There is a right way and a wrong way to use competition. The wrong way is the way most people do it. They go into the gym with their workout buddy and try to outlift their buddy or outlift the hotshot on the bench next to them. This kind of idiotic testosterone driven competition leads to injury, not gainz. A lot of time people say they need to be ‘pushed’ to workout hard, if this describes you then I strongly suggest you look at your goals because if your goals are set properly you will be self-motivated. You wont need to be nagged by your workout partner to lift hard or slapped till you bleed like some S&M event. Even in cases where you are in a competitive event like powerlifting, its not you against the others, its still you against you! All that matters is that you beat your personal best from the last contest. Why? Because if you are constantly improving then someday you WILL be the best without having to compete with anyone! Competing with others is a sure fire way to lower your self-esteem and self-confidence so DONT DO IT! A lot of times your ‘natty’ lifting buddies are not nearly as natty as they claim to be and comparing your progress against an ‘enhanced’ lifter is a sure fire way to get depressed. Do not compare yourself to others!
The right way is to compete is with yourself. Today you try to beat your PB of last week or last month. Nobody else matters. This weekend at sweat4health we are doing a virtual 5k competition and the way it works is that everyone is going to race on Saturday to set a benchmark. Later this summer we will race again and everyone will try to beat their benchmark time by as much as possible. THIS is good competition! Your best competition is yesterdays you.
