When Did You Become Strong?

Training
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I’m 4 years in of consistent training, focused on powerlifting.

There’s something empowering about finally getting 3, then 4, then 5 plates on the bar. There’s a different sound the plates make when really start getting the bar loaded. As in, a sound where experienced athletes and trainers look over in the corner at the mono when 5+ plates get loaded up on the squat bar, then you proceed to crush a heavy single.

Strong is a characteristic that is dependent on viewpoint. Among gym goers? Absolutely. Among the general public? Puhhhleeeze. Among powerlifters? Not yet.

I toggle between feeling strong and feeling like I have a long ways to go. But yesterday I hit a 565 reverse band raw squat and it felt good. It’s the most I’ve ever had on my back; no band tension at top. I felt strong because I manhandled a weight that would have crushed me a year ago.

But it’s a fleeting feeling as barbell brain sets in, then fatigue, then the stark realization I want to be able to handle that weight w/o bands. Now I have a new number in my head. Like when I finally hit a 500 lb deadlift and started plotting the course to 550 and 600.

Just curious, for those of you with time under the bar, do you now feel strong or is it always a fleeting concept that comes and goes?

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The first time I deadlifted 600lbs, I felt strong, and have allowed myself to feel strong since that time. I’ve lifted more since, and I know that others are strongER than me, but I still appreciate that, in the general sense, I am strong.

I had milestones prior to that point which, though cool, didn’t give me the same feeling. I felt accomplished after completing 6 weeks of the Super Squat program and I felt proud the first time I benched 300lbs, mainly because it was a challenge my dad issued me, but that deadlift unlocked something in my head that allowed me to think “I know what I’m doing”.

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birth

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4

Is this why you’ve never cut your hair?

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Na that’s just to do with its luxuriant fullness.

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That’s cool.

I think everyone has that magic number in their heads. I have yet to hit a 500 lb squat in competition. That should feel good. But yeah, 600 lb pull is perhaps a bigger milestone for me. Actually 606, cause the gym records on the chalkboard for my class have a buddy of mine with a 601 lb pull.

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I became strong the day I realized I’ll never be strong enough.

Poetry aside, essentially, the stronger I get the weaker I feel. I generally go through phases of disillusionment and depression after setting PR’s or great contest performances. The old cliche is the truth; you just never stay satisfied.

I can remember hitting a 550lb deadlift, after being stuck at 500 for 2 years due to poor training and chronic injury. I don’t think any lift made me more happy in the moment. It signified progress. Thing is, that lift is minuscule in my sport. 550lb max at 231lbs in strongman is in my opinion, the minimum for being able to potentially NOT zero a deadlift event in the MW open class, let alone be even in grasp for competitiveness at a national level. Then I realized the top 175ers were pulling like 100lbs more than I was then, which actually caused horrible problems with my self confidence. Now I can finally deadlift as much as LW pros but then all the MW’s pros are deadlifting 800 now so yeah.

Basically I’m not strong.

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Makes a lot of sense. I’ve had those mini celebrations like yesterday when I did something I’ve never done before, then it gets replaced with oh shit I got a lot of work to do.

Probably the same can be said about size. I think it was Chris Ottawa who said that as he put on mass, he didn’t feel any bigger. Rather it seemed everyone else was getting smaller. I feel the same way, though I’m not really trying to get much bigger these days.

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This is a fun phenomenon, especially with pop culture. You get bigger and you see these stars in movies that are supposed to be “jacked” and they just look like dudes. I recently watched the first Capt America movie and all I could think was “can someone PLEASE give him a t shirt that fits?”

You can infect others by association as well. My wife doesn’t “get” the hunk of the month that her girlfriends lust after, because she is just inundated with being around someone muscular. And she doesn’t think I am special: she has calibrated her average to be me.

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All depends on who you surround yourself with, if you compete, etc. “If you’re the strongest guy in your gym, find a new gym”. Find an environment where people are bigger than you, stronger… and unless you’re one of those “bodyweight proportionate wilkes score” goofballs… you’ll never feel strong. And once you compete… keep competing at a higher level. No matter what the weight/age class, lifting sport, etc., you’ll find peers that can beat you any given day, no matter how good you get.

Can you pull 500? Decent, but so can a lot of strong teenagers (and much more). 600? Now you’re starting to differentiate from the pack. 700? Even better… but I’ve been at my gym with four training partners at the same tmie, all who’ve pulled 750+, so that can snap you back to reality quickly.

All of this is further complicated by definition of strength. I’ve known some decent Olympic lifters… but look like shit from a muscularity perspective to the normal gym population. And honestly can’t hang with the normal gym rats in a lot of movements … sure if they have an Eleiko bar and bumpers and chalk, they can put on a “show”. But walk into a typical Fitness Club where you have a bro putting up 405 for a couple on the bench, and they aren’t remotely close.

It’s all relative, depending on how high you want to go.

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Still waiting…based on my own set standards

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Yes this 100 percent. I thought if I squatted two plates id consider myself strong, but then when I finally got there I told myself i wouldn’t be strong until I was pausing it for triples which never came.

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In my mind, and how striving works in my own mind…I’m not strong…even if I see a 5 plate squat I’m still not going to be as strong as whatever the heck it means to be strong.

I view myself as able to move more weight than I could last year.

But for others that see me, a 5 foot, 23 year old girl repping 315 is strong. But still… I find myself to not be that strong

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It’s all relative. Some days I feel strong and others I don’t. It depends on who’s at the gym lol!

I might feel strong if I get to the point where I can dwarf and crush any boy who tries to date my daughter. She’s only five so I have about 10 years to make that happen.

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What I’ve found odd is that when I was doing bodybuilding style training I was always trying to be strong or putting landmarks on strong that I assumed made me strong. It wasn’t until I started powerlifting that everything kind of became arbitrary in terms of strong. I don’t think I’m strong nor do I think I’m not strong. It’s all about going from one number to the next

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For me it was beating thousands of other sperm.

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Missed this thread when it happened, but yeah, this is how I feel as well.

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The first time I really felt strong was when I hit a 225x5 strict press at a little under 220.

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It’s a different kind of strength than what people here outlined, and if we’re talking strictly lifting numbers, then nope, not strong yet, but after my first 25 mile hike in the Marines - boots, cammies, gloves, helmet, flak jacket with plates, rifle, 50+ lb pack, and a 50 cal receiver that we took turns passing around (60 lbs), I recall feeling strong as shit while I was wringing blood out of my socks. It was more mental strength than physical, as we had really strong dudes fall out halfway through, but every mountain we climbed or desert we walked through afterwards seemed doable.

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Feeling strong is generally fleeting in some senses, but it becomes more and more permanent with each milestone. When I was deadlifting in the mid 400’s, I started feeling strong, because I’d reached a level that a lot of other people hadn’t.

Leading up to my first strongman competition in 2014, I would say I felt strong, because I’d never been around strongman competitors. I thought I was going to kill it. I was coming in to the show as a guy walking around at like 190 and water cut down to 175. With abs. That confidence was shattered when I came in last place in the lowest weight class, taking last in every event except one. One guy who beat me didn’t even look like he lifted.

Shortly after this show, I benched 315 for the first time, and that felt pretty good. But I was still dealing with the let-down of the strongman show.

A year later, I entered my first and only powerlifting meet, and I totaled elite in the 181 class. And I was pound for pound probably the strongest dude there. I went 9/9, definitely left lbs on the table. But I hit PR’s across the board, crushed a bunch of guys in higher weight classes. That was the first time I really started to feel like I’d ‘made it’. I started making videos every now and then, got more engaged in the strength community.

Then in March of 2016, I competed in Oklahoma’s Strongest Man, in the 200 lbs weight class. I won the deadlift, and did ok on the axle press for reps and the stone for reps. But I lost both carries by a mile. Overall I was mostly satisfied, but my weaknesses were more apparent than they had been in awhile. So I got back to training. That fall, I had my first podium finish (3rd place) at Texas Strongest Man. Also 200 lbs class.

In March of 2017, I shit the bed at Dallas Strongest, made a handful of mistakes, and took 4th. I felt like I had taken a step backwards. And I said at the time that if I didn’t take first in the next show I competed at, I probably wasn’t really cut out for the sport. I said that because the events were just so good for me. I knew it was my best shot at a win. That summer, I competed in the 200 class once again, and I won my first show, against some really solid competition. I won by exactly 1 rep on stones, the last event. I would say that was the day I really felt like I was there, that I was strong. That show really propelled me to push myself to higher levels. That was when I realized that if I REALLY wanted to be competitive on a national level, I needed to be just as strong as I was then and drop a weight class, or get waaaaay stronger and stay in the same class. I opted for dropping the weight class. Once I started competing regularly as a 181, I started dominating locally. I felt like I could win every show I entered, no matter what the events were, because I had been holding my own against much bigger guys.

Nationals this year was another big milestone for me, taking a top 10 finish and qualifying for the World Championships. 2 years ago, I couldn’t have fathomed doing what I’m doing now, but I have absolute confidence in my abilities at this point. I know I can’t win the world championship this year, but I also know I can get there. A podium finish isn’t outside the realm of possibilities, and that feels amazing.

I know at this point that, no matter how things go, that I made it to ‘strong’. And it took me about 15 years to reach that point.

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