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Your First Meet
by Mike Armstrong
It’s mid-November, and you are getting on the plane to fly to some distant city for your fifth World Championships. You’ve got every piece of equipment you know you will need, and some you know you “just might” need, stashed under the seat. You know every rule of every lift, when to start wrapping your knees, probably even where you will finish. You are a true veteran of the sport, right?
But it was not always like that was it? At some point in your life, your name was called out for your very first weigh-in, and you probably had very little, or even no idea what was going on. Every lifter in this sport has gone through this. Some were more ready for it than others. Having an experienced coach certainly helps. But some of us live in remote towns, with no coaching, other than our buddies in the gym. You know the type, the ones who tell you every squat was “a mile deep”, but all the red lights you get mean more like “a mile high”. Or they do a deadlift while you are benching, but with the same bar!
This past weekend I was referee at a local Championships. There were a few new lifters there, and for some, their inexperience showed. I thought I would take a few minutes and run through what I saw, and some other common “first meet” errors.
Weigh-ins
At the weigh-in you will be asked to submit your opening attempts for each lift. I have been asked “do you need them right now?”, “what do you think I should do?”, “how much are the rest lifting?” and similar questions. Often the beginner will know how their lifts and proudly announce them:: “Squat 500, Bench 340, Deadlift:550” I will say “Great numbers, are you going for a World Record today?” They look confused until you remind them that you need the weight in kilos, not pounds. All of these factors contribute to slowing down the weigh-ins.
Equipment Check
Every piece of equipment you will wear on the platform must be seen by the judge. All of it must meet the specs laid down in the rules. “But... I have never seen a copy of the rules”, is often heard. “I thought shorts were okay”. A cop will tell you: “Ignorance of the laws does not give you the right to break them” The same applies. Call someone! If you bought a membership card before the meet, chances are the person you bought it from can tell you. Also, the entire USAPL rule book is online, on the USAPL site, or the IPF rule book, on the IPF site at http://www.powerlifting-ipf.com.
You can help out at the weigh in as well. Have your wraps unrolled, suits and shirts together, and everything clean. In otherwords, do your own equipment check beforehand.
Warm-ups.
Beginners often start to warm-up either too early or too late. While everyone is different, what works best is to rehearse it in the gym. Set a time, say in half an hour, of when your first lift would be. Start getting ready when you think you should, and see if it comes out right.
What if you are in the second group? How do you know when to start? A good rule of thumb is to take the number of lifters in the first group, and multiply by 4. So 10 lifters in the A flight would mean that the second or “B” flight would start about 40 minutes later. When you finish squats, you can usually start the bench warm-ups pretty soon, as the first group will be benching while you warm up. Same goes again for deadlifts.
What the Heck are “Flights” anyway?
The rules state that when the number of lifters exceeds 14, it must be broken into groups. This is to prevent an excessive amount of time between attempts, resulting in possible injury. If the contest turns out the have 22 lifters, it will be broken into two groups. The first group, or Flight A, as it is usually called, will do their squats first. This means that those 11 or so lifters all do their first attempt, then they do their second attempt, followed by their thirds. Then Flight B does this same thing. Then Flight A returns for their three attempts at bench, followed by B, then repeated for the deadlift.
“When is it my turn to lift?”
Powerlifting uses the round system. This means that each lifter will do his first attempt, with the person who submitted the lightest opener going first, progressing to the heaviest. At some point before the contest, the order of the lifters for the first round should be announced. As well, the announcer will be continually announcing who is coming next. “Joe Green is up, followed by Bob Brown and Jim Black”. Once all lifters in the flight have done their first lift, the order is repeated for second, and then third lifts. BUT, remember that the order is always lightest lift to heaviest. If you make a small jump, and someone else makes a big jump, this order may have to be shuffled a bit. Don’t think that just because you followed Bob Brown the first time that you will again. Listen for your name!
“Time!”
“Someone called Time and I was told I could not do the lift. Why?”
The rules state that the lifter has one minute to start the lift. The start of the one minute is from when the head judge calls out “the bar is loaded”. It ends when the head judge gives the signal “Squat” for the squat, “Start” for the bench, or when you pull on the bar in the deadlift. If you are not ready by the time the “Time” signal is called, the end of the one minute, then you forfeit the lift.
This means that you will have to get your knee wraps on, suit pulled up, belt on, and whatever else, just in time for the “bar is loaded” signal. For squatting, usually if you start to wrap when the lifter before you is going to the platform you will be about right. Some like more time, some less.
The reason for this is to prevent slowing down the contest. Lets say you are in a meet with 60 lifters. If every lifter took just 15 seconds longer to start their lift, then the 540 lifts they will do would take 2 hours and 15 minutes longer!
“Too Late!”
“I tried to turn in my next attempt but they told me I was “too late”. What does this mean?”
At the completion of each lift, the lifter has one minute to inform the desk of what their next lift will be. This does not mean you can run to your coach, rifle through you bag to find your note book, look it up on a conversion chart, get out your calculator, go to the washroom, get a drink, or wait to see how you buddy does on his lift. One minute, period. Know your numbers before! Okay, have a list on top of your bag to refer to, but if you open up a 150 kg, then you probably want 160 or 165 for a second.
Most often, you will inform the desk of your lift in writing via an “attempt card”. This is a small paper with your name on it, yours or your coaches signature, and a box for the numbers. This card is for your protection. If done verbally, and the scorekeeper writes it down wrong, and you get the wrong weight, you are not going to be happy.
So what happens if you do not turn in your attempt inside the one minute? You forfeit that next left. But if it is the second attempt you forgot, you then have another one minute to turn in the third attempt! So if you do an opener, and then wander off for 5 minutes, you get no more attempts at that lift. What if you had missed it? Your out of the meet!
Beating the Signals.
Each lift has signals for the lifter to pay attention to. In the squat the judge will decide when you are ready and say “squat”, and lower his arm. You cannot go down until then. Once you are back up, you must wait for the second signal “rack” before moving towards the racks. In the bench, you must wait until the “start” signal before lowering the bar, and “rack” before putting the bar back. In the deadlift, the one signal is “down”. Do not lower the bar until then.
Almost everyone will forget the signals at some time. I have done it myself. This past weekend I judged a lifter who squatted before the signal on his first lift, and racked the bar before the signal on the second. Both were too high anyway. He found this out on his third lift. If he had given us a chance to judge his lifts properly he would have known this before his third attempt.
Bar Height
Many novices will set their squat rack heights too high. They do not realize that the bar will bend slightly, plus it will compress you a bit. When checking height, take the bar off and stand erect. The bar should be about 5 to 6 inches above the rest position. With weight on the bar, and you bent forward a bit, this will mean about 2 inches when you do the lifts. I have seen lifters trip coming back because the bar is caught on the uprights, or lifters who have to stand on their toes to put it back. With 500 to 600 pounds on your back, this can be very dangerous.
The LIFTS
No, I'm not going to attempt to go through the common lifting mistakes, that would take a book itself. But if you get the above points taken care of, then you will be well on your way to becoming a good lifter, and able to concentrate better on your lifting.
Mike
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