I recently attended a local powerlifting meet. I want to rant about the number of people who had @followmecausemommydidnthugmeenough printed on any and everything. I want to rant about how out of 150 competitors, the biggest three guys were 242 pounds. I want to rage about the amount of pizza and ice cream socks that seem to blend like some evil version of a powerlifting Jackson Pollock. I'm not, though. After having some time to process my inner hatred of the clowns, this is what chaps my ass, the death of the squat.

The squat, the king of the lifts, the most significant part of your total—well it used to be—is changing into the deadlift. In this meet, in particular, running parallel with what little footage I do see these days, the squat is a bunch of quiet, nervous people wearing deadlifts and: whiskey, donuts, bacon, ice cream, LGBT, pizza, and beer shirts. Is the squat and bench just a formality for people to deadlift in a competition?

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Why don't people have squats and bute shirts? I have no patience, even if I had the means to collect the data. But I’d bet a Derek Lewis chin shot that the majority of lifters are out pulling their squats. Ugh, writing this is tough; this is the catalyst for the total not being shit anymore, either. I'm fully aware that I come off as some old guy yelling, “Get off my lawn!” Well, that's it—I worked hard on that lawn, so fuck off. A huge deadlift is way cooler than a huge squat. How and why? It's the same era where you have to screenshot 1300-pound squats on some digital witch hunt to prove that "it's high." It’s 1300 fucking pounds!!!!

There are some undeniable reasons why this is. One is fear, and two, you can’t tweak a squat by spreading your legs using standard pound plates on a deadlift bar loaded with 900 pounds and pulling it a mere inch or so off the ground for a "good lift." God, people are out pulling their squats by 100, 200, 300 pounds!!!!!! How and why? ‘Cause the total ain't shit compared with getting a viral video shared everywhere. Yeah, squatting is scary. Big fucking deal—life is scary.

Taking a token squat and a token bench to "save" it for pulls is a shitty philosophy. Last I checked, you make nine attempts, add your best three together for a total, and a winner is decided. Nope, we got Wilks warriors and sumo stance deadlift wizards. I can't wrap my head around it; the only thing that comes to the front of my thick Irish head is, people are just scared—plain and simple.

This past weekend, I watched the live stream of the Record Breakers meet. During the broadcast, which was via YouTube (and besides Big Dogs was probably the best meet I've seen streamed), a question came up.

"If one lift were to be removed from powerlifting, which of the three movements do you feel it should be?