Purposeful Primitive Online

Today I became aware that Charlie Francis died, on the 12th of this month 2010, from a battle with cancer. His contriversal coaching methods spit in the face of traditional track and field paradigm models. I was a huge fan of his attitude of rest and recovery which can be applied across the board both in training and life.

    Less is better…….

    I will truly miss this pioneer of the athletic world, my condolences to his family.

    R.I.P. Charlie

      P.S.

 SPEED TRAP BY CHARLIE FRANCIS    a must read!

     GRILLMAN

By Chuck Miller CSCS

I took a long and hard assessment of my lifting future in the fall of 2009. I had just turned 40 – old man class here we come! – and was feeling every bit my age with an arthritic a/c joint in my left shoulder. In the orthopedist’s comforting words, “Don’t worry about it; you won’t need surgery until the pain gets too unbearable.” Well that’s just swell. Walking around with a permanent grimace affixed to my face sounded so damn appealing.

Then again, this news wasn’t nearly as depressing as the reconstructive knee surgery I’d endured 9 months earlier; plus the months of torturous rehab that followed. Due solely to my own stupidity, I had managed to fracture my tibial plateau (the top of the tibia where it meets the femur to form the knee joint) playing tackle football. The fracture required a steel plate and seven screws to stabilize the break. A word of advice to aging weekend warriors: getting seriously injured in a Turkey Bowl football game might not be the safest, sanest choice – but you only live life once.

That would be enough to make most men hang up the their lifting belt and fade away…perhaps morph into a saner, more peaceful existence, like riding around in a golf cart, drinking beer and smoking cigars, content and OK with my ever-expanding 45 inch gut. Just as I was getting over the leg break at age 40, in March 2009 my blood sugar soared out of control. My father was diabetic and I had been diagnosed as having Type II diabetes. I could deal with that. I workout religiously and maintain a reasonably fit bodyweight of 200 pounds on my 5’ 10” frame. I certainly wasn’t surprised. What did surprise me, however, was that after nearly a week of taking the little pills they gave me and diligently checking my blood sugar multiple times a day, it hadn’t budged from around 400 (normal readings range from about 80 to 120).

A trip back to the doctor for some more tests revealed the real shocker. I was diagnosed as being Type I diabetic; the non-insulin producing kind I had always thought was reserved for juveniles. No wonder the little pills designed to help my body use insulin more efficiently weren’t working. My pancreas had crapped out and I wasn’t even producing any of the stuff! So it was straight to injections 4 times a day for me. Imagine that bit of irony; the gym rat who had managed to avoid the substantial temptation to use steroids for nearly three decades was going on the needle anyway.

That’s all water under the bridge now, and believe it or not, the insulin was actually a Godsend. With stable blood sugars, I no longer felt dizzy every time I tried to put a heavy bar on my back. And the knee, well, to my orthopedist’s amazement, the same bone that looked like I’d “pounded the top of with a hammer” felt good as new and was perfectly able to tolerate heavy loads again. The only explanation I have for this turn of events is that a higher power must have decided I wasn’t done with weight training just yet. For my part, I at least diligently followed the rehab schedule and didn’t rush my way back before I was fully healed.

So really, my biggest training obstacle wasn’t diabetes or my shattered knee. It was the one that might have seemed the smallest on the surface – that pesky a/c joint. I knew I had to make some changes to my bench press training if I had any hope of continuing. I just didn’t know exactly what to try until I read Pavel’s book, Power to the People Professional, and his bench press technique description struck a chord with me.

Prior to reading Pavel’s book, I had been stuck for months at a touch and go bench press of 280×5 most workouts. Occasionally, I could grind out 285×5, but more often than not I missed the fifth rep at this weight. Additionally, these workouts left my shoulder achy for days and made me wonder what point persisting on really served. Maybe I was just over the hill and my ego was preventing me from accepting it.

Ah, not so fast doomsayer. If Brett Favre can come back every year for a decade, maybe this old man has a few tricks left also. Pavel describes the Russian bench press technique as “push pressing your bench presses,” and having been capable of a 300-pound push press at one time, the idea of generating that sort of power while lying down had real appeal to me. I just had to figure out how to do it.

From my powerlifting background, I at least had the tight set-up and 3 contact points of feet, butt, and upper back, giving me a solid base from which to press. The first minor change to my technique involved widening my grip a couple inches to shorten my stroke just a bit. When I put the wider grip and slight reduction in elbow tuck into practice, I got the added bonus of feeling less strain on my shoulder. All these years I had heard that a wider grip would irritate the shoulders more, but at least in the case of my a/c joint, a grip of about 28” between my index fingers as opposed to my former 26” grip yielded immediate relief.

The big change came in the take-off and descent. Gone were the days of white-knuckle gripping the bar and trying to squeeze the life out of it while inching it down under agonizing (and perhaps self-defeating) control to a point just barely grazing my chest. I was instead instructed to grip the bar loosely, lower it quickly, and allow its full weight to rest on my chest. Holy cow how would I ever get that thing started from such a dead stop position!

Stored energy and an explosive start comrade; that’s the Russian way. And we accomplish this by forcefully squeezing the bar after it comes to a complete stop, and using this squeeze as a cue to drive with the legs, sending a shock wave of muscular power through the body and allowing the bar to explode off the chest. The key, however, is the squeeze. You must be relaxed before squeezing the bar, or the transition simply will not be sudden enough. If you’re already squeezing the bar hard and then try to squeeze it harder, you just won’t get the shocking effect. Think of a dragster mashing the accelerator in slingshot-style off the start line – rather than going from 4th gear to 5th in an already speeding Porsche turbo.

To be honest, if you get the descent and start right, the press will take care of itself whether you choose to go in a straight line or back in an arc. I prefer letting the bar drift back a few inches through my sticking point, and I believe Pavel does too, but straight line pressers a la Westside will benefit just as much from the fast descent and explosive start as drifters do. Either way, your new speed off the chest will have the effect of masking your old sticking point, allowing you to drive right through it with weights that used to be grinders.

And the result of this experiment for me…? My bench went from the aforementioned 280-285×5 touch and go to 315×5 paused in about 10 weeks with no change in bodyweight. Your mileage will vary, but odds are you’re younger than me (and my buddy Dirt) and likely will fare even better.

Let’s summarize “push pressing your bench presses” so that you have just a few important mental cues to take to the gym…

1. Grip the bar as wide as you feel comfortable in order to shorten your pressing stroke
2. Resist conventional wisdom to squeeze the bar at takeoff, instead, maintain a loosey-goosey, lack-of-tension grip
3. Lower the bar to the chest quickly while maintaining control. I shoot for speed just shy of free fall. With heavy weights, you’ll be tempted to inch the bar down, wearing yourself out in the process. Resist this urge and commit to an authoritative descent. You’re the boss; not the stupid ass-barbell!
4. Let your chest support the full weight of the bar rather than tensed musculature.
5. Initiate your press with a forceful squeeze of the bar accompanied by violent leg drive (Pavel describes a foot stomp)

Good luck with your training and never abandon the quest to improve. Part of the beauty of lifting is that no matter how long you’ve been at this game it always seems like there’s something new to learn.

Yesterday Mike Barbato and I went to see Marty for an update on how we have been progressing with our training.  I have to admit we both felt tired and were a little nervous.  I can’t describe the feeling but once you walk into Marty’s shed, your in the zone and it’s go time.

We started off with the bench press.  Mike and I have been working on paused reps, where we bring the bar down to sternum and pause for a second then explode the bar up.  This makes benching a lot harder!  I ended up pressing 225 with a pause, I’m very happy with this.

Next on the agenda was the Dead lift.  Now, I have been having some issues with the Dead during my training.  I just did not feel that I was getting the groove down.  Both Mike and I were taking turns, doing only 1 rep pulls as if we were in competition.  Like I said earlier, I was in the zone and I felt strong as hell. Marty kept stacking on the plates, I did not know how much weight I was pulling all I could remember is Marty saying just get up there and pull.  I ended up pulling 370!!  I will hit 400 I know it.

Marty told us to start dead lifting on a plate, putting us slightly higher off the ground.  This is going to make the first couple inches of the dead lift much harder, but if you can get past that part it’s all gravy after that.

I wanted to work on my back squat.  I have not back squatted since high school and I have been only doing rock bottom FS for the past 14 weeks. My front squat max was 235. The back squat felt very natural for me. I doubled my body weight, ended up squatting 300.  I could have squatted more too, but did not want to push it, this is after we dead lifted anyway.

Now for one of the best PR’s that has been something that I have been working on for a long time.  I FINALLY PRESSED THE 44K!!  I figured I was on a roll, why not give it a shot. The Beast is not so far away.

Here is the rest of the story for the week:

Wednesday: 3 sets of 235 for 5 reps. Dead lifts felt very good. Loved them actually. Working on getting my hips down and rocked back. A work in progress and will be taping my session on Sunday.

8,6,5,5,4 reps on Pull ups Presses 5 sets of 3 at 60. Really tried my best to keep the “hollow” position.

Thursday: Front squat 3 sets of 5 at 145. My front squat feels so much more solid than when we started this process. I’m using a clean grip and really driving through my heels. Everything is moving simultaneously and in rhythm.

Friday: Today was a new pull up rep scheme. I will do it 5 times and change it up again. Went to 8,7,5, 5 and 5. These felt exceptional today. Felt the “hollow” position nicely and disengaged my last and re-set them on each rep. What I learned from Phil Scarito and Will Williams is paying nice dividends.

Also added 15 seconds to my kettlebell snatch sprint and kept my cadence close to goal. Hit 47 reps in 1:45 on the first round. 40 on the next and 43 to close it out. 130 snatches in 5:15. Rested 6 minutes between each sprint. Grip is the limiting factor and something I will continue to work on.

Train with Purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

    Greetings from THE WOODSHED,

    I recieved a few comments on finding the groove like STELLA and I believe I need to serve up the message in a different flavor for you to digest properly. So here we go…..Sandy and Phil….I believe you are both under the tutelage of Coach Marty. So be the sponge. Marty will give you what you need when you need, not before, not after. Marty knows….  I believe your getting over analytical of your lift. Patience grasshoppers…..Learn the best way to do the lift for your structure (Marty) Now allow it to happen.

Look, if your thinking about the price of gas, what’s for dinner or how old  that bubble gum is your chewing, your mind is else where and needs to be pulled back to the present task at hand. Also to be void of emotion. Anger, fear, joy, sadness, hate, love, or  whatever must be set aside while performing your task. This is MUSHIN. Mind of no mind, to be without thought.  

One of my being there moments was  Sept 29 2006 at Uncle Shugga’s House. I set up the bar  at the squat rack and stepped outside to enjoy the early morning sunrise. When I stepped back inside some young jarhead was at the rack with his father standing off to the side. Ah, er… ah,  were you planning on using this “sir”?  I could tell from his deminar and manners that he was fresh out of boot camp.” How far are you going today?” I quizzed the lad. Ah…275lbs. “sir”  Come get me when your there, and I went back outside to bask in the cool morning air.

 Shortly there after I walked into the ”LEG ROOM” ( all the leg training equipment was here, which ment it was basically free of mullets.) Anyway the kid was just finishing his set of 275. Although displaying  much heart, he was barley going down 5-6 inches with the bar on his back. That didn’t keep POPS from puffing his chest and nodding my way, his eyes saying, yup that’s my boy you lump of S&%T, let’s what you got.

The grunt asked if I needed help removing the plates. No dude I got it, thanks and dipped under the bar stepped back and popped off 8 sweet ass reps. Plate after plate, set after set. Dip, up, back… air.. up and down. no thought, no mind. I had six and change loaded on the bar.  Dip, up , back ..air up and down 5 sweet ass reps feeling as light as the first set.  I racked it and bagged it right there and started removing plates as my mind came back to reality and the sounds around me  became audible. When I came back into focus , Sammy Haggar was belting out” rock candy” over the speakers in the room. Who knows what was happening  around me  during my time of being. That’s the level  of  being in touch we relish, and THAT  is what “IT” is all about. Allow it to  flow.  Nike says it best: JUST DO IT.

      The point  being is  this: After performing countless repitions of  squats, bench deadlifts, whatever….you have programed the mind muscle connection.   Now your chosen movement becomes like walking or breathing. Think Tom Cruise in last Shogun when he goes bananas on a few dudes meaning to do him harm or in The Matrix as Neo engages the enemy and trashes the dude with one arm as it appears he’s bored to tears with it all.  

Now that our mind is clear, execute the chosen movement for 1 rep. That’s it…… one perfect rep. Step back recieve feedback if needed, make the proper adjustments. set up and perform one rep. Learn the correct way to do the lift from critical and knowing eyes(Marty) Once you find your groove and you’ll know this by the feel of the lift. Connect the wiring of mind and muscles. Become AWARE  of  the difference in the  performance of a great lift and mediocre. Question not of feelings. It’s cool to become in touch with feelings as long as it doesn’t lead to sitting  butt naked around a fire beating on drums chanting manly phrases and toasting marshmellows.

     Remember MUSHIN: No mind,no emotion,  just do it.  Also focus on ONE REP AT A TIME. Hopefully I served up some new way of  achieving your goals in the deadlift. 

     GRILLMAN OUT

Did the sprint snatch workout( by Sandy Sommer) today with the 24kg:

1 minute of max reps switching hands when signs of slowing the cadence appear.  6 minutes recovery between each 1 minute round-

1st round:  28 reps total, 14R, 14L

2nd round: 30 reps total, 14R, 16L

3rd round: 28 reps total, 11R, 10L, 4R, 3L

Pretty tired at the end of the 3rd round pushing this pace of 28-30 reps/minute.   Should be interesting to see how this works out; I’m pretty optimistic given the first day of trying this.  THANKS SANDY!!

Chris

Greetings from THE WOODSHED,

    Got in late Monday  from Sedona  after celebrating Bob Marley’s Birthday on  Feb 6th, so I’m behind the eight ball. Tuesday was time to do some deads. I haven’t pulled off the floor since Jan 4th this year. Stationary bike for ten minutes. Legs feeling fresh and mind was clear. set the bar to 260 for warm-ups, 1 set of 5 and 1 set of 3. bump to 350 x3, then 450 x1,  540×1, and  600×1.  600 was a strong, smooth throughout, but I felt myself out of “  THE GROOVE”. So instead of knocking off 4 more in suspect fashion, I cut the weight and focused on reprograming the motor pathways.

 Look….a seasoned lifter knows when to say when, when to  bag it and come back another day uninjured, not allowing ego to  take over the session. I cut the weight and practiced getting my groove back like Stella. Three sets of three.  I have the bar pre loaded for me to pratice the lift for the remainder of the week. Think of this like batting practice for a baseball player or a golfer going to the driving range, both STRIVING on perfecting their stroke.

  REMEMBER THIS: each rep of each set must be performed exactly the same…PERIOD! That includes warm-ups, especially warm-ups!! PERFECT. If it’s off just a frog’s hair, the potential for mishap is elevated 10 fold. A few years back I was  training  the deadlift at my Uncle Shugga’s Steel House. It was a memorable session 725×3 in shorts and a t-shirt, SMOKE! No bouncing garbage, step back and reset between each rep. My buddy Brian was with jumping in the mix, at reduced poundages, but still getting it on with the steel. He would stand to the side to observe my form at my request and make verbal corrections if needed….head, heels, hips, may be spoken, not SCREAMED, if I was out of THE GROOVE. So dude…how did they look? He was quiet for a moment and looked to me with a puzzeled expression on his face. Dude….they were all the same…how do you do that? I mean DUDE! From your warmup to the top set every rep was exactly the same.  I smiled….cuz they SPODDA.

That is one of the greatest compliments  a lifter can recieve is the nod from critical, knowing eyes. (Marty) I explained that your lifts MUST BE WITHOUT THOUGHT. Like taking a wiz…… zip, grip, whip, dangle… shake…no drip.  I got some circuts to rewire and some rust to knock off the machine.

      Good training

   GRILLMAN

I’ve often said that one of the best reasons to train and condiiton yourself is so that the rest of your life becomes easier. My theory was put to the test dramatically in the past week. We have received over 30 inches of snow this past week here in the Baltimore area and I’ve been shoveling off and on all week.

Marty Gallagher and I chatted this morning and I told him how much easier shoveling is now than it used to be. Keep in mind we haven’t had an snow accumalation to speak of in the last few years. The lack of winter precipatation coincides with the approximate time of my kettlebell training.  I told Marty that shoveling is a piece of cake and we talked about the great amount of sustained strength that kettlebells gives those of us who train with them. When I’ve been moving snow this week I’ve had absolutely no huffing and puffing or any back pain while working or after. Another example of the famous kettlebell WTH effect.  Meanwhile, I’ve seen comment after comment on Twitter and Facebook complaining about post snow shoveling muscle soreness as well as how hard it is while doing it.

So Marty asked me to conduct an experiment today. I strapped on my heart rate monitor and set out to shovel my sidewalk for the umpteenth time since last Friday.  Since I’ve been doing my best to keep the walkways clear there wasn’t a ton of new accumulation. I spent 20 minutes working, and my average heart rate was 65% of my Maximim Age Related Heart Rate. I burned an average of 8.3 calories a minute. Not a huge amount considering I can get to over 20 calories per minute in a intense kettlebell session.

And that proves my point. If I work hard in the gym and focus on working hard then real life is much easier. If you don’t work out or don’t work out hard enough to make the real world a piece of cake what’s the point?

After speaking with Marty today, he decided that I should take today and treat it as if I were doing all 3 lifts in competition. I was going for my 1 rep max on Front Squat, Bench Press and Dead lift.

I have been killing the FS. I honestly never thought that when I started this program I would be doing rock bottom FS with 215. Hopefully it’s not making me shorter.  In fact today that was my goal, 215 x 1, I ended up doing 225 x 1!!  I always warm up with Goblet Squats and kneeling hip flexor stretch from RKC.

Bench Press has been pretty solid too. Remember that I have not benched in over 4 years before I started this program. Once Marty had me hitting 185 x 5 and 195 x 3′s I felt the groove of the press really clicking. So, when I went into the gym today and only had to to sets of 1, I was ready to break the bar. I hit 215 with solid form, then went to 225 with no problem at all.

What is solid form on the Bench press? Digging those heels into the ground, lifting the butt, squeezing the glutes, putting my body in a slight decline position. I keep reminding myself that it’s very similar to a pull up. I initiated the movement by breaking the bar and igniting the lats.  I keep the elbows in as I lower the bar to the chest, similar to the pull up.

Dead Lift has been a little up and down for me. The new duck stance position has been a challenge. Still trying to keep the butt down as I pull the weight up. I can tell you this, my pistols are easy now. In addition, my SLDL form has drastically improved.   It’s very simple, the duck stance really attacks the legs. It makes you force the knees out and drive through the heels. I pulled 235 with pretty good form. I know that I could have pulled more, but I did not want to get ahead of myself. I need more work on this lift.

Will Williams has been letting me use his TAPS bar. So, I set it up in my office where I teach so between clients I will jump up there and bang out 15-20.  Sometimes I will pull a 16k for 5-8 reps as well during my day.

I have gained 1 pound of muscle a week for 8 weeks so far. I feel stronger than ever, but this is only the beginning.

Mid Week in Review:

Sunday: did 4 sets of 5 reps with the 55 lb dumbbell

Dead lift was 4 sets of 5 with 225.

I’m ten weeks out from Tactical Strength Challenge and Marty decided to have me back down a bit in anticipation of the stretch run. So this is a new Week 1.

Will be doing 4 days a week of my Marty lifts, 3 days of Recon Ron Pullups and 3 days a week of kettlebell drills.

I feel that the way we have my program now will enable me to really work towards my goals through hard work but will still allow me to remain fresh.

Monday: Recon Ron Pull ups; 8,6,5,5 and 4 reps. Felt good for me today. Only one more workout at this rep scheme and then it changes up again.

Front squat was 4 worksets of 5 reps at 135. Squats have improved dramatically and I know that they will help my dead lifting.

Tuesday: Today was a day of good snatching. It was split between two kettlebell snatch session. The first one, I did 6 sets of 5/5 on the minute for 6 minutes. 60 reps total. I felt pretty solid and shoulder stability was wonderful. This evening, I did 3 intervals of all out 24 kg snatches for 1:30 with a full rest of 6 minutes between intervals. First set I did 39 reps. Same amount in the 2^nd set and was only able to get 35 in the final group. Extrapolation is dangerous but I went from a pace of 26 a minute in the first sets to 23 so I lost 12% of my power. I need to do better in order to hit my goal but felt nice.