(19) ARE POWERLIFTING ATHLETES COMPETING IN DRUG TESTED FEDERATIONS WEAKER THAN THEIR UNTESTED COUNTERPARTS? A 10-YEAR LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS

Introduction: Powerlifting (PL) is a strength-based sport consisting of the squat, bench press, and deadlift. The objective of PL athletes in competition is to lift the greatest weight possible in each lift, thereby accumulating the greatest competition total (sum of greatest successful lift). Competitions are sanctioned by federations, each with their own parameters for testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs. Among the most popular “tested” federation is the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF), which sanctions many of the world’s largest PL competitions. However, it is currently unclear whether these athletes perform to the same standard as those in popular “untested” federations such as the Global Powerlifting Alliance (GPA), the International Powerlifting League (IPL), and the World Powerlifting Congress (WPC).

Purpose: The aim of this study is to analyse the longitudinal trends in strength across tested and untested PL federations.

Methods: All data was sourced via a public powerlifting database (openpowerlifting.org). To be included in the analysis, athletes must have competed between January 2012 to December 2022 and had a complete dataset pertaining to their maximum intra-competition squat, bench press, and deadlift. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the greatest totals achieved per year in each given federation.

Results: A total of 1,266,362 were extracted for analysis (IPF=873,010; GPA=19,893; IPL=188,582; WPC=184,877). The greatest competition totals achieved per year per federation can be seen in figure 1. Of the four federations, the IPF and WPC were seen to have a positive trend in strength, whereas the IPL and the GPA were seen to have a negative trend. Participation rates were seen to decrease across all federations from 2020 (IPF 2019=90,847 vs 2020=31,750; GPA 2019=2,275 vs 2020=1,074; IPL 2019=25,427 vs 2020=13,999; WPC 2019=12,287 vs 2020=5,642), with only the IPL returning to pre-2020 rates of participation by 2022 (IPL 2020=25,427 vs 2022=35,679).

Discussion: The maximum competition totals achieved in the IPF were consistently greater than those achieved in the IPL and GPA, suggesting that the potential for use of performance enhancing drugs does not significantly influence maximal strength expression in PL. Previous research has suggested that untested athletes are ~7% stronger for males and ~12% stronger for females at the elite level. Our data suggest that these previous findings may differ dependant on the federation of competition.

Practical Application: Because IPF athletes are consistently stronger than their IPL and GPA counterparts, coaches and athletes may look to model training and competition preparations on IPF athletes due to the continued progression of strength within the confines of tested competition.



Acknowledgements: None