NABBA England 2014 Training Diary: Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting

This journal follows junior bodybuilder Brandon Allsopp as he trains for the NABBA England 2014 contest in October.

You can read the introduction to the series here.

I want to start this week’s post with a question I often get asked.

“Out of all the sports you could do, why bodybuilding, what makes you want to do it?”

This is something I get asked a lot.

Well here’s the thing, do I enjoy getting up at 6am and doing cardio ?

Not really.

Do I enjoy being fucked on low carbs?

No.

What drives me is that image in my head of what I want to achieve and were I want to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love bodybuilding and I love being a bodybuilder.

This is something you won’t understand unless you’ve done it.

Knowing how hard this is, knowing not many people have the mentality to do it, is what pushes me to keep going.

It’s not easy that’s for sure, but in my mind I’m accomplishing something so many try and fail to accomplish and that is why I love this sport.

Now, moving on to my next topic…

Bodybuilding vs powerlifting

Are these two sports so different?

I don’t think so.

When people think of bodybuilding they think of freaky muscleheads tanned up on stage doing a posing routine.

When people think of powerlifting they think of massive guys with big guts throwing around some huge weights.

Well I think this belief is wrong as powerlifting has moved on drastically.

These days we see guys like Dan Green and Sam Byrd, to name a couple, who have tremendous physiques and still break powerlifting world records on a regular basis.

Now here’s my point – nutrition and training are vital in both, I just believe in powerlifting they are done in a different order.

In bodybuilding our main focus is diet as this is the main thing that gets us in shape to jump on stage and get us all where we want to be.

Training comes in second.

We still train our arses off day in day out but when we’re on stage the training is irrelevant – it’s how we look that wins shows.

Now in powerlifting the main focus is the training- smashing PBs is what every powerlifter strives for.

Then nutrition comes into it.

If you talk to most powerlifters these days they know how important nutrition is for performance, not for how they look but to enable them to perform at the highest level.

The days of guys with big guts and fat faces are becoming a thing of the past.

These guys know that having all that extra fat is just a hindrance and doesn’t really allow you to perform any better, it just slows you down.

If you’re going to be in the gym sweating your arse off lifting heavy weights, then looking like you do isn’t such a bad thing right?

Signing off

So there we have it, are these two sports so different?

Competitively, yes, of course they are, but how the athletes reach their goals isn’t so different at all.

If you have any questions or requests for future posts, then please just leave me a comment!