I got like this when I raced dirt bikes. I started because it was fun. Then I wanted to be good. Countless hours of training, diet, practice only to fail more times than not. I ended up quitting because it wasn’t fun. I was so serious and he’ll bent on getting better that it was impossible to just go ride. Every time out was a training session, it never stopped. It was a vicious circle. I actually did the exact same thing with another hobby but to an even more extreme level lol. I’d practice 2 hours every day and more on weekend. It all consumed my life.
After that I vowed to never turn a hobby into more than a hobby. I have a weird quirk that if I am into something and I want to do it for fun, I MUST become good at it. Like very good or it eats at my soul. I’m not even a competitive person in nature. I think I have an extremely addictive personality for certain things and easily lose myself in them.
I say all that to say maybe it’s time to take a step back. Reevaluate why you are doing this, does doing it being you joy? Or is the only way you get joy out of it is by reaching some sort of “victory”? Maybe on a stage? Platform? Certain body goal?
Don’t let something that started out as fun turn into work, let work be work and everything outside of that not be work.
Hey Duke.
Don’t quit.
Doing the hard frustrating shit when it feels like you’re stagnating or getting worse will develop a hard mind. You can do anything with that.
My bench has not improved significantly in five years.
My squat repeatedly drops by around 20kg after I set PRs.
Sometimes 80%+ feels glued to the floor on my deadlift
Sometimes I can barely run a 6 min km.
Stay the course.
Anything I do (that I’m interested in), I have to become the best at. I always have to have a goal or something otherwise I fall apart. I become crazy to achieve these goals or goal. Like you all are saying I need to empty the bucket and relax
Alright man, I feel alot better now that ive let out my emotions and realised how overfilled the bucket was. Now I can back off the pedal and take a break and refresh to get back on track. I still have 3 weeks to my next competition but after that I might drop training to 3 days a week, if that doesnt work il take a month off.
The thing about training is that, even when you think you’re not getting stronger or noticeably bigger, you’re still building something. I think this is true even if you’re not eating to grow. There’s more to building your body than just sheer muscle mass or lifting heavier weights.
Hey Duke, sorry to read your not enjoying training, and not getting the results you want at the moment, has this coincided with working under a coach, maybe his methods are not optimal for you?
Interesting. I remember running deep water prior to getting a coach, I think it set me up for big gains. Although I didn’t get stronger from deep water I think the accumulated fatigue made me stronger after I recovered and went into my coaches training
The best results I got were the first 2 months with my coach. My front squat went from 120-150kg. My push press went from 70-90kg as well. After that I didnt make any progress, so like the last 3-4 months pretty much. I’ve gotten back to my strength levels when I first started with my coach.
Been on and off following your log for a while /insta
outside of injury/imbalances yes they are frustrating everyone gets them some more then others its how you lets these lessons affect you to grow and deal with them ,
I think you need to stop obsessing over what you cant do and think about what you can do! replace the negatvitity with a positive mindset and your passion and drive will fall back into place
your a strong kid but how you deal with this hurdle will ultimately shape you and your goals
training has to be fun and not a chore !
Everything has been said my friend.
You’ve become wiser about your body, you’ll learn from this experience.
I would still get some pro to look at your squat, someone who can figure out what’s going on.
Hope you’ll recover and be back to the gym and having fun there.
I’ve decided I also believe that I shouldn’t go past a certain weight on lifts. Maybe alot of the times I train with too heavy weights, because of the psychological effect training heavy as, in reality theres no need. Why beat my body up when I could train with lighter weights using techniques ike clusters, giant sets or paused, slow eccentric etc to build io my body, then add weight on the brutal work overtime. Bodybuilders get strong as hell even though they train in higher rep ranges. You need muscle to handle moving weight.
The problem I think with having a coach at the level my coah is, is that I dont have the muscle to do these insane training programs with heavy weights and constantly push it how my coach does himself. For God sake he has the axle press world record. So I think my coach is too good and I’m not ready to have a coach as good as my coach .
I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to reach my goals, I will lift insane weights and be a wsm winner in the u105 or u90 division. I will set the farmers walk world record as well. I will close the captains of crush 3 before I’m 20.
i think there might be a grain of truth in this, it depends of course on what kind of clientel your coach is specialized in. you know, to the carpenter with a hammer only everything looks lika a nail.
Okay the strongest my deadlift was when I never went above 140kg and my coach was programming clusters/deficits and slow eccentric/paused deads . I pulled 140kg then the following 2 weeks hit an easy 180kg deficit deadlift. How can I program so I dont burn out, but build the deadlift. Build on reps at lighter weights+ slowly adding weight over time? Once I started doing heavier deadlifts I burned out fast on deads.
This is the difficult one, you have to look back through your logs to see how much work you can tolerate.
You could try Kroc’s deadlift program, and use a 1RM that’s conservative.
You could try a periodisation scheme like the one CT uses in his SGSS programming.
I’ve recently, for the past 8 weeks been doing work many many (2-3+) reps from failure in a week I’ll try a 5 RM test, then I’ll do another 8 weeks of peak several reps from failure.
But there are so many programs out there, Wendlers 5/3/1 is another.