15 Jul 5 Lessons Learned Since Meeting Members of Team PRS Years Ago
By Derek Wilcox
I met Adam Driggers in 2007 at my first multi-ply powerlifting meet and was blown away at his strength, kindness to someone insignificant like myself and the pot roasts that sat on either side of his neck that some people refer to as trapezius muscles. The following year, Adam introduced me to Brian Carroll, Clint Smith and the rest of Team Samson in 2008 at the same powerlifting meet in Clayton, North Carolina. I had been competing a few years before that but this is around the time things started getting more intense for me as this was also the day that I claimed my first “Elite” total in the 165 class. For whatever reason they were immediately very supportive and encouraging by sharing their wisdom with a green kid that really couldn’t benefit them in any way. Those guys continued to be selfless in helping me over the past eight years with advice on training, how to use equipment as well as possible, meet management, cutting weight for meets and the list goes on and on. Here are five things that have stuck out over time that I’ve picked up from them.
[wa-wps]
Practice how you play:
At the Power Station Pro-Am in 2010 everyone from Team Samson was helping me in the warm-up room to prepare for squats on the platform. I took my last warm-up of 810 pounds which was moderately slow for the last warm-up but okay nonetheless and racked it feeling ready to go. I turned around and Brian just said, “that wasn’t your last warm-up was it?” I confirmed that it was and he let me know that I was a dumb ass. He could have just said the squat looked good but friends are the people who tell you what you need to hear and not just what you want to hear. The problem was that I had taken my last warm-up straps down and no knee wraps and the point was that at the very least your last warm-up or two should be exactly how you are going to compete that day. After all was over with and I squeaked out a subpar squat and eventually bombed out on bench press. I spoke with the guys and they help to point out that I set myself up for that performance by not warming up in full gear (meaning straps up and knee wraps). I had gotten too comfortable just squatting with straps down because when I would lift in full gear I got very unstable as I simply hadn’t practiced it enough. I was training in a way that was comfortable and not training in the way that I was going to perform. After taking this advice to heart (and also reevaluating my mental approach to the sport) I squatted an all-time world record the next year and a large part of that was swallowing my pride and working on what I was bad at which was going straps up in my suit in that case.
What’s best for the long term?:
When I was less experienced in training I would often make knee-jerk reactions as to “what I needed to get stronger”. My training would change from day to day and I would change a lot of what I was doing pretty often. This seems to be a very common mistake with younger lifters and plenty of older lifters as well. There have been many conversations shared with Brian over the years about the importance of keeping perspective of long-term success in the forefront of your mind while training. It doesn’t need to be a missed rep to tempt you into making this mistake. Very often less experienced lifters will program an off-season plan doing five or 10 reps sets, feel good that day and all of a sudden decide they want to see what their one rep max is at that time because they feel so strong that day. Is that what is best for your long-term development? Of course not! There are particular adaptations you need to accomplish during different phases of your training and when you abruptly abandon them for instant gratification all you are doing is hindering your long-term progress for a very short-lived cheap thrill. These moments can be very tempting and I have fallen to that temptation many times, but the more better decisions that you can make that will reap much greater rewards. You have to stay disciplined and accomplish what you’re supposed to accomplish on that day.
Don’t allow people to borrow your knee wraps at a meet while you’re benching:
They can end up in very strange places and have very odd results. Just take my word for it.
Find what works for YOU:
If you came up in the sport when I did or anywhere close to that time you know who Chuck Vogelpohl is. Chuck embodied the look, sound, intensity and unwavering perseverance that was the epitome of what powerlifting was supposed to be. On the platform he could squat and deadlift absurd weights in the most incredibly dramatic fashion looking like a superhero transforming into something the human race had never seen before. He also crashed and burned as well at times but he always went out guns blazing. Ed Coan is often considered the greatest powerlifter of all time and carried with him a mystique of “how in the world can someone be that strong at that size?!” as he was totaling with the best super heavy weights at 220/242 until Garry Frank Came along. Others like Shawn Frankl, Andy Bolton, Paul Anderson, Bill Kazmaier all have those kinds of reputations. With that reputation naturally comes the desire for many lifters to figure out exactly what these people did in their training so they could do it as well. At the point where they were breaking world records regularly and their training was very specific to what they needed and seemed extremely exotic to the rest of us so it is very trendy to copy what they were doing. The only problem is with Chuck or any other of the world record breaking powerlifters that have been in the sport long enough generally train nothing like what they did when they first started lifting and competing. This is due to necessity to remain healthy and also to try and provide something new to adapt to so they can continue to progress. What they need and what 99.99% of everyone else needs is completely different. Eventually after you try training like someone and realize that you simply aren’t going to become them or anything like them by doing this you must back up and reassess what you as an individual lack as far as weak points or changes in body composition or whatever it may be.
In my own experience it was not training above 90% every week with reps 1 to 5 and having my 150 pound self train like a bodybuilder for a few months after meets to just create more muscle to work with in my training later on. Everyone has their physical shortcomings that can be trained and instead of looking at other people you generally don’t resemble for all for the answers, you need to look in the mirror and learn to assess what you and only you need to do to progress. Develop a plan over the course of several months to attack those weaknesses and execute that plan!
You only lift for you in the end:
We live in a time where you can enter in infinitely obscure divisions in powerlifting meets for a guaranteed trophy, video every second of your training to post on the interwebs, there are an immense amount of options for setting goals for yourself and potential rewards that will make you happy. I encourage every single one of you who are reading this article to set goals that you want to achieve that are both in the long and the short term that are important to you. You can chase after all time world records, try and capture a state record, put your name on a gym record board, try and bench press 2x your body weight or 1.5x or 1x or 10x body weight or whatever you want to do. It doesn’t matter as long as it is what you personally see the goal as important and want to achieve said goal. The one goal that you will 100% never be able to achieve is gaining the approval of everyone else with your lifting. Those YouTube comments will always have some negativity, you’ll always hear about someone you’ve never met discrediting what you have achieved for no good reason (or occasionally a good reason) and without a doubt there will be anonymous handles pop up with some nasty things to say on the internet if you receive any attention at all from a lifting community. It will never matter what you do in these cases, there will always be the haters. That is why it is so important to pursue the goals that make you happy. I’ve watched Brian go through the spot light of powerlifting for many years and regardless of how many pro meets he has won there are always people there to discredit him. I have gone through the same thing to a lesser degree myself and it really made the lesson clear to me. When you are finished training or competing one day for whatever reason, you should be able to look back and be happy with what you accomplished because it meant something to you or you won’t have anything to be happy about at all.
Derek Wilcox
Latest posts by Derek Wilcox (see all)
- Derek Wilcox: Strong(ish) Garagebell Chronicles: Powerlifter In A Weightlifting Meet! - May 3, 2018
- Derek Wilcox: Strong(ish) Garagebell Chronicles: Getting Leaner, Stronger And Out Of Breath! - March 27, 2018
- Derek Wilcox: Strong(ish) Garagebell Chronicles: Weightlifting Offseason Activities - March 13, 2018
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.