For this fourth episode of Road Trip Rants, Dave takes on questions about explosiveness versus grinding strength, Instagram powerlifting, trendy hashtags, and the many bodily transformations he has undergone through the years.
"How come some lifters are slow as fuck but can grind forever versus others are explosive with every lift but can't grind worth shit? If you're one or the other, does this dictate how you should train?"
Dave has always explained this as being a scale and everyone falls somewhere on that scale. Dave was always more explosive than strong, so on dynamic work he could train with greater percentages than most people would need to use, but on max effort work he couldn't hang with lifters who squatted 200 or 300 pounds less than him. Dave also trained with plenty of people who were the opposite of him, who had to use very low percentages on dynamic work but could use very high max effort weights.
Genetics obviously play a role in this, but the development of performance traits and physical abilities during youth also has a major impact. Many performance qualities are developed more quickly in childhood, and the physical attributes that are best obtained during the younger years of life are difficult to build as a person matures in age. If you miss this period of time when you're young, it's going to take a lot of time as an adult to develop. For instance, Dave sees more lifters today struggle with explosiveness than in the past, which may be attributed to less physical activity of children today. Dave's solution, because everyone falls somewhere on the scale of explosiveness to grinding strength, is to always have some form of max effort training and some form of dynamic effort training in your program. It doesn't have to look like Westside training or conjugate training, but if you have training methods that develop both strength and speed, you'll be training the things you excel at and the things you're deficient in. Over time, as you build up various strength abilities, you'll need to focus more on explosive work or more on pure strength work. As you pay attention to your training and learn more about yourself, you'll be able to better adjust your training to fit your needs.
"Powerlifting is not about how you look."
Actually, it kind of is now. Look at Instagram. How much attention do shirtless lifters get compared to clothed lifters? Instagram powerlifting is all about how you look. Who cares about your total if you don't have abs, right?
"Trendy hashtags?"
You can't talk about powerlifting on social media without trendy hashtags. Dave's running out of them, and he can only use #beastmode so many times before it starts getting old. Until he gets some DM's telling him what the new trendy hashtags are, he isn't even going to be able to post his lifts.
"Discuss one of your 45 transformations."
Dave's had a lot of transformations over the years. The diet transformations have been some of the most difficult, but they were more about undergoing the mental challenge than they actually were about how Dave looked. Dave doesn't really care how he looks, which makes it difficult to get back on a leanness transformation plan because it is an all-the-time goal that requires constant attention throughout your life. Strength and eating transformations, on the other hand, have always been easier to find motivation for. Dave says that he has spent more time eating far healthier than most people know; it just so happens that the very end of his powerlifting career was a nutritional train-wreck, and that's what most people think of. In addition to these, the newest transformation for Dave is the Fixing Dave Tate series, which doesn't have a true end goal but is all about making Dave healthier and finding ways for him to move better without pain. Waking up every single day has sucked for a long time, because it has meant constant pain, and the hope is that this newest transformation will make Dave stop feeling like shit every morning.
By the minute:
- (0:35) Explosiveness versus strength
- (5:33) Powerlifting is not about how you look
- (7:45) Trendy hashtags
- (8:23) Discuss one of your 45 transformations
WATCH: Road Trip Rants — Intra-Workout Reese's, Pushing Training Partners, and Balance
