Treating Yourself With Respect, Based On Your Goals
I’m a weak powerlifter.
I’m trash.
I want to be the best.
I want to be a national champion.
Well, what is it?
Over the years, even being in the sport as short as I have, as I deem 4.5 years to be not that long, I have noticed that powerlifters, stereotypically, are very self-loathing and self-deprecating.
Now, this does not mean all people on every level of the sport refer to themselves in this manner, but it is far too common, in my opinion.
Why would I open this article with those 4 lines? Well, those 4 lines are usually iterated by the same type of person. They got into this sport to be the best, realized it wasn’t possible in the time frame they thought, and deflect by saying they suck and that they are weak.
I am here to provide a voice of reason to all who think like this and implore you to draw a line in the sand on which side you are one, as well as some commentary as to why this mindset is so prevalent.
Becoming the best of the best, a national champion is HARD.
To piggyback off of a concept my friend, Matt Cronin, talked about on Instagram, I think powerlifting, for whatever reason, attracts people with the all-or-nothing mindset.
Someone who has never trained SBD seriously for any extended period of time, will have the goal of becoming the best of all time and the strongest human in the history of humanity, and will be discouraged when they aren’t among the best in the nation within a year.
There is a case to be made about not setting artificial limits on yourself, but equally another case of being realistic. Realistic however, is a spectrum.
Let’s look at this statement or notion, through the lens of a different sport.
Let’s say you have never played basketball in your life, but your senior year of high school you decide to play with the desire and expectation you will not only be the best player on the team, but break multiple scoring records by the end of the season.
How realistic would that be? Very unrealistic.
The same thing applies to powerlifting. Do some people strike lightning in a bottle and make waves in year one? Sure. Is it the norm? No way.
I often think, why does this mindset permeate to youth getting into the sport? Why is it common to see people have these goals from day one and get highly discouraged when they don’t happen?
Let’s analyze this as objective as we can.
Powerlifting, to the untrained eye, looks easy. Sports like basketball, football, tennis, etc… are dynamic in nature with a lot of moving parts. In sports like basketball, what you are trying to do, is being defended and guarded by 5 other people. In powerlifting, you are simply moving a barbell in straight, or mostly straight lines. For people in the game, we know it is not as simple as that, but for those who are not, I can see why you would think success in this sports easier than other sports.
Social media distorts our perception of what the norm is. Go through your Instagram feed, you will see a highlight reel of all the 0.1% lifters in the world, doing incredible things. This is not a bad thing, in fact, I think it is good for the majority of people to have an outlet to show their strength. However, for others, it severely distorts their perception on what the standard is in the sport. I never like to use myself as an example, but I have the #65 total in the 67.5kg class for the USAPL out of 3582 lifters. That is top 2% in raw division history. I think that is pretty good! However, the gap between #65 to #55 to #45 to #35 and so on, gets greater and greater and I could easily get discouraged that I probably will never see a day I am in the top 5, or even top 10. The moral of the point here, is who you see on Instagram is more than likely the top 0.1% OF the best in the nation, to compare yourself to them, would be like comparing yourself to LeBron James in basketball, are you as good as him? Probably not. Does that mean by default mean you suck? No way, you are comparing yourself to the greatest of all time. In essence, I think sometimes people get hyped up from people they follow and assume it will come as easy to them.
This is the hardest one to kind of drive home because I do not want to hurt feelings, but powerlifting attracts a lot of people who were not cut out for another sport. Maybe this goes hand in hand with the first point, but I think people coming from another sport background, where maybe they experienced success to a smaller scale, are under the assumption that will parlay into competitive powerlifting. Now, this is a stance I don’t feel entirely strong about, as I think doing other sports before you settle in to PL is a great thing, but from a glance I have seen the ex-football player try his hand at powerlifting, go 5-9 in his first meet because he did not train with any semblance of a standard, and never do a meet again because, “the rules were stupid”, rules he probably did not bother looking into beforehand.
So, you can quickly see why this mindset tends to be at the forefront. Motivational insta reels, tik toks, etc… people love that. We love hearing about the underdog stories, but the point of the matter is not that, necessarily, but what that underdog story actually entails in terms of work.
I have not won nationals, and I am CERTAIN, there are exceptions across the board, but I think I am somewhat qualified to give an opinion here on what it would take to get there, for the average person.
In order to become a national champion you must check most boxes in the following.
Willing to put in multiple hours, multiple times per week, to training.
How many times have you heard, “I just don’t have the time.” Maybe, you truly don’t, but in the same vein, the people are the best MAKE time. That is not an excuse for most people at the top. What this usually means is you are not willing to give up time with friends, going out, sleeping in, etc… You probably have the time, you just don’t care enough to make it. To me, this is a non-negotiable.
Take your recovery seriously.
Yes, it is one thing to eat and drink well, and I do not think you need to incessantly track macros to the smallest increments, but to give it no thought, would be a direct detriment to your success. I always hate when people say, “If I had as much time as the people at the top, I would be just as good as them.” Simply put, no you wouldn’t. People at the top do not have all the time in the world, like you think they do. There are certain recovery measures that you flat-out need to take in order to keep up with training. The best in the nation/world are not staying up till 1am drinking the night before a big squat workout, they are not drinking 1 cup of water per 24hrs that comes during their workout, they are not eating in a severe deficit with low protein intake. I have seen this be so butchered by people over the years and to me, it is the easy card to pull. “Well you probably should not stay out late the night before”, is met with, “I haven’t seen X person in years.” “You should get in the habit of hydrating a bit better”, is met with, “I don’t have time during the day.” Again, you either will make it happen, or you won’t. I think the people who won’t subconsciously need a crutch to fall back on, whether they want to admit it or not.
Stick to planned programming and take things as they come and allow a progression to take place.
It is all too common for people to program hop, change coaches every couple of months, and YOLO lift frequently, only to be stuck in a constant state of purgatory where they aren’t getting substantially worse, but also only marginally, at best, better. You see, the more variables or fluctuations you endure, the more likely you are to not see success by default of that alone. I think people getting into the game assume certain things are game changers when in reality, they are aids. What this looks like is being disappointed when their total has not gone up 100lbs in block 1 working with a coach and that they are not handling heavy, near max singles each week. Or, assuming the pre-set program they’re following would be better if they tweaked it. Or, maybe they need to take a heavy single to, “see where they’re at”. The truth of the matter is look at all the people who are great, and I mean great in meets not in the gym, and tell me what does it look like? Does it look monotonous and calculated? Probably! I promise you, taking a heavy single off program for no reason other than you wanted to, probably will not get you to the heights you want to reach.
Have good genetics.
This one is tough as well as usually you are met with the, “Anyone can be a national champion if they commit to it”, crowd. Well, the physiological truth is, no, not just anyone can. Don’t believe me? Take 5 people of the same height and weight and similar builds, give them the SAME training program with no variables being different. Have them test their numbers at the end and tell me what the results are, I am willing to bet they will be wildly different from one another. Do I think having sub-par genetics is a death sentence? No, I think they are people who can train themselves to be national-caliber with maybe not-so-good genes, but the people who break world records, that is something you don’t just stumble into.
It takes a lot of things to go in your favor to become a national champion, some in your control, like the commitment piece, some out of your control like your genetics and then hey, you also have to lift well at the meet, this is a sport with undetermined outcomes after all!
It Is Okay To Not Have The Goal of Being The Best In This Sport
Now, this is where the second piece of the puzzle lies. It is perfectly okay to be a pretty good lifter, but not be too attached to outcomes and as such, have goals are more tangible for your lifestyle.
Somewhere along the lines, it became a bad thing to have goals that were maybe not centered around direct competition. For those of us who either cannot devote the time necessary or are honest that maybe with our given set of genetics, it isn’t happening, I really do not see the harm in being okay with being good, not great. I’ll say this, I am fortunate enough to have a few of these people on my roster and their disposition and outlook on training as a whole is MUCH better and much more positive than the people who have the goal of being the best of all time. This sport is very unforgiving in that, you can come up with all the excuses you want, but that won’t prevent you from being left behind. So, if you are realistic in that, you work 60 hours a week, have a few kids, can only devote 30 minutes or 45 minutes to the gym, sure, being a national champion is probably out the window, but does that mean you can’t get strong? It just means it might not happen at as fast a rate as others, which again, is okay, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I think when people are either humbled by the sport or come to realization that their initial goals were a bit unrealistic, they would rather self-deprecate than own up to it. Why? Because we are humans and every human has an ego, to an extent. It is easier to just laugh at yourself than it is to admit that you are not willing to put in the time and effort necessary to be the best or one of the best, maybe you quite literally can’t! Regardless, to disrespect your time and effort is something that will get you nowhere, fast. Which leads me to my final point.
Treat Yourself With Respect
I will start this point, again, using myself as an example.
I am well aware that becoming the best of all time in my weight class, or even top 5 at nationals, is not in the cards for me. A lot of things would have to fall in my favor in terms of luck for that to happen and even then, that is a big maybe.
Some things I am secure with however.
I am willing to put in the time. Ask people who train with or around me, this is my life.
I am willing to sacrifice some things in order to perform better. I quite literally do not leave my house unless necessary and do not stay up till past midnight unless absolutely necessary. I do not drink, I do not smoke, I do not party.
I know I can get better with nutrition. This is a hole for me that I am aware that I can do a better job of and I admit that fully. This could lead to better training for me.
I am okay with training for hours and hours and maybe only reaching top 40 all time and maybe top 20 in the nation. I cannot control what other people do, I can only control what I do.
I do not view myself as inferior to those ahead of me because they are ahead of me. Basically, I know how much I put into this and know what I have accomplished, I view myself as a serious lifter and treat myself as such.
Sometimes putting it out into writing, really makes you either confirm or cringe at who you think you are.
Whatever side of the divide you sit, I implore you to treat yourself with respect. To spend hours in the gym and then claim you don’t really care about this, is either lying to yourself or lying to others, because you very easily could not and probably live a happier life.
If you want to be a national champion, awesome, I will back you, I just want to make you aware that it takes a hell of a lot of effort to get there. If you are willing to do all of the things necessary, you should treat yourself with the utmost respect in regards to your goals.
If you want to just enjoy this lifting thing for what it is, I am with you all the same. I still think you should treat yourself with respect, refrain from calling yourself trash, or weak, or inept, unless that is truly what you want to be your calling card. An adage I always responded well to was, “If you don’t respect yourself, you cannot expect others to respect you in return.”
If that does not matter to you, so be it, but being secure in what your doing and taking action to whatever your goal is, whether is be serious or casual, is generally, a lot more fun than being in no man’s land.
Love y’all.
To Utopia,
Erik