Appetite can also be related to nerves.
True, but in my case I don’t believe that was the issue. My appetite has a strong correlation with training volume, on deload weeks I’m less hungry too. For this last meet I wasn’t stressing at all until the moment I woke up the day of the meet, and then I was stressing all day long. To make it worse, I didn’t even start warming up until 3pm. I think staying relaxed would probably be much better because by stressing you are wasting energy without even doing anything, and probably increasing hormones like cortisol which can’t do you any good.
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WTF my coach got me in doing light singles tonight 
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Yep, you’ll see the lifters who pace around all day or have their headphones on the entire day usually don’t perform very well.
Arousal is a bell curve.
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My meet week I keep it pretty light and technical.
7 Days out:
Squat 2x2 at 70%, 3 x singles at 75%
Bench: 3 doubles at 75%
5 days out:
Bench: 2x2 at 70%, 3 x singles at 75%
Deadlift: 3 doubles at 70%
3 Days out:
Squat: 3 singles at 70%
Bench: 3 doubles at 70%
This is for sure too.
Im pretty good at chilling out after each lift, but even so getting ready for deadlifts was still a struggle mentally. Can’t imagine trying to keep it going all day, Id be completely burnt.
What helped in last weeks meet was an audio switch. During warmup i listen to music, in the hour wait after my flight I listen to an audio book.
Ill also watch other lifters between my warmups, but not watch them during my down time.
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This last meet we didn’t deadlift until 8pm which made it worse. I was ready for a nap by that point, I drank an energy drink to get going again.
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Ouch! Long meets are really tough. Luckily we hit deadlifts at 4:30, but when you start squats at 9 its still a pretty long day. I’d definitely have performed more poorly last meet if Id had to wait until that late for the pulls though, no doubt.
My performance wasn’t terrible, I made all my 2nd attempts, passed on my 3rd squat (had some issues leading up to my opener which messed me up) and failed my 3rd bench and DL. I did 95% of what I should have been capable of if everything went smoothly.
I have heard a lot of people say that they have issues at a meet because they are used to training in the evening but now they are competing first thing in the morning. For me it’s the complete opposite, I train in the morning so lifting at 8pm just feel weird.
Not terrible at all, read your meet report and looked solid, but I empathise that it sucks when you don’t hit what you wanted. Lifting a weight that other people think is good is irrelevant if it not the weight you know you can handle.
I’ve never seen the AM / PM meet thing, the ones I’ve done have always been all day things, meaning 9-5/6 with big flights and long breaks between lifts.
The only other time I competed in the PM was my first meet, we started around noon-1pm but it was IPF-affiliated so it was over in less than 3 hours.
I think it was only really deadlifts that suffered this time from being so late in the day, I was sure I was going to get 600 and my plan was that if it moved well I would take another 15kg or so for a 4th attempt. That 400 bench was more like a “failure to execute”, it should have gone up but for whatever reason it just didn’t happen.
The problem is that not every day is going to be a great day so sometimes you have to settle for a bit less if that’s all that is there. The main thing is that my lifts are all going up so even if my numbers are pretty mediocre right now they should be decent in the near future.