Try Harder

Yeah, last month I explained why no one cares about how hard you work. And they don’t — but you should. Because if you’re not working hard enough, you’re not going to make progress.

And the truth is this: 99% of the guys I see in the gym don’t work hard enough. And it’s no coincidence that they’re always using the same weights and have pretty much the same physique, after days, weeks, months, even years of drudgery.

First, I gotta ask: if you’re not pushing yourself, why the fuck are you in the gym in the first place?

And second, you gotta ask: how do you know if you’re working hard enough?

The easy answer, of course, is that if you’re making progress, you’re working hard enough. But what if you feel like you’re busting your ass and not making progress? Is it possible you’re not working hard enough? That’s a tougher one.

Here’s how you find the balance between working hard enough and beating yourself into the ground:

• Again, if you’re making progress, you’re working hard enough.
• If you’re getting injured, you’re either doing something wrong or doing too much. In either case, you need to start by backing off a bit.

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DROPPING OUT OF THE @kernusopen Well, this one is fairly devastating, but it’s going to eat away at me till I share. With the help of @troponin_nutrition and @coachcloud my training was going better than ever before, and I truly believed I could take another shot at 181 at the US Open. These videos are from six weeks out: a deep, EASY 760 squat — followed immediately by a 788 deadlift. With six fucking training weeks to get stronger on top of that. But even with the cortisone injection in my knee (which helped a fuckton) I simply won’t be ready to perform to my own standards in any weight class. I can’t tell you guys how much this tears me up inside, but it’s bad. It’s eaten away at my mental health, and it’s CLEAR to me that it’s time to move on if I want to stay in the game — and of course, to choose a new, EVEN BIGGER goal... the return of Project Big Ben! The question now is: world’s strongest classic physique, or #leavehumanitybehind ??? (In all honesty, I truly appreciate all the support and kind words I’ve gotten over the last couple of weeks. Means the world to me.) #adaptandovercome

A post shared by Dr. Ben Pollack (@phdeadlift) on Apr 10, 2019 at 10:58am PDT

• If you’re not making progress, and you’re not getting hurt, you need to dig a little deeper. Ask yourself these questions:
  • On the heavy days of your program, do you feel pretty wiped out afterward, or could you probably repeat that session in the next day or two? If it’s the latter, you haven’t pushed hard enough.
  • Do you ever miss lifts? You should never aim to fail, but if you’re working hard enough, occasionally you will miss a lift, no matter how strong you are and how good you are at attempt selection. If you’re going 8, 10, 12, 16 weeks without missing a single lift, my guess is you’re not pushing hard enough. If you’re missing more than a handful of lifts, you need to back off.

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive questionnaire, but I think it’ll get you pretty close — and that’s usually more than good enough.

So: are you working hard enough?