Be it a professional at the highest level, a serious athlete,
or an amateur starting to get serious,
almost all athletes at various levels today, swear by a training plan or program.
The amateur athlete thinks that it is a well designed, highly personalized,
and planned program that will get them to the "next level".
And thus they are busy searching, asking around or browsing for one.
The serious athlete does not stick to the same program for too long,
and changes their program often.
(After all, the "body gets used to it" and it is good to "shock the body")
The more serious athlete or the professional,
depending on the number of years they have spent being one,
are either busy with their trainer, therapists and other "ists",
grinding day and night on a program "designed specifically" for their competition,
or are following some other "off-season type" program.
What is the Truth about such a training program?
The Truth for 99% of the programs being followed today is that they are a DISTRACTION.
I will say it again.
A "training program" or a "training plan" is a DISTRACTION.
It is a distraction away from "The Way".
The one and only Way which exists for the athlete to reach their ABSOLUTE peak performance.
Why is it a distraction?
Well, what is really a program?
A program is a plan of action for days, weeks or months ahead, prepared by a coach (or sometimes the athlete or both).
A program today, at BEST, is created from an understanding of a few things.
The understanding of the athlete's various traits,
such as their current performance level, their experience,
their injuries, their strength, their weaknesses, their reactions towards specific competition conditions, etc, etc
After an athlete "follows" a program for a while and/or compete,
they are re-assessed on certain metrics,
and then it is a "rinse and repeat".
The "big names" swear by their planning, analysis, and assessment.
Whereas, in reality, all the "planning", "analysis", and "assessment" are the Distraction!
The "bests" in the industry swear by this approach.
To me this "approach" brings disgust.
To me this "approach" is childish at best and dangerous at worst.
Why?
Two reasons.
First, this way of making one go through phases and programs does not even
bother about learning the TRUE mental and physical capabilities hidden within the athlete.
(No, they won't just magically pop out, while one is blindly "running a program", they must be unearthed.)
And second, this approach totally ignores the TRUTH about the sport or the athlete.
And little do they know, that the TRUTH changes everything.
~~~
But unfortunately,
baring a tiny few this is the reality for almost all athletes (in weightlifting or not).
And this will remain their reality.
Why?
Because they are okay with their reality.
They think they are on the "right path", one that will eventually take them to the "elite level".
But I will have to break it to them ...
They will stay where they are for as long as they continue to do what they have been doing.
They will continue to ...
progress at the rate at which they are progressing.
recover at the rate at which they are recovering
compete at the level at which they are competing.
For as long as ...
they continue to follow any and all training "plan" or "program".
Yes, my friend, doing what you have been doing will not get you in the "elite few" level.
Moving from one program to the next or one coach to the next will only give
you a fake satisfaction that you are "trying".
And you will spend your whole life "trying".
Then what will?
It is simple.
To be one amongst the elite few, you have to first WANT to be elite.
You will have to want it from within the absolute depths of yourself.
It is only then that something within you ...
will force you to question the things that you have been doing.
will jolt you out of the sleepwalking that you have been calling training.
will start to understand the childish gameplay that your "training program" has been.
and maybe THEN ...
you will see the game you have been playing.
you will dread the countless hours and drops of sweat that have been wasted.
you will see the real intentions of your coaches and the other "ists".
And finally, when such a point of readiness will be reached,
you will actually start DOING the necessary to begin REAL training.
Training that will not be based on programs, phases, cycles, periodization,
recovery, supercompensation and other such intellectual jargons.
Training that will demand every single ounce of your blood rushing through your veins,
stimulation of every single strand of the muscles in your body,
and your ability to channel the whole of your mind.
The day you are able to train in such a way,
you may stop trying to be elite,
for you already will be,
ELITE.