What are percentages? - Adrian Larsen

Basically I need to address an area I feel is lacking in my gym. Very common I hear people say I am working up to my 85% for a number of reps. The reason I have  problem with this is the percentages is a template to guide you. It does not dictate your workout.

For instance I will throw out percentages nearly every workout to give some one a guide to what type of workout it is. For instance today was a speed day for me. So I told my training partner that we were working on 50-60 percent. To me that makes it clear that we are not going heavy but we are going to work on speed. Now with this workout we did eccentric pressing.

Here is an interesting story. To save her humiliation I will call her lifter X. Lifter X says I will need to squat 85% for 5 reps. I look over and she is calculating it on her phone. I screamed stop. But of course I was too late. She already had the number in her head and that is all she had to do.

I look at percentages like my gas tank in my truck, I can give you a rough idea of how much gas I have in my truck. But I can not go to a gas station and say my meter reads 37% here is 31 dollars that is all your getting fill it up.

So Lifter X worked up to 200lbs which is more like 93 ish percent. First set of 5 looked horrible. I told her to speed up the lift. Next set was better but on the 5th rep it was slow. The light bulb clicked in my head she was capping her self. She is going to walk away from here not hitting her potential. Now I thought 200lbs was a good 5 rep 85% squat. Until I looked at her and told her what if I told you to do 10 reps. She began to squat and didn't stop until 10. Now mind you the 10th rep was as slow as the 5 th rep the set before.

I am not taking away from the concept of using percentages. But do not look at the number and make it set it stone. It is a guide or a template to get you in the ball park of where you should be.

In conclusion do not cap your self. Push your self every workout. There are enough variables that play a part in lifting than to add another and cap your self. Use it as a guide not a GPS.

Lats = Big bench - Adrian Larsen

I have a video I want you to watch before I get started explaining why lats are so important to a big bench. Chris Duffin has a wealth of knowledge and made me complete this exercise to help show me how to keep my back tight while benching. Take a look and see if you can incorporate this into your routine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIa3A5vYgCc

So first lets talk about why using your lats while benching is important. Well first off it is going to take pressure off of your shoulders. See you dont want to be doing your max flat backed and shoulders flared out in a typicall bb style type press. This will put your shoulders at risk for injury.

Let the weight settle on your lats as you are squeezing them tight. A great way to remember to do this and a way that I always remember is trying to bend the bar. This reminds me to keep my lats tight.

One way to screw this up from the get go is to unrack the weights your self. Or in my case have a big ego and try to lift off the bar before the spotter is ready. This will start you off in a bad position. When you press up with your shoulders and clear the up rights it will be to hard to engage the lats in that position. So first do not and I repeat do not push the bar up and out off the rack. Let a spotter push the bar out to you.

So you have the bar in your hands back tight, your squeezing and bending the bar to engage your lats. After the bar has reached your chest your pushing the bar using leverage of the bench. Expolding the bar up pushing your self into the bench with your lats engaged. This will help with speed at the bottom of your lift. Keeping in mind that you dont want your back or shoulders to shrug up and make it impossible to keep lats engaged. Keep the bar out infront of you, and press through your lats.

Now your not going to be able to neglect your back and have huge lats for your bench. Make sure you put in the work with seated rows, bent over rows, pull ups ETC.

My Insecurities - Courtney Gould

 So many people these days see the images of people on the internet, in person, and in magazines and get this need and desire to live up to that image.  How much do these air brushed images affect the way you see yourself and what you don’t like about yourself?

If you’re anything like me… it affects me a fucking lot!

Believe it or not, for as long as I can remember I would wear pants ALL year round (hard to believe, huh?). I HATED my legs.  My quads were much much bigger than any other girls and all I saw in them was fat.  My thighs rubbed together when I walked, they were gross and full of cellulite and most shorts cut off the circulation to my legs.

Something finally clicked in my head one day that big “thunder thighs” are amazing.  This is the core of my strength and these bad boys help me walk, as well as, hit PR’s in the gym.. and from time to time win quad competitions in the gym.

Although I’ve learned to love my legs again, I still have soo many insecurities.  WHY?  I get nothing but compliments, but I see nothing but my pudgy belly, the saddles bags, and my back boobs. Seriously, why am I so self critical?  I’m making myself feel shit for the approval of strangers?  For some dickwad on facebook? For someone that is upset about their own looks and insecurities that they will criticize what I have going on?

Fuck that. Seriously, fuck that.

I am going through a hard time and trying to learn to love and accept myself for who I am.  I bust my ass training to get stronger and grow to be a better person in all.  I am slowly learning that I don’t need approval from anyone but myself to be happy.  If my belly jiggles when I get my clean & jerk up, so be it. But I nailed that lift.

I have to quit comparing myself to others, whether it be that I see someone with nicer abs or a stronger squat than me and feel like shit or I see someone slightly bigger than myself or can’t lift as much as me and I feel better about myself.   I’m still comparing myself in a negative way either by thinking less of someone else or thinking less of myself.

I’m sharing this with all of you because we’re all human… but if you’re not happy with yourself, you will never be happy with anyone else.  No one else can provide happiness for you.  This is a VERY slow process that I’m slowly becoming better with and loving more of my flaws because that’s what makes me Courtney.

Proving his point - Courtney Gould

About 3 months ago, I called up my boyfriend, Adrian, because I was at my wits end.  My training was going nowhere, I couldn’t complete a lift that I had easily completed months prior.  I was moving backwards and I was beyond frustrated.  I wanted to quit Olympic lifting.  I called up Adrian, so upset with the whole situation and told him that because I am just working backwards and can’t afford a coach, that I might as well just quit. 
He paused for a second and said, “Ok go ahead and quit.”  Honestly, this wasn’t the answer I was expecting, me being the dramatic girl that I am, I expected a different sort of response.  Something reassuring and letting me know that I have what it takes to keep going.  He didn’t do that.  He told me that I have one of two options: Quit - Give up what you have worked so hard for or Shut up – Keep pushing, these hard times will make you a better athlete and stronger person.   He then let me know that if I’m going to quit, I might as well not show up at the gym anymore, because people who quit aren’t needed there. 

Fuck?! I don’t want to completely quit training.  But this also was the kick in the ass that I needed.  Then Adrian told me that he was going to start working on his Total. "
What?! Are you serious?" Was my reply. 
He said, “Absolutely.  Squats and Deadlifts are something I don’t do, but I’m going to prove to you that I will do them and show you that you never quit even if you suck at something."  

Let me give you a little back story on Adrian Larsen.  If you don’t know him already, he is a very straight forward, no bullshit kinda guy.   Adrian was born with club feet and dislocated hips.  He went through 18 surgeries through his childhood and was told by doctors that he was never going to be able to walk.  When he started walking on his own, he was told that he will never be able to run. So he started playing full court basketball.  Adrian is a man that LOVES to prove someone wrong.  Tell him he can’t, and he will do it and he’ll do it well.  He is a bench press specialist with a 711 bench press.  He does all of this without his feet on the floor and balancing. (Try it, not an easy task with even half of that)  The way that his knees bend (or lack thereof) he isn’t able to plant them on the floor.  His hips are fused into the socket and his ankle bones are all fused to together.   Due to this being done as a child, his mobility and flexibility in his ankles, knees, and hips is very limited.  Aside from that, he still trains multiple times a week and plays in a men’s basketball league. 

After this whole “I want to quit Olympic Lifting” issue went down with me, the next time we training together he looked at me and said: “I want to squat.”  "Really?  Are you sure?"
"YEP, let’s get it going."  Now if you know anything about Adrian’s personality, you will know that he’s competitive, and just as competitive to me.  He has always told me that he won’t ever do a lift that I could possibly beat him in weight or reps.  He doesn’t have an ego per say, but he likes to be the alpha of the relationship (and personally, if he wasn’t, we would have issues, my man has got to be stronger than me). 

He wanted to prove his point.  He will push himself WAY beyond his comfort zone to show me that he will work on his weak points and keep pushing through and work on his total.  This hit me hard…. Wow, I thought to myself, I am a fully capable athlete with some talent, and I’m willing the throw that all away because a few months have been shitty and I’m being a pansy about it?  Nope, not an option. 

Adrian continues to work on his total, lifts are coming together slowly.  He has a lot of scar tissue that needs to be broke up and loosened, and mobility improve.   But to see him push himself in his lifts is something that makes me so proud to know him and have him in my life.  I see nothing but amazing things coming from this man and he is one of the most amazing inspirational and fantastic men I’ve ever met.

Progress - Adrian Larsen

In power lifting, progress is measured in training. We look at the training we are doing and record our progress and down falls. This is a way to critique our training and what works and what doesn’t work. Over the years, several different implements have been used to increase strength. For instance, we have boards or foam boards to work on range of motion. We also use chains hanging off the bar. Another implement often used is bands. You can use straight weight and do eccentric pressing, or long pauses on the bottom. You can also purchase a sling shot and use that tool in training in a variety of ways.

Over the last few years I have seen a trend of something that is a little bothersome. At times, people seem to have forgotten why these implements were invented. They were not invented or placed in your training to give you “PR’s” to blast on social media. These tools were developed to help you train to become stronger and better. Too often, I see folks trying to use the tools in a fashion to go as heavy as possible. For example, a reverse band bench with 700 lbs while wearing a slingshot doesn’t equate to a 650 raw bench. We need to go back to the basics of working as hard as we can in the gym and not using these tools to boost our egos. For some people this could be a huge slap in the face or you may disagree. But in order to get stronger you need to do things that will be difficult.

Rethink your training. If you are using implements to aid your training, make sure they are not making your training easier. Use these tools to make your training harder. Not worrying about if you can post a PR on YouTube. For instance, let’s say you have a goal to bench 400lbs raw. I would use the sling shot in a variety of ways to help you get there. Not too post lifts of benching 500 with a sling shot, that doesn’t assist you as effectively. Here are some suggestions I would focus on to reach a raw bench goal. Every heavy bench day I would work with sets of 400lbs in a sling shot for reps. Maybe use the sling shot for eccentric pressing with 400lbs. Or use the sling shot to do a long pause on the chest with your desired weight.

Remember, use these tools to strengthen your weak areas and make your strong areas stronger. These implements are out there to help you in training to reach your goals; not to write down a PR in a log book that doesn’t matter.

Boards

I get asked regularly, how I incorporate board pressing into my raw bench routine. The simple fact is I do not incorporate them at all. Boards are a fun implement to use while training in a bench shirt. Otherwise they are not as useful. Now, before people start telling me that it has helped them in training great. But it is not as useful as other methods in training. For a great deal of time in my training I would do board pressing, and really focus on lockout work. Now I do not find that doing lock out work is a complete waste of time. I do feel you’re not training as efficiently as possible.

When people fail a lift toward the lock out or end of the press. The simple fix isn’t to jump in the gym and train lockouts. Every person is stronger on a four board press than full range. So the issue isn’t focusing on your lock out strength. The issue is you need more speed off your chest. The more explosive and speed from your chest the more likely you’re going to lock out your press. So how do you fix the issue of failing toward the top of your lift. There are a few things to do that could help. First try doing dead pin presses from the chest. This is a very easy thing to set up and is very effective. Also from time to time work with long pauses on the bottom. Even incorporate a sling shot with that. This is the best way to handle heavy weight and pause at the bottom of the lift.

If having spotters is an issue due to training on your own stick with the dead pin presses, or you can do floor presses with dumbbells. Pausing at the bottom of the lift. There are options out there.