Should I practice strength lifting or bodybuilding? This is a favorite question for newbies. Furthermore, novices always like to compare strength performance with muscle beauty. So for non-professional trainers, should they pursue the ultimate sense of beauty, or a powerful force? This seems difficult to answer.
The debate over the merits and demerits of bodybuilding and strength has never stopped. Everyone's starting point and purpose are different, and they are biased in the process of discussion, which makes it difficult for everyone to reach a consensus.
Individuals born with divine power are more suitable for strength lifting, while people with harmonious proportions and full muscle form are more suitable for bodybuilding. However, life is not satisfactory nine times out of ten, and many trainers may not have any talent in the direction of love. There are many such examples in real life - some good athletes have dreams of strength lifting, but their talents are all focused on bodybuilding, so they have mistakenly embarked on the path of bodybuilding.
Some strengthlifters believe that only strength lifting is "real man's sport". They scoff at bodybuilding, and the muscles they build don't look good.
Such prejudices make them completely ignore the unremitting efforts of bodybuilding enthusiasts in diet, self-discipline and so on.
And some bodybuilders think that power lift enthusiasts are just a bunch of fat people who are blinded by vanity, have no self-discipline in life, eat and drink every day, even if they have a little muscle, they are also covered with a thick layer of fat, and there is no beauty to speak of.
Even role models like Ronnie Kuhlman and Frank Columbus can't stop the power-lifting circle and the bodybuilding circle from falling against each other.
Whatever way you train, our goal is firm and similar – to get out of your comfort zone and become a stronger version of yourself. Since ancient heroes pity each other, the two families have their own strengths, why should they hurt harmony because of their false names? With this attitude, we compare the strengths and weaknesses of strength lifting and bodybuilding from various angles.
appearance
Does a bodybuilder necessarily have to be in better shape than a strength lift? Not quite, as mentioned earlier, some talented players can indeed achieve "both power and type". Everyone's aesthetic and definition of "good body" is different. Relatively speaking, the bodybuilders with wide shoulders and thin waists are more in line with the public aesthetic. In terms of overall aesthetics, the bodybuilder side is slightly superior.
Cumulative Score:
Bodybuilding: 1 point
Strength Lift: 0 points
Strength output capability
The results are obvious. The ultimate goal of the sport is to be able to lift a greater weight. At similar weight levels, in most cases the absolute strength of a strengthlifter is stronger than that of a bodybuilder.
Many people have a misconception about bodybuilders, believing that the muscles of bodybuilders are "dead muscles" and are not useful. In fact, bodybuilders also have fairly strong strength levels, but their training goal is muscle hypertrophy, so increasing training weight is not the primary goal.
In the indicator of power output ability, the strength lifter pulls back a city.
Strength Lift: 1 point
stamina
Strength lifters or bodybuilders, who has better endurance? There seems to be some controversy about this. But we only speculate that strength lifters rarely do aerobic exercise, and bodybuilders do regular aerobic training even in non-seasons in order to maintain low body fat.
Also, the regular group of bodybuilding training is generally higher than the strength lift, and some high-frequency muscle gainers will also involve a large number of formal groups close to 20 times;
In terms of strength lifts, athletes like to define formal groups above 6 times as "aerobic."
Therefore, we can think that the cardiopulmonary ability and endurance of bodybuilders are stronger than those of strength lifters.
Bodybuilding: 2 points
Audience
Relatively speaking, the threshold of bodybuilding training is lower and the audience is wider. This is all due to the golden age of bodybuilding, where the endless gods of bodybuilding (Schwarzenegger, Yates, Zane, Ronnie Kuhlman, etc.) contributed greatly to the promotion of bodybuilding. In fact, the Olympiad (the highest bodybuilding event) has far more participants than any powerlifting competition.
However, in recent years, with the increasing popularity of strength lifting, many trainers have given up bodybuilding or street fitness and turned to strength lifting, which has the meaning of competing with bodybuilding.
Therefore, in the indicator of audience coverage, the strength is lagging behind, but the gap is narrowing, and one point can be given each.
Bodybuilding: 3 points
Strength Lift: 2 points
Give the impression of the opposite sex
Although fat people are not very popular with women. But believe it or not, many girls prefer the strength of the athlete's figure to the muscle drawing, the "muscle monster" with the blood vessel bursting.
In addition, you must have brushed up on the remarks of "listening to the advice of the sisters, the muscles are all scumbags". This is because some of the "big turnips" have impure motives, training for the sake of making girls, and ruining the image of fitness enthusiasts in the minds of women.
So in this case, the strength lifter is even better.
Strength Lift: 3 points
Effect on lifespan
At the end of the day, we all want to live longer in good health. This is also our last criterion. Strength lifting and bodybuilding, which sport leads to a better quality of life and a longer lifespan? In the pursuit of extremes, strength lifts sometimes place a huge burden on the body and heart. But at the same time, many more bodybuilders died young.
Data doesn't lie. Professional bodybuilding causes more problems and shorter life expectancy for bodybuilders. This is largely blamed on substance abuse as well as extreme diets.
So in this regard, the powerlifters scored a point by a slight margin.
Strength Lift: 4 points
summary
Bodybuilding and strength are different and inseparable. Judging from the above points, in the field of ordinary fitness trainers, strength lifting exercises win by a slight margin. At the end of the day, the functionality of exercise and its impact on quality of life are slightly more important than the aesthetics of the body.
Love is above all else, whether it is bodybuilding, strength lifting, or street fitness, Olympic exercise, sticking to your favorite training style is the long-term solution. The body is the capital of the revolution, and health is always the first priority.