3600 word article, around 15-20 minute read.
Equipped Powerlifting is not something I thought that I would end up pursuing when I embarked on my strength journey in 2013. To be truthful I had very little understanding of what it actually was until I immersed myself in it, and decided I was going to go head-first into competition. This blog post will go into detail on my experience of learning about and competing in single ply powerlifting.
July 2024 – The first time getting into a squat suit.
The first opportunity or incentive I had to explore the idea of trying it was at Wiltshire’s Strongest 2024. This strongman competition had a squat event and a deadlift event that allowed the use of supportive suits. The event had both a squat and deadlift event.
At the time of signing up to Wiltshire’s, my max “raw” squat was around 210kg, and in knee wraps 220kg. The squat event itself was 250kg for maximum repetitions. I knew I had a long way to go to be able to stand a chance on scoring any points on this event and not “zero” by failing the lift completely. The deadlift event was 275kg for reps. My max deadlift at the time of signing up was around 245kg. Again, I knew I was going to need every little bit of help I could get to get up to this level.
In July 2024 I ordered my first squat suit – the cheaper, “introductory” Spartan suit by Titan – size 48 as recommended for a 120kg lifter. The suit cost £119. In my first few exploratory sessions, my training partner and I (Tim) who was also doing Wiltshire’s, set up a “to-pads” World’s Strongest Man style squat to replicate the competition event. Compared to squatting raw, there was certainly a lot of help from this suit when taking a wider hip-dominant stance. This was very different to my “normal” squat stance which historically has been very narrow and quad dominant.
This specific set-up, with tyres making contact with pads very slightly above parallel, and the use of knee wraps, encouraged a very fast and limited range of motion to complete the lift efficiently. The most comfortable way to wear the suit, week-in and week-out was by wearing polyester under-shorts that the suit would comfortably slip over. This made getting in and out of the suit extremely easy and relatively low impact on the skin itself. The suit would still “bite” to the extent I would be left with love-bite type burst blood vessels on the legs, but it would not be painful. When wearing the suit like this however with an under-layer, the suit legs will slip up and down during the squat meaning there is less “stretch” of the material and less elastic potential stored. In my mind it was a bit of a trade-off between comfort and performance as I was using the suit constantly in training whilst preparing for the event.
In July, I also purchased a KAOS multiply deadlift suit. Before ordering, I had emailed Luke with a list of my measurements and asked for advice/recommendations on suit sizing. Luke promptly responded and advised a size 52 suit. Including postage, I paid £235. The suit arrived a week or so later in a very expensive looking box. My experience lifting in this suit was absolutely terrible. I am prepared to expect some level of discomfort but every attempted set in this suit would leave me wanting to vomit and completely winded. I had very little return in terms of additional kilo’s on my pull. I actually found it would make the pulls consistently worse, and harder, as I could not achieve any level of brace or efficient position whilst wearing it. Instead of leaving cosmetic-only love bites on my skin around the legs, this suit would actually leave painful bruises where the seams were so rigid and tight. The suit increased speed of the floor but put me in such a poor position the lockout always ground to a snails pace and became overly taxing. This piece of equipment had adjustable Velcro straps which meant that it could be manipulated to be tighter or looser. The cost of wearing this suit in training in some crucial weeks of training was regression, fatigue and frustration. As far as I am aware, this type of suit material does not have a “breaking in” effect where it becomes more pliable and stretches better. Ultimately I was not convinced after around 3 sessions in it that things were ever going to get better, so I opted not to continue with it. The suit now acts as an expensive wall hanging and I will likely sell this on. Unfortunately after only a handful of uses the KAOS logo at the front has peeled off, which will likely impact its resale value.
The final few weeks of training for the competition I had experimented with deadlifting in the Spartan squat suit – but backwards. This is something I had seen done by lifters at an international standard in Powerlifting. The single ply squat suit was much easier to get into an efficient deadlift position and gave a small amount of “pop” off the floor at the bottom, and absolutely nothing at lockout. If I had to put a number to it I would imagine it gives around 2.5 to 10kg at the absolute most over an ordinary raw deadlift.
By the time Wiltshire’s came around in September, I had squatted to pads 264kg on an axle bar with tyres; 14kg above the competition weight. I had not deadlifted above 240kg. My confidence for the squat event was high. I felt that I had a chance of repping the event weight and was willing to “go there” to get off to a good start and score some big points in the competition. Upon arriving at the event, I queued up at the entrance of the gym with my coach Laurence Shahlaei and Canadian professional strongman Mitch Hooper, who was just off the back of winning a Giants Live show in Birmingham the night before. Both were there to support the running of the event, not compete! Loz candidly planted the seed that I had been pegged as a favourite to podium at this competition. I wasn’t so sure as I knew that I stood a good chance of scoring zero points on the deadlift.
A few hours into the day and the time had nearly come to get up on the platform and squat. The running order had not been shared beforehand so I had checked the spreadsheet that had me 3rd up. Something changed however and when it was time for the Open category to start lifting, suddenly I was first up. I was putting on my wraps in a hurry to say the least. Warmups had felt fantastic, and all moved very well. But getting under the 250kg first, and failing, was demoralising. Zero repetitions and therefore zero points on the event I had expected to be one of my strongest by all accounts.
The most dissapointing moment of lifting in the whole year – failing 250kg at Wiltshire’s Strongest 2024
The competition went on – five of the nine athletes in the Open category managed to squat the weight for at least a repetition and the winning score was 9 reps. On the Yoke I placed 3rd, Viking Press 4th, and Sandbag 2nd. I moved a 250kg deadlift with good speed in the warmup, but in the event could not get 275kg past my knees despite breaking it off the floor.
Ultimately I did not place as zeroing on two of 5 events costs a lot of points. I was leaving the comp feeling like I certainly had not “shown up” on the squat, which frankly was shit as I had a lot of fun training for it and felt like it had progressed a lot – just not enough! As is normal with almost all Strongman events I have competed in, I score highly on dynamic “moving” events but poorly on static heavy events. There is a big weak spot in my overall package as a strongman, and I had seen this at every Open level competition I had taken part in.
In prep for Wiltshire’s, there was one session in particular in Wales where I did not have access to my normal set-up of squat to pads. This meant I would just be doing a free squat, hopefully to a similar intensity/load that I had planned to do in training of around 240kg for 2 reps. This session was a bit of a breakthrough moment for me as I comfortably hit this set to full “IPF” depth. It planted a seed that this may in fact be a fun thing to do in Powerlifting. In the warmup room for my last powerlifting competition in May 2024 I shared a rack with an equipped powerlifter, Jack Barber. In the months following, Jack Barber put in amazing performances at a European and World Championships. Getting a glimpse inside the technicalities of him warming up to a max equipped squat and bench certainly sparked my interest at the time.
After flopping at Wiltshire’s, I needed something else to commit to. I needed to prove to myself that I could be a big squatter. And I needed to bring up my weak static lifts to become a better Strongman. Enter “one more comp”, the 4th competitive outing in 2024. Much to my dutiful and loving partner Meg’s despair (I jest, she is extremely encouraging). Jingle Plates, down in Gosport, was the perfect opportunity to get into equipped powerlifting, as most of the powerlifters there train under equipped powerlifting legend Dean Bowring’s guidance. Now I had committed to competing in December I would need to acquire some more kit! I bought an Oni Bench Shirt 3XL for £119 as this was the cheapest one available. All sources of information and advice always suggest looking for used second hand equipment to try out before buying new, but the chances of coming across something on eBay or Facebook Marketplace in the right size is quite unlikely (trust me – I am constantly looking!).
Equipped benching has by far been the most difficult lift to accomplish of the three. There is a very narrow “sweet spot” where the weight is both heavy enough to actually provide enough load onto the shirt for it to be able to touch the chest, and light enough that you will be able to finish the press once the help from the shirt has eased off towards lockout. A new shirt will also be a lot stiffer and less pliable than one that has been properly and progressively “broken in” over a period of 5+ sessions. It took me around 6 sessions in the Oni shirt before I made the decision that it was extremely unlikely I would be able to touch, and therefore meet competition standards. At this point I then invested in a Super Katana bench Shirt, Sized 52 with Angled Sleeves (apparently more suited for benchers with a significant arch – not sure if I qualify as this?). This cost £200. It is roughly two sizes up from the Oni. It took five more weeks of breaking in the Super Katana before I finally touched and pressed with 170kg, which is around 10kg over my all-time raw bench PB. My comfortable touch-weight that became fairly routine was then around 180kg. I hit this in training with probably a 50% success rate in subsequent weeks leading up to the competition in December, so it became my opening weight.
In October I also went down the road of upgrading my squat suit from the entry level Spartan to the more popular and more supportive Super Centurion. At first I bought a size 46 regular stance, for £200. I thought sizing down should be the way to go as my experience with the Spartan was that the shoulder straps and body became very loose after a few months of training and competing in it. Upon receiving the suit, I attempted to get in it but failed as it just felt like it would not go up beyond my thighs. Pullum Sports were happy enough to accept it as a return and then I replaced it with a size 48 wide stance, which cost £236. This went on a lot easier and I was able to break it in to be able to hit depth within a single session. I also upgraded my knee wraps to the Titan Signature Gold at a cost of £53.50.
The prep for the “Jingle Plates” powerlifting competition in December was enjoyable. I put in an “extra” squat and bench session on the Sunday when I would have more time to get in and out of the equipment. The intricacies of warming up raw and then putting the kit on and adjusting it between sets meant that it was often very time consuming to do this, so on weekday evenings it would impact the amount of other work and accessory training I could get done in the session. I was able to progress the weights steadily on the squat in prep up to a top weight of 255kg. My heaviest bench press in training was 195kg.
Through the weeks of training and certainly at the competition in December, the feedback I had from the more experienced equipped lifters based in Gosport was that my kit was WAY too loose. To get the most out of the kit, it should be extremely difficult to hit depth in the squat without close-to max weights, but I was able to achieve it at around 170kg. The legs felt tight-ish but the hips, body and shoulder straps all became very slack after only a few uses.
Despite the loose equipment, the competition still went well. I went 2/3 on squats, finishing with a 257.5kg squat, which bested my in-training top rep by 2.5kg. I loaded up a hail-mary attempt of 275kg for the third attempt but ran out of steam and failed the rep. Bench went 2/3 as well, with 190kg passed with two white lights despite some alleged but-lift called out by one side ref. 197.5kg was not there on the day. Deadlifts I took a big jump from my opener of 225kg up to a second attempt of 252.5kg to secure a 700kg total and just about hit the qualifying total for British Equipped Nationals. The final deadlift attempt of 260kg halted at the knees.
Locked in in the warmup room; Jingle Plates December 2024.
Over the next few weeks, I went back and forth in my mind on whether or not I would throw my hat in the mix for Nationals. I had never completed a prep in as short a timeframe as this would allow. Ultimately I decided I would give it my best shot. I knew it was likely to be difficult to improve on my performance from December, as there was no real opportunity to build up the strength any more. I even speculated that trying to “peak” again in such a short window would actually lead to some regression in my top-end strength. This uncertainty lead me to making a big leap and moving on from being coached by Loz. Without a doubt he has an excellent portfolio in Strongman coaching but there were so many questions and puzzles to solve specific to Equipped lifting that I needed guidance from someone with more specific experience with single ply, IPF, equipped.
I contacted Rob Palmer of 949 Strength over Christmas and explained in full where I was at with everything – in a sense a complete beginner but also now only 3 weeks away from arguably the highest level competition I have ever had the opportunity to take part in. What followed was an intense “super-peak” in 3 weeks where the training was both completely stripped back of almost all accessory work, and intensified with supra maximal and isometric punishment. Rob gave me a huge amount of help practically and also mentally in the run up to the British, and seeking this out certainly paid off.
In the downtime over Christmas I also took it upon myself to make some alterations to my equipment myself. I bought a cheap sewing machine from Argos and had a crash course from the grandmother-in-law, and another refresher from my own mother. Within the ethos of “it doesn’t need to look pretty, it just needs to work” I made my best attempt at altering the shoulder straps of my Super Centurion squat suit and the torso/hips of my Spartan suit that I was deadlifting in. To this day, this is an ongoing project to either modify the current equipment, making adjustments to make it tighter, or source new smaller equipment and get into it to break it in. The amount of information available online is so limited, besides Bryce Krawczyk of Calgary Barbell’s brief YouTube explanation on modifying single ply equipment.
Normally when any of the OBC guys compete we have a whole entourage of training and partners and experienced handlers to assist in the warmup room. On this particular weekend, and because it was about 3 hours by car to the venue, no one was available. In classic “raw” powerlifting; no big deal – the biggest battle is getting the knee sleeves on and remembering to submit your attempts to the table after lifting. In equipped however it is a whole different ball-game in the warmup room. Monitoring the scoresheet and the platform to get the timing right for knee wraps, helping lift up the shoulder straps on the suit, having handfuls of powders and inhalants in an instant when the time is right. There is a lot more asked of and given by the lifter’s team on hand. On the day of the British I was lucky enough to have the support of my amazing partner Megan, who initially was nervous about being my handler, but rose to the occasion massively. She was fully attentive with chalk, talk, ammonia, and of course encouragement and company.
By the time Nationals came around in January my top weights in training were a 267.5kg squat, in a new set of Titan THP Knee wraps as recommended by the new coach. These cost £42.75. Bench remained inconsistent and challenging as it was no where near a 100% success rate to touch the chest properly when wearing a shirt. A few sessions were done in the smaller Oni shirt before ultimately deciding that I would lift in the Super Katana. The biggest change for Nationals was deciding to deadlift in Sumo style as it seemed to be consistent and reliable in the Spartan suit. I had roughly 3 weeks of training Sumo deadlifts and was able to pull 260kg in training, an all-time PB, exceeding my conventional deadlift that I had trained non-stop for the last 10+ years. Apparently Sumo suits my leverages better!
Within minutes of arriving at the venue for Nationals, I quickly remembered that if you have been to one powerlifting meet, you have been to all of them. It felt no different to any of the other competitions I have been involved with, frankly. The smells, sounds, and timings of the day – all the same. The day got off to a great start – 3/3 attempts and 9/9 white lights finishing on a 270kg squat which looked and felt easy. Before walking out onto the platform for the final squat, I did have some doubts about the quality of the knee wrap on my right leg. I second guessed myself thinking I had wrapped “in” instead of my usual wrapping “out. It felt completely off, and naturally I imagined the catastrophic double quad tendon detachment they might be a preferable outcome over the alternative of sitting down again and re-wrapping after I had already had the “bar is loaded” call-out to the platform.
My “redemption” moment, finishing a 270kg squat at British Equipped Nationals.
The bench opener flew up at 180kg but lost out on a 190kg due to butt lift. Unfortunately missed out on 190kg when re-attempting it on the third. The deadlift opener at 230kg moved like and empty bar, but a second attempt of 255kg looked a lot more difficult. Some words of wisdom and encouragement from some of the other guys in the session between the second and third attempt galvanised me to do better. I locked out 260kg convincingly with improved technique. This left me with a 710kg total and landed me in 3rd place out of 5 guys in the -120kg weight class. A bronze medal at my first Nationals was a big win. Rounding out a competitive season of 5 back-to-back preps in 8 months with one big foot on the ladder in equipped lifting feels very satisfying.
What I hope for now is that by sharing my experiences I can persuade others to give it a try. I am hoping for an equipped powerlifting Renaissance in British Powerlifting. I am under no illusions that it is expensive. In the 6 months of trial and error, I have spent £1005.25 on equipment alone. The plan is to re-sell and recover some of the costs for the kit that I have not modified. But long-term, I will also need to acquire and break in smaller and tighter kit. This acts as a secondary “goal” running parallel to the slow and steady development of strength. Both pursuits will bring you closer to a bigger total. Whilst from the outside there is a steep learning curve and a significant lack of information online, the addition of the kit makes the sport so much more exciting. So much more can go wrong, and so much more can go right. Ultimately all powerlifters, raw and equipped, want the experience and achievement of lifting as much weight as possible. And the bottom line is, you will lift more in the kit.
