A Lesson in Strength

I was so excited about last weekend's trip to Sorinex that I needed to digest some of the important lessons I learned. While I did attend for some business reasons, the result of my trip went far deeper than just making a great contact.

1. You don't need to train maximal weight every day to get strong. In fact, you can train maximal strength rather infrequently and still get scary strong. I remember first hearing about this through champion powerlifter, Ed Coan's training. Ed Coan was well known for careful cycling of his training intensities and was one of the top powerlifters for years.

I was speaking with "Big Tex" (Donnie Thompson's training partner) and he was referring to himself in making a classic strength mistake. Big Tex was explaining to me his challenges in learning how to consistently dominate a 400 pound stone in strongman competitions. He knew that strength was not a limitation as he had lifted loads far greater in training. The problem he said was his conditioning. During both a series and a long competition day he wouldn't have a lot in the tank to make it through to the final stone. Since he has incorporate conditioning drills and drills focusing on his speed he now has improved greatly without changing much of his maximal strength.

I found this true as well. For the past few weeks I had been working on not only improving my conditioning, but also correcting some imbalances and improper motor patterns I developed. The result was hitting a PR of 24 pounds on my kettlebell clean and jerk. Stone lifting with Big Tex I found the stone not only feeling relatively light not having any warm-up, but also I had better use of my hips and my fatigue was no obstacle.

2. Don't you dare use age as a limitation. In the video below you can see Richard Sorin at age 58 one-arm deadlift 405!! Richard never took any real break from training. He never saw age as a time he should decline in his training. In fact, many of the people training this weekend were well into their 40's and not just maintaining, but still making PRs. So, what is the difference?

Consistency

Goal-setting

Self-belief

Hard Work

Taking action in taking care of themselves.

3. Everything works! Yes, we have all heard this over and over again, but we still seem to want to be married to certain ideas. I don't think I have ever been in a room with Olympic lifters, Powerlifters, Strongmen, Field Athletes, and people that perform Crossfit all at the same time. The importance? You have to make sure the type of training that you are using matches your goals.

Yep, we all get sucked into our own personal biases. A great coach can discern when to use certain methods and hold off on others. I remember speaking with my good friend Geoff Neupert about his days coaching at Rutgers. Geoff is an excellent Olympic lifter, this would make most automatically think that all of his athletes did some form of the O-lifts. The truth Geoff told me, was that very few athletes every performed O-lifts and they had great success with other strength lifts like squats, deadlifts, dips, and pull-ups. A great example of knowing what will best benefit yourself or those that work with you.

4. Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere...I know it is important, but it was reinforced so strongly to me this past weekend. I once heard that the best aspect of Westside Barbell is the atmosphere they create. I don't think on a normal day I would have pulled off some of my PRs, but being with very positive people that screamed to get you to your best made all the difference in the world. Watch for those training partners!!

For more inspiration check out the video done by Sorinex covering the whole weekend.