If you've kept up with my YouTube channel then you know that I've done some really big things in the gym the last month. As I wrapped up my month of training I began to look back on the traffic on all of my videos and it seems that my PR lifts got by far the most views, comments, and questions. I do understand that everyone wants to watch The Championship Game or The Big Lift but if you want to lift big or make it to the championship game you have to do what it takes to get there.

For me, that is the focus on speed! I rarely let myself get into a grinding match with myself, with an implement, or with a training partner. To be quite honest, after 25 years of training I have a pretty good idea of what works for me and I've found that out mostly by doing what doesn't and watching myself get weaker, burned out, and injured in the process. I avoid that stuff as much as possible.

Being a complete athlete does mean that you have to have the speed and THE ABILITY to grind through heavy lifts (or fights, or games) but it is more important to be ABLE TO grind than it is to spend a lot of time grinding. Those grinds often wear you down to where you can't do anything for a while.

Big lifts for me:
Box Squats against Bands: Always fighting against band speed and making sure that I'm extremely explosive off of the box.
Deadlifts Against Bands: Again, making sure that I have the reactive speed off of the floor/blocks as well as the ability to finish the lift no matter what the band tension may be. Sometimes this may be multiple sets in a short period of time (actual speed work) and sometimes it may be a single heavy set.
Events: Always making sure that I AM the one moving the implement or the object and that the strongman implement is not moving or controlling me. If you have ever done a super heavy (for you) Super Yoke the you know the feeling of "Man, that was just moving me all over the place and I couldn't control it" and that is what I want to avoid with all of my events. Make sure that the weight is riding right on that line of what you can control and what controls you.

I did screw up on bench press though and I took out band tension from my bench work BUT I also added in a lot of volume on other lifts which kept my "connector muscles" working properly and in a unit, such as incline bench press, Chest Dips, and Seated overhead dbell presses. My bench feels "off" but my pressing AS A WHOLE is on the rise!