60+ Best Powerlifting Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Powerlifting is the sport of lifting heavy weights in three different ways from a standing or lying position, but without lifting the weights above the head. Profoundly inspirational powerlifting quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.

If you’re searching for famous sports quotes and empowering basketball quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of inspiring exercise quotes, powerful bowling quotes and famous cycling quotes.

Famous Powerlifting Quotes

Think about it this way: If you break a max by 5 pounds a month, that’s 60 pounds a year. If you keep doing that, you’re going to be a bad dude. Louie Simmons

If you’re training hard and heavy with the goal of lifting something awesome, something is always going to hurt. Whether it’s your wrists, elbows, knees, hamstring, or even something ridiculous like a serratus muscle, one bodypart or another is always going to be giving you some bullshit. The elite athletes train in spite of or around those injuries. Sometimes they get worse, sometimes they get better, and sometimes they just get supplanted by another recalcitrant body part. Any way you cut it, something’s always going to be bothering you. Suck it the **** up and keep going. Jamie Lewis

I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline. Jack LaLanne

The problem with many hypertrophy-based programs is that they leave out the strength component. You might get bigger as a result of the program, but if you don’t get any stronger you’re still a chump in my book. That’s right, I don’t care how big you are, if you aren’t strong you’re a sham. Having big muscles and no strength is the training equivalent of wearing a strap-on. All show and no go. End of story. Jim Wendler

If you have discipline, drive, determination, nothing is impossible. Dana Linn Bailey

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. George Addair

Forget failure. Forget mistakes. Forget everything, except what you’re going to do now. And do it. Lou Ferrigno

It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up. Vince Lombardi

The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit. Morihei Ueshiba

You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits. Michael Phelps

If you insist on wearing gloves, make sure they match your purse. Mark Rippetoe

I will either find a way or make one. Hannibal

The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard. Mark Rippetoe

There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between. Pat Riley

Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible. Frank L. Gaines

It’s a rare individual who lets themselves be steered by what they feel is their own passion. Dave Tate

Amazing Powerlifting Quotes

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout. Henry Rollins

Victory isn’t defined by wins and losses, it’s defined by effort. Kai Greene

Don’t be scared to lift heavy! You won’t get huge and bulky, you’ll get amazing. Jessie Hilgenberg

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united. Wilhelm von Humboldt

Intensity is just another word for pain. You should feel that intensity every time you pick up a weight. If I don’t feel the sensation of this intensity down to my bones, then I know that have to increase my focus and my weight. It gives me great satisfaction. Claude Groulx 

Don’t have $100 shoes and a 10 cent squat. Louie Simmons

Just remember, somewhere, a little Chinese girl is warming up with your max. Jim Conroy

If you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that just means you’re okay with being mediocre. Ray Lewis

Think about someone you hate, think about someone that pisses you off, think about something that drives you, think about something that motivates you. My brother passing away a couple years ago, changed my life in a lot of different ways, in some ways it’s very hard to explain. But for some of you out there, you may know what I’m talking about – some of you who’ve lost somebody. I can draw upon that any time I want and I feel like I can lift the freaking world when I think about that situation. Mark Bell

I love training more than anything else I do. You’ve got to if you want to be a bodybuilder. I love every exercise, you name it. Any exercise you give me, I take it as a challenge and I can make it my favorite. That’s how you become a pro bodybuilder. You learn to love every rep of every exercise and treat it like its special. Dennis James

Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase. Joseph Pilates

There are two types of Pain in this world: Pain that hurts you, and Pain that changes you. Unknown

You need to be in a gym where people are about at your level, but where you’ve got guys who know more and can lift more than you. If your goal is to become better, though, you have to know when it’s time to move on to a better gym with stronger people training there. Louie Simmons

They can crack jokes. They can sit back and analyze and criticize and make all the fun they want. But I’m living my life, I’m doing it. What are you doing? Jay Cutler

To anyone that ever tells you that you can’t do something – tell them to go f**k themselves. Guy Cisternino

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp. Henry Rollins

Winners do what they fear. Franco Columbu

Bodybuilding saved my life because I overcame the nerd stage. I got picked on. I was fascinated with power, and then I decided to take that direction because I knew that would make me feel good about myself. Lou Ferrigno

Complaining that your leg curl numbers have gone down since you started deadlifting is like complaining that masturbation has become boring since you started having sex with supermodels. Jim Wendler

You were given this life, because you are strong enough to live it. Robin Sharma

15 minutes a day! Give me just this and I’ll prove I can make you a new man. Charles Atlas

Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general. Mark Rippetoe

The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character. Arnold Schwarzenegger

You’ve got to block out all distractions when you train. Your focus has to be 100% into the rep. You’ve got to get into a zone. You know you’re in the zone when guys in the gym look you in the eye and then quickly turn away ’cause they see the fire. You’ve got to be all business. Mike Matarazzo

Top Powerlifting Quotes

Everyone has the ability to accomplish unique feats, everyone. You choose this. Become someone great in one other life. Forget about failing to many. Who cares? Doesn’t matter when you start or finish, just start, no deviations, no excuses. Tom Platz

Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him. It’s something we call heart power. Once a man has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success. Vince Lombardi

If you’re capable of sending a legible text message between sets, you probably aren’t working hard enough. Dave Tate

I never think about losing. Lou Ferrigno

7 months straight. No stopping, no maintenance weeks, no cheat meals. Why? Because if someone beat me, I didn’t want to look back at any cheat meals and ask what if. I did what it took every single day, and THAT is why I looked the way I did. You either want it or you don’t. Just so you know, there wasn’t a day that went by in the last 8-10 weeks of that prep where I didn’t want just ONE extra yogurt, or 5 less intervals of cardio. But, I was not going to be outworked! I was NOT going to be denied! And you know what? It was all worth it. Tommy Jeffers

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. Lance Armstrong

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan

Your body, despite the science that says ‘X number of reps is better for this, Y for that’ will get stronger if it is overloaded. Dr. Ken Leistner

If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied. Dwayne The Rock Johnson

Courage is looking fear right in the eye and saying, ‘Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got things to do.’  Unknown

Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight. Ronnie Coleman

That’s a good weight for a small woman. Dorian Yates

Sacking up is 90%. Steve Shaw

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. Ayn Rand

Biceps are like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Ed Coan

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. Bruce Lee

The road to nowhere is paved with excuses. Mark Bell

I always leave the heavy ones for meets. They don’t mean shit in the gym and I’ll end up overtraining. That’s what I used to do when I was younger, but I could get away with it then. Overtraining is really common in powerlifting, just like bodybuilding. Ed Coan

Why so-called compound movements? Before I actually knew anything about proper training (and this is not to imply that I know even a fraction of what there is to know now), I realized that there was something, an indefinable something, that wasn’t ‘right’ about a number of bodybuilders who trained in the gym where I also trained. (This is not to be misconstrued as a criticism of all bodybuilders. Many have a great deal of athletic ability and fine, athletic-appearing physiques.) One such man was an advanced trainee (in the sense that he had been training a number of years and had won a number of local physique titles). However, he was missing a certain athletic quality, a harmonious look. My brother put the finger on it when he observed, ‘He looks like a bunch of bodyparts pasted together. He’s all there, big and all, but the total picture looks awkward-no grace, no glow, no…’ The point had been made. Dr. Ken Leistner

Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Frank Zane

To feel strong, to walk amongst humans with a tremendous feeling of confidence and superiority is not at all wrong. The sense of superiority in bodily strength is borne out by the long history of mankind paying homage in folklore, song and poetry to strong men. Fred Hatfield

If a man tells you he doesn’t lift because he doesn’t want to get too bulky, then his testicles have been removed. Paul Carter

Intensity builds immensity. Kevin Levrone