Category: Motivation

It is my opinion that, as an athlete, you need four ingredients to achieve a high level of success: supportive gym/community, superb coaching, an iron will to succeed, and food.

The last couple months has been packed with travels to compete, and compete we have. If you have kept up with any of our social media, then you know that our girls power lifting has gone straight to the top in under a year (headed to Worlds!!), our strongman competitor is getting stronger and stronger, and our weightlifting team is starting to blossom. These ladies and gents have absolutely killed it, and continue to train hard in preparation for future competitions. However, in all the travelling and pushing them to succeed, I have made an error on my part. I have been so caught up in pushing them that I have forgotten to really thank them or the gym that has helped develop this team into what it is today.

So, thank you!

Thank you to the girls and guys on our teams that go out and rep PHP with all of their hard work and continue to support our ever growing gym.

Thank you to all the athletes that come into the gym and make the atmosphere that allows for good times to be had while training and pushing through.

And thank you to all of my individual clients that continue to train with me and work around my schedule so that I may travel with my team and support and coach them on the platform.

All of this to say, that over the next couple weeks I will make it a goal to spend more time developing the other training programs in the gym in order to make sure we keep that “spark” in the atmosphere alive and kicking!

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So you made it to this point, the point at which you have gotten through a couple weeks of volume and up till now a couple of changes have been made:

Volume squats are still terrible, but not as bad as they once were

You have learned a new method to sitting (or falling) on a toilet, that old way of normal sitting was for the birds

You may have lost a couple of friends due to your slow walking pace and the inability to actually function as a normal human

But fear not, we are on to bigger and better things  (remember, everything is relative)!
Note: You might be one of the very lucky individuals that does not have a competition for quite some time, so guess what, that probably means 1-2 more cycles of volume (can I get a hell ya? [Insert crickets and low key sobs])

Either way (5, 10, or 15 weeks) it is time to take the volume down and come up with the intensity a little bit, and we can rejoice! Although, we are not quite to that 300kg RM back squat, we can be assured that we will have some heavier weights loading our joints and we are moving toward our actual competition  lifts which means, if you are a power lifters, you wont have to argue that the marks on your neck are from the bar and not from somewhere else….

So, let’s talk about a couple of ideas to keep in mind as you program the next 5-10 weeks:

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Volume:

Now is the time to slide in to the rep ranges of 5-8, which again means no more barbell marathons or losing all hope when your coworker says “let’s take the stairs”.

The idea is simple; we have built a strong foundation of muscle, hopefully gaining a little bit in the process of the hypertrophy phase, now our goal is to increase the strength of said muscle in order to use it to our advantage (ultimately increasing our RM in whatever lift we need it in).

The 5-8 rep range will help us taper from that super high volume into a more reasonable volume, 5’s,  in order to make that next transition into our competition/intensity phase. It also helps us still get a decent amount of volume to continue that muscle growth since you should still be a ways out from that faithful day (when we send all the weights to heaven).

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Intensity:

If you guessed that volume going down meant intensity increasing, then you would be right! Last cycle we were working anywhere from 60-75% (75% being a very heavy load for the rep ranges, but do able for some). This cycle we will focus in the 70-85% ranges (again, with 85% being a very high load, but again, it is do able for those well trained and advanced in their lifting careers).

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Exercise selection:

The idea here would be to start drifting more toward the competition style movements. What I like to do is use this time frame to throw in pauses, complexes, and continue to work short comings that we established from the last competition:

Use pause squats to help gain confidence out of the whole and maintain proper torso position.

Use pause dead lifts to establish you torso position and to rely on pushing your hips through.

Complexes for weightlifters are a great way to build confidence under fatigue and help correct certain issues (different complexes used to address different issues).

The main goal is to look at starting to develop our competition lifts and make sure we get rid if or at least work on the holes in our game.

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Accessories:

They are still very important and should be maintained through this phase, although not to the extent that they were in the hypertrophy phase. The worst thing imaginable would be to drop them to focus on your main lifts and have something that was corrected in the hypertrophy phase come back during our strength phase, only setting us back even further!

Moral: if you had an imbalance and you corrected it, make sure you still make time to keep it corrected (this game is a marathon, not a sprint)!

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Recovery:

This is when we fade away from those muscle body soreness into the “why do my joints hurt” soreness. You have decreased volume to a certain amount and are now putting more load through those joints, which means although you might not lose as much range of motion (since it might not feel like a hammy is going to explode every time you bend over) we still need to make sure we maintain ROM in our joint to keep them fluid and moving properly.

So, same as before: lots of rest, good food intake, salt baths are everything that is good in this world, mobilize, get worked on (chiropractic, massage, ect.), and if you are in to it, get your yoga on (or ROMWOD, 2 weeks free at this link).

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Cardio:

Last, but not least, would be the thing every strength athletes dreads: steady state cardio…. however, this would be the best time to start to incorporate it. 2-4 sessions per week at 20-40 min. will help us maintain or, if you need to, cut weight in order to fit into your weight class. The best thing about steady state is that it does not take a lot of energy to do (more time than anything) and it is relatively low impact, which means it will not affect our recovery process (in comparison to sprints, which would effect the next days training session).

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All-in all, remember, this is a strength journey, and although it can be tough sometimes and easy to get into the mind set of just coming in banging out what is on your program and leaving, this mind set will leave us coming up short in the end and leave us with a bad taste for sport and training.

Learn to enjoy the process. Learn to have fun with lifting. Try and remember what drew you in to the sport in the first place and make sure you let this drive you to the top, not competition or the thought of conquering, but instead the ability to come together with like minded individuals under one roof  that struggle together to make the best possible version of themselves!

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

-John Lubbock

Your competition is complete and regardless of how you did, it is behind you and the only thing you can do now is move forward. But what next? Do I start a strength cycle? Do I keep practicing my missed lift until something gives (that something in this case usually being a tissue in your body and not your hard-forged will). Do I go back to high intensity circuit training or Crossfit until the next time I decide to do a meet?

The answer is: depends on your goal

Was the meet just for fun?

Then go back to doing what you love and hit up some WODS until the next time you want to test your strength out.

*Note: By no means am I down playing Crossfit or high intensity circuit training, but these WODS are not going to make you better at power or weight lifting (at least number wise), so make sure you keep that in mind.

Do you want to hurt yourself?

Then by all means, just keep practicing that deadlift at 95-100% a couple times a week until you  either A) are walking around like you have been on a car ride with no restroom stops for the past 100 miles or B) get tired of continuously missing the same lift that you missed in competition.

Do I start a new cycle?

Most of the time, this is the best route to go (and by most, I mean this is the one I always choose for myself and my athletes). To be frank, your body needs rest after the long journey to competition. You are beat up, whether you feel it or not, and your body (and mind) need some down time to recharge and recoup  before getting back into the heavy weights.

So the bigger question, and one I recently talked about with a guest at the gym, is:

What is the proper way to do this so as to;

A) Still see strength gains in my lifts
B) Continue to recover
C) Enjoy my lifting
D) Still stay in my weight class

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First comes the rest week

Not just a thing of myth and bro lore, but in fact it does exist, and for a good reason. This can be 1-2 weeks right after your competition where you take the volume and intensity of your lifts way down. For my athletes, I tell them 2-3 days of fun lifting. Do something you don’t normally do, maybe a WOD for my powerlifters and weight lifters, maybe a couple of fun bodybuilding training sessions to get a nice “pump”. Basically, start your recovery process from pushing the limits of your potential in competition and just have a good time (because that is what this whole journey is all about, becoming the best possible version of yourself and having a good time while you do it).

Second: Time to up the volume and decrease the intensity

Depending on your next competition, this time frame of hypertrophy can vary, for most you want at least 2-3, 5 week cycles of solid hypertrophy training (4 working weeks and a deload week).

So, what is hypertrophy, and why do I need it as a strength athlete?

Hypertrophy is an increase in muscle size through “high volume” strength training. This volume usually takes place (for strength athletes) around the 3-6 set range and 6-12 reps per set and the intensity of any given weight is usually around the 60-75% of your RM. Notice how low the percentage is, which is why this period, although still stressful to the body, it is stressful in a different way and can still help us continue to recover from the mental and physical fatigue of being up close to 85-95% of our RM daily.

The general idea of this phase is to develop the musculature needed in your given sport. A bigger muscle is a stronger muscle (at least the ways we want develop it as a strength athlete) so we focus to increase muscle mass and size in the given areas we need to, to increase performance in our chosen lifts.

Another consideration for this phase of training, and something I continually learn about,  mainly from Zach Greenwald of Strength Ratio, is to take into consideration the correction of slight injuries and imbalances during this phase. Basically, take some time to step back and become a complete and well-rounded athlete again before you go back into specializing for your sport!

During hypertrophy and corrective exercise phase, make sure to incorporate exercises that are variations or derivatives of your competition lifts for two reasons:

1) allow us to work individual weaknesses and stress the different components of our competition movements

2) break up the monotony of the same 2 or 3 movements and allow us to have a little fun with training (because who doesn’t enjoy “the pump?”).

Remember, since we have pulled away from our competition lifts, this is the perfect time to really emphasis attention to detail during the lift and control (the eccentric phase of the lift). No more cranking lifts out at a pace the flash would be in awe of, no more getting kicked out of planet fitness for dropping the mic on that 500lb deadlift. Take some time and use some tempo training to get the benefit of the eccentric contraction (the stretching or down phase of a lift), which has been shown to be very useful in overall strength gains (imagine that, the louder you are does not mean more strength gains, it usually just means less friends). Take into consideration a 1:3 tempo, 1 second up/ 3 seconds controlled down, try it, and give some feed back on how you feel (note this should not be done everyday, just pick a day, maybe a day you are working on your weaker lifts).

Although no one wants to acknowledge short coming or downfalls in their strength game, this is the time to suck it up and do a little self reflection. Where can I get better? What is my strength? What is my weakness? Where did I struggle most in competition and what do I need to work on to get better? These are all valid questions that need to be asked and talked about between you and a your coach, because even the best in the world can get better at some minute detail.

Third: Increase those calories and let your body repair

Maybe you decrease your calories to make weight. Maybe you have been on a “diet” for far too long, causing your body to have a hard time healing from the high work load during your competition prep phase. Maybe you just feel fatigued and beat up. In any case, it is time to sit down and figure out what your calorie/macro break down needs to be to maintain weight for a little while. Doing this will accomplish a couple of things:

1. Recovery from sessions, especially these high volume sessions, will be some form of witchcraft voodoo you are not used to
   1. Not saying you won’t be sore, but your mental fatigue and drive will be there, which is what you really need to get through high volume training.
2. The start to correcting those injuries and imbalances is to make sure you have enough calories to allow your body to start the healing process
   1. During your competition phase, your body is just trying to keep up and recover from your previous session, so how can it be expected to do that and fix all the small injuries you have accumulated?
   2. Take this time to not worry about the outside appearance (that will come in time), but instead give your body what it needs (because it just allowed you to lift the world, let’s take a second to give a little back).
3. You get to be a little more at ease, which will further help that mental game
   1. If you have had to cut for competition, you have had to measure everything you intake (water, protein, carbs, fats, etc..). Let’s take a little time to relax, the measuring still happens, but we can chill out on trying to get those numbers to the the hundredth of a gram.

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Last: Keep that recovery high by increasing those missed or long forgotten modalities

I understand, you were worried about you lifts, so you maybe skipped a couple (or a handful or a dozen or maybe more…) mobility sessions, maybe some auxiliary lifts, or maybe even a few corrective exercise/ recovery sessions–everyone does. However, now is the time to take a step back and make sure to include all of the above into your routine (and make sure you leave time in your training session to do so).

1. Sleep
   1. For the sake of everything in the wide world of weightlifting, make sure you get sleep. This is the only one you cannot skip because above all, this is when your body heals the most! For the normal person 6-8 hours is the recommended time frame, but who that trains is normal? Try and get 8-10 hours (does not have to be at one time) of restful sleep (you know, maybe calm your mind a little and focus on recovery and less on all the things you have to do).
2. Stretch, Roll, Massage, Chiro, etc..
   1. IF YOU HAVE AN INJURY, DO NOT JUST COMPLAIN ABOUT IT, FIX IT! I understand injuries, they are frustrating, and you have every right to feel down. However, if you have not done everything in your physical (and financial) power, then maybe refrain from complaining about your injury if you have not done everything you can to help yourself (sorry, but had to lay a little truth out).
3. Meditation
   1. To calm the mind is to calm the body. Stress does much more to your body than you may know. You can do everything physical you want/need to in order to recover, however, sometimes if you are mentally stressed, these modalities will do little to no good.
   2. My advice: Find a true yoga class or research meditative breathing and practice these a couple times a week. The goal, learn to calm yourself, not only physically, but also mentally.

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This first phase can be somewhat of a challenge for those that tend to want to push as hard as they can every training session. This phase is not a down phase by any means, because, you see we are just trading high weights for high volume. We spend a little more time on correcting the small issues we tend to overlook during our competition prep and spend a little more time building up some mass in order to see larger gains in the future.

The road you travel is paved on hills. You must go through the peaks and valleys (different phases of training) in order to get to the mountain top you desire to be on (your PR lift at competition).

Next week, we will touch on the next two phases:

1. Strength Phase
2. Competition Prep

 

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. ~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms

A week or two has passed since we have put out an article, video, motivational, or inspirational post. This is not due to being lazy or not having a topic to write about, but rather due to the first responsibility we have; making sure our home athletes are taken care of. Lots of athletes with lots of different things going on (since most are not full time athletes and have to juggle school/work, life, and a hardened training regime).

But in making sure they have modified programs, if need be, a similar theme has popped up multiple times. While I have talked about this before, I think a little more in-depth explanation and information could be useful to all.

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Every time I talk about how it feels to get into a structured program, I think about this meme:

We tend to come up with an idea, set our minds to it, and push through until something gives (usually, it is not the muscle soreness that gets us, but rather an ache or pain deeper in the body). The problem with this route is that it becomes similar to Johnny Manziel’s football career, you think it is going to be awesome and then it is over in a flash. You hit it hard for the first 8, 4 week cycles, but now you are out with knee, shoulder, or lower back issues and you are not sure why, because, for the most part, you followed the program…

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Accessory work is key

I know the last thing you want to think about doing after 5 sets of 5 squatting is doing something else with your legs, but the fact of the matter is that just squatting leaves us with some imbalances that need to be corrected by other motions. Think of accessory work as the Goose to your Maverick (main lifts), sure they can work separate, but it is a lot smoother when they are together.

While skipping the accessory work is done often, due to time constraints, being fatigued, or just not feeling it, overtime this can produce very large imbalances and lead to decreased performance on your main lifts or even the inability to perform these lifts (assuming your accessory work is there to rehab/prevent further injury). Lifting heavy is cool, but being able to lift heavy for more than 3 months is even cooler. Remember, this process is not a sprint, but rather a marathon (with many hills), so make sure you are in it for the long haul.

Advice: Know your workout before you get into the gym, make a game plan for the time your have, and make sure to get everything done.

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Mindset

This is a very large topic, but there are a couple of key points to look at:

Look to your athletes with kids for the most motivation:

-They have this thing figured out. They have a job, a house, kids (usually with multiple sports), full weekends, and very little free time; and yet, they come in day after day and get their training in….

This is where I pull my inspiration from, the fact that they have this attitude of

You can be tired, but you don’t get to quit.

 –They are also the perfect example of something I picked up while at a seminar with Zach Schluender:

Alter your training in stressful times:

The idea was simple, draw a circle in the middle of a blank sheet of paper, and put the word performance in the center. Now draw a bunch of lines originating off of this central circle, and at the end of these lines write down a commitment that you have (i.e school, work, family, house, bills, food prep, financial, dogs, kids, t-ball, ect.), make sure to make a line for each commitment in your life. Now look at it, look at everything that you have to do on top of training.

His point was simple: If things in your life other than training are calm, then performance will be amazing, you will hit PR’s, and you will be on top of the world. When you have a busy schedule at work, lots going on at home, and some financial issues; performance might slack a little due to fatigue, mental state, or a little of both.

The overlying point being: Everyday is not going to be the best day in the gym, so when you feel good, push the boundaries of your body, and when you are beat up and just down in the dumps, come in and hit what you can, because that is all you have to give today and that is good enough!

The “PR Everyday” mentality:

I was training the other day, and overhead someone sarcastically mention “You don’t PR everyday anymore” after explaining to them my new program to try and rehab some of my weaknesses and injuries.

The fact is, I do PR everyday, but not in just a numbers sense (because, think about it, if I put 1 kg on my snatch and clean and jerk every single day, that would be impossible, but also make me a work champion in something around 120 days…)

I simply use this phrase to give props to my athletes in the gym and to myself, as a boost of moral. You might come in one day and PR a 3 sec. pause at the knee snatch, now this could be 15kg below your actual snatch, but is this still not a PR? Have you still not improved on something technical that will make you better in the long run? Or maybe you came in and were able to squat 60kg/135lbs after being out with an injured back for 3 months, now this might be 20kg/45lbs less than your all time best, but is this not a post-rehab PR? Should you not be praised for pushing yourself to recover and get back in the game?

So, while I don’t mean pushing your weights everyday, I think the PR Everyday mentality is an awesome way to come in and be able to walk away from a training session with a sense of accomplishment, which in turn can help you feel a little more at-ease even when you have a very busy schedule outside of the gym!

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Mobility and Meditation

Now before you lose your mind and think “I ain’t into that hippy nonsense”, let me assure you that meditation is not always full of humming and heavy breathing, but more so can be whatever you want it to be (used as a way to calm your mind and CNS, a way to get a deeper relaxation that we don’t get on a normal day to day).

Meditation, in many of my clients, ranges from getting a massage in a quiet place or taking a bath with candles to finding a quiet space during work and sitting or praying before bed. With everything we have going on, with all that we busy ourselves with, it is surprising that more people don’t go “postal” (a term coined in the 80’s from a string of postal workers getting a little overwhelmed and turning to not-so-conventional methods of handling stress).

So try it out. Find a place of your choosing, a place that you feel comfortable and at-ease, try it just for 5-10 minutes at a time (everyone has 5-10 minutes, I can assure you that), and just relax, switch everything off and just breath for a couple of minutes. The worst things that can happen as a result would be:

1. You feel less stressed throughout the day, resulting in a more pleasant feeling of being alive
2. You are more pleasant to be around, therefore making new friends and getting invited to things
3. Your training sucks less, because you can get more sleep knowing the world will not explode if you don’t busy yourself for every waking moment of the day
4. Because you sleep more, your body is able to recover, your cortisol levels drop, and the world comes into balance.

I think the side effects might be worth the risk of trying it out…

Check out some of these websites for a little more in-depth explanation and some guided meditations:

UCLA Health

Tara Brach

Meditation Podcast

Mobility:

I know, the word strikes fear into the hearts, and sometimes, like many coaching cues, is just thrown into a sentence; “Coach, my shoulder hurts”, “Go mobilize it in the back” and nothing is done because the athlete is now confused on what to do (unless previously shown).

The definition of mobility is simple: to move freely and easily

In terms of joints, this would mean that we are able to utilize full ROM without weight pressing or pushing us into this against our will (i.e if you have every witnessed someone use a bench suit). The goal is that no ROM be out of reach (unless some type of injury or impingement is present) and that we are able to hold proper posture in all given positions.

I myself, as well as the gym, follow a program known as ROMWOD

(link above gets you a 2 week free trail)

We have it available at the gym, and it works wonders to get in 20-45 minutes of mobility daily and allows you to target the areas that you need help in (hips, lower back, shoulders,ect..). The best part about ROMWOD, is that the modifications are easily obtainable in all poses and they go over breathing work as well (that whole meditation thing you thought about doing after reading earlier in the blog but have since forgotten about…).

Another option is to go to a yoga class focused around athletes, of which we do twice a week (Monday nights at 7:15 and Saturday mornings at 9:00 a.m). Now I know those times might be hard to get to, but it is cheaper than massage and can have many of the same benefits, it just depends on how much time and effort you want to put into your recovery.

The third option, is to spend a couple 5-10 min. sessions a day hanging out in poses to help your problem areas (for me it is my hips, so I hang out in frog, pigeon, seated straddle, etc..). This takes as little time as you blocking off the same time frame each day (as much as you can) and finding that quiet space and sitting in a pose for a little bit, then getting up and going about your day.

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Lives are stressful, it happens to all of us. No one person can fully understand another struggles, nor should they be expected to. However, the fact of the matter is that we can all find time during the day that is unused (whether is be 10 minutes or 60 minutes) and use it to take care of ourselves.

Doing this is how you learn to have a long career in lifting. Doing this is how you learn much about yourself through introspection. Doing this is how you become happy and learn to brush the little things off because life is not always that bad.

Doing this is the first step in discovering your true potential to be great.