There is a lot of precision necessary in competitive weightlifting, as very small differences between the stated weight and the actual weight of a bar or set of bumper plates can be the difference between a narrow success and a bitter failure.

This is what makes the equipment you use extremely important, and why there are such specific and strict restrictions on the design of the barbell, weights, collars, types of clothing and weight belts, debates over which have led to the creation of many different competition variations.

Weightlifting is about precision to an extreme degree, with competition rules having very specific and detailed tolerances, such as how bumper plates must be a certain size and weights must be within a tolerance of ten grams.

By contrast, strength athletics is not this at all, but why are two disciplines looking to find the world’s strongest people so different?

Strength Entertainment

More commonly known as strongman and strongwoman events, strength athletics is a series of often rather unusual events wherein athletes test their overall strength.

There are a lot of different types of strongman events, from pulling vehicles to deadlifting giant containers full of cheese, and the rather unusual nature of many of these events may provide an indication of the main differences between the two disciplines.

All strength competitions have their roots in early mythological feats of strength and the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, but unlike competitive weightlifting, was began its long and fraught process of standardisation in 1891 with the first World Weightlifting Championships, strength athletics arguably had two origins.

The first was the Highland Games, a modernised and structural adaptation of historic Celtic and Scottish feats of strength as part of a more general celebration of Scottish culture that began in 1820, during a period when Highland dress had been made illegal due to the Jacobite Uprising.

At the same time as this was the development of the strongman (and later strongwoman) as a common and rather popular travelling circus act.

Strongmen would typically lift heavy and rather unusual objects, as well as break chains, carry carts typically designed for oxen to pull, and bending iron bars, and lift exceptionally heavy stones.

A lot of early weightlifters and bodybuilders in the pre-Olympic days, such as Donald Dinnie, Eugen Sandow and Arthur Saxon, would make their name and reputation for performing such feats of strength, with the latter two being especially known for circus strongman acts.

By the 20th century, there were at least four particularly popular disciplines of strength athletics that were increasingly divergent from each other.

There were the Highland Games, which retained much of their traditional look and feel even today. 

There was also Olympic weightlifting, which focused primarily on technique and form, particularly as it became purely focused on just two lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk.

Beyond that, there was also powerlifting, an evolution and standardisation of a strongman-like event called odd lifts that focus on three core lifts (deadlift, squat, bench press).

And finally, the odd one out of the four, there were still circus performers and celebrities known for their feats of strength, such as David Prowse, who lifted the same stones Donald Dinnie did but became far more famous for being the man in the Darth Vader suit.

This meant that there was an appetite for combining the entertainment of a strongman act with a competitive event, and this led to the creation of World’s Strongest Man, arguably the most famous strength athletics event and the one that typically is first cited when people talk about the concept.

Initially, it was meant to pit athletes in various disciplines who could make a claim to be the world’s strongest man, such as shot putters, bodybuilders, powerlifters, amateur wrestlers and gridiron footballers, against each other.

Within a couple of years, it had become a discipline in its own right, thanks in large part to one of its earliest champions, Bill Kazmaier, a powerlifter who set multiple world records, deadlift a 2555lbs car and winning three World’s Strongest Man competitions in a row.

This, rather amusingly, led to him claiming that he had the exclusive right to call himself the World’s Strongest Man, but when this was tested in court, the verdict was that the term was so nebulous and was not awarded by any official governing body that no single person could make that claim.

This vagueness and vast differences between competition rules are part of the reason why weightlifting is so standardised; as long as everyone follows the rules, there is no ambiguity as to which person is the best weightlifter in a particular contest according to a certain set of rules.