Where to start? How about the day after my last heavy pull? Haha! If you were following my log, you noticed that I briefly mentioned that I was feeling “a little under the weather” the next day. Well, that was a little bit of a front. In reality, I was sick in bed all day Wednesday and lost over six pounds. Needless to say, these aren’t prime conditions less than 10 days out from a meet. To make it worse, I never really fully recovered and I’m still sick. Luckily, it turned into more of a sinus infection and nasty cold than the original flu-like symptoms. I tried my hardest to get my weight back on and convince myself that I was feeling great, but neither of those things ever happened.

I headed down to Ohio, Thursday, with my girlfriend. We took our time getting down there, stopping to eat and stretch our legs whenever we felt like it. All-in-all, the trip took us a little over 6 hours, not too bad considering the pace we were going. That night we basically chilled around the hotel, and I tried to get as much weigh on as I could.

Friday morning I slept in until about 10 a.m., then headed over to weigh-ins, figuring I’d be back in the 237-238 range. I was very surprised to see that I was 234, the exact weight I normally cut to 220 from. This was a little bit concerning, but I knew I was still light from being sick, so I wasn’t too surprised. At this point, my entire face was on fire from sinus pressure, I was hacking up phlegm, and looked “pale and frail” according to Jason Coker. He informed me that this is the opposite of jacked and tan…good to know! Ha!

After weigh-ins, I headed over to Cracker Barrel and started the bloat-up with pancakes and heavily salted country ham. I was determined to get on as much weight as I could with my limited appetite and general shitty feeling. The rest of the day consisted of eating, drinking, and resting.

I woke up at 6 a.m. on meet day and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I dragged my ass out of bed and got in the shower. If you ever read one of my meet write-ups, you probably know that I’m a nervous wreck the morning of a meet. I don’t even understand how it gets so bad, but the first half hour of my day is spent sitting on the toilet with my face in the trash can. “Hawt,” I know.

The nice thing on this particular morning was that I was nowhere near as sick as usual. A very pleasant, and well needed surprise. So, by 7:45 a.m., we headed back over to the Cracker Barrel, so that I could have a light breakfast with my girlfriend and training partner, Dirk. I managed to get down some fruit and yogurt, then headed over to the meet.

The venue was a little crowded, but things ran very smoothly and got underway close to the scheduled time. After some light stretching, I started to warm-up for squat. Here’s how it went:

Squat

Warm-ups

• 145 x 5
• 235 x 3

add belt

• 325 x 1
• 425 x 1

add 44 Metal Jack Pro Briefs

• 515 x 1
• 605 x 1

add 54 Metal Jack Pro Squat Suit, straps down

• 705 x 1

straps up

• 805 x 1

Everything went great in warm-ups. I felt very strong and focused. I took the platform for my opener.

Opener of 885 pounds

I took the platform confident and ready to smash this weight. As soon as I got to the bar, I knew it was going to be much too high, so I called for the spotters to lower the monolift one notch. Once I got set up under the bar, there was no way I was going to get it out of the rack. It was still much too high. I had them lower it on me, one more notch. This is a major “no-no” and I made the same mistake at the XPC meet. There’s no way you’re going to be in the correct position after doing this. Still, like a stubborn ass, I unracked the weight, sat back, and started spreading. As soon as I got near parallel, it was obvious I was forward, my knees kicked, and I caved with the weight. Total disaster.

I returned to my place, focused my mind on my next lift, and waited patiently.

Second attempt of  885 pounds

I knew after watching several others squat, that I was not far enough forward in the monolift on my opener. This time, I set up in the correct place, with the correct rack height, took it out strong, shifted my hips back and started spreading. When I got the dip call from Dirk, I was too bound up to do what I wanted, so I sunk a bit more and smoked the weight back upwards. Good lift.

*Thanks to Tuesday, Laura, and Gracie for the colorful commentary.

Third attempt of 935 pounds

Now I was fired up, and ready to kill some weight. I knew that setup wasn’t an issue, and neither was my strength. I thought about calling for a bigger weight, but decided to play it smart and stick to the plan. I approached the bar on this attempt knowing that I did the weight several times before and that it was a done deal. Nothing would stop me from hitting this one.

A PR, and I couldn’t be happier. This was way overdue…a huge relief.

Bench

Nothing really to report on bench. I ate a cheeseburger, made fun of a smartass fat kid, took a 145 token, and then went out to eat with my girlfriend. This was a nice little break and gave me some time to think about what I needed to do on the deadlift. After our quick lunch stop, we headed back to the meet and I started getting ready to pull.

Deadlift

Deadlift warm-ups actually had me worried. My lower back was really jammed up and stretching wasn’t helping. To top it off, I had a blood running out of my nose like a faucet. I sucked it up, took some ibuprofen, slathered my lower back with blue heat, and got after it.

Warm-ups

• 135 x 5
• 225 x 3

add belt

• 315 x 1

add 44 Metal Jack Pro Briefs

• 405 x 1
• 495 x 1

add old Metal Ace Pro Squatter

• 585 x 1

My warm-ups went perfect despite the pain. I took the platform knowing it was PR time and that my opener was basically a last warm-up.

Opener of 675 pounds

There was no question in my mind about this one. My form could have been better, but it went just like it should have.

Second attempt of 755 pounds

This was for another long overdue PR. I approached the bar feeling like I was going to rip out of my skin. From the second my hand touched it, there was no question I was going to pull it…and easy.

Third attempt of 785 pounds

I felt like I was good for 800 pounds, but Dirk and I talked about it and decided 785 pounds was the right call. I was sure this was a done deal after the way 755 felt in my hands. It wasn’t until I put my straps up that I noticed I was already cut and bleeding from my leg on my overhand side. This is a problem that has been plaguing me for almost two years now. It hasn’t caused me to drop anything lately, so I haven’t stayed on top of it as well as I should. I paid the price here. I need to keep my pinkie nail cut completely off and I also need some baby powder on that thigh. I was just as fired up here as I was on 755, and it didn’t feel any heavier, unfortunately my hand dug too hard and opened up on my leg. Miss. I’ll have this and more for August, though.

No Complaints

I can’t complain about anything here. I hit a 50-pound squat PR and a 20-pound pull PR at the same bodyweight I normally cut to 220 from. If I can get back up into the 240′s and hold it, I should be good for even bigger PRs in the near future.

This meet was very well-run. My hat is off to Mike Furgesson, Louie Simmons, Laura Phelps, and everyone else who helped out and made things run so smoothly.

Congrats

I’d also like to congratulate a few people on some awesome performances. Our teenage lifter, Jake Epling, hit PRs across the board and did some very impressive lifting. Jake is off to boot camp soon, so this was his last meet for at least a year. I look forward to training with him again in the future and seeing him return to the platform for even bigger lifts. Also, a big congrats to Shack for getting out of a squat slump and posting a very respectable total in the 242 pound weight class, even with a torn triceps. Finally, Luke Edwards, this dude is an inspiration. Luke had a kidney transplant like a year ago. Not only is he back hitting it hard, he’s hitting lifetime PRs. This is perseverance at its finest. Luke broke the big 1000-pound barrier on squat, but unfortunately bombed out on bench. I’m sure he’ll be back soon to hit a huge total.

Thank You

I’ve got a ton of people to thank for helping me get things together for this meet. Dave, Steve, Ronda, and everyone else at elitefts™ hooked me up with everything I needed, including the best damn gear on the planet. The Metal line just keeps getting better, and I can’t wait to hit the platform in it again for bigger and better lifts.

My training partner, and top-notch handler Dirk DeBoer. This dude is a Godsend on meet day. Anyone who can put up with my abuse in these situations has thick skin and a great sense of humor. I can be a real asshole on meet day and Dirk always helps me keep my shit together. I can’t say enough about Dirk as a training partner, handler and friend. Thanks again man. I couldn’t do it without you, Josh, Chris, Greg, Gavin and the rest of the guys.

Mike Szudarek and Justin Healy. You guys came through in a big way a few weeks ago when I needed some help on my last heavy squat session. I would have had to take those heavy ass weights with one spotter if it weren’t for you guys. After the way my opener went at this meet, its pretty obvious that this could have went really, really bad without the help. Thanks again guys, I know it’s a long ass drive.

My family for all the support they give me. I can’t thank them enough for everything.

Finally, the biggest thank you of all has to go to my wonderful girlfriend, Tuesday. She cooks all my meals, helps me out with everything that I have trouble getting done around work and training, and puts up with me being a headcase before meets. Let’s not even get into the obsession of powerlifting that she rarely lets bother her. I love you baby. I wouldn’t be hitting the weights I am without you.

To wrap things up, it was great to see some of the people we wish we could hang out with more, but can’t. The miles between us doesn’t stop us from being friends. It was great to see Gracie, AJ, Shack, Molly, Luke, Pegg, Coker, Laura, Shane and everyone else. I look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Sometimes we get asked the hard questions. Sometimes those questions hurt because the hard part is the truth inside of them. After 18 years of training and 10 years as a Pro Strongman, being a Third-Tier Strongman can make it all just seem like a wasted life.

Each and every day we get a choice. Make the most of it. Make Millions.

Read Clint’s Training Log HERE

Read Clint’s Blog HERE

Here’s just a little story about a bit of street justice that happened to me today. It will also give you an example of what a “ghetto” my town is becoming. I was driving in on my way to the gym this morning. I drive an old beat-ass Dodge pick-up truck because it gets amazing miles per gallon…ok, that’s not true, it was the only thing my broke ass could afford. I stopped at a red light and right next to me some f*ing hobo is walking down the street carrying what clearly looks like a glass with a mixed cocktail in it. He looks at me and says, “A Dodge? Ya shoulda bought a Ford!” I just responded, “Ok Boxcar Willie, I’ll keep that in mind next time I find myself car shopping.” He was lucky that I was in a good mood because I usually don’t let people disrespect my whip like that.

Cut to two hours later, a busted up, hunk of crap, old Ford minivan is being pushed into my parking lot off of the street by a couple guys. Great, another broken down car that will sit in my lot for a week. The door opens and out comes the anti-Dodge, morning cocktail drinking, shitbag dude that insulted my truck! I walked out there and said, “Yo Willie, How’s that Ford working out for ya? Oh by the way, you have exactly one hour to get that pile of crap off my property!” He just mumbled some shit about Obama, like it was all his fault.

But still he’s luckier than the drunk in this newspaper photo from our daily paper who walked out of a bar two doors down from the gym and fell 20 feet into this drainage crevice in broad daylight that turned into this massive rescue effort. You can see Iron Sport Gym in the background. Yay Glenolden!

Anyway, onto today’s training:
Power snatches

• 50 x 2 x 3
• 70 x 2 x 3
• 80 x 2 x 3
• 90 x 5 x 3

Snatch grip RDL’s

• 5 x 5

Leg press with heavy band tension

• We did a few sets heavy, then dropped down and repped two sets out

GH-Raises

• 3 x 15

Standing abs

• 4 x 8

As many of you probably ended up hearing already, I took second last night. It was a huge disappointment for sure, but has motivated me more than ever. We often learn more from our failures than we do from our successes and I definitely feel this is the case here.

Improvements

First, my legs suck and I’ve known this and was working on it, but now I’m determined to improve them dramatically before my next show. My quads lack a lot of size compared to my upper body and have zero sweep. Getting them way bigger and bringing up the sweep will be my main focus. My hamstrings improved a lot since my last show, but still need to improve a lot more. I also lack detail in my upper inner thighs. For whatever reason, I tend to store the most fat here and it’s the hardest area for me to get cut up. I will address this by working hard to add more muscle to my inner thighs (which will make it much easier to see the detail) and by getting into better condition next time.

Second, I made a rookie mistake and didn’t get dark enough. I had no idea until after pre-judging when everyone told me my color was way too light and made me look smoother and washed out. Last time I used some gel-type stuff over the ProTan to make me look much darker, but I thought it made me look a little blotchy and covered up some fine details, so I went without it. I added a different kind for the evening finals and I think it helped a lot. I learned my lesson here and won’t screw up my color again.

Third, I may have over-cut my water a bit, as I was cramping on stage and in weird spots. All throughout the day, my toes and feet were cramping up hard. After posing for a bit on stage, the muscles around my ribs tightened up hard and I couldn’t even expand my lungs to take in air. After the second round of comparisons I actually felt like I was suffocating for a bit, and thought for a moment that I might black out. Fortunately, I was able to relax myself and after a minute or so it relented enough so I could breathe better, but it stayed tight like that for the remainder of the day and night.

Future plans

I need to bring up my legs to match my upper body before I’ll be capable of placing in any national-level show. For this reason, I’m going to forgo Junior Nationals and instead do the Junior USAs next May. There’s no point for me in competing in five weeks if I’m not capable of a top placing, which with my legs in their current state, I am not.

To bring my legs up I’m already formulating a plan which will include training them every 4-5 days with a lot more squatting, heavier weights and a lot more volume. I just purchased a safety squat bar (from elitefts™ of course) and will be using that to focus more on my quads and less on my hips/glutes. I’m also going to incorporate some of John Meadows’ techniques as well. All of these things combined, plus training like madman will improve my legs dramatically by next year.

One more important thing that I’ll be doing is working with Shelby year-round and treating my off-season diet with just as much discipline as my pre-contest diet. While I didn’t eat bad before, I’m going to take it to a new level this year, which I’m certain will make a big difference in my overall size and conditioning.

Thank You

In closing, I’d like to thank Shelby Starnes for getting me into great shape once again and my beautiful wife, Lauren, for doing over 90 percent of my food preparation (which is a ton of work) and for always being there to support me 100 percent. Not many guys are fortunate enough to have a woman in their life as supportive as my Lauren is and I will never take that for granted.

I also want to thank everyone that came out to support me, my brother Kurt and his girlfriend Malisha, my good friends and long-time training partners Josh McMillan and his wife Brandi, Ken Richardson (thanks Ken for taking all the pics and posting them much appreciated), Tony McGinnis, Justin Healy, Dana Woodson, Evan Weber and his girlfriend Kate. Evan was a big help to me backstage and I really appreciated that as well. And thanks to everyone else that came out to see me or supported me in any way. That means a lot to me and truly is appreciated.

I included a couple of pics of myself and eventual winner Lucian Costea in this article. Lucian has a great physique and a ton of potential and is a really good guy. We “B.S.’d” a bunch back stage and it was nice getting to know him.

The Criminal Nature of its Absence 

The problem must be identified before the solution is drawn. If you are currently employed in a capacity that is contributing to the problem it is your choice as to whether you will recognize and perpetuate the problem or change your course in favor of long term athlete development and the improvement of your sporting organization.

It’s becoming increasingly fashionable in the strength coaching industry to talk of “evidence-based coaching” and “science-based coaching,” as if by paying lip service to these clichés is somehow a gateway to becoming some sort of omnipotent being whose methods are unquestionable and “right!”

Crippled Research

I don’t question the importance of delivering a well-researched and subsequently effective program to athletes. Instead, I question the true relevancy of a large proportion of current strength and conditioning research from the world of academia. It strikes me that much of the research is crippled by an ingrained desire to limit and control variables and to create a clinical environment whereby statistical analysis is straightforward and conclusions can be churned out with confidence that the results are repeatable in follow up studies.

Nowhere in this world of the research laboratory do we get a sense of the realities of everyday practical coaching experience. It more often than not reworks the same conclusions with only slight manipulations of miniscule variables. Those conducting the research are often exonerated from immersing themselves in the real world depths of time and resource restraints and of local politics and personality/ego management that makes very real differences in real world strength coaching.

Limitations

Strength and conditioning research should utilize and embrace these “limitations” and “controllable variables” to its advantage. On a day-to-day basis, it is these limitations that can sometimes have a far greater impact on the development of an athlete than anything written in a scientific journal. Conducting substantially more independent research in the field with coaches, teams, and athletes in a completely organic setting surrounded by their own limitations and restraints would produce far more relevant and up-to-date data and conclusions to guide the best future practice (a “practice-based evidence” approach if you like).

Strength and conditioning research and the consequential evidence-based practice works at a level of generality. A “practice-based evidence” approach works with a much deeper link with the realities of coaching. Such an approach requires a detailed acknowledgement of the context and limitations that much scientific research tries to eliminate. It gives a real voice to the practitioners and athletes in the field, recognizing that they have first-hand knowledge and experience of what works best, what needs to change, and how it could realistically change.

Research Challenge

Good quality strength and conditioning research should present challenges to the well-documented and well-known routine ways of doing things. It should highlight new ways of working, and it should excite people into thinking of innovative ways that they can change their methods in a real world setting. There are strength coaches who can achieve the most extraordinary results for their athletes, and their experiences and messages deserve to have the platform to inform future practice every bit as much as the conclusions drawn from academia.

Strength comes in many forms and fashions: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. They’re all interrelated. However, for this article we’re going to focus on the raw physical component.

Many of us here are “formal” competitors, while the majority of readers, I dare say, are not. Without getting into a philosophical debate that adds nothing to the point of the article, I’ll make the observation that if you’re here, on elitefts™, reading this article, you ARE a competitor. You constantly push and strive against yourself to go higher, push harder, lift more weight and smash previous PRs! That makes you a competitor.

With that being said, how do many of us productively spend our time building strength vs. testing our strength? I will admit, this article came as a revelation of a mistake I made recently. I was spending too much time testing my strength and my progress was going nowhere, in fact I stalled completely. During this time, I was dieting off some excess body fat. I was also training without a plan (this has it’s upsides as well as downsides, but that’s an article for another day). It was this absence of a plan that created a void that my mindset and thus training fell into. Every session I wanted to see if “I still had it.” Could I still hit X on bench, or Z on my pulls or squats? This lead to me grinding out weights nearly every workout. I was testing my strength constantly with lifts at or above 100 percent of what I was capable of that day. This type of training is not only ineffective, it’s totally counterproductive. After several weeks of missing weights that I knew should be easy lifts, I decided to actually think about my training and the rookie mistake I allowed myself to fall victim to. It was during this reflection I concluded that I needed to be focused on building my strength and not constantly testing it.

So what’s the difference? Good question and you may find as many different answers as you care to ask different people. The best way to build strength, in my opinion, is to routinely handle challenging weights within a proper volume and frequency allocation while allowing for recovery and compensation. Great, how do I know what that is? Prilepin’s Chart is a wonderful starting point.

Prilepin’s Chart

Now you need a good coach and lots of trial and error. Hopefully you find the coach before you go through all the trial and error.

So, how do I know if I’m building strength and not just testing it?

Well, you’ll identify a pattern in your lifts (you should be tracking them) and over time, you should be continually adding weight to the bar while exerting a similar amount of effort to the additional weight as you did the lesser weight. When this is accomplished, you can be assured that you’re building strength.

There’s certainly a time and place to test your strength, occasionally in the gym and always on the platform. Be smart, have a plan and spend your time building your strength. Your mind, body and total will thank you for it.

• Learn more about Michael at www.michaellkeck.com

Reading Research, Pt. I

As a lead-in to some science-focused articles I’ve been putting together, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at how I read peer-reviewed scientific articles and determine how (or if) they’re useful to strength athletes. While I’m lucky enough now to have a 9-to-5 job where I review academic writing, I started out reading scientific papers for my own benefit. To be blunt, I didn’t trust a lot of fitness writers and supplement companies to be honest when citing research, so I read the papers myself. What I learned positively influenced my diet and training, and saved me a lot of money.

A Primer on Papers

It’s important to know that scientific/medical papers are rarely “how-to guides.” Instead, they seek to answer very specific questions. “What’s the best way to put on muscle?” wouldn’t be a research topic anywhere, although figuring the actions of an enzyme or comparing two similar methods of weight lifting are common topics. Papers are structured in a fairly established manner and with similar stylistic features, both of which extend across various health/science disciplines, that help to infuse intellectual rigor into a researcher’s ideas and experiences.

The writers of papers may have personal objectives behind the publication—getting tenure, laying the groundwork for a grant request, boosting attention, helping others, keeping a job, etc.—which can flavor the article a little bit, but largely the formatting norms of these pieces keep them similar. It’s important to know that most papers are written by university professors. Academia is competitive, and being heavily-invested in one’s work is essential for success. “Publish or perish” is an exaggeration, but not by much. This demand can sometimes lead to a small degree of hyperbole or “reaching” within a piece. In my experience of working with professors, it’s more common in grant applications (“my project on arboreal fungi in the Ozarks is essential to the survival of the human race, and so demands National Science Foundation funding for a man-portable, solar-powered scanning electron microscope”), although you’ll see it in published papers at times.

The conventions of form aren’t the only things keeping papers from straying into the rants, product placement ads, and bafflingly idiotic pieces that plague commercial info sources. The peer review process, in which experts in the article’s field of study will fact check and certify a piece for intellectual integrity before publication, is a strong force in ensuring that nearly all papers are honest and smart. Also important is that the wider audience of researchers will happily tear apart each other’s work after publication; the internet made this much easier.

Formal/pre-print and informal/post-print peer review aren’t perfect (peer review is conducted by humans, after all), so occasionally bad research slips through the cracks. It’s difficult to detect erroneous or falsified data in novel experiments and surveys; as evidence, the ongoing vaccination scare was prompted by a fraudulent paper that took several years to discredit through follow-up experimental reproduction. Finally, fringe elements of the scientific community can (and do) establish their own networks and journals in order to circulate ideas that are lacking in evidence and/or rigor.

For elitefts™ readers, useful pieces fall into a few different categories; as a caveat, this is all generalization using non-standard terms, but it should cover most of what you’ll come across:

Experiment Reports: These are the papers written by researchers after they’ve tested out an idea on a small scale. The idea could be seeing if Olympic lifts produce more force than powerlifts, or if casein proteins lead to greater muscle gains in athletes. Since experiments are run under tight restrictions and rely on eliminating variables, they’re often narrowly focused and most useful as clues on how to train, eat, supplement, etc.

Case Studies: A researcher (usually a medical doctor or trainer) writes about a single person he or she benefited. This benefit is usually treating an injury or illness, though you’ll also find coaches and trainers offering accounts of how they worked with an athlete or small group of athletes in a real-world environment (such as in/off-season training). Typically, either the technique used is new, or the case is unusual and of interest to the establishment. I’m pretty certain the first case study I read was on the dreaded candiru; fortunately (and I’ll spare you the details as to why) the paper likely was largely or wholly fraudulent, though it made for interesting reading. Because you’re basically trusting one person’s word on this, there’s a bigger chance for fibbed results than with other papers.

Surveys: These large studies exchange control over subjects for the benefit of a large number of subjects. Sometimes they involve tracking multiple variables over time, and then draw conclusions from commonalities and differences. For example, a large heart health study could survey 10,000 people at regular intervals and find that the people with coronary artery disease were the same people that ate fast food most frequently; it could even go a step further and hypothesize that there’s a connection between the condition and eating too many burgers and fries. It’s common for researchers to go into the large data sets created by surveys in order to perform their own research; in this instance, the original survey acts as a sort of control group.

Theory Papers: This is a little rarer in the scientific publications of interest to us, though pretty common in the general press. Basically, it involves a researcher writing about an idea and providing some circumstantial or anecdotal support for this idea. When a coach pontificates about a training technique (Mike Boyle’s single-leg ruckus comes to mind), it could be classified as a layman’s theoretical paper. Because theory papers don’t actually test anything, you won’t deal with the normal parts of a paper and there will still be some degree of review; additionally, a lot of rules for critiquing normal papers also apply to theory papers.

Reviews: This kind of report looks at the results of multiple papers and tries to draw a common conclusion from them. If you’re looking for a clear-cut answer to a problem, you’re more likely to get it in a review piece, provided your question is one an academic might ask.

Position Paper: These are the exception to the general rule of “how-to guides.” These papers explain how a particular organization views a topic, e.g., how best to train sprinters or rehab broken bones. You can find these in sport science journals, though don’t expect anything as detailed as a routine.

The Parts of a Paper

The Abstract: Thanks to the proliferation of online resources, you’ll find tons of study abstracts available online. Unfortunately, these brief overviews of papers won’t do much other than spark your interest in reading further. By their very nature, abstracts rarely tell you if a paper with interesting subject matter is worth your time or not. When I post abstracts on Twitter, it’s always as an alert for people to watch for the full text of a potentially interesting article in the coming months.

Introduction: If you’re relatively uninformed about a topic, this is useful for catching up. If you’re well-versed in a topic, the introduction can help you understand the researcher’s perspective, particularly in terms of what information sources they use, which can help you anticipate limitations in papers.

Procedure: Here’s where things get good, particularly with lab experiments. My main concern when reviewing a paper’s procedure section is applicability, which is just how the variables and environment in the paper apply to me and my lifestyle. This is easy to determine in a case study: if I have a torn ACL, a case study on ACL rehab on a man my age will likely be applicable.

The variation in lab experiments is a little less straightforward. In papers with control and experimental groups, it’s important to make sure both subject populations are relate to you. Here’s a look at common factors in health, diet, and exercise studies, as well as how I determine their usefulness to me as a 30-year-old male who lifts, is in decent health, of average physicality, and has been training consistently for about 15 years.

There have been a ton of test tube and rat studies that didn’t pan out in humans. Those examples are easier to spot, even though others aren’t, and can require digging down a little. Some common catches that can go unnoticed are:

No Relevance to Controls: When a researcher tests an interesting idea against a control group, it’s easy to think only about the experiment, while forgetting the control group. Don’t do that. If a new diet strategy is being tested against a control group that follows a typical American diet, the results won’t mean as much.

Newbie Gains: Since most untrained individuals will get bigger and stronger by regularly lifting just about anything in any manner, experimental results with these subjects aren’t very useful.

Unrealistic Routines: An experiment that uses an unrealistic exercise protocol or diet regimen has little value to most elitefts™ readers. You’ll see lots of papers with titles like “Lifting Weights with Prolonged Eccentric Portions Increases Muscle Mass.” Then, you read the paper and find out the subjects performed nothing but leg extensions twice-a-week using 30 percent of their one-rep maximum. This study might be a prompt for other scientists to dig deeper, but it probably won’t help you.

Fasted Subjects: It’s easy for a test subject to eat something weird before a diet study, which will then completely throw off their results. To get around this, researchers will often instruct their subjects to not eat for at least twelve hours before undergoing certain diet and training experiments. This is great for research, though the fact that the subjects are nutrient-deprived means the results don’t generally apply to a well-fed athlete.

Testing: This is another one to watch for. Did the study look for actual, measurable muscle growth from MRI or DEXA, or did it just use biopsy results that suggest increased muscle growth? Did the diet study accurately record body composition and control for varying hydration states, or did it only measure scale weight?

Small Subject Groups: With a small group of subjects, you increase the odds of one person with an unusual profile skewing the results. Imagine if you’re testing an endurance protocol on ten people, with four subjects in the control group. If one of the controls has undiagnosed anemia, it’ll throw off your results while being hard to adjust for as an outlier.

With all these catches, I will say that I’m not a big stickler for double-blind experiments when it comes to learning more about strength training and physique enhancement. A study is considered “double-blind” if the subjects don’t know if they’re part of the control or experimental group, and the administering researchers also don’t know which group is which. This prevents the subjects from reporting a placebo effect, and the researchers from letting their expectations cloud their analysis. This is extremely useful for medical studies, which often involve the patients reporting how they feel and doctors interpreting these reports, where personal bias and expectations can cloud results. With studies involving measurables, though, the collected data can generally speak for itself (though the conclusion may be arguable). A special note is that in surveys, the actual survey collection method is important. You’re usually looking for survey methods that sample about as random a population as possible.

In Part II we’ll finish looking at the paper itself, and then talk about getting your hands on the actual research.

For readers who are completely new to research, I recommend reading Chad Orzel’s post over at ScienceBlogs: http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2012/01/how_to_read_a_scientific_paper.php.

Your Business on GH

A growing business, while a good thing, can be hard to deal with and if not kept in-check can spin out of control.

I never saw a business fail from too many sales, but I saw many die because they think one month or quarter of great sales means they’ll stay that way forever. Many feel this is a true sign of success and sales will only go up, up and up. Rarely is this the case.

A business becomes more solid based on the number of storms they weathered to get where they are – not by too many sales.

If you find your business is “taking off” make a mental note to…

1. Step back and look at things from 10,000 feet.

There’s a good chance if your business is blowing up, your systems are about to break. If you get too wrapped up in the sales success, you won’t see the cracks that are forming in the dam.

2. Look for outside help.

This is good time to reinvest in legal and accounting services to limit the surprises that await down the road. Hiring other consultants to look over your operations will also help to avoid more costly mistakes in the future.

3. Fire customers.

If you ever had a job, you know what I mean when I say there are some customers who can suck the life out of you – or in this case your business. As a start-up, we need all the sales we can get. But as you move forward, you have to get rid of those customers that drain your energy, capital and staff. While in the short-term it seems like you have to keep them, they actually are costing you three times more than they bring in.

4. Change the way you work.

Now is the time to hire and delegate so you can focus on the strategic work of the business. If you want the business to succeed, you’ll need to let go of much of the work you’re currently doing. This is also a good time to upgrade your staff. This can be in the form of more education or replacement.

5. Build up your reserves.

Just because you have more money doesn’t mean you need to spend it or pay yourself more. Make sure you have reserves to get you through the hard times. It’s hard to think of these times when you are riding a growth spurt, but trust me, they will come.

These are just a few things out of many to consider.

The best advice I can give is to avoid growth spurts in the first place. If you think you are riding one, find a way to kill it or slow it down, but this is for another day.

An elitefts™ Roundtable Discussion

With Jim Wendler, Mark McLaughlin, Bob Youngs, Alwyn Cosgrove, Tom Deebel, Jason Ferruggia, Julia Ladewski, Dave Tate, and Mike Hope

This roundtable was posted on the elitefts™ website a few years ago. The participants may or may not hold the same opinions today, as much has changed in the field and all know more today than they did then.

Jim Wendler: I always find it funny when I read books and studies knocking the value of stretching and detailing how bad it is for you, but then I read the rehab section of our website and all I see is, “You need to do more stretching and more mobility work.” I remember Bob making a comment about a year ago to Dave saying, “We may have blown off stretching and it may not have prevented all of our problems, but it certainly could have made us a little healthier” (paraphrased by the way).

Stretching and mobility work, if done at all, can be such a positive thing for both athletes and lay-persons alike. Unfortunately, few people want to devote any time—even 15 minutes a day—to developing these traits. They’ll give the television four hours of their time but zero minutes to their own body.
So let’s discuss this, and you can tell me how wrong I am.

Mark McLaughlin: We begin all sessions with an active warm up for 8–10 minutes (sled dragging, jump rope, elliptical, and medicine ball throws into the ground) followed by a dynamic warm-up. Then we move on to hip/hurdle mobility and finally to EQI (isometric lunges, isometric one-legged squats, and isometric push-ups). Our athletes never performed any static stretching pre-/post-workout and had no soft tissue injuries over the past three years. The decision not to static stretch was based on my conversations with Val Nasedkin as well as on my own training. Over the course of 25 years, I’ve never had any soft tissue injury, and I’ve never performed any static stretching. At the Verkhoshansky seminar back in February 2005, the first statement out of Verkhoshansky’s mouth was ‘don’t train like a bodybuilder and don’t static stretch.’

Bob Youngs: Okay, I’m really old. If I don’t stretch now and stretch a lot, I’m in pain. I stretch every night and before every workout. I like to do dynamic stretching before my workouts along with mobility work. Every night, I do static stretching and more mobility work. I really like Pavel’s stuff on stretching. I think the bottom line is does stretching make you feel better or not? It makes me feel better so I do it.

Also, the majority of athletes mentioned here are high school athletes. When I was in high school, I could break out into a dead sprint at any point with no warm-up. If I were to try that right now, I can’t even imagine the catastrophe that would occur.

Alwyn Cosgrove: The problem has become one of overreaction (as usual). We learned that static stretching wasn’t the best thing for power athletes (even though I think the studies aren’t great). Smart coaches like Mark studied the information, made an informed decision, and replaced it with dynamic mobility work. The majority of coaches just replaced it with nothing, which was never the message. So now we have kids doing NO mobility work.

In my opinion, flexibility work is necessary. Once you make flexibility part of your program, we can debate what “type” of flexibility training is best. The problem is the majority of programs don’t address it at all.

Static stretching is a tool. I use it. There are times when I feel that it’s useful. In my experience (competitive martial arts), guys used to do hours of static stretching, and they’d kick your head off. I think there’s enough anecdotal evidence to show that it helps athletes remain healthy over the long term.

All of my athletes do flexibility work. That doesn’t mean they stretch nor does it mean they do static stretching. It might mean they just do deep lunges, etc.

Tom Deebel: Personally, I think that static stretching can help keep down myofascial restrictions. I’ve done it daily from 15–25 years of age and was injury-free. There wasn’t much information about dynamic work available back then. Now, I would include both.

Another funny thing, after my car accident earlier this year, I started back with traditional chiropractic work. Somehow, my flexibility is better. I had neglected this and had concentrated on getting ART and myofascial release done in lieu of traditional chiropractic work. My flexibility is fine, and I hurt less. Of course, my training has been approximately two times per week instead of four.

For me, I think dynamic stretching is necessary for a warm-up and appropriate athletic training. Static stretching seems to keep the muscle restrictions down. ART or myofascial work also helps. These can be done as a regular part of prehab if they’re accessible and your finances allow for them. And if you find a good chiropractor, this will help. There are various misalignment problems that a good chiropractor will fix, which will allow for more regular movement patterns.

Jason Ferruggia: Although I agree with much of what Mark said, I’m going to have to side with Alwyn and take it a step further.

First of all, static stretching gets a bad rap from those “in the know.” For example, these people say, “Studies show that static stretching decreases power output and makes you more injury prone.” I’ve heard this more times than I’ve heard Pearl Jam play live and that’s a lot. I even said this myself more times than I can remember. The problem with this is that most of the studies that have “proven” this absolutely suck. Sure, if you hold a static stretch for a prolonged amount of time and then attempt to lift a heavy weight, you will be weaker. Duh…

As Alwyn said in the past, you can prove anything. You can even prove that strength training makes you weaker. I’m all for dynamic warm-ups and PNF stretching before practice, games, events, or workouts. However, this absolutely doesn’t constitute optimal flexibility work. To gain flexibility, you must train flexibility. You wouldn’t expect to get stronger by lifting only three to four times per week for 10 minutes. So how can you expect to get more flexible by doing the same?
Now, before someone argues and says that most of the movements you need to get into position on the playing field are really a matter of mobility and not flexibility (I don’t totally agree), what about injury prevention and stride length? Someone might argue that this involves dynamic flexibility. And I agree. However, I don’t think that studies and real world experience show any correlation between static and dynamic flexibility. I don’t want my athletes taking the field without being able to touch their toes.

I had the misfortune of working with some chronically tight athletes. In cases like these where tight hip flexors and/or hamstrings cause back pain, static stretching is an absolute necessity. It was pointed out that static stretching after training or playing is a waste of time, and I agree. In that state, the muscle is too wound up and tight to receive any optimal benefits from stretching. The optimal timing would be four to six hours later. However, in some cases when I know the athlete absolutely needs to stretch but won’t do it on his own, I may do some light static stretching post-workout. As Alwyn and I often discussed, there is optimal and then there is reality.

I know for a fact that static stretching on it’s own or PNF stretching followed by static stretching (even better) as a separate recovery workout done at night while watching TV makes a huge difference in flexibility gains and recovery.

As another example, I have an athlete who is 16-years-old and has the worst static flexibility you’ve ever seen. He can barely touch his mid-quads. This is a kid who has to do static stretching. There is no study that you can show me or argument that you can make that will change my mind on this. With this particular athlete, we do tons of static stretching before he plays and before he trains. If he doesn’t do this, he can’t even come close to squatting. The key to doing static stretching before activity is to hold the stretch for no more than 10 seconds. Another trick I like to employ is to briefly contract the muscle immediately upon cessation of the stretch. Repeat as many times as necessary.

I’ll use a mistake that I made in the past to end my argument. I had a kid several years back who was nearly identical in body type and flexibility as the one mentioned above. I was in my anti-static stretching mode at the time. He only did his dynamic warm up and PNF stretching, and he actually got pretty good at it. His flexibility looked pretty good after a few months. However, he started to develop severe back problems as he got bigger and stronger. He went to two different doctors. The problem was a simple lack of hamstring flexibility. I was young and naive and believed the “studies.” I decided not to have this kid static stretch when it was apparent that was what he needed. As soon as we started a serious static stretching regimen, he was back on top and feeling great.

I will go with what Alwyn said—if static stretching sucks, why does every martial artist on the planet do it? They all seem to “possess the flexibility of a martial artist.” Or is that a (static stretching like it’s going out of style) gymnast…
Julia Ladewski: Here are my thoughts on the flexibility issue. As everyone else said, I won’t do any static stretching prior to any training. I always do dynamic/movement-related and mobility work. However, as Jason stated, there are just some athletes who need static stretching. In the real world, it would be great to do PNF on all of my athletes, but that just isn’t going to happen. And as much as you tell a kid that he/she needs to do stretching on his/her own time, they’re not going to do it. So, if there is a kid with a serious problem, we’ll spend time doing static stretching post-workout. I find that this is a huge issue with our extremely tall basketball players. We have also found that static stretching relieves most nagging back problems.
I still prefer PNF stretching over static stretching, but we can’t discount static stretching as not useful. Personally, as a “power” athlete, I do dynamic and band stretching more than static stretching, but I still find that static stretching is helpful. To get the most out of static stretching, it has to be consistent. I don’t know how many athletes come to me to get stretched every other day or a couple times a week and then wonder why it’s not helping them. Just like every other training concept, static stretching is a tool. Use it when necessary. It’s not THE answer, but it can be AN answer.

Dave Tate: This should be fun. Let’s see…is stretching important? Let’s save that until later. For now, it’s very important to realize the huge amount of stretching that already occurs for elite lifters.

We will use a squat day as an example. You wake in the morning tight as hell from a night’s sleep. You make your way into the bathroom to “drop the boys off at the pool.” There you go, stretch number one (hamstrings, groin). You also get a great lower back stretch as you reach for a magazine. Let’s not forget the use of the obliques as you wash the O ring. Then you slip on your sandals and head to the gym.

Here’s where the stretching really begins. Oh, I forgot. You get a great shoulder and lat stretch as you reach for your Egg McMuffin at the drive through. Now, in the gym, you get a great warm-up just changing into your training gear. This gets your core temp up so you’re ready to get into your full stretching program.

First—put your shoes on. Chucks are the best for this. This gives you a great lower back stretch because you have to stay bent over for some time to get those things laced up. Second—your suit. This is definitely the most underrated dynamic stretching program on earth. The bending over and tugging on the squat suit is great for the hamstrings and lower back as well as the shoulders. As the suit works its way up, you need to hang the straps from a bar and kick like hell from front to back and side to side (hip flexors, adductors, and abductors). After 15 minutes or so, you’re sweating like mad from this flexibility program. Third—the only thing left to stretch out is the pecs and delts. Well, no problem! All you have to do is get under the bar. Never mind all the scrapes to the back of your head as you try to duck under, just keep going. After a few tries, you’ll be there.

There you go—the best pre-training warm up of all time. Oh, I forgot. The cool down…screw it! You worked hard. Grab a can of Copenhagen and a Dr. Pepper and hit the road.

Okay, is this how I feel even after all I have been through? You bet your ass it is. You may be asking, “How can you say this? Look what it did to you?” Well, you’re right, but let’s remember that I had over 18 years of breaking records before I broke down, and I never stretched. So, now you may say, “Well, maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

My reply…yes, this could be true. However, maybe I would’ve also lifted 60 percent of what I did do. You can’t change the past or say this and that. You can only look at what was done. While one might say that I wouldn’t be hurt, I would say, screw you. Without the hell I went through and the injuries I had to suffer, I never would have been the lifter I was. Case in point—if I never tore my pec off, I never would see the need to move to Columbus and train with Louie. So yes, I should have been stretching so that I didn’t tear my pec. But then maybe I would still be a bouncer in a strip club with a 500-pound bench. Everything happens for a reason.

Did the lack of stretching hurt my strength? I highly doubt it. That is until the last few years. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Let’s say I needed a flexibility rate of three on a scale of 1–10 to do my sport. Anything over three is really a waste of training time (this time would be better spent training weak points). I was over a three for my entire career until the last few years when it hit a two. When you fall under the level needed for your sport, you have a problem (weak point) that needs to be addressed. With training economy in mind, something has to give for me to bring it back over a three. So while flexibility and mobility had to become part of the training, certain other training elements had to be taken away.

I guess my point is—if it’s a weakness that is holding you back, fix it. If not, focus on what will make you better.

Bob Youngs: Dave, you wrote nine million words and never answered Jim’s questions.

Mike Hope: We must remember that much of medicine in general, and sports medicine in particular, is based on historical precedent. When historical precedents are based solely on hypotheses that have more recently been proven incorrect, the individual must choose to (a) continue treatment (stretching) on the basis of a known incorrect idea of pathophysiology or (b) change to a treatment on the current knowledge of pathophysiology and pathobiology.

Of course, the potential side effect of any new treatment (likely to be unknown) must be weighed against the potential side effects of the historical treatment (more likely to be known). The art, and even science, of medicine then becomes the ability to weigh all of the available information at hand without discriminating the prior information and to be able to judge which is most appropriate for the athlete seated across from you.

Why do most injuries occur during eccentric contractions which cause damage within the normal range of motion? If injuries occur in normal ranges, why would increased motion prevent injuries?

Dave Tate: Perfect! To add a few more questions, why spend time training something that may already be above the baseline needs of the individual or sport when this time should be spent improving a specific weakness that is below baseline (can we say strength)? Who determines what is optimal and what isn’t optimal, and how are sport and individual differences weighed?

Regarding muscle balance, isn’t it true that a pitcher will have one arm stronger than the other? Will a sprinter have the same quad hamstring ration as a fencer? Can’t overuse still be a factor of time in the sport? If someone trains at a high level in a sport for over 20 years, are we to expect that all injuries can be avoided?

Competitive athletics is about performance first and health second. Anyone who says differently is full of crap and has never pushed the body to places it wasn’t designed to go. The bottom line is the body wasn’t designed to compete in high-level competitive athletics. We train it to do what it isn’t intended to do. In this event, it’s safe to say “sh*t happens,” and it’s part of the game.

Alwyn Cosgrove: Dave, you bring up some good points. In reference to your first point, I think it sums up all of performance training for sport. Similarly, when working with a fencer who has a current strength level of six (and he needs a four), your performance enhancement work will involve limited max strength work.

And what determines what is optimal and not optimal? I have no idea. Any muscle strength imbalance around a joint that’s likely to cause injury needs to be looked at though. The topic of muscle balance is a great topic and very interesting.

For your question regarding overuse injuries and time, I don’t think so. However, I’d suggest that the attitude that all injuries are inevitable is flawed. Can better training and restoration methods reduce injuries? I think so. Competitive athletics is about performance first and health second. I agree with this, but I think at least some of the sh*t that happens is avoidable. I have no doubt that some of my injuries from fighting were unavoidable, but I can also say that there were some issues (still remaining today) that could have been avoided.

Elitefts™ strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.elitefts.com.

High School Strength Coaches – Don’t Make This Mistake

Since I threw head coaches under the bus over the past couple of weeks, I think it’s time to point out some things we, as strength coaches, do wrong. And before anyone responds to any of this with vitriol, understand that I KNOW ABOUT THESE MISTAKES BECAUSE I HAVE MADE THEM ALL MYSELF.

Don’t train high school kids like they’re adults.

Everywhere you look online, you’ll see articles, pictures and videos of professional athletes being trained. Some of this is good stuff and some of it is absolute crap, but there’s no denying the fact that we’re in a new age when it comes to this stuff, and the access to the way these guys do things is easier than ever. This, however, can be a problem for the inexperienced strength coach.

What it is, is information overload. I can remember the first time I was ever introduced to “our” style of training. This was back in the late 90′s when a bunch of powerlifters I trained with told me about conjugate periodization and W—–e. Shortly after that, I found what Dave was doing with elitefts™ and quickly became fascinated by the idea that strength equals speed. To me, it explained a lot about my own athletic career and why I never got quite as fast as I thought I could. As it turns out, I trained the “wrong” way throughout my career by playing for coaches who were obsessed with Olympic lifting and running us to death, as opposed to the “less is more” philosophy and getting us stronger all around. Looking back, I’m actually embarrassed about how little squatting I actually did when I was playing, in favor of high rep hang clean sessions and running until I puked.

Stronger Equals Faster

Anyway, the point here is that when I came across people who told me that the secret to getting fast is to get strong – and that the way to get strong is to lift heavy on full recovery – it was an absolute revelation because it made perfect sense to me. Once that door opened, I bought into everything they were saying hook, line and sinker. If a guy said one thing that made sense, EVERYTHING he said made sense – which meant that EVERYTHING he did had a seal of approval that meant I needed to use it. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

I had to slow WAY the f–k down with this stuff. It’s great that I was giving Dave business, but you can’t train a 15-year-old kid the same way you’d train a 35-year-old powerlifter. I didn’t know that back then. I didn’t even think about it. All I knew was that I needed to have the kids box squat, board press, do partial lifts, and do it all WITH BANDS AND CHAINS!!!

Don’t Shoot Before Engaging

After talking to dozens of coaches who knew their shit, however, I learned that it’s pointless to bring a gun to a knife fight, if you will. A 15-year-old kid isn’t going to need to put bands or chains or weight releasers or anything else on the bar for quite a while – especially when he can’t even do a damn pushup. You have X number of bullets in your training gun, so why shoot them all before it’s even time to engage?

Too many guys still do this, though. They see what they see on YouTube, on all sorts of websites, and even here at elitefts™, and they think that just because it’s appropriate for a pro athlete, it’s perfectly fine for their own kids. I spoke to guys like this at every seminar and clinic I ever went to, and it’s funny to me, because they’re still where a lot of us were several years ago with regard to discovering this stuff for the first time.

Long story short, a good high school strength coach needs to design programs with his athletes’ training ages and strength levels in mind – with the knowledge that what works for a 1,000 pound squatter isn’t always appropriate for a kid whose knees wobble when he tries to walk up a flight of stairs.

Never mind the fact that I never bothered to purchase a lottery ticket. The possibility that this guy was granted a life-changing check due purely to the fact that he had them toss in an auto-lotto ticket in with his bottle of Mad Dog and Swisher Sweets cigarillo, is a personal affront to me.

Granted, in reality, the winner could be a Sunday school-teaching, widowed father working two jobs to raise his three kids, but I take great consolation to instead imagine the winner being a dirtbag whose fortune shall be short-lived. Like I said, it is a dark, ugly side of human nature that I am not particularly proud of but (I am at least hoping) is fairly common in most of us.

Dave Cashen, our Prowler® 2 Sweepstakes winner definitely makes it impossible to feel like our contest prize went to someone that was not an extremely worthy recipient. For starters, he is one hell of a nice guy. When interviewed, here is what Dave said:

“Thank you Elitefts!!! This past January I had major knee surgery with arthrosurface patellafemoral implants. A year prior to the surgery, conditioning exercises like running or cycling would severely irritate and inflame the knee. I gave up on doing any conditioning but I could still squat! It is four months post-op now. I’ve been given the okay to start running, but I have to take it slow. Now that I’ll be the proud owner of a Prowler® I can crank up the conditioning to get back into shape and rehab my knee.”

Prowler® 2 Sweepstakes winner, David Cashen.

Being based in Arizona, Dave should be able to get year-round use out of his special limited edition Prowler® 2! Hopefully, it will help to gradually strengthen his knees and then boost his strength, conditioning and work tolerance to new levels. Keep me posted, on your progress, Dave.

So now, with our Prowler® 2 Sweepstakes closed, what should the prize for the next elitefts™ contest be?

 
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My hands remind me of the steel, the calluses half torn from last night’s deadlift and a sore upper back telling me that those reps were just right. My hamstrings feel like I was hit with a golf club before bed as I walk toward the kitchen with the need to eat over 1000 calories at breakfast so I can keep adding weight to these lifts that build me up and tear me down rep by rep, week by week.

I’m not what the lifting circle would call a “big guy.” My numbers wouldn’t be anything to brag about at a USAPL meet, but I keep learning. I keep analyzing. I continue to improve techniques and strategies, lifting programs, and nutrition, all in the attempt to one day say I gave it my all. The problem with that is there are competitive lifters in their 60s still giving it 110 percent. It’s a lifelong pull and push against every kind of grain—managing free time, diet, sleep, patients, education, employment, and money among other things.

Revelation

Elitefts™ had an article about late night PRs. A few months ago I had my revelation. It was 11:00 p.m. and squat night. I hadn’t had any other time in the day and this was my window. I also felt like shit. In the haze mode designed to convince our body only rest is needed, I set up the rack for my sets. My warm up continued on to the set weight for my 5 x 5, with my body tuned in to Clutch playing through my headphones, smelling TigerBalm, and looking at the bar with the plates waiting for me. It’s funny how during my relatively short time under the bar, I’ve already found the rut I step into every time my hour to lift rolls around, that same rut that keeps your body and brain in line to focus on the simple task of moving the weight.

Feeling parallel, I pushed my knees out and drove my body up as though I was pushing through a hatch out of Hell, over and over and over again until my 5 x 5 was finished and the plates sat there looking at me as I was aching, heaving for breath and confident that this still wasn’t enough, sitting on a plyo box rubbing my hands together. Now I could move on.

Do it Again

The task is doing it again. With more. And again. With more. So unlike the ‘on the job’ stress of a spreadsheet due in 12 hours where you have to calculate this and that and try budgeting your time better, there’s a physical and mental hurdle one has to jump every time the numbers have to increase, every time you’re at the bottom and your knees start coming in, every time you find yourself under a bar at 11 p.m. (the non-alcoholic heavy kind). A place where you decide if this is physically possible or not. Most people say it isn’t and yield to the hurt. Saying it’s possible to do even more than what nearly killed you the week before is what separates the guys on the curl machine from somebody chalking their hands and pulling the slack out of a Texas bar knowing that this is going to be difficult.

The plates don’t care if you had enough sleep or if you’re sore. They’ll always add up the same and hang on your back with the same disregard for your problems at home or at work, with the same arrogance as when they beat you times before. But taking the time to understand how they work on your body blurs the line between “controllable” and “uncontrollable,” “can” and “can’t.” Taking the time to move them pound by pound erases the line between “did” and “didn’t.”

And the beauty is that we decide. We force. We push. All in the attempt to look back at a number on a paper saying that we gave it our all.

Never forget that you have to feed the machine. The harder that your need your machine to work, the more that you need to be consuming. That means you…no matter what your goals may be.

Can I Get Strong Without Bands, Chains, and Gear?

View Clint’s Training Log

I haven’t been training lately because I royally f*cked my back up on Thursday. Those that follow the log already know that my back was an on-and-off issue for the last year or so, but I really thought I was out of the woods. I made a few changes in my training over the last year, including increasing my raw volume and improving my warm-ups, and up until Thursday, I felt better than ever.

The b*tch of it was that I wasn’t doing anything hard when I got hurt. I was in the middle of a warm-up set of squats with 225 pounds, when my whole lower back went into a spasm. For the next three days, I was pretty much unable to even stand up straight for more than 10 minutes or so. It’s steadily getting better, but I’m still probably a week away from actually getting under a barbell.

Outsourcing

Since I obviously was not able to address the problem on my own, it’s time to outsource this motherf*cker. After more than 15 years in the business, I know some really great rehab/prehab experts, and it’s time to start tapping them to see what the hell is going on. I had my massage therapist work me over the day after it happened, and according to her (and the excruciating pain she inflicted on it), my left hip is a mess, so that should probably be the starting point.

The fact is, I can only do this to myself so many times before I permanently f*ck myself up.

Getting Worse

This whole week was a wash due to that low back strain last Thursday. I tweaked this area a few times before, but this was by far the worst. Now, six days later, I actually felt worse than the day I did it. Here’s how injuries like this tend to work. First, you hurt yourself due to some type of muscle imbalance. The injury causes you to hobble around like a hunchback for a few days or weeks, exacerbating the original imbalance. You f*ck yourself up worse a few months later due to your newer, more severe imbalances.

In the past, I would just back off for a few days or weeks until the pain was gone, maybe get a massage or two, and then start right back up, only to do it again six months later. So, in an effort to break this cycle, I had my buddy, Paper, refer me to his chiropractor Dr. Castro, who works with numerous pro bodybuilders and powerlifters. The doctor is well over an hour from me, but it was important that I go to someone who understands what we do. After hearing a bit about my history, how I did it, my symptoms, and doing some palpations, the doctor was confident that the issue was not a herniated disk (my biggest worry) but a facet joint strain.

Hip Flexors

He was also convinced that my hip flexors were to blame. This makes a lot of sense because the problem worsened considerably since I took a desk job. After giving me some electrical stim and doing some Active Release Techniques (ART) on my hip flexors and pirformis, I felt noticeably better for the first time in a week. I’ve definitely reached a point in my career where regular ART is a necessity, not a luxury. The next step will be to find someone more local for regular treatments. Castro is certainly worth the time investment, but the hour and a half car ride home did cause my hip flexors to start locking back up a bit. It looks like we’ll be back at Eastside next Sunday, so assuming my back continues to progress, I should be ready for some conservative squatting by then. Ideally, I would like to be able to put in a reasonably heavy session in next month at the elitefts™ Compound. On a similar note, Jo Jordan also had some surgery. If you get the chance, reach out and throw him some support. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

Want to try Powerlifting? Start with “Powerlifting: Year 1″

Visit Dave Kirschen’s training log.