My first Powerlifting Contest

[Bearbait]

I'm jumping in to my first contest on Feb. 5 being held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I'm only doing the bench part of the contest but looking forward to the experience. The contest is going by the IPF rules. I might try a bench shirt next week to see how I do with it but it is pretty close to the contest to try something new. Am I jumping in to soon? I figure jump into it and see how it goes. Any advice would be great. I put up 335 in the gym last week but I'm undecided what my first weight will be.

[Firehawk]

My gym guys tell me you can never jump in too early. The more experience on stage the better.

By the way, I'm also doing a full meet (all 3 lifts) on feb 4th . Will be my first.

If you do it raw you should train for a paused rep on bench. Make sure you open with something that you know you can hit even on a bad day . Then go for it . Good luck man.

[Bearbait]

Thanks Firehawk and best of luck to you in your contest.: I just starting training with a guy that just moved here from Scotland who was in a powerlifting club for 10 years, I'm learning quite a bit and I think I've been bitten by the powerlifting bug. Does the event that you are entering make you have the ball and heel of your feet on the ground?

Good luck to both of you. Make sure you keep us all posted on your results!

[Firehawk]

Thx ironman.

No just the balls of the feet at minimum. Can't lift your ass off the seat, and can't bring your feet up either. Once they're planted, they can't move. I'm lifting in the AAPF fed.

[Bearbait]

I just got back from my first meet it went pretty good I got 2 of my 3 lifts. I started at 320 then went to 340 and both went up pretty fast so I got greedy and went for 365 which I missed, I got stuck about half way up. It was a great experience and the people there were very friendly and helpful. I must say that I'm hooked on this powerlifting stuff. I also learned that one shouldn't jump up in weight as much as I tried.

[Firehawk]

Popped on real quick to congratulate you for doing your first meet. It's easy to get the 'bug' after that huh? Try a full power meet, they're even more fun.

Nice job Bearbait. Glad you had fun.

[Bearbait]

I'm off to my second contest this weekend it is the Canadian powerlifting and benchpress nationals. I'm hoping to push more weight than my first contest. There is going to be close to 200 hundred lifters there, quite abit more than the the 20 that were there at the last contest. I should do better I'm getting used to the bench shirt now so that will help. I'll let you know how I did when I get back on Monday.

[Firehawk]

Good luck. Settle in because if it's run like the ones i been to, the benchers go in the middle of the meet, and if you got 200 lifters, that's one long meet (gotta be mroe than 1 day right?)

They had everyone squat, then full power benchers, then bench only, then deadlift, generally at the meets I've been to.

You have any plan to do a full meet?

[Bearbait]

It is a four day event starting on Thursday, the bench only contest is all day Sunday seems to be really well organized so far. The way my knees are right now I can't go low enough to get a good lift in the squat but I'm working on it. I'm hoping to do a push pull meet if one comes up around here. When is your next meet?

[Firehawk]

4 days will be a nice meet.

My next one won't be until november probably. Ther'es one in about 10 weeks in Chicago but i don't ahve the money for hotel and gas, etc. It's about 4 hours drive, dont' want to be driving there in the morning, then have to lift all day. In full power meets as I'm sure youv'e seen, you will squat early, like 10am or so, then bench around 1ish, then deadlift at like 6 or 7pm. That's for a one day meet with about 70-80 lifters involved.

In my first one, there was about 40-50 lifters, i squatted at 10, benched around 12, and deadlifted around 4. I'd rather do all of them 30 mins in between instead of hours and hours. Makes for a long, drawn out, and tiring day.