Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has turned into a huge social topic over the last twenty years. From what I can tell, conversations about it started getting more frequent after the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. Violent military action obviously surged when the war on terrorism in the Middle East kicked into overdrive, resulting in a lot of combat, death, and mental trouble for the people who were involved with it. Over the last two decades, as our military has continued the fight, more and more veterans have returned from duty and experienced the frightening reality of PTSD, which is defined as “a mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, or other threats on a person’s life.”
 
Flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety and stress are common signs and symptoms of PTSD. Often, they can lead to substance abuse, angry outbursts, or other kinds of self-destructive behavior. It’s serious stuff, for sure. The movie “American Sniper” was a gritty look at PTSD through the eyes of a soldier who killed over 200 people in the line of duty. His ability to deal with regular life and his own family became excruciating, simply because of all the psychological baggage he was carrying.
 
So…why in the hell are we talking about this in the Performance Menu? Because I want to examine the possibility that there’s a kind of weightlifting PTSD (WPTSD) can be experienced through our sport. I think there are things that can happen to you as an Olympic weightlifter that can result in some of the same kinds of internal problems we’re talking about.
 
And I want to acknowledge right up front that some of you might already be scoffing at this suggestion, particularly if you or a loved one has experienced legitimate PTSD from something horrible and serious, like the causes we listed in the definition. You’re reading this and saying to me, “Listen, jerk, missing snatches isn’t the same as sexual abuse or watching your buddies die in battle. You’re insulting people who have gone through these horrors by likening their experiences with sport activity.”
 
Point taken, and I would never trivialize the impact PTSD can have on survivors of these nightmares. Trust me, I’ve had some close people in my life who dealt with this stuff for real, and I completely understand how bad it is. So make sure you understand where I’m coming from in this article.
 
The idea I want to explore is this: weightlifting is an extremely difficult sport that can put you through a lot, mentally and physically. I personally believe it’s possible to develop psychological hang-ups in weightlifting that are difficult to deal with and even tougher to get rid of. They can have a damaging impact on your performance, and even your personal life in some cases. I also believe it’s possible to discuss this topic in a responsible way that doesn’t disrespect people who have gone through agony that screws up their entire lives. Hopefully, you feel the same. So if you’re willing to open your mind, let’s talk about it.
 
In my opinion, there are two primary things that can cause WPTSD: repeated failure and injury. And I want to look at each one individually.
 
Repeated Failure
 
You’re going to miss lifts occasionally in this sport. We all know this. You’re going to miss snatches. You’re going to miss clean and jerks. It shouldn’t happen very often, either in training or competition. But nobody gets away from the occasional failures. They happen, period.
 
The problem is when you pile up lots of repeated misses with the same weight. THAT’S the real ass kicker. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Back when I was doing some of my best lifting, I had a personal record in the snatch of 145 kg. I lifted this weight for the first time in a meet in the summer of 1996. However, for several months afterwards, I couldn’t make it again. I went to four meets in a row where I opened with 140 kg, made it, and then jumped to 145 kg and missed twice. Believe it or not, this went on for over a year.
 
It got to a point where every time I approached 145 kg for a snatch attempt, all those misses were in the back of my mind. I wasn’t standing there quivering or pissing my pants or anything, but there was definitely something going on in my head. The accumulation of failures I’d experienced with this weight created a mental block that crept into my brain whenever I loaded it on the bar, no matter how hard I tried to drive it away. At one point, after yet another meet where I missed 145 kg twice after a 140 kg opener, my coach jokingly told me, “Okay, we are NEVER going to try 145 again.”
 
This is one of the forms of WPTSD. Certain weights can become your nemesis, finding a way to creep up and mentally defeat you over and over, despite your best efforts to block it out. After it’s happened a handful of times, that number turns into an expected failure in your mind. Something changes in your mental approach when you put your hands on it. You could snatch every weight perfectly, all the way up to 2 kg away from the dreaded one…but as soon as you load that number on the bar, forget about it. You go right back down the toilet.
 
How can you get over it? Well, let me go back to my 145 story. Eventually, I was at another meet and I snatched 140 kg on my opener (again). But this time, I could feel something different. I was stronger and more confident than ever, and I could feel the intensity running through my veins. So after I made 140, my coach chuckled and said to me, “Okay, remember that number we said we were never going to try again? Well, we’re gonna try it.” I smiled and laughed, knowing I was going to crush it that day. And I did. I destroyed 145 on my second attempt, and then made 147.5 on my third. In my next meet, I made 150. By the next year, 145 kg became an opener that I never missed again in a meet after that.
 
What changed? I did, I guess. Probably because I’m stubborn as hell and I refused to let it win. I think TIME was the winning factor, more than anything. I’ve always associated the word “temporary” with failure. Even when I blow it, I know it’s just a matter of time until I get it right. If you think the same way, chances are you’ll get the same results. The secret isn’t in a pill, a book, or therapy. It’s in long-term commitment, and a constant mindset that failure is just temporary. As simple as it sounds, positive self-talk is often a huge piece of the puzzle.
 
Also, I think most people would say that you need to come up with some kind of different approach than what you’ve always done. I always opened with 140 and then jumped to 145 and failed. Conventional logic would probably advise an alternate route, like maybe different attempts, to get away from the old familiar pattern that produces failure consistently. I think that’s sensible, but only if there’s an alternate route that could produce success. I wasn’t going to open with 142.5 and then jump to 147.5 (this was back before the 1 kg rule). Those attempts would have been too heavy and I probably would have bombed. In other words, I think sometimes there are situations where the answer isn’t (or can’t be) an alternate strategy. The answer has to be sticking with the same strategy and just pounding at the wall until you break through. That doesn’t sound scientific, but it might be your only option.
 
Also, remember that I just said I was STRONGER than ever at the meet where I finally broke through. If you increase your pulling and squatting strength enough, you’ll eventually reach a point where that dreaded weight just feels much lighter than it used to. Why don’t you miss your warmup lifts? Because they’re light, and they FEEL light, and you’re strong enough to dominate them. Believe it or not, your nemesis weight will eventually be like that if you just keep getting stronger in the grunt work.
 
Those are my thoughts about the first main cause of weightlifting PTSD. Now, let’s take a look at the second one. It’s much nastier than the first, and hopefully you’ll never have to deal with it. But you never know…
 
Injury
 
Injuries happen in weightlifting. They’re part of the game if you train hard. The vast majority of the injuries in the sport are minor ones that you can recover from in a matter of days/weeks. I don’t think WPTSD comes into play with these, unless you’re mentally feeble. Most people who have muscle strains or pulls recover 100% from them in a short amount of time and then basically forget about them.
 
However, let’s confront the possibility of a major injury, maybe even something that requires surgery. These can put spooky thoughts in your brain when you return to lifting after recovering. Again, let me give you a personal example. When I tore my ACL and had surgery to repair it, I knew all along that I was going to return to competitive weightlifting. I was obedient and diligent with the physical therapy and rebuilding process after the surgery, patiently doing my exercises and waiting several months before I started trying Olympic lifts again.
 
When I finally got cleared to start doing light snatches, I was obviously excited. I had faith that my knee had healed properly, and my surgeon told me I was good to go. But despite those reassurances, I was still jumping down into the bottom position with a little hesitation when I started back. The injury that tore my ACL was an ugly one. My knee had dislocated and I could feel everything snap inside the joint when it happened. The pain was extreme, and it was scary. I hate to admit it, but that injury moment was still in the back of my mind when I came back to the Olympic lifts. Tiny traces of it were stuck in my memory, and this made me reluctant to hit the positions of the lifts with the kind of speed and impact you need to do them correctly. I was doing the lifts, but cautiously. And you can’t lift big weights if you’ve moving cautiously. This was WPTSD. The injury was still in my mind, and it was screwing up my comeback.
 
This put me in a position where I had to take some time outside my workouts and do a little soul searching. I had some long conversations with myself in private, and I even did some self-therapy by writing about it. It basically resulted in a long process where I made up my mind about what I wanted to accomplish, what the physical requirements would be, and what kind of long-term process I would have to stick to in order to make sure it all happened safely. I mapped out a 24-week progression that would take me from 40 kg to 100 kg in the snatch, just inching ahead little by little every week. And I stuck to it, even during the weeks when I felt really good and wanted to get greedy. To make a long story short, I crept along with baby steps for two years and eventually got back to a 127 kg snatch and 147 kg clean and jerk at 41 years old.
 
In my opinion, the key to getting past injury related WPTSD is using excruciatingly slow, tiny steps. Because none of these tiny steps will seem too scary, you know? If I would have decided to make my comeback and mapped out a plan where I snatched 60 kg in week one, 80 kg in week two, and 100 kg in week four…it never would have worked. First of all, I think the chance of getting re-injured would have been huge with a plan like that. Second, it wouldn’t have worked psychologically. There’s no way I would have been mentally ready to jump under big weights that quickly after surgery. I had some people around me who were trying to second-guess what I was doing, acting like I was taking it slower than necessary and telling me that I could step on the gas pedal a little harder. But do you know what all those people had in common? None of them had ever gone through what I was going through. They had never tried to come back from a major surgery at age 40 and return to a 120 kg snatch on a reconstructed knee. I knew this, so I didn’t let myself get sucked into doing something stupid. I stayed with the plan I believed was right for me, and it worked.
 
That’s the other part of recovery from WPTSD. The healing has to come from YOU. Sure, other people can help with encouragement and support. There are plenty of positives to having a team on your side. But at the end of the day, this is an internal struggle that you have to win on your own. After all the help from others, you’re still going to be standing on that platform by yourself with the barbell. Nobody can help you at that point. The only thing that will give you success is the strength of your own mind and character. It’s a lonely idea, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Coming back from severe injury and getting yourself mentally right is tough, without a doubt. But it can be done. Trust me on that one.
 
In conclusion
 
Again, let me make it clear that this article isn’t making light of legitimate PTSD that comes from abuse or life-threatening situations. I have a lot of faith in the intelligence of our readers, so I’m going to make the assumption that you’re all taking these words the way they’re intended.
 
Mental struggles can come in many forms. Some are big, and some are small. Some last forever, and others can be dealt with and vaporized. As we travel through our lives, we continually experience new things that stick with us. Some of these things are good, obviously. You’ll always smile when you remember that trip to Hawaii, or that moment when you got frisky with your lover for the first time. Nothing wrong with those kinds of memories.
 
However, the bad ones will be in there, too. We’re all adults, and we know this. Your weightlifting life is built on extreme emotions. That’s why you love it so much. The moments of success are more powerful than almost anything else you can ever hope to feel. But that means the moments of failure and defeat really, really suck.
 
Bottom line: this sport can screw with your head. It’s a tough racket. Every single one of us has heard the old adage about how weightlifting is 50% physical and 50% mental. That’s entirely true. However, I also think there are certain times when it’s 100% mental. It puts you in a hole, and it’ll leave you in that hole forever if you let it. This article has been an attempt to help you crawl out of those holes by telling you two main things: 1) You’re not the only one. We all deal with it. 2) You can beat it. You really can.