40 Years of Training, 54 years and 54 reps.

Although I turn 54 years old today I am much more excited about this being my fourtieth anniversary of the start of my training journey than anything. I started training gymnastics, pretty much full time, at age 14 at the start of my freshman year of high school.

I was immediately captured, in love with this new way of movement and the strength, power and grace it required and displayed. Not to mention the physique it created. Everyone looked like Superman and I wanted to as well.

I trained from 2 pm until 6 pm Mon- Fri right from the start and never had one thought, ever, that what I was doing was work. It was play but it was more than that too. It was a gift, a blessing to be able to spend that much time, completely out of time, in the flow, learning and doing so much cool stuff every single second of my practice.

And so I do turn 54 today and can easily say I am in the best physical condition I have been in in the last 15 years. I am virtually out of pain, can move better, walk better,am stronger, more flexible,mobile, stable and am as lean as I have been in all that time.

And I may not need a knee replacement after all.

From 6 years ago when all I could use to train was the single arm swing and snatch holds and getting up out of chair was torture to today when I can one arm or two hand swing, snatch, press, do handstands, pullups, pushups and even some squatting without pain. With more coming every day.

When John DuCane titled my DVD from the Level 2 Seminar/lecture 'Restoring Lost Physical Function' he hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what my journey has been about and it has been getting better and better each and every year even though there has been some serious setbacks and pain.

I not only trained but competed for 31 years, stopping only in 2003 when I was forced to give up even bench press competitions. There really was no point anymore; I was in constant pain and everything hurt. Training, competing, living.

So I dug into my rehab like I had my training and was as obsessed with restoring my lost abilities as I had my Olympic dreams and my hopes for and Elite ranking, at anything. The first thing that had to go was the luxury of testing myself, pushing myself, seeing what I could do.

At ANYTHING. I could get hurt getting out of bed and the slightest wrong move left me in agony. For years I had had one foot on the gas and another on the break and that is no way to train for anything.

I spent my workouts trying NOT to get hurt instead of working towards progress. That had to stop.

SO, no SSST test, no RKC snatch test, no maxing out on ANYTHING. No testing anything. to my competitors soul this was the greatest torture, the greatest loss. To not be able to push myself, test myself against other I KNEW I was at least as good as, or better was humbling.

To have to stand back and not show others what I was made of was humiliating. But I had no choice. I knew the consequences of being what I call "greedy" and they were not good. Instead of pushing to the max to see what lie on the other side I always held back because " the next step off a peak is always down".

So when I got back from the DVD shoot this weekend, after spending 12 hours standing barefoot on concrete and demo'ing deads and swings and drills and corrections and then told Tracy I wanted to do something 'special' to commemorate my 54th birthday I knew I "was back".

The long cycle clean and press has become my favorite move, in keeping with my new philosophy in working my strong points as well as my weaknesses and reveling in them, and I wanted to do something with that.

From not being able to press anything from 2005 to 2008 to building it back up very, very, very slowly to now feeling safe and secure when I press and able to really push myself again is a miracle. Pressing is what I am built for, what I have trained all my life, since I was 14 and what I am strongest at.

My shoulders are still fragile and I can't be stupid but I will enjoy this now.

SO I thought about the 24 kg, 53 pounds and doing 54 reps with that but didn't think I wanted that much of a challenge. Plus, I wanted something that would be hard but I knew I could do. I didn't want to fail.

No sense in starting the year out that way.

So the 20 kg it was, 54 reps per arm? Nah. 27 and 27 each arm for a total of 54?

Yeah. Of course I have NEVER done more than 10 reps in the kb press and that is very recent.

But I have been feeling so confident in my pressing that all I could think of was that I did 33 close grip pushups with a 100 lb plate on my back and that 27 was less than that.

Long story long. I killed it and it was the perfect challenge and the perfect weight.

here's the breakdown

6-7 am: stretchout focused on overhead stretching

8:30 am

warmup

one arm swings

16 kg x5/5/5/5 x3

one arm cleans

16 kg x5/5 x2

long cycle clean and press

16 kg x5/5

16 kgx 3/3

20 kg x3/3

go time:

Long Cycle Clean and Press

20 kg x 27/27 all time PR

Started with the left arm and cruised through the first 19. 20 was the first hard rep and 21-27 were very challenging. Especially to stay calm mentally . The right arm started off so fresh I had to purposely slow the pace down as I just wanted to get it over with, lol.

This side got tough at 15 when I started making strange sounds to force the exhale harder and get more air. I recalled this is the noise I made when I used to bike race and had to climb long steep hills. It just comes out and it ain't pretty but neither I am. It kept me going.

As did my Queen, who counted for me and provided the most important inspiration to me; her presence and her support, and her unending belief that I can do anything I set my mind to. Love you, my sweet.

Nice way to start this year.

Clubbell rockits

10's x 20x2

15's x 15

20's x 12 x 2

man these COOK the quads. yes, another score . haven't been able to do these either forever.

Clubbell Swipes

10 lbs x 25,20, 15

15 lbs x 17, 15, 12

can't believe I once did 300 of without stopping! But I know I can train this move again and that's all that counts..

Datsit. Wow, what a great day.