Strength training doesn’t live and die by Powerlifting

As of the end of 2018, USAPL has 22,026 members.

While I cannot find the membership information for USPA, let’s assume it is equal for the sake of argument.

Those two are the largest raw powerlifting federations in America who hold the most visible meets, the largest meets, and the most popular.

Other federations exist but there is a good chance membership in the smaller feds crosses over with either USAPL, USPA, or both.

We will round the number up to 45,000. 

The population of America is 327 million people.

This means less than 1% of the population competes in powerlifting or holds a membership for a powerlifting federation.

That’s it.

USAW has 26,000 members for a combined total between powerlifting and weightlifting of approximately 81,000 people.

That is still less than 1% of the population who actively competes in one of those strength sports.

Pretty small number of people isn’t it?

Compare this to the number of members in the USPA (United States Parachute Association – which I found by trying to find the PL federation numbers) at 40,000. Parachuting is almost equal with the whole of powerlifting and weightlifting.

Strength training is not about the platform, and it doesn’t begin or end with competing.

Competing in a strength sport is one small part of strength training and it isn’t required to show how strong you are, how you’ve progressed, or how you feel.

Competing is fun, rewarding, and challenging, but so is training in a gym with your friends, getting stronger, feeling better, and living a life without one day of putting a singlet on and testing yourself in a competition.

What’s cool about Kansas City Barbell is we will support you if you want to compete, as we definitely have our share of competitors, but we also have dozens of people who just love to train, be strong, and live their lives.

Those non-competitors are just as valued and important as the ones who compete because our job is to improve your life one day at a time.

Competition is a hobby, strength training enhances your life.

Our value to you lies in using our services of coaching and programming to reach your physical goals whether they happen on the platform or just because you want to do it.

Don’t think our purpose is pumping out competitors left and right, our reason to exist is to bring our type of strength training to the beginner to the advanced, to the teenager to the baby boomer, to everyone.

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