It’s Max week, you’re ready to come into the gym and tear the weights a new one. Fast forward to the end of the week, some of you reading this have successfully triumphed, and some of you are just happy to have made it through the week hitting your previous PR’s or getting close. If you hit monster PR’s chances are you’ve put more time into your training or you are brand new so even just showing up 2 to 3 times a week consistently has shown amazing results for you. Either way congrats keep up the good work and continue to chase your PR’s.
For those of you who struggled, or aren’t satisfied with your 5 lb. PR in half a year of training it is okay. There is a reason the weights are heavy, it’s so they’re hard to move and stay in the same place for you to use again tomorrow. Life happens, there are weeks you just can’t make it consistently to the gym BUT there are no excuses. If you don’t have a barbell or weights at home (most people I know don’t) you know and I know that there are exercises you can be doing outside of the gym if your goals are truly to get stronger and improve in your weightlifting. Weightlifting is 105% technique; every time you lift you should be focusing on your technique. With that being said, you need to create and maintain an insane level of muscle memory if you expect to excel in weightlifting. This means never taking an actual day off. You don’t necessarily need to come into the gym and lift heavy but, you need to grab a PVC pipe, or cylindrical object that can pass as an imaginary barbell and go through your positions and weightlifting movements/drills everyday for a minimum of at least 100 reps. If done correctly it probably won’t take you more than five to ten minutes. With that being said please stay focused and concentrate on your reps, and performing them as close to perfect as possible.
Perfect practice reps should be slow, strong, balanced, and precise. Pay special attention to what your feet are doing. The rep should be slowed down in order to hit your positions and the bar kept in close, like scrape your legs close. Even though the rep is slowed down it is still of utmost importance to focus on moving your feet from a pulling to receiving position as fast as possible. The pulling position is where your feet start, underneath you or in the hip width area. The receiving position is where the feet finish, in a slightly past shoulder with squat like stance. The faster you can move your feet out the better the weightlifter you can be. Focus on moving your feet out exactly the same position every rep. Don’t look down until each rep is finished, no reason to develop bad habits. Correctly moving your feet out allows lifters to receive the loaded barbell in a more efficient upright catch position which can easily be recovered from with the heaviest of weights.
No more wondering why one week you can clean and jerk a house but the next week your squashed by your 80% warm up after not touching a barbell for 7 days. Practice builds up, and one day after a long enough time of not quitting you will have accomplished something pretty amazing. I promise you that you will see results and feel more consistent at whatever you want to get better at if you practice every single day. It is about consistency [people], put the reps and time in on a daily basis.
Written by: Nic Scudamore
Lift heavy, lift often, dream, and repeat.
