Barbells, books and…

I’ve been training long enough to know that, come what may, weight training will remain a core habit of mine. What does change with time, however, is how I train and what motivates me. Sometimes it happens gradually and other times, like for me recently, it is a conscious decision and rather abrupt “sea change”. I have, for at least a year or so, felt constrained by my stated goal, which was to compete at a decent level. I’ve fulfilled that goal to myself, at least partially, but I have had a nagging feeling for several months that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. Does that mean I think training for competitions is pointless? Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that for me, at this point in time, competing wasn’t adding value to my life. Let me explain.

My first issue was time, or rather lack thereof. Over the last year, professionally and personally, there has been a lot going and therefore my time has been limited. This meant that my workouts had to be hyper-focused on whatever it took to ensure I could do the heaviest lift possible on competition day. There wasn’t a lot of time to do non-power lifting training, especially if whatever it was had the potential to impact my central nervous system or aggravate old injuries. Not following the programing, even for a day, was not an option. I’ll give you an example, I was with friends at the gym and they wanted to deadlift relatively heavy and with a decent amount of volume. It sounded like fun, so I joined in, even though I was just there to do some cardio. Deadlifts weren’t in my programming for that day and the next day I had a heavy bench day scheduled. So, I tried to keep it light at first, but of course that didn’t last. I left the gym that day completely fried. Therefore, my training the next day was complete trash, and I’d thrown my programming out of whack for that week. Lesson learned re: not messing with programming but also, lesson learned that there is somewhat less of a margin for fun if you want to seriously meet your goal.

Also, I began to feel constrained by such a narrow focus. Competing is awesome and I think everyone (and I do mean everyone) should add “powerlifting competition” to their bucket list. You’ll get stronger, you’ll find a community you probably didn’t know existed, and you will challenge yourself. However, over the last year I’ve had, along with a lack of free time, some other training and life goals which don’t necessarily mesh well with strict competition training. Primarily, I’d like to lose weight and this is not a viable option if you are competing as you’ll either lose too much weight and be out of your declared weight class OR you’ll still say at the lower end of your weight class but you will inevitably lose some strength. I do eat mostly clean these days but I’m an older gent who doesn’t burn calories as efficiently as I did before. Eating enough to hit my protein macros is actually a bit more than I am comfortable eating. Suffice it to say, you can’t experiment with a diet change while preparing for a competition. In addition to losing weight, I want to return to some semblance of cardio fitness and flexibility, both of which I sorely lack presently.

Finally, after 10 years of the “jacked but fluffy” powerlifter look, I’m just over it. It was an idea that had been brewing for sometime in my subconscious until one day it boiled over. This will sound heretical to many of my long-term readers (all 3 of you) at best, and anti-body positivity at worst. And some might say, “But, Expat, surely you can train competitive powerlifting and not turn into the Pillsbury Dough Boy”. To that I reply, meh, you can if you have outstanding genetics and/or a really aggressive supplement program. Seriously, though, it might be possible for some but I found that for me, with my constraints, it is either one or the other.

Does this mean I’ll change the name of the blog to “expatzumbainstructor” and head into a radically different direction? Not likely. I used to sneer when my favorite OG Youtube powerlifting content creators changed focus after a few years from hardcore technique and programming discussions to other more general content. I get it now. Variety is the spice life. Powerlifting training is great, but even better is doing it whilst pursuing other interests. I can’t imagine ever not training in powerlifting. It’d be patently ridiculous to stop strength training at an age when it’s more important than ever to maintain strength and muscle. More importantly, I truly, truly enjoy it. So what motivates me now, you might ask? I want to remain as strong as possible whilst losing some weight. I want to, for now, re-inject “fun” back into my training like in the deadlift session example or perhaps taking a “silly” class like Grit for the challenge and also, let’s face it, there are certainly more women there. I want to, even in Powerlifting, start back at the beginning, without ego or expectations. In short, what motivates me now is the freedom to pursue multiple interests even if they are not conducive to me lifting the heaviest that I possibly can. The freedom to fail in that goal, while I explore others. This is where the motivation pendulum has swung for me now. What about you – how has fitness motivation changed over the years, and what motivates you currently?