Weightlifting is boring...

By which I mean, to get good at weightlifting you have to do very similar stuff day in day out for a long time. Some people find that boring. I don’t personally, and maybe that is why the sport attracts people who are generally a little different to the masses.

Immerse yourself

Maybe it’s just because this is my experience and now I only see what I want to see, or maybe it’s true that anyone who gets into weightlifting, REALLY gets into weightlifting. It doesn’t seem to be one of those hobby sports or pastimes that you ‘just do a little bit of’. Most of the time it becomes a whole big thing in peoples lives, my own included, which maybe makes you more different to the masses.

Watching weightlifting is hugely entertaining and can often be really exciting to watch. The European championships on last week was amazing viewing. It just takes someone missing their opener and second lift and suddenly what was a quiet audience seconds prior becomes a cheering swell of support and encouragement. Seeing personal, national, international & world records being broken is not boring!

Get some skin in the game so to speak by doing a little research. Follow a lifter who is your body weight but lifts loads you can only dream of right now. Become a fan. If you haven’t been to a competition in person I highly recommend it (not to mention our sport is hugely under funded so your ticket money goes a long way).

That said, weightlifting comps are long, often cold as the venues are usually pretty budget and ultimately you’re watching the same people do the same things… I love it.

Repetition

Monotony is probably the most commonly used words used to describe training for weightlifting. If my wife is struggling to fall asleep she will ask me about my training that day. Works every time.

There are infinite variations and little tweaks to make the snatch, clean and jerk harder, easier, lighter, heavier or specific to a persons weaknesses but all that said and done you still have to do loads of SNATCH, CLEAN, JERK, some squats, some pulls and some presses. When your sport is also your training lifts it can get a little…samey…

You have to get over that pretty quickly if you want to progress. It certainly helps if you enjoy the training but either way you’ve got to get the hard work done.

Snowflakes

It’s become almost a buzzword. Snowflakes, or in this case people who believe that they are uniquely different to everyone else and therefore do not need to do what everyone else must to get good at something, will not survive in weightlifting.

That’s not the same thing as being entitled. I think sport is the greatest leveller for the entitled. You earn everything through hard work. BUT there are some freaks. And those freaks will often make you question the proven methods, even tempt you to stray from the known path to success. You normally know if you’re NOT a genetic freak (insert CJ Cummings or equivalent) but if you find weightlifting comes pretty easy and lift competitive weights within your first year of training, chances are you’re the freak lifter who is gifted. Know that most of us will hate you, want to be like you and probably end up liking you anyway.

Persistence

As stated, we have to do quite a lot of the same or similar stuff and often times we don’t see any real meaningful progress for weeks at a time. Longer even. You need patience, persistence and usually it seems a good sense of humour to thrive in weightlifting. Progress can be far from linear and you could spend weeks working on a technical fault on a lift, feel like everything is coming together just in time to test a heavy single or… you get a bad nights sleep and you revert to your old shitty technique and feel like a failure. This is a fun hobby isn’t it?

Finding the variety

Personally I like to think I’m an optimistic realist. Is that a thing? I can usually find enjoyment in banging my head against a brick wall, as long as the bricks are starting to crack, or even the plaster softens a little. You have to look for and recognise the progress, the things you did well or better, that something felt marginally easier.

Be glad that this week is only 4 x 2 instead of 4 x 4. See the upside to now being able to squat for 5 reps what a few weeks ago was a 3 rep max. If you hold out for only seeing your snatch and clean and jerk numbers improve you’ll get bored and somber pretty quickly.

This phase my block cleans were above knee. Maybe next phase they’ll be below knee. How will I cope with the anticipation? You can chose to hate every second of training if you want but if you chose this sport as a recreational lifter, why the hell don’t you pick something you enjoy? Bloody masochist.

Embracing the suck

I like this term. I enjoy doing hard things that mean absolutely zero to literally anyone else but me (except maybe as a natural sleep remedy). Every now and again when coaching, I see lifters finish what was a really tough set and look around to see if anyone is watching. Most often there isn’t anyone looking to share in their anguish (besides me but I’m rarely sympathetic). No one else cares because usually they’re also too involved in their own personal hell set of tempo front squats. YOU must embrace it and find some bizarre pleasure in it, like the rest of us weirdos.

There’s a sense of community among the perpetually sore. I can’t think of a better way to spend your free time.