Day after day, week after week you keep going to the gym, opening your garage, where ever it is you train, you begin each day with wonder... is today the day it all comes together?
Stepping up to a heavy bar and and asking that question for what seems quite a while, as the days of fruition are getting fewer and farther between, a feeling of reaching another level associates with this level of stressor/response delay - the place where you transition from the meek and stringy amateur athlete, to intermediate status.
The shift is almost invisible to the athlete, as they are profoundly rapt in consuming animal flesh for recovery, planning 10 hours or more for sleep, and licking their ever-growing wounds, but it is a crucial point of view for those who want to stay motivated as they mature their athletic abilities.
As a new athlete the world is a giving place where anyone willing to try a few new things will immediately reap reward in the form of better sleep, new energy, a few pounds off the gut, and a couple of skills acquired. It feels fan-fucking-tastic! Hope is renewed frequently as the body adapts to demands placed on it almost hourly and continues to become an unstoppable machine of metabolic and weightlifting glory. This can possibly be sustained for 6-12 months, depending on variables closely associated with discipline, diet, sleep and work ethic. However, around year 2 some things begin happening...
It begins with a growing concern in the back of the athletes mind as workouts and lifts indicate a slowing of progress. Skill acquisition becomes time consuming beyond just single efforts. A slip in diet causes days of inadequate performance and mental fatigue unlike before. You feel crushed, mentally, physically, whole-heartedly.
Welcome to the suck. This is the moment where you either give up, give in, or give it all you have. And not just today, every single moment of every single day. These are the moments that champions are born. When all hope is lost, you stand once more to try as hard you can - today. One moment at a time. Through the pains of failure, disappointment, almost's... You keep grinding. You crawl to the finish line.
As the body's ability to adapt to various workloads becomes more efficient, and it will, it decides that it can now go back to being lazy as fuck. And it will. Your body is literally trying to do as little as possible all the time. Once it figures out your weightlifting scheme and pansy-assed efforts (anything lifted below 90% 1RM) it will immediately go back to just being ok where it is. This is why lifting a heavy object twice a week (at a minimum) is so crucial to athletic development, the body must learn that off days are not "rest days", there are no rest days, they are only days in-between to facilitate heavy consumption of fuel for the next training session and allowing just enough time for the body to get re-built where the last squatting session has left massacred muscles and tendons to die.
Don't worry, at the shifting point they are already adapted to most of your efforts, and thus will be tough enough to carry forward, but to increase their ability is why it must be a 'best effort' every single day. It takes many of these BE's to wake them the fuck up and get them responding. And the longer you've been training the longer it will take to see an increase in ability. Probably, you'll go backwards at some point. Probably, you'll feel like absolute shit and a broken psyche will add to your injured/pulled/ripped/torn body parts. You might feel like you haven't gained anything in the last 6 months or more, and that maybe this just isn't for you...
But you still have to give it all you have.
Because you didn't start to just become a better you. You started so you could become the best you. And if not, then you're wasting your time and the time of those around you.
And its at this point that you step up to loaded barbell and, after months of effort with no return, you begin your reps. And you make it all the way to the last rep, standing there with no spotter, no camera's, no one watching...
...and you achieve.
Racking the bar you collapse underneath it as the chalk gently snows down on you from your hands still gripping overhead. That's what all of your best efforts have been for. One single win.
Relish it, and start again.
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| Scoreboard says: Winning |
