How Soon Should I Compete?
By: Abbie Leschinsky, MS, CSCS
I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you’ve been lifting for a while, and perhaps more recently have discovered the joys of powerlifting. Maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of competing in your first powerlifting meet, but you aren’t sure if you’re ready. Are you perhaps wondering, what is a good amount of weight to be lifting before I start competing? Or maybe you find yourself comparing your strength to others around you in the gym and wondering if a competition will be comparatively similar?
Well, I hear you. These are normal questions that newcomers who are considering dipping their toe into the sport ask themselves all the time, and in this article I hope to provide you some answers. I will cover when to compete, how often, and what you should do first.
How Strong Do I Need To Be?
I see people posing this question all the time around the internet, and have been asked this many times myself. I even see people looking into state or national records right away, before they’ve even picked out a meet, to see if they are close enough to these feats of strength for it to be “worth it” for them to start. I find this ridiculous. On the other end, I also see people wondering if they’re too old to get into the sport and if they can even expect to see progress.
My answer to both of these people is the same: just go out there and compete. You will not find what you’re looking for from the sidelines. Competition is something you need to go out and experience for yourself. There is NO minimum barrier to entry so long as you can perform the lift to the competition standards of your federation. At your first meet especially, it does not matter how competitive you are or how close to the records you get—every lift you do in a meet is technically a personal best, because you are being held to strict standard and performing the lift under the same circumstances as everyone else.
How Often Should I Compete?
This is a great question, and I think part of the reason people are hesitant to compete for the first time is because they can’t see beyond their first meet. Powerlifting is a journey, and for very people will one meet be their be-all-end-all. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme how well the first meet goes or what your total is on your first outing—it matters far more how well you progress from meet to meet and build off of your starting point.
Once you accept this, the first meet stops being so scary and profound. The truth is, as a beginner, you can easily compete 3 or 4 times in a year and reasonably expect to see progress each time. As you compete for longer this will typically drop to 1-3 meets per year, but very quickly you will start to see that one meet will never define you, good or bad.
What Should I do to Prepare?
Firstly, you need to ensure you are lifting to a competition standard. While the weight you lift might not matter right now, the fact that your lifts count at all is vitally important. This is where recording yourself and/or hiring a good coach can be very helpful.
Secondly, you want to have solid training plan leading into meet day. Many programs work just fine, from apps to templates and everything in between, but a good program will prepare you for the challenges of meet day by simulating the demands of the sport (namely, heavy singles), managing your fatigue properly, and peaking you well on the day in question. This is also where hiring a coach can make things easy for you.
And finally, one last tip: don’t even think about cutting weight. This idea can be very tempting for beginners because being in a lower weight class might seem like it will make you more competitive, and to some degree that can be true. But in reality, you have enough to worry about outside of managing your body weight at your first meet, and focussing on this can make everything else more stressful. And even worse, cutting for a meet without knowing exactly what you are doing can be terrible for your performance. If you are intent on losing weight and entering a lower weight class, save the cut for the offseason.
And that’s it! Moral of the story is just to go out and compete. Please don’t waste time worrying about how competitive you’ll be on your first outing. Powerlifting is about progression as much as it is about competition, and you can’t progress if you have no starting point. If you have more questions about your first meet, feel free to check out our free First Meet Masterclass course, or shoot me an Email or DM at any time.
And as always, stay swoll!
