Success. What is it? What does it mean? If success is defined as being the ‘accomplishment of an aim or purpose’, if someone were unable to achieve a specific aim or purpose, would their efforts be a ‘failure’?

Increasingly I’m coming to the view that much like goal setting, success needs to be defined in terms of both process(or input) and output. In terms of output based success, I could say I want to add 10kg to my squat; meaning I will only be successful if I achieve the desired outcome, or ‘output’. Given various things that have happened, it seems pretty unlikely I’ll be adding 10kg to my squat come testing week, which made me think ‘I’ve failed’. However, if I define success in a more process based way (ie doing all the right things to try to build my squat (doing my lifts, accessory work, mobility, rest, recovery, etc)) I can be successful on THIS level. I may not be totally successful (in terms of achieving both output and process/input success), but I CAN be partially successful. Equally, whilst someone may ‘get lucky’ and add 10kg to a lift without following any particular process (newbie gains come to mind!), I’m convinced that the greater the process/input success, the greater the likelihood of output success.

Positive spin or actual belief? Being the cynical sort I all too often am, there’s a very real part of me that would probably find myself thinking “you’re just trying to make yourself feel better” if I were to read the above. You know what? Maybe there’s some truth to that. But, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, provided you’re not using the ‘divided model of success’ as a cop out for not continuing to seek success on both levels. What, if any point is there in thinking or feeling ‘I totally failed’? Don’t get me wrong, failure is definitely still possible – don’t do all that you should in terms of inputs, don’t do all that you should in terms of outputs, and you’ve got failure. However, unless you’ve done absolutely nothing, you will experience partial failure. Personally, I haven’t done everything I could (and should) have done in terms of gymnastics training. I’ve done a lot more than I have previously, but I haven’t done all of it; partial success, partial failure with plenty of room to improve and increase the probability of complete success.

Ultimately, success on one level is good, but success on both levels is better.

I’m currently in week 10 of a 12 week strength block. For roughly the first 6 weeks my lifts were progressing well, heck, even my gymnastics were getting better! Then, mid-week 6, I did something to my knee (if you’ve read my other posts, you’ll know all about it – fear not, I’m not going to rehash it!).

Four weeks on and my knee is a whole lot better; significantly better than I would have expected in what is a reasonably short period of time. Despite physically healing well, I found myself with what I’ve come to think of as a pretty big ‘mental scar’ from the knee ‘incident’. I found myself thinking ‘what if my knee goes?’, ‘what if it happens again?’, ‘what if it’s worse’? I worried about twisting my knee (which I managed to do on a bench in the middle of a client session – not a good idea!), I worried about someone hitting my knee (which the postman just about managed when I came around a blind corner); far far too many things were viewed as presenting a ‘clear and present danger’ to my knee. I guess you could say I was walking around with a great deal of ‘what if baggage’.

In addition to said baggage, I found myself getting frustrated about the injury, how it was limiting my training and not allowing me to develop as much strength as possible during the few remaining weeks of the strength block. Then it occurred to me, I am developing strength, just not in the way or form I’d originally expected.

Being the highly motivated, competitive sort that I am, my natural inclination would be to try to push through the pain. In this instance, I soon realised that doing so would only extend the recovery process, possibly even doing more damage. Needless to say, the few weeks of not doing any lower body exercises took a lot of strength – I found myself developing a pretty bad case of ‘squat envy’ – even of the 1/4 squatters!

Similarly, doing my mobility work was (and is) an absolute, not something to do ‘if I have time’. Yeah, I’d much rather spend more time squatting than grinding a roller or lacrosse ball into my glutes, but no mobility will impact future training; swapping the power rack for the lacrosse ball has definitely taken some resolve.

Lastly, and I think most importantly, I’ve come to realise that I have both the mental and physical strength to deal with whatever my body throws at me. Yes, dealing with the knee ‘thing’ has been annoying and frustrating, but, I’ve faced it, and am dealing with it. I’m in the process of working my way back and beyond where I was. I’m doing what I (in consultation with a few other folks who are far smarter than me!)think makes sense, there’s plenty of time, no need to rush (or get hyper-competitive!!). By realising I’m able to deal with whatever comes my way, the ‘what if baggage’ just got a whole lot lighter. Think I may have just hit a mental PB!