In the past when I was doing bodybuilding in the gym, I originally never wanted anything to do with barbell at all. I avoided the barbell work but that was up until I discovered the sport of powerlifting. Now I’m all over the barbell. I discovered powerlifting two years ago thanks to friends that are powerlifters and they got me into it really. Thanks to powerlifting, I’ve had a change of heart with the barbell and now I’m all over it.

I’ve been doing barbell work bench, squats and deadlift… the big three lifts used for powerlifting meets. Then I decided to get into a few more barbell exercises for more additional strength/muscle work: the standing overhead barbell press and the barbell hip thrusts.

I got into doing barbell overhead press (standing) for shoulder work. Dong research on powerlifting, all powerlifters should do standing barbell overhead press ’cause it helps improves bench strength and yes it seems to be helping. Plus, if you want to have overall upper body strength, gotta do standing barbell overhead presses. If you’re going to bench and deadlift, gotta do standing overhead presses too. They all go hand in hand if you want to get real strong.

I’ve gotten into Barbell Hip thrusts for hypertrophy training ’cause I needed stronger glutes (or better known as the butt). When I went to physical therapy in the past, I was told that I have weak glutes and I really needed to strengthen them. So now that the gym is back, I’m doing a few things for the glutes and the barbell hip thrust is one of them. I learned that if you want to improve your squat and deadlift numbers, gotta have wicked strong glutes and gotta shape up your butt some. I would say that my glutes definitely needs more work and I’m working on that too. I learned that if you have wicked strong and muscular glutes then you’ll see big improvement in squat and deadlift for sure.

When you get into powerlifting training, you can’t just do the big three lifts only. Gotta do other things too and still can’t ignore hypertrophy training either. Can’t stop the bodybuilding training ’cause more muscle helps more strength too.

Been a few weeks back in the gym and my lifting coming along well. Getting back on track.

Kev