Hey everyone! I’m looking to enter a powerlifting competition or two sometime after the start of 2010 so I can have some sort of tangible goal to aspire to. I think this will help keep me motivated in my training and be something I can use as a milestone to gauge my progress. Plus I think it would be really bad ass to go to a PL meet and get to know a bunch of guys who share my goals. I’m interested in only raw, drug free competitions.
From searching the net for the past few days, the federation that keeps sticking out to me is the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation ( http://www.rawpowerlifting.com/ ). Does anyone here have any experience with this particular federation, and if so, what have your experiences been like? Are there any other federations you would recommend over this one?
Should I even bother with joining a federation until after I have some more experience in PL meets, or is joining the federation a good step to get started?
I’m 27 years old in the Washington DC area. Probably doesn’t matter, but my current lifts would qualify me as Class II in 100% Raw in the 275 lb weight class.
Any advice you guys can share to help me get started will be greatly appreciated!
The IPA VA states will be in early May 2010, and it takes place down in Fredericksburg–so right down the road. I also lift at meets twice a year in Newark, DE, and they’re sanctioned by the APA. The APA meets are awesome: great atmosphere, huge lifts (Scott Yard of EFS fame lifts there, for example) and just a bunch of nice people. They’re actually having one next month that I’m going to compete in on November 7th. If you’re interested in attending just to see how things go, I can pass along any information.
I think typically you have to join a federation in order to lift in their meets. I’d say go with one that has the most frequent contests/most lifters in your area. The rules with respect to gear are related to the maximum allowed. You can always use less gear than what is allowed. One other factor that you may want to consider is the degree of strictness in the rules (and in how they are enforced). For instance, any IPF federation (USAPL in the States) is going to require your squat to be quite deep, will have a pause in the bench press, will limit the gear to single ply and will be drug tested. Other federations may have less strict requirements on squat depth, or the benchpress mechanics and may be un-tested. If there is more than one federation that is popular in your area, find the one that fits you best wrt the rules.
find a meet close to you and sign up for it. at this point it doesn’t really matter which federation. if your lifting raw, you can still do that even if it isn’t a raw federation. you’re only competeing against yourself right now anyway.
100% Raw is great and very popular in our area. I run a PL team in NoVA if you are interested. The USAPL and AAU are also good in this area (USAPL and 100% Raw in VA is run by the same person). There are a lot of meets in Charlottesville (about 6 a year). Whatever meet you do you must join their federation to lift (is good for 1 year). There are a lot of push/pull (bench/deadlift) meets as well. 100% Raw is the only one that does the curl if you like that and they do have good trophies. Paul Bossi is the president and he is a good guy, almost everybody associated with VA powerlifting that I have meet have been pretty stand up. If you need any more info let me know (I am assuming you are drug free just FYI, all the meets I listed are tested).
Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread. Not sure why I missed the replies, but I think my HUB was screwed up for a while.
Novaeer: how did your PL meet in November go?
Tim: What part of NOVA are you in? I’m in Arlington. I travel a lot for work and really don’t like leaving the beltway during the week due to traffic, but it would be awesome to learn from you guys watching you in action on the weekends or whatever. I’ll send you a PM if you don’t mind.
I’ve decided to do the Brute Strength Classic sponsored by SPF in Norfolk on 20 February. Definitely looking forward to it and appreciate any advice you guys have to offer wrt preps and admin type things.
For anyone interested, I have a 5-3-1 log over in the Training Logs forum. Appreciate any tips you want to drop in there too:
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread. Not sure why I missed the replies, but I think my HUB was screwed up for a while.
Novaeer: how did your PL meet in November go?
Tim: What part of NOVA are you in? I’m in Arlington. I travel a lot for work and really don’t like leaving the beltway during the week due to traffic, but it would be awesome to learn from you guys watching you in action on the weekends or whatever. I’ll send you a PM if you don’t mind.
I’ve decided to do the Brute Strength Classic sponsored by SPF in Norfolk on 20 February. Definitely looking forward to it and appreciate any advice you guys have to offer wrt preps and admin type things.
For anyone interested, I have a 5-3-1 log over in the Training Logs forum. Appreciate any tips you want to drop in there too:
take it easy guys…[/quote]
I train at Fitness First Tyson’s Corner. We will probably have a meeting for Team Force in January at some point, I haven’t set a date yet. There is a meet in Leesburg, VA we might do and we might have some lifters doing the one in Manassas on Jan 30th. Feel free to PM me. I hope your training is going well.
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread. Not sure why I missed the replies, but I think my HUB was screwed up for a while.
Novaeer: how did your PL meet in November go?
Tim: What part of NOVA are you in? I’m in Arlington. I travel a lot for work and really don’t like leaving the beltway during the week due to traffic, but it would be awesome to learn from you guys watching you in action on the weekends or whatever. I’ll send you a PM if you don’t mind.
I’ve decided to do the Brute Strength Classic sponsored by SPF in Norfolk on 20 February. Definitely looking forward to it and appreciate any advice you guys have to offer wrt preps and admin type things.
For anyone interested, I have a 5-3-1 log over in the Training Logs forum. Appreciate any tips you want to drop in there too:
take it easy guys…[/quote]
i compete in the SPF and will be doing the Norfolk meet as well. I’m putting on a non sanctioned meet in Manassas January 23rd. I’ll also be putting on a bench press seminar next saturday, december 12th at 10 a.m. at the Gold’s in manassas. you are more than welcome to come.
The SPF is a good fed to compete in. It’s really started to take off in the past couple years. For the most part they let lifters lift and don’t micromanage