I often hear people discussing champions as if the things that set them apart from everyone else are god-given attributes they are born with, rather than earned over thousands of hours of hard work.

A lot of people have a lot of excuses as to why they can’t get among the top out there. The mindset of settling for mediocrity is itself a huge road block to improvement. I have been lifting weights for a long time and I have seen many come and go. If you want to achieve great things, you have to believe you can do it and be prepared to do whatever it takes to get you there.

It’s true that some people start off with great natural talent or genetics. But that just gives you a head start on the others. When I was young I was given some advice: determination beats talent every time. This advice has been offered to many people in many different ways: the parable of the tortoise and the hare; slow and steady wins the race; where there is a will, there's a way.

The thing is, nearly everyone out there has no idea of what they can achieve. The only way to know is to try and see. But most are not prepared to put the work in to give it a go. I think there are typically two things behind this that hold people back: 1) some just aren't tough enough to really push themselves; and 2) they fear failure. “If you never fail you aren't trying hard enough” was the sage advice I was once given from leading strength coach Marty Girvan of Apollo Gym and Elite Sports Performance. The thing is, most people don’t have the commitment to put it on the line and risk failing. But rather than set up a limit to what you can do, it establishes a target to smash through. Every failure sets up a goal.

Here are some key considerations I have picked up on my journey and through working with champions and coaches of champions.

    1. Never settle for where you are at. Everyone has to work at getting better and they work on everything. You don’t become an expert technician by settling. You strive to improve. Technique requires practice and expert technique has to be analysed, assessed and worked on. Video your lifts and seek feedback. Expert technique is more about process than end point. As you improve, you adapt. Adaptation to programming will mean you have to constantly work on putting together training plans that keep producing results. If you have a coach you are lucky. If you don’t, try to find one. If you can’t then you have to make yourself a coach. Never settle. Always look for more.
    2. Don’t let your ego stand in the way of knowledge. Listen to others and seek out advice. You don’t have to accept all advice, but be open to good suggestions. There are great coaches out there who will help if you ask them.
    3. Champions train like champions. If you want to be better, train harder and smarter.
    4. You need to know when you put your head down and fight and when to back off and recover. Make sure you make the decisions you make for the right reasons. Be honest with yourself. Most people fail in the mind before the body. Most people make up excuses to avoid hard work. That’s why most people are not great at what they do.

I started out as a pretty average lifter. I’m not saying I’m the greatest now, but I have earned what I have achieved. I never settled for half-assed and I tried to be honest with myself. Early on in my career when I trained alone, if I did a half-assed session I could not walk away. I re-did the whole session. I knew that made no sense from a recovery perspective, but it makes total sense in terms of a mental approach to hard work. I have trained through pain, blood, sweat and tears. After over 20 years of training through broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, I still have no idea of what I can achieve. The horizon continues to recede as I keep pushing toward it. As you sit down and think about what you want to achieve the question is not whether you can do it, but whether you are prepared to put in the work to get there.

Tags: weightlifting training advice Stephen Pritchard