Working out at home is one thing if you want to lose weight or get in shape for the first time. But it’s another ballgame entirely if you’re a powerlifter and the goal of your sport is to get as strong as humanly possible. This typically requires specialized equipment and of course, weights. Lots and lots of weights.
So what if you’re a powerlifter stuck at home with minimal equipment? Can you still make progress on the squat, bench press and deadlift? The answer is absolutely yes. You just have to get a little creative. Here are 3 ways powerlifters can get stronger at home:
Use the Hardest Supplementary Lifts You Can Think Of
If you have a barbell but not a lot of weight, you can still perform supplementary lifts. A supplementary lift is defined as a close variation of the competition exercise (squat, bench press or deadlift) that:
- Must show direct transfer to strength or technical mastery
- Must not take away from technical aspects of the competition lift
For example, pause squats, box squats and squats to pins are all supplementary lifts for the competition squat. Each exercise has one or two small changes that makes it more difficult to perform and helps the lifter become more aware of the technical aspects of the lift. Strength House coach Greg Robins does a great job explaining how to choose supplementary exercises in this video:
In general, the harder the supplementary lift, the less weight you can use because there will be more breakdown in technique. So if weight is limited, make the exercise really hard! Consider things like:
- Squat: changing your stance (narrower or wider), changing your bar position (higher on your back or front squat), adding pauses (at the bottom, on the way down or on the way up), changing tempo (going slow on the way down and/or the way up), adding a box or pins at your sticking point, removing supportive gear (no belt, no knee sleeves, flat shoes instead of heel-elevated shoes)
- Bench Press: changing your grip (generally narrower), changing your foot position (feet up, Larsen press), changing the bench angle (incline or floor press), adding pauses (on the chest, on the way down or the way up), changing tempo (going slow on the way down and/or the way up), adding pins at your sticking point, removing supportive gear (no wrist wraps, no belt)
- Deadlift: changing your stance (narrower or wider), using opposite stance (switching to sumo if you pull conventional and vice versa), change your grip (go double overhand as long as possible, try hook grip), change your hip position (stiff-legged deadlifts, RDLs), increase range of motion (deficit deadlifts, snatch grip deadlifts), adding pauses (on the way up or the way down), changing tempo (going slow on the way down and/or the way up), removing supportive gear (no belt)
As you can see, combining multiple factors can make these movements REALLY hard and dramatically decrease how much weight you need to challenge your technique. Granted, each factor makes the movement a bit less specific to the competition lift, but we’ll take what we can get right now while gyms are closed and equipment is limited.
Focus on Hypertrophy
“I don’t care what I look like as long as I’m getting stronger,” is the company line for most powerlifters. And while powerlifting isn’t a beauty contest, I think this Immortal Barbell comic captures the half-truth of that statement.
In all seriousness, training for hypertrophy (muscle growth) is an indirect way to improve maximal strength. Strength is largely neurological, in that LEARNING the movements and becoming as efficient as possible is going to have the biggest impact. However, increased muscle size enhances your CAPACITY for maximal strength. More muscle means more soldiers to fight the battle, so to speak.
So it’s entirely possible to get stronger at home by shifting your training to focus on hypertrophy. If you pick the right exercises, you can build muscle without terribly heavy weights.
Requirements for a quality muscle-building exercise include:
- Can be progressively overloaded (i.e., you can add weight to the movement over time)
- The target muscle fails first before technique or other factors
That last point is incredibly important and actually works to your advantage at home. In pretty much all big, heavy barbell movements, the target muscles DON’T fail first. Technique will almost always degrade before the muscles fail. Or another muscle group will crap out first (i.e., the back fatigues before the legs in the squat or deadlift, the triceps fatigue before chest in the bench press, etc.).
But if you’re at home with limited weights, you’ll be forced to use exercises and techniques that bode better for hypertrophy than maximal strength. I discuss many of these things in my post, 20 Lessons from Working Out at Home, but most importantly:
- Use movements that aren’t skill-intensive (i.e., a lunge takes less skill than a pistol squat)
- Don’t worry about the exact number of reps, but rather how close to failure you go (2-3 reps shy of failure is a good place to start, don’t go to all-out failure right away)
- Try to add volume each week (an extra set per exercise works well)
- Use movements that overload the muscular contraction (i.e., suspension-trainer flyes overload the pecs better than dumbbell flyes)
Remember, if you don’t perform a single rep of the competition squat, bench press or deadlift during this downtime, but you emerge from quarantine a more jacked human, you’ll have spent your time wisely.
Learn New Stuff
Knowledge is power. Even if you’re not a coach or trainer, taking time to learn new information about powerlifting can arm you with the knowledge necessary to keep improving. Plus, it’ll probably get you excited to train, which is always a good thing.
There is absolutely no shortage of training information out there. Whether it’s technique, programming, nutrition, supplements, recovery, etc., the info is out there for the taking if you know where to look.
That’s why we at The Strength House are releasing our Optimizing the Big 3 seminar as an online powerlifting course on Monday, May 11. We’ve spent the better part of the last six years fine-tuning this presentation into what we believe is the most comprehensive and PRACTICAL powerlifting seminar out there.
Watch this video for a little preview of what you’ll get:
The course has over 6 hours of video content, and when you’re done, you’ll…
- Know the “why” behind different types of powerlifting programs (so you can write better programs)
- Better understand how to manage all factors that affect a powerlifter’s recovery (so you can better manage your clients and your own training)
- Understand optimal squat, bench press and deadlift technique (and how to adjust based on individual lifters)
- Know how to design warm-ups that actually work to keep lifters healthy (and aren’t a waste of time)
This course is split between theory and application so you can learn the WHY and the HOW to make yourself a better lifter and coach.
Optimizing the Big 3 will be on sale for just $99 for the first week, so don’t miss your chance to make some big brain gains! Click here for more info.
