First Power Lifting Competition

I did it! I entered my first powerlifting competition and successfully competed! I was pretty nervous about entering a power lifting competition as I didn’t really know how I would go at all, and well you have to lift in front of people! 

The first thing I needed to conquer was the weigh-in. I had registered in the 57kg open class, however on our scales at home I was always VERY close to going over this and having to go up to the 63kg class. Luckily for me the scales at the gym seemed to be generous (and you also weighed in your underwear, where at our home scales I weighed with some clothes on).

I ended up weighing in at 55.3kg which meant I could stay in the class I originally entered in. It also put me as the lightest person for the whole event! 

The bad thing about being the lightest there is that it generally put me as one of the first people up in each of the lifts. I would have preferred having a few people go before me so I could get the gist of how it all ran. 

I made the decision to have pretty low opening lifts as I really wanted to have my first lifts go well and not have a fail on the first one as I thought it would knock my confidence. 

I ended up going lighter than I should have for openers but at least now I know and I didn’t fail on any of my openers which is good! 

Squat

My first squat was at 80kg, which is comfortable for me and I knew I would have no issues getting it. The lift was obviously easy for me so I decided to go for 85kg for my second lift, which was also too easy for me. 

In hindsight I should have started out at 85 or 87.5kg as my squat PB is 95kg (although I have only ever done that once). From the time you complete your lift you have 1 minute to make a decision as to what your next lift is. 

In my hast I decided I’d go for 93kg, in my mind thinking that my PB was 92.5kg and then discovering we could only go up in 2.5kg increments so ended up going for 92.5kg. 

It was only after I handed my slip in I realised I should have gone for 95kg and looking at the video I probably would have had it in me! 

Bench Press
Next up was the bench press. Bench is by far my weakest and I haven’t really been doing it for very long at all so I was a little nervous about this one.

Kyle kept trying to tell me that I would surprise myself compared to other people and when I discovered I was second up and not first I was really surprised as I went with a really low opener for me – 40kg! 

40kg was far too easy for me, as was my second attempt at 45kg. My third attempt which was to match my PB of 52.5kg was hard but not so much so that I failed. 

I discovered that using the blocks for my feet really helped, as did the people yelling encouragement when you got to the sticking point. I’ve asked Kyle if he can make me some blocks for use in our gym so I can keep practicing. 

 Deadlift
The Deadlift has become my favourite out of the three lifts because I feel strong when I do it. To be honest I was kind of over it by this point and I was feeling tired from the long day.

My opener for Deadlift was 100kg which once again is an easy lift for me. There was quite a long wait between warming up and actually getting to the lift while they dismantled the bench rack which was a little bit of a pain as I didn’t realise it would be so long and cooled down a bit.

The 100kg came up easy enough and my second attempt I went for 110kg. The 110kg was a lot harder but still manageable. This was the first time wearing my lifting socks and I think I made a bad decision buying cotton rugby socks as it was a lot harder than just lifting up my bare shins!

I originally was hoping for a 120kg or 122.5kg third lift depending on how strong I was feeling however after the 110kg I knew there was no way that was going to happen today (my PB is currently 122.4kg) and decided to go for 115kg.

Unfortunately I failed my first lift for the day on my last lift for the day, while it was a bit disappointing to fail on a lift I know I can do I am super happy with how the day went!

When I first decided to enter a powerlifting competition I decided that I would be happy with a 250kg total, and at the time thought that was a pretty big goal.

Back when I set that goal I had a PB of around 85kg for squat and 45kg for bench with a 120kg deadlift PB however it had been about 6 months since I got that and I’d failed a few times on 110kg in my training at that point.

My total for the day ended up being 255kg which is 5kg over my goal so I am happy with that!

Would I enter another competition? I am going to start looking for some squat shoes, deadlift socks, soft suit and possibly look into trying out a belt as well, so YES I would!

Would you rather squat, bench or deadlift?