Back when I was competing on the national scene in the 90s, I had a conversation with another lifter that I’ve never forgotten. Know what I mean? It was one of those times when somebody says something to you that stays in your memory for years. We all have them. Let me share it with you.
 
The lifter shall remain nameless, but he was pretty big-time stuff. He was a former Olympic Team member with tons of championship titles and records in his past. However, the time period when I spoke to him was when he was on the way down. He was still competing near the top of his weight class, but it was clear that his big run was closing out and he was starting that inevitable slide we always see from the greats before they retire.
 
We were in the airport after a big meet we had both competed in, waiting for our flights to take us home. I had lifted pretty well at the meet, but he had bombed out. Pretty rough weekend for him. He had been a friend of mine for a long time, so I was in a position to have a blunt chat with him about where he was at. This particular bombout hadn’t been the only lousy meet in his recent history at that time. He was putting up more bad performances than good ones, and it was hard to watch from such a legend.
 
I asked him point blank if he was thinking about hanging it up and walking away. I suppose I might have even been hinting that it was the right time for that, seeing as how the writing was on the wall and everybody else was saying the same thing about him. I think my exact question was, “How come you’re still doing this? Is it still fun for you?” His answer was the thing I’ve never forgotten. He said, “I don’t know if it’s fun anymore, but I can’t get weightlifting out of my blood.”
 
It’s been over two decades, and I still remember those exact words. He couldn’t get weightlifting out of his blood. It was obvious that he wasn’t the best anymore, and he probably never would be again. His competitions weren’t giving him anything rewarding, for sure. After a long stretch of superstar moments, he was turning into a tragic case. It was painful for those of us who looked up to him. I can’t even imagine how it must have been in his heart and mind.
 
Actually, I take that back. I can imagine it, because I’ve been there now. I never made the Olympic Team like he did, but I was up there high enough in the rankings to understand the experience of slipping away from the top as my national career dwindled to an end. It was painful, and a little confusing. The physical ability you’ve always had is leaving you, but your mind is still the same as it’s always been. Your desire is as strong as ever, but you can’t ignore the fact that you’re reaching the end. So you keep trying, even though your attempts are ending in failure. Why can’t you just walk away? Because you can’t get weightlifting out of your blood.
 
Listen…most of you are never going to be at the Olympic level, or even the national level. So it might seem like this kind of situation doesn’t apply to you. But I’m here to tell you that’s incorrect. Regardless of the competitive level you rise to in your career, every single one of you will go through time periods when weightlifting is bringing more frustration and failure to your life than success and fun. I’ve learned this through decades of my own experience, along with coaching lifters for years and watching their journeys. Absolutely none of us is exempt from this kind of predicament. Even if you’re just a gym lifter who doesn’t compete seriously, you’ll still feel what this is like if you stay in the sport long enough. You want it, and you’re trying your hardest, but it’s just not going well…and you can’t make yourself walk away because you can’t get it out of your blood.
 
This article is going to be an attempt to help you survive it, plain and simple. If you’ve been there already, you get it. If you haven’t been there, you still need to read this because it’ll happen to you too (or the lifters you coach), I’m sorry to say. None of us gets a constant stretch of perfection and happiness all the way though this thing. The bad times will come, and they’ll hurt. So let’s prepare ourselves.
 
The First Step: Figure Out Your “Why”
 
I’m a big believer in the idea that it’s essential to know exactly WHY you want to do something. We all know we’re hungry to be good weightlifters. That’s not a complicated idea to understand. But what specifically do we want to get from the sport? What’s really driving us? What’s the main thing we want to achieve?
 
For some of you, the answer might be a particular championship, or breaking a record. If I asked WHY you’re doing this sport, you’d say, “I want to make an Olympic Team” or “I want to break the Masters American Record in my age group” or maybe “I want to qualify for the American Open.”
 
In these cases, you have an extremely specific goal in mind. That’s a good thing, because goal-setting is generally regarded as an essential part of any endeavor. However, one of the things I’ve learned about Olympic weightlifting is this: even if you’ve got a specific goal in mind for what you want to accomplish, like a national championship, that specific goal can’t be your entire WHY. There has to be more than that, and I’ll tell you why.
 
Championship victories or record-breaking performances are terrific, but they’re isolated events. They happen in one moment on one particular day. They’re thrilling, and they can give us memories that enrich our lives until the day we die. But they’re not how we spend the vast majority of our weightlifting careers. The vast majority of our time is spent in the daily grind…going to the gym every day and training, year after year. Putting in the work and busting our asses with no fanfare or celebration.
 
That daily grind has to be a big part of your WHY. In other words, you have to love the monotonous ongoing training that’s required in weightlifting if you want to survive. That’s one of the truths of this game that’s impossible to ignore. If you don’t like going to the gym and training every day, you won’t be able to endure the years of work that are required to win that championship or break that record you’ve set as your specific goal. The desire for that highlight end result won’t be enough to keep you going. What truly keeps you going is the daily love for putting on your shoes and lifting a barbell over your head.
 
And that love has to be strong enough to survive different phases. You might get to have stretches of time when you’re in a great gym with a wonderful crowd of teammates, and that fun experience of going there every day is what keeps you motivated. But the longer you stay in this sport, the more you’re going to go through time periods with all kinds of ebbs and flows. Is your love for the daily grind strong enough to hold up when you’re in a gym all by yourself, training with no teammates or support? THAT’S when you find out what you’ve really got inside. THAT’S when you find out how much you love being a weightlifter.
 
Also, ask yourself this question: if you love weightlifting, HOW OFTEN do you love it? Do you get fired up when you go to meets and see other people having fun competing, or when you see big performances on the internet? If so, do you stay fired up when that excitement has worn off and you’re back in the gym for more of the daily grind? Be honest with yourself about what you want to do, and I’m not just talking about what you want to do during moments of adrenaline. I’m talking about what you want to do day in and day out, month after month, for years.
 
The Second Step: Figure Out What You’re Afraid Of
 
Internal conflicts about what we want to do are often connected to fear, in some way. One of the reasons we get so torn up inside is because there’s something we’re worried about…something we’re afraid of. In Olympic weightlifting, I think there are a handful of common fears that might be causing these troubles in your mind:
- Getting injured
- Failure
- Time commitment
- Letting somebody down
- Acceptance from non-weightlifting people in our lives
 
And there are others, of course. I understand that. Some of you might be thinking of your own fears and worries that aren’t on my list, which is totally reasonable. Let’s just settle with the fact that there are many things that can give us doubt and apprehension in this sport.
 
Understanding exactly which ones we’re up against is an important part of handling this whole dilemma. If you don’t know what’s giving you trouble, you can’t fix it. It’s like having a pain in your leg that won’t go away. If you don’t go to a doctor and figure out exactly what it is, there’s no way to treat it.
 
Once you’ve isolated the cause of your fear, you need to ask yourself a basic question: what will my life look like if the thing I’m worried about actually happens? It’s a kind of risk assessment. For example, let’s say you’re afraid of some kind of failure, like bombing out or getting beaten. Ask yourself, “How would it be if that actually happened?” What would be the ramifications for your life, your mind, and your future? If you’re a weightlifter, you should start to ease up on the fear at this point, because it should be clear to you that bad meets and defeats are just part of the game. Those things happen to the best in the world. Every World or Olympic champion you’ve ever idolized has had their ass kicked, at some point. They’ve tasted failure and defeat, and it screwed with their heads. All lifters have to go through it, sooner or later. Injuries too.
 
So once you know this to be true, your level of fear should start to dissipate because there’s nothing to REALLY be afraid of. Those setbacks don’t end your life. They don’t give your kids cancer. They don’t cost you your job. If anything, they build resilience and mental toughness in you. They harden you up and make you more capable of dealing with future difficulties. That’s a good thing, my friends.
First of all, most of the things we’re worried about will never happen. That’s a basic truth of life. Second, none of those things will destroy us even if they do happen. The human spirit is much tougher than we give it credit for. The simple fact that you’ve undertaken this sport in the first place is an indicator that you’ve got a tiger’s heart. You need to have moxie to even try Olympic weightlifting. You’re reading this article because you’ve made the sport a big part of your life, and that means you’re a warrior, whether you know it or not. Trust me…you’ll survive whatever the lifting gods throw at you.
 
Once It Gets In There…
 
Weightlifting gets in your blood. A great lifter told me this a very long time ago, and I continually keep learning it as the years march onward. At the time of this article, I’m 46 years old and I’ve been in the sport for 31 years. I’ve experienced every kind of twist, turn, victory, defeat, setback, reward, obstacle, and celebration you can imagine. All my worst fears have come true, and not one of them stopped me or made me walk away.
 
Competitively, I had my big run in my twenties, and then it closed out. Did that make me walk away? Absolutely not. I’ve continued competing as a masters lifter, still getting the fun of training and being on the platform. I’ve coached, run meets, written, volunteered, traveled, and maintained friendships with people I’ve known in the sport since I was a teenager.
 
Some people do walk away, obviously. I’ve known a lot of names who finished up their time in the sport and then simply moved on to a different place in life, never to return. I could make a list of friends I’ve had in weightlifting who disappeared years ago without a trace. I don’t even know where they are or what they’re doing. And that’s fine. Nothing is wrong with having your time in the game and then locking it away in a box forever.
 
All we’re trying to do with this article is give you some ideas for how to handle the inevitable. Internal struggles are a part of Olympic weightlifting…and every other avenue of life. I think you could probably apply these principles to anything you dedicate yourself to, whether it’s sport related or not. The point to remember is that you’ll only be able to survive and triumph in the face of adversity if you’ve got an honest, sensible approach to handling it. Some people handle adversity by self-destruction. They run into trouble in their lives, and they deal with it through drinking, drugs, or destroying relationships. They crash into the side of a mountain because they can’t stop, think, and evaluate their own hearts and minds in a productive way. Let’s not be like that. Let’s go the other direction. When something gets in our blood the way weightlifting does, let’s handle the moments of difficulty and confusion with intelligence and strength of character. I’m positive that’s the right way to live life, and hopefully you’ve picked up a useful idea or two through these words. Best of luck to you all.