What a Father's Day Weekend You Missed.

We had a busy week and weekend at TPS. I’ll tell you all about it and go over a little training stuff later.

I kicked Father’s Day weekend off with a trip to see Flogging Molly with my  son Friday night. I was pretty psyched about this and so was he. We met up with Kevin Cann one of my training partners and the S&C Director at TPS.

When we got in I figured since the boy always falls asleep during the headline acts second or third song, I better get some caffeine in him. I paid about $8.00 for a Diet Coke and $14.00 for a can of Bud.

I don’t know about you but if I am paying $14.00 for a can of Bud, I want four or five girls dancing on the table in front of me.

Anyway, the show was even better than I expected and the boy made it through the whole thing. First time for that.

Saturday came around and it was time for the Russian Strength Seminar at TPS with Boris Sheiko and Mischa Koklyaev.

I knew this would be a great seminar but I was not sure how the guys would be.

I had heard from a few friends of mine that know Mischa that he really solid and nice guy. No one knew anything about Boris. All we did know is that he is an old school Russian coach and he didn’t speak English.

I don’t get star struck or goofy when I meet celebrities or athletes like some.

They all put their pants on one leg at a time like I do, but c’mon. This was Boris Sheiko.

Let me tell you, both of them were as friendly and laid back as could be. They were two of the best presenters I have ever had and they were two guys who have made it to the top of their game yet had no ego or attitude about them. We could all take a lesson from them.

The content they put out was some of the best I have seen and I’ve been to a lot of seminars. My friend Yasha Kahn set this up and the format they came up with was very unique. Boris spoke from a coach’s perspective which is what you see a lot. Mischa spoke from the athlete’s perspective, sort of like a yin/yang thing.

This gave the seminar a different dynamic which worked out well. We started off with lecture on Sheiko’s system and then Mischa spoke on preparation, equipment, training, and more.

We followed that up with Mischa giving a quick training presentation. He did a Russian ladder as he called it. Basically he warmed up and planned on doing one rep in the squat starting at 135 and adding a plate each rep up to 765, and then back down the ladder. All in just a belt. He started the ladder and got up to about 6 plates and then had a tweak in his calf.

He decided to shut it down and avoid injury. I am 100% sure he had the strength to do this, he played it smart. Another lesson we could all learn from.

Mischa went on to show us his top secret deadlift assistance exercise which I am not really sure he wants me to put out there so I’ll just say it was pretty good and I will be trying it.

On that note, I have been to many seminars and my opinion on them is as follows:

Beginner and intermediate lifters should go to as many as you can because you will learn a lot at them. You will also get hands on coaching from experts. This is the best way to learn.

I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years and I feel if I attend a seminar and learn only one new and useful thing it was well worth the financial and time investment. Anyone who has been around a while should take this to heart. You can always learn one new thing and it will make you better.

I learned more than one thing this weekend. Time well spent.

We wrapped up with practical hands on coaching on the squat, bench and deadlift. I am pretty sure everyone left satisfied.

One more thing, Yasha told me that we would wrap up at 3:30 and they ended up staying until every person got all of their questions answered. We left at about 7:00 pm. There are not too many people in the industry that do that.

My friend Justin Sulham was also there filming it for his upcoming documentary: Strong Documentary. I don’t know when it will be released but Justin is a very good interviewer and has been all over the place for this project filming tons of outstanding athletes. I can’t wait for it to be finished.

I’ve spoken to Yasha and the organizers and we are looking at more seminars with them in the future. If you get the chance to see the Russian Strength seminar, which is touring the U.S. now, do it.

Oh and EliteFTS teammate  Mickey B was prancing around like this during the seminar.

Let’s talk training:

I hope you all liked the template I gave out last week and give it a shot.

As you may know from reading my last post I jacked up my left leg again.

My PT is pretty sure I partially tore my IT band after further discussion. We’ll know more this week.

This leg has been the bane of my existence since the early 90’s when I tore my kneecap and needed three surgeries to this point. It has not made things easy. The good news is when this happened almost 100% of my hip issues went away. It was explained to me that the scar tissue at the IT band and Vastus Lateralis was pulling hard and causing my adductor to overwork to compensate. When it gave way the adductor must have relaxed and settled down. All I know is that regardless of what the reason is I am almost pain free right now.

John my therapist said to take it easy for a week and I did. It felt pretty good Monday so I squatted.

I did tons of loosening up and a lot of banded hip distractions to prepare for this and when the squatting began I used a Compression Band to pin my IT band in place and take the pressure off of it for the warm up sets.

We had 3 sets of 3 at an RPE 9 and I moved on to the Metal All Black wraps for the work sets. I love these wraps!

I ended up working at 315 for sets of 3 with a light wrap. I normally do not use wraps but felt it was wise to do so. Since then, my knee and hip have been fine with no pain. The IT band is tender to the touch and is still jacked up a bit, but it did not preclude me from training.

As you also may know I am the World’s Worst Bencher, just ask Vincent DiZenzo. I benched today and I am trying new foot placements since the hip has been a horror show. Today I kept them where they were last week, since it seemed to work and I used the hip as my RPE indicator. I used a whopping 225 with chains for triples.

Yes I know that’s not much but I am on the road back.

I am pretty confident that John will be able to get me fixed and back to training hard again soon. I hope that is the case.

I’ve got the EliteFTS Powerlifting Experience this weekend at the world famous S3 Compound and I am looking forward to seeing all of my friends and teammates and helping people smash some PR’s.

If you are attending I hope to meet all of you. Introduce yourself.

All in all, it was a great Father's Day weekend.

That’s all for this week.

Ask me a question-Be sure and Type to Murph in the header

Find me on Google-search for Total Performance Sports Everett, Mass. The Best Gym in Boston, Facebook too.

Oh, yeah, follow us on Instagram too. TPSEverett

#bostonsstrongest

Vincere vel mori