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In my previous article, I outlined a couple of mistakes I see throwers making with their training. You can check that article out by clicking here. I really appreciate the feedback I got from the Kabuki Strength community, and one of the most common questions was how those considerations actually entered into program design. I thought the most productive way to answer that question was to just open up my old training log and show a sample training week from my final season as a pro. This is my actual in season workout schedule assuming a meet on Saturday.
As the founder of a popular movement website I feel it’s my duty to tell you that I want you to limit the amount of exercise prep that you perform. Yes, I said limit your exercise prep, not do more. In recent years I’ve seen a trend for mobility, movement priming, and other means of exercise preparation. While this trend is very positive over the just ‘grind through the pain’ mentality of the past, there is such a thing as ‘too much’. Just like anything else, people seem to jump right to the “if a little bit is great, then more must be better” approach.
After eleven years as a competitive powerlifter (24 World and 25 American titles), my shoulder joints have been reduced to bone on bone. Osteoarthritis is defined as the wearing away of the cartilage which cushions the joint. Most people over 60 years of age with this condition are subjected to shoulder replacement surgery, which is an invasive procedure involving the removal of the head of the humerus and the installation of a titanium rod with a titanium ball on top, into the bone marrow of the humerus itself. I was told a number of years ago by my orthopedic surgeon that I would not be able to lift heavy ever again if I undertook such an operation. Therefore, I continued to train with severe pain rather than end my career. My training partner, John Hare, has literally had to shove me under the bar for the last four years in order to get into position to squat-a very painful movement.
After reviewing the x-ray of my shoulder which I had hurt on the ski hill a few weeks earlier, my doctor said to me in his office “there’s nothing structurally wrong with it, just a little bursitis. You’re just getting old”. I was 54 at the time and my first thought was: “Screw you! I refuse to accept that I cannot continue to lead an active lifestyle”. Hell, except for a nagging pain in the shoulder that wouldn’t go away, I still skied and water-skied and felt like I did 10 years earlier. I was not going to sit on the couch and become a spectator and wither away. That doctor’s words resonated with me and motivated me. I refused to believe I was getting “old”, in fact, at that moment I banned the word from my vocabulary and proclaimed myself a “mature athlete”. I immediately embarked on a mission to rehab my shoulder and to get into the weight room to get strong and fit.
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Shawn Sherman and Jonathan Loos of The Reset System. They visited our facility over the course of a couple days and used their method on a number of our athletes. We were able to see some immediate results in a number of them as well as observe them diagnose known issues (unknown to them) with several of them in a very quick fashion.
This article isn’t meant to attack anyone, or be inconsiderate of challenges others face. What it is meant to do is to challenge the thought process of those that assume they know the privileges bestowed on others. What sparked this brief piece is being asked to reflect on my white male privilege and my elite lifter privilege before posting on social media. Specifically the elite lifter privileges of being able to train in the best facilities with the best tools, that others don’t have the advantage to use. It is this latter portion that I will address.
If you quickly peruse popular strength training magazines, blogs and other sources, it is common to see a majority of the content reference core and hip training. These areas are important to human function, but I would like to draw some attention to the body part we cover up, hide and neglect, despite it providing the evolutionary ability for upright locomotion, the foot.
An athlete recently asked me how to achieve peak conditioning and peak strength levels simultaneously. To his disappointment, I noted this realistically could not be achieved. But the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact the correct interplay of both conditioning and strength can maximize your performance in both.
Whether it be physical or emotional, true strength is a demand.
Not a request.
If you are asking for it, waiting for it, or even praying for it, you have misjudged its fundamental nature; It is elusive and hard to come by, and won’t politely join by request those without the will to grab it by the throat, and squeeze until it cooperates.
