We are living in a wild time right now meatheads…

Gyms are closed throughout the nation due to the COVID-19 pandemic that is running rampant. With the cancellations of large events and training facilities comes the cancellation and postponement of competitions. Understandably there is a lot of heartburn about this from the athlete's perspective, but before you go off the rails and post or share some thoughts you might later regret, there are a few things I implore you to take into consideration.

Powerlifting federations and events are often lifter, coach, and athlete run. So, your peers and likely teammates put forth a lot of time and effort into planning these events. When things come down that are state or federally mandated, it's is entirely out of that meet director’s control. Coming after the federation or meet director(s) for canceling a meet for this reason with a bad attitude is gross. Not to mention, with what we know about this virus, it’s the right choice to postpone or shut meets down. While you may be a healthy human who could survive the virus, there are others you could come in contact with that may not be as fortunate. It’s not just about you.  If you think otherwise feel free to call, text or DM me and we can talk about why you’re wrong.

Now, with all that being said…. I KNOW IT SUCKS. Also, you’re not alone. This is not something happening to just you. You spend so much time training to peak for a meet and now your gym is closed, and you don’t have access to your training partners or equipment needed to prep. Not to mention you likely spent money registering for your meet months out and the chances of you getting that back in a timely manner or at all are slim. Everything just feels like it's falling apart. For all that, I am sorry and feel for you.  But just because you are experiencing these setbacks does not mean all your progress has gone down the drain. Just because you’re not getting the opportunity to step on the platform does not mean you didn’t get stronger. You are still (likely) improving, you’re just not getting a chance to display those improvements in public and your Open Powerlifting page won’t get updated.

So instead of seeing this as a negative thing, look at it as an opportunity to become a better athlete. You got the gift of more time. More time to clean up your diet. More time to train motor patterns and form. More time for mobility and rehab. More time to increase work capacity so that when you do come back to your gym you can jump back into the volume work without sucking wind between sets. There are a lot of different reasons this can have a positive spin. The difference between the people that stick around in this sport for decades and those who fizzle out after a year or two is their ability to handle adversity. Hi, welcome to March 2020…This is adversity. You can either overcome and make good choices or allow it to defeat you.