Welcome to our next edition of Get Up! Markus continues to make my life easier by doing the work of the editor – and that entails much more than you think!

The idea behind Get Up! has always been to hear from real people solving real problems. We embrace „better“, not „perfect“. We, like Cervantes, believe it is the road, not the inn; the journey, not the destination.

Sure, if you tell us that you are going to do a challenge, like the 10,000 swing challenge, we want you to finish. But, more importantly, we want you to filter and flow through the lessons – good and bad – of taking on a challenge.

In this Issue:

• Rolling with the Seasons, by Dan John• Living the Low Life, by Mike Prevost• On the Road Again, by Stefanie Shelton• A Letter to the Coming Ones,

by Darren Pratt• More Things with Swings, by Dan Martin• 10.000 Swings – Now What?,

by Mark Wilson• Barbells and Bumpers, by Walter Dorey• Tearing Down the Past, by Dave Royhab

Volume VIII Issue 3 June 2016

Our Mission? To Teach Everyone: 1. The body is one piece

2. There are three kinds of strength training:

• Putting weight overhead

• Picking it off the ground

• Carrying it for time or distance

3. All training is complementary

Sadly, I have learned far more from bad lessons than from good ones!

This edition features some new authors and a few of our grizzled vets. They take you from the backyards and basements to „on the road“ training in hotels. This newsletter remains „first person“ and is always on the look out for someone new, something fresh and some challenging thought.

Consider yourself invited to write. Have a great summer, Dan

Savor the Journey!

MF

I wrote a series of articles on fitness in 1997 and 1998. It’s funny to look back at them. I didn’t know then that most people don’t “read” articles; at best, they skim them, misunderstand the key points, and take away the wrong lessons. One of them was about overhead squats, which I had learned about ten years before, a week after I got married (we have been married 28 years, so do the math). Most people completely misunderstood the point: It is a very good exercise for throwers. That’s all I meant, but I still answer questions about the article that simply reading it would answer! The article that never seems to get traction from that first year was my yearly approach to training. Basically, I follow the four seasons: autumn, winter, spring and summer. Many get lost in the specifics, but I still try to follow the basic template of this simple idea yearly.

Autumn in America is “back to school” and football season. It’s a time for discipline, showing up on time and checking the boxes. American football is filled with rules and regulations. To play, you must have a very high level of discipline. Keep It Simple That’s why I like programs, peaking and planning training sessions in the fall. These six or twelve week programs reflect the discipline and structure of the school year. Show up, follow the plan, repeat. Autumn is the Industrial Revolution model of fitness and performance: Think of Henry Ford as your coach. Now, winter in Utah is hard. Parker J Burns once commented: “Hey, it is twice as warm as yesterday!” We use Fahrenheit, but it had been 2 degrees the day before and it had warmed up to 4 the next day. That’s cold in a gym. Oh, yes: we train basically outside in my garage.

2

Rolling with the SeasonsDan John

Phot

o: D

evan

Nie

lsen

3

Go Heavy, Go Hard, Go Home

Winter training is simply: Go heavy, go hard, go home. Groundwork takes a bit of bravery on my cold concrete floor and warming up is something you do the whole time. Rest periods? Are you crazy? So, I often embark on things like the 40 Day Workout and other “built in” training programs that are light on warm ups and thinking. I found this winter that the kettlebell Rite of Passage was perfect for me. I built up to five rungs of five ladders with the 36k kettlebell and it took some time to get to 75 total reps with the left and right side clean and press. By the time spring rolls around, we all start gravitating to the lawn, the rings and the various sports balls we have laying around the gym. We start doing more loaded carries, but we are now picking the pace up a bit. Yes, it rains (and snows) a bit in spring, but most days are nice enough to get outside and play around more.

In summer, we have to move our olympic lifters in the shade and equipment needs to be covered to prevent burns. Utah is high desert, so we have the great extremes of weather: lots of snow and lots of heat.

This is the time of year for bear crawls and the whole family of horizontal movement. It’s the time to climb ropes, throw the balls and be sure to do a bit of sprinting. Our sprint program is called the Great Eight. Sprint down and back four times and keep the idea of “Start slow and ease off.” The ballistic moves are snappier this time of year and we naturally see more jumping, more fun and more play. Be Alive! My knock on commercial gyms – and I certainly understand why people go to them – is that the sanitized, air conditioned, and artificial light filled box denies a chance to experience the elements. Not so in my gym: We track mud around, get cold and wet from rain and snow, and hurt our hands touching weights that were left in the sun. It might sound crazy, but it is fun. This summer, find a way to play more outside. Add runs to every exercise, bike to the store, play tag and hide and go seek. Enjoy yourself. Adopt a seasonal approach to training and learn to be alive again.

Hello, you! Yes, you! Gentle reader, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be published in the finest strength and health newsletter on the web? Well, wonder no more, here is your chance! Do you have a cool story to tell or a nifty new trick to share?

Call for Authors!

Have you maybe entered your first powerlifting meet or your last cage fight? Maybe you have built a new, improved power rack or failed miserably in creating a workout plan that combines deadlifting and skydiving. Whatever your story is, send us an email and get typing!

Mike Prevost is a Captain in the US Navy and holds a PhD in exercise physiology from Louisiana State University. As the Director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the U. S. Naval Academy, he performed physiological testing of athletes, developed the Principles of Strength and Conditioning Course for all Midshipmen, and served as the director of remedial fitness training programs. He also developed human performance training material for the U. S. Special Operations Command.(build-to-endure@blogspot.com)

Sometime around 2009 I heard a rhetorical question that started me down a new path in life. Slowly at first, but much more dramatically later. When I heard it, I knew it was going to be impactful, but it took time. Over the course of years, like planting a single tree that bears many fruit, it led to

Living the Low LifeMike Prevost, PhD

more thoughts, ideas and questions. The question: “Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you?” I began to realize that owning stuff, even if the stuff is paid for, is not free. Sometimes there are significant costs. If you own stuff you have to store it, clean it, upgrade it, fix it, insure it, move it, replace it and much more. So I began to take a look at my stuff. No Furniture – No Problem! Fortunately I had an easy strategy initially. I have been in the Navy for nearly 21 years and have lived in 10 different homes due to frequent duty station transfers. My first rule was anything that was still packed in a box from the last move needs to go. This line of thinking led to a critical assessment of everything I owned. To borrow some terminology from Dan John’s Intervention,

4

Phot

o: M

ike

Prev

ost

5

my point “A” was a three bedroom house with a large basement, 3300 square feet of space, fully furnished with lots of excess stuff (for only two people!). My eventual point “B” today (and this took years) is owning no furniture, with all of my possessions capable of fitting in my car. I consider point “B” to be a much better place because every bit of stuff that I got rid of not only put money back in my pocket (thank you, Craigslist), but it also resulted in a small, incremental increase in freedom. Out With the La-Z-Boy! There have also been a number of physical benefits. One of the side effects of living without furniture is improved physical hardiness, or durability. The enemy of durability is prolonged static postures. When you have no furniture, you simply cannot sustain a static posture for long because you have no supporting structure (i.e., a La-Z-Boy recliner) to take the static posture load. Everybody is familiar with the office chair “slouch” position or the “I-phone hunch,” both of which can physically change your body’s structure, resulting in semi-permanent changes in postural alignment. When I finally got rid of my furniture, I was at a loss as to what to do. Do I sit, stand, lie on the floor? Remembering that the Japanese have a long standing tradition of sitting on the floor to take meals, I researched their seating positions. It turns out that there are two. The first is similar to the Lotus position that is used for meditation. It is simply sitting in a cross legged position with a long spine and good posture. The second, which is generally a “female” sitting position, is with your feet tucked under you and knees bent. So that is what I did. Now I sit in one position until I feel like shifting, then I shift to the other. What I noticed is that the feet

tucked under position is really nice on the spine, and results in a well aligned spine. It is also a great stretch for my inflexible ankles. The Lotus position turns out to be a great stretch for my hips, and also the erector spinae, especially on my left side, which is tight from an old back injury over 20 years ago. However, unlike plopping in a La-Z-boy recliner with a remote and a snack, neither position is going to be doable for 4 hours. What I find is that I shift from one position to another, then I stand, kneel, stretch, move. I am never in the same position for more than 5 minutes at a time. While this may sound uncomfortable, you quickly acclimatize to it and it seems very natural; more natural than sitting for hours at a time. As a result, I get up and down off the floor countless times during the day and with countless different techniques. If all movement is training, I am training constantly. Think about how this simple approach can improve your ability to get up off of the floor as you age. Many of you have heard about the study in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology that found a nearly seven fold increased risk of death in the next six years for 51-80 year old adults who had to use both hands to get up off the floor. Not only can I get up off the floor with no hands, but I can do it with a cup in one hand and a full plate of food in the other! I expect to preserve that ability, through practice, for a long time. Keep Fidgeting!

Another benefit is NEAT. By “NEAT” I don’t mean “cool” or “groovy.” NEAT stands for non exercise activity thermogenesis; basically fidgeting. It turns out that research has shown that NEAT can account for enough calorie burn to account for a significant part of the weight gain associated with obese individuals or weight

6

gain with age. In individuals who tend to be lean, overfeeding causes a spontaneous increase in NEAT. They fidget more, so they burn more calories spontaneously. The typical weight gain pattern in the United States is a “ratchet effect” of consuming approximately an extra 100 Calories over weight maintenance requirements. This runs contrary to the assumption that obesity is due to huge binges. The reality is that it is the day to day, very small excess in calories that adds up over time. Can NEAT offset these effects? The small magnitude of the calories involved suggests that it may be part of the solution. I can tell you from experience that living without furniture certainly increases NEAT. The Cheapest Bed in the World

What I thought was going to be the hardest part of the transition turned out to be the easiest. Before I sold my bed, I ordered a firm foam pad to sleep on. It just did not seem possible to be comfortable on the floor without a pad. I slept on the foam pad for a couple of weeks and it was fine. Then I decided to try an experiment. Instead of committing to sleeping all night on the floor, I tried a Saturday afternoon nap. Surprisingly it was fine. So I threw caution to the wind and folded up my foam pad and put it in the closet and tried the floor that evening. I had a few aches and tussled a bit that evening but got a pretty good night’s sleep anyway. By the fourth night on the floor it was completely natural and felt as comfortable as any bed I have ever owned. I have not slept in a bed since then. I rarely feel stiff on waking and I have tons of room! In an article published in the British Medical Journal, Michael Tetley argues that sleeping on the ground (rather than on a mattress or pad) provides a unique benefit, “Nature’s automatic manipulator during sleep is

the kickback against the vertebrae by the ribs when the chest is prevented from movement by the forest floor.” Hey, Free Chiropractor! He argues that this is similar to a chiropractic adjustment and that the same effect occurs with other joints. In his observation of the sleeping postures of many native peoples who sleep on the ground, he noted that there are a few common sleeping postures. His basic argument is that these “natural” sleeping postures are more suited to how our bodies evolved than a big mushy bed with lots of pillows. It is hard to argue with his logic. Whatever the reason, I can tell you that my back has never felt better. References:

Brito LB1, Ricardo DR2, Araújo DS3, Ramos PS2, Myers J4, Araújo CG5. Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2014 Jul;21(7):892-8. doi: 10.1177/2047487312471759. Epub 2012 Dec 13.

Levine JA , Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).2002 Dec;16(4):679-702.

Hill, J. O., Peters, J. C., & Wyatt, H. R. (2009). Using the Energy Gap to Address Obesity: A Commentary. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(11), 1848–1853. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2009.08.007

Tetley, M. (2000). Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain. BMJ : British Medical Journal, 321(7276), 1616–1618.

Stefanie is owner and head instructor at Flexology™, Strength and Fitness Club in St. Louis, MO. She specializes in post physical therapy rehab and kettlebell training. Stefanie has fought and won Stage 3 breast cancer, all while being a single mom and managing a growing business.

The “On the Road” workout. I love to travel. I love to work out. But I hate the hotel gyms, I’d much rather workout in the privacy of my hotel room. Preferably on a wrap around balcony overlooking the Las Vegas strip with a view of the Venetian fountains, or maybe somewhere else much more fabulous, but I digress.

Traveling can take a lot out of you and it is in those times that staying on top of your fitness is of utmost importance. Face it, you’re going to eat crappy and indulge in

On the Road AgainStefanie Shelton

a glass or two of wine, or heck, more like a couple of bottles. You’re going to stay up later than usual and wake up earlier than expected. You can expect to just feel plain out of whack for a few days. So what to do? Get Back in Whack!

If you’re like me, you want to get started on your bikini tan right away, or get out there and see the sights as quickly as possible. Who wants to go to a hotel gym and haphazardly pick up weights, or heaven forbid get on that stupid treadmill? Really? Why would I do that when I can go walk outside on the beach?

What I NEED to do is get in a 15-20 min workout and be on my way. Nothing too vigorous, nothing too complicated, but something that will make me feel

7

Phot

o: D

an Jo

hn

8

energized, strong and flexible. Fundamental movements will do that. Attempting these unloaded is ultimately better for your longevity than going to the gym and pumping the iron anyway.

I’m thankful for Dan John for drilling into my head the importance of fundamental movements. He has a knack for simplifying the complicated. Push, pull, hinge, squat, carry, other. He explains these more in many of his writings. I particularly love his book “Intervention”. If you haven’t read it, I highly suggest picking it up.

The most important thing for me while I’m on vacation, and should be for you too, is to maintain the basic human movements. No weights needed. All I need is my arms, legs, and maybe a wall.

Here is my „On the Road“ workout:

1. Start in a plank position with your feet close to wall. Walk your feet up the wall until you’re straight up and down. Then walk yourself back out to plank position.

2. Body weight squat. The closer you can get your feet together, the better. Keep your arms straight out in front of you. Inhale as you squat all the way down. Let your back of your thighs touch the

calves. Then exhale as you stand back up. Be sure to squeeze your glutes – you want that bootie looking toned in that swimsuit.

3. Push ups! There are many different ways to do pushups. You can do them for example from a push up plank position (PUPP) or inclined, putting your hands on a wall or your feet on a chair.

4. Turkish get ups, unloaded or with a shoe. This is probably the most important exercise of them all. You experience stretching, core activation, balance and vestibular training.

Program it: I learned a long time ago to Keep It Super Simple. I suggest banging out 5 rounds of 10 pushups, 10 squats and a 45 second handstand. If you can do more than a 45 second on your hands, start going for one-handed variations. These will really challenge your shoulders. Be sure to stay really stiff in the core and don’t hold your breath! Finish it off with 5 minutes of Turkish Get Ups and you‘re golden.

I hope you go to fabulous places this summer, but be sure to take this simple workout with you. Stay strong!

Photo: Devan Nielsen

9

Darren has had a long and varied sports career. He has raced stock cars, holds a teaching grade in jujitsu and represented Australia in sprint kayaking. His eldest son, James, is a national medalist in weightlifting and his eldest daughter, Maddie, is a state representative in field hockey. Dear James and Maddie, as the two of you are near the end of high school and your sporting careers continue to progress, I wanted to take a moment to share a few things with you that I‘ve learned along the way. Amongst the many things I‘ve learned from being your father (aside from the fact that it‘s the most important job that I‘ll ever have), is that there‘s no perfect way to start conversations. Especially, awkward ones. You just have to turn up, leap in and do your best. So, here goes: 1. Dream big. This one really speaks for itself. I want you to dream outrageously, impossibly large dreams. Surprise yourself. 2. It‘s the process, not the outcome. I thought about some alternative headings for this one, like „why I hate Instagram fitness bloggers“. Because it‘s all about the process. No amount of #tags or Instagram posts is going to get you any closer to achieving anything. You‘ve just got to keep fronting up and doing the work. Maybe that‘s the only talent that matters – the ability to show up and do the work for 10 years or so. Think about that for a moment. If you got serious at 15, then at 25 you could be really, really good. That‘s how long it takes. As Pop says about farming: The first 20 years are the worst, after that you‘ve seen most things.

A Letter to the Coming OnesDarren Pratt

3. Listen to your coaches. They‘re your coaches for a reason. I‘m a pretty good example of how not to do this. In about 1997, my coach tried to tell me that I should switch from kayak to canoe. Australia is pretty good at kayak racing and terrible at canoe. My coach was Polish. The Poles are very good at canoe racing. He recognized that I was close but not close enough for kayak but could have been a real shot at canoe for Sydney in 2000. In hindsight, I probably should have listened to him. But I thought I knew better. 4. Perfect is the enemy of good. Maybe this is just me because I‘m a bit of a weirdo. You know when you‘re 10 or 15 minutes late for training or you forgot you favorite shoes or stick or weightlifting belt. And you think: That‘s it, the session‘s a write off because it‘s not going to be perfect. But it doesn‘t always have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough. Or as good as it can be. Most of your sessions and competitions are going to be in the middle of the bell curve. A few are going to be out at the far left of the bell curve and really suck. Every now and then you‘ll have a session or a competition or a moment that is so far out to the right of the bell curve that you‘ll remember it decades later. In almost 20 years of jujitsu, I can think of 2 techniques that I‘ve done that were near enough to perfect. Enjoy those moments and remember them. But it‘s the accumulation of sessions and competitions in the middle of the bell curve that make the difference. 5. The further you go, the more you‘re going to discover that other people have an emotional investment in your success. Family, friends, coaches. They‘re going to

10

put pressure on you. Sometimes that can be a positive thing and sometimes you‘re going to want them to back the $%#* off. But you‘ve got to want it for yourself and not for anyone else. 6. You‘re going to leave some people behind. Not all of them will be happy about it. There‘s going to be some bitching and moaning when you make the cut and they don‘t. This sounds obvious but when someone who used to be your best friend suddenly isn‘t making the team anymore and moves to another club, you realize that not everyone is going to be happy about your success. This goes the other way too. You‘re not always going to make the cut either. And when you don‘t, suck it up.

Congratulate the people who made it. And keep training with them because nothing makes you better, faster than training with people who are better than you. 7. You‘re going to have a target on your back. This is related to the previous point. The further you get up the ladder, the more people are going to be on lower rungs looking up at you. And you can focus on process as much as you like, but it‘s hard not to be distracted by outcomes when someone tells you how their only goal for in life is to beat you, or how excited they are because they finally did beat you. Keep focusing on your process and you‘ll leave most of them far behind.

Phot

o: D

evan

Nie

lsen

11

8. If you spend your tickets on the ferris wheel, then you can‘t spend them on the merry go round. Simple economics really. But if you‘re dreaming impossibly, outrageously large dreams and you‘ve got a process to make them happen, then you‘re going to have to make some hard choices. Do you go to that party? And if you do, will you leave early, so you can still make training the next day, or will you spend all night hanging out in the hope that cute boy/girl that you really like happens to notice you? If you want to train the way you‘re going to have to train if you want to be really good, then you‘re going to have to organize things so that you don‘t have to stay up all night cramming for exams. Organization and efficiency is critical.

9. Take a moment to smile. Each time you step onto the platform or before the ref blows the whistle, look around you, take a moment to appreciate the atmosphere, and smile. This is what you‘ve worked for. It might be just one competition in a long career or the last one you ever do. So take that moment. You‘ll be glad that you did. 10. The dog doesn‘t care. The wonderful thing about dogs is that they don‘t care whether you‘ve had your very best competition or your very worst. They‘re just excited to see you walking through the door. It reminds me of the dad joke about the difference between a dog and a friend: If you lock your dog in the trunk of the car, it‘ll still be happy to see you. I always found

Phot

o: D

an Jo

hn

12

that helped me to put it in perspective - the dog not caring (I never locked anybody in the trunk of a car). There are few things that help you put things into perspective like the smell of a dog paw. 11. You‘re going to get PMT. That was the TLA we used back in the day for Post Marathon Tension. It‘s that feeling you get when you‘ve spent weeks, months, maybe even years building up to that one big moment. And then it‘s over. Any you find yourself walking around the supermarket or University or wherever and nobody knows or cares. You get it when you‘re training really hard too. Sometimes you‘re going to question why you do it. It passes. More sleep and more food usually help. Dial up the recovery and wait it out. Make sure it has passed before you make any decisions. 12. It doesn‘t hurt when the pain stops. I told this one to my friend PC when he started training for an Ironman triathlon. When I first told him he said it was stupid. Two years later after he‘d done an Ironman triathlon he came back to me and said he got it. You‘re going to hurt. After a while,

you learn to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. It‘s not just about physical pain either. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is also about making changes to your technique or learning new positions or skills. Anything that takes you out of your comfort zone. 13. You‘re going to lose some you should win, and win some you should lose. I first heard this from a guy who‘d just won a big surf ski race he never should have won. Another double ski crew was miles in front. These guys were a very distant second and were not even in the hunt. And then the first crew had a catastrophic gear failure. Suddenly the crew who was a distant second came through and won. And I asked this guy after the race how he felt it about. I was probably 20 at the time. I thought that it must be a hollow feeling to win in those circumstances. But he just turned to me and shrugged and said „you win some you should lose and lose some you should win“. I think it took me another 15 years to appreciate the genius of that statement. Love, Dad

Phot

o: D

an Jo

hn

13

Mark is a 54 year old coach who also competes in masters cycling track sprinting. He trains weekend warriors and age group winning triathletes and cyclists to increase strength and mobility.

In the last edition of Get Up! you read about my 10,000 swings ending on Christmas Eve. Recent training and teaching – I teach five spinning classes a week – has led to me looking to pursue track sprinting in the velodrome. I love lifting weights and I love riding my bike, so this is a perfect fit.

To succeed in track sprinting you need to do two things: accelerate the bike from a slow speed and cadence quickly and build and maintain high cadence, up to 150 rpm plus. This is a combination of strength and skill. Up to a point, increased strength enables you to push a bigger gear, but maintaining the cadence is vital. Speed endurance enables maintenance of this speed for up to 350 metres.

So the next stage is to work on general strength up until training camp in February. Then I will focus on strength maintenance and building in conjunction with improving cycling skill and cadence until the major competitions in May to September 2016.

At a bodyweight of 185#, I deadlift 375#, squat 308# and bench 220#. Top sprinters squat and deadlift over 440# and bench 308# plus, so these are the targets.

The next report will details my strength gains. I turn 55 next year and will be a “baby vet”, at the low end of my age group.

Yours in strength, Mark Wilson.

10.000 Swings - Now What?Mark Wilson

More Things with SwingsDan Martin

Dan is a former firefigher who retired after 38 years in the department. When he is not training, he enjoys the married life with two grown children and three grandchildren. He is also a founding member of the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club and the club‘s official „Maker of Sammies“.

This is an alternative template to get through Dan‘s 10.000 swings.

10K Swing Template:

A.KB Clean & Press x 5L/5RTwo-Hand Swing x 15KB Clean & Press x 5L/5RTwo-Hand Swing x 35

B.TRX Row x 5Two-Hand Swing x 15TRX Row x 5Two-Hand Swing x 35

C.Goblet Squat x 5Two-Hand Swing x 15Goblet Squat x 5Two-Hand Swing x 35

D.PlankTwo-Hand Swing x 15PlankTwo-Hand Swing x 35

E.Suitcase WalkTwo-Hand Swing x 15Suitcase WalkTwo-Hand Swing x 35

14

Barbells and BumpersWalter Dorey

Walter learned early in life that working and training hard has a huge carry-over into the ability to improvise, adapt and overcome. If he is not training outside with some odd rusty object, you’ll find him cooking up a good meal with his wife, Ginger, or playing with his dogs.

Several times in my life I’ve had to live in very small apartments, which meant no room for training inside with equipment. This was before kettlebells were available here in the USA.

This means that I had to load my plates and barbell into a vehicle and drive to where I could train outside. Every lift had to be taken from the ground, which in a way simplifies your training and also may seem to limit you in other ways, but in reality it can lead to some great gains. To this day I still train outside most often.

One time, I was training outside in the mud doing power snatches with something like 185 lb or 205 lb on the bar. After each successful lift, I would drop the bar and catch it on my thighs with a controlled dip and then lower it to the ground. The metal plates would sink into the mud and I had to lift from there. My lower legs were plastered with splashed mud and rainwater. My feet had been sliding around the mud for the whole session, but I managed to stay stable. Until I finally lost balance and had to dump the bar.

Crack!

I heard the crack of breaking metal and my heart sank. Unfortunately, one of the plates hit a rock hidden in the mud, breaking one of the revolving sleeves on my bar. Well,

that’s what can happen when you don’t have bumpers and a platform to lift on.

So, the next day at work, I had some pipe welded up and made two new sleeves for my bar. These babies haven’t broken yet! Shortly after that I turned that bar into a 2.5” thick bar which I still have and use to this day.

Looking back on this I realize that some people may be in the same situation. They don’t have much disposable income for nice equipment and they live in a place where they cannot train inside. So it’s either paying gym membership fees (I prefer to invest in my own equipment) or improvising.

Do It Yourself!

Let’s look at how I would do this without a bunch of money and with no other equipment other than a barbell and plates, knowing I will be training outside and dropping the loaded bar onto dirt, asphalt or concrete. No fancy lifting platform here!

Of course, bumper plates would be the way to go versus standard olympic metal plates. Yet, even inexpensive bumper plates are fairly pricey. And from what I have read, they just don’t hold up that well. Often people complain about the inner bushings tearing out.

To get even a half-way decent set of bumpers and a decent bar will set you back an easy $800-1,000. Problem is: They do not hold up to being dumped in the dirt or dropped on concrete. You need a dedicated platform on which to lift, which will also cost money to build. And where do you

15

store it if you live in a place with no garage or shed? Here is what I would do instead. In fact, it is what I have right now.

Step one: buy a half-decent bar.

We can find a rugged bar at around $200 to $300. Shop around at Rogue, York and other places. Don’t skimp on the bar, you want one that has good rotating sleeves. It makes a big difference. Take care of that bar. Keep it out of the rain, keep it clean, and if it has oil holes in the ends, drop some 3-in-1 oil in there every few months.

Most of my bars are old beat up things stored outside. But I still clean and oil them. My best bar, a $400 York I bought years ago, is stored inside my home.

Step two: we need some weight plates.

I’d start with this if I had to do it again, especially if I had to shuttle things with a vehicle to find a spot to lift: buy six 10 lb plates, four 5 lb plates and two 2.5 lb plates.

I would hit up Walmart and buy the cheap gray Olympic plates or look online or on yard sales. At the big WM, 10’s are under $10. The 5’s are under $5. And the 2.5’s are cheaper yet. So that puts us at about $90 and 85 lb of plates, depending on where you get them.

Now you’re probably thinking: “I need more weight than that!” Well, have a little faith.

The little plates above give you the capability to create any weight from 2.5 to 42.5 lb per side. If you don’t want the ability to jump weight by 5 lb total on the bar at a time and jumping up by 10 lb is good enough for you, don’t buy the 2.5 plates. As Sam Axe would say, “easy-peasy”.

Step three: acquire four steel wheels with tires.

How? Ask around or check out tire stores and garages or look online for a set of inexpensive steel wheels with tires. The tires can be nearly bald with little to no tread. Such tires are cheaply had, since they

Phot

o: W

alte

r Dor

ey

16

are basically useless. Someone might even give them to you or trade something for them. Often people buy pricey shiny wheels and are just trying to get rid of their old steel wheels for cheap.

Be sure to buy steel wheels. Buy regular car tires, not the doughnut tires. The regular tires will be a bit wider, giving more surface area. Yes, they will take up a bit more room on your bar, but check this out: I have found that 25 and even 35 pound plates will fit into the center of the wheel. So you can fit 70 pounds of plates inside the tire without taking up any more room on your bar.

If you want 25 and 35 pound plates, buy them AFTER you get your wheels.

First, measure the inside diameter of the wheels before going shopping for the bigger plates, so you KNOW they will fit inside the tire.

I bought a set of 4 steel rims with tires for $75. I could tell I could have gotten all four

for $50 but I didn’t like trying to argue the man down from his asking price when I saw his little children running around. I also found four wheels for $50 several times and could have purchased them for even less.

Why not just get two wheels? Having four tires spreads the load on the bar better, so you are less apt to ruin your bar sleeves. So if you can find four tires, buy them all at once so they are all the same diameter.

Step four: you need a way to convert the diameter of the hole in the wheel to fit to your bar.

Some people take 5 or 10 lb plates and drill them and then bolt them to the tire. This localizes the dropping force onto too small an area and can damage your bar, plus the wheel kind of flops on the bar because of such a small contact area.

If you do not have the tools and knowledge (always a great investment) or a place to work, find someone who can take a piece

Photo: Walter Dorey

17

of pipe or tubing and slide it into the hole in the tire and weld it to the steel rim. Be sure to measure things so the pipe fits your bar. Often someone will do this for you for burgers and beer or a metal scrap yard will often do this for $50 or less.

Now reread this next point several times. It will save someone’s life:

Whoever does this for you, DO NOT under any circumstances weld on that steel rim with the rubber tire still on the rim!

The tire will often explode and if it does, whoever is nearby welding on it will be killed or very severely injured. Go check this out as a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiLeji8bLOk

In another report, a mechanic actually broke the bead on the tire, letting all the air out. He left the tire on the wheel, welded up the rim and then refilled the tire with air to reseat the bead. However, the heat weakened the tire. Several days later the tire was really soft so the mechanic re-inflated the tire. It exploded and he lost his life.

Did I scare you? GOOD!

So, take the tires completely off the wheel before welding!

If you or a friend can’t do this, for a small fee a garage will do this for you. Then go weld the sleeves into the tire. Then come back and have them remount the tires on the wheels. I just invested in a Harbor Freight tire changer for $40 and it works great.

Don’t air the tires up all the way. Once the bead is seated on the rim, let air out until you have about one or two pounds

of pressure in the tire. This way they don’t bounce as bad, especially with heavier weight. Control the drop so the tires do not bounce into your shins.

An important note here: measure how wide your tires are in thickness. Split that measurement in half or a bit less. This is how long you want your sleeve to be. Refer to the pictures. This way, the sleeve only projects into the inside of the wheel a little less than half-way. To get a pipe to fit I actually used an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel and sliced a .25” slot out of the side. I squeezed it together, slid it into the wheel hub, and welded it all up from there. Look at the pictures closely and you’ll see what I did.

The tires I used weigh about 42 lb apiece. With four tires on the bar that’s about 213 lb with the barbell. Add in 70 lb placed into each of 4 tires and that’s another 280 lb, bringing the total to 493 lb. Also I have found that I can sneak a five pound plate onto the other side of the tire. So with four tires that’s an additional 20 lb. Total: 513 lb. Not too shabby.

A little trick if your tires seem to run out to the ends of the bar as you lift:

You know the side that the lug-nuts are tightened against, the outside of the tire you see when mounted on a car? Put that side inwards toward the hub on the inside of your bar. This way the tires are more apt to run inward as you lift and will stay in place much better. And if your sleeves fit well and are not loose on the barbell they will stay in place much better. I actually lined the inside of my sleeves with a cut piece of thin and flexible poly cutting board. If you look close, you can actually see this liner in one of the pictures.

18

OK, so with four tires we are looking at about 213 lb with the bar. Add in the 85 lb of 10’s and 5’s and 2.5’s we bought and we have 298 lb to play with. The smaller plates let you adjust weight with the tires in 5, 10 or 20 lb increments. That’s 298 lb, buying just the little plates I mentioned above, without buying any plates bigger than 10 lb!

Now, Get Strong!

It might not sound like much, 300 lb or thereabouts. But if you get to where you can power clean and press and front squat that weight, I guarantee that you will be far stronger than almost anyone you meet. So for around $300 to $400 you can have a completely portable bumper set that will outlast your lifetime and can get you very strong in the middle of a patch of dirt.

Now, how cool is that?

Phot

o: D

evan

Nie

lsen

Dave Roy is a recovered powerlifter, who changed his focus from being as strong as possible to being healthy and looking kinda’ good for an old guy. When not training, he works as a school administrator and tries to keep up with his lovely wife and two teenagers.

I felt sick to my stomach as I pulled the last screw out of my lifting platform. What was once worthy of an EliteFTS power rack, a dozen York plates, and countless PR‘s, has been reduced to a pile of steel, ten 2x12‘s and a couple pieces of plywood.

Conservatively, I‘ve spent well over 2000 hours by myself, in this basement gym. While most families in my suburban utopia, living in their cookie-cutter homes, would call it a „den“, in my little townhouse it‘s „the weight room.“ You can have your basement office with a pretty picture on the wall and a pullout bed for the guests. My room will have a concrete floor, plain drywall and a ton of iron and steel.

„The Weight Room“

Our realtor thinks no one will want to buy a house with an unfinished room, especially one filled with primitive-looking devices of strength and pain. Deep down, I know she is right. I told my wife that, as we prepare our house for the market, the gym is the very last thing I‘ll deal with as not to disrupt my training any more than necessary.

But now the time has come. So for the next three months or so, my precious toys will sit in a storage facility across town.

For thirteen years, three or four days a week, I‘ve been trudging down the stairs to that little 11x11 square foot room. A picture

Tearing Down the PastDave Royhab

19

of Henry Rollins looked over my equipment with his quote: „There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength.“

It‘s more than a gym. It‘s more than personal records. This room has been a place of meditation and escape. In this modern world, most of us live soft lives - and I am no exception. We have our climate controlled homes and door-to-door food delivery. Cars that start with the push of a button, and doors that automatically open for us. Plush couches and comfortable recliners with just the right amount of lumbar support for our weak backs. Riding lawn mowers and snow blowers so we can avoid real physical effort at all costs.

Something Primal

This basement weight room is where I tried to recapture something ancient, something lost, something primal. Where I can feel my muscles contract, my sweat drip, and

my bones bend. It‘s a room full of effort and aggression. It‘s one last place where a modern man can feel real weight, both figuratively and literally.

I‘ve built myself up, broken myself down, and built myself up again in that room.

I‘ve torn callouses, and ripped shins. I‘ve been covered in welts on my hips and stomach from my lifting belt, and deep brush burns on my traps from the squat bar. I‘ve blown blood vessels in my eyelids, and after one mishap, cut open my forehead (just a tiny little cut, but it sounds cool).

In that gym I‘ve given myself tendinitis in my elbow, bursitis in my shoulder, plantar fasciitis in both feet, a herniated disc, and a hernia.

But I‘ve also got myself stronger than I ever dreamed possible. And I‘ve been in the best shape of my life.

Phot

o: D

evan

Nie

lsen

20

My little brother, a true craftsman and fellow home gym fanatic, built me two squat boxes. He then drove five hours to my house to help me build my platform. Time well spent with my best friend.

My wife with her patience, god bless her. Never taking offense when I get home from work and make a bee-line for the gym, occasionally stopping by the kitchen for a shot of caffeine. Never complaining about the loud punk and hard rock music flowing straight up through the floor into the kitchen.

My kids have both literally grown up with the rule: Only interrupt dad‘s workout if it‘s an emergency. And even then, KNOCK FIRST!

I recall my excitement when my first two pieces of equipment arrived from EliteFTS 13-years ago: a power rack and a glute/ham raise. I left work early when I learned they were waiting for me on my porch.

Priorities

I fondly remember the time my wife and I drove three hours to the York Barbell tent sale, in York, PA. I bought twelve 45 pound plates. My little Toyota truck looked like a ship sinking into the sea as I drove down the highway. We stopped for breakfast on the way home. I insisted we park by a window in the restaurant so I could keep an eye on the equipment in the back of my truck. My wife reminded me that normal people would not be able to steal all those plates, even if they wanted to.

I can recall my excitement over the years, as I added new toys to the mix. Blast Straps and a TRX. Kettlebells and Captains of Crush grippers. My EliteFTS safety squat and Swiss bars. A heavy bag and boxing gloves.

I ran the Westside system for years, building up my squat and deadlift, higher than I ever thought possible. I stopped powerlifting and lost my way until I found Wendler‘s 5/3/1 and kick started my progress again. I‘ve followed programs from Dan John, Jason Ferruggia, Alwyn Cosgrove, Jen Sinkler, and others in that basement. And I loved them all.

It is the Journey

In that basement gym, I‘ve been both the fat powerlifter and a ripped gym rat. I‘ve had to buy bigger lifting belts, and I‘ve had to buy smaller ones. I‘ve been strong, and I‘ve been weak. I‘ve been out of shape, and fit as hell. I‘ve looked forward to new bench shirts, squat suits and wraps. And I eventually packed them all away, telling myself that I‘ll never use them again - but not having the heart to throw them away.

I once noticed that a lifter spends the first half of his life trying to get big, and the second half trying to get small again. I am no exception.

But I never stopped lifting. Goals change, but NEVER the demand for progress. Never the need to improve.

Other than my family, I‘ve gotten more from that little basement gym than anything else in my life.

So out goes the gym, piece by piece, into the storage unit. My EliteFTS equipment: power rack, safety squat bar, Swiss press bar, and glute/ham raise. My York bar and plates. My lat pulldown & cable row machine. My grippers, Mantaray, rollers, and balls. Dumbbells and kettlebells. Straps and wraps. Heavy bag and gloves. Sandbags and boxes. Bands and boards. Olympic

Published by Daniel JohnMarkus Weßel-Therhorn, EditorCopyright © Daniel John, 2016All Rights ReservedAny unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.

21

lifting shoes and Chuck‘s. Years and years of training journals. They‘re all being packed away.

This room will be painted and floored. Made pretty. The new owners will never know what it was. What it did. What it meant.

So, now we‘ve found a new home. A much bigger house. The kind of home I always wanted for my family.

And after all this, I must tell you that I will NOT be reconstructing my basement gym.

There will be no „weight room“ in the basement of the new house. Oh no... Because that Iittle old weight room is now in the two-car garage.

And this time, it‘s twice as big!

Phot

o: D

evan

Nie

lsen