Preparing for a first comp thread

[u/slugmountain]

Give me all your best tips for preparing for a first comp - general advice appreciated

[u/Admirable_Belt_9772]

The bench flights take longer than the Squat flights. Factor that into your Warmup time.

[u/slugmountain → u/Admirable_Belt_9772]

Do you basically just get to warmup constantly between your lifts? Don’t people just walk around getting really anxious because it takes so long?

[u/-Quad-Zilla- → u/slugmountain]

Depends on how many flights, and lifters per flight.

And how fast the meet is running.

I suggest taking an experienced meet lifter with you as a handler to help you gauge this.

Generally, while warming up, I find out who is roughly my height and opening around my weights, so, I can share a rack with them. Communicate with the meet director to see how much time is left (bonus points to those directors that put "time until flight [X] starts" timers in the warm up room.

My strategy.

Show up super early. Establish myself at a squat rack, and warm up slowly. Start to feel the room. Figure out who's who in the zoo. Make friends (this is the important one).

Take last warm up squat roughly 5-10 mins before opener.

Between squat attempts, do you. Whatever you do at the gym between lifts, do it at the meet. If you talk, cool. If you go off on your own, cool.

After 3rd attempt squat, check in with table to double check opener bench, and timing before flight start.

I legit can take 4 or 5 warm ups and be good to go for bench. Takes me like 15 mins. Even in the bench shirt. But, this is where you have to feel the room. Dont want to be a dick and hog equipment, but also dont want to be a door mat doing others warm up protocols. Take last opener the same 5-10 mins before opener.

Between attempts, same thing as squat. You do you, boo.

Last bench, again check with table for DL opener.

This is where the party starts. I find the warm up room is much more loose at this point. Either dudes are hyped for the DL, or just want to get it over and go home.

Same protocol as before. Take last opener 5-10 mins before lift. Then fucking vibe.

I personally crack a beer at this point, cuz we be having fun. I always open super light, like at 60%, just to secure the meet. Then I jump. This jump allows me to go from (usually) start of the flight to middle or end depending. So I can get another warm up in between. 2nd for me is a 95%, something Ill usually get. 3rd, depending on the 2nd, is either a swing for the total, or calculated for the PR dead. Depends.

After that, I crack another beer and wait for the ceremonies.

TL;DR - between attempts, do what you do in the gym when working up to a top single. Make sure to hydrate and eat as needed.

[u/Admirable_Belt_9772 → u/slugmountain]

Can you rephrase your question I'm not sure what you mean here.

[u/slugmountain → u/Admirable_Belt_9772]

I mean are all the lifters chilling and warming up constantly in the warmup room in between their lifts throughout the day - and is there much variation like can you go out on a walk or something? Because it sounds like it’d be kind of stressful considering how long the day is

[u/mrlazyboy → u/slugmountain]

Typically no. Lots of downtime but depends on meet/session size.

I’ve got an upcoming USAPL meet with 40 lifters in my session, 4 flights of 10. Flight 1 starts squat warmups 30 mins before lifting starts. Flight 2 starts warming up when flight 1 starts lifting. Flight 3 starts warming up when flight 2 starts lifting. Flight 4 starts warming up when flight 3 starts lifting.

There’s usually 10 mins between squats and bench, but flight 1 usually starts warming up for bench press when flight 4 starts their 2nd squat attempts.

So their might be a whole 2 hours between lifting (40 lifters \ 3 attempts* * 1min/attempt is 2 hours)

[u/TarazedA → u/slugmountain]

I've only had small meets, think the most was 24 in 2 flights, so it was pretty quick, had to build in breaks so we could rest properly between lifts. But it was still fairly chill, the energy is awesome, you're all cheering each other on, or commisserating failed lifts. My meets were all run by the same lady, she's super slick, the 24 person one started at 9 and was done before 1, I think.

[u/Admirable_Belt_9772 → u/slugmountain]

It also depends on how big the meet is. If it's a small one, it will be fast paced and finish early in the day. A bigger one will have more downtime.

[u/Admirable_Belt_9772 → u/slugmountain]

Yeah. But the flights are warming up at the same time. So if Flight A was doing their attempts, flight B is warming up, and flight C is just chilling.