Meet Directors Resources

Location is important for PL meets. There needs to be a weigh in space, warm-up room, and competition space. A warm-up room that is too small is the number 1 complaint of lifters after a meet. There needs to be enough room between warm-up platforms for lifters to have spotters and for lifters to sit and leave their gear.

If you’re a gym looking to host a meet – congrats! You won’t have to haul much gear at all - one of the major pains in hosting a meet. The question then is whether you have enough space for both a warm-up room AND for spectator seating.

If you are planning on running a sanctioned meet, you’ll need approved equipment for the platform – including the bar, combo rack, and plates. If it’s unsanctioned we still highly recommend using a combo rack as combo racks allow you to adjust rack heights quickly and without strain to the spotters and loaders.

Our meet software (PLMeet) assumes you are using 

• a 20 kg power bar

• calibrated kilogram plates

• the 2.5 kg metal competition collars. 

In short, it assumes that the bar and collars weight 25 kg together and that the plates added will be in kilograms.

If you want to use pound plates and different kinds of bar (for example a 25 kg squat bar), you could try out the meet software OpenLifter by OpenPowerlifting.

You’ll need some way for referees to indicate their decision. This is done either using red and white flags or via referee lights. Lastly you’ll need a scale to weigh athletes.

If you need access to competition grade equipment, lights, or a scale talk to us about borrowing the NSPL equipment.