failing

Giving Up

Which came first?

Which came first?

Giving Up

Bailing out. Missing a lift. Saving your skinny little chicken neck.

In weightlifting, it is so necessary to correctly fail that dumping a barbell should be simultaneously taught with how to successfully make a lift. Also very necessary is to know when to cede to a workout or give up on a fatigued movement.

Which came first, the failure or the lift? The concept of "giving up" creates such a negative connotation that the motivational nonsense spread through life nowadays gives the impression that anyone willing to give up is a failure. Weak, inadequate, and/or inferior.

No better than a shivering chick... a wet newbie peeping for its mama hen.

Quite the contrary can be said when we look at making or failing a lift, whether it be a power lift like a Deadlift or a Squat, or an Olympic lift like a Jerk or a Snatch. It is those athletes that know how to bail out that keep themselves safe, healthy, and strong.

Those athletes that have trained the correct bar path in order to efficiently make a successful lift know this. When something goes wrong, when a movement is incorrect, even in the slightest, failure means you live to lift another day.

Plus, heavy squats are always the go-to fix for chicken legs. So the skill of dumping a barbell helps to correctly use the progressive overload principle.

Weightlifting Chick

For those who haven’t failed, their potential in whatever endeavor they seek in life has not been fully realized. They haven’t tested the upper limits of their capabilities. In weightlifting it's knowing how to safely fail that shows strength through intelligence.

Like a smart, egghead brainiac, strength can come in many forms.

Similar to weightlifting, if a gymnastics movement or other bodyweight exercise starts to lose efficacy, if the body is shutting down to a point of inefficiency, then giving up is a necessary evil. Sure, there are times to drive ahead, to push through fatigue and complete a workout as it was written. The mental gains are particularly worthwhile in this regard, so long as the movements are still safely executed. But the moment where one puts themselves at high risk for injury, at risk for overtraining or under-recovery, this is the time when a workout becomes completely negotiable. At this point, the decision to end a session early is not weak in any regard; it is not incompetent or pitiful. Instead, it is mentally strong. It is egotistically impressive, actually. Realizing that range of motion is breeched and safety is compromised is in fact a very, very strong attribute.

Know when to fold 'em. When it's time to "snuff the rooster." This is tricky, for sure, but highly necessary in strength and conditioning.

Egghead Jr.

Dan Maggio has done such a great job at succinctly highlighting the specifics of intentional bailing from a lift that it deserves reprinting here to his credit on how to implement this into your training.

How to Miss a LiftWhen teaching/coaching weightlifting related lifts, the FEET MUST ALWAYS MOVE in order to get the base of support out from under the falling bar. [Source: The Importance of Missing Lifts and Bailing Out]

  • Bailing out of the Back Squat: Release grip on bar, push chest and head UP to pop the bar off your back, JUMP feet forward to avoid the bar hitting your heals if you land on your knees.
  • Bailing out of Front Squat: Release grip on bar, drop the elbows as you simultaneously JUMP your feet back and push your hands to the ground. Not jumping your feet back can cause the dumped bar to crash on your thighs and knees. (This bail is the same as bailing out of a Clean.)
  • Missing the Snatch (in front): Actively EXTEND arms forward. JUMP your feet backwards.
  • Missing the Snatch (behind): Actively EXTEND arms backward (as if giving “Jazz Hands”). JUMP FORWARD quickly to avoid the bar landing on shoulders or back. It is vital to extend the arms backward fully to create more space and avoid collision.
  • Missing the Jerk: If the barbell is already moving forward, JUMP the body back while pushing the bar away. Similarly, if stability is not maintained and the barbell drifts backward, JUMP forward away from the weight.
Someone's gotta work on their 10 components of fitness...

Someone's gotta work on their 10 components of fitness...

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... As far as "giving up" goes, we're on the topic of succumbing to a lift or movement in a positive, thoughtful way. Not just being lazy or unmotivated.

In reference to being smart with a conditioning workout or to avoid overtraining/under-recovering, some specifics have been highlighted in past articles. Check "MetCons" and "Progress" to get the full explanation.

Our basic concept is always to pursue lifelong fitness. If we're looking to stay healthy for years to come, then one day does not make or break a workout regimen. However, one day can turn into a week, then a month, and so on. So therefore, since a longer term view on fitness best serves our ever-aging bodies, then pushing to a point of immense fatigue is a slippery slope. Particularly dangerous is exercise addiction.

All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put an addict's fitness together again.

One must ask some important questions: "Am I working hard because this will gain me the necessary muscle breakdown and/or cardiovascular stress?" vs. "Am I doing this because I'm stubborn and masochist and want to prove something to myself?" Be honest.

In other words, be cautious of forcing a conditioning workout if you crash and burn. Once you bonk, die... lay an egg.

Finish what you started if you can, sure, but only if is still safe in the realm of total work. For example, is the run mileage just too high? Burpee reps too many? Barbell weight too heavy? Plus, will you be sore and out of commission for the rest of the week? Time to be smart and give in.

A full week of quality work is more beneficial than one day of feigned glory.

As I've stated before, if a lifting session or post-workout skill work aren’t going well, then a new PR or your first muscle-up probably won’t happen on your 20th, 30th, or 100th attempt. Being persistent is one thing, being stupid is another. Stop. Cut your losses. Look ahead to the next day.

This is a plan of action where giving up is actually moving forward.

So off you go with brains and brawn. Never be chicken to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

- Scott, 6.22.2015

Failure

Failure

It gets a bad rap.  As in "Fail."  Or even "Epic Fail." (See?)

In reality, failure is a necessary evil.  It's a means to an end, really.  It's the path to success.

See, for those who haven't failed, their potential in whatever endeavor they seek in life has not been fully realized. They haven't tested the upper limits of their capabilities.  The "what could be."  In other words, they’re coasting along.  Not really sinking or swimming… more or less treading water, if you’re following this analogy.

It's not a novel concept, I suppose, but it is worth repeating and truly understanding.  If at first you don't succeed, skydiving isn't for you.  Or however the saying goes.  In life, I've noticed, we receive loads of advice.  Sh*tloads.  People seem to be experts on anything and everything.  (Says the guy writing a random blog entry each week.)  But I do know that it's the advice from those who have experience in an area, whatever that area may be, that I really respect. Been there, done that, here's the cliffsnotes. On top of that, it's their stories of what didn't work in their experience, or how they failed and got back up, that I find most useful. Or at least the most motivating.

A few video shorts on failure:

Famous Failures (somewhat cheesy, maybe, but topical)

Michael Jordan ("I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.")

And the great Al Pacino speech as Coach in "Any Given Sunday" (explicit language included)

 

If we take the concept of failure and relate it to our physical training, never experiencing failure in the gym would mean one or more of the following:

1. Reps or movements are too easily executed. (Intensity is lacking.)

2. Overload is not being reached. (This is paramount in physical adaptation.)

3. Potential has been self-limited. (A person is not as strong, fast, powerful, agile, coordinated, etc.  You name it, it's limited.)

 

This brings us to some simple recommendations.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Fear is a powerful thing, and the mind often tricks us into not believing we’re good enough. Cliché, but you can accomplish a lot more in life once you believe it can happen. "If the mind can dream it, the body can achieve it" type of thing.  Also, being afraid or tentative can prove to be dangerous when working at the peak of physical exertion/exhaustion. Think of a max effort clean or back squat under a heavy load… being unsure of yourself could spell disaster. In this scenario, know how to bail out safely, set yourself in position, and go for it.  Do or do not, there is not try.

Test your limits. How can you ever know what is possible if you don't test your physical threshold?  See #3 above.  If a person is constantly living  in their comfort zone as it applies to the gym, and never presses the proverbial envelope, then what's the strongest they can be?  The fastest?  The fittest?  What's really their PR on a lift or workout?  The answer is we don't know. And if you're in this to find out, it makes no sense to limit yourself. By not failing, you're doing exactly that.

Learn and adapt. What, if anything, went wrong during failure?  Was it technique with a lift? Maybe strategy going into a competition? Often we experience a mental lapse during workouts... maybe more focus or more self-confidence could've helped. Or maybe you hit a wall during a MetCon, so think about what to do to either prevent that from happening or how to deal with it if it/when it does happen again.  And if nothing went "wrong," what did you learn about yourself as you hit that strength or conditioning threshold? On a related note, if performance diminishes, learn from it.  Perhaps you are overtraining.  Or there was a fuel deficiency. Again, learn and make necessary changes.

Failing is fine, but only if it leads to progress.

 

I'll leave you with this: A video by Jay Rhodes in his journey from humble CrossFit beginnings into a pretty damn good athlete.... a video that might be more worthwhile than any words on a computer screen.

My Journey Into CrossFit, by Jay Rhodes (who did a similar article for the CrossFit Journal)

Go forth, and fail.

-Scott, 8.27.2012