Maslow's Hierarchy

    It must have been in 9th grade English class with my father when I first learned about Maslow's Hierarchy. Basically it's a pyramid illustrating human needs. I don't remember each level of needs by heart but what I do know is that at the bottom you have self preservation, things like food, water, sleep, shelter. At the top you have self actualization, self actualization involves the creative things we do to express ourselves, maybe painting, sculpting, bird watching, whatever it may be. The lesson of the hierarchy is that if you are starving and can't eat, or if you don't have a home, it's very hard if not impossible to get to the point where you can do and appreciate your deepest goals or experiences.
     Now, I don't know exactly when I figured this out but the act of me flossing my teeth is a sign of moving up in the hierarchy of needs. If I'm not getting enough sleep, getting too much sleep, stressed, making bad decisions, etc, then I'm not flossing because I have problems and don't feel the need to. Flossing is just the one things I noticed I do more often when I'm mentally well off or have more of my lower self preservational needs under control. It could be anything though, maybe you play golf every saturday with your friends when things in your life are in order. I have something similar to that actually. For awhile every Sunday I would meet my friend at the gym and we would work out together. For awhile we both did good and were making it there on Sundays, then, after awhile I started sleeping in and texting him that I couldn't make it. This was a big sign that something wasn't in order in my life because here I was calling in sick so to speak for an event that I usually looked forward to and enjoyed. Now I'm back to getting in the gym on Sundays but my friend has called in sick a couple of times, maybe something is off in his life or maybe he's just had some tough weeks at work, maybe his sign of self actualization is something else.
     For years now I've watched as older men sit at the Mini Mart in my home town and drink coffee in the morning and socialize. My father always talks about it like he'd like to join those men, yet he doesn't. The day I walk into that Mini Mart and see my old man drinking coffee and shooting the shit with fellow townies is the day I'll think to myself that things must be going o.k with him, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. My point is, don't underestimate the little things. Was there a little ritual you used to do but for some reason or another it faded out unnecessarily? Well, get back in the rhythm and break the cycle. Maybe meeting up with your old friend for billiards, or cards, or whatever every 2nd tuesday of the month is what kept your life in perspective, what kept it real. We create these little worlds with these big walls and we're the only ones with the key. I can tell you right now that going to chess club on tuesdays and thursdays was good for me and I never made it their last semester, something was off. In fact, publishing this blog is a sign of self actualization for me because I don't publish blogs when my life isn't in order, I save em' as drafts and never have the nerve to press the button. Press the publish botton, press the life button, live it!

My Program

AM
Snatch
Clean and Jerk

PM
Snatch
Clean and Jerk
Front Squat

Pain management/ Fatigue reducing tools
Cold Shower
Ice Bath
Coffee
Chocolate
Fish Oil
Vitamin D

4 meals per day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night)

Wake up early and train while the sun is up (training is more productive that way).

Bigger increase, then smaller: How to go six for six in Weightlifting.

I don't think I've gone six for six in a competition since my very first one. Why is that? I say greed. There are others that will say that six for six is a bad thing and that it means you didn't challenge yourself enough. I don't buy it. Six for six is a great thing and it gives you confidence and room to grow going into your next competition. The fundamental concept behind going six for six is a bigger increase from first to second attempt and then a smaller one from second to third attempt. I myself forget this simple idea, I get caught up in the moment, PR's start flashing through my mind and a total that may just be out of reach for that day. For instance, in one of my last meets my jerk warm-up was going good so I bumped up my opener to 131 and I made that lift, then I went 136, five kilos more, which is a big jump in competition. I made that lift, now would be the time for that smaller jump, I chose 140 and missed the jerk by a hair. 138 would have been a wiser choice, but at least I got the idea correct, bigger then smaller, but it wasn't small enough. In the snatch I opened with 98, made it then went to 103 and made that. Here is were I messed up, I took 108 on my third attempt which was not a smaller jump, it was the same five kilo increase. 105 would have been a much more wiser choice. So I ended with 103+136 for a 239 total but with some better choices in attempts I could have lifted 105+138=243. It doesn't seem like much of a difference but it is, it's the difference between totaling in the 230s and the 240s. Over time those little difference add up to some big differences. Fundamentally, this is about making good decisions, making good choices, which is really what life is all about. If you go down one path and make the wrong decisions, you will never achieve what you could have if you went down the other path and made the right decisions. Everyone should go six for six from time to time, and it starts with the simple idea of bigger jump first then a smaller jump. It's like you are trying to squeeze everything you can out of the competition and over reaching won't produce. You want to make that first lift, take a bigger jump, make that second lift, count your blessings that you are still on a roll and do what the ignorant will fail to do, be a little cautious and take a smaller jump. It will make all the difference.

weightlifting poetry

hip bruises, torn calluses, scrapped up shins, what are those marks on your collarbone?
knee sleeves, belts, special shoes, singlet like in wrestling.
coffee black, tapped thumbs white, rubber disks, red, blue, yellow, green.
Red lighted, white lights, good lift, no lift, misses in training.
Front squat, back squat, take your pick, you need legs to play this game.
Platform, judges, chalkbox, chalk it up, time is running out, make this lift.
What's your openers?
shake those nerves, focus, clear your head, don't bomb out.
Timing, technique, rhythm, make it flow, hook grip, don't let go.
Time stops, in the zone, six for six, on fire, dark times lead to white moments.

"Boom, Boom" and the "whipping pull"

"Boom, Boom". Coach Jianping Ma would say those two words over and over while simultaneously clapping his hands. Now if you've ever met the happy-go-lucky Jainping Ma, you know that he is very Chinese, so some things get lost in translation. Some lifters never really knew what he was trying to get a crossed with his "boom, boom" and clapping cue. I'm here to tell you that he was trying to get a crossed the most important and fundamental aspect of weightlifting: hips and feet. What "boom, boom" really meant was hip and feet; the sound of the bar meeting the hip at the top of the pull and the feet slapping the floor as you flash into the catch position. If you hear the first "boom" at the top of your pull you know you're getting you hips into the lift and when you hear the second "boom" you know you had quick feet. Hips and feet, it's as simple as that. With very good lifters the "boom, boom" sound will be very fast and loud; the first "boom" will be loud because they are driving their hips through the bar with such force at the top of the pull and the second "boom" can sometimes sound like the cracking of a whip. Good lifting is very closely related to a whipping action. I believe the hip follow through can be used to whip yourself into the bottom position. Anybody ever seen the finish of Taner Sagir's pull? It's pulls like that where the hip follow through whips the lifter into the bottom position. Just as the hips can be used to whip the bar upward there is also a whip that can occur from retreating the hips from that follow through. Try it sometime. Take a stick and don't fully extend your hips in the finish position, now try to whip your self under, this may be what your used to. Now try the same thing, get in the finish position, but bring your hips all the way through, from the side your crotch should be the most forward part of your body creating a body arch like a narrow letter C. You whipped yourself under, did you feel it? The hips coming through created a mechanism like a bow and arrow, the more you get the hips through, the faster you (the arrow) will shoot into the bottom. Now, one last thing about this "whipping pull", yeah that's what I'm calling it. It's hard to achieve that whipping finish if you don't start with your shoulders and chest about as far back as you can. This is critical to getting the bar into the hip in the first place allowing you to follow through. The chest and shoulders back usually means you have to get your butt way down in your starting position, way lower than you are used to, but the pay off is huge. Watch my video above, listen for the "boom, boom". Also look at my starting position, my chest and shoulders are back at the start. This start is still something I'm working on, but believe me, "back is better". I feel like getting my chest and shoulders back is the single biggest technique correction I've ever made, and it kind of evolved on it's own. Right now my shoulders are directly over the bar at the start, but it feels like I'm behind the bar but that is only the way it feels. Over time my shoulders might get behind the bar, it's tough to get into these positions, but a side effect of having your chest and shoulders that far back is your back is set and arched perfectly. You will notice in my video that my finish isn't as arched as it could be, that is because I have short legs, a long torso, and a tilted pelvis. The finish position you see in the video is actually very good compared to what it has been for me in the past. Now, if you have longer legs, a shorter torso, and good pelvic mobility, you could do serious magic with this "whipping pull". Your whip will be a lot longer and when you follow through with your hips you will crack the whip much stronger than myself and whip into the bottom position much faster.

The "Stripper Pull"

The "Stripper Pull"

Gwen Sisto recently wrote a blog about what she calls the "butt pull" and she describes it in much more detail than me. I read her blog and realized that the "butt pull" has to be among the number one issues a beginning lifter faces. It's almost like beginners are naturally predisposed to doing this type of pull, also I have another name for it. At my gym we have a saying for when a lifters butt raises up too soon in the pull, we call it the "stripper pull". Strippers do this maneuver at strip joints, they touch the floor without bending their knees and their you have it. It turns the pull into a Romanian deadlift. Consequently, this pull results in weights being lost forward. To correct this a lifter needs to concentrate on having his or her butt down, chest up and shoulders back helps too. Instead of that butt popping up, we want the knees to extend from the start and the butt to raise gradually. If you do the stripper pull something is going to be lost at the finish as well because the bar won't be tucked back into the hip as much as it should. When I find myself doing the stripper pull I feel like my finish of the pull was just a weak sliding instead of a powerful tuck and catapult. So remember, butt down! Chest up and Shoulders back! This isn't the strip joint and you're not going to get tips for showing your butt off. 

Coffee, Chess, and Weightlifting

If I could do just three things I would drink coffee, play chess, and practice weightlifting. Classical music would be playing in the background. Maybe I would do some fencing in my spare time. Some time, look up the movie called "By the Sword" on YouTube. You can watch the movie on YouTube actually. It's got that one guy from Amadeus, another good movie by the way which happens to be about Mozart. I've never fenced before, it's just got that classic sophisticated appeal to it, the same appeal that chess and weightlifting have. Yes, weightlifting is the classical music of the strength sports because it is a skill sport. Any body can play smells like teen spirit but it takes a master to play Paganini. What other activities have that classical lure to them? Obviously playing the violin does. I used to play the violin when I was younger, I didn't practice though and that instrument takes a ton of discipline. I remember going to recitals and seeing  10 yr old girls play with such mastery that is was down right scary and intimidating. They obviously practiced a lot. Sure, I could play, but I never learned how to read notes. I memorized all of my pieces for my recitals. The music book would be in front of me but I would be playing by heart. This was when I was still half ways innocent, I mean I always had my problems, but things were simpler back then. I remember towards the end of my violin lessons, before my teacher asked me to stop because I wasn't worth her time, she tried to teach me the vibrato. The is when you move your hand and wrist in such a way that it gives the note you are playing emotion, but the vibrato is a mechanical action and you have to loosen your hands and wrist in order to do it. Loosening up is something I still struggle with to this day. I took violin lessons at Luther College in Iowa where I grew up. That school is known for it's music department. The college is in a town settled primarily by Norwegians. Imagine me at 10 yrs old, a little Bohemian kid from a town over, getting my ass handed to me at recitals by 10 yr old blonde ethnic Norwegians. I play chess at my college here in Wisconsin. It's a chess club by definition only, really it's people who like to play chess getting together to play for fun. Just like the violin, I haven't studied chess, I just play to play, and get as good as anyone who plays a lot but doesn't study. I remember I wanted to quit violin plenty of times, but my mother wouldn't let me. She would cry, beg, and plead me to stick with the violin. She wanted to be able to tell her friends and people she meet, "this is Simon, our middle child, the violin player". This was back when my folks owned the Czech Restaurant in town and she would pay me to serenade the customers when I wasn't busy washing dishes. I'm sure that was hard for her to let go of, being able to describe me as the violin player. My folks have always been that way, when people ask them how they are doing they are the type that would avoid the question and say "well, my youngest is doing this, my oldest is doing that". I suppose when you are a parent, a parent is what you are, and you are defined by what your children are doing.