“I thought I was going to die.”
Last Monday, I had an impromptu conversation about training with a friend from work. About 10 people were in the break room during lunch time, catching up after time off over the holidays, bantering about fun travel experiences, and belaboring the unceremonious end to the Eagles’ season the previous night. My buddy (I’ll call him L) was telling me how his wife got him a set of dumbbells and a bench for Christmas. It sounded like one of those benches that also has a preacher curl and leg curl attachment that go on one end. You know what I’m talking about. L told me that on Christmas day, he went on YouTube, found some exercises, and went down to his basement to get after it. And then…nothing. L hasn’t been back to the basement, or the weights, in nearly two weeks. He explained to me that his problem is not being able to stick with any kind of exercise/fitness/training routine. L will do something for a day or two, or even a week, on a good stretch, and then it falls by the wayside. L played soccer in college and has always considered himself an athlete, but he’s 45 now and admitted that once his college career ended, that was pretty much it for working out. L actually looks pretty good. He’s not carrying around much extra weight, and one could imagine (not that I try to imagine my co-workers naked) that he might have a decent build with his clothes off. But this conversation led me to conclude that underneath his business casual attire, L probably has the classic skinny-fat look. He told me how he was recently visiting a friend and got invited to play in an intramural soccer game. “I used to play 90 minutes, no problem. Bro, I was in the game for five minutes. Five minutes! And I had to come out. I thought I was going to die.” It turns out that doing minimal physical activity for 20 years had not kept L game-ready when it comes to soccer. Have you ever had this experience? Remembering how you used to perform at something or how something used to feel “back in the day,” only to revisit it years later and completely get your ass handed to you. I know I have had that happen to me. It’s certainly not fun, but it can serve as a good wake-up call to get back in the gym, on the field, and into the arena of life.
During our conversation, I told L about a book I’m currently reading, “The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40.” This book is published by The Aasgard Company, and, much like their other books, “Starting Strength” and “Practical Programming for Strength Training,” it leaves no stone unturned. The book is dense, detailed, thorough, and does not take for granted that the reader has any prior knowledge or expertise on the subject matter.
The reason I brought this book up in my conversation with L, is because the authors describe the fight to maintain strength and retard the aging process as an all-out death match. What a perfect description. I have heard many respected figures in the strength training world (Louie Simmons, Donnie Thompson, Mark Rippetoe, Dan John, Marty Gallagher, Mark Bell) talk about how important it is to be strong, how a person’s quality of life and independence as they age are directly related to one’s ability to maintain strength. When I pointed this out to L, he actually seemed quite surprised, like he had never considered this concept before. “That’s right,” he said. “When you look at people in nursing homes, they can’t move around or do things for themselves anymore.” L’s surprise surprised me (say that five times fast), because after spending so much time reading, listening, and researching about this topic, it now seems completely self-evident, if not totally obvious. The concept of being physically strong is so important that Mark Rippetoe opens “Starting Strength” by stating, “Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not.” This is why I’ve been encouraging my dad (unsuccessfully), to strength train for the past 15 years, and why it makes me sad to see so many people in the world not doing a damn thing to make, or even keep, their bodies strong. When I see people who are physically weak and don’t strength train, I actually feel bad for them. The concept of, “feeling strong,” is completely unknown to them They have no idea about the potential within themselves and the positive effect strength training has on one’s mind, body, spirit, and soul.
Physical strength training not only allows a person to maintain independence and have unfettered access to all kinds of enjoyable activities, but it also has a huge positive impact on mental health. I don’t have any studies to cite, and I’m far from a psychologist or neuroscience expert, but my personal experiences with myself and others who strength train leads me to believe that not only does maintaining strength allow for more independence, but doing something physically challenging on a daily basis teaches a person things about themselves and the world that he/she just cannot learn anywhere else. Lifting weights in an effort to get stronger takes discipline. No one can do it for you. It’s hard. You’re going to struggle. There is always a chance of failure. Setbacks and “start-overs” will happen. Other people are going to be better at it than you. All of this is exactly why it’s such a beautiful thing and such a perfect metaphor for life. If you' are an Average Joe or Jane, right in the meaty part of that bell curve (like George Costanza’s choice for the Susan Ross Scholarship), there is no free lunch when it comes to lifting. It’s hard, objective, and every day will be a gut check.
I just listened to one of Mark Rippetoe’s podcasts where he was talking about a heavy set of five squats. Sometimes the fourth rep feels heavy as hell and there is a thought in your head that if you go down with the fifth rep, you may not come back up with it. This effort, this forging on when a task is physically and mentally challenging and uncertain, is not something the average person gets to experience during a typical day. Sitting in a car on the drive to work, sitting at a desk all day, sitting in a car on the drive home from work, sitting on the couch watching TV before going to bed to start the cycle all over again. That’s it. There are many people in the world who have conditioned their bodies to be capable of handling those activities and nothing more. That is heartbreaking. Our bodies want to move, strain, and be strong. They want to be challenged and capable of adapting to changing environments and completing daily tasks. I am so grateful for the body I have and know there are many who would give anything to have the physical strength and mobility that I possess. Not taking care of what I have and enjoying all of the things my body lets me do would be a terrible waste of the undisputed best gift I have ever received.
As I write this post, I am 35 years old, and believe me, I know my day is coming. Maybe I’ll read this 40 years from now and laugh at what a dumbass I was to really belief all of this stuff. I am guaranteed to end up in the ground just like everybody else, and I may be in a nursing home for 15 years before that finally happens. But let me tell you this…I will fight tooth and nail to maintain strength every step of the way. I will do everything I can to stay strong, vital, healthy, and independent. When my day inevitably comes, I want the Grim Reaper to think to himself, “Jeez, this guy was a real pain in the ass. He just wouldn’t go quietly.”
Back to the Barbell
“I have found the iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go, but two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”
-Henry Rollins
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent 2019 really focusing on kettlebell training. My workouts primarily consisted of tons of kettlebell swings, presses, snatches, cleans, goblet and double front squats, get-ups, and loaded carries. Kettlebells are an amazing training tool that will be a cornerstone of my training for the rest of my life, but lately I’ve been falling in love with the barbell all over again. Just before the holidays, I was down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a couple weeks for work. I found a great gym downtown, SportsBarn, and got in some awesome training sessions. For the first time in a very long time, I trained squats, deadlifts, and overhead press with a barbell, and it felt great to get a barbell on my back and in my hands again. On the plane ride home from Chattanooga, I stumbled across a book on my Kindle that I had purchased a while back and then totally forgot about. The book, StrongFirst Reload, establishes a basic linear progression barbell program built around squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press. I got pretty fired up reading the book while stuffed into my window seat on a cramped plane, and I decided that it was time to get back to the barbell. I’m two weeks into the first eight-week cycle and I am having a blast. I know exactly where I stand in all of the lifts. There is no lying or fooling myself into thinking I could do a certain weight for so many reps. The barbell is completely objective. It doesn’t care about my feelings or if I had a good day or slept well the night before. The barbell is like an old reliable friend who always tells me the truth, whether I want to hear it or not. I’ve seen longer versions of the above Henry Rollins quote that say something about how the iron always dishes you the real deal. I could not agree more. During the first week of my cycle, the barbell really kicked my ass and made me feel like I had fallen really far behind. Now that I just finished my second week, everything is back to feeling as it should as my coordination and familiarity with the bar have come roaring back. I’m not moving any kind of impressive weights, but I’m feeling barbell strong again.
I was listening to one of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength Radio podcasts recently, and he was talking about how he has always put his disappointments, failures, and other emotions into the barbell. During some very challenging times in my life, I have always been able to find solace in the gym. When I left my family and familiar small town in Michigan to start my first teaching job in Phoenix, one of the first things I did when I got to town was find a gym. This was an anxious time in my life, as it is for most people when they finally enter the real world. It was a new city that was literally 850 times bigger than my hometown and completely foreign to me. Hell, Phoenix has more than one stoplight, so that alone was an adjustment. Training was always there for me, and no matter how nervous or homesick or broke I was, I could go lift weights and feel better about my spot in life.
Cali and I just signed up for a push-pull meet on February 8. It’s a fundraiser for a charitable cause, and not sanctioned by any federation or anything like that, but I’m sure it will be fun to step on the platform a few times to see what I can do. This will also be my first ever meet that is not a full power meet. It’ll be weird to start benching without squatting first.
You know you have a gym dog when he follows you downstairs at 4:50 AM and snuggles up next to a collar on the floor just so he can keep you company.
2019 Reflection and a Happy New Year!
New Year’s Eve 2019 was much like all of 2019, fucking awesome. To celebrate the closing of 2019, I grilled some steaks, had two drinks (vodka, club soda, and lime), and went to bed at 8 PM. In other words, a damn near perfect night.
A few days ago, Cali and I were reflecting on 2019, and we both decided that it was a really great year in many different ways. Some of my 2019 highlights are listed below, in no particular order.
In November of 2018, pretty much on a total whim, Cali and I took Phil Scarito’s one-day kettlebell course at his gym in King of Prussia, PA. During this course, Phil mentioned that there was a StrongFirst Level 1 (SFG 1) certification happening locally in June of 2019, but Cali and I doubted we could both gain the strength and skills needed to pass that cert. After some debate and gut-checking each other, we took the leap and signed up for the certification. We committed to training with Phil once per month leading up to the cert, and it was one of the best decisions we have ever made. Cali and I were both very focused on the certification, and we learned how fun, challenging, and humbling kettlebells can be when applied correctly. When I started kettlebell training, I was determined to keep my barbell training at the center of my fitness, but after a few weeks of completely burying myself trying to do it all, I pretty much dropped all barbell training in 2019 as my attention and energy went into learning new kettlebell skills. This was a scary leap for me since I am a firm believer that the barbell is king, but the results were phenomenal. Cali and I both passed the cert, got stronger and leaner, and met some incredible people and friends. We have gotten to know Phil and his wonderful wife, Pam, over the last few months, and I met a friend named Bill who lives in my town and comes over to train a few times a week.
Cali, Phil, and me after the SFG I weekend.
At work, I got a temporary promotion during the first quarter of 2019, and then I moved into a new position in April. I really enjoy what I’m doing now and my new work group is great. It’s been a nice change of pace from what I had been doing for a few years. I also got to travel a bit for work, help out where I could, and get two weeks of training in beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Hiking at Cloudland Canyon State Park, just down the road from Chattanooga.
Cali and I both got to travel this year to see family, and making this effort has felt more important as the years have gone on. I went back to Michigan in March for my grandmother’s 95th birthday party, and I got to see some extended family that I hadn’t seen in five years or so. Cali and I both went to Ann Arbor in May to see her brother Broc and his now-fiancee, Lauren, and to see Cali’s parents and other brother, Nash, and his family in Arkansas in September. Cali also spent a week at her grandparents’ house in Arizona in mid-November, and my parents came out to visit us in PA just before Thanksgiving. Finally, Broc and Lauren came for Thanksgiving again this year. I’m grateful for all of the family time and for those who were willing to travel to make it happen.
All the grandkids with my Grandma Lenore, the sweetest woman ever.
I finished a masters degree in cybersecurity at Penn State. This was the culmination of three years of consistent work, and I’m proud of the fact I stuck with it and got it done. I didn’t walk at graduation, but the veteran student office unexpectedly sent me these cool red, white, and blue, graduation cords.
Thanks to the discovery of mace training, my jacked up shoulder is much improved. I fell on my shoulder in June 2018, and it felt like crap for a long time. Desperate for anything that might help, I bought a ShouldeRok from Kabuki Strength and took a mace workshop in Patterson, New Jersey, taught by Kelly Manzone. This was a total game-changer for me. My shoulder mobility has drastically improved, and I plan on playing with maces for the rest of my life. When I first bought the ShouldeRok, I had no idea how to use it and was trying to convince myself that I hadn’t just wasted $200+. After this four-hour workshop, my technique and perspective with maces had completely changed and things will never be the same.
One of the great lessons I learned in 2019 was that paying for quality coaching can make a huge difference and be well worth the expense. This was proven time and again as I trained kettlebells with Phil, learned a ton at my mace workshop, and attended a one-day squat and deadlift clinic taught by strength legends Marty Gallagher, Kirk Karwoski, and Jim Steel. I am already signed up for a Starting Strength seminar in March of 2020, and I could not be more excited.
I finished 37 books in 2019, including fiction, non-fiction, history, politics, biographies, training, horror, and comedy. Reading adds so much to my life, and I cannot wait to see what kind of books will capture my attention in 2020.
I walked countless miles with my black lab, Zeus. Unfortunately, Zeus’s hips have been bothering him lately and he hasn’t been able to go on walks for the last few weeks. He’s eight years old now, and it breaks my heart to see him slowing down. Zeus is still the sweetest pup I’ve ever encountered, and I will do whatever I can for him in 2020.
Zeus living his best life.
In my opinion, New Year’s resolutions are kind of cookie cutter, but there definitely is something about the start of a new year that can help re-focus some things that I’ve been meaning to work on for a while. I have three things I want to do in 2020:
Drink a little less. Not that I have a huge drinking problem or anything, but in 2019, I definitely got in the habit of easily justifying when I should drink alcohol for no real good reason. Oh, it’s Thursday and we’re having Mexican food? Sure I’ll drink some tequila. Just little stuff like that crept in throughout the summer months. I finally locked it up and did Sober October and it really reset my taste and apparent need for alcohol. In 2020, I want to limit myself to four drinks per week or less. I’m also going to take a month off two separate times throughout the year. I haven’t decided exactly when, but I’ll make it happen.
Pick up some trash. I walk around my neighborhood a lot with my black lab, Zeus. In 2020, I’m going to make it a habit to pick up a piece of trash every time I go out. In the past, I’ve picked up trash when out walking, but definitely not as much as I should. This is a great neighborhood and I want to be a positive factor in helping it stay great.
Post 30 blogs. I have a goal of posting at least 30 blogs in 2020. This comes out to a little better than one every two weeks, which I believe is a very manageable goal that will keep me disciplined and on track. So far, I’ve been having more fun doing these blogs than I originally thought I would, and I have many more ideas for future posts. I don’t know if anyone gives a crap, but it’s fun for me.
It’s very possible that 2020 could be an exciting year with some big changes. Cali and I are hoping that this will be our last winter in Pennsylvania. I have a few job prospects out in the southwest so we’ll see how things go on that front. PA has been good to us, but we don’t have any family out here and we’re not crazy about the Philly area in general. It’s just a different pace of life than we’re looking for at this point. I’d love to live out under the sunny and wide open desert sky. The long-term goal in life is to have enough land that I can shoot guns, have bonfires, and pee in my backyard without anyone being able to complain.
Edit: Change that. It looks like Cali and I will be staying in PA for a while. We just need to remember that life is good.
Cali training and looking sexy in Arkansas.
Pneumonia and 5/3/1
In the late fall/early winter of 2009, I attracted a case of viral pneumonia. I was teaching high school in Arizona at the time so I was around kids who were constantly sick and spreading germs everywhere. This bout with pneumonia was the sickest I’ve ever been and the worst I’ve ever felt. Now, I try to keep that in perspective and this is not a woe-is-me post. Many people endure things a thousand times worse than what I did with pneumonia. My buddy Igor survived 10 weeks of chemo a few years back after almost dying from cancer, so I’m sure he wouldn’t feel bad about my little virus. I only mention the pneumonia because of the weakened state it put me in and how this illness led to my discovery of powerlifting.
Looking back, I’m convinced that a major contributing factor to my illness was being in a constantly overtrained state. Now, I know the term overtrain and its derivatives are thrown around a lot in the fitness world, but I don’t have a better term for what I experienced. When I was teaching high school, I had no money, but I could still afford a gym membership, a pair of running shoes, and some racquetball gear. My life before first period and after the final bell revolved around training. I was steadfastly loyal to my bro split and knew if I didn’t lift six days per week I would shrivel up and die. Aside from lifting, I would run in the 100+ F Arizona heat and play racquetball competitively for two to three hours per day. On top of all of this, my diet was horrible. Don’t get me wrong, I ate relatively healthy food, but I just ate way too little of it. Seeing my dad put on weight over the years made me really paranoid about my own body weight, and I was proud of my skinny 6’7” 185 pound frame. This hard training and lack of nutrition compounded over the course of a year and a half until one day, just after Thanksgiving 2009, I started to feel really sick and run down. After about a week, my girlfriend (and future wife Cali) took me to urgent care. An x-ray showed I had fluid in my lungs. They prescribed me some antibiotics but because my pneumonia was viral, they didn’t help in any way. I later asked the doctor how they know if a case of pneumonia is viral or bacterial and he said, “We don’t, but if it’s bacterial, and we don’t give you some meds, you may die.” Again, I’m not trying to be dramatic here, just telling what happened.
Now, I had plane tickets to fly back to Michigan to spend Christmas with my family, but as the holidays approached, I still felt awful and leaving the Arizona sunshine for the brutal Upper Peninsula of Michigan winter weather did not sound appealing. I was thinking of skipping the trip and just eating the cost of the plane ticket, but I eventually decided to go. I spent Christmas day alternating between sitting in a chair in my parents’ sun room and the bed in my old bedroom. My nose was so stuffed up I could barely breathe and I hadn’t trained or exercised in over a month. Mentally and physically drained, I’ll admit I was feeling sorry for myself. I felt like a complete waste of space that was never going to feel strong again. Ironically, I had purchased “The Stand” by Stephen King for the trip. Not to give too much away, but that book is about a virus that spreads and does some serious damage to the human race.
The day after Christmas, one of my friends who was also home for the holidays texted me to let me know a bunch of guys were going over to the high school to lift. Even though I felt like crap, I figured it’d be fun to see the old weight room and hang out with my friends. Two of my buddies, Tony and Andy, were squatting while my pal Hammer was doing a bunch of upper-body dumbbell work. I think I tried to jump a little rope to warm up, but it didn’t go well as I was quickly gasping for air. What a turd. During the general banter and conversation with my friends, Andy made a comment that he likely does not even remember making as he was just running his mouth and goofing around, but it provided a much-needed kick in the ass for me. I distinctly remember Andy saying, “You’re not a real lifter if you don’t deadlift.” Oof! I considered myself a pretty dedicated gym rat, but that statement hit me like a ton of bricks. The number of times I had done straight-bar deadlifts in my life at that point in time, at 22 years of age, was exactly zero. Sure, we had used the trap bar as part of our school’s Bigger, Faster, Stronger program in high school, but it wasn’t something we ever pushed super hard. Now, here I was not even able to jump some rope and I started thinking about what would happen if I added deadlifts into my training program.
A few days later on that same visit to Michigan, I plopped into a chair in my parents’ sun room and busted out my laptop to surf the internet for a bit. I don’t remember exactly how I came across EliteFTS (it may have been linked in an article on T-Nation), but the discovery of Dave Tate’s website and the incredible amount of quality and free content was about to change my life forever. I stumbled across this e-book by a guy named Jim Wendler called 5/3/1: The Simplest and Most Effective Training System for Raw Strength. Reading a description of the book clued me in that this style of training was going to be completely different than the same old bodypart split from Muscle and Fitness that I’d been religiously following for years with minimal results. Rather than revolving around body parts, Wendler’s program is based around movements, namely the squat, bench, deadlift, and press. As I embarrassingly mentioned in a previous post, at this point in my life I had convinced myself that squatting was not a good idea for me. Pair that with having never done deadlifts or standing overhead presses with a straight barbell and this program was sure to be something entirely shocking for my body.
The first time I deadlifted was in a corner of the LA Fitness on Dysart Road in Avondale, Arizona, a western suburb of Phoenix. I loaded up the bar with 135 and started pulling as best I could. Admittedly, my first set of five reps was hard as heck. I felt like a baby giraffe who is trying to learn how to stand up without falling over. Sure, I was in shape for running and racquetball, but this was an entirely different animal. I worked up to a whopping 185 on deadlifts that first day. At the time, I was pretty down on myself, thinking what an embarrassing weight that was for a healthy 25-year old male. It took me a while to appreciate the fact that I had turned a corner on my path for strength, and things would never be the same. I had swallowed my pride and taken the first small step toward a total physical and psychological change for the better. The 5/3/1 program was exactly what I needed at this point in my training. It was simple and effective, just as advertised. I recorded all of my training in a composition book, setting new PRs almost every workout and really having fun lifting. One thing I noticed is that I was now training differently than pretty much everyone else in the gym. Sure, I’d see someone squatting or deadlifting here and there, but that was few and far between, even at a busy commercial gym next to a major U.S. city like Phoenix. I was no longer going into the gym and spending an hour doing seven different single joint exercises that didn’t add up to jack. For the first time in my life, it felt like my entire body was working as a complete system. I diligently kept at the 5/3/1 program for months, and my reward was newfound physical strength and confidence. It was also my first step in gaining some ability to sift through fitness industry bullshit that is so pervasive in magazines, advertising, and mainstream media.
Over the past decade, I have tried a number of different strength training programs, but 5/3/1 always has a special place in my heart because it got me started on the right path. If I am ever confused, in need of a reset, or just want to run a program where I don’t have to think too much, I always go back to 5/3/1. It always works for me and it’s always fun.
Beautiful Moments - Part 1
Friday was my last day in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after being down there for two weeks taking a required training course for work. Chattanooga is an incredibly fun and vibrant city, so I always try to take advantage of all it has to offer when I get to go down there for work. This two weeks was full of training, climbing, hiking, eating good food, and even having a drink or two.
For a period of several years, my training was completely focused on powerlifting and devoid of any movements that required me to move fast or be explosive. In the past year and a half, I’ve been adding more of these movements back into my training, and the results have been remarkable in how I look and feel. My body feels like it’s reverse aging or something, as my flexibility and ease of doing basic tasks like getting up and down off the floor and sitting in varying positions has drastically improved. Some of my favorite exercises in this explosive movement realm are kettlebell swings, kettlebell snatches, box jumps, sprints, medicine ball throws, and intervals on the fan bike. I am planning to eventually start mixing barbell power cleans into my training, but I have some wrist flexibility and front squat goals that I want to reach before doing so. Sprinting has really been on my mind lately after listening to the RAW with Marty Gallagher podcast and hearing Marty talk about the book “Speed Trap” by Charlie Francis. I picked up a copy and found it to be a very entertaining book that is both historical and autobiographical with respect to the author. The rise and fall of sprinter Ben Johnson is covered in intimate detail in storybook fashion, and the reader gets a portrait of Johnson and his rival, American Carl Lewis.
My beautiful moment came on Friday morning right on the shore of the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga. I rolled out of bed at 3:50 AM, put on some sweats to protect me from the 25 F temperature, and headed out the front door of my hotel to make the short trek down to the river. When I finally got down to the river, I found an absolutely perfect slope for running sprints that was straight and covered a total length of about 80 yards. I started out jogging 40-50 yards, slowly ramping up the pace and distance with each rep. By the end of the workout, I was running full out, not looking like Ben Johnson by an stretch, but still giving it everything I had. I have no idea how many sprints I ran nor my total time and/or distance. I was lost in the moment as I stood there under the dark sky with the stars and sliver moon shining, my body heaving up and down as I gasped for air and tried to keep my legs from shaking. In this moment, I felt an overwhelming gratefulness for my health, my job, my wife, and my spot in this world. It made me want to be better, do better, and treat other people with more love and kindness. Looking up and downstream of the river, the two vehicle bridges had an odd car going over now and then. The pedestrian bridge a little further upstream had snowflake Christmas lights on the side that blinked intermittently. Across the street towards downtown stood the beautiful aquarium and the brightly lit city Christmas tree. The one thing I didn’t see was other people, like this moment was for me and I wasn’t supposed to share it with anyone.
When I’m getting towards the end of my life, I hope I can look back on beautiful moments like this and be certain that I recognized them at the time and savored each breath. Lifting weights and training have provided me with countless beautiful moments over the years, and I have no doubt they will continue to do so for years to come. In fact, if this stops happening, feel free to put me out to pasture because if I can’t find a way to train, I don’t know if I want to stick around. I know that probably sounds morbid, but I really believe it’s the truth for me.
Did you have a beautiful moment today? Or this week? Or even this year? I’d love to hear about a time where you looked around and just savored the moment for you, not for Instagram or Facebook or some other social media. Just a moment for you, that made you smile a bit and goosebumps form on your skin. Thanks for reading.
I left this in Room 306 at the Residence Inn in downtown in Chattanooga. Hopefully someone gets a chance to finish this bottle for me.
The PEIF
During my undergraduate college years, I spent the summers training at Bianco’s Fitness Center back home and the school year training at the PEIF. The PEIF was Northern Michigan University’s student gym, the Physical Education Instructional Facility. Basically, the PEIF was awesome, and my day was not complete until I got over there at least once, but more often than not I started and ended my day at the PEIF. The PEIF was set up with an upstairs balcony area full of cardio equipment. One side of the cardio area looked into the Olympic-sized pool and diving boards, while the other side looked out over a well-equipped weight room, two basketball courts, and an indoor rock climbing wall. There were racquetball courts down a separate hallway that led to the volleyball team’s modest arena. There was another enclosed hallway that led to the Superior Dome where the football team played. There was open access to the Dome at just about any time of day, and on cold winter mornings I used to go run laps on the concourse that looped around the football field. These facilities were all right on the shore of Lake Superior, so there were a lot of cold winter mornings. I wish I had logged how many hours I spent at the PEIF during my four and a half years in Marquette, because I took full advantage of everything they had to offer. The weight room was pretty solid and featured a few really beefy squat racks, more dumbbells than I ever needed, and a bunch of really good plate-loaded machines.
Big John was my randomly assigned roommate my freshman year at NMU. It turns out, Big John was the Michigan high school superheavyweight powerlifting champion his senior year. At 18, Big John was about 6’1” and weighed 330. He was a certified brick shithouse. Big John had an ass the size of a mid-sized automobile, walked in a way that you could tell his hips and legs were powerful as hell, and sported an upper back and traps that told everyone he was strong. One time, Big John and I were walking across the dorm parking lot on a cold snowy night. This girl was having trouble getting her car out of the spot because of the slippery surface and some asshole kind of blocking her in by parking next to her all crooked. Big John simply walked to the back of this girl’s car, squatted down to secure his arms under the rear end, and lifted the car while walking sideways a few steps until the car had plenty of space to back out of the spot. I just kind of stood there like an idiot wondering what I had just seen. I remember the first time I went to the PEIF with Big John. We were going to do some squats, and Big John had brought an old belt and some of those loose white-with-red-line knee wraps. I think I got up to 225 that night, but Big John just kept stacking on plates. By the time 495 was on the bar, Big John was sitting on a nearby bench wrapping his knees and whispering to himself. This was way different than anything I had seen at my high school, so I was really paying attention. Big John got up to the bar, aggressively got it set on his back, walked it back, and nailed what looked like an easy set of five. He racked the bar and turned right back into his friendly self. It was a sight to behold. I always knew that during sports, my adrenaline would get going and I could be pretty fearless, but for some reason, it had never occurred to me that someone could be that way in the weight room too. Lessons were learned that day. Big John was the teacher, and I was the (kindergarten) student. Big John and I used to call going to lift, “Pick it up. Put it down.” At the end of the day, that’s all it is, but isn’t doing that repeatedly the best damn thing a person could for him or herself? If you don’t believe me, give it a try. Stick with it long enough to feel yourself get stronger, even just a hair. I promise you will be hooked.
My buddy Igor and I used to go over there in the morning before classes started. We’d get up around 6:00 AM, trudge out to one of our vehicles, scrape off the inevitable snow and ice from the windows and doors, and drive to the PEIF. On the way over there we’d blast music in the car to get excited for the coming workout. We entertained ourselves by singing along to “Air Force Ones” by Nelly and “‘Til I Collapse” by Eminem. Of course, I always had to fast forward through the first 30 seconds of “‘Til I Collapse” while explaining to Igor that there was too much fucking around at the beginning of the song. Most mornings I would have the hood up on my sweatshirt with a tuft of curly hair sticking out the front. Igor called this my bonnet and would sit in the passenger seat of my Blazer giggling the whole way. Once we got to the PEIF, we would pull our jackets and sweatpants off and leave them against a wall that ran along the weight room. They had locker rooms, but pretty much everyone just left their stuff in piles along the wall. One time Igor pulled his sweatpants off and it took him a good 10 seconds and getting one shoe back on to realize he had forgotten to put his gym shorts on and was standing out in the open in his underwear. Finally he looked down and said, “Mark, what am I doing?” and quickly slipped back into his sweatpants.
Igor and I didn’t really train together when we were at the PEIF. He would kind of go do his own thing and I would be focused on my body part split. I hate to admit that at this point in my life, I wasn’t squatting or deadlifting at all. Sure I always, “Did legs,” but after a knee surgery in high school and some tendinitis over the summer caused by walking 10+ miles a day at my job, I had convinced myself that squatting wasn’t a great idea. It took me years to realize the error of my ways, but I’ll get to that another time. I worked hard at what I was doing, and the PEIF was a great playground for training. I would hit every body part from every angle I could think of while trying to apply stuff I had read in Muscle and Fitness and other bodybuilding magazines. The squat racks were nice and tall, and I could comfortably do pull-ups even at 6’7”. There were a couple really jacked guys that would train in there. Francois was this black dude who was working on his masters degree in English. He had a really classic bodybuilding physique with a nice v-taper and thick muscle bellies. In my mind, I was doing all the same exercises that Francois was doing, but at 185 pounds, I damn sure didn’t look like Francois.
This one night, a couple years later, a bunch of friends were hanging out in the dorm room Igor and I occupied at the end of the hallway., and these two girls who lived down the hall said they wanted to come to the PEIF with us the next morning. Igor and I were trying to be nice so we said that was fine, but that we were leaving from our room at 6:00 AM. Well, 6:00 AM came the next morning and the girls were nowhere to be found. Now, Igor is a much nicer guy than me, and I wasn’t having this late stuff, so I insisted we leave without them, and we did. The girls came walking into the PEIF at about 6:30 AM giving Igor and me death stares. I told them they were late so we left, but they were pissed. Later that night, I saw them walking down our dorm hallway, and I told them I needed to talk to them. I explained to them that going to the PEIF early in the morning was my time. It was a sacred part of my day when I could quit stressing about school and the other crap I always worried about and just be alone with my thoughts and the process of making my body stronger. Everything melted away when I was in the weight room, struggling to lift a weight and occasionally achieving lifts I had never before managed. Physics exam? Paper coming due? Lesson planning for a math class when I was student teaching? It all melted away when I was in the weight room. Fifteen plus years later and the weight room still has the same effect on me. It is my sanctuary, my temple, and my favorite place in the world. I have found it is impossible to worry about some mundane life event when I have a bar on my back and am fighting through a set of squats. I don’t want to be distracted when I’m in the weight room. I don’t need my phone or someone chatting about silly, everyday bullshit. I just want to get after it for a while and not have to pretend to care about whatever the hell someone is trying to tell me.
Mornings at the PEIF were for lifting, but I often went back in the afternoon/evening to play pick-up basketball. One of my favorite movies growing up was “White Men Can’t Jump.” I loved how in that movie these guys had courts where they could just show up and find a big group of guys with whom they could play ball and compete against. Well, the PEIF was sort of my version of that, except rather than being on a sunny court overlooking the beach in Venice, California, it was in a student gym in the frozen tundra of Marquette, Michigan. Fortunately, the banter and ball busting was top notch and on par with the movie, and everyone had a nickname…Dell, Skeeter, In His Face, Don, KMart, Twiz, Red, Loonsfoot, Hood Rich (not to be confused with Big and Rich), Big Larry, Little Larry, Finn Power, and many more.
There was this half wall that ran along one side of the court where everyone sat while waiting for their turn to play. Somehow, strict rules got established about the winning team staying on the court, calling next, getting your team of five together, calling fouls, and keeping score. There was always an argument, always two people about to fight, and it was never boring. One time this guy got kicked out because he took the ball and punted it into the balcony cardio area and hit some woman running on a treadmill. Later that night, the same guy got arrested for accidentally punching a cop in a melee outside of a bar in downtown Marquette. I’d say he had a pretty solid day. I ended up playing intramural flag football and basketball with some of the guys I met at the PEIF. It could be a real shitshow, but we always had fun. The below picture is my flag football team, The Knockout Kings, from my second or third year at NMU. If you’re wondering why there are belts in the picture, it’s because NMU is an official Olympic training facility, and several boxers lived and trained on campus. After winning the flag football league, they busted out their belts for the team photo. My friend Mike insisted that this picture was photo-shopped because I look sort of out of place standing there in the background. The term, “One is not like the others,” comes to mind. But those guys were a great group and we had a blast.
I also played a ton of racquetball at the PEIF. I got into racquetball when I was home for the summer after my first year of college. My buddy Hammer introduced me to it and I got hooked immediately. In my second year at NMU, I had a racquetball class for a PE credit. It turns out one of the assistant hockey coaches was the instructor and the rest of the class was made up of hockey players. NMU is a small school, but plays Division I hockey. These guys were really good athletes and pretty hilarious to be around. I played the instructor several times and he destroyed me. I stuck with it and got much better over the years, but I never got to play him again once I got mildly competent at the sport.
The PEIF will always have a special place in my heart because I spent so much time there during my formative college years. I made some great friends and had a community of people that I met when I moved away from home for the first time. Naturally, I was closer with some than others, but we all knew each other and had each other’s back in a lot of different situations over the years. Seven years after joining the PEIF for the first time my freshman year, I was wearing the free t-shirt I got when I asked my wife out for the first time. Maybe that shirt gave me the confidence to take a leap that day many years later. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve been back to Marquette and even longer since I’ve been to the PEIF. Maybe I’ll get back there for a lift one of these summers. I’m damn sure not going back there in the winter.
Training Partners - Hammer Time
I’ve had a number of training partners over the years, so it seems fitting that I would dedicate a blog post here and there to talk about them individually. My original training partner was my buddy, Hammer, the same kid I mentioned in my first and second posts. I have two older sisters but always wanted a brother. Hammer was as close to a brother as I could get, and for that I consider myself a very lucky guy. I could write volumes about all of the hilarious memories Hammer and I have shared, but for this I’m going to try to stick mostly to our experiences training together.
When we were kids in the mid-90s, much like my own father, Hammer’s dad, Mike, always had weights in the basement. Nothing major, just some dumbbells and an EZ-curl bar with some plates, but that was enough to make us curious and at least pick them up to get a good pump on occasion. Mike also kept bodybuilding magazines around. Here in 2019, I have heard people argue that fitness magazines featuring cover models with perfect muscles and six-pack abs are bad because they make normal people standing in line at the grocery store feel bad about their own physiques, but I never saw it that way. Those jacked cover models just made my awkward, adolescent self want to lift and train and figure out how to get big and strong. For me, it was nothing but positive energy and a desire to improve.
Hammer and I both learned lifting from Mr. Madigan, a teacher/coach at our school, at the end of our 8th grade year, but we had a few other weight room mentors along the way. This local businessman, Donny, used to open the weight room in the morning. I have no idea why he had a key to the high school weight room, but as I’ve been thinking back on all of these experiences, a lot of random people with no affiliation with the school had keys to the high school weight room. I had heard that Hammer and our other buddy, Grant, were meeting Donny at the weight room in the mornings before school, and I knew I was falling behind, so I showed up one morning. Donny had me do as many reps as I could on power cleans (a lift I for sure couldn’t even do correctly at the time) with 115 pounds. After about twenty-something reps, I felt like I was going to die and was basically worthless the rest of the workout. It was embarrassing, and I felt like a turd. I never really got a good feel for what I was supposed to be doing on Donny’s program. That was my inexperience, not any fault of Donny’s. His program was working great for Grant and Hammer, but I had roamed into the gym totally unprepared and did something really stupid. It’s worth mentioning that one morning, Grant showed up late. Hammer and I were already squatting when Grant walked in wearing a hoodie with the hood up, a pair of shorts, and Nike slide sandals with no socks. Grant walked over to the corner squat rack, loaded up 405, and squatted it for a casual double like it was no big deal. We were about 14 at the time and I was amazed. Grant was always solid and strong, like he was made out of granite or something. Looking back, I definitely wish I had continued training with Donny, but I didn’t have the knowledge or sense to intelligently think about programming and suggest that maybe I shouldn’t do something like an AMRAP power clean.
After reading one of my earlier blog posts, Hammer asked if I remembered when we used to train with Joe. As usual, Hammer’s memory was way better than mine here, but once he started reminding me of Joe, it started to come back. Joe was a good guy, the dad of a kid in our school who was about five years older than us. Again, I don’t know why Joe had a key to the high school weight room, but when he offered to have us come train with him, we jumped at the chance. His program was very basic, which was good. I remember doing lots of incline bench presses and squats. Joe was a short, powerful guy who was meticulous about the way he spoke and communicated. He was good to our little group of friends. Well, like all good things, this had to come to an end. We showed up to train with Joe one day, and he wasn’t there. Joe was super reliable and had never stood us up before. We all went home bummed that we couldn’t train that day. About a week later, we found out that Joe had been absent because of a recent DUI. We never heard from Joe again, and that was that.
Here’s some small-town, obsessed with high school football shit. Hammer and I did everything together, including working the same minimum wage jobs from the time we both had paper routes in 6th grade until we were in our early 20s. All through high school, we worked as stock boys at the local IGA grocery store. Our summer lifting program at the school was held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays over at the school, the same days large delivery trucks brought shipments to the IGA at 7:00 in the morning. Hammer and I didn’t want to miss lifting, so we worked it out with our boss, Dave, that we could help unload trucks and stock shelves from 7-9, go lift from 9-11, and then go back to work to finish our shift from 11-4. In retrospect, it was really cool of Dave to let us leave work in the middle of a shift like that. Mid-morning was always a busy time for the store, but Dave knew lifting was important to us and our performance on the football field come fall. I like to think Dave felt vindicated for his decision to be lenient with us, because I remember him literally dancing in the street after we beat our rivals during the high school football playoffs.
When Hammer and I used to go train at the high school, we would always lift together. Starting out, neither one of us knew what we were doing, but we had all the desire in the world. We followed our Bigger, Faster, Stronger template on the main lifts (squats, benches, cleans, trap bar deadlifts), then worked on lat pulldowns, dumbbell incline bench, curls, and abs. As we both grew up, Hammer started to get noticeably stronger than me at bench and pretty much any upper body movement. He was putting on muscle while I couldn’t gain weight to save my life. Of course, I now know that my diet was trash and totally insufficient for my goals of getting bigger and stronger, especially when combined with a teenager’s metabolism and at least two hours of some kind of sport practice every day. As freshmen, Hammer and I would watch the upperclassmen lift. I remember several of them squatting 405, at least one kid cleaning (read: reverse curl jumping) 275, and this one guy doing chins first to the front and then to the back, one after another. In my eyes, these guys, and eat least two girls who could for sure out-lift me, were like superheroes. They seemed so old, mature, and strong. Of course that’s funny to think about now in my mid-30s, but as a kid in 1998 with no internet or perspective on the world, it was absolutely true. Mr. Madigan oversaw this whole scene, walking around the room with a weight belt on yelling, “NEW RECCCOOORRRRRRRRRRD!” when someone was going for a personal best. The one CD we had in the old boombox in the corner was AC/DC Live. Everyone in the weight room knew that song number six on that CD was “The Jack.” because Mr. Madigan would play it on a loop and randomly go up to people and say, “Hey, hey, hey…she’s got the jack.” Sometimes Mr. Madigan could be found on this old stair stepper, and one time he looked down at Hammer and me and, in perfect tune with the song on the radio, said, “How bizarre?” It was so weird and funny that Hammer and I still laugh about it to this day.
Once Hammer and I got out of high school in 2002 and didn’t have to dedicate so much time and energy to organized sports, we both really got into lifting. The summer after high school graduation, we worked on the school custodial staff with a few other friends, Adam and Jake. Our football line coach, Chuck, was our boss, and we absolutely loved that guy. Chuck was a big strong dude who had spent five years as a guard in the NFL. The first time I ever met Chuck, I walked into the weight room and there was this guy on one of the benches repping 365 like it was an empty bar. Chuck stood up and I couldn’t believe how powerful he looked with jacked traps and a huge chest. Chuck turned out to be the nicest, coolest guy, but he could also be scary as shit when he would get pissed during practice and games. We’d be sitting there on a Sunday night watching film and he’d be yelling, “Look at yourselves o-line. I am getting physically sick to my stomach watching this.” When we worked for him at school that summer, he would occasionally give us money to get get Gatorade or take advantage of Big ‘n Tasty Tuesdays at McDonald’s. One time, there was a section of sidewalk that we needed to demolish with sledgehammers because it was going to be replaced. Hammer, Adam, and I worked on it for a little bit, but we were, let’s say, less than effective. Chuck rolled up to the job site, got out of his truck, took the sledgehammer, and, with about three swings, had chunks of concrete laying all over the place. My friends and I had all gotten thoroughly owned by Chuck’s grown man strength.
Now, even though Hammer and I worked for the school, that didn’t mean we had a key to the building or the weight room, so we had to be creative because we were desperate to lift. We grew up in the middle of nowhere and there were exactly zero gyms in our little town, so the high school weight room was like an oasis in the freaking desert. Before leaving the school for the day, we would find a way to prop open a door so we could go home, change, and then go back to school to sneak in and lift. One time we were in the weight room training and Chuck came back to get something he had forgotten. We were all kind of shitting our pants when he walked in, but he was cool about it and never really brought it up. In retrospect, we put him in a bad situation, but we just weren’t thinking that way at the time.
Hammer and I went to different colleges, but we were always home together on holidays and summer breaks. We both continued lifting during the school year, and then we’d spend the summers together, working on the grounds crew at a nearby golf course and training at Bianco’s Fitness Center in the next town over. This is where I really started to realize how desperately I needed lifting in my life. My day just was not complete until I got in a good lift. Sure, I loved lifting in high school, but I only did it consistently for about two and a half months over the summer. The rest of the year was jammed with football, basketball, track, and baseball seasons. I’m sure I could have found a way to lift in the mornings or something, but it was all I could do to survive all of the different practices without adding more on top of it. Maybe that’s just an excuse and the real reason is I wasn’t disciplined enough and had my head too far up my ass to figure it out. Our coaches never let us lift during the season. The first week of football practice our senior year, our coaches said we were going to lift twice per week all season long. The first Tuesday, we cut practice short and went in the weight room to lift. My friends and I were all excited because we loved lifting and knew our rivals lifted in-season and were stronger for it. Well, that Tuesday was the only time all season we stepped foot in the weight room. I guess our coaches figured doing endless nutcracker and Oklahoma drills was more productive than getting stronger.
Anyways, Hammer and I would carpool to work at the golf course. I’d pick him up at 4:30 AM so we could be up to the shop by 5, loading up our greens mowers and getting on the course to trim things up before the players arrived. Hammer and I proudly walk-mowed six to seven greens each and then about six tee boxes. The rest of the day was spent walking the course with a weed whacker (or string trimmer as our boss, Rich, liked to call them) or push mower, cleaning up any trees and rough areas that were too rocky or full of tree roots for the riding mowers. It’s safe to say this all added up to about 10 miles of walking every day of the summer, and that’s a conservative estimate. It was rare to get a compliment from Rich, but on one particularly hot day, Hammer and I ventured back to the shop at quitting time to put our equipment away and sign our time cards. We were all kind of standing outside the shop bullshitting when Rich looked at Hammer and me and said, “You guys gotta be tired. Jesus Christ, look at ya. There’s not an ounce of fat on ya.” It kind of came out of left field, but Hammer and I were proud that Rich knew we were working hard.
From the golf course, Hammer and I would head to Bianco’s to lift. Bianco’s was a small gym owned by a local couple who had both competed in bodybuilding, and it was awesome. It had everything a person could want, including a guy named Bruce, the owner’s dad, who was in his 70s and still completely jacked. Bruce had worked at a local foundry for 30+ years, and he looked like a total badass. Sporting a blond flat top, tight sweats, and a stringer tank, Bruce was without question the alpha in the room. He’d be in there pumping iron, flirting with the older ladies who came in for aerobics classes, and yelling across the gym busting balls. By this point, Hammer and I were starting to get serious about training, meaning we were armed with all kinds of bro science about how to do a proper body part split and the exact timing of a post-workout protein shake. I’m kidding about that stuff, but we did push each other as best we could. I was always competing with Hammer, and he was definitely stronger than me by this point. We would run through a typical body part split, adding in exercises we had seen in Muscle and Fitness or got from some random guy at the gym. Sadly, our program, if you could even call it that, was lacking squats and deadlifts. In other words, we were training like a couple of pussies. We always used the leg press and other machines, and we were both proud that we never skipped “leg day. ” Just admitting that makes me want to go back in time and kick my own ass. It wasn’t until years later that I finally figured out the true value of squatting and deadlifting. I’ll get into that another time.
Bianco’s Fitness Center at about 0530 on a Sunday morning. The back room has a squat rack, benches, and deadlift platform.
Those days training at Bianco’s with Hammer were amazing. At the time, I took for granted that I had a training partner who never wanted to miss a day and always took it seriously when it was time to train. As I mentioned earlier, Hammer was the brother I never had. He always pushed me to get stronger because I hated it when he beat me at a lift (which was often).
A few times a month, on the way home from Bianco’s, Hammer and I would stop at the local GNC to load up on “groundbreaking” supplements that gave us the shits. It was like a contest to see who could spend more money on protein powders and bars, and anything Hammer bought I felt like I had to have too because I didn’t want him to get stronger than me than he already was. One time Hammer had heard about this certain type of protein bar and said he was going to buy a whole box of them. Well, that meant I was going to buy a whole box too. The problem was, Hammer found them on the shelf first and got the last box of cookie dough or whatever. The only other flavor they had was chocolate banana. It didn’t sound great, but I bought them anyway. They were freaking disgusting in taste and texture, but I wasn’t going to admit I had spent hard earned grass mowing money on these nasty-ass bars. Over the next two weeks, I ate the whole box and pretended like they were delicious.
Another time we had decided to get this new creatine powder that was supposed to be awesome. It was loaded with sugar and had something in it that burned your throat on the way down. It even said on the label it would do that. Great! I’ll take two! During the first five days of taking this creatine, the user had to “load,” which meant taking five servings per day for the first five days. Surely this was necessary and not just a strategy to get someone to use the powder faster and buy more. By 6:30 AM, I was halfway through my second creatine drink of the day and driving to my next green to mow at the golf course. All of a sudden, it felt like lightning struck me and I knew if I didn’t find a bathroom in about 90 seconds I was going to shit myself. Fortunately, the bathroom by #4 green wasn’t too far away and I made it. Don’t worry, I still finished my loading phase and used that crap the whole rest of the summer. By the end of August I had two whole pounds of water weight to show for my efforts, so the stuff clearly worked.
After college, Hammer and I ended up living very far away from each other, but we’ve both kept up our love for lifting and training. He had a video up the other day of him working out with his newborn baby sitting in a stroller watching him. It was freaking amazing. Imagine the example he’s setting for his kid by keeping fitness in their lives. Hammer was a huge part of my lifting obsession. There are a million reasons why I love the guy, and the fact he was my original training partner is certainly one of them.
RH Training
RH…those are my dad’s initials. Back in the day before anyone had a cell phone, my family used to communicate with each other via handwritten notes left on the kitchen counter. My dad always signed his, “RH” in his caps lock handwriting that thousands of students over his 39 years of teaching strained to decipher from his classroom blackboard. Like many kids fortunate enough to grow up with a dad in the picture, I was sure that my dad was Superman himself. RH always stood out from the crowd, literally, because he was 6’7” tall and at 35 years old, the age I’m at now, weighed a lean 200 pounds. My dad was born in 1950, which means he grew up in the age of cardio fanaticism. He always told me about a friend he had in high school who was into lifting weights and that everyone thought it was weird. It turns out the guy was a monster at offensive tackle and went on to play the position in college. Jogging and cycling were all the rage in the 1980s, and my dad had a custom made Panasonic road bicycle. Some of my earliest memories are riding bikes with my dad during the summer and watching him train on this roller contraption that he had in the basement so he could ride through the endless Upper Peninsula of Michigan winters. We also watched the Tour de France all through the month of July and watched American Flyers about 100 times.
My dad would train in the basement and he had all kinds of workout equipment that were a sign of the times. This spring-loaded “chest expander” was great for pinching your skin and using as a mace-type weapon against a sibling or friend. RH had some plate loaded Gold’s Gym dumbbells that had threaded ends so the collars could be screwed on. You know the kind. I distinctly remember watching him workout with these dumbbells and his Body by Jake bench while watching Lee Haney’s television show TotaLee Fit. The Jake Steinfeld bench was this bench that had a big arm coming off the top of it for doing abs and these band things that you would affix to different pegs underneath to add resistance.
Body by Jake Bench
My dad used to also workout watching Tony Little on TV. If you don’t know who Tony Little is, look him up. He made a couple hundred million dollars as a personal trainer and TV personality. He sold gimmicky home gym equipment, but he at least got a lot of people off their asses and moving…well, for a while anyway.
Tony Little
The centerpiece of my dad’s basement training equipment setup was his Schwinn Airdyne. When he brought that thing home, I remember thinking that it was really silly. My friends and I would goof around with it because the fan blew a ton of air all over the room and we would see who could pedal the loudest. My dad used to ride that thing relentlessly, wearing a heart monitor and really pushing himself. RH ended up putting tens of thousands of miles on that bike, which is pretty impressive considering I’m pretty sure he did zero maintenance on the thing. I had no appreciation for what he was doing with that bike at the time, but, in the end, he got the last laugh. In 2017, 20+ years later, I bought an Assault bike, which is basically just a beefed up Airdyne. I use it regularly and it never fails to absolutely kick my ass. Father knows best, I guess.
RH is almost 70 now and his days of pushing himself physically seem to be over. Somewhere in his 50s, my dad quit taking care of himself and he put on a bunch of weight. It was partly the result of him working so hard to make money to support the family. I will forever be grateful for his work ethic and sense of duty to my mom, sisters, and me, but it was hard for me to watch. People will make time and have discipline when it comes to something that is important to them, but my dad’s health fell by the wayside during this time period. He had a heart stent put in around 2011 or 2012, and since then he’s been going to cardiac rehab twice a week, walking on the treadmill and socializing with the other patients. I am really happy that he at least does this, and he has a ball doing it, and yes, doing something is certainly better than nothing, but he could be doing more. I’ve been telling him for 15 years that he needs to do some kind of strength training but it goes in one ear and out the other. Last week my parents came out to visit and my dad tripped and fell when we were out walking my dog. He needed help getting up and said he usually has to use a chair. Not being able to get up from the floor without the aid of a chair or person is a problem. The next day I was doing Turkish get-ups with a kettlebell. I tried to show him what it was and how useful it was, but he didn’t seem to care or realize that I was trying to connect it to what had happened the day before. I should have been more blunt I guess, but it’s tough. All this may sound like I am poo-pooing his efforts, but I swear that is not my intention. I just want my dad to live as long and as healthily as possible, and I know that requires fighting to hold onto muscle and strength every day. I would love to see my dad go to a gym, a real gym, where people are lifting weights and not everybody in the place is a current or former recovering heart patient.
It’s also hard for me to understand how a person can not want to lift weights and be strong. I know what lifting does for me and all the sense of joy, satisfaction, pride, and euphoria it brings me every time I go in the weight room. Lifting makes me expect more of myself, and it frustrates me when I see loved ones expecting so little of themselves physically. My dad is the guy who taught me how to get into a three-point stance, be physical, box out for a rebound, ride a bike, walk faster than a person should, judge a man by his build and grip, and not be a Caspar Milquetoast. Maybe I’m being too hard on my dad, but damn is it sad seeing his strength go down the tubes without him putting up a fight.
Entering The Big Time
It was Friday March 6, 1998. That was the day all my rowdy friends and I were allowed in the high school weight room for the first time. I can’t name every single person who was in the weight room that day, but I know my core group of friends were there. Hammer, Poike, Tony, Jake, and Grant. These were my ride or die friends, the guys I could always count on to have my back. When it comes to how I felt about these guys, I think George Costanza said it best: Even if [they] killed somebody, I wouldn’t turn [them] in. This was spring of our 8th grade year, so we needed to start learning how to lift so we could train over the summer in preparation for freshman football. We were all sports-obsessed and every season brought new uniforms, games, coaches, smells, and rhythms. Football, basketball, and baseball dominated our thoughts and dreams. My dad got me a subscription to Sports Illustrated for Kids and I had pictures and posters all over my wall. I eventually graduated to regular Sports Illustrated and the tradition of using magazines for interior decorating carried on all the way through college. I may have been the only college kid in America to have pictures of Vlade Divac and Dikembe Mutombo on the wall in my dorm room. It’s amazing I didn’t get more ladies. Anyway, other than screwing around with the plastic weights in my parents’ basement and doing the Presidential Fitness Test in gym class, none of us had any experience or knowledge about lifting and training. We were finally going to get to lift in the high school weight room and enter the big time.
Earlier in the week, word had gotten out that we all needed to meet Coach Madigan in the weight room at 3:30 on Friday, and your ass better not be late. Mr. Madigan was intimidating as hell to a bunch of 13-year old boys. We had heard stories from older brothers about how tough he was as a football, wrestling, and track coach, and how he had played college football at Michigan Technological University. In our small world, he may as well have won the Heisman playing for Alabama. We all ended up spending a ton of time with Mr. Madigan over the years, and we loved him. There was never a dull moment with Mr. Madigan, but that’s for another time.
After school let out for the day, my friends and I showed up in the weight room, all a little bit nervous but trying to act cool. The weight room was located on a balcony that overlooked the high school gymnasium on the north wall. That entire “wall” was actually a chain link fence, which gave the room a really badass feel, and looking down on the basketball court with conference and district championship banners circling the gym, a huge medieval Knight on the wall, and the school track and field record board in plain view made me think about hardwood glory in front of a packed house with the high school pep band playing Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part 2. The wall on the west end had a door that led into the wrestling room, the east wall was lined with three squat racks, and the south wall had big poster boards with guys in the 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, and 450 pound club for various lifts. Our school’s lifting program, very much in its infancy, used Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS) as the template for training athletes. This program, or at least the way we ran it, consisted of four-week cycles using the following sets and rep schemes.
Week 1: 3x3+
Week 2: 5x5+
Week 3: 5, 3, 1 +
Week 4: 10, 8, 6 (light/deload weights)
If you have ever read or used Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program or any of its variations, this scheme will look very familiar. The program was constructed around big lifts that we would work through on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Monday: Box Squat, Towel Bench (like a board press), Auxiliary Lifts
Wednesday: Power Clean, Trap/Hex Bar Deadlift (we always called it the trap bar), Auxiliary Lifts
Friday: Squat, Bench, Auxiliary Lifts
For the auxiliary lifts, we did curls, lat pulldowns, dumbbell bench variations, box jumps, and sit-ups. At the start of each four-week cycle, we got these hard cards where we could record our lifts. We certainly could have done a lot worse as far as programming was concerned, but we also could have used a lot more work in the form of sprints, sleds, and loaded carries.
For our first day in the high school weight room, Mr. Madigan had planned on getting us all squatting, but instead of using one of the big power racks lining the east wall, we used one of those gun rack style racks with the angled uprights and fixed spotter bars on the side. Coach Madigan showed us how to put the bar on our traps/shoulders, not our neck, walk it out, and squat. I did not know it at the time, but Mr. Madigan was about to utter some words that would influence the rest of my life. “When you squat, you squat to below parallel. Squatting above parallel is not squatting.” There was no excuse for not squatting parallel in the high school weight room, and my friends and I were all over each other if someone dared cut a squat high.
After observing some basics from Mr. Madigan, my friends and I started rotating through, starting with the bar and getting a feel for the movement. We each did a set at 45, 65, 95, 115, and finally 135. I will never forget my set with 135. I unracked the bar, walked back, set my feet, and banged out eight reps. After about three reps, I heard Mr. Madigan say to no one in particular, “This kid has strong legs.” Whoa! Did Mr. Madigan just say that? About me? I was hooked. I finished my set, racked the bar, and knew, KNEW, that this was something I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. I was in love with the iron. It turns out my legs weren’t really that strong, nor did I have a build for being particularly good at lifting. By the start of freshman year, I was 6’5” and weight about 170 pounds. I was not built for lifting, but I knew that it made me feel strong and powerful and full of energy and life. Twenty-two years later, it still feels the same when I get under the bar. I could be having a shitty day or stressing about one thing or another, and all of that melts away after a good session in the weight room. It is not something I can explain or describe to anyone who doesn’t lift themselves, and I feel sorry for people who go through life without experiencing this feeling of strength. I truly believe that if everyone was required to lift and get stronger on a regular basis, the world would have far fewer problems, real and make-believe, than we do currently.
It turns out that March 6, 1998, was also the 14th birthday of Tony, one of my best buddies. He had a sleep-over at his house that night with a big group of our friends. I should note that we had an NBA Jam Sega Genesis tournament and I was the winner. I could really play that game well. The next morning, Saturday, I woke up on the floor in Tony’s living room and got up to go use the bathroom. At this moment I experienced something for the first time in my life…extreme soreness on every inch of my legs. What was this feeling? I didn’t really know, but I liked it in some kind of sadistic way. It felt like a badge of honor. My legs were sore as heck because I had worked hard yesterday. It was the first time I had this feeling, but certainly not the last.
Getting Started
When I was about 10 or 11 years old (so that would put us around 1994-95), my dad brought home some weights that he had bought at a rummage sale. I was pretty much completely sports-obsessed by that age, so it was a given that I was going to play every sport that I could for my small school in Norway, Michigan, the home of the Norway Knights. My friends and I were already playing organized sports, including basketball and Little League baseball. Now, this was a small town, so when I say organized sports, I do not mean anything like what I see in 2019 near a major metropolitan area like Philadelphia. We did not have “travel teams” or “A” and “B” squads. Our area just was not populous enough for that, but we played other small nearby schools and the wins and losses (yes, score was always kept) meant the world to us.
If you are reading this, it stands to reason you probably have a passing interest in training, and that means you may have seen something similar to the weights my dad brought home. The weights themselves had a plastic exterior, were filled with sand, had a standard 1” hole, and attached to dumbbell handles or a super skinny 15-lb bar that was about six feet long and had no knurling. The free weights came with a bench with two attached uprights set about a foot apart and a set of squat stands coming off the back. There was some kind of attachment to the bench for doing leg extensions but it did not connect very well and it got set aside and forgotten. My friends and I would go downstairs to the concrete-floored furnace room with laundry and winter coats hanging everywhere and go to town. Now, I have read and listened to a lot of other people say they started out with this kind of basement setup and that they had no idea what they were doing. Well, what those other people were doing probably looked like a world class strength program compared to what my friends and I invented down in my parents’ basement. It cannot be overstated how clueless we were, but that did not stop us from benching, curling, squatting, and even power cleaning (well, trying to power clean). The power clean area was strategically placed between the end of the bench and these huge shelves that held all kinds of random junk that is still there, untouched, 25 years later. There was a floor drain there so no matter what way you stood, you had a foot in one drain. Even at that age, my mathematical reasoning brain demanded balance, so I would alternate the direction I faced each set. That way, I would get as many sets with my right foot sitting lower in the drain as my left foot...genius.
One time my friends and I were down in the furnace room getting after it and my buddy Hammer was benching. Grant was “spotting” him, and when Hammer got to a rep that he could not finish, rather than helping him, Grant just stood there offering informative coaching cues like, “Come on, pussy,” and, “Don’t drop it on your face.” I was no better as I just stood there watching as Hammer fought the bar as it slowly came down directly onto his teeth. Grant finally pulled it off of him and Hammer got up, understandably, pissed at both of us. With that kind of training, it is amazing we all didn’t turn into Mr. Olympia
Another time I was in the basement weight room by myself when my sister Stacy and her boyfriend Tim came downstairs. I was doing cleans when they wandered in and Stacy asked what the heck I was doing. At this time I was probably in eighth grade, and I knew a lot about cleans because I had seen pictures of three different phases of the clean on a Bigger, Faster, Stronger poster that was on the door of the high school weight room. I mean, I was basically an accomplished olympic lifting coach after that experience. Stacy wanted to give it a try, so I did my best to show her how I set it up and worked around the drain as best I could. I remember her trying a few reps and Tim jokingly yelling, “EXPLODE!” at her whenever she got the bar to her mid-thighs. Shockingly, Stacy never got the chance to represent the United States in weightlifting at the Olympics.
Quick story about Tim...I am not sure how much my parents liked him, but, despite being several years older than me, Tim always treated me fine. I played high school sports with Tim’s brother Paul, who was phenomenally athletic and went on to play wide receiver in college. My friends and I always watched the Saturday afternoon varsity football games (the field didn’t have lights yet, so “Friday Night Lights” wasn’t an option) from up on the practice hill that overlooked Ronberg Field at the high school. Well, actually we half watched and half played our own game of tackle football and tried to flirt with the girls in our grade. One game, when Tim was playing defensive back on varsity, he intercepted the ball around his own 25-yard line. He had nothing but daylight in front of him as he took off for a long sprint at a pick-six. Tim was doing great until about the opposing 30-yard line when dammit if it didn’t look like someone put a piano on his back. You could almost feel the whole crowd somehow both cheering Tim on and holding their breath as opposing players slowly gained on him. Tim’s progress slowed and he was eventually dragged down inside the 10. The fact that I still remember that play so vividly speaks to how cool I thought Tim was and how badass I thought it would be to make a play in a varsity game.
That basement weight room was terrible and awesome at the same time. It was really cool of my dad to buy that equipment and lug it downstairs for us to use, and it was at least partly responsible for my lifelong obsession with lifting. It turns out, the limited exercises we had available to us were really all we needed to get strong, but we pretty much just squatted, benched, curled, and cleaned. Hell, I didn’t even know what a deadlift or row was, or I probably would have added those into the mix too. There is much more to come about my love for the weights, but that weight set in a basement furnace room in a tiny town in Michigan is where it all started.