We all had numbers we wanted to lift one day as beginners. Some of us hit those numbers sooner than others but when we did, was that it? Was it enough? For some maybe, but not us. It’s never enough. No matter how high the goal, we always want more. It’s the pursuit of absolute strength that keeps us wanting more. Finding new training methods. Sleeping more to increase recovery. Force feeding food down our throats while gagging just to gain more mass and if pumping your blood pressure through the roof wasn’t enough there are some that venture down the road to PED town.

The unquantifiable need that drives us for a mythical level of strength is different for each of us but the need is the same none the less.

As I write these next few sentences I may come off as a bitter washed up old powerlifter but I want to get a few things straight. The majority of people that compete now have a way to make a living off of the Sport through social media. You don’t even have to be the best anymore. You just have to be engaging. On top of that, competitions actually pay out now. Competing in the mid 90s and earlier was a shit show. Meets in the back of racquetball clubs, the YMCA. Hell, I remember going to a comp in the back of a bar parking lot. Yeah you read that right. Now we have packed out venues with 1500 lifters, multiple events at the Arnold sports festival along with Sheffield handing out $250,000 in prize money. Meanwhile I couldn’t even get my lunch paid for.

There was nothing like what we have in the sport today. The fact is, most of us back then didn’t even care about competing. Not really. We just used it to see how strong we were compared to other crews and if we lost, we came back next time and wiped the damn floor with them. For us, it was all about the grind. The pursuit of strength. Getting under the bar week in and week out just to feel the strain. That was the drug that we kept coming back to. I trained for years before I even knew powerlifting existed. We just wanted to be insanely strong plain and simple.

You’ll hear most people say that they sacrificed this or sacrificed that to reach their goals but the truth is we didn’t sacrifice anything because we loved every second of it. It was everyone around us that sacrificed. Not going on vacation with family because it interfered with training, Skipping birthdays because we needed to deadlift. Not answering the phone because you needed the extra sleep. All this for an extra five pounds on the bar. So why pursue a glory that only lives on in our heads? ….It’s a drug. Knowing you are the strongest person in the room, State, Country or World is the greatest high you could ever imagine. Having the ability to pick someone up and throw them like a javelin is a feeling you can’t describe.

Unfortunately the catalyst to pursue strength is normally aggression brought on by past experiences that the world can’t handle, so you keep them locked away in your head, only to purposefully relive them day after day so they can be put to good use when you need them the most. Those experiences become the switch that drop the mask and show the world the real you. Being able to channel the same aggression that cripples regular minds into pure focus is a skill. Knowing how to smile after, is another.

What if enough, was enough?

Coaching