The Castle

How am I going to stand up?  This is the only question you need to ask yourself before squatting. Seeing the bottom of the world is like inception, it is a lost world of unknown and forgetfulness. Your rep set scheme becomes lost, and all recollection of time itself vanishes as you free fall into a grave yard of missed attempts, all screaming for you to take them with you. The dead attempts stretch their arms like tight ropes, and their fingers flail like sea weed in an ocean storm as they pull you down, only for hope they can be pulled up.  A castle of broken bricks, hunched backs, and pale bodies lay at rest under a gray sky, all surrounded by bloody rivers that carry dreams and hopes away right under our feet.  Grab your flash light of goals, and your gym bag of tools my friend, you will need all the help you can get when trying to save one of these failed attempts.  The only way to save these once strong soldiers of chalk and weight, is to fall millions of feet down - lowering the bar just low enough for one to grab on to your butt, back, bar, or whatever else the weak hands can somehow hold onto.  Yes you will see the castle, and yes you might become one of them, but as weightlifters we never leave a soldier down.  We always keep pulling, pushing, and standing. 

A deep breath, for deep is where we are going.  Feet so close your heels are almost touching, lining up your butt and calves perfectly to bounce off of each other in the very bottom of the deepest darkest depth of the squat.  Without the bounce, you will live in the castle, you will drink from the bloody rivers that fill up from your own tears.  Toes pointed out, directing your knees away from the crumbling hotel on the journey down and up called "missed lift inn".  A place you never want to go.  Your knees will go in slightly no matter what, so by taking them out wider than usual, the inn will not be the missed inn, but more of the "made inn". The squat is a full commitment, the lower you go, the better chance you will save an attempt. The lower you drop, the faster you will rise. The faster you drop, the more your belly (aka) "power belly" will kiss your thighs to help you stand up.  Yes I said it my friend, this is another trick from the tool box that will improve your squat, and just another reason why I squat with such a narrow stance.  I call it the double bounce. 1.) butt to calves. 2.) belly to thighs.  The more narrower your feet, the more bounce you will be able to create.

Your toes wiggle as if waving the weight away to your heels that now crack the platform floor from its burden of importance.  Your back so arched that a waterfall has found a new home like moss on a rock....nature has run its course perfectly.  My heart hurts many times throughout the day.  You will not see this by watching my videos, or by seeing me lift.  The masked man that hides inside of me pierces his thorn into my heart to remind me of the pain I have left behind. By keeping my chest high during the squat, it drains the pain downward toward the gray skied castle.  Not only do I save a dead attempt, but I leave behind bloody eyed demons that bring me so much heartache.  Goodbye masked man, hello stand.  Every time I stand, I feel more alive.  Every time I save a lost attempt, it brings me pride.  I stand from a squat to someday get the chance to fix the bricks that lay at rest, turn the river into water, and the sky into blue.  I hope to change my life and others, one squat at a time. 

Tools 2016