Heavy athletics refer to the athletic events which require significant strength and power; as opposed to the light athletics, which require stamina, such as highland dancing, sprinting, running, and jumping.

In general, lightweight persons tend to gravitate toward the light athletics, while the heavyweights excel in heavy athletics. Heavy athletics include stone-throwing, weight tossing, hammer-throwing, caber turning, and sheaf tossing.

Scottish heavy athletics should not be confused with "strongman" competitions, which involve lifting cars, loading kegs, etc; although some strongman competitions are held in conjunction with a heavy athletics competition, and some strongman competitions include highland games events. Scottish heavy athletic events are traditional events involving traditional equipment, while the strongman events have been mostly invented recently, using modern equipment.

There are two main categories of competition: "professional" and "amateur." The pros are sponsored by the games they enter and/or by the clans they represent and/or any other sponsors they can attract. They compete for prize money. The top American professionals may be invited to compete in Scotland, and around the world. The amateurs do not receive prize money, although they may receive t-shirts, trophies, medals, free food, beer, and free admission to the games. The amateurs generally travel only to games within reasonable one-day driving distance.

Some games may also have masters (over 40), junior, women's, lightweight, and novice, divisions. Sometimes the amateurs are split into two or more ("A/B/C") competitive units. Some games may have championship and non-championship divisions. Women and juniors usually use all lighter implements while the masters and lightweights sometimes substitute a #42 weight for the #56 weight.