THE MENTAL SIDE OF TRAINING (PART 2)

THE MENTAL SIDE OF TRAINING (PART 2)

PATIENCE AND BELIEF - MY PUBLISHED ARTICLE FROM JUGGERNAUT STRENGTH SYSTEMS

When I started lifting weights at fourteen years old I could barely bench press the bar. By “the bar” I mean the empty bar. 45 pounds. If I could bench it, it was with some “bro spotting”.

“All you man! You’re owning that bar!”

I was 5’9” and 98 pounds of pure depression and self-loathing. I do not believe my condition in that regard was unique to me as a teenager. Lots of young men struggle with puberty and trying to find balance in the early years of hormonal wreckage. Cracked voices, zit riddled faces, and awkwardness with those of the opposite sex so horrifying that it can only be observed and not described are often the things that make up our youth. These conditions often make for shaky confidence, to put it mildly.

For many males that hoist the iron, their genesis in the weight room started to help overcome these conditions. To combat them by putting on a shield of “armor” and add some confidence and stability to a shaky foundation.

I did not love the weights at first. I hated the soreness. I hated the gym and the effort I was being asked to give by my coach at the time. As my strength increased and my body started to look more like that of a teenage dude instead of a teenage chic, my love for the iron grew. I learned to love the effort. I appreciated the struggle. Boy did I struggle.

It took me almost two years from that point in order to hit a plate on each side. Yes, it took me to damn near two years to bench press 135 pounds. Though progress in my later teenage years was far more substantial than my early years (I never had that “noob gain” phase like most guys do), I was certainly not a natural mutant or freak.

Since those early days, I’ve close grip bench pressed 445 pounds, incline pressed 425 pounds, and doubled 315 pounds in the press behind the neck. It took me more than two decades of struggle to climb to those numbers. Regardless of how they compare to anyone else’s, they are mine, and I’m proud of them. I put in a lot of time and effort to reach them. I do not apologize for not “measuring up” to what someone else can do. The only person I need to measure up to each day and get better than, is the competition I see in the mirror. That guy needs to be better today than he was yesterday. Tomorrow, he needs to be a little bit better than he was today.

Was my attitude always like this? Hell no.

I went through many years of struggling with doubts and self-loathing in regards to my lifting. I did, in fact, compare myself to other lifters I saw that were bigger and stronger than me. I would oftentimes get depressed because I didn’t measure up to this guy, or that guy in that regard. A belief resonated constantly in me that I had been training too long and too hard to have such a modicum of results in return for my efforts. Especially compared to others I knew that either hadn’t been training as long or that I saw weren’t working as hard as I was.

The reason these thoughts plagued me is that I had not come to the realization that I needed to understand the two most important concepts behind success in training.

Patience, and belief.

PATIENCE

The four virtues of self-efficacy are courage, perseverance, persistence, and patience. Of those four, I believe that for the majority of us patience is the hardest to understand and accept. Understanding patience is the first step in accepting it, and the difference between knowing something and understanding something, are two very different things. Knowing is the act of having knowledge.

By definition, knowing is the expertise and skill acquired by an individual through his experiences and education. Understanding, by definition, means a psychological process related to a person, object, situation, or messages which require an individual to think and use concepts to deal with. Understanding involves conceptualization and association.

“I know I have to be patient.”

I may “know” this….but I may not understand it. A lack of understanding means that I may not have any way to associate the time frame that is required for my dreams, goals, aspirations, etc., to come to fruition. It requires you to have an association with it personally somehow, through experience, and a deeper understanding of a process.

Understanding means you have a fundamentally deeper level or grasp of something, than knowledge. You cannot take a class in college to obtain knowledge on how to be patient or understand what patience really is. Conceptually it means something different to everyone.

If I do not understand the process behind reaching my goals I will not come to an understanding of patience. I may whine and cry about how long it is taking, or I may believe that I am in fact doing enough and that my efforts feel as though they are in vain.

“I work hard! It is not happening as fast as it should be! I’m obviously doing something wrong, or I’m not cut out for this.” Even if you are working hard, and doing everything to the maximum of your genetic abilities, it still may take longer than you wish. The body can only move as fast as the physiological motor will allow. The “wanting” or “desire” of your mind cannot change that function. It can certainly fuel your efforts, but the fruits of your labor will always be limited to how fast your body can process all of the variables involved with training, diet, and recovery to make you bigger/ stronger.

“I do everything right. I have sacrificed everything in my life to make this dream become a reality. I deserve to get what I want!” I understand that. The universe does not care about your sacrifices and wishes. There is not a God of Powerlifting/bodybuilding/strongman/athletic-abilities that can acknowledge your sacrificial atonement and bless you with the abilities you desperately desire. The only thing you deserve is what you can earn or take, and retain as your own.

If the fulfillment of your aspirations and goals has not been realized, then the difficulties that are beset upon you, still need to be conquered. To put it plainly, you still have work to do.

You still have more time to put in. Regardless of how you “feel” about it, those conditions still haven’t been met. That means you have NOT come to an understanding and association that more time and/or more effort is required. There’s simply no getting around that concept.