Now, before the interwebs get up in arms about this being all about women, this is not. This goes for guys too, beginners, intermediates and sometimes even advanced lifters. I'm only writing this from the perspective that the last few meets I've been to, my clients have lifted on either an all-female day, or the entire flight was women.
I can make a pretty educated guess that at least half of the women I observed were newer lifters, with 0-2 meets under their belt. There may have been some with more experience, but for some reason just haven't caught on or been taught properly.
By the end of the meet, I had about 10 things that stuck out in my mind on what these women could've done better or more efficiently.
1. Warm-up attempts
As my client was warming up for squats, a gal jumped in with us. She took the bar for about 15 reps, going very low and very slow. After everyone else in the group went, I said, "what do you want next?" She shrugged, hesitated and said, "Whatever you have on there is fine."
We had on a 25, plus it was a 65# bar, so 115#. I politely asked what her opener was, to which she said, "150." I said, "Can I give a suggestion?" She chuckled and said, "Sure.... I don't really have a system here."
I explained that jumping to 115 and then maybe 135 only gave her 2 warm-ups before her opener. So while she was gracious enough to let me give suggestions for warm-ups, it was a huge eye opener that some people come to the meet and don't have a warm-up routine set.
First of all, know the weight of the bar being used in the warm-up room. While the weight on the platform will be 200# whether it's a 45# bar or 65# bar, your warm-up sets drastically change. (Again, this ESPECIALLY goes for women who squat under 300#. A guy squatting 800 can usually add plates regardless of a 20# difference in bar weight.)
From here, there are two ways to work your warm-ups. You can either go with what you normally do in the gym (which hopefully is appropriate), or start with your opener and work backwards.
How do you do that?
Let's say your opener is 225. Here is what your warm-up attempts may look like, working backward. The percents are percentages of your WARM-UP. You do NOT need to use percentages, but I listed them bc as you can see, it's about a 10% increase each time:
200x1 (89%)
180x1 (80%)
160x2 (70%)
135x4 (60%)
115x5 (50%)
95x5
75x5 (could possibly skip this, but if you feel you need another light set, this would be good)
barx8
Without even doing percents, I typically have my clients go 20# jumps if they squat around 200-250. and 30# jumps if 300+.
2. Warm-up reps
Ok, folks. A powerlifting meet is a test of strength. Repping out your 90% deadlift for sets of 5+ in the warm-up room is only hurting you. As you can see above, once you hit that 70% ish mark, you only need singles. Those singles should be done with perfect form as you would execute on the platform and done with some speed/explosiveness too. When you move a sub max weight with some speed, you're recruiting more fibers and turning those on. Doing more reps only fatigues the muscle.
The only time you may want to do more than 5 reps is with the bar, or your first warm-up after the bar. After that, you're looking at triples, maybe a double and then singles. I watched a gal pull 225 in the warm-up room and it was slow. I thought, "Ok, probably a little heavy for a warm-up attempt, but that's ok."
Then she proceeded to do 4 more reps with it.
Don't do that.
3. Timing warm-ups with opener
If you don't know how many warm-up attempts you need, this is going to be difficult as well. I saw many girls either warm-up way too early and then just sit there for 20 minutes. And I saw a few girls who were rushing to take their last warm-up and their names were being called to the platform!
In the example above, with a 225# opener, your warm-ups will probably take 20-25 minutes, 30 tops. The first 3 light sets should move quick, as we want blood flow. Once you hit that 70% number, where you only have about 3 warm-ups left, you should be starting to time them closely. If you have 15 minutes before the flight starts, and you're the first lifter, then you have exactly 15 minutes to finish, which puts you at about 1 attempt every 5 minutes. If you are toward the end of the flight take that into consideration.
Typically if you're within the first 5 lifters of the flight, you should take your last warm-up and about 5-7 minutes before the flight starts. If you're toward the middle or end, you should take your last warm-up when the FIRST LIFTER steps on the platform.
The reason for this is that it will take about 1 minute for each lifter to get called up, have the weight loaded and finish their attempt. So from first lifter to 12th lifter you have about 12 minutes.
One last thing to pay attention to is how many of the lifters in front of you are opening with the same weight. Why is that important? If 5 lifters are all opening with 185, then there won't be any time wasted to change the weight. Tends to move just a hair faster.
I will finish the last 2 points in the next article as these warm-up mishaps needed some attention. When going into a meet, your warm-ups are just as important. You don't want to be rushed and you don't want to get cold either. Take some time to jot down some warm-up ideas to help guide you through the day.