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Choosing Your Powerlifting Weight Class: When to Cut, Bulk, and Compete
In this follow-up episode, Drs. Rori Alter, PT, and Alyssa Haveson, PT, delve into the critical decisions powerlifters face when selecting a weight class for competition. Building on their previous conversation about the timing of entering a meet, they explore the key factors that influence whether you should cut weight, bulk up, or stay at your current body weight to optimize your performance.
In this episode, they answer essential questions like:
How do powerlifting weight classes work, and who are you actually competing against?
What factors should influence your decision to lose weight or gain weight for a competition?
When is it a smart strategy to cut weight (and how to do it safely), versus bulking for powerlifting?
Should you train at a heavier body weight relative to your weight class?
What’s the difference between a weight cut and a water cut—and when should you do either?
When is it time to change weight classes, and how does this impact your personal records (PRs)?
How does gaining or losing weight affect your strength, technique, and overall performance?
Should you outgrow a weight class, and what are the signs?
If you're wondering how to make the right weight class choice for your next competition—or if you're unsure whether to bulk or cut—this episode is packed with expert advice on how to navigate these tough decisions!
RESOURCES MENTIONED In this episode:
Episode #24: Danny Lennon, MSc - Cutting & Confining to a Powerlifting Weight Class | A Decision Hierarchy
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Free Resources!
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Our PRS Powerlifting Meet Guide is a comprehensive guide that walks you through every aspect of your meet day from start to finish so you feel confident, knowledgeable, and supported throughout your meet.
This guide covers federation rules, packing the perfect meet bag, and navigating weigh-ins, equipment checks, and the warm-up area.
Detailed tips on timing warm-ups, managing flights and lifting order, and commands will ensure you are prepared for every phase of the competition. Additional insights include nutrition timing, strategies for staying focused, and how handlers can best support you if you’re using one.
Our practical, step-by-step checklist is the ultimate powerlifting meet preparation tool. From packing your meet bag to tracking warm-up and attempt timing, this printable checklist ensures you don’t forget any of the details. Simply check off each task to reduce stress so you can focus on lifting your best. Our Meet Day Checklist is the perfect way to ensure you stay organized and confident without forgetting anything.
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[00:00:00] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: All right. Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, head clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength with the lovely coach and physical therapist, Dr. Alyssa Haveson. She works here at PRS with a lot of our lifters and has a heavy focus in competition. So, if you're just tuning into the podcast, we're back for 2025 and we are doing a series on competition in powerlifting for the novice, intermediate, and advanced lifters. These episodes can be educational for every aspect of the athlete, whether you're a novice lifter, an advanced lifter, a coach, a physical therapist, whatever you are. These episodes are intended to provide meaningful information from the perspective of physical therapists, coaches, and competitive athletes, as well as Alyssa and her unique perspective here as a competition official or referee on a international level. So, in this episode, following up on our last episode that kind of discussed when should you do your first competition, should you do your first competition, kind of all the elements of when is the right time to do a competition, we are following up talking about weight classes because in the sport of powerlifting, we don't just go in and compete against everybody that's there that day. First and foremost, we're competing against ourselves, which we talked about in the last episode. But there has to be a way to compare and compete against people in a fair way. They do it based on sex, based on age, and based on weight. So, we're going to talk about weight classes because age is age, sex is sex, and weight can be very variable. So, Alyssa, what are weight classes and why are they important?
[00:02:18] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, CSCS, PRSCC: So, really they're they're there to group you with people of similar weights so that somebody who weighs 110 pounds is not competing against somebody who weighs 300 pounds, because obviously, well, not obviously, but most likely the person who weighs 300 pounds can lift more than the person who's 110. So weight classes are what we have are groupings of, of weights. You need to be less than or at the number of the weight class. So, for example 60kg, you need to be 60kg or below yet above the weight class that is under it. Right? I say it that way because I've had people say like thinking that they needed to be.
[00:03:04] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: Like if they were 60.1 or 61. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, CSCS, PRSCC: There was one person who thought that they needed to be over the weight class. And I was like, no, that's that's next weight class.
[00:03:15] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: Like the sub 60, you know.
[00:03:18] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, CSCS, PRSCC: Yeah.
[00:03:18] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: You'll see a minus in front of it sometimes.
[00:03:22] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, CSCS, PRSCC: Yeah. So, they're there to keep you competing against because we compete within weight classes for the most part and you're competing based off of what your total is. It keeps it relatively fair so that you are competing against people that are about your size and weight.
[00:03:46] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: And I think the other element, you know, outside of the person to person competition we also have to think about, like, the convenience of it. People in a particular weight class or who are of similar weight will probably for the most part be lifting in in a similar weight range. Someone who weighs 110 pounds is not going to be lifting nearly as much as the person who weighs 300 pounds. So if we put them in the same flight, the weight on the bar is going to be very, very different and it can be challenging to keep up with all of that. So, people in the same weight class tend to have similar loads on the bar. Obviously there's going to be a difference. You know, if someone's a novice lifter and not as strong, you know, obviously everyone's going to lift different weight, but it's going to be within the same kind of range. So, weight classes help with that also. So do age categories. We're not really going to get into age now, but you know they'll put open on one day and juniors and masters on another day or in a different flight because the older you get, the younger you are, tend to lift a little bit less than the open category, so they'll group people by age and weight for convenience too. But really the weight class comes down to who you're competitive against.