If Your Going Through Hell, Just Keep Going
Words to live by, especially for the garage weightlifter. We all have a life outside of our sport and with that life comes varying levels of responsibilities, so it’s critical that we make the most of our time training. There are many many things that can derail our progress, things like our jobs, family/kids, a social life (or so I'm told, I haven’t had one of those in years), school and even injury. All of these things and more can stop you dead in your tracks and take all of that hard work and flush it down the toilet if your not careful. I was my own worst enemy for a long time because I would pick a program and half ass follow it for a week or so and then switch gears all because I wasn’t seeing “progress” instantly. Does this sound familiar? I bet some of you reading this right now are just as guilty of this as I was. I seemed to be afflicted with this “Programing ADHD” and after a few weeks of jumping from one program to the next, all I got was little to no strength gains and I was exhausted all the time and at a very high risk for injury.
Lets face it, it’s hard to be a garage weightlifter on your own, you have to be everything...the coach, the nutritionist and the athlete all rolled into one. If you don’t have a strong background in all of these roles, your probably feeling like your in the middle of the ocean treading water during and episode of Discovery Channels “shark week” waiting to become human chum. So what keeps us going? What drives us on when we are tired or sick or stressed out? What motivates us to go “grab that bar and pull like your trying to rip the head off of a god damned lion”?(Shout out to the great Donny Shankle) I’ll tell you what motivates me and I’m willing to bet it motivates you too...it’s your shear desire to win at all costs. We want to win so badly in the game of “us Vs. them” (them being that ever elusive PR). It is an absolutely magical feeling to finally hit a number that has escaped you for so long...All of the sudden the impossible is possible. Your neighbors think you might need to be committed as you slam that bar down with a purpose and jump up shouting your victory to the heavens!!
Reaching and hitting PR’s is like the best drug times 10...hit it once and your hooked for life. The problem is, the way in which we train, especially if your afflicted with “programing ADHD” is that your highs are so far and few between each other and the depression that fills the gaps can be as deep and as dark as they come. So for the sake of your mental health I want to tell you how you can control your own destiny and better manage your training so that you see progression on a regular basis and you don’t have to cut all ties with the outside world and basically live inside your garage gym to do so.
First, pick a plan and commit to it. Sounds easy but a few days in is where the rubber meets the road. Like a chronic smoker or alcoholic in rehab, a few days in and you’ll start to feel the pains of withdrawal setting in. You’ll want to switch programing and you’ll tell yourself its for the best, but the truth is your lying to yourself. Committing to programing is hard work. You are a lot more conniving than you may give yourself credit for, you will lie and cheat yourself into believing that the easy way is the right way and I'm here to tell you my friends, that is not the case. I keep myself accountable three different ways. First, I keep a detailed work out log and I force myself to be honest. For years I have heard that if you keep a log for any goal your trying to reach you will be more likely to succeed, and for years I called bullshit on it. Ironically I also never, I repeat never, fully reached any of my goals in that time either. It’s sad but true people, if you don’t write it down your brain doesn't deem it important enough to hold you to it, it’s that simple.
Second, I also invested in a white board and hung it up in front of my platform so that while I’m working out I cant help but to see it. The white board serves two purposes for me,first I put my daily work out on it so I'm less likely to skip any part or cheat myself on any reps. Secondly I put a different encouraging quote on it to motivate me when my body and/or brain wants to quit. Some times I’ll even write the name and info of a service member that has paid the ultimate price for my freedom on it. It’s pretty hard to wimp out during a hard work out when your staring at somebodies name that gave their life for your freedom.
Lastly, I found a really good coach to work with. This goes back to what I said about us garage gym warrior’s feeling like they have to wear all the hats necessary for progress. You don’t have to be Don McCauley, Robb Wolf and Donny Shankle all rolled into one person(however if you are, I am automatically on your team for anything we are playing ever!). Take your time to research and get in touch with a good coach, these days you can skype or email or whatever so many great coach’s from literally all over the world!
Almost all coach’s will work with you to make your training work and to fit your schedule. A few coach’s of note are: Glenn Pendlay; Don McCauley; Stephen Powell; Gregg Everett and Kirksman.There are hundred’s more too...just take some time and find the coach that fit’s your goals the best. A side note to those of you who have never had a professional and/or capable coach before. If you completely trust the coach you have found, do yourself a favor and don’t piss them off by second guessing them. They have so much more information and time into this sport than you do no matter what your background is, trust me. It would be like trying to tell Enzo Ferrari how to improve upon the Ferrari...you just don’t do it.
Now that your in a committed relationship, look in your fridge. I'm not here to preach one diet or another (although I feel like I have tried them all at one point or another). I'm just saying that if you have come this far by committing to a program and put things in place to stay on track with your training, don’ t make it harder on yourself because your feeding yourself garbage. Nutrition is as big or bigger a deal as proper training is in order to see PR’s, plain and simple. This is where every body is different so your going to have to find your own level. There are basic principles of good nutrition that we all need to follow in order to be the best athlete we can be.
Take a hard look at your eating habits and how you feel, look at what times you eat and what you eat. For instance, do you not eat until lunch and then again in the evening when you get home finally so you tend to gorge yourself the few times you do eat and then pay for it later by feeling like crap and therefore you cannot get your work out in? This is just one example, if you take a real look at what you eat and when as well as how it makes you feel you can take control and find out what works best with you body. For me, I was a bartender for a very long time and even though I no longer live the life of a vampire and haven’t for many years, I still do not like to eat until mid-afternoon. What I found was I wouldn’t eat until I was so hungry I was nauseous and then I would pig out on anything and every thing. I would also binge eat till late at night and then feel like shit the next day devoid of all energy (and I wondered why my numbers where so bad).
Then one day I heard of a book called “Carb Back-Loading” while listening to a Robb Wolf podcast and liked what he had to say about nutrition and the times to eat for peak performance. So I gave it a shot and it turns out it fits me pretty well. In a nutshell, I don’t eat until early afternoon and so I don't slip into the "starvation" feeling I use coffee and a little bit of protein powder (about 5 grams) to stave off any cravings and to keep my body catabolic.This way my body is burning the crap from the day before without burning my protein up as well. Then I eat pretty “lean and clean” throughout the day followed by a good sized dinner. Now for the best part, on my training days I get to “Carb Back-Load”, that means from after my work out until I go to bed, I get to eat processed foods like cookies, cake and ice cream, oh my without gaining fat and actually losing weight at the same time!!
There is actual science behind this and if you want to know more I encourage you to look up this book, it's a life changer! All I can say is this fits into my lifestyle very well and I have seen a dramatic decrease in my body fat while maintaining and building a lot of muscle as well as I have a ton more energy to boot! So, taking the time to figure out what you need to eat and when you need to eat it is just as important as a good weightlifting program in order to hit any PR.
Finally the magic bullet. The secret to tying these two parts in together and making them work for you is this(drum roll please)...sleep. Yes, you read that right, I said it’s “sleep”. Don’t get mad and throw your hands up and say something like “no shit sherlock”, because I guarantee you are not getting near enough sleep as you should. I know I wasn’t even close to getting enough sleep even though I thought I was. It’s a scientific fact that while you sleep your body rebuilds itself from a cellular level on up. You build muscle, repair damage and produce new growth hormone and testosterone while you sleep, so you need enough of it or your just short changing yourself big time.
On average we need eight to ten hours of sleep per day, and before you roll your eyes at me like I just asked you to dead-lift the sears tower just think about it. What time do you go to bed last night? How many of us zone out to television and find ourselves up till the wee hours of the morning because we got stuck in a marathon of NCIS till two am? Now I'm not saying not to watch T.V., or trying to tell you when to go to bed, I am simply saying once I started going to bed with the goal of getting sufficient amount of sleep, I saw a drastic change in the amount of weight I was able to lift.
Sleep = Strong plain and simple, so I now make sure my bedroom is conducive to sleep. I make sure it’s dark and cool, I also automatically set my television to turn off at 10PM and I turn my phone off (or at least put it on the dresser so I’m not tempted to check social media or my email every 32 seconds). I don’t bring my laptop to bed with me and I try to meditate for a few minutes when the T.V. shuts off. I lay there and I try to visualize myself relaxing starting with my toes and working my way up through my body until I reach my head. This is a relaxation method I got from yoga years ago and I have to say it works on me every time. You would be amazed at how tight your body is even when your laying down!
So there you have my secret method for making all of your hard work count and to keep the progress coming on a regular basis. No it’s not easy, and you have to work hard at it every day, but the reward for doing so is totally worth it. Instead of walking around always feeling like I was wasting my time and spinning my wheels, getting more and more frustrated by the minute. I now feel proud of my accomplishments and dedication to becoming the best athlete that I can possibly be. I walk around with my head up and chest out and with that confidence pours out from me and I have to tell you it’s contagious. I find my friends and family, hell, even strangers I meet seem to be “energized” when I talk to them about how I am accomplishing my goals and how they can accomplish their goals too. So I leave you with this encouraging quote by a great man who helped to change the world...“He who fails to plan is planning to fail" …Winston Churchill.
No comments:
Post a Comment