Top 8 Reasons You Hate Weight Training

And How to Forge A Life Changing Love For Pumping Iron

Perhaps no two words provoke more fierce resistance in nine-year old than, “brussel-sprouts.”

“But they’re good for you. They make you healthy and strong.,” Your parents would attempt to reason before falling back to pleading.

Like veggies with kids, a steady, strong, stable relationship with exercise is a struggle to hold for many ad-hults. We desire the being fit but find doing the work very challenging.

And truth is, no form of exercise is more challenging to master than the very one that is by most all expert accounts the very best for us: Strength training. I mean the good ol’-school art of pumping iron.

For me, and many like me, the love for iron came early. It wasn’t born overnight but developed and deepened over years of practice. And while my decades of training is filled with peaks and valleys, I can always return to zen of the zone in strength training.

When I find this place where the muscles begin firing strong, focused, breathing in rhythm, each rep pulling me deeper into strength — it is a deeply enjoyable “flow state” activity. Quite the opposite of how many experience the weights.

For many who may have once trained regularly or perhaps you’ve been an athlete — coming back and finding the flow of depth of the experience of iron is to put it mildly, challenging.

And for those who lack any substantial experience of strength training, overcoming the resistance to resistance training may seem like a mountain too tall.

You keep leaning into “discipline.” Searching for the demanding parent to “make you go train.” It works for a bit, yet it never will carry you the distance. This leaves you in an endless struggle, always outside of the zone of flow and an effortless practice.

My desire to have the joy of strength be your experience got me to thinking today about what the most common roadblocks that keep people in the state of struggle, disconnected from the freedom and flow of a rewarding strength practice that can be yours for life.

Thus, I offer you the nine most common obstacles that get between you and a deep, rewarding, lifelong practice of strength training that can change your body, sharpen your mind and keep you living younger, longer, stronger… For life.

1. No Structure No Plan

I know, this is so simple, so obvious that this can’t possibly be part of the problem. Yet, it’s a huge issue and the cause of untold failure and frustration.

Think about it this way. Imagine you are given a golf ball, a bag of clubs and told to “go play.” Yet, you have no idea what the game is, the goal nor have you any map of the course. You hit a ball left, one right. Within a few strokes you’re simply bored, confused and looking for something else to do.

A real plan — often best a real simple one — is an essential element for changing the game from trying to doing. When you walk into a gym, or hit your own home space, with a clear cut “assignment” your focus and productivity spike and your reward centers soar.

Hell, it can be as simple as “3 sets of 8 reps” for 3 exercises and you’ll get more reward and results out of this than a 60 minutes wandering warrior workout.

Have a plan. Work the plan. It makes all the difference.

Note: A plan should not change too frequently. 21 days is the low end. 42 days is a good middle range with 12 weeks being the long range approach.

2. Consistently Inconsistent

Again, we all know that consistency is vitally important. It’s not a sprint but a marathon. It’s one thing to get 45 minutes of cardio in regularly and yet, there’s a special role of consistency when it comes to weight training.

First there is the issue of muscle soreness. When you go from no resistance to resistance many veteran trainers can forget simply how damned bad the muscle soreness can be. For most people, waking up feeling like you’ve been beat by baseball bats is not fun and rewarding. When you train for even a few weeks, this muscle soreness passes quickly and never reaches this level again.

Then comes the issue of neurological recruitment. Before your muscles can really begin to grow bigger and stronger your body must learn to recruit the muscles which means laying the wiring — the strong, coordinated nervous system that fires these muscles. This requires at least several weeks of consistent movement for you to experience the reward of feeling stronger, more connected, “in the groove.”

Finally, the almost magical power of strength training is not in the “mechanistic” calorie in calorie out (burned) view that cardio-addicts love so, it’s in the chemistry of your body.

Consistent strength training has a profound cellular impact on your body which elevates the nearly infinite array of biochemical processes in your body thus changing the game — and transforming your body.

3. Can’t Stand The Space Between The Notes

Exercise is a demand on your time and stresses your schedule. To most it is a cost not an investment.

Thus, to justify it people seek to “get the most bang for the buck” by packing more movement into less time. This approach leads people to believe that the treadmill, stair climber or anything the requires constant movement is the wiser way to roll.

An added plus is that passive cardio platforms allows you space out, to drift into TV or music, and avoid being here. Which, while it seems a good way to kill time, is opposite of what you want to do — especially when lifting weights.

For those with the “busy bee” mindset, the idea of lifting weights will have you breaking out in a cold sweat. Exerting effort for 30 seconds and then just standing around for a minute seems completely irrational.

I often hear people say lifting is “boring.” Yet, bored, I tell them, is not about the activity but about your own need to escape the moment — your inability to remain present to this moment.

When you come to know that the time between the set is as vital as the set itself, that it’s all part of flow, you begin to change this view.

It’s like coming to see that the setup, stance, focus and all that goes into a golf shot is every bit as important to the shot as the impact with the ball. You can’t just hit the ball without all that comes between each stroke.

The ability to integrate the flow of a workout, such that the movement, the space, the breath, the focus are all important parts is a vital step for transforming compulsive training into a deep, meditative practice that rewards body, mind and soul.

Note: This is the very nature of my Focus Intensity Training (F.i.T.) practice which is truly “The Zen of Strength.” As it teaches you how to anchor the deep, present, mindful flow state while reaching the peak of intensity for optimal results and peak states.

4. Riding Your Body Like A Horse

For those on the outside of the strength tribe, looking in, there may be no more tiresome term than “mind-muscle connection.” Fact is, to many it sounds like some hocus-pocus nonsense that amounts to little more than some over-hyped placebo effect.

Well, I’ll take a different slant at it here to see if I can shatter that layer of resistance. You see, most people wake up in the morning, pull their body off the bed-barn and proceed to ride that damn thing like a horse all day. Then put it back in the shed at night.

They literally experience the world as a mind on top a body that is to be whipped, spurred and fed only at last measure. They do not experience the world through their bodies from above.

When you harness your focus into the present moment of a single muscle movement, everything changes: the enjoyment, the time, the power, the flow, the results. This is the mind-muscle connection.

Technically it’s largely what is called, “proprioception” — the capacity to experience your body in space and movement. Not only will this strength grow but it will change your relationship with the world around. With contact, with compassion, with strength.

…And yes, of course, with a stronger, better body.

5. Remaining an Amateur

Knowing a bench press from a leg press is handy but really knowing how to position your body, focus your mind and activate the right sequence of muscles to bench press with true strength is another.

Cutting a deep groove for weight training — knowing your body in relation to the exercise such that you know just how to contract the chest, align your shoulders, and even set your feet requires some patience, practice and time.

Most of us would never step onto a tennis court, racket in hand and assume we can play with any level of skill. Yet, few give an equal reverence to weight training skill.

We assume it’s just brutes moving heavy stuff. Thus, we were all born with an inherent skill. There’s nothing to it. This thinking blocks us from asking for guidance and ultimately from achieving true mastery of the motion.

There are nuances to every exercise that can transform it from a movement to a highly effective exercise that is activating and changing your body in a very potent way.

You find these through very good trainers and experienced coaches and even willing friends — and experience. Even a top trainer, like Mike Ryan or Carla Sanchez, can point to ways you can isolate a biceps or hamstring, until you have the experience of it yourself, in your body, it remains a concept in your head.

6. The “Sweat It Off” Myth

While lifting is most associated with building muscle, size and strength. Most people who hit the gym beyond their 20’s think more about losing than gaining. And given that the burning of calories — and fat — is associated with glorious celebration of sweating.

Well, you know the rest of the story. Cut to the cardio area. Sweat, sweat, sweat. We love to believe it’s the best way to get less big.

Lifting weights feels very different. It may be hard, and hurt but it’s not the same sweat factory that “I know” is working.

Look, I believe in cardio. I think it’s both wise and healthy to have a high capacity for endurance. It feels good to be able to ride a bike, climb a mountain, etc. And cardio is good for burning some calories.

Yet, strength training builds muscles and activates a cascade of potent hormones offering a much more potent metabolic advantage than all the cardio you can stand to do. It shapes your body, increases the muscle that increases metabolic rate by burning 10–50 times the calories at rest, each day, than the fat on your body.

Trust me on this. Your body is ready, willing and eager to get stronger, leaner, and more potent. And the weights are there waiting for you to take hold and reap the rewards.

7. Stuck On The Wrong Side Of Pain

Cardio can burn but lifting weights tends toward the hurt. It’s intense during the sets and then your damned muscles go and get sore. And of course, let us not forget the aching joints that can really wake you the f#$% up.

It’s all true — lifting has a sort of hurt that is different. And as long as we hold on to the belief that whatever the hurt is a negative experience, you’re gonna struggle.

Remember when you were a kid and a tooth would get lose but you could not not mess with it. Even though it hurts you kept fucking with it. Strength training is sort of like that: When you stop pulling back because you think it hurts, the hurt transforms into something deeper, better and it suddenly feels like excellence. It feels good. You like it and that liking gets deeper.

Those who don’t know or have lost sight of this will struggle on the wrong side of hurts and pain, never moving beyond and constantly reinforcing the story that pain is a problem.

Changing the label you give pain, calling forth the presence and focus we’ve talked about will transform pain into a potent feedback. You’ll learn how to stay away from the pain in your joints that says, “careful” or change it up. But you’ll learn how to dig deep into the pain that screams a powerful, positive feedback.

8. Absence of Reward For Your Efforts

Nothing… And I mean NO-THING fuels the fire of reward like seeing the positive changes in your body that come from strength training.

I was lucky, as I discovered the power of a strong-er looking body in my teens — back when the motives were strong, the body was eager to respond, and the time needed to be filled with a positive focus.

Chances are you’re well out of the teen window but worry not for your body — every body — will respond potently and positively to sound, consistent strength training. I promise.

I hear from many people who have been convinced that it’s too late — they’ve passed 40 and weight training now would just be silly. Still others are convinced by some Mens Health article that they will be huge and ripped in 20 days. Their expectations are so out line with reality that frustration sets in long before their biceps begin to grow and they just walk away. Back to the hamster wheels of cardio they are relegated.

You should expect results but like all good things expect to work for them. This is why you have a plan (see #1 above) and why setting a goal, holding a vision, reinforcing what you desire and sticking with it for 12 weeks is the gold standard prescription for a significant transformation.

When you put the parts together in a sound and integrated system like you will find in Strength for Life, integrating body and mind, you start strong, stay strong and set yourself up for success.

9. You Are Exercising Not Training

I know… I promised 8 reasons. Yet, this 9th was too good to refuse. It comes from Chapter 4 of my book, Strength for LIFE. It has been one of the most talked about, most shared and most powerful mindset changes from the entire book.

In Strength for Life I wrote:

Go into one of these modern metropolises of a fitness center and take a look around. My guess is what you’ll see is a pretty standard scene — loads of cardio machines, lots of people moving, reading, talking, socializing, watching TV’s, or watching others. In another area, some barbells and dumbbells, a load of big machines (a few which look a bit frightening) and a few people staring blankly, some talking and others engaged in moderate circuit programs on the machines.

These people are simply going through the motions, dutifully performing exercises with the type of enthusiasm they bring to household chores. This dull, uninspired shuffle called “exercise,” this failure to train with a sufficient level of focus and intensity, is the greatest obstacle to developing the results most profess to be seeking.

Though often used interchangeably by others, exercising and training are distinctly different. Exercise is movement without purpose; motion without direction. It’s what grandma does when she walks around the block.

Now, I am for anything that elevates the heart rate and gets a body moving and for some this is all they may be capable of. Exercise is a grueling activity that requires great discipline, an obligation: “I should be doing this.” In contrast, training is powered by an inspired vision: “I feel strong, fit and alive!”

I’m sure you’ve seen people training in those same gyms too…you’ll recognize them as the few who truly look like they mean some business. Head down, focused, intense, driven with purpose. They’re not unfriendly people, just “in the zone.”

For a clear example of the difference between exercise and training, consider the fact that athletes don’t go to “exercise camp,” they go to training camp. Why? Because they are “in training;” focused on achieving specific results, which fuels an intense drive and motivation.

My Wish For You…

A simple but dedicated practice of strength training can and will transform your life. But there is a catch. The catch is you. That’s right: You are the wild card. In the final assessment your success is in your hands.

Bruce Lee said it well in these words; “Knowing is not enough, you must apply; willing is not enough, you must do.” You can count on me to reach in and help fire you up, to keep you moving and inspired for greatness, but in ultimately it’s up to you.

I hope that these pointers can help you overcome the ample resistance many experience to the potent practice of strength training. It is my greatest wish for you that you live a long, vital, high-energy life overflowing with health, happiness and success.

Here’s to your life at Full Strength!

PS…

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Being the change we want to see in the world means we have to actively share change or that invitation with the world.

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