As a coach one of the hardest things to balance with your lifters is their need for a gratification and results combined with the necessity for hard work, volume, and consistent effort. One of the hardest things to battle with new lifters is the amount of instant gratification and seemingly endless gains when they first get started. This habit of hitting a new PR every time they step in the gym creates a mindset where they believe they should get a new PR with regularity and consistency. The problem is that anyone who has been lifting for any amount of time or anyone whose been doing Crossfit for any amount of time knows that eventually the PR’s slowdown and the gain take longer to create. One of the most frustrating things for coach’s is when their lifters aren’t seeing the results they expect to be seeing and begin comparing their current lack of PR’s to a time when a new PR was just a part of training.
It’s hard to remind my lifters that despite their training, despite their effort, despite their hunger for results they’re just not at a place in the training where new PR’s are supposed to happen. On top of that, it’s hard for lifters who just turned the corner from beginner level to understand that advanced lifters see PR’s with far less frequency then somebody was just started the sport. Any athlete who is approaching or is considered to be elite will have to fight for months and maybe even years to see small gains. This is just part of the process. Everyone levels out at some point. That doesn’t mean that PR’s never come or that everyone has a glass ceiling. It just means that consistency of effort and the impact of time are of greater importance than they were when the athlete first started.
There is no possible way for a athlete to work hard, consistently give 100% effort, and not see results eventually. Patience is key. A great example happened yesterday morning with one of my CrossFit competition team girls. Chandler has been plugging away for months on top of months with ring dips, dead hang pull-ups, transition work on the rings, and week after week after week she has failed to get a muscle up. She put in the work, she put in more effort than most, and yet results seems to evade her week after week after week. Yesterday morning the time and consistency paid off.
Chandler landed her first muscle up. Her text to me was not one of contentment though. It literally said “now I have to do it again.” That’s the attitude that got her over the rings to begin with.
Chandler Tannery First Muscle Up