A few months ago, boxing legends Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. got in the ring to fight an exhibition bout. For those of you who don’t know, Tyson and Jones are widely considered two of the greatest fighters of all time. Back in the 80s and 90s, they terrorized their respective weight classes and won multiple world championships with freaky combinations of speed, power, killer instinct, and athleticism. Ask anybody who was a fight fan back in the day. These two were hell on wheels.
 
But their primes were 25 years ago. In this recent exhibition fight, Tyson was 54 and Jones was 52. Needless to say, it drew a vast mixture of skepticism, curiosity, worry, and excitement. Some people loved the idea. Others thought it was stupid and dangerous. Boxing is a young man’s game, and we’ve never seen a situation like this: two all-time greats coming back to trade punches in their 50s.
 
What was the result? It was a huge success that made a lot of money and provided everybody with a ton of fun, including Jones and Tyson. Nobody got knocked out or injured. The fight went the distance, it was a draw, fans loved every minute of it, and the two warriors smiled and laughed all the way through the press conference afterwards.
 
Why am I telling you about this? Because in this month’s article, I want to talk about athletes who become paralyzed by comparing themselves to the level they USED to be at. I’ve heard this conundrum a lot over the years, but it seems like I’ve been hearing about it more and more lately. Weightlifters who battle discouragement and consider quitting because they think they’ll never be as good as they used to be.
 
Right off the bat, it’s important to acknowledge weightlifting is one of the lucky sports that has a masters division, as most of you know. Once you hit 35, you’re a master, and you can spend the rest of your career competing against lifters in the same age bracket as you (35-39, 40-44, 45-49, etc.). This also isn’t a combat sport where somebody is going to punch you in the head or snap your elbow with an armbar. So you never have to worry about being in the same position as Jones or Tyson, where you know you’re literally risking your life by competing again. You can get hurt in weightlifting, but you’re not going to get killed.
 
Still, there’s the psychological element of this. When you’ve reached a high level, and then you’ve been knocked downwards because of age or injury or whatever, you’re faced with the proposition of possibly never making it back to your top stuff. This is mentally rough, and many lifters battle extreme cases of it that push them out of the sport.
 
And do you want to know the gnarly part? Almost all of us will have to deal with this, at some point. Your career as an athlete will have a rise, a peak, and a decline. It’s the nature of the beast. During that decline, your inner strength gets tested. Do you keep fighting? Do you quit? Do you continue competing, knowing it’ll have to be at a lower level?
 
Tough stuff, my friends. Tough stuff. Let’s look at some specifics.
 
Just HOW FAR downwards have you gone?
 
Weightlifting is an incredibly measurable sport. You always know EXACTLY how good (or bad) you are, because it’s all about numbers. If you go to a meet and snatch 90 kg, and six months later you go to another one and snatch 82 kg, you know precisely where you’re at. You were 8 kg better the last time. It’s not a sport you can look at with vague phrases like, “I think I’m playing pretty well.” Your numbers tell you the whole story, and they don’t lie.
 
So when we’re talking about a decline in your lifting level, it’s important to know the specific details. For example, let’s say you’re a lifter who snatches 105 kg and clean and jerks 140 kg (245 kg total). Those are your personal records. Then you get a serious injury where you have to take several months off (or maybe get surgery). Once you heal up and complete the rehab, you start lifting again. You train for six months, stay healthy, and compete in a meet where you snatch 97 kg and clean and jerk 130 kg (227 kg total).
 
In this situation, you’re obviously miffed because you’ve gone backwards. However, these numbers shouldn’t get you discouraged enough to think about quitting. In a relatively short time, you’ve gotten back to around 93% of your lifetime best stuff. If you’ve got the right kind of fighter’s mentality to be a successful weightlifter, you should look at those numbers and say to yourself, “I can get back to my old records. It’s just a matter of time.”
 
Sure, it’ll take a lot of work. It might even take longer than you want it to. Maybe you get back to that 105/140 in six more months. Maybe it takes you a year and a half. And listen…maybe you NEVER get back to 105/140. Let’s be sensible and acknowledge that possibility. Athletes sometimes get silly with their refusal to recognize potential failure, because they want to go completely hardcore with their failure-is-not-an-option philosophy.
 
My experience has taught me that you’ll do better at this sport if you learn to keep emotion out of it at the right times. In this situation, I would look at it with an internal monologue that sounds like this: Okay, I was at 245 and now I’m at 227. That’s not a million miles of ground to make up. It might take a while, but it would be stupid to give up and not give it a chance. If it doesn’t work out, fine. But I’ve gotta take a shot and find out.
 
This is a position many of you will find yourselves in. I’m not forecasting a devastating injury for you. A minor injury can be enough to set you back a fair bit, and minor injuries are part of the game in weightlifting. It could also happen just from taking some time off, getting sick, or a million other factors. Sometimes, you can go backwards without even having a specific reason you can pinpoint. You just…go in the tank for a while.
 
I’ll be blunt about this: if you give up and quit in situations like this, you’re not very tough. All the great ones have had to deal with bad streaks. The Lifting Gods punch everybody in the throat at some point, and you just have to get up off the ground and punch back.
 
But let’s say it’s a BIG decline
We’re going to call the kind of predicament we’ve talked about so far a “manageable decline.” However, it’s important to acknowledge that you could also find yourself in a more extreme mess than this.
 
I’m going to use a personal example to illustrate this one. Back in 2009, I was still doing some pretty big lifting. I was 37 at the time and totaling 300 kg in the +105 kg class. This was far below my lifetime best total of 335 kg that I’d done in my 20s, but it was still enough to win most of the masters meets in the country and qualify for Senior Nationals.
 
Then I had a bad knee injury that required two surgeries (meniscus removal and ACL reconstruction). After the surgery, the rehab lasted almost a year, and then I was able to start lifting again. I trained for eight months and went to a meet where I snatched 110 and clean and jerked 130 (240 kg total). Yes, you read that right. I went from 300 kg to 240 kg.
 
This is a whole different bag of apples from our previous example of going from 245 kg to 227 kg. 300 kg to 240 kg is a 60 kg drop. That completely changes the level of competition and success you can expect.
 
So, what did I do? First of all, I looked at all aspects of my situation and asked myself a list of questions. Here’s what they were (along with my answers in bold print):
 
Do I still want to be a weightlifter? Yes.
Do I think I can get back to 300 kg from 240 kg? Probably not. I’m in my 40s now.
If I can’t get back to 300 kg, can I get back to something like 270 kg? Probably, if I work hard and make smart decisions.
If I get back to 270 kg, will that be competitive in the masters division? Yes, 270 will do really well.
What would be more fun, trying to get back to 270 kg, or quitting? I’d rather keep trying than quit.
 
At that point, the decision was made. I knew where I was, and I had a reasonable idea about what I thought I was still capable of. I still wanted to train and compete. Competing at a lower level sounded more fun than quitting, so I just dug in and kept working.
 
The end result? I got back to 275 kg when I was 42 years old (125 kg snatch, 150 kg clean and jerk). It took me three years from the time I did that 240 kg comeback total. And I don’t mind telling you, those were three really fun years of my career. I had a blast every step of the way.
 
Because
 
It was fun because I wasn’t trying to compare myself to my old level. Like I said, my lifetime PR total was 335 kg. But that was when I was in my 20s, at the prime of my athletic life. I didn’t look at it like, “God, I’ve gone from 335 to 275. That’s miserable.” I looked at it like, “I’m 42 years old and I can still total 275. That’s pretty kickass.”
 
This is how I think weightlifters should approach their older years and potential declines. Don’t think about how far down you are from your lifetime best stuff. Think about the fun you can have with your current competitive level. What sounds more fun? Going to weightlifting meets and totaling 50 kg less than you used to, or quitting and turning into a total has-been who’s not even in the game anymore?
 
Now, let’s make sure we acknowledge that it’s totally legit to look at this whole thing from the opposite perspective of what I’m saying. Another lifter who used to total 300 kg and gets knocked down to 240 kg might say, “I’m done. If I can’t be at my all-time best, I’d rather hang it up and find something else to do.”
 
This is a completely reasonable mindset, because the athlete just doesn’t want to do it anymore. There’s nothing in the world wrong with that. You’re not a quitter if you find yourself in this territory. You no longer have the fire in your belly, and you’re ready to walk away. Fair enough.
 
The things I’ve been saying in this article have been focused on the lifters who get knocked down to a lower level but still want to do it. Even if it means having to change their entire mindset, they’d rather keep going than walk away.
 
I don’t know where you’ll be when your time comes. You might find yourself feeling like Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr—still wanting to get in the ring and mix it up just for the love and adventure of it. You just have to be sensible about it, like those two were. These guys didn’t reach 52 years old and look for fights with the current world champions. They found a way to have fun at the level they’re at.
 
If you’re ready to call it quits and walk away, more power to you. The end comes for all of us someday, and you shouldn’t feel too bad when it comes for you. But this article was about giving you some ideas for mental perspective if you’re willing to look for an alternative to walking away, if that’s what you really want.
 
I can’t believe I’m actually going to write something this corny, but you have to listen to your heart (I know, I know. Forgive me). We all run into the same brick walls. Look deep inside and ask yourself sensible questions when you run into yours. You’ll find the answers, and they’ll lead you to the right place.