TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL LIFTERS

Disclaimer: The word “success” in the following article does not necessitate being the strongest lifter in the world. It may be tied to an absolute weight on the bar. It may not.

The word “success” in this text is dedicated to those who have stuck with barbell training to this day. Whether they’ve been training for three months, two years, or a decade. It is a testament to those who have understood the true value of this work, and have used it to transform parts of their life in ways they hadn’t thought possible.

For those of you who have not gotten under the bar yet: I hope this article serves as an inspiration.

For those of you who are still messing around in the gym and not getting stronger: I can’t hide the fact that this article was also written for you.

Below are traits which from my observations have characterised successful lifters over the years.

SHOWING UP

It isn’t far-fetched to say that turning up is half the deal if you want to achieve anything in life. In the world of strength training, I would argue that the mere fact of showing up to your sessions is even more than half the deal. Because once you’ve entered through that gym door, there’s no way back.

It sounds so blatantly obvious that there’s almost no point mentioning it: the biggest killer of your progress is simply not training often enough.

Humans, for some bizarre reason, are very good at finding excuses for not having to do things. Perhaps it gives them a sense of self-importance that whatever the excuse is, it must be the preferred option to what they ought to be doing. Too cold (or too hot) weather, cat needing to be fed, getting dark outside and too late to go to the gym, or having to “rest myself” because “I don’t want to get hurt before that festival I am attending tomorrow” (…don’t laugh. I have heard it all before).

Successful lifters realise that unless it’s done, it doesn’t exist. If they don’t turn up to their sessions, progress doesn’t happen. If progress doesn’t happen, they’re not getting stronger. If they’re not getting stronger, they’re wasting valuable time.

Think about it this way: training three days a week for 1.5 hours makes up less than 0.03% of your time available in the week. Do you want to tell me you can’t make this amount of time free for something that has such a profound impact on your life?

Successful lifters understand that the effort and relatively little time they put into their training is nothing compared to the actual benefits they get from it: more muscle, less pain, a more confident appearance, and a better performance in their game called life. For that, they have to master the art of showing up.

UNDERSTANDING RECOVERY

Picture 1: Iona powering through her deadlift at 107kg.

We all know that recovery plays a crucial part in getting stronger. I would go as far as to say that training and recovery are inseparable – like two sides of the same coin. Take the law of duality: Where there’s day, there’s night. Where there’s left, there’s right. Where there’s up, there’s down. Where there’s training, there’s recovery. And without recovery, there’s no getting stronger.

Let’s dive in deeper: Two key factors have to be addressed during the recovery period: one, building muscle mass to be able to lift heavier weights; and two, fuelling the body with sufficient calories so it can power through the next workout. In order to attain that, your body has to be provided with the right nutrition as well as sufficient sleep so it can achieve stronger lifts as an output.

Here is where successful lifters get it right: they structure and prepare their meals just as they do their training. They have educated themselves to a level where they don’t just eat whatever floats their boat. They create meal plans to know what and how much they are putting into their body.

Iona has been training at Strong For Life since July 2025. She has come to understand the importance of proper nutrition on her lifting. “I noticed that as I was coming to the end of my novice progression, I started struggling with increases in weight on the bar. I was out of breath and had little in the tank. My diet was generally good up to that point but it did not meet the increased demands of heavy lifting three days a week. I upped my carb intake, and through this tweak, I now don’t fatigue as quickly in sessions, while my performance is more consistent again.”

You can run this experiment a million times, and you will always get the same outcome: overeat the day before a workout, and see how much lighter the weights feel the next day (or: how much stronger you actually are). More drive and energy in your lifts, which if I’m all correct, makes you stronger. And that’s precisely what you want, isn’t it?

Besides paying attention to their nutrition, successful lifters realise the importance of the cheapest and most effective recovery tool they have at their disposal: sleep. They know that sleep is the time of the day where their hard work in the gym is transformed into results.

Without turning this into an in-depth discussion about sleep, there are simple strategies which successful lifters use in order to improve theirs: instead of mindlessly scrolling on social media or going through their emails (which most of the time is not happy news), they hit the pillow earlier and refrain from using technological gadgets in the last half hour before bed. They make the room as dark as they can, and they get rid of any distractions that might interrupt their sleep (I know that a new-born can’t be removed from your bed just like that. All good. Relax.)

Most importantly, they realise that their attempts to enhance their sleep won’t be perfect, especially as they get older - but they are willing to make an effort anyway.

Because they have experienced that after a day of a good night’s sleep, they feel that extra bit stronger under the bar. And once they have figured out that something works, they are inclined to repeat it religiously.

NOT MINDING MONOTONY

Practicing the basics over and over again is not an attractive proposition for most people. After all, our brains get bored easily – which may well have to do with the fact that we live in an overstimulated world where our attention has been hijacked.

When one fitness trend goes out of fashion, bored people join the next one.

An exercise gets boring (whatever that means) – they try the next one.

Things get hard in training – they find something else to do.

Successful lifters understand the value of mastering the basics of barbell training. They relentlessly pursue quality reps in the squat, deadlift, press, bench press, and Olympic lifts. They value efficiency over variety and entertainment, because they know that the former is what makes them stronger. Becoming very good at a few things matters more to them than being average at many things, which in the end does not make them any stronger.

Successful lifters squat on Monday and realise that it will be the same grind on Friday – just a couple kilos more. They deadlift 130kg on Wednesday and understand that in a week’s time, they have to attempt 132.

Monotonous, step-wise progress is a basic concept which unsuccessful lifters have failed to understand. It is because they have traded simplicity and productiveness for complexity and enjoyment.

DEALING WITH SETBACKS IN A PRODUCTIVE WAY

Picture 2: Fiona at the start of her 88kg deadlift she is about to bury.

Successful lifters realise that getting stronger is not a risk-free activity. Everything in life carries in itself risks. And this is often where progress lies. Not in comfort, but neither in taking foolish, uncalculated adventures in the weight room. Progress lies in the realm of unexplored possibilities where the outcome is thus far unknown.

Despite all efforts to stay injury-free, living an active life inevitably comes with a price tag: tweaks, strains, or setbacks amassed from outside the weight room can cause your training to suffer. If you allow it to.

Successful lifters use obstacles as a way to work around as well as on other things at the same time. They see this as a chance to get better at something different while their injury heals in the process - instead of skipping sessions because they think they have to let things heal.

Fiona, a member of Strong For Life since 2022, broke the plateau of her right tibia while on holiday in 2024. Despite not being able to load her leg with any significant weight for two months, she kept attending her sessions and focussed on upper body strength instead.

“Not being able to squat and deadlift for weeks felt like I lost a lot of what I had built up. By coming to Oliver’s group sessions, I felt I stayed on track. And it gave me time to work on details of my bench press.”

By attending her usual three-day split, Fiona believes it also made her rehab process easier to get through. “Doing the exercises I could gave me a lot of confidence that the injury wasn’t as bad as I thought. It gave me a much better outlook on returning to my best.”

Successful lifters like Fiona realise that they can always work on something in training - no matter how little it is. They understand that attending sessions despite their temporary situation is what keeps them engaged in the process long-term. They use setbacks as opportunities to grow, rather than reasons to quit.

BEING COACHABLE

Successful lifters understand that they need a view from outside the box in order to achieve their full lifting potential, as they themselves are inside the box where they do not have the same access to objective measures of their training.

They are prepared to take on instructions from their coach and use them in a purposeful way to get stronger. This means that information given by a coach doesn’t just enter their left ear, bypasses their brain, and exits their head through the right ear. They use every bit of information as an opportunity to get stronger.

They understand that their prior experience with other coaches bears no relevance to the work with the coach they are collaborating with at that time. Every coach has a different pair of eyes, as well as a different approach to training - something which the lifter must be receptive to in order to drive the process of getting stronger forward. The unsuccessful lifter, on the other hand, closes himself down to feedback and learning – which rapidly turns into a lose-lose situation for both the coach and the lifter himself.

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO IMPROVE

Picture 3: Ana locking out her 120kg deadlift. Unfazed.

Let’s get one thing straight first: training is not your full-time job. In fact, the average lifter spends a mere three to four hours in the gym every week. The good thing is: with that, most of your job is done. There’s no point falling under the illusion that you need to read millions of articles and watch thousands of videos as a full-time job in order to make barbell training work for you.

I am talking about having a general interest in your own development as a lifter. Would you, with the time you have available, not want to be curious on how to break through a lift you’ve been stuck on for a while, and take the appropriate steps towards correcting it? Would you – once you have settled into your basic pair of lifting shoes – not be interested in seeing what a more upgraded pair can do for you?

All of the above doesn’t take a lot of time to address, but it can bring new energy into the system by which you create opportunities for yourself to get your lifting wheels into motion again.

Ana Prado has been training at Strong For Life for nearly five years. Strength training has become her big passion since, and she has continuously been looking to improve her form and numbers. ‘To complement my training, I do a lot of studying outside the sessions. Besides that, I have found that videoing my lifts and seeking feedback on them has been one of the best ways to improve my form.’

Successful lifters like Ana realise that a quest for continuous improvement allows them to find new solutions to given problems.

They understand that ensnaring themselves in a cocoon will yield the same outcomes as always, without any new progress attained.

BEING A GOOD TRAINING PARTNER

Successful lifters realise that they are not the only existence in the weight room. They are aware of their surroundings and don’t mind making an effort to help others out.

They encourage their fellow training partners to give their all on their work sets.

They spare a second to help them load and unload their plates.

They don’t compulsively check their phones every five seconds, but signal to the group that they are approachable and happy to be part of the training environment.

When dealing with aches and pains, they accept their situation, and get on with their training.

They realise the value of making a contribution to the rest of the training group. As such, they understand that if their training partners benefit, they themselves do too. Win-win.

BEING MASOCHISTIC. KIND OF.

Picture 4: The bar has no regrets. Neither does Paul.

I am failing to comprehend the following and would appreciate some much-needed enlightenment: if the lifts you are carrying out are supposed to be “comfortable” – what is an afternoon siesta in your bed supposed to feel like? Surely, two such distinct events cannot both be the same, can they?

Explain to me how you are planning to get stronger if you never ever, for once, choose a weight which tests your physical capabilities to the limit (or close to)?

This is not about you turning into a meathead who grunts and yells like a gorilla in the weight room. This is about you understanding that in order to get stronger, the weight on the bar has to continuously increase – as when the weight on the bar goes up, the demands on your ability to produce force do too. Isn’t that, after all, what makes you stronger?

Failing to understand that getting stronger has nothing to do with comfort is one of the most common reasons why people quit training after a while – because it’s just getting "too hard” for them.

Successful lifters, on the other hand, are a different kettle. They understand that lifting a maximum weight requires maximum effort (I am not talking about a 1-rep max, but a weight which teaches you something you don’t know yet). They revel in the challenge of making the seemingly impossible possible. When all odds are against them on the day – because they slept poorly, had a terrible day at work, their back aches - but they still screw up the courage to carry the last rep of the last set in the squat all the way down to the bottom, not knowing whether they are able to carry it up again.

Paul, a 68-year old car mechanic, is a prime example for someone who pushes himself beyond boundaries - no matter what. Having had a physically demanding job all his life, it has taken its toll on his body: back pain for many years, surgery on his wrist, and feeling the effects of putting his body into awkward positions as part of his work.

When Paul trains, none of that exists in his world. “Once I get started and warm-up on my lifts, things start to ease off on my body, and everything feels better. Even on days when I’m in pain, I attend the group sessions, because I know that getting stronger gives my body something to fight with to stop it falling apart.”

Successful lifters like Paul see going through discomfort as a true reflection of their effort. When they complete their hard work sets, they become addicted to the sense of achievement. Because they didn’t get there in their pyjamas, thinking it should all be comfortable. It is because they were able to tolerate some level of pain.

DOING WHAT THEY DO - BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THEY DO

The term ‘motivation’ has become a popular catchword in the field of psychology over the last decades. From an economical point of view, this may be seen as a positive, as hundreds of thousands of new jobs of life coaches and motivational speakers have been created.

The downside of this is that relying on your motivation to actually get things done has an impressive failure rate of 99.9%. I have not taken this information from a peer-reviewed paper, but from my own observations - combined with a hint of logic.

If you constantly have to ask yourself why you need to do things, you won’t get anywhere in life. I guarantee you that.

The why of your actions is subject to fluctuations. Today you can be bothered, tomorrow you can’t be, and the day after, you might be. So are you going to skip the gym tomorrow just because your why isn’t strong enough? Or are you going to go anyway – because you have to?

Here is the crux of the argument: motivation is a line you cross, not and end goal you hit. Motivation gets you started, and once you have decided to cross the line, the why becomes irrelevant. From this point on, the only question you should ask yourself is how? How do I prepare myself in the best way possible today so I can hit a new PB in training today? How do I optimise my recovery over the next few days so I can power through a heavy set of deadlifts in the next workout?

Successful lifters have made their quest of getting stronger an integral part of their life, as they have already understood the importance (and therefore the why) of it.

They don’t need a reason for it.

They do it anyway.

Because that’s what they do.

#strengthtraining #barbells #hamptonwick