Must you compete in order to be considered a weightlifter? Let’s dive into this oddly contentious topic!
 
The simple answer is yes; you must compete in order to be considered a weightlifter. And, I’ll extend that answer to powerlifters as well! It seems there’s no easier way to spark hot and nonsensical debate among those who spend time with their hands on the barbell than to state that it is the competition platform that defines us. Here’s an exploration as to why.
 
Weightlifting and powerlifting are individual sports. As I’ve stated in previous writing, some might argue that weightlifting is the ultimate individual sport. (Powerlifters at least get spotters to punctuate the crushing isolation of the platform!) In all seriousness, both of these types of athletes compete in environments where they are solitary actors. The nature of these sports makes it easy to assume that if you are training like a weightlifter, you are a weightlifter. You may be training the Olympic lifts consistently, following weightlifting-specific programming, spending time in a gym with competitive weightlifters, or being guided by a coach who also coaches competitive athletes. You may even have a weight class in mind, and perhaps you track your macros or otherwise monitor your body to keep yourself within a reasonable margin to that weight class.
 
However, it seems unlikely that this analogy, this “I train as such and therefore am as such” logic would be extended to athletes in less-individual sports. For example, a rugby player who attends practice every day but who never plays in a game is unlikely to be considered a “rugby player” (or “rugger,” if you will) unless she has spent at least a handful of minutes on the field against an opposing rugby side. This hypothetical rugger may run through drills, push through brutal conditioning, learn to handle the ball, and develop rugby-specific skills. She may even have a position in mind, for which she’s doing position-specific skill and tactical work. However, the sum of these components of training does not equate to the experience of being in a game. This distinction is evident because we can see quite obviously the difference between being on the field in non-oppositional training, with one’s team, and being on the field in real time, with a referee and against an opposing side. Such a distinction is less obvious in weightlifting, but the conflation between training and competition is problematic, and diminishes the commitment of those who take the risk of stepping onto the competition platform.
 
A further thought in this vein: What about athletes who use weightlifting or powerlifting to supplement other training? Would we call the track athlete who follows weightlifting programming in the off-season to develop explosiveness a weightlifter? We likely would not. We offer precedence to the sport in which the athlete competes, which again offers an easy means of distinguishing between weightlifting and the lifting of weights. However, those individuals who do not have a primary sport may throw their knee sleeves around to hear this, because they may feel some of their athlete status stripped. This begs a similarly interesting question, which shan’t be explored in full here, of at what point does one hang up the athlete moniker? Those who train and have never competed, those who compete, retired athletes who still train, retired athletes who don’t train, athletes who compete and don’t train (who is this person?!), coaches, fans, and everyone else, occupy interesting space and hold various identities regarding their participation in whatever sport. Where the line is drawn for many of these distinctions may vary among sports and individuals and may also be a complicated line to draw given the way that identity constructs and politics are involved. However, the line between “weightlifter” and “lifter of weights” is still one drawn by the meet platform.
 
An interesting point of consideration may be where combat sports fall regarding this training versus competition dichotomy. As a former wrestler, I can attest to the fact that viscerally, it did not feel any different being thrown around the mat by a teammate in match-style training and being thrown around by a wrestler from an opposing team. The combat nature of these types of sports is rather intense in both training and competition. However, though the dichotomy may feel blurrier, there is still a distinction to be made between training matches and live matches. There’s even a linguistic distinction made in many of these sports, with “spar” referring to an out-of-ring, off-mat, beyond-what-have-you throwdown.
 
Athletes who’ve competed in these types individual sports can attest to the enormous amount of pressure one feels stepping onto the platform. People crumble on the platform. This does not mean to say that team athletes don’t feel similar pressure. However, I can say that one of the beauties of rugby, one of the things I love most about it, is that you can mess up in the first half and come back in the second. Tenacity, mental rallying, team culture, endurance, and so on are all factors that contribute to the comeback narrative. Many sports fans will tell you that the most interesting games are those in which the underdog comes back at the eleventh hour to win the game. The redemption of rugby is a wonderful thing.
 
Of course, weightlifters experience redemption as well! But, having been both on the field and on the platform, I do feel that the mental fortitude required to overcome a missed opening lift feels more substantial than that required to overcome a missed tackle. (If only six tackles were made during a rugby game, it would probably set some type of minimal world record.)
 
All this means to assert that the meet platform sets weightlifters apart from those who lift weights. Developing strength and technique can be done in training. Developing the mental capacity to perform well in competition requires competition. (Indeed, if you hit the platform as a method to develop strength, you might be a bit behind the game.)
 
We hear this narrative of “the mental game” again and again, in reference to athletes in various types of sports. It is a construct the world of sport definitely acknowledges. It is not distinct from the physical game, but rather occupies a fun Venn diagram where a combination of factors (some might say including “the X factor”) contributes to both performance and success.
 
A quick side note on the difference between performance and success: You may have the best meet of your life, and yet come in dead last in your weight class. You may also medal after having lifted poorly in a field of less-accomplished lifters. Depending on your goals, performance or success may be more important in any given moment. Personally, it is more important to me to walk away feeling like I’ve improved along metrics that are meaningful to me than it is to medal. An Olympic hopeful, I am not; a happy weightlifter, I am.
 
Another fun distinction between training for and competing in weightlifting is that you need not make weight to train. Sure, your coach could set up a scale at the gym door and refuse to coach you if you’re not within weight class, but technically you could overhead squat with a broom in your kitchen and call it training, if you were so inclined. There is no substitute for the stakes and the rigidity of making or not making weight when it comes to competition day. In local meets, if you exceed your registered weight class, you may be able to compete in the one just above it. But in larger or qualifying meets, making weight is make or break. People may crumble on the platform, but sometimes people crumble before they even get there.
 
Monitoring your food and bodyweight is arguably one of the hardest components of the weight classed sports. As someone who has done both weight classed and non-weight classed sports, I can say that the capacity to dig in and push into overdrive in a given workout or game, while hard for many, is vastly easier than the constant vigilance required to count macros, restrict food or consume enough of it, and do all of the preparatory work required to make weight. A lucky weightlifter may be able to pull some impressive lifts out of the bag in competition, but nobody can will themselves to weigh anything other than what they do. Grit and determination are amazing qualities, but they are not time-travelers. If an athlete following weightlifting programming has never had to consider, in real time, the pressures of making weight, even if that pressure is light due to sitting naturally at a favorable bodyweight, then that athlete has not experienced the full breadth and depth of the weightlifting experience.
 
There are many other arguments to be made for and against the statement that one must compete in order to be considered a weightlifter. The above are merely a few of the most salient ones. And, even the most measured of arguments may be disregarded by those with intense feelings surrounding their own participation in the sport. This topic is, indeed, a source of much debate. May the games begin!