Training reflections from a blackberry farmer

My favourite thing about this time of year is the blackberry harvest. Late summer in this country brings forth a glorious harvest of shining black jewels bursting with juicy sweetness in every field and hedgerow. It has been a source of great delight to me on my long and rambling walks to be able to pluck a handful of the precious berries to devour along my way. I’ve also had several blackberry picking outings. Feverishly stripping whole bramble bushes of their treasure to come home and freeze pounds of berries to keep me in crumbles over the next few months.

It was on one such outing, stood gathering berries in the first autumn rain, that a metaphor appeared to my mind. If you want the berries, you have to risk the thorns. For those of you who are chronically online or who have never left a city, blackberries grow on bramble bushes which produce some pretty wicked thorns. If you make even the most careful effort when harvesting your blackberries, you are inevitably bound to get scratched and pricked.

Now, I recognise that this metaphor could be applied very broadly to everything in your life, but this is a website about strength training so let’s talk about that. We all want to be stronger, we all want a little more muscle, bigger PRs, and to feel a bit better in our own skin as a result. These things are all worthwhile goals to pursue, but they come with their own set of difficulties. If you train long enough, you’re going to meet some thorns. You’re going to get hurt and pick up some injuries. You’re going to fail lifts and feel embarrassed about it. You’re going to have rough patches where you feel like you’re making no progress at all. These are things that all of us pursuing strength will have to deal with, they are the inevitable thorns there to check your progress. Yet despite the thorns, we all want the fruits of hard training. The strength, the muscle mass, the confidence, discipline, and resilience developed under the bar are, in my opinion, worth more than a few scratches. So, if you’re dealing with a setback in your training right now, don’t be too downhearted about it, it is an inevitable part of the process.  “Tis just a scratch” as the Black Knight says. Remember why you started, what you’re working towards, and that if you want the berries, you have to risk the thorns.