Performing below your best

We’ve all been there.  You’re coming back from an injury and training lighter, or maybe you’re done with your sets and you’re hitting accessories, or you just plain aren’t feeling it that day.  It never fails, that’s when “that” guy comes over and sets up on the rack, bench or bar next to you.

Now you’re bigger, and you know you’re stronger… but he doesn’t.  To him, you look like a giant pussy with all of that light weight!

You’re doing a downset with a percentage of your capabilities and he’s warming up with just a little less.  He’s gonna pass you in a few minutes.  And when he does, YOU know that you were smashing a couple hundred pounds more than his sets, but HE doesn’t.  Neither do the guys who are working in with him, slamming the bar down and giving each other bro-fives. There's no instant replay here, so what are ya gonna do?

They’re looking over at this big guy sweating and out of breath in front of a bar loaded with mere peanuts.  They just missed your last set where you smashed that heavy triple, that would have crippled them, like it was a fucking toy before all but unloading the bar to get some extra work in.

Now I’m not gonna lie, I’d like to sit here and act like I don’t give a fuck about how I’m viewed and I’m above the petty pissing matches between me and complete strangers.  But that’s bullshit.  I’ve worked hard to be the Caucasian silverback I sit here today as and I didn’t do it by lifting light weight.  It’s important to me, the red bearded bastard, to let the 19 year old dub step fans of the world know that this was my house back when I was 100%.

Really?

YES, I’m THAT petty.

Now I don’t lift in box gyms often, maybe once or twice a month when I’m away on business.  The majority of the time I train with a powerlifting team out of a small power gym in Raleigh.  These are guys I see 3-4 times a week who are all goal oriented and put the same work in that I do.  That has been what I’ve been accustomed to and if you have the chance to train at one, take it.

But on the road, I go to this box gym.

It plays lil jon and maroon 5 almost exclusively.  The old strength equipment has been replaced by cookie cutter “Lifestyle” racks and benches.  There are rules posted on the mirrored walls that stretch from front to back.  The clients range from the guys in the bro science to the guys in the awkward gym moments vids.  Gloves, sporting good store belts, wrist straps, beats by Dre head phones and dew rags… on white dudes.

This is my haven a few times a month.

I’ve done some decent lifts here. Not elite by any means but I’ve broken plates, bent bars and bled all over the floor there. I’ve had it out with the manager about using chalk and slammed weight down there to the amazement of onlookers on several occasions.  I don't scream and yell to get attention, hell, here I don't have to.  Usually a front squat gets people to look up from their own 15" arms.

But gym lifts don’t count, and don’t mean shit.  All that matters is what you’re doing now and what you could do in a meet.  And right now I ain’t 100%.  I belt up early on lighter weight, I struggle with what used to be warm up weight. There’s just shit I plain old can’t do right now.

So when the kid with the string tank and lift strong bracelet comes up along side of me puffing his chest out, tossing a plate on the bar and yelling like a fool, there’s a part of me that wants to load that bar back up and watch his little hairless jaw drop to the floor.  I want to lift the bar overhead with one hand and give him the finger with the other.  I want to tell him his music sucks and maybe, just maybe even punch him in his little fucking FACE!

But I don’t.

I don’t because I know who I am and what I’ve done.  I have a total that I worked for, one that I know that I’m capable of beating when I’m as healed up as I’m gonna get.  My lifts aren’t astounding or earth shattering, but they’re mine.  I know the pain it took to add every pound.

So when this kid thinks he’s the shit when he’s bent over rowing 135, yelling and slamming the bar, I just have to remember.  That was me way back when, and the old heads I used to see never punched me in the face or told me that Pantera sucked.

So I just put it aside. Rather than run over there and throw the bar 10ft in the air with one hand, I block out the terrible music and finish my shitty set. All the while imagining the buffet that awaits me when I’m done.  That, and avoid eye contact so nobody asks me to spot them.

 I really fucking hate that, because they’re people and they’re talking to me.

2 more sets and I can eat.

The Pitfall of Testing

In my time on earth and under a bar, I've noticed a few things about the "fitness industry" and its participants.  There are many different types of fitness enthusiast but more often that not they share a similar trait of specified training.  Staying inside their box while they judge the outsiders.  I never fit that mold very well.  I like to do too many different tings, sometimes simultaneously i.e. writing this and shitting.

I started or restarted my strength goals while watching worlds strongest man in my 20's, and wondering why I had let myself become such a weak pathetic tub of pig shit.  Even then I knew I wasn't going to pick the bar back up and regain my late teens V-taper or boyish good looks, but I had to chip away at weakness a day and week at a time. Also, it was imperative that I grow a beard.  More on that later.

I made a lot of mistakes early on.  Diet was terrible, calories were low often times. Hell even today I still don't drink enough water.  I did too much cardio, I didn't practice good form on lifts, and the lifts I chose weren't the core strength lifts, they were ez bar curls and calf raises.

Still, somehow I ended up with back muscles.  I'll never figure that one out.

Then I fell into the trap. Not TRAP like the neckatles I walk around with.   The YouTube trap.

I used to be a YouTube lifter, I used to compare myself with people across the country or globe and train "feats."  What I mean by "feats" is a one time, holy shit I got it on camera, type of lift or movement.  My first 70+ hub lift was a feat video, double overhand deadlifting a 2" axle for a one rep max was a feat, trying to bend a grade 5 bolt supersetted with a 405 front squat was a feat.

Being a YouTube lifter is easy.  Create an account, search for videos of a feat you think you can almost do and then try like fuck to do it on camera until you make it.  There are a lot of deleted video files on the path to YouTube Stardom. But keep it up, literally 10's of people are watching.

The problem is that I didn't "train."  Instead, I made YouTube content the same way I THOUGHT others did, I'd warm up to a max attempt on something day after day and week after week.  I wasn't putting in the work, no real volume.  It was just one giant internet pissing contest between me and the world, and my bladder was exhausted.

The pitfall of constantly testing was stagnation.  I plateaued and flat lined for a while.  Once I started training for the future, instead of the here and now, gains began to roll in and pr's arrived.

10 week cycles became the norm.  Prescribed reps and set schemes, programmed mock meets 2+ months away was laid before me.  Written as a vague templates in ebooks (written by people waaaay stronger than me) for me to sharpen and mold to myself.

This type of training saw me the greatest results.  It kept me in check, but kept me working hard at the same time.  But the one thing I missed was the "test."

Not the hormone, trust me I've got that one covered (This is where the beard comes back into play.)  I mean testing, actually seeing how good you have become.

It used to be ALL I did, literally.  But to gamble a couple of 10 week cycles on a PR one day 4-5 months from now was a tough adaptation.  It's probably a sign of my generation, wanting quick results.  But I look at it like I would my wife baking a pumpkin pie.  There's a reason why there's a glass window on the front of the oven.  We don't just set the timer and hope for the best.  We peek at that little fucker to make sure it isn't on fire. 

Why?

cause we want to eat that fucker. Just like we want that PR.

For me, my oven window is the rep max or AMRAP set.  A simple set that not only supports BUILDING strength, but also acts as a gauge as to probable strength levels.

This week, I'm 6 weeks into a 10 week cycle.  It's tough to fight off that feeling of wanting to let a few singles fly after the boring rep work of the day.  Instead, I tested an AMRAP at 80%.  (Not 80% OF 90% like some ebooks suggest, I mean like 80% of the actual most I've ever lifted in a meet.)

Well guess what, got 9 reps on bench.  That's a 2 rep PR.  ...a PR, ...one that I can compare in the future to the past.  A set that not only told me where I was at, but helped me to get where I'm headed.

That's roughly 4 1/2 reps PER TIT!!

This isn't a novel concept or one that I have in anyway helped to create.  In fact some ebook templates even encourage or prescribe AMRAP sets.  For me, AMRAP sets or REP PR sets help keep me engaged in the program and embolden my resolve to stay the course. 

"They" say the best time to change a program is a month BEFORE you plateaued.

...well how the fuck would you KNOW?!  Testing at the end of a normal 10 week cycle is like Christmas, all the presents at once for being good all cycle.  But testing AMRAP's is like Hanukkah!  PRESENTS OUT THE ASS...

It's good to check in and see where the fuck you're at every month or so.  I used to be a YouTube lifter, now I'm a lifter with a YouTube account.