3 Years Natural Bodybuilding
Trudi Miranda
This is part 2 in a series of 5 interviews with bodybuilder Tomas de la Milera. He is a 51 year old bodybuilder with a classic physique like Frank Zane. Peek into his world as he prepares for natural bodybuilding competition and he shares what it takes to be a natural bodybuilder.
What is strong? We live in a world filled with 1000 pound squat and 800 pound bench press Youtube videos. Kind of makes you feel weak, doesn't it? It sure makes me feel weak. There are a couple of key things you need to know about most of these lifts.
#1 - Training Gear. The guys putting up these monster numbers are for the most part using training gear. What is training gear? Training gear includes the use of specialized squat suits and bench shirts that are designed to help powerlifters add hundreds of pounds to each lift.
So when you see a guy benching close to 800 pounds with a bench shirt on, there's a good chance he "only" benches 500 without a bench shirt. The same goes for squats suits. A squat of over 700 without a squat suit is fairly rare. Add in a squat suit, along with knee wraps and squat briefs, which go under a squat suit to help move even more weight, and these guys are squatting over 1000 pounds.
#2 - Drugs. Another factor adding to these monster totals is an obvious one - steroid and human growth hormone usage. Now it is certainly not my intention to label everyone with a big lift as a drug user. I've seen some pretty staggering natural lifts in my day. With that said, drug use is fairly common in the sport of powerlifting, and I'm not going to lie to you and pretend it's not.
Before we move on any further, I want to make something very clear. The point of this article isn't to bash lifters who use training gear or drugs. This article exists to provide natural and raw strength standards to lifters who will never use either. Period, end of story. I respect the iron, and the men and women who move it, and am not here to judge or stir up debates.
Let's dive into the topic of raw, natural strength standards by analyzing the national records of several drug-free powerlifting federations. Some of these federations are large, and some modest in size.
These numbers will give you somewhat of a reasonable look at "elite" strength levels. They are not meant to be elite standards in and of themselves. I will make an attempt to define my opinion of elite standards later on.
It's safe to say that if you hit these numbers, you're well into Elite territory for a raw, natural lifter. It should also be noted that it is darn near impossible to hit a 2000 raw, natural powerlifting total. Only a small handful of natural lifters have performed this amazing feat.
The lifting standards I am about to present are merely guidelines. Use them to assess your progress, and potential for future gains. Don't be discouraged by the numbers of the top one percent of lifters. You can make amazing strides forward without having the best genetics, so remain patient and train smart. If you do so you will exceed your expectations.
Most of you aren't competitive powerlifters, nor do most of you have the goal of weighing 270 pounds or more. So with that in mind, I want to end by presenting you with an easy set of natural strength standards to remember.
The following goals are perfect for the lifter who wants to get big and strong, but who may never have any interesting in competing in bodybuilding or powerlifting. Reach these goals while focusing on conventional hypertrophy (muscle building) rep ranges, and you will not only add muscle to your frame, but also have the power and strength to back it up.
There have been fewer than 85 men who have ever hit a 2000 raw powerlifting total. Of these men, only a very small handful accomplished this feat while competing in major drug-tested federations. I hope this helps put powerlifting numbers in perspective.
The use of bench shirts, squat suits, steroids and growth hormone has made it difficult for most natural athletes to understand just what strong means. I see far too many strong forum lifters refer to themselves as weak, simply because they do not understand what reasonable natural standards are. They talk themselves out of competitive powerlifting because of a misguided vision that everyone is putting up 2000 pound totals. Not true at all.
A 1200 pound 3-lift total (bench press, squats and deadlifts) is more than 95% of gym rats will ever accomplish. A 1500 pound 3-lift total is a huge accomplishment, and will be hard to beat at most local, natural powerlifting meets.
For those of you who are doubting this, let me leave you with some numbers from my first powerlifting experience. In 2011 I competed at a local ADFPF meet. This was my first competition and I had no idea what to expect. I certainly had no clue that I would be the strongest lifter at the meet. My 3-lift total was 1501 that day. The second best total was approximately 200 pounds below this level.
I currently hold 2 national-level deadlifting records, one in the ADFPF, and one in the UPA. Certainly not a legendary achievement (far from it), but my records do provide further evidence that a 1500-1600 pound total is noteworthy in the natural lifting world.
Your article was very well researched and exactly what I needed to read to put me back in a good mindset about my lifts. For some reason I have a crazy notion that someone my size should be pushing 1600+ pounds hahaha.
Excellent article. You certainly are qualified. It looks like my lifts are between the strong and very strong level depending on the lift. In my younger years I'd fall into the extremely strong and the elite. 67 now and lots of injuries. Knee replacements, fusion, but I still work out. I don't go to extremes though now.
Thanks, finally some realistic natty real world numbers. I've just gotten into chasing higher powerlifting numbers after casual gym lifting for 30 years. I'm 51 and was looking for some real world indicators of how strong I am. I'm 51 and after a year of 'powerbuilding' have a total of 553kg or 1219lbs. It's not too far behind the 1300 minimum required to be relatively impressive at a natty meet. I might have a chance in a senior division some day!
This is an awesome article! We live in a world full of Instagram 500lb bench presses and 800lb squats. Good to see what is actually realistic when you are flooded with superhuman monsters all of the time
Its just a hobby for me. I've never seriously competed, mostly because I've always been natty and I feel like expecting your competition to be clean in a sport like powerlifting is a joke. I've always been big though, 6'2, currently 295 and my bench breaks this chart. I've gone over 500 on multiple occasions with an alltime PR of 515. I think these standards should be a little higher, not everyone you assume is juicing actually is.
I used to be a bit of a gym rat and am looking at trying to regain some of my form, bench press specifically, as I rapidly now approach age 60. As I look at articles like these I am enthused as quite honestly, back in the day, in a tee and gym shorts (with no clue and no specific training) I could rep, bench only, levels that you list for "elite". I could "bounce a single here or there very close to your "Pro Natural" levels.
I won a few events here and there but I never thought and one ever said these might be pretty high level results. I'd like to see what I could do in my age group now with some direction. What are the best resources for finding proper training and outlets for competition?
The article is impressive, and informative. I have been lifting for almost 40 years and have never competed, other than having competed with myself. I simply love to lift. It's nice to have a general idea of where I would stand in a competition. I think the thing that surprised the most was finding out that I am at near elite level in some of the lifts, given that I am now at age 56. This may inspire me to explore some type of local competition. So, Thank You for a well written article.
I don't think he meant any negativity towards females, I think it was mostly just references based on when you see people hit those impossible numbers. Like, a 300 lb raw and natural lifter and a 308 lb geared and drugged lifter aren't going to have the same lifts. It was perspective. Age also wasn't being used.
Nice article. Not hating on this article or anything. But ive been lifting for about 4 years and recently been focusing on str training for about 7 months. I am now 24 years old with a 315 bench 520 deadlift and 415 lb squat. I weight roughly around 196lbs and want to compete in a local show. Thing is im ego driven in lifting and i dont wanna compete and not end up in the top 3 (yah im a sore loser and id probably take my anger out on myself and be obsess with improving )I honestly feel weak in contrast of what this article is telling me :/.
What would be really nice to know would be the number of years the lifter had been training seriously when they hit their top numbers. This would allow someone such as yourself to see that considering the number of years you have under your belt, 4 in your case, you are on track for your experience level.
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Around 25 all i did was 225 every thing and one day i maxed out after 7 months of not trying one PR. The results were insane... bench 465 squat, squat 4 plates for 10, deadlift 6 plates on all sides and I never trained deadlifts.
Pfft... I'm a 70 year old drug and alcohol free lifter and i bench 1200lbs, squat 2000lbs, and deadlifted my coffin to get back out of my grave to hit the gym! and I way 50lbs because i'm a skeleton!
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