I wake up pretty early to get to work. I usually try to get ready in the dark to avoid disturbing my wife. This morning as I was leaving my bedroom to get the morning coffee going, in the dark, I missed the door and walked right into the door frame. It's not quite like hitting a brick wall, but it hurt, and it momentarily stopped my progress.
Some of you guys and gals are doing the same thing in the gym. No, you're probably not running into door frames (if you are, I bet it's embarrassing), but you probably are missing too many reps in your training. When it happens, sometimes it hurts your body, it always hurts your confidence, and it definitely hurts your progress.
A good example of this in my training is muscle ups. I'm not as consistent as I'd like to be (give me some credit though, I've done muscle ups over 250lbs body weight) and when I miss, it hurts my shoulders. Miss enough and I end up with some pretty achy shoulders for a few days which impacts the rest of my training.
Sometimes we talk about a lift or a weight "getting in your head." That essentially means you're afraid of it and instead of you working with the barbell to get stronger, it becomes your adversary. When the bar is your enemy, it always wins. It can always be heavier, it never gets tired, it doesn't need to recover, and you can't psyche it out.
First, you must address your weaknesses. Are you missing lifts because your lower back is too weak? Lower back weakness is a huge culprit in missing the big lifts like squats, cleans, and deadlifts. If you can't keep your back extended under a load and tend to round or fold forwards, there's your sign. If that's you, it's time to start doing some weighted back extensions, banded good mornings, or other low back exercises to build up that link in the chain.
As a general rule, your weak links will be hamstrings, low back, abs, and triceps. I know that because, as Clint Darden says, everyone has weak hamstrings, low backs, abs, and triceps. Start chipping away at your weaknesses to stop missing lifts in the gym!
Second, back off the weight a little bit. This is almost too easy to give as advice, but it's something frustrated lifters need to hear sometimes. Don't let your eyes be bigger than your biceps. It's okay to back off the weight a little bit. You're not a failure, you don't suck at lifting, and constantly banging your head against the wall missing heavy weights isn't going to help anyway.
By resetting the load, your body will have some time to recover and allow you to come back to the heavier weights refreshed and ready to work. This is a common tactic, especially with newer lifters to keep adding weight to the bar over a longer period of time. As a rule, it's hard to get unstuck at a plateau than it is to keep moving intelligently forward by taking planned periods of reduced work to let you recover. It's better to take 3 steps forward and 1 step back for a long time than to take 10 steps forward and fall over dead.
Third, you need to improve your technique. This is the key to being more efficient and improving your lifts while staying healthy and safe. If you're experiencing pain in your training, 10 times out of 10 your technique needs work. Being more efficient in the lifts, or doing them as technically perfect as you can, lets you express all of your strength on a particular lift. It also lets you lift in the safest positions. As machines, we are designed so that the strongest positions we can put ourselves in are also the safest ones.
Really making strides in improving technique usually requires some coaching. I am a coach, and when my squat wasn't feeling right, I hired a coach to take a look at it and help me fix it. You can do a lot by filming your own training and coaching yourself like a client. On the other hand, I tend to second guess my coaching for myself, I can't be as objective as another coach can be looking at me, and I just flat don't always make time to look at my own training. By paying someone else to look at it, they have a pretty good incentive to spend the necessary time.
Some of you guys and gals are doing the same thing in the gym. No, you're probably not running into door frames (if you are, I bet it's embarrassing), but you probably are missing too many reps in your training. When it happens, sometimes it hurts your body, it always hurts your confidence, and it definitely hurts your progress.
Body
Failed lifts always seem to be more taxing to my body than made lifts. On top of that, you tend to be out of position when you miss. I rarely see someone miss simply because the weight was too heavy. It is almost always the combination of a heavy weight and bad form on that particular lift. Putting your body in compromising positions with heavy loads is a recipe for disaster in the gym. Even when you save bad lifts, it's inefficient and therefore puts a higher stress on your body which is harder to recover from.A good example of this in my training is muscle ups. I'm not as consistent as I'd like to be (give me some credit though, I've done muscle ups over 250lbs body weight) and when I miss, it hurts my shoulders. Miss enough and I end up with some pretty achy shoulders for a few days which impacts the rest of my training.
Mind
As a competitor, missing lifts in the gym can get into your head before a competition. I had a few rough days before my last meet that resulted in some shaky expectations going into the bench press. For a lot of the people, a missed lift can lead to fear of that weight or that exercise in general.Sometimes we talk about a lift or a weight "getting in your head." That essentially means you're afraid of it and instead of you working with the barbell to get stronger, it becomes your adversary. When the bar is your enemy, it always wins. It can always be heavier, it never gets tired, it doesn't need to recover, and you can't psyche it out.
Progress
You don't get stronger from the reps you don't complete. If you are doing a simple 5x5 program to build strength and you aren't getting all of your reps, you might not be getting sufficient stress to drive adaptation and progress. Even worse, if you're injured by missing a lift, you have time away from training where you not only don't progress, you actually regress.
Progress is one of the biggest motivators for people to keep training. When you hit a plateau, if you don't know what to do to get moving again, it can be a slippery slope back to the couch. No one likes banging their head against the wall trying the same lifts with the same weights over and over again only to fail over and over again.
So what do I do?
Here are three things you need to do if you consistently miss lifts.First, you must address your weaknesses. Are you missing lifts because your lower back is too weak? Lower back weakness is a huge culprit in missing the big lifts like squats, cleans, and deadlifts. If you can't keep your back extended under a load and tend to round or fold forwards, there's your sign. If that's you, it's time to start doing some weighted back extensions, banded good mornings, or other low back exercises to build up that link in the chain.
As a general rule, your weak links will be hamstrings, low back, abs, and triceps. I know that because, as Clint Darden says, everyone has weak hamstrings, low backs, abs, and triceps. Start chipping away at your weaknesses to stop missing lifts in the gym!
Second, back off the weight a little bit. This is almost too easy to give as advice, but it's something frustrated lifters need to hear sometimes. Don't let your eyes be bigger than your biceps. It's okay to back off the weight a little bit. You're not a failure, you don't suck at lifting, and constantly banging your head against the wall missing heavy weights isn't going to help anyway.
By resetting the load, your body will have some time to recover and allow you to come back to the heavier weights refreshed and ready to work. This is a common tactic, especially with newer lifters to keep adding weight to the bar over a longer period of time. As a rule, it's hard to get unstuck at a plateau than it is to keep moving intelligently forward by taking planned periods of reduced work to let you recover. It's better to take 3 steps forward and 1 step back for a long time than to take 10 steps forward and fall over dead.
Third, you need to improve your technique. This is the key to being more efficient and improving your lifts while staying healthy and safe. If you're experiencing pain in your training, 10 times out of 10 your technique needs work. Being more efficient in the lifts, or doing them as technically perfect as you can, lets you express all of your strength on a particular lift. It also lets you lift in the safest positions. As machines, we are designed so that the strongest positions we can put ourselves in are also the safest ones.
Really making strides in improving technique usually requires some coaching. I am a coach, and when my squat wasn't feeling right, I hired a coach to take a look at it and help me fix it. You can do a lot by filming your own training and coaching yourself like a client. On the other hand, I tend to second guess my coaching for myself, I can't be as objective as another coach can be looking at me, and I just flat don't always make time to look at my own training. By paying someone else to look at it, they have a pretty good incentive to spend the necessary time.
Conclusion
If you're regularly missing your lifts in the gym, you aren't going to make progress in your training. It's probably been very frustrating and can drive you to distraction. In order to stop missing all the time, address your weaknesses, back off the weight, and get some coaching to improve your technique. This path has worked for countless lifters, and I promise it will work for you too. By taking ego out of the equation and putting in the work now, your training will not only start moving again, but it will keep moving because now you know what to do when things are getting rough in the gym.
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