Why “Get Over Yourself” is one of the best pieces of advice you can receive when preparing for your first powerlifting meet.
A surprisingly common piece of advice that I give to lifters when they are going into their first meets is that they need to “get over themselves”.
All too often, I’ll start working with a lifter who has had 1-2 years of dedicated powerlifting training under their belt and they will hire me as their coach as they prep for their first meet.
So far so good, right?
Then we get around to discussing expectations. What do they want to acheive at their first competition?
Some of the lifters I speak with are perfectly reasonable about things bringing up ideas such as:
- getting used to the competition environment
- maybe hitting a small PR on one or two lifts
- not missing any commands at the meet
- going 8 or 9 for 9
The above are all great things to focus on going into a first meet.
Now, some other things I will hear about what lifters will want to hit at their first meet:
- acheiving a state/provincial qualifying total
- breaking local records
- acheiving a podium position
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these goals.
After coaching powerlifting for ~9 years now both in person in Vancouver, BC and online to clients all over the US and Canada I can say that those goals are better served as good “secondary” goals to keep in the back of your head.
Holding those as primary goals puts a TON of pressure on you to perform well in an unfamiliar environment.
Some lifters will do just fine in situations like this and have the strength to do great… Maybe even acheive some of those secondary goals but often I find those goals come from a place of scarcity instead of one of abundance.
Allow me to elaborate.
If you’re trying to get “everything” done at your first meet, that sense of urgency is at least partially contributed to by the idea that there won’t be enough meets in the future for you to check all the boxes over time.
On the other hand, if you come at your first meet with more modest goals and take an abundance approach to the competition – thinking of it as “the first of many”, you can alleviate the artificial pressure of an already pretty stressful situation.
Again, this isn’t meant to discourage lifters from caring about their first competition or even have them shy away from pushing some heavy weights in comp #1, but instead an alternative mental framing that I’ve found VERY beneficial towards long term development of the athlete instead of over-prioritizing short term success.
When did you do your first competition? Let me know in the comments below.
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