Friday, March 29, 2013

The Low Low Bar Squat

You've heard of a high-bar squat and a low-bar squat, but have you heard of the "low-low bar squat"? Not one I'd recommend, but an interesting squat variant nonetheless...




Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Showing Up

The first rule of doing work that matters 
Go to work on a regular basis. 
Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard. 
When you're doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out - this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it's time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. 
Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don't allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, "hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap." If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again. 
Isaac Asimov wrote and published more than 400(!) books by typing nonstop from 6am to noon, every day for forty years. 
The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed never-ending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekend. It cuts both ways.) 
In short: show up. 
(From Poke The Box by Seth Godin)
Related Squat Rx Posts:
Needles
The Dip

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Remaining Coachable

"You know what your problem is? You don't realize who I think I am."
- Jeff Bridges quoting his friend, Loyd Catlett
Today, my son was climbing at a local gym. We have a good time with it and we've been doing it regularly for about seven months. After my son finished a route and had descended, a young man, probably less than half my age, walked up to me and commented on my belaying, saying, among other things "We can't have you belaying like that." He wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, and it ended politely, but I was seething on the inside...

The thing is though - he was right... It's taking me some time to surrender my ego and really accept that I was wrong and need to accept the lesson presenting itself. It's easy to be sloppy about your technique when you're belaying a small child on an unchallenging route - and I was sloppy. Practice sloppy enough and you'll be sloppy when you can't afford it... For all I know, this young man might have saved my son's life in the future.

Remaining coachable is a key, maybe THE key, to continued learning, progress, and mastery. Peer-reviewed studies, elite status, thousands of friends on Facebook, even an impressive clientele list gives no one a corner on the truth which is always context-rich and complex. Once you become above criticism, beyond reproach, beyond questioning and lose the ability to laugh at yourself, then you've lost the beginner's mind. Something for all of us (me and you, newbs and gurus) to remember, and remember often.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Going Clear

The dogma of the group is promoted as scientifically incontestable - in fact, truer than anything any human being has ever experienced. Resistance is not just immoral; it is illogical and unscientific. In order to support this notion, language is constricted by what Lifton calls the "thought-terminating cliche." "The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly-reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily express," he writes. "These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis." 
...the person expressing doubts about the church is steered into thinking about his own faults that led him to question... in the first place. 
 - Going Clear (pp. 144-145)
There is no shortage of dogma in the strength and fitness industry. Some groups and their members border on fanaticism. Be wary when someone tries to tell you that one training methodology or exercise or tool or supplement or diet is THE ONLY ANSWER YOU NEED to every question...

Monday, March 11, 2013

I'll Be Doing A Workshop March 30th!

If you're in the area and you're interested, let me know or contact Brock Leggins at ultimateathletedevelopment@gmail.com

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Two Years Ago

Almost exactly two years ago, my wife and I watched on satellite television as Japanese newscasters forecasted a tsunami over 5 meters in height, and then later changed that prediction to waves of over 10 meters in height. We watched the waves crash into Japan's Tohoku region, where my wife's extended family lives and where we were married.
Now, two years later, the people of the Tohoku region are still removing rubble, searching for the remains of loved ones, and rebuilding what they can. Two years later, more than 300,000 are still homeless. がんばれ日本!