Physics of Weightlifting

By: Robert Grazian

The physics of weight lifting revolve around one principle which none of us can escape... gravity. It is the gravitational pull of the earth that makes us use our muscles every day in all our movements. If we did not battle gravity, we would just lie down and even our lungs would cease to function.

By fighting the pull of gravity we can strengthen our bodies as much or as little as we need or desire. The greater the density of an object, the stronger it's gravitational pull. Therefore, the heavier it is and the more difficult for us to lift and maneuver. This is the basis of weight lifting. You are moving an object against gravity.

If you wanted to really understand the physics of weight lifting to help you to devise an exercise and training programme, you would have to take a great many facts into consideration. You would need to have an understanding of "work". Work may mean something that we have to do in an office or factory to most of us, but to someone who is serious about weight lifting and the science behind it, work is "the transfer of energy by mechanical means". This can be worked out by the multiplication of the amount of force by the distance it has moved. That is a simplified definition! It gets a lot more complicated than that. In the same vein, power is "the amount of work performed in a certain amount of time". Working on this principle you can easily calculate that if you do 10 bench presses in one minute you will use more power than if you bench press the same weight 10 times in two minutes.

A basic understanding of the physics of weight lifting may enable to you to increase your efficiency in the sport. Many professional in the discipline will be able to tell you something regarding the theories behind lifting weights, even if some of their knowledge is a little limited. If you are weight training to reach a particular goal, whether it be in general fitness or power lifting, knowing some of the fundamentals physics will enable you to tailor your training to your own circumstances. This means that you will be able to structure your training to either build more bulk or increase your power.

There are, however, a great many scientific formula which must be considered and it is be no means a straightforward affair which you can learn by reading a book one evening. The physics of weight lifting is a science which many people have studied in great depth in order to qualify for a variety of teaching qualifications. If you are serious about using weight lifting to improve your strength and power, you may be best finding yourself a qualified teacher who will devise a program for you by using their knowledge and expertise. This way you can spend your time in the gym putting these theories into practice.