7 Minute Clean with Coach Staley

Training Powerlifting
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So I had the rare (rare for me anyway) privilege of working out with Charles Staley and Phil Stevens this past Saturday. Talk about a wild set of circumstances! I won’t bore you with the details leading up to it, but there I was pulling up to the Bed and Barbell in Gilbert-a little nervous but very excited for the opportunity. Coach asked me if there was anything particular I wanted to work on and I said ‘Nope. Whatever you’re doing is fine’.

I’m glad I went along with him since it opened the door for learning something new - namely Olympic lifts which I have never tried. Upon hearing that I had never tried any Oly lifts, Coach embarked on the mission of training me to do a clean. Coach thought I caught on pretty quick and made the joke of the ‘7 minute Clean’ kinda like ‘7 minute Abs’! lol Anyway, here’s the vid.

In between my practice sets I got to watch Coach doing clean and jerk and Phil doing snatches - very cool as it reinforced immediately what I was working on. Also, it was really cool to watch Coach put into action the very thing he was teaching me.

After the Oly lifts Coach moved us onto squats with the idea of trying to move some max weights. After a good progressive warm up we brought the final weight up to 315 (it was actually 320 as Coach informed me later - 50lb bar vs standard 45lb), and inspired by Coaches solid effort I jumped under it and managed a fairly solid rep - it was a new best for me in the squat!

To keep me from getting full of myself - Phil proceeded to crank out 2 stellar DL’s with 675 - raw! He’s an animal!

By this time I was feeling pretty stoked about things. I mean, just being there was more than I could’ve hoped for, but add to that learning the clean from a Strength Guru, setting a squat PR, watching the heaviest pull I’d ever seen up close… How do you top that??? I’ll tell you how - you top that by strapping into a harness and pulling a 6800lb Chevy Avalanche down the street!! Oh ya, my scrawny 165lb arse pulled a truck about 100ft down the road in 45 seconds - twice! As kick-ass training goes, this was one I’ll never forget!! Thanks Coach Staley and Phil - I hope to do again real soon!

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Hey man, great work Saturday, it was a blast we’ll have to do it again for sure.

You caught on to the O-lifting FAST man and with a lil practice youll be putting up some great numbers. That 2 x BW squat is in the bag for you as well in no time, with a close stance and DEEP none the less.

Once the temps drop to something reasonable we’ll get out he rest of the toys as well.

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[quote]Phill wrote:
Hey man, great work Saturday, it was a blast we’ll have to do it again for sure.

You caught on to the O-lifting FAST man and with a lil practice youll be putting up some great numbers. That 2 x BW squat is in the bag for you as well in no time, with a close stance and DEEP none the less.

Once the temps drop to something reasonable we’ll get out he rest of the toys as well. [/quote]

Holy cow Phill, is it just me or do you look REAL different from the pictures you posted a few years ago of you and your mom at some of the monuments (I think?) in DC? For some reason I thought you were a skinny little fella. What strongman comp is that in the photo section of your profile?

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So in order to ‘test the waters’ with my developing skill, I decided to practice and try to move a little more weight. Here’s a vid of me doing 175lbs (my new max)- it’s a little sloppy ( I really need to work on tempo and creating the ‘platform’) and I’m doing it in flip-flops! :slight_smile: Anyway, here it is…