Weight Training Blog

I mentioned something briefly in this post about listening to what your body is trying to tell you, and it’s really a skill that you need to use when you become a more experienced lifter. If you’re not constantly listening to what your body is trying to tell you, you may quickly find yourself in a world of hurt.

For instance, it dawned on me last night that my current workout schedule wasn’t a good idea for my body. In power lifting, the big three lifts are squat, bench, and dead lift. Much of my gym time is spent working on those three main lifts, and the rest of the time goes towards accessory work which will help those lifts. However, my schedule for the last few months has been bench on Monday, dead lift on Tuesday, and squats on Wednesday. Hold on… Three days in a row going 100% at times. After doing some thought, that doesn’t really seem like a good idea since my body isn’t getting ample rest in between tough training days. Though I may be using different muscles on different days, my mind and my central nervous system (CNS) still need time in between training bouts to recover.

I could feel my body not wanting to go to the gym because it was telling me “Hey, I need more of a break”. So it’s off to the drawing board to come up with a solution that will allow for more off time in between core lifting days.

So the moral of the story: You must always listen to what your body is doing. Chances are it’s trying to tell you something, and you should certainly listen because it probably knows more than your conscious mind does, that’s for sure.

I decided to add on a newsletter feature that will allow you to get email notifications when each new post is made. Or if you’d prefer there are options for daily, weekly, and monthly email notifications as well. All you have to do is enter your email address and first name in the boxes to the right, and you will then be asked to verify your email address and then select how frequently you’d like to receive notifications.

Let all your friends know about it if you’re trying to get them into the gym too, I think they could learn a thing or two from this blog.

The new gym-goer will think this topic is just plain stupid, but those of you who have been going to the gym for a while and are somewhat serious about seeing results and getting things accomplished know exactly what this is all about: Getting yourself into the right mind set in order to get some big numbers up.

It’s about getting yourself so focused that nothing can stop you from getting under the bar and lifting the weight no matter how much heavier the bar is than your previous max. Without such a focus, the weight would seem next to impossible to lift, and there are only a few people I know who are able to harness their energy to accomplish lifts that would otherwise not be possible.

I’ve lifted along side IPA World Record holder Gene Rychlak – the first man to bench over 1000 pounds – and the level of his focus before a lift is intimidating to say the least. He has a pre-lift ritual that he does in order to get himself in the right mind set that allows him to lift over 900 pounds with what seems to be ease. If you to cross in front of Gene while walking up to the bench you would get hit by a walking freight train, for sure.

Before Scot Mendelson’s world record 715 pound raw bench, his wife literally smacked the shit out of him to get him going. Don’t believe me? Here a video for proof:

Some lifters decide to go with ammonia (aka sniffing salt) before lifting to get them focused, while others have the ability to just dip, grip, and rip without much pre-lift meditation needed. There is also a multi-million dollar product market out there devoted to producing NO-based products that are supposed to increase your “pump” drastically. I’ve used several of these products, and I’m starting to suspect that they are all the same and all allow you to build up a tolerance. The only way to deal with this is to simply cycle it so your body doesn’t get accustomed to it.

So what is it that gets you going? Do you need certain music to get you angry/focused? Do you need someone to give you a smack on the back of your shoulder on bare skin to get you pumped to lift weights you never thought was possible? If you want to put up big numbers, you have to find out what method works for you and stick with it. Though, I’ll admit, getting smacked in the face as hard as Mendelson did before his 715 raw lift is a bit… eccentric.