I often see many people training hard in the olympic lifts but never compete. The all too common answers are variations of:
“I need to be much stronger”
“I need better technique”
“I wouldn’t be competitive”
And so on with other excuses. To be blunt, you’re more than likely not going to be top dog in your first competition, and that is completely fine! The fear of not being the best or doing well, is common for all competitors, regardless of sport but it shouldn’t stop you from competing. There are SO many benefits to competing that if you truly want to become a better weightlifter you should be competing at least x2-3 a year.
The Benefits of Competing
1) Learning to Adapt
Every competition, poses it’s own issues whether it’s delays, getting to the location, warm up space, etc.. You also have to get used to lifting in a different gym, using a different bar, different platform, different time of training, and so on. To add to this your warm up may not go as smoothly as you’d like. For instance, if the lifters in front of you missed their attempts and stayed at their weight, then your attempt will get pushed back. If that compounds, you’re going to have to either do a quick pull or just relax till it’s your attempt. This can EASILY throw off your rhythm and/or cool you down. Learning to adapt to various situations and keeping your nerves calm is what will set you apart from having a bad attempt vs. a good lift. This development of mental focus will come through experience in the competition setting, that’s why it’s so important to enter a competition regardless of your skill, strength, or what have you.
2) Learning to Peak
It’s pretty easy to focus on your own training when the gym favors your conditions. But when you’re at a competition it’s a different story, somethings just don’t go the way you want. But in training sometimes you have those days where everything just clicks and you crush a PR. The key questions though is can you repeat this performance and time it for a competition? You’ll never know until you compete. It’s relatively easy to PR in practice in this manner but planning for it, making weight, and knowing what you should be doing in the final few weeks is a completely different story .
3) Exposes Flaws
Competing also exposes many flaws that you may not have otherwise known. As I said earlier, most people are comfortable within their own training hall, this clearly is an optimal place. The weightlifter knows the platform, the bar, the focal points, and so on. But what happens once we take that all away, will you still be able to perform under various conditions, will you be able to lift without that same focal point?
Aside from the environmental factors, competing in itself means you’re going to try to push your limits (to an extent), which will show the flaws in your lifts. For instance you may think you have a solid lock-out but once you’re on the competition stage, the video exposed your lockout strength wasn’t as tight as you would’ve liked. While it could’ve been a fluke, for the majority of times you’ll see weak points that’ll need to be addressed in the following program.
4) Commitment
Entering a competition now leaves you no excuse to focus on the things that matter- the snatch and clean & jerk. I find new people interested in weightlifting focusing on too many skills that may not address their greatest needs to perform well on the platform. For instance the ever popular squat, it’s great to have a strong squat but if you’re reaching to squat 200k and can’t consistently hit a 120k clean, there’s clearly an imbalance on your focus. If you’re preparing for a competition and focusing on increasing your auxiliary lifts, more than likely you’re not going to lift optimally during the competition. During this time the focus should be in the classical lifts. With that said this does not mean you shouldn’t be squatting, pulling, or pressing it just means the shift of focus should be toward the snatch, clean & jerk.
5) It’s FUN
The final aspect of competing is that it’s FUN! Seriously, it’s fun to see all your hard work placed into x3 attempts, it’s a lot of pressure but never the less it’s a great experience to be out on the platform. To top that, most weightlifting competitions have a very friendly and supportive environment. It’s also very motivating to watch other strong weightlifters compete. If you do well or bad, I’m sure that you’ll have a great time.
In the end, if you haven’t competed before don’t put much pressure on yourself. This experience teaches you how to adapt, progress, and peak for the next competition you enter. The key is to try to progress each time you’re competing and as I said have fun! I hope that this will inspire you to find a competition to focus your training on 🙂
Train smart,
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