Hey Granite Games competitors! By now, you’ve been hard at work for months training for competition weekend. We’re just a month out from the main event, and there are a lot of moving pieces to consider to ensure your best performance on game day. How’s your nutrition? Have you been tackling your goats? Are you giving yourself enough recovery time? What about the competition standards, and details as small as when you’re expected to be where?
Like we said, there’s a lot of moving parts in the equation, and we know you want to walk out of the Granite Games with the peace of mind that comes from knowing you were prepared, gave it your all, and have no regrets. To help make that happen, here’s a list of things to keep in mind in the final days leading up to competition.
Nutrition
There are many theories on optimal nutrition and eating to perform. We’re not here to tell you which one to subscribe to, but there are a few basic guidelines you should stick to at this point in the game. Don’t make big changes in the weeks leading up to competition. By now, you should have found an eating regimen that works for you, and unless adjusting caloric intake is prescribed as part of the plan, don’t go crazy with amping up and scaling back your meals. Additionally, now is not the time to rock the boat. You’ve spent a great deal of time learning how your body reacts to certain foods, how long before a training session you should eat, and how much fuel your body needs to perform at its peak levels. Use that knowledge to your advantage now to optimize your training sessions, and carry it with you into the competition as well.
Training
Just like with nutrition, everyone has their own theories on training, and we’re not here to tell you which regimen is the winner. What we do suggest is that you don’t ignore your goats. If you know your struggle is with snatching, guess what? There’s going to be snatching. The bar isn’t magically going hoist itself in the air on competition day, so dial in that technique now and build your confidence in getting under the bar. It will pay dividends on the competition floor. Whatever the chink in your fitness armor, do everything you can now to minimize it, because fitness competitions have a way of finding everyone’s weakness—that’s what they’re designed to do.
Recovery
Right now, you’re probably feeling the reality of what you’ve signed on for and may be tempted to push yourself harder than ever to be ready to step onto the competition floor. Training hard is vital to a successful competition, but don’t forget that recovery is a huge component of the training process. You should enter the weekend at the top of your game, not feeling ragged and rundown from too many intense training sessions and not enough recovery. Don’t neglect the building blocks of sleep, protein, and active recovery days. Your body needs these components to build itself back up after you tear it down in training.
Athlete Itinerary
It’s easy to get caught up in all the preparation details when gearing up for a competition. But don’t forget about practical matters, like when you need to be where on competition weekend. From athlete check-in to event briefings to heat times, the athlete itinerary will be your lifeline to keep you on track all weekend long. Here are some basic details to start you off, but stay tuned for more information on briefings and heat times. Trust us, you don’t want to be the athlete who misses their briefing and gets no-repped a dozen times on the competition floor because they didn’t know the movement standards. This one is 100% avoidable. Show up for the event briefings, pay close attention to what’s being explained, and ask questions!
Competition Rules
So your training, nutrition and recovery are spot on, you memorized the event schedule, and you even printed off the routes to the venue and your hotel as a back-up in case GPS fails you. That’s fantastic, but there’s still one piece of the puzzle missing—what about the competition rules? Don’t be that athlete who “just didn’t know.” You can check out the competition rules here. We know, we know, it’s 13 pages and not exactly what would be considered riveting reading material, but take a few minutes now and brush up on what’s kosher and what’s not, so you can have the seamless competition experience you deserve.
We’re pumped to see everyone bring their A-game next month! Keep on training hard and be sure to brush up on the little extras we touched on here. Remember, if you have any questions you just can’t find the answer to on our website, www.thegranitegames.com, you can email us at [email protected]. We’re here to help!
