I'm by no means an elite strength athlete. I don’t power lift competitively. I don’t have aspirations of being the world’s best, and I certainly don’t train at a facility like elitefts™. In many respects, I'm a very average lifter. I’ve been training seriously for around four years. I have a decent squat and a terrible bench. For most of those four years, I trained to look good and be healthy. I never had that mentor or training partner many of the best have. I always had to find my own inner motivation to bust my ass day in and day out for 1–2 hours a day, go to school, and go to work. It was hard to justify the gym some days. There wasn't anyone to train with, and sometimes I lifted alone in my basement with just some plates and offspring as my lifting buddies.
Recently, I stagnated. I jumped from program to program and made absolutely no progress. I was disinterested. I had zero motivation to hit the gym. After that realization, I decided to switch things up. I cracked out my credit card and purchased the Phase 1 Strong(er) workout manual, and I have completed two weeks of it. Sadly, this article isn't about how terrific this manual is, although I strongly suggest you pick it up.
I'm working toward becoming a police officer, and I'm currently working in security at a large amusement park. My father is a retired cop, and my brother is a seven-year veteran. My entire life I've heard the life and death stories of how cops either live or die based on the decisions they make. As many do, I often found myself wondering how I would handle a situation in which my safety was put at risk. I recently was able to find out.
For the first time ever, I got into a very heated altercation with two drunk men who decided that they wanted to get physical with me. I was able to handle the situation with only a couple minor scrapes while the gentlemen are a touch worse off. The next day when it was time to work out, I found something strange click in my brain. I was no longer training to merely look good and be healthy… I was training to survive.
I feel that the reason I'm not typing this article with a broken arm is because I lift and train. It feels as if I have a new lease on my training. I know that I never want to be put in the position where I'm at the mercy of another human being. What I needed to realize was that what seems like a pedestrian 415-lb squat in powerlifting terms is gigantic compared to the average Joe who can barely squat his body weight and wants to bash my head in.
My first training session after that day was eye opening. Every rep felt like I was defending myself all over again. As the bar moved up, I was cursing at the drunks who came after me. I was training so that I didn’t have a busted lip or stab wound or worse. I was training so that at the end of my day I could go home and have dinner with my girlfriend. Because I found that motivation, it's as if I have a Jim Wendler or Glenn Pendlay right beside me.
You see motivation is the fuel that drives athletes. It makes gym rats lift every rep, and it’s what separates the dedicated from the interested. If you don’t have motivation, you’re dead inside (I know because I was). Screw looking good and being healthy. Those are now merely byproducts of a desire to survive the next person who decides that harming me is a good decision. That is my new motivation.
So what makes you lift? What makes you move that Prowler until your guts are on fire? Every time you touch those plates, make sure it's with the desire and determination that you deserve to feel. When you feel stuck, dig deep and figure out what you really want to get out of it. Before I leave you with my favorite Bruce Lee quote, I ask you this—how badly do you want to survive?
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.” —Bruce Lee