I Don’t Want to Lift Because..

“I don’t need to be that strong.”

“I’m not trying to get crazy, but you know what I mean.”

The list goes on, but when most people say things like this they are really trying to communicate that they want to do this fitness thing, but they want to do it without the injury and the ego that they assume is associated with lifting heavy weights. Plus, there’s this lovely thought that lifting heavy weights will make you massive (which I’d wish it’d work that way for me), but of course nutrition… well, let’s not go there, right?

If that’s the case, though, say it. Or, just say you’re afraid of heavy weights, which is an honest statement, too. Becoming as strong as possible and incidentally lifting heavy weights along the way is not the same thing as having ego, “lifting too much,” and getting hurt. These ideas aren’t tied together.

Think of it this way: The people that lift the heaviest weights possible can’t have an ego and they can’t get hurt. They’ve got to be students of methods and their movement, or they won’t lift the heaviest weights possible. Period. Furthermore, the folks that have ego, “lift too much” (whatever that means), and get hurt are generally the weak ones. (SEE: Every untrained individual ignorantly commenting on the thing they’ve never done (i.e been strong) about the things that they associate with it.)

Just this week we had some world-class visitors stop by. One of which is a world record holder. By the looks of it, you wouldn’t have been able to guess who in the group had a world record powerlifting total of 2825lbs, including a 1140lbs, was because of his calm demeanor, infatuation with movement technique, and rather regular-human size.

The weak person’s reaction to numbers like those is that he, of course, has got an ego, he’s surely lifting too much, and that he’s chosen a great way to get hurt. Let me tell you, no one gets under an eleven hundred pound barbell and makes a successful lift with those three factors tugging at them.

This record holder spent the entire afternoon watching movement and coaching our Strongman 202 athletes not because he’s an ego maniac with a knack for dangerous activities, but because he’s a student of the game. Plus, he knows that being strong is a lot better and a lot safer than being weak.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach