Meet Day: How To Overcome a Difficult Performance
Hard meets, missed lifts, lack of PRs. It’s an experience that many Powerlifters will go through at one point in their career. When you’re in this sport for the long run, bad days arise- and sometimes, they carry over to the platform. Recovering from a rough competition day, and even wanting to continue, can be a difficult feat. The reality is- one day doesn’t define you as an athlete, and a single failure doesn’t equate to a destiny of failure. A challenging day can either breed more defeat and stagnation or be a breakthrough to becoming a better athlete than ever. You get to decide, and how you respond to this event will ultimately determine your success.
How can you use your “bad” performance as an opportunity for improvement?
Appreciate your accomplishments and wins, even if they seem small.
In every single meet, something good can be taken from it. If you have spent time dedicated toward training for a competition and developing yourself as an athlete, there was a positive in that experience.
Did you hit any platform PRs?
Train more consistently than before?
Qualify for a higher meet?
Show up on the platform, even when feeling beaten down?
Give it everything you possibly could’ve?
These are all accomplishments to celebrate, and extending yourself the tiniest bit of grace is essential in this situation. You’re going to feel disappointed, crushed, and left wanting more. The least you can do is appreciate your successes, too.
As athletes, we are not defined entirely by our numbers- but rather by our characters, discipline, work ethic, and passion. Those are all the reasons we chase PRs in the first place. Know that your work didn’t go to “waste,” or make you a “bad athlete.” While it’s difficult to see in the moment, hard platform performances are often a turning point in your athletic career. They can be a blessing, leading to something greater down the road, especially if you view them that way. Allow yourself to celebrate whatever you did well, and choose to use your meet as a pivotal moment. You’ll thank yourself for the entire experience down the road.
Additionally, don’t let this single day define you as an athlete. Let’s remove unrealistic expectations:
-You won’t PR every lift every meet.
-You won’t go 9/9 every meet.
-You won’t win 1st place or break records every meet.
-You won’t hit the numbers you expected to every meet.
And if you’re only in this sport for the absolute best, most exciting days, you’ll be humbled quickly. Powerlifting is about embracing failure and using it to your advantage. It’s a sport of testing your will, your dedication, pushing your limits, and breaking past barriers. The beauty is in the struggle- it’s what leads to good days down the road.
This doesn’t excuse poorly planned meet attempts or senseless comp preps, but it serves to remind you that you’re not a failure. One loss does not equate to a destiny of losses, and you can’t truly achieve your capacity if all you’re dealt with are favorable days.
The hardships are when you learn yourself as an athlete and are tested to your utmost lengths. These meets don’t negatively define you, instead- they’re an opportunity to flip the script and reflect the type of athlete you truly are:
How do you respond to hardship? Do you give up easily? Are you in this sport for the right reasons?
Use this performance to fuel your fire, increasing your hunger and forging a sharpened work ethic. Don’t let it be the end of your career. Take time to build, and return ready to represent the improved version of yourself. Your poor meet doesn’t define you, but your response to it does- and that makes all the difference.
2. Reflect on what you could’ve done differently.
If you had an unexpectedly troubling performance, chances are there was a reason behind it. Determine what that reason was, and reflect on your meet prep, so you can solidify what needs to change going forward.
Some potential examples are:
A) More consistency with your training?
Ask yourself how many sessions you missed,
Whether you followed your programming to a T,
And how much effort you were putting into your sessions.
If you barely made it to the gym, constantly going off-program, failing lifts, you can’t expect something good to come out of it. “You get the meet you train for” holds especially true here. As a Powerlifter, training adherence and dedication is the most important factor in hitting those PRs you want. Sometimes this can be taken to the extreme- many of us get too excited when things are feeling good and end up blowing RPEs or randomly maxing out. While doing so may be fun, you’re setting yourself up for failure in the long run. Spending plenty of time building, training sub-maximally, and not getting ahead of yourself allows you to continue moving forward. The goal is to PR on the platform, not just in the gym, and if you peak too early or max out too often, your chances of hitting something you’re proud of are drastically reduced.
On the other hand, if you can’t even be consistent with your training or make it to the gym 3-4x/week, you won’t make progress unless you’re a total beginner. Showing up is the bare minimum-and that needs to be your foundation, period.
B) More food? A different weight class?
This is a VERY common one, especially with female athletes. Many of us are tied to staying at a lower weight class and are more prone to dieting, robbing us of any strength progress.
Especially as a more advanced athlete, if you are not adequately fueling your body, you will not have the strength to hit big numbers. The food you eat directly supports your performance in the gym. You can’t lift heavy if you don’t have enough energy in your system. And being in a long-term deficit while you’re prepping won’t help you, either. If you’re unsure whether you’re eating enough, spend a few days tracking everything that goes into your body, no matter what it is, to get an idea of where you’re at. This will help you adjust anything if needed. Calories should be at least around maintenance, ideally, and you should be eating adequate carbs and protein, especially around training sessions.
On the other hand, stagnation could be related to your weight class. If you’ve been at the same weight for a long time and find your numbers staying stuck, despite eating as much as you can, training consistently with solid programming, sleeping, taking enough rest days, etc., it might be time to move up. This is especially true if you are perpetually cutting more than 3-4% of your body weight to make your weight class. At some point, you can only go so far at a certain weight before more food and muscle mass are needed to evoke progress. Deciding to let the scale increase can be a very difficult one, but if you truly want to maximize your potential as an athlete, it may be the only option. And remember, weight classes aren’t stagnant, so if you increase and end up hating it, you can always go back down. Don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity of seeing what you’re capable of just because of a stupid number on the scale.
C) Better recovery habits?
Were you taking enough time to recover? De-stress, sit down, and relax?
Did you have frequent deloads?
Were you consistently sleeping as much as you could?
If the answer is no, your issue probably lies there. When you’re pushing your body's limits, everything else must be dialed. It’s nearly impossible to fully show up in the gym when you’re burnt out & exhausted all the time.
While some training sessions will be fatigued- you need to be able to lift in those conditions- if you’re always running on super low energy & never allowing yourself to rest, your body will give out. Providing yourself time to restore gives you the capacity to lift the big weights. Recovery directly supports your performance.
D) Was it mental?
When you approached the platform, was each lift executed with fear? Doubt clouding your mind?
What was your inner dialogue like? How did you feel in the weeks leading up to the meet?
If you approach the lift, deciding it’s going to be a failure, you’ve already lost.
If you doubt yourself when going up to the bar, you get in your head and lose focus- it’ll be much harder to stand up with it.
If your primary weakness is mental, you'll need a lot of work and practice to demolish that. Mental fragilities are often harder than physical ones- there’s more nuance and breakthroughs needed to get you feeling confident. It’s an ongoing battle- this sport is more mental than physical, and getting out of your head is a practice you’ll have to continually master. Life stress and mental health can also drastically affect your performance in the gym.
So, how do you overcome it? While this will look different for everyone, some techniques that may help are:
-Visualization. Especially if there’s a specific lift you feel shaky or uncertain with, spend time normalizing it in your brain. Whether daily, before every training session, etc., spend time seeing yourself approach the barbell, how the weight feels in your hands, and successfully locking it out. That way, when you execute the lift, you hardly even have to think about it, it’s second nature.
-Get your practice reps in. Whether this means higher-rep work, increased frequency, or extra warm-up sets, spend plenty of time building confidence with the lift you feel insecure in. The act of getting underneath the barbell multiple times helps solidify your self-belief: when it’s a consistent routine, you begin to confirm that you’re capable.
-Determine what helps you succeed. Is it pure, quiet, focus during your reps? Lots of hype, approaching the barbell with a scream? Is it anger? Walking up to that weight with pure rage?
Channel the energy that YOU need as a lifter. Pinpoint it, what that feeling is like, and practice building up to it. Use your warm-up sets as groundwork: getting you closer to the emotional state you need. Watch videos of yourself, write, verbalize- ingraining your strength mentality.
E) Programming and technique changes?
Was technical error consistent in a specific lift for you?
Was your programming more than you could recover from? Not enough volume or variation?
This is usually the most obvious reason- however, I think other factors need to be considered, too. But, if everything else was on point throughout your entire prep, your performance may be due to your programming.
Let’s get this out of the way: if your lifts look and feel like shit, and you haven’t done any work to fix that, you won’t get very far. Spend plenty of time in your off-season hammering your technique, working on cues with your coach, filming your lifts, and choosing variations that help-pauses, tempos, lower percentages, etc.
If it was your programming, look back at what worked and didn’t. After all, programming is experimentation, not hard science, and we need trial and error to determine what we respond best to.
Maybe you do better with a higher squatting frequency or fewer deadlift days per week.
Perhaps you need to go from training 3x to 4x/week.
Maybe there was too much variation- or too little.
Maybe you benefit from more volume or accessory work.
Reflect on this with your coach, and determine what you need as an athlete. Use this meet as a data point for future plans.
3. Construct a plan with your coach to help you continue progressing.
Once you’ve reflected, recognized your successes, and established your path onward, have a conversation with your coach to guide your direction. Pinpoint what you need to work on, take an off-season to build yourself up, and get another meet on your calendar. Work backward with your programming and nutrition so you’ll be prepared on that big day. Do the work you specifically need to unlock your best version- your program should be built around this.
One of the worst things you can do in this situation is to return to training with no plan, no direction, and no drive. You’ll lose focus and be disappointed with the result. When you’re feeling beat down from Powerlifting, it can be grueling to muster up the inspiration to go on. However, if you’re hard-set on doing great things, improving, and giving yourself a performance you’re proud of, it’s the only way. When you’ve got a set goal, a date in mind, and specific steps to get you there, that fire inside of you will ignite. While you’ll have hard days, and it may take a while, we all get into this sport because we love chasing goals and having something to work toward. Give yourself just that- and guarantee you’ll be ready once your next competition day rolls around.
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Ending with a meet you didn’t want can be a devastating and heartbreaking experience. As athletes, we put a lot into our sport, and not seeing that pay off in the way you would've thought can damper your perspective. However, these days don’t define us and are part of the process for the vast majority of lifters- at least if you want to do something meaningful. Don’t let your day define you, but choose deliberately what your response to it will be. Take the good from it, reflect on what you could’ve done better, and design a plan to do just that. A difficult meet can be a turning point in your career, catalyzing you to bring out the best in yourself. Use your losses as an opportunity to improve, and your ceiling will become an open sky.
