I have a funny Shaquille O’Neal story. Want to hear it? Okay, here it goes. I once had a buddy who played against Shaq when he was in college. My buddy was a senior at the time and played center (which meant he was matched up head-to-head with Shaq), and Shaq was already an intergalactic sensation in basketball. Shaq killed him in the game, scored 50 points on him or something. After it was over, he high-fived my buddy and said, “Hey man, you’re pretty good for a freshman. Keep working hard for the next three years, and you’ll be great.” My buddy said, “Hey Shaq, I’m a senior.” Shaq shook his head and said, “In that case, you should quit.”
 
True story. Obviously, it was a prick move for Shaq to say that, but at least it gave me a good story that leads into this month’s article. We’re going to talk about people who shouldn’t even be in weightlifting. People who should quit.
 
Ooohhh…TABOO! TABOO! All of us in the weightlifting community are supposed to have an eternal spirit of encouragement about staying in the sport and continuing to fight it out, right? You may have noticed that there’s this unspoken understanding in weightlifting that if you’re an athlete or coach in the sport, you have this weird obligation to be ever-devoted to spreading the barbell gospel and trying to recruit (and retain) as many newcomers as you can. It’s like we all have this part-time job to be marketing representatives for Olympic weightlifting.
 
Yeah, sure. I get it. Weightlifting isn’t like football or basketball, where the sport itself is a recruiting machine because of the promise of fame, money, cocaine, prostitutes, etc. In the iron game, you’re promised zero money and plenty of pain, so we all have to work together and rope in newbies because of some cosmic responsibility to grow it and keep people from walking away. The idea of quitting is supposed to be completely off the table.
 
I want to take a different look at this. Let’s be grown-ups and actually consider the possibility that there might be certain individuals who just shouldn’t be doing this sport. After many years of experience in weightlifting, I can positively tell you that these individuals exist. You should care enough about this subject to keep reading because you’re either an athlete or a coach (or both), which means you’ll personally consider quitting at some point, or you’ll coach athletes who consider it. It’s a part of the game, obviously. Most weightlifting careers have an end point. Some people might train and compete for 50 years and only quit when they grow old and die. Others might spend six months in the sport and…well, you know. They might need to resign. I think it’s totally appropriate to examine this topic, so let’s check it out.
 
Physical…
 
I’m going to make this as simple as possible. We’ll take a look at two categories: A) people who shouldn’t be lifting for physical reasons, and B) people who shouldn’t be in weightlifting for mental reasons. Physical should come first.

Remember that marketing job we’re all supposed to have to promote weightlifting? You’ve probably noticed it includes telling people how safe weightlifting is, and how the injury rates in other sports are drastically higher than ours. It’s part of our mantra, and it has to be because a lot of people see Olympic lifting for the first time and cringe in terror at how dangerous it looks. I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve told outsiders that football and soccer have injury rates that double or triple weightlifting.
 
But don’t kid yourself, this is a physical sport that can chew you up. If you push your limits hard for an extended period of time, you’re basically guaranteed some minor injuries (pulled muscles, strains, etc.) Most people make it out without major injury (something that requires surgery), but those aren’t completely impossible either. The bottom line is this…any sport carries some physical risk if you take it far enough, and although weightlifting isn’t as bad as some of the others, you can still get hurt doing this. But the big question is this: should injuries make somebody quit weightlifting?
 
In most cases, no. You just take your licks, recover, and keep pressing forward. That’s what it means to be an athlete. However, there are two particular situations that are exceptions to that rule. The first one is when somebody has a condition, not an injury. A “condition” is different. An injury is a one-time thing that you recover from and continue, like we said. You might have the same injury from time to time, but you always come back from them just fine. I was plagued with groin pulls for two years back when I was in my twenties, for example. They sucked, and each one set me back a bit, but I eventually got through them and they stopped. No big deal.
 
The kind of condition I’m talking about is something ongoing, and serious. They’re the things that threaten your livelihood, not just your training. A herniated disc might be an example. Minor herniations can heal on their own and go away, but severe ones are no joke. Continuing to pound on them with heavy lifting can make them worse, sometimes to the point of putting you flat on the floor, unable to walk or live your life. Surgery can fix them, but back surgery is a tough proposition and you certainly don’t have a guarantee of full recovery afterwards. If you’re an athlete and you find yourself in a predicament like this, you’ve got some tough decisions to mull over. Of course you don’t want to walk away from lifting, but what if you’ve got concrete medical input that this is legitimately threatening your long-term health? To put it in a nutshell, the possibility of quitting might have to become part of the conversation.
 
The second situation that might warrant quitting is injuries that simply don’t stop. We’re not talking about chronic physical conditions like herniated discs here. We’re talking about people who just flat-out get injured all…the…time. I’ve seen a few of these over the years. It’s awful to watch, because the hits just don’t stop coming. These poor suckers can’t catch a break. I once knew a guy who had knee surgery to repair a messy meniscus tear, a hernia surgery, a torn rotator cuff, a hyperextended elbow, and two or three other nasty injuries…all within his first two years of lifting. The dude’s body just wouldn’t hold together. It made you nauseous to watch, and obviously he didn’t make any progress or have any success on the platform. As much of a weightlifting die-hard as I am, I watched all of this unfold and said to myself, “This sport just isn’t working out for this guy.”
 
I suppose the best way to describe the physical reasons for quitting is by saying this sport shouldn’t be a source of constant agony and trauma that puts your future in jeopardy. It should be fun. It can be fun and difficult at the same time, with setbacks included. But when the fun is zero and the torture becomes all there is (and it stays that way for a very long time), it might be time to talk about hanging it up.
 
Mental…
 
Let me tell you a story to describe this one, okay? I once coached a young guy who was the most stunning combination of physical talent and psychological disaster I’ve ever seen. I don’t hesitate to say this kid could have been one of the best weightlifters in the United States. I won’t mention his best lifts or the championships he won, but you would see what I mean if I did. His strength, explosiveness, positions, balance, and overall ability was incredible. At the time of this article, it’s been over 15 years since I worked with him, and I still haven’t seen another one like him.
 
Mentally, he was on the polar opposite end of the spectrum. Some lifters are “head cases,” and they frustrate you with their shenanigans and loopy behavior, but this kid’s situation was totally different from that. He had been raised in a home that was abusive in every way, and I personally thought he also suffered from some kind of undiagnosed bipolar condition. Frightening outbursts of anger, borderline suicidal tendencies, complete lack of ability to deal with failure, etc. The pressure and mental demands of the sport just poured gasoline all over the dangerous mess this kid already had inside. He self-sabotaged his life (and lifting career) in a variety of ways, along with daily rages in the gym where he would occasionally pick up a 10-kg plate and repeatedly smash himself in the face with it because he got tired of punching himself with his fist. Seriously, folks, this kid was messed up. I felt horrible for him and I tried to help him as much as I could, but it didn’t work out. It just got worse and worse. He was out of the sport by the time he was around 21. I never tried to nudge him towards quitting, but I also didn’t try to stop him when the time came.
 
And you know what? Getting out of weightlifting was the best thing he could have done for his life. Once the stress and strain of training and competition were out of the picture, he was able to get a job, get married, start a family, and eventually go on to a fruitful life. He became a different person once he quit lifting, in a completely positive way.
 
Situations like this are rare, but not unheard of. We have to face it, my friends. As much as we want everybody we meet to experience our love for the sport, it’s not for everybody. This kid had severe psychological issues that made weightlifting a bad choice for his life. It’s unfortunate, but it can happen. I was his coach and I can honestly say with a clear conscience that quitting was the right move for him, and that’s a serious statement because I’m typically one of those surrender-is-not-an-option personalities. I learned a lot from his experience.
 
However…
 
Don’t misunderstand what this article is saying. If you’ve got a herniated disc, or you get injured all the time, or you battle mental/emotional problems, I’m not saying you should quit weightlifting. Every situation has its own set of nuances and specifics, and I don’t know any of yours. Your life has lots of moving parts that can’t be completely addressed in a weightlifting article by Matt Foreman, so don’t go down the rabbit hole and sell your lifting shoes on eBay after you read this.
 
All we’re trying to gain from this article is the understanding that we can’t paint every situation in this sport with the same brush. Because we’re weightlifting people, our first impulse is always going to be, “F*** it, just keep pushing harder and fight through it, no matter what!!” And thinking that way is a good thing, 99 percent of the time. All great athletes make it to the top by thinking like that. I wasn’t the best lifter in the world, but the amount of success I had in my career came from thinking like that.
 
But weightlifting never turned into something that was ruining my life, you know? That’s the difference for most of us. I had tons of injuries, but never anything that screwed up my basic ability to live and work. I battled psychologically, just like we all do, but the sport was always more positive than negative for me, every step of the way. Even though most of my friends think I’m at least a little nuts, I don’t battle clinical issues that turned lifting weights into a catalyst towards self-harm.
 
Are there exceptions to even these extreme circumstances? Sure there are. On the physical side, I once had four major surgeries in six years and it didn’t stop me. That’s a long time period of setbacks, but all of them were just temporary. I’ve also known a few lifters who were almost clinically insane, and I say that without a hint of sarcasm or exaggeration, and they stayed in the game and had their own level of success for a reasonable time period. So even the scenarios I’ve addressed in this article aren’t dogma. It’s all individual. That’s one of the best tools we can all put in our toolboxes as we continue on our weightlifting journeys. Look at each situation for what it is…its own situation. And don’t be afraid to admit that there might actually be times when people need to move on to something different, whether we like it or not. Quitting might sound like a universal negative when we first think about it, but the world is a complex place, you know? Believe it or not, the Snatch and Clean and Jerk might not be the best choice for everybody.