Man vs. Bar--The Moment of Truth

His back is sore.  His legs are numb.  He sits alone, propped up on a small bench that rests near the gym’s right wall.  Just outside the large garage door at the front of the gym, clouds have set in.  Rain pours down, pounding the cars sitting on the gravel just outside.

The wet weather provides no relief from the oppressive heat.  The air in the gym is heavy, making it difficult to breathe.  A bead of sweat runs down his face, hanging briefly from the tip of his nose before falling to the floor to take its place alongside others, forming a small puddle.  His shirt has been completely soaked since the moment he finished lacing his shoes. 

He slowly stands, and begins to make his way over to the metal canister in the center of the gym.  He reaches in, rubbing the block of chalk against the inside of his thumb, up his index finger, and across his palms.  Across the gym the bar rests in the center of a long platform.  He never turns to look at it.  The entire time he prepares for the lift, he never looks at the bar.  The weight on the bar is irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter if it’s 80 kilos or 140.  He knows it has defeated him before and it will again unless he is able to use the technique he has been drilling day in and day out for months.

There is no crowd, aside from the other three lifters that sit, silent, scattered throughout the small room.  There are no medals or trophies.  There is no money or glory on the line today.  But even so, as he walks across the room to the platform and approaches the bar, everything stops. 

A young woman sits on a block in the far corner of the room, watching intently.  On another side of the room, a man in what was once a light blue shirt stands a bright yellow plate on its side as he directs his eyes to the platform. 

He bends down, and begins to set his grip.  The air is so moist that the chalk has already liquefied on his hands.  The tape that protects his thumb is soaked through with blood, and has begun to peel off slightly.  He tucks his thumb under the bar, ignoring the sharp pain.  Immediately the sweat on his hands makes the bar slick, but he tightens his grip anyway, rubbing the chalk on his hands into the bar. 

He drops his hips and fixes his eyes on nothing, a point somewhere out in the world just above the horizon.  His focus is sharp, and he notices none of the eyes watching him from throughout the gym, or the silence that has fallen on the room.  He exhales, and allows his hips to rise up, then takes a deep breath in, holds it, and drops his hips again.

The lift lasts seconds.  Months of training come down to this moment.  It lasts no more than three seconds, but to him, it feels like an eternity.  He notices how heavy the bar feels as he begins the first pull from the ground, but he continues to accelerate the bar anyway.  Keeping his shoulders out over the bar, he pulls harder, moving the bar into the second pull faster.  Then, his instincts take over, and he violently extends, pulling on the bar with all his strength and power, while pulling himself down and under.

It’s the moment of truth.  He snaps his upper body into place, locking in his arms and upper back, allowing his legs to relax to absorb the weights momentum.  He pauses, the bar extended over his head, squatting so low that he feels as if his ass must be inches from the floor.  For a second he feels the bar wobble, but something inside him refuses to allow the lift to slip from his grasp now.

He stands, his eyes still locked directly ahead, the bar raised triumphantly above him.  The other lifters in the gym clap and cheer, each of them able to identify with and share in his victory.  He slams the bar back to the ground, and lets out a roar.  In that moment, he is a champion.  

The Refusal To Lose

It took me years and some hard lessons to learn what it means to truly have a mindset of success.  The world is filled with people who claim they WANT greatness.  They talk a big game, but when it comes time to step up and display the tenacity inherent in those of us who refuse to lose, they fall short.  The difference is that many WANT to be great, they WANT to achieve success, but few NEED it. 

My story begins sometime in the Stone Age.  About eight years ago now, I was a junior football player at Lenape High School in Medford, New Jersey.   I had talent, and at six foot and 220 pounds played offensive guard.  I earned a varsity spot after camp as a junior, and through hard work and perseverance, became a two-way starter by the middle of my junior year. 

By senior year, I was a captain, a two-way starter, and was the teams starting kicker.  I’ve never considered myself naturally athletic.  I attribute my athletic success at the time to nothing but hard work.  By the end of my high school career I had earned 1^st Team All Conference, 1^st Team All County, and 2^nd Team All Group 4 honors.  When it came time to train in the offseason, I did EVERYTHING the coaches asked of me.  I ran sprints until I puked.  I lifted as hard as I could.  I pushed my teammates.  I refused to lose…

However, I did nothing on my own.  I went home after every training session, every camp, every practice, and just kicked back and dreaded the next one.  I HATED training, but I did it because I knew I had to, to be successful.  I look back on my high school career now, years removed, and realize that I did what I had to do to get by.

At the end of my high school career, I made the decision to go to Fairleigh Dickinson University to continue my college career.  At the same time, I had a girlfriend, and was recovering from a shoulder surgery.  I became so lazy, so embarrassingly complacent, that I ballooned up to 262 pounds, 30 pounds heavier than I’d ever been, while gaining no strength and no muscle.  I wanted to be the life of the party, I wanted to be accepted by everyone, I wanted to live it up, as I saw.  My priorities were completely fucked up, and by the time I came I entered camp at FDU I was fat, slow, cocky, and completely unprepared for what was to come.

Over the next three years, I struggled through the hardest time in my life.  My freshmen year against Delaware Valley College, I let my guard down after a blocked extra point and ended up getting clipped about 30 yards behind the play.  My cleat caught in the turf and my body kept going, leaving my knee the victim.  This was my first ACL tear, and my meniscus and MCL went with it. 

To be honest, looking back on it, I wasn’t even THAT disappointed.  I was a freshmen, I got to play in one of the greatest wins in FDU football history, as we defeated the number 14 ranked team in the nation, and now I had a battle scar as an excuse for why I could no longer participate.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was full of excuses.  I had shoulder surgery, I had to work, I had a girlfriend, and now I had a busted up knee…my life had become one big excuse for why I had all the potential in the world, and yet hadn’t achieved any real success.

Two years went by, and unfortunately, I sustained two more ACL tears, which were followed by two more wonderful ACL surgeries.  I took the opportunity to start drinking, a lot.  I justified it as just a college kid living it up and enjoying the golden years but looking back on it, I was just drinking way too damn much.  I get it.  Every kid wants to be cool.  Every kid wants to go to parties and fuck girls and get wasted and be the fucking man.  Let me promise you something.  There will ALWAYS be another party.  There will ALWAYS be another opportunity to get wasted and bang a girl you’ll regret in the morning.  But if you choose to make that your priority over your goals, you will never reach your potential.

While this period lead to some of the lowest lows in my life, it also prepped me for the maturation necessary to get me onto the path toward success.  I have no idea when it happened, but I began to develop a fire, a passion, and a hunger that pushed me towards success.  I say it all the time but “obsessed” is a term the lazy use to describe the motivated.  Let me say that again, “OBSESSED” IS A TERM THE LAZY USE TO DESCRIBE THE MOTIVATED.  Many people called me a meathead, many people called me obsessed, and many people looked at me as a loser who would rather spend my time training than drinking or partying like I should be.

I dove further and further into strength and conditioning training.  I became more and more interested in the way the body works, and how I could improve myself through physical training.  I wanted to challenge myself.  I wanted to better myself.  And most importantly I wanted to get fucking huge!  I hated the fatass me that had developed through laziness at the end of my senior year in high school.  I never wanted to let myself feel that way again.  To this day, I spend HOURS every single night reading about strength and conditioning and weightlifting and watching weightlifting videos.  I wake up everyday excited about training.  I love the feel of a heavy bar in my hands, I take pride in my lifts, and love passing on my passion to my friends.  I often have to be told to take it easy or take time off to recover, because I just refuse to sit still.  I believe if I’m not improving, I’m dying, all the while someone else is getting better than me. 

My “obsession” paid off, and as a senior I completed my first full year of college football without injury, starting 9 games at left tackle.  As a fifth year senior, I was a captain at FDU, started 9 games, was a 2^nd Team All Conference performer, and the Team MVP.

I tell this story because I want people to understand how I came to this point.  There was a time when people around me would hear about my three knee surgeries and ask, “What are you doing?  You’re still trying to play football?  Are you crazy?”  Though I never took it seriously, there were times I questioned whether I’d ever be a successful college football player.  There was a time where most of my energy was devoted to the next time I’d be getting drunk.  It was a waste of my time, a waste of my energy, and I am damn lucky that it didn’t cost me more than it did.  The only way I came out of this was to change my mindset.  I came to a point where I downright refused to lose. 

My priorities changed.  I was finally healthy, and a full season of college football became a reality to me.  I no longer cared about drinking or partying.  I devoted everything I had to the game of football.  There was and is nothing more satisfying than the feeling of spilling everything you having toward a cause.  That’s how I feel after every lifting session, that’s how I feel after every practice, and that’s how I feel after every game.  I give everything I have because I don’t know any other way.  The fact is, if you want to be successful, it can’t be a part-time job.  You can’t show up whenever you feel like it and put in some work and then say that’s enough I’m sure that’s good enough for today.  You need to push.  You need to push yourself past the point of failure every day.  You need to love and relish competition.  It doesn’t matter whom it’s with.  One day your competing on the practice field with your teammates, another day your competing against yourself in the weight room, and on another day your competing against EVERYTHING from the weather to the crowd to your opponent to your own personal exhaustion come game day.  Do not accept defeat.  Do not allow anything else to get in your way.  Attack each day like it’s the last opportunity you will have to achieve success.  Once you begin to see the world this way, you will finally be on track to achieve your goals.

The truth is, I’ve been around the Fairleigh Dickinson University football program for a long time now, and there has been a culture of losing.  Now some may say of course there is, look at the record you’ll see there is a culture of losing.  But it’s so much more than the record and the on-field performance.  It’s the athletes.

First let me just say I have met some of my best friends and some great teammates in my nearly six years in the program.  BUT, the reality is that there have been more kids that can talk a big game and do nothing to back it up than anything else.  I can’t even count the number of people that have come into the program, run their mouth, and then exited, having made no positive impact other then to burden us with lies about how great they were in the past.  I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit what you’ve done in the past.  What can you do now?  Do you refuse to lose?  Do you wake up everyday and kick ass?  Do you bring anger, a fire, and a passion to everything you do that will make not only yourself but also your teammates better?  I’m sick of teammates that care about nothing but establishing their own personal profile among their teammates.  I swear there have been more athletes on FDU’s teams that talk and talk from the sidelines, perpetually injured or forever riding the bench then I ever imagined I’d meet.  It’s unfortunate, but there are some great athletes in the program, who love the game and love the team and give their all toward the common cause of victory, but there just aren’t enough of them.  In order for a football team to be successful EVERYONE must be working toward a single goal. 

The point is, take pride in what you do.  If you make a decision to walk down a path, like football, attack it with fire in your eyes and intensity in your heart.  Don’t ever allow yourself to look back and ask, “What could have been?” or “Could I have done more?”  Those that are successful understand that success isn’t given, and it isn’t earned when things are going well.  Success is an ongoing process of trials and adversity through which one is tested to see if they possess the fortitude to be successful.  If you can get back up, regardless of what obstacles you face or failures you encounter, and outright refuse to lose, you can call yourself successful.  This is the mindset of success, and all champions possess it.  

GET UP! Improve Your Pull Up Numbers

Yes ladies and gentleman, I'm writing this post at 2:45 am sippin' on a nice cup of coffee because I'm just too excited about it to wait until tomorrow.  One of the most frequent questions I get, especially from my football teammates, is how can improve my pull up numbers.  Pull ups are, in my opinion, the best bodyweight exercise you can do, and quite possibly one of the best overall upper body builders imaginable.  But what makes them so great is also what makes them so difficult.  For many people, pulling their own bodyweight is an extremely difficult, maybe even impossible task.  I know that throughout my youth I couldn't do a single pull up.  So the question is, how do we take this weakness and make it a strength?

Anyone that knows me knows I love pull ups, and I'm damn good at them too.  I take pride in pull ups, and at a bodyweight of 230 pounds, I've done 20 straight overhand strict pull ups, I can do sets of 12 L-sit pull ups with my legs held straight out in front of me, weighted pull ups with up to 100 pounds of extra weight attached to a belt, and at one point actually began delving into more difficult gymnastics movements.  Pull ups have helped me build upper body strength and mass like no other movement I've done, and have helped me to maintain healthy shoulders by building the all-important upper back muscles that are often neglected.  If I could go from an overweight kid who couldn't even manage a flexed arm hang to walking down my hall and banging out 12+ pull ups whenever I want, you can to.  Here the three most important things to remember when trying to improve you pull ups.

1) Frequency

I truly believe when it comes to bodyweight training especially, frequency is king.  We often forget in a world where everyone is telling us to be careful about overtraining, that strength is a SKILL.  The fact is, the more you practice, the more you will improve.  While that isn't a hard and fast rule for every situation, it absolutely applies to pull ups.

The best thing that ever happened to my bodyweight training was my brother getting one of those total gym things for a gift.  While it's useless for just about anything else, it is a sturdy and reliable pull up bar that has hung in my doorway for years.  There are some days where every time I walk down the hallway, I'll hop up and bang out a set of 10.  By the time the day is over I've done well over 100 pull ups without giving it a second thought.  Other times I'll practice pause pull ups and L-sit pull ups.  When I first started getting into pull ups having a pull up bar in my house was an invaluable tool, just as it was following the numerous surgeries I've had.  It's an incredible tool that can be used nearly everyday.

Simply put, if you want to teach your body to handle its own weight, you have to practice handling your own weight.  The best tip I can give is to invest money in a pull up bar and hang it in your doorway.  Start slow, doing a few sets a day leaving a couple reps in the tank on each set.  As you improve, do more sets throughout the day, or fewer sets with more reps.  Do this every single day.  Make it part of you life just like sleeping and eating.  

Another way to increase your volume of pull ups is to do them in between your sets at the gym.  In between sets of upper body lifts, or even in between sets of lower body lifts, walk over to the pull up bar, and bang out a set.  When doing this don't push the reps anywhere near failure.  You don't want to hurt your other lifts by exhausting your body doing pull ups on the side, but rather to build volume.  For example, in between sets of overhead presses, if you can do around 10 pull ups, you would perform sets of 5.  If you perform 5 sets that 25 pull ups.  Over time this increase in volume will tremendously impact your bodyweight control and strength.

The simplest way to put this is that if you truly want to get better at pull ups, do them every day.

2) Strength

The pull up is a movement that requires tremendous strength in the upper back and abdominal muscles. The reason that so many people struggle with pull ups, aside from being overweight, which we'll get into later, is that they neglect the pulling muscles.  For some reason, men in our culture are OBSESSED with building huge chests.  I see guys spending more time on this one muscle group than I spend on an entire Olympic weightlifting workout.  Over years of training like every other guy you see in your gym, people often develop an imbalance where their pushing muscles are much stronger than their pulling muscles, (upper back musculature and biceps).  

Now you might be saying, sure I do the bodybuilding chest day, but I also do a back day.  The problem with this is, while people are willing to train their bench press heavy, they often don't understand how to train the upper back muscles for strength.  They end up spending another two hours (ridiculous) on high volume upper back work that not only doesn't build strength, but overtrains the muscles, breaking them down far past the point of progress.

So, how do you build absolute strength in the upper back that will help with pull ups.  I hate to be a broken record, but the basics are ALWAYS the best.  HEAVY deadlifts, HEAVY cleans and snatches, HEAVY barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, and machine rows, HEAVY and STRICT lat pulldowns, HEAVY ASS carries...get the picture?  I can't get into exact sets and rep ranges because programming could be an entire article in of itself.  However, some guidelines to follow are that strength is best built in the 3-7 rep range, while muscle hypertrophy (muscle building) is best developed in sets that range between 8-15 reps.  Vary your reps, vary your sets, and lift HEAVY.  

I don't care what ANYONE has told you, if you want to get stronger, you're going to have to lift some heavy ass weight at some point.

3) Body Weight

The final piece of the puzzle that people neglect is their weight.  How many fat people have you ever seen banging out high rep sets of pull ups?  The reality is that pull ups aren't just about absolute strength.  They are a product of your ability to control and handle your own bodyweight.  Therefore, the lower your bodyweight, the easier pull ups should be.  If you're carrying around excess fat, you're losing reps.

Now, I've never been in favor of dropping a ton of weight just for the sake of doing more pull ups.  It seems like a cop out to me, but the reality is, if you're badly overweight, it's time to do something about it if more pull ups is your goal.  It may be as simple as cutting out unhealthy desserts or fast foods, or it may be more difficult and you may have to pay attention more to details.

The point is, if you are carrying excess fat, that weight is in no way shape or form helping you.  Get rid of it, and feel better about yourself and your numbers.

Final Thoughts

To sum this all up, the three steps you have to take if you want to improve your numbers of this most basic of bodyweight movements are:  build volume through frequently doing pull ups, build maximal strength through heavy lifting, and eliminate excess fat that is weighing you down.  Take these three steps and I promise you with commitment and hard work you too can pull up like a champ!

The Five Best Ways to Build Mountainous Traps

This post was inspired by a big strong man I know who spends too much time doing shrugs!  Everyone wants huge, mountainous, imposing traps. Having large and developed trap muscle can give your body an overall larger appearance, and lets not kid ourselves, it's beach season.  Who doesn't want to look bigger?

What most people fail to realize though, is that the shrugs they have grown up watching every other guy in the gym do to build their traps are not the most effective way to build that no neck look.  Muscles aren't designed to be isolated and worked by themselves, they're designed to function as part of a unit.  That's why isolation movements like shrugs don't effectively build traps the way other exercises can.

First, squeeze your shoulder blades together and reach your arm back and feel just to the side of your neck while your shoulder blades are squeezed.  You should feel a lump of a muscle on each side of your neck.  This is your trap muscle, and though it looks like the traps are small muscles that just sit on your shoulders, they actually run down the back toward the spine.  Follow the muscle from your neck down your back and you'll realize it's far more than a small muscle on the shoulders used to shrug.

So, now that we have established that the traps connect to and are part of the upper back musculature, what do the muscles of the upper back serve to do?  First, they serve to help the body in pulling movements.  Pulling things into the body is a responsibility of the muscles that retract the shoulders, which are the upper back muscles.  Secondly, they provide stabilization.  When the body is tasked with picking up or carrying heavy objects, the upper back muscles contract and stabilize the upper body so that proper posture can be maintained.  

With these facts in mind, here are a list of my five best exercises for building HUGE traps.

1.  Pulls From the Ground

Exercises like deadlifts, olympic lifts (snatch/clean and jerk), and clean and snatch pulls from the ground are the best ways to build the traps.  Heavy deadlifts, olympic lifts, and pulls from the ground allow you to use heavy weight while forcing you to stabilize the upper body by contracting the upper back.  The best way to build muscle is to overload the body with heavy ass weight and these three lifts from the ground allow you to use some of the heaviest weights of any.

2.  Olympic Lifts/Pulls From the Hang

When lifting from the hang, you won't be able to use as much weight, but you get an added benefit.  Cleans, snatches, clean pulls, and snatch pulls from the hang are more difficult because they force you to deadlift the bar from the ground, then hold the bar while performing the lifts with no momentum.  However, while the weight you use will be less, you will be forced to hold the bar in the your hands for a greater period of time, which also forcers you to stabilize yourself longer.  This time under tension makes lifts from the hang a phenomenal way to build up bigger traps.

3.  Carries

The simplest way to build huge traps is to carry heavy shit.  It doesn't matter what it is.  I've done carries with kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells, stones, boxes, trap bars, etc.  I've done carries overhead, suitcase style, goblet style, in the rack position, etc.  It doesn't matter.  Mix it up and find what works for you.  But if you want to build impressive traps, start adding carries two to three times a week at the end of your workouts.

4.  Overhead Work

Military presses, push presses, Klokov presses (behind neck snatch-grip press), jerks, and muscle snatches are some of the most effective ways to build not only traps, but a huge upper back and shoulder structure to match.  

5.  Heavy Rows

All of the movements I've described so far have involved the upper back as a stabilizer during the movement.  Barbell, kettlebell, and dumbbell rows for the upper back to contract to retract the shoulders and pull the weight into the body.  Heavy rows are one of the most effective ways to build a huge back and are often forgotten as a way to build huge traps as well.

Back to the Basics

As much as I'd love to be snatching, squatting, and crushing heavy clean and jerks right now, even I know that my body isn't prepared for it.  Between my knee being less than three weeks out from having two surgeries, and an IV running through my right bicep and through a major vein into my chest, I realize that I still have some time ahead of me before I can truly get back to doing what I love.

That being said, there is ALWAYS a way to train, and ALWAYS a way to improve ones self.  I have to laugh when people say they can't work out because of bruised ribs, (saw that one on Facebook) knee problems, back problems, hurt fingers...  The list truly gets ridiculous.  The fact is, if you have a pulse, and aren't paralyzed, you can find a way to train if it's a priority for you.  Even without full use of my right arm, (it bleeds profusely if I use it too much) and with a slowly recovering knee, I've been getting after it everyday.  Just as I always have in the face of injury, or in this case, a serious illness that somehow resulted in two more knee surgeries to fix the problem, I've gone back to the basics.

Today was the final day of my first week back to any real training, and it's been a good one.  At the beginning of the week my knee caused me intense pain whenever I taxed it, and still had a very limited range of motion.  After my first day of dragging a 200 pound sled around, I had serious pain in the back of my knee and wondered if I was pushing too hard.  However, I found that the more sled dragging and strength work I've done, the better and stronger my knee has felt.

While I'm under orders to take it easy, I know from experience that allowing a surgically repaired limb to languish is exactly what you don't want to do.  The faster you get full range of motion back and being to rebuild the strength and muscle lost due to surgery and the following atrophy, the better.  My sled has proved to be an invaluable tool.  My workouts are short and intense.  My tools are limited to only my bodyweight, the weight I have laying around, stones, kettlebells, and a sled.  It's bare bones and basic, but it gets the job done.

I've always found that getting back to the basics has helped me train around injuries, while still building muscle and strength in a way that satisfies me as a meathead.  Here's an example of one simple workout I used today.

Circuit #1--5 Rounds
Kettlebell Swings (70 pounds)--15
Sled Drags (226 pounds)--20 yards backwards, 20 yards forwards
Band Pull Aparts--20

Supsert #1
Stone RDLs (100 pounds)--10 (4 Rounds)
Bodyweight Reverse Lunges--10 each leg (3 Rounds)

Ab and therapy work all day throughout the day

As you can see I'm being careful not to push too hard yet.  But each day I'm increasing the intensity and the volume of my workouts, preparing myself to get back to regular training within a couple weeks.  I really like the feel of the stone RDLs and will use them much more in the coming weeks.

The point to take away is that no matter what, if you are passionate enough about something, you'll find a way to get it done, no matter what stands in your way, and if you feel like your training is stale or you may be doing exercises that seem overcomplicated with no gains, get back to the basics!

The Struggle

I've been thinking about this post for well over a month now.  At that time, my mindset was very different.  I was going through spring football lifts, spring practice, and training on my own in Olympic lifting.  I wanted to write an article that would capture the mental game that is training.  It's not just about waking up everyday to the grind and finding it inside yourself to make it through football practice on a cold Saturday morning when your peers are asleep.  It's not just about walking off the field after practice knowing your not going to eat or put your head to the pillow, you're heading to the gym and max out in the snatch and clean and jerk.  At the time, I defined the struggle as having the mental fortitude to step back up to the bar even after it has literally knocked you down.  When the body aches, hands and neck bleeding, chalk splattered all over your clothes; can you find the balls to walk back up to the bar after 300+ pounds just crushed you in the clean in and jerk?  This was my struggle.  Each and everyday, finding it in myself to step up to the bar time and again, no matter what stood in my way.

That is, until two weeks ago.  Two days after coming home from school I woke up with a fever and aches all over my body.  Figuring I had the flu, I just pounded as much Motrin as I could and tried to ride it out.  By the next morning, nothing was improving, so I headed to the doctor's.  After being examined, he sent me to the Emergency Room.  To expedite a long story, after being in the hospital for four days, being starved for over 40 straight hours, and having a hospital full of doctors unable to diagnose what was wrong with me, it was finally discovered that I had a massive Staph infection in my knee, which I have a history of injuries and surgeries in.

Two surgeries later, my knee was cleaned out, and my health was improving.  In order to make sure the infection didn't return, a Picc line was inserted into my arm so that I can give myself IV antibiotics for the next month at home.  While I was excited to finally leave the hospital after 10 days, and to finally not have a 103+ degree fever, I recognized that there are still a number of obstacles to overcome.

Right before I got sick, I had joined a weightlifting club at home, and was excited to continue training.  I was the strongest I've ever been, having recently back squatted 315 lbs for 3 sets of 10, and hit snatch, clean and jerk, and clean personal records, (the snatch re-broke the FDU Oline snatch record for the 4th time).  Now, after having two surgeries in the span of 48 hours, I knew I would have a tough road ahead.  Then, I found out that I wouldn't be able to use my right arm for a month, or as long as the Picc line is in there.  Faced with another round of physical therapy for my knee, no use of my right arm, and no high intensity training for at least a month, I couldn't help but feel depressed.  All my hard work, the commitment, the struggle...all for nothing.  In my mind I had lost everything.

But, I quickly snapped out of it and started looking at the situation differently.  With the encouragement and help from my family and some supportive texts from my teammates and friends, I realized I needed to approach this like any other challenge I've had in my life.  The illness, the surgeries, the Picc line...all obstacles that I need to overcome. 

There are ALWAYS ways to train around injuries.  Without the use of my right arm and with my knee not anywhere near full strength or mobility, my options are limited, but I can still find things to do.  I began by doing various leg raises and quad activation exercises for my knee and abdominal or core work throughout the day.  As tolerated, I've begun to add in single leg RDLs with only my bodyweight, and some split squats to try to build strength and mobility in the muscles around my knee.  Is it the training I'd like to be doing?  Absolutely not.  But am I sitting on my ass all day moping about what I can't do?  Hell no.  I'm working on programming for my teammates and friends and working my ass off to rehab my knee and do everything I can to stay active and in shape during the time that I have to recover.

The point is no matter what it is in life, if it's worthwhile, you will have to struggle to get it.  I love training, and I love football.  Both have changed my life and helped make me the man I am today, but both have forced me to struggle for everything I've achieved.  Regardless of what it is you are passionate about, there will always be obstacles and challenges that stand in your way.  When you fail or get knocked down, you can succumb to the struggle, or you can will yourself to dominate it.  The struggle will show your true colors, it will strengthen you or break you, it will lift you above your competition, whether that be other athletes, other people in the workforce, or even just yourself.  Embrace the struggle, because I've come to realize that no matter how many times you get knocked down, you will ALWAYS have the opportunity to get back up.  Whether or not you seize that opportunity is entirely up to you.  In my case, I know I'll be back, stronger and more motivated than ever.  

Slammin' Bars and Killin' PR's

FINALLY, after snatching 100 kg, (220 lbs) I've been informed by the Olympic lifters that I often train around that I can be considered a man in Russia.  Awesome.

It seems like forever since I last posted on here, so i felt compelled to put down on paper what has been happening with my training, and my outlook on training.  My interest in lifting is ever-evolving, and my workouts, as well as my training focus, has completely changed in the last few months.  While my main goal at the end of the football season and over winter break was to add back muscle I had lost during the season and start moving heavy weight again through powerlifting, I have changed my focus in the last three months entirely to Olympic lifting.  I fell in love with Olympic lifting last spring, but because of my own poor technique and programming, I pushed myself far too hard and burned out, a process that ended in a pretty serious back issue for me.

Now I've come back to weightlifting, I have once again fallen in love with the incredible challenge inherent in the sport.  The snatch and clean and jerk are without question the most difficult lifts to learn, and both are nearly impossible to master.  I still have a very long way to go in these lifts, which is part of why I keep coming back for more.  I love the challenge of trying to hold proper position during a heavy snatch off the floor, or fighting through a heavy clean just to have to gather myself before attempting to throw it overhead.  There is no better feeling then hitting a big PR on the Olympic lifts or saving a rep that you thought you had no business making, and it keeps me coming back for more again and again.

There's not enough room to describe all of the changes I've made in my training, the brief, but extremely helpful coaching I've received, or why I do the things I do to improve.  So, to keep this short, there are three categories I'll talk about:  PRs, programming, and finishers.

First, here are my up to date PRs, for the reader and my own future reference:

Back squat--182.5 kg (401 lbs)

Snatch--100 kg (220 lbs which sets the FDU offensive line record)

Clean and Jerk--125 kg (275 lbs)

Front squat--140 kg (308 lbs) x 4

Clean--140 kg (308 lbs) 

Jerk--130 kg (286 lbs)

Bench Press (Irrelevant but we tested it recently so why not?)--350 lbs

Here is my current lifting schedule

Monday--Submax snatch reps (volume & technique), heavy snatch pulls, finisher

Tuesday--Squats, overhead work, lower body push & assistance

Wednesday--Cleans for reps or a heavy single (volume & technique), heavy clean pulls, finisher

Thursday--Active recovery/conditioning

Friday--Upper body work, overhead pressing, finisher

Saturday--Work up to a heavy (if not max) single in the snatch and clean & jerk, back down snatch and clean & jerk technique work, finisher

Sunday--Active recovery with 12 oz curls aka Sunday Funday boozing 

Finishers 

Last summer after I had hurt my back training I began using odd objects, high intensity circuits, and Crossfit-like training to continue to workout out, build muscle, and burn fat.  The results I got were unparalleled.  My lifting numbers didn't fall off terribly, my body felt healthier, and I was leaner and more muscular then ever before.  So, why not combine the two?  With this in mind I've been including high intensity finishers at the end of my heavy training sessions frequently, and I'm loving the results.  It gives me the ability to challenge myself with heavy weightlifting training, and push myself past the breaking point with brief but grueling finishers that tax both mind and body.  Here are a couple of examples of what I've been doing:

Finisher 1

Double KB Swing--10, 8, 6, 4, 2

Inch Worm + Pushups--10, 8, 6, 4, 2

Finisher 2--6 Minute AMRAP

60 kg Barbell Thruster--6 

Pull Ups--6

Finisher 3--10 Minute AMRAP

Overhead KB Swing--10

KB High Pulls--10

Single Arm KB Rows--8 each arm

Finisher 4--Finished in 11 Minutes

KB Swing--20, 15, 10, 5

Hold the Bell KB Goblet Squat--20, 15, 10, 5

Pushups--20, 15, 10, 5

Short and ass-kicking.  I'm more motivated to train and get after it then ever before.  After reaching my goal from over a year ago of 100kg snatch, I've still got a long way to go, and I'm hungry to keep working.  I'm going to continue to re-break my own snatch record, and work toward the FDU Oline Clean & Jerk record of 148 kg.  I'm improving on the snatch and clean and jerk and my lifts are continuing to go up.  I'm including more finishers and getting creative as the weather gets warmer with kettlebells, stones, sandbags, etc.  Anything I can get my hands on that weighs something can be used to condition the body, build muscle, and have fun at the same time.  The key now is to stay healthy and find a good balance of heavy lifting and this type of training that I used with great success last summer.