I started lifting in 2008 as a Marine in Ramadi, Iraq and at
the time I never anticipated where I would be today. The better part of the last month I've spent my time outside
of the gym. Had you asked me eight years ago if that would be a difficult thing
to accomplish my answer would have been “of course not.” But the reality is
that over all these years I had rarely
taken more than 2-3 days off from training. I honestly cannot think of a period
where I hadn’t trained in the gym a minimum of two or three times a week since
Ramadi leading all the way up to my last meet, the USPA Colorado State Championship in
April of this year.
That’s about 2.5 years of messing around and accidentally
getting strong enough to be convinced to do a powerlifting meet and then
focusing on that sport for the remaining period of time. Recently a reddit
thread asked “What Separates the Champs from the Average?” And if I were to
answer accurately and personally it
would be: Disregard overtraining and find a way to deal, prioritize lifting
over everything, develop, test,
analyze, and publish for free the GZCL Method, Jacked & Tan, and most
recently the wildly popular UHF & Rippler programs from Applications &Adaptations.
All that development and testing meant planning and
training, lots of training, which
meant time (like 1.5-2.5 hours average.) Where did it go? A few first places, a
third, and now even a best lifter – If we’re talking platform winnings. (Two
world records in the IPL when it was young, so we don’t really talk about
that…) The actual royalties from my efforts are the countless personal records
lifters around the world have set using my method. Everyday I see all of your
successes and I am grateful that the method is trusted.
I am genuinely surprised and thankful whenever this happens
in my email.
But through this lifting success the daily monotony and
dullness of the gym proved to be erosive; and like the wind and rain carving
canyons in the earth their combined effect wore my will equally well.
At my best I needed lifting least.
Luckily, my eight year old daughter wanted to pick up
skateboarding, a favorite past time of mine. She’s been on the board about two
months now, which means I’ve been doing the same. This last month though, for
each of us, has been heavily
skateboarding focused. And as a result we’re both much better because of it.
Hard training makes for great gains. Who would have thought?
At first it was a short break away from the gym. I had some
nagging injuries that just won’t ever go away that were really getting in the way of my daily life. Usually lifting was my
means to ensuring the maintenance of my shitty knees, hips, back, and
shoulders. A gift to me from Chesty. But in pushing to that admittedly meager
1,526 total my training became blind effort and willpower towards a goal. As a
result nagging is more like shouting and lifting seemed to be like throwing
gasoline on a fire.
In that blindness of determination my body eroded as well. I got very
sick. Missed at least five training sessions. Weighed in at 176 and didn’t even
have the will to water cut.
My hard push through the psychosis of the gym left the walls
and weights around me eroded, ultimately leaving what I needed most: my wife, my
daughter, and a skateboard. I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been going for walks.
Day dates. Climbing trees. Digging. Building forts. And all kinds of other fun
activities! I feel like a freaking grown Boy Scout.
Be prepared and please don't shoot at the thermonuclear weapons.
This month of training skateboarding
not powerlifting has had a dramatic positive effect on my life, across a
variety of means. Obviously the carry over to powerlifting is what most of you
are concerned about. Well in that regard the 2-3 hour, and sometimes in excess
of four-hour skating sessions has tremendously improved my cardio. That
shamefully had fallen to the wayside as my focus on powerlifting grew.
Additionally the plyometric nature of skateboarding means my squatting has seen
positive benefit and while lifting has made me a stronger skater in a muscular
sense it certainly made me feel delicate.
There’s something about the environment of a gym and the
near absolute safety of it all that made me lose a sense of ruggedness, or
durability about myself. The actual
cause was of course the very limited and specific nature of my own training for
powerlifting. A lack of training for athleticism. Mastering skills. Learning
new ones. Dynamic movements. Contact. Coordination. Proprioception. In
powerlifting we see specificity as a scale that ranges from competition
movement to similar movement but with a different thing or moved a kinda
different way. The reality is that scale
for us reaches much further back than we allow ourselves to see, admit, or commit
to.
I just lucked out and was shown my scale by a badass and adorable eight year old who was curious about my old dusty skateboard.
In becoming a powerlifter I lost the athleticism previously
honed as a skateboarder and infantry Marine. This I confused for becoming soft
and delicate in the gym. It wasn’t instantaneous but a rather drawn out
and tragic process- sort of Alzheimer’s for athleticism. I am now regaining
that athleticism by picking up skateboarding again, and wouldn’t you know it, I
already feel more rugged and durable!
Adorably, others think they can gain a sense of ruggedness by growing beards and buying guns.
Infinity confirmed kills IRL newb.
Lastly skateboarding again has changed the way I think. Not
just about skateboarding, but also how I look at lifting. Both others and mine.
It’s changed the way I look at problems, schoolwork, and what having a family is all about. I believe the planned,
programmed, logged, monotonous, repetitive, Groundhog’s Day-esq lifting had
dulled my creativity and problem solving skills that were sharp previously. Skateboarding
inherently develops creative problem solvers.
In that change of thinking I realized a few things, first,
that it wasn’t skateboarding that I needed. It was just time out of the gym
being active in something other than lifting. A full life requires a
diversity of input, mentally and physically. This is something I feel all
lifters should include in their training, and if there’s ever been a strong
argument for a Fourth Tier (T4) this would be it. Get outside. Challenge
yourself in new ways. Master new skills. This will positively impact your
lifting in ways I cannot predict and you cannot imagine.
Second, I realized that motivation doesn’t exist (sort of?)
Definitely in the long term, perhaps even just beyond the short. I had always
felt motivation was lacking in effect, feeling hollow. Maybe that was because
of the implication of being “moto” in the Corps. Three weeks into my clumsy
return to skateboarding I had a crisis of motivation, or so I thought. Fearfully
wondering if the fire had died inside. Somewhere in that wonder my spirit
animals of Bill Kazmaier and Andre Malanichev recognized my fear and answered
in the form of Kevin Ogar. Training with him I realized for a third time in my life that there is only commitment.
Never motivation.
I personally identify motivationally as a mongoose
but I guess lions are in these days.
Motivation is plastic. It pollutes the world with its
immediate usefulness and everlasting uselessness. Pictures, memes, slogans, it
is everywhere! “Still lapping everyone on the couch” reads the back of the
shirt on the last person in the 5K charity walk. To jocks its Nike’s “Just do it” to nerds
Yoda’s “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” The audience feels motivation no
longer than it takes to read those words. Ideally they should be taken as a
reminder to commit instead.
Motivation’s impermanence proves its worth. Commitment has value.
Commitment is lesson I had originally learned as a young man
from skating regarding landing new tricks. Sometimes no-matter-what you just
have to put your feet back on the board. The second time this lesson came my
way was from my Marine values of honor, courage, and commitment. Yet somehow in my jaded march rep by rep, and pound by
pound, to a higher total and greater rankings I forgot this lesson. Again I
lucked out, this time a redheaded bearded paraplegic CrossFitter taught me a
lesson in commitment a third time.
My crisis of motivation regarding lifting was brought on by
the rekindling of my love for skateboarding. Here I was
wondering if I would lift again and Kevin was crushing it. There is nothing to
wonder, it is simply commitment. And if there's anything this last month has shown me it is that a more balanced approach to living is the most ideal one to train in.
Perhaps I’ll have to commit to cutting weight once more to
make that Top-5 at 165 and run for some real cash in one of many things that I'm committed to, powerlifting.