Strength Training Faith…Have You Bought Into What You Are Doing?

“My God given talent is my ability to stick with training longer than anybody else.”– Herschel Walker

The truth is that in order to succeed at any endeavor you’ve got to have faith in what you are doing. In terms of being either a great athlete or in super great shape you’ve got to believe in your strength training program, period. Without the belief in what you are doing you might as well be sitting on the couch eating twinkies while breathing louder than anybody in the room.

I Hate Losing…Train Smart! 

I really hate losing. I mean I literally hate losing more than I actually enjoy winning and I’m not making that up. Whenever I say that around my students they usually give me a quick Oh Wow type of glance followed by a slight chuckle. This is why I am always preaching about the importance of training, but not just training for the sake of training, but strength training with a purpose. Strength training, with a purpose behind it, allows folks to believe in that particular system. I believe that once you have a system such as this in place then you can better sell it to the athletes and participants that are involved in it. I firmly believe that it’s all about the mindset and one’s faith in his or her strength training program.

Now don’t get me wrong, as a strength coach that implements strength training programs on a regular basis to serve a purpose that makes logical sense I do believe that there are more efficient ways of doing things along with less efficient ways of doing things. It’s like anything else in life, but not even the most sound program will do jack shit unless the participants involved with it have totally bought in to what is going on. Now that being said I do believe a kettlebell swing is a superior lift compared to a bicep curl as being the lift of choice to say improve one’s linear speed, explosive power, core strength, body fat reduction, and overall motor skills. In this particular example even if you believe the bicep curl is the second coming to all strength lifts  you’ll no doubt get stronger, but I think your beliefs won’t be enough in this particular example.

My Semi-Angry Rant…

When I was starting my business around 7 years ago I didn’t have the luxury of a fully stocked gym to train my clients. Nowadays I still have been blessed enough to structure my business so that I don’t have to assume the responsibility of a facility, but I do have access to various facilities in order to train my students and host clinics for doing what I want to do. Now having said that, as a young strength coach/trainer, when first starting out it used to frustrate the hell out me to hear people say “Well I signed up junior this summer to go to so and so gym to get their strength training b/c they have all of this cool stuff to train with.”  

Now don’t get me wrong, I know now that was just my younger self responding by feeling more frustration than seeing how to better sell folks on what I was trying to do at the time. Now I still would be pissed to lose any of my regular students to someone else, but the difference now is that it just doesn’t happen because folks know that I know what I’m talking about, especially when comparing me to the local competition. I’m not saying this to sound arrogant, but I’m just driving home the point that I’ve gotten better about showing people the logical progression and science behind what I’m trying to implement with my strength training programs. They have now truly bought in to what I’m doing, period! Thank God, or else I wouldn’t be telling you about right here in this post, right?

The point is that I do believe in a smart approach with things, but buying into whatever it is that you are doing to train yourself far outweighs a lack of that sentiment with your competition. If your competitor seemingly has a so-called superior strength training program, but doesn’t buy into it then you will automatically have the advantage. Herschel Walker (Greatest college running back of all time) has talked about how shocked people are that he never lifted a weight. They were baffled at how he got those tree trunk sized thighs that ran over everybody and their brother without ever having lifted a single weight or having done squats. He has pointed out that he did do squats though, maybe not with a barbell, but instead had done thousands of them!!! Herschel had become a master at body weight strength training. I think the proof is in the pudding with that example if you know what I mean!

The bottom line is that if you want to get it done you do need smart strength training, but you have to have faith in what you are doing. I’m always looking for ways to inspire others by showing them that there is more to doing what I’m doing than just merely kicking asses within an hour long strength training session. That is part of it, but there is a method behind the process. If you are interested in learning more then I want to invite you to join me by signing up for my emailing list right here for FREE! You’ll instantly get a lot of cool stuff for joining plus you’ll instantly be super cool, at least in my book! Remember most anyone can train hard, but only the best train smart and believe in what they are doing!