Under The Bar

Image courtesy of t-nation.com

Self Made® Book Store

Participation in sports can teach us some of life's greatest lessons.  In Dave Tate's Under The Bar, Tate discusses twelve lessons he has learned from years of participating in powerlifting and how those lessons apply outside of the weight room and have helped him succeed in business and in life.

Tate breaks things down simply, identifying a lesson, relating it to the gym, and then reinforcing it with stories from both inside and outside the weight room.  While his references and metaphors are often, as expected, geared towards the powerlifting/serious strength training demographic, his experiences, takeaways, and viewpoints can be related to by most people.

The powerlifting theme is certainly draped over the entire book, but even if you aren't in to powerlifting or don't know anything about it, there is a lot of valuable wisdom to be found within these pages as Tate discusses his life events.  If you are able to read through the context and to theme of what he is saying, this book quickly becomes applicable to many people in many different walks of life.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the quotes at the beginning of every chapter.  I'm a quote guy in as much as they sometimes help to take thoughts or feelings I have and put them into words instead of keeping them more abstract in my mind.  So reading through the chapters, it was always a pleasure getting to the pages of quotes and finding ones that resonated well with me and that I could connect to.

If you have ever attempted to perform something at a high level, particularly sports,  I would highly recommend this book.  If not, it is still worth reading, but some of the concepts may seem foreign to you if you haven't had an experience of sacrificing a lot of areas of your life in order to put forth everything you have towards achieving something great.

What is one life lesson you have learned from participating in sports and how has that impacted the rest of your life?

Your body.  Your training.

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of Under The Bar in the Self Made® Book Store!

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form?  You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!