Weightlifting Competition Season is Back
Competition season is back! And for many athletes, this is where training starts to feel heavier, expectations rise, and small mistakes suddenly feel bigger than they should.
Here are some recommendations to help set yourself up for a successful competition season. Some of these might be new ideas, and some you may already be doing.
This blog will also be helpful if you’re new to competing, or even if you don’t intend to compete but simply want to improve your performance in training.
You already have a coach supporting your training and a program tailored to you, so what more can you do to take responsibility for your progress and continue setting yourself up for success?
Competition season can be exhausting, not only physically but also mentally. Practising strategies to keep you healthy and balanced will always help to progress in training.
Let’s talk about the physical side first.
Preparing Yourself Physically
The main thing you need to focus on as an athlete is your ability to recover from training. If you recover well, you can train consistently, and consistency is what drives progress.
This mainly comes down to three areas: sleep, nutrition, and hydration.
Sleep
For athletes, the recommended amount of sleep is around 7–9 hours per night.
Of course, we’re all human, and that won’t always be achievable. But if getting more sleep is something you can control, then prioritising it is a must.
Lack of sleep leads to brain fog, physical fatigue, slower recovery, and reduced performance. Over time, this makes training feel harder than it should and limits your ability to improve.
Most athletes don’t struggle because their program is wrong; they struggle because they’re trying to train hard while under-recovered.
Nutrition
This is where I believe many athletes unintentionally drop the ball. Staying on top of nutrition isn’t always easy, but making sure you are fuelled is one of the best ways to support your performance.
Training underfuelled will limit your ability to manage load and volume, reduce recovery between sessions, and gradually leave you feeling increasingly fatigued, costing you progress over time.
Below are some simple nutrition strategies to help you get more out of your training.
First, you should have a rough idea of how many calories you need each day to support both training and daily life. If you don’t know this yet, this is a great place to start.
Use this calculator to determine how many calories you need in training- LINK
Once overall intake is in a good place, meal timing becomes extremely helpful.
Fuelling Around Training
During training, carbohydrates are your best friend, with protein a very close second. That doesn’t mean fats or micronutrients aren’t important, they absolutely are, but around training we want to prioritise foods that digest quickly and provide usable energy.
Pre-Training
Around 30–60 minutes before training, aim to consume roughly:
0.5–1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight.
For example, if you weigh 100 kg, aim for around 50–100 grams of carbohydrates.
We prioritise faster-digesting carbohydrates here because they provide energy quickly and are easier to tolerate during training.
Some simple examples include:
Pikelets with strawberry jam (my personal favourite)
LCM bars or similar snack bars
Fruit or fruit juice
Rice cakes with honey or jam
Have your larger meal 2–3 hours before training, and then keep your pre-training snack 30-60 minutes before training.
During Training (Intra Nutrition)
If your session is over 90 minutes or particularly high-volume, adding carbohydrates during training can help maintain energy levels.
Simple options work best:
Lollies
Sports drinks like Powerade (with sugar)
Juice or carbohydrate drinks containing electrolytes
Liquids can sometimes be more beneficial than solid foods because they are digested faster, but a mix of both can work well for some athletes.
Post-Training
After training, the goal is to begin recovery.
If you’re heading straight home to dinner, perfect, you’re covered! But if your next proper meal is more than an hour away, a small snack can help start the recovery process.
A good target is:
Protein: about 20–40 grams
Carbohydrates: roughly 1–1.2 g per kilogram of bodyweight
This combination helps replenish energy stores and support muscle repair.
You might notice I haven’t spoken much about fats, fibre, or micronutrients in this section. These are still incredibly important for overall health and performance, but they are digested more slowly and don’t provide the quick energy we need during training. Make sure they are still included throughout the rest of your diet.
Hydration
Hydration is often overlooked but is just as important as nutrition.
If you train intensely, aim for roughly 2–4 litres of water per day as ageneral guideline. If you sweat heavily, replacing electrolytes becomes even more important for normal body function and performance.
Remember, all of these recommendations are general advice. How much you personally need will depend on your calorie requirements, training load, and lifestyle. Nutrition is highly individual, and if you need more support, working with a qualified nutritionist or dietitian can be extremely valuable.
The Mental Side of Training and Competition
You can do everything right physically, sleep well, eat well, follow your program perfectly, and still struggle during competition season. That’s usually where the mental side needs attention.
Weightlifting is an incredible sport, and I genuinely can’t imagine a time in my life when Olympic lifts won’t be part of my training. But it’s also an unforgiving sport that requires patience, and that can be incredibly frustrating at times.
One thing I consistently see during competition season is athletes doing everything right physically, but neglecting their mental preparation. We talk a lot about physical recovery, but rarely about mental recovery, which can sometimes be just as important.
Redefining Dedication
Dedication looks different for everyone.
There’s a stigma that if you don’t show dedication in a certain way, you won’t succeed as an athlete. Yes, commitment matters, but when you’re six months away from competing, a holiday isn’t going to hurt your outcome. You are allowed to have hobbies outside the gym. In fact, you should!
The constant pressure athletes place on themselves to perform is often what holds them back. Weightlifting easily feeds perfectionism, chasing numbers, chasing perfect lifts, and attaching identity to outcomes.
Finding balance is one of the most important skills an athlete can learn.
Having a life outside the gym doesn’t make you less dedicated. Often, it makes you better.
Self-Talk
Strengthening your inner voice can have a huge impact on performance.
After a missed lift, many athletes say things like:
“I always miss this weight.”
“I suck at jerks.”
Repeated negative language slowly chips away at confidence and affects execution.
A simple way to reframe this is to ask yourself:
If a teammate said this to me, what would I say back to them?
You’d probably be supportive rather than harsh. Try offering yourself that same level of support.
Self-talk can be motivational, instructional, calming, or powerful, depending on what you personally need.
Pre-Training Routines
Before training, ask yourself: how do you switch into athlete mode?
If you’ve come straight from a stressful day at work, taking a few minutes to sit down with your training journal and write out your session can help you reset and focus.
Go a step further and ask:
What is my goal for today’s session?
What technical focus have I been working on?
You can also quickly rate your readiness on a scale of 1–10 by considering sleep, hydration, stress, nutrition, soreness, and motivation. This helps you understand where you’re at and adjust expectations for the day.
In-Training Routines
You don’t need to be superstitious, but having a consistent approach to the bar can help bring focus and confidence to each lift.
Practising approaching the bar the same way every lift, using the same language to yourself (those motivating words), and choosing one queue to focus on can help you stay consistent in your mental approach. It might take some trial and error to find what works for you, but if you’re not sure where to start, ask your coach to help you make a plan to approach the bar consistently.
At the same time, stay flexible. Competition rarely goes exactly to plan, and learning to adjust is part of becoming a resilient athlete.
Post-Training Reflection
After training, journaling can be especially helpful, particularly after tough sessions.
Reflect on questions like:
What surprised me today?
What happened factually, without judgment?
Where did I fall short of expectations?
What strengths did I still show?
What small wins can I build on over the next few weeks?
This helps shift focus from narrowing in too closely on training challenges to reflecting on your session as a whole.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few starting tools to support your physical and mental recovery during competition season.
Nutrition and sport psychology go much deeper than this, but these strategies can be powerful first steps. If you feel you need more support, seek out qualified professionals and do your research to find the right fit for you.
At MWBC, we believe coaching is more than just giving someone a program and hoping they execute it perfectly. Progress comes from supporting the whole athlete, how they recover, how they think, and how they balance training with the rest of their life.
If you’re unsure where to start with any of this, or you feel like you’re doing the work but not seeing the progress you want, we are offering free one-on-one session to help athletes build a clearer plan heading into competition season.
—MWBC Coaching Team
