Bite

Bite your lip, baby

I wanna wonder

What you're thinking

Tell me with your fingertips

I do too much cardio.

Here are some things I am forced to do on a daily basis which I believe are far too similar to cardio.

1. Coaching. Do you know how much walking you have to do in order to effectively coach a large group of people spread out across 2400 square feet? Seriously folks, that's a lot of calories burned. The alternative, of course, is to just sit in the middle of the room and yell, but that takes a lot of air, so it's really not much better.

2. Getting out of bed quickly. My alarm isn't near my bed (so that I don't repeatedly hit the snooze button,) and in order to shut up it's horrendous noise I have to walk across the room. I hate the noise so much that I get of bed pretty damned fast. Definitely cardio-esque.

3. Cleaning. There is a lot of movement involved in sweeping, vacuuming, washing dishes, etc. I'm pretty sure it's catabolic.

4. Dealing with Nathan. Because it requires a LOT of yelling.

5. Eating quickly. Sometimes I have to shovel down a meal between classes. I'm moving that fork FAST, people, and not for just one rep.

6. Giving a fuck. As hard as I try not to, I find myself, at least once a day, giving a fuck about something. This can lead to elevated heartrate, moving quickly, and a distinct lack of getting hypertrophic. I'm taking lessons on Not Giving A Fuck from Brent to help me deal with this.

**********************************************************************************************

Let's talk about something awesome. Specifically, Ben kicking ass at Nationals last weekend. Observe:

NO BIG DEAL JUST SLANGIN' KILOS BRO.

***********************************************************************************************

Training yesterday was meh. Snatched 15x1 on :90 and managed to make 175 3 times, but missed it 4 times. Tried to squat but I'm thrashed. Gonna throttle back this week and come back strong on Monday.

...why is there a pug at the bar?

Let me tell you some funny things.

Last night Mariah and I went to a bar with a few friends. Mariah and I are cooler than you, so instead of drinking, we decided to eat ice cream, which we brought ourselves. I had Häagen Dazs chocolate chip cookie dough. Mariah had some Ben & Jerry's. The flavor doesn't really matter since Ben & Jerry's is CLEARLY inferior to Häagen Dazs. Also there was a pug at the bar. Mariah was really freaked out by this. We had the following conversation:

Mariah: Why the FUCK is there a pug at the bar?!

Me: Give me three good reasons there shouldn't be a pug at the bar.

Mariah: ONE it's a dog...TWO this is a people bar...THREE this is a vulgar environment...WHAT THE FUCK IS IT DOING HERE?! I think it's drinking beer. Out of a cup. It has foam on it's little snout.

Later Mariah told me "Before you know it, I'll be T. Colin Campbell with a pug at a bar, and I'll be like...feeding it breadsticks."

Mind you, Mariah was sober.

Also, I have some new aviator sunglasses, and they make Nathan very nervous. Seriously. He has trouble looking at me when I wear them. At one point I looked at him with a serious face and said "Sir" and he FREAKED OUT and goes "please...please don't do that Jacob."

Mind you, Nathan was sober.

Anyway, this was a better training week. Managed to snatch 195 yesterday, and C&J 245 and the jerk didn't hurt my knees. Cleaned 265 pretty easy too. Then squatted 385. My lower back was pretty shot and I was tired from snatch and C&J...think I have 405 fresh. I suppose I'll take it rather than leave it.

P.S. Before you ask, we brought the spoons for the ice cream too, from my house.

Per Aspera Ad Astra

No one tells you about hands.

I suppose it may be mentioned in passing, and it should probably seem obvious that in a sport that requires regularly lifting a roughened steel bar that weighs several hundred pounds, your hands will take a beating. But no one tells an aspiring weightlifter "By the way, there are going to be days when you think your palms are going to rip off like a worn out Band-Aid."

No one talks about how, some days, getting out of bed or into your car will seem like a chore, or about the frustration of missing the same weight, which might be 20kg under your PR, over and over and over again.

You're never going to hear about the days you need to spend 45 minutes warming up just so that your shoulders don't hurt like hell at the bottom of the snatch. You won't hear about being too tired to sleep, or being hungry no matter how much you eat, or how sometimes you don't want to eat at all.

No one will say "the ice doesn't help that much," or "you can only take so much ibuprofen," or "if you want to be good at this, you're going to have to beat yourself into the ground for weeks, months, years on end, and sometimes, when every voice in your body and your brain is telling you 'no, no, no!' you're going to have to listen to the stupid little voice in your stupid stubborn heart saying "YES, GOD DAMMIT, PICK IT UP AGAIN.' "

In short, no one is going to tell you "this is going to fucking hurt."

But you'll find out. I am in the process of doing so. It fucking hurts. In a new and different way than anything I've experienced before.

And it's important in a way nothing I've done before has been. Because I can tell that it's going to work. I can feel myself getting better, even as I seem to get worse. I ache from head to toe, and though some of my lifts aren't at PR level right now, they're still getting better. That's important, because there's a lesson in it.

The days when you want to quit, when your hands feel like they're going to fall off, when your knees and your shoulders ache, when the bar just feels too damn heavy from your first warm-up, when you're out of ibuprofen and the ice isn't cold anymore...those days, when you decide to listen to the stupid little voice in your stupid stubborn heart, and pick the bar up one more time, those days are opportunities to decide your fate. Anyone can do it on an easy day. Only those who do it when it hurts can become champions. And I'm not just talking about weightlifting. Every great runner's road has, at some point, felt too long, every writer's ink seems to have run dry, every singer's voice grown hoarse. And yet the Badwater is run every year, and great works of literature are written, and beautiful songs are sung, and heavy bars are lifted. Of course it's not easy. To hell with easy. Easy never got anyone anything other than mediocrity and maybe comfort. But comfort is complacency and I'm not interested in that. I'll take the pain and the exhaustion and the challenge. I'll get up tomorrow and ache and want anything other than to lift that bar again, and I will lift that bar again, and again, and again, and again, until the weights I lift today are warm-ups, and I've got my own fucking Wikipedia entry.

Nothing can stop me.

Per Aspera Ad Astra

**********************************************************************************************

7/12

Cleans - 285 for a 20# PR. 245x2x2

DB press - 80# DBs x3x3

Pullups/Chins: 12, 10, 10, 10 alternating grip each set

7/13

Snatch - 15x1 on :90, up to 175. Missed one rep with 145 and one with 175. No squats, knees hurt pretty bad after the cleans yesterday.

This post has been written a thousand times...

...but apparently the message isn't getting through, so here we go again.

This morning I dropped Brent off at the airbus station. Obviously I'm going to miss him, because he's hilarious, so I was in the mood to Troll. I went to a coffee shop that I haven't been to in a while, but where the baristas know me. I lucked out: one of my clients had borrowed my copy of "Starting Strength" and, knowing that I go to this place pretty regularly, he left it there for me to pick up as he's leaving the country for a while.

Now, these girls at the coffeeshop are fairly used to my crap, but I was on fire today. As I was leaving, I half jokingly offered to leave "Starting Strength" for them to read. This is pretty standard for me...I regularly try to convince them to come train at my gym. Upon reading the cover of the book, one of the girls said "Basic barbell training? I like looking like a woman, not a man."

Jesus, this again? Really?

Plenty of people who are much smarter than me have written a lot of material on why women should lift weights for health. I'm not going to do that here (but I will remind you that long, slow distance cardio increases the body's efficiency at storing bodyfat.) So instead I'm going to go with this: stick girl is not hot. I am in no way attracted to this:

Sometimes I see a girl who looks like this and I wonder "what are those things sticking out of her acetabulums?" before I realize that those are what she's using in place of legs. How the hell does she get around? Who's going to carry her to safety when the Zombie Apocalypse comes?

Ladies, so we're clear, this is what legs are supposed to look like:

I'm mostly preaching to the choir here. The females who read this blog aren't going to disagree with me, and the males who read this blog aren't reading anymore because they're staring at the above picture (I'm having trouble concentrating on writing now, as a matter of fact.) So if you know someone who needs to hear this, send it to them. Girls should lift. It makes you look better. It makes you more useful. It most certainly does not make you look like a man.

I'll leave you with this thought, ladies: I don't think it's cute or sexy when you need me to carry a fucking case of water from the car because it's just too damn heavy. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go coach two ladies who understand the utility of being STRONG.

*************************************************************************************

AM

Snatched 15x1 on :90. 5x135 (missed 3rd rep,) 5x145, 5x155

Squat 345x3x5 (high bar, no belt)

PM

Snatch to max - 165

FYI resting 2 hours between heavy sessions IS NOT ENOUGH.

If I could take a minute to not be an asshole...

The 70's Big Lifting Workshop is legit. We hosted one at CrossFit Monterey yesterday. Justin has one of the best eyes for movement I've seen, and his cuing is concise, effective, and usually funny. He does a great job of altering the seminar on the spot based on the needs and wants of the participants. It's a steal at $150. If there's one in your area, GO.

***************************************************************************************

I want to talk to you guys about a place that's very important to me. It's where I go when I'm happy or when I'm sad, when I want to celebrate or when I need something to get me through the day, when I need support, inspiration, or the fortitude to get through my second heavy session of the day.

I'm talking, of course, about Papa Chevo's taqueria.

No seriously you guys. I've probably eaten there once a day for the last week. I've gone there twice in a day before. You you can a big delicious burrito for five bucks. My go-to is a carne asada burrito with just cheese and guacamole, and a carne asada quesadilla, just meat and cheese. But of course, once in a while, I go jumbo:

Brent just told me he would not mind eating there again today, even though we've been there every day for the last four days. That's some fucking endorsement coming from a guy who pretty much hates everything.

Listen, seriously, go there okay. It'll make your life better. Ask Nathan.

*************************************************************************************

Gonna start incorporating some timed sets into my training. On double days, I'll snatch timed sets in the AM (light) and go for a max in the PM. When I squat will depend on my schedule that day.

This One's For You

Two knots

Tangled together

Through twilight

And midnight

Coming undone

***************************************************************************************

Nothing of note except that I managed an 245# clean entirely on rage. I was exhausted, everything hurt, and I felt off as shit. So I turned up Electric Frankenstein really loud and decided that I was just going to rip the bar off the floor. That seemed to work.

Guess I should fucking post something.

The last week has been shitty as fuck training. Shitty as fuck. But I can't really complain because in the last few weeks I've got some squatting back (365x3 high bar, unbelted,) pressed 200x3 unbelted, and snatched a 20# PR (205#.)

Last week someone told me I couldn't qualify for Nationals in 2012. Fuck that.

Check out this blog it is the best www.ohgodsheslookingatmebetterjuststicktosquatting.wordpress.com

I'm going to stay up late while Justin and Brent play Starcraft 2, and smoke a bunch of cigarettes. I think this will help me lift more tomorrow. It's science.

I have no title for this post.

Things are pretty awesome. Went to the Midtown Classic weightlifting meet on Saturday. Both of my lifters (Nathan and Shareef) did very well...Shareef snatched a PR but missed on a technicality, and all of Nathan's lifts were meet PRs.

I have a new gym. It is coming together. It is basically the shit.

6/16/2011

Snatch up to 175 for a few singles

6/17/2011

Snatch up to 155 for some singles

Front squat 185x3x2

RDL 135x10x3

6/20/2011

Snatch up to 155 for 2 singles

Squat 245x3x5

Front squats and cleans will come back much more slowly than snatches and squats...the sharp knee angle makes front squats pretty painful. All in due time, I suppose. For now my training plan is to snatch a lot, squat a lot, run hills as soon as possible, and do some other stuff like rows, chins, etc when I feel like it.

I'm back. Kind of.

Hi. This is my friend Ben, being a FUCKING MAN:


I couldn't bring myself to give a shit about blogging while not training. Now I'm back to training...kind of. I snatched a couple of times last week and things were getting better, so I'm doing a little more this week.

6/13
Snatched up to 3 singles with 165. This has been the best the knees have felt so far, and I did it without knee sleeves. PR?
Dumbbell Rows (standing, pulled from floor) - 190x10x3 (each side)

6/14
Squat 225x3x5. Hurt a little bit during the lift, but between and after were all fine. These were done high bar, again without knee sleeves (I have a new tattoo on my calf and don't want to have the neoprene all up in it's grill.)
RDL 135x10x3

I'm planning on resting tomorrow, snatching and doing some kind of upper body pull again on Thursday, and front squats and RDLs on Friday.

Going to a meet in Sacramento this Saturday. I have two lifters competing, and am looking forward to seeing some friends, Ben included, kick major ass.

Filler.

Maybe I'll write something later. I feel like I should, but I don't really have anything to write about.

"On" Days

Coaching the (loosely formed but rapidly growing) weightlifting team at CrossFit Monterey is the best and worst thing I do all day.

I am going crazy not training. Coaching and watching the team makes me miss it all that much more. When I'm cheering them on, I literally have this explosive energy running through me...I saw a video of me yelling at Nathan while he was going for a new 3RM squat the other day, and I'm stomping the fucking ground as hard as I can, like it's the only way I can exert some force against a Goddamned barbell. Frustrating doesn't cover it.

But then again, you can have "on" days with coaching just as you can with training, and I think I did today. Bailee hit a PR clean (110#) and Shareef hit a PR snatch (175#.) These didn't have a lot to do with my coaching: Bailee C&J'd 100# the other day and it was clear she had more on the clean, so she came in and crushed it. Shareef is a freak of nature, I don't know what to say about him. I don't know who else just shows up and PRs their snatch by 15#.

Nathan, on the other hand, didn't PR, but in one session we 1) found something we needed to fix, 2) found the cue necessary to fix it (in my experience it usually takes 2-3 sessions after finding the problem to determine a cue that works optimally to correct it,) and 3) developed a new ramp-up protocol that I think is going to get him much more consistent at 90%+ weights. I'm pretty sure the only reason he didn't PR today is because he was tired by the time we got there, but he still hit 5# under his PR snatch, and the rep he did at 10# below was probably the best rep I've ever seen out of him.

Overall, I can't complain.

I still want to lift some fucking weight though.

The Blueprint

It was a rough couple of days, but I've been listening to HOV all day, and my Swag is on high.

This is what I'm going to be doing as of June 6, whether my knees are better or not.

Monday

Snatch to 1-2 misses, drop to 80% of best and work back up

Clean & jerk heavy single, 10-15 reps of volume with 85-90%

Squat 5x5 high bar

Tuesday

Snatch, whatever I feel like

Press/Push Press, 15ish reps of volume

Barbell Rows, for the Yammage

Thursday

Clean & Jerk heavy single, volume whatever

Front Squat 3x5

Weighted Chins, for the Yokeage

Saturday

Snatch to max

C&J to max

Squat 3RM, 2RM, or 1RM high bar

I will do GPP as well: plyos on Monday and Thursday (before training, probably in the AM,) sprint intervals/hills on Tuesday and Saturday (after training whenever possible.)

4 days a week, three movements a day, HEAVY FUCKING DUTY EVERY DAMN TIME.

Tired.

Slept 3 hours last night. Didn't have time to mobilize today. Too tired to ice or write a poem. Got an adjustment. Shutting down now.

Middleground? Nah.

One of the most important aspects of training is that it is one of the few things in life where absolutes exist.

In most things you do, there will never be a true black-and-white answer. I've never found anything outside of a barbell where there was a straight up yes or no.

Did you make the lift? Yes or no?

Yesterday one of my athletes, a weightlifter who does no conditioning, agreed to do a Prowler workout. He told me I couldn't make him puke. Silly boy. Less than halfway through, he was ready to give up. He looked at me and said "You win, okay? You beat me."

I got in his face and told him it wasn't about beating him. I told him that whether this was his sport or not, quitting was quitting. If he quit on the Prowler, he would quit when it counted – on the barbell.

He finished what he started.

Afterwards he told me he was mad at himself. At first I thought it was because he expected his conditioning to be better (he was a wrestler and football player in high school.) He told me it wasn't that – he was mad because he almost quit.

He almost quit.

Welcome to black-and-white. Welcome to a complete lack of middleground. Welcome to there-is-no-such-thing-as-almost.

He may have almost quit. But he didn't quit. It's a yes or no question.

He didn't puke, either.

Tattoo Girl

Hey there tattoo girl

Innocence and ink

I like the way you sink

Into my skin

Fill me with color

And sound

The blues and belief

Fire and cool relief

From the bite marks

You left on me

But don't worry

Tattoo girl

I like the way

Your needle stings

*************************************************************************************

*************************************************************************************

Mobility

Had an adjustment from Dr.Aaron Gaily at Gonstead Family Chiropractic in Monterey. I am highly skeptical of chiropractors in general – Doc Gaily is the real deal. Check him out.

Got a "massage" from People-Mechanic Rob Fontecchio. Rob is the best People-Mechanic there is, but he sucks at "technology," and so doesn't have a "website," so I can't "link" him.

How is it only Tuesday?

Fuck. I am tired.

Mobility

Rolled TFL, quads, glutes for 3 minutes each, gastrocs for 2 minutes each, back + thoracic extensions for 3 minutes, lats for 2 minutes each. Couch stretch PNF 6 sets, hamstring PNF on box 6 sets, glute grind with distraction 2 minutes per side, Pigeon on 30" high box 2 minutes per side. Stretching my pecs and lats doesn't seem to get anywhere...need to figure that out. Am now icing knees.

No poem today. Too much work to do.

Day 1

When your spirit sings

My ears perk up

Straining to catch

Every note

Of your ringing laughter

A song to remind me

To never settle

For less

Than exactly what

I once believed

What I now know

*************************************************************************************

*************************************************************************************

Why train?

For the last 8 years, training – be it CrossFit, lifting, or martial arts – has been the glue that has held my life together. Depressed? Train. Angry? Train. Stuck in a rut? Train. Heartbroken? Train. Hard training is an atmosphere of potential failure, but those failures were always so much less consequential than failures outside of the gym, and so much more controllable, that they seemed like a break. I wasn't too worried about the last girl to hurt my little feelings when I had a heavy bar on my back, or a nasty hill in front of me.

So, now what? Four weeks without glue. A month without controllable failure to distract me from the potential consequences of serious failures, real life failures. Scared? Shitless. But let's not forget what fear is.

I'm not completely sure I believe that everything happens for a reason. But if it does, I think my body has broken down like this to tell me a few things:

1) I'm young enough to recover from this if I start now. START NOW.

2) It's been a few years since I've been competitive. And the fact is, if you're not a little bit competitive, you're probably never going to realize your full potential. It's pretty Goddamned unlikely that I'm ever going to the Olympics, but if I don't try, then I'm just being a pussy. The fire has been relit. No one is safe. I WANNA BEAT 'EM.

If this time off doesn't work...well shit, I don't know. I'm okay with hurting all the time, but only if it's the "I'm training like a mother fucker to be the Goddamned best at something" kind of hurt. Not the "I'm an old man" kind of hurt. So keep your damn fingers crossed, will ya?

*************************************************************************************

Mobility

Underestimated how much time I'd need to get through everything. I rolled everything but my pecs – I remembered today why I don't do it often...it's because I get nothing out of it. Will have to figure something out here. PNFed hip flexors/quads, hamstrings, and did elevated Pigeon stretch for 2:00 per side. I will ensure that I give myself more time tomorrow.

Oh look, a poem.

There are nights

When my heart howls

And my soul catches fire

Licked by flames

The sun left behind

And nothing can quiet me

Save water offered from palms

Cupped to form half a world

And I, with half a sky

On my shoulders

Take a drink

And wait

*************************************************************************************

Putting out fires.

Alright, it's time to admit it: my body fucking hurts.

Every time I press my left shoulder flares up, and it's gotten to the point where I can't really mobilize it properly because it causes weird pain throughout the lateral shoulder capsule. If I try to squat, Olympic lift, push press, or walk up fucking stairs my knees scream. Sometimes they hurt like hell when I get out of my car. My back aches every morning when I wake up.

I'm twenty-two. Somethings not right.

I've tried a lot of different things in a lot of different combinations. Mobility has been a constant. I've tried icing, resting, doing only certain movement variations, etc...all of them work, to a point, but nothing seems permanent. I think it's time to do something that really, really scares me. Something I haven't done in a long time.

I'm going to rest. Completely. For a month.

Until June 6th 2011, I am not going to train.

I am terrified. I'm scared of losing all my strength. I'm scared of getting fat. I'm scared of not doing the thing which has been the glue holding my life together for the past 8 years. But I'm going to do it. At the time which I would normally train, this is what will be going down.

Myofascial Release

1. Tensor Fasciae Latae, 2-3 minutes per side

2. Quads, 2-3 minutes per side

3. Glute/high hamstrings, 2-3 minutes per side

4. Gastrocs, 2-3 minutes per side

5. Spinal erectors/rhomboids/all that other stuff in there/thoracic extensions, 3 minutes

6. Lats, 2 minutes per side

7. Pecs, 2 minutes per side

Stretching

1. Hip flexor PNF, 6 sets per side of 5 second contraction/10 second stretch

2. Hamstring PNF, 6 sets per side of 5 second contraction/10 second stretch

3. Glute grind with distraction, 2-3 minutes per side

4. Elevated Pigeon stretch 2-3 minutes per side

5. Overhead lat stretch PNF, 6 sets per side of 5 second contraction/10 second stretch

6. Pitcher stretch PNF, 6 sets per side of 5 second contraction/10 second stretch

Mobility WOD

2 per day, one upper body, one lower body

Icing

Yes.

If this doesn't work, then I don't know what comes next. Sometime in this month I'm going to try and get a PT appointment with Kelly up at San Francisco CrossFit. It's worth my time and money.

Oh, and since I won't be able to use training as an outlet: I'm going to write. A lot. About training, about life. I'll even write poetry.

Yeah, I fucking write poetry. I'm pretty good at it sometimes. Big deal, wanna fight about it?

Look, it's late. Here's a poem I wrote a while back. Goodnight.

Once

I believed in answers

Now even questions elude me

And you have nothing to say

Words slip through my lips

Like water through clenched fists

Tight as I may grip

They're gone

And there is nothing you or I can do to save them

So I bare my bones to the fire

Having long since learned

That the heat may burn me

But it will never return me

To the ashes from whence we came

I am no phoenix

To be reborn in glory

I am it's shadow

To be forgotten in the brightness

Of my own blinding light