FOUR GOALS FOR TRAINING

January 3, 2019

Pittsburgh Fitness Project

When we start as weightlifters, Personal Records can be a weekly or daily occurrence. However, once the PR Party stops we must work harder to stay interested and engaged as athletes. The same can be said for any kind of fitness training. It’s hard to stay excited when you can’t beat your mile time. Or when you can’t figure out why you can’t do any more full pushups when you get to rep 15. Which is why at Pittsburgh Fitness Project, we approach each session with four goals for training in mind.

FOUR GOALS FOR TRAINING

1.) Skill Development

2.) Movement Quality

3.) Strength Improvement

4.) Mental Toughness

As athletes, we cannot expect to improve each one of these qualities in every training session. However, if we strive to improve each on we can gain small victories by simply improving a 1 or 2 of these qualities each training session we can expect to become better weightlifters over time. Weightlifting is an extremely mentally tough sport so these small victories are crucial for us if we want to stick with the sport and train past plateaus. Now let’s cover specifically what each one of these qualities is and how we can improve them during each session.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT

This one is something that almost every lifter can do in each and every training session. Skill development includes improving any skill needed in weightlifting. These things could be working on your start position, practicing a better rack position on your lifts, or learning a new variation on your lifts. Making a conscious effort to improve basic weightlifting skills in each session is a great way to ensure continued progress in your training. This accumulation in skills will eventually lead to an accumulation of PR’s once you break through your plateau.

MOVEMENT QUALITY

This quality is the immediate follow-up to skill development. Movement quality is when we take skills we already have learned and work to hone and perfect these movements. This can be anything from keeping the bar closer to you during the lifts, proper weight distribution in your feet, working on proper head position, proper bar path, or any other of our established weightlifting skills. Weightlifting is a sport in which our goal of the perfect movement is not actually attainable to by focusing on small improvements in our movement quality it ensures long-term progress. Fall in love with the process and results will come.

STRENGTH IMPROVEMENT

This one can be fairly straightforward however we can find strength improvements in a variety of ways. The obvious things are hitting a new 1rm in an exercise, but since this is an article about what to do when the PR’s stop coming this isn’t what I mean. It could be a new 5 rep max or 10 rep max, the ability to hit a high percentage at multiple sets, or even an improvement on the weights used during accessory work. Do not discount your progress in any of these things. As you train your 1 rep max may not change for months or even years, trust the process, understand there is no such thing as being ‘too strong’ and celebrate every victory.

MENTAL TOUGHNESS

This quality is one we should be able to improve every single session. Weightlifting can be a grind at times. We have long, hard, detail-oriented workouts that at times can be mentally taxing to complete. Toughness can come in many forms. We can improve this through pushing through a tough workout, coming back to make a lift that we’ve been missing in training, or as simple as completing our workout with an intention on a day when we really don’t want to be there.

As you grow and develop as a weightlifter our primary goal should be to raise our Minimums. Minimums are the amount of weight we can hit any day we work up to a heavy single in each lift.). The sports is about being consistent and hitting lifts on the platform. However, let’s be honest everyone loves a PR party. Let’s fall in love with the daily training it takes to get there.

Your first victory starts by finding a good coach!

Email: Tom@pittsburghfitnessproject.com

Get Started Today!

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*blog originally posted on PFP Barbell on 3/12/18