Not that long ago all I ever cared about was powerlifting )other than my family of course). I ate, slept, and dreamt powerlifting. My life and schedule revolved around it.
What was awesome about that was, my training always had direction. With that, it was always easy to program for training. I wanted to squat, bench, and deadlift more.
Now I find myself in a much different place in my life. I may or may not ever be able to powerlift again. I'm really ok with it because If I compete it will be a personal challenge. My life would not revolve around it.
The reason why it wouldn't revolve around it is that I have other interests now. I love to ski, hike, paddleboard, along with other outdoor activities. If I were to attempt to compete at my highest level again, I couldn't do those other things. There's just not enough time for all of them. Competing on your highest level means your training, eating, sleeping, recovery, etc all revolve around powerlifting.
Anyway, with recently being told my back is pretty fubar'd I kind of lamented over the fact that I may never max effort squat or deadlift again. Then after a few days passed I thought to myself, is it really that bad. Maybe I'm more frustrated with being told or the thought of not being able to do something versus actually not being able to do it.
Max effort lifts really don't have much to do with my goals anymore. I mean I'll always want to be strong, but that's not the sole purpose of my training. For what I want to do I need to be conditioned, agile, and faster. I can train for that without being a slave to pure strength training.
Perhaps some of you are in the same situation. Maybe your training doesn't match your goals anymore, but you are just so used to how you have always trained. Don't be afraid to embrace new challenges and make changes to your program.
