Sunday Shoes

Well, I'm a cheapskate.  I have been putting off and putting off buying any weightlifting shoes, but I've been wanting to try doing some pressing in a shoe that had a solid heel.  So, after much thought I stumbled across my old Dexter's that I've had for probably twelve or more years. After a quick examination of the heel I said "that'll do" and threw them in my gym bag to give it a try. I figured "what the heck", I'm on the comeback trail, and today was going to be relatively light and so if it was catastrophic mistake I would likely be none the worse for the wear.  

I wore some good thick black socks and began working my way up through warmups in the log press. It really was a different feeling, I could tell that the squish I get from my Asics sneakers was completely gone and I cold actually feel my heels transferring force into the ground.  I also felt super preppy.

Overall it wasn't bad, I wouldn't do any olympic movements with them but to clean and press or push press they worked well.

I think it's good to be a little old fashioned every now and then. I think about the shoes lifters wore back in the day sixty or seventy years ago.  Leather uppers, hard rubber or leather heel. No foam, or nylon, or toe pockets.  Nothing fancy, just what they had. In a way I think a throwback is a nice tribute. I should have played with the axle and pretended to be John Davis for an hour or so.   Don't know who John Henry Davis is? Well, I'll have to tell you about him sometime.

After all, there's no school like the Old School...

John Henry Davis cleans and jerks the original Apollon's Axle (1949)

The Overhaul: Part 1

I've been sick. It all started New Year's Eve. Strep throat put me down for about five good days.  I got to feeling better and got a couple of training sessions in and then it hit again, this time worse than the first.  So the next thing you know, a couple of weeks later, I'm running a fever of 102 and throwing up brunswick stew and sweet tea into my favorite porcelain throne. It was after I washed my face and looked in the mirror and discovered that I had burst the capillaries around my eyes that I realized, it's time to go away for a little while.  It's time to give up the notion of training for anything, it's time to sleep, take my (American) antibiotics, and get completely better and then start all over.

So I finish my last tablet of my 10 day course tonight. And tomorrow I'll step into my little training facility for the first time in 4 weeks. I plan on doing a light full body circuit - squats, presses, pulldowns, and some dumbell work.  A little light training to get the body moving again, and give me a hint of soreness, but nothing I can't easily recover from.

I was reading (again) Dan John's Never Let Go just last night.  In one Chapter he poses the simple but probing question: "Do Your Behaviors match your goals?". Why no, no, Dan, they don't.  In fact, the more I got to thinking about it I don't even know what my goals are.  And the more I thought about what my goals are, the more I realized that I don't have any goals. I've been going to the gym and going through the motions with no real rhyme or reason to my training other than to hit some good numbers that day...  If I felt like it...  If I didn't feel like it, I didn't, and that was for some reason OK.

So, I've spent a lot of time thinking about training, goals, behaviors, being healthy again, not throwing up and trying to put it all together into something that looks like a fit, capable, Husband, Father, and Strongman. (In that order...)  And maybe it was the brunswick stew spraying through my nose, or the busted capillaries in my face, or the shivering from the days of fever, that really led to all my self examination, but I truly believe it was all necessary that I arrive at the inevitable conclusion that A) I have no goals and B) Even if I did have a goal, the only goal my behavior truly reflects is that I'm trying to be the french fry eating champion of the Universe.

And there you have it, an honest assessment of where I'm at.

I'm getting a plan together, should take about a week or so to implement.  Until then, this is the goal - light total body barbell training sessions to get back in the swing of things.

 More as things develop, The Overhaul: Part 2 will cover a bit more details and less vomit stories.

Favorite Strongman #3 - Hugo Girard

I know, it's been a while, but it's the new year and I'm back on track. #3 on the list is the All-Canadian nice guy Hugo Girard. 6 time World Strongest Man finalist (1998 - 2004) (highest place was 4th in 1999, hands down the strongest man never to podium in WSM), North America's Strongest Man twice, won the World Muscle Power Championship 4 times, Won Strongman Super Series in 2002.  He, of course, also dominated the Canadian strongman scene for a decade. 

Unfortunately his career, particularly later, was marred by injury. The most shocking of which was at the 2006 Mohegan Sun Grand Prix where, after owning the first event, he tears his patellar tendon on the Conan's Wheel. It was a real shame too, Pudzianowski was there and a veteran Girard looked poised to give him all he could handle. Such a shame, another injury at the Canada's Strongest Man contest in 2008 cause him to bid a tearful goodbye to strongman competition. 

Why I like him:

• Met his wife after she posted an add in the local paper requesting help moving a refrigerator in exchange for a home cooked meal. Brilliant... Ladies if you want to trap yourself a good man, and especially a  big 'ole strongman like Hugo, the way to his heart is through his stomach. 
• Kept on keeping on despite injury after injury, there is definitely a lot of merit in that.
• I consider him one of the veterans of the sport, and when I got interested in strongman, he was always  a favorite to watch
• Excellent overhead presser especially dumbbell and axle
• He's French-Canadian, what's not to love about a modern day Louis Cyr
• From the documentary film Strongman, Seems like a nice average Joe with a heart of gold. 
• Seems to be secure in himself enough to wear pink alot...

Here are a few more resources on Hugo for those interested

• 2005 interview with many insights into how he trained. 
• If you speak French there is this documentary
• And you can also visit his website for pictures and other stuff.

The last 365: Reflections on Life and Lifting

I feel like I've done a lot of growing up since this time last year, but feelings can lie. Even still, life is becoming more focused for me, and I just wanted to share a few things that I have learned in the last 365 days. Hope you find something useful. Enjoy.

• Have a lifting contest with your friends in your backyard. Grill some meat, it'll be one of the highlights of your year.
• Take the box out of your squat. It's a crutch. Put a heavy barbell on your back, and squat up and down (to at least parallel) like a man. Box squats are a tool for the toolbox not the main thing, use sparingly.
• Buy a good camera. Life is too short not to have your memories captured in fine detail. And quit using your cell phones as your primary photography tool, it's fine when there is no other option, but endeavor to have another option. (my Canon Rebel T3i is my weapon of choice).
• You are what you tweet. Use social media wisely.
• Be humble, ask questions of your peers in the sport. Seek and receive advice from people stronger and smarter than you. (I sent two friends in the Strongman game an email just last week that said “what do you eat?” they responded with two polar opposite answers, both were useful, both are impressive lifters.)
• Don't freak out if you hurt yourself, just back off, work around it, and give it a little time assuming it's nothing serious.
• Deadlift more. I deadlifted twice a week most of this year once for speed and once for strength. Keep the volume low and manageable. No more than 10 reps per workout.
• Go outside, go on walks, take the family, take the dog, take a ball, run, race someone.
• It's ok to listen to something besides raging bloody death metal when you train. Listen to what inspires you. (I've been digging Shane and Shane / Mumford and Sons all year)
• Drink a lot of milk, it makes cows big and strong and it will do the same to you.
• Don't hate people for being fans of your rival, even if they aren't especially nice to you. I am a lifelong fan of the Auburn Tigers and two time Auburn Alum. I used to think how nice it would be to have Tuscaloosa (home of our most bitter rival, the Alabama Crimson Tide) wiped off the map. Well, on April 27^th, 2011 I just about got my wish. A huge tornado ripped right through, the heart of Tuscaloosa, and several other parts of the state, killing hundreds of people. Families ripped apart, loved ones blown away, lives crushed... I would gladly watch Auburn lose the next 100 Ironbowls by double digits in exchange for having those people back... Even if I did have to listen to them yell “Rammer Jammer” at the end of the game. Football is foolish compared to family and friendships. Life is desperately precious and extraordinarily short. Show respect for people, keep rivalries in proper perspective and have fun with them. Your rivals are image bearers of God, just like you.
• You can train for a year doing the squat, deadlift, log press, and clean/jerk almost exclusively and make excellent strength gains.
• Read Dan John. Just trust me, he'll be like your wise strength coach internet uncle.
• If you aren't training at a gym with bumper plates, you aren't training at a gym. I cannot imagine not being able to do variations of the olympic lifts and send barbells crashing to the floor with no hesitation. They've made me better and more powerful lifter.
• If going to the gym interferes with obligations to your immediate family, don't go, rearrange your schedule. Some people may say that makes you a poor strongman. I would say to those people, you need to rewrite your definition of strongman.
• Use old fashioned mouse traps, they still work the best. (glue traps are sometimes ok)
• If you have children, invest in them starting at the earliest possible age. I've spent plenty of time playing in the floor and with a doll house this year with my little one, not enough, honestly. Trust me, the reward is immeasurable.
• If you pull a max effort deadlift with perfect form, it wasn't a max effort deadlift.
• Don't “technique” beginners to death. If a person is just starting, let them figure a little out on their own, if you do give instruction keep it simple. Don't make it rocket science just to look smarter. The body has a way of figuring it out if they practice the movements enough.
• Coffee is the only energy drink any self respecting lifter should need. Seriously, I see people walking around with $3 Monsters and Red Bulls, and neon stuff that looks like antifreeze and I can go make 12 cups of chest-hair-growing coffee for about 25cents. If you read enough about the legends of the iron game you will find one common denominator among many of them, if they wanted a little perk before training, they poured up a cup of Joe. Old time strongmen drank coffee, your dad drank coffee, and you need to too. And not that $5 hot milkshake crap they serve at Starbucks – Real, Man, motor oil thick, burns the end of the spoon off, give you the shakes, Coffee.
• Having more choices or variety in your lifting equipment doesn't mean more progress. “Oh I would be so much stronger if I could just purchase (insert latest gimmick here)”. Stick to the basics, use what you have. Heavy barbells work every time.
• Compete. Train for and compete in something at least once a year.
• Take Personal Records 5lbs. At a time. Gains get slower the stronger you get.
• Swim.
• Go to the beach, eat lots of seafood, take pictures with that new camera I told you to buy.
• Give some things away, and get rid of some stuff.
• Go watch an major international strength sport event. (ie. World's Strongest Man, or some other world championship. I did, and it was awesome.)
• Sit in a hot tub. It's super therapeutic.
• Establish traditions with your family and friends. Do special things every year that you look forward to. We spend time with close friends every New Year's Eve, I spend about 364 days looking forward to it, we are growing up together.
• If you meet someone that acts like they know everything, run the other way. The people that know the most are the humble ones that have learned so much that they realize they can't know it all.
• Speak up for those who have no voice. Defend the helpless, the orphan, the widow, because that's what strongmen do.
• When it's time to flip the switch, flip it... and pour every single last fiber of your being into making that one big lift, 
• no retreat, no reserves, no regrets.