Motivation and desire are the foundation of everything else that leads to a successful weight training experience. You may have talent, but it will never be developed without motivation and desire. You may have extreme knowledge regarding the best ways to train, but it will never be useful without the motivation and desire to put that knowledge into action. You must have enough motivation and desire to work out on a consistent basis if you ever want to make significant progress.
Perhaps you have heard of the 80-20 rule. There is a sense in which it applies to weight training. These are not exact statistics, but I would guess that 80% of the population will never bother to get involved in a regular weight training program. They have no motivation or desire to do so. Of the 20% who start a weight training program, 80% will need encouragement to train on a consistent basis, and they will also need encouragement to push their workouts hard enough to keep making progress. Out of the 20% of those who choose to train with weights, about 20% of them (i.e. about 4% of the population), will have the opposite problem; they will have enormous desire and motivation. These lifters will be obsessed and will work too hard, which causes overtraining. Probably only 20% of the 4% who have a high degree of motivation and desire will learn to control their drive to the point where they consistently create an optimum training experience. That’s less than 1% of the population.
The unfortunate thing about many of those who have an abundance of motivation and desire is that they will never figure out that they are overtraining. They will tend to believe that they are doing everything right because they are pushing, straining, and constantly trying to outdo their previous best. This is the population that I address most often because I fit into that population. I understand that desire and motivation have actually worked against me more than they have been a benefit to me.
One of the biggest drivers of desire and motivation is ego. Ego can push you harder than you should push yourself. It will keep screaming at you to do another rep when you should stop. It will lure you into using more weight than you should lift. It will compel you to do another set when you have already done enough. Ego can deafen you to the voice of pain when an injury is telling you to rest, back off, and heal. Ego is never satisfied and will beat you up physically and psychologically. Since ego can easily get out of control and lead you down the road to overtraining and injury, you must consider whether you can limit your ego while maintaining the necessary motivation and desire to succeed.
No Ego and Slow Gains
Ed Coan was one of the greatest powerlifters of all time. He has said he had no ego when it came to training. He understood that he had to train hard enough to make progress, but not so hard that it would hinder progress. He also understood the concept of slow gains as slow gains over a long time will eventually add up to big gains. The problem with slow gains is that they are hard on your ego, and they can kill motivation and desire unless you program yourself with the right perspective to simply enjoy the process of training for slow progress.
The Fastest Way is to Go Slow
Richard Hawthorne is another world class powerlifter. He says, “What’s fast don’t last.” By this he simply means that you can’t gain at a fast rate forever. If you keep blasting away to try to gain fast, you will tend to start using weights that are too heavy to allow good technique. You will also tend to overtrain, or you will get hurt. All of these things cause your progress to slow down, even though your goal is to try to gain fast. The fastest way to gain over the long term is to go slow.
Two Types of Slow Progress
There are two types of slow progress consisting of the good type and the bad type. The good type occurs when you are training properly by training within your capacities for intensity, volume, and frequency. This type of slow progress will lead to more progress over time. The bad type of slow progress occurs because of bad training. Bad training occurs due to poor lifting technique or lack of effort, and it can also occur because you are training too hard. This type of slow progress usually turns in to no progress and a sticking point that nullifies your ability to keep gaining.
If you only plan on lifting for months, or there is a specific reason that you need to make quick improvements, then go ahead and push yourself to make fast progress. On the other hand, if you plan on lifting for years, then pace yourself to make slower progress that will continue as long as you keep lifting. How do you do this? I’ll give you five very important tips:
1. Always use perfect lifting form on every rep of every set of every workout.
2. Only repeat reps of a set as long as you can maintain a steady even rep pace.
3. Repeat sets for a muscle group as long as the muscle group is at full strength. Stop repeating sets if the muscle group you are working begins to weaken.
4. Work out as often as you can within the context of full recovery between workouts.
5. Only add weight when the weights you have been using become easier to use. For example, if you are leaving two to three reps in the tank when you first add weight, keep using the same weights until you gain strength and are leaving three or four reps in the tank before you add more weight again. Most people think that this process is backwards. They believe that training must always become harder to keep gaining. I once believed this. I no longer believe it because the reality of my experience has proven otherwise. Reality is a better guide than faulty logic, unfounded assumptions, and beliefs that are derived from what works within a short term training experience of going for rapid gains over the course of months instead of years. For long term success, let the same workouts become easier over time. After the workouts get easier, make them a little harder by adding weight.
Patience
The type of training recommended in this article takes patience. It takes a lot of motivation and desire to stick with it, and it requires that you have mastery over your ego instead of being mastered by it. If you can combine knowledge, motivation, and desire with a lack of ego, you are on your way to long term training success. Best of training to you.
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Ed Coan Quote from The Jugglife Podcast Episode 45
“I think the key was, as in most routines, to pick your numbers correctly. And, I didn’t have an ego. I figured, I don’t know where I heard it, or if I learned it, that if I could do these four training cycles a year, and try to get just a little bit better each time, if I did this for five years, that was twenty training cycles and I figured where I would be. I stuck to it religiously. I stuck to it on all my lifts from week one to week twelve or however long it was. Every single rep, every single set, every single weight, every single exercise, was already planned in; what I would do. I never deviated I never had to.”
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Wisdom from Richard Hawthorne
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