lalala
ok you buncha fruits....
Bodybuilder - One who engages in resistance exercise and specific dietary schedules with the primary aim of changing his / her body shape through the manipulation of his / her levels of lean body mass and body fat.
Weight Trainer / Weight Lifter (2 words) - One who engages in resistance training with the primary aim of recreation, increased health and wellbeing.
Weightlifter (1 Word) - One who participates in the sport of competitive Weightlifting, also known as "Olympic weightlifting / Olympic lifting, or simply "OL". Anyone who calls themselves a Weightlifter (1 word) had better be up on the platform, or training to get there, otherwise they are a "weight lifter" (2 words) or weight trainer. If you cant do the O lifts, you aint a Weightlifter.
Powerlifter - One who competes in the sport of powerlifting or one whos primary aim in training is to improve his / her prospective total in the sport of Powerlifting. If you don't regularly practice / train the 3 Powerlifts or variants thereof, then you are not a powerlifter, regardless of your mental belief that you are training to increase your PL total.
This last point is important. There ARE certain qualifications, for example a guy who has never competed in a PL meet, but intends to, and yet trains with leg extensions and kickbacks as his "big lifts" isn't a Powerlifter until he competes. At which point he will realise he fits in to the category of "Weight Trainer" subcategory "Deluded fool" and may either start training the big lifts with the purpose of competing (which would make him a powerlifter) or admit his recreational status and continue with his cable kickback pleasantaries. Ditto for OL folks, although this situation is less usual in OL simply because of the technicality of the lifts. If you are prepping for an OL meet, you are going to know how to snatch etc, there is just no getting around it. You get what i mean? Hypothetically, anyone who trains to increase their 3 lift total could be a powerlifter, but if they train in a manner that blatantly contradicts that supposed goal, then they are not so until they compete, at which point they ARE a powerlfiter regardless of how they train. For example, Ricjard Simmons might (in his own head) be a powerlfiter, but until he competes it will not be so. The 17 yr old kid I see training at my gym who busts his balls on deadlifts every Tuesday coz he want to enter an upcoming meet, IS a powerlifter, even tho he is yet to compete. He is training purposefully to compete in the sport, so he is a part of the sport. Same for the OL, if you can do a full snatch and clean, you are capable of being a Weightlifter. If you practice these lifts with the purpose of increasing your total in a proposed future competition, you ARE a Weightlifter. It is a mixture of mental intent and action that defines where Iron fans should be cloassified, and yes, BBing has more scope for grey areas than oher sports and , yes I can see why having to accept that Richard Simmons is a bodybuilder might piss some people off but hey thats life.
Cheers boys and girls, its been lovely posting on the normal board, I might venture out of the athletes section more often in future,
G.
