"Battle"

A couple days ago I drove from Santa Cruz, CA to Oregon City, OR to train with my coach Jon North and his team. It was about a 10 hour drive total, which is easily worth it for the opportunity to train with one of the best the US has ever seen. Jon has a brand new team up here in Oregon, a lot of young lifters with potential, and he lives streams every training session on YouNow.com.

Jon came down to do a seminar near me in NorCal at CrossFit Suisun City this past weekend and he stayed with me. While we were talking the night he came down he let me know that a lifter named Ben had moved to Oregon City to be on his team, and he told me Ben had a 133kg snatch, which is 3kg above my current best, and that he was a 85kg/94kg lifter.

The second he told me that I changed my plans for the trip, instead of getting there Thursday night to train, I was getting there Wednesday night.

I currently train with Ian Wilson and David Garcia, who are without a doubt two of the top 5 lifters in the US right now. Training with them has been one of the best learning experiences of my life. The day to day things I pick up from training with them are invaluable. However, they're so god damned better than me, sometimes it's hard to push myself. When I'm fighting for a 155kg+ clean and jerk, it's not necessarily motivating to watch David power snatch it, but I digress.

The reason I changed my plans to get up there sooner was because I wanted to beat Ben. I wanted to beat Ben, in his gym, in front of his team, on his live stream. I honestly was hoping Ben would be a dick, I seriously was. I wanted to show up and talk some shit and go head to head with him. Turns out Ben is a great guy, but that doesn't change the fact that the first day I got there, we battled. Ben beat me by 5kg on the snatch, and I beat him by 5kg on the clean and jerk. The next day we went head to head again, adding 1kg after the other made a lift, and that's the atmosphere I strive in.

Battling head to head against one lifter is the most motivational atmosphere I could ask for. Weightlifting is an extremely ego driven sport, and watching a lifter walk up to a bar after I make a heavy lift and add those little white .5kg plates to each side just sits wrong with me, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I feel sick until I get the chance to add that 1kg to what he hit and smoke it. And that's what you do, you go back and forth until someone cant lift the bar, until their mind or their body quits.

The value of a battle can only be measured in weight lifted. When you train solo, or in a team without any lifters near your total, only then can you understand how important a battle is. 1kg turns into two, two into three, and it keeps going until you and your combatant have both made personal records.

Find someone who lifts just a little more than you, battle, and win.

"Do what it takes"

People like to romanticize the idea of sacrifice and hard work. Motivational pictures and quotes are great, but how hard do you really work? Hard work isn’t going into the gym once and busting ass, it’s going into the gym and busting ass day after day, week after week, year after year.


I had a conversation with Jessica while I was training with Jon up in Oregon. And she was telling me about lifters in the past who had trained with Jon and talked a big game about what they were prepared to do, but fell short. If you don't know, Jon and Jessica lived their his car for a few months so they could train at Cal Strength. They didn't want to live in a car, they obviously don't still live in a car, but they did what needed to be done to get to where he wanted to be. And if you ask Jon, he would tell you he wouldn't change a thing. People always talk about they're ready to do, but would you live in a car? Would you scrape change together to eat off the dollar menu? Sure maybe for a day, maybe for a week, but would you do it for months?


I had a similar experience as some of the people Jessica was talking about. When I first moved up to train with Jon I though I was sacrificing. I quit my job, took what little money I had, and moved. I though I was special, and I wanted to be noticed for being special. For the first few months I had a hard time up there. I was expecting to be treated like I was doing something noble, and Jon barely gave me the time of day. To be completely honest, there was a time when I almost called it quits. I was so close to tucking tail and returning home.


Luckily I got a reality check, and realized that until I put my head down and worked as hard as I possibly could, no one was gonna give me anything. I moved out of the room I was living in to sleep on a couch, and I put my head down and trained. As much as I could. There were days when Jon wouldn't even say a word to me in the gym, but I came back every day, and worked. And slowly but surely I started gaining respect from Jon, Jessica, and the gym.


If you go into the gym every day and give 100% to achieve your goal, you are not special. You’re just doing what needs to be done.


I hear a lot of people talk about sacrifice. Most of the time it's people talking about sacrificing their social lives to go to the gym. Skipping parties, or not going out drinking so they can hit the gym the next day, etc.


I have a little insight for those people. If you want to go to the gym and you skip something else you also would like to do, you’re not sacrificing anything, you’re just making a choice. You’re still doing what you want.


I am now in a position where I can do what I love. I bust my ass in the gym, and I coach lifters. I have to make very little sacrifices. Now part of that is me previously making sacrifices to put myself in the position I am today, but I make no qualms about how lucky I am to be where I am.


There's this idea that people who lift are somehow better than those who don't because they're more dedicated or mentally strong. If you are doing what you love day in and day out you are not better than anyone else who does the same, no matter what it is you're doing.


I hope someone somewhere will read this and it will help them come to the same realization I did. There is nothing special about hard work, or sacrifice, it's just part of what needs to be done to get to where you want to go.

"Preparation"

How do you prepare for training?

How long does it take you to prepare?

Does your preparation start when you walk in the gym? When you touch the bar? Or does it start hours before?

Preparation encompasses all things done before training. Sleep the night before, food the day before, food the day of. Are you stressed? Are you focused? Are you doing what it takes to prepare properly?

I focus on two types of preparation. Mental, and physical.

Mental preparation involves getting your mind right for the training ahead. It can start the day before, it can start 5 minutes before. This is the type of preparation I see neglected the most.

I see this scenario all the time:

A lifter comes in the gym with their face glued to their phone. Phone still out during warmups, and then in carries over to the first few sets, and the session goes to shit. Now their body may be warm, but they did not properly prepare mentally.

Physical preparation involves keeping your body prime for training. Focusing on recovery between workouts, warming up properly before you train, planning your attempts and jumps in a smart way. Tight shoulders and hips can ruin a training session very quickly.

I have tried multiple different ways to prepare for training. I used to start watching videos and listening to music hours before training to get my mood right. I've also tried to keep my head clear until I get on the bar, so I don't drown myself in my own thoughts. I used to warmup for 15-20 minutes before every training session until I noticed I was wasting time and energy on useless drills and making myself anxious for my workout. Sometimes if my body feels good I wont even stretch at all, I'll just grab a bar and go. Other times I'll take my time to warmup, focusing on my shoulders and my hips, and making sure all my joints are warm.

As the week goes on my preparation changes. I take Sundays off so Monday I come in pretty fresh and excited for my workout, my preparation is not as thorough early in the week. As my body gets beat up from training I tend to focus more on my preparation. I will get mentally prepared for my workout earlier in the day. I'll take hot showers to loosen myself up and get the blood flowing, especially now that it's cold.

One thing I have learned from Ian is that once you enter the gym, that is when you must begin to focus. As you wrap your knees, put on your tiger balm, lace up your shoes, with each step you become more focused on the workout at hand and less involved with life outside of training.

Preparation is key when trying to maximize training, how do you prepare?

"Technique"

I am so sick and tired of hearing people talk about technique.

Today, a coach at a local CrossFit gym told a friend of mine who is in town visiting that "Ian Wilson has bad technique".

Have you ever heard something so profoundly stupid that you had to sit down and contemplate your own existence? Because now, I have.

And look, this is not me saying one technique is better than another, or a certain way is better than another way. But Ian has a competition 416 Sinclair score which happens to be the best ever by a 105kg lifter in this country.

I would like to repeat my previous statement.

Ian has a competition 416 Sinclair score which happens to be the best ever by a 105kg lifter in this country.

Let me explain something, weightlifting is the sport of getting the most possible weight overhead. Doesn't matter how (as long as it's within the rules), doesn't matter how it looks, doesn't matter what you have to say about it. The person who lifts the most overhead wins. Period. End of story. There is no "best technique" award in the Olympics. Yet somehow, American "coaches" seem stuck on this idea that the lifts have to look a certain way to be right.

Weightlifting in this country is so ass backwards that people actually will discredit the best in the sport for not looking how they want it to look. And while on that note, what is good technique? Seriously someone tell me. Put 3 American coaches in a room and ask them what good technique is you're gonna have a lot of weak people yelling at each other. And sense I highly doubt anyone will be able to agree, while you are all arguing over who has an early arm bend and who's hitting the bar too hard off of their hips, I'm gonna focus on learning what I can from the best we have.

To sum it up, every time you talk shit about an elite lifters technique, American weightlifting regresses 3 years. So keep yappin' coaches. Eventually we'll all be lifting without bar body contact.

"Programming"

Programming is somewhat of a hot topic in weightlifting. There is very little grey area, it's usually a coach or lifters shouting form the mountain tops that their way is the best way and all other ways are wrong.

Well, this is not true. At all.

Let's look at some of the best weightlifting systems in the world.

Bulgarian: Maxing the lifts and front squats every day, multiple times a day.

Russian: Lots of variation, lots of volume, only taking the lifts to a max once every two weeks.

Chinese: Somewhere in between the previous two.

Those are by far and away the three most dominant systems in the sport, and they're all different. That alone should tell you there's more than one way to get better at weightlifting.

I have trained multiple different styles, and through the years I have found the type of programming that works best for me. I use the experiences I've had to write programming for my team that I think will be the most effective, but I believe that programming should be fluid. One lifter may progress much more than another under a certain style, and vice versa. No one program is going to work the same for everyone. I often modify programming for my lifters based on how they're preforming that day, how they feel, where they're at mentally. I program each day as if the lifter is coming into the gym 100%, and seeing how that isn't always the case, sometimes I have to modify to make sure the lifter gets the most out of that session.

Effort has a lot to do with the success of a program as well, if the lifter isn't giving 100% in the gym mentally and physically they won't succeed. Max effort can come in any form. Taking your snatch to a max, taking a complex to a max, or making sure you hit your prescribed lifts as efficiently as possible.

I tend to flourish under a more Bulgarian style system, as do many of the lifters I coach. However some days the maxes aren't there, so I'll drop to doubles, or increase the volume at a lower percentage. Communication is key within a team. If you're not feeling up to the program, or it's not getting you where you want to be, talk to your coach. They may have a larger plan in mind, sometimes you have to go through shitty days to see the good days later. Other times you need modification.

Ultimately there is no one program, or system, or coach. There is just hard work. This quote has been recycled a lot but it holds true:

"A bad program done with 100% effort will be more effective than a great program done half assed."

"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.