Putting yourself out there on the powerlifting platform is extraordinarily vulnerable. It is exceptionally brave to put yourself in view of the public and say “I have worked really hard on this thing, it is important to me, I’ve never done it before like this, but I’m going to try". It’s only natural to have fears and reservations.

Personally though, I don’t think fear is a very good reason not to do something. So I’m going to do my best to put some of your fears to rest so that you can let yourself experience how very cool it is to compete in a strength sport.

Here are the 15 most common reasons that I’ve heard in my career working with beginner lifters for why someone is absolutely not ready to enter their first meet, and why I think they’re wrong.

I competed a few weeks ago at the JPS Spring Showdown. It was an insanely fun day; the most fun I’ve ever had at a competition. I made some good lifts. I also made some shocking mistakes.

Each time I compete, I always have a period of self-reflection where I go through what I did well, what could have been better, my future competition aspirations, how I want to train on the other side of comp and any ideas for my training that I’d like to flag with my coach.

Here are my reflections from the JPS competition. Perhaps you learn from my mistakes. Or perhaps this just prompts some more reflective practices in you.

In a couple of weeks time, I’ll be hitting the platform in my 32nd powerlifting contest. Seven weeks before this meet, I flew to Singapore and the Philippines on a 23-day holiday. In that time, I trained three times — and one of those sessions was a dumbbell only workout in a hotel gym.

So it’s fair to conclude that I won’t be achieving anything spectacular at this upcoming meet. I won’t be in my best physical condition and I won’t be hitting any PBs. That said then, why am I doing it?