Competing: A Good Thing or Bad Thing?
Personally when I hear that a client is wanting to compete in any sport (soccer, bodybuilding, powerlifting or even a mud-run) I see that as a personally set challenge. There are both mental and physical benefits that will come from this decision. First of all, what leads people to make this kind of decision?
The majority of my clients will want to compete in powerlifting. Why? Well, we are a strength gym that is very good at improving people’s squat, bench press and deadlift (as well as other lifts). As they are improving in these lifts over time, seeing us trainers compete throughout the year, the average client will get slightly curious. They will begin to ask questions regarding competing and find out that it is quite literally for everyone. They might see videos of the trainers competing and go watch someone compete. The next step is deciding to compete which is usually done during a goal session (whereby we re-address goals).
What is holding them back all this time from just doing it? Most of the time it is fear of failure or fear of the hard work that goes along with competing. If I ever ask “would you ever compete” or “You should compete” (after they have expressed their curiosity), the most common response is “No, I am not strong enough”. They later compete and ask themselves, “Why didn’t I do this earlier? It was so fun”. Nobody cares how strong you are, they just want you to give it your best.
The mental aspect of competing usually has a hugely positive effect on their training. Someone that is taking competing seriously is more likely to improve their diet (to fit into a weight category or an improved Wilks score), improve their sleep (to recover for the next heavy session), reduce outside influences (like partying, drinking, drugs etc), improve their training (need to hit certain lifts in training in order to hit the number you want in competition) and will also have a sense of urgency in all these things (as there is a date that you need to be a certain weight and a certain level of strength). All these things can come from competing and taking it seriously, regardless of what level of lifting you are. Once you hit some personal records in a comp, the client is then often very motivated to compete again so you can hit more personal records and sometimes the issue is stopping clients from competing too often.
The physical changes that can come from competing range from obviously an improved level of strength due to all the behaviour improvements, though also some technique improvements in lifting, stronger bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles. Your body just experienced a new stimulus of an intense max out. Time to go back and build some volume and prepare for the next one whereby these new behaviours will continue to get you stronger and stronger and stronger.
I highly suggest anybody that wants to get stronger over time, invest more every day and seriously consider competing sometime soon. Even a novice comp is something good enough to hold you accountable.
See you on comp day.
