostly coach raw lifters and find watching it very exciting there will always be a special place in my heart for the fat sweaty with the purple face headbutting the bar and moving 1000lbs squats what looks like 4” and pissing off the purists!

Equipped ain’t dead, it never was, it never will be.