2008 VIP Seminar ReviewBy The DoormanFor www.EliteFTS.com“Where’d you guys eat breakfast?” asked Dave Tate, who may or may not have cared where we’d eaten breakfast. From the tone of his voice I’m guessing he didn’t, but you never know. “Waffle House,” replied Kenny Hinchman, who at 6’7”, 345 lbs, looks like he most certainly does care where he eats breakfast.
“Waffle House? Never heard of it.” “They’re all over the place. You should try one out sometime.” “Shit,” said Dave. “Waffle House. How much did you spend in there?” “Fourteen bucks.” “Fourteen bucks? You spent fourteen bucks at a fucking Waffle House? What the hell did you get?” * * * * * What, indeed. What the hell did we, the attendees at the 2008 Elite Fitness Systems VIP Seminar get for the trouble of flying, driving, and, in the unique case of The Thinker, materializing Star Trek style into London, Ohio from, quite literally, all four corners of the globe?
Exponentially more than we’d bargained for, that’s what. EFS seminars can always be relied upon to provide a rich combination of instruction, motivation and networking, yet this meeting of the minds was markedly different than previous ones. Dave explains why: “I priced this one a lot higher because I wanted it to be a commitment,” Dave said. “I wanted people there who wanted and needed to be there. The price we set represented a financial commitment to getting the most out of the seminar on the part of the people who took the step of attending.” Dave said he wanted this seminar to be more of a networking event than past gatherings, and judging by the occupational demographic in the room – markedly skewed toward high-level personal trainers – his pricing scheme managed to attract exactly the crowd he wanted. “The plan was to do a lot more business stuff than we have in years past,” he said. “This was because I knew when I set a price for this seminar that there’d be a lot of people in the industry coming out.”
Friday Afternoon: The Gym
It’s not exactly a stretch to say that most people who read this site on a regular basis have never in their lives been to London, Ohio. I’m quasi-employed by Elite Fitness Systems, and I’d never been to the home base myself until this past weekend. The main office, on Maple Street near “downtown” London, is exactly what you’d expect – a small, free-standing building with a reception area and a handful of offices, with the company’s warehouse situated next door, directly across a narrow parking lot. The seminar itself, however, took place at The Compound - EFS’ gym/showroom, which is located in the absolute middle of nowhere. The Compound – the gym seen in EFS’ YouTube videos – is, in actuality, a nondescript converted warehouse on the corner of two intersecting rural roads with nothing else around, seemingly for miles. There’s no signage on the outside, and if you’re not told where it is or how to get there by someone from EFS, you’re not finding the place. Inside is Dave and Jim’s cavernous Powerlifting Nirvana. Just about every product ever produced by EFS is on display, including a handful of prototypes that haven’t yet reached the site. Everything inside is usable, too, with the place serving a well-conceived dual purpose: it’s a showcase for potential clients while, at the same time, functioning as Dave’s own personal gym-with-no-members. The photos you see lining the wall behind the monolifts on the YouTube videos are a massive collage of everything you can imagine – from action shots of EFS sponsored lifters to pictures of high school, college and professional weight rooms they’ve equipped. The first thing we did when we arrived in London on Friday was hit the Strong(er) monolift for a dynamic squat session. From this, we determined that every gym needs one of these. Dave and Mark O’Shea from Australia were just finishing up their respective workouts, and we couldn’t let an opportunity to train at the Compound pass. After being a devotee of Elite Fitness Systems for six years – and working for the site for a while – this was an honor, and it’s something that will keep me motivated for a long time to come.
Saturday’s Presenters Dave Tate (Interviewed by Mike Szudarek): Dave presented first, appropriately enough, in an interview-style format moderated by friend and public relations professional Mike Szudarek. He spoke at length about the company’s beginnings and the struggles he underwent in building Elite Fitness Systems into what it is today. When you first stumble upon the EFS website, it’s like finding the Holy Grail of training. We’ve all had that initial experience, and it’s a powerful one. After a while, however, you start taking the site for granted, like it’s supposed to be there. It’s as though an internet vacuum existed, and someone was destined to move in and fill a niche in the industry – forming a company and website that simply has everything we need. What a lot of us don’t realize, however, is that Dave struggled his ass off to build EFS into what it’s become. He shared several anecdotes during the course of his interview – among these: running the company out of a bedroom, not drawing a salary for several years and eating more than his share of Ramen noodles – that illustrated the difficulties he and his wife Traci have faced over the years. This was an inspirational “how to” primer on successfully starting, building and maintaining a small business.
Jim Wendler: “Put a wig on you.” Jim’s seminar presentations are crowd favorites because he simply reeks of authenticity. People, especially in an audience as sophisticated, training-wise, as this one was, can tell when a speaker is full of shit. Jim is decidedly not full of shit, and you know from the second he takes the stage that you’re about to get some powerful real-world advice from someone who’s put in his share of work to get where he is. Jim wasn’t working from a script, and there was neither rhyme nor reason to the presentation he gave. Somehow, though, it worked. He frenetically worked from one area of the gym to another, randomly giving the crowd a slew of “bullet point” words of wisdom. The highlights: • An excellent stretch with a broomstick. • The proper elbow position (forward) for squatting. • Holding your air when benching. • His take on Doggcrapp training for building mass: it works. • Get a Prowler and use it. It carries over for more than just interval training. • Do your Kroc Rows, and do them without straps. • If your Posterior Chain is weak, train it more. Your body will adjust. • Your numbers will increase more with small jumps in weight over time. • The Parisi Warmup is a good thing. • You will pull more in the deadlift with a statically-held rounded back. • “Get into your lats” when you bench. • Using a foam roller on your IT Band can help with knee pain. • Focus on performance first and body composition second.
The Thinker: “What I’m about to tell you will change your life.” The Thinker’s presentation from this seminar is being produced as a DVD for sale on this site, so I won’t go into very many specifics here. Suffice it to say that he gave the most thorough lecture on Block Training anyone could possibly hear outside of the Eastern Bloc. What’s evident right away about The Thinker is that he’s absolutely committed to his training beliefs. He’s also able to lay them out in a straightforward, easy to understand manner with a sense of humor that belies the serious, sophisticated writing style for which he’s become known. If you coach or train athletes, you need to get your hands on any material he produces.
Alwyn Cosgrove: “I’m not big on being politically correct.” Alwyn, simply put, is the man. If he didn’t know the personal training business as well as he does, he’d have a big time future as a standup comic – although if he ever appeared on network television, the guy in charge of the bleep button would make a shitload of overtime that night. Then again, hearing profanity in a Scottish burr is funny no matter what the context, so who knows? Aside from the humor and the commonsensical observations about damned near everything, the most valuable part of Alwyn’s presentation was, perhaps, his step-by-step outline of how to train clients – or, more importantly, how to schedule a training session so you can give your clients everything they need in a reasonable, set timeframe. He broke this schedule down minute by minute, including a warm-up and some easy-to-implement regeneration techniques. This information was pure gold for many in attendance.
Matt Kroczaleski: “The perfect training program is like a bad blowjob. It doesn’t exist.” Matt covered, at length, what seemingly is becoming his specialty: the mental aspects of training. Using examples from his own career – and those of others – he told us that the mind should be trained along with the body. With the help of some interesting visualization exercises, Matt demonstrated how the mind can be reinforced in order to enhance performance on the platform and elsewhere. Of particular interest here was the conservation of mental energy during meets. Matt is known for “flipping out” before lifts, but said he doesn’t do so until right before he’s about to perform. He also said that once a lift has been completed, he “flips the switch off” and can talk to people calmly again almost immediately after racking the bar. Justin Harris inserted a funny line during Matt’s presentation. Matt was talking about how, going into meets, he tells himself that he’s the best powerlifter in the world in order to better his performance. Justin couldn’t let the opportunity pass. “When we go to the bar,” he blurted, “we all have to tell Matt he’s the best looking guy in the world.”
Justin Harris: “Waxy Maize gets into your bloodstream like a bowling ball going through a net.” I’ll be perfectly honest here. I had no idea what the hell Justin was talking about, and I’d wager a good fifty percent of the people in the audience had no clue either. This is no knock on Justin, believe me. He’s simply way too advanced for my level of knowledge about either nutrition or chemistry. This was like attending a graduate level class in organic chemistry without having taken all the prerequisites. What I gleaned from Justin’s presentation was this: Waxy Maize is a really great product that works wonders, and we should all buy it on a regular basis from Justin’s company, Troponin Nutrition. I know this because Justin knows more about this stuff than just about anyone alive. I really wish I’d done more preparatory work for his presentation, because it was entirely too sophisticated for my rudimentary knowledge of the subject matter. If you ever have an opportunity to hear Justin speak, take advantage, but I’d highly recommend reading some of his material – available on this site – prior to doing so.
Joe DeFranco: After writing several articles about Joe DeFranco, my regard for the guy and his training methodology is no secret. Simply put, Joe’s stuff works. After years of training athletes – well over a thousand of them – Joe presented his system, and his latest findings, in the intense yet accessible style that has become his trademark. I can’t write much more about DeFranco that hasn’t already been written, other than to say that it was a privilege to see, firsthand, a room full of newcomers initiated into the “Cult of DeFranco.” Always worth the price of admission. And yes, there was a “Jersey Jackal” sighting in Ohio.
Random Observations • At the Team EFS dinner on Saturday night, I sat at a table with Rob Pilger, Alwyn, and Mr. and Mrs. Thinker. This was a very interesting mix of people. Rob, in a word, is rather intense when it comes to anything boxing-related. Actually, intense might not be a strong enough term here. I think borderline psychotic might better describe Rob’s conversational style when certain topics come up – especially when Alwyn managed to work either Roy Jones, Jr. or Oscar De La Hoya into just about everything we discussed. Funny shit. • On Sunday, we trained. Some of us did, at least. Mike Hanley, Rick Walker, John “The Jersey Jackal” Impallomeni and some others put on an impressive display of squatting, while another group of guys including Billy Giampaolo – who came all the way from Australia and deadlifted 820 at the Compound – did some shirt work on one of the benches. Outside, Joe DeFranco ran the infamous “Prowler Challenge” – two plates on concrete for 30 yards there and back, twice, with no rest – which was won by a Paul Vaillancourt from Canada, who took home a Prowler for his troubles. • I met Ryan Magin (the EFS-sponsored BMX dude) and Elliott “The Primal Guy” Hulse for the first time. Ryan is a great guy with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and he has a bright future as both an athlete and a strength coach. Elliott, like me, is originally from New York, and was a terrific football player at St. John’s University. One of my best friends was his college positional coach, and another good friend of mine was a teammate of his, so meeting him was very interesting because we know at least fifty people in common. • I knew nothing about monolift squatting until Sunday, despite having competed in a handful of meets. Hell, I pretty much think I know nothing about squatting in general now that Jim’s taken a look at my form. I’m telling you flat-out, if you get a chance to attend one of these seminars, the coaching points alone are worth the trip. They’ll change everything.
What We Took Home “Get off the internet and go train.” I asked Rick Walker of Punxsutawney, PA for his impressions of the seminar, and his essentially echoed mine. Rick is the manager of the Recreation and Activities department of a state prison in Pennsylvania. He’s also an accomplished lifter who’ll be competing in the IPA Worlds in June. “I came to the seminar,” said Rick, “because I’ve wanted to get back to one of Dave's events since I went to a squat seminar of his in 2002. I know the guys at Elite know their stuff, and I wanted to get an edge with my powerlifting and pick up any tips I could to get me closer to that 2000 pound total. We all got a ton out of it. The presentations were all awesome, as was the Sunday training event. My training partners got a ton of tips on shirt benching which led to a 605 3-board press by our 308’er whose previous best was 565!” “The biggest thing I took home,” Rick continued, “was all the talk about the Prowler. I was lucky enough to win an Econo Prowler as a door prize, and after hearing all the great stuff about it, I started using it. The rumors are true. That thing is brutally effective. Just two sessions with it and I can tell it’s going to help all aspects of my health and powerlifting. Also, I remember when Wendler asked how many people were training as hard as they could and doing everything to make themselves a champion and I couldn't honestly raise my hand. I can now. That was profound for me.” For me, the trip home was telling. I began to understand why I’ve gotten stuck recently in various areas of my life – training and otherwise. I realized this weekend that it’s because I haven’t cared enough. I haven’t paid enough attention to my training to become a top powerlifter. I haven’t refined my technique. I haven’t cared about proper nutrition, or getting enough sleep. Somewhere along the line, I stopped believing in myself, in how I was training and in what I’m capable of doing in the sport and in life. I had become what I despise: a “knight of the keyboard” who spends more time criticizing people on the internet than he does in the weight room. This seminar showed me how much I need to care about what I do. You can go through the motions of training and competing in meets, be dissatisfied with your progress, and blame everything under the sun for your lack of results. You can delude yourself, like I did, into thinking you care. Then you meet a guy like Matt Kroczaleski, and you realize you’re not even close. You squat in front of Jim Wendler and you realize how many details you’ve overlooked. It really makes you think. More importantly, it makes you want to get home and get to work. When Wendler asked the “champion” question, I couldn’t raise my hand either. Next time, however, you can be damned sure I will. |
