I was thinking about how just being motivated solves a lot of issues. Issues like little injuries crush people when excelling doesn't mean anything to them, but the motivated athlete overlooks all the little stuff and wills himself to excel. Its a switch, a switch that turns on when something inside of someone just happens, an awakening, and you see it and feel it.
I have a kid that I coach who always wanted to clean 315. A real Power Clean. No straps, from the floor. Legit. He is under 200 pounds, and when he told me his goal about a year ago, he was cleaning something like 265, and I was like, yeah right, and he was skinny and he liked to lift, but he didn't LOVE it, it wasn't all consuming. But he suprised me, he kept going. He kept reading, watching videos, getting into it. He asked me questions, he started hanging around people who loved to train.
In March, he cleaned 315, and today he deadlifted 545 like it was nothing. I mean, this was a skinny little kid who I thought was all talk, and lots of bravado, but damn, he kept pushing, kept drinking protein, pushing, pushing, showing up on Saturdays and training....never questioning. When he met Kirk Karwoski, he was thrilled, I was suprised that he knew who Kirk was, but he was pumped.
And it is like I always have said, Motivation is Life. Think about it, you can be tired as hell, and feeling sorry for yourself, but if something comes up that is really important to you, something that fires you up more than anything else, you would get your ass off of the couch pretty quick.
I play those tricks on myself all of the time. I'll be lying there and think, now if Randy White(my boyhood idol) walked through the door and asked me to go lift weights and run hills and then go to the bar to discuss his greatest games, I would be out the door in a second. So I say to myself, well, you really ain't that tired. Get your ass up.
Or you picture those guys in World War II, on the Battaan Death March, starving, drinking out of Water Buffalo holes on the side of the road because they were so thirsty and actually getting shot for drinking that dung water and you say, I can't go deadlift? Ooh, my back is sore, I didn't get my protein in today, I missed a meal, my girlfriend was mean to me, my car didn't start, I just couldn't get it in, I was too busy, I was gonna but my boss pissed me off so I went to the bar instead...and on and on.You didn't earn the right to go to the bar. But then you turn on the Training Hall tapes from Bulgaria with the holes in the windows and they are lifting in the freezing cold and damn, you feel shitty about yourself. Get your ass up. I guarantee that you aren't that hungry, not as hungry as most of the world. I guarantee that you aren't overtrained, it's hard as hell to get overtrained. Most of the time it's lack of motivation.
Motivation! Its the spark. Life is not worth living if you can't get immensely excited about SOMETHING, something that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and makes you move.
I am proud of the kid who cleaned 315. He was motivated, he was hungry, it meant the world to him to succeed. Mostly I am proud that he proved me wrong, and that he had that switch inside of himself that I didn't know was there. Good stuff.
