Do You Have Mental Strength?

This past weekend I watched my brother-in-law and his girlfriend compete in a powerlifting meet. Although he would ultimately get first place in his weight class, he was missing all his biggest lifts.

From the moment we walked through the door he knew he would miss them, too.

Not because he thought he couldn’t lift that much weight. All his training and all his calculations said he should be able to.

No, because he wasn’t mentally ready to make the lifts.

And that made all the difference.

It made it an “off” day. It meant that when he was at the bottom of his squat with 496 lbs on the bar, doubt reared its ugly head.

And when doubt appeared, the weight became just enough bigger of a load that he couldn’t push it up.

I have no doubt that on an “on” day he’d hit those lifts — he’d even make it look easy.

But because his mental strength wasn’t there… on that day… those lifts didn’t work out.

In all our training we work so hard to develop physical strength. But when it really counts you’ve gotta have mental strength too.

Or else you’re toast.

That’s why in your training you should consistently push boundaries. Take yourself to points you’ve never been to before. And then take yourself further.

Not only will it help when you’re challenged physically to exceed yet another limit. It’ll help everywhere in your life.

If you’d like to read more on this topic @fitprosarah has a great blog post appropriately titled Mental Strength that you should read — including 12 phrases you should immediately remove from your vocabulary. Check it out!

Stay (mentally and physically) strong!