Meet Day Preparedness
(Have a plan. Be ready to adapt.)
We all love to read articles and watch videos about training methodology. It’s in depth, it’s exciting. And can often allow us to reassess what we do in the training hall. This is all well and good, but at the end of the day for a competitive lifter, our performance on the competition platform is what counts. Yet there is not much discussion on how to approach game day. And sometimes lack of detail in these areas prevents people from translating great training cycles into solid competition performance.
Here are some strategies that we on Team WNY take working with each member individually to help ensure maximal results the day of a meet.
Step 1: Planned attempts.
Have a plan.
By about a week and a half out from a competition, the hard work is over. Outside of staying/getting healthy from the rigors of training, there is not much left that can be done to boost one’s performance in the meet. This is a great time to set up your plan for the day of.
My rule is I call the shots on first and second attempts. The athlete calls the shot on their third. This only changes if we are tight on hitting a qualifying total or placing in an important meet. At that point I will call all 3 attempts. About 6-7 days out from the comp I lay out a strategy for all of my lifters. I will communicate the numbers that I am thinking about and get their input. Sometimes we will lower numbers. Rarely we will raise them. For my more experienced lifters, we will have spent 2-3 weeks discussing attempts, so there are not many surprises. For my newer lifters this is often the first time they hear what I am thinking…and the input I get back from them is invaluable.
How I determine numbers is determined by the scenario. Here are a few examples.
Novice/beginner lifter. The goal here is 5/6. We often open low, take small jumps and sometimes even put off going for PRs on the platform. We want to ensure they feel confident with every attempt and learn how to be successful on the platform.
Intermediate lifters. The goal here is 4/6 and the expectation of running at a PR on the third attempt. We open at a weight that is heavy, but that they have been making frequently over the past 4-6 week. From there we take jumps like ones they take in training, with the goal being a PR attempt on their third. With a more experienced lifter we can be a bit more aggressive on either the opener, the size of jumps or what they do on their third attempt (if they make the first 2)…but we keep the goal in mind.
Athletes looking to qualify. For these athletes’ success is simply determined by hitting a pre-determined total. 2/6 or 6/6, if they hit that total, the mission is accomplished. All numbers will be based off of achieving that goal. We will have multiple cnj strategies set up, so that as soon as the sn is over, we know exactly what needs to be done to make the total. My hope is to have them set up so they can cnj what is needed to qualify on their second attempt. This way we have two shots at it, and if they make the first we can then have fun and go big on the third.
Be ready to adapt.
There are numerous reasons that can lead to these plans going to waste. At that point as a coach I have to make those decisions on the fly. If someone looks bad in the warm up room, time to lower attempts. If someone makes their opener and it looks heavy, time to take smaller jumps. If someone looks great on their opener, may be a good time to take a bigger jump. These are all things that as a coach I have to be able to figure out in real time. I will make those decisions, and always let my lifter know. I will make sure they know it is not a bad thing…I am just doing what is right to achieve the goal. At times the way a meet is going will determine performance: so I always keep in mind what the goal is and what changes may be needed to achieve this.
Step 2: Planned Warm Ups.
Have a plan.
When I communicate what the attempts will be, I will ask them to list the warmups they take to get to the openers (in most cases including taking the opening sn as the last warm up attempt). By the time my lifters are competition ready, they should be pretty methodical in their warm ups…..same weights/reps/sets each session allowing them to know how to go from empty bar to heavy. We will aim to make sure they do the same on game day.
The one change is when we have multiple lifters in a session, we will adjust the numbers a bit to make sure we can warm everyone up on time. But the number of attempts and general range of numbers will be the same. For an athlete trying to qualify or place in a meet (or a high level lifter lifting in a National event alone) we will replicate their warm up exactly as per normal.
This allows both coaches and athletes to easily anticipate when to start warming up once the competition cards are laid out. We will tell out lifters “be ready for first weight at X time”. This way they know when they need to start mobilizing/doing empty bar work to prepare for that. And we are all on the same page as far as when it is time to start with the warm up attempts.
Be ready to adapt.
This is all well and good, but we have to be ready to adapt when reality hit. Sometimes a meet moves at a blistering pace. Sometimes they move at a crawl. Sometimes a lifter pulls out or takes much bigger jumps than anticipated. Sometimes warm up cards do not come out until the very last minute. All of these will call for a big change of plans.
If a meet is moving at a fast pace, or the cards come out late and we must rush warmups, there are 2 strategies we use. And often we employ a combination of both. The first is to increase the pace of warmups. If we do this, we will do it on the lighter set ensuring that as things get heavier, we can go back to normal rest. The second is to start shaving some attempts out of the warmup (often easier on cnj than sn). If an athlete normally takes the first weight for 3 sets, lets make it 2. If they normally take 5 kilo jumps the whole time, in the light and middle range lets make it 7-10. If using one (or both of these) the goal is to make sure that towards the end of warm ups we are back to normal pacing and normal jumps between attempts.
If a meet moves slow, same as above: we can adjust the timing or the volume. We can take longer breaks. Most lifters will not be bothered by this. If there is someone who is, we have them take extra warms ups simply repeating a weight an extra time at a normal pace before going up. We can also adjust the volume by adding some sets, even w longer breaks, in the middle to low range weights. These will not fatigue the lifter or add stress to their CNS. Same as above, our goal is to get the pace and the weights more “normal” as the load increases.
The things mentioned above are a couple of way that Team WNY members consistently hit 67% of their attempts (or higher) on game day, even when taking multiple PR attempts.
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