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.