The MONSTER GARAGE GYM/MAROSCHER COACHING LOG is a weekly Coaching Log by MGG owner, 2-Time WPC World Powerlifting Champion, Eric Maroscher.
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THIS WEEK’S Monster Garage Gym/Maroscher Coaching Log: POWERLIFTING LONGEVITY
*NEW MGG COACHING LOG POSTED HERE EVERY WEEK!!!!
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The BIGGEST numbers you can attain, that is a great goal. The BIGGEST numbers you can attain, and then continue to produce for an extended period of time, that is the ultimate goal.
The old Powerlifting USA magazine was so awesome to get in the mail. You would patiently wait for your subscription to arrive and as the publishing date would approach you would anticipate with excitement its arrival each day as you would go to open the mailbox to see if it was there. When the new issue would arrive you would see the same thing each month at the gym. Once the training session was over, all of powerlifters would sit around on that nasty sweat stained 1973 couch in the gym's lobby or around the table at Mexican restaurant waiting for your carne asada to arrive while reading the newest issue and taking in every written word on every page with that tiny little size 8-9 font they would use in the magazine. But first, prior to even the table of contents being read, we would turn to the very back of the magazine as that is where the Top 100 list was located. We would look to see where our lifts ranked on that list of competition lifts, if your weight class was the class featured in that month’s issue. Where were we on that list, top 50, top 30, maybe the top 20….. We would sit around the table or on that old worn couch and read all the training programs by the names who had been on the top of that list for years upon years upon years. We didn’t want the program from the lifter on the top of the Top 100 list who was gone off that list the next year, never to return, we wanted the program from the tried and true lifters who hit the big, Top 10 numbers for decades as they were on the top of that list each and every year, year after year. Guys like John Kuc, Dave Ricks, Steve Goggins, Wade Hooper, Jessie Kellum, Don Reinhoundt, and the GOAT, Mr. Coan to name a few.
Photo: Eric Maroscher with Steve (first man to squat 1100LBS) Goggins at the EliteFTS compound.
With that exclusively about powerlifting magazine gone and with it a sense of the history of the sport missing, compounded today with the daily deluge of keyboard coaches who have been around for about 60 seconds but who saturate social media with their latest and greatest, top secret, 100% guaranteed, best of the best, stole from the secret Russian training warehouse, money-back-guaranteed to put a 100LBS on this, that and the other thing in 3 weeks... the here and now, superfilteredInstatweeted coaches tend to be the shiny new object that gets the attention of those who don’t yet know that snake oil salesmen still exist.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdLMevtcrc&t=15s]
Although the shiny object may get the naive and novice as uninformed followers, it is the dented, dinged, quasi-rusted, painted chipped old non-shiny object that has lasted and lasted and has withstood the test of time and is actually worth following. But that object, the real thing, the lifting mentor and tried and true teacher isn’t looking to be followed, but rather lend a hand to that newbie who is not looking for the quick fix, but is willing to put in the time and effort. The onslaught of Instagram and social media “coaches” (the bastardisation of that word, “coach,” astounds me to know end, but that is a topic for another time) can be the Pied Pipers for the newbie, where as the battle weary mentors and training partners know that there are no secrets and getting to the top and staying on top are very, very difficult to achieve and are also two very, very different things.
I am currently in the middle of a book written by Dave Draper, 1965 Mr. America (Iron In My Hands) and if there is a theme of that book, among other themes (a really good read for those looking to get into the mind of someone in the weight game that was decades ahead of his time, and still is) it is that what worked back then, is the same and only thing that works today, and that is hard work in the gym, smart work in the gym, but the hard and smart work done with longevity in mind. While Neil Young might sing that it is "better to burn out than to fade away,” I think it is safe to say that we all would have loved to have seen what else Jimi Hendrix, or Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison could have created had they longevity.
In powerlifting it can be tough for the newer to intermediate lifter to distinguish between someone who is hard core, and someone who is just simply a keyboard pecking *ss h*le. It can also be tough to distinguish between someone who on the right path putting up their big numbers vs the right path for putting up big numbers for a sustained period of time, as there is no way to see their future, unless you have encountered that type before many times over the years. Big numbers for a white hot minute sounds so rock and roll cool, but I will take an Ed Coan or a Brian Schwab who were at the top of the game for literally decades. At the end of the day, we all eventually have to stop playing and get out of the sandbox, so why not play as hard as you can, but smart enough that you can play hard, but for a very, very long time. Feeling that pain of discipline is far more desirable than feeling the pain of regret.
This coaching log video features Dr. Rob Keyes. Rob is a 2-Time IPF World Powerlifting Champion. Rob has had plenty of numbers on the aforementioned Top 100 List, but he will be the first to tell you, he was never in the Top 10 list. Having said that, Rob, at 57 still hits big numbers and he is Mr. Consistency, hitting big numbers since his first meet, some 25 years ago in 1992. More impressively at 57 Rob still hits 415LBS RAW on the bench and 535LBS single-ply as a life-time drug free powerlifter.
Pen to paper training logs. 2-Time IPF World Powerlifting Champion, Dr. Rob Keyes (left).
The purpose of this coaching log as our log is geared toward the newer to intermediate powerlifter is to help you see that a great goal is hitting the biggest numbers you can hit, but the ultimate goal is hitting those big numbers and sustaining them over a long period of time, years and years and years to decades.
There are a couple of paths to get to your destination. If you are really a lover of the weight game and if it is really in your blood, you won’t ever want to walk away from it. So what you want to ensure is that you not only can do it as long as you can and while still putting up your biggest numbers, but also that training with weights is not taken from you due to choosing the wrong path toward your goals. There is that fine line between ruthlessly pursuing and achieving your goals and achieving success, and foolishing being out of the game before you can set new goals and again ruthlessly pursue and attain those new goals, thus continuing this cycle over and again.
The included coaching log video has some great words of wisdom from an 2-Time IPF World Powerlifting Champion and lifelong successful lifter, Dr. Rob Keyes. Rob is departing for Sweden in a couple weeks in the pursuit of a third world powerlifting title. I will close by paraphrasing the words from one of my favorite movies, Dead Poets Society. “Carpe diem, sieze the day and suck the marrow out of life. ….keeping in mind that sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.” [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EjOCyyCWg] [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4F-xWjOeUc]
Wishing you the best in your training and competitions. Ever Onward, Eric Maroscher, Owner: MONSTER GARAGE GYM
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