A testimonial from a noob:

To give some overall context, I should probably mention a few things about myself first.

I often experience "exercise induced eustachian tube dysfunction" (you can read about how other people experience it here, here and here). It's super distracting, and it (unfortunately) occurred several times throughout the training session. I normally have to pause / apply pressure in the right spot / breathe in deep to get it to go away (and I have to do this because otherwise I can't hear anything other than my own breathing / heartbeat / voice).

Furthermore, I'm a socially awkward person. I'm well aware of it. When I meet people for the first time, my nerves take over and my brain goes out the window. I tend to say a lot of weird things as a result. It is what it is.

Despite my hangups, Adam was very patient with me and cool about everything. It was extremely helpful to have informed, real-time feedback. He was able to offer an educated answer to any question I tossed his way.

While we didn't have enough time to iron out all the bugs in my squat, I now know what I have to focus on going forward, which is something I sorely needed. It was a complete surprise to me when Adam mentioned that I was actually squatting too low / losing tension. He was totally right -- and no one else had caught this despite my various form check posts on several websites. Past that, the main issue I have at the moment is getting the bar in the correct position on my back without experiencing a lot of discomfort in my shoulders. Hopefully once I build up some rear delts, this pain will diminish.

The time we spent on the press was also really eye-opening. Adam must have said "elbows!" to me nearly a dozen times. I hadn't been aware that I was failing here so consistently prior to this. Now it's going to be hard to do future reps without hearing that cue in the back of my mind (which, I suppose, is the point!). My bar path was not close enough to my face -- and in this particular case, I was still not able to get close enough with the cue of brushing the bar right past my nose / hair. In response, Adam pushed the reference point a bit further and asked me to "put the bar behind my ears" instead. The movement suddenly felt a lot more natural and the bar path improved, in turn. It's great that Adam can adjust cues on the fly in order to find something that works more effectively based on how you're interpreting a previous cue.

I was pretty gassed by the time we got to the deadlift, but it's a simpler lift compared to the rest, so I think I can get it right with some more practice.

All in all, it was a pleasure to learn these lifts from someone of Adam's caliber. He's definitely given me a lot of food for thought, and plenty of things to focus on in the future.

Thanks again, Adam.

Marcus