Stop pulling like it's a waste of your time!
We get it. It's the end of a long day or a long session. You still see pulls at the bottom of your programming list. You are tired, you are fatigued, you want to go home AND they are heavy. We've heard all the excuses and guess what - good coaches wont give a rat's ass. Pulls are specifically programmed at the end of workouts 99% of the time BECAUSE you are:
Tired
Fatigued
Losing focus
This is done purposefully to train your mind and body for competition. During a test day or a meet you are going to feel these same draining effects and you need to learn to overcome them. By training with intent on your pulls, you will close out the session moving the barbell to as close as the ideal positions and movements can be -- the speed, the violence, the tension, the bar path -- in a setting that mimics duress of a max attempt in a meet.
Pulls are typically done heavy because the coach wants to overload the legs under duress, but the only way that programming really works for the athlete is if they react to it with intent. If you are lazy and slow on your pulls, you will train your body to do just that, be lazy and slow...slow = slow people!!!
One thing that drives me crazy is the "check in the box" training. Just getting the bar from the ground to point B is not effective training and you are effectively wasting your time as well as the coach's. You can become so much better if you are efficient with your pulling and teach your body to attack when its weakest. Sun Tzu, the famous tactician, is quoted "when you are the strongest appear the weakest, and when you are weakest appear the strongest."
So, when you are tired, get the brain on the same page and TELL the body what it is going to do:
Have tension on your setup
Set your body into the right positions
Use your core!
Engage your muscles
Drive all the way to the finish
Connect the legs to the shoulder shrug
Keep the bar close to you and finish in correct finish position!!!
With this mental vigilance in your end-of-session pulls, you can close out every session knowing you were aggressive and intent until the very end. This is yet another thing that will set you apart from "check-the-box athletes" and thus have better quality training.