I’ve never met anyone who can press 330 lbs before Mr. Lindley. You haven’t either. The important thing to remember is that I’ve also never met the guy who will not miss a single training session in the 3 years that I’ve known him, who will follow a program to the letter, with absolutely no modification, and who will do what it takes to progress on the program. These extraordinary performances are made in the hours alone in the gym, pushing up to a real failure point and then figuring out what to do next to not fail. It’s easy for us to blame our program, our recovery, our bad day, or any number of other things for a lack of progress. Us normal folks forget that grueling persistence is what yields these kinds of results. For Chase, it was a 330 lb press. For you and me, the performance will be more modest, but equally transformative if the process is applied in earnest.
I asked him to let all of us have a look at it to show how basic it is.
No rates of perceived exertion (RPEs), no percentages, minimal cycling of reps and volume. Just lots of 5s and lots of hard work.
You and I aren’t Chase, but if we’re going to collectively be constantly
distracted by new and exciting and complicated and variable programs done by strong people, maybe it’ll be useful to look at one that isn’t so exciting, to reframe our perspective on what really matters.