The Most Important Elements in Lifting Cannot be Quantified!

From time to time, we may be intrigued by various high-tech innovations that promise to elevate our lifting performance.

Usually these innovations are old wine in a new bottle, or simply something that could be measured using noninvasive technology. Usually the latter promise to provide data about various aspects of our health.

IMHO most of them are simply gathering information that was easy to collect or pretending to calculate something that we have been led to believe is important (eg. Calories burned).

The wearable devices are often expensive with the price being inversely related to their value.

 

Metrics and Meaning

Many decades ago, I wrote my PhD dissertation on Measurement Theory. In short, what does some number used in a measurement actually mean?

My work in a small sub area of one science led to conclude that while the relationship between some measures are clear and demonstrable, there are others that border on guesswork or may simply be random number patterns.

In physical activity there are a set of excellent measurements that give a true and accurate picture of what is happening.

Among these valid and useful measurements: What weight did you lift in the deadlift? How fast did you run the 200 meters? How far did you hit your golf ball off the tee on the 7^th hole at Toad Hollow Country Club?

Measuring and meanings are clearly linked.

Without becoming overly academic and tedious, let me say that as strength athletes IMHO many of the MOST important things we want to know cannot be measured or even quantified.

 

Power Performance

In all sports many of the most critical factors impacting performance occur out of sight under the skin.

It is possible to see the result of precision execution (a good lift), but it is not possible to see or even measure the internal actions that were called upon to produce an excellent lift.

Doing a great lift (or any other complex physical performance) requires:

• Muscle recruitment
• Body awareness
• Coordinated application of force
• Execution of skills as the precise moment required
• Mental focus

These are things that can ONLY be practiced by the individual athlete or performer. They are done inside their body and no one else has access to them.

Coaches and writers may talk about these things, but they can never observe or measure them in a performer.

We need to monitor and master these skills by ourselves by consciously focusing on how we feel the experience.

For example, muscle recruitment during a heavy lift is something that all of us can deliberately practice through working to control different sets of muscles.

We alone can feel how this process is working for us.

Mastering this set of arcane skills is necessary to get remotely close to our personal potential.

Being aware that this skill is essential for success is the first step.

The next steps are up to us as we concentrate on how to maximize our own resources.

 

Rote Learning: A Dead End

I recall the legendary Physicist Richard Feynman lamenting the fact that so many people seem to blindly follow a script by rote when trying to learn something. They never attempt to understand what is actually happening.

In sport and particularly in weightlifting what this means is that one must develop the skill of sensing and controlling their body in many complex ways that never even occur to the novice.

Novices flop and thrash through canned workouts in the gym or never improve their crappy golf skills for years or decades.

 

Coda

Reaching your full potential can only happen when you master the internal gamethe one that is out of sight to everyone else.

I dont mean motivation or attitude. This is about you being in full control of you.

Lift Big!

Richard