Loss of Motivation after break

[tuna]

Heya guys, Sorry I was away for a while I know you were all like "Wheres Tuna? We miss Tuna."

But dont sweat it I havent gone anywhere, I just took a break with all my aches and pains about two weeks no lifting at all and I feel pretty good. The shoulder pain is gone, my back is good and all other niggling injury's have just about disappeared.

However Im finding it hard to go back, I was back two days with about 3 days off in between, still fairly strong but for some reason losing motivation. I haven been back again for a couple of days and tonight I was supposed to hit it but slept in instead (I work nights).

I dont know why, Just the thought of going in and hitting that big fat squat in that busy gym just put me right off. I feel weak in my legs and last week bombed at a pissy 180kg, but on the same night set a new best at 220kg it was weird.

Anyway, what can I do to get my juices running again (that sounds gross).

Im tired and have little drive.

[George]

If there is anything I am familiar with, it is layoffs. Usually mine run a few months. Sometimes I find myself in a real bind. For exemple, since 2008 I was in school full time and worked full time. Now I work full time but also have a 30hr a week 2nd job. (I'm also familiar with divorces/separation). Since around 2007, I have maintained a lower to mid 600 squat. This means every layoff, be it three weeks or three months, I had to build back up to a 620-640 squat. If I had to estimate, and it would be in my log but I'm not up to the research, I have probably lifted only half of the time since 2008-09, meaning six months a year, probably broken up two or three times. I think that is probably a fair assessment that I have had to work up to a 600+ squat 2-3 times over 5 years (15 times).

That is 15 times of anxiety, delayed onset soreness, getting back in the groove, building, surprisingly gaining a 5-10lb pr that cycle then...taking another few weeks or months off. I don't know if it was a blessing or not losing so much time. Personally I'm mixed. Sometimes I blame the off and on for injuries related to scar tissue being left to heal jaggedly after a cycle before blasting it again and again. At the same time, I had a tendency to push extremely hard, and may have burned out or been seriously hurt. (I train differently now, far less volume).

Now to add a rant: I'm a product of the 80's. Going into the 90's, strength still mattered, a lot of non-athletes lifted seriously....weight training was fun. I had five (5) partners out of high school. We lifted, pushed, ran afterwards, etc. So, the extra motivational whammy is in not having a single damned person anymore who likes to lift seriously. I ran my own gym. Out of thirty, maybe 2-3 competed but of course it was double ply, single and raw and we rarely did the same things. Then I move a whole bunch of competition quality equipment above my firehouse. 15 firemen, all pumped about getting weights, help move the stuff in, worked out for a few weeks. Now....one guy goes. He chooses to do Ronnie Coleman magazine workouts, makes no gains and comes and goes. So, now back on a four day a week split on my umpteenth rebound, its just me, my 8,4 and 3 yr old and classic rock cd's. Now, if this were 1992, there would probably be 10-15 firemen up there in bad boy tank tops taking advantage of the setup. Ad in I don't really care about rewards or accolades and just personal records, there is a lot of depressing to look at using all this external stuff (needing partners, needing motivation from outside sources, needing material rewards, outside approval and praise). Granted, these things can be motivating.

So there has to be more to it to put in the kinda effort I do, time and again, to endure the pain of restarts, knowing what is ahead. There is no consistent pr chase keeping me going. instead, it looking at an empty squat bar and thinking "why the heck did I stop...how long will it last this time" before slowly adding plates, hearing some cracking, being out of breath and three days later not walking and wondering what to program. its kind of a miserable experience...lol.

Here's what hits me though that keeps me rolling to the next meet. Time and unfinished business. Plain and simple. And the lack of externals, like lifting partners, helps fuel the fire more than it hurts. I'm 33. I want a 500 raw drug free bench press. I want an 800+ raw squat and I want a 2,000 raw total. 800-500-700. This isn't Dan Green, Stan Efferding stuff but it is next level. Its also not unrealistic being 625-400-550 last meet and leaving 15-20 on all three on the platform. Am I going to let the lack of time, consistency and partners derail these goals and waste some good years of youth and testosterone to be singing a coulda, woulda, shoulda song in my 40's? Nope.

I guess in short, the motivation has to be personal. I mean, you are at the helm. if you have great support that is awesome, but they would likely support you whether you pr'd or not. The old wrestling adage from high school applies here with lifters subbed in for wrestlers, "Good lifters can be motivated, great lifters motivate themselves". You can win an award if no one else shows up, people close to you will congratulate you regardless, lifting partners can help push....but the bottom line is, you only have a limited amount of time. it is economics.

Can you afford the trade in time to lounge around? If lounging is more important, although easier, then you certainly can do that. I know people who didn't play sports in high school, who bragged about all the parties and things they did before games, tailgating, the wild nights afterwards when most of the players prepped for the morning after film session. Sometimes I wonder if two-a-days, three hour wrestling practices, getting slammed around with a helmet or headgear was worth all the time sacrifice. Coaches always say if it were easy, everyone would do it. Wouldn't the same hold true the opposite way....why didn't we all just party...lol. Maybe it was wanting to play under the Friday night lights, hear cheers....you know, more external factors. personally, I think even there those are just external extras, the real chase in knowing someone else was looking to pin you or roll block you, and you only had limited time to get it together. A short time to achieve something measureable, and not easy, against odds, with you in control.

[3speed]

Not trying to be a jerk here, but I have to agree with George. Either you want it or you don't.

There are days when I don't feel like hitting the gym - I'm tired, I'm not in the mood, I don't feel like doing the work, insert whatever reason here..... I even dealt with undiagnosed gout for years that made it almost impossible to train. When any of this happens, I remind myself that I still have goals to hit and that my window of opportunity is closing. That usually gets me moving. My motivation comes from within. I haven't had a training partner for years because of my crazy schedule and because of the fact that nobody can motivate me as much or push me as hard as I can/do.

If it is important to you and you want it, get moving. If not, relax and watch television.

[Ryan]

I guess I'll pile on. lol

I am a powerlifter and my wife is a triathelete so maybe we have some kind of competitive fire that doesn't let us slack, but I have found that the days when I'm least motivated to train (which are admittedly few) are the ones that drive me through the rest of my training. Herniated cervical discs and knee problems be damned (for me), surgeries and arthritis be damned (for my wife). I know that if I am able to drag my @ss into the gym and train on days when I'd rather sleep or sit in an ice bath and pop pain killers, then I have no excuse to miss training on a "normal" day and even less excuse for incurring training gaps of days or weeks.

Not everyone feels the need to treat meets as though they're girding up for a death struggle. A lot of people just like the fraternity of the meet environment and having fun helping others, etc. That's cool with me, but I believe that you should approach training as though you are Achilles and every session is your last stand, even before you get to the gym. If I didn't have this mindset, I couldn't train properly for this sport.

However, I will say that -in my belief- this is either in you, or it's not. Chances are, if you've settled on powerlifting as a sport/hobby, this mindset is probably already part of who you are, but I have encountered a number of "PLers" who just sort of backed into the sport from something similar and then when they realize what they've bitten off, they promptly spit it out. I suppose it takes some trial and error to figure out whether PLing is for you in general, and maybe the "trial" part of that is what you're going through now.

Good luck.

-Ryan

[George]

Hopefully I didn't come off as a jerk. I mean the absolute best for anyone. But in short, 3speed summed up my stance. I got in trouble for underage drinking in high school. The coach told me something I would never forget. (I'll sub in woman for the actual word used, but it was slang anatomy). He said, "George, beer and women were around in 1965. They are still here and are always going to be available. But your butt only has four years to be an athlete and prove yourself....four years!". I hear an echo of that when I think about skipping a session.

[dbunch]

LoL – Maybe slightly more understanding but basically the same answer. You just have to gut through it till the motivation come back. I suffer from mild depression; basically my brain does not make enough dopamine. Of the many other thing dopamine does it drives our motivations. Weight training, actually any strenuous exercise, increases dopamine production which in increases motivation to train, which increases dopamine production, etc. When you break that cycle, dopamine levels drop and so you’re your motivation levels and the process reverses itself. My depression exaggerates the swings but the principle works the same for everyone.

You just have to drive yourself to go to the gym until you build your motivation back.