what you oughta be

If you are a wolf then you have to train with other wolves or you will never reach your potential. If you train with dogs then it's like someone really smart going to community college, they aren't going to be challenged enough. Hell, I went to community college, it was easy, and now that I've gone to a University I'm sure community would be even easier, and if I went to an even harder college I'm sure University would seem easy. Do you get my point? It all goes back to something I've been thinking a lot about lately and that is standards. Standards are what separate the levels of success individuals achieve. I remember coach John Drewes of the Red Wing Weightlifting Club, he would say a lifter hadn't "arrived" in the 69 weight class until they total 200, that was a standard. That's kind of like saying you aren't really a weightlifter in the 69's until you total 200, it's a very powerful thing to say. I remember PRing and John saying sure but you took those steps forward to save it. I'd be lifting in front of him and he'd say things like, this weight is light, this weight is nothing, this weight is a stepping stone. He would put you up on a pedestal as if he didn't see who you were currently, he saw your potential, he didn't see what you were he saw what you oughta be. You have to have contempt for the weights, you have to have contempt for other lifters, but you also have to have contempt for your current level of strength.

Compete, more.

This is gonna be one of those blogs that sounds stupid, one of em' that sounds like a no brainer, no college required as my dad would always say, back when Ed would become Edge, the hard ass that would throw cold water in my face if I didn't wanna wake up for church on sunday. This blog is about competition and how training isn't training without it. Technique is important, sure. Puttin' in the work is important, sure. It all comes down to one thing though. I mean, what are we doin'? What is the sport of weightlifting? It's competition, and the minute you forget that is the minute you aren't training for weightlifting, you're just playing around, you are forgetting the game, you need game, be a gamer. Find someone who is a little bit stronger than you or a little bit weaker than you, the closer you guys are in strength the better. I don't care what exercises you do with that other person, it doesn't matter, but on ever set and every rep, compete, do one kilo more, do one extra rep, do the lift better, do if faster, do it cleaner, do it better. What if you don't have a training partner like that you ask? Well, you are shit out of luck in a big way but there is still a way. You have to compete with yourself and that's the hardest thing to do. You think it's easy, you think training alone means you are automatically competing with yourself, with your old numbers, with your old form and all that? No, what you have to do is play the more game. You just lifted a weight on an exercise, more. You just squatted 200 kilos, more, 201 beats 200, more. More, more, more, more. Compete.

Wired for Weightlifting

How do you find weightlifters? How did I become a weightlifter? Well, I lifted weights in high school and eventually put the bar over my head by chance and....BANG! I was hooked! Soon I was using the hook grip, soon I had a platform in my dad's garage. I found out the closest weightlifting club was two and a half hours away. Oh well, I call up the club, talk to the coach, mind if I stop by this weekend and lift in front of you and you can point out what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong? Sweet! see you this weekend. The rest is history, I traveled 2 and 1/2 hours many times to get coached. So, what is a weightlifter? It's not just someone doing snatch and jerk I'll tell you that. I now train in a gym with many people doing snatch and jerk thanks to the popularity of crossfit and not one of them has come up to me and said, "Simon, I just did a clean and jerk and wow! how do I get started? I wanna be a weightlifter!". A coach once told me that weightlifters are born to be weightlifters, they put a barbell over their head and they know it's meant to be, but is it something rare? Does it take a certain type of person, someone that walks to a different beat? How many weightlifters have come out of crossfit? How many people did crossfit until they were taught to snatch and jerk and then said, "see ya later crossfit guys, I found what I'm lookin' for, I wanna be a weightlifter".? What if every gym class in the United States taught a unit on weightlifting and everyone got exposed to snatch and jerk? How many would do that first snatch or jerk and think Eureka! or Aha! My guess is not as many as you'd think, maybe because weightlifting is difficult, maybe more difficult than we'd like to think and maybe it's those select few who weightlifting happens to come easy for because they just maybe are built for it, made for it, born to do it, and are wired in the brain for it. I've shot a basketball before and made it go SWISH! it felt awesome, but am I a basketball player? No. What makes a weightlifter do weightlifting? I have my suspicions that it's a body type, a certain flexibility, coordination, and more importantly it's some way a person is wired in the brain, wired for weightlifting.

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.