Not that kind of sounding @Yogi1
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I agree with that re competition. We aren’t here to fuck spiders.
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Then I expect 701/401/701.
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So do I. Timeframe is open, however, but I’d like it before I hit 40, so 7 years to go.
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People are scared of failure man. And people are scared of setting a lofty goal, telling people about said goal, than failing to meet the goal for whatever reason.
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Not sure why I’ve been singled out from that long list of reprobates, anyway…
I think goals are more fluid than that, and depend on the level of experience of the goaler (shaddap - I know it’s not a word).
Like, once upon a time a 100k bench was my LIFETIME GOAL. That’s because to 20-something year old Yogi, weighing in at a svelte 130lbs, 100k seemed like this huge weight that only some big massive dude could hit.
After hitting that goal relatively easy, Yogi-goal number 2 was to be IFBB pro size. Ehh, a few years of eating myself fat and dabbling with steroids soon showed me that was never going to happen, but the point is I wasn’t experienced enough to know that when I first made the goal.
Now the long term goal is to build and maintain a superhero-esque physique for years to come. Fun thing about that goal is it’s never ending. There might come a point when I reach what I consider to be my limit in terms of calorie consumption and/or drugs, but the training will always be important and I’ll always be trying to improve. I know now after years spent seeing what can be achieved with my mediocre genetics, the amount of my lifestyle I’m prepared to sacrifice (because let’s face it - it does involve sacrifice) and the amount of drugs I’m prepared to use (not very much) that this goal will keep me busy for a very long time. Probably forever.
So if someone new to training sets a goal that us more experienced types think is unimpressive, it’s probably just because they don’t have the perspective we do. That said, if someone’s goal doesn’t evolve as their training does, they either set a retarded goal in the first place (“I’ll be the first to bench 1200lbs raw!”) or they just don’t take their training as seriously as us guys on here (which is probably the majority of guys in gyms anyway).
I
love
this
SO MUCH
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Because if anyone gets to sound me it’ll probably be you @yogi1
I’m already wise to Mrs KO repeatedly trying to examine my prostate while I sleep, so she’s on a hiding to nothing there.
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Those are good points. I totally understand what you mean by goals being fluid. My 7/4/7 is more of a baseline, based on what I’ve seen in powerlifting in person. It’s been my goal for a couple of years now. I may go beyond it, because when I do get I’ll want to get more. Or, I may take over a decade to reach it and be so beat up when I get there I won’t be able to go much past it at all.
But either way it’s my goal because at whatever weight I’ll be (and let’s be honest, that’s going to be somewhere between 220 and 275 lbs depending on how well I can get things going and if/how many drugs I’ll need) it’s at least respectable.
I’m not stupid enough to say either 8/5/8 or 6/3/6 because the former, well, pigs may fly unless I go multiply and the latter, I’ve actually gotten bits of in the gym.
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Even with folks who have no intention of competing it is confusing to me as to why you would not train to become the strongest that you personally could be, whether it is in your group of friends, then lifting buddies, then your gym and so on and so forth.
I can’t speak to powerlifting as I have no urge to compete (fear of failure…also, not strong) but in my personal life, I want to be the strongest/most athletic guy the folks around me know (that’s my participation trophy haha) and then the strongest in the gym, and then I want to be able to walk into any gym and no matter what I’m lifting, have respectable, if not big, weight on my lifts compared to those around me. On a smaller scale it is frustrating to me as well.
A lot of it comes down to psychology, folks set limits on themselves so that they only have to achieve so much, especially if you tell folks, most of us fear embarrassment, and once people know your goals it is a game changer psychologically.
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Personally I communicate a lot with my clients and when I get this idea of what their potential could be I present it to them BUT I inflate it a bit - just so it’s 120% or so of their potential. And with every single client I work like he/she was going to become a world record holder one day, and in my mind, they will - that’s how I don’t get tired of this. I’m training future champions daily!
That went from zero to a hundred real fast
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I’m in the same boat as you…as strong as I can get healthily. My goals when I started were simply a 3 plate bench before 50. That may happen before the end of this year maybe early next year. So I started lifting and realized there is other lifts than the bench…so I moved the target to 3,4,5… that seemed strong to me. And it is still beyond my current reach but I can see the DL going down soon too…squat meh for a 6’4" guy with long legs, arms, and torso squat champion of the world may be out of the question but I’m grinding them to a pulp right not to give myself a chance to get there.
If/when I get to my goal of 3,4,5 I’ll reevaluate goals ill. Probably try for a 6-7 dead and I’m already envisioning a 400+ bench. I ve got to meet my first goals. Then I can worry about being champion of the world…
I’m with @Yogi1 on this. When I first started lifting I never thought I’d be where I am now. Granted I did tell myself id pull the deadlift world record but that was when I hit 500 in a few months of training conventional. But it got much harder as the years went by and thought it actually wasnt going to happen. Ive seen logs in here and have commented that the person is not pushing themselves hard enough. Truth is they probably don’t know their potential (they arenew to this, we’ve been in the game a lot longer). A guy in his 40s may truly believe he will never be able to put up numbers your think he can because he’s not 20 and even the empty bar tires him out in the beginning. For me everytime I reach a goal I up it to the next nice sounding number. I ramble on so hopefully this makes sense ha ha
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Ight, bit o woo woo shit here. I think you have to have compassion for yourself with respect to goals being moving targets. I’ll use myself here - my goals have shifted from strength, to aesthetics to health, and back around again, almost weekly sometimes. Some people it just stays with one thing, usually aesthetics. And of course, what’s annoying is watching those people make the same mistakes and not improve.
I think it’s the lack of improvement that galls you, and me. In others primarily for you, in myself for me. And I guess that’s my point. If somebody is happy going to the gym three times a week and doing a routine that is obsolete for their level of training and completely spinning their wheels, but they’re happy… well, IDGAF, they’re still spinning their wheels.
This is what pisses me off about myself - today I’m bulking and working on strength, tomorrow I’m cutting to get ripped, the next day all I care about is being healthy. No consistent goal that yields results. This is one of the reasons I am so impressed with your log. Man, after being down below 190 where you were, and to now have a goal of 240, to set those goals and to work methodically towards them over an extended period. You’re just a different cat than I.
Now comes some more woo. Perhaps part of your frustration comes from trying to fix shit for people. You want to help them. That can be frustrating AF because you can’t fix people, they have to fix themselves. This is true in life, and in the gym.
K, enough new age mumbo jumbo.
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I’m with you on that. I’ve never liked the idea of setting “safe” limits. Establishing short term goals is fine, but setting lifetime goal limits, especially if they are too conservative/safe, can potentially hold ones self back. It can subconsciously create a timeline that under delivers - deliberately. Also, it can create the situation where someone reaches their conservative lifetime goal and then backs off - feeling content, or becomes disinterested. Supporting people like that, whether through training, advice, interest etc, can become disappointing. You expect them to establish more lofty goals, but then they fade away. Personally, it can feel like a “waste”. Furthermore, if that’s already the pre-determined response to reaching a safe lifetime goal, then everything that leads up to that achievement comes into question: for example, quitting when it gets hard. People who have lots of potential but level off at some safe but somewhat impressive numbers, or quit/become disinterested, are perhaps utilizing their “higher cap” (potential) but bailing out once they reach that level of grinding, day in day out, trying to push their limits. That’s where it gets real. Some people are already looking for a way out before it gets real, which is understandable I guess - people who push through that are on another level.
I set my goals extremely high: “hit my head on the rim” for dunking, “beat elite Kenyans” for running. Most people I know in the running scene are chasing PR’s, which is great: they are seeking “continuous improvement”. These people are dedicated and train hard. From my conversations with them, I don’t think they believe they can achieve elite fitness though. They admire it, but it doesn’t seem like they think it’s a possibility for them - at all. That’s also fine, but I think it limits them. It could be “being realistic”, or it could be “selling yourself short”.
All I know is, if my goal is to beat elite Kenyans (edit: Elite Kenyan women first… lol) in distance racing (over a mile or more), my current numbers become a warmup - i’m nowhere near my goal. This is a constant reminder of how much more work I need to put in, year after year. If I had conservative lifetime goals of 16:XX 5k, then i’d be almost there - I could coast it in, get it done, and feel proud. I think that’s where framing your goals becomes incredibly powerful. It’s just too easy to sell yourself short. The mind is always looking for a way out - safe goal setting is one way to do it. Set really lofty lifetime goals & then set realistic short term goals along the way, always frame it in the context of those lofty life time goals to put everything into the proper perspective.
Beyond that, I believe continuously thinking in terms of limits, is simply: limiting. The mental component to all of this stuff is extremely important. Wanting to be “champ of the world” vs “have a pro fight” creates a fork in the road, the latter is a dead end approaching quickly.
my 2cents!
peace man!
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I don’t really understand this. Maybe I’m missing something. I think you’re talking about 2 different things here… I don’t see setting goals as being the same as setting limits. And expectations are also different from both of those.
A year ago today, my goal was to win a strongman show. I didn’t think that was my limit, but it was above what I was capable of at the time. When I was powerlifting, my goal was an elite total. It’s not like I was setting that as a CEILING, it’s just the thing I was trying to do at the time. It’s like Yogi said, all these things are fluid, I certainly didn’t believe when I started lifting that my limits were even close to as high as what I’ve already achieved.
Just saying, there’s a big difference between saying ‘I want to do X in the next couple years’ and ‘X is the only thing I could possibly achieve in my lifetime’.
Also: 10 hours per week is WAAAAAAAY more time than I have available. I’m a little surprised you can characterize that as ‘not that much time’. You don’t have any kids, right? If you do, kuddos to you for still having that kind of time for the gym. I can spare about 3-5 hours most weeks for lifting.
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I am honestly not aligned on this one. I compete in strongman, but I have taken stock that I am simply not willing to do what it takes to be the best. To note; I should hire a coach, cut down to 175, take steroids (not to say everyone who is great in strongman takes them, but they aren’t banned in the sport) and spend a LOT of time building my leg drive on the press. It just isn’t what I want to do or be.
I still have ambitious goals, no question, but competition is more for fun for me.
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I’m a little puzzled about the rant here Mark.
If the goal is to compete in PL, I guess that the trainee have a number they have achieved. Then they sign up for a meet in the future. They know how much it took to get to the recent number, then they look at how far away the meet is. They have a plan, put up a 16 week training cycle and in the end they should be able to do X more pounds total. IF they know they are not gonna win or beat a masters record.
IF they have a shot for a masters record or something, well that would be their goal they work toward.
If they did not train to get stronger and be better than last, then what’s the point.
The trainee might have a long term goal of lifting something very heavy. But you have your own goal of “only”
So you yourself have limited it. You just put up your long term goal.
So setting short term goals is kind of okay, because the trainee knows he might be doing something else after the meet. And do not want to put down the effort to chase even higher numbers.
I’m not competing but I have set my goals for 2,3,4 plates with a extra added 200 kg DL by the time I turn 55.
If and when I reach my goal, then I might set a new goal of even higher numbers.
BUT I do no compete and if I feel that my health is on stake, I’ll back off.
My main goal is to be able to run 5 K in about 22 minutes and do the 2,3,4 plates stuff.
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I agree with Despade on this one, and to some extent what Yogi said as well.
I think someone mentioned something similar on the afraid to fail aspect, but I also think people, somewhere down in the backs of their minds, might be willing to be content if they so choose to find out just how strong they are, or aren’t. I know that’s something that occasionally gets to me quite a bit, however I no longer think it’s something to ever feel sorry about.
I think there’s always that “what if” factor that huge masses of people would just rather not test a day in their lives. I think the only difference between the big guys and gals from juniors to masters, to the guy at your gym, is that they were alright breaking that “what if” box completely open, and adding in the tools they needed to progress as much as they could, and then still being alright with what their body told them they were capable of. (With or without some bumps and bruises along the way).
I say this on a powerlifter to powerlifter type of relation, and concerning powerlifting.
Idk…I could be waaaaaaaay off, but that’s what I was thinking. I agree with all the others who’ve chimed I’m too, since there’s a more multifaceted way of viewing things like this.
I dont see them as limits so much as stepping stones. Short term goals allow yourself to enjoy it as it happens more and maybe even recover mentally. I mean if they intend to hit that and retire then ok…
but I think about retiring to something easy like BBing all the time (shots fired hahaha)
HA!! I spend that much time on naps and out of gym prehab work each week 
(every body’s body is different I am sure that has to be an outlier)
Dont get me started on research and programming just for me…ok the programming really shouldnt take as long as it does.
I would wager that each of them have crossed several lines you are not willing to cross.
Accurate self evaluation is probably one of the most important aspects of PLing…or anything really. It is lost on most people.
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- I work out alone.
- I have never competed.
- I change my goals regularly. (Hell, after all this CrossFit talk don’t be surprised if you find my at your local “box”)
- I DO, however, train as hard as I can.
That being said I have never worked out with anyone stronger than me so I use TNation training logs to push me to achieve “what is possible”. The “what is possible” definitely increased after seeing guys like yourself, Bots, Pwn, Flip, Vince, Reed and others achieve levels of strength that I’d never seen before. I guess that circles back to what Yogi said about having fluid goals, since my “what is possible” has evolved.
I guess this would be like me cutting into my first PL meet? I was sitting at 217lbs, but would be a long shot at a top 3 finish in the 220lb class. In the 198lb class, even if I just maintain my lifts I will be competitive for a potential top spot (local). Right now, being able to look back on winning a PL competition with a 1500lb total in the 198lb class would mean more to me than a 4th place finish with a 1575lb total at 220lbs. I’m already planning to fill out the 220lb class at some point and go for a PR total, but this is my short term goal and I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.
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