Looking for tips, advice, strategies that have helped lifters overcome mental barriers to lifting.
I seem to be losing the mental battle with lifting heavy on deadlifts. My deadlift training is like a roller coaster. 2-3 months of making good progress, then I will have a lousy DL day where I can’t break the weight off the floor. It feels like I’m not committed to breaking it off the floor. This breaks my confidence and I deload and start the cycle again.
I think Its fear of being injured. Logically it makes no sense, Ive never had a back injury while deadlifting or otherwise.
I don’t have this fear on any other lift. I can grind my way through squats and presses. My deadlifts are either stuck to the floor, or have pretty fast bar speed (even new 5rms).
Some things I’ve implemented to try and overcome this:
-filming all work sets to make sure my form is good. And to more accurately access difficulty.
- using the cue “patience off the floor.”
-lowering intensity. one top set with back offs instead of sets across
Other, possibly pertinent info:
37m, training for 18mos, use hook grip, 1rm 360 5rm 350
Thanks for all the BBM crew does.
If having one single “off” session sets you back 2-3 months, there’s a significant mental issue here. One off session should not have that big of an impact, man. And there’s also no reason to re-start a whole training cycle (if that’s what you meant) because of that one session, either.
I’d probably add in more practice with singles before your main work sets, or even have you pull your main work sets with full resets (i.e., let go of the bar and stand up briefly between reps) to simulate “starting a set” every time.
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I got a 6 month year old baby and my sleep is at best a solid 3-4 hours a night. I find that my muscles might be ok to train but my overall energy is depleted. If this is one of these days my deadlifts are absolutely brutal, especially with grip strength.
One test I heard about is take your weight scale and grab it with both hands and squeeze it at shoulder level and get your reading. I’ve been doing it every morning as a metric of how my body stress levels are before my lifts.
Yeah, I probably wouldn’t consider this a particularly reliable metric here.
It seems to be at this point it’s all just about how bad do you want it. You have no injuries , nothing health wise holding you back. Your mind is your worst enemy. Powerlifting is about getting stronger , so if you’re scared to do that you need to look inwards and figure it out. You can’t be scared of training with heavy weight , what’s the worst that happens you get stronger ??