Put Down Your Phone and Just Lift

Last week, I went to a Globo gym (which shall remain nameless), and I saw this guy sitting on the hip adductor machine. He would do 5-6 reps, send some text messages, and then repeat. His thumbs probably got a better workout than any other part of his body. He is one of many people I see working out with their heads down and phones in hand.

How often have you caught yourself getting distracted in the gym? Maybe it's not just your phone that's distracting you, but for whatever reason, your head's just in another place; you're on autopilot going through your workout. There have been plenty of times when I didn’t necessarily think about how I was going to move the weight in front of me, but rather, I just fill my head with other extraneous thoughts; I'll approach a lift and think about my laundry list of to-do’s for the day, or let other personal matters cloud my mind. I'm present physically, but mentally, I'm in 1,000 different places.

Let me just upload my selfie to Instagram first...

I’ve found that when I’m able to truly center myself and completely consume my thoughts only with the barbell in front of me, my performance improves instantly. The garbage training sessions are usually the ones in which we let our outside lives consume us; we miss lifts when we think about work or social stressors rather than our next set of squats. I've made it a point to put my phone away as soon as I step foot in the gym, and, as a result, I can truly dedicate myself to the moment.

If you’ve ever attempted the snatch before, whether it was for fun or competition, you know just how demanding of a movement it can be. Everything must fall perfectly into place to complete the lift successfully: your set-up position must be on point, your hips have to meet the bar at the right time, and your body then must receive the bar and lock it out overhead in an instant. If you lose focus for an instant, letting stressful thoughts fill your head, you're almost definitely going to miss the lift. However, if you approach the bar calmly, and you trust that your body knows what to do and when to do it, you have a much stronger chance of success.

When you watch elite athletes in any sport, or masters of any craft, one trait that separates them from the average person is their laser beam focus. Tiger Woods enters the putting green with extreme concentration. You can see that every movement he makes is very calculated and deliberate. During training, we have to filter out all of the excess crap in our heads and pay attention to our lifts.

Success in lifting (or really, damn near everything), requires absolute tunnel vision. Get rid of all of the clutter in your mind, if only for just an hour, and zoom in on that one, single thought. If you want to set PRs, you have to make sure you’re focused first.