A Middle Aged Adolescent (who cannot possibly be the only one)

[Nunedog]

Imagine having a job where you know, even from the very first moment, that it’s just a matter of time until you’re fired. This is a way of life for a lot of college football coaches. The longer they win, the longer they’ll stick around, but at some point the magic will fade, and in frustration the university’s leadership will seek somebody new, even if they don’t quite understand what they’re looking for.
Even more uneasy is the coach’s relationship with those he relies upon directly, his players, the deep fear being that they’re just waiting to betray him, either by lazy indifference or outright defiance.
Immediately he must begin two campaigns. The first is to extort allegiance from the team somehow, by way of platitudes or intimidation. The second is to craft an image in the eyes of his employers and the outside world, most often that of the frustrated genius. We’ve seen this with the coach pacing the edge of the field, all too aware that he’s on TV and reacting with disbelief to nearly everything around him. ‘We’ve been over this a thousand times,’ viewers sense him thinking, ‘and still these guys can’t get it right.’ He barks orders into his headset, calls every play, and micromanages a sideline of more than 100 people. The referees’ calls are treated like personal insults, met with red faced, vein bulging fury.
It’s a wonder so many people want the job. Sure, money and status are to be had, but the entire enterprise is based on dishonesty from beginning to end. It must get exhausting.

By contrast, the obituaries this past week for John Gagliardi should restore some faith in humanity. Gagliardi (pronounced gull-ardee) was a coach at St. John’s College in Minnesota, a small, all-male private school with a Division III team. Insisting that his players call him John, he ran practices in which there was no blocking or tackling, whistles, sprints, or laps. No players were cut from the squad. Practices were limited to 90 minutes and called off when the mosquitoes were thick or the weather was bad. Players were not required to lift weights in or out of season. In games, his quarterbacks called their own plays.
Perhaps more surprising than this unconventional approach is the fact that it made John Gagliardi the winningest coach in the history of college football, having left legends such as Grambling’s Eddie Robinson and Penn State’s Joe Paterno, previous record holders, far behind. St. John’s crushed other teams, sometimes to the point that they were accused of running up the score. The problem with that claim, Gagliardi would explain, was that St. John’s fourth string was often better than the other teams’ first strings.
When they were not winning national titles, they stymied the teams that were, giving them the toughest games they faced in or out of a championship match.

By all accounts, his funeral this coming week is going to be jammed with former players, men whose lives he touched with his lessons on priorities and leadership. Gagliardi adhered to an ideal we’ve largely forgotten nowadays, that football is supposed to be a part of a student’s complete development, complimentary to the content in the classroom, as opposed to an end in itself.

This is a lovely story - but seriously? This can really happen in the world?

Gagliardi’s first head coaching job came at the age of 16, when in 1943 his high school football coach was called away for duty in World War Two. The team was on the verge of being disbanded by school officials, as they generally lost all the time anyway, but Gagliardi convinced them he could handle the role. Two winning seasons followed. Other opportunities followed almost as accidentally, and as the successes mounted, St. John’s came calling with an offer that doubled his salary. He was there for 60 years.
Gagliardi was never an assistant coach influenced by some other approach. He had assistants, however, through the years, one of whom urged that there be more hitting, in the typical vein of ‘toughening them up and making them think like winners,’ but he was ignored. Gagliardi’s truest instinct was the one he learned at age 16: he trusted his players. He didn’t see the need to work them.
He also knew the game, as clues in various articles would attest. In an interview, a former defensive star explained an important point: the issue was getting to the ball carrier, which couldn’t happen if you were being ‘fooled or blocked,’ so the emphasis was on defeating the other team’s blocking scheme. An offensive lineman was only going to do one of four or five things in a given play, and defenders were taught not only how to counter each physically but interpret its larger message.
In practice, since there was no hitting, the offensive squad could practically fly down the field, so defenders were compelled ‘to be quicker, take better angles, make better reads. It [was] the groundwork for playing smarter.’

The great lesson in Gagliardi’s story, which seems to have eluded just about all the other coaches out there, is that coach-enforced discipline does not instill self discipline. This was Gagliardi’s genius.
Since he didn’t cut anyone from his teams, he had as many as 190 players on the field for practice. He didn’t bother with any conditioning or weight lifting - but you can bet his players did. If you wanted to play, you had to stand out in that giant crowd as very fast, very smart, and very strong. His players no doubt hit the weight room HARD. They ran sprints - possibly as a team - after the coach was done for the day, and surely backs and receivers ran routes and threw the ball on their own time.
[I cannot find evidence of this on-line.]
That’s not an unreasonable supposition, however. Former quarterback Tom Linneman, who called his own plays, a privilege unheard of nowadays, explained on VICE.COM, "If somebody trusts you, you want to show that you deserved it. And if you don't trust players, if you treat them like children, what's their incentive? If your expectations are high, people try to meet them. Minimal expectations, people try to meet those. And John had really high expectations."

Think about this the next time you see a coach slam his clipboard in anger at his players. He’s betraying the good faith effort they’re putting into the game. Then again, if he’s treated them like children all along, then they’ve never been able to offer it. He’s robbed them of the whole purpose of playing football in the first place.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 10/15/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x8) Tom 335 JC : 147.5
2. Press (3x8) Tom 162.5 JC: 80
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x8) 415 second session JC 205
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 135
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 117.5
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 285, 352.5, 395
2. Bench Press: (3x8) Tom: 235 JC: 95
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 270, 235 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 302.5 JC: 130
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 145 JC: 72.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts 3x5 Tom 387.5 JC 150, 152.5, 150

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 10 close grip bench presses (185+ descending)
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

A pair of big projects has limited the usual ruminating on this and that, so I’ll have to get by with two quick notes:

The stall in my press and bench press progress has continued, and I’m still getting my bearings on the assistance exercises I’ll use in place of partial presses, which was where trouble first showed up. Poring over resources from Andy Baker, I’ve come up with some preliminary ideas and then new ones, so the hope is to get progress going once more in the assistance work, to make the big lifts pick up.

I have an update on the self defense instruction for the 14 year old daughter, who’s diving into adolescence and all its social trappings: she was coming along okay, but then I showed her the video that changes the life of every martial artist.

A self defense technique has to accomplish three things:
1. enable the good guy to generate force
2. neutralize the bad guy’s force, position, and advantage
3. put the good guy in a position of advantage to deliver force

Whole bodied movement is the way in which all this is done, but keeping your feet beneath you is just as important. One secret is that a given technique does not have to be a ‘step here, step there,’ set of directions. A hundred little steps to create the same effect is often better for balance and leverage.

People don’t get this until you reveal to them the pinnacle of human potential.
It’s only 23 seconds long: YouTube

She went out and put the hammer down on BOB.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 10/22/18 3 sets of 5 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x5) Tom 372.5 JC : 165
2. Bench Press (3x5) Tom 260 JC: 120
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x5) 460 second session JC 225
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 135
8. abs: banded pull downs


TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 132.5
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 287.5, 355, 400
2. Press: (3x5) Tom: 177.5 JC: 80
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 270, 235 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers


FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 335 JC: 150
2. Bench Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 235 JC: 107.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 387.5, 390, 387.5 JC 150

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 10 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending)
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile or row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

I just might have gotten myself out of that stall in my upper body training. On Monday, I benched 260 for sets of 5, which I honestly did not expect to do, and on Wednesday I finally made it through the 177.5-pound presses for all three sets of 5.

Progress was hung up on about half of my combined bench and press rotations. The 8’s have been rolling along, the 2’s had stopped, and the 5 ’s were split between a stall in the press and progress in the bench. The trouble first started when I topped out and even regressed a bit in my partial-press rack work. Because assistance work is that low gear that drives progress in the main lifts, I had to make changes. I first opted for dips and narrow grip benches, along with lying and seated (upright) triceps extensions. Last week I mentioned some changes, and now I believe I’m in the hunt once more.

What drives progress in a 53 year old dude who’s all but tapped out his genetic potential? Exercises that recruit a ton of motor units in the muscles involved. I bagged the triceps extensions after two weeks because their leverage is so disadvantageous that they don’t lend themselves to heavy weight and consequently high levels of recruitment.
An assistance exercise, If I recall Rip’s definition correctly, trains a muscle group in a manner that the conventional exercise does not. This additional strength then allows for a greater contribution toward the main event lifts.
Additionally, an assistance exercise has to have a certain strangeness to it, a certain difficulty in balance and execution, that stimulates the proprioceptive and neurological components of the body’s motor system. The idea is to spur as broad an adaptation as possible. With the four exercises below, I believe I meet all the criteria.

1. DIPS - On Mondays, I’m doing 4 sets of 6 dips that are weighted by both a kettlebell and two mini Westside bands looped around my neck. I have a Rogue R-3 rack with a Matador dip attachment, on which I face outward for dips, since a grip turned outward keeps my shoulder blades in place and my shoulders from rounding. The bands on my neck run down the front of me, on both sides of the kettlebell hanging from a judo belt, between my legs, and to a pin at the base of the rack support behind me.
As the bands slant down and back, they pull my hips back a bit, making the dip not as vertical as it might be otherwise. The difference is probably only 30 degrees, yet it does make the dips seem a bit more like the driving a bar from an arched back in the bench press.
The bands, of course, add increasing tension through the range of each dip, maximizing effort and motor unit recruitment.

** The problem with a Rogue R-3 and the Matador is that the weight of the dips is at some distance from the vertical support beam. The rack shakes and leans as though it wants to collapse sideways like a cardboard box. I’ve discovered that a seven-foot 2”x4” can remedy this. Pin one end of the 2”x4” near the top of the other vertical beam on the same side you’ve attached the Matador. (presuming you’re dipping inside the rack)
The board slants down to the opposite bottom corner and locks the frame in the same way a carpenter’s diagonal would stabilize any other large rectangle. (This would mean the 2”x4” slants from the top of the, say, left rear support beam to the bottom of the right rear beam, while the matador is mounted on the left front beam.) I anchor the bottom of the 2”x4” with a dumbbell.

2. TRICEPS BAR CLOSE GRIP BENCH PRESSES - On Fridays, I do 4 sets of 6 reps with weight and in this case chains, another carryover from my Westside days. As the bar rises with each rep, more chain comes off the ground, adding weight and tension to the muscles continuously, the way bands do.
I started with a conventional bar and my hands at the inner edges of the knurling for close grips, but something deep in the crease between my right delt and pec didn’t like it - and I don’t usually get shoulder pains. I happen to own a triceps bar, so I gave it a try, and that’s been my choice ever since. A triceps bar (Swiss bar, Football bar) is a regular bar at each end, but its middle section is a rectangle with a number of handles running at right angles to the axis of the bar.
Legend has it that a close grip with one’s hands in a neutral position takes the pecs out of the bench press - to a degree - and places the burden on the triceps. Perfect, I thought; it’d be complementary to the pec work in the dips.
I’m not sure I buy it, or I suppose the shares of the load are reallocated, but if the weight is interesting enough, everything in my upper body is still in on the act.

Those were the two primary exercises I chose for my assistance training days. These additional exercises take the places of the extensions.

3. Z PRESSES - This is a surprisingly wicked exercise that doesn’t hammer the pressing muscles so much as it demands that you stabilize your spine in order to press. These come on Mondays, in 3 sets of 3 to 5, after the dips.
In this exercise, you’re seated on the floor with your legs extended and spread apart. The bar is on hooks at chest level in front of you. You tilt a bit, unrack it, get as straight as you can, and proceed to press overhead, avoiding the least move out of position, which would make the reps agonizingly difficult. The focus is on keeping yourself tall and tight, with your vertebrae stacked perfectly. This can be a trick with your hamstrings stretched and your back wanting to round because your legs are out in front of you.
If that sounds dangerous, it probably is, but you won’t be pressing anything too heavy. You will, however, teach yourself a few things about trunk stability and create a more solid foundation for conventional presses.

That ‘more solid foundation’ got me through the 177.5’s the other day. I also don’t want to leave the description above open to interpretation. It’s not as if you’re lifting lighter weights in the Z Press because you’re choosing to be careful and considerate toward your lower back. You’re lifting lighter weights because you friggin’ CANNOT unleash any real pressing power when your trunk is struggling to maintain position, an important principle to bear in mind during conventional sets.

4. KETTLEBELL FLYS - This is my second assistance exercise for Fridays, after the Triceps Bar Close Grip Bench Presses. I put the bench inside the rack and the safety bars pretty low on each side. I lower the weights outward, each in an arc, and as the kettlebells clank against the safety bars, I know I’ve gone to the proper depth. I do 4 sets of 6 reps, retracing the arcs as I come back up.
This motion is usually trained with dumbbells, but I don’t have any heavy enough.
As you might imagine, this trains the pec muscles right at the point where they first boost the bar off my chest in the bench press. It’s been frustrating in recent weeks that my 287.5’s have not been doubles when my 8’s and 5’s suggest they should be. I’m also careful to keep my torso in an arch, to match the position of the bench press as well as more fully engage the pecs, which really want to pull weights more downward than straight across the chest.

The fried triceps have cost me a few reps on my pull-ups, which I also do with a kettlebell tied on. That’s a fair price, I suppose, for bigger numbers elsewhere.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 10/29/18 3 sets of 2 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x2) Tom 412.5 JC : 180
2. Press (3x2) Tom 197.5 JC: 90
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x2) 510 second session JC 240
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35x2
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 135
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 145
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 290, 360, 405
2. Bench Press: (3x2) Tom: 287.5 JC: 117.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 240 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 555
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 372.5 JC: 162.5
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 177.5 JC: 80
3. Romanian Deadlifts 3x5 Tom 387.5, 390x2 JC 152.5

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending)
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

Just as I was dashing off some notes for this week’s piece, the Cleveland Browns announced that head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley had been relieved of their duties. Some people don’t seem to expect a great deal from life, I was about to say - or the winners of this world are those who have high standards in everything they do, which occurred to me after watching the Browns lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers in yet another lackluster effort this past weekend.

Those poor Browns - and we only have ourselves to blame for getting our hopes up before we see their offensive line get smashed backwards on every play or - mainly last year - their defensive backs freeze like deer in headlights, fearing what might come next.
I have a theory: when rookie quarterback and top draft choice Baker Mayfield entered the game against the Jets upon the injury to starter Tyrod Taylor, the coaching staff was completely unprepared for the moment. Either Mayfield called his own plays or some young assistant in the booth freelanced the whole affair. Mayfield connected on a 14-yard gunshot on his first play and then hurried down to the new line of scrimmage, pointing at players and shouting in lieu of a huddle. He took the next snap without hesitation, drilled another receiver for 20 more yards, and fans jumped out of their seats howling in jubilation, if they didn’t burst into tears. Mayfield then hit a third pass.
This was more offense than the Browns had produced all season - or in the previous few years - all in a matter of seconds. The roaring from the stadium was a sound the city had not heard in decades. Car alarms were going off in the parking lot.
It was reckless damned fun, like kids leaping and tumbling in a backyard game. When Mayfield was hit on a play and lost the ball, an offensive lineman scooped it up and charged forward like an elephant as numerous Jets piled on for the ride. In a version of the famous ‘Philly Special’ from last year’s Super Bowl, the ball flipped from Brown to Brown in the backfield before Mayfield himself caught the surprise pass in the end zone. All the excitement felt profound in a way, as if destiny were unfolding.

The magic soon ended, as if someone’s parents had walked in on a wild party. With the top coaches firmly in charge the next week, the Browns reverted to running plays that went nowhere, especially at critical moments when Mayfield should have been dropping back and looking downtown. The passing scheme in general was composed of plays that defenses read too easily, which made for incompletions or Mayfield’s being crushed by defensive linemen as he searched downfield. Occasionally we’d see flashes of brilliance, yet for every fantastic completion, five equally gorgeous throws went through the hands of a weak receiver corps.
I was at the game against San Diego, and I could read the team’s body language as the fourth quarter wound down. They had given up.
This is another theory: they hadn’t given up on that particular game. They had given up on the coaches. If Jackson and Haley didn’t lose control of the locker room against San Diego, then they lost it before that, in the weeks after the Jets game, when the players’ wildest instincts were reined in by gutless game plans.

The Steelers made for a striking contrast. They carried themselves in a clear eyed, confident manner, as if they expect a certain amount out of life. They had plenty of talented players, a giant selection of effective plays, and consequently every belief that they’d be in the end zone sooner or later. Where a 20-yard completion was miraculous to screaming Browns fans, the Steelers took it completely for granted.
Where does this winning come from? The bottom line is that the coaches have faith in their players - and from there you have to work backwards: they design plays that work; they choose, train, and pay the kinds of players they need, and the owners hire coaches who understand how all of this comes together.

The revolt in the Browns’ locker room comes mainly from the fact that the coaches had no faith in their players. Instead of the bold, out-of-character plays that stunned the fans and Jets alike weeks before, runs that would go nowhere, that utterly lacked imagination, would have the crowd incredulous at the opportunities being wasted. The coaches’ fear that Something Bad Will Aways Happen destroyed any pretense of a relationship with the players, who were surely as frustrated as the fans. ‘Let us play,’ they must have begged.
Freeing the team from Hue Jackson’s oppression was an important first step, but new general manager John Dorsey knows that creating a winning mindset, by cultivating talent on the field and the sideline, will take some time.
In the meantime, here’s hoping the Browns can at least raise some Hell, have some fun, and start to believe in themselves. They face the very, very tough Kansas City Chiefs this week. Cleveland won’t mind if they lose - as long as the coaches let them play.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 11/5/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x8) Tom 337.5 JC : 147.5
2. Bench Press (3x8) Tom 237.5 JC: 90
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x8) 417.5 second session JC 217.5
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35x3
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 137.5
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 115
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 292.5, 362.5, 410
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 207.5 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 230 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 305 JC: 132.5
2. Press: (3x8) Tom: 162.5 JC: 82.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 390 JC 152.5, 155, 152.5

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending) 3 sets at 185?
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)4?
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

I bench pressed 237.5 for 8’s on Monday and then spent the day with such enormous and throbbing triceps that I’ve named myself an honorary member of the 1979 Pittsburgh Steeler offensive line.

Two lessons have emerged from the realm of assistance exercises, one very quickly the other day and the other a little more gradually, though that one’s confirmed something I knew deep down.
The first is that I figured out why those seated-on-the-floor Z-presses are so difficult. They’re miserable, if you haven’t tried them. Everything hurts - your back, shoulders, and arms - and unless you start perfectly, there’s no ‘putting your head through the window’ or making a rep any better after it’s started. That turns out to be the secret.

When you sit on the floor with your legs out front, your back does not want to be straight. The pelvis, depending upon your flexibility, cannot get straight up and down the way it can if you’re seated on a chair. That means your lumbar vertebrae can’t stack up properly, which in turn means your thoracic vertebrae won’t either - and that’s the source of the misery during the lift. The chain reaction creates a proprioceptive problem.
I’ve written about this before, the importance of thoracic extension when it comes to the squat and deadlift. My point was that if you don’t have it, or if you lose it in the course of a long set, your central nervous system senses that the conduit delivering force to the bar is breaking down. It then dials back your strength output as a protective measure.
The trick in the Z-press, I realized as I tried to work up my courage, is to go all out in sitting up straight. You have to be as perfect as a ballet dancer: get that lower back flat, if not curved properly, and then heave that chest way, way out to lock in the thoracic extension. In this case, you don’t feel the reps, though holding the position is far harder than the lifting.
That’s the lesson for the regular presses, to bull the chest and not lose track of it amidst all the locking up the lower body and springing off the hip tension. If the backbone breaks down, you’re going to lose horsepower in your enormous and throbbing triceps.

The second lesson also involves stacking the thoracic vertebrae, but more importantly, pin squats really hammer home the importance of overall balance in the squat. When you sway just a little bit forward and feel your hips rise, you’re costing yourself strength. I’ve long been wary of the ’Nipples toward the floor,’ cue or sending the hips way back, as they make the torso drop during the lift, putting the bar’s line of vertical force too far forward.
In fact, a lot of the people I see on STARTING STRENGTH’s Facebook feed should spend a moment shirtless in front of a mirror to see exactly where their nipples are already heading. Judging by the number of horizontal plunges taking place, they must imagine them shining straight ahead, like high-beams.

‘Keep the barrel up,’ is the phrase I’ve been using with myself or when I’m coaching the wife, kid, or anyone else. I go on to say that they should think of the torso as a cylinder - and I’ve always pictured a basement hot water heater. Whatever the inclination of that cylinder is as a rep begins, it has to stay that way. From the bottom position, if the hips start rising more than the bar does, the lifter is out of balance - which creates a significant problem: the force they’re generating below the waist is not being transferred directly to the bar.
Don’t let the cylinder crumple like a beer can, I’d say, or don’t let the whole thing tip forward.

I hit three positions in my pin squats: below parallel, and then four pin-holes higher, which is an inch above parallel, and then four pin holes more is halfway up or so. The weights are getting heavy enough that they won’t forgive any defects. I can feel it when my upper body drops a bit on the way down to the pins: Damn, this is going to be harder than it should, I’ll think. I’ve also become more sensitive to where the weight is in my feet. Sometimes I’ll tough out the rep if it’s not too far forward. Other times, during the pause as the bar sits on the pins, I’ll inch my feet and everything else more directly underneath. Mainly, I’m careful to keep the attitude of my torso consistent as I drop, wait, and reengage.
My middle set, an inch above parallel, starting from a dead stop with weights very close to my 5’s, is brutal. The slightest flaw means a rep won’t go. That’s probably a proprioceptive inhibition, as opposed to purely a question of strength and position. After all, wrong as I might have been, I did handle the weight on the way down. After a pause, though, my central nervous system, feeling the disproportionate leverages, refuses to spool up to full power.
If driving off the pins is training my motor unit recruitment, then my descents are training my awareness of balance. The combination should make for efficient use of force in my conventional reps.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 11/12/18 3 sets of 5 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x5) Tom 375 JC : 167.5
2. Bench Press (3x5) Tom 262.5 JC: 105
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x5) 462.5 second session JC 225
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 137.5
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 135
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 295, 365, 415
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 207.5 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 230 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 337.5 JC: 150
2. Press: (3x5) Tom: 180 JC: 82.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 390, 392.5, 390 JC 152.5, 155x2

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending) 4 sets
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)4?
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

Back in my CrossFit days, that period between being an endurance guy and rediscovering strength training, a generally jolly time until it occurred to me that each capacity was waning steadily, I did have one talent that many others did not: I could do multiple strict muscle ups.
A muscle up is a basic gymnastics maneuver done on a set of rings. In the first phase, the athlete hoists him- or herself upward by way of a pull-up, bringing their chest to the level of the rings. Then the arms turn elbows-up in transition, after which the athlete drives out of a deep dip position. At the finish, the elbows are locked, with the rings at hip level on each side.
As you might imagine, a fair amount of pull-up and dip strength is necessary, but what I seemed to have over most people was a knack for that transition, a sort of double arm-wrestling rotation. Right as I drew my thumbs to my sternum, I would then trace them around the bottom edges of my pec muscles to below my armpits, getting in place for pressing out of the dip.

This made for a smooth, otherwise motionless delivery in sets of 5, or even 7 reps on occasion. ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ I declared to my friends during workouts.
‘The Lord of the Dance,’ they’d retort.
The advantage, however, was that I didn’t have to throw my body across a gap in strength, by way of a fast pull-up and a lucky catch in the dip position. In the heat of a Games workout one year, a guy who was otherwise superior to me in every category wiped out and hung himself in a grotesque chicken-wing several feet off the ground.

Reasoning by analogy, I am taking the hip-spring motion out of my press training. All of my reps will be done strictly, which is to say from a stable torso while the weight is driven solely by my arms and shoulders. The idea is to train every facet of the press motion and no longer rely upon throwing the weight across gaps of missing strength.
Don’t get me wrong; hip springs, along with lay backs, work madly at getting a weight overhead, but they don’t fully engage the triceps at each end of the lift. This is old news, of course; I made up for these deficiencies in my rack work.
Nowadays, my new scheme of assistance exercises has made me realize that the Press must make a greater contribution to training. It should no longer be mainly a test of strength gained elsewhere.
That strength from elsewhere has outpaced the improvement in my Press. My strict press went from 180 to over 200 in recent months, and the dips, Z-presses, and close grip benches I’m working on now are all inching upward, as is my Bench Press. It’s a technical inconsistency in my hip springs that’s the culprit in the 2.0’s, the same way the gap in the muscle-up motion betrayed my CrossFit partners in the long run. The time has come to remove the variables.

The lesson in all of the materials from Andy Baker or Jordan Feigenbaum is that it takes considerable volume to drive adaptation. This has challenged previous assumptions of mine; recent successes have raised my expectations. In fact, I find myself thinking of the old school strongmen, the guys who cleaned and pressed one and a half times bodyweight before all the drugs, hip springs, and laybacks confused the issue. The only thing these guys had was determination, which simply meant lots of hard work.

I’ll probably drop 20 pounds on my 8, 5, and 2-rep press weights. The idea is to move well and give myself a bit of a running start for the climb back upward.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 11/19/18 3 sets of 2 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x2) Tom 415 JC : 180
2. Bench Press (3x2) Tom 275 JC: 120
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x2) 512.5 second session JC 240
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35 - 4, 5, 5, 4
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 140
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 145
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 297.5, 367.5, 420
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 207.5 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 240 JC: 75 - 95
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 372.5 JC: 162.5
2. Press: (3x2) Tom: 175+ JC: 85
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 390, 392.5x2 JC 155

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ chains) 5, 6, 5, 5,
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)4?
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

Thanksgiving week has been very busy, so I only have time to mention two items presently in play:

1. The New Year begins the strength training season at the sports center where I started coaching last year. A new supervisor sent me an e-mail describing the importance of core and stability training done by way of planks and bosu balls, so I responded with an explanation of how ineffective that is physically and neurologically as well as how conventional strength training can handle any concerns about cores, stability, and beyond.
The result has been a deafening silence, in which she’s probably running all that past some other fitness expert.

2. For that neighborhood high school football player who’s busy training in his school’s massive weight room with 90 of his closest friends at a time, the latest gimmick is apparently Time-Under-Tension training. When we last spoke, his workout earlier in the day consisted of front squats done with 7-second eccentric phases.
There’s much to unpack concerning the unproven merit of TUT training, if not the sheer harm in the workout he described, but even more alarming was the news that he’s been slamming a supplement known as C4.
C4 is speed, to the point of being a banned substance, I was shocked to read. The problem is the ingredient Synephrine HCL. In a newspaper article about a high school team forfeiting part of its season because 10 players were using C4, Synephrine HCL is said to “augment energy levels and ATP synthesis” and [be] structurally similar to Ephedra. The compound enhances adrenaline stimulation and promotes weight loss by amplifying fat burning, metabolism, and thermogenesis.”

I sent this information to the kid by way of a cell phone text. Naturally, I found out afterwards that the Cellulor corporation changed its formula in 2016, after the Food and Drug Administration issued letters of warning to supplement makers, informing them that methylsynephrine does not meet the statutory definition of a dietary ingredient.
There does not appear to be anything unsafe or illegal about the new C4, which makes me the old cranky guy, disapproving of this and that, based on old information. Even after sending a correction, I’ve been met with silence on the line here as well.


Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 11/26/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x8) Tom 340 JC : 147.5
2. Bench Press (3x8) Tom 240 JC: 90
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x8) 420 second session JC 220
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35 for 4, 5, 5, 5
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 140
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 115
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 300, 370, 425
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 207.5 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 230 JC: 75 - 95
or - Tom 4 sets of 5 back extensions; 12.5 lbs
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 305 JC: 132.5
2. Press: (3x8) Tom: 145 JC: 82.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 392.5 JC 155, 157.5, 155

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending) 3 sets? 5, 6, 6, 6
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)4?
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

I have absolutely nothing new to pass today, despite all the busywork below. I’m getting my notes in order for a presentation to parents about strength training and the winter season at our big sports complex.
Everything is stolen fair and square from STARTING STRENGTH, which is to say the school of thought created by Rip’s books, videos, and seminars. What might be interesting for members on this site is the idea that I have to lay out the rationale for this approach pretty carefully, as I could be facing a lot of preconceptions about barbells and fitness.
The boss has told me that some parents are concerned that their kids will have to lift ‘too much weight.’ I have a set of Dads who want to see their sons ‘lift some serious weights’ and transform themselves, and as I mentioned last week, there will be some number of people with experience in one form or another of exercise nonsense, who will swear by things like functional movement screenings or Tom Brady’s pliability program.

The idea is to address all these concerns by ignoring them completely. I’ll explain what I’m going to accomplish, and how, and if questions come up, I’ll explain how other philosophies differ from what I’m doing. Even the Dads who want to see some hardcore stuff will have to realize that we’re going to train smart, not hard.
I’ll wheel a big whiteboard from the conference room to the gym. The stuff in bold below is what I’ll put on it; the regular font is just my thinking out loud right now.

big picture
programming for strength training is based on
-rest intervals
-volume
-exercise allocation
This will be in the upper left hand corner just in case someone asks me about why 3 sets of 5 or why go up everyday in weight. I’ll be able to get into the big picture about strength.
Rest intervals is the most important concept in strength training? Yep. I’ve written about this before. Whether you are a novice, intermediate or advanced lifter is determined by the length of your rest interval, and this further determines EVERYTHING else about your programming.

strength - the ability to produce force against external resistance
training - a process of systematic, incremental, constant adaptation; improvement
following a STRESS-RECOVERY-ADAPTATION cycle
exercise - hard work, often intense physical exertion; becoming hot, sweaty, sore, or tired day after day DOES NOT NECESSARILY create a cumulative training effect
Switching exercises or working too hard does not fit the template of incremental increases in the work load, by which an athlete can recover in time for the next workout.

Benefits of youth strength training:
• Enhancing overall muscular strength and local muscular endurance
• Strengthens muscles, ligaments, tendons
• Improves bone mineral density, body composition, aerobic fitness, blood lipids, motor performance skills (e.g., jumping and sprinting)
• Weight and strength training has been shown to be much safer than running, jumping, or participating in most sports.

Last year’s strength training RESULTS: (10 weeks)
TOP BOYS increased 100 pounds in squat and deadlift sets (to 205, 225)
benches increased by 50-60 pounds, presses by 40
AVERAGE BOYS got to 155 pound squats, 185 deads, 115-135 benches, and 95 lb. presses
TOP GIRLS got to 165 pound squats, 225 pound deads (in one case); benching 95 or 115
AVERAGE GIRLS squatted 95, deadlifted 135, benched 85, and pressed 55 or 65 - after starting with 25-35 pound foam bars
* all numbers are for sets of 5 reps
Since I make the point above that both strength and training are quantifiable, I have to show a legitimate mathematical ‘product’ for the combination of strength and training.

LINEAR PROGRESSION on four main exercises: Squat, Press, Bench Press, Deadlift -
- lifts with which the GREATEST amount of weight can be lifted with the greatest amount of muscle mass over the greatest distances possible
‘A’ days
squats (3 sets of 5 reps)
press (3x5)
deadlift (3x5)

pull ups or pull-downs (3x6-8)
sit ups (3x10)

‘B’ days
squats (3x5)
bench press (3x5)
deadlift (3x5)

horizontal (hanging) rows (3x6-8)
hollow rockers

The weight in the four main exercises is INCREASED 2.5 or 5 pounds EVERY workout.
The Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule alternates A-B-A, B-A-B, week to week.

With the information above, hopefully I can convince parents there’s method to the madness in the grand scheme. I also have to convince them there’s method specifically, so I’ll recruit two or three of the more dependable kids ahead of time to demonstrate the lifts.
I use the usual STARTING STRENGTH teaching progression, with one addition that seems necessary for high school kids: hitting a Superman hold on the ground. This is an important way for kids to understand what a locked lumbar curve should feel and look like. I’ll explain to the parents that the spine is a conduit between the hip area, where all the force is generated in a squat or deadlift, and the bar itself, whether it’s way up on the shoulders or hanging beneath. I’ll go through all the lifts stressing that safety and optimal position are one in the same. It’s not like there’s a safe way to lift and a secret, more ‘cool’ way.

I already know that one doctor will be in attendance, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, if I’m not mistaken, who’s armed with questions on the complexities involved when working with kids of differing sizes, ages, or levels of development. We have a few Seventh and Eighth Graders among mainly high schoolers.
The response is quite simple. In fact, this is a question that comes up every so often on the Forum, and I’m kind of surprised that it seems to be such a mystery: can younger kids do the linear progression?

No. They can do all the lifting; they just can’t progress the way we imagine.
I’ll point to the STRESS-RECOVERY-ADAPTATION line on the board and tell them that pre-and barely pubescent kids do not have the capacity to recover and adapt to workloads the way their older counterparts can. (Everybody starts light, which is obvious,) but kids who are 12, 13, or 14 will quite possibly have to stay at a given weight for two weeks at a time.
In fact, some of the girls will not be able to increase their presses 2.5 pounds at a time. They’ll have to stay at a certain weight to beef up their rep counts and bar speed before they increase once more. People will have to make judgment calls with the coaches on how to progress.
By the same token, if the older high school lads are ready to eat sufficiently, 10 weeks of 5-pound increases in the squat would take a few of them from 100 to 250 pound sets, which is entirely possible.

Some kids lack kinesthetic sense. Fast growing, tall teenaged boys tend to bend over right in the middle of their backbones instead of at the waist, so that took some running back and forth between platforms to fix last year. I think I’m going to add a ‘chicken’ drill right after the Superman holds. I’ll have the kids stand up and bull their chests to show me they know what a solid backbone is when standing, and then I’ll have them lean over to horizontal, keeping their backbones straight - tucking their thumbs into their armpits and flapping their wings like chickens as they peck at the ground. The idea is to show them how to send their hips backward and keep the spine in one piece, down where they’d be starting a deadlift.
Posture, mainly in the form of thoracic extension, can be a problem. I see it mostly in girls*, who cannot maintain position in their deadlifts. (This can happen to guys, too. *Thoracic extension can be an issue for women of all sizes - but in some cases, large breasted women, young or old, have poor, stooped posture for whatever reason, be it self consciousness or a physical force of habit. I have to get a female coach to broach the topic with them, BUT they cannot be allowed to go through life without being able to stack their vertebrae properly.)
If a lifter can’t fix her thoracic extension after a few of the usual coaching cues, I’ll have her go to the rack and handle some lesser weights through lesser ranges of motion. At first, she’ll lower a bar to knee level over a few workouts, as she holds her chest and backbone where they belong, and then the trick is to add weight first - not range of motion. Let the kids strengthen themselves by handling a bit of weight before you work toward the full deadlift motion.
The other problem is that some girls will have no idea of how to squat. Maybe this happens to boys, but last year I had two girls who could not wrap their minds around the idea. They’d drop their torsos to parallel while their legs were still up in the air - even after all the STARTING STRENGTH praying-hands and elbows-inside-the-knees demonstrations.
The solution is actually quite simple: box squats. Two weeks of box squats usually can fix that motion, the way two weeks will suffice in the rack-pull deadlifts.

The plan is to be cool, I’ll assure the parents. I’m not an insane University of Maryland Strength Coach kind of guy. Good movement is the priority, we have solutions to problems, and we have high expectations for kids at all levels.

[Nunedog]

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 12/3/18 3 sets of 5 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x5) Tom 377.5 JC : 170
2. Bench Press (3x5) Tom 262.5 JC: 105
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x5) 465 second session JC 227.5
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35 5’s across
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 140
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 135
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 302.5, 372.5, 427.5
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 207.5 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 230 JC: 75 - 95
or - Tom 4 sets of 5 back extensions; 15-20 lbs
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 340 JC: 152.5
2. Press: (3x5) Tom: 160 JC: 82.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 392.5, 395, 392.5 JC 155, 157.5x2

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (185+ descending) 6’s across
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s (71’s?)4?
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
-Dylan Thomas

This won’t be pretty, so remember that it’s all probably born of frustration and fear. I know full well I should be showing greater compassion, or at least some - but I have to get there first.
We have some aged relatives coming to visit in a matter of days. Only recently, other family members have passed along a scouting report: [Uncle] smells absolutely terrible. He’s worried about falling when he gets in or out of the tub, so he’s not been taking showers.

I have reacted with uncharacteristic anger to this news. It absolutely defies me that he and [Auntie] would get on a plane, inflict that stench on all the surrounding passengers, and then show up in our house and do the same. They’re coming for a giant holiday event we host every year, which will have a staff working in the kitchen as well as upwards of 100 guests. He also refuses to wear his goddamned hearing aids, so - as I’ve pointed out to my wife - he’s going to deposit himself in the middle of things, unable to communicate, like a fresh, hot, steaming pile of manure.
‘I’m going to call [Auntie],’ I declared, ‘and ask if we should get a shower chair.’
My wife is trying to pursue other diplomatic channels. ‘This is not an easy problem to solve.’
‘It’s an extremely easy problem to solve. He takes friggin’ showers. You put a chair inside the shower and a chair outside of it. He sits in the chair outside, swings his legs into the tub, and shifts to the chair inside. That’s genius.’
‘You’re going to help him in the shower.’
‘Wrong. I’m going to hose him down in the backyard, like when the dog comes back from the river.’

This is just the latest development in Uncle’s downward spiral into the Sick Aging Phenotype, the syndrome described by Dr. Jonathan Sullivan, whom we know from this site, his book THE BARBELL PRESCRIPTION, and the numerous YouTube videos on his GreySteel Strength and Conditioning channel.
I should say that Uncle was a pretty cool dude in his day: an Elvis impersonator who’s fronted a number of bands, a talented Van Gogh forger, and owner of a huge and impressive 1960’s and 70’s - all originals - vinyl record collection.
Now, however, he has to catheterize his plumbing down below, he has a pacemaker, and at one point he was so heavily drugged on a cardiac inhibitor that he could barely climb a set of stairs. He’s on any number of other statins or anticoagulants. Most crippling has been a terrible collapse of his posture - the old thoracic extension, as we say - but now he is bent nearly double and in great pain. The trouble with the bathtub means he’s grown even weaker.

My impatience stems from the belief that a lot of this could have been avoided. I understand the point that Dr. Sullivan makes, that strength training cannot address many of the serious medical issues people face - but I also know that he’s said that the barbell work goes a long way toward improving one’s quality of life as they contend with these other issues.
15 months ago, when they were here, I showed Uncle how to start working on his posture, using that ‘shoulder rehab’ approach Rippetoe has demonstrated, the bar hanging from a set of rings at shoulder level. We started with a broomstick. He could step into the motion as he pushed, I explained; just follow the arc of the bar upward as high as you can manage. In 20 minutes, things had groaned, creaked, and cracked back into place to some extent. Both he and his wife agreed that was the straightest he’d stood up in years. He could even breathe better, he said.
What did they do? They went back home and ignored this advice, of course. They belong to a gym - which is another story, an operation connected to the local hospital to ensure the continued circulation of insurance money, but which only allows older folks to tinker on machines as a momentary diversion in Death’s Waiting Room.
Their gym doesn’t have a way to do that exercise, Auntie said when I asked on the phone one day.
I said, ’He’s a carpenter. He can’t get some rope, a length of pipe, and rig something in the garage?’
This is just part of the larger story, that they took no responsibility for their well being when the aches and pains started a decade ago. This was the lifestyle that has led to the serious cardiac problems. She smokes; they’ve ignored every warning. That was when I started sending them links to articles or videos on diet and exercise, and showing them how to lift.
Failing to address the shower issue, by installing rails or a bench, is yet another example of cluelessness with Darwinian consequences.

As I write, the story has broken that Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer will retire at the end of the season. This is big news here. Even Michigan fans would agree this is a raw deal: Meyer has a cyst in his brain, and while he’s had a procedure in the past, the situation now is inoperable. Meyer has battled splitting headaches all season long and simply cannot continue.
The scariest thought is that Meyer is my age. He’s at the top of his game, figuratively and literally, and it’s all being taken away from him.
I do have compassion, for Meyer and people in all kinds of cruel circumstances.

While I have you: what is your waking nightmare? What is that worst possible scenario that plays across your mind in those moments when you can’t sleep? What brand of death do you really fear? Burning, crashing, falling?
Mine is suffocating or drowning, being trapped in some larger disaster. The worst possible fate I can imagine is being in a submarine that’s been depth charged and sunk, yet I’m in an airtight space, unable to escape, consigned to a slow, inevitable death. This can really get me sometimes, to the point that I have to turn on a light, and I’ve had to develop the skill of similarly imagining explosive, dramatic escapes into the clear sunshine.
It’s been enough to make me realize that when my end is drawing near, I’m not going down without a fight. I’m going to be as explosive and dramatic as I can manage, and not allow the darkness and stillness to close in around me.
What I fear is being stricken like Urban Meyer. I fear having the fight taken right out of me, that I can do nothing as the sub settles on the seabed and the lights flicker. I’m furious at the idea that Uncle might have given up, whether it was a thousand bad decisions or settling into a depression.

My older daughter is majoring in Theology, Philosophy, and Classics. While here at Thanksgiving, she said something interesting: ‘Just because you have a narrative doesn’t mean the other person does not. You make someone an enemy when you don’t hear their story.’

True, but I had to get the cruelty out of my system first.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 12/10/18 3 sets of 2 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x2) Tom 417.5 JC : 182.5
2. Bench Press (3x2π) Tom 277.5 JC: 122.5
3. 3 sets heavy pull ups

4. Deadlift (1x2) 512.5 second session JC 240
5. 4 sets of 6 weighted dips - with two bands 35 - 5, 6, 5, 5
6. barbell curls: 4 sets
7. 3 sets: 3-5 Z presses, 140
8. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 145
Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 305, 375, 430
2. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) PRESS: 5 reps - Tom 142.5 JC 65
2a. 2 sets (80% of best 5’s weight) BENCH PRESS: 5 reps - 210 JC 92.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 270, 240 JC: 75 - 95
or - Tom 4 sets of 5 back extensions; 25 lbs
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 375 JC: 165
2. Press: (3x2) Tom: 180 JC: 87.5
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 392.5, 395x2 JC 157.5

4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
5. 4 sets of 6 close grip bench presses T-bar (190+ chains) 5’s across
6. 4 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. 4 sets kettlebell flys, 53’s, 62’s
8. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile