Does hitting new 1-rep-maxes lose any fulfillment or meaningfulness if it's easily predicted by good training habits (sleep, diet, and hypertrophy stimulus) and feels more like boring inevitability?
Male, 40, I have been lifting on & off for about 2 years, but lifting seriously for 7 months. I hit a Personal Best on incline bench press (185 lbs) yesterday and on my favorite lift (seated dumbbell shoulder press 65 lbs) last weekend. But earlier this year, the 60 pound dumbbells for seated shoulder press was my main goal and I made about 2 solid attempts every month, even when I was nowhere close to ready (and video recorded my attempts) which somehow contributed to a feeling of amplified hype evidenced by my spending of several hours writing shoulder press poetry in the style of this video.
When I succeeded on the 60s, it felt infinitely more satisfying and was the most meaningful strength achievement I've ever made (as a weak guy). Bench press nor incline bench press are among my top 20 favorite lifts so I can't say I'm excited to ever achiever 225 or 315. It might be a stretch but seated shoulder press with the 100 pound dumbbells would be awesome though, but no other number between 60 - 95 excites me or feels meaningful or fulfilling.
In fact, I still love knowing I can do the 60's and I find great joy every time I do that lift with that particular amount of weight. I even find great joy knowing that I'm likely strong enough to do that particular lift more than 50% of any given days of the month. This isn't a rant post, overall I'm still very, very, very satisfied with my daily gym habit and I still love all my favorite lifts. I'm just curious to know from more experienced lifters what climbing up the weights felt like for them? I'd love to hear other's perspectives so I can know whether to taper my expectations or try to re-shape my enjoyment of particular elements in the strength journey. 💪
TL;DR: Does hitting new 1-rep-maxes lose any fulfillment or meaningfulness if it's easily predicted by good training habits (sleep, diet, and hypertrophy stimulus) and feels more like "going through the motions" of deterministic inevitability?
4 replies
I don't actually understand your question, but congrats on the PRs!
Nothing is inevitable. You have to work hard.
Declining marginal utility -- i.e. an empirical observation that the extra satisfaction you get from hitting subsequent PRs (in the same lift) declines over time. Like the 6th slice of pizza being less satisfying than 4th slice or 2nd slice.
The only PR that I can imagine would be immensely satisfying is 100 pound dumbbells on the seated shoulder press but nothing else really seems special or significant. Here was a reddit thread I bookmarked 2-3 weeks ago because I knew that 185 was right around the corner for me back then and I wanted to predict how good it would feel compared to how it actually felt when I got it a couple days ago.
Overall, hitting 185 on the Incline Bench Press (I never do normal bench press) felt about 1/20th as satisfying as hitting 60# dumbbells on seated shoulder press on May 9th of this year. And hitting 65# on July 26th felt maybe about 1/5th as satisfying as when I first achieved 60# on May 9th of this year.
Very true which is why I try to cultivate lifelong habits. Being obsessed with strength training forces me to be more health-conscious in all other aspects of my life, which should hopefully help me live longer and be more capable of doing physically challenging tasks in old age (such as beekeeping, fishing, etc..).
You are still early in the journey, so of course it will feel like as long as you are consistent you will make progress quickly. The moment you start getting closer to your natural limits, perhaps you will see that reaching new PRs are not so easy so you will not take them for granted.
Regardless, there are countless stories of athletes that face some form of depression after reaching the top. They run out of things to chase, so they find themselves without a purpose. Maybe the important lesson here is to make sure that you have a purpose in what you are doing that is not attached to any specific number or metric.
Great response, I totally forgot that getting new PRs is woefully harder as you get closer to your natural limit.
Also fully agreed on last paragraph, which is why I clipped this and added it to my quotes collection: