The Florida Poly Women's Powerlifting team encourages women of all levels of lifting experience to come and gain knowledge about the sport and participate in a competitive and positive environment. Powerlifting promotes both mental and physical health and we prioritize maintaining the health of our team and injury prevention through proper form. The three main lifts of powerlifting are bench press, squat, and deadlift.
The values of our team align with Florida Powerlifting to promote natural powerlifting
competitions, training seminars, and fitness events. The program seeks to promote a healthy and active lifestyle that will encourage strength and fitness
enthusiasts to compete at the local, national, and international levels.
In this program, we will teach you the basics of form to prevent injury and ensure you're maximizing your strength. We have specified workouts so that you have guidance while in the gym and don't have to feel intimidated by the equipment or the idea of creating your own routine.
Women’s Powerlifting asks that you take up space and grow. It asks you to consider and measure strength, not your weight or body fat percentage. It encourages and embraces perseverance and resilience. It urges a sense of hope and aspiration that can only be found deep within.
The barbell doesn’t care how or what you look like, what you smell like, or if you are just starting or have been competing for years. You can either lift the weight or you can’t. And you can’t get stronger without confronting some discomfort and certainly some failure, with lessons that extend well beyond the platform.
Women’s powerlifting at all levels is surging. Approximately 47% of USA Weightlifting members are women, compared to just 17% in 2007. Worldwide female powerlifting meets have nearly doubled in participation between 2014 and 2018, from about 59,000 competitive lifters to more than 101,000.
Get stronger. Get better. Upgrade your momentum to gain strength, mobility, confidence, and a sense of pride with a barbell in your hands. Whether you're a lifter looking for a training program or a beginner looking to start, building strength starts at any point. Strength training is the secret to building your metabolism, which in turn means you can eat more calories.
Women’s powerlifting is a competitive outlet, but the competition is truly within yourself. As it moves from leisure to hobby to your weekly nourishment, becoming the strongest version of yourself develops a strong sense of self-confidence.
Women’s Powerlifting is a sport where you can always go heavier, you can always get stronger. You never "max out" or "plateau" – there's always something more you can do. Even if you are not the competitive type, powerlifting is an easy sport to stay involved with for decades. And if your drive wants to take you further…the records are always being broken, and we’ll support you on that journey.
Powerlifting training involves hard data — easily trackable numbers, indicators of your strength — that you can see improve dramatically over a short period of time. Powerlifting is a discipline that teaches you how to be confident in your body and your capability of doing more than you think you can do. It's an empowering way to get healthy and fit.
At first, lifting weights may seem frustrating when results aren’t immediate, but your efforts are not in vain: the first few weeks of training strengthen the nervous system, not muscles, according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience (2020).
Powerlifting is a sport that has tremendous potential for men and women of all ages and backgrounds. It's an activity that you can do in a gym (or even your own living room), requires no special equipment, and allows for an incredible amount of customization in how you train. This means that if you have a busy life, have bad genetics, don't have a lot of money, or just aren't sure how to get started, powerlifting is a sport for you.
The best thing about powerlifting is that it’s a very flexible sport. You can focus on your strength for a few months, then take those gains and apply them to other workouts, or, if you really catch the bug, you can keep powerlifting indefinitely. You will never run out of weight to lift, and you will never tire of growing stronger.
The USA Powerlifting Association hosts different events throughout the year, both smaller competitions within the state as well as national competitions such as the Collegiate Nationals. To compete, a USAPL membership card is required for most official meets. At these meets, there are different competitions such as powerlifting (combined total of deadlift, squat, and bench), push/pull (deadlift and bench), and individual lifts. We will focus on competing in the raw collegiate category. "Raw" refers to the level of equipment that you are permitted to compete with: wrist straps, knee sleeves, weightlifting belt, and shoes.
Competing in meets outside of Florida Poly is not a necessary element of the team. If you prefer to just gain strength and lift recreationally, you can still lift with us and participate in the workouts. If you do choose to compete, we can coordinate participation as a team so that you have others that you know with you when lifting.
Further information about practice dates and times will be determined but will take place in the weight room of the Florida Poly Student Development Center.
Students should bring shoes (preferably with a flat sole like Converse or lifting shoes), water, and any gear they prefer to use (wrist wraps, lifting straps, belts, knee sleeves, etc.). Gear is optional and not required to participate, especially when first starting, although you will earn some swag!
Questions about this team or want to join? Contact Derek Lower, Assistant Director of Campus Recreation.
