Have you ever stopped and thought about how so many things in life happen in different stages? Almost anything you can think of in your life probably followed some kind of progression; it happened in a phase one, phase two, phase three kind of order. Let’s look at a really easy example to make this more understandable. Many of you are in long-term relationships, right? Some of you are married, and others have had a boyfriend or girlfriend for an extended period of time. I know this has to be true because people who read Performance Menu are generally smarter and more attractive than non-readers, so we usually don’t stay single for very long.

Your relationship with your significant other has developed in stages. Think back about the time period when you originally met this person and started going out on your first dates. Think about how you acted, how you talked, how you dressed, etc. Most likely, you were on your best behavior and trying to look extra hot because you wanted something to happen with this person. You cleverly concealed any personal glitches of yours that other people might find gross because you were on a mission to look as tantalizing as possible. That was stage one. Then, there was a time when you two decided that you were an actual couple, and the newness of the relationship started to wear off. You got used to each other, and you got to discover some wonderfully special personal habits your partner has. Some of these were charming and funny, while many others were probably disgusting and irritating. That was stage two, and many couples never make it through this one. Lots of casualties in this area.

If you decided that this person’s lifestyle was something you could live with, then you might have even progressed to stage three. This is where you’re serious, and you start talking and planning serious future type of stuff. You think about getting married and buying houses. Once you’re in this stage, it’s intense business. You’re considering spending the rest of your life with this person, and that’s pretty heavy stuff to think about. Nervousness and second thoughts are common here. Some couples stick it out, and some don’t.

So… that brings us to weightlifting and strength training. You might not even know it, but your experience as a weightlifter has also happened in stages. This also true for all the people you coach, if you’re a coach. What I want to do this month is take a look at the stages of a lifter’s career, and all the different variables that accompany these stages. If you coach lifters, you need to have an understanding of what’s going through their minds when they come into your gym. Because if you’re oblivious to the thoughts and concerns of your athletes, there’s a strong chance that misunderstandings and conflicts will pop up. These can make gym life pretty sticky, and they could even lead to a break-up. Just like your life with your special little love interest, it’s pretty damn important to be able to see things not just from your own perspective, but from theirs, too. Mutual understanding will almost always make things easier, whether you’re talking about snatching a personal record or shopping for an engagement ring. So, let’s take a look at the stages that you, your athletes, and every other person who calls themselves a weightlifter will go through during your relationship with the barbell.

Stage One: Clueless Rookie

Even though the term “clueless rookie” carries a negative tone, this first stage of your weightlifting life is one of the most exciting times you’ll ever get to feel. This is when you are brand spanking new to the iron world. You may or may not have had some athletic experience at this point and you might have even done some form of weight training, but the focused discipline of serious weightlifting training is a whole new ball game. You don’t really know anything about weightlifting at this point, but you do know for sure that you’re interested in it. You’re full of energy and curiosity. This is when you’re first learning the snatch, clean and jerk, or maybe the squat or deadlift if you’re a powerlifter instead of an Olympic lifter. Every day that you come to the gym is a new experiment of teaching your body to do something that it has never done. Frustration is guaranteed at this point, no questions asked. The complexity of the Olympic lifts are challenging for even the most talented natural athletes. You probably get to wipe out in some creative way in this stage, either through nailing your chin with the bar in the jerk, falling on your butt when jumping under a snatch, or some other wacky accident. Veterans, do you remember those days? You got embarrassed because there were probably other people in the gym who were experienced lifters and you felt like genetic sludge when you biffed it in front of them. Hey, this is like the awkward stage children have to go through. You’re like the little boy who came to school and found out the hard way that the cool kids don’t pull their pants all the way down around their ankles when they pee at the urinal.

But the great thing about this phase is that you also get to have those moments when everything clicks. You hit your first snatch correctly, and you FEEL the proper movement for the first time in your life. If I could offer a word of advice to coaches at this point…make sure you celebrate and compliment your newbies when they have little technique breakthroughs. Even though they might still have five or six technical glitches that need to get fixed and they’re a long way from perfect, you have to remember that it’s very important for new lifters to feel like they’re making some kind of progress. Even if it’s the smallest of baby steps, make your people feel like they’re moving forward. That’s what will keep them coming back for more. I’ve seen aspiring new lifters quit the sport because their coaches were such perfectionists that they basically wouldn’t give ANY positive feedback in this phase.

If you’re the lifter, please try to remember that this phase will be rough. You’re going to have little aches and pains in places that you never have before. You’re going to have moments when you feel like you’ve mastered the technique of a lift and then, three days later, you lose that mastery and feel like you forgot how to lift correctly. The aggravation is going to be a part of this stage, but that aggravation is a good thing. If you get angry when you do something wrong, that means it’s important to you. You have a hungry spirit, and you get pissed when you fail because you really, really want to be good at this. That’s the right attitude, believe me. The people who don’t care if they make progress are the ones who will never amount to jack squat because their performance doesn’t mean anything to them. Just hang in there, baby.

Stage Two: Turbo Teenager

Whoa daddy! At this point, you’ve passed the rookie phase and now you’re moving up in the world. Stage two is when you’re no longer a newbie and you’ve actually started to perfect the lifts and make progress. In fact, you’ve probably made enormous progress in a short period of time. The Olympic lifts are very difficult to learn, but the athlete will make remarkable gains during the time when the technique has clicked and strength improvements have begun.

This is when you’ve been lifting for maybe a year, or possibly even two or three years. Now, you actually do know some stuff about weightlifting. You understand the technique of the lifts and the training process. You’ve lifted some solid weights, too. You can probably even beat many of the other lifters around you. This is when many of you have begun competing, and you now have some meets under your belt. You might have even competed at the national level. This is a great time because you’re good at weightlifting and you know it. Most likely, you’ve even started to teach others. Full-time coaching probably hasn’t become your thing yet because you’re climbing the ladder as an athlete. But you’ve helped some people with their technique in the gym, or even taught some beginners who are in stage one, just like you were not too long ago. The stage one people look at you as an expert because you can lift a lot more than they can, which boosts your pride and self-image. Basically, things are awesome at this point.

However, there is one thing about this stage that can be funky. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that you probably think you know every freaking thing there is to know about weightlifting at this point. Trust me, stage two is when you start to get pretty big for your britches. Because you’re now a qualified weightlifter, you start to think that your expertise is a lot bigger than most of the people out there. This is when you get on the internet and argue with people about weightlifting because you’re right and they’re wrong, dammit. That’s why this stage is called the “turbo teenager” stage. You’re like a seventeen year-old kid who thinks they know everything about life. You don’t want to listen to your parents because you think they’re old, out of touch with reality, and they don’t have a clue about what your life is like. You’ve got enough hormones pumping through your body to fuel an oil tanker, and you won’t back down from a fight.

At this point, you think the best weightlifters are the biggest experts on weightlifting. That’s how you see it. And let me say a word to the coaches at this point. This stage two will be a blessing and a curse, just like being a parent and raising teenagers. The blessing of this stage is that your athletes will do a lot of incredible things that make you very proud. They’re developing quickly, and it’s a lot of fun to guide them while they blast away new personal records and rise up into the higher ranks of the sport. However, the curse is that they’ll be hard to handle, just like the teenagers. They’re going to say stupid things that piss you off. They’re going to disobey you and violate the rules you’ve asked them to live by. They’re going to require some tough love if you want them to remember that you’re the authority figure and you’re still in charge of this operation. Don’t be afraid to lay down the law here. You’re going to have to do it anyway, and most athletes respond well when they know they’re following an alpha.

Stage Three: Holy crap, you mean I’m human?

Now, things are tough. Stage three occurs when you’ve had some years of experience under your belt. You’ve risen to a high level and you have some legitimate accomplishments on your record. You can look back on what you’ve done so far and feel a sense of reward, but now there’s a problem.

Stage three is when something has happened to knock you down. You’ve had your balloon popped and now it’s painfully clear that you’re not superhuman. This could be a variety of different things. It could be an injury. That’s a pretty common one. Or it could be that you haven’t made any progress in two years. That’s a REALLY common one. You’ve continued training your butt off and giving it everything you have, but your results haven’t improved. Whatever the actual cause is, something has happened to burst your bubble when you’re in stage three. You’ve learned that you actually didn’t know everything like you thought in stage two, and you’re not at the highest level of knowledge and experience in the sport. To put it very simply, you’ve been humbled. If we’re comparing this to real-life experience, this might be like a time when you’re now an adult and you’ve been burned by something. Maybe it was a divorce, an arrest for DUI, or maybe you got fired from a job. You’ve been knocked for a loop, and you have to ask yourself, “Where do I go from here?”

Coaches and athletes, please pay close attention to what I’m going to say next.

Stage three is the end of the road for many lifters. The defeat they experienced, whatever it was, proved to be too much for them and they decided to hang it up. They let it beat them. If you’ve made it to stage three in your career either as a lifter or a coach, I can guarantee that you’ve at least thought about quitting. It crosses your mind, and you can’t believe that it might actually be coming to an end. I think anybody who has been in this sport for an extended period of time has had moments when they thought about walking away. Brothers and sisters, this is when you really start to learn about being a weightlifter. All those little motivational slogans you’ve seen on gym wall posters over the years, the ones that say things like “It’s not how many times you fall, but how many times you get up,” you know the ones I’m talking about? Stage three is when those words become reality. You’ve fallen, and you have to find a way to get up. Nobody can help you, either. The only thing you have to rely on is the strength of your own character. Olympic champion Yuri Zacharevich once said, “There is simply a time in your life when you must clench your teeth and hang on.” All of you experienced lifters and coaches who are reading this, do you know what I mean? I know you do. All of you newbies and greenhorns, do you know what I mean? Probably not, but you will someday.

Stage Four: Rebirth

This is the stage you hit when you’ve survived stage three. You took your lumps, got back to work, and found a way to become successful again. This is where you’re finally mature. You’ve come back from your defeat and now you know that you don’t know everything, and you never did in the first place. In fact, you know now that you’ll never know everything because the world of weightlifting is a big complex place, and you’ve also learned that some of the old fogies who you dismissed in stage two probably knew more about weightlifting than you thought they did because they’ve been through stage three, maybe even more than once. Mark Twain described this time with his famous quote, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could barely stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

You might not lift the biggest weights of your life when you’re in stage four. You probably hit those when you were in stage two. But there’s a difference between lifting the biggest lifts of your life and doing the best lifting of your life. I hit the biggest weights of my life when I was twenty-six, but I think I did some of the best lifting of my career ten years later as a master. My lifts as a master were much lighter than my lifetime bests, but being able to still snatch over 300 pounds and qualify for the Senior Nationals when I was thirty-six years old was, in my mind, some of the finest lifting I’ve done in my career. Believe me, I had to survive a lot of stage threes along the way. But those stage three moments are the things that have made this whole journey so much more rewarding. If you’re a coach, you’ll probably never have a greater experience than when you help an athlete make it through stage three, because this is where you learn that this whole road we’re traveling is about much more than just lifting weights.

I guess stage four is when you’re not a kid anymore. You’ve been around the block a few times, so to speak. You’ve had your share of defeats. Nothing is clearer to you at this stage than the knowledge that you’re human, just like everybody else. That’s a great thing to know in life. What is equally clear to you is the understanding that you should really enjoy and treasure the bright moments of your weightlifting life, because it won’t always be sunshine, lemonade and baskets full of puppies. Sometimes, it will be outhouses and spoiled milk. Still, the persistent ones who have fought through stage three and made it to stage four are the ones who reap the biggest rewards. Lemonade tastes a lot sweeter when you’ve been dying of thirst for a long time.