You Win Before the Fight

"On hearing the news that Coan would be moving into his weight class, one nationally ranked 220-pound competitor solemnly responded, "Well that's bad f#-king news for the rest of us." ⁠⁠That was Marty Gallagher on Powerlifting G.O.A.T.

Ed Coan, who was so exceptionally dominant that the best 220s of the day were demoted back to amateur status. When Coan was in your class, what else is there to do but tell your buddies, "yeah, I'm just competing with myself, hoping to go 9/9...". Guys with 2100lb totals at 220 couldn't even call themselves rivals (certainly not peers); they were more like the bum who gets pulled last minute to open for the headliner.⁠⁠

Every interview with Coan paints a picture of a man who approached lifting the way a carpenter builds a house. There's a system, it's simple and proven, and the carpenter follows it 10 out of 10 times. His goal isn't to waste his days in endless experimentation, arrogantly aiming to reinvent the craft; his goal is to take the methods he's familiar with and mold himself to them. The end result is certainty in the outcome, every time. ⁠⁠

There's a real effect when amateur witness someone who just consistently delivers; it brings their focus to their own doubts and shortcomings and it metastasizes into a full blown complex. Those who are unprepared and just 'hoping for things to go their way' are always at the mercy of the elements and it only takes a subtle breeze for their game plan to fall apart. ⁠⁠If there's a takeaway from Coan's dominance that might apply to mere mortals like you and me, it's this: emulate the people who were so on-point, so consistent, so fucking surgical in their execution, that it takes the chaos and uncertainty baked into the day-to-day of your competitors and magnifies it for the whole world to see.

When people watch you in your flow, grinding through a block for Worlds or just cleaning your kitchen, it should feel to them like a big, red, "you failed the fucking midterm", X on the sorry list of habits they called a 'prep'.⁠⁠Train. With purpose.⁠