WHY TESTING WITHIN THE GYM WILL BE YOUR BIGGEST ENEMY

WHY TESTING WITHIN THE  GYM WILL BE YOUR BIGGEST ENEMY

GENERALLY, IT WOULD GO SOMETHING LIKE THIS…. 

 • Train for weeks or months. Make good/great progress. 

 • Feel stronger. 

 • Get the need to test, you know, because I feel stronger.  

 • Make or miss the tested lift. 

 • ???? 

 • Profit? 

There was really no profit. The next week I would test…. again. And the next week I would test. Eventually, I would end up not being able to hit that lift, and I’d wonder why I had gotten “weaker”.

I believe this is often the reason many people suffer from chronic routine changing, i.e. finding a new “routine” every few weeks. People hit a mark they have been working for, and now associate “success” with that particular level of achievement. Their mindset revolved around hitting that mark for so long, that it cemented itself as the manifestation of “success”.

When the inability to hit that “mark” starts happening, they believe it is because what they were doing is no longer a viable option. When in reality, it is the inability to let go of affirmation by way of hitting that mark that is the issue.

“I finally hit 500.” 

“I missed 500 today.” 

“I missed it again.” 

“I wasn’t even close.” 

“What happened? I hit 500 easily that one time.”

What happened? You stopped building. You stopped working. You become enamored with the little goal that you thrived off the affirmation it gave you on a weekly basis to know “hey I’m pretty good, now.”

Now you’re not building anything anymore. You’re not working like you were. You had a goal before this, and you put in the work and effort to help it become a realization. Now you’re just content to live within the realization that you created.

Until you STOP testing on a weekly basis and get back to building something more, you will eventually find yourself in a state of regression. Then you’ll actually have to work just to find yourself back to where you were before. That’s time lost TWICE. Think about it. You’re now in a position where you’re having to work just to get back to where you BEFORE. Why, because you lost sight of “building” while your eyes were constantly focused on testing.

One way to make sure you do not get caught up in this cycle is to NEVER test maxes in the gym. Rep PR’s tend to not have this same negative effect it seems, as most people can move right from hitting X weight for X reps to a new goal. A 1 rep max PR tends to put a lot of people into this cycle of stagnation or regression. Make it a point to NOT test 1 rep maxes in the gym. I’ve never been told of a single reason that makes any sense to me to do a true 1 rep max in a gym. If you’re not competing, you don’t need to do it. If you are competing, save it for the platform. It is really that simple.