1. You can squat every day, but you can’t deadlift every day. But if you squat every day, and deadlift sometimes, your deadlift has the potential to get a lot bigger.
2. There is no such thing as fast enough.
3. The best way to keep from being injured is to keep moving. Most anything that feels like injury is really tightness from somewhere else pulling things out of balance. To be injured less and to have better flexibility, move every day.
4. There are no more rest days. If you aren’t lifting, you can be stretching, playing, getting a massage, or watching Olympic lifting. If you aren’t doing any of those things, you should probably be lifting.
5. To be better at anything, you need to do it more often. To be the best you can possibly be at something, you need to do it every single day for a long time. Rome was not built in a day, and speed strength (the ability to move heavy loads quickly) takes more than a cycle. If you are not here, you simply have no chance of moving forward.
6. Your training partners will refine you. Keeping them afloat in the gym and outside of it is essential to your combined continued success.
7. Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. (John Wooden). In all circumstances, you will not always have a good day, you will not always PR, you will not always feel completely healthy, but you will always be able to do what you can. Don’t leave the barbell without doing what you can.
8. Deep practice is crucial – it is the key to accelerated progress. It is not enough to complete the reps; you must learn from them. You must sincerely attempt to make every moment better than the last.
9. More finish. No, REALLY. MORE finish. You can never have enough finish in the second pull of the Olympic Lifts.
10. If your brain has convinced you that the bar is heavy, it’s never really about the number of kilos on the bar. This self-sabotage is common, but when you can, you must move beyond it. In these moments, Olympic Weightlifting is probably less about the proficiency of your lifts and most about your ability to examine yourself and move beyond any beliefs about your own inadequacy. It will be frustrating to do so, but it will be more than worth it.
11. If you still think that lifting weights every day is going to make you bigger – you have OBVIOUSLY never done it.
12. The bar will tell you it is heavy off the floor. Don’t believe the bar. The second pull is a decision – make it.
13. How you feel is a lie. (John Broz) You will have a great day on what feels like a good one, a bad day on what feels like a great day, and you will not feel like training all the time – regardless, you will have to learn that in any moment you are infinitely capable of more than you think. If you are patient, you will become grateful for the chance to enter every day with the opportunity to cultivate that capability.