28 Jan Warming-up On Meet Day
By Dain Soppelsa
I have been in several warm-up areas at meets over the last few months and I have witnessed some silly things being done. It is very apparent that there is a need for guidance on the matter. In this article I will outline what proper warm-ups should look like on competition day. I will also give some do’s and don’ts for your meet day warm-ups. I hope to help some people avoid getting themselves into a bad situation before hitting the platform on meet day.
The first thing you need to do as a lifter, even before meet day, is to make sure that you bring help with you to your meet. Whether you’re a rookie, or a veteran of powerlifting, you simply have no business going to a meet without a person, or multiple people to help you. You need to make arrangements for this well in advance. Your training partners are the best people to come because they see you day in and day out in the gym. They know you better than you know yourself sometimes. If your training partners can’t come with you, then your past training partners, or people you know that live in the area of the competition could be your best bet. Don’t just show up with your significant other who doesn’t lift weights and has never been to a meet to help you. It will not go well.
The first thing you need to do when you arrive at the meet site is to find out what flight you are in and exactly where in that flight you are. You should have a plan for exactly when you want to start warming up. I personally want to take my first warm-up on the empty bar when the first person in the flight ahead of me hits the platform, but I start applying my liniment and doing my active warm-up, half way through the flight before that. I want to be ready to hit the bar when the flight before mine starts. Don’t wait too long to start warming up and make sure to pay attention to what is going on the platform. This is a great task for your helpers to keep an eye on for you. I personally would rather have to slow down a little than have to rush because I realized that I’m behind schedule.
The way I look at warming up on meet day is that I want to do as little work as possible to get myself warm without wasting too much energy. It is competition day after all. Everyone is different and you’re going to have to experiment to find out what will work best for you. I don’t recommend trying a brand new approach in the warm-up room on meet day without at least giving it a trial run at in the gym. Â That way you can determine if it will be a good approach for you.
When warming-up for a competition, you don’t want your last warm-up to be too close to your opener. You don’t want to strain too hard and/or waste energy you could be using on the platform. I personally like for my last warm-up to be 75-100 pounds away from my opener. This will also take some trial and error for you to establish what will work best for you. You definitely want your last warm-up to be easy. So, if the last one or two warm-ups you take are hard, there’s a very good possibility that you are doing too much work. I’ve seen people grind out warm-ups and even miss them. I just recently saw someone get buried in the hole on a squat and then they proceeded to dump the weight on their spotters. There is no reason you should be that close to failure in the warm-up room. Don’t let it happen to you.
You want to have a specific plan for all your warm-ups. I like to count all planned warm-ups out and spread them out during the flight before mine. I also like to plan my last warm-up so that I don’t take it right before I have to lift my opener, but I also don’t want too much time in between my last warm-up and my opener so I get cold. I want to hit my last warm-up towards the end of the current flight’s third attempts, so I have time to gather my things and find a good spot to sit by the platform. I like to go relax and get my mind right before my opener. You should feel warm and confident at this point, not tired and concerned.
The warm-up room can be a stressful place if you don’t have a plan. By having a solid plan when it comes to warming-up, you can greatly lower your stress levels. Don’t be afraid to be assertive when getting your warm-ups in. I’m not telling you to be an ass, I’m saying not to let people cut you in line, or take a much lighter weight than you because that person is behind. Your helpers can and should help with this part too. When my training partners and I go to meets, we tend to take over a monolift and our guys spot and load for the other lifters on that monolift for the duration of warm-ups. It just takes practice and planning to figure out the best approach for you. Just make sure that you don’t do more than you need to do. Â Save it for the platform because that’s where it counts.
Dain Soppelsa
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