• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

P.A., G.P.C. and CAPO differences?

Kyle Aaron said:
Especially this one about the gym itself, I don't really care who's in what fed, but a good gym closed, that makes me sad.
https://www.facebook.com/DBSBarbell/posts/1372237666191324
Click to expand...

Pretty sad, sounds like what the gym was doing was ideal. A shame the IPF powers were against it..
The difficulty of making a profit in these locations is a shame.
It's the main reason I have to train at Fitness First, because there's no PL gym within reasonable distance as the rents too expensive near the city and it's too dense (noise complaints).

Kyle Aaron said:
But this is the fed nonsense bit.
https://www.facebook.com/DBSBarbell/posts/1370244843057273
Click to expand...
Pretty stupid that PA doesn't have novice comps for pre-registered lifters to try it out.
In a way they are using the other feds as many use the PTC novice comps then go and join PA. I'm one of them, although haven't decided on a fed yet but PA is up there.

Kyle Aaron said:
Note: my own lifters, the few who compete do it in GPC. This is simply because Markos running GPC also ran novice comps, and most people don't want to join a fed and get a gimp suit just to put their toe in the water, so to speak. I took lifters to just about every novice meet they had for 3 years straight. A while back I got a bit tired of blatant steroid use (at least be subtle FFS) and people using knee wraps to squat 80kg, and enquired with PA. Wilks told me I'd have to take old pics and vids of my lifters in other feds off my website. I am never going to deny my lifters' accomplishments to please someone else, so that was that. The people involved in GPC were just more accommodating and made things accessible.

Now Markos no longer runs novice meets, so far as I can see he's too busy with Big Dogs and all that. So this has raised the threshold for amateur lifters and I'll be able to have far fewer go through.

I don't like anything that makes all this less accessible. That includes drugs, and excessive drug-testing. That includes knee wraps and monolifts. That includes demands to take things off websites, or throwing people out of a meet's audience for wearing another fed's t-shirt. That includes softsuits and fed memberships. That includes three commands just for bench. And so on.
Click to expand...

I was lucky there are still good novice comps in Sydney, and hardly saw any knee wraps most people in sleeves and some even don't own/use a belt.
On the monolift we're allowed to walk it out which was just the same.

Can't believe you would have to take pictures of novice comps off your site, it's like trying to erase history as if it never existed.

Given all the shit in AU I feel to stay out of PA, which gives me the choice of multi-fed lifting GPC, CAPO, WRPF or anywhere really.
But all this makes me wonder what would happen if I want to switch to PA later - would I get asked to remove all my social media from the past? Would I get accused of using drugs by association?
 
Lifter_Dan said:
A shame the IPF powers were against it.
Click to expand...

That wasn't why the gym folded. It folded for the same reason the gym I was using 2 years ago folded. The building owners saw that they would make much more by tossing out the leasees and turning the place into apartments.

The main reason given of this gym folding was issues with the council. Not PA.

Pretty stupid that PA doesn't have novice comps for pre-registered lifters to try it out.
Click to expand...

Yes, novice events would be good for the nervous, but having been to both novice comps (oopsy) and PA comps, there is no real difference, apart from the clothing. The advantage of a real comp is that you get your results on record and you also have the chance to break or set a record.

I was lucky there are still good novice comps in Sydney, and hardly saw any knee wraps most people in sleeves and some even don't own/use a belt.
On the monolift we're allowed to walk it out which was just the same.
Click to expand...

...which would suggest that my observation is true. There is no real difference. Same equipment, same rules, except for the use of the singlet.

Can't believe you would have to take pictures of novice comps off your site, it's like trying to erase history as if it never existed.

Given all the shit in AU I feel to stay out of PA, which gives me the choice of multi-fed lifting GPC, CAPO, WRPF or anywhere really.
But all this makes me wonder what would happen if I want to switch to PA later - would I get asked to remove all my social media from the past? Would I get accused of using drugs by association?
Click to expand...

No matter where you go, you are going to run into politics. ALL of the feds, here and internationally, have issues with politics. That's why just in the USA alone there are over 50 federations. Someone gets a nose out of joint so takes their bat and ball and stomps off. Since most of the rules are the same (but judging quality varies hugely, hello Dave Hoff and Louie Simmons) the only difference between feds is politics and probably convenience. And the ability to use drugs unimpeded.

The same goes for all sport, from school footy to the Olympics. If you think you can get two or more people together and not have politics then you gonna have a hard time.

I try to let the politics pass overhead and just focus on my own performance. If you want to do something beyond flexing in the mirror, join a fed and get lifting.
 
Sorry I was probably a bit lax on my editing but I didn't mean the IPF issues were the reason it closed. Their post is clear on that was financial and council.
I should have put in a different paragraph but what I meant is it's a shame people were against the fact they wanted their gym to be federation free and all lifters to be able to come there.

Personally choosing a novice event for me wasn't because of nerves - it's because I wanted to see how an event runs yet I have no idea which federation i want to join. Novice comp allowed that and kept my options open. Also I don't own a singlet yet too :)
Sure there isn't a HUGE difference, but my point was that the people who run these novice comps are opening up accessibility of the sport to "Try it out" before you buy in a way, and IPF doesn't contribute to that yet still gains from it as the sport grows from it.
Some leeway on guys like the Viets or some allowance for executive judgement to make rulings on the suspensions would be alot more sensible..

Anyway it's political crap and I shouldn't think about it as it doesn't really affect me yet. But it is holding me back from competing I guess until I can decide a fed.. maybe I'll just do another novice comp :cool:
 
I contacted Wilks because I was looking into doing the PA coaching course, too. I wanted to be able to actually go backstage with lifters at PA meets, and you'll always learn something at a course. So I had to contact him. I'd expected a friendlier welcome since I was going to bring myself and 10 lifters to PA. But nup.

Anyway I would rather find out about a particular fed's bullsht before joining it, not after. And after 30 years, Wilks is PA, and PA is Wilks.
 
Last edited:
WoodyAllen said:
That wasn't why the gym folded. It folded for the same reason the gym I was using 2 years ago folded. The building owners saw that they would make much more by tossing out the leasees and turning the place into apartments.

The main reason given of this gym folding was issues with the council. Not PA.
Click to expand...
Again, claiming no special knowledge, just their public posts: it sounds like the gym wasn't run very well to make a profit. That is, they wanted a club, not a business. This is why they did things like set up in a small place near a uni rather than a larger place in an industrial area. And they charged mate's rates to everyone. A club. That's okay, but then you've got to set up as a nonprofit etc; but if you set it up as a business without the aim of making a profit, you won't make a profit, and it'll be a drain on you financially and mentally.

If the place were making a big profit and council were being cnts, no worries, just move somewhere else. It's what I'd do, we could move if we had to.

It looks like the PA suspensions led to a lot of PA lifters leaving so they themselves wouldn't be suspended, which was the final straw. It sounds like it also took the wind out of their sails, so to speak: "Really? fck you, then, we're off." Take up bat and ball and go home.

It's hard for a competitive powerlifting (harder still a weightlifting) gym to turn a profit. Having a wealthy sponsor helps, I imagine. But it's just a small market. Not many people want to grind away for years and years, and most athletes (in any sport) are broke and/or stingy. This is one reason I focus more on the "first 50% of potential" kind of client, people just trying to live better lives and get better at social sports. Not only am I better at that than as a competitive coach, and not only is it more fulfilling, there are just a lot more of them and they have more money. For me, the comps are mainly a way to keep people focused on lifting when it starts to get hard after 6 months or so. I love it as a sport, but mainly because it's one you don't have to be awesome to have a go at.
 
Last edited:
Timeah said:
The trick to joining and enjoying PA is to...not fucking contact Wilks before joing. Just signup online and pay the fee. He did infact block me the first year i tried to join. Gave me the same gargle cock sucking bullshit.
So i waited til the following year and just joined anyway online. Havnt had an issue in doing it that way.


Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


nothing ever changes.
 
Kyle Aaron said:
I contacted Wilks because I was looking into doing the PA coaching course, too. I wanted to be able to actually go backstage with lifters at PA meets, and you'll always learn something at a course. So I had to contact him. I'd expected a friendlier welcome since I was going to bring myself and 10 lifters to PA. But nup.

Anyway I would rather find out about a particular fed's bullsht before joining it, not after. And after 30 years, Wilks is PA, and PA is Wilks.
Click to expand...

it is a joke.

just go ahead and run your own novice comps; I organised one in canberra, not hard.

who wants to pay nearly $200 annul membership to such an insignificant sport anyway.
 
why not, one or two for druggies, one or two for tested, and one or two for novices. we should emulate the madness of US powerlifting.
 
spartacus said:
why not, one or two for druggies, one or two for tested, and one or two for novices. we should emulate the madness of US powerlifting.
Click to expand...
Even better, we could emulate US boxing. That way all the best lifters could avoid actually competing against each-other unless they got $10 million for pay-per-view. We could have world champions who've been to two meets in their lives. And none of this "community" nonsense, we could have months of trash-talk before each meet! AWESOME.

Wilks, Coates, whoever. I think probably five years is the longest anyone should be in charge of some sport, or an Olympic committee. I don't think it benefits any organisation to have the same person in charge for decades.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top