The 2015 Starting Strength Fall Classic will take place on Sunday, October 25th at CrossFit Oakland’s Emeryville location and I’ve got details for you. Firstly, the anticipated schedule is shown below:

07:30 – Doors Open
08:00 – Weigh In Commences by Lot Number
09:15 – Rules Briefing
09:30 – Warm ups begin, Judges and Spotters Meeting
10:10 – Lifting commences
12:00 – Yep, still lifting
15:00 – Probably getting closer to done
16:00 – Probable awards ceremony

As linked above, weigh-in order will be determined by lot number, which was assigned based upon when you registered for the meet. Lot numbers can be found here:

2015 Starting Strength Fall Classic Lot Numbers

When you register at the door, you will get an attempt card and your t-shirt. Upon weigh-in, you will provide the official with your attempt card along with the opening attempts for the squat, press, and deadlift. Assuming that weigh-ins will take about a minute or a little more per person, you can roughly guess when you will be called. If you miss your weigh-in slot, you will need to go to the back of the line.  If you need to potentially get naked to make weight, we will have a sex-appropriate official on hand to allow for that. While waiting to be weighed in, you can determine your rack heights for the squat and press.

Please read the rules in their entirety. I know that no one likes to read the rules, but these rules are actually riveting. Trust me.

This meet requires that you wear a singlet. I do this to make you suffer. An unintended benefit is that the judges can easily see whether you are squatting to depth and whether your joints are in extension at appropriate times in the lifts.

You need to have a t-shirt on for both the squat and the press. T-shirts need to worn underneath your singlet. Fortunately, if you don’t own any t-shirts, we will be providing you one at the meet. It even has a dinosaur on it. For the deadlift, you do not need a tshirt.

Long socks are required for the deadlift. They must fully cover the calf to immediately below the knee. Soccer, baseball, rugby, etc… socks all fit the bill.  We will not let you deadlift if your shins are not covered. This is for the protection of the other lifters as well as for your shins.

Shoes of some sort are required for all of the lifts. Deadlift slippers qualify as shoes, but you cannot just lift in your socks. All deadlifts will need to be pulled from a conventional stance with the legs inside the arms.

We have some cool prizes for the winners. As with last meet, the best male and female winner walk away with a stuffed Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Heavyweight, lightweight, and masters winners get smaller stuffed Triceratops.  They are pretty cool, too.

Best female and male lifters will be determined via the Wilks equation. Same for best heavy, light, and masters lifters. Masters lifters are calculated via a combination of the Wilks and McCulloch coefficients. So much math! Weight class winners will be determined via total within the weight class and will be announced at the meet. Unfortunately, the only prize for winning your weight class is pride. You won’t necessarily get to take home any dinos, unless you also win your division. Hey, if everyone gets a dino, then no one may as well get a dino. That stuffed T. Rex did not become the most coveted award in all of strength sports because I gave them away with abandon.

Speaking of awards, this meet will take place at the same time as seven other locations across the US. We will combine our results, which actually means I will combine the results, and announce an overall winner for the men’s and women’s divisions. Those two strong individuals will be awarded a slot to the Starting Strength Seminar of their choice, a $900 value. The top scoring team from the combined meet will win a men’s York B&R bar, a $300 value. All of these prizes are thanks to the generosity of Mark Rippetoe and The Aasgaard Company.

The competition will take place using the aforementioned B&R bar. This is a 29mm bare steel bar that has a center knurl in addition to the knurl on the sides. No special squat or deadlift bars will be used.

Spectators are welcome and admittance for them is free of charge.

Lastly, bring food and a bottle for water. The meet will not be catered, nor will there be food for sale. There are some restaurants  and the Berkeley Bowl grocery store within about two or three blocks north of the gym, so you have plenty of options for food. None of them, unfortunately, are in the building. CrossFit Oakland has water for you, but will likely not have any cups, so bring something in which to hold and drink water. The map below shows the gym along with places to obtain sustenance.