Training to develop Discipline V.S. Motivation

Written By Coach E. Allen

I recently rebooted my workout program and I am going back to basics, relearning all the lifts that I learned over the past 30 plus years. the first time I picked up weight was when I was 8 or 9 years old after my mom and dad divorced I was over at my dad's house for one of a few weekend visits. He had a two-bedroom apartment where one of the rooms had turned it into a makeshift weight room with the old school Sears or JC Penny's weight set (I am not sure which one), it was one of those plastic plate weight sets with the skinny bar and bench that by today's standards would be recalled due to stability deficits. After a dinner of my dad's famous desert-dry rump roast and instant potatoes washed down with a few liters of kool-aid went into his weight room just to check it out. I picked up a dumbbell and I have been hooked ever since.  Every time I got the chance to go in there on my weekend visits I would try "lift" weights (was lucky I didn't lose a toe). Then my dad moved to Chicago and my lifting weight days were over as far I knew it.

Fast forward to 1988 my sophomore year of High School after football season I meet a 5'10 280 lb Italian guy named Raul Denotti, he was a bodybuilder and part-time volunteer football coach. It was in the weight room talking and "working out" which was basically doing curls and triceps cable extensions in between sets of talking. Raul pulled me aside one day and asked me "what are you in here for?" I said something to the effect I want to bench press 300 pounds and get stronger for football. So Raul told me that you were on the wrong track and wasting time talking and just doing "curls for the girls", I laughed but he had my attention. Raul then took me under his wing and gave me a basic training plan that was a "Three day Split", which is 3 training days out of the week (usually the days are Mon-Wed-Fri). He told me to start with the bar and work my way up to 135lb and when I could do 135lbs for 10 reps for 3 sets I would get stronger and be closer to my goal of joining the 300lb bench press club which was mostly upperclassmen. From that point on I was on a mission to be a member of the 300lb club, I started with the 3-day split, then it went to 4 days then I found myself in the weight room 5 days out of the week, if I could have lifted on Saturdays and Sundays I would have. I even began to hate holidays and days off from school because I knew that I could not lift on those days. I was officially a Meathead, without even knowing it. That love of lifting stayed with me to this day.

With that said just because I love to lift weights does not mean I have been consistent over the last 30 years. I have had my issues with lifting weights,  I have even hated lifting (for a very short time) but the one thing that was never needed to reboot that love was motivation. The motivation was a word that was never mentioned to me by any of my coaches, one thing that was made clear was to give great effort and have the resolve to keep moving forward finish goals you set out to accomplish. All good faith effort will be rewarded, it may not be the reward you were expecting all the time, but you will develop the grit to get things done even if you didn't want to. Motivation can be a good thing but it can also be the poison that kills your goals. Motivation has its place but it should not take the place of giving your best effort and having the attitude to finish. Motivation can get you out of the starting blocks but giving your best effort and some grit will get you over the finish line. 

So F&#K YOUR MOTIVATION and remember why you started your journey keep the process simple and get to work. 

Reference Links:

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance

http://evokinggenius.com/motivation-sucks-substitute-this-instead/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/motivation-kinda-sucks-and-discipline-doesnt