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Bodybuilding
Dr. Horwitz won his height class in the 1986
A.A.U. Collegiate Mr. America
In only his second bodybuilding contest, Dr. Horwitz won his height class in the 1986 A.A.U. Collegiate Mr. America Bodybuilding Championships.
The sport of bodybuilding requires the athlete to pose to
show his/her muscularity, definition and proportions.
Most of the time, the athletes compete by weight class and
age category. Sometimes, they compete by height class
instead of weight class. A typical contest is divided
into a morning round of mandatory poses and an evening
round of an individual posing routine and pose off.
In the morning, the bodybuilders must perform mandatory
poses, which are done from the front, sides and back.
All the competitors in each weight class come out on stage
and pose in front of the judges. The judges will pick out
several top competitors in each class and make them pose
against each other. Scores for each athlete are then
tabulated.
In the evening, each competitor performs an individual
posing routine to music, which lasts between 60 and 90
seconds. Posing for this long is quite exhausting.
The top three or five in each class are asked to "pose
off" against each other and a winner is proclaimed.
Then, the winners of each weight class pose off and an
overall winner is chosen.
Definitions of Weightlifting
There are several categories of people who exercise with weights. These
categories are often referred to as: weight lifting, weightlifting,
Weightlifting, weight training, bodybuilding, powerlifting, lifting,
Olympic lifting, Olympic-style weightlifting, strength training and
resistance training. Let's clarify the differences.
Weightlifting: Weightlifting, weight lifting and weightlifting all
have a "generic" meaning which refers to the activity of lifting weights.
To those who are well versed in the use of weights, the word weightlifting
has a particular meaning. It refers to the Olympic sport of Weightlifting,
which tests strength a power through two methods of lifting a barbell
overhead - the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Weightlifting is the only
Olympic sport involving weights, which is why it is sometimes referred
to as Olympic lifting or as Olympic-style lifting, or Olympic-style
weightlifting.
Weight Training: Weight training refers to any activity which
involves the use of weights. The term weight training is commonly used
in referring to people who lift weights but not for the purpose of
competing in bodybuilding, powerlifting or weightlifting (although
many people lift weights as a means for improving their performance
in another sport). Many people who lift weights refer to themselves
as "lifters" for short.
Resistance Training: Resistance training is an even broader term
than weight training because resistance can be supplied by weights,
machines, rubber strands and any number of other devices that resist
the movement of the exerciser. It is nearly impossible to engage in
any vigorous resistance training without getting stronger as a result.
However, strength training is a means of training with resistance that
is focused on improving strength, as compared with muscle size (although
people who train for strength are often seeking increased muscle size as
well).
Bodybuilding: Bodybuilding is a sport or activity in which the
primary objective is to develop the size of the skeletal muscles.
Bodybuilders focus on other areas as well, such as developing all of
the muscles proportionally (symmetrically), minimizing body fat and
increasing their strength. Because bodybuilders focus on muscular
development, that is the main thing they achieve. Strength, for example,
tends to take a back seat to size (though many bodybuilders are very
strong).
Powerlifting: Powerlifting is a great sport that was conceived as a
pure test of strength. And it tests strength about as well as
Olympic-style Weightlifting. The sport that consists of three events:
squat, bench press and deadlift. Powerlifters are very strong because
they focus on developing that capacity exclusively. Overall, the
strength of powerlifters very close to that of Olympic-style
weightlifters. However, powerlifting is not an Olympic sport and it
has multiple "federations" which govern it, so there can be multiple
"world champions" each year (Olympic-style Weightlifting has only one
international governing body and one world champion per weight class
worldwide). Powerlifting is also not practiced as widely as
weightlifting. For all these reasons, the level of competition tends
not to be as high in powerlifting as it is in weightlifting, which is
why competitive Weightlifters, as a group, have earned the right to
call themselves the strongest athletes alive. More importantly, no
other athletes approach the strength of weightlifters and powerlifters,
as the men and women who compete in these sports are totally focused
becoming the strongest athletes in the world. Moreover, they compete
on measurable events which are standardized worldwide, so that
performances can be reasonbly compared. You won't see these athletes
flexing their muscles or lifting tree trunks on "pay-per-view",
but they are quietly driving the levels of human performance to
all time highs.
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POWERLIFTING
