Be Boring / Be Successful

If you sit back in your favorite chair with a big cup of coffee, close your eyes, and think about life, lifting, success, family, and winning, what words pop into your head?  Lucky might be a word that rolls right off of the brain with ease, but is that the key to success in most things... probably not.  How about intelligence?  Is having the big brain the key to long term triumph?  My only response is Kim Kardashian, enough said.  What I am going to tell you is not going to light your world on fire, but I would like it to swirl around your head, like heavy whipping creme in that cup of coffee.  What I am going to tell you, is that being consistent is one of the most important keys to winning in marriage, training, finance, your job, etc.  I know that this is not what someone that is twenty and has the coolest smart phone on the market wants to hear, but being methodical and consistent and predictable is extremely important if you want to win at anything.  Just as an example, if that twenty year old took his modest $100/month cell phone bill and invested it in the good mutual fund, by age 60 he would be a millionaire.  He MIGHT win the lottery, he MIGHT be left a big chunk of change from some wealthy uncle, but neither is very likely.  Instead bet on the more sure thing, and that is long term, boring, investing in the stock market for 40 years... that will build wealth.  The same can be said for training.  While there may be a program that will add 100 lbs to your back squat in 4 weeks, what about the next 4 weeks?  Why not instead, add a couple lbs/week over the next 4 years!!  That would be strong!  The point of the article here is to convince you that consistent, and predictable is a blessing.  I guarantee that any of you that are married would agree that you would much rather your spouse be predictable, than not.  That would be a long walk up the sidewalk every afternoon , just wondering if it was Jekyll or Hyde on the other side of the front door.  I prefer predictable for my wife, my finances, my boss, and my training.  It may be boring, but you can't rely on luck for success, just sweat over the course of many years.

The Golden Circle

Simon Sinek is a thinker as well as a phenomenal speaker.  In this video Sinek talks about his idea of the Golden Circle.  He uses a great example of how computers are typically marketed to us and how Apple Computers takes the opposite track to reach us.  The concept works well for marketing your business, but has great carryover to the rest of us without a "business".  Why do we do what we do? Why do we train the way we do?  Why do we get up every morning to the sound of the alarm clock, still exhausted from the day before, and go tackle life?  Why?

Things to Read / Watch

Eric Cressey runs a pretty good sports performance gym in the northeast popularized by his acumen for preparing baseball players.  His latest post is about some of the biggest powerlifting mistakes he has made throughout his competitive career.  Definitely worth reading since the guy squatted 455, benched 350 and deadlifted 630 in his gym... raw... at 180lbs!  Not too bad.


Soon to be the greatest weightlifter of all time: Ilya Ilyin.  Just watch this guy who has snatched 185 kg (407 lbs) and clean and jerked a world record 233 kg (513 lbs) at 94 kg (207 lbs) bodyweight.  Oh, I forgot, two Olympic Golds, three world championship golds and two Asian Games golds.  Enjoy!

I don't know much about the weightlifter Milko Tikola, but I do know fast when I see it.  He is the fastest lifter that I have ever seen.  When you watch the videos, he moves so quickly that you think that the footage has been altered to make him appear faster.  Amazing.

Bacon Beatdown Comeback

My first time on the platform since November 2011, was this past weekend at the Bacon Beatdown in Daytona, FL  I have improved some things, and remained surprisingly stagnant on others.  In retrospect, I should not be surprised.  In the last two and a half years I have warmed up religiously with the snatch, to the detriment of the clean and jerk.  My previous competition PR snatch was 80kg, but has now been improved to 90kg.  Not exactly world class improvement, but not bad for a nearly 40 year old guy without a coach.  The clean and jerk was an almost embarrassing near disaster.  My opener at this meet was 100kg on this lift.  This is weight that I have done for a triple within the last month… a no-brainer!  I missed… THE CLEAN!  Unbelievable.  This is normally weight that I could have done almost one handed.  I guess that you cannot account for nerves though.  I finally came back, made 100kg and made 110kg on my final lift of the day.  After it was all said and done I had gone down by 2kg from my competition PR of 112kg after 30 freakin’ months of work… pathetic.  A couple of issues were in play though.  For the last month of so before the meet, my clean technique was just plain out of whack.  It felt different every time I grabbed the bar.  Also, just plain nerves played a role.  It wasn’t a Superbowl sized crowd, but the fifty or so people watching can still make each lift a little tougher.  With all of that being said, I know what I must now do.  Spend months focusing on the clean and jerk from a technical side of things and continue to get stronger. 

 Snatch 85kg

Snatch 90kg

Clean and Jerk 100kg

Clean and Jerk 110kg

PRs When You Least Expect Them

After several weeks of really grinding myself into mush with fives and triples and a bunch of back squatting, I decided to shift some gears and try some singles to max.  I was at the end of a training cycle and I was still able to manage some good personal records.  I am looking forward to a little taper before my first meet in several years.  The Bacon Beatdown is a CrossFit-centric festival from what I can tell, down in Daytona, FL.  It has individual and team CrossFit events for starters.  In addition, they are hosting weightlifting, strongman, and powerlifting competitions.  I am hoping after my taper to report a great showing. 

Back Squat 310 X 5

Snatch 212 X 1

Clean 225 X 3

Snatch 200 X 2

Back Squat 360 X 1

Snatch 190 X 3

Helpful Hints in the Gym

 1. Training Log

I have a hard time understanding how someone can come into the gym and not write down what they have done.  This obviously does not have to be literally written down, but recorded in some easily accessible form.  Good things to write down are the easy ones: weights, sets, reps, miles, time, etc.  Some other things that you might want to consider are time of day, sleep quality, nutrition and possibly some measurement of stress in your life.  Donny Shankle gives his take on the importance of keeping a log on his page, which you should read regularly.

2. Get Stronger

Unless you are just a pure endurance athlete, this certainly applies to you.  This is the most simple of attributes to train.  Simple, but difficult.  An easy template that has worked for decades, if not longer is a linear progression of weights.  Day one, squat up to 150lbs X 5 reps, the next squat training day, squat 155 X 5 reps, and so on.   Once you cannot achieve the next weight in the progression, squat for 3 reps. If the last weight you were able to get for a set of 5 reps was 225 lbs, then squat 215lbs X 3 reps. Follow the same pattern until you run out of steam and jump to sets of one rep.  Once you run out of room here, jump back up to fives.  By this time you should have squatted for months and will have a better idea of how to proceed. 

3. Don’t Get Too Cute

Stick to the basics. If you want to get stronger legs… squat… with a barbell… with weight!  If you want to get better at the snatch or clean and jerk, then stick very close to them in training.  Once you reach a certain strength or proficiency level, the variation is probably helpful, but most of us are not in the category.  For a strength athlete, think of the basic barbell movements as home base.  As you move away from squats, deadlifts, pressing, snatching, cleaning, and jerking, you are moving away from home base.  If you are training to swim very well, I would suggest that the pool is home base and that you put on your swimming trunks a bunch.  

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I am a relatively new father.  My son is about two and a half years old now.  As a brief aside, I am on a bit of a crusade against the thought of describing a child’s age in months, past a certain timeframe.  I say after two years maximum, a child’s age should be referenced by years only or years and months together.  When a stranger asks how old your son or daughter is, no one wants to hear, “he is 43 months next week.”  Figuring a child’s age shouldn’t require a calculator.  Now where was I?  Oh yes, new father.  Like any good parents, my wife and I read to our son, we help him try to learn new words, learn new colors, etc.  Sometimes it works, most times not.  On the other hand, after a good fight with the flu this past winter, I had a long bout of laryngitis.  After watching me gargle with salt water one time, my son began incessantly gargling his milk and making his typical mess. 

I began to realize that a lot more is caught, than taught.  Adults aren’t much different in this sense.  We tend to mimic what we hang around or immerse ourselves in.  If you take a look at your friends, you will realize that you are have some of the same mannerisms, likes, dislikes, and often times have a similar demeanor as those closest to you.

Training and lifestyle are no different.  If your training partners are inconsistent, chances are good that you will be.  If your friends like to stay out all night chances are you will follow suit not get enough sleep to have an effective day of training the following day.  Your diets often follow the same paths as well.  Technique, programming, intensity, and overall approach to training all can fall prey, or enjoy the benefits of those you surround yourself with.

So with this being said, the following is a public service to all of you…

1.  Hang around with rich people

2.  Hang around strong people

3.  Hang around nice people

4.  Hang around smart people

5.  Hang around people you want to lift like

6.  Hang around people you want to train like