Your Guide to Different Training Styles, Part 1

So, you decided to start lifting weights. You hired a brilliant trainer (*cough* me *cough*) and you’ve been consistent for several months. You’ve seen improvements and are feeling phenomenal. Great job, you’re well on the way to becoming the strongest version of yourself. At this point, you’ve probably heard about some different styles of training and might be interested in trying one of them. The important thing to remember is to do the one that you like most. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the major styles out there, what they’re all about, and some pros and cons of each.

You might know who this bodybuilder is.

Bodybuilding. This is probably the one you’re most familiar with because most of the people you see on magazines (if you still look at those things) and on Instagram do this style. There might be a bunch of subdivisions, but in the end they all have the same goal: training for aesthetic reasons by building muscle and losing fat. If you’re thinking that that’s what you’re doing already, you’d be correct. The main difference is that true bodybuilding tends to go for more size than the average person is after. Bodybuilders aren’t looking to get in shape. They’re looking to get really big and lean.

So, what are the pros of bodybuilding? First of all, you’ll look like a superhero. If that’s what you’re after, you can stop right here and get to work. The other, less obvious positive about bodybuilding is that it’s remarkably safe. Because bodybuilding is all about building the muscle, it doesn’t really matter which exercises you do so long as they do that. This means that if something hurts, you just change the exercise to one that doesn’t hurt but still hits the muscle, and you’ll be fine. It’ll also teach you a lot about nutrition. I have to give credit where it’s due. Bodybuilders might be the most disciplined athletes on earth. There’s basically no room for error when it comes to contest prep. Food, water, salt, literally everything has to be just right or you’ll blow it on contest day.

What about the downsides? Well, if you’re looking to impress on the athletic field, bodybuilding isn’t the way to go. There’s not much carryover to other sports. Most sports punish people who get too heavy (whether it’s muscle or fat) because they get too slow. The other side of that is that the way bodybuilders lift weights is the opposite of the way athletic movements are performed. Athletes care about getting the movement done. Jumping higher, running faster, throwing the hardest punch possible. They use their whole bodies. What they’re not concerned with is feeling their quads get a pump while they run down the football field. Bodybuilders try to isolate muscles. Finally, and you can ask any of them about this one, contest prep is a waking nightmare. To get that lean, you have to eat so few calories and be so dried out that simply walking onto the stage becomes an ordeal. You might look like a superhero on contest day, but you definitely won’t feel like one. On top of that, you can kiss having a life goodbye during contest prep. Want to go out for a slice of pizza and a beer with your friends? Not happening if your show is in two weeks. All that said, nobody ever said you had to compete. You can always just do the training and skip the “starving to death” part.

Powerlifting. But what if you’re not that concerned with looking like Superman? What if you’ve noticed that what really gets you going is lifting ungodly amounts of weight? Then it sounds like powerlifting might be for you. Despite its name, powerlifting isn’t about power, it’s about max strength. Each competition (called a meet) has each person squat, bench press, and deadlift in that order. For each lift, you’ll get three attempts to lift the heaviest weight you can once. Your best for each lift is added together (called your total) and whoever has the highest total wins.

First, the good. Needless to say, you’ll be ridiculously strong. You’ll also be pretty big, too. You won’t be bodybuilder big, but nobody will look at you and question if you lift or not. It’s also a very accessible sport to train for. All you need is a barbell, some plates, and a rack to squat and bench press out of. Nearly every gym already has everything you need to do very well in powerlifting. The nutrition part isn’t that complicated either. Usually, your main concern is to eat enough protein and enough calories, but don’t get fat. There’s no contest prep period on the diet side. This allows you to have way more of a life during the few weeks before your meet.

It’s not all roses, though. One of the things about lifting the heaviest weights you possibly can is that you’re more likely to get injured. There are plenty of ways to avoid injury, but like any sport, if you compete then you have to do the movements that are in competition. You can’t go up to the judge and say “You know, my shoulder kind of hurts. Can I skip the bench press?” It’s just like if you’re a runner and your knee is bothering you. You can’t just not run. Another downside is that, while getting stronger carries over to other sports, being powerlifter strong tends to be too much of a good thing. The training makes a powerlifter very stiff so they can keep those heavy weights stable and push them hard. The problem is that most sports demand a lot more flexibility than that. When I first started muay thai, I could barely kick hip level. Head kicks were not going to happen unless I was allowed to put a big box on the floor in front of the person first. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that the UFC and ONE Championship don’t allow that sort of thing. That said, if you stay on top of the flexibility issue, you should be fine.

Bodybuilding and powerlifting are just two styles of weight training you can do. In the next article, we’ll take a look at a couple more. If you’ve fallen in love with the process of going to the gym and watching what you eat, then you’re already in a great place. Now’s the time to take a look at what’s out there and give some of these styles a try.