The Valley Before the Breakthrough
Eight weeks ago, one of us (Brad) was struggling mightily in the weight room.
After a powerlifting meet in the Spring, he had taken three months away from heavy deadlifting. The break wasn’t because he was hurt but because he wants to play the long game, and occasional time off from the big lifts is smart.
When he first got back into it, he felt awful.
Three hundred and sixty-five pounds, a weight that normally moves lightning fast and feels light, felt heavy as can be.
On the third week back, he turned to his coach and said, “This feels like walking on an open blister. I can’t believe how terrible and uncomfortable it is. Maybe I’m just done deadlifting.”
His coach chuckled and told him it’s par for the course.
“But it was only a three-month break. I was training hard, just not deadlifting,” remarked Brad.
“Practice what you preach. Stay patient. Trust the process. Give me a few more weeks,” said his coach.
Ten weeks later, Brad hit 500 pounds for two reps with more in the tank—a lifetime PR. He went from questioning what he was doing to feeling strong, full of energy, and performing at his best. All of this in just 70 days.
It’s a prime example of something we write about frequently: progress is nonlinear. It’s also why the advice to get “just one percent better every day” works great, until it gets in the way.
When you are new to something, the harder you work, the better you get. But once you get pretty good, progress slows and becomes harder to come by. If you are addicted to visible improvement, you may find yourself tempted to give up. You can think of it as the end of the honeymoon period.
But so much of the good, interesting, and most fulfilling stuff comes after the honeymoon period. You’ve got to stay patient and find value and satisfaction in the work itself even, and perhaps especially, when you aren’t making observable progress—even when it feels like you are walking on an open blister.
It’s not just strength training.
It’s writing. It’s music. It’s leadership. It’s running. It’s just about any worthwhile pursuit. One of the biggest traps is the plateau or valley. But much like Brad recently experienced, oftentimes, the plateau or valley precedes a breakthrough. It’s just how it goes once you get pretty good at something.
Add in time off, injury, illness, family obligations, travel, and all the other stuff of life, and for all that we know about human performance, it becomes harder to predict and more of a mystery.
Process over outcomes. Patience. Persistence. Consistency.
We research, coach, and write on these topics. We’ve also been fortunate to work with many of the world’s best performers on them. And yet, when it’s us needing to be patient, when it’s us experiencing a plateau or valley, it’s still really dang hard.
Brad probably wasn’t ever going to quit deadlifting. But having a coach to support and remind him that this is just how it goes certainly didn’t hurt. When we’re on a long plateau, the devil on our shoulder convinces us that maybe we should consider throwing in the towel. We need a counterbalance. It’s one of the reasons we write this newsletter. It may not be filled with the latest fad or protocol that promises a quick fix, but it does contain nudges and reminders to help keep you (and ourselves) on the path.
Because at the end of the day, the goal is the path and the path is the goal, and so much of success is simply a matter of staying on it.
Excellence, performance, and greatness can be quite simple, but simple does not mean easy. It’s vital to surround yourself with people, writing, and other material that consistently reminds you to fall in love with the process—to stay patient, to stay focused, to stay consistent, to stay hungry. Do that, and eventually the process loves you back.
– Brad and Steve
The post The Valley Before the Breakthrough first appeared on The Growth Equation.
