Training

Here is my modified John Meadows training session. His modification notes are listed with each movement.

Incline Hammer Press - Nothing fancy here, just a good ol' pyramid - get a good stretch at the bottom and drive to full lockout and squeeze this time. Keep going up in weight until you get to something that is a tough 8 reps with the squeeze. Don’t go so heavy you can't squeeze each rep.

  • 4 sets of 8
  • 4 total work sets

Smith Machine Decline Barbell Presses - Very slight decline angle - go all the way down and touch your chest, but only come up 3/4 of the way…constant tension on these this time. Use a light weight for 25 reps.

Get your pecs burning. Then one more with a little more weight for 20. Next go up in weight and do a solid set of 12 reps with perfect form. Now we do a hard set. Start with something you believe you can do for 8-10 reps. Go to failure. Do not do one single rep with bad form. When your form starts to break, take the weight down 100 pounds or so and do as many as you can get with good form again. Then for your last drop widen your grip and do the same thing. Your chest should be flat out on fire. To give you an idea of how I drop my weight, I would do a 45, 25, 45, 25 on each side for about 10. Then I would drop a 45 and 25 off each side and do another 12-15. Then on the last one just drop the 25 leaving a 4, and do about 20 or so with the wide grip. Four total work sets.

Magnum Press - Rest/pauses. Lower bar in controlled fashion. Set on chest for two seconds then drive up hard. You do not need to go heavy on these, no need too. Fire all those fast twitch white fibers. Four total work sets.

  • 4 rest pause sets of 5 reps.

Cable Cross Over - Real deep stretch is the goal. Don’t worry about flexing at the bottom, just focus on that big stretch. Not a lot of reps on these, but the stretching is where the value is after all the hard pressing. Four total work sets.

  • 4 set of 6 reps

Dumbbell Side Lateral - Raise these up to the 10 and 2 o’clock positions, so higher than a standard lateral. Try to hold them for just a split second. They should burn like fire when you are done. Five total work sets.

  • 5 sets of 10

Rear Delt Raises - Time for some fun. Grab a pair of 20 pound dumbbells - hit 30 reps of bent over rear laterals, and rest for 30 seconds only then do 20 reps. Rest for 30 seconds then do 10 reps. That's one set. Repeat one more time for 2 total sets.

Work

UGSS

I will begin by thanking all the staff of EliteFTS for all the hard work they put into this. It was the best one to date. I also want to thank all those who attended for making the entire weekend one that will be remembered for a very long time. Over the next month you will begin to see more videos, pictures, interviews and articles from this event.

Cart
I have been asked about update and launch of the new shopping cart.

Unfortunately last week, we decided to part ways with the company who was working on the project. This is a long story that boils down to misaligned company values that ended up costing EliteFTS over six months and more money than I care to mention.

There are many lessons I learned from this and will post as an article at a future time, but for now I'll say having great advisers saved our ass. If it wasn't for one of them insisting on looking over the final contract (because he knew my focus was not "on" because of my wife's emergency open heart surgery) we would have found ourselves in a very tough spot due to many items that bordered on poor business ethics or poor accounting and pricing policies. Regardless of either reason it was not good and created a situation that needed to be looked deeper into. The deeper my advisory board looked, the worse things got and the more clear the decision became.

Two weeks of review with five different advisers all came down to one thing - our core values.

We walked...

I would like to sit here and say I should've known better, but in business you really never know for sure. In hindsight it's a GREAT thing this happened because had we moved forward it would have been a nightmare.

This decision to walk was validated by five advisers (three who work in top management for fortune 500 companies) who have never seen ethics as questionable as what I was dealing with. This made me feel somewhat better with the time and financial loss.

Regardless of all this, we are having the best year in the history of EliteFTS and are looking forward to this holiday season.

Life

I'm not going to recap all the challenges of the past eight weeks because it's pointless. What I will say is I've never been hit so hard so many times in such a short time frame and have come to the conclusion that not everything happens for a reason, there isn't always a lesson to be learned, things can always be worse, vultures will prey, and all this is just part of life.

We can't change it and sometimes all we can do is survive and keep moving forward regardless of how slow the pace. It sucks, but what choice do we really have? You can let it tear you apart or grow to be more responsible. Sometimes the fog is so dense all you can do is brace yourself for the next hit.

I've learned and looked at a few of my greatest fears and they ALL scared the shit out of me, BUT I now know I can handle it and there are people who will jump in the fog with you and help you find your way - if you let them.

I'm learning to survive and manage chaos regardless of how large the storm. I've also learned things I used to think of as storms were really nothing more  than scattered showers. I think the take away is you need faith that you CAN survive for you to be able to live a fulfilled life.

Here are my current training and health indicators:

Body Composition

  • Bodyweight: 252-256
  • Bodyfat: 12.5%
  • Fat Weight: 31 pounds
  • Lean Body Mass: 221

Blood work

  • Vitamin D was pathetic
  • Hemoglobin was listed as "alert"
  • Glucose - high
  • Testosterone - low
  • RBC - high
  • Cholesterol - HDL was 50, Total 241, Triglycerides 132, LDL 165, VLDL 26)

Blood Pressure
This changes day-to-day, but has been elevated for the past few months. 150/110 would be the average.

My strength isn't that bad. While not great by any means, it has held fairly well with all things considered.

My strength endurance sucks and it's more attributed to my diet.

My diet is what I would define as my "new" bad. Years ago my bad was a 100% train wreck. My "new" bad would be what most people might consider normal or moderate.

For example, here is a normal day right now:

Breakfast

  • 4 Pop Tarts
  • AMP Drink

Lunch

  • Turkey Sandwich on Rice Bread with Cheese
  • Apple

Snack

  • Protein Bar

Dinner

  • Some type of lean meat
  • Rice, Potatoes or some other carb source
  • Salad

Snack

  • Pretzels
  • Organic Tortilla Chips or something else like this

My protein has been very low and I haven't been using any supplements (and won't until my diet gets back on par).

I discovered over the past few years that I need more food and protein for recovery and to keep and build muscle. I've lost a lot of muscle over the past few months because of this. Another BIG reason for this is the amount of stress I was under - thus more cortisol and a very low appetite.

My joints are also killing me right now. This is a factor of my diet and the changing weather.

I have no excuses, as this was all my choice. I had more important things and responsibilities I had to put my time into. I can always get back in shape, put muscle back on and lose bodyfat. I can't replace some of the things I've lost, or the time that passed and have no regrets on any of the decisions I had to make. Even when living in a hurricane you have to find a way to fulfill your responsibilities, move toward your dreams, and keep the machine turning.

Now that the dust has settled:

My wife's recovery is outstanding, my son is now being home schooled, our web cart C plan is now in effect (maybe the best move we've ever made),I'm slowly adjusting to life without my father and the staff of Elitefts has been breaking new records every month.

I've been able to keep moving forward through it all keeping the most important things in perspective.

The biggest lesson I've learned this year is you have to always keep moving forward no matter how bad things get. It doesn't matter how big the steps are - you just can't stop! The world will not stop for you. Fight as hard as you can to do the same.

I have no desire to wait until the new year to begin kicking things in high gear. Now that the storm has seemed to subside there is NO WAY I'm going to sit and wait for the next disaster to happen, door to slam in my face, or WTF moment. I have my own doors to kick open and moments to make.

So I find myself back at suck and have some work to do.