Equipped powerlifting is a division of competitive powerlifting where athletes wear specially designed supportive gear, including bench press shirts, squat suits, deadlift suits, and knee wraps, to help them lift more weight. These items store elastic energy during the lowering phase of a lift and release it during the upward phase, acting like a spring. Equipped lifting is a separate competitive category from “raw” powerlifting, where lifters use only a belt, wrist wraps, a singlet, and chalk.
What Gear Is Allowed
The core pieces of equipped powerlifting gear are a bench shirt, a squat suit (also called a bodysuit), a deadlift suit, and knee wraps. Each piece is purpose-built for one lift and functions differently. A bench shirt is an extremely tight, rigid shirt that resists the downward path of the barbell and then helps propel it back up. A squat suit compresses the hips and legs, storing energy as the lifter descends into the bottom of the squat and then assisting the drive back to standing. A deadlift suit is similar in concept but designed with a focus on the lower back and hips rather than the entire lower body.
Raw lifters, by contrast, step onto the platform with minimal gear: an approved singlet, a belt, wrist wraps, and chalk. If you’ve never thought about which division you belong to, you’re almost certainly raw. Equipped lifters invest significant time and money into selecting, fitting, and learning to use their gear.
How the Gear Actually Works
All equipped gear operates on the same basic principle: the material resists being stretched. When you lower into a squat wearing a squat suit, the tight fabric stretches against the movement. Because the material wants to return to its original shape, it generates a rebound force that helps drive you back up. Think of it like pulling back a slingshot. The tighter and stiffer the material, the more energy it stores and returns.
Squat suits are tight-fitting and restrictive by design, wrapping the entire lower body in compression. Deadlift suits are cut to be slightly looser and more flexible because the deadlift requires greater hip mobility, and an overly rigid suit would actually fight the lifter’s positioning rather than help it. Bench shirts are typically the most extreme piece of equipment. They’re so stiff that many lifters need help getting them on, and the resistance they provide at the bottom of the press can add enormous weight to the lift.
Single-Ply vs. Multi-Ply
Equipped gear comes in different thicknesses, measured in “plies” or layers of material. Single-ply gear uses one layer and provides moderate assistance. Multi-ply gear stacks two or more layers, making the suit or shirt dramatically stiffer and capable of supporting much heavier loads. Most federations run separate single-ply and multi-ply divisions, or allow only one type. The jump from single-ply to multi-ply can add significant weight to a lifter’s total, and multi-ply gear is considerably harder to learn to use effectively.
How Much More Weight Can You Lift
The performance gap between equipped and raw lifting is substantial, especially on the squat and bench press. An analysis of world championship results published in the journal Biology of Sport found that equipped male competitors squatted an average of 313 kg compared to 247 kg for raw lifters, a difference of roughly 27%. On the bench press, equipped men averaged 221 kg versus 169 kg raw, about a 31% increase. The pattern held for women: equipped female competitors squatted an average of 225 kg compared to 170 kg raw, and bench pressed 134 kg versus 100 kg.
The deadlift tells a different story. Equipped men averaged 291 kg against 276 kg for raw lifters, and at the world record level there was no statistically significant difference between equipped and raw deadlift numbers for either sex. This makes sense when you consider that deadlift suits are deliberately less restrictive and that the deadlift’s movement pattern doesn’t load the gear with the same kind of deep stretch that a squat or bench press does. The bench press shows the single largest equipment effect, with equipped women’s world records averaging a full 40% higher than raw records.
Technique Changes in Equipped Lifting
You can’t simply put on a bench shirt or squat suit and lift the same way you would raw. The gear fundamentally changes how each lift feels and how you need to move. In a bench shirt, the material fights you on the way down, so lifters have to actively pull the bar to their chest rather than just controlling the descent. The bar path often changes as well, since the shirt provides different levels of resistance at different points in the range of motion. Missing a groove by even an inch can mean the shirt locks the bar out of position and the lift fails.
In a squat suit, the compression at the bottom of the squat means you need to “sit into” the suit and let the material load before you reverse direction. Lifters spend weeks or months learning exactly where their gear engages and how to time the transition from descent to ascent. Training for equipped lifting involves a lot of repetition in the gear itself, gradually building toward heavier loads as the lifter learns the feel of each piece. Raw lifting emphasizes natural strength through a full range of motion. Equipped lifting adds a second skill layer: optimizing the gear’s mechanics on top of your raw strength.
Who Competes Equipped
Equipped powerlifting was the original format of the sport. Raw divisions became widely popular in the 2010s as more lifters wanted a simpler, more accessible entry point. Today, raw lifting has a significantly larger participant base at most competitions, but equipped lifting retains a dedicated and experienced community. Many equipped lifters have years of competition experience and view learning to use gear as a technical discipline in its own right.
Starting out in equipped lifting is uncommon. The gear is expensive, often costing several hundred dollars per piece, and requires an extended learning curve. Most lifters who move into equipped competition have already built a foundation of raw strength and competition experience. Having training partners or a coach who understands equipped lifting is close to essential, since putting on a bench shirt or squat suit alone ranges from difficult to impossible depending on how tight the fit is.
Equipped and Raw Are Scored Separately
Because the performance differences are so large, equipped and raw lifters never compete against each other. Every major federation, including the International Powerlifting Federation, maintains separate record books and separate competition divisions. An equipped squat record and a raw squat record in the same weight class are treated as entirely different achievements. This keeps competition fair while allowing both styles of lifting to coexist within the same sport.