It’s also not disingenuous to market yourself as a strongman when you are, in fact, a lightweight who doesn’t do much beyond local shows. Trying to deliberately highlight that would be a prickish thing to do and it makes just as much (non)sense to reach for something to nitpick about, but an asterisk like that isn’t needed because the succinct face value claim is accurate.
More importantly, again, I’m really not sure why you’re leaning in the direction of personal attacks on the coach. That’s not necessary, appropriate, or cool. It’d be great if the content of the article could remain the topic of discussion.
He was drafted for sure, buy my understanding is he played on their AZ farm team. Do I have it incorrect?
And I don’t market myself as a strongman. I earn no livelihood from lifting. But I can call myself a strongman, as that is the sport I compete in. That said, I am a guy that lifts weights.
But a big and strong one And a middleweight, haha.
I already laid out my points against the article. It doesn’t seem we have much to discuss there. I take issue with the author as I feel he is out of his depth here.
Since we are now talking about me, the strongman to baseball analogy could extend as such. I could say I am a nationally qualified strongman (if I wanted to for some reason) as I have qualified for nationals a few times. However, it would be wrong for me to say I am a nationally competitive/ranked strongman, as I have never actually competed in a nationals. In the same manner I ask the question of if someone that did not play a professional game of baseball can refer to themselves as a professional baseball PLAYER rather than “drafted to a pro team”
And perhaps I simply don’t understand baseball all that well. It’s why I ask the question.
Edit: Actually, damn, this can keep going. You can get a pro-card in strongman by winning at the highest level of amatuer competition (as long as you aren’t a lightweight man). But if you win the pro-card and never compete in a pro-comp, are you a professional strongman, or are you a pro-card holding strongman? I would argue the latter. Despite being qualified to compete as a pro, you have not done it yet.
In other news, Dani Shugart posted an article about how MTF trans athletes are going to choke the life out of female athletic competition so I’m sure somewhere a shitshow is brewing. Not that I don’t agree with 100% of what she said, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot of hate.
I don’t think anyone’s credentials need to be questioned here. I happen to fall on the side of favoring high-rep deadlifts, but some perspective is in order.
Being drafted by an MLB team is, by any measure, an exceptional achievement. If I were an aspiring baseball player looking to balance strength training with other training considerations, I imagine this guy would be worth listening to. I even think he’s got good ideas for the general trainee who may not be a high-level athlete or even aspire to be one.
That said, the title was silly. Clickbait stuff. I get that clicks are good, but high-rep deadlifts are straight-up beast. Again, I can’t quantify this, but there’s no denying the amount of heart, soul, and just balls-out work you can dump into a set of touch-and-go deadlifts. In any rep range, really, as long as you’re pushing the set hard. But once you start getting above 10 or 15 the brutality takes on new forms.
Like everything else training-related, your goals provide the lens through which you perceive what’s in front of you. I remember a meme that was floating around a few years ago. Something along the lines of…
If he collected a pay check during those 80 days would he not, by definition, be a professional baseball player? It’s possible he got a signing bonus too, though likely a pittance.
It begs the question if one need actually PLAY baseball to be considered a baseball PLAYER.
Collecting a paycheck solidifies the professional part, but what was one’s profession at that point? And if you are paid by a professional org but do not play a professional game?
Would we consider those on the practice squad of an NFL team professional football players despite not playing professional football?
They’re not playing games but they’re training to and carrying out more or less the same day to day activities as the guy on the roster. They’re being paid to practice football and potentially play it. I’d call them professionals.
I’d say the next agenda item is for you as a strong high rep deadlifter to write an article about training for baseball and then not expect actual baseball players (whatever level of achievement they have) to point out how you’re out of your depth of knowledge because that’s a “prickish thing to do”.
The whole point is a weak or small guy should not write articles about getting strong or methods to do so. Especially on the world’s most hardcore site.
I think that what is being lost in the mix here is that if a recommendation or opinion doesn’t fit with an individuals goal, it doesn’t matter who says it or why.
Dr. Squat himself could come down from above and give us a program for squats that are truly otherworldly, but it means nothing if you don’t need it, aren’t interested, what ever.
Or from Dan Gable- “If its important, do it every day. If it’s not, don’t do it at all.”.
At first I skimmed the article after seeing it on the homepage. I read it in full after reading this thread. In no way am I dissenting to the overall consensus here for the sake of it.
That being said, I’m I believe the author knows that some people can recover or have benefited from and hold proper form with high-rep deadlifting, or need to do them, as has been said here. I think the article should be taken in a certain context. Many articles should be.
And a middleweight, haha.