Weightlifting & Strength Sports

"The strength sports answer the oldest athletic question — who is strongest? — with a barbell and a scoreboard. Where running measures how far and how fast, weightlifting and powerlifting measure how much: the most weight lifted, once, with strict technique, judged on a platform. Beneath that simple goal sits a deep and surprisingly precise science — of force and power, of leverage and bar path, of percentages and peaking — and a set of honest realities about technique, body weight, drugs, and safety that this book takes seriously. Strength is trainable, measurable, and for most people remarkably safe to pursue; this book shows how."

Strength underlies all of athletics and much of healthy aging, and the strength sports are where it is trained and tested most rigorously. Whether you lift for competition, for general strength and health, or coach others, you need an accurate model of what strength and power are, how the competition lifts work, and the honest realities — about technique, body weight, drugs, and risk — that the sport is full of folklore about. This chapter builds that frame.