Our first club competition

16th April saw our first Club Competition here at the Barbell Club. It was a resounding success, and I genuinely couldn’t be happier with how it went. 
The quality of the lifting, the running of the day and even the overload of spectators made it all a brilliant day. 
The Club Competitions are largely a grassroots affair, allowing for beginner and novice powerlifters to get into the sport in an easy, low pressure environment where they don’t need things like a singlet, approved belt or approved wraps etc. With that in mind, the majority of lifters were first timers and we didn’t see many failed lifts, and there were zero bombs too. 
The majority of volunteers were also doing their roles for the first time too, and they learned very quickly. This was mainly down to how helpful people like Mark Henkelis, the North West’s tech extraordinaire, and Sheina, our very own Referee, were with the lifters and volunteers alike. 
Mark brought a whole bunch of equipment in order for us to run this competition as much like a sanctioned one as possible, and then spent the day managing the platform for us all - where, again, he was a massive help with our first time spotters and loaders. 
Sheina has reffed at many competitions now but she balanced being fair with being helpful and approachable to new lifters. So any red lights were accompanied by a thorough explanation of what was wrong and what needs to be worked on. 
All of this means that the spotters, loaders and lifters are now in a better place to go forward and compete at future competitions too. 
Our supporters, Red Bull, also supplied us with many, many cans of Red Bull across a variety of flavours. Meaning that everyone involved in the event from lifters, to volunteers to spectators were able to get a free drink of Red Bull.
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If you’re wanting to buy photos from the day, then please check out this link on James's website.

So, what’s next? 

Firstly, we have the Supertotal Push/Pull on it’s way. This is on the 7th May, which isn’t far away now, and it will include the events of the Clean and the Bench Press. The winner, for male and female, will be decided by a combination of Sinclair points on the Clean and Wilks points on the Bench Press. 

This competition will be the first time we’ve included Olympic Lifting in an event at this gym too, so we’re really excited to see how that works.
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We are accepting entrants to this until this Friday, 28th April, so if you do want to give it a go - use this link.

After that, we enquired about hosting another Club Competition in the Summer but it was suggested that we just do a Sanctioned one instead. 
So, we are hosting the August Barbell Fest on 27th August this year. This will be an IPF sanctioned event, meaning that you can qualify for next year’s British and English events (including the Juniors, Open and University options). We are looking at getting sponsors for this event too so that we can include things like (hopefully) cash prizes and such. 
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You can find out more information on the event here. If you’re interested in sponsoring the event you can check out this form too.

We are also planning to re-launch our Beginner Classes in both Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting throughout May. If you, or anyone you know, are interested then please get in touch and we will give you more information!

You can email us here - coaching@dannyleeonline.co.uk