Be Miserable Good
Forget high reps with light weight, for "toning" or
muscle endurance. Let go your 1970s fears of "getting muscle bound." Sigh.
How about a heavy weight, a darn challenging resistance,
for 20 continuous reps? Twenty reps is considered "high
reps." But this certainly is not toning.
And the leg extension machine? Leg curls then hip
abduction then calf raises. Leave them alone. Boring set
upon droning set, on and on it goes when you attempt to
train each part of the legs and torso separately. But
why would you do that, especially when there's good
evidence that training the lower body as a functional
unit (and not isolation) is the best way to go for
improved functional performance?
As an athlete, why not go with a training structure
that's both time efficient and productive? Why train at
a moderate intensity for an hour when it could
be done in 20 or 30 minutes? Isolation? Why not push
your entire body in a way that stimulates maximal
growth of the entire machine? That is, unless you'd rather be sitting
on a weight machine inside a gym instead of working on
deliberate skill practice, or outside playing ball.
Enter 20-rep squats (for those of you who are willing
and "approved" to squat)? After plenty of
warm-ups, take a heavy resistance
that you would normally squat for a good hard 8 or 10
reps...but you go on. Keep going. All the way to 20.
Brutal. Exhausting. Effective.
Intensity means a lot of things to different people.
This is what we mean, in the context of training, when
we speak of intensity.
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You’ve gone through your general and specific warm-ups
and now all systems are go. Put on your game face,
standing with arms draped across the bar in front of
you. If you were wearing a hat, now is the time when you
rip it off your head, rifle it hard to the floor, then
kick it to who-knows-where. Roll up your sleeves and
smash your fists together four times.
Step under the bar and nestle it into the groove across
your thoracic vertebrae and scapula. Sure it hurts,
relatively little. Lock it in there and dig in. Inhale
deeply and bare the weight, every ounce of it is now
YOU. Step back and move your feet just wider than should
width, slightly out-flared. Now comes serious business.
No messing around.
Clear your mind, completely. There's no room for
anything beyond the next 90-seconds or so.
Before twitching a single fiber, you must actually see
yourself hitting that first rep with perfect form, and
feel the joint angles in the bottom position. It's game
time. Time to dive in.
Descend smoothly, see white as you brake and dig
yourself out of the hole, accelerating the weight
upward.
1.
Ugh. That’s a lot of weight. You’re mad (or determined)
for lifting it once, much less 19 more. Go.
2
The sooner you move on, the sooner you’re finished. This
will end.
3
A little winded, hearts racing. Nothing exists except
the task at hand. Nice.
4
Somewhere in here, a rep or two actually feels pleasant.
You’ve found the groove, hitting on all cylinders.
5
6
In plenty deep enough to feel some of the misery. This
is not joint or injury pain, but the ache of every
muscle blazing under the mental effort it takes
to maintain perfect form.
7
8
Few of the hardest-core gym-rats squat, and most that do
have racked the weight by now, ready to sit on the leg
extension machine sipping Evian. You’re not.
9
10
Yes, half way. Only half way? Take 3 breaths and
regroup.
11
Over half way. Embrace this degree of sting and
throbbing as evidence of pushing your limits. Yeah, you
went there.
12
Everything is telling you to quit but you don’t even
hear it because listening requires precious energy.
13
You’re an unfeeling machine executing pre-programmed
instruction. You really haven't a choice in the matter.
You've come this far, now go.
14
15
It’s down to five, and you never ever want to look at a
barbell again. Right about now is why you don’t lift on
a full stomach.
16
You lower then ascend the bar so slowly by now, with a
greater loss of steam with each rep. But the faint
splinter of light indicates the end of the tunnel. Step
to it.
17
You’ve arrived at the valley. This is the low point that
always becomes the biggest physical and mental test of
all this
18
19
Each and every time you come out of the valley, you’re a
different person. You will never get to 19 reps and
failed to make 20. “Nobody makes 19.” Gravity has
lessened. Turn this mother out. Explode, throwing the
weight through the ceiling.
20
Very few words are as pleasing to the ear as “rack it.”
You did something…strange and extraordinary. You’re
potential is not unplumbed. You’ve achieved the
staggering. Yes, the kind where you’re ready to fall
over, but also the incredible.