The Old Show

Shankle 2016

Aramnau

Best technique in the sport.  My favorite lifter.  Fastest athlete in the sport.  Best superman pull in the game....well Klokov is my second favorite.  Klokov also has a superman pull from heaven, and looks as if Brad Pit and Ben Affleck had a kid.  Down right sexy. If you don't have a man crush on Klokov, then you are simply lying to yourself.

The video below of Andrei lifting is the greatest video to watch for learning and helping you better yourself in the lifts.  I personally watch this video at least three times a week to improve my lifting and stay motivated for what I want to look like.  Yes, every athlete is different, but this man in my opinion is amazing.  I love sitting down with a client and watching this video.  The slow motion clips, combined with the close ups make this video hands down the best technique video in the world. Add the gladiator music behind the video, and a cup of miss brown eyes, and you got yourself a love affair with the legend, and Olympic Champion, Andrei Aramnau.

The bar does not touch Andrei until it strikes his hips aka Pendlay step one, aka belt line, aka Tyson hips.  His shoulders stay back on the first pull (from floor to knees).  Then his shoulders get over the bar beautifully on the second pull (from knees to finish position).  His knees almost fully extend before he releases his hips.  He brings the bar BACK throughout the whole pull, creating amazing force when bar makes contact into hips, giving that bar a half second of float time for this beast of a man to pull himself under.  He always puts a slight bend in his arms right before the bar makes contact with his hips, just to add more collision for the finish.  Arm bend is something that I get a lot of shit for, but every great lifter does it.

A man that knows how to defy gravity.  A man who knows how to use his body to lift big weights over his head.  He doesn't just make contact with the bar, but he drives his hips through the bar.  Just like Tiger Woods swinging through the golf ball.  The little white ball will not go as far if Tiger did not follow through his swing.  The same applies to a weightlifter.  You must not just hit and go under, you must hit through the bar, getting into what I call the Arched Angel.  Arched Angel meaning full extension before going under.  The athlete should be on their toes, hips in front of their body, and shoulders back behind their body right before he or she drops under the weight.  Meanwhile keeping their balance and making sure their eyes and head are still facing forward, not up toward the ceiling.  This will give the bar that full half second of not being taken down by gravity, letting the athlete pull himself under as if the bar was connected to a wall.  Then the Ali feet come into play, (fast feet).  He does not jump into the air, and this is very import to see and understand.  The only time the feet move is when he is going underneath the bar once the Arched Angle is complete.  While he is pulling himself underneath the bar, his feet are in the air dropping down fast, just as if someone cut the cable holding the elevator above ground.  The elevator is dropping with amazing speed because of the weight it carries.  He is guiding the bar BACK behind his ears while going under.  This is so important.  Many people miss the weight out in front because they are pulling themselves under the bar completely vertical, catching the bar right over head.  No!  You must catch the bar back behind your head!  Up in this sport means back.  Let's put it this way, if you never went under the bar, the bar should hit you right in the chest.  That's why if I ever do snatch pulls I make sure the bar is striking my chest, leaving a bruise for the next day.  A common expression coach says in training is, "if your going to miss, then miss behind".

The Arched Angel right before going under 

You will see at times he will sit in the hole for as long as he needs to catch his balance.  This is so crucial. The hole in the snatch is your best friend.  Sit down there and watch a movie.  Then when you and the weight have an understanding of one another, stand up.  You should never have a problem standing up in the snatch because the weight is light compared to your squats in training and your clean.  If you do have this problem standing from a snatch, well then its time for more squatting.

Why is it that I keep beating athletes every year that out squat me by 20 or more kilos?  I have very weak legs compared to my competition.  but the reason why I keep beating these rookies is because I have masted the art of using my body as a catapult system.  Yes strength is king, but because of my speed and technique I am able to snatch 160 plus.

Back in the day the bar wasn't allowed to touch your body.  So pulling and shrugging the bar to your eye balls is and was a great way to lift!  Because it was the only way to defy gravity for that split second.  Now that rule doesn't exist,  thank the Lord because I am not strong enough to snatch 166 that way.  I would be taking 8th place at nationals, and never would have gotten the great privilege to represent my country twice.  It amazes me that there are still coaches out there all over the United States coaching the old pull and shrug way of lifting.  But then again, there is more than one way to get to the top of the hill.  Attitude nation = do what you want, and what works for you.  This blog article is very broad, I will go over more in-depth details and other great tricks to lift more weight in both the snatch and CJ in the near future.  Hope this has helped!

Here is another great video of Andrei completing a faster than lightening double in the snatch.  Listen to the bar, and then the feet.  This is how the snatch should look, feel, and sound.  This is the superman pull.

Andrei 2012!  I know......I still like Klokov, but I am rooting for Andrei!

Forward Bound

The Attitude Nation yelling at the 2011 Games 

American Open 7 months out.  2013 Pan Am's.  2013 Worlds.  Olympic Games 2016.  Train Train train.  Miss Miss Miss, and then train some more. 160kg snatch followed by 185kg CJ that the video doesn't show, and a close 190kg CJ that I need to start making consistently.  Here is the video below.  Salute. 

 

 More training, More meets, more USA 2016 

Beer Talk

Hey, welcome back to the Dark Orchestra.  Here..... here is some coffee I made for you.  I threw in an extra shot just for you, so pucker up and enjoy the warm but ice cold kisses from Ms Brown Eyes. Welcome back my friend, it's always good to see you.  Cheers.  How has your training been going?  Mine has been hard, as you are probably experiencing as well.  At the end of the day we are both much a like.  We both love weightlifting, and for having weightlifting be such a big part of our lives, that pretty much means we are the same damn person.  I have nothing special or interesting to write about today.  Some would call it writer's block, but I would call it just saying, hi.  No technique talk, no coaching tips, no stories about a devil in the red dress capturing young weightlifters and ruining their career from the rest she casts upon them.  This is just a simple hi how are you doing, and a cheers of the coffee.  It is a simple chat about training and life.  It is like a simple beer conversation with a friend, yes.... this is always the best kind of conversation.  Why is it that a single beer sitting between two people makes each person open up with such ease and relaxation? Why is that?  A single beer doesn't even need to be drank, yet it can make a social situation so comfortable that you can end up talking for hours upon hours.  A conversation has come to life between you and your best mate, and you now feel closer than before.  You have drawn a few tears, laughed hysterically, got mad, and hugged, all in the small window of time you have been sitting at the corner bar with a beer in front of one another.  But have you noticed that you haven't even taken a sip yet?  You haven't.  You are in shock, because for a while you had the back up plan to announce to everyone around you how tipsy or even drunk you were getting.  You thought you had that big glass of beer to fall back on from all the emotions and deadly truth you have been spilling out onto the half wood half brass bar table.  You end up drinking about 7 more and the night gets crazy.  It's almost like you try to hide the fact you opened up that much without being intoxicated.  So the next day you talk and laugh about everything besides that first few hours.  But why?  I guess I find the psychology of beer interesting.  I personally think the same goes for coffee, tea, and whatever else can alter the mind.

I didn't realize the impact coach had on training until he left.  He was gone today, and he will be gone for the next week, and now I feel that I have been dropped off for summer camp and I already want to go home.  I don't know how you garage soldiers do it.  I salute you.  I am having a hard time staying focused and motivated while coach is out of the gym.  It would be so easy to just not train, half ass it, skip squats, or even skip the whole damn week of training all together.  For the first time the front door is wide open. There are no bars caging me inside.  There is no ball and chain around my ankle.  I could make a run for it right now and never come back.  I could go with rest and live with her forever, or at least for a week, but I don't know if she would ever let me train again.  I heard that once you lay with rest, you are doomed forever.  The small vacation time you thought you were on turns into a jail of its own.  But today I stayed and trained hard.  The world team next year is the only thing in life that matters to me.  I am proud of myself for pushing throughout today.  I felt I made a good impact on my teammates.  They saw me training hard, so they trained hard.  I am not saying they do whatever I do, but I feel that I am at times the leader, and today I led, hopefully making them better.  I kept looking over at coach only to find an empty chair.  My head would tilt to the side and I would begin to scratch my head.  This is odd..... what is happening?  It's like the world as I knew it was slowly crumbling down around me starting from the ceiling down.  It's like wishing your parents would leave you a lone as a kid, and the minute they do you get sad.  Shit, I already miss him.  Who is going to yell at me to squat, and tell me my v neck is gay?  Who is going to ramble on in training about food, how he made his food, how his food tasted, and how I missed out eating his home cooked food?  I missed a lift and nothing happened today.  There was no look from coach that easily read "what the fuck was that?".  The miss was followed by quiet....... how odd.  Coach please come back...... I need to be pushed.  Without you I might be "him".

Come Back coach 2016  

Him

It was sad to watch him leave.  It truly broke my heart.  I wanted to run up behind him and catch him before he disappeared through the front door.  The way his head hung low with his droopy eyes and rolled over shoulders showed defeat; he knew it, and I knew it.  He is now just another weightlifter who has been killed by rest.  Another soldier who has been taken down by the brutal training that will either make you or brake you.  Another soldier down.   It was as if the sharp rays of the sun striking through the door were pulling him towards the bright outside.

Training was finally over and all the weightlifters seemed to gravitate toward the bench presses and free weights.  Lots of grab-assing, laughing, and all around tom-foolery was taking place at this time.  Coach joined in and gave a lecture about how we weren't pushing ourselves hard enough in training if we still had all this bull crap energy to fool around with this "curls for the girls" type crap.  Everyone laughed and so did coach, but me, I had my eyes and emotions wrapped up in him, him being the soldier who desperately needed a hug.  You would of thought I was a part of the crazy loud crowd by the bench, but I really wasn't.  I wasn't laughing or grab-assing.  I wasn't talking about how big my chest "pump" was, or showing everyone how much I can bench press.  I was lost in the lost world of "him."  I watched his every move.  It has only been a week since he flew into train with us, yes, training has been beyond hell, but already?  Is he already breaking down?  Is the imagination and temptation of rest getting to him?  These were the thoughts that were racing through my head as I watched him slowly walk around the gym picking up his stuff one by one as if he was a prisoner on the chain gang.  He grabbed his back with his right hand as if someone just shot him with a paint ball gun.  His eyes closed as his pain flowed though the air and hit me right in the face.  I felt his pain, as I was once like him.  He reminded me so much of myself at that moment, he reminded me of the hell my mind and body went through when I first joined the team and had to adapt to the training.  His pain seemed to leave his body as he bent over supporting his weight by resting his hands on his knees.  Sweat was dripping down his face like a waterfall.  In the first few days of his arrival he was talkative, outgoing, and definitely would have been down here by the bench press messing around.  But no, not that day, that day he only had one thing on his mind, and that was rest.

Then it happened, the most amazing thing I have ever seen happened right in front of my chalky face.  Rest walked in the front door with her beauty blinding the room with light and love.  In shock, I started hitting Tom next to me keeping my eyes locked onto her beauty.  I told Tom to "Look, look Tom."  But instead of the reaction I though he would give, he simply told me to stop hitting him in the arm and to leave him alone.  To my surprise, no one in the gym saw her.  They were going on with their everyday business as if nothing was happening.  She wasn't walking, but floating across the gym straight toward "him."  I stood there like a deer in the head lights, watching rest float across the gym with her smile, comfort, and ease.   He saw her and broke down into tears of joy.  He put his arms out like a kid wanting to be picked up by his mother.  His smile was long and desperate, desperate to be saved by her, desperately wanting to leave this cold dark world that us weightlifters call home.  She put out her open hand, and he took it.  His eyes were wide open, completely focused on her every move.  She smiled at him while pointing at the door behind her.  He nodded and returned the smile.  Rest started to lead him toward the front door and I knew I would never see him again.  He is with rest now.  She will take good care of him, or so he thinks.  I wanted to say something, or even run up behind him and tell him no, stay with us, don't fall for her beauty.  But no, I did nothing.  I just stood there watching what others for some reason could not see.  I thought for sure he would see her long red pointy tail.  I guess her tail blended in well with the color of her red dress, because he did not see it.  Then he was gone.  He vanished outside into the bright sun never to be seen again.  The light vanished and a second later hundreds of rusty black prison bars fell from the sky all around the gym.  I was thinking about going with him, but I guess there is no getting out of this hell.

Goodbye him, farewell my friend, it was nice training with you for that short time.  Tell rest hi for me and let her know that she might have gotten you, but fuck it, she will never get me.

Train 2016

100,000

100,000 Monsters, 100,000 coffees.  100,000 Attitude Nation Soldiers.  100,000 smiles, tears, and laughs.  100,000 epic songs dancing through my soul while writing side by side with Donny as if we were two gladiators fighting in the Colosseum.  100,000 haters trying to defeat the Attitude Nation.  100,000 victories we celebrated. We have raised 100,000 middle fingers high in the air for all to see.  We have 100,000 black suits, playing only one guitar, that never stops playing, even late at night when the drunk crowd tries to boo us off stage.   An army that started at one, one lonely Monster sitting at 7 Eleven in its cold refrigerator, waiting to speak its mind.  One year ago, one iced coffee by the name of Ms. Brown eyes sat hopelessly waiting to be rescued my her knight in shinning armor.  One year ago no one would listen to her, or even knew who Ms. Brown eyes was.  She would try to speak her mind, but would be shunned by the green jungle's dictator.  She would be thrown into her cell only left to cry and wonder, wonder if she would ever have the chance to be free and speak her mind.  She would ponder if she would ever have the chance to make an impact on the world... or who knows, maybe even change it.

Ever since I was a child, I knew I was different.  I knew there was a some sort of expression that was just waiting to be released.  I was constantly muted by my own self insecurities and unsureness of everything, including myself.  I had the thoughts, I had the words, but I was too scared to speak them, write about them, or act on them.  I was too worried about what others thought, that it blinded me from ever seeing the Attitude, the Nation that gives me hope, freedom, and self worth.  Soon I realized that I must not let the audience of life be the judge, I must be the judge.  At the end of the day, I figured out that by writing something good on paper would bring real happiness and a release from my own self judgment.  I would constantly hear the deep pounding drum against my chest, over and over as I walked to its rhythm.  The marching soldiers in my head kept me up all night, and soon made me realize that I wasn't alone.  I knew there were others out there, patiently waiting to attack the world as one well oiled machine.  I just didn't realize there would be 100,000 of them armed and ready.

When the time came one year ago, I knew what I had to do.  I had to start the attack.  I had to release the beast.  I had to bring the Nation together once and for all.  I had to find the missing pieces to my life.  I was a kid that was slowly transforming into what some would call a "grown up", a grown up with interesting images in my head that spoke to me at the oddest times.  I had to write, or I was afraid I would lose it.

After falling in love with Ms. Brown Eyes and adopting Mr. Green Monster, the Nation was almost complete.  I was missing two things, me as a writer, and you as the audience.  I had no idea what kind of words would spill out onto the computer screen.  I spent hours upon hours just staring at the white screen and blinking black line that constantly taunted me to write something, anything!  But it had to be good, it had to come from the heart and it dearly had to mean something.  I was sweating like a pig, and as nervous as a school boy about to kiss a girl for the first time.  We all know in a situating like that you must go for it, and commit fully.  So I did, and as I leaned in to start typing, Ms. Brown Eyes grabbed my hands and starting punching my fingers against the black buttons with such beauty and finesse.  Mr. Green Monster was whispering ideas into my mind, similar to putting your ear to a sea shell.  We were a team, and still are.  I am not even writing this, they are.

Thank you all for your support over the last year.  You all mean the world to me.  This blog would not exist without you.  Thank you for being a part of this team, this family, this creation we call the Attitude Nation.

100,000 and onward 2016

Tigger

I have competed, lifted, coached seminars on my own, helped with many Pendlay seminars all over the world, and I have never once seen anyone perform the "low bar squat".  Actually, I didn't even find out what it was until a few months back when someone asked me if they should do high bar or low bar for the squats I just prescribed them.  I am still in shock that athletes actually perform such a "nails on a chalk board" lift, especially for a weightlifter that should make the bottom position their home.  The number one problem I see with beginner weightlifters is their depth, or lack there of.  Watching a weightlifter low bar squat makes me want to take the elevator to the highest floor, and then jump.  Low bar squatting is just as bad as a beginner doing power snatch and power clean more than the full lifts.  Both of these weightlifting killers create incorrect movement patterns, horrible rhythm, awful consistency, and do not increase the novice weightlifter's flexibility.  The low bar squat is not just ugly and painful to watch, but teaches you to move slower than a turtle that just drank two bottles of nyquil.

Brand new client, brand new dreams of becoming an Olympic weightlifter, in a brand new sport where the sky is the limit. We work on catching the bar in the hole over and over for hours. After catching a lift in the hole, I would have him sit down there and get comfy.  I would throw him a bag of popcorn and tell him to watch a movie down there.  I would tell him to bounce like tigger over and over to create stability, balance, and for the great practice of at times having to catch that second or third bounce to stand up with a heavy weight.  I introduced him to his new home.  He then started to make progress in the lifts, especially after I told him never to do a power snatch or power clean again, until he became a champion at the "full" lifts.  A fist pump followed by a smile is the action and emotion that he got when he was able to lift more weight by receiving the bar as low as he could.  I dropped out of physics, but I have the innate ability to understand that weightlifting is nothing more than a race against gravity.  I get excited for him; I get excited for his new PR. We slap hands and drink more coffee, going over how the training went and what we both want in the near and far future.  I think he thought the training session was over because he started to take his Pendlay shoes off.  I then laughed and told him that the fire in Hell was still burning bright and high, and now we had to squat.  Tired but still motivated, he took another sip of miss brown eyes, and began to slap the big bearded man's shoes back on.  Back squats, 5 sets of 2, lets go.  I had to take a number one from all the coffee that has been poured down my throat since I woke about 7 hours ago.  In a full on sprint to the bathroom I yelled without looking behind me, "Get warmed up!".  As I slowly started walking back from one of the best things God himself ever invented, I heard a bunch of little kids crying and screaming for their mothers.  People everywhere where running past me to the door like the building was on fire.  Coach Pendlay stood up and yelled for someone to call 911, and then he walked fast....not ran, because everyone knows that Coach never runs....well unless he is imitating my teammate Kevin Cornell.  As I was spinning in circles trying to comprehend what was happening in the quiet town of San Ramon, Donny bumped into me spilling my coffee all over my deep v Attitude Nation shirt.  He told me that a red fire breathing demon with sharp fangs and dinosaur scales dripping down its greasy back was killing people by its grotesque image alone.  I pushed through the panicking crowd and to my horror, I saw my client doing low bar back squats.

The world ended hours later.

High bar 2016