Have you ever had one of those days at the gym when you just wanted to snap your barbell over your leg out of pure frustration? Okay, you might not have reached the point of wanting to break stuff, but I would have a hard time believing you if you said you never experienced complete frustration at the gym.
Most of us have had those kinds days where we just can’t seem to find our mojo and our lifts either look like total shit or we can’t make them to save our lives. During those days, it can be really easy to get sucked into the land of screw-its, and with that often comes a poor mood, which only further perpetuates bad lifting.

First of all, you’re totally entitled to those days; you’re only human, man! Second, be careful how you handle such days; finding a take-away message (or even multiple take-away messages!) during that training session could make all the difference in your future sessions.

Your Mood and Your Lifts

In my article last month, I discussed how your mood can directly impact your lifts: a poor mood can result in poor confidence, low determination, decreased physical functioning, and an increased experience in pain. So in a perfect world, you would remain positive the entire time during every single day of training, in effort to avoid any negative influence on your lifting, health, and well-being. However, if you were able to do that, I would honestly think you were weird and would be worried about you.
You’re a human being. You are hard-wired to experience negative emotions. If you didn’t feel fear, worry, frustration, etc. then you wouldn’t experience motivation to improve. Hell, you might not even feel a sense of pressure to get out of bed every morning to go to work to pay your bills. And when we were all cavemen, if you didn’t experience anxiety in response to even the slightest bit noise in the woods, you might have been eaten by that saber tooth tiger that was trying to sneak up behind you and devour you.

In essence, negative emotions provided evolutionary advantages. However, when the negative feelings linger and take over, that’s when it becomes problematic to your emotional health and your lifting abilities.

It’s All in Your Head

One of the worst things you can say to someone experiencing emotional distress is something along the lines of “Get over it. Shake it off. It’s all just in your head.” But hey, guess what, in this case, it kind of is! An emotion can physiologically only last approximately 90 seconds. So when you experience a negative mood for more than a one and a half minutes, it’s typically a result of you fanning the emotion’s flames.

You fuel your negative emotions via your very own self-talk. Self-talk is what you say to yourself in your head. Basically, if I could audio-record every thought zipping through your head and play it back, I would be listening to your inner self-talk. When you hit a PR, I’m willing to bet your self-talk is something like, “That was amazing! I can’t believe I did that; I’m awesome!” As a result of that self-talk, there is likely an associated positive feeling, like pride, happiness, exuberance, etc. This is because your thoughts generate associated feelings.

When you miss a lift—especially a lift you expected to make—you probably experience self-talk such as, “Damnit, what’s wrong with me? How did I miss that? I’m such a lousy lifter. Only someone bad at this could miss that lift.” And oftentimes, associated with those thoughts are feelings of frustration, sadness, doubt, deflation, etc.

Before I move forward, let me address one thing that you may be thinking: You may be saying, “I definitely don’t have those kinds of negative thoughts. I normally just think things like ‘Damnit!’ and ‘$*&%!’” Sure, that’s very possible. But if you probed those thoughts a little more and asked what those profanities might be representing, there’s typically a more coherent thought or self-criticism under there.

Stinking Thinking

The pattern of negative thinking typically becomes a vicious cycle. You have an automatic thought in reaction to a situation (e.g., negative thoughts in response to missing a lift), which leads to the experience of an associated negative feeling (e.g., frustration, embarrassment, defeat). Now, when you step back up to the bar, you’re probably not going to be feeling exceptionally confident and will likely not perform well. When that happens, voilà, you have further reinforced the negative thoughts and feelings of being a lousy lifter. This cycle will then continue until you stop it or become distracted by something else (because remember, a feeling naturally dissipates after 90 seconds, unless you keep fueling it).

Reframe That Negative Self-Talk

Let me be a bit of a broken record: first off, this behavior is normal! Remember, our brains have been wired since prehistoric times to focus on the bad; it used to be very, very helpful. But those saber tooth tigers from back in the day are not running rampant anymore, and our brains have decided that something like missing a lift is the new and improved saber tooth tiger. Wrong! Therefore, it’s important to be able to recognize and acknowledge your self-talk, because being able to respond to it is the key to having a realistic sense of control over your emotions. And if you remember, positive moods have a positive effect on your physical performance, health, and overall well-being. Ergo, stopping a negative mood in its tracks and steering its course toward a more realistic mood and thought process is very beneficial.

You may not even notice the negative thoughts running through your head. Such thoughts can become so automatic and rapid-fire that it might almost literally require you to slow down the tape recording in your head to hear them.

Once you can hear your self-talk, however, here is what you do: challenge them. For example, when you hear yourself say, “I’m never going to be a good lifter,” think about what you really just said. What is the reality of that statement? Have you really been at this long enough to know that for sure? Is that what your coach thinks? Have you noticed improvements since you started lifting? Have you had bad days before and then followed those days with good lifting sessions (because highs and lows are normal)? Are you rested enough to perform well? Are you trying a new technique which could very well be throwing off your typical muscle memory?

If you find it’s hard to ask yourself those kind of questions in the moment, try thinking, “What would I tell a really good friend if they made the same negative statement about themselves?” Oftentimes—and quite sadly—we have more compassion and more of an ability to challenge a negative thought when it’s not our own (or when we pretend it’s not our own).

Then try responding back with accurate and corrective counterarguments: “I may not be amazing right now, but I have noticed improvements over the past few months. My coach even thinks similarly. I also worked out pretty hard the other day and may be under-recovered. It makes sense I’m not at the top of my game today.”

It’s also important when challenging and reframing your thoughts that you don’t set too high of expectations or lie to yourself. For example, using the example above, if your definition of being a “good lifter” is being exactly like Lasha Talakhadze, then yeah, you may very well be setting yourself up for defeat and disappointment. But you also don’t want to minimize areas of growth. When you miss a lift or your form looked pretty wonky, I’m not suggesting you become a total Positive Polly and say to yourself, “Oh don’t worry about it, that was a really great lift! You’re super awesome at lifting!” Because hey, you may be totally cool with the fact that you’re not Lasha (yet!), but I bet there’s still so much more you could learn. The key is to mentally find the middle ground: be positive and accurate.

Finding Your Take-Away Message

When you can find the middle ground from reframing your thoughts, you will find your take-away message. Let’s recap what we figured out in the above example:

Nope, you are not lifting well today. It’s okay (and totally healthy!) to admit that to yourself. But you also can’t expect to be Lasha Talakhadze version 2.0 just yet; it’s completely unfair to yourself to expect that. And you’re also not awful at lifting! You’ve been improving over time, your coach is pleased, and it may also be that today you’re just not recovered enough.

This is when you get to take back control (AKA: find the take-away). Now is when you get to ask yourself, “So what am I going to do about it?” And your answer lies within your reframe!

You identified when reframing your thoughts that you could very well just be under-recovered today. So rather than getting on the train of stinking thinking that is barreling towards emotional chaos and more crappy lifting, you instead think about how you’re going to actually recover better moving forward. Or you could choose to resign yourself to the fact that heavier lifts won’t be happening today and decide to focus on a specific technique at lighter weights instead. You could also choose to talk your coach and get his or her opinion on what you should do now and in the future. Or you could cut yourself some slack, thank your lucky stars you’re a healthy, typical human being, and be cool with the fact that you too have bad days. Either way, pick at last one goal (no more than two, really) to focus on and just focus on that.

One Final Thought

Given that it’s December and the last month of the year, many of you might be planning to defeat your negative self-perspectives with the almighty New Year’s Resolution. However, I urge you, please do not fall prey to that unhealthy expectation.

New Year’s Resolutions can be fun and can provide a nice way of starting the new year with a sense of determination and motivation. But remember what I said about not lying to yourself? Thoughts like, “This year I’ll get it together. This year I’ll become a good lifter,” only serve to further defeat you.

Instead, think of it this way: You ARE a good lifter. The only way to be a bad lifter is to not give a shit at all. If you’re showing up to the gym, picking up a barbell, and honestly asking yourself what you can do better each time (AKA: actively finding a take-away message), then you are A GOOD LIFTER. And just like everyone else, you will always have room for growth.

So start the year off on a good note by setting a goal related to your areas of weakness, but be realistic, don’t lie to yourself, and don’t set your expectations too high! Practice your thought reframing, find take-away messages, and notice how having a sense of control over your thoughts, feelings, and actions directly translates into improved overall well-being and better lifting!