Now that I have changed my training program for 1 week, I am aware that the technique is really important if we want progress without serious injury. I must admit that I still had a little afraid to lift heavy because I have two friends who were wounded in the shoulder by lifting heavy really really anyhow.
Show off in the gym trying to lift heavier than its neighbor or scream like pig to say: “I make a sick perf, I’m too strong”, it’s useless. It’s clear, I’m not gonna lie, I’ve done this 2-3 times but when you feel an ongoing shoulder pain for 2-3 days, that makes scare.
Wait wait, man, I must tell you the time I wanted to show off with a friend who is a rugby player (I will not say his name because otherwise he’s going to laugh at me). Well, he invited me in his gym, my friend is strong and his team is 3rd or 4th in the championship, he’s a good player. I following training program and he told me that I’m doing well. He pushes me to my limits, it was crazy, dude, it was crazy, people in the gym looked us like we were barbarians.
After training, we eat, I promise, man, to raise my glass to my mouth, oh damn dude, it was hard, I had sore arms, shoulders, it burned. Each time I raised my arms, I had a crazy pain. And I was like everything is okay, I had to, we had trained at noon, the day wasn’t over. Ouch…ouch….ouch….oooouuuucccchhhh, it was long this day.
In the evening I go home and I tell myself that it isn’t possible that I became so weak because I have too forced. Let’s go some pushups, then 1…..1…. 1…..1. There, I start freaking, not even 1 pushup, I CAN’T DO 1 PUSHUP. I begin to imagine that I got injured and I couldn’t make sports, in less than two seconds I was already in depressed mode. Before going to bed, I make a prayer to keep training. The next day it was better, little pain but I could lifted as usual.
I have been lucky compared to my 2 friends because them is that their shoulders dislocated. It means that all chest and shoulders are limited to a light weight. I saw with my eyes while I was helping one of my buddies at press bench, it lifts and POP! The shoulder was dislocated and he can’t finish the movement. It’s violent because it can’t develop their chest and shoulders, it is a plateau for life, it sucks.
So from these stories, I often seeks perfect technique, but nothing is perfect, you just do things the best way you can do. When you increase weights, there are new requirements and if you are used to doing bad moves, you feel the pain right away. And heavier, it’s more radical as happened to my friends.
That’s why it’s important to REALLY listen to your body, not your head !
You train for yourself, to be a better version of yourself, not to impress someone who look cool. Look, you’re impressed someone, it will last how long ? A few minutes. But if you improve yourself, it will last all your life. Imagine that you don’t see this person that you’re impressed for years and you continue to train without hurt. You see again this person and he/she didn’t look cool now, he/she has even become unbearable and ugly. You know what you’re going to tell yourself ? It’ll be something like: “Oh my God, I wanted to impress that person because I thought he/she was cool, now it’s a real shit.”
You really gonna hurt you to impress someone who just looks cool?
Betting happiness in the long term rather than short-term pleasure. You have a choice: train yourself by paying attention and your progress will be slow but steady OR you train like a barbarian and your progress will be fast and get injuries. You can’t train yourself as before, forget your progress as my 2 buddies.
The only person I want to impress is myself. You, you want to impress yourself or others ?
-Steph