On my fitness journey, I’ve learned that building up my strength with certain exercises does not progress evenly. There are times when I get stuck on a weight and can’t seem to improve, and other times when I see surprising progress. I hit plateaus as well as peaks. And it can be a bit demoralizing when I hit a peak and then can’t replicate it for days or even weeks.

What I’ve come to realize is that the personal bests don’t matter, what really matters is the effort. Today I couldn’t lift nearly as heavy as I have in the past. For example, in my morning workout I struggled to get 6 reps of 185lbs once (with assistance) on incline bench. Yet I did 3 sets of 7 reps just a couple weeks ago, with no assistance.

However, I pushed myself really hard today. My muscles got a good burn, and I feel like I left nothing in my reserve tank when I did that heavily assisted last rep today. If I tried another rep my spotter would have had to do more work than me.

Effort over output.

Some days getting to the gym is hard. Some days in the gym are hard. Today was hard, but in a different way. Today was hard because I couldn’t lift as heavy as I usually do. I felt I needed more rest between sets, and everything seemed more challenging than usual… and yet I still pushed myself. I put in maximum effort.

So leaving the gym I felt good. I know that I put in the best effort I could, and I realized that it would have been easy to be disappointed if I paid attention only to my strength during the exercises. However it wasn’t the strength output that mattered it was the effort input… and with that as the measure, I rocked it! I kicked @$$!

Effort over output for the win.

💪😀👍