I'm currently training for the 2019 USPA Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. After dropping a couple weight classes, this meet will be second showing at 198 and real return to raw powerlifting after a couple years wearing gear.
The past few days have been pretty incredible. First, let's start with the training! I was on my way to Chicago for a leadership conference and stopped to train at Illiana Power Asylum, where Julia and Christian work and train. It's a sweet gym with a bunch of good people in it. I've been there a few times now, one of my favorites around.
Deadlift - The plan was to work to 615 x 1 (95% x 1). However, I knew that as the percentages got high the work would get a little weird. The training maxes that I gave to Casey to base all of this on were extremely conservative. 615 did not move like 95%. Much less strain than that. I knew the point of this session was to strain on a big(ish) single. I understood the "why" of this day, so I knew I probably needed to take another set.
Quick text to Casey later and 645 is on the bar. I suck at pulling in the gym. Raw I don't think I have ever pulled more than 635 straight weight in training. Sure, bigger stuff in gear, with reverse bands, etc, etc but not raw from the floor. So this was pretty sweet. Small gym PR 2 weight classes down. Good stuff.
This is why it is important to understand the purpose behind the plan! Had I stopped at 615 it still would have been a good training session, but wouldn't have accomplished what I was supposed to do for the day. Likewise, suppose 585 was brutal. I would have skipped 615! The purpose was to strain and strain without missing.
More Deadlift - 545 x 3 x 3
Stiff Leg Deficit - 405 x 2 x 8
GHR - 4 x 8 with bodyweight. Nice to have an actual GHR to do this on.
Banded Lat Pulldown - Orange band, 3 x 15
Stir the Pot - BW, 5 x 20
MUSTER 007
A couple years ago my general manager got our entire business unit a copy of the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I got really into it and loved the concepts. To quote one of the instructors from the conference, Flynn Cochran, "everything is your fault. Go fix it."
The conference was awesome, but admittedly started out hard for me. Day 1 started with a deep dive into the 4 laws of combat leadership, the basis of the EO book. It was actually kind of depressing because I realized how poorly I was performing on at least 2 of the 4. On a personal level I was doing OK, but as a business leader pretty much sucking it up.
One of my biggest takeaways of the 2 days was around training. They talked a lot about how the military trains, how many reps they put in and how realistic the training strives to be. Its hard, stressful and repetitive. How often in business do we get reps in training?
NEVER.
We train once. And the training isn't hard. A lot of times it isn't realistic. It certainly isn't stressful. Then you are expected to be able to do the task. So you struggle through it and get beat up when actually doing your job. It really made me think hard about how I want to train myself professionally and what I want to do with my team.
Another big one was on self assessments. We worked through a simple exercise on self assessing and I gave myself a solid D+ or so. Depressing. The exercise forced you to be honest with yourself and create actionable things to do to drive improvement.
We finished off the conference with an intro to Jiu Jitsu course instructed by Dean Lister (look him up... he's a bad man), Echo Charles and Jocko.
It was really basic stuff focused mostly on self defense. Super fun, something I had never really done much of before outside of one beginner class a couple months ago. Fighting is fun.
As I review my notes I definitely want to write about this conference more. I took in so much information over two days and had a great experience there. Highly recommend it, excellent course for both professional and personal growth.
