More 150 Action

Hopefully I'm not burning your interest in this blog to the ground with my recent batch of video posts.

I honestly don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, but I have not an ounce, of creative or even productive thought lately.

I've got 2 things on my mind all the time. (of course besides doing a good job of running my business)

1) Getting Sarah ready to win the nationals at the end of the month
2) Getting myself ready for the soon to start strongman season. AND SMASHING EVERYTHING IN MY PATH LIKE A RABID SASQUATCH! (I'm notorious for getting my mind so into a competition that all other aspects of my life suffer. Luckily it's only been my creative thought process so far.)

So here's a couple more vids. (Like logs on the fire)

150 DB rows for 20 reps


Sarah Squatting 345

And if you really are getting bored of these vids, quit being such a nancy and send my a vid of you doing something cool. Of course you'll be the only one interested in watching it.

Respect Yourself

Think about this for a second and see if it sounds like you.

Somebody says something really ignorant about you, but you let it slide because the confrontation isn't worth it.

You get screwed over by the phone company but you let it slide, because the few bucks you lose every month aren't worth the hassle.

I'm guilty.

I've been that guy. I rollover because it's not worth the hassle.

Why? I don't know. I would never do this in the gym. I would never skip a squat day because its not worth the hassle. I would never quit on set of rows because I didn't want to deal with the discomfort.

I've recently decided that if I have what it takes to step over any obstacle in the gym, why the hell should I not step over any obstacle otherwise.

I'm calling the phone company back and telling them the can stick it up their ass.
I'm placing a formal complaint about the poor service I get from the postal courier.
And if you talk smack on me, get ready to hear about, immediately.

Oh yeah and I'm gonna smash some fucking weights in the gym on Thursday night too.

A Few New Moves

Sarah pumpin' the gun show

So, I'm back to the grind and still high on the fact that I was at Defranco's for the weekend.

Everyone keeps asking me what the main points that I learned were and yada yada.

Here's my summary of the Defranco's Mentorship:

-Attittude and Atmosphere are probably the most important factors to having a good training session.

-Keep things simple, there is no need to follow your clients around with a stop watch and a clip board. Teach them how to squat, bench etc and let them get busy.

Joe tells the group how it's gonna be

-Small group training is the best way to get the best attitude and atmosphere mentioned above. Of course you have to weed out people that are not looking for the same success and not willing to give 100% all the time.

-Rest periods during max effort lifts should not be regulated. Take as much time as needed.


-Super setting the accessories and utilizing bands and DB's will alow the groups to keep working hard without much equipment.

Mike "the asshole" Guadango about to set a 10yd PR

-One day a week should be dedicated to recovery work. (wednesdays works best if possible)

-I learned how to perform assisted PNF stretching the way Joe performs it on his athletes. This little routine will make a huge difference in anyones day to day operations and mobility.

-Kids that train at Defranco's scare the shit out of their competitors on game day. The DTS t-shirt is a badge of honour that must be earned throught hard work and dedication.

-The "Asshole" is really a great guy. Don't let the title fool you.

-I was doing a good job of warming up my athletes last summer. Joe's warm-up at the sprint session was almost identical. (although I picked up a couple new things too)

-There is nothing fancy about WSSB, just simple and hard work, the way I like it.


There are probably 1000 other little tid-bits that will help me do my job better and help me help kids get ready for their sports but those are the things that I learned by "just being there" and seeing things unfold.


If you are like me and seriously want to be known as the trainer that creates scary athletes then you should definately try to get in on a mentorship with Joe in the future.




Thanks Joe.



Okay Kids, who wants to slay the competition like never before?

X-Mass, Come and Gone

Well I'm back in the office for the first time in a while. It's almost great to be back. We live our lives so dependant on our daily/weekly routine that after a while the holidays make me nervous. Things just don't seem right and I get worried that I may fall of the horse for good.

Despite being on vacation I am definately NOT one to skip training. I did pass on some cardio sessions but they didn't make or break me. I did have some really great training sessions and some not so great. I missed my goal of a 700lb deadlift. On Dec 30th 2008 we trained lower body and deads were the main course. I was having a poor work up, pitching forward over the bar off the floor. My lifts went as follows;
315X5
405X5
495X2 (only wanted to do a single here but the first rep was so pitched forward I decided to take a second)
585X1 (also pretty pitched)
675Xmiss (I dumped forward off the floor but it still came up well but near the top my legs and hips were locked before I got my shoulders back so the lock-out was not there. I keep asking myself if I should've hitched it up, but it doesn't matter now. )

So the goal was missed.

Is there anything gained from the whole ordeal?

You're damn right there is. I aimed high, worked hard, and had great confidence going in. I got a little hasty and didn't give the proper respect to the work-up weights and fucked things up. I've learned another lesson that can only be learned by missing weight and that was to treat the work-up like a meet lift, everytime. My sloppy work-up may or may not have been the deciding factor but it won't be in question ever again.

How did your year end go?

Did you meet the call to action?

Lets hear about it.

Happy 2009.

The Big Four-OH

Hey it's my 40th post on this blog. Lets celebrate!

I want to let you know that over the holidays I will be posting a little less frequently but don't worry, I'll get you something to read for sure.

Here's a little ditty that I pumped out for some lat growth last night.
Chin-ups X 100 reps in as few sets as possible
It took me nine sets. I actually was hoping to do it in about 7 or 8 but I went too hard out of the gate.
x15, x12, x10, x10, x10, x10, x10, x11, x12

My back was blasted.

Give this a try. If you are not super duper at chins, start with a lower number. Try 40 reps, 50 reps whatever. Just make sure you work your ass off.

I can still remember when I could only do 1 chin-up. It was back in 2000. I was in college and me and my training partner got on a mission to get better at chins. So we used to do 1 set of as many as we could before every work-out. We even used to give each other a spot so we could do at least a couple of assisted reps.
It worked.
In what seemed like no time at all I was able to do 3, 5, 6 all alone with no assistance. Now whenever I walk by anything that I could do chins off of, I grab on and bang out at least 10 reps.
This same protocol (doing chins before each work-out) has also worked for another training partner that I had several years later. When he started trainig with me, he could barely do one rep. I got him doing them after the warm-up on each session and now I see him pound out 10 great reps no problem. We don't train together anymore but he still trains at one of my gyms.

I actually want to give him a shout out for also doing some great front squats and BB clean and presses. The tall slender bastard learned and listened and contiues to apply good training habbits. Nice work Cracker. (I don't think he reads this but whatever)

In the works of Cyrus; "Fuck off, I got work to do".