24 Feb 5 Things That Sabotage Younger Lifters

By: Brian Carroll

1. They have no mentors in their life or the ones they have are idiots; your average gym bro, a clueless high school coach, etc. Most athletes that are successful have coaches that played an important role in their lives and guided them down a path to what ends up being eventually productive. My mentors were Skip and Norman at the local powerhouse. They told me to train heavy, eat a lot and to stay away from bullshit movements that were unproductive for my goals. They were more right than I even knew. They showed belief in me, even though I didn’t believe.

2. They listen to too many experts at one time. This is a thin line to walk on. There’s a huge difference in listening to everyone and spinning your wheels like a maniac and not getting anywhere and being an actual student of the game and applying certain ideals, principles and suggestions when warranted. This comes with maturity but some athletes never learn this and wonder why they don’t progress properly even if they have all the tools at their disposal.

3. They are in the wrong shoes, literally. They go out and buy the newest ‘fad’ lifting shoe when their favorite lifter pimps them out. I do endorse certain products and things of that nature but everything is relative to your goals. For example, Lifter X is now on top of the strength game and endorses the new lifting shoe with a monster heel and tells you all about it. You have to consider how is this person built? Flat feet? Long femurs? Tight hips? Loose hips? Wide stance or close? You have to see what works for you, your leverages, injury history and the way you perform the movement. As a rule of thumb Louie Simmons says, “don’t have a $300 pair of shoe and a $5 squat”. I will take it a step further and say before you go out and spend 300 dollars on a top of the line lifting shoe, work on your form, buy a cheaper pair first, do your homework and ask other good lifters what works for them. Don’t just assume because your favorite lifter wears them that they will work for you. You may end up wasting money on shit you don’t need.

4. They lift heavy too often. I can tell you I never knew or even heard of a deload but I definitely figured out the importance of them until about seven years ago. Even with that knowledge I didn’t apply like I should have. I see it all the time; lifters training heavy, heavier then heaviest and then after a few weeks of this they either peak too early, get frustrated and program hop or get injured in some way. Neither of those are not good. Go heavy for a few weeks then back off for a week or two. If you ramp up and back off before you need to, you’ll stay ahead of the game as I talk about in 10/20/Life.

5. They think progression is linear. This is a huge one and goes almost hand in hand with point four. They thing just because they went from a 315 deadlift to a 405 deadlift in 10 weeks that they will have a 500 deadlift in another 10 weeks, 600 in 20 and 1000 dead within 50-60 weeks!!! That is an extreme thought, yes, but you would be surprised how many people truly believe their strength will increase that quickly. Your gains generally will be the largest and most noticeable when you’re a rookie or new to strength training. Why? It’s the novice effect. You can take a relatively untrained novice and they WILL get stronger fast, as their strength increases come, so will the slowdown of progress. This is why coaching and smart programming is critical as you progress.  Generally, you can make gains and improve no matter how bad everything is actually put together as a novice. As a lifter as you progress you need to have everything covered to keep increasing; diet, supplements, rest, program, intensity, deloads, how many times you compete a year, etc. When you are new, the extreme basics will work but that all changes over time. Unfortunately some people expect those beginner gains to be the norm when they aren’t.

As a beginning lifter these 5 steps will help you to understand a little more about lifting. They are not magic tricks, just a basic primer to avoid a few stupid mistakes a lot of people make along the way.

You will still make mistakes, we all do and many of us make them regardless of the amount of years we have under the bar. If you can learn to minimize mistakes by listening to others who have already learned them you are several steps ahead of the game.

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Brian Carroll

Owner and Founder at PowerRackStrength.com

Brian is a retired world-class powerlifter with over two decades of world-class powerlifting. From 1999 to 2020, Brian Carroll was a competitive powerlifter, one of the most accomplished lifters in the sport's history. Brian started off competing in bench press competitions 'raw,' then, shortly into the journey, he gravitated toward equipped lifting as there were no "raw" categories then. You only had to choose from single-ply (USPF) and Multi-ply (APF/WPC). Brian went on to total 2730 at 275 and 2651 at 242 with more than ten times his body weight in three different classes (220, 242, 275), and both bench pressed and deadlifted over 800 pounds in two other weight classes. He's totaled 2600 over 20 times in 2 different weight classes in his career. With 60 squats of 1000lbs or more officially, this is the most in powerlifting history, regardless of weight class or federation, by anyone not named David Hoff. Brian realized many ups and downs during his 20+ years competing. After ten years of high-level powerlifting competition and an all-time World Record squat at 220 with 1030, in 2009, Brian was competing for a Police academy scholarship. On a hot and humid July morning, Brian, hurdling over a barricade at 275lbs, landed on, fell, and hurt his back. After years of back pain and failed therapy, Brian met with world-renowned back specialist Prof McGill in 2013, which changed his trajectory more than he could have imagined. In 2017, Brian Carroll and Prof McGill authored the best-selling book about Brian's triumphant comeback to powerlifting in Gift of Injury. Most recently (10.3.20) -Brian set the highest squat of all time (regardless of weight class) with 1306 lbs – being the first man to break the 1300lb squat barrier at a bodyweight of 303 lbs.

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