The Picayune Maroon Tide powerlifting team is just over a week away from its first competition that’ll take place Feb. 13.

There are three lifts athletes have to complete during a competition.

Those lifts include the squat, bench press and deadlift.

Like all other sports, measures are being put in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19 during a meet.

Not only will Picayune not participate in as many competitions this year as in years past, but there have also been changes made to the event’s procedures.

In the past, athletes had three attempts to do each lift, which would mean each lifter would have nine total tries to do the lifts correctly.

However, this year participants will only have seven attempts total that will have to be tactically spread out among the three lifts.

Athletes can use three attempts on the bench press, two attempts on the deadlift and two attempts on the squat, or any other combination of their choosing.

This will limit the sharing of equipment, but it also means lifters will have to be smart when it comes to choosing which lifts necessitate the most attempts.

“It’ll be a little more strategic about how you do it and there’s a lot of strategy involved because you’re also having to keep up with other participants in your weight class,” Coach Brian Edwards said.

Edwards’ team consists of football players, but the lifts the athletes are used to doing during workouts actually differ slightly than what will be asked of them in a competitive setting.

There are specific orders and techniques the athletes will have to follow or risk disqualification.

“We’ll start going over commands and things like that. It’s very different compared to a football lift. There are things that can disqualify you if you don’t do it right,” Edwards said.

The plan this year is to qualify for the state competition, and the meet on Feb. 13 will be the first step towards that goal.