Tampa Barbell

Gym events and Greg Alvarado hits 565

2011-11-17T23:56:00.001-05:00

Greg Alvarado hit a 565 bench with a near miss at 600 at this past Southern States

Greg does a combination of shirted work and quite a bit of heavy raw training. He follows a different protocol, but lately he has been making some great gains. I predict he will very soon break into the top 5 bench list at Tampa Barbell.

On another note, something funny has happened. A lot of the gym has converted over to the rotating schedule, giving it a try. This is pretty cool, as I think it has a lot of potential. Again I caution that its benefits will be negated if you miss many days, but it is off to a decent start. It is ironic. One of the benefits of having the gym on mixed schedules was a more even distribution of equipment as the weekly guys were often on different exercises. Now, we have everyone pretty much doing the same thing again thus negating one of the benefits. May have to buy a fourth monolift and eliminate the preacher curl station. :)

I could put people on alternating rotating schedules so while one group does upper, the other does lower, but then we lose the unity of people all pushing each other.

So we roll with it. I predict some will have great success, some will say "the hell with this dumb stuff", and it will be an interesting ride.

Approx 3 weeks till the TBB hosted SPF Outlaw meet. Lots of work.

Remember guys: I am counting on everyone Friday and Saturday December 9th and 10th.

The road to 1005 or "what the fuck took you so long?"

2011-11-10T23:10:00.011-05:00

I mentioned that I may blog on what I think contributed to the 1005 lb squat. Actually, I happen to be in a really pissy mood tonight, so I will do something that will cheer me up: talk about squatting.

This was something that did not just happen. I have, in fact, taken 3 shots at 1000 in competition, the first dating back to 2007 at the team meet in Georgia. The lift was turned down with 2 reds.

I took another shot at it at the 2010 Tampa Barbell invitational right after a 940. I did not complete the lift. There were various injuries, surgeries, and a random bout with pericarditis that caused me to shed 50 lbs in the hospital within a 3 week period, but finally on October 29, 2011, I hit the magic number at an APF meet in Orlando, FL.

I do not take a lot of fully geared max free squats in the gym. Meet conditions and adrenaline can make up for a lot. I was not, and am still not a big fan of maxing out in the gym on the competition lifts. In my mind, a few things happen when you do this:

You will invariably work up to something that is heavy and you either fail or come close to failing. Because you did not have meet adrenaline and preparation, the weight probably felt heavy. You have now just taught your mind that something off your theoretical max was heavy and it becomes a limiter. 1000 has been a mental barrier in my mind for a long time. And I played a large part in creating that barrier.

As an example: I felt very strong this past Februrary, so one day about 3-4 weeks before a meet, I decide I am going to come in and work up to 950, which was 101% of my PR of 940. I thought to myself: "If I am a 1000 lb squatter this should be easy". Well, I missed it. Not only did this destroy my entire training cycle, but I aggravated my groin to the point where it set my training back for months. In reality, I think that had I trained smart, I may have hit 960 that meet bumping up my PR nicely, but I wrecked the entire training cycle with a bad call because I needed 'to feel some weight'.

Let me give some perspective to let this sink in. If you are properly trained and rested, you usually complete a lift at a meet and feel like "wow, that was easy. it was like nothing was on my back that day". In fact, when I look back at a few of my meet lifts, such as my first 903 squat in Oregon in 2005, and a subsequent PR in New York of 920, they both looked crisp and relatively easy, like I could have put another 40-50 lbs on my back. Could I have? I won't know, but I can tell you I have never maxed out in the gym and felt that "Gee, I could add another 50 lbs to this". Again, you are conditioning your mind that the weight feels heavy and you are burning out your nervous system.

So, does this mean I stopped training squats heavy? No. Not really. But heavy is all relative. I DID stop training squats above 93%. In fact, if you look at graphs in LiftTracker, the average intensity was probably in the 70s, and there were some spikes of 90% or so.

Without getting all mathematical on you: here is a formula that has worked for me. Go heavy with some degree of frequency, but stay around 90+% and try and do multiple sets. Two weeks before this meet, I performed 5 lifts @ 90%, all pretty easy. The heaviest I went was 935. I rarely make predictions because I think nothing good comes from them, but after that weekend, I told my wife: "I feel like this is the one." I had not said that about a 1000 lb attempt, ever. I had hoped for it before, but this was the first time I felt I had programmed myself correctly and was not relying on a meet miracle or a gift to get it.

One of the reasons I could predict this was because when I went to New York and hit 920, the heaviest I went in the gym was 865, but I performed multiple sets at this range. Back then, I knew nothing about percentages, but somehow I had stumbled onto my personal magic formula. I just hadn't realized it yet.

I hear this a lot from lifters: "I need to put the weight on my back to teach me what it feels like or condition myself to the weight". I don't really buy this. Let me tell you something: everything over 800 lbs feels heavy to me. It did when I was an 800 lb squatter and it still does as a 1000 lb squatter. The human body has limits and the supporting structures all acclimate to heavy weight at different paces, but at a certain point it will always feel heavy, no matter how strong you get. The best thing you can do is train yourself to perform consistently. Being able to do this and seeing how at meet time this translate to PRs will lead your mind to stop equating heavy load with freakout and failure.

If you perform lifts at a certain percentage, IN YOUR MEET GEAR, and with the same form you do in meets, you will be able to perform the heavier weights in a meet without form breaking down, and you will not need heavy bands, overloads, or absolute maxes to achieve this. Not that these aren't all nice tools, but don't tell yourself you have to 'feel' the weight before you can do it in a meet. This is a fallacy which leads to overtraining.

Practice and Coaching

If you look at how major leaguers practice (and this has started trickling down to the junior levels), you will see one thing in common. Repetitive drills. By taking thousands of fly balls, ground balls practicing turning the double play, etc, these things will come naturally in a game. Your body is a computer. You program the computer through repetition. This is a principle behind many eastern-block training programs. I am not going to get all Sheiko on you, because I don't understand that, and I find a lot of that type of training mind-numbing, but the takeaway is you can program yourself to perform without maxing all the time.

Clearly, we can't spend the same amount of time under a weight as we can fielding grounders, but some of the principles are the same. You will do in a meet what you do most often in practice. If you clown around on your warmups, drop your head, grip the bar half-assed and only ratchet up your form on a few max effort sets, come meet day: you are highly likely to revert back to what you did the most in the gym. At meet day, my mind enters a different place. I forget shit, I get tunnel vision. I rely on my mind reverting somewhat to autopilot to complete things. This is why it is important during your warmups to pay attention, have your teammates give you proper queues and constantly make adjustments.

Here is a maxim I heard long ago: "Treat your warmups like you are preparing for a max and your max will go like a warmup".

Sometimes, I feel like the gym turns into cocktail hour before people buckle down and get serious. I try not to cramp people's style and fun in the gym, but in reality I'd like to throw a plate at your head if I see you joking around during warmups.

I experienced the hard way (several times in fact) that what you do in training carries over to a meet. In preparing for Georgia a few months ago, I did not have Sara, one of our lifters and my depth caller, in the gym. Her voice has a pleasant, harmonious ring, so when she wasn't there, I decided I didn't feel like listening to anyone else. I basically 'winged it' every heavy day. Because I did a combination of free squats and squats to a box where I was at or below parallel, I figured I had my bases covered. I could get that extra inch or two in the meet no problem. Well, when I went to Georgia, I performed exactly how I trained my free squats: that is I squatted high and got my ass red-lighted by my good friend Adam Driggers. I was disappointed as the weight felt light. When I went and looked at the video, I was annoyed with myself. The 950 was easy but clearly high, and it's because I got lazy in the gym.

The takeaway. Perform how you need to in a meet. Again, you don't have to max out to parallel, but you better be performing your 70-85% at parallel. Now to be perfectly honest with myself, as I ratchet up my training again, I will highly likely not hit every rep to parallel. In fact, when you are far out of a meet, I don't think this is as critical as long as you rely on also building strength through secondary movements, repetition, box squats, etc. But when I enter into meet mode again. I expect to go 50% as far as hitting depth.

If you are truly going between 80-90%, hitting depth will be fine and not an ego-killer because you are not maxing anyway. The nice thing about training at a lower percentage is when your partner says "you were high", you can just do it again. That doesn't happen when you max out. You get 1 or 2 and you are spent or risking injury to continue.

The aging body and the need for change

As I've gotten older, I have accumulated a laundry list of injuries. I have ruptured and repaired 3 tendons, had my right shoulder completely replaced with a titanium ball, and most recently had spurs removed from my neck which were impinging on a nerve. There is no doubt in my mind that my body is slower to heal than it used to be. Certain movements are more problematic for me. I also have been pursuing other interests which occupy some of my free time. I used to live for training 4-5 days a week, and getting the rest and nutrition needed to maintain this.

For the younger lifter, especially one who is new and likes to lift to look bigger in addition to just numbers, there is no problem putting in these extra workouts. Get the rest, eat right, and you will be able to do both powerlifting and pseudo-bodybuilding. In fact, do not confuse doing a lot of shit in the gym with practicality. One thing I still see is nowhere near enough attention paid the secondary lifts yet curls and tricep pressdowns are pretty consistently done even in my powerlifting-only gym. I just roll my eyes at the youngsters when I see this. But as Richie and Trent have said: "sometimes it's just about being thick" to which I can now reply: "1005 bitches" and stroll over to my chair and sit down and watch them curl.

Volume applied to the proper exercises is essential. I think the numbers and percentages are a topic for a different blog post.

I decided I really wanted to accomplish a few things (namely a 1000 lb squat and to get my bench back up to something decent just because I think it will be cool to say it can be done with fake parts) before I walked away from competition. I also have started pursuing some hobbies in a more serious form (the LiftTracker app has become an obsession which consumes a shitload of time). I have a limited amount of resources (namely time) so I need to spend them wisely. I started pairing down crap that was not directly benefiting my competition lifts. I went from doing 3 main lifts and 2 accessories per workout to 1 core lift, 1 core accessory, and lots of lats because I think a thick back carries to all lifts, and then sitting back and coaching. I do NOTHING that I feel does not carry over. I have noticed that I rarely have workouts anymore where I feel drained. My repetitive hip and groin injuries finally subsided, and my squat and bench press have moved nicely over last few training cycles.

I have also tweaked my rotation a bit which I have blogged about in the past. Personally, I was having some difficulties because I was following a weekly schedule:

1) when i squat on saturday, i go heavy. i am mentally incapable of deloads (in fact, in my mind a deload is a complete was of time. just stay home)

2) after squatting heavy saturday i was not able to come in tuesday and train another exercise which hit the low back. doing so led to low back and groin issues

3) i was not getting enough variety to maintain interest. i like the specialty exercises but was not getting enough recovery to perform them

Consequently, I moved onto the rotating schedule, which was probably the most effective tool that directly addressed my particular issues.

It was first blogged about here, and most of what is in here still applies. Have a read, especially if you are entertaining thoughts of trying this:

http://tampabarbell.blogspot.com/2011/06/special-post-for-suzanne.html

I do not think everyone 'NEEDS' a rotating schedule, and if you have a rigid mindset, this may cause you problems adapting to its dynamic nature. Also, younger lifters can recover faster and probably will make gains faster on the standard westside split. However, it can benefit everyone who commits to it. I will caution that missing days on a rotating schedule is much more problematic than missing on a weekly one as it takes awhile to come back around. So commit to it for real. If you know your schedule will require you to miss with any degree of regularity, just stay put.

I am going to end this post here as it is already information overload. A large percentage of my gym is now trying a rotating schedule. I also have added the ability in LiftTracker to track PR changes over time. What is going to be really neat is to see in 4-5 months how everyone's training has changed and hopefully how the PRs have moved to go along with it.

Squatting rules! By the way: Tampa Barbell now has (3) 1000 lb squatters, all still actively training. I know this puts it with the most 1000 lb squatters in a gym in this state. In this country I know of only two other gyms with this: Westside and SuperTraining. Fine company to be in.

As would be fitting of this post, squat day falls in 2 days. See you there!

-TF

November 2011 - a long needed update

2011-11-03T23:37:00.002-04:00

You may wonder why the blog doesn't get updated very frequently. I can only respond by saying that life gets in the way and I get busy.

Most of you who know me know I have spent an enormous amount of my free time on the LiftTracker application. This started out as a way to learn a new technology (programming for mobile devices), and it turned into somewhat of an obsession when I realized it could make a coach's job much easier. Over time, it came to fundamentally change the way I approach my own training and led me to hit an all-time PR squat of 1005 this past weekend. More on that later though......

We have certainly had our share of ups and downs in the gym over the past half year. It is inevitable. Humans are humans. However, the gym is my second family, and I really take pride and a personal interest in how we overcome adversity, just as we strive to learn to get stronger physically. Just like it hurts to see your child fight, get hurt, and even cry, it also fills you with immense pride when they pick themselves, dust off and return to battle.

The thing is: we have no parents to help us. We learn ourselves and move on. Every single person in the gym, no matter their age, and myself included is constantly having to learn how to not only make themselves stronger but conduct themselves better as a person in the future based on experiences in the past. I am almost 40 yrs old, and I feel like I still have lots of ways to learn and grow.

Anyway, we have had two meets over the past 6 weeks that, in my opinion, brought us closer as a team. The first was the meet in Georgia, which involved carting our equipment 10 hours both ways to Atlanta and back to support the NGBB meet. The amount of people who stepped up and participated, including those who came only to help when things got tight was awesome.

Also, this latest event, the annual OBB meet, was another trial for us as a team. Once again, I was filled with gratitude for all the folks who did it, and particularly those who had to deal with me gearing up 6 weeks straight after Georgia to finally hit something I have been trying for a LONG time.

On a sad note, one of our members, Brandon Novatko felt it was time to move onto a different career path and was forced to adjust his training to prepare himself physically for his new career. I will remember Brandon as a student of the sport and someone who had a keen insight into things that made training successful. I know that I have had a chance to say goodbye, but I felt it was also appropriate to thank him publicly for helping to coach me, try whacky ideas, help me refine the rotating schedule, and always willing to step up to come extra to the gym, help clean, help coach, etc. I wish you sincere success in your next endeavor.

Funny Brandon story: for the past 6 months we started playing a lot of rap during training. Brandon never usually comments on the music. In fact, I thought he couldn't hear it. One day, "Tupac Back" comes on and the intro has Tupac rambling something incoherent. "blah, blah, blah... Know what I'm saying?" Brandon looks up and says: "No, I have fucking idea what you are saying.". Priceless. You probably had to be there, but I will never forget that.

Anyway, that is all for now. I have a lot of thoughts on what I think has been working for me and my group personally I will share in the next installment.

Also, in 5 weeks Tampa Barbell will host its first meet outside the confines of our facility. We will see lots of new faces, and we will get a chance to grow the SPF and lifting in Florida. I dread the hard work that will go into it, but I look forward to the fun people will have and positive reviews I know we will get.

Until next time...
-Blotron

A special post for Suzanne

2011-06-17T11:43:00.004-04:00

...who politely told me she had no idea what we were doing training-wise. This is fair enough, as my programs tend to change as often as my underwear err.. well you get the point.

Trent and Brandon wanted to experiment with a hybrid approach to training where they weren't tied to the powerlifting movements, equipment, and rep-schemes week-in, week-out. We all brainstormed a bit and came up with the idea of a rotating schedule, whereby each day of the week was no longer dedicated to a particular lift. This gave them the chance to vary the aspects of the training, working mass-building variations one day, dynamic variations another, and a heavy movement on the 3rd. I have hesitated in the past to do this at my gym because of the inherent confusion the schedule would cause on the groups. It is much easier to say "We squat Saturdays, pull Tuesdays, and Bench thursdays" than it is to explain a mystical rotation. So... they went on to do it, and I continued to squat too heavy every saturday, come in trying to pull tuesday, and hurting my back yet again for the umpteenth time.

Screw it. The groups are mature enough and leaders are in place that can I can experiment a little too. I switched over about 6 weeks ago and completely reset my expectations for squat and deadlift. I also spoke quite a bit with Dave Bates, who trains lifters in a more russian-styled way. I tried to pluck some of that knowledge, particularly the intensity zones and plop that into the program. This is also modeled in the LiftTracker software I have been writing.

Anyway, more on zones later. Here is how the program works.

Squat/Deadlift
Saturday Day 1 - Heavy Geared Squats (either jacked briefs, or briefs and suit) - Mostly free weight, straight bar. We are dropping the heavy overloads and specialty bars on this day. The target is 5 - 7 worksets @ 80 - 90% load.
Secondary exercise: Dynamic conventional deadlifts or total rest (for me, 7 worksets in a suit is draining as hell so I skip pulling).

Thursday Day 6 - Pseudo-Dynamic Box Squats (normal briefs, squat to a slightly below parallel box) - 5 worksets @ 60-75% load using bands or chains and a specialty bar.
Secondary exercise: Hvy Geared deadlifts. 5-7 worksets @ 80 - 90% load.

Tuesday Day 11 - Raw volume training. Usually some sort of narrow stance squat followed by a conventional pull with no gear. Good mornings may also be used here as some sort of variation. Rep range is 5-8 and 3-6 total worksets. Have to be careful because 4 days later the cycle repeats and you need to be ready to handle heavy loads on the squat.

Bench
Tuesday - Day 3 - Dynamic bench, 8 triples with light accomodating resistance (chains or bands)
Secondary exercise: board work, floor presses, or close grip

Saturday - Day 8 - Heavy shirted bench OR Heavy reverse bands so you can handle for reps what you target in a shirt. 5-7 work sets @ 80-90%

Thursday - Day 13 - Volume work - Some sort of raw flat bench work (football, straight, foam) benches.
Secondary - Board Presses 5x5 or 5x3.

That is it in a nutshell. The training days stay exactly the same (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) but the cycle rotates. In a pull test, Richie and Brandon hit pretty convincing PRs last night. I am working for multiple sets what killed my back just 2 months ago.

One of the pitfalls of this program is that you really cannot miss a day. If you do and do not make it up, you are not going to get enough work. In a tradional weekly rotation, missing a day may actually lead to more rest and better lifting. That is not going to cut it here as the deloads are already built in. The other thing is we have more emphasis on repetitive heavy training rather than adrenaline-filled gut-busting singles. It is not quite as exciting, but our groups are moving away from 100% maxes.

There is a place for testing your limits. We call those meets. In addition, we are going to schedule internal gym meets every 10 weeks or so for this purpose. The first one is August 20th.

What's new @ TBB?

2011-06-12T10:38:00.000-04:00

I've been working like a madman getting the Tampa Barbell website online. Please have a look.

I have to give a lot of credit and thanks to my friend and old training partner, Blaine Stussy. He came up with the template and has been working patiently with me through revisions. My goals for it are the following:

Describe the gym in a manner that gets across the intent of the gym yet is not off-putting to potential members. Feedback I have gotten was that the old website and even my blog give off the impression that the gym is for elite lifters only.

Showcase the accomplishments of all current members.

Loads fast and looks nice on web browsers AND tablet computers. If you have not heard one of my recent rants, I can tell you this. Within 2-3 years the tablet will have replaced the desktop pc and laptop in 80% of the population. If you don't believe me, email me and we can make a private bet.

On the competition front. Mike Schwanke returned to competition and finished the day with a hard-fought 770 pull. Suzanne upper her best total to 1200, and Greg Alvarado hit a 545 bench.

The team prepares for an intramural competition tentatively scheduled for Aug 20th. Our subgroup put our suits on and returned to the beauty of the 3hr competition. Joy.

-TF

Recent updates

2011-04-13T19:55:00.000-04:00

I know it's been quiet on the blogging front. I have spent an inordinate amount of time on LiftTracker app and have switched from my cushy day job to one requiring me to wear pants to work. The Horror!

Things @ TBB are going pretty well. It has been a busy spring with a lot of work/school stuff affecting everyone's schedule. Fortunately, there are enough people at TBB to allow for makeup sessions so it has not affected the team's training. I think we are just gonna call winter/spring a write-off and target summer for a big meet.

I have taken the Florida state chair position for the SPF. I went ahead and beefed up our equipment arsenal so we have 3 monolifts that can be disassembled easily. I also got another Forza competition bench. As much as I hate benching, we now have 4 of them in the gym.

On a personal note, I am starting to feel the need to switch off a fixed weekly schedule. I have been contemplating this for a long time but have held back worrying that it would adversely affect the training groups in the gym. We piloted this with Brandon, Trent, and Richie giving it a try over the past month. I really think it has the potential to allow for more focused training and recovery.

Again, TBB has enough lifters where we can vary the groups and try new things without screwing everyone over so I look forward to seeing the results. If you read this, it does NOT mean I want everyone switching over to this. I'd prefer the gym to remain on the current schedule as we test this out.

Here's to the summer of 2011.
-TF

TBBs Gabe Naspinski takes Best Lifter at the Orlando Barbell meet

2011-02-23T18:51:00.002-05:00

TBB put on another strong showing at the OBB meet this past weekend. We sent 5 lifters, 3 of which are new TBB members. Every lifter PR'd and Gabe took best lifter.

Gabe: 825-565-630 for 2020 (new lifter)

Sara: 320-130-235 for 685 (70lb PR!)

Richie: 460-365-425 for 1250 (125lb PR!)

Geoff: 550-405-455 for 1410 (new lifter)

Brent: 650-405-565 for 1620 (new lifter)

2011 - Requirements for membership at TBB

2011-02-08T14:32:00.001-05:00

I was just going over a few emails inquiring about membership and they mentioned the blog. I guess that is an indication I need to keep up with it.

The emails I get basically all ask the same sort of ?s so I figured I'd just post the answers here and then refer people to the blog.

Tampa Barbell is NOT a commercial gym. The way it works is I tell you about the gym and the training requirements. If this sounds like something you are interested in, I extend you a guest invite for a few weeks, and we all evaluate the situation. At the end of a few weeks, it is pretty obvious to both sides if there is a fit.

Here are the requirements: The gym is open 4 days per week and the team trains together. There are sub-groups which have different goals depending on what phase of their training they are in, etc, but everyone participates as a team. The minimum required is attendance 3 of the 4 days. Of course things crop up but that should be the exception, not the rule. If you can't commit to this, TBB is not the place for you. Also, we all compete, even those of us with artificial parts. Not interested in competing? Just want to get stronger? TBB is not the place for you. We believe that the only way to truly know if you are stronger is to perform the lifts in competition in front of judges.

The team atmosphere has led to a lot of success. We currently have just over 20 lifters. I will post up a picture of the record board, but the top 5 squatters are all 900 or above, the top 5 benchers are all 600 or above, and the top 5 deadlifters are all 700 or above. In short, there will be plenty of people stronger than you to push you to become better.

We compete in multiply meets. We do a lot of raw training, but meet preparation is always for geared meets. There will be no exceptions to this rule anymore. The training styles conflict too much.

Anyway, that is it in a nutshell. Hope to see you in 2011.

-TF

Starting to get the 2010 October OBB meet results up -

2010-11-27T00:09:00.000-05:00

Jon Drummond - Pulls 700 to take the #5 spot on the TBB record board!

Congrats Jon.

OBB Meet a success!

2010-11-11T00:11:00.002-05:00

First off, apologies to the team for neglecting the blog for a good while. As everyone in the gym knows, I had a nasty illness which took my mind off powerlifting for a short-while. However, I am back and regaining my lost fatness as we speak. I have lifted in one form or another since I was 15 years old. The only type of training that is sustainable is sport-specific event training. All other training is gay and must only be done for 3-4 weeks till you are so bored you can't stand it.

One thing I was extremely happy to see was that the gym functioned well in my absence. I really appreciate Trent, Tom, and Brandon for stepping up to keep things going smoothly. We saw 6 lifters compete as planned at the October Orlando barbell meet. Everyone PRd, and the team did really well. In fact, we EASILY had the most helpers/handlers in attendance of any other gym. This cannot be overstated. A team is not only the guys you send to compete, but their backup who handles and supports them.

Greg Alvarado and Mike Biven both did their first meet under the Tampa Barbell team banner. Congrats guys! Greg went 8/9 which was actually the most consistent performance of the day.

TomB turned in another 800 squat, bumping his PR to 820 and also tying Nelson for the 5th place on the TBB record board with a 605 bench.

Greg Jurowski finally nailed that 800+ pull. Although he has done it before, it is now sealed as an official lift and he takes the number one spot on our board with 805. That is huge. I don't see that lift dropping off the record board anytime this decade.

Jason also made a return to the multi-ply platform, narrowly missing a huge PR squat of 780 in the process. This will fall very shortly I am confident.

Last, but not least, was the surprise 700 deadlift, done by Jon Drummond to claim the #5 spot on our record board. His progress on that lift was nothing short of stunning. He went from a 635 earlier in the year to 700 within a 6 month timeframe. Very hard to do on a pull. I will post a blog entry shortly where I do a Q&A with Jon and Greg who devised their own training for this lift and posted big gains.

December 11 - Team meet

This meet is going to have some top notch lifting. In fact, the way that TBB can win will only be through consistency and NO bombing. I will expound on the rules of the meet shortly in a forthcoming post but suffice it to say: anyone bombs and your team is DQ'd. If you are on the team, don't fuck up or you will train at Bally's next.

Also, I need to get together a group of guys who will help me prep the gym for the meet. I need to step it up a bit from last meet as the talent pool will be larger and it will set the stage for even bigger team events in the future. I want to get an early start on this.

Action items for the gym:

prepare for December team meet: Tommy/Tom -> and others
get up meet videos. owners: Tommy/Mike Westerdal
get new shirts and license plate: owners: Tommy/Rhonda
formula new training groups and prepare for Feb/Mar meets: owners: Tommy/Trent/Tom/Brandon
clean and disinfect the gym before the a killer bacteria is spawned which wipes out planet earth. owners: everyone!

All for now.
/TF

Jon Drummond 660 @ 308 (2010 Armed Forces Meet @ MacDill)

2010-09-27T23:46:00.002-04:00

Jon getting closer to 700 competition pull....

Big Donnie T program even makes your deadlift go up!

2010-09-01T13:30:00.001-04:00

The two best in the business

2010-08-31T15:14:00.000-04:00

"Damn, I heard Fannon has 3 monolifts in his gym." - Hussey
"Yeah, but I have 10 models of the reverse hyper" - Simmons

falling in love with a particular lift

2010-08-25T09:21:00.000-04:00

Last night, I made an observation. I think I have found someone who loves to deadlift almost as much as I like to squat. Some of our behavioral patterns are the same. Substitute the unknown lifter below for me, and substitute the deadlift for the squat and things are eerily similar.

1) it doesn't really matter what you planned to do that day, when you walk in the door, you know right away you will be pulling something from the ground in some form or another.

2) we start out with a plan, but it goes right out the door when we hit the gym and the first weight is yanked up off the floor.

3) we think a deload is when we don't put maximal straight weight on a deadlift bar. the workout usually concludes by some form of 105% effort tugging against something.

4) if our partners are all off deloading or doing something different like actually following a plan, screw them, we will deadlift anyway.

5) when we see others overdoing their deadlift, we immediately recognize it and talk them out of it. somehow, that doesn't apply to us.

6) we enjoy training the lift in the gym more than we enjoy hitting a big number at the meet.

I probably could go on and on, but I won't. In addition, I will not even try and talk you out of it. It may just work. Sometimes being pigheaded and obsessed may just get what you want. Screw percentages, plans, and numbers. Just go fuck shit up in the gym and hope it carries to the meet.

AJ Roberts goes 1100

2010-08-23T17:22:00.006-04:00

So, why is this picture on the TBB blog? Well, AJ is a friend and someone I have known since he was a kid. His progress is remarkable and he has trained with the best, both Brent Mikesell, King of Squats, and more recently Westside Barbell.

The other part of this is that AJs lift has been called into question by some unruly internet denizens. Not being at the meet, this is the closest I can come to seeing it. What you think of this lift, in particular the depth, will say a lot about where you should be competing.

Personally, I think this is a solid squat for the organization(s) we choose to compete in. It is not blatantly high where you can look at this picture and say: "What a travesty", nor is it two inches below parallel, which quite frankly is not necessary and probably impossible in properly supportive gear. Could this lift go either way? Probably. However, 3 judges gave it white lights and we as outsiders need to respect this.

If you are amongst those who feel that it is not convincing enough and that a lifter should have to go deeper, you probably need to evaluate where you choose to lift. There are organizations that certainly will not pass this. Do you want to lift there? That is fine, and this is a personal decision, but you should realize that the majority of guys who compete multiply are just fine with this and the benefit going to the lifter. Many of us go to meets, put huge weights on our backs and in our hands and know we are rolling the dice (both with our health and with the judges BTW). It is a part of the way we train to move the biggest weights possible. Sometimes things go our way. Sometimes they don't. We don't cry about it when they don't, nor should we malign others if they get a break.

In closing, great job AJ, Billy, Rich, Zane, and others whom with I am friends on Outlaws.

-TF

Quick notes about training

2010-08-21T18:16:00.000-04:00

TBB is alive and well (even if our main web page isn't). I had an issue with our hosting provider and just haven't gotten around to updating to a new one yet. Instead, I pointed to this blog.

Here are the updates:

Everyone has pretty much swung back to full powerlifting training, gear included. We made a few changes to accommodate the amount of lifters.

One: we consolidated the Saturday squat groups into (3) single flight groups, 5 lifters a piece. On the good side, people all get to train as soon as they come in, no waiting around. The con of this is that the time between work sets is longer. In addition, slightly less work sets are done.

Two: this may be old news but we formed a second shirted group which trains 2 Sundays out of the month (and 1 of the Saturdays) in their shirts. On the opposite day, they do speed and top-end. We also have a second group which has this flipped, and a 3rd group which does their own thing. Many of the gym converted to the Super Duper Phenoms, in my opinion, a truly superior shirt. I have one observation: it is definitely easier to touch in the shirt, but that is no excuse to stay on a 2 board. The shirt will not press that extra 1.5 " for you come meet time. I am contemplating hiding the 2 board for awhile.

One thing I decided to do for myself was to add a true dynamic day in for squats. Personally, I felt like my lifts were starting to lose explosion even though I was developing the ability to muscle up bigger numbers. So, Brandon, Trent, and I did some brainstorming around incorporating some of Donnie Thompson's ideas into our training. The key was that I like our team never to lose our suit skills so instead of a lot of the massive accommodating-resistance via bands that Donnie was doing, we kept in our descending-resistance, ascending-weight phase and put in a dynamic day. The key really was moderating the dynamic day. Westside calls for a 50-53-55% wave. However, we decided this was too heavy when that % was comprised only of the free weight, so we decided to include the resistance as part of the percentage. Here is a spreadsheet that indicates what the weight should be:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiSQ4xsumlgacE5Oemtocy0yUUtvcjRabFc3WDRnQ0E&hl=en#gid=56

We have completed one wave of the program. Personally, I feel better, and 3 of us hit pretty significant PRs. On the con-side, my hip has been acting up. It is a lot of squatting. I am debating further refinement to the program. My feeling is that the rest of the gym should continue on the current program that has undoubtably been working for everyone while we tweak this thing.

On the deadlift side of things: the team continues to move up in this lift. We have a new dark-horse candidate for a 700 pull in December. Here is a recent vid from a Max Effort tuesday.

Scott Cartwright visits TBB for pulling - The Big Don T squat program starts

2010-08-05T16:11:00.000-04:00

We had the honor of having Scott visit our gym while on business in St.Pete. Truly great lifter.

Secret Squat Program Unleashed

Big Donnie T happens to publish an article in the new Power magazine which outlines a program of squat insanity. Was it coincidence that this program was written just at the time I was thinking about changing things up a little? There are no coincidences. It was destiny. A few lucky individuals will get to ride it to huge PRs.. or injury. We shall see.

Deadlift Night - and a lookback at our first training wave

2010-07-06T23:29:00.003-04:00

First, here is the video from tonight's deadlift workout. This video marks the arrival of the iPhone 4's 720p capabilities and an on-phone editor. I am hoping to really start capturing a lot more vids.

Also, it is time to welcome new 'official' TBB members Mike Biven and Greg Alvarado. They survived the first month without pissing me off too bad so they can stay :)

Secondly: we have just completed the first 4 week training wave. All of our lifts have now arranged themselves into a 3 on 1 off pattern.

The squat worked out well. We have 3 mini-groups working together, and I have been very surprised at how efficient folks are getting training in their gear. Remember, 2 of the 3 weeks are in suits. The training time on Saturday is down to about 2 hrs per group, with an extra hr in there for helping the other groups. So far so good. No changes really necessary here. My feeling is we will ride out the chain waves all the way into Georgia unless we get stale, with maybe a band or two thrown in for some speed or variation on week 1 of 3.

The bench press is starting to come along. A small subset of us decided to add an extra day in to try out a scaled down version of Rob Luyando's bench press program. There is a raw day where we do top-end board work and 'speed' work along with a shirt day which is heavy doubles and singles to either the chest or all the way up to a 2 board. Adding another day in has been a little challenging as folks are already coming in a lot, but I can already see it paying off. People's raw strength is going up, the shirt workouts are done very quickly because that is all we do that day and we are moving fast, and the team enthusiasm for bench is returning.

The deadlift is actually what I am most pleased with. As I have mentioned before, there is no perfect routine for everyone. However, there are 'themes'. The theme at TBB has been we work together on Tuesday night and try to get into our suits twice a month. We have also been doing good mornings and low pin pulls on the alternate days along with the usual assistance work. I am seeing everyone make progress, although there are a few low back tweaks here and there. We are going to force ourselves to take a deload on this one as well.

Anyway, NGBB meet is now 10 weeks away and it is time to U.T.F.D. and get ready!

A blog post to explain the 'experimental' bench press training

2010-06-17T09:47:00.002-04:00

Here is the thing about powerlifting. It is an easy sport to get started in. I have seen people make great gains in the beginning at just 2x per week. However, as you progress up the chain, this simply does not hold water.

I have seen it first hand with many of our lifters. Everything stalls. The better you get, the harder you have to work for gains.

With our bench press at TBB, there are two issues which are preventing people from moving up at the same rate as the squat and deadlift.

1) there is lack of any coherent program. People just come in, shirt up if they feel like it with no rhyme or reason, and then because the shirted workouts take so long, they bag out when its done.

2) people are not doing accessories designed to target the competition bench press.

We have decided to address this by adding a day into the program to specifically target the shirt. In addition, an accessory day is equally important for adding volume and conditioning to move the big weights in the shirt.

Here is the bottom line for those wondering when they should shirt up:

If you feel like your bench has stalled and you need help getting on a regimented program, there will be a group shirting up on Sunday and doing accessories on Thursdays. We will be having 2 shirt sessions per month on Sunday with an optional 3rd if you feel you need more work.

This is NOT required. If you are happy with your progress and current schedule, continue to come in Thursday.

The 2 Forza bench presses are open for business for you guys. The Metal Militia bench is reserved for those on the new program.

Again, like the squat groupings, this is NOT mandatory. It is optional, but if you sign in, you need to stick with the plan. Picking and choosing the days you want to attend will not work. Stay with Thursdays if you cannot commit to the full plan.

Here's to many more 700 benchers in the gym. I can identify 3 people that could easily bench 700 within a year if they decide that is what they want to do.

/TF

Deadlift Night

2010-06-16T08:54:00.001-04:00

It was good to see the team actually all pulling together again.

I remember a few years ago a lot of our benches were higher than our pulls and the TBB record board was a little embarrassing. Now, it will take a 700 just to make the board.

We had a visitor, former member April Mathis come and pull with us along with doing some good mornings.

She asked me what happened to my 500/5 bent row challenge. I had to explain that sometimes lifting was about difficult choices. If I continue to try and push up my circus lifts of bent rows, max-effort good mornings, and work up every single week on the squat, my deadlift will continue to go nowhere.

Honestly, this was a very hard thing for me to do. It is *fun* to come in and thrash around some heavy upper back, but it was holding back my deadlift. People need to ask themselves if they are doing things which are hampering any of their lifts and why they are doing these things. I will give some examples of things I think people do that they don't realize are counter-productive.

1) working up heavy all the time ... on everything -> this will fail you on the long run in everything, but even quicker when it comes to training the deadlift

2) not doing enough conditioning. -> the deadlift is the 3rd event of a meet and by the time we get to it, you can usually tell who is in shape and who isn't. being in 'powerlifting' shape does NOT mean being able to run laps or sit on an elliptical for 1 hr. it means you can continue to exert maximal force on the bar even after a long day of lifting. in my opinion things that build this ability are work volume with sub-maximal weight (but > 60%) on weight-bearing exercises and assistance exercises which target the core muscle groups. (note this does not mean 100 reps on tricep pressdowns or arm curls or 2 sets of lat pulldowns).

3) listening to someone who is objective about whether or not they should work up, stay the same, or god forbid drop weight. actually, people are getting better about this as they have grown more comfortable with their partners.

Anyway, it was a great start to a training cycle for Jon Grove's Sept 11 meet.

kicked off a new cycle today

2010-06-12T21:17:00.001-04:00

Today, the guys who are going to be training for either Georgia (12 weeks) or Orlando (16 weeks) gathered to start the squat program.

Today it was Tom,Tommy,Trent in Group 1A. Corey, Jason, Greg, and Jon in Group 1B.

After seeing Richard look a little ragged with a blue/green last week, we voted on using only a blue to kick start the wave. Sorry Richard... you get the shaft for going early. But thanks for helping us make up our minds :)

It's been awhile since we were on a box, and it was a good tool to correct some form issues. The biggest thing I saw was people wanting to rush to the bottom and not quite come to a full pause. We kept the weight low enough where people could fix those issues.

The nice thing was we were done VERY fast going back to back. Felt very refreshed as opposed to the usual Saturday beat down.

Next week it's back in suit bottoms to start a chain wave.

It seems there are going to be 9 people, so I need to brainstorm how we can do 3 x 3.

Oh, and tomorrow kicks off the Luyando bench program. More fun than anyone should have on a weekend!

2010 TBB Invitational - Nelson Castellano

2010-06-11T06:50:00.001-04:00

I remember Trent and I went on a spy/recon trip over to Harry Smith's gym in Tampa when I first moved down here. At the time, Tampa Barbell had a whopping 4 members, and we had to have girlfriends and wives come in to operate the monolift.

Anyway, we were at Harry's gym one night while they were benching. I remember they had a small crew and two things jumped right out at me.

1) Nelson had a pretty strong raw bench... cranked out 315 for 5 or 6 reps.

2) One goofball in their training crew sliced open his finger with a sloppy looking bench in a shirt and some horrible spotting.

I said to Trent: we gotta steal Nelson and get him out of this cesspool. Anyway, fast forward about 4 years. We now have a young lifter on the verge of being good enough to go 'pro'.

Nelson's training has evolved over the years. He started at two times per week mostly so he could put himself through the fire academy and work. It dawned on me how strong he was able to get with relatively little accessory work. It made me realize how much stuff a lot of us do that could actually be tossed in the trash, and our powerlifting would be the same. There is a difference between work that corresponds directly to a lift and work that we all do just because we think we should.

Gradually, we introduced a 3rd day to his training, and his deadlift really started taking off. Nelson is a natural at the sumo deadlift and even inadvertently created a new exercise: the Gorilla bent-row. You have to be there to understand, but it essentially involves heaving the bar to your belly/chest area multiple times like an enraged monkey scooping up a barrel full of bananas. Finally, he put some mass on his upper back :)

As soon as the Orlando meet was over I decided to throw a meet at TBB so we could get some of our new lifters under the bar without having to travel far. At this point, Nelson kicked it into high gear. It took me one look at his first suit cycle to realize that my fresh squat record was to fall very shortly. I had to continually make adjustments to what I thought he could realistically get, and this is unusual for me. I can usually predict things about 10 weeks out.

We did a lot more free squatting this time, and I think this really benefitted Nelson. I will talk a little bit later about our successes moving away from a box, but suffice it to say, it worked.

The bench press is worth mentioning. Let me be brutally truthful here: a 605 bench in today's 275 world sucks. In fact, it does not give a good indicator on Nelson's natural strength. He moved up this time to around 405/5 raw, which *is* still a feet worth mentioning. The bottom line is Nelson just didn't have the correct shirt to train in and he only had about 4 real sessions in a shirt, still managing to best his previous of 600. That being said: I think it is time to take benching to the next level. With Nelson's natural strength, a 700 bench should come in under a year if he decides to take the plunge and whore the shirt enough. Again, I will touch on this a little later.

One other thing which I think is worth mentioning is Nelson is a wrecking machine when it comes to the pit. We went to the Cannibal Corpse / Hatebreed concert sometimes this past year and the results were devastating for all around. Looking forward to the next one.

2010 TBB Invitational - Brandon Novatko

2010-06-06T23:19:00.000-04:00

Brandon started communicating with me early last year I believe. He was in the Marine Corps, deployed awhile back in Afghanistan and then more recently back home but away from Florida for a good period of time. I could tell from his correspondences and initial visits to TBB, that he was going to bring a supremely positive experience to the gym.

Upon Brandon's first visits (before he returned officially), we showed him modern powerlifting form and explained to him some of the training principles. I wasn't sure if it would stick as it is a lot to assimilate. However, it was clear to me that Brandon does a good bit of reading on the vast amount of material that is available and understood a bunch. When he came back, it was though he had only missed a week. Form was still good and he immediately started rolling.

Brandon had a good base to start with and took to the geared training in a smooth fashion. All of his lifts progressed smoothly. He consistently applied both principals we teach at the gym with his own theories of conditioning and his progression was very linear. 9/9 at your first meet is outstanding. Actually, Brandon makes a great case study that you can put someone new to powerlifting in some of the more advanced gear early on. It works well as long as someone learns and employs proper form as well as maintains other exercises to increase muscle size and conditioning.

On another note, Brandon also convinced me that the Springfield was a better weapon than the Glock and got me on a firearm purchasing frenzy. I also remember being at the shooting range, bitching that my gun wasn't sited properly. Brandon calmly picked it up and hit a few shots right in the center.

Anyway, awesome meet! Congrats on the PRs and claiming all the 198 spots on the TBB record boards.

The Squat Grouping Concept explained

2010-06-06T14:42:00.005-04:00

We implemented a grouping system a few cycles ago, and I believe it was one of the most effective things we have ever done for our squat training. Everyone set PRs, and it is the most functional I have seen the team act after we got used to it. Here are those that participated in the 'group experiment' and their results.

Richard put up a 770 in his first three lift meet ever.
Brandon went 625 in his first meet ever.
Richie put up 450 in his first meet ever.
Corey hit over a 700 squat as a teenager.
Trent went to a 685 PR single, briefs only with buffalo bar after dropping 2 weight classes.
Nelson hit a huge 1005 after a year-long hiatus from the platform.
Tom went from 750 to 805.
I made a jump from 905 to 940 in a 12 week cycle.
Sara also had a very successful meet lift with a 250.
Suzanne Pr'd with 480 as well.

I was trying to explain this to someone over instant messenger, and I figured maybe it would just be better if I wrote it out. I am not going to talk about reps, percentages, waves, or any of that stuff. I am going to try and explain how to effectively group your team up.

At TBB, we have at any given time (15) 3-lift lifters. At a typical powerlifting-friendly gym this would result in one of two things

a) the teams would come in at totally separate times (think westside).
b) the training would turn into marathon 5-6 hr training sessions (BIG).

This is NOT a dis on either of those approaches. This is merely another way to do things. Believe me, I have given many full weekends to the gym, shoving other things to the side as a consequence. In addition to putting strain on a family, 5 hr sessions are brutal on the CNS, often leaving you exhausted and not much fun to be around the day after either. I have noticed that I can go heavier, more often, and if the training time is kept to a minimum, the recovery is much better.

Also, I have always wanted to maintain the camaraderie of a full-team. In my mind by NOT having people overlap, it will break up some of this team spirit and fracture the gym. So, how do we solve this problem without a or b above? The answer is breaking your team up into groups.

A group consists of 6-8 lifters. The guys are ultimately only responsible for themselves come Saturday. They should function as an autonomous team of their own, meaning that they will not need others to help spot and load, nor will they be tied up waiting for others to complete sets or release a monolift.

A group is assigned a single monolift to use on the training day and given a start time.

The group is then effectively divided into (2) sub-groups. So if your group has 7 lifters, you would make a group of 4 lifters, then a second group of 3 lifters. Let's call this A and B. The sub groups are by strength-level. You would attempt to group your lifters within 200 lbs of each other on the squat. This is not always possible, but don't mix 400 squatters with 800 squatters if you don't have to. Remember, they will still get the coaching from the stronger lifters, just not follow back to back with them.

Group 1A would come in earlier to warmup, etc. In our case that happens at 9am.
Group 1B comes in slightly later, about 30-45 but no longer. Their function is to stretch, and then spot and load for Group 1A. When group 1A finishes, group 1B takes the monolift, while group 1A returns the favor spotting and loading.

Group 2 (A and B) would have their own monolift and could start at the same time as Group 1. Of course this requires a second monolift. My feeling is that if your gym does not have 2 monolifts, it is not equipped to handle a big team.

Here are some questions and answers about this approach:

Q) How are groups and sub-groups formed?
A) The team coach should work with the lifters and group them appropriately by those who want to participate. Not everyone will like this, and that is fine, but the individuals doing their own thing get access to the equipment only after the groups have them.

Q) Can a person switch groups?
A) It seems reasonable, but in practice this does not work. You should stick with your group until the training cycle (no more than 12 weeks) is complete. Doing so effectively breaks your contract to your group and allows people to fall back to where they are comfortable. Complacency and comfort are the enemies of progress. Note: switching sub-groups is useful and often encouraged. It can allow folks to occasionally make other obligations and provides a fresh stimuli while you are working with people with other skills.

Q) Does the same sub-group always start first?
A) Not necessarily. Generally, the guys who are put in the first sub-group are those who 1) like training earlier 2) are consistently on-time or early. I believe going first should be rotated back and forth. Your groups will discover a rhythm that works.

Q) How does this not take forever when people are suiting and wrapping?
A) The concept works differently when knee wraps and full suits are applied. Approximately once a training wave (a wave consists of 3-4 weeks), when people are fully suiting up, the entire group trains together. This will be a long session, and the training volume will be lower. This is where we try and hit PRs in our suits but our total work volume is much less.

Q) Does one sub-group really have to sit around and do nothing while the other sub-group goes?

A) Well, first of all, the second sub-group should be COACHING the lifters through their sets. If they are not watching depth, giving verbal lifting queues,etc, they are not being as valuable as they could be. In addition, when the days are a little slower (i.e. first group not going back to back), one can sneak in accessory and conditioning work. Try and do some hypers, lats, abs, or whatever between breaks.

Q) What if we want to suit up more often?

A) Sometimes it is necessary to gain suit skill work. We had to go through this painful process when everyone got completely out of their suits for 1/2 a year. The bottom line is this is a mistake in my opinion. Get your suit skills up to date, then keep them up to date by fully suiting once every 3-4 weeks, whether or not you are getting ready for a meet. This will keep you from having to re-learn it.

Q) What if a group member consistently misses the training time?

A) Lateness is not tolerated well at our gym. The original precepts say we will never deload a bar for someone that walks in late. The sub-grouping gives a little lee-way to accommodate the occasional unforeseen occurrence beccase the late member can start in the second group. This needs to be the exception, not the norm. We have a 3rd spill-off monolift for others who are not in a group or absolutely can't make the training time for day. If the pattern is too consistent, the lifter will be removed from the group. Sometimes, real life gets in the way, but the group concept will make it so a single distracted lifter can't tank the whole team.

Q) Will this work for everyone?

A) I believe it *can*, and a lot of it is predicated upon how a lifter responds to the training (covered in a separate topic). However, a person needs consistency, dedication, and a positive attitude towards the approach. Consider this: every lifter who did a meet over the past 2 cycles and followed this PR'd in the squat. We did not have a single regression this time around. Results speak louder than long paragraphs.

Q) What if one of the lifters like to keep working up every week?
A) Deload the bar while he is preparing to do a set. This was effectively done to me several times last training cycle.

2010 TBB Invitational - Sara Bodenbender

2010-06-04T09:48:00.000-04:00

Sara has come to have some of the best technique on all the lifts. In fact, she has perfected the squat dip which has inspired some of our fatter lifters, including her boyfriend and myself to use it ourselves. She invariably breaks parallel every time in the gym, and it carried well into the meet with no struggles to get there.

She was also an excellent case study to see if our Tuesday lower body assistance training works for the lighter, less-geared lifters. I'd say it was. She built core strength which carried over to the deadlift and kept her healthy on squat days.

The bench has always moved a little more slowly, as it does for most lighter, female lifters who do not like to eat their way up to bigger benches. We switched her from an old Rage to a Phenom (not the jacked SDP), which allowed for a more comfortable setup. I believe we should now alter the same shirt for more support and refine the training a little bit.

As for the deadlift: this actually comes pretty naturally to her (unlike her Dad). I would recommend she does not really change much until it stalls.

Meet Video - Jon Grove

2010-06-03T22:40:00.004-04:00

What can I say, my good friend and training partner of many years ago came down to support my meet, and it wasn't until I actually got these videos tonight that I realize he had put up a truly nice 'old-school' squat of 815.

Thank you very much for your support Jon. Next time I will have some 'Grave-Soulless' queued up for you.

Just as a note. It takes a LONG time to gather the videos, edit them, and post them up. I will try and do 1 lifter per day over the next week or so, so please be patient.

Tampa Barbell 2010 Invitational - some pics

2010-06-01T09:14:00.003-04:00

Nelson becomes the second TBB lifter to squat 1000, overtaking the #1 spot.

Low Back Assistance - Good Mornings

2010-05-18T22:50:00.003-04:00

Suspended chain good mornings have become a staple at Tampa Barbell. We have 3 waves of folks that do them. The waves consist of something like this

1) girls and other people that use < 315
2) men who work up to something dangerous
3) a few folks who put as many bands on as they can find.

I am joking around here. I don't think groups 1 and 3 are necessarily getting less benefit. The reality is everyone in the gym's squat and deadlift are moving up. There are many ways to do good mornings effectively. Personally, I like to put gear on and work up somewhat heavy, although we have dialed it down from last training cycle where every day was a 1RM. This absolutely did not carry over for me. The new way of doing things seems to be working better.

Without further babble, here is a video. We had April come join us for a session, and she actually loaded on 100 more lbs than the rest of us. She had a near miss with 685 too. I told her as soon as the TBB meet was over we'd have a real showdown. Today, I stuck with my planned set of 5 followed by an opener deadlift.

Trent was busy hating on me and betting I wouldn't be able to PR at the meet. Jealousy is not just reserved for women ;)

twas the day before heavy squat - not quite a poem

2010-05-14T22:07:00.006-04:00

woke up in the morning. my back was so stiff had to role myself out of bed.
the first thought i had was that this better loosen up by tomorrow... in time for squats.
headed to the kitchen: popped a vicodin and some ibuprofen. time to get the day started.
tried to focus on work, but the squat kept popping up in my head.
customers bitching started pissing me off. don't these people realize i have heavy squats?
come lunch time, i could barely keep my eyes open because of the toxicity built up in my system.
please let me just make it through tomorrow and i promise my body a break.
of course i have no appetite. i think i lost that 3 years ago. however, i know i need to stuff down calories, so i put down shake after shake, fighting back the tiny bit of vomit that appears in my mouth at the end of each one. gotta be bloated up for the heavy squat!
post-lunch roles around. time for a little nap. but first a swim in the pool to try and work out the kinks in the back. my dog is about the only thing that can make me smile on the day before battle. we enjoy a few moments together before slogging back to work. took a few breaks and called some friends to BS about what else? lifting and heavy squats of course. (and fat prostitutes but that is another story)
seemed like it would never end, but i finally called it a day in preparation for an early turn-in. should be the perfect night. few hours of videos games, a good book, and nighty-night.
not so fast! family interrupts and there is always time for a squabble. don't they realize i have heavy squats?
want to mash the family room table and put a foot through the tv. quick, better get some meds to control the anxiety.
ahh.. i wore them out.. they are all asleep. too bad i'm sitting here with my pulse racing and sleep nowhere in site.
perfectly normal however for a night before heavy squat.

And here it is..... the final day. Everyone smashes PRs.

good old shirted bench days

2010-05-13T22:27:00.000-04:00

...where everyone waddles around like mummies and does 1 set per 10 minutes. good times.

this training cycle, all lifters did more touching and a lot less board work. i am hoping and confident this will lead to PRs again after a stagnant training cycle last meet.

This saturday, the four horsemen will ride to battle for the last time before the TBB invitational.

Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Can you put member names to each of them?

Some pulling and an update on the meet

2010-05-11T22:06:00.001-04:00

TBB has been busy preparing for the 2nd Invitational Meet. The format of this meet has changed a bit and will be internally focused with everyone helping out and most of us at least competing in one of the lifts.

The deadlifts have actually been moving really well for all preparing for this meet.

I have one thing to comment on: those who are putting the time in on Tuesdays to do their accessories and get conditioned will reap the rewards. I can see it in the gym based on progress. Congrats guys! Tuesdays have gone from a skeleton crew to most everyone in there busting ass.

Meet Post-Mortem

2010-03-21T11:46:00.000-04:00

Have not blogged much since the meet. This is not a reflection on the gym. On the contrary, we had a very strong showing and I am very pleased with TBB as a team. I have just had a lot of stuff in my personal life and had less time to devote to the gym other than training.

That all being said: here are my observations from the meet and thoughts about the training.

1. The squat training was a smashing success. 2 Lifters going 700+ in their first 3 lift meets, our teen lifter, Corey, going 700+, and myself eaking out a small PR were notable occurrances. Greg has some setup troubles, but I believe he had an 875 lurking in him that just didn't quite make it out.

We had success, but I believe tweaks can be made here. We did a lot of suit work, mostly because either our lifters had never used a suit or we had been out of suits for quite awhile. It served its purpose, but I believe all the suit training leads to a big drain on the CNS, a huge demand on time, etc. What I would like to see going forward is our lifters keeping up their suit skills in the off-season so this skill work is not necessary.

I am trying this out with our next group of competitors. They will be taking suit lifts every 3rd week of the cycle, with the 4th week being rest and a heavy pull. We tested all of the lifters for a baseline and they have 3 full cycles before the meet. Time to put this theory to test.

Depth was actually not really an issue for us this time because we dropped the box 8-10 weeks out. Personally, I am going to do a free squat at least once every cycle to keep my dip timing down. Tight canvas squatters need the dip IMO to get down close enough to either break parallel or fool the judges.

2. The bench press was ass-tastic. That is a nerd-term for sucking badly. We had an over-reliance on boards and it showed. Our bench press stars either had small PRs or they went down. I am not insulting you guys. It is just an observation that there are no shortcuts. We need many more full reps in training. The boards are a supplementary tool, not a training method unto themselves. Another thing that hurt us was experimenting with the days. We tried moving the bench to Tuesdays and then back. The end result was missed training days and confusion. Bench day is now back on Thursdays and it will stay that way.

3. The deadlift actually was a decent lift for us this time. Richard comes out of nowhere with a 680 pull. Jon and Corey nailed PRs and continue to make steady gains. Greg continues to take shots at the elusive 805 pull. I only have to say my hat is off to him. That is the holy grail of deadlift numbers and he is giving it a good shot.

The deadlift is the hardest lift to do 'prescriptive' training for. Nothing works for everyone, and nothing works forever. Personally, I believe our good morning training carried over well for Richard (and Nelson who is steadily hitting 700 in training). The good mornings did NOT carry to my pull at all. I have been through this before with myself. The only way to make my pull move is to actually use more pulling derivatives. We are tweaking our cycle to reflect this. The bottom line is people need to figure out on their own what works. You can only do this by experimenting and LOGGING your finds so you can analyze the results.

All in all: I can't be more happy with our team. It is an honor to be training with our group and is consistently the highlight of my week.

Next blog post: 'The squad experiment'

OBB Meet Results (not totally complete)

2010-03-15T23:24:00.002-04:00

Richard Mckeefer goes 770 - 550 - 680 / 2000 for Elite in his first 3-lift meet.

Mike Westerdal ups his bench to 630 @ 242.

Greg Jurowski goes 2050 for another 2k total!

Jon Drummond goes 740 - 225 -630 / 1595 for for a great first showing despite an injured shoulder.   He should be feeling hungry for a 1900 soon.

Corey Hood had a great meet, despite blowing his bench shirt. He squatted over 700 and pulled 600.   We are still looking for the videos :(

We had a young teen lifter, Justin make his first meet appearance at just 15 yrs of age. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed with the videos and results. I am trying to hunt them down to get included.   Great genetics and potential here for sure!

I decided to test my squat at a new weight class. Took a few lifts to get the meet jitters away but hit 905 on a 3rd.

Ok.. well one more squat day

2010-02-20T21:36:00.001-05:00

I was not satisfied with my last squat day Tuesday so I wanted to take another one to feel things out with the suit on.

One thing I noticed was that with only 2 of us on one monolift and 2 on the other one running speed sets, the training felt a lot better at the faster pace. I guess there is one advantage to having people show up late... they are off the monolift.

I suited up and worked up to 100 lbs under my opener as per Brian Carroll's advice and then hit some speeds sets just for shits and giggles.

One thing is clear to me: I want to make the training move a lot faster. I feel you can go heavy and often but if you are in the gym >3 hrs you get too mentally beat up.

Look for some big changes come next training cycle... especially if you train with my group.

Now... onwards to Schwab's!

Last Squat Training Before the OBB Meet and a mini-rant

2010-02-18T22:19:00.003-05:00

Glenn Baggett came up from NGBB to get in a heavy suited workout with us.   I was very happy to have him up as it made for a good atmosphere and form check. Glenn has his form and training dialed in. It is also great to bounce ideas off people.   *NEVER* make the mistake that you know everything.

I will say that the day did have its share of mishaps.   It seemed like folks either had some meet jitters or maybe squatting on a Tuesday was enough off the routine to shake things up a bit.

Personally, I made the mistake of trying on another gear combo. Fortunately, Nelson and Trent advised me to change back and I was able to correct before seriously blowing the workout.   Also, Richard had a hell of a time getting depth. After missing a weight, he made a great comeback to do 3 more work sets.    Gearman had a panic attack and we almost had to get the jaws of life to get him out of his suit. Nothing new there really.

< rant >

I decided to delete my mini-tirade in the belief that we need nothing but positive energy right now. I only ask you, faithful reader, to consider one thing: have you personally done everything you could to be a good team member especially as we get close to the meet? enough said.   See everyone one Saturday.

< /rant >

Jason Macelroy's RUM results

2010-02-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

Congrats to Jason, a veteran lifter for TBB who proved his versatility by doing well at the Raw Unity Meet. Although Tampa Barbell does not normally train for raw meets, we applaud and support Jason for going out shortly after his last meet on very short notice and doing well at the raw meet.

Way to represent TBB Jason!

Funny Goings-on

2010-01-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

Sunday has become an eclectic day that more people have started attending. Some do their shirted bench. Others do bodybuilding shit. Some of us scrub the toilets. Well, today we had a real treat.

Eddie was in doing his best to set up everyone with their conceal carry permit. It's a comforting thought to know that everyone at TBB will soon be carrying firearms wherever they go. Perhaps we should use the empty spaces in the shopping plaza for target practice.

Meanwhile, I invented a new exercise. The Fannon-waddle-pohl, a superior form of the Powerpohl.   Trent was very busy hating but soon I predict it will spread throughout the powerlifting world.

Not much else to report other than the gym has sort of returned to its normal groove. We had an old member come back in.   It was really nice to hear him remark that pretty much every other gym he visited since leaving was filled with, hmm, what is the PC term?   Skinny, spandex-clad, metrosexuals.

New motto:   Gear up, lift heavy, or get the fuck out.

Gym Business

2010-01-20T22:03:00.001-05:00

I obsess about things. I especially obsess about all matters concerning lifting.   Since I own a pretty complete club, I now obsess a lot about how to make the gym the best atmosphere I can.

As a gym owner, there are lots of dynamics and personalities at play.

A regular gym is like a car from one of the top manufacturers.    It will run for very long periods of time with very little maintenance, but its performance is nothing exceptional. In fact, it is rather bland.

A powerlifting gym is more like a high performance hotrod that constantly has to be tweaked and maintained. It rarely runs for long without a hiccup that requires fixing, a computer chip that needs adjusting, or a part that needs replacing. However, when it is working, it is a thing of beauty and the performance is out of this world.

Recently, we have made some great new additions to the team.   I expect to see some monster debut meet squats, another 600 bencher, and a few guys knocking at the 700 deadlift door.

In addition, we have taken on a few experiments to see how they would work out.   We decided to try and let folks do more free-form training if you will, with an emphasis on more raw strength.

In addition, we relaxed the requirement that people be preparing for a 3 lift meet.

Well, after sitting back and observing the dynamics of what happens in this environment, as well as consulting with members of the gym and frequently with the gym elders, I have drawn the following conclusions:

The last two points have not led to a better atmosphere.   In fact, they have caused me quite a bit of headache to accomodate and adjust for.   Tampa Barbell will be going back to its original requirements and goals: 3 lifting, fully geared competition.

We at Tampa Barbell believe in lifting the most weight possible within the confines of the rules, no matter what that takes.   The sport is without a doubt about your individual performance. However, it is also very much about mastering the technique required to use advanced equipment.   I can wax philosophic for many, many minutes on geared vs raw lifting, but I won't here.   At least not for now.

That is all. -TF

Tuesday - Chaos

2010-01-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

Every member of Tampa Barbell (and some of their family members) were in the gym today and it was complete chaos. In all honesty, it was sort of cool. Lots of activity and crazy shit going on.

For our benchers, we started a chain wave. The chains help to get more volume in while reducing the load on the body. I think the carryover will be huge. I am expecting good things from Rich, Mike, and Decatur.

As promised, I managed to deload because.....

SATURDAY IS
TIME....
TO...

FUCK...
SHIT...
UP

First post of the new year

2010-01-03T23:43:00.000-05:00

Actually, the only reason for this post is some insomnia and the desire to codify some thoughts on my own training as we lead into the OBB meet.   I don't often speak about my personal training, but it has been going pretty well so allow me this indulgence if you will.

Over the next 8 weeks, we will officially enter into what I call the full-on gear-whore stage.   Every squat and deadlift will be done wrapped up as tight and in as many layers as we can possibly squeeze on. The weight on the bar will quite often exceed our maximum meet squats and deadlifts.   The strain on the CNS will be considerable.

Recently, my low back and knees have been taking a beating, presumably from twice a week low body workouts.   It was suggested to me that just maybe I shouldn't go so crazy on Tuesdays.   As I may have mentioned, this is pretty hard.    I love narrow squats and good mornings, and my 'core' strength has certainly risen a lot.    However, at this stage, I believe it could be counterproductive to the super-heavy training I expect to do on the weekends.

The only low body movements I will do on Tuesdays are reverse hypers.   I will try and focus on lats. Everyone knows that the women love a huge, hairy, zit-covered upper back.   I am contemplating not even train at all on Thursdays.   More rest for the big day.

Anyway, that is the plan, and I will stick to it... at least until next tuesday rolls around.

In other gym business:

Bench training has sort of become jumbled as some folks shift to Tuesdays and others to Sundays.     The guys that are new to the shirt are coming in on Sundays to get some personal 1 on 1 learning how to use the shirt.   This was hard on Thursdays because there could be up to 16 people training at once on that day.    I really enjoy seeing people master the shirt.    Yet, even as my shoulder shows small signs of life, I am still thankful I do not have to engage in all that shit right now.   Just watching the arching makes my lower back hurt like hell.

Also, the gym elders met once again for the 4th time to discuss the 'cutting of the power rack'.   I am happy to report we will likely move forward with plans to modify the rack, yet I am sure there will have to be at least 3 more meetings about it.
That is all.   Happy New Year TBB!

End of Year Update

2009-12-27T22:47:00.001-05:00

As the year draws to a close, I just wanted to comment on a few things. The team seems to have hit a real stride. People are grouping well and progressing in all their lifts nicely. I am especially pleased to see the time people are investing into their deadlifts.

The gym looks great. I have been truly blessed to have such a nice facility built with the help and sweat of many of my members and good friends. (and of course cash which always helps).

The team is looking to send a good number of us to the OBB meet in February, myself included. The real key here is not to overtrain in the home stretch. I look to my teammates to help me out, as I am very guilty of this.

Here are a few quick videos done over past few days.

Here are some pictures of our custom weight holders (built by Sam Hell Choppers of North Georgia Barbell) and our home-built custom bar holder.

Consistency and the payoff

2009-12-09T20:09:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was Southern States.   We sent two competitors, one a seasoned veteran and the second, our 19 yr old who had gone away and come back to lifting.   Actually, the vet, Jason Macelroy caught a tough break and bombed on the squat. However, he handled it with class and composure.    Jason had put together a good training cycle and I am sure he will come back and nail it at the Orlando meet.

Corey Hood put together an awesome meet and hit a total pretty damn near right on what he was capable of.   I know life deals us all some shit that takes our minds off the sport, but he really came back and put it all together. I think I can count the times on one hand that he missed the scheduled workouts over the past 4 months, including Tuesdays, which is our 'core' strength day, one that people are most likely to skip out of laziness.    Not only did he show up, but he showed up ready. This was great to see.   And the reward for all of us was an outstanding meet.

I have a very unique situation at Tampa Barbell.   We have around 18 guys, and I can honestly say they are my friends as well as training partners.    The one fallback to this is that you let a lot of shit slide with friends.    If I were their coach only, I'd be chewing a lot of ass for 1/2-assed or even missed workouts.   However,   the good thing is that I hope I have created an environment where people feel like they are more than just numbers on their total.

I do want to take the opportunity to point out, however, that you will get out of the sport what you put into it as evidenced above.

A note about last squat training cycle

2009-11-29T18:59:00.001-05:00

I haven't blogged much about training, chiefly because we have spent so much time on the remodel.   However, the squat/deadlift training has really taken off.   We have a total of 18 lifters squatting and pulling together and we do it every Saturday.   It has been a challenge to group folks correctly, but after running through 2 complete 3 week waves, I think it has been a success.   One of the keys was to actually rotate groups rather than have people always go together.   It really, really helps to spread the intensity and the coaching around.

We have two of our lifters (Jason and Corey) preparing for a meet next weekend who finished up with a 3 week suit-skill cycle. Both ended up with 1RM far beyond their meet bests.

One of our females, Sara, actually saw a recent big jump in her deadlift max. Great job Sara, as this lift is often the neglected one in the gym. Also, Corey finished with a huge PR in preparation for the meet as well. Nicely done.   Here is a video of them.

The entire gym just finished a 3 week band wave. For the heaviest group, we used a band configuration like the following:

week 1 - Blue 8x3
week 2 - Blue Green 6x2
week 3 - Blue, Blue, Purple up to 1RM

Some of our lighter lifters did a similar cycle but with green, green purples, blue/green.

Tampa Barbell wishes Mike Schwanke a safe stay in Iraq.

2009-11-28T18:37:00.000-05:00

Mike is serving with the US Air Force in Iraq for the next 6 months. Today's squat day was our first without him and his presence is already sorely missed.

Mike is the strongest person I have personally trained with. He was the first TBB member to hit 1000 on the squat and also has a 700 bench and 800 deadlift to his credit. Mike's intensity is unreal and his competitive attitude is unsurpassed.

Mike's 1003 squat.

Mike's 700 bench.

Mike's 800 Deadlift.

I'd like to again wish Mike and Suzanne congratulations and best wishes on a successful marriage. Tampa Barbell is counting on you guys to even the score in divorces vs good marriages :)

Take care my friend, and I will see you back in a short while. -TF

Chaotic Bench Night

2009-11-13T13:39:00.001-05:00

Bench night still does not have the order that we have attained on Squat/Dead day.

There are three reasons I can see for this:

1) people are not showing up on time.   this is really the heart of the matter as i cannot create working groups that reliably stick together.   remember the original TBB Tenet: we do not unload weight to accomodate someone who has come in late.

2) we need a 4th bench to house guys that need to come in late.

3) construction shit all over the place -> this is really minor and will be addressed soon as construction completes over next 2 weeks.

What I am going to need to address point #1 are commitments from people to their groups in 3 week increments. At the end of each training wave, we will re-assess how the groups are functioning and re-do them accordingly.

If the 6pm training time is problematic, this needs to be addressed with me up front rather than hit or miss each week.   I will use the 4th bench to hold people that cannot make the earlier time.

Work in progress.....

Random Bench Night Blog

2009-11-06T10:43:00.001-05:00

I arrived late tonight because of some work meetings, and I was very pleased to see people had organized themselves into decent groups.

The squat training has been going very well, and I want to apply some of these principles to how we run bench night.

Observations: less people on bench = much faster workout and more volume per lifter. duh, common sense right? it has me thinking that possibly we should acquire a 4th competition bench so we can run 4 per bench.

Only other thing worth mentioning is that Thursdays I will sometimes bring in some new music to test out on the members to see whether it will be good for a Saturday squat session. Tonight we heard the new Slayer, which in my opinion was just like every other Slayer released the past 5 years, ok but nothing special.

Also, we heard a band called Celtic Frost. I picked it up because of one song, which was awesome. However, the rest of the album was some dude screeching like Gollum from lord of the rings. Glad I was only eating cookies instead of lifting as I couldn't stop laughing. That one probably won't make squat day.

Max Effort - More RED

2009-10-20T22:53:00.002-04:00

We did some re-arranging so all 3 monolifts now sit on the main platform.

In addition, we decided to go a little crazy with the red.

We also decided to create a new deadlift platform (which you can't see used here) so that we can have both light and heavy sessions going simultaneously. This worked beautifully. There were 12 people pulling today and moving pretty fast. In addition, we had one lifter doing a Max Effort squat and myself doing good mornings. Plenty of room and the intensity was un-fucking-real. Things are really coming together.

Red is for Anger

2009-10-18T20:25:00.000-04:00

Today, the workforce came in to slap a little red paint on.    Also, our luxurious toilet is about 1 step away from completion. It shall be the most magnificent commode a hardcore barbell club will ever have.

Just a side note: It always baffles me what people take for granted.    Is it just me, or has every person who has lifted weights dreamed of a place where they can go where there are no fuckwads in short-shorts, no people telling you not to slam weights, no lame-ass music on the radio, no fat, old naked men hanging out in the locker room?    Do we not remember our roots?

Then, why is it, when you actually have something most lifters dream of you take it for granted?   Why is it when you see people chipping in to make the place better or stepping up to do their part, you are not compelled to participate?    Mind boggling.   Humans are an odd bunch. Like the only saying goes... you only appreciate it something once it's gone.

3rd week of squat wave - Max Effort

2009-10-17T18:16:00.000-04:00

This marked the start of our new double session rotation.   In my opinion it worked really well.   You can read below for how we set this up to accommodate 16 lifters. It's a good thing today there were a few absences because we are still working the kinks out.

Suzanne continues to hit impressive numbers. She has been a good sport about being a guinea pig with our ideas and of course loves to gear whore.   She is handling weights with straps down that she has before done fully geared in a meet.   Great job Suzanne!

Today marked the first day I actually got under a real squat bar since the shoulder rotation.   It only took 2 vicodin before the pain receded.    The guys in my wave have all been great team members and have pretty much stuck to using the specialty bars over the past several months because that was all I could get under.   Well, one thing I noticed on all four of us was our form suffered a bit on the heavy weight, especially on the unrack. We all had a little difficulty driving our elbows down and staying tight. This was likely due to the fact that the other bars basically took the need for this out of the equation.     I will combat this by keeping a straight bar in for at least 1 of the days of the 3 week waves.

Everyone still wound up having great days in relatively light gear.   Nelson, in an effort to outdo me snuck on a second pair of briefs on top of his already tight 38s.   He did wind up tying me and came damn close to one upping me by 40 lbs but I secretly pushed him down on the behind spot to keep it all real :)   Just kidding.

One other thing we tried out today were these chain holders that an old college training partner built especially for the deadlift so that the bar and plates don't get caught up in the chains. It worked awesome. I am currently in the midst of a torrid love affair with chains and think these will really benefit all the lifts.

Safety Straps on the monolift

2009-10-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

This is pretty much becoming standard practice at big meets, but I always get a lot of emails and see questions on forums about how to set these things up. First, I got them from a friend (thanks Adam!) at a tow-yard. Marc Bartley also sells them at Spud Straps.

Bench night

2009-10-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

Not too much to say here. We are taking two groups through a chain wave and there is another group doing straight weight. In my past, the chains seem to translate very well to a competition bench. Most of our guys are using RageX shirts. The Rage is an excellent shirt, but my main issue with it is that it forces you to touch very low. I think this is a cause of shoulder problems. Unfortunately, everyone can't drop 3 Franklins on a Super Phenom. I don't have an answer for this.

Here is a quick walkthrough while the gym is empty that showcases the construction. Come two months, this place won't even look the same.

Some success and a few things needing adjustment

2009-10-11T15:32:00.001-04:00

Over the past few weeks, people have been accommodating to the new groupings and more people are starting to cross over from some of the core training into their gear again.

When everyone is in, there are 16 lifters on Saturday.   This is actually a pretty good problem to have.   However, it makes for marathon sessions and congestion around the monolifts.     There are basically two schools of thought amongst the barbell clubs I know. One, you can let the groups breakup and run by themselves, or you can bring the whole team together. The benefit of option A is basically less congestion and more autonomy among the groups.   In addition, the training sessions are a LOT shorter, which is a big benefit to the lifter.   However, in my opinion it does not foster a group or team atmosphere. You basically have people who are similar in strength and ability group up and not offer their assistance to others. I have addressed this before.

So, I am going to make a few adjustments to try and offer the benefits of both.   There will be two sessions of lifters, 2 groups per session: A 9:30 session with Groups A and B and a 10:30 session with Groups C and D.   There will be no more than 4 lifters per monolift except on a few occasions where people are preparing for a meet and are maxing out.

Group A will consist of some of the more experienced lifters, who in addition to being able to use heavier weights, will also be able to stay around and help me coach the second Session.     Group B will be our lighter lifters who will likely run through their session quicker.

What I expect to happen is that people from the second session will show up as Group B is finishing up. Since there are 3 monolifts in the gym, 2 of these monolifts will open up at this time to allow the second session guys to begin warming up.   This is the theory.   As with all good theories I am sure in practice it will require tweaking.

Another problem I am facing is that not everyone can devote 5 hrs to a training session.   I do realize that people have jobs and families, but the bottom line is that Tampa Barbell will define itself by its team structure.   I expect that the time commitment for a squat/deadlift day be 3 hours.   Of course exceptions can be made, but these should be exceptions, not the norm.

Anyway, we will see how things shape up.   I have more to report on the waves and thoughts on 'dynamic' squat training, but these can wait until another post.

RIP Preacher Curl Machine b. circa 2006 d. 9/29/2009

2009-09-30T00:15:00.000-04:00

Blaine and I bought this machine a few months after we opened Tampa Barbell.   We got it from some dude in Palm Harbor one summer evening. I remember the night distinctly. As we stepped out of the Dodge Ram, we were descended upon by a storm of mosquitos. This guy lived in front of a swamp and kept a bunch of rotting equipment in his backyard.   For whatever reason, Blaine and I decided that it would be a good idea to buy this piece of shit.

To this date, no piece of equipment, including the Sarden monolift has been this painful to get up into the gym. It almost killed 3 of us carting it up the stairs as it didn't disassemble.

I have wanted to get rid of it for a long time now. Somehow, it has been protected by some ghetto-mind-warp aura of forgetfulness.   Every time we set its execution date, somehow we forget to bring the sawzall and other tools to cut it to pieces and rid ourselves of it.

Not tonight friends.   I had the techno cranking and the stimulants flowing, and it was time to get er the fuck out.   I picked up a sledgehammer and took a few whacks.   I did only manage the dislodge the seat before I thought I was going to rip a tendon off, but luckily, Tom B swooped in and used actual tools to take it apart (amazing we never thought of using a screwdriver before. - I'm telling you, it was protected).

Anyway, it is gone, and to celebrate the ghetto leaving the gym, we played a little Three-Six Mafia.

A entry about my dog (and this will relate to lifting).

2009-09-26T15:32:00.005-04:00

First of all, my dog is awesome. I got him shortly after the death of my last loyal follower, Hoss, almost two years ago. He has intensity and abounds with energy. He never fails to cheer me up after a bad day, nor does he miss any opportunity to wake me up either with slobbering kisses or a full leap of his 100+ pound frame onto my sleeping carcass.

However, he has taught me something recently. Rather, he has reaffirmed something I have known all along, but like every other lifter just conveniently ignores when confronted with the same situation.

About 5 weeks ago, I noticed the little guy limping after he'd get up from laying down. He'd hobble over and it was sort of cute watching him walk lopsided. After a few minutes of running it out, he'd be fine. I didn't think much of it. After all, he would run non-stop at the dog park or still leap onto the bed or swimming pool.

However, after a few weeks, I noticed it was still with him. Labs are predisposed to hip problems, so I got a little worried. I went into see the vet. After a full exam (which of course I had already done at home by poking and prodding), the vet eliminated any stress fractures or items stuck in his paw. He said it was most likely that he had a sprain, and big lab puppies were notorious for not knowing how to rest. Well, huh.... just like most powerlifters I know. The vet went onto say not to bike with him or let him go to the park for 3 full weeks. This is eternity in dog days. However, 3 weeks is a number I have often found myself quoting about many things lifting related. A squat cycle lasts 3 weeks. It takes your body approximately 3 weeks to accommodate itself to a new chemical, and I have always felt that minor tweaks take 3 weeks to really heal up.

The problem is just as 3 weeks is a long-time in dog days, 3 weeks to a powerlifter 'preparing for something' is an eternity. Tell a lifter to stay out of his bench shirt, off the squat rack, or god forbid out of the gym for three weeks is like asking for a miracle. It doesn't happen.

Almost everyone I know has gotten aches and pains, and they can even be convinced to take a little down time. However, down time usually consists of 1 workout or until the pain has subsided to only a moderate discomfort. THIS IS WRONG! Where I notice a disproportionate amount of these complaints, followed by not enough layoff is the shoulder. The shoulder is the most complicated of all structures in the body, and god knows I have damaged mine beyond belief. When I look back at my entire career of powerlifting, I cannot say I have EVER taken 3 weeks off benching, except for the the surgeries which have forced it. So, I am guilty as hell.

Although I will probably continue to make this mistake, especially on squat day, it is in my power to influence other lifters to do the right thing. People have to realize they won't really get weaker or smaller taking time time off, and believe me, this is a huge psychological hurdle. There is so much stuff in my gym that you can get creative as hell while forgetting you are missing a few bench days. The bottom line is that people that want to stay in this sport need to learn to listen to their bodies and ignore their brains.

Jake has healed up just fine. And so will you.

TF

Deadlift Training and more reconstruction

2009-09-22T11:21:00.004-04:00

Deadlift training is not as prescriptive as Squat and Bench training. People vary wildly in what they respond to. As such, our groups have split a little bit here.

I know it sounds like common sense, but here is something I have observed: The deadlift benefits the least from gear so raw (or core) training seems to have had a very good effect on moving the deadlift up in some of our 'test subjects'.

The debate comes up a lot over which day to make your deadlift focus day. Some folks like and respond well to a dedicated day. This is Tuesday for them. We will continue to have people who continue to do so. In fact, our (2) 800-pullers use this approach. However, I have heard it once said by another great deadlifter, fellow gym-owner Jon Grove: do not get your deadlift training program from a good deadlifter. I feel that great deadlifters are born that way. They don't need to get super-creative or worry as much about overtraining.

For the rest of us, a more dynamic approach seems to be better. By putting a deadlift on its own day, it now requires a 3rd hyper-focused day and allow less time for core-building exercises such as good mornings or narrow squats or other non-deadlift movements. So, the majority of us will use Tuesday for core work, and pull on Saturdays, occasionally working up heavy.

Here is a video of a few guys who will soon bust into the 700 club:

Bench Night

2009-09-17T22:52:00.003-04:00

Things ran more smoothly tonight. I think people are getting used to the new pairings. What one has to understand is that there is no prescription or perfect plan for getting stronger. The best thing a coach can do is either tell you

A) you look like shit. save it for another day.
B) you look good. we are going to work harder.

By the way, I hate my voice on the videos. Rhonda tells me I sound like Louie Simmons. LOL. Well, I guess I can aspire to one day build the empire he has. Speaking of which, I had a great chat with AJ Roberts today. He has had the pleasure of having trained under the greatest multi-ply squatter ever, Brent Mikesell and now he trains under Louie. The conversation was very enlightening and AJ is a smart young man. I expect great things from him.

Makeup day

2009-09-15T23:17:00.004-04:00

I was pleased to see a pretty full contingent of lifters today on Tuesday. People may be finally starting to realize the importance of assistance work.

I have also seen a lot more use of the reverse hyper machine. This is not just hype. We will see healthier lower backs and steadily progressing lifts from this.

Gym gets a new coat of paint tomorrow!

Hector had a makeup day on the squat to complete his 3 week wave. I predict a 700 squat at his first meet.

Gym Reconstruction Has Begun

2009-09-13T20:00:00.002-04:00

Tom, Trent, and myself have taken it upon ourselves to renovate the gym. At first our list of things to do was small, but once my wife got wind of it plans have expanded. A special thanks to our newest member Richie for staying and helping!

On the Agenda:

Texture the walls
Repaint
Install new carpet
Replace broken fans
Replace burnt out lights -> never realized how many bulbs were actually in the gym. We replaced about 40 of these. No wonder the electric bill is so high.
Fix one of the air-conditioning units
Powder coat some of the machines.
Rip out shit from the bathroom.
Install new sink and tile in the bathroom
Install hanger for hanging lifting gear.

Clean up unneeded shit. Speaking of which: MikeW, your various weird bars need a new home.

Tom found a pregnancy test kit wedged behind the sink. Speculation was rampant on whose that may have been. Please, people, keep your personal business out of Tampa Barbell. There better be no sex going on in that bathroom as that is just disgusting. And, we know who is leaving pee-stains on the toilet and we are now watching you.

That is all. There will be various cleanup and work days scattered through the next few training sessions.

Squat - Day

2009-09-12T21:02:00.006-04:00

Remember that you can choose HD to watch higher quality.

Second week in group formation

2009-09-10T22:42:00.002-04:00

This week went more smoothly getting people together. Part of this was because a few of the amoebas* didn't show up. Secondly, people seem to be willing to follow the program and it makes it much more pleasant when people aren't off trying to do other random shit. I will never go as far as to do what Louie does at his gym which is his way or the highway, but I will certainly give preferential training and equipment priority to those on a regimen.

I have a few observations. No matter how you slice it, when you do shirt training, it takes a LOT of time. When you are done, you are usually pretty gassed and not really wanting to do much assistance. This has to be mitigated somehow. You either need to throw more shit in on one of the 3 days or use the optional 4th day. Getting stronger only in the shirt is a mistake for many reasons I will go into later.

I also am starting to believe that the less experience you have and when you are not yet lifting a lot of weight, you should spend much less time in the shirt. There is a lot of core development that still needs to be done. In my mind the best course of action for these people is to get a shirt that is relatively easy fitting and to turn them loose on it once every 3 weeks for a Maximal Effort.

That is all for tonight. Reconstruction of the gym begins Saturday. In honor of this, I have decided to purchase a pair of Monster bands. Why? Because the color is black and I think they look neat. Yes, I am fully aware that it would be just as effective to use a green and purple. I will spare no expense for Tampa Barbell.

*amoeba = one who has no real plan and floats aimelessly through the gym.

Do we need a forth day?

2009-09-06T16:56:00.003-04:00

Tampa Barbell is a private facility and training is done at certain times only. Since we began, it has been basically open 3 days per week. With the influx of new members, especially those of varying skills, I am contemplating opening the gym a 4th day. This will allow a few things to happen:

1) it facilitates an easier Westside split.
2) it allows people who have missed a day or would like to train more the ability to do so

The downside is it requires someone to be in the gym. I am working out with my key-holding members a decent rotation so someone is not stuck there every week.

This brings up an interesting question: Is 'speed' day on the bench really applicable anymore in today's powerlifting scene? I guess that all really depends on who you talk to. Of course, the Westside guys will tell you that it does. A few other well known benchers have used this including Ryan Kennelly and Paul Key. Other camps will tell you it's not needed. Big Iron and Team Sampson don't really use it, and they have some huge benchers.

My view is that speed day can actually add some variation needed to break through staleness. In addition, when gear-whoring reaches its zenith as people prepare for meets, their raw strength and consequently conditioning fall into the toilet. It can be especially helpful in these instances.

I also think it can be overused and cause people to overtrain if not careful. I will keep my eye on this and see who it would be most applicable for.

Another option besides doing speed every week is to possibly do some higher rep accessories to the bench press or even add in some missing shoulder work.

The first day of the new squat wave

2009-09-06T16:49:00.002-04:00

I prepared for this a little bit better than the first bench night. Tampa Barbell has 3 monolifts. 2 of the monolifts are side by side and will be used to run the official waves. The 3rd monolift can be used by those who want to do their own thing. I am not going to dictate that everyone trains the same way, but I will give precedence of the equipment to those who are grouping up and following a more regimented program.

I have split the squat into two waves.

Our first wave consists both of our raw squatters, and on the other monolift we have some of our less experienced gear squatters who need the most coaching. I have asked some of our more experienced guys to come in early and help run this wave through.

In general this was a success the first time, though I noticed a few things happening. Certain people want to be in certain groups based on their comfort levels with the people. I will continue to make tweaks until this works itself out.

Trying to organize the teams

2009-09-04T12:21:00.005-04:00

Somehow I thought it would be easy to get people into a new routine. We have different camps of people:

those who are off-season and doing all RAW (notice all caps) training.
those who are very experienced in the gear.
those who are less experienced but know how to use gear.
those who are brand new to training in gear.

The camps further subdivide into whether or not people are preparing for a meet or not.

In general, the more experienced lifters like to stay together, both because of familiarity and their strength levels are somewhat the same. Generally, we do a decent job of getting the brand new guys good coaching. The problem really lies with the guys who are in between. They sort of get shoved onto their own bench and left to their own devices.

I think in order for this to work, a few things need to happen:

There need to be at least 2 dedicated 'gear' benches, and the more experienced guys will need to split up.

Progress needs to be tracked in a more methodical fashion that just go in and bench on a whim. Some of are more advanced athletes have a clear plan in their heads, but it is generally not adaptable to others.

So, I have decided to take a more active role in the running the bench waves with gear. The first night was a relative success. I would like to see things moving a lot quicker. But, we will get there even if I have to get a bullhorn and sit in a chair and move things along.

A new beginning

2009-09-01T23:08:00.008-04:00

Tampa Barbell established itself in 2006 as a place to come and immerse yourself into the world of powerlifting. Its founders were long-time powerlifters who shared a love of the sport along with the camaraderie of training in a group of like-minded men and women.

Along the way we have picked up many great folks. We have doubled the space of the gym. We have purchased so many additional pieces of equipment that I will go out on a limb and say we are the best-equipped hardcore training facility in the state of Florida, bar none.

We have been honored to have several military personnel train with us, masters lifters train with us, and a few women try their hand successfully in a typically male-dominated sport. We have even had a few kids come in and see what its all about. We have been visited by the strength coaches of high schools, as well as USF, a college football powerhouse.

Of course we have lost members, mainly due to relocation, some who were called away on military duty, and some who found out that serious training was actually more of a commitment than they could afford to make. I would like to think that all those who left Tampa Barbell for various reasons parted with good feelings about the place.

Fast forward 4 years. The gym has sent its members to its fair share of meets, both local and national, including the most prestigious "Pro" meet of the year. The name of Tampa Barbell has become well-respected throughout the entire powerlifting community. I cannot count the amount of lifters who were called upon to travel to Florida and paid us a visit based on our reputation. We have had fun hosting all of you and hope you speak fondly of us when you return to your home state!

We have produced many gifted athletes including an all-time world record holder, several state record holders, masters world record holders, and numerous junior record holders.

In addition, the gym has produced 8 people squatting over 800 lbs, 6 people bench pressing over 600 lbs, and 4 people deadlifting over 700 pounds. These are BIG numbers. Most people will train all their lives and never come close to these numbers, and yet we have grown sort of accustomed to this level of performance.

But I have realized that there is one thing that we have struggled with, and that is the recruitment and retention of young athletes. As an aging lifter myself, I sometime lose site of the fact that the future of the sport lies not with us, but with the younger lifters. In fact, it may lie with a person who loves to lift weights but has never trained specifically for competition. It may lie with that 16 yr old high school kid who hits the weight room hard one summer and realizes that he has the miraculous power to transform his body and perhaps his entire life given hard work and dedication. We NEED these people. And to get these people, we have to modify our approach.

We cannot expect that all of our lifters will come to us prepared and full of knowledge of all the nuances of the sport. We also cannot expect that every person will instantly step foot into our gym and feel as at home as we all do. In fact, there are many lifters who have come in and just had a hard time adjusting to the amount of weight being moved, the intensity of the training, or even the sheer volume of the metal which blares out of the speakers every training session.

This next level of growth will only be achieved when some of the more experienced among us set aside some of our personal goals and take the time to guide these younger athletes.

It will also require that all members of the gym take part in some of the more earthly matters such as maintenance and upkeep of the gym. The gym will always remain 'hardcore' (like Sean Donnegan's knuckles) but it also must be respected. I am a believer in the 'broken windows' theory and will pursue this rigorously moving forward. If you are a member, please take note of this and step up.

I believe it will also require that we form a little more regimented approach to our training. In my mind, the best gyms around the country producing the most accomplished athletes due so through structured training and generally under the tutelage of both the owner as well as his more experienced athletes.

Anyway, that is enough for now. Please follow with us at the Tampa Barbell blog as we grow into the future!

Stay strong and get that way if you're not!
-TF