Guest Post: Coach Dave's 4 keys to Consistency

​In the sport of weightlifting, consistency is key.  Consistency is something as athletes and coaches we always strive towards.  Ideally, we always want to make those important lifts in both training and in competition; however, that isn’t always the case.  Often times, our bodies are sore and tired, our minds are taxed from our lives, or we aren’t just moving as well as we’d like.  Fortunately, there are ways to hone your consistency even when everything else seems to be missing the mark.  Here are 4 easy tips that I have used in my training to increase my consistency on the good days and the bad.
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1. Visualization – It is important to visualize a successful lift before one touches the barbell.  If you walk onto the platform already planning on failure, you will probably end up failing.  Doubt clouds the mind to all of the other important things that a lifter should focused on, such as body awareness and positioning.  Visualization has other benefits outside of just providing a positive mental outlook.  It can also allow you to visualize cues given by a coach to hone and tune form.  Visualizing the lift before you touch the bar is an easy way to build confidence in uncertainty and also work towards more consistent lifts.
2. Address the bar with intention, every time – I’m often surprised how little care is taken when people pick up a barbell.  A tip I learned from Olympian Melanie Roach is to pick up the bar with purpose and intention, every time.  This means that regardless if you are warming up, doing lifts from the hang, or any other exercise, you pick the bar up like you would if you were lifting from the floor, with your legs (not your back) and flush with your body.  While this may seem overly time-consuming for warm-ups, addressing the bar in this fashion helps to reinforce proper motor patterns.  Often times, new lifters will be leverage power from their upper bodies instead of their legs, which can lead to several outcomes that will put the athlete out of position and endanger a successful lift.  By adding in this simple, but effective strategy, you can begin to reinforce proper movement by maintaining proper positioning every single time you come in contact with the barbell.  Good motor patterns = increased consistency.
3. Every lift with intention – Warming up properly is vital to success in higher percentage lifts; however, I see many weightlifters sandbagging on their warm-up and working sets.  I have often heard from our athletes at PFP Barbell, that lifting with lighter weights can sometimes be hard because light weights are more easily “muscled” (i.e. pulling more with upper body, rather than driving with the legs).  While this is definitely true, the road to consistency demands that every lift be exacted with precision.  Every lift should be executed the same, regardless of the weight; 40kg should be treated with the same care and attentiveness as 140kg.  If every lift is focused on with the same mental fortitude and positioning, consistency will increase dramatically.
4. Body awareness – While it is easier said than done, having awareness of your body is perhaps the most important aspect to consistency. From knowing that your body is active before lift-off, to feeling the balance in the catch, awareness of your body can help you self-regulate for better consistency.  Additionally, body awareness can help you address parts of your body that may need mobilized or additional supplementary training.  Knowing how your body feels on a good day and on a bad one can help you tweak your training.  Sometimes if our bodies and minds are tired, it may be necessary to deload the weights, cut back on volume or reps, or even scale the exercise in some way to achieve the desired result for training that day.  Listening to your body will allow for maximized training and recovery, which will ultimately aid in your quest for consistency.

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While there are many ways to increase consistency throughout your training and competitive strategies, these are 4 tactics that have helped me immensely.  That being said, the keys to any type of consistency is to constantly address the hinderances to your progress and work towards fixing them, and as always, listen to your coach.
 
Yours in strength,
Dave