As a strength coach and strength athlete, there are a number of issues at hand when it comes to improving your game. The biggest variable has to be perseverance. By definition, perseverance is “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary 2010). This seems a bit straightforward, but this country’s culture dictates that difficult things aren’t worth doing. Like most adults, I’ve experienced difficult and trying times both personally and professionally. It’s very easy to simply throw your hands in the air and walk away. It’s much harder to stick through things and see the end result.
When it comes to perseverance, I always recall my freshman year of wrestling. I was fat, out of shape, and weak. My only exposure to wrestling involved Hulk Hogan and the WWE on Saturday mornings. I didn’t have any clue what I’d gotten into my first day of practice. We were just running, but for a fat kid who doesn’t run, we might as well have been doing a marathon. I was nowhere near ready for the physical challenge that lay ahead.
We started with a three-mile run through town. This wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the worst either because we ran at a moderate pace and I could keep up. As we turned around, we started to perform intervals of 30-second sprints and 30-second jogs. This sucked to the point that I was near tears. We finished the last half mile jog as a team to the middle school gym and then did sprints and other drills. After five minutes of rest, my body was in absolute pain. My head, legs, and chest hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
The coach decided to cancel the sprints and instead had us run a ten-minute indoor station drill. This consisted of running to various stations throughout the school, performing an exercise, and running to the next station. Sounds easy, right? Not quite. For an above average kid, this would require some effort. For a fat kid without any strength, I was running on sheer will alone.
Push-ups, squats, sit-ups, and lunges became agonizing torture. I wanted to quit. I wanted to go home and sit on my ass. I wanted to do anything but another damn exercise. The coach saw me struggling to keep pace with the heavy weights and offered this advice: “When you can’t go another step, take ten more. Then take ten more steps after that. Success is never easy. But you have to work through the pain to get better.”
The pain in this situation is related to the training, but pain manifests itself in other ways as well—as fear, isolation, anger, resentment, frustration, hatred, and jealousy. Why does this matter? Because I’ve felt the pain of failure, the relentless pain of fear when you’re unable to change a situation. I’ve been laid off and broke with mouths to feed. It’s easy to roll over and give up, blame the world, and never try to accomplish anything ever again. But how does that help me? How does that benefit my family?
Sometimes you just have to get back on the horse and try again and again. Yes, it sucks. Yes, you will feel pain—mentally and physically. But you have to get up. Champions don’t quit. Champions face adversity and overcome it. My biggest fear is that my kids never apply themselves and never face adversity because they saw me quit when things got difficult. To me, this would be the greatest pain as a person and as a father.
I’m not offering some magical technique to success. What I know is that the more the world pushes, the more you need to push back. This won’t make you a millionaire, but most people give up when it gets hard. If you persevere, there are fewer competitors.
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Adam Plagens is the strength and conditioning coach as Saline High School in Saline, Michigan. He is currently raising a family of three along with his three-lift total and starting a personal training business, Apex Fitness. Adam can be reached at adam@apex-fit.com. 
Losing and Failure. Those are two things people haven’t been taught how to deal with. It is inevitable at one point or another. Only one will be the winner and someone has to lose. However, that doesn’t mean accept losing but prepare to win next time.
An issue I see with this “trophy generation” is that everyone that participated gets a tropy almost as elaborate as the winner. Not sound like a “meanie” but I’ve told my kids that I got nothing for losing in “my day”. I don’t belittle the fact the received a participation trophy, that would crush their spirit.
Awesome article Adam. I think we all need a reminder like this from time to time.
I’ve talked with my son’s teacher about this one. I work in a very technical position and I always say it’s 20% technical knowledge, 40% troubleshooting, and 40% perseverance. She agreed that it’s hard to teach little kids perseverance. I know I wouldn’t be where I was today if I gave up at the least little problem. Life is hard, but usually if you keep trying it will get better.
Good article.
All true!
I admit I quit often when i should show some balls. It’s easy to quit, but you accomplish nothing then. Perse verance is only possible when you got some higher motivation! it’s necessary to always see WHY you must fight.
As my coach always says, “it’s tough at the top – but it ain’t crowded”
Great advice!
I love it man. This is a message everyone needs to here. Keep going when times are hard and you’ll come through a better person. This reminds me of why I still lift.
Amazing article dude
Kroc is becoming the go-to image for articles on hardwork and dedication. Very fitting.
I normally do not reply to these, but I thought this article merited it. It was very insightful and I will be showing it to others.
Awesome Article! Just recently I was laid off with 2 kids and a wife to feed so I can relate to this .
Its not easy but thats life and I am grateful for powerlifting for keeping me strong and not giving up!
Hey guys, I’m humbled by the responses! I appreciate that the message has touched so many of you. Please share this article. I know Im shamelessly promoting the hell out of it!!!
There is a line from one of the Rocky movies which pretty much is in line with the authors message.
wow ! all i i can say its wow one of the must fundamental things in life that no one teaches us. i thank you and all the guys that try and use these new means of communications to teach us these things and remind us from time to time these things just thank you
This could not have come at a better time in my training and my life! Thank you.
this is probably the 15th time i’ve read this article and the quote about success was so good to me that i wrote it on the cealing thats above my bed so every night i can look at it and be reminded that success is never handed to you