Maybe I'm just a cranky fuck.
Think about it though. Most novice meets don't have weight classes, don't have equipment regulations and quite often have soft judging. That's bullshit in most books, because that isn't powerlifting. That's just getting together and lifting weights. Which is fine, just don't call it goddamn powerlifting because it isn't.
This idea that novice meets make the sport of powerlifting more accessible is bullshit too. Powerlifting, especially raw powerlifting, is one of the most practically accessible sports there are. Think about it. You need a gym to train at that has a squat rack, a bench and somewhere to deadlift. That covers maybe three quarters of the gyms in any halfway sizeable town these days. That's the minimum requirement. You don't need any equipment. You don't need a team of people to train with, you don't need a pitch or court, you don't need shit apart from a gym. Once you're close to your meet you just need registration and federation fees, a soft suit and long socks to deadlift in. Maybe some y-fronts. Again, pretty minimal and pretty cheap.
So what is it about a novice meet that makes powerlifting so much more accessible than it already is? No federation fees? Bullshit. No soft suit? Is that it? Ok, so let's say that's it. Fine. So you get to do a meet wearing whatever you train in. Great. After that you're suddenly happy to wear a soft suit, right? Because that's how it works, apparently. Bullshit. Again. Body image issues are a thing, absolutely. They can be really bad, only an idiot is going to deny that. It's easy to see how if you've got issues with your body image a soft suit is going to be high on the list of shit you do not want to wear. Thing is, federation rules require soft suits. Soft suits make judging easier, and even the playing field a little in that regard. If your body image issues are bad enough you simply can't wear one, you're not going to be able to compete. No amount of novice meets will change that. You could be hitting ATWR numbers, for absolutely fucking nothing. Not to mention, thankfully not that many people have body image issues that are so bad they can't put on a soft suit. They just might not want to, which is a different thing entirely. You might not like soft suits, but you need to wear one in sanctioned meet. Get fucking used to it. We all wear one.
Besides, I'm pretty sure soft suits aren't what will keep most people out of powerlifting. So it isn't the accessibility, and it most likely isn't the soft suit. Ok, what's left? The judging? Because it's pretty common for novice meets to have some seriously slack judging. If you're turned off by having your performance judged, you don't belong in any sport at all. It's that fucking simple. How does that mentality work anyway? You want to compete in powerlifting, but you don't want to get red lights. OK, fair enough. I don't want to get red lights either. They suck. So you make sure you get shit right. It's not difficult. Squat to depth in training. Keep your backside on the bench in training. Lock your deadlifts out and don't hitch them in training. That covers most of it. Besides, let's you say you do a novice meet, get your white lights and think you're king shit. Great. Then you go compete in a sanctioned meet and suddenly you bomb, because your baggy shorts and shirt hid squats as high as Snoop and fucking the air when you bench and no one called out hitching your deadlift so hard even strongmen shake their heads. What the fuck good did that novice meet do for you other than give you a false sense of ability? In a soft suit, with proper judging, you'd have known exactly what needed fixing.
Again, what the fuck good do novice meets do? Nothing.
Lastly, they aren't good for powerlifting and for a reason that isn't immediately obvious. They're popular. I mean, really popular. Popular to the extent they take away from sanctioned meets. Give people the option, especially people who just want to play powerlifter and high five their mates for some bullshit max someone half their size is warming up with, and they'll take the easy choice that doesn't require as much effort. Gym owners know this, so they run more novice meets. They don't need to kick up any money to the federations either, so they might actually make a little profit. They can even run some course to bring people in that culminates in the meet. Good marketing strategy, for sure. Except you end up with powerlifting gyms that focus on novice meets, and that means you get perpetual novices who gave absolutely no incentive to take the step and compete in powerlifting. Which is bullshit, and pisses me off.
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