Periodic Formal Competition for Resistance Training

Want to take yourself and your physique to the next level? Consider formal competition.

Hardcore Legend: Brad Gillingham’s father was NFL all-pro Gale Gillingham. Gale won two Super Bowls with Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. Gale is shown doing partial barbell squats with 1,400 pounds. Note the extra poundage tied to the 700-pound barbell.

Periodic formal competition can sharpen resistance training, powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, cardio, and nutrition because it puts the athlete on the spot. Marty Gallagher’s point is simple: a looming meet, show, race, or contest changes everything. The workout gets more serious, the diet gets stricter, the cardio gets purposeful, and the athlete stops drifting.

Brad Gillingham, Aging and the Competitive Mindset

During a recent podcast with multi-time world powerlifting champion Brad Gillingham, host J.P. Brice asked Brad how he deals with age and aging. Brad is 53 years old and has been competing in sports his entire life. J.P. wondered how does one deal with the inevitable decline in performance, especially from an elite athlete’s point of view, that naturally and inevitably occurs as we age?

How does one maintain the enthusiasm to strive and try, to train with the requisite ferocity? How do we generate the drive and tenacity to continue, to strain and struggle when we know our results will be substandard, compared to peak performances of years gone by?

As J.P. pointed out, many athletes simply quit. Rather than accept declining performance, they stop training altogether. In my sport, powerlifting, the landscape is littered with this type. Great lifters in their day that retired from competition and retired from training; what they didn’t retire from was the big, indiscriminate eating they engaged in when training hard, heavy, and often. A massive caloric intake coupled with a sedentary lifestyle is a recipe for physiological disaster. Not coincidentally, powerlifting has an inordinately high number of ex-champions that die early.

Brad’s reply was, firstly, he was under no illusions about matching or surpassing past glories. And that was okay. Second, he had no intention of retiring, he intended on competing far into the foreseeable future. He was fine with his decreasing capacity because, as I pointed out, in comparison to other humans his age, he still kicks ass. Nowadays, rather than compare himself to all lifters he is content to compare himself to his chronological contemporaries.

Competition as the Periodic Jerk Out of Complacency

Of the four roundtable podcast participants, Brad Gillingham, myself, Jim Steel, and J.P. Brice, three of us, Brad, Marty, Steel, still compete. We haven’t retired from anything, despite all of us being past prime. We are fine with our diminished capacities because even diminished, all three of us are at the top of our respective age-group classifications. We compete because we have always competed. Competing puts a man on the spot. As Picasso once noted, “Periodically, a man need be jerked out of his complacency.” Periodic competition provides that periodic jerk.

Nowadays there is an incredible variety of sports that sponsor official competitions. Regardless if the competitive sport is swimming, some type or kind of running, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding, judo, jiu jitsu, volleyball, racquetball, tennis, softball, you name it and the sport will have classification breakdowns that enable people of all ages to compete against those approximately their own age.

There is no need to compare your current self to your 28-year old self; why quit in frustration because you can no longer exceed your all-time best efforts – unless secretly you are looking for an excuse to quit. I would posit that there are two types of elite athletes, those that live for the applause and those that live for the training.

Those that crave the adulation that comes with competitive success are far more likely to retire than those athletes that love the training. For the latter type of athlete, the training is the motivation with competition being a periodic report card. This type is far more likely to stay in the game. For the continual trainer, the eternal goal is to improve on wherever you find yourself at.

Formal Competition Gives Resistance Training a Deadline

How do you conjure progress out of thin air? What combination of lifting, cardio, psyche, diet, rest, or recuperative techniques do you juggle to break the stagnation logjam? How do we dynamite the sludge we find ourselves mired in? The only constant is stagnation, inertia, homeostasis, torpor. The transformative athlete struggles and strains, always seeking to extend and expand on our current capacities.

True trainers live in the eternal present, they don’t dwell on or revisit glory days, preferring to use their finite mental focus on the present, pondering the eternal question: what do we change in order to spark change?

Camus said, “Man is the only animal that refuses to be what he is.” Damn right. The trainer, living in the eternal present, seeks to become what he is not: through struggle and grinding application, the trainer revamps the body as surely as the artist uses his chisel to create sculpture. One hammer blow at a time, one workout at a time, the trainer uses self-inflicted traumatic stress to force the body to grow and get stronger. By struggling maximally, hypertrophy is triggered and body fat oxidized.

The secret to triggering muscle and strength gains is to exceed our momentary capacity, be it diminished or enhanced. Our mission is to always give 100%, no matter our age or degree of fitness or unfitness. Maximum physical effort triggers everything of value. Max efforts unleash a hormonal tsunami as adrenaline, endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, et al, flood the bloodstream, bringing a post-workout feeling of blissful well-being. This natural high is beneficial physiologically and psychologically. Not coincidentally, intense exercise is the greatest stress reliever known to man.

All of which leads us back to the original question – how does an athlete deal with the downside of life and the natural diminishment of capacities? Regardless our capacity, it is our duty to purposefully fight and struggle in training, thereby invoking hypertrophy, muscle growth. Our duty is to fight and struggle in our cardio, thereby invoking fat oxidation. Nutrition is used to amplify training results and hasten recovery.

Why Competition Improves Training, Cardio, and Nutrition

Competing will take anyone’s game to the next level. You only think you are training hard until you commit to compete. Weight training naturally becomes more intense as the competition approaches. Dieting naturally becomes easier and stricter as D-Day nears. Those that compete take advantage of this psychological phenomenon.

There is more good news: those that cross the Rubicon and compete come to understand that age-group competing is no big deal. What those on the outside with their noses pressed against glass fail to grasp is that the actual competitions are not all that stressful. All the other athletes are so concerned with their own game, their own performance, that no one really pays attention to you – it is not as if a camera crew is following you around, recording your every move. Factually, no one really cares.

A bit anticlimactic? Perhaps for the adulation junkie that lives for the applause. For the trainer that lives to train and loves to train, competition is the report card, not the goal. Want to periodically get jerked out of your torpor and complacency? Find a sport. Commit to compete. Put yourself on the spot. Take your game to the next level.

Equipment Pairings for Competitive Strength Training

Periodic formal competition does not require a perfect training room, but the closer the setup matches the athlete’s sport, the better. Powerlifters, Olympic lifters, bodybuilders, first responders, military personnel, and serious fitness athletes all need tools that support repeatable effort, progressive loading, and honest performance measurement. A basic competitive strength setup starts with dependable free weights, a strong bar, appropriate plates, and a rack or platform arrangement that fits the training goal.

For powerlifting-style resistance training, squats, bench presses and rack work can be supported by power cages, platforms and power racks, the Alpha 11 Power Rack, or the Defiant Strength Power Rack. The right rack gives the athlete a stable training base when a meet date is on the calendar and the weekly work has to count.

For loading the bar, compare weight plates, IRON COMPANY premium rubber bumper plates, and American Barbell urethane Olympic grip plates. For barbell selection, lifters can compare Olympic weightlifting bars, the Iron Cowboy Powerlifting Bar, and the Body-Solid Chrome Olympic Power Bar, depending on the lifter, sport, and facility.

Training and Competition Note

This article is strength training and competition commentary, not medical advice or a universal prescription. Powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, cardio, dieting, hypertrophy-focused training, and high-intensity resistance training should be matched to the athlete’s health status, experience, recovery ability, age, coaching access, and competition goal. The useful lesson is not reckless max effort; the useful lesson is that formal competition can create structure, urgency and accountability.

Periodic Formal Competition FAQ

Why does formal competition improve resistance training?

Formal competition gives the athlete a deadline, a report card and a reason to stop drifting. A powerlifting meet, bodybuilding show, Olympic lifting competition, or endurance event can make training, cardio, nutrition, and recovery more purposeful.

Is competition only for elite athletes?

No. Marty’s point is that age-group and classification-based competition gives athletes a way to compete against people closer to their own age and category. The goal is not always to exceed youthful peak performance; the goal is to improve from the athlete’s current reality.

How does competition help older athletes stay motivated?

Competition gives older athletes a fresh benchmark. Instead of comparing today’s capacity to peak results from decades ago, the athlete can compare current performance against age-group contemporaries and personal standards.

What sports can use periodic formal competition?

Powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, running, swimming, judo, jiu jitsu, volleyball, racquetball, tennis, and many other sports offer organized competition. The principle is the same: commit to a date, prepare seriously, and let the event test the preparation.

How does competition affect cardio and nutrition?

As competition approaches, cardio training and nutrition often become easier to take seriously because the athlete has a visible target. A deadline can make dietary discipline, conditioning work, and recovery more consistent.

What equipment supports competition-focused strength training?

A practical setup can include a power rack or power cage, Olympic bar or power bar, reliable weight plates, bumper plates where appropriate, and enough free weight space to train safely. The equipment should match the sport and the athlete’s competition goal.