The blog has moved.

You knew it had to happen eventually. I'm doing a massive site re-design and splitting my personal/training blog and my business blog.
Averagetoelite.com will carry a blog on the main site which will cover workshop announcements and other business matters.
Strengthbeyondstrength.com will carry the blog that used to be here as well as my training log, and other things of that nature.

By the way...

I quartered a full deck of cards today. By accident, just like the plate curl. I had torn the deck with waaay too much effort being needed and put them down, then returned to them absentmindedly and ripped the halves in half and didn't realize what I had done until I set it down. Goal still isn't met because it took a long time. The quartering was actually easier than the first tear.
I'm going to get some video of the card tearing in the next week. I can feel my hands are a lot stronger than they were.
I'm also going to be migrating the blog soon, I'll keep you updated. I'm going to maintain a blog with business stuff such as workshop announcements, etc. on the averagetoelite.com site, and move the training stuff to a new site I'm working on. It should all be up by next week.

25 pound plate curl achieved.

I've been working on this for a while. I had done it before but with my fingers through the center hole trying to build up. This was my first legit one. I was demonstrating the concept to a client when I did it. Took me totally by surprise. I've been working with the lever block from strongergrip.com and it's really paid off.

The 32 kg. decides to play ball, and my new house

For the past few weeks (pretty much since the RKC II Prep Workshop) I have been unable to press the 32 kg. Not just that, I haven't been able to move it out of the rack! Shameful! To go from getting 2-3 clean presses per side to nothing was horrible! Made all the worse by the act that at the end of June I have to press the 36 kg. to pass RKC 2!
Well today the 32 kg. decided to get with the program, and I pressed it easily. So what's the deal? Partially it was something I'm always telling others, but forgot myself. When you correct your technique, expect the weight to go down while you are re-learning, but don't worry because you'll come back stronger. This was the case here as well. My technique is much sharper now, and I have no doubt it will carry me to the 36 kg. and ultimately the 48 kg.
I am now taking in fully twice the calories I have been. No doubt much of the responsibility for my recent string of PR's is due to this. I just needed more food.
Oh, I also quartered 35 cards today.
Today I also received word that we got a house we've been looking at here in Menlo Park. The Vezina family has been in a decent two bedroom one bath apartment since October. It's fine, but we just needed more space. Not to mention a bad ass two car garage that will never have a car parked in it. It will become my house of pain. :)
The other day Vanessa took some promo photos for my new brochures. I've posted one below. People trust a man with a dog.


Me and Cecil Lucky Buttons Wonder Dog.

Palo Alto Tactical Strength Challenge

The Palo Alto TSC went down yesterday with two participants: Kai Johnson and Gabe Rinaldi. It's worth noting that Gabe came in with six days notice and had done zero specific training for the event.

Kai
Deadlift- 365 lbs.
Pull Ups- 12
24 kg. snatches- 106



Gabe
Deadlift- 405 lbs.
Pull Ups- 14
24 kg. snatches- 125



Gabe was flying during his snatch test. I think he's around 6'2", which makes it tougher to keep up that speed as the bell has further to travel. Unfortunately we lost the end of the test.

Full deck tear, 30 cards quartered, TGU PR

I'm having a banner weekend. This morning I tore my first full deck of cards, quartered 30 cards, and hit 8 get ups non-stop on each arm with the 24 kg.

First phone book tear

At midnight the Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City directory went down. 800 numbered pages, 400 physical pages. The tear ended up going sideways because I didn't adjust my grip enough. No big deal. Once I figured out the basics it went down pretty easily.
TSC also went down at Palo Alto Equinox today. I'll post on it tomorrow after I finish uploading the videos.

Veering toward the right track

Training overall is going well, and I can feel I'm getting much stronger. When I don't move weight I know I should, I understand it's a factor of recovery and nutrition. I've been going hard too much and not eating enough. I've been eating much better, but I'm just not getting enough food. I love the warrior diet, but as I generally work until 9 each night it is getting harder and harder to even get a solid meal in.
I'm going to do a lot of research this weekend and next week and develop an actual meal plan. I want to optimize it to have the benefits of the warrior diet (no sugars during the day, etc.) but allow me to recover. Right now I'm just not recovering and it's starting to show.
In about two weeks I'm going to take down 50 blue nails in 30 minutes or less. It won't happen the way I'm going right now. The strength is there, but I'm running out of gas.
Part of this is that I am going against my nature. I'm designed for speed and endurance, and so of course I'm training primarily for strength. I can't help it, I love wrecking stuff and moving things that don't want to be moved.

Owning a Grade 5 Bolt

I was pretty surprised by how this went down. Dare I classify the initial bend as 'easy'? The finall crush down on the grade 5 bolt is what has been giving me trouble. I've only been able to get it to a right angle. On this one I took it all the way down. I just have to remember to put the wraps down at the end so they don't get in the way.

Re-orginazation of goals

After significant thought on the subject I have done some shuffling of my goals.

2009
Red Nail
100 snatches on the 32 kg. in 5 minutes
Quarter a deck of playing cards- Preferably under 30 seconds
Leverage a 16 pound sledge hammer
Bottoms Up Press the 32 kg. kettlebell
2.5xbodyweight deadlift

2010
Beast Challenge
100 snatches on the 32 kg. in 5 minutes with one hand switch

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I may add to this or adjust it further, but that looks solid. I tore 35 cards today as I was reading Jedd Johnson's E-book on the subject, which is what inspired the quartering. I've been doing more sledge leveraging lately as well.
I have accepted that the Beast Challenge is a 2010 goal. Like I said, I think I'll pull off all three lifts in 2009, but not with the exacting precision required to get by Kenneth should he be judging. :)