Takeaway Points:

The supertotal is the combined total of your powerlifting total and your weightlifting total, measuring general strength across all the powerlifts and Olympic lifts.
There is no competition which recognizes this total, but you may still wish to train for it, and we lay out a solid plan for doing it here.
We also analyze the problems you’ll likely face with this approach, and why it won’t be a good fit for most.

What is the supertotal?

The supertotal is a theoretical combination of two different lifting sports - powerlifting, and weightlifting (also called Olympic lifting).

Powerlifting revolves around the squat, bench press, and deadlift. You lift the heaviest possible weight you can in each lift over the course of three attempts, and then the 3 weights of your heaviest successful lifts are added together to get your powerlifting total. This is compared up against other lifters in your weight class, and the highest total wins. As a result, you want to be as strong as possible in all three lifts.

Olympic weightlifting is similar, except that the lifts involved are the snatch and clean & jerk. Similarly, you total your best attempts of these two lifts to get your weightlifting total, which is compared up against other lifters in your weight class, and you want to be as strong as possible in both lifts.

Both of these lifts involve the bar starting on the floor, and ending up in an overhead position - the only difference is the method used to get it up there. These lifts are typically considered much more technically difficult and demanding than the powerlifts, and benefit more from speed and explosiveness compared to the “slower”, “grindier” powerlifts. Compared to powerlifting, weightlifting has less of an emphasis on the back squat and the bench press, and more of an emphasis on the front squat and the overhead press, since these are elements of the movements in weightlifting.

You can make the logical connection here - what if you had someone who trained for both sports? Could you have a theoretical ‘supertotal’ that combines the two, to determine who’s an even more impressive athlete?

My experience with the supertotal

Way back in the early 2010’s, I dabbled with the idea of getting into weightlifting in addition to powerlifting, which was at the time my main passion. I’ll be honest - powerlifting is a relatively boring sport where you train the same stuff over and over again in the same way repeatedly, and I was looking for a bit of variety. I was also just a much less experienced lifter, and so I was chasing novelty for the sake of chasing novelty - just excited to try every potential kind of lifting that I could, because I was just so passionate about lifting.

This is also around the time that CrossFit was having its big moment in the fitness industry, resulting in a huge resurgence in interest in weightlifting, as well as strongman, and a big emphasis on being able to be good at more than one sport (or at least try to be a more well-rounded athlete). This was partially responsible for my interest.

The supertotal came up as an intriguing concept. Powerlifting and weightlifting are superficially similar sports, so it seemed like such a natural fit. Why not try to combine the two?

Around that time, I did a bit of searching around, and found famed weightlifting coach Glenn Pendlay’s supertotal program here. Unfortunately, Glenn has recently passed away, and with it, it looks like his website is mostly gone as well, leaving out a lot of great content that used to be formative for me.

I dabbled around with the idea of really learning the Olympic lifts, but never really stuck with it, and as a result have just doubled down on powerlifting over the years. In part, it’s just not something I’d be good at - I’ve never been any good at front squatting (or squatting in general - deadlift and bench are my good lifts), and I’ve never been any good at overhead pressing, and I don’t have the wrist mobility for the front rack position, meaning that I’d probably never be much good at weightlifting in the end.

I did dabble around a bit with strongman, since this involves a bit more emphasis on the stuff that I’m good at, but ultimately it never clicked with me either, and I ended up spending the decade getting more into powerlifting and bodybuilding instead.

Is the supertotal a good training goal?

If you want it to be, sure.

The problem with the supertotal is ultimately the same as it would be for any two-sport athlete - there’s no “competition” or ranking system for being best at both, so ultimately you’re going to be judged, not as an all around athlete, but at whether or not you’re best at either one of the individual sports you compete in. Since you have a limited recovery capacity and cannot adapt indefinitely, this just means that training for two goals at once will probably not result in the same skill as if you trained exclusively for a single goal, so this limits your ability to excel in either sport.

There are probably plenty of athletes who have put up impressive supertotals - Christian Thibaudeau cites a few here, but with no actual links/citations, who knows how verifiable these numbers are.

However, this would probably be due to a couple of major factors - athletes who are already training for combination sports (strongman and CrossFit) will often be able to put up impressive supertotals anyway, just because they’re already training for very generalist sports that are less specialized than either powerlifting or weightlifting - and secondly, some people are just genetic monsters who can put up impressive numbers regardless; if they have the right genetic makeup, they can more easily excel in similar sports.

That said, there are also some key drawbacks that may make it hard to train for the supertotal specifically:

The sports are superficially similar, but the lifts are VERY different.
- It can’t be overstated enough how the snatch and clean & jerk use a lot of the same muscle groups as in powerlifting, but train them in very different ways.
- Weightlifting is much more technical, while powerlifting is much more fatiguing. Combining the two is tough, because high fatiguing lifts like a max effort squat or deadlift will tire you out a lot more than a snatch or clean & jerk, necessitating that training be very carefully organized to see the right results.
Weightlifting is more of a young sport
- Weightlifting relies more on explosiveness, a quality that drops off faster as you age compared to raw strength.
- As a result, it’s likely possible to be competitive in powerlifting for much longer than in weightlifting, and if you’re starting off later in life, you may struggle to adapt to weightlifting.
Weightlifting has more technical and skill demands, and requires a different training mindset and different genetic talents
- Weightlifting requires a lot of mobility and a lot of stability in the upper body, and not everyone has these - much like how I just don’t have the genetic makeup for weightlifting and this led to my losing interest, this may not be the right sport for everyone.
- You just can’t train the Olympic lifts like the powerlifts, so approaching with the same mindset for both is an easy recipe for disaster. Approaching them both with different, appropriate training mindsets will be difficult for most people to master.

However, it can certainly be done. I want to explore below some of my thoughts on the topic.

Training Thoughts

Both powerlifting and weightlifting are sports that require specific adaptations in order to thrive, and both typically require a long tapering and peaking element of the training leading up to the competition. As a result, there is not just a single way to train for the supertotal, but instead there would be three training types: general training/offseason training, peaking for powerlifting competition, and peaking for weightlifting competition.

The general approach would be something like Glenn Pendlay’s program, reproduced here:

Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday Heavy Back Squat Light Snatch Heavy Front Squat Heavy Snatch Heavy Bench Press Light C & J Heavy Military Press/Push Press Heavy C & J Occasional Heavy Deadlift

When you are preparing for a powerlifting competition, you would spend a month or two peaking, switching over to a mostly powerlifting focused program with maybe just a little bit of light snatch, clean & jerk, and overhead practice once per week to maintain skill in the lifts.

Then of course with prep for a weightlifting competition, you would do the reverse, with maybe just a bit of light benching thrown in one per week to maintain horizontal pressing strength.

I think the biggest concern here is ensuring that you know your limits and adjust appropriately. You’ll have different tolerances for Olympic lifts compared to powerlifts, and can’t use the exact same progressions and training style on both. You’ll also need to be proactive about knowing when you need to rest and recover, compared to when you need to push it. Juggling more overall heavy lifts means your attention and energy will naturally be more divided, and you need to appropriately focus your efforts to ensure that you’re not wasting them.

Closing Thoughts

By its nature, the supertotal will always be a fun, but niche, idea. Unless governing bodies emerge to throw specialized competitions and make the supertotal a worthwhile training goal, it’s never going to have much coherence on its own. I think, given the different cultures and organizations that had sprung up around weightlifting and powerlifting over the past few decades, and how the sports have developed differently, it’s unlikely that this would ever really happen, but it’s nice to imagine.

If you find that you’re naturally talented in both the powerlifts and the Olympic lifts, then you may enjoy pursuing the supertotal. I’m jealous!

About Adam Fisher

Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.

During that time he has coached thousands of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.

Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.

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Training For the Supertotal