Lifting to Live

[Mr. Bingley]

Kiss Rip for me haha!

I'd buy him a bourbon first

[Fred J]

I'd buy him a bourbon first

Maybe 2 or 3

[Bill Anders]

Good luck at the seminar. Kiss Rip for me haha!

I'd buy him a bourbon first

Hehe. I honestly didn't interact with him that much, just only on the platform and during the Q&A. There was too much other stuff going on, and at the end of the long days I didn't want to hang around. I wanted to get back to the hotel to get my own bourbon.

[Bill Anders]

As the title says, it was the Seminar at WFAC. After the four hours of classroom time Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday ran 8am-8pm and 8am-730pm, respectively. The layout was a couple of hours of discussion on the lift, then a couple of hours of platform time.

For all of the platform sessions, every lift was run in fahves. Every warmup weight was 5 reps, as was the final work set, so 3-5 warmup sets and the workset, all of which followed the empty bar learning/teaching progression set. There was always the threat of making sure that you didn't sandbag a weight at risk of being publicly called out by Rip, but the class instructions also recommended only lifting 80-90% of your 5RM. So it was a balancing act. I leaned towards the 80% weights and was still completely gassed by the end of the Seminar. And they saved the lift with the longest kinetic chain, one of my favorites, for very last when everything had caught up to me. It was rougher than it should have been for that weight.

4/13/24 - Saturday
SQ - (260-295) 275x5
DL - (315-355) 315x5
BP - (190-215) 225x5

Notes — 80-90% of my latest 5RM is in parenthesis, giving me a window to work within depending on how things felt with all of the extra warmup reps (x5 @ each weight).
SQ - Lifting: Work on "chest down" to get a bit more leaned over. Coaching: Need more time—more eyes; more clients—and practice the teaching progression.
DL - I was still sore and tired from Monday's fail at 400x5, so I was conservative here. Good thing, too, as I barely made it through, having to work through every grip but straps to get that 315x5 done. Lifting: Hips higher during the setup. Coaching: "It's the easiest lift to teach," so not much.
BP - Lifting: Focus on balance at the top. Coaching: Work on verbosity (on-going issue)

4/14/24 - Sunday
PC - (42.5-47.0kg) 55kgx5
OP - (135-150) 135x5

Notes — same as above
PC - A lot of re-work done on top of the reset and coaching that's being done in OKC. I was shooting for 42.5kg based on my last 47.0kg workout, but got things sorted out and managed 55kgx5 in front of Rip, who got my hips even higher than I had done in the past (read that as - "OMG, that setup took forever!). Lifting: Shrug/Stomp; Get Tall; Get Hips Higher Than You Want (seriously!!!!). Coaching: none.
OP - Lifting: Chest to ceiling. Coaching: none.

Note that there are "Lifting" and "Coaching" pieces for each lift. If you attend the Seminar, you will be expected to coach the lift to one of your fellow students, regardless of your goals. The teaching reinforces the learning. The added bonus is that the SSC guiding you on the platform (a different one for each lift) will step in if you start messing up. Or make the student testing for their SSC credential step in and guide you.

It's well worth it. Even after years of honing the lifts in the garage, reading through all of the material, watching all of the videos, and working the past two months at SS OKC, there were still a ton of nuggets gleaned from each classroom and platform session. Not to mention, pages of notes from the 2+ hour long Q&A with Rip at the end of the Seminar.

[Mr. Bingley]

sounds like an absolute hoot