The Mundanity of Training
If you’ve been in this sport long enough to have the newbie gains end, to have your PRs be months (many months, maybe even years) apart, to be 1kg at a time, to wonder “did I really ever hit that max or am I imagining it?,” to have a meet performance that broke your heart. If you’re nodding at this, then you know that this sport is not the glamour we project it to be on social media. The heavy lifts get all the attention, but that’s not where we live. That’s not where we make changes. That’s not where we build ourselves into the athletes we are on the platform. It’s not even really where the greatest test of our mental ability and our commitment lies.
We define ourselves in the weeks after bad meets, when you’re FILLED with self doubt. In the days of working on technical changes. In the days that 70% feels heavy (why does 70% feel heavy??). In the days of conditioning when you’re absolutely positive you can not possibly get back up off the bench when your EMOM timer goes off, so you just stop sitting down in between sets. In the days of convincing yourself you really should work on your mobility, even though you’re 12 weeks out from your next meet. In the days of you looking at your accessory work after you’ve been in the gym for 2 hours and wondering if you really need to do it, if it really will make a difference. In the days when your body is tired. So tired. You feel like you’re moving through mud, you miss your top sets, and you wonder why in the actual hell do you do this? Is this really worth it? Is all this time, and pain, and sacrifice and commitment really worth it?
It’s in all those little moments we build ourselves. In the mundanity of training. In the pain, in the training alone, in changes in training, in the attention to the detail of sleep and nutrition and recovery, in the self doubt that we push through, in the little voice that wakes us up the next day. That’s where we either fall in love with this sport, or decide it’s too hard, it’s too much sacrifice, and move on. That’s where we teach ourselves to look for the small improvements, where we celebrate our best set THAT DAY, because it’s what we had in that moment. That’s where we learn to have patience with ourselves, where we’re inspired by our training partners for fighting for a rep, or pushing through a tough session. That’s where we build our capacity. Where we build our physical and mental strength for those big lifts on the platform. That’s the part you have to love, or maybe you don’t have to love it, let’s be real, sometimes we absolutely hate it- but it’s the part that you have to trust. Without that trust we stay stagnant, or we burn out. Ultimately, it’s up to us, and our goals, what we’re willing to survive.
-Joelle Emery