The owner of the gym came up to me a long time ago and said, “Chad I don't think your team will ever get that big.” With a smile, I asked him why. He said, “Because I don't think there are too many people that will be able to take you guys.” I laughed and replied, “Yep that is probably true.”
It turns out he was right, too. I don't think my team ever got over six lifters at one time. The real core of it has never been over four, and there are only maybe five that I considered being lifelong members even though they don't all train with us anymore. I can't even remember how many lifters either could not take us or got kicked out. These days it is down to just two original members, and I am okay with that. Granted, there are a few I would be very happy to see come back to train with the team. Things happen in life, and sometimes our journeys lead us down different paths, but when it's family, they are always welcome back.
RECENT: Stop Making It Okay to Just Give Up
My team played a significant role in all of my lifting accomplishments. They were more like family to me. Maybe more of a dysfunctional family, but a family. That is not a bag on dysfunctional families either; they are the core of our society. Come on, how many people can say they have a typical family? Every normal one I ever heard of had plenty of skeletons in the closet and a shit-ton of repressed feelings. It is the dysfunctional ones that usually come together when the shit hits the fan or when a member is in real trouble. I know my family is dysfunctional as hell, but we always have each other’s backs through thick and thin.
My lifting family is the same way. We may seem like we are dysfunctional, but we function like a Swiss clock put together with a hodgepodge of parts that somehow still always has the right time. We only look dysfunctional because we approach everything from a different angle that most people do not understand.
One of my favorite memories of the team involves a member that was a serious head-trip. He could pull 699 like it was 135 but if you put 705 on the bar, he would miss it every time. He would get in his head, and his technique would go to shit. Every member of my team has his or her quirks. It makes sense cause I am the leader!
Well, we also knew this member had massive anger issues, and we knew we could use this to our advantage. During one bench workout, he was having a bad day and made the comment that at least he could deadlift. This was my moment to strike, and I yelled out, “Bullshit, you can't even pull 700!” In seconds he had his briefs on and was loading up the deadlift bar. Everyone knew and got in on it.
Well, my plan did not go exactly as expected this time. He warmed up and ended up missing 700 again! The best part of the story is that shortly after his miss we all started looking around and he was nowhere to be found. His wife was even in the gym training that day, and she had no idea where he was. We did not see him until the next day when the first thing he said was, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive a stick with briefs on!” I almost passed out laughing. He was so pissed off he just grabbed his bag and left, did not even change.
Another prime opportunity came along shortly after that one. Two of us had laid into him before squats started, and he went straight to deadlifts. He finally got so pissed that he did not let it get in his head and made the pull. Within a couple of months, he had pulled 750. Wasn't too much longer that he was up to eight. Unfortunately, he ended up starting a family and never got to do it officially in a meet — a fact I remind him of!
I am not above telling stories about myself either, as I am far from perfect. My training partner Ethan is like a brother to me and has always had this ability to see how I am doing through all my ups and downs. He knew when I was good, and he knew I was down. He knew when he could help and when it was just best to let me be. He could see when I needed to back down and when I was pushing too hard.
It took me some time to learn to trust in his ability to see these things. One dynamic session I felt like my technique was spot-on and my speed was really good. The whole session Ethan is telling me I am sluggish and probably not a day to go crazy. By the time we got to deadlifts, I was pissed. I was pulling with everything I had, and it felt good to me. The speed felt right on. Ethan kept telling me it was slow and I was doing two pulls instead of one smooth pull. I just kept getting madder and madder. Finally, on the last set, Ethan is like, “Dude, just let it go. You need a couple of days off, and you're not going to get it today!”
I was pissed. I kept pulling even when they went to the other side of the gym to do reverse hypers and GHRs. I would pull and yell across the gym, “Did you see that one?” Ethan would yell back, “Yep, and it still looked like shit!”
I was fuming, kept pulling and kept yelling. Finally, I went to take a leak, and when I came back, the bar was unloaded and put away. Guess what I did? Yep, got the bar and loaded it back up. Still every time Ethan was like, "Yep, two pulls, and it just keeps getting slower." I was so pissed off. It felt good to me, and I had it in my mind to do one he could not pick apart. I still have no idea how many deadlifts I did that night, and memory serves I was still pulling when everyone else left. In hindsight, I am sure Ethan was right, but if I had quit I would not have this story to tell, and that would suck.
There are so many stories that it is hard to decide which ones to tell. There is one with my brother, back when he trained with us. He is just a little guy, about my height but only like 230 by this time. He did train hard and ate like an animal. He was a carpenter back then and would show up to squat day with four Jack In The Box Ultimate Cheeseburgers (back in the day when they were still big). I swear, he would inhale them while I was stretching. It was crazy.
He also has temper issues like every man in my family. This particular day had been in the low 100s, and I am sure people at work had already pissed him off. The pack of wolves that is my team smelled blood in the water for sure that day. If you ever showed up having a bad day or in a bad mood, it was on. Everyone was going to jump on you. True to form, everyone started shit with him. At one point, I remember one of them looking over at me as my brother just kept getting angrier and angrier. It was almost as if they were asking if it was okay to keep pushing, maybe because he was my brother or something. I just smiled and waved them on, the whole time laughing my ass off. I completely lost it laughing once I heard my brother yell, “I will smash you in the head with a fucking plate if you don't shut the fuck up!”
We had some good time in the gym, that's for damn sure. We always seemed to be able to ease things up before they got too far. My dysfunctional family somehow seems to know how to dance on edge but not fall over. By the next training session, and still to this day, we all laugh about it.
There are so many stories I can't even remember them all. Sometimes ones I completely forgot about will randomly pop back into my head and make me laugh all by myself. Ethan is not much of a touchy-feely guy, and some days he would come in all pissed off. So I would chase him around the gym yelling that he just needed a hug. I don't even know how many wrestling matches happened in the gym. I do remember one time Ethan, and I pinned this little figure model up against that wall during a match. The look of fear in her face ruined it, though, because we all started laughing. Some of the arguments and discussions during training were just so insane you could only laugh at them. To this day I love when I get together with any of them, and we get to telling stories.
It is possible to get strong as shit by yourself in a little garage gym, but having a team or dysfunctional family to train with makes it a whole shit-ton easier. The problem I see with so many teams, though, is that there is no heart. It is all rah-rah feel good shit. If those teams are a family, it is like they are trying to raise spoiled little brats. I want to raise men! That Beaver Cleaver shit only works out on TV.
It is not about filling lifters' heads with fantasies and fairy tail dreams, telling them they can achieve or be whatever they want by just being positive. The world is a hard place and being a strength athlete is a hard job. You can be successful and achieve great things, but it takes hard work. It takes sacrifice and dedication like no other. You have to be willing to hear the hard stuff — the stuff you need to understand without getting your feelings hurt. It is not all about the stuff you did right; you need to fix what you did wrong.
You need to learn and continually improve. If someone's finger is on the bar, it is not all you! A great lift is not one you made. A great lift is one where you executed it correctly, and you pushed your limits to the edge. You should care about your team and expect the best of them. Hold them to a higher standard and have the nuts to tell them what they need to hear. Don't tell them they are hitting depth in the squat when they obviously are not. If they do bomb, it's your fault for not being man enough to tell them what they needed to hear. Everyone should be expected to learn and to pass on. Everyone should help, and get help. If your teammates handled you at a meet, then you better damn well be there for them at their meet. All for one and one for all!
It is hard and takes a long time to find training partners that turn into a team. It's even more difficult to find a team that turns into a dysfunctional family. Everything in life worth having takes hard work and time, though. I guarantee if you can find this, it will be worth it. It will help take you further and make the whole experience that much better. I know it did for me!
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