Greg Everett and I share a favorite movie. It’s a bank-robber flick from the 90s called Heat, with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. Many of you have probably seen it, especially guys. It’s got one of the best gunfight scenes in history, along with a lot of other awesome masculine energy. I wrote a Performance Menu article years ago where I tossed in a line from the movie without mentioning where I got it, and Greg recognized it. Yet another example of how Catalyst Athletics is populated with genius-level intelligence and charisma.

In the movie, DeNiro plays a thief. Actually he’s the most badass thief in the world, a guy who steals millions of dollars from banks and armored trucks without leaving a shred of evidence for the po-po. Pacino is the detective that’s chasing him, a hardened veteran who’s as good at his job as DeNiro is at his. The two men basically have the exact same personality. They’re both obsessed with what they do for a living. They eat, sleep, and breathe their jobs to such a crazy extent that neither of them can really maintain any stable relationships with anybody except the people they work with. They both leave a trail of divorces and heartbroken women in their wake, simply because their fanaticism crushes any chance for real love and commitment to anybody. They’re obsessed with their professions, which makes them the best in their fields. The only difference between them is that one is a criminal and the other is a cop.

One of the best scenes in this movie is when the two men sit down for a cup of coffee to talk about the situation they’re in. Pacino (the cop) is trying to convince DeNiro to walk away from his life of crime, and he asks him, “Didn’t you ever want a regular life?” DeNiro shrugs this off with a dismissive smirk and asks, “What the f—k is that? Barbecues and ball games?” Pacino just gives him a little smile, knowing that one of the main things they have in common is that neither of them have any interest in living the way normal people do.

Barbecues and ball games…

A regular life is pretty easy to recognize, right? We’re talking about the basic stable pattern most people follow where they get jobs, get married, have a few kids, buy a house, and then settle in for a nice fifty-year stretch of mellow activity before death. There will be some exciting moments here and there…when they take a cruise or their kids graduate from college. But overall, their lives stay pretty steady and consistent. This is obviously the life most people want, because almost everybody we know is living it. Most of the “regular life” people I know seem happy as hell. It’s probably because everything stays fairly comfortable and controlled all the time, which keeps them from getting too stressed.

My life isn’t like this, because I’m a weightlifter.

You want to know what this article is about? It’s an analysis of a question: whether or not you can have a normal, standard barbecues-and-ball-games lifestyle if you decide to commit to weightlifting. I’m not sure if it’s possible, and I think it’s something we all struggle with at some point. Many of you are as obsessive as I am. For crying out loud, you spend your free time on the internet reading this magazine. And I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar that you’ve had sticky moments with friends, family, or love interests where your devotion to weightlifting created a conflict. I’m writing this article because I have some ideas on the best way to manage this. But I’ll be totally honest, I don’t have all the answers. My life hasn’t been normal, and I never really wanted it to be. I guess part of this discussion is whether “normal” should even be part of the picture.

Recreational lifters…

Back in the 90s, I was on the Board of Governors for USA Weightlifting. We were at a big meeting one year where a coach was giving a feisty speech about what was wrong with our sport in this country. At one point, he yelled out, “We’ve got too many damn recreational lifters! They don’t want to sell out to this sport, so to hell with them!” Very polite and subtle, I know.

When he used the phrase “recreational lifter” he was talking about people who train and compete in weightlifting, but without the highest level of total commitment and dedication. In other words, these are people who pursue the sport on a somewhat limited basis. They work hard and they commit a lot of time and effort to it, but they also have a life outside the sport. Weightlifting isn’t the center of their whole existence because they want to have successful jobs, family life, and the kind of “barbecues and ball games” stuff we’re talking about.

Okay, so let’s ask a few questions. First of all, is there anything wrong with being a recreational lifter? Well, the coach who gave that speech certainly thought so. But I disagreed with him then, and I still disagree now. The last time I checked, there were no laws written down in any bibles that say people HAVE to be 100 percent thoroughbred full-time weightlifting fanatics. Even though I’m one of those fanatics, I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with people who just want to dabble in the sport. If people want to live normal lives with weightlifting kept as a hobby (for lack of a better term), then God bless. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people pursuing it on a limited, casual basis.

However, there’s a reality that we need to acknowledge. If you give part-time commitment to something, you’ll get part-time results. There’s not a damn thing wrong with being a recreational lifter, but you’ll never make it to the top. If you want to win a national championship or make an Olympic team, you have to step up to the fanatic level. This is something I know for certain. From the time I graduated high school until my early 30s, I was fanatical. I went to college, got my degree, and started my professional career during this time, but those were basically just things I did to make sure I could pay my bills and have a financially stable life. In terms of seriousness and dedication, they were secondary priorities. Weightlifting, even though it didn’t pay the bills, was all that really mattered to me. I made all of my decisions based on what would make me a successful athlete. I also kept my entire social circle in weightlifting, and I rarely spent time doing anything that wasn’t related to the sport in some way. That’s the fanatic life. Complete commitment…and I mean complete.

And you want to know something? I had a lot of success during this time. That’s the point I’m trying to make here. If you really want to make it to the big time as an athlete or a coach, you have to operate at the obsessive level. I believe this to be a concrete truth.

At this point, I’m 41 years old and weightlifting has become somewhat more recreational for me because A) I’m past my athletic prime anyway and B) I want to branch out just a little and have a successful life outside the sport. Although I’m still pretty obsessive, it’s nothing like it used to be. And you want to know something? My results aren’t as impressive as they were when I was in the fanatic stage. So I guess the first point we’re making here is that recreational lifting is fine, if that’s what your life plan dictates. It will definitely prohibit you from ever graduating up to primetime. But if that’s acceptable to you, then all is right with the world.

Plus, there’s a caveat to the “fanatic” thing…

You know the coach I mentioned who gave the speech, blasting recreational lifters? Well, I’m not going to mention his name, and you probably wouldn’t know who he was regardless, but I knew this guy. He clearly came from the old-school obsessive fanatic weightlifting life, and I don’t mind telling you that he had some problems. I’m not going to get into specifics, but this guy’s life wasn’t exactly a blueprint for success.

That’s the cautionary part of this. When we talk about completely selling out and committing every ounce of your soul to weightlifting, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a money sport in this country. It’s not like football or basketball. If you commit your life to those fields here in the good old USA, there’s a financial future for you. Becoming an elite athlete or coach in mainstream sports gives you a chance to make a living from it, a very good living in some cases. But weightlifting is different. There is no professional money for athletes here, at least not enough to make a decent living on. For coaches, the only way you can make bank in weightlifting is if you set up your own training business and then rope in a lot of clients. And even then, it can be a very dicey way to cover your house payment.

My weightlifting hero is Norb Schemansky, the Olympic champion from the 50s who I’ve written about before. Norb gave an interview once where he used a term I’ve always remembered. It was “weightlifting bum.” As with everything Norb said, it wasn’t sugar-coated. He was talking about people who committed their whole lives to weightlifting, even though it was clear that there was no tangible future in it. They stay in the game forever as athletes, and then possibly coaches or some other position, and their commitment never wavers. But it costs them, because they spend their adult years losing money on weightlifting instead of making money at something else. Years pass by, and eventually they become old people who never built anything significant for their future. It might be hard to really visualize this if you haven’t lived in the sport. But I’ve been doing this for over twenty years and I can think of several names off the top of my head that fit this description.

Being a fanatic will get you the best results, as we said. But I think there are some very important bases in life that you have to make sure you cover. Developing a stable career is a huge one, obviously. It’ll probably have to be something outside of weightlifting, and it’ll take up a lot of your time. If those time demands chip away at your weightlifting pursuits, then so be it. You’re talking about things like house payments, medical insurance, retirement pensions, etc. Brothers and sisters, those are the things in life that matter. You don’t think about them when you’re young because you don’t have to. As an adult, however, you can’t afford to gamble your entire life on a sport that basically guarantees no financial reward. That’s how I feel about this, even as a lifetime weightlifting veteran who loves it very much.

Having said that…

Once again, I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering about something, so let me cut you off at the pass and address it.

Greg Everett decided he was going to take his fanatical passion for weightlifting and turn it into a career. He opened up a gym business. This allows him to blend his obsession with his financial future. Obviously, he’s having a lot of success and it’s going to continue for a long time. But you all know a little about Catalyst Athletics, so you understand that Greg has used his brains to make sure his business isn’t JUST a weightlifting gym. He does books, magazines, training for clients who aren’t full-time lifters, etc. This is an example of a guy who devotes his life to weightlifting but isn’t becoming a weightlifting bum because his scope is broad and diverse.

Although I can’t speak for Greg, I think one of the things we have in common is that we never had much interest in the “barbecues and ball games” lifestyle. I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with and I’ve got plenty of friends, but most of them are involved in weightlifting to some degree. It’s hard for me to really connect with somebody who lives completely outside the lifting bubble, those who have barbecues and ball games as the center priorities of their lives. Am I dissing on these people? Hell no. I respect everybody’s path if it’s honest and based on hard work. We just don’t have a lot in common.

As I said in the beginning of this, I’m not sure if you can really become a big fish in this field without having a streak of obsession in you. Most of the really successful people I’ve known in my life do things to extreme levels. They don’t really “moderate” anything, and it works in their favor. Famous entertainers are obsessive about their music, acting, or whatever field they operate in. Successful business owners are usually workaholics. I guess what we all have to do is look at our lives and figure out how we can manage things. What can we give up? What are we willing to sacrifice? What end result will satisfy us? What are the things we can’t live without? Big questions, true. And they require big thinking, because all of us want to live happy lives. Can we be happy if we’re poor forever? Can we be happy if we walk away from our weightlifting dreams, either as athletes or coaches? As I said at the beginning of this, I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I’m still trying to answer those questions for myself. You’ll have to look inside yourself and navigate your own path. It’ll probably be a path that takes a lot of twists and turns over the course of your life, know what I mean? I’ll let you in on a secret, though. Even when it’s bumpy, the path is always fun.