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Two and a half weeks. That’s what’s left between me and the competition platform at the 2025 Armlifting World Championships. As I write this update, I’m sitting here reflecting on a week that perfectly encapsulated what I’ve been trying to share with you throughout this journey: the reality of pursuing challenging goals while living an actual life and facing real world challenges.
This past week brought everything I talk about with my clients into sharp focus—the challenge of maintaining consistency when travel disrupts your routine, the stress of juggling multiple priorities, the art of making imperfect choices that still move you toward your goals, and the constant balancing act between pursuing excellence and maintaining perspective.
If Week 1 was about settling into the final preparation phase, Week 2 was about navigating the inevitable curveballs that life throws at you, especially when you’re trying to peak for a specific date. And honestly, it’s been a masterclass in the principles I teach every day: flexibility, consistency over perfection, and the understanding that sustainable approaches always win in the long run.
The Tennessee Detour: When Life Takes Priority
As I mentioned in last week’s post, I spent five days in Tennessee visiting my father for his birthday. This trip represented everything I believe about maintaining perspective in goal pursuit—some things are simply more important than perfect adherence to any training or nutrition protocol, and this was one of them.
The practical implications of this trip were exactly what I expected: training schedule disruptions and nutritional challenges. But the experience also provided valuable lessons about adaptation, stress management, and the importance of building flexibility into any serious preparation plan.
From a training perspective, I had to get creative. My father lives near a national park, and while I didn’t have access to my usual gym equipment, I had something potentially more valuable—new trail running opportunities. I completed two trail runs during my stay, taking advantage of terrain I’d never experienced before.
Now, cardiovascular training isn’t directly crucial for armlifting success, but maintaining overall fitness and, more importantly, doing activities I genuinely enjoy, contributes to my overall well-being and stress management.
This decision reflects a philosophy I try to instill in all my clients: training should enhance your life, not consume it. Yes, I’m preparing for a world championship, but I’m not getting paid to compete. The moment training becomes a source of stress that prevents me from enjoying meaningful experiences with family, it’s time to reassess priorities. Those trail runs weren’t just about maintaining fitness—they were about maintaining joy in movement and taking advantage of a unique opportunity.
The scheduling adjustments were straightforward but required some planning. I shifted my final pre-travel training session up by a day the week before, then shifted everything back by a day upon my return. It wasn’t optimal from a pure training perspective, but it was perfectly manageable. This kind of flexibility is essential not just for competition preparation, but for anyone trying to maintain long-term fitness habits while dealing with the realities of work, family, and social obligations.
Real World Challenges: Nutrition in the Real World
The bigger challenge, as expected, was nutrition. My father is passionate about barbecue, and he has an impressive smoker setup at his Tennessee home.
We spent considerable time preparing various smoked meats, and the food was absolutely incredible. This presented exactly the kind of scenario that causes many people to abandon their goals entirely—being in a situation where perfect adherence to your nutrition plan simply isn’t practical or appropriate.
Here’s where the principles I teach really matter: I went into this trip knowing that my eating wouldn’t be perfect, and I planned accordingly. I didn’t try to control every meal or stress about every calorie. Instead, I enjoyed the experience, participated fully in the family time, and trusted that I had built enough buffer into my overall approach to handle a few days of higher-calorie eating.
The result? I returned home weighing 152 pounds, up from my target of around 150. In the context of needing to weigh 154 pounds or less for competition, this was completely manageable. More importantly, it was exactly what I expected and planned for. There were no surprises, no panic, and no need for dramatic corrective measures.
Within three days of returning to my normal eating routine, I was back down to 151 pounds. The weight came off naturally and easily because I hadn’t done anything extreme in either direction. I didn’t overeat to the point of significant damage, and I didn’t need to implement crash diet measures to correct course. This is the power of moderate, sustainable approaches—they’re forgiving and self-correcting.
This experience perfectly illustrates a concept I emphasize constantly with my coaching clients: perfection is not required for success. What matters is having a plan, following it most of the time, and making intelligent adjustments when life inevitably interferes. The clients who succeed long-term are not the ones who never deviate from their plans; they’re the ones who know how to get back on track quickly after deviations.
Training Progress: Small Wins and Continued Growth
Despite the travel disruptions, this week’s training sessions were encouraging. The grip-specific work felt solid across all three competition lifts, and I’m seeing the kind of steady progress that builds confidence without creating overconfidence.
Saxon Deadlift: Approaching Personal Territory
The 2-inch Saxon deadlift continues to feel strong. This week I hit 165 pounds for a single repetition, which puts me just 5 pounds away from my current personal record of 170 pounds. What’s particularly encouraging is that the 165-pound lift didn’t feel like an all-out maximum effort. I had more in the tank, but I chose to stop there for time reasons and to avoid unnecessary fatigue.
This kind of restraint is crucial in the final weeks of competition preparation. The goal isn’t to set personal records in training; it’s to build confidence while preserving energy for the competition itself. Knowing that I can handle weight close to my personal best without feeling completely depleted is exactly where I want to be at this point in my preparation.
The Saxon deadlift has always been one of my stronger events, and maintaining that strength while managing the other demands of preparation gives me confidence that my training approach is working. The thick handle continues to feel comfortable in my hands, and my technique remains consistent even as the weights get heavier.
Anvil Lift: Finding My Groove
The anvil lift showed noticeable improvement this week. I was able to handle 100 pounds (not including the weight of the anvil itself) for a single repetition, and while this wasn’t an all-out maximum effort, it represents progress from previous weeks. More importantly, I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with the implement’s unique characteristics.
One interesting development is that my right hand feels significantly more secure and powerful with the anvil than my left hand. This is valuable information for competition strategy. While I’ll likely rely primarily on my right hand for the heavier attempts, I may alternate between hands during the lighter weights to avoid over-fatiguing my stronger side.
The anvil’s curved shape and varying diameter continue to present unique challenges, but I’m developing a better sense of optimal hand positioning and grip technique. With two and a half weeks remaining, I feel confident that I’ll have the technical aspects dialed in by competition day.
Country Crush Deadlift: Building Consistency
The 2-inch one-hand Country Crush deadlift felt notably better this week. I was able to perform sets of 3 repetitions at 117.5 pounds with what I’d describe as “fairly easy” effort—not effortless, but controlled and confident. This represents solid progress from the previous week’s frustrations with this lift.
The rotating handle continues to demand respect and precise technique, but I’m developing better consistency in my approach. The key with this lift is patience and control—you can’t muscle your way through a rotating handle, so developing the right touch and timing is essential.
Seeing improvement in this lift is particularly satisfying because it was the source of significant frustration in Week 1. It’s a perfect reminder that progress isn’t always linear, and that consistency in training approach eventually pays dividends even when individual sessions don’t go as planned.
The Hidden Challenge: Managing Stress and Fatigue
Perhaps the most important aspect of this week’s experience was the reminder of how significantly stress and fatigue impact everything else. The early morning flight back from Tennessee—a 3 AM wake-up call—threw off my sleep schedule for the entire week. I found myself tired in the mornings, tired in the afternoons, and generally operating at less than optimal energy levels.
This kind of fatigue is insidious because it affects everything: training quality, recovery, decision-making, and overall well-being. It’s not dramatic enough to force you to skip workouts or abandon your nutrition plan, but it makes everything just a little bit harder. Weights that normally feel manageable require more effort. Meals that are usually satisfying leave you wanting more. Recovery that typically happens overnight takes longer.
As a health coach, I talk about stress as a hidden factor in fitness and performance all the time, but experiencing it firsthand during competition preparation drives the point home. Training for a specific competition is inherently stressful—there’s a deadline, specific performance expectations, and the pressure of wanting to perform well. Add to that the normal stresses of work, family, and daily life, and the cumulative effect can be significant.
This week, work has been particularly demanding. I’m juggling client responsibilities, business development, family commitments, and competition preparation, and I can feel the weight of all these priorities. It’s exactly the kind of scenario that many of my clients face when they’re trying to pursue fitness goals while managing careers, relationships, and parental responsibilities.
The key insight here is recognition and response. I can’t eliminate all sources of stress—work will continue to be busy, family responsibilities won’t disappear, and competition preparation inherently involves pressure. But I can be intentional about stress management practices: meditation, breathing exercises, ensuring adequate sleep when possible, and maintaining perspective about what’s truly important.
I’m also trying to be realistic about my capacity. When I’m feeling the cumulative effects of stress and fatigue, I listen to my body and adjust accordingly. This might mean ending a training session slightly earlier than planned, choosing easier meal options that still align with my nutrition goals, or prioritizing sleep over other activities.
This approach reflects a fundamental principle I teach all my clients: sustainable success requires honest self-assessment and intelligent adaptation. The goal isn’t to be perfect or to push through every challenge with brute force. The goal is to maintain forward momentum while preserving long-term health and well-being.
Lessons from the Trenches: What This Week Taught Me About Real-World Goal Pursuit
This week’s experiences—from navigating nutrition challenges during family time to managing training around travel to dealing with cumulative stress—offer valuable insights that extend far beyond armlifting preparation. Whether you’re working toward your first 5K, trying to lose weight, building strength, or pursuing any other fitness goal, the principles that guided my decisions this week can inform your approach.
The Art of Strategic Compromise
One of the most important skills in long-term goal achievement is learning when and how to make strategic compromises. The Tennessee trip presented a perfect example: I could have tried to maintain perfect control over my nutrition, potentially creating stress and limiting my ability to fully enjoy time with my father. Or I could have completely abandoned any nutritional awareness, potentially creating problems that would require dramatic corrective measures later.
Instead, I chose a middle path: I participated fully in the family experience while maintaining general awareness of my goals. I enjoyed the barbecue without obsessing over every calorie. I stayed active with trail running without stressing about missing gym sessions. I came home slightly above my target weight but within a manageable range that required no extreme measures to correct.
This approach works because it’s based on having built sufficient buffer into my overall plan. I didn’t wait until the last possible moment to address my weight management, so I could afford a few days of imperfect eating. I had established a solid training base, so missing a few gym sessions wouldn’t derail my preparation.
The same principle applies to any fitness goal. If you’re trying to lose weight, build strength, or improve your health, the key is creating enough margin in your approach that life’s inevitable disruptions don’t become goal-ending catastrophes. This might mean starting your weight loss journey with a timeline that allows for holidays, vacations, and social events. It might mean building your training schedule around your actual availability rather than your ideal availability.
The Compounding Effect of Stress
This week provided a stark reminder of how different types of stress compound and amplify each other. The physical stress of travel, the disruption to sleep patterns, the mental load of work responsibilities, the emotional investment in competition preparation—none of these factors exist in isolation. They interact and amplify each other in ways that can significantly impact your capacity to pursue your goals.
Many people underestimate this compounding effect. They wonder why their workouts feel harder when they’re dealing with work stress, or why their willpower around food choices diminishes when they’re not sleeping well, or why their motivation drops when they’re managing family challenges. The answer is that these systems are interconnected, and stress in one area affects performance in all areas.
Understanding this interconnection is crucial for sustainable goal pursuit. It means that stress management isn’t separate from fitness—it’s an integral part of it. It means that sleep isn’t just about recovery from workouts—it’s about maintaining the mental and emotional resources needed to make good decisions throughout the day. It means that managing work-life balance isn’t separate from health goals—it’s foundational to achieving them.
Practically, this understanding should influence how you structure your approach to fitness goals. During periods of high work stress, it might be wise to maintain your exercise routine but be more flexible about nutrition. During times of family challenges, you might focus on stress-management practices and basic movement rather than pushing for personal records. During travel or schedule disruptions, you might prioritize sleep and hydration over perfect meal timing.
The Power of Process-Focused Thinking
Throughout this week’s challenges, my focus remained on process rather than outcomes. Instead of obsessing over the fact that I weighed 152 pounds instead of 150, I focused on returning to my established eating routine. Instead of panicking about missed gym sessions, I focused on completing the training I could control. Instead of catastrophizing about feeling tired and stressed, I focused on implementing the stress-management practices I know work.
This process-focused approach is liberating because it keeps your attention on things you can actually control. You can’t control whether you’ll lose exactly two pounds this week, but you can control whether you follow your meal plan. You can’t control whether you’ll set a personal record in your next workout, but you can control whether you show up and give honest effort. You can’t control all the stressors in your life, but you can control how you respond to them.
Process-focused thinking also makes goal pursuit more sustainable because it reduces the emotional volatility that comes with outcome-focused thinking. When you’re focused on outcomes, every weigh-in becomes a source of anxiety, every workout becomes a test of your worth, and every setback feels like failure. When you’re focused on process, you can celebrate consistency regardless of immediate results, learn from challenges without self-judgment, and maintain motivation even when progress feels slow.
The Importance of Realistic Timeline Management
One of the reasons I could handle this week’s challenges without panic is that I’ve built realistic timelines into my preparation. I didn’t wait until the final week to address weight management, so a temporary increase didn’t create crisis. I didn’t schedule my peak training volume for a week when I knew I’d be traveling, so the disruption was manageable.
This principle of realistic timeline management is crucial for any fitness goal. Many people set themselves up for failure by creating timelines that don’t account for the realities of their lives. They want to lose 20 pounds in 8 weeks without considering that those 8 weeks include a vacation, a work conference, and their child’s birthday party. They want to train for a marathon while starting a new job and moving to a new city.
Realistic timeline management means building buffer into your plans. If you want to lose 20 pounds for an event, start early enough that you can lose it gradually and maintain it comfortably. If you want to train for a race, choose a training plan that fits your actual schedule, not your ideal schedule. If you want to build strength, progress at a rate that allows for recovery, life stress, and the occasional setback.
It also means being honest about your capacity during different seasons of life. There are times when you can push hard toward ambitious goals, and there are times when maintaining your current fitness level is an achievement. Learning to recognize these seasons and adjust your expectations accordingly is a crucial skill for long-term success.
The Mental Game: Confidence vs. Overconfidence
As I move into the final two and a half weeks of preparation, I’m navigating the delicate balance between confidence and overconfidence. The progress I’m seeing in training is encouraging—hitting 165 pounds on the Saxon deadlift, improving consistency on the Country Crush, and feeling more comfortable with the anvil. These are positive signs that my preparation is on track.
However, I’m also aware that feeling good in training doesn’t guarantee competition success. Competition environments are different from training environments. The pressure is different, the timing is different, and the stakes are different. Athletes who perform beautifully in training sometimes struggle in competition, while others seem to elevate their performance when it matters most.
My approach is to use the positive training sessions to build confidence while maintaining respect for the challenge ahead. I’m confident that I’ve done the work and that I’m prepared, but I’m not assuming that preparation automatically translates to perfect performance. This mindset allows me to feel good about my preparation without creating unrealistic expectations for competition day.
This balance between confidence and humility is relevant for anyone pursuing challenging goals. You want to believe in your ability to succeed—that belief is necessary for sustained effort and resilience in the face of setbacks. But you also want to maintain realistic expectations and prepare for the possibility that things won’t go exactly as planned.
The key is to tie your sense of success to your effort and preparation rather than to specific outcomes. I’ll consider this competition successful if I show up having done the work, give my best effort on each lift, and maintain perspective about the experience regardless of the results. This approach allows me to pursue excellence without being crushed by anything less than perfection.
Looking Ahead: The Final Push
With two and a half weeks remaining, my focus is shifting toward the final details of preparation. The major training adaptations have been made—at this point, I’m not trying to build new strength or dramatically improve technique. Instead, I’m focused on maintaining the fitness I’ve built, fine-tuning the details, and managing the various stressors that could impact performance.
From a training perspective, this means continuing to practice the competition lifts while being careful not to accumulate unnecessary fatigue. I’ll continue working with weights that challenge me without depleting me, and I’ll pay close attention to how my body responds to each session.
From a nutrition perspective, I’ll continue following the eating approach that has served me well, making minor adjustments as needed to ensure I’m on track for the October 9th weigh-in. The goal is to arrive at competition weight feeling strong and energized rather than depleted from aggressive weight cutting.
From a stress management perspective, I’ll continue implementing the practices that help me maintain perspective and emotional balance. This includes meditation, breathing exercises, adequate sleep when possible, and regular check-ins with myself about how I’m feeling and what I need.
Perhaps most importantly, I’ll continue maintaining the perspective that has guided this entire journey: this competition is one milestone in a longer process of personal development and physical challenge. Whether I have the competition of my life or struggle with every lift, I’ll continue training and improving because I genuinely enjoy the process.
What’s Your Tennessee Trip?
As I reflect on this week’s experiences, I’m curious about your own challenges in pursuing fitness goals. What’s your equivalent of the Tennessee trip—the life event or responsibility that makes perfect adherence to your plan impossible or inappropriate?
Maybe it’s work travel that disrupts your gym routine. Maybe it’s family obligations that make meal prep challenging. Maybe it’s seasonal stress that affects your sleep and recovery. Maybe it’s social commitments that conflict with your training schedule.
Whatever your “Tennessee trip” is, the key is planning for it rather than being surprised by it. Build flexibility into your approach. Create buffer in your timelines. Focus on what you can control rather than what you can’t. And remember that perfect adherence to any plan is impossible and unnecessary—what matters is consistency over time and the ability to get back on track quickly after inevitable deviations.
The principles that are guiding my competition preparation—strategic compromise, stress management, process-focused thinking, and realistic timeline management—apply whether you’re training for a world championship or working toward your first pull-up. The specific details might be different, but the underlying approach remains remarkably consistent.
Week 3 Preview: Dialing In the Details
Next week, I’ll be sharing insights into the final details of competition preparation. I’ll discuss my specific nutrition approach for making weight, the mental preparation strategies I’m using to manage competition anxiety, and the training adjustments I’m making as the competition approaches.
I’ll also dive deeper into the lessons this experience is teaching me about goal pursuit, stress management, and the balance between ambition and perspective. Whether you’re curious about the specifics of armlifting preparation or looking for insights that apply to your own fitness journey, I think you’ll find valuable takeaways in the final weeks of this series.
Until then, remember that every expert was once a beginner, every champion was once a contender who refused to give up, and every successful fitness journey involves navigating the same fundamental challenges I’m experiencing: balancing competing priorities, managing stress, maintaining consistency, and keeping perspective when the pressure is on.
Train hard, recover well, and keep moving forward.