Steady as she goes

I have a little team of amateur lifters, the other day a 30yo guy said to a 65yo woman as she deadlifted, "I hope I can still do that at your age."

"Keep it up from now and you will," I said, "a lot easier than starting in your 60s." 

Consistency is more important than anything else. Consistency is more difficult than anything else. 

Recently a 21yo lifter was complaining because last week she'd squatted 70kg for her work sets, and the week after I had her do 72.5kg. 

"I can do 75."

"You certainly can. But would you be able to do more next week? And the week after? And so on? Whereas if you do 72.5 today, you'll certainly do more next week, and the week after."

She still didn't like it. "Tortoise and hare," I said, "you know the story?"

"Yeah but you're not a tortoise, you're a fucking snail." 

Interestingly enough, while the first two sets were no problem, as she came to do the third set she started complaining it was heavy and she didn't want to do it.

"First set was easy, second set okay, last set hard. If they were all easy, problem. All hard, problem. But the first was easy, and the last hard. It's almost," I said, "as if I know what I'm doing."
"Bah."

This is part of the job of coaching, helping people stay the course, neither rushing ahead nor lurking behind, keeping them "steady as she goes."