Now that I have your attention, I wanted to shed some light on a little something I realized when I entered my first powerlifting meet.  Throughout my training I have been pretty much using the same bar.  I bought it pretty cheap, and it is super stiff.  I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it to bend with up to 500 lbs on it.  And in short, I think this is the reason why my competition deadlift attempts always feel light.  When I actually put all of my force into the lift, the bar flies off the ground.  So I took advantage of it, and kept on training with that power bar and I try to get everyone I know to try it.  I know now, from experience, that I can probably add about 40lbs to my best in-gym deadlift and expect that in competition, where they tend to use a whippy bar meant for deadlifting.  They’re fantastic to use, and fun at that.  I mean, they make the DL feel like a breeze for weights which were previously difficult.  Bars like the TX DL bar or the Okie Bar (not something I can ever use being a longhorn) are expensive and made with precision cnc machining tools.  I admire them.  I just save them for competition day.  And when I walk up to a weight that seems absurd to me and I pound it out I can walk away from the meet feeling good.  That’s always a plus.  So I guess the lesson here is just what I said, “Train with a stiffy”.  I’m going to make a T shirt out of that, just wait.