"Bodyweight"

Finding my ideal bodyweight for training has been one of the toughest things I've ever done. When I started weightlifting I was 6'3" 215lbs, and everyone I knew who had spent time in the sport said that the 94kg class was no place for anyone over 6 foot, so I gained weight.

Once I got into the sport more seriously I started to figure out the more weight I gained, the stronger I got, and the quicker I recovered. Late night pizza and pancakes for breakfast meant lot's of PR's, but also lots of weight gain. 

Before I knew it (actually a few years later) I found myself at 280+lbs, chubby, and out of shape. I also found myself to light to be a +105kg, and too heavy to be within cutting distance of 105kg.

I could still hit daily maxes above 95% without issue, but my mobility suffered, my energy was low, and I didn't feel like an athlete. My quest for getting as big and strong as possibly got me bigger and stronger, but not where I wanted to be.

5 minute rests between sets were normal, and EMOM's were damn near impossible. It was around this time I decided to take my training more seriously and pack up my shit to go train with Jon. 

It was there that I found out how out of shape I really was, earning me the nickname of "RedWhiteAndPlump" so I decided to change it. The only question was, how?

I had cut weight for bodybuilding before, so I tried to implement the same strategies for weightlifting. Cut overall caloric intake, drop fat and carbs, take protein high. About two weeks in I realized how big of a mistake this was, I was losing weight, but also strength, and my recovery was awful. After crashing and burning I started to do some more in depth research on losing weight while maintaining strength. I realized that maintaining strength and recovery had to be the priority, instead of dropping weight faster. 

After reading about 10 hours worth of contradictory content I decided this was not the route to take, so I contacted TeamDO coach Jared Enderton about helping me get back to an athletic weight. Jared had previously weighed over 300lbs as a strongman competitor, and got himself down to the 85kg class (187lbs) as a weightlifter. Jared's advice has been amazing in helping me drop weight slowly and responsibly and keep my strength levels at a premium, and even get stronger. 

Finding one's ideal bodyweight for training is a tough task, but once you hit it you know how it should feel. You get stronger, you recover, and you don't ever feel under fed. 

I plan on competing in the future as a 105kg lifter, and am currently sitting around 120kg on my way down. 

"Summer Camp"

Training away from your coach or team is a lot like going to summer camp as a kid.

Summer camp is the first time where you get to make your own rules, your own bed time, deciding whether or not to brush your teeth, and eat your vegetables. It's your first glimpse at responsibility, and being in charge of yourself. Your parents aren't there to hold you accountable for your choices.

Training alone is similar, there's no coach to keep you on track in the workout, no teammates to push you. You get to decide if you're actually going to do those extra sets of squats or pulls, if you're going to focus on finishing on your assistance work, or just call it a day early.

Training away from my coach has been tough. Training with Jon was a blessing, absolutely the best environment I have ever trained in. Every day he brought intensity to the workouts, he pushed me past my mental barriers. At the same time he knew when I was done, when I had nothing left. Training alone under The Dark Orchestra programming has brought about some challenges. I am the only one in my gym who knows my prescribed workout, and as the coach of the barbell club I often train before or after team practice, with a few stragglers in the gym, and sometimes no one.

I'm not gonna lie, sometimes it's hard to push myself training solo. If I skip the last few sets, or ditch my assistance work no one is there to call me out on it. I could easily skip out on the last 10% of every session, and I would be the only one who knew.

But remembering why I'm training has, for the most part, kept me honest. Climbing the ladder and getting stronger, putting up a higher total, qualifying for national meets. All of this is a fire inside me that keeps me going. I've spent a lot of time telling people what I want to do in the sport of weightlifting, and I'm a man of my word.

One thing that helps is the unique community we have on Team DO. We have a private Facebook group where all of the athletes post videos and questions to be critiqued and answered by the coaches. If I don't post the team will call me out, the coaches will call me out, much like I do if I see others not posting. It may not be the same as having a team atmosphere at the gym, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.

I know that by not giving 100% on my workout I'm not only letting myself down, but my teammates and coaches down as well.

"Coach the lifter, not the lift"

Anyone who tells you there is only one way to snatch and clean & jerk is full of shit. Watch any A session in the World Championships or Olympics and you'll see why.

So much of what's wrong with coaching is the "my way or the highway" mentality. One of the main issues being coaches trying to make lifters lift in a way that fits in a box of what they deem "acceptable" instead of letting them lift in a way that's the most effective, regardless of what style it is.

There are two main styles in weightlifting, catapult and triple extension. There are many differences between the two, the main one being when the initiation of the hips coming through begins, also known as the double knee bend. Most lifters will not end up being strictly one style or the other, but instead end up being a mix with an emphasis on one style. Think of it like a spectrum, with catapult on one side and triple extension on the other. There are a few lifters out there who are one on end of the spectrum, but the majority of the population will lie somewhere in the middle of the two sides.

When an athlete walks into a gym and wants to learn weightlifting, the goal of a coach should not be to make that athlete lift in any particular style. The goal should be to watch the athlete move and coach them in the direction that will make them lift more efficiently.

Everyone is different, every lifter is unique and has natural strengths and weaknesses. While you shouldn't rely solely on the strengths and ignore the weaknesses, someone's natural ability to move will pretty much tell you how their body wants to lift.

"If you make a mistake, but you consistently make the same mistake in the same way every time, you can still be a good weightlifter" - Glenn Pendlay

A big issue I see in coaching is fixing minute details that don't affect the lifter. Did Dimas throw his head back on his extension? Yes. Is anyone gonna tell him not to? I would hope not.

A lifter doesn't have to move perfectly by a certain styles standards to be efficient, a lifter has to put heavy weight over their head, and keep improving to be efficient.

Ultimately it comes down to the idea that a coaches job isn't to change a lifters unique style and approach to the sport. A coaches job is to make a lifter better any way they can.

"Failure"

Failure will tell you more about a person than success.

Not the failure itself, but how they respond to failure.

Over the course of my weightlifting journey, failure and I have developed a pretty solid relationship. It is always there, like clockwork, and every training session is pretty much a guaranteed meeting with failure.

When I first started weightlifting I assumed it would be like most other sports I had been involved in, but the success to failure ratio in weightlifting is by far the lowest out of any other sport, not even sport, out of any other single thing I've done in my life.

I remember in my first year watching my then coach Ben Claridad of Occam Athletics talk about not having PR'd his front squat in two years and it blew my mind. I couldn't really imagine at the time what it would be like to try to improve something for two years and not make an ounce of progress, but as my journey through the sport continued I found out that's what it takes to be a good weightlifter. To not only accept failure, but welcome it. To accept it as an inevitability and not let it stray you from your course.

If we PR'd every time we stepped in the gym there would be no point in weightlifting. The reason PRs feel so good is because of the time and the work we've put in to achieve them. Our failures make success that much sweeter.

My failures used to bother me, I used to get discouraged after missing attempts, I would shut down and mentally remove myself from training. Failure was something I couldn't cope with, because I was not mentally strong enough to accept it.

Now I anticipate failure, I analyze it, and feed off of it.

My failures show me where I'm weak, they are blueprints to my success, and they let me know exactly what I need to do.

Miss it in front? Pull back harder.

Cant stand up? Squat more.

Arms bending on the catch? Catch it on your back, not shoulders.

Failures are our own personal coach, and should be treated as such. An opportunity to become strong where you are weak.

"You're not tight, you're just weak"

I hear it all the time, a lifter will say they cant perform a movement or get in a position because...

“I’m not flexible enough.”

“My mobility sucks.”

“I’m too tight.”

But what if the issue wasn’t mobility at all? What if the problem was that you’re just weak?

Let me rephrase that.

What if the problem was the muscles you need to hold you in those positions or complete those movements were weak?

I attended a seminar this weekend hosted by Max Aita in which he helped my setup by letting me know that it wasn't my ankles that were immobile, it was my quads being to weak to support the position I was trying to get into, which reminded me of a realization I came to last year.

Nothing has helped my mobility more than getting stronger.

I used to have a laundry list of what I thought were mobility problems, my knees would buckle on heavy squats/cleans, my lumbar would round at the bottom of a squat, my back would cave on the way up from those same movements.

I did mobility every day, anywhere from 20 mins to an hour of working on positioning and stretching and pretty much doing everything I could find online to fix all my problems.

But then I stopped, I got fed up with stretching, I got annoyed with spending hours a week on mobility and seeing no result.

So I told myself "fuck it, I'm just gonna train".

Instead of focusing on what I though were mobility issues I started focusing on my strength imbalances. I had a weak low back, my glutes weren't firing, and my hamstrings and upper back were lagging. So after months of posterior chain work I noticed something, my positioning was better. I was bouncing out of the hole faster and with more stability, my knees weren't caving as much. All of the issues I thought were due to tight hips and back were really due to my body relying on stronger muscles because the ones necessary to complete the movement properly weren't doing their job.

I wasn't immobile at all, I was just really fucking weak.

Since then I have cut my stretching and mobility work by at least 80%, and increased my accessory work about the same. I've never been healthier as a lifter, and I've never been more confident in my positions.

"Learn how to train"

Working out, training, lifting, catching a pump.

There are many different names for what we do in the gym. Training is the one I use frequently, and frankly something I felt pretty comfortable doing. I could go into the gym, push myself, feel tired, come home, eat, rest, and get ready for the next session.

Boy was I wrong.

Training under Jon's "Bulgarian-ish" system brings a whole new meaning to the word "train". It's no longer a couple hours of snatches, clean and jerks, squats and some RDLs. Each workout requires unparalleled focus and effort. Something he had to beat into my head over the course of months. He has completely changed the way I approach my training, and my mentality in the gym.

For instance:

I no longer take long rests between sets. Snatches average 45-60 seconds between sets, clean and jerks average about 60-90 seconds. I used to take anywhere from two to five minutes between sets. Shortening my rests has helped me stay in rhythm during training. It took some getting used to at first, I had a lot of misses due to fatigue in the first few weeks, but slowly I have adapted to the faster paced training and can now get to about 90% of each lift in 7 minutes, when doing singles.

I am not allowed to walk around between sets. I used to pace back and forth in the gym between sets, kind of an anxious habit. This led to a lot of "Russell, where the fuck are you going?" and "Every time I look up you're on the other side of the gym walking around, sit down." Sitting and staying near the bar between sets has helped my focus tremendously. I was using my pacing as a way to start a conversation or check my phone, ways to mentally escape the workout.

My preparation has changed drastically. My pre gym ritual used to be nothing more than blasting some music in the car and chugging a Rockstar. Now it starts hours before the gym. Thinking about what I'm eating, making sure I'm rested, making sure I'm in the right mental state. Going over my goals for the session in my head.

I have learned to embrace the atmosphere no matter what it is. To me, atmosphere used to be loud music and yelling. But I have since learned to channel intensity in any form. Sometimes it's loud house music. Sometimes it's a joyful atmosphere with a lot of joking a shit talking. Sometimes it's silence. Some of the most intense lifts I've seen and done over the past few months have been in complete silence, no music, no talking.

Overall I realized that I had no idea how to train, and I had to learn. I had to learn how to train like a professional, I had to learn every training session was the most important session I've ever done.

"Push a tired body"

You ever have those days where within ten seconds of waking up you know it's gonna be a rough one? The kind of day where the flight of stairs to your apartment seem like their own workout, and bending over to pick something up off the ground makes you feel like an old man.

I've been having a lot of those lately. Actually, I would say more of my days are like that than aren't. In the past those days would mean I was gonna have a "light day". Go in, stretch, half ass my workout, and justify it to myself because I wanted to be "fresh for tomorrow". Well recently reality has slapped me in the face, and I am now understanding how important it is to push myself on those days.

Jon recently told me that my new motto is "push a tired body". I remember coming into the gym one day feeling completely torn up and telling him that I felt like crap and probably wasn't gonna perform very well. I'll never forget the look he gave me, it was a mix of "I want to smack you into next week" and... well actually it was just that look. One thing I knew about Jon is that he had an insane work ethic, from listening to podcasts and watching his old videos there is no doubt that he knows how to push himself. Something I thought I knew how to do as well. I did not.

The expectation is not for me to perform well on days that I'm beat up, the expectation is for me to perform at an extremely high level, if not better than when I'm fresh. It's all in the mindset. Tired, sore, aches, pains, it doesn't matter. The benefits to pushing myself through shitty days aren't only shown physically with my lifts, but mentally as well. If you can wake up and not want to move, and then get to the gym and hit 95% of your best total, you will never be hesitant in a workout again.

My objective every day in the gym has clearly been stated to me. Push.