Your guide to nailing perfect nutrition and fuelling for your first powerlifting meet so you can perform optimally and smash PRs easily.
You’ve trained for months. Your opener is dialed in. You finally hear your name called… and then it happens — you forget to wait for the squat command. Three red lights. All that work, wasted by a simple mistake you didn’t even know about.
That’s the reality for many first-time powerlifters. Not because they weren’t strong enough, but because no one told them the unwritten rules — the meet etiquette that separates the lifters who look like pros from the ones who look lost.
This guide (and podcast episode) will walk you through the key do’s and don’ts of meet day, so you can focus on hitting PRs and enjoying the experience instead of worrying about messing up
For simplicity, we have split this mega-article into the 3 critical parts involved in succeeding at a powerlifting meet. this is part 1, but all are linked below (these will be posted about 2 weeks apart, but you can get instant access to all 3 parts by joining my free Starting Powerlifting Community
Part 1: Meet day lifting (equipment, warmups and timing)
Part 3: Meet day, before lifting (performance nutrition and hydration)
Today’s article is focused on what to do on the day of the meet before you start lifting. Specifically focusing on performance nutrition and hydration to ensure steady energy through the day.
You’ve reached the official day! You show up at the venue and now it’s time to go through equipment check and weigh ins (assuming a 2-hour weigh in). These are pretty straightforward and the only 2 things you must do before you start to warm up for your lifting. Luckily, signage at most meets is sufficient to show you where to go as long as you open your eyes. After weigh ins is where many lifters end up confused though – they just don’t know what or how much to eat and when to do that before warmups start.
Regardless of if you’re cutting weight or not, you should be putting back some electrolytes and fast digesting carbs (like Pedialyte and rice cakes) close to immediately.
One crucial aspect to understand about a 2-hour weigh in is that it’s 2 hours from when they start weigh-ins to when they start lifting. This means that if you’re the first to lift and first to weigh in, there are 2 hours separating those events. In application, you’re probably going to weigh in 10th or 15th which will eat into your available time to rehydrate, eat and warm up before your opener.
With those shorter turnarounds, it is CRUCIAL to stick to foods that you know sit well in your stomach. Blowing chunks on the platform is not cool. It is up to you to know how many carbs/calories you can digest without gastric upset.
Let’s simplify this: if you’re a mid-class lifter and not in contention for a medal or record… don’t cut weight. Make your life easy and eat whenever, weigh in at your walk-around weight. Once you’re strong enough for bodyweight to matter, add that layer of complexity if needed.
At his most recent competition, we made a change to Chad Nabe’s competition strategy. The meet prior to this one, we were focused on the typical “bunch of caffeine and candy” diet that you see at many meets but this resulted in him riding the wave of blood glucose through the day. He had a pretty hard crash after squats and spent the rest of the day reeling trying to get his energy back up and it cost him several attempts.
In the recent meet, we focused on more whole food choices and approximately double the total carbs for the day (5050 blend of complex and simple carbs) and unsurprisingly, he had energy going into not just squats (where he hit an all time PR of 207.5kg) but also his 3rds on bench and deadlift too instead of feeling “strong enough, but gassed out”.
On meet day, once you’ve gone through equipment check, you’ve listened attentively at the lifter briefing (I promise you, this is the 5 most critical minutes of the day so if you see everyone gathered around the meet director in the back warmup area then close your mouth and open your ears).
While this section of the first meet series is fairly simple and short, it is CRUCIAL to your success. Far too many lifters do great in their first 1-2 lifts and then crash and spend the rest of the day running damage control.
The next (and final) installment in the series will be focused on optimizing your warmup strategy to make sure you don’t get cold but also don’t rush and miss your opener. I’ll also outline how I helped the 2025 BC Provincial Champion warm up on the day (it’s far from conventional).
Part 3: Equipment, Warmups and Timing
PS – here’s another way I can help you prepare for your first powerlifting meet:
Apply to join my “Platform-Ready Blueprint” and become a case study. We’ll work with you 1-on-1 to show you how to add up to 200 lbs to your total and compete in a powerlifting meet with less than 5 hours per week in the gym.
It takes less than 60 seconds to apply HERE in order to find out more information and see if you’d be a good fit.