Friday, October 16, 2015

A beginners guide to weightlifting meets. Or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the singlet

Hi newly minted weightlifters. So you have put in some time at the gym, cleaned up your technique, hit a PR or two, and have decided to take the next step on your weightlifting journey. SO what comes next? The only logical answer would be to put on form fitting clothes and try to get as close to your pr's as possible in front of a crowd within several imposing regulations on how you can and can't perform your lifts..... a Meet!

  But what will we do next?

First off, go register.  I'll wait.....

Now thats out of the way you need to pick a weight class.  Now unless you are 1 or 2 lbs over your class and have been meaning to get into "summer shape" for the last 3 months (it's October, get your shit together!), pick the weight class that you already comfortably fall into.  My first meet I weighed in at 89 kilos.  Could I have cut weight and tried to make 85? sure... Would that have let me lift better? Absolutely not.  Best case scenario for cutting weight is to not sap your strength.  It is done in a very cautious calculated manner and if done poorly will leave you miserable and hating weightlifting.  So for this first meet DON'T CUT WEIGHT.  When you are trying to qualify for national level stuff then we can talk about which weight class best suits you (but that would require you to buy a singlet too).
This one should do nicely!



And then?...

Alright you gave someone 40 bucks and you picked a weight-class.  Pretty much all of the stress is gone now.  You just simply have to show up and follow some programming.  We will be incorporating 1 weightlifting day a week at the gym, also having saturday weightlifting class (which will start becoming slightly more of a strength program built into the technique work we already do) and then you will have an optional open gym workout that you can complete if you want as well.  2-3 days a week of lifting depending on how much time you want to dedicate to this.

This is the easy part.  Just keep showing up.  There will be good days, there will be bad days.  Consistency is what will make you a better weightlifter. Every day you are under the bar swings the pendulum in the positive direction.

Week before the meet

This will be taper week.  You will be tempted to try your prs, or see how many warm ups you need, or think you will magically get stronger by sneaking in a few extra reps.  Don't do it  If it isn't programmed, don't do it.  If the coach writing the program thought a few extra reps will get you better numbers in a weightlifting meet, THEN HE WOULD PROGRAM THOSE EXTRA REPS!  Just follow the prescribed reps and then chill.  The more relaxed you are the few days before the meet, the better you are gonna be.
Seriously.... Chill out.

Day of the meet

Have a bag packed with your shoes, tape, belt, wrist wraps, singlet (or other tight fitting clothes that don't cover the elbows or knees but if you can find me something better then I would love to see it.)  Also have something to eat packed.  I usually bring a sandwich or two, and a protein bar, some fruit, and some sort of hydration mix (skratch labs is good stuff for this, but gatorade works too). After weigh ins you must stay hydrated and full but not stuffed.  Basically you want to feel ready to work out.  Don't make it more complicated than it is.  Just as important, bring something to eat between snatch and clean and jerk.  That is where my protein bar and fruit come into play.  Easy rapidly digesting carbs between the events is huge.  
After weigh in, eat something, drink something, and then once again, Chillax homie.  Take a nap, listen to music, read a book, but relax is the key.  No sense in starting a 2 hour warm up process and burning all of your energy.  It is at this point your coach will look at the starting cards and make a determination as to when you should start warming up.  Then we will time your warm ups to finish at your opening weight about 2-3 minutes before you go out and lift.  We will determine what weight you want to open at, and how many reps you need to get there.  I usually aim for 8-10 warm up lifts (not including stretching and dynamic warm up) before I go out on stage for snatch.  Clean and jerk is closer to 7-8 warm ups.  It is heavier so less reps means more for the contest.  Again we will determine what you want to do and where you want to start.

On the platform

Uhhh, go lift the weight.  The hard part was showing up at the gym all those days.  Today you are rested, you are relaxed, your technique is better than ever, just go trust yourself to perform. 

You have 1 minute to start your lift.  You can start as heavy as you want but the weight cannot go down.  That is important to know.  If you try it and it feels super heavy then we just gotta try again.  No taking weight off the bar.  Every time you take the bar off the platform (past the knees) it counts as an "attempt" whether it was successful or not.  You get 3 attempts at Snatch and 3 attempts at Clean and Jerk.  If you happen to be trying a weight that no-one else is attempting then you might have to "follow yourself" in which case you will get two minutes instead of 1 minute for the attempt. 

Just pick the weights you wanna lift and do what your coach says to do.

All done

What happens next.  Well you eat a pizza, drink a beer (as long as you are the required 21 years of age in the state of colorado) get on the podium if you finished top 3 in your weight class, you celebrate your prs, or celebrate simply posting a total (snatch + C/J).  You might have bombed out  (not completed a snatch or a clean and jerk) in which case you pick your chin up and get ready for the next one.  After all this is important to exactly one person.  That is you.  Congrats to signing up for your first meet and I can't wait to see all the hard work people are gonna put into this.

JT

I will leave you with this, if you feel the need to be a little showy out there.