[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
KBCThird wrote:
jeez, give the guy a break, he said it was nice, not that he was addicted to it.
I’ve gotten stronger in gyms where I was already the strongest one and I’ve gotten stronger in gyms where I was the weakest one. It’s not rocket science, bust your butt and you’ll get stronger no matter who’s around you
Yeah, but it’s harder to stay motivated nonetheless. I’ve been at the same uni gym since I started lifting as a frosh in college. I used to make myself think the big guys were laughing at me; made me get angry, great motivation to get stronger.
Now, I know nobody’s laughing at me because I’m stronger than most of them on everything but bench (a couple exceptions). It makes it hard to drive yourself the extra mile. Especially if you’ve never had a training partner.
I wish I could say this without coming off like a jerk, but that’s a crock and you are mentally weak. You need external motivation? That’s ridiculous. I’ve rarely if ever used the old standby “I get no respect/I’ll show them etc etc etc” thing. I don’t lift heavy to stop people from laughing at me, I lift heavy to get strong. Why do I want to get strong? It is an end in itself, and that’s all the motivation I need.[/quote]
You should probably have reworded your reply, and reread mine. That’s kind of insulting to say to someone you don’t know anything about, isn’t it?
I didn’t say that I still thought people were laughing at me, nor did I ever say that I needed external motivation. If I needed external motivation to stay in the gym, I wouldn’t still be there now would I? I still show up to my training sessions whether I feel good or not.
If I were mentally weak, I’d have long given up the heavy iron for the Abercrombie look. I lift heavy to get strong. For me. I’ve always trained alone because other people are pretty much unwilling to put in the kind of effort and time that I do.
The point is, as a newb you use whatever motivation you can find, and as a more experienced trainer you don’t have that luxury. The point is, it’s harder to propel yourself through when you wake up in the morning with your back on fire and your shoulder numb and your elbows screaming in pain and you know you are going to show up to the gym with no one but you sharing your goals. You’re going to watch people abuse your squat rack. You’re going to watch people reading magazines and talking on cell phones. And you’re going to know that you are maybe the only person in the whole building that actually puts some heart into your training.
You’re mentally weak if you don’t show up; you’re not weak just because you miss having an extra push in the pants a partner or a team or even some good old fashioned abuse and anger would give you. Besides, you should know by now yourself that everyone has shit days. Sometimes a lot of them in a row before you hit gold.
If it were so easy to keep the same level of intensity you get from being around serious people everywhere else you go, then NCAA teams and Olympic athletes wouldn’t need to be corralled in a single complex to train intensively–they could just lift anywhere as long as they had their coach write out their programs and maybe had a video tape to send back for review.
The point of my post, perhaps poorly worded, was to point out what should have been obvious; it is harder to get stronger in a place where you are not surrounded by people who share the same goals as you. I’ve done, you’ve done it–whoop-de-freakin-do.
It’s still easier to drive yourself when you’re around guys like Louie Simmons and Dave Tate than 135 lb Abercrombie wannabees, and if you dispute that then I don’t know what to say. I stand by my post.
I train in my Garage when I’m at home…I’m not I’m overseas and I have no motivation problems.