Pick your battles

Don't try to do everything. It won't work, and it'll suck to high heaven. For most people you can break life down into three parts: family, work and training - and that's the order of priority they sit in (I got that from a Swede Burns piece here: http://www.elitefts.com/education/the-obstacles-youll-face-becoming-a-great-powerlifter/). You can substitute family for personal relationships if you're young enough not to have your own family yet or if you simply don't have one. If you're lucky, work and training are the same thing, and this post doesn't apply to you. If training isn't a part of your life, it should be.

I figure you can break training down into three parts too: moving shit around, eating and sleeping. It's pretty easy to do the moving shit around part. All you need to do is turn up regularly. Then it gets a bit more involved. Since you're turning up regularly, you're investing your time and like any investor you want a return. That means eating and sleeping so you recover. That part often gets overlooked, because it's so basic. I sure as hell did. Cutting out a lot of bullshit I think that realistically, you're going to get one out of those three right; get another one just about sort of OK; and a third goes out the window. That's in direct contradiction to my last post, except it isn't and I'll explain why later.

You have to pick which one you get right depending on what you want. This is just my opinion of what's what, but I'm sure enough it's fairly sensible or I wouldn't be posting it.

1. Sleeping

Prioritise this if being tired scares the shit out of you. Otherwise, take what sleep you can get and work with that. You'll be tired a lot. Get used to it. I know sleep is a cornerstone of recovery, but in my experience (which is limited, I know) it really isn't that important provided you do a couple of other things right. Shoot for seven or more hours sleep at least once every five to seven days and try to make sure you limit how often you have to function on less than four hours sleep to no more than twice every five to seven days and you're fucking golden.

2. Eating

This is non-negotiable. You've got to get it right at some level or you're pretty fucked. Now, if appearance is your priority, this is the one to focus on - in which case good luck because it's a bitch. The amount of time and effort required to really control and regulate what goes in your cakehole to get your bodyfat down to the 'looks good' margin and below is pretty staggering. If recovery is your priority, good news: it doesn't take anywhere near as much effort to control what you eat enough to make sure you recover while still maintaining an unslobby appearance. In this case, just about getting it right works fine. You'll initially be surprised by how much you need to eat, and it can be a bit of a pain in the arse and wallet if you're bigger but it really isn't difficult to manage. You might have to put up with three days a week where you keep track of your carb intake, for example, but that's about as bad as it gets which is not at all. Hell, if all you care about is recovery go nuts, but in the interests of your older self try not to actively block your arteries while becoming diabetic.

3. Moving shit around

For me, this is the be all and end all because I want to get stronger and that means I must get this one right. That means both the programming and the execution. As long as I'm not a slob, my appearance is not of paramount importance to me. Sure, I have to fit into a weight class but as I found out recently that isn't too hard to manage at short notice. If you just want to look good, this one you can kind of fudge if your diet is spot on and you don't care about your strength. It helps if you can minimise the fudging, of course.

Here's why all this isn't contradictory to my last post: for any given priority, you still have to get it right. All that happens is the priority determines what it is you must get right. Can you get all three right at the same time? Sure, if you're prepared to sideline your family and quite possibly limit your income because you will only do certain work or work certain hours. Otherwise, pick your priority and work with that. It'll be less stressful, you won't be a dick to the people who love you and you'll get good results. One day you might even be good enough.

I sound pretty annoyed

You either do or you don't; either it's good enough, or it isn't. There's no middle ground, not if you want to improve. Plenty of times I've ended up on the wrong side of that line. The thing that shits me is that this idea gets misinterpreted a lot. A lot of the time you get someone saying that it's a continuum, that as long as there is progress that's what matters. That's plain fucking wrong. Sure, progress is good. Improvement is good. But unless it's progress and improvement from not doing to doing, it still isn't fucking good enough!

Obviously I'm mostly talking about training. Life generally does kind of have a middle ground simply because there's so much shit going on. That still isn't an excuse to do anything other than strive to be on the right side of the line. What that entails is going to differ from individual to individual, and it's going to change over time. But, look at any given person out there and the ones who are more satisfied with their lives and who generally aren't arseholes and you'll be looking at someone who puts their head down and works fucking hard in every aspect of their life to be on the right side of that line.

Back to training and powerlifting. If you go into your training session, or your training cycle, or whatever the fuck to do with a loaded bar and accept progress as good enough - well, you've missed the point as far as I'm concerned. You might say I've got no right to get on my soapbox because I've achieved fuck all, and hell, I won't deny that. But never, at any point, have I said to myself that making progress is enough. I know where I want to get, and that's my business, but until I'm there it isn't good enough. I'm going to be pleased every time I take a step further towards the line. I'm going to enjoy making my way to the line because fuck, why else do it? But I'll be dead and fucking buried before I say it's good enough that I'm progressing.

When progress is enough to satisfy you, you're the problem.

This is where the misunderstanding happens. Generally these days there seems to be a trend to accept things and be tolerant. That's good, mostly. It means people who don't fit the 'norm' have a chance not to get the shit kicked out of them, or to have a decent job, or celebrate the fact that they've found someone to share their life with, or generally get treated the same as anyone else who does fit the norm. That's fucking awesome.

Then comes the problem. Some people latch onto this idea that being decent to everyone is the way to go. They decide that this includes dropping standards. Fuck you. You know what dropping standards does? It disrespects the person or group the standards are stopped in favour of. You're basically saying, look, you're shit, but we've got to be nice to you so instead of putting a boot up your arse until you meet the standard, we'll just lower the standard. How fucking insulting is that? That's saying progress is good enough, because you've dropped the standard. You tell someone progress is good enough and you're essentially telling them they're not worth your time or effort.

Progress is not good enough. It's step in the right direction, and sure as shit that's something to be happy about. It's something to be encouraged. Fuck, moving your squat from 200 kg to 210 kg is a good step - but if your goal is 300 kg  isn't good enough. You get satisfied with that 210 kg and you'll never even get close to 300 kg. Moving your total up 40 kg is a good step - but if that means your total was off target by 30 kg is isn't fucking good enough.

I'm drifting from powerlifting and training a bit, but this isn't really about technique or programming or planning for a meet. It's about how you look at what you do that is powerlifting. If you're me, or like me, there are people physically really fucking similar who will wipe the floor with you in a meet. Now, I'm a big advocate of not getting caught up with what the other guy is doing, but that doesn't mean you ignore what your peers can do. It's a pretty rock solid indicator of what is good enough for that group. That, or better, is what's good enough.

You've got to accept that progress isn't good enough. The moment progress is good enough you're done, because you've lost sight of what's important. Progress isn't the goal. It's just how you get there.

Obvious crap that I'm going to say anyway

It's around three weeks out from the GPC ACT qualifiers. Oddly enough I'm in a pretty similar situation to where I was around three weeks out from the GPC Canberra Cup in October 2015. Ordinarily, that should suck and be fucking worrying. It isn't.

The reason for that is I'm in a similar situation, not the same one. Big goddamn difference. The situation is similar because my elbows are flaring up again and I'm feeling a bit beat up in places. Yes, that's a shitty situation, but it's just different enough not to be worrying because I managed to learn from the fuck-up that was my last full power meet. The major difference, the one that's the reason I'm not worried is that I know how to fix the problems this time around. It also helps that I fixed my training just enough to have a decent prep. A couple of niggles three weeks out aren't going to make me fall apart at the seams.

Take my elbows. They've flared up enough to get really fucking painful the day after squatting. Why? Because above around 200 kg I have to bring my grip in a bit, actually wrap my fingers around the bar and pull it hard into my back.  No shit. That's how you squat. Problem is, my elbows dislike that enough for three sessions doing that for three sets and they're really pissed off with me. If I keep doing it, it's going to get worse really fucking fast. It won't be just the day after it hurts, it'll be within a couple of sets. Well, lucky for me the cambered safety squat bar transfers beautifully to my competition squat. It doesn't take me long to readjust to the straight bar either. A couple of sets and I'm good. There's my solution. All I have to do is figure out the equivalent loads for my squats, but that's not the hardest thing in the world. I just need to stick plates on the SSB until my work sets feel the way they should.

Any other stuff? Sure. My right shoulder started complaining slightly since I tried benching 140 kg. I missed, in case you were wondering. The shoulder's on the mend though, so that's not exactly a problem. Missing the lift didn't mess me up and didn't dent my confidence either so that isn't a problem either. I'll be honest, I've missed a couple of reps on the bench recently. Ordinarily that would worry me, but it doesn't. Not because I'm overconfident. Because I know why I missed. The first miss was because I'd lost some weight from food poisoning. I'd read about even small drops in weight dropping bench performance and I got my own proof. Two days later I went back and hit the reps I wanted. All I did was eat more, and it worked. The second miss was because I was in a buttload of pain and the weight was my current max. I got the first, but my setup wasn't great and I was a little loose. That meant the second wasn't going past the sticking point.

That's a lot of boring fucking detail. My point is compared to four odd months ago I've learned a shit ton. About how I train best, and how I react to stuff. This time, I've got a plan for the meet. I know I'm going to get my first and second attempts for each lift even if I'm feeling like utter crap. I'm pretty damn confident I'll get my third, too. I'm not counting my chickens in that respect because that'd just be bloody stupid. My third attempts are very realistic but I won't lie and say they won't take a bunch of work and need me to get my shit right. But if I do what I need to do, I'll get them. I don't need the stars to align, I just need to do the work.

That's a decent situation to be in.

That's also the point of all this. You're going to fuck up a ton along the line so it's going to be a pretty good idea to get something out of it or you're just wasting your time. You'll only do that by learning from your mistakes.