Weightlifting requires strength, patience, & discipline. Strength because you are building muscle and increasing personal bests. Patience because results take time. And discipline because you have to show up, and engage in lots of behavior, on a consistent schedule.
Consistency is all well and good but the frequency at which you contact reinforcement is the name of the game. When your lifting behavior contacts the ideal schedule of reinforcement, then you will obtain all the goals that you could ever dream of.
What is a schedule of reinforcement?
A schedule reinforcement is a behavioral principle that relies on two factors – a reinforcer and a particular contingency.
A reinforcer is a stimulus that follows some performance that increases the odds that that behavior will occur again in the future. In weightlifting, we may think of achieving personal bests, hitting good form for the first time, and a friend’s support as likely reinforcers. When those things happen, you will keep lifting.
A reinforcement schedule relies on a contingency over time. This is the classic “If, then” statement in science.
If I do THIS, then THAT will happen.
If I LIFT THESE WEIGHTS for a few weeks, then I WILL GET STRONGER.
In general, schedules tend to vary on two dimensions: (1) the rate and (2) how often over time. We don’t need to get bog down in the details, but the important detail is this:
When, and only when that event occurs, then a reinforcer is delivered one particular schedule.
If you are curious, read Skinner’s Schedules of Reinforcement for all the details.
Schedules Over Time
Specific to weight training, schedules occur on “dense” schedules of reinforcement early in an athlete’s training history. That is, the athlete will earn some form of reinforcement in the first days, weeks, & months. We often experience “noob” (a new person) gains early on – dramatic increases in weight, learning new movements, and increased strength.
(Of course, a caveat here is that an athlete may attempt weightlifting and NEVER contact any reinforcer—resulting in NO future training sessions. In this case, we would need to reassess the training environment and figure out which target behavior needs to contact reinforcement.)
Once an athlete contacts reinforcement early in their lifting journey, the next challenge sets in. Some call this “grit”, others “intrinsic motivation”, I think differently. When a plateau occurs – the gains are harder to achieve – an athlete experiences a transition from a “dense” schedule of reinforcement to a “thin” schedule of reinforcement.
Gains, or reinforcement, are harder to come by.
What Happens When The Schedule Thins?
Weightlifting used to be fun (i.e., filled with lots of reinforcers) because I would hit personal records (PRs) all of the time, learn new skills, and obtain compliments from my peer group. All things being equal, showing up and engaging in similar amounts of behavior while contacting thinner (or fewer) reinforcers presents a challenge.
Simply put, the “fun” fades away and it takes even MORE effort to experience the smallest gain.
The athlete perseveres and maintains that level of their training, or the athletes lifting frequency decreases. In the face of thin schedules of reinforcement, or even punishing consequences (e.g., injury, aversive coaching), the athlete can be most successful when looking in their training environment for the reinforcers that keep them coming back for more.
What Does Your Schedule Look Like?
Seasoned athletes are familiar with this concept. They mastered their craft and understand the long-term effort to achieve marginal gains. Their lifting environment created the appropriate level of reinforcement to maintain behavior over the long haul.
Consider the lifting stats below. We observe higher increases in personal records in various in the early years. PRs tend to flatten out over time.
Newer athletes encounter rapid changes from dense to thin schedules of reinforcement and must “persevere” when the “going gets tough”. In these cases, the athlete must find new or different reinforcing variables in the training environment. If not, the training goes away.
No matter where you are in your lifting journey, consider:
- What are reinforcers today?
- What reinforcers led you to where you are now?
- What reinforcers do you anticipate will thin down the road?
- And, how will you overcome?
As always, keep moving, and reach out with any questions.
