As you can probably guess from my goals, I find this a fascinating question and a recent post on World’s Strongest Librarian made me think about it all over again. It’s particularly pertinent to me at the moment as I struggle to squeeze every last little bit of strength and motivation out of myself to hit my goals of a bodyweight chin, a bodyweight dip and a half-bodyweight pistol within the next couple of weeks.
Physical limitations
On WSL, as it is becoming known, the article suggests that some physical limitations can have a mental component. The example given is of someone who accidentally picks up the 35lb dumbbells instead of 30lb dumbbells but still manages to grind through their set number of reps. I find this amazing. I know for a fact that if I add an extra 2.5kg (5lbs) to my pull up ahead of time, it will absolutely floor me.
The extra weight feels different. Not just heavier but fundamentally different. Like the difference between swimming in a pool and in the sea. It is not the same as the difference between 40kg and 42.5kg. It feels strange and new. I feel its uncomfortable presence as acutely as I do the feel of a new pair of jeans after I’ve just taken off the old army trousers that I wear when I wash the car.
And this is with 55kg (or thereabouts) and 75kg of bodyweight, for a total of 130kg. So the 2.5kg increase represents less than 2% of the total weight. It is almost unworthy of mention. But for me it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And I know the feel of that straw intimately. But is it all in my mind? Am I afraid of the heavier weight?
Fear is the mind killer
One of the first comments on the WSL blog post was simply “fear is the mind killer”, a quotation from Frank Herbert’s Dune, and the motto that Paul Atreides learns when he joins with the desert people and becomes the chosen one. Great book.
We all know it’s true. Often, the effects of fear can be more of a danger to us than the thing that we fear. But is it really as simple as saying that we should work to remove our fear of lifting heavier weight?
Fear of lifting heavier weight
I have been in the situation where I started to dread a workout as it came around. It happened when I was on a cycle involving large doses of barbell squats and deadlifts. My conventional deadlift was sitting at around 170kg (375lbs) and I badly wanted the 187.5kg (415lbs) that would enable me to claim 2.5x bodyweight.
As the weight climbed higher with each workout, deadlift day started to wear me down even before I lifted. Hours before I got into the garage, I was worrying about the lift. I slept badly the night before. The relief afterwards was blissful but all too soon it was on my mind again. Eventually, I recognised that it was doing me more harm than good and I gave up the goal and moved onto something else.
For me, this was a great learning experience and the one that pushed me towards the concepts of deloading and assistance lifts. I believe that my body was telling me that I was driving my central nervous system too hard too soon and that I was wasn’t addressing my weak links. Deloading regularly and attacking my weak links with supplemental exercises would have addressed this.
So my fear of lifting was caused by my mind trying to push my body too fast too soon and in the wrong way. It was a feedback loop created by the stress I was placing on my body. It wasn’t a phantom of my imagination or fear of something that wasn’t there.
Feeling the weight
As I chase my goals today, I am not afraid of my next workout. In fact, I am looking forward to hitting my numbers. I have confidence that they will continue moving upwards, especially as my bodyweight goes down. I don’t know why I feel this way but I will take advantage of it until it goes away. When it does, I’ll deload, change the workouts around and start again.
For me, feeling that extra weight isn’t about fearing it, or being limited by it. It is coming to know it. By exposing yourself to the new weight, you learn something about it and about yourself. And the next time you come across it, it is not new anymore but familiar. In time, you learn to get along and then, before you know it, you have moved on again to new places.
A natural progression
So I believe that it is necessary to go through a natural progression. I don’t think that there are any short-cuts to lifting heavier weights. I think you have to learn the feel of bigger weights and get to know them before you can progress. I think you have to let your body grow physically to adapt to the new stresses and strain. The body needs time to adjust and so does the mind.
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Tags: fear · motivation5 Comments
Wonderful post, and a lesson I’ve been forced to learn as I’ve gotten older. I’m about to turn 32 in December. when I try to take shortcuts these days, my body quickly reminds me that I’m not 23 anymore.
There is great satisfaction for me in successfully programming and picking away at goals and weights. I think you learn more about yourself by taking a billion small steps than by setting a new PR with dangerous, unsteady form. You’re absolutely right when you say “focus on weaknesses.”
And I absolutely agree that I don’t want to fear my workouts.
Wow. Celebrity presence on my blog! But seriously, thanks for your comment, Josh. I do appreciate you taking the time to come over here and have a look round.
From your comment, I think (and hope) you appreciated that I wasn’t trying to have a poke at the post your guest made on your site. It was just the catalyst that made me start thinking about programming. I suppose in all honesty it pricked a bit of the pride I take in my programming! Anyway. Thanks again for commenting.
Coincidence. I am 32 in January.
Chris, I’m actually here a lot more than you think. You’re a great writer and you think very carefully about things that are really important to me. I’m getting to talk less and less about my training on WSL as the readership grows and changes. This is one of the places I come to when I need to think about hard physical work and the philosophy of guts and the grind.
And even better, we’re the same age. Here’s to us! Hoo ray!
Thanks for the support, Josh. This blog is very much a labour of love for me.
We should do something “Dan John style” when we turn 32. Like deadlift something 32 times. Or do 32 pull ups. Maybe. It doesn’t feel such a big deal as when I turned 30. That was bad. I can’t imagine what 40 will feel like!
Anyway, sorry to hear you won’t be doing so much on WSL about training. Although I do agree (from my brief forray into your comments section) that your readership is more about the other things you write about. Having said that, I would be sorry not to hear more about your time with Adam Glass, though, if you can manage to distill some more of his wisdom.
[...] to life. In fact, we’ve only corresponded at length once, when I wrote a post called “what are my limitations?” in response to an article on World’s Strongest Librarian. I very much appreciate his [...]