If you can only read one Greg Nuckols article, make it this one

[Arch0wl]

ARTICLE: http://gregnuckols.com/2014/09/16/wh...world-records/

Key quotes:

My parents got me a weight set when I was 10. It was a small bar (not an Olympic bar) that could only hold 250 pounds. I rushed down on Christmas morning, and, as any true future bro would do, I maxed out on everything. That first morning, I bench pressed 150 and deadlifted all 250 pounds with ease.

Fast forward 4 years. I barely used that little weight set because I wasn’t allowed to bench without a spotter (which was rarely available), and I could deadlift all the weight I had basically until I got bored. Finally I had access to the high school weightroom with full-size Olympic bars and plates. At a bodyweight somewhere around 165-170, I benched 275 and deadlifted 425 that first day in the weight room – keep in mind that I’d done both movements maybe a dozen times in my life, spread over a 4 year period prior to that point – untrained for all intents and purposes.

I took up powerlifting seriously a year later after some concussions knocked me out of basketball and football. I did a little local meet with no training leading up to it and broke the state records. I learned about the 100% raw federation soon after, checked out their record books for my age and weight, and thought, “oh, I can break all those records now,” so over the next few months, I did.

At this time, my training was incredibly stupid. Imagine the ignorance of youth combined with the added arrogance of breaking records with minimal effort, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how insufferable and closed off to critique and criticism 15 and 16 year old Greg was. My training routine was a high volume, high intensity, high frequency, high band tension, high accessory work, high disregard for life, limb, and proper form monstrosity. And with it, I managed to squat mid 500s, bench 400, and deadlift 600 not long after turning 16 at a bodyweight hovering around 195-205.

My first day with a real weight set when I was 14, I hit numbers that some people work years for. In my first year of real (incredibly stupid) training, I hit bigger numbers than most people will in their entire life. The former didn’t have a damn thing to do with how hard I’d worked on the weights, and the latter didn’t have a damn thing to do with how much I knew about training.

The more I learned, the better I became at identifying weaknesses and staying healthy. That may be what pushed me over the edge from “really strong” to “world records,” but I promise you that it will not push you from “average” to “world records.”

I could benefit from (and people like me do benefit from) tacitly implying that we can make you as strong as we are, or that we know some sort of secret. That’s nonsense. If you’re as gifted for strength as I am, I can make you as strong as I am. If you aren’t, I can’t.

The range of natural ability really becomes obvious when you start working with general population clients. A lot of powerlifting coaches never see this because they give off a very elitist “if you don’t squat 500 why are you even talking to me? Just push yourself harder, pussy,” vibe. I do my best to be down to earth and approachable, though, so I get a lot of very average clients. I also get a lot of very gifted clients. I put just as much time and effort into both groups.

I’ve had an experienced lifter in his 40s put 30 pounds on his deadlift in 10 weeks for his first triple bodyweight pull. I’ve had an experienced lifter put 115 pounds on her deadlift (345 to 460) in 12 weeks while losing 20 pounds. My sister-in-law pulled 380 at 18 years old with the most basic program imaginable (she only lifted 2 days per week, with relatively low volume because she was in-season focusing on volleyball).

I’ve also had very average people come to me barely benching bodyweight wanting to get a second wheel on the bar, or desperately wanting to squat 315 at 200 pounds, or gunning for their first 400 deadlift after 3 or 4 years of consistent training. And they also make progress, slowly but surely. The game is the same, they work just as hard, but the results are dramatically different.

We like to believe that anyone can be the best if they work hard enough. At least for my American readers, that’s something woven deep into our cultural mythos. There’s nothing you can’t do if you put your nose to the grindstone and apply a little elbow grease.

Such notions are furthered by Malcolm Gladwell’s famous 10,000 hour rule – all it takes is 10,000 hours of focused practice to achieve greatness. However, recently that idea has been, if not totally debunked, at least shaken significantly. We want, so badly, to believe that people who have achieved have done so solely because of their efforts. While practice and effort do CERTAINLY matter, you can’t use them at a catch-all to explain the entirety (one could even argue the majority) of someone’s success.

If most people did the things I have done to reach the level of strength that I have, they would probably improve, but that would not make them lift as much as I do. If a perfectly genetically average person (assuming that exists) was twice as smart about training and worked twice as hard as me, I would still lift more.