The Final Log Post Of My Internship

Anyone who has been following my training log will know just how different this experience has been for me as a whole. I completely changed my style of training, not once, but twice. I went from my comfortable strongman block style training to The Executioner to a West Side template. This rocked my world in more ways than one but it is finally coming to a close. 8/9 I was in Indiana coaching friends and clients at the Indiana World Pro-Am (strongman) and was traveling the day prior. I came in and hit speed squats and speed bench in preparation to max out my final week here. Nothing crazy some speed singles around 60% and assistance work. 8/11 Today I was scheduled to max my squat and deadlift. I was incredibly excited and my warm ups felt great all the way up to 385. After that set I could tell something was off but proceeded. I jumped to what should have been an easy 435 and missed it 2 inches out of the hole. Never missed a squat there before, dropped and hit 415. Incredibly disappointed I moved onto deadlifts. Warm ups felt slow so I told myself I would hit 545 and cut it. I missed 5 plates. Finished the day about 85lbs short of both PRs. I knew it was mental. 8/13 I knew I wasn't as strong as I had hoped to be this week but also knew that I wasn't as weak as I had displayed on Tuesday. My goal was not to hit a PR but simply to find optimal arousal and hit an easy rep. After a few warm ups where I was either too aggressive or not enough I found a perfect balance at 270 and although it was easy I stopped there. Final thoughts: I am and always have been a very passionate person. Last year I won the teen national championship in strongman but it was taken away from me four weeks later due a simple mathematical error that occurred early in the show that caused me to change strategy. My support group at the time convinced me to change my training mentality to a calmer, less emotional approach, and I naively listened. I had felt something was missing throughout this year but ignored it. This week I realized it was because I abandoned what I was best at, transferring emotion into the barbell. I went back to my old training mindset Thursday (8/13) and it was successful. I do not think it is a coincidence that during my last week here at Elitefts I learned yet another important lesson about myself. This has been an 11 week experience that has been far more profound on me than words in a log can describe. I want to take a moment to thank Dave, Traci, Mark Watts, and everyone else at Elitefts who has made this experience an unforgettable one. I have grown as a man, coach, athlete, and a human. Thank you. Live. Learn. Pass On.