"Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash." If you don't know the quote, you should. It comes from the movie Top Gun. The original, not the new one, which I need to see by the way.
Enough of today's movie nostalgia moment. More importantly, that quote is serving me well lately. I'm not saying training is getting harder as I get older, just different.
Example, decades ago I missed a max effort lift of 605 lbs to a two board. I knew I could get it. I told the crew I was taking it again. To his credit, my boy Matt Rhodes did not get in the way. Nor did he get in the way after the next five failed attempts.
I was ready to stay in the gym all night to get that lift if necessary. Fortunately, I got it on the seventh try. There's no earthly reason I should have gotten that lift. Even more so, there's no earthly reason I should have gone for it six more times after missing it.
That kind of lifting would set me back at the minimum weeks nowadays and that's only if I didn't end up with an injury, which I very well might have. When lifting today I was barely able to get the bar back into the rack on the 23rd rep of a 25 rep bench set, and I felt damn good about it.
I was proud of myself. Even if I had gotten a 24th rep, there's no way I would have gotten the 25th. I probably would have strained a pec or shoulder in the effort. I'm starting to understand my place in the training world now and a large ego has no part in it.
This does not mean I can't train hard and push the hell out of myself, I do it regularly. The difference is, I can't do stupid sh!t anymore. The stuff you should probably never do anyway, but you make your bones and find your resolve as a younger pup.
I can't tell you at what age or how many years under the bar you have to acquire before getting to this place. You'll probably know it a few years before you give in to it. I know I did and suffered some consequences for it.
You're not a coward for backing off. You are living to fight another day.
