Lifting heavy weights is as much about mental strength as it is about physical strength. You can have great muscle strength, but if you walk up to the bar and are not 100% convinced that you can move it, you won’t. If you do two reps and don’t believe there’s a third one in you, the probability is that you won’t get that third rep out. Similarly, if you start a rep and it doesn’t move instantly you need to continue to believe that it will eventually move.
Recently though I’ve been struggling with the mind over matter conundrum. Especially with my deadlift. More to the point, I don’t think it’s my conscious mind that is the problem.
I will not let it beat me
100%? Really?
If you’re a beginner or intermediate lifter attempting a weight that you’ve completed before then you should be walking up to that bar fully convinced you’ll complete the lift. If you completed all your reps the week before and you’ve bumped the weight up by a small increment then, especially if you are still in those early years of lifting, you should still be more than 100% convinced you will complete the lift.
If you are lifting something you’ve never attempted before, and it is a jump up from your best ever max effort, then you may have your doubts, but you’ll need to be convinced that it’s worth a try when you make your attempt.
Continuing the belief
It’s not just about believing you can move it when you are stepping up to the bar though. It’s about continuing to have an unfaltering belief that you can move it after you start trying and it doesn’t move. For example, the hardest part of a deadlift is getting it off the floor. When you first start to strain against the bar it often doesn’t move. You have to keep straining. Time slows to a crawl. You strain against the weight for what seems like hours, even though it is seconds, and then eventually it moves. Only an inch, but it moves.
This is where my mental crux hits me.
So what’s my problem?
It’s hard to tell exactly.
A post by Gubernatrix summed up beautifully what should happen when the heavy weight starts to move:
“You dig your toes into the ground and push and strain for what seems like an age and just when you think you are never going to manage it, someone calls out – oh joy! – “It’s moving!” and you have that Beethoven’s Fifth moment at last.”
But I get stuck. On my max effort deadlift just before Christmas I took a shot at 85kg. I should have been able to move it. Only a month earlier I had completed 10 sets of 2 reps at 80kg. I did move 85kg. It shifted that tiny but all-important inch off the blocks.
Then my mind gave up. As if it was saying, “that’s it, point proved by getting it to start moving, but your muscles are totally exhausted from all the trying, you just don’t have the strength to get this all the way up so quit while you’re ahead.” I lose the benefit of the momentum. There I am an inch off the ground and everything stops moving.
It’s the same with my push press. I kick off from the bottom fully committed to completing the movement and halfway up my mind stops me. It says, “this is crazy, there is no way you could complete this weight.” Despite the fact that I’ve almost completed the move, I’m 6 inches or less away from full extension and there is no strength reason why it shouldn’t complete, my arms stop going up and the bar comes crashing back down.
How to get past this blockade
To be honest, I don’t know. My conscious mind is convinced I can do it, it’s my sub-conscious that causes problems.
Gubernatrix’s post, coming just before my max effort day, helped to get me out of the risky conscious mind rut. I’d had a bad month on my deadlift and was starting to lose control of my conscious mind. Without inspiration I’m not sure I would have had the self-belief to step up to the bar with conviction to do my max effort deadlift that day.
How to stop my pesky sub-conscious though?
The other week I had a revelation. It was the Thursday of my first cutting week. Hunger was knawing at my stomach. I had done split squats and weighted glute bridges and was starting push presses. Following the problems I’d had before Christmas and the changes to my lifting program I dropped the weight down. I’d done 30kg on Sunday and completed it but knowing how I felt on the cutting diet I only increased the weight to 31kg.
The first set was fine. Three reps flowed out. The second set wasn’t great, two reps came out and I dumped the bar on the third rep. Then on the third set the bar went flying out of control halfway through the second rep. I was livid. There was no reason I shouldn’t be able to complete the rep. I’ve done 10 sets of 3 reps on 35kg before. I screamed, I shouted, I ranted, I swore, I beat at the bar with my hands…
…and 90 seconds after I had started that dismal third set I completed two reps, with clean form and no exhaustion.
Anger works but is it the answer to overcoming my sub-conscious? Can I get that angry every time? Do I have to fail first to know I need to get angry?
I don’t know the answers to any of this, but I’m going to keep looking for solutions. If you’ve got any advice about how I can ignore my sub-conscious, please let me know!
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