summer challenges?

[Rebel101]

Have a female section by all means but the prize pool for the females should also be proportionally smaller as the number of participants are likely going to be a fraction of male competitors.

Ohhhh what a terrible attitude a female works no less hard to achieve results.

I don't know how you interpreted it that way.

 

The reason females do not participate more here is because they have no alternative but to compete with males and as Dinahlady says to place well we would have to produce National records,

As Phedder said, it's because the women's national records are crap lol. Any girl that's been lifting seriously for 2 years could break those records. Relative to men, there are hardly any serious powerlifting females in NZ, not to mention that most girls don't care about strength whereas 90% of males do and care just as much about getting stronger as looking good. The difference in the depth of athletes between the males and females is immense. Inb4 this gets interpreted as another sexist comment.

how many of the male members are doing that in the Gymnation Challenges.

Actually, the members that won or placed in the top 3 in the previous year's challenges are some of NZ's top powerlifters and do hold national records lol.

I guess one alternative is to apply a scaling factor, who wants to figure that one out?

The Wilks/Reshel/Glossbrenner formulas accounts for differences in strength between males and females and is generally accepted as being fair for all lifters of all bodyweights and both genders. Which is what we did last year. Then Dinah had a moan about it cos she's weak lol

Does this mean that by numbers basis male nurses should get paid less because there are less of them or female doctors get paid less because they are in the minority

this is no a good argument for equality

[Leeroid]

 

Does this mean that by numbers basis male nurses should get paid less because there are less of them or female doctors get paid less because they are in the minority

this is no a good argument for equality

No such thing as equality. Every single sport in the world pays male athletes more than female atheletes because the level of competition is far higher among males.

 

And tell me how it's fair if a moderately trained female that doesn't even primarily train for strength wins the female division over 3 or 4 other cardio bunnies and wins a massive prize pack while a guy that has trained for strength for the last 5 years doesn't even place in the male division? That's the reality.

 

Either compete with the guys where the level of competition is far more intense or accept the smaller prize pool.

 

[Phedder]

Does this mean that by numbers basis male nurses should get paid less because there are less of them or female doctors get paid less because they are in the minority

this is no a good argument for equality

No. If they cannot work to the expected standard they should get paid less, because they're not performing as required.

There is a set standard in powerlifting. Wilks/Glossbrenner/other formulas equalise the playing field, as I showed earlier. If you can't match that standard, that's no one elses fault. Same as if a male nurse or female doctor couldn't perform their required duties, would you expect us to lower their expectations?

Match the standard, don't expect hand outs. 

[Leeroid]

Does this mean that by numbers basis male nurses should get paid less because there are less of them or female doctors get paid less because they are in the minority

this is no a good argument for equality

No. If they cannot work to the expected standard they should get paid less, because they're not performing as required.

There is a set standard in powerlifting. Wilks/Glossbrenner/other formulas equalise the playing field, as I showed earlier. If you can't match that standard, that's no one elses fault. Same as if a male nurse or female doctor couldn't perform their required duties, would you expect us to lower their expectations?

Match the standard, don't expect hand outs. 

Good post

[Phedder]

I should also say that I'm all for more female participation in strength sports, everyone I've worked with has had a huge improvement in self-esteem, body image, and general confidence from focusing more on a strength/performance/health aspect rather than strictly aesthetics. It's fantastic especially seeing the empowerment some females get from improving their physical abilities.

I'd support a female only category with a similar prize pack to the males, with a requirement that X amount of females actually get involved and compete for it. 3 Females and 30 guys competiting for 2 identical prizes doesn't quite seem fair, does it? Even getting 10 female entrants would be a huge turnout and show of interest, worth rewarding. 

[Dinahlady]

How is one category for males and one category for females not fair? Everyone still has a chance at winning in their own category.

Powerlifting comps recognise female categories and don't make them compete with males so I dont see why that should be any different here. 

If females think they don't have a chance at winning against guys then they wont compete.

Like you are saying, powerlifing isn't that popular in NZ. But not making room for girls in the competition by making them go in with guys isn't really going to help that popularity grow. 

However you spin your reasons for people needing to be in the same category, at the end of the day who is it going to benefit? Barely no girls competed in the lifting last time and if it is set up the same way i guarantee you it will go the same way.

The comps supposed to be encouraging to newbies to the site - or people who might actually lift but be shy about it - and having a female category is the way that you will encourage girls to lift in a comp here. 

 

[Leeroid]

The reason there were no female lifters last year is because wait for it... there are no female lifters on this site that actually train for strength. Last year we had random prizes (decent ones too) for anyone that put an entry in which should have been enough incentive

[Phedder]

Dinah, I actually agree with you in my own weird 'no participation medals' kinda way. I have far too many of those! *mosking*

The issues comes with too many categories and limited resources. We need sponsors to donate the prizes, and last time frankly we got really lucky with the amount of support we were given. Those prizes were amazing. Within the powerlifting section we had an 'Experienced' and a 'Novice' Category, now add male and female to that and suddenly the resources required are doubled. 

I agree a female category is the way to go to encourage more participation and growth, (random spot prizes are great for this as well) but the point I made above still stands. From a pure numbers and resources perspective, does it seem fair to have 30 guys competing for one prize, and 3 females competing for an identical prize? 10 times more likely to win as a female. Is that equality? I believe the best way to make it fair is to either have a smaller prize available to females (more relative to the chances of winning) or if an equal prize is available, a minimum participation turnout is required for that larger prize. That makes it more worthwhile for the sponsors to actually put up enough prizes to keep everyone happy and allow a greater range of categories. 

But this is all just speculation, we don't know what's going to happen yet. Maybe Psuedo can surprise us all and work his magic like never before, no pressure! :-D

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

How is one category for males and one category for females not fair? Everyone still has a chance at winning in their own category.

Powerlifting comps recognise female categories and don't make them compete with males so I dont see why that should be any different here. 

If females think they don't have a chance at winning against guys then they wont compete.

Like you are saying, powerlifing isn't that popular in NZ. But not making room for girls in the competition by making them go in with guys isn't really going to help that popularity grow. 

However you spin your reasons for people needing to be in the same category, at the end of the day who is it going to benefit? Barely no girls competed in the lifting last time and if it is set up the same way i guarantee you it will go the same way.

The comps supposed to be encouraging to newbies to the site - or people who might actually lift but be shy about it - and having a female category is the way that you will encourage girls to lift in a comp here. 

 

yeah lets get some equality up in here. we need more categories. they should also have a bodybuilding and power lifting category for guys 70kg and under, maybe even U65kg because i don't train for either specifically but maybe if theres no one else comepting in my category i can win without even trying. how else will they ever encourage light weight guys to compete when there are 100kg+ manmores out there deadlifting more than our totals or with arms bigger than our thighs

[Dinahlady]

Well IMO I think that it would be better to have a female and novice powerlifting section than to have an "aesthetics" AND "bodybuilding" and an "aesthetics" and "bodybuilding" most improved class as they were pretty much the same and most people entered both if not all of them? Maybe just have like "Aesthetics", "Bodybuilding" and "most improved" this time? 

The point is that if you had the competition open then people like mine or other peoples clients might feel like they could join the site and enter. I train 10-15 girls who train for strength and it's hard enough to get girls to compete against other girls, let alone if they think they are going against guys!  

[Phedder]

I like that. Those pesky mirror hogs are always wanting all the attention *mosking*

[Pseudonym]

Good debate, guys...

 

If females think they don't have a chance at winning against guys then they wont compete.

I think you're onto something here, but I don't just think it's a male/female thing.

To be perfectly honest, last year we didn't have enough competitors in any category. We had some whopping great prizes (seriously - a year's free protein for the winner of every class?!), and that seemed to get people talking about the comp, but it didn't translate into number of entries.

And whenever I asked people who should have entered why they didn't, unanimously they all said, "Prizes like that will attract competitors of such high calibre, we didn't think we stood a chance."

That is the biggest thing we need to fix. If I'm going to ask a sponsor to put forward a similar prize pool, I need to be confident we'll get a much large number of entries.

So what's the answer? Maybe the big main prizes were too big? Maybe we have more, smaller prizes instead? I don't know...
 

I'd support a female only category with a similar prize pack to the males, with a requirement that X amount of females actually get involved and compete for it.

I like this. Linking the prize pool to the number of competitors is a very interesting idea. It also gives an incentive for competitors to spread the word to others.

What do you reckon? Any other solutions?

[GyzzBrah]

Maybe make the overall prizes smaller and more casual comp in general. It's kind of a win-win situation. If you think about it, would the winner of bodybuilding overall really want so many supplements, or some gear, which a monetary prize would benefit. Also, with lesser prizes we could get lots more people participating just for the fun of it. Will be a nice community thing for the forums.

As far as the whole women thing, it will be better if we encourage more women to get into something more productive like powerlifting, rather than have them aspire to be starved bikini models with shrunk tits.

Inb4 I herniate my lumbar warming up on deadlifts.

[Cameron_R]

This whole debate is solved easily.

• Have a few Male only categories
• Have a few Femail only categories
• Have a bunch of joint categories.

Everyone wins.

[Realtalk]

Lol'd @ male nurses... Phucking phaggots.