There are very few downsides I’ve noticed to getting stronger, but I definitely miss the feeling when I first started and every dumbbell I would ever use for my working sets always felt “light” in the sense that I never felt fear of the dumbbell, I never had problems maneuvering it, racking or unracking it, walking it to the bench etc…
But now when I pick up the 55lb or 60lb dumbbells, I feel a significant and unsettling hint of angst/dread because they are noticeably too big to carry around effortlessly. I genuinely enjoy going to the gym and I’m always in a happy mood but the 55lb & heavier dumbbells act sorta like a buzz-kill, especially if I do fewer reps then expected or have an off-day, essentially creating a negative feedback loop where my angst/dread is “reinforced” as valid (which it’s not valid, there should never be any dread/angst from selecting appropriate dumbbells from the rack).
Is there a mental form cue or reframing trick I can use to spin that apprehensive emotion into a positive one? If there are no shortcuts, then what muscles do I need to strengthen in order to make the 55lb & heavier dumbbells feel light/effortless like the 20lb dumbbells felt when I first began lifting? I improved my PR yesterday by 1 rep but I couldn’t properly enjoy it because of the slightly unsettling vibe that larger dumbbells give me. Lastly, the problem is getting worse lately due to the self-reinforcing nature described earlier so I’d really prefer to nip this problem while it’s still in the bud. 💪
Deadlifts will make you feel strong and get you used to heavy weights in you hands
A big insight I realized after posting today is how ubiquitous the 45lb plates are at gyms everywhere and that I carry them extremely frequently at my gym. I think that my brain is comparing everything to that standardized weight because even the 50’s have a modicum of that fear/dread and it just so happens to be one size larger than the 45lb plates.
Tomorrow I will try to remind my brain that the 55lb dumbbells weigh significantly more than the 45lb plates and see if that “solves” the problem. For the past 2 years, I’ve plausibly been training my brain (incorrectly) that all the dumbbells weigh less than or equal to the 45lb plates. 🤦♂️
If it makes the numerical recognition any easier, you might try looking at all weights in kilograms. 20 kg is 45 lbs, so when you get to lifting 45 kg, that’s
122100 lbs!45kg is 99lbs
Yeah, I realized I fat-fingered the conversion factor as 2.5 rather than 2.2.