Some Thoughts on Meets and Goals
As a general strength trainee, you should probably not do meets. Especially as an older trainee who doesn't need the doesn't need the wear and tear and who just wants to be strong enough to keep the walker in the closet. However, if you want to keep progression going or take it further, it can be a very useful motivational tool. You have a meet on a set date and you have to show up and put up. It gives you a clear goal and a clear set of numbers. This can help with compliance and let you know exactly what numbers you have to hit and when. For such a trainee a meet should be basically working up to a 1RM in the three lifts. It is a good opportunity to see exactly how fast you have progressed. Meets done in this manner should be done sparingly, once, perhaps twice a year with good programming.
For the competitive powerlifter however, a meet is a different affair with different goals. You might do a meet to qualify for another meet. You might do a meet to get experience doing meets. But mostly, you go to a meet to win or place. With this goal in mind we can see that the approach is somewhat different. Namely, if you can achieve your goals without having to lift a 1RM, or even anything significantly heavy, you should do so. A younger or newer powerlifter might indeed have to be hitting a 1RM to win a meet more often than a more experienced and stronger competitor. However, such an effort may not represent an overly taxing effort or require a long recovery time, due to the lighter weights lifted. Further more, perhaps newer lifters should focus on gaining more experience with meets and how they react to such an environment. If this is the goal then winning takes a back seat. A heavy single should be lifted yes, but probably no more than 90 - 95%. Heavy enough to require effort, but not a true 1RM that would require significant recovery time and impact training.
A more advanced lifter who might be strong enough to win a meet without hitting a 1RM or has competitive goals of the kind that require qualifying meets should probably avoid hitting a 1RM as much has possible. A 1RM represents a significant amount of effort and recovery time at this level. If you need to put up a qualifying total, it should be as low as possible, just barely scraping in, so as to require the least amount of effort and the least amount of disruption to your training to get stronger. At this level of strength, a smaller regional meet might well be won without putting in 100% by a good lifter. If you can do so, there is no reason not to. Larger meets such as national meets might require 1RM attempts to even place, and given their importance they probably warrant such effort. Overall, a consideration of the goal of the meet and how it factors into a larger competitive career is important, and should not be lost sight of.
Thoughts?