LoRez: Yea man, I cannot remember my exact reasoning off the top of my head, but if you said it was October-ish then it was probably using them to help out with my car deadlifts at either Nationals (October) or Maryland?s Strongest Man (November). I have really been using them pretty regularly because they seem to have some carryover to my conventional deadlift as well as help with my car deadlift, farmer?s walk, Frame hold/walk and axle deadlift. It really seems to build up my grip strength also, which is never a bad thing. They just help out too many different things for me not to use them as a staple. You should give them a shot, brother!
justrob: Yea man, the pool of badassness runs quite deep and I often find myself in the shallow end. If you even look at my performance in the gym. i might be decent compared to the average lifter but I am light years behind the top guys. It is really hard to conceive just how good some people really are.
And I hear you about the celebration of mediocrity that surrounds governmental leaders?drives me nuts.
adambiethman: Hey brother, sadly, I do mind. The Mods had to delete my very first log because i talked about my work a little bit too much. I don?t usually even address questions about my job, that is why you haven?t heard much. I am ?in the field? as you put it. That is about all I can really share. And that is awesome about you giving some of the workouts a try, I am glad that you are finding them challenging! And congrats on making it into the Naval Academy, my gym is only about 1.5 Hours north of there, hit me up when you are on leave sometime and maybe we can train together!
pano: It is true that the more mass you carry, the more oxygen it takes to move all of that muscle and I would agree that it is inefficient, but having the strength to fall back on when the other guy’s technique is better than you is always a good thing…
but I’m gonna have to disagree with you when you said that heavyweights don?t have the same fight in them as smaller fighters. You have to look at it from a different perspective. A heavyweight has to manipulate as well as get hit by much bigger, heaver opponents. Consider doing barbell complexes with 265lbs as opposed to 135lbs. same movements, but when you have manipulate a much heavy weight (your opponent) then the energy expenditure is higher so they tend to get tired faster. Also every shot you take from a pro heavyweight fighter is like doing 20 burpees. It exhausts you, most people don’t know that.
At my fight gym, I see heavyweight guys train with smaller guys all of the time and the bigger guys don?t really get smoked or out worked, but the smaller guys do. However, if you stick a heavyweight with another heavyweight and both guys have trouble lasting into deep rounds. Consider every punch that you have to absorb from another heavyweight is like getting hit with a 20-40lb baseball bat. Then 265lbs gets slammed down on top of your sternum tot he point you can’t breathe and you are trying to bench press it off while it is moving all around. If you are lucky enough to stand back up it is either max effort power clean (fighting for take down) or getting hit in the head with that 20-40lb baseball bat again. A human body can only handle that for so long before it gets tired. Little guys are fun to watch because it seems like they are really going at it, but in reality they are grappling with and getting hit by half of the weight. This is why knockouts are pretty rare in lightweight while heavyweight fights can end at any second.
A normal person would tapout if they just got put in side-mount by a heavyweight who knew what he was doing. I don?t think you are giving those guys enough credit. They are just as mentally tough as the smaller guys. Just my opinion and i totally respect yours but? Compare house cats and tigers. both are cats, both attack in similar ways. House cats will fight longer than tigers. Did the tigers quit sooner because they were mentally weak and physically tired or because of the brutality and significance of the blows. i can’t say for sure because I am personally not a tiger, but I digress…
As far as saying that pro fighters don’t do anything but train because that is their job: No disrespect, but You are very wrong here my friend. The MAJORITY of fighters still have to hold full-time jobs because they don’t make any money on fights. Even a lot of guys in the UFC still have to have part-time gigs to pay their bills. Fighting as a full time job, in reality, probably only makes up about 20% of the top pros. That is like saying professional bodybuilders, powerlifters and strongmen don’t need regular jobs. There is just not much money in these fringe sports.
NOT DIRECTED AT YOU OR YOUR POST:
I hate when people say things like, “well of course they are that good, they are a professional, training is all they have to do all day.” It is not a true statement and it sounds an awful lot like an excuse for not putting in the work. If the majority of professional fighters, powerlifters and strongmen are all still holding down full-time jobs, why do we feel like it is impossible? Not to mention the fact that they have been a professional for a very short period of their careers. So how did they reach that level? Not too many had the luxury of just quitting their jobs and going for it.
This is something I cannot seem to comprehend. Most people spend more than 20 hours a week in front of the television or on the internet. Maybe if they took some of that time and applied it to training rather than wasting it then maybe they could be a professional as well. But people would rather rip down a professional athlete?s work ethic like it is easy for them. If you even want to get to the crossfit games you will be training 6+ hours a day. Go on youtube and check out “a day in the life” of some of the the top crossfit competitors and you will see them waking up at 0400, working out, training clients, working out, running classes, working out, eating in the gym because they don’t have time to stop by home… And that is for a $250,000 prize or something lame like that. I am not a huge crossfit fan, this is just an easy way to illustrate my point.
Most people could be so much further along if they actually invested the time and effort into their passion rather than worrying about overtraining or what their macros are. Don’t look at what the top athletes are doing right now, look at how they got there. Most of the time the regimens are insane.
A lot of people will look at the amount of work I do and the weights I do and think it is extraordinary, but in reality it isn’t that impressive. It is all relative. To me, when I look at the guys who are performing how I want to perform, I am a little above average in strength/skill and work sorta hard by comparison. The only reason why i made the jump from where a lot of guys in this forum currently are and where I am now is because i refused to believe that next level guys were more genetically gifted or on roids, or whatever other excuse I could come up with for why I wasn’t there. But the truth was that I just wasn’t working hard enough/pushing my self far enough and wasn’t putting in the amount of time needed. When i made the change in my mentality and my workouts, I entered a different level. Right now I am just trying to figure out what i need to do to get to the next one. But one thing I know for sure is that I am not going to get there by doing less, working less hard/smart and giving into all of the reasons why I cannot achieve that level.
Sorry man, like I said, that little rant wasn’t about you or what you said, it is just something that I needed to get off my chest. I appreciate you posting in here and sharing your thoughts!
Roran: Thanks man, and yea I feel the same way. i don’t know who said it, but the quote is something like, “don’t celebrate, act like you expected to perform that well.” That is what I always try to do. The celebration after every play in professional sports makes me ill. I know that a lot of guys do it because it gets the fans into it. But that is like an accountant jumping up and screaming because he added 5 numbers correctly. It is your job. You are expected to do it well. If you make the playoffs, win a championship, win a big fight, break a serious record then let the emotions flow. But for regular everyday plays and just doing your job, i think you should act like it was easy for you. Again, just my opinion. That said, if I win the National Championships, I am going to scream and jump around like a little girl!
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“The pain of discipline is nothing like the pain of disappointment.” --Justin Langer
“Remember this: your body is your slave; it works for you.” – Jack LaLanne
FRIDAY, 10APRIL2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Week 5/Day 5
CONDITIONING - Did this with 405
Minute 1: 1 Speed Deadlift
Minute 2: 2 Speed Deadlifts
Minute 3: 3 Speed Deadlifts
Minute 4: 4 Speed Deadlifts
?Continue this pattern for 12 Minutes.
STRENGTH
5 Sets of 2 Squats @ 550lbs
2:00 Minutes Rest Between Rounds
Then threw on OLY shoes and hit singles at
550
585
615
CONDITIONING
9 Minutes of walking lunges with a 50b weight vest on.
