Ep. 196 - How Much Training Do Powerlifters Actually Need To Get Stronger (Feat Dr. Pak)

We are delighted to have Dr Patroklos Androulakis-Korakakis on Iron Culture! “Dr. Pak” is a researcher and lecturer at Solent University, coach at stronger by science, and finally, a lifting enthusiast himself. He did his PhD on powerlifting. Specifically, he conducted research to answer the question: “how much training do powerlifters need to do, to make meaningful increases in strength?” This question led him to conduct interviews and surveys with the best powerlifters and powerlifting coaches in the world to first understand what they consider “meaningful” strength gains to be, and then he conducted some of the very few longitudinal training studies on competing powerlifters to determine just how much work they need to do to get better. Join us in this fascinating look at the inner workings of his research, as well as some of the more recent research he’s currently involved with, bridging the gaps in terminology and application between science and practice.

Om Podcasten

Iron Culture was started by Eric Helms and Omar Isuf, now currently hosted by Eric Helms and Eric Trexler with Omar as a returning guest, as a means of exploring the world of physical culture and attempting to distill a unified philosophy of lifting and to help listeners find greater meaning from the iron. The lifting community has become fractured over the last ~70 years and this Podcast will attempt to explore the fundamental threads that unite these different tribes. The Podcast focuses on dispensing practical, useful information to the listener, bouncing from history, to philosophy, to contemporary lifting culture issues, to science. This can range from teaching the audience about lifting, programming, nutrition, supplements/PEDs and the history of lifting culture. The format includes casual conversations between the two hosts on a variety of topics, discussions with a panel of experts and interviews with authoritative figures in the lifting community.