Noah Found a Camera in the Back Office

A while back, Noah came walking out of the back office holding one of our old camcorders.

Not a phone. Not a mirrorless rig on a gimbal with a guy running audio. One of the legacy elitefts cameras that used to sit on a tripod in the corner of the gym and record whatever happened in front of it.

Nobody knew if it still worked. It did. So we charged it up and ran with it.

The idea was simple. Point it at whatever was going on and leave it alone. No reshoots. No cutting out the boring parts. If a set was bad, it stayed bad.

For about a week, that camera went everywhere at the S5 Compound. Training with the crew. Unfiltered moments around the building. A few sneak peeks at upcoming podcast guests.

No polish. No production. Just S5 as it happens.

We Filmed elitefts Like It Was 2016 Again

Here's what hit me watching it back.

When you strip away the edits, the music, the slow motion, and the captions, there's nothing left to hide behind. The only thing on the screen is the work. Either it was real or it wasn't.

That's a good test for any training session. And it sent me back into the archive.

What the Old Tapes Actually Show

We have a lot of old footage. A lot of it is ugly. Bad lighting, bad angles, and audio that sounds like it was recorded inside a paint can.

Some of the best of it is from the years I trained with John Meadows.

For anyone who doesn't know, John was an IFBB Pro and one of the most dedicated and disciplined people I've ever been around. He approached training like a scientist and attacked it like a savage. When we trained together, that combination turned into something most people couldn't understand, let alone want to repeat.

Those sessions weren't about showing off or making a name for ourselves. They were about curiosity. How far can we push this before something breaks, and what do we learn when it does?

Dave Tate and John Meadows Training

We'd show up with ice packs, knee wraps, bands, chains, and buckets. Not to look hardcore. We brought them because we knew things were going to get ugly. We wrapped ice around our necks and wrists between sets because our body temps would spike so high it felt like our skin was cooking.

The rule was simple. If we thought we could survive it, we had to try it.

We didn't call it dangerous. We called it productive.

Back Training With Dave Tate and IFBB Pro John Meadows

Now, I've written before that there were no cameras in those sessions. That's not exactly true (obviously, you just watched them). The camera was there. What wasn't there was anybody performing for it.

Nobody checked the angle before a set. Nobody asked to run it back because the lighting was off. Nobody cared how it looked, because we were too busy trying not to throw up.

That's the difference I see between most of those old tapes and most of what gets posted now. The camera used to record the training. Now a lot of training gets built around the camera.

Interesting to think about.

The Line Between Hard and Stupid

There's a fine line between training hard and crossing into the realm of stupid. You can't understand where that line is until you've crossed it a few times.

I crossed it plenty. Some of those times I got stronger. Some of those times I got hurt. Every one of those times, I learned something I couldn't have learned from a book, a coach, or a video.

The best sessions I ever had weren't just physical. They were psychological tests. Not "can I lift this," but "am I willing to keep going when I know I probably shouldn't?"

Prove the Impossible

When most people talk about training hard, they mean showing up, sweating, and pushing through a couple of tough sets. That's fine. That's the entry fee.

But there's another level very few people ever reach. It's where a workout stops being a workout and becomes an experiment in what you're capable of. The weight feels different there. So does the room.

You don't live there every day. You can't. Nobody recovers from that on a weekly basis for long.

But if you've never been there, you don't know what your hard really is. You only know what your comfortable is.

Most lifters have their comfortable confused with their hard.

I learned where my hard was at Westside. Walking through those doors in the '90s was like walking into hell, and I mean that as a compliment. I spent about ten years there under Louie Simmons, and the biggest thing that room gave me wasn't a program. It was a new definition of normal.

What I thought was an all-out effort the day I walked in was a warm-up by the end of my first year.

That's what happens when you train around people who have already found their line. Yours moves whether you like it or not.

Saturdays Look the Same in Every Building

elitefts started in a spare bedroom. Then s1. Then the s2 Compound, which Jim Wendler named because the three buildings weren't connected. Then s3, which we got out of because the propane heat bill was no joke. Then s4, where we trained from the fall of '09 until 2017. Now S5.

When we moved into s4, Jim looked around at all that open space and said that in a couple of years we wouldn't be able to walk through it because of all the equipment I'd pack in. I told him, "Not this time." A few years later, you couldn't get from one end to the other without cracking your shin on something.

Equipment piles up. That's never been the point. The point is what happens in between it.

Different buildings. Different equipment. Different faces over the years.

The same flag has hung on the wall in every one of them.

And Saturdays have always looked about the same.

Saturday Training Motivation

The crew is the standard. That's the part people miss when they ask what the secret is. There's no secret program on the whiteboard. There's a room full of people who expect you to show up and do the work, and who will let you know when you don't.

You rise to the room or the room exposes you. There's no third option.

Friends busting your balls because you left a rep in the tank is a lot different than outsiders piling on. The first one makes you better. That's what a good training crew does. It doesn't let you lie to yourself.

Watch the old Saturday footage next to what Noah shot on that camera. Different hair (less of it on some of us). Different bars in the rack. Same work.

That's not nostalgia. That's a standard that held up.

What Train Harder Actually Means

"Train harder" gets thrown around so much it's almost lost its meaning. So let me be specific about what it does and doesn't mean.

It doesn't mean more junk volume. Adding four more exercises you don't need, done at half effort, isn't harder. It's longer.

It doesn't mean ego lifting. Loading a bar you can't control and grinding out garbage reps while your form falls apart isn't harder. It's just going to cost you.

It doesn't mean copying what you see online. A lot of what you see was built for the camera, remember.

Training harder means honest effort on the work that actually matters. Your top set is actually your top set. Your supplemental and accessory work gets done with intent instead of being something you rush through to get out the door. You stop negotiating with yourself between sets.

When I competed, I always felt I was only as good as my last lift or my last meet. It took me a lot longer to figure out that life works the same way. You're only as good as what you did last week.

Not last year. Not the PR you hit a decade ago. Last week.

Effort You Can Check

Here's a simple way to hold yourself accountable. Look at your training log. Not the highlight reel, the log.

If the numbers haven't moved in months, the reps look the same, and you walk out of the gym feeling great after every session, you already have your answer. You're training. You're not training harder.

Hard sessions leave a mark. Not every one of them, but enough of them that you can point to them. You remember the sets. You remember what it took to finish them. If you can't point to a single session in the last month like that, it's time.

Nobody else needs to know. The camera doesn't need to see it. You do.

For the Beat Up Lifters

Now, for the beat up lifters reading this (I'm one of you), training harder looks different. Parts wear out. Some get reattached, some get replaced, and some will never work the same again. I've spent years being told all the things I can't do anymore.

Here's what I've learned. What you can do should always be a longer list than what you can't.

Harder doesn't mean dumber. It means you find the things you can still push, and you push them all the way. Cluster sets, timed sets, machines, whatever your body will let you hammer. Hammer it.

Don't Let It Take Everything

One more thing, because I learned this one the hard way.

The barbell takes a lot. It demands time, energy, loyalty, and pain. But it shouldn't take your humanity.

The weights will always wait. The people in your life won't. Train like hell, then go home and be there for the ones who put up with you.

Your Next Session

Motivation lasts about as long as the video that gave it to you. So here's what to actually do with it.

Pick one lift this week and own it. Not everything. One. Decide ahead of time what a real effort looks like on that lift, then give it that effort with nothing held back.

Leave the phone in the bag between sets. You can't be present in the session and scrolling at the same time. Pick one.

Film one set this week and watch it back with no music and no edits. Just the set. Ask yourself one question: would that hold up on an old camcorder in the corner of the gym? If the answer is no, you know what to fix.

Train with people who make you better. If you don't have a crew, find one. A Saturday group, a local powerlifting gym, a training partner who won't let you skip the last set. The room raises your ceiling faster than any program will.

And be honest about where your hard ends and your stupid begins. Walk right up to that line on purpose. Every once in a while, step over it and see what happens. Then learn from it.

That's how you find out what you're capable of. There's no other way.

Live, Learn, Pass On.

Dave Tate / elitefts