Workout Meets Reality - Week Seven

The seventh week of Workout Meets Reality ended yesterday. It’s been three weeks of hard work and gains have been made both physically and mentally.

In the strength program we are following the goal is to be able to lift more weight “once” in the foundation movements. Mark Rippetoe says that strength is defined by the amount of weight one is able to lift one time. I agree with 100%. The BodyPump / Pilates herd is led to believe that they are getting stronger by shaping and toning and initially there is a “feeling of strength” but the feeling is actually one, especially for the deconditioned population, of the muscles being activated and turned on and is confused with strength. In short if all one does is bridge their hips up on a Swiss Ball 10 times that is all one will get good at. To make the muscles involved with a hip bridge truly strong one needs to place a loaded barbell and then bridge the hips. But I digress.

The week prior I failed at board chest press. I listened to Ken on what I needed to work on the and the next week came back, met the weight I had previously failed at for two singles, then added 10 more pounds and met that for a single. Then I failed with another 10 pounds for a single. I listened again to what Ken told me and worked on the weak points this week.

This week was a week of singles on certain days, working up to a max effort. On Tuesday I improved my single squat by 30 pounds and then failed when I added another 10 pounds. I now know why I failed. We’ll hit that topic later.

The big story on squat day was getting to see Clar use the “wheels” (plus some) for her singles. I can’t be proud for her, only she can be proud of her accomplishment but she’s working hard and it’s an honor to be able to rack weights for her. That’s my payment.

Board press day went well for singles and Ken got in both our faces a bit. It’s in a good way but when he told Clar that using the weights she was using for DB press put her in the upper 10% for women half her age he wasn’t shooting fairy dust out his woo-hoo at her. Women are led to believe that lifting heavy weights will make them “bulky” which is a load of crap.

Yesterday was the end of week. The wheels (plus some) also came up for Clar on deadlift day. Deadlifts are often talked down in the McGloboGym, even banned as “dangerous” mainly because the shake and bake personal trainers can’t do them themselves (along with squats) but I prefer to believe Jón Páll Sigmarsson when he says: "There is no point in living if you cannot deadlift." My deadlift improved as well, adding 10% to my single over 3 weeks ago. And as I said in an earlier post I know I won’t see big jumps all the time but 5% at 405 pounds is still more than 10% at 100 pounds. Again I’m honored to be able to help rack the wheels for my Iron Maiden.

The other day I was working on my KB swing and a voice from across the room said “wait for it” as I began to swing the KB up. So I did and the voice went “away”. But as I worked KB swings later in the week I heard the voice say “wait for it” even though I was alone in the gym. That’s what a good trainer does. They imprint. I must choose to pay attention.

So yesterday was the end of our week. As I said earlier in this post I had failed in my last heavy squat single. It wasn’t that I didn’t improve but I still failed and I walked out of the rack feeling that I had done something wrong, incorrectly that had contributed to it. As I was doing band squats yesterday I heard a voice say “spread the floor”. It was just Clar and I in the gym and I knew she wasn’t channeling Ken and then it slapped me upside the head that I had failed because I hadn’t truly spread the floor on my last single attempt. Now I know.

Lift heavy things. Spread the floor. Choose wisely who you listen to. Never sacrifice who you are just because someone has a problem with it.

“reject the awful normal”©