Check out this Zen-like story/joke that Roy sent me. 

A student goes to the dojo and asks how long it will take to become a master. 

The master replies “There is no answer to that, my son. First you must learn patience.” 

The student replies “Yeah, yeah, patience. How long is that going to take?”

The picture above is of Snake River Canyon in Idaho.  How long did THAT take!
Answer:  Over 14,000 years.

Nia Shanks hardly looks like she works out … but boy does she!!

Here’s her sumo deadlifting 315:

And here she is doing 275 for 3 reps!

I was posting an ad on Craigslist this morning, and when it came time to type the “gotcha” image letters (you know the ones that help keep down spam posts), this is what I was asked to type:

Jaundiced Flatland

I don’t know what it means, but it’s very “pop” Zen.  Deep, man … deep.

One of my lifters, Beth, tipped me off to this new development at USA Weightlifting:  A new hybrid USAW/CrossFit competition:

The event will join weightlifting – one of the oldest Olympic sports – with CrossFit – one of the most popular strength and conditioning programs in the nation that combines weightlifting, sprinting and gymnastics.

Yep, USA Weightlifting is finally thinking outside the box.  Now … it’s true that a lot of weightlifting coaches behind closed doors have a lot of negative things to say about CrossFit.  Some of these complaints are well founded, most are not.  But …

The REAL question is, “is this new move going to help USA Weightlifting – as a business – or is it just another bad business decision on their part?”

Here are the facts.  CrossFIt is THE most popular fitness system in the world that includes the Olympic lifts.  Period.

Most people (the general public) don’t even know that Olympic weightlifting exists as a sport – at all.  They think we oil ourselves up and pose in panties.

And the few who might not be that clueless, still think we’re Powerlifters who compete in the Bench.  We’re an extremely underground sport.  How is it that an obscure sport like Bobsledding has top of mind awareness (everyone knows what it is), but weightlifting – a sport anyone with a bar can do – doesn’t?

CrossFitters may be the only people on earth who actually know what it is that we do.  More over, they have respect for us, and actively seek us out to help them with their technique on the lifts.

I’ve had LOADS of local CrossFitters here in Portland come to me to improve their technique.  I currently have a few CrossFit practitioners on my competitive team.

USA Weightlifting embracing CrossFit is (in my opinion) a great move.  It may ruffle some feathers.  But, if USA Weightlifting doesn’t start making some changes – soon – there won’t be a USAW.

One might also ask, “who is going to go to this contest?”

I admit, my first response to seeing this new hybrid competition was, “No weightlifter is going to do that.”

Weightlifters don’t do reps.  And certainly not for time!

But, who cares?  We don’t need to have a new contest for people who are ALREADY members of USAW and compete regularly – we’ve already converted them!

We need something (a lot of something’s) to inspire new blood to give weightlifting – as a sport – a go.  This is a middle ground, opening a door, wetting an appetite.

CrossFit has a reach that USA Weightlifting can only dream about.  It has a cult following (that admittedly turns off many non-CrossFitters) that is easy to move en masse.  If you get loads of CrossFitters excited about lifting competitively, you have a whole new market of potential lifters who already know about the lifts and are excited about them.

We call those “highly qualified leads” in business.  USA Weightlifting is a business.  I’m glad to see a step in the direction of it being run like one.

Check out this ESPN article on the rise and the development of the Strength Coach’s role in sports.  Click here.

“It used to be that it almost was a boutique thing if you had a
strength coach, a luxury,” Kelly said. “It’s now become a leadership
position. The strength and conditioning coordinator is on parallel with
the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator.

This goes for Sports performance coaches, personal trainers, and anybody in the profession.  Even just 10 years ago, most people were relatively unaware of the level to which their performance would suffer if they didn’t have a rock-solid strength and conditioning program.  And consequently, there were few private sports performance coaches out there (like me). 

Now there is a real market of hungry athletes who know damned well that if they don’t get themselves under a bar with some weight on it, they’re at a far greater risk of injury, and they’ll never reach their full potential. 

The times they are a changin’ …

I love these old-school vids!

Check out this video of coach Tara slamming a sledgehammer.  Often you’ll see people doing these on a big tractor tire.  The tire gives you a bit of a bounce, which makes it easier on each rep to get it back into position..

She’s slamming it into a gravel pile, which means she has to drag it back up on every rep!  Cardio never felt so good!

These 105k (16 and a half stones, or 235ish pounds) lifters are some big boys.  As is usually the case, 105′s look the most like bodybuilders of any of the male weight classes. 

At my club we’ve yet to have a 105, but that’s about to change as Chris is moving up.  He’s already known as the big guy, so lord knows how massive he’s gonna look when he packs on another 20 pounds.

You think teaching American kids to read is hard?  Try learning to read Japanese.

Victor  finds out the Japanese government is proposing to add 196 characters to the already mandated 1,945 kanji already required to be considered “literate.”  Here’s his reaction:

Have you ever noticed how freakishly strong we all remember our fathers being?   Dads are the ones in the family who have to push-start the car, haul gravel, and open up a can of whoop-ass.  I even know guys who have stories of their dads lifting a cars engine block out with their bare hands – seriously! 

I’m sure some of it is just the perception of a kid, but the fact is, for a lot of us, our first introductions to what it meant to be big and strong were the examples set by our fathers.

This was certainly true for me. 

I grew up a tiny kid.  I was both short and skinny … very short, and very skinny.  My “little” brother is three years younger than I am, but the entire time we were growing up we were the exact same height.  I always looked like a girl who was three years younger than I was.  Not the poster-child for macho!

But, my Mom always told me that someday, if I was simply patient (and ate my broccoli), I would grow up to be just as big as my dad.

Hey, that sounded pretty good!  My dad is just under 6 feet tall, he’s athletic, strong – you know, all the stuff a hobbit-sized boy wants to be. 

Interestingly, like me, he wasn’t born with big muscles.  He was a naturally thin guy, but he lifted weights, went running, and built up his muscles the hard way.  By the time I was in high school he was getting pretty big. 

I remember in high school some friends and I were playing video games in the living room, and my dad was outside doing some gardening.  At some point one of my friends looked out the window and saw my dad tearing a tree out of the ground with his bare hands!

“Holy shit, your dad has big arms!” he said.  Seriously, veins popping out, muscles all over the place, tree branches cracklin’ … OK, memory is a tough thing.  Maybe it wasn’t a tree.  But, the dude looked huge and he was doing something I couldn’t have done.  I was impressed.

It’s now more than a few years later, and I’ve built up some big arms of my own.  I’m not a dad, I’ve never tried to pull a tree out of the ground,  but I have tried hard to build up that crazy “Dad strength” we all remember.

What is Dad strength anyway?

If I had to break it down, I’d say that Dad strength is the kind of strength that is highly functional, and is able to impress people when they least expect it.  This is the kind of strength you need to rip a tree out of the ground, move an engine block, or just open a sealed tight peanut butter jar for your lazy children.

You need total-body strength to lift very heavy stuff.  You need it to look pretty for the wife.  And, you also need to have the endurance to chase down those mangy kids when they’re trying to get out of a beatin’.

The TOP 5 Exercises for Dad Strength

Let’s get serious.  If you’re ever going to be big and strong, you’re going to have to work at it.

My brother and I, when we went camping, liked to find heavy logs and rocks to lift and throw around.  We used to fight for the front seat of the car by arm wrestling.  We’d have push up and sprinting contests.  In short (unlike the pesky kids of today), we actually played outside. 

It turns out that we were doing what we might term today as strongman training, without thinking about.  We’d go out and find random stuff to throw around and test ourselves on.  This is a great way to train for strength and power. 

Realistically, though, most gyms don’t come equipped with logs and rocks. (A shame, I tell ye!)  So, instead you can use the following five exercises to build up your own dad strength.

• Power Cleans.  If you are not an Olympic weightlifter, then do these from the hang position.  Cleans (of all kinds) will do wonders for building the kind of explosive power in your hips and legs required to kick the ass of an unruly kid.  (They are also unparalleled in their ability to bulk up the upper back muscles.)
• Front Squats.  As most of you know, I prefer front squats to back squats.  Front squats are not only safer, and easier to do correctly, but they more accurately mimic the movement you’re going to have to do when you lift that engine block out of the car!
• Deadlifts.  If you can’t lift heavy stuff off the ground, you ain’t much of a dad.  Guys should strive for a double bodyweight deadlift for 1 rep, and 20 reps with bodyweight.
• Push Press.  It’s like a press, but you cheat it up with your legs.  This means you can use A LOT of weight.  And you should.  Someday, that cute son of yours is gonna grow up into a pain-in-the-butt teenager and you’re gonna have to throw him out of the house … physically.  Holding heavy weights above your head is a must.
• Chin Ups.  In addition to making your arms look all pretty for the wife, chins will keep your shoulders healthy and your back strong.  I don’t care who you are, if you’re a man and you can’t do at least a few chin ups, we got problems.

There you have it, people.  For fathers day, get strong and make him proud.  And every time you feel like quitting, just remember those immortal words, “Don’t make me take this belt off, boy!”