Reply With QuoteI thought there was a comp in early December you were planning on doing? And dang, Tim has a good deadlift. Your parents like names that start with T?
Member
my brothers had their first meet today and ended up going
Tony: 335/200/405 @ 192, in street clothes
Tim: 365/200/500 @ 210, in street clothes
on my phone so i cant post vids
had a lot of fun. itching to compete myself. have no competition scheduled though. hope all is well.
HAND.
Member
I thought there was a comp in early December you were planning on doing? And dang, Tim has a good deadlift. Your parents like names that start with T?
Member
Congratulations on the meet, that's pretty cool.
Member
lol, the names are part accident and part my mother trying to be cute. My real name is Israel. Thomas is my middle name. People only call me Tom because my Dad's name is Israel but I'm not a junior because he doesn't have a middle name. Tom is just less confusing. Tony's real name is Anthony. Once my mom connected that it was all T's, she ran with the idea and the nicknames just stuck, I guess.
Tim squatted 375x3 in training. His warmups were off and I made a tactical error calling for 405 because that was the original plan. I should have made sure that he got 385 for a small PR. Similar sort of thing happened on bench. He got 200 with relative ease, a number he had tripled with a pause in the gym, and I told him he could go for 225 if he felt like it. He missed badly. I should have called 210. He would have had 1100 if I called the numbers correctly. But then he ended up pulling 500 after only getting 425x3 in the gym. So that was really, really cool. His first meet was very similar to mine. I benched 250x3 with a pause in the gym and only got 242 at the meet. I squatted 415x4 and only got 419. He'll do spades better at his next meet which probably won't happen until next summer.
My other even younger brother, Tony, lifted a day after getting a fucking DUI because he's a dumbass. I was proud that he still went all the way out to the middle of nowhere to compete and he did a great job. He went 300x3/185x3/335x3 in the gym and ended up converting that to 335/200/405 which is pretty fucking awesome. He went 8/9. He missed 200 the first time and got it the second time after LISTENING to my technique advice for once. What a novel concept, right? This was after only one month of training with us. Although, he did train with me last summer for something like ten weeks as well.
As far as my training is concerned, here is my little "update" rant. The meet in December was moved to mid-November and changed to push/pull. If there is no squatting component, it isn't powerlifting. Just kidding. Sort of... Actually though, right now, training is taking a back seat for me. My focus is almost 100% on work. That's just how my brain works. My focus is very absolute and incredibly intense. I can't really "get better" at multiple things at once because I have to be "the best" at what I'm doing. That isn't literal, obviously, but it does apply to my personal level of effort in a given area as well as the type of habits that I make myself take on. I guess you could say that I'm, more or less, shifting my training into a maintenance mode of sorts (yes, the death knell of progress, I know).
I'm currently only lifting 3x/wk running the old school version of the SS advanced novice program. I'm using Rip's techniques on all the lifts. Right now, training efficiency and effectiveness are my priorities. I do three or four lifts/movements per session followed by heavy prowler walking. I'm only in the gym for 90 minutes and sometimes closer to two hours when I have to do five sets of power cleans. My plan is to exhaust advanced novice with the "new" techniques that I'm using and then exhaust the Texas Method as well. Do I think I can get stronger doing this? Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. That said, I am no longer coming from the frame of "do whatever it takes to make progress". I'll make simple changes and if they work, that's great. If not, I'll try other simple changes within the paradigm, but I will not be going "all out" in the pursuit of the biggest total possible. I hope it goes without saying that I'll never FULLY stop lifting and trying to get stronger. For now, I'm just taking some of the pressure off of myself and temporarily rearranging my list of priorities.
Over the last few months, I've basically "perfected" my diet and that shit is just on autopilot. It takes nearly zero conscious effort for me to hit my macros. My main training goal, which I feel that I can accomplish mostly passively, because of how dialed in I am on my macros, is get down to about 170-175lbs. I've even gone as far as to eliminate gluten, dairy, trans-fat, and HFCS. My diet is far better than it has ever been, ever. Right now, I feel that my training goals are modest, mostly process oriented, and achieving them is mostly a matter of patience. And right now, that's absolutely fine with me.
And damn, I have an assload of training log catching up to do, for sure (sorry, guys). I fully plan to starting regularly posting again in the coming months. However, I will not be coming from the same frame. I'm going to be posting more as a a strength coach/consultant because that is where I'm shifting my focus for the foreseeable future. Instead of trying to be the best powerlifter I can be, at least for now, I'm going to try and be the best strength coach that I can be.
I'm super excited to take the ideas that are swimming around in my head and transmute them into a digestable form. I honestly believe that I can make meaningful contributions to this community and beyond. And I'm incredibly motivated to tackle the challenge of doing just that. So definitely expect to see some very interesting content in the very near future. It is coming soon, I promise!
P.S. Also, my facebook account is closed right now so please don't think that I blocked you or have anything personal against you. That is absolutely not the case, lol. Over the last month or so, besides this post, I have taken a COMPLETE hiatus from internet, TV, media, etc (besides work related activities). If you've ever considered doing something like that, I can't recommend it highly enough. It is interesting what happens to your mind when you remove all the "easily accessible" forms of stimulation it has become addicted to. I don't think it is sustainable, I don't think it accomplishes some weird ass spiritual woo-woo shit, but I do think it can be a really cool short term experiment that teaches you a lot about yourself. Anyways...
H.A.N.D.
Member
And here I was worried that you were kicking my ass in your absence.
Member
Member
Tom, website and videos look good. Thanks for putting them together.
Member
This sounds amazing...Originally Posted by Tom Narvaez
Posting Permissions