Quote Originally Posted by The_Irish_Dave
They're just too weak to do a full range of motion and because of their ego they don't want to appear like that in front of the other guys so they do a partial rep. There is a place for partials reps in powerlifting. It's to get your body used to a much heavier weight. You can overload a bar and lift a lot more than you could normally making your tendons stronger. Your bones and the rest of your body gets used to this weight making a sort of bridge between your normal weight and the weight you want to achieve. Take the deadlift; you can lift a certain amount off the ground but you fail say because of your grip. With partials you can lift a lot more in a powerrack set at knee height or more which will train your grip strength. This along with the upper part of the movement (where most are stuck at) will improve your lift over time. Same goes for bench and other movements. I think all powerlifters train with partials. They just have to be used in conjunction with normal full range of motion exercises that's all.
Wrong type of partial. I think what most here are referring to is the lower section of a partial. For example, a powerlifter will do partials for the top section of bench press by performing board press. Where as in bodybuilding, they do partials where they come down to the chest, but only go up 2/3 of the way, and stop before lock out. If you think that is easier than a full rep, I would (no offence) have to question your experience on this subject.