I’ve been doing seated cable rows in the gym for years. It’s one of my favorite back exercises, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can move a good amount of weight.

I don’t usually think much about how the weight moves. I take the handle in front of me, pull it until it hits my body, let the weight go down, and repeat. I move pretty deliberately, but I don’t think about much more than moving the weight through space.

Just recently, I decided to take a different approach. Rather than naturally pulling the handle, I decided that I wanted to work the center of my back. I focused as the muscles in the center of my back contracted, and surprising, I felt them engage.

But that wasn’t really the surprising part.

The surprising thing was how different the experience was. I was using a weight that I can easily lift 10 times. But I could only lift it twice – just because I changed my focus.

When I shifted back to just blindly pulling, the weight moved easily again. But that’s not the point. I don’t go to the gym to move weights. I go to build muscle.

In all the years that I’ve been doing seated rows, I never spent the time to focus on the center of my back, so it didn’t develop.

In life, as in weightlifting, it’s easy to let our strengths take over. My lats and biceps are strong enough that the muscles in the center of my back didn’t need to grow, so they didn’t.

Just like natural talker can forget to spend the time to learn their product, natural athletes can get by without putting in tremendous effort, and skilled musicians can neglect their form.

But that only gets you so far.

Eventually, you’ll hit a plateau in which you need your strong muscles and the ones that aren’t naturally strong.

But unless you’ve put in the conscious effort to build them, they won’t be ready for the challenge.

-Brandon