When you train, is it necessary for you to have someone there for you, encouraging you? I have to admit that I have never had...well, sometimes had someone there cheering me on. But I have never needed someone there. I can't stand false chatter or cheering for just the sake of doing it. Shoot, one of the best things about weight training is the solitary aspect of it, at least for me. Once in a while, and I have written about this before, it is cool to have everyone in there, training hard, it gives a sense of community, of fellowship. But damn, sometimes its great to just be alone.
And back to encouraging. I have noticed with the people that I have trained in the past that they depend on me to yell at them or fire them up. It becomes a crutch. Do it yourself, be a self starter. Yes, a word here or there,"drive", "push", or stuff like that is fine, but if you have to have it , if it doesnt come from inside of you, find something else to do. One of the best things about Rob Wagner was that he never wasted words when you were training with him, in fact, I think that he purposely didn't encourage you just to see if you had it. He was funny, you'd take the bar out and he would be deathly silent. But then when he did say something, it meant that much more.
One time he was spotting me with 775 in the squat for a single. He didn't say a word when I was squatting the weight, but when I got done, he said in a calm voice, "That was a real good squat , Jim. And that meant more, his words at that point carried weight. I like it that way better.
