Not long ago, I spent some time reading posts on the Catalyst Athletics Weightlifting and Powerlifting forum. Aside from the fact that I like reading about weightlifting practically all the time, I thought the forums would give me a little insight into what our Performance Menu readers are talking about these days and, from there, I might get some ideas for future articles. It’s all part of this new plan of mine to be more considerate of the feelings of other people.

Interestingly, there were several posts from individuals who are about to take the plunge and compete in their first Olympic Weightlifting competition. It was fun to read about the nervousness, uncertainty, and excitement that comes along with the idea of walking out on a competition platform in front of a bunch of people for the first time. They say that one of the average human being’s greatest fears is public speaking. Standing up in front of a group of people and talking... that’s enough to send most people into a hammerhead panic that could end with involuntary bladder discharge. Knowing this, we can assume that the idea of standing in front of a group of people in a tight spandex outfit and trying to lift heavy weights overhead without wiping out is probably even more threatening and scary.

So if there is so much fear and risk involved, why do people want to walk on that platform and compete? Everyone has their own answer. Some people are looking for a purpose in their life. Some people simply enjoy thrills. Many people like the idea of testing themselves and finding out just how strongly they stack up against others who practice their same discipline. And almost everybody likes to try something fun. I started lifting in weightlifting competitions almost twenty years ago and I’ve lifted in almost one hundred meets. And after all this time, my first competition is still as fresh in my memory as if it happened yesterday. I know now that the moment when I grabbed a barbell, snatched it, and waited for the down signal for the first time was one of the most important moments of my life. Everything about me was changed after my first meet. Weightlifting became, and continues to be, a spiritual pursuit. It’s my religion. Throughout our sport’s history, hundreds of athletes have experienced the same life change after their first meet as well. Our sport offers almost no money and promises pain, so only fanatics will survive for the long haul. The first competition, in many cases, is the moment of conception for these fanatics.

Because we all know that anything worth doing is worth doing right, it should be useful to discuss competitive weightlifting and how to prepare for your first meet... as well as your third and your fourth and your seventy-fifth. Now, some of you might be reading this article and saying to yourself, "I’m a Crossfitter and have no interest in competitive lifting, so thanks for wasting my time this month, Foremong." Hold your horses. I’m willing to bet my last peso we can find some useful tips in here for anybody who exercises in any gym for any reason, so let’s organize our thoughts into one of my favorites... a top-three list.

This Month’s Top Three Tips for Competitive Weightlifters

1. Don’t focus on winning your first competition.

If you are lucky, you will get spanked by an experienced, national-level lifter when you compete in your first meet. That’s not a typo... you read that correctly. You should hope and pray that one of our country’s top studs shows up to compete in the first meet you lift in. In my opinion, the best thing that can happen to a rookie is to have his/her eyes opened wide by a hardcore elite lifter who can lift weights you can’t even dream of yet. If you have the right kind of personality to be a weightlifter (or just a human being who wants to be successful), you will have a ten-thousand degree fire in your belly after you see this animal hitting huge attempts on that platform. It should be a moment of inspiration, not demoralization.

We live in a me-generation, I-want-to-be-successful-in-everything-right-away-without-working-for-it culture, and this causes many people to run away from pursuits that will take months and years to perfect. Maybe this is part of the reason why weightlifting is a shrinking sport in our country. Who knows for sure? The only thing that is certain is that even genetically gifted athletes like Wes Barnett and Tara Nott had to spend lots and lots of time training before they made it to the top of the rock pile. And along the way, they had moments when they were thumped in competition. If you happen to compete against a Wes or Tara in your first meet, you will get thumped. And you should walk away from the competition chomping at the bit to get back in the gym and start making progress so that, one day, you will be the one at the meet that all the young bucks look up to. Getting beaten in your first meet should not be a shameful experience. It should make you hungry.

In my first meet, I competed in the old 90 kilo class. I was seventeen years old, had only been training for a few months prior to the meet, and I had never been coached by anybody. My technique was disgusting, and I only totaled 180 kilos (80 kilo snatch and 100 kilo clean and jerk). The other lifter competing in the 90 kilo class against me snatched 130 and clean and jerked 165 for a 295 total. He was four years older than me and he had been training for five or six years, and his lifting left quite a dent in my brain. I watched every move this cat made. I watched how he warmed up, how he acted between attempts, how he chalked his hands, how he taped his thumbs, how he stood over the bar and visualized the attempt before he reached down to grab it, everything. His performance stayed in my memory for a long time as my weightlifting journey began.

It took me three years to reach that 295 total I saw in my first meet. Those three years were amazingly tough and I loved every minute of them. And when I finally hit this 295 total in a meet, I’m positive that there were some greenhorns lifting in their first meet who probably thought a 295 total seemed as immoveable as Stonehenge. I can only hope that weightlifting’s version of the Circle of Life took place there and some of these greenhorns decided to commit to breaking through their own walls, just as I did after I got owned at my first meet.

2. Train with Short Rest Periods.

The biggest loop I was thrown for when I came to my first weightlifting meet was how the actual competition was run. Through my prior experience of competing in powerlifting, I had known about the "rounds system." This is a system where the competition goes through a first attempt round, then a second attempt round, and then a third attempt round. In other words, every athlete does their first attempts, then they all do their second attempts, etc. Every powerlifting meet I have ever attended has used this system. However, Olympic Lifting uses a progressive-bar system, where the weight on the bar continues to move up and the athletes simply take their attempts when their individual weights are on the bar. The biggest difference between these two systems is how much time the lifter will have between attempts. In powerlifting, the length of time stays approximately the same between each attempt. In weightlifting, the time varies. The athlete might have ten minutes between attempts if he/she is taking large jumps (10-15 kilos), or there might only be two minutes between attempts if the athlete has to repeat an attempt.

Because of this, athletes should always make an effort to prepare for the worst-case scenario. This means you should condition yourself in such a way that you can take heavy attempts successfully with only two or three minutes of rest. Over the years, I’ve worked with a lot of athletes who like to take huge breaks between heavy attempts in the gym. They’ll chalk up, snatch a heavy weight, and then sit down and rest for eight minutes before chalking up for the next one. If you train like this, not only is it going to drag out your workouts for hours, it’s also going to put you in a tight spot if you go to a weightlifting meet and you have to follow yourself between each of your attempts. You could easily be called to take your first, second, and third attempts in a total span of seven minutes. Knowing this, you’ll be in a major pickle if your physiology isn’t adapted to these short rest intervals.

The easiest way to escape this trap is simply to look at the clock in your gym and only allow yourself a couple of minutes between each set. It might take some getting used to, especially if you’ve previously trained yourself to sit on a bench like a garden slug for ten minutes between sets. But the rewards in competition will be massive. You’ll never run out of gas if you have to take max attempts back-to-back, and a six-minute rest break will feel like paradise if you happen to get one.

3. Train with Distractions.

Let’s use a little hypothetical situation to examine this one, shall we? Imagine your own gym, where you train every day. For the sake of this situation, we’ll say you have six platforms, six Eleiko bars, and plenty of weights in your gym. Now, there are several athletes who train with you on a regular basis, but I want to specifically look at two of them... a female lifter named Cindy Doodlekicker and a male lifter named Bob Rammer. Cindy and Bob aren’t related or dating or anything. They’re just lifters who train in your gym. However, Cindy and Bob are both extremely particular about their training routines. Cindy has a platform in the gym that she identifies as "her platform." She trains on this platform every day; it’s her special little place. If anybody in the gym shows up earlier than her and starts training on her platform, Cindy gets upset because her routine is being disrupted. On top of that, Cindy is a little spitfire who has no problem getting in somebody’s face and letting them know that they’re training on "her platform." Everybody in the gym knows how Cindy is, so they just play along and let her have her platform all to herself so she doesn’t have a panic attack.

Then, we have Bob. Bob has a platform he considers "his platform," just like Cindy, but Bob takes it a step further and has a specific bar he likes to train on. There is nothing different about this bar. It has the same spin, grip, etc. as every other bar in the gym. But Bob has had some good workouts on this bar and so he absolutely has to use it every day. If somebody else is working out on his bar when he gets to the gym, Bob will insist that he gets to share that bar with the other lifter. They can just change the weights to accommodate each of them on every set. It doesn’t matter that the other lifter can snatch 170 and Bob snatches 82. Bob has to use his bar, so everybody has to be understanding.

Most of us know the types of people we’re talking about. These are control freaks who have to have the entire gym environment exactly the way they want it when they train. Often, it doesn’t just stop with the platforms or the bars. I’ve trained with lifters who throw fits over the radio station that’s playing, the conversations taking place around them, the room temperature, and the amount of chalk that gets peppered around the floor. Now, make sure you understand that there is nothing wrong with having a favorite bar or platform. Most lifters do. But there is definitely something wrong with getting bent out of shape if you don’t get to train on your favorite bar or platform.

Here are a few of the problems with behavior like this. First of all, everybody in the gym probably hates Cindy and Bob. They all play nice because they know they have to work out together, but there is still an unspoken agreement in the gym that everybody hates Bob’s guts and wishes he and Cindy would quit the sport, find another gym, or die. Second, you can’t train like this if you’re planning to be a competitive weightlifter because weightlifting competitions throw you completely out of your control environment. Unfamiliar bars, unfamiliar surroundings, unfamiliar people. Every distraction and irritation you can imagine will pop up in a meet at some point if you compete long enough. People will walk right in front of you while you’re hitting a big warm-up snatch. Babies will cry in the audience while you’re attempting a personal record. Competition venues will sometimes be much hotter or colder than you’re used to. Dozens of little unexpected irritations will spring up at weightlifting meets, so do yourself a favor and train in a way that allows you to lift successfully regardless of any of them. When I competed at the 2004 Olympic Trials, the sound system was blaring the song "She Bangs" by William Hung while I was warming up. We couldn’t even get the Ricky Martin version, apparently. Try getting to the biggest competition of your life and having to block out the wailing of a snaggletooth American Idol reject as you prepare to compete. Do yourself a favor and lock in your mind on the barbell, any barbell, when you go to the gym every day. Let everything else roll off your back.

Actually, Let’s Finish with Tip #3 ½...

Because of our commitment to customer service at the Performance Menu, we’ll throw in one more tittle of advice for aspiring weightlifters. I suppose the nicest way to put this is to say that you will encounter some... personalities… when you go to weightlifting meets. What do I mean?

When I went to my first meet, I weighed in and then went to sit in the warm-up room and wait for the action to start. Other lifters were starting to mill around, and it was obvious that most of them knew each other. They shook hands, guy-hugged, chatted about how training had been going, etc. It was also obvious that none of them knew me. But after a few minutes, an older lifter approached me. He looked like he was around thirty years old and he had some muscle on him, but his hair was going in nine different directions and one of his eyeballs wouldn’t stop twitching. I don’t know who he had talked to about me, but he knew I had previously been a powerlifter. I have a very good memory when it comes to lifting, so I can get pretty close to a word-for-word recitation of my conversation with this gentleman. I’ll just call him "Harry" to protect his identity.

Harry: "Hi, how’s it going?"
Me: "Good, how are you?"
Harry: "Pretty good. Hey, I heard from somebody that you compete in powerlifting."
Me: "Yeah, I do."
Harry: "That’s cool. I’d like to compete in powerlifting too. I think it would be fun."
Me: "Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. You should do it."
Harry: "Do they do drug testing in powerlifting?"
Me: "Yeah, they do drug testing."
Harry: "They test you for steroids, right?"
Me: "Yeah, they test you for steroids."
Harry: "So coke and speed are okay?"
Me: (pause) "Huh?"
Harry: "You can do stuff like coke, speed, you know? That stuff is okay?"
Me: "Uuuhhh, I think they test for that stuff too."
Harry: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, really."
Harry: "Okay, thanks for the heads up. Are you a Christian?"
Me: "A Christian?"
Harry: "Yeah, a born-again Christian?"
Me: "I guess so."
Harry: "Cool. Me too. Have a good meet today!"
Me: "Yeah... you too."
End of conversation, true story.

There should be a lot of great camaraderie at the weightlifting meets you attend. One of the best parts of being a weightlifter is the friendships and bonds you develop with people. You all choose to spend a huge part of your life in a common endeavor. You understand the same frustrations and rewards of your sport. Because of this, you tend to meet a lot of people who are a lot like you. But as with any culture, you will run into the occasional whack-job. Don’t be surprised if you encounter a little dysfunctional behavior when you come to your first competition.

Fortunately, one of the things you find out quickly in this sport is that almost everyone is willing to help out the newbies. Weightlifters love weightlifters. When a new lifter pops up on the scene, most experienced coaches and athletes will be enthusiastic and supportive. This is a tribal sport, and new members are always welcome. Because of this, first-meet lifters who have been flying solo shouldn’t feel any hesitation or apprehension about asking for help. If it’s possible for you to get three steps ahead of the game and make arrangements to have a coach who will work with you at your first meet, you’ll eliminate a lot of headaches. And if you take the time to cover all the other bases we’ve mentioned, you might be on the way to a terrific experience that will drive some new goals into your brain like thumbtacks. You might stumble onto your lifetime sport. You might even go on to conquer some of the other fears in your life after you’ve competed on the platform... like public speaking. After all, stranger things have happened.