Skip to main content

Finding my first powerlifting meet.

Carrying on with adventures in powerlifting.

Once I decided that it might be fun to try competing in powerlifting competition, I was presented with my greatest challenge yet - working out how to go about that.

Powerlifting is a fairly niche sport, there's lots of really keen athletes and lots of resources out there (thank you internets), but they tend to be polarised between the fairly superficial, which helped me decided that it was something I wanted to pursue, but didn't tell me how, and the completely specialist, that assumes you are already in and know what's going on.

I did a bit of a Google and found a competition fairly close to home, almost exactly at the point where I will peak my current training cycle. Brilliant. But it's not that simple....

All powerlifting competitions happen under the auspices of a federation, and to enter a competition, you have to be a member of that federation. Some competitions also require you to qualify, which means as a beginner you need to start in an open competition, to get some official lift numbers down.

Different federations have different rules and sometimes different classes of competition under their umbrella.


Choosing a federation


So I decided to have a word with someone who knows stuff - the owner of the gym I train at is a competitive powerlifter. His first advice was to decide which federation I wanted to compete in. This isn't a lifelong commitment, like choosing your team in Pokemon Go, you can change federations from year to year or even subscribe to more than one.

From our conversation I learned that there are effectively 3 major criteria which I had to consider.

The first is the social aspect. Some federations are known to be "friendlier" than others, also, if you already know someone who is competing in a particular federation, then joining the same one means it's easy to support each other and attend events together.

The second is the rules they compete under. Some federations are drug-tested, others aren't. If  you compete in a drug tested federation then you need to make sure you aren't taking any medications on the banned list. If you compete in an untested federation then you need to be aware that your competitors could be taking performance enhancing drugs and that is going to affect your position in the field.

Weight classes also vary between federations, and that might be something to consider.

There's also the kind of competition. Equipped competitions allow supportive suits, knee wraps, all kinds of kit to stabilise the body and get more out of the lift. Raw competitions allow less or no equipment (most allow belts and knee sleeves, but it varies). Classic allows some basic supports, but no suits.

For a laugh you should watch this video of Meg - usually a raw lifter, trying to get into a squat suit (from about 8 minutes). Equipped lifting takes dedication.


The last thing to consider is the availability of competitions. It's all very well finding a lovely federation with rules that suit your needs, but no good if they don't have any competitions you can get to!

My final decision was to join British Powerlifting, because they are the ones hosting an open meet, just an hour's drive for me, at a convenient point in my current training schedule. I'm also going to go to watch the nationals with the British Powerlifting Union and see what they are about.

The kit


Even for raw competition, a certain amount of equipment is necessary. I'm considering this after choosing a federation because the rules for kit requirements vary between federations. British Powerlifting operates under IPF rules, which are fairly strict. As well as specifying the technical requirements for all the kit (right down to the appropriate stretchiness of your singlet and the length of your t shirt sleeves) they have a very specific list of makes and models for equipment that are considered legal in competition. Local level meets are reportedly less strict about kit requirements, but that's up to the organiser and it's probably not good economics to buy an unapproved lifting belt because one competition will allow it, and then find the next won't accept it.

For a classic meet, my equipment list goes like this:
  • Belt (mine is a 13mm thick 4" wide lever belt)
  • Knee sleeves (wraps aren't allowed for raw/classic in IPF)
  • Wrist wraps (like a thick bandage that supports the wrists)
  • Singlet (like a wrestler)
  • T shirt (for hygiene and modesty!)
  • Knee high socks (they are big on people not leaving blood on their barbells, the socks are for deadlifts)
  • Shoes (I like to deadlift barefoot, so I have some deadlift slippers which are as minimal as it gets, and I squat in firm soled lifting shoes)
And that's a lot of stuff for an "unequipped" competition :D

I also learned that knee sleeves are a workout in themselves.


Finding the community, and the information


Honestly, I don't know how anyone did this before the internet. I'm going to quickly summarise the sources of information that have been super useful for me.

There's a few really useful places on YouTube for info. Juggernaut Training have a channel that includes a lot of really useful videos, including one that takes you step by step through what to expect on your first meet day and some really in depth coaching videos. Megsquats produces some fun vlog style content. Generally videos with people like Alan Thrall and Silent Mike are good for geekery.

All the federations have their own Facebook pages, some also have community groups where you can chat and ask. There's also a good Powerlifting Women community on Facebook (if you are a woman) and this Instagram is fun to follow (even if you aren't a woman).

It's taken a bit of digging, but I'm really excited to be discovering not only the sport, but a whole bunch of really awesome people.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Managing Fibromyalgia flares

I've written before about living with EDS and Fibromyalgia ,  much of my personal fitness and health practices are geared around managing those conditions and keeping me as well as I can be. When managing a chronic health condition, particularly one that involves fatigue and potential flare ups, pacing, good nutrition, good sleep and generally taking care of yourself is always the first priority. Ideally we want to have as few flares as possible. But sometimes they still happen, and when they do, it's good to have a strategy in place. And I'm going to be talking in fairly general terms, because while EDS and Fibro are my personal experience, there is so little understanding of the mechanisms behind these conditions, that most strategies are going to be applicable to a number of conditions where crashes of exhaustion and pain are a feature. So what is a flare? A flare is a period where someone with chronic illness suffers increased symptoms for a short while. The

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t

4 reasons why you should eat

I feel ridiculous writing this post. It should be excruciatingly obvious. But it's not. Everywhere I look I am seeing messages about not-eating. "don't eat these things" "don't eat very much" "don't eat at this time" And frankly, it's not very healthy. Physically or mentally. So what I'm going to talk about today is why it is important to focus on eating, rather than not-eating, when working towards your health-improving goals. And yes, even, no, especially, when one of those goals is fat loss. Fuel for your activities So food is fuel for your body. It provides the energy you need to function. Your body uses carbohydrates and fat as fuel. It can use protein, but only when under quite a lot of pressure. Your brain can only fuel itself on glucose (carbohydrate) and you can only metabolise fat in the presence of carbohydrate ("fat burns in a carbohydrate flame"). When your body runs low

Becoming a powerlifter - the aftermath.

The main event! It's been a couple of weeks now! So a bit of a delayed update because I have been up to all sorts of things. The news on powerlifting is that I did get to my meet! I made weight (hoorah!) by cutting a couple of kilos, then I did the competition, and because I knew that I would likely not be able to update my blog straight away, I made a little video to summarise how the competition went. [TLDW, I totalled 230kg, which is less than my gym PR, but I'm pretty happy considering. There were hiccups...] Here's a couple of quick videos (kindly recorded by Ryan from Kernow Gym ). My second squat, with extra angry lockout, and my third deadlift. The one that didn't get away. This is my second squat @ 72.5 after my first @ 70 was disqualified. I was pretty annoyed at that, which probably accounts for the fast lockout 😂😂 A post shared by Claire Salem (@firelotusfitness) on Oct 16, 2017 at 11:04am PDT I like deadlifts, de

Protein. Are you eating enough? Are you eating too much? Do you need a supplement?

Let's tackle a meaty topic. Meaty. Protein. Get it? Everyone seems to be going on about protein. Everyone in the gym is chugging shakes. People on the internet are claiming its the secret to weight loss and everything else. Other people on the internet are saying the first people's kidneys are going to fail. Someone else says there's really no need to worry as we don't actually need much protein after all. Some people have numbers, but those numbers are all different. Everyone is confused. Who is correct? Well, everyone is a little. Save that they are all only telling a very small part of a bigger story. So shall we break it down? WITH SCIENCE! The RDA OK, so a figure you will often see bounced around is 0.8g of protein per 1kg of bodyweight. This is the Recommended Daily Allowance. This figure is based on the idea of a "normal" person who is not particularly active, or growing and consuming an adequate amount of calories per