A Confidence Booster
I read a great article on EliteFTS the other day which you can find here… A Case for Bullying . I strongly advise you read it as it really struck a chord with me, although judging by the comments section some readers REALLY missed the point of the article. Anyways, it inspired my post for this week not really because I was bullied but because of what weight training and powerlifting has done for me and what I feel it can do for younger kids and adults alike. Throughout the entire time I was in school I always had a good bit of friends, I was never the kid who felt so pushed away by other people they had to go eat their lunch in the bathroom (although I can empathize with those kids). However, in elementary school I was a short fat kid who’s nickname amongst friends was Louie because I looked EXACTLY like the kid from the cartoon show Life with Louie. Again at no point were people outwardly mean to me about it but I was still really self-conscious about the way I looked.
Onto middle school, once I was here I had lost the fat but gained a crazy amount of acne…. It was gross. Again, I had a good bit of friends and no one really outwardly made fun of me about it (maybe it was my short temper who knows) but again I was really self-conscious about it.
Onto high school, now I’ve lost the fat, lost the acne, and started doing pull-ups, pushups, and bodyweight squats until it burned. Only problem was I never really hit that growth spurt I was looking for. I was standing at a whopping 5’7” on a good day (which I still am today). Again, nothing that I was teased about but I was really self-conscious about being relatively shorter than a lot of the people I hung out with.
My point is not for you to feel bad for me because I don’t want you too that would be ridiculous. My point is that all kids or adults no matter what circle of life they come from can feel bad about themselves or that they’ll never measure up to other people. However, there has to be an outlet for these kids to make them feel better about themselves and be able to gain self-confidence and a way for them to be able to say “I honestly don’t care what you think about me”. I feel like a lot of parents first instinct is sports which is great and works a great deal of the time. It gives them an outlet for their aggression, makes them feel part of a team, and teaches them that some days you lose and some days you win. What about the other kids? The other kids who end up not making the team and ultimately feel even more isolated. THEY NEED TO WEIGHT TRAIN!
When I got to college I read Arnold, the Education of a Bodybuilder and there it was the epiphany I was looking for my whole life. I read that book cover to cover in two days, I wrote down what he ate and how he trained and I did it. Somewhere along the line my confidence went through the roof, I got bigger and stronger and for the first time in my life I was able to truly not care what other people thought of me. The only thing I cared about was how to get bigger and stronger. I was no longer concerned with the people who didn’t matter in my life and their opinions of my clothes, hair, personality, job, etc.
Why did weight training work so well for me in that respect? Because unlike most things, weight training gives you tangible results all the time; every month I saw myself becoming bigger and stronger and I loved it. I played basketball my whole life and worked hard it but it was very hard for me to see gains because it was so hard to measure it against things. But, weight training is something I could track each and every week.
I know I’ve kind of rambled a bit but the whole point I’m driving at is more kids should weight train and by kids I’m talking about 10 year olds and up. Please don’t gasp, if you have a problem with 10 year olds weight training; then I have a bone to pick with you at a later date. Are you concerned with your kid’s well-being and self-esteem? For that matter are you concerned with your own well-being and self-esteem? If you are I STRONGLY suggest you start a resistance training program. I promise that you will be better off for it.
Since high school I knew that I wanted to work with kids in some fashion. I had a lot of great coaches and teachers that helped me become a better person. For me the best way to return the favor was by becoming a strength coach and showing kids how to become stronger. Part of my job is to help kids become stronger and better for their sport. Honestly though that is NOT my main priority. My main priority is to help every kid who walks in our doors to feel better about themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally and to truly not care about what someone says about them or thinks about them.
And in case anyone is wondering what i look like now...
We All Need A Little Inspiration
It’s the times that you don’t want to train that will show your true desire and will to win… How often do you wake up and just do not want to go to the weight room, batting cage, football field, volleyball court? What do you do in those situations; do you roll over and go back to bed? Do you make compromises because you just aren’t feeling it today? Do you say “alright starting Monday I’ll get back after it?” We have all been in these situations but as I said these are the situations that define us. I’ve talked a lot about being average in past posts and how I refuse to be it and this is one of the ways I “beat” the average out of myself. I have to train no matter what and no matter how I feel because I know the average person just rolls over and goes back to bed, the average person makes compromises. I’m not trying to be high and mighty, there have been times when I’ve succumb to the state of averageness, and I absolutely hate it. So when I feel the average part of me trying to take over I have put things in place to make my better half overcome. This is usually in the form of watching a video or reading an article that really makes me want to get after it. I’m not really sure why doing these things work for me. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m seeing someone rise above their own feelings of being average and it makes me realize I need to do the same. For you it might be something different but it’s up to you to find something to make you conquer those bad days, to rise above your negative thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. We all have the ability to be great but it is only you that can unlock the potential. Am I being corny? Maybe, but corny is what we need sometimes to get through those rough days; and I’d rather be corny than average. This was a short and to the point rant, but a rant that was needed. If you’re like me and get jacked up watching inspirational videos and reading inspirational articles then take a look below at the things I currently look to when I’m having those lazy days.
ARTICLES
A Letter To My Younger Self by Jim Wendler
VIDEOS
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By far my favorite video to get me jacked up to go train
Former SAPT coach Chris Romanow is one of the people who got me interested in powerlifting so seeing him smash heavy weight makes me want to do the same
SAPT client and friend Ron Reed inspires me to achieve goals, his work ethic is second to none
I have no idea who this guy is but he is dedicated
Some Get Jacked Recipes
I get questions all the time about what I eat and how I train (mostly from friends and the high schoolers we work with) which I’ve answered before on my blog posts. However, I don’t do it very often so I figured I’d make it more of a reoccurring thing so here are two recipes I’ve been hooked on lately. Recipes
My nutrition is something that I’m really on top of or something that falls to my last priority; I’m never in the middle. I get really busy during the week which is what I hear from the high schoolers as well. With that in mind I need to take time on Sunday to cook my food for the week. I am always looking for something new that is going to taste good, be healthy for me and will last all week. Just ask Stevo and Kelsey, anytime they cook something new or are on a new kick I usually jack their style and will bring it in the next day to work. Lately,they have been utilizing a slower cooker/crock pot to do a lot of their cooking (who am I kidding; KELSEY has been utilizing a crock pot lately for their cooking… just joking Stevo, but seriously…). So I jumped on the bandwagon and let me tell you, it’s awesome the stuff you can do with it. I’ve been experimenting with different recipes and here is my favorite one so far.
Spicy BBQ Chicken
- 3-4 pounds of boneless chicken breast into the slow cooker
- Mix up the following ingredients in a separate bowl
- 1 (12-14 ounce) bottle of spicy or regular BBQ sauce (try and find BBQ sauce with natural ingredients)
- ½ cup Italian salad dressing (again try to find one with natural ingredients, if you don’t pay attention you’re going to buy one with a lot of artificial sweeteners and flavors)
- ¼ cup of natural brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- Once this is all mixed pour it over the chicken in the slow cooker
- Depending on how big the chicken breasts are you’re going to want to cook it for 6-8 hours on low
The great thing about this is that yeah it takes a long time but the prep takes about 10 min. Once you throw it in the slow cooker you don’t have to go back to it until it’s done. By the time it’s done the chicken should be really soft and look shredded like the picture below. I usually eat this with 4% milk fat cottage cheese and some stir fried vegetables.
Homemade Protein Bars
I have been struggling as of late to get in enough calories so I have been looking for ways to help remedy the situation. I used to eat store bought protein bars back in the day between meals. However, they are usually really processed and have a great deal of artificial ingredients. I decided to go find a recipe online that suited my goals. I found a great one and just made my own modifications to it. So here is the recipe for a better alternative to a store bought protein bar.
- Mix up the following ingredients in a bowl…
- 8 whole eggs
- 6 heaping scoops of whey protein (I used Optimum Nutrition’s Vanilla Ice Cream whey)
- 4 cups of oatmeal
- 300ml of almond milk
- 4 tbsp. of brown sugar
- 3 tbsp. of NATURAL peanut butter (if you look at the ingredients it should just say peanuts, that’s it)
- And my favorite part…. A LOT OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!
Once you have everything mixed up then lightly grease a one inch deep cookie sheet with olive oil or coconut oil and pour on the mixture. The mixture should look pretty gooey like the picture below; it won’t look as dry as cookie dough does.
Cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. It might not look cooked because it does not brown like cookies do so just do the fork/toothpick trick to check if it’s done (picture also below).
In hindsight I should have made two batches because I have been devouring them this week. This is a great way to get in some extra nutrient dense calories that you can keep in the fridge all week. So for all the high school kids who tell me they don’t have time to eat, you have no excuse anymore.
What to Know About Competing in Powerlifting
“…Would be interested in hearing more about what it takes to enter a powerlifting competition: requirements, mentality, gear/no-gear, training, scoring/judging, what it takes to win, etc.”
This was a comment left on my meet write-up blog post from last week. As soon as I saw it I thought what better way to talk about this than through a post for everyone!
Scoring and Judging/What it Takes to Win
Powerlifting consists of three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift (they are performed in this order). At a meet you get three attempts at each of these lifts. At the end of the competition your highest successful attempt from each of the three lifts will be added up for your “total”. Your total is what determines your placing within your division/weight class. In my opinion your placing should not be a focus for you especially if this is your first meet. Your goal should be to show up and to perform because most people won’t even do that.
The scoring is based on a lighting system. Each of the three judges has a light and if they deem the lift to be successful you will be rewarded with a shiny white light. If they feel the lift to be unsuccessful they will ruin your life with a red light. Have no fear because all you need is two white lights for the lift to count!
I’m not going to go into great detail about what the judges are looking for. To learn more about this here is the link to the IPF rule book…. http://www.powerlifting-ipf.com/fileadmin/data/Technical_Rules/IPF_rulebook_01_2011.pdf
Gear or No Gear
This is the only place where I feel things get tricky. People get WAAAYYYYY too bent out of shape about this to the point of ridiculousness. You have three ways to compete in powerlifting; Raw, Single-ply, and Multi-ply. This is entirely up to YOU and your GOALS and don’t let anyone sway you one way or the other. As far as I’m concerned it really doesn’t matter what you choose because at the end of the day we all have the same goal… to get stronger. Nevertheless you will come across the close-minded people who will tell you gear is “cheating” (not sure how it’s cheating because geared lifters compete only against other geared lifters) or “not true strength”. These elitists’ get under my skin because they have probably never been in gear and have no idea what it’s like to train in it, so therefor, in my mind they have NO room to give an opinion on the subject. More importantly why do they care what YOU do? The people who care about what others do have their own personal issues to figure out. I have competed raw and single-ply and I love both. They both offer their own challenges and are both fun to train for. It’s weird and ridiculous to me that people get so up and arms about the whole thing, it’s like 5 year olds fighting about whose toy is better. If you want to lift raw, lift raw. If you want to throw on a bunch of gear then do that.
My only caveat to this is that unless you have two solid years of strength training under you than you shouldn’t wear gear. It takes A LOT of strength to even handle single-ply equipment so unless you're going two years strong, just start out with a few raw competitions.
Training
This is the easy part. Just get better at squatting, benching and deadlifting. The best way to do that is to perform the lifts several times a week. It can’t get much simpler than that. If you want a good set in stone program just do Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 and I promise you’ll get stronger. Don’t want to do that? Then use the Westside Barbell template. People want to treat this like its rocket science. They paralyze themselves with fear about what programs best fits their body, there strength level, etc. If these are the questions you’re asking yourself then all you really need to do is get in the weight room and press something, squat something, and pick something up off the ground and work on doing it correctly and everything will fall into place.
Mentality
This encompasses a great deal of things which is why when talking about it I like to refer to Mike Robertson’s T-Nation articletitled, “7 Reasons Everyone Should do a Powerlifting Meet” (http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/7_reasons_everyone_should_do_a_powerlifting_meet ). This is an awesome article and spells out everything in a very simple way. In order to do a powerlifting meet you have to be able to do one thing… to truly say that you care nothing about what other people think of you. Most of the time when people tell me why they don’t want to do a meet it’s because they are scared of other people. They tell me they don’t want to embarrass themselves or they say there not as strong as everybody else. No one cares that you’re not as strong as them and no one’s waiting to laugh at you for failing a lift or bombing out of a meet. It is perfectly understandable to be afraid of putting yourself out there for people to see you fail. However, it is unacceptable to allow that fear to control your actions. It is your ability to face and overcome your fears that will define you as a person. So what if you fail? Failure is a marker of two things; that you actually tried and that you learned.
I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been training; I implore you to go sign up for a meet. It doesn’t matter what federation or where it is just sign up for it. Find one that is 10-14 weeks away and go train for it. Can’t squat, bench, or deadlift correctly? Go turn in an entry form and your hard-earned money and I BET you will learn how to do all of those things pretty quick. Don’t wait around saying “well, I’ll just wait a little bit until I get stronger” or “I’ll wait a little bit until I feel a little more comfortable”. If your training for something you’re going to get stronger than if you aren’t, FACT! Chances are if your excuse is that you’re waiting to feel a little more comfortable then you probably rarely step out of your comfort zone when it comes to other aspects of your life as well. If you choose to test your limits then go to http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/and find a meet.
That first meet changed more than just how I approach lifting – because the lessons you learn from training and competition can be carried over to nearly every aspect of your life. -Mike Robertson
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2012 USAPL Richmond Open: Meet Results
I competed in the 2012 USAPL Richmond Open this past weekend and it was a huge success for me. I hit a PR in the squat and deadlift as well as my meet total! I competed at 181 and weighed in Saturday morning at 180.9 after cutting about 10lbs (first time I’ve had to cut weight). For anyone who read my post last week you know that I was very unsure going into the meet so for me to come out with PRs and meeting my goal of an 1100lbs total (finished with 1136lbs)is a huge deal for me. So without wasting any more time here is the video compilation of my attempts...
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The only thing that even remotely ruffled my feathers as far as judging went was on my squat. On my first attempt I got red lighted for my depth even though I felt I was below parallel. Then on my second I got a white light but the judge still told me I was almost high. So for good measure on my third attempt I decided to hang out in the bottom so there wouldn’t be any question.
Bench press went alright. I was hoping to get around 325 but after my second attempt I only took a little jump. After all the trouble I’d been having with my shirt I was just glad to get on the board. After watching the videos I noticed a bunch of problems. My arch wasn’t as big as it could have been, I tucked my elbows too much then I didn’t flare them on the way up (this causes a loss in leverage), and for the position I started in I hit to low on my chest which threw off my whole stroke.
My deadlift went a lot better than expected. I actually feel like I could have gone much heavier on my last one but whatever I got the weight and the total. I still need to sit back into my heels more and pull back more as opposed to standing straight up which is very evident on my last attempt.
Right now my upcoming goals are to get stronger and continue to refine my technique on my lifts. I don’t like saying that I have to work on my weak points because as far as I’m concerned everything is weak and it all needs to be worked on. Is this the wrong attitude to have? Absolutely not, as I’ve stated before I don’t like feeling content. The moment I feel content and that I’m strong is the moment that I stop working hard and I don’t ever want to stop working hard.
I want to congratulate Carson on his first meet, he did a great job and we are all very proud of him. I also want to thank everyone who came out to support me and who helped me out with my training and everything else. Thanks to Gabe Naspinski who did my programming and also congratulations to him as well for totaling 2100 pounds at his meet in Tampa! Sean was a great training partner and it was a shame he couldn’t attend but he had some very important things to do in New York but thanks again man! My friend and current SAPT intern Tadashi was my handler for the whole thing and did an awesome job taking the stress off me, wrapping my knees, picking weights, etc. so thanks a lot man I couldn’t have done it without you. Steve was there to handle Carson but helped me out as well, he is a great friend and I’m glad he came down.
Tim Henriques was in attendance with his powerlifting team as well. Tim is someone that I look up to in this industry and for him to help out and lend his support like he did was a huge deal for me so thanks Tim!
SAPT’s longtime client and friend Ron came down, which was awesome that he would take a whole Saturday to support Carson and I, thanks Ron! Two of my buddies who I’ve been friends with for as long as I can remember came out as well which was cool for me to share this experience with them, thanks guys. Part of my family made the trek to Richmond too. This meant the world to me so thanks to my sisters, Sissy and Stephanie and to my nephew Trevor who is one of my best friends so that was doubly awesome that he came out.
Last but certainly not least I really want to thank my girlfriend Shannon for everything she did, has done, and will do. She learned very quickly how important competing in powerlifting is for me and she jumped right on board. Without any hint of boredom or annoyance she listens to me day in and day out talk about my training successes and struggles which very few people can pull off. She watches my videos and reads my articles and doesn’t think twice about it. She made the trip with me to Philadelphia to spend two days watching a powerlifting meet that I wasn’t even in! She even drove Tadashi and me to this meet and spent 7 hours waiting to film me and support me for only the 3 total minutes that I was on the platform. I am truly lucky to have her in my life so thank you Shannon, I love you very much!
2012 USAPL Richmond Open: Opening Attempts
The 2012 USAPL Richmond Open is a couple days away and I’ve officially switched into competition mode. This has been a very up and down training cycle. I’m attributing this to trying to get used to my gear and my own impatience. This is my first geared competition (single-ply) and I spent FAR too much time trying to get a lot of weight out of my gear. I rushed into trying to get a lot of support out of my gear which in hindsight was the worst thing I could have done, why? People spend years trying to figure out and use their equipment correctly; I tried to figure it all out in about 11 weeks. This took all of my energy and focus off the NUMBER ONE thing…. Getting stronger! Instead of spending those 11 weeks trying to get the most weight out of my equipment I should have just been trying to get stronger. After all this time I’ve gotten VERY little help out of my equipment and didn’t get much stronger at all. It was extremely impatient and immature of me to do that and trust me when I say I have learned from my mistakes. I know now that learning the gear will come I just need to focus on getting strong. With all that said I’ve sat down and examined everything that has gone on and what I hope to accomplish out of the meet and it’s quite simple…. Perform to the best of my abilities and get at least an 1100 pound total. I put all of this behind me a couple days ago and am now completely focused on the positive. I can tell everyone one thing, no one will compete as hard as me and no one will leave it all on the platform like I will.
Opening Attempts...
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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
