The story I’m starting this article with is one of those situations where I’m not going to mention any names…but I would really like to. Actually, it wouldn’t matter much if I told you the name of the guy this story is about because he’s from a far distant generation and I’m positive most of you wouldn’t know who he is. But still, I’ll keep it anonymous.
 
Years ago, there was a time when I was working my way up through the middle of the pack on the national weightlifting scene. I was in my early 20s and lifting enough to compete in the biggest meets in the country, but hadn’t established myself as a serious contender yet. I was a dominant local lifter and a mid-range national lifter.
 
At this time, there was an older guy who lived in the same part of the country as me, and I would see him a few times a year at state/regional meets. This guy had been an elite American lifter several years prior to my time. As I mentioned in the beginning of this, I’m not going to tell you his name, but he was an important one in his heyday. I definitely knew who he was and what his accomplishments had been, and I really looked up to him…until I actually met him.
 
The most noticeable part of this dude’s personality was his negativity, and his constant desire to dump on everybody else. He had disparaging comments about almost every lifter that came up in conversation. According to him, USA weightlifting had become a pitiful toilet of a sport with nothing but half-assed athletes who weren’t worth a tinker’s damn. Whenever the names of any of the current top American lifters came up in conversation, this guy had something disrespectful and rude to say about them. They weren’t placing high enough at the Worlds, they didn’t train hard enough, they didn’t have the same drive and hunger as the lifters of his generation, etc. (even though many of them were far better than he had been in his prime). He tossed a couple of subtle jabs at me personally, and I let him off the hook because he was old and I didn’t think it would be cool to beat the crap out of a geezer. When I look back, I wish I would have.
 
Now, I haven’t seen this guy in probably 15 years, but I’ll still occasionally see his name pop up in old weightlifting results. Do I think about how great his lifting accomplishments were when I’m reminded of him? No. I think about what a dick he was. I don’t care about anything he accomplished because he’s a lousy human being.
 
What I want to talk about in this article is the kind of person you become in weightlifting. Obviously, this is going to be one of those “character counts” messages, preaching about how it’s important to treat others well, be kind, etc. We’ve all heard it before, but I don’t want you to walk away from this article because you think it’s going to be a Sunday School lesson. Believe it or not, I can actually connect this subject with your lifting performance on the platform.
 
Seriously. You might not think it’s true, but there’s a link between your personality and the level of accomplishment you’re going to have as a weightlifter or coach. And I know you all care about THAT, right? You want to go as far as you can in this sport, don’t you? Of course you do. So read on, and I’ll prove to you that being a jackass can actually hold back your competition results.
 
Some common ones I hear, and why I hear them…
 
“Yeah, she might have won nationals 15 years ago, but her best lifts would be in the B session these days. She couldn’t hang with the girls lifting now.”
 
“Weightlifting in America used to be tiny before CrossFit, so it wasn’t very competitive.”
 
“Sure, our US lifters might have won medals at the 2017 Worlds, but that’s only because the top countries weren’t there.”
 
“He only looks like a good coach because he’s got great athletes. Anybody could coach his lifters and get big results out of them.”
 
And many more… Comments like these get tossed around in muffled conversations (and on the internet) all the time. You’ll rarely hear anybody walk up to the people they’re directing these comments at and say them straight to their faces, obviously. That would take courage, and the people who say these things are weak inside. That’s why they all stay behind-the-back, or online.
 
Some people might be saying these things out of sheer competitiveness. I think that was the situation with the old guy I told you about. He had been a big-time lifter, which means he was an intense competitor. Competitive spirit often doesn’t drift away and die, even after the athlete has been put out to pasture by Father Time. Their bodies might be over the hill and done, but their minds aren’t.
 
Sometimes, former champions get resentful when they’re no longer at the top. Their elite status was incredibly important to them, maybe more important than anything else in their lives. I don’t think it’s uncommon to find retired legends who haven’t really gone on to accomplish anything huge after their sports accomplishments. The gold medals were the peak of their lives, and after that phase is over, there’s a comedown that they never really learn how to cope with. They spend the rest of their days continuing to think of themselves as the best, even though their time in the sun is far enough in the past that nobody even remembers it anymore. This can be tough to swallow, and it can result in bitterness and anger. This is where I think the negativity starts with jackasses like my former acquaintance, and then it manifests itself in resentment towards the people who are having the success they used to have. To state it simply…they’re pissed as hell that they’re not at the top anymore, so they dump on the people who are there now.
 
So it’s understandable. But just because something’s understandable, that doesn’t make it okay. Like I said, all of this results in poor human behavior.
 
If you’re lucky enough to have success in this sport, it’s going to be short. Most elite champions are on the way out by the time they’re in their late 20s or early 30s, at best. That’s pretty young, and I can tell you from personal experience that people forget about you and move on to the next big thing very quickly after you’re finished with your run at the top. Hell, it happened to me, and I was never even a world champion. If I felt the sting of it, imagine what it’s like for the best of the best when they get cycled out.

Bottom line, this can be a very challenging life situation, and not everybody handles it well. Now, it’s also important to remember that the negative comments aren’t always coming from has-beens. Sometimes they come from people who never made it anywhere important, and their anger comes from their jealousy and lack of success. I think these are the ones you see on the internet most often. When I think about all the criticism and badmouthing that’s been directed at me through the interwebz over the years, it’s almost always been from people I’ve never heard of. I’ve never heard of them because they haven’t done anything in the sport aside from flapping their gums on a message board or social media website. They’re losers, and losers are usually negative people. Not a difficult idea to figure out.
 
Are there ever times when these comments are productive? Okay, good question. Can we think of any situations where it might be a good thing to say the kind of negative stuff I’ve described here? Just to play devil’s advocate, is there ever an appropriate time and place for it?
 
I suppose we could envision situations where comments like these might be useful to bring cocky jokers back down to earth if their heads are getting too big. In these cases, we wouldn’t really be spreading negativity. We’d be trying to keep people from getting too full of themselves. There’s still going to be a risk of them thinking you’re a prick, but it might be good medicine they need to swallow, even if it tastes yucky. So there might be isolated times when it serves a purpose to pop somebody’s balloon, if they need it. But that doesn’t change what we’ve said here. Spreading a lousy attitude around isn’t what you want from yourself.
 
Didn’t I say something about how this could affect your lifting performance?
 
This is the moment when you need to sit down on the fireplace rug in front of old Grandpa Foreman’s rocking chair and listen to some wisdom.
 
Everything you carry around inside yourself is going to go into your own personal weightlifting, or your coaching. I’ll tell you point-blank that you need to trust me on this, because it’s true. If you’ve got a big personality component that’s consumed with anger, criticism, and negativity, it’ll be a part of your career. If you haven’t learned this about weightlifting yet, you will eventually. The things you have inside you are the only ammunition you have in your battle with the barbell. Physical talent is only half of this thing, okay? Strength, speed, flexibility, etc…these are the athletic components of your career. You develop them through physical training. However, you all know this sport is part mental and part physical. The mental part is what we’re talking about here.
 
Think about the most positive, optimistic, enthusiastic people you know. They’re great, aren’t they? They’re full of light. People like that old dick I used to know are full of darkness, and you can see it (and hear it) any time you’re with them.
 
One of the dangerous things about weightlifting is that it preys on darkness. The difficulty of the sport is going to throw a lot of pain and agony at you. It won’t all be fun and enjoyable, believe me. It’ll get ugly sometimes, especially if you keep doing it for a long time and commit a huge part of your life to it. If the natural tendencies in your personality always lean towards anger and negativity, the sport will attack those parts of you like a hungry lion going after a limping antelope. The sport will literally spot your shortcomings and use them to bury you during your lowest times of injury, frustration, lack of progress, and failure. When bad things happen to you, the pessimism in your spirit will spread like a cancer.
 
You literally can’t make it in this sport if you don’t have a positive attitude. It’s not possible. The old guy I told you about? He had a gym up and running when I met him, with some athletes that had been drawn in by his reputation. Within a couple of years, everybody had split on him and his operation shut down. Good people don’t want to be around that crap, you know? He’s still hanging around the fringes of the sport, but he’s not doing anything noteworthy.
 
If you find a lot of negativity in your mind, try to figure out why it’s there. At the risk of sounding too touchy-feely, try to find out why you’re so angry. And then make a concentrated effort to stop doing it. It’s a lot easier than it sounds. Actually concentrate throughout your day on having a better attitude towards the things you see in life. It’ll be contagious, for sure. It’ll be like your snatch technique. Once you start to really develop it, it’ll become a habit. You’ll have ups and downs, of course. But the overall status will be solid and successful. I don’t care how corny it might sound. Correcting this part of yourself will result in an actual tangible improvement in your career as a lifter or a coach. Once you’ve planted those seeds and given them time to grow, you’ll probably notice a difference in the way you handle the obstacles of your lifting and coaching. Just give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.