I thought this would be a fun discussion. Looking back on your training, what’s one thing you wish you had understood much earlier? It could be something about programming, recovery, nutrition, technique, or simply being more patient with progress. For me, it’s realizing that consistency beats trying to find the perfect program. Sticking with a solid plan for months seems to produce much better results than constantly changing things every few weeks. I’m curious to hear what lessons have had the biggest impact on your training. Maybe they’ll help someone who’s just getting started too.
Definitely patience. I began with Starting Strength and ran it too long, not knowing any better. This ingrained the idea of rapid progression in my head pretty thoroughly, and gave me a distorted view of what a ‘hard’ rep actually should be. This mindset probably explains several of my injuries and limited my progression overall.
Good topic! I still consider myself to be a pretty new lifter just due to long breaks where I was focused on martial arts.
But I would say, being stuck in the Starting Strength model for too long as well. Not doing enough volume to actually get stronger and lastly being overly worried about form being absolutely perfect.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! It’s interesting that both of you mentioned staying with the Starting Strength mindset for too long. That’s something I’ve heard from quite a few people. The point about patience really resonates with me. It’s easy to expect progress to keep happening at the same pace as when you’re brand new, but training doesn’t work that way forever. Learning to adjust expectations and focus on long-term progress instead of chasing numbers every workout seems like a much healthier approach.
I also liked the comment about not obsessing over perfect form. Obviously good technique matters, but spending too much time trying to make every rep look flawless can sometimes hold you back from actually progressing. Finding that balance is probably one of the harder lessons to learn.
It’ll probably be the recurring theme, ie expecting strength increases to be happening every session/week.
So for me, it’s just accepting, and being totally fine and normal that in some sessions I’m lifting the same weight, or now and again, less weight, than previously. It’s fine - it’s still beneficial, I’m still getting my body moving, and another one in the bank.
It also removes the dread I used to get knowing that I ‘had’ to lift heavier than last time - not motivating at all.
Two things took me a long time to learn. First, consistency doesn’t mean rigidly following every number in a program. RPE confused me because it’s something you judge after a set, while also being expected to use it to decide how far to push. Sometimes good training means backing off from the plan because the intended effort matters more than the prescribed weight.
Second, I used to think that because structured, measurable strength training was simple, effective and worked very well for me, it should appeal to everyone. It doesn’t. A lot of people mainly want to move, sweat and feel good, and long-term outcomes or evidence don’t motivate them much. What’s also hard to explain is that long-term training gives you far more than the obvious physical results. Focus, routine, better sleep, mental quiet, resilience, even something almost mindfulness-like. You don’t really understand that from the outside. People who have trained consistently for years tend to know it.
There are quite a few of them, but if I had to choose one or two off the top of my head:
-Stress is cumulative, and mental stress counts much more than one would think. Expecting to be making gains according to a standard program pace with multiple young children, physical work, mental stress and low sleep is silly (despite willingness to get workouts in at 11pm). Sometimes, “gaining” is simply the maintenance of habits, and a few sets of squats and pushups are sometimes more appropriate than sacrificing rest for a full workout.
-With that: longterm fitness goals mean longterm strategy – don’t “push through it” when something feels tweaky (but also don’t catastrophize), don’t catastrophize minor aches and pains (but don’t completely ignore them), and enjoy the process of workouts regardless of “results”. Different when one is training for a specific outcome, less so when “training for life”. What’s going on in a 3 month span is much more important than whether or not weight has gone up in a two week period.