Pick Up a Broom and Sweep

When I was a teenager, and brighter than everyone, I worked for my father.  Like any young man without any responsibilities my work ethic left a lot to be desired.  My father “employed” me at that age for a few reasons, as best as I can tell.  First of all, for some reason, he wanted to spend time with me.  Additionally he enjoyed the cheap labor, as shoddy as it was.  Thirdly, he wanted to use these experiences as teachable periods.  The work was not the glamorous type you might expect in a old service station, but consisted of tearing down old drywall, putting up paneling, painting, cleaning, and putting down carpet.  One day while working a specific project, we discovered we were missing a necessary tool for the job.  Like any teenage boy, I decided to sit down and take a bit of a break to quietly complain about my tough life, under my breath.  After a couple of minutes, my father walked over and said something to me that has stuck with me for over 25 years.  He initiated the exchange by asking me what I was doing.  I explained that the tool we needed wouldn’t be to the worksite for about an hour, so I was waiting.  He told me, “son, there is always something to do, pick up that broom and sweep”.  I looked at the floor, and much to my chagrin he was right.  In fact it turns out, the floor was a mess, there were paintbrushes that needed a good rinsing, and a load of trash that needed to be taken out.  So I did what he said, and started sweeping.

That was a long way of saying to you all, that there is always some sort of constructive direction that you can take your life.  If you are in the middle of a heavy training cycle in your workouts, maybe extra time that you have needs to be spent on recovery of some sort: foam rolling, stretching, contrast baths.  If you watch five hours of television every night, just about anything you do instead of that will improve your life in some fashion.  Read a non fiction book, study how to invest for retirement, prepare meals for the week, learn to play a musical instrument, play with your children, talk to your spouse, work on your “honey do” list, work overtime, get a part time job, and the list could go on forever.  I am not hating on good old fashion leisure activities to escape for a bit, but keep them in check.  While playing your Xbox or whatever they have out these days is surely fun, it won’t make you a deeper person and certainly won’t bring you long-term happiness. So turn off the television, drop your gaming controller and do something that will make you happier in the long run.  In other words, “pick up a broom and sweep”!  

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.