Physical Subculture

Our upcoming meet is about 9 days away. Although I might not break all PR’s since my last meet almost 4 years ago (I can’t believe that it has been so long), I will be at least hitting one for sure. My thoughts about my training are mixed, thrilled in the progress I’m making this month, but hanging onto a small wish that i started training for this met about 2 months earlier.

So much of my training this year has been random. Fun, intense, hardcore, but random. If I had set my sights on this meet earlier, things would have been a little different…

A) more GPP towards the beginning of the training cycle. Having an increased ability to handle bigger workloads would have been a good goal to nail.

B) Eat better. This is a lifetime goal. What I eat isn’t usually bad, but actually remembering TO eat seems to be my issue. It only seems like within the last month I started nailing down a more regimented eating plan, and I’m still forgetting meals here and there.

C) train more often, but with cycled intensity. Instead of battling burnout and fatigue by reducing the number of training sessions in a week, I need to keep the number up, but remember what training can be. I have three phases to a workout, Open, Create and Release. Open the mind, joints and tissues, Create force, strength and muscle, Release anything we don’t want to take home with us, primarily tension. I need to remember that training can focus on any of these three things, as long as there is balance by the end of the week or month, so a session of joint mobility or playful tumbling (infer what you will) can be as effective in the overall conditioning of the body and mind as a brutal session of iron hoisting. Probably better than a ‘day off.’

This is the last week of full intensity before the meet. Unfortunately I’ll be on the road with my band for the next 5 days, cutting into my training a little. My bandmates will have to tolerate my absence as I sneak off for a little workout fun at least one day (probably in Eugene, Oregon).

But today is deadlift day. Straight up max, nothing fancy. I’m keeping supplemental work minimal this week, but i will also be throwing in some snatch grip deadlifts from a box for a DEEP start, forcing me to focus on posture and explosion from the hole (do NOT infer anything from that).

Then I’m going to play with a pullup bar, but upside down, trying to hang from my toes. Gotta get silly sometimes.

Dave halfway through a snatch-grip deadlift from a box (with 25 lb plates for an even deeper start).