Over the course of my career as a coach and lifter, I have come to understand several things. One which stands out for me is that the process of getting stronger draws many parallels to other aspects of our life. In essence, the barbell can become our life teacher, as well as our teacher for life. Whether you have been training for several months, several years, or are thinking about getting started, this article was written for you.

Actions Speak Louder than Emotions

We cannot create a new way of acting by changing our inner state, but we can create a new inner state by taking action. It doesn’t matter how long you nibble on the thought of whether you should get stronger or not, how many days you wait until you are finally ready to take action, or how creative you are at coming up with excuses for skipping training. The truth of the matter is that an object only moves and can only keep moving when it is influenced by a force acting upon it. And that force is you. Ask Newton.

The crux of the matter is that if something doesn't happen, it essentially doesn’t exist. Living a productive and fulfilling life cannot exist without taking appropriate action to make it happen. The same applies to barbell training.

The process of getting stronger is pretty simple, and hopefully clear to you by now: train three days a week, stop skipping sessions, eat enough to feed your recovery as well as an increase in muscle mass, lift heavier next time you train – and the reward of hitting PRs will be waiting for you.

For many decades, “gurus” and other self-proclaimed “experts” have thrown around the term “motivation” – urging people to find their why before they’re allowed to head out into the big wide world. In fact, none of these people agree on what motivation actually is, and in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

I see motivation as a line that needs to be crossed, not as a target to be hit. Once I have decided to do something, I do it with total involvement. This is where I am crossing the line, and from that moment on, motivation becomes meaningless. Being driven by emotions become pointless, and taking action becomes priceless.

This is what I call unconditional commitment: the decision of dedicating my time and energy to a cause such as getting stronger – no matter what. Nothing has taught me the importance of continuous, directed action without ifs and buts more than the barbell has. If I want a new PR, I have to work for it. And I have to actually attempt it – otherwise it won’t happen. In barbell training, every session is a chance for you to achieve something you thought wasn’t possible. All of which helps you feel a little bit better about yourself. Because, simply, that’s what we all want.

There are No Halves in Life

I believe that whatever we do in life, we ought to do it with full engagement, or not at all. This is no different with barbell training. If the prospect of getting stronger and reaping its rewards doesn’t give you some sort of excitement, I advise you to stay away from it. It will save you and everyone else involved in the process a lot of time and frustration down the line. Energy cannot be cheated, and it reveals itself eventually. As does yours. So either piss or get off the pot.

I am adamant that things done halfheartedly are a complete waste of time. Not to say counterproductive. They strongly reduce the quality we are putting into every moment of our life. And how well we live our lives depends on the effort we are willing to put into it. Would you agree?

Have you ever tried to kind of squat a heavy set of five? I can only envision this to be five reps three inches above parallel. No guts – no glory. Had I maybe wanted to open my own gym, it would still not have seen the light of the day. Halves do not exist as this would mean we are living in a world of approximates. Today “yes,” tomorrow “no,” and next time “maybe” is going to put a massive hamper on your training consistency – the most important element for you to get stronger. Without consistent training, no one can get stronger. Not even you.

Ask yourself: is getting stronger a “Hell yes!” for you – or a “kind of/sort of/should/would/could” thing? You have the answer.

Deadlifting sucks. As Does Not Deadlifting

If you have ever believed in the saying “Nothing worth having comes easy”, you will find yourself at home in this lesson: deadlifting sucks. And not just a little bit. But terribly. Let me elaborate: The weight you are placing your hands on is hanging from two rather small bones in your upper back called the “shoulder blades.” Attached to the shoulder blade are your shoulder joints (the glenohumeral joints), from which your arms are hanging. That’s it. This is all your body has at its disposal to control the heavy weight.

I don’t know about you, but for me the warm-up in the deadlift sucks just as much as the actual work set does – like gravity has taken on another form that has started to conspire against you. Somehow, then, you go through the warm-up, before it dawns on you that the work set is coming. One of the worst things you can do in the deadlift is to think of the heaviness of the weight displayed by the number on the bar. If this is the case, I advise you to take a step back.

Because if your mind thinks “heavy” before you’ve even started, I can guarantee you that one thing will happen: as your focus is pulled away from maintaining correct form and pushing your feet into the floor as hard as you can, you are going to try to jerk the bar off the floor with your arms bending, as well as with your back rounding. Guess what happens? The bar won’t move very far, and your back won’t like it either.

Provided your deadlift is heavy enough, and you have indeed pushed the floor with both your feet as hard as you can, you have to keep up this pressure to keep the bar traveling upwards. It’s like asking you to ignore the fact that you’ve just been hit by a train as the bar breaks off the floor. But, dear brothers and sisters, you have to carry on regardless. Nothing worth having has ever come easy.

Here is what you need to understand: Your back needs you to deadlift. It really does. Back pain is the number one physical reason worldwide for work absence. It is the Number One area in the body which people complain about pain at some stage in their life. And guess what? Deadlifts make your back stronger in a more efficient way than any other exercise in existence.

It really sucks to deadlift. But guess what sucks even more? Being ignorant of the fact that you have to expose your back to increasingly heavier loads over time or it will not get stronger. Deadlift 200 today, 270 in one month, 350 in six months, 400 in nine months – and keep going until that stops working. Then find a way to shake things loose, and go again.

Life (and strength) as a Mathematical Equation

The essence of the above is clear: if you invest a certain amount of effort on the left side of an equation, you receive a certain amount of return on the right side as a result. Still today, for as long as gravity acts downwards, five plus five equals ten, two plus two equals four, and zero plus zero equals…zero.

I believe there is always a reason for where we currently are in life. Nine months into your training and still hitting PRs regularly? There is a reason for that. Three months into your training, and already stalling? There is a reason for that, too.

I have made up my mind on whether I want to suck at deadlifting, or whether I just suck it up as I deadlift. Have you? Still haven’t made much progress, gained hardly any muscle mass, and seemingly don’t see any difference in yourself after months of training? Do The Program as it is laid out. And look at your equation. What have you invested on the left side? If your answer is “zero,” then what do you think the outcome on the right side of the equation will be?

The more weight on the bar, the greater the stress applied on your body, and the stronger you get if you recover from the stress. Isn’t it obvious that training three days a week and feeding your recovery will get you stronger so that you can’t even avoid it? Don’t get distracted. Revisit your own equation, and apply it to your training. There is a reason why you are where you are.

Following Through

You have made it through your first years of barbell training, have gotten reasonably stronger – and now you’re thinking “That’s it?” You are totally missing the point – which is that you never really graduate as a lifter in the first place, but you only go from one stage to the next.

The truth is that you are only as strong as your last workout, which means you can always get stronger. Only those who have resigned themselves to believing they can’t (or don’t want to) will take the easy route out and let their hard-earned progress go down the drain. In my opinion, this makes you a first-class loser.

Yes – the stronger you are, and the longer you train, the more disproportionate the investment it takes for you to keep adding weight to the bar. But barbell training was never about you just starting, going through your NLP, and then branching off to something more “fun” (which at the same time means less efficient for making you stronger). It was always about you finishing the job. Because by now, you have figured out that getting strong is goddamned important to you. I urge you to fight the inner war between the comfort of apathy and the courage to keep on going if things get challenging in training. This temporary discomfort is absolutely nothing compared to the long-terms benefits of you committing yourself to new PRs day after day, week after week, month after month.

If you want to create lasting changes in your ability to deal with stressors in life in a more resilient and productive way, you ought to keep training. This means that you have to follow through, and finish the job you have started.

But you know that by now.

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