Equipment Balance
Something I have noticed just about the entirety of the equipped community is terrible at (in a way- some of you will be successful at one end of the extreme or another, but that is for you to discover) is equipment balance.
What I mean by this is the amount of time we spend in and out of our gear. Really there are two camps: the people who are ALWAYS in their gear and the people who are NEVER in their gear.
Equipment frequency is a blade with many edges. Today’s gear requires a high level of proficiency to be competitive and that requires a requisite amount of practice and skill acquisition. However, the gear is not what’s moving the weight- it is you, and you need to be strong enough to control it. Equipped programming is a delicate balance, you are a fly walking on a razor’s edge.
Typically, I see the “always in gear” group setup camp in the squat and deadlift. They say they always need to be in at least briefs just to save their hips. This may be true for older lifters, but I would like to remind my younger friends that you are not made of glass! With proper load management I think some of you would be surprised what some raw work would do to your squat and deadlift when you do decide to put the gear back on.
As a side note- while less tangible of a benefit, a few waves of raw squatting always make me feel like I could literally squat a house when I do put briefs on again. It is a very fun feeling!
On the other hand, the lift people are most guilty of not being in their gear enough for is the bench. This very much stems back to Louie and some older Westside stuff, but you need to be in your shirt more than once a month to be competitive nowadays. I am not saying it needs to be every week, and I am not saying your raw bench is the only important factor in an equipped bench; but modern shirts are among the most technical of all gear out there. You have to work hard for a long time to master them. For more info on shirt frequency in particular, I have an article here about just that for poly lifters.
The specifics of this aside, a big problem with this conversation is the matter of how we got to this point in the first place. Social media and powerlifting go together like bread and butter, but the modern currency on such platforms is controversy. Taking a hard stance on certain training ideas will net you more likes and comments than preaching to seek optimal. Unabashed confidence also works great for instilling trust in future or current clients. Thus, we see many “I and only I am correct on the matter” types of posts about all things training.
Also problematic for new lifters trying to piece things together is perception. Most equipped lifters only post their top equipped lifts. This is understandable, but it is necessary to understand that a lot of these people aren’t actually in their competition gear every single session- they just don’t post the unexciting shit.
As always, the answer to gear frequency is somewhere in the middle. Look for the commonalities between systems. You must then experiment for yourself to find the optimal dose of gear usage. There are many factors unique to you and your recovery capacity that are necessary to account for and find ways around.
A surefire way to never get there is to attach your identity to a training method and never change no matter how much it runs you down because someone on Instagram told you so!