Hey Kara,

I just started competing in powerlifting and was able to qualify for the USAPL nationals with a raw total from my first meet. I don’t currently have gear, but was thinking it would be a good idea to get some and learn how to use it before that meet. My coach was telling me you have some pretty impressive numbers in the various lifts and might be able to give me a few tips on where to look for powerlifting gear and if there are any tricks to using it.

Any help you can give is appreciated,

thankx!!
M

Hey M,

That’s awesome that you qualified for USAPL Nationals raw! Good stuff. I’d be glad to help you out however I can with Powerlifting gear.

I’m not sure I can be tremendously helpful with suit tips because I never really did master them. I come from an Olympic Lifting background so I’m used to squatting and pulling completely raw. I just squat in a pair of briefs and a singlet in most federations, but briefs aren’t allowed in the USAPL so I use a loose suit when I compete there. Since you’ve been lifting raw for a while I definitely recommend getting suits that aren’t overly tight…especially the straps. You can ALWAYS alter the suits and make stuff smaller as you get more acquainted to gear.

Also, for now you can probably get away with wearing the same suit for squatting and deadlifting…particularly if you pull sumo.

Now bench shirts…I can definitely help there. I do tons of raw benching and even more overhead pressing, but for whatever reason I never felt uncomfortable in a bench shirt the way I did in suits. Once you get a shirt we can get more into training technique, ways to tweak the shirt to get more out of it, etc.

As far as to look for gear…sometimes you can find stuff on ebay. I’ve always worn Inzer gear so definitely check out Inzernet.com. I’ve tried every bench shirt imaginable and my favorite one is still the Inzer Rage X which is single ply and USAPL approved.

For suits the the Inzer TRX squat suit and Inzer Fusion deadlift suit are two of my favorites.  Both single ply and USAPL approved.  Don’t let the fact that they’re single ply fool you…these suits are extremely supportive and can provide great carry over to your raw lifts when used properly.

Like I said earlier…the suits are quite similar so you can really get away with wearing one for both the squat and deadlift. This is just my personal preference but I like the Fusion deadlift suit for both squatting and deadlifting after trying both for each lift. The legs are cut a little shorter and more straight across and the straps are a bit narrower than the TRX so it just feels a bit more natural. You can’t really go wrong with either though since they’re both great suits.

All the equipment I’ve mentioned is also VERY easy to alter which is great. I’ve done ALL my alterations myself on a $55 bottom of the line sewing machine from Walmart and I can’t sew worth a crap lol. The material is very easy to work with and hold alterations well. You can always just take the gear to a tailor too of course as you get more adjusted and want to tighten things up.

I know the stuff is expensive but it lasts forever. I’ve worn the same Rage X bench shirt for every single meet and training session I’ve done since 2006 and it’s still good as new! I’ve also worn it in competition at 165, 148 and 132 just altering it along the way.

A few final thoughts…since you are used to lifting raw, switching to equipment is going to be a big adjustment.  I definitely recommend not ordering your gear overly tight so that the transition isn’t too drastic.  As time goes on you can alter your gear accordingly.

You will also notice the lifts feel much different in equipment.  Your leverages, strong and weak points, sticking points, and technique may all be affected.  You may want to look into some specific exercises and routines for equipped powerlifting lifting.  I actually have another question to answer on that topic so check back here soon!

Keep me posted,

Kara