"Focus"

Weightlifting requires a lot of mental effort, the repetitive nature of the sport can be taxing on the mind and make training seem monotonous. Focus is required to keep us present in the gym, to keep our mind from drifting and our bodies sharp.

In other sports such as CrossFit or bodybuilding it's easier to turn the brain off and go. A lot of the focus comes in terms of pushing past physical pain such as oxygen deficit and burning muscles. In weightlifting however, the focus comes in one 2-5 second burst. The ability to put all of your energy both mental and physical into one lift, one time.

Achieving a high level of focus to lift day in and day out has been a challenge for me. If the weights are feeling heavy and I'm not moving well it's harder for me to give 100% of my attention to the lift, when really that's when I should be trying harder to achieve that state.

Normally when I lift I like loud upbeat music, I try to use the music to get my adrenaline pumping. While this has worked in the past, and still works today, I've also learned the value of silence. Of innate focus. Of harnessing all my energy and mental ability into the lift. Giving myself cues in my head, visualizing how it will look and how it will feel.

Currently I train with Ian Wilson, who is without a doubt one of the best lifters we have in this country. Training with him has shown me a type of focus I had not previously seen. When Ian goes for a heavy lift the music is off and the gym is silent. All of his attention is on the bar, on the lift, for that 3 seconds.

In contrast when I was training with Jon, focus came from energy. From music, from yelling, from slaps on the back and "you better not fucking miss". It's interesting to see the different styles, both of which work very well for the lifters that use them.

I've learned that focus is something that must be improved, like all aspects of training. It can be practiced, and some days it's there, others it isn't, just like the lifts. When I get in the zone I can focus much better than if I'm being chatty and mentally escaping my workout between sets. Different workouts require different types of focus, and different lifts do as well. Sometimes I focus on the finish, sometimes the pull, sometimes staying over the bar.

Focus can turn a good session into a bad one, or into a great one. It's up to the lifter which fork in the road they take.

"Conviction"

I try not to think in absolutes. You'll never hear me say there's only one way to do something, or anyone that doesn't do something the way I do it is wrong.

Conviction is something I love, in myself, and in other people. I feel conviction is an extremely important trait to have. Having the courage to stand up for what you believe in is something that says a lot about a person. There's nothing I love more than going toe to toe with someone in a debate, it gets the blood going, the adrenaline going, it's good for the soul. 

I'll be the first to say, I piss a lot of people off. A lot. But it's always something I've taken pride in. You'll never ever see me back down from something I believe for the sake of "civility" or "letting sleeping dogs lie". I'm gonna stand up and shout my beliefs, and if you don't agree with me, that's fine. 

I think a large reason as to why people are afraid to display conviction is because they don't want to be disliked. It's easier to back down and tuck tail than to stand and deal with the repercussion of negativity from other people. We live in a society where if you don't agree with someone on a certain topic or belief it gives you the right to hate them. I've always found this odd. 

One of my favorite quotes is:

"Just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean I don't respect you".

No two people think the same, and if we all hated everyone we didn't agree with, we'd be in a sad lonely world. 

So what is conviction really?

Conviction isn't only something we should have in our beliefs, but also in ourselves. Conviction is what keeps me fighting. Conviction is what keeps me going after weights that I've missed the last 10 times I've tried them. Conviction is what keeps my mind focused on my task at hand, whether it be in the gym or out. 

Conviction is what tells you to go right when everyone else is going left and know that turning away from the crowd is the best thing for you.

Conviction is what keeps you strong when it would be easier to be weak. 

"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.