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. 💪
In some ways, heavy weights stay heavy. After all, dropping a 20 lb dumbbell on your foot still hurts even if it doesn’t feel like any weight while you lift it. And a loaded barbell is going to flex and bend when you have enough weight on it. Same with safety bars catching 500 lbs instead of 100 lbs.
But in a lot of other ways, getting stronger helps certain weights feel lighter. For that, it’s helpful to just have full body strength across lots of different angle/planes/axes. Certain exercises are great for that: suitcase carry, farmer’s carry, deadlifts, sleds, ropes, Turkish getups, other one sided or asymmetrical exercises. As you move up in weight for those, you’ll find that moving weights to set up or return weights after exercise just get easier.
But still, don’t smush your toes. That still hurts, no matter how strong you get.
In some ways, heavy weights stay heavy. After all, dropping a 20 lb dumbbell on your foot still hurts even if it doesn’t feel like any weight while you lift it.
Thanks for explicitly mentioning this! It jogged a memory of a stupid habit where after I finish my 3rd rep on heavy shoulder dumbbell presses, I lazily “slam” the dumbbells onto my legs (habitually) because they are rubber and the 40’s and 45’s don’t hurt when I do that. But the 55lb & 60lb dumbbells actually hurt significantly compared to the 45’s and the 55/60’s leave bruises because I’m so focused on slow eccentric that I mentally “clock out” and just drop the weights onto my lap before racking them and exhale a victory sigh. It reminds me of the death 10 months ago of an extremely reputed climber 23yo Balin Miller who finished his dangerous climb of El-Capitan but died 5 minutes later while descending 20 feet to retrieve his chalk bag because he forgot to tie off his belay during a TikTok livestream. In other words, he declared the feat “completed/finished” in his mind before it actually was.
I believe you helped me solve the mystery and in fact, the fear/dread is my brain reminding me not to do that with the 55lb & 60lb dumbbells… 🤦♂️ This also aligns with the “unable to properly celebrate improving my PR by adding another rep” mentioned in the OP because that’s actually where I recently noticed the negative emotion most acutely and I felt robbed of the wave/rush of happiness/excitement you get from besting your PR on your favorite lift.
Weights training can be overly specific to individual muscles. And heavy weights have more intertia in general. So the solutions are:
- do dumbbell complexes that involve a range of movements rather than overly focused muscles. Train all the small / weak muscles around the big ones using more functional approaches
- don’t over think it, heavier weights are less maneuverable, that’s physics
- if it’s really a mental problem, do more sets of lighter weights. This works too, and increases your endurance rather than your bulk. So maybe not “big number ego friendly” but instead “lots of reps ego friendly”. Upside is you get to spend more time in the gym having fun
This is good advice. More complex movements that don’t just target one muscle to get those accessory muscles working. Pull ups, squats, rows, deadlift. All the fun ones that feel good to do correctly
Yep. I don’t do weight training apart from hangboarding and weighted pull ups. I only climb. This makes the little muscles everywhere incredibly strong. I’m able to lift things heavier than my larger weight friends and I don’t even have technique.
There comes a point where lots of diversifying or non-weighted training (such as bar/ring work) becomes important. So imagine a diversity of weighted movements does exactly the same.
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.
You’re basically describing activities that align with farmer’s carry, deadlift, and rows, so maybe put more focus on those exercises?
When you pick up a light db you can easily curl it up and do straight arm raises at any angle. That lets you move the db wherever you want. You simply can’t do that with heavier weights.
If you’re training larger muscles like your pecs/back/legs and you’re not an absolute beginner, you’re going to be using much heavier weights than your arms alone can lift. You can make them easier to move, but it’s never going to feel like the light dumbbells.
