elitefts™ Sunday Edition
Good training partners are a huge advantage when it comes to gaining jaw-dropping strength. I for one am very fortunate to have, and have had, some pretty amazing training partners. For this reason, I know firsthand how much of a difference they can actually make. There are so many things they can add to your training and strength. This is not to say that you can't get strong on your own, but it is definitely much easier with good training partners. Plus, if you're like me, they will end up being like family and people you will always have a connection with.
So what is a good training partner? What should you expect from good training partners, and what should you do in order to be a good training partner? First off, you need to realize that you're not their mother and they're not yours. If your partners expect you to be cheering for them the whole training session, then they need to bring their mom to the gym. If they expect you to be there to listen to their sob stories about there life or their excuses as to why they suck, then they need to be having a tea date with their mommy instead of going to the gym. And the same goes for you. Your partners are not your personal cheering section or your therapists. It is supposed to be a symbiotic relationship where everyone reaches new levels of strength. It's not about just being there for yourself or being there just for them. First and foremost, it's about being in the gym to get stronger. And that goal is best achieved through a team of people all working at getting stronger—everyone helping each other to do his or her best. Your partners aren't just there to load plates, cheer for you, and watch your technique while you pay attention to nothing and no one but yourself. When you're under the bar, you focus on your lift while your partners critique you, and when you're not under the bar, you are critiquing your partners. Everyone loads and unloads weights to keep the training session moving. It is a team working towards a greater good, a common goal of all being insane freaks of strength.
Communication and truth are a huge part of being a good partner and something that every good team must have. Once people start lying, the whole thing falls apart. If you went out and partied all weekend, but you come to the gym on Monday and tell your partners that you followed your program (of getting good rest and proper protein intake) all weekend, then you are hurting everyone. They will not be able to do their job and help optimize your training if you're lying to them. Your training will suffer from your weekend, and they will be spending time trying to figure out what's going on, possibly even coming up with wrong conclusions because you lied. It may look like overtraining to which they may suggest a deload, but in reality, you're just feeling the effect of your weekend. You had hurt yourself and wasted their time. It is best to just be honest. If you do something stupid, then be a man and admit it. At that point, it will be your partners' responsibility to be honest with you and chew your ass out for messing up your training with a meet coming up. We all mess up, but in this case, it's a matter of how bad you want it!
Team elitefts™ Pro Powerlifters Adam Driggers (left) and Julia Ladewski (right).
One thing that I see so much and that pisses me off is when people are not honest with their partners about their technique. I see and hear it all the time: "good lift", "it's all you", "great job", "weight went up", etc. All this is being said while the lifter is performing some of the worst lifts in the history of lifting. What the hell does anyone think this is accomplishing? All I see it accomplish is the building of improper neuro pathways and false confidence! If this is you, all you're doing is sabotaging your partners. Just once I would love to see a guy get out from under the bar and go off on the rah-rah guy. Say something like, "Hey, M*^%$# F'er! What the hell are you doing? I know I fucked up at least four things during that squat, and you're telling me that it was great!? How the F%^& do you think I am supposed to get better if you're telling me that it looks great when it looks like shit? I thought we were friends and partners. I wonder what you say to people you hate if you treat your friends like this? Get the F out of here you prick!" If you're in the gym to inflate your ego or to hear nice things said about yourself, then go work out at Planet Fitness in their judgment-free zone! If you're in the gym to train and accomplish something, then you need to critique your partners and you need to be able to be critiqued. I am not even saying that you have to be as straight forward or harsh as I and my partners are, but you need to be honest. My team and I are not very sensitive about it and would rather hear the straight-up truth. But the most important thing is that you're being honest about it. Being rude or nice about it doesn't matter so much as long as the information is being heard and understood. It's about clear and concise communication, which may not happen if you are too worried about hurting someone else's feelings.
I have always felt it is a training partner's job to learn more about training and technique. In fact, I require my partners to learn and understand it. How can you do your job of watching someone's technique if you don't understand it fully? How can you help a partner break through a plateau if you know nothing about training? Being stupid and having no knowledge hurts your partners just as much as it hurts yourself. A great coach can teach and pick up a lot of things, but he will never know your body the way that you can. That's exactly why a good coach will always ask a lot of questions when he first starts training you. Things like how you are eating, how you are sleeping, how your joints are feeling, how did that weight feel, how do you feel your technique was, etc. Then over time, when he realizes that you're learning more, the questions will become more generic because he knows that you understand your body. So instead of asking questions about overtraining, he will simply ask if you think you're overtraining and maybe follow up with asking why. It is your job as a great training partner to learn all aspects of strength training and to be vocal about it. If you see something wrong then state it. If you have an idea then speak up. Two heads are better than one, as they say. There are so many things to think about and learn in the world of strength training. Sometimes you forget things or you are so focused on one thing that you don't pay attention to something else. These are times when more eyes and brains come into play. On my team, I feel that I am the boss, but it is also a democracy. I have the final say when a group answer cannot be achieved. Other than that, everyone has a say and things will get discussed in order to be worked out. There are times when someone hits a plateau, his technique is messed up, we are trying to pinpoint a weak point, etc., and in these times it becomes like a roundtable discussion. Everyone throws in their thoughts and we weed through them to come up with the best game plan to fix the issue. I feel this has given all of us a great advantage and helps us all progress faster and further.
Team elitefts™ Pro Powerlifters Zane Geeting (left) and Dave Kirschen (right).
So take some time to think about the people you lift with. Think about what you're offering them and what they are offering you. Are they being honest and really telling you the things you need to improve upon? Are they like the people in the videos I continually see, where there is a lot of encouraging and yelling, but no one is telling the lifter what he really needs to hear? Ask yourself how often your technique gets criticized and remember that most people have shit technique. If you are not one of the top lifters in the world and all you hear is that your technique looks great, then I would think about asking my partners what is up. Are you and your partners all continually trying to learn more about strength training and technique? Are there discussions amongst your partners when things are not going right or if there are problems? When you do stupid things, do your partners call you on it? If you're not meeting your potential, are your partners pissed and letting you know that they expect you to step it up? Keep in mind that a bad team can break you down just as much as a good team can help build you up. It's worth taking some time to answer these questions and think about what your partners are like. That's not to say that you need to ditch them if the team is not up to par. In fact, if that is the situation, it could be a great opportunity to do something big for your team. Get everyone together so that you can all communicate clearly and nail down your goals. Communicate exactly what your expectations of them and yourself are. Just like strength, a great team takes time and hard work to build.
And of course, always remember that a good team of training partners is like a family. There will definitely be fights, arguments, and times of high stress. I have lots of stories of my team members having fights and arguments, but I think it goes with the territory when you have a bunch of people all pushing themselves to the limit and expecting the very best. The important thing is that, like a family, you get over it. You remember why you are there and why those guys/girls are your partners. Like a good family, you all want the best for your training partners, and you celebrate their accomplishments just like your own. You have pride in those accomplishments because you did it as a team. Vary rarely is greatness achieved alone!
