The other day, I was speaking with one of the top collegiate strength and conditioning coaches in the US, and he said that even after 30+ years of coaching, he still thinks that the top two things he can teach his athletes are attitude and environment. I may be a guy who writes articles and books and pretty much lives and breaths training, but I still agree with him completely.

You see, at a point, knowledge works against you. The internet has helped us a lot with advice and sharing of information, but it’s also led to a generation of people who think and talk about training way too much relative to the amount of time they spend actually training!

To that end, if you’re a beginning or intermediate lifter, feel free to read everything in sight. However, leave the bookworm in you at home when you go to the gym. In place of the geek lifting weights, I want you to focus on two things:

1. Teach your body to move efficiently.

2. Apply that efficiency to improve performance. Simply try to be a little bit better in each training session. There is always something you can do to get better – even if you’re injured or tired.

Don’t get stuck in the curse of knowledge; it’s been said that a bad program executed with lots of attitude and effort will outperform a good program with a foo-foo training style anyday. Use the gym to let loose and take out some aggression. This is supposed to be fun, you know.

Eric Cressey