Sweat, rust, and slamming weights.
This is the general depiction of a weight room setting. Being a gritty go-getter is a great trait to have in the weight room. What is the problem with that? Absolutely nothing other than the fact that you are not separating yourself enough. A great way to begin to gap yourself ahead of others in the weight room is through your mental approach. Being mentally prepared every single day to get better. This comes in many facets. Your mentality plays a strong role before the lift, during, and after. We can also see heavy implications from a buy in/cultural standpoint.
Finding that extra 5%
We can all go into the weight room on a daily basis at 90-95%, although we don't all come with that kind of drive. This 90-95% begins to feel like 100% over time. An athlete starts to breakdown, fatigue, hit a wall. Next thing you know, they think they give it all, but they are mentally held back.
I ran an unofficial, kept to myself, test on this extra 5%. With our college kids testing their flying 10 yard sprints, I could see guys getting frustrated with a plateau. First telling them that if they hit a PR every single week, they would be up against Usain Bolt in the Olympics. Plateaus happen and PRs take time to grow. A house isn't built in a day. I started to feel like I could get just a little bit more out of these teams. Test day rolls around and so did the hype train. I did my best to fire up every single athlete about their flying 10. You could almost feel the buzz in the room with these teams wanting to PR. With more than half of the kids hitting a new best on their flying 10, I wish I had a siren with me that day.
This idea can certainly fall into my hands as a coach. But a coach with this kind of energy day in and day out, can begin to drag on athletes. When you have a job in 10 years, and you feel like calling in sick because you just don't have it, I will not be in your ear telling you to get up and get it done. At some point, your mental toughness has to fall in your own hands. The same ideas apply in the weight room.
This 5% idea has shown face several times with my athletes. One of my new favorite methods is through AMRAPS (as many reps as possible). I took athletes with just a basic exercise that they had become accustomed to, a dumbbell incline press. It gets challenging to constantly tell athletes, "Hey that set looked easy, let's go up." In order to get these athletes to understand that, I utilized an AMRAP. First set 6 reps, second set AMRAP, third set back to 6 reps. They had started to plateau at their weights for a few weeks in a phase where we were on 6 reps for about a month. I brought the group together at the end of the session and asked for every single AMRAP number. What was I hearing? Everyone over 6. We had some 8s, 10s, 15s, even a 20. Proceeding to inform them on my basis, I said "Every single one of you are capable of more. I just found your extra 5% for you. I want you to find that every day you come in here."
Before you come to a lift, negative thoughts have to be avoided. Simply telling yourself in the car, "I'm going to get after it in the gym today." You would be amazed at how far that takes you. The same applies during the workout. It crushes me to see athletes bodies droop when they hear we are doing something they don't enjoy. You have now taken yourself out of the ability to truly find that 100%. Lifting takes ~1 hour. What are you doing to be a better athlete in the other 23 hours of the day. I will be getting into culture and buy in aspects to mentality. But if you buy into the culture and ideas, you will more likely take advantage of those 23 hours. Are you sleeping for 8-9 hours a night? Are you getting every single meal in, and snacks in between? Are you taking care of your body? These are all things that are ignored by those who are not in it mentally. By those who have not bought in and trusted their coaches including their strength and conditioning coaches. Buy in to every single facet of being a successful athlete.
Culture and Buy In
Culture and buy in have been some of my favorite mental viewpoints of late. I want to share a story that I am ashamed of, but it helped me to truly realize the importance of a weight room culture. Plus it is what got me into strength and conditioning in the first place.
Starting at the JUCO level for baseball, we certainly did not have access to a strength and conditioning coach. Just a bunch of guys that thought we knew what we were doing. Our athletic trainer, one of the nicest guys I have met to this day, put together a program that we could do as a team. I'll keep it short and say, it was blown off, and I was one of them. Why? Because I was strong, and I lifted in high school. I clearly knew the best way to train at the time. Bench heavy, squat heavy, don't forget arm day on friday. Many of us truly thought that just getting strong was our key to success. Want to hit homeruns? Train like us. The season hit and this is when I began to understand where I went wrong. My swing was terribly slow, almost laughably slow and I did not know why. 3 weeks into the season I was hitting .180, wondering every single day when I walked into the dugout why my name was still on the lineup card. All of a sudden my swing started to feel quicker. Incase you are wondering, no I did not train explosively with plyometrics in the offseason. So what had happened? My swing was my plyometric. I missed out on 3 weeks of performance because my body was not properly prepared. Finished the season batting .321 in the final approximately 5-6 weeks. That's a pretty big bump from .180. Especially here in NY where 3 weeks is a huge part of the season in the springtime. Aside from just the swing, I was not as fast. I dealt with knee pain all season long. I just felt like I could not catch a break with my body all season long.
Through my first couple years of coaching, I gave my athletes the benefit of the doubt. I thought that I was one of the few that did not understand strength and conditioning at that age. I was wrong. I can see so many kids on the same boat that I was on. It crushes me to see. In comes culture and buy in.
We as a strength and conditioning team have the knowledge and tools that athletes need to become better athletes and stay healthy. What we need in return from the athletes, is trust and buy in. If I can have a group of 30 baseball guys, or 20 basketball guys, or 15 soccer girls, that all buy into what we coach, then I know we will have a team that builds success. You can't be that one person that does not buy in. You can't be like the college version of me. That is what holds a team back. That is what holds you back individually from success.
Once we establish the culture, the buy in, and the trust, we eliminate a lot of things. We eliminate guys not giving 100%. We eliminate athletes coming in on their own and doing an excessive amount of bench press and tricep extensions. We are athletes, we are not bodybuilders. Training styles are on completely different spectrums between the two. If your priority is picking up ladies at the beach, I can assure you that you will not properly prepare yourself in the weight room to be a successful athlete. Mentally, every single athlete has to buy in. Ego must be set aside, learn to put your trust in the coaches hands. If you love the game, you will show that trust and buy in to the strength and conditioning program and culture.
Preparation
All the things that I have discussed so far, tie into a mental state in the weight room. If we can achieve these things, we will find more success as athletes. As we are able to improve off the field/court/ice, we are affecting our mental performance in our sport. Having your body optimally prepared allows you to not have to think about it while performing. Everyone knows that in order to be successful in a sport, things have to start coming natural. You can't be out there doubting if you are fast enough to leg out a fly ball, or doubting if you are springy enough to pull down a rebound, or doubting if you can keep up with the opposing team. Your mental state on the field improves greatly with having our body prepared for success in our sport.
The Bottom Line:
Learn to fall in love with the process. Find that extra 5%. Ask questions, and begin to understand the "why?"
Comments