Planet Fitness is Not for Me

I am sure you have all heard the latest Planet Fitness commercial on the radio.

If you haven't, here are some of the lines:

• If you're IQ is lower than your BMI, planet fitness is not right for you
• If you drink creatine from a gallon jug, planet fitness is not for you
• If you aren't allowed to hold babies in fear of them being crushed, planet fitness is not for you
• If you have a bicep tattooed on your bicep, planet fitness is not for you.

Its pretty sickening to me that this is a marketable idea.

I can't imagine why someone would want to be part of something that would make them nothing more than Average.

When I train, I train to be the toughest guy in the world.

I train to get jacked.

I train to get strong.

I train to separate myself from the Average people.


These Plant Fitness commercials reach out to the people who are the exact opposite of me and everyone else who is tough enough to stick it out in Advanced Training.


I will say this with pride:

"Planet Fitness is not for me"

This Is Why You Can't Train Alone... Part II

A few weeks ago in  This is Why You Can't Train Alone, I gave a concrete example of how training in a competitive environment enables athletes to take themselves to another level.

In the video below, you will see two athletes competing to see who can move more weight on Renegade Rows  + Push-Ups.

In my mind, this movement is significantly harder than Renegade Rows (without the push-up).

Before you watch the video, remember how proud we were just a few weeks ago because we MOVED 80lbs on the Renegade Rows.

After watching the video below, we should really be embarrassed for ONLY Moving 80lbs on Renegade Rows.

Imagine what we are going to do next week!

(Note: If the video has a new feel, its because it was made by Dom Martelle. He clearly is alot more creative than I am. He also has a music selection that is bigger than rap from the late 1990's)

Define Your Rules

I recently read a short piece of work called The Hero Handbook, by Nate Green.

In it, Nate described that any man worth his salt should have a list of rules by which he lives.

Here is my list:

1. Use the talents that I was given to help improve the lives of others.
2. Never miss the opportunity to tell someone they have done a great job.
3. Keep myself as healthy as possible via training, diet, and rest.
4. Work on at least one thing every day to make myself better than the day before.
5. Never let anyone work harder than me at anything, ever.
6. Tell the people that you love that you love them. I know its corny, but I know more than a few guys who wished they had told their mom, their wife, or even their dad that they loved them while they still had the chance.

If you have your own list, please share it on the blog.

I am sure we could all learn something from each other.

This Is Why You Can't Train Alone...

I have probably spoken about this 1,000 times, but I really don't care.

Make this 1,001.

YOU CANNOT TRAIN ALONE!!!

Here is another story that proves my theory.

We have been doing Renegade Rows for the past two weeks.

The first time we did it, the group that trains at 8PM peaked out at about 35lbs.

To show them up, the group that trains at 5:30AM the next morning went up to 50lbs.

Not wanting to be outdone, the 8PM crew hit 65lbs on the following week.
They believed they had set a tone that could not be matched.

One member of the 8PM crew even stated that if someone from the 5AM crew could beat this, he would resign from the program.

Lucky for him, I pretended not to hear what he said.

Yesterday morning, the 5AM crew proceeded to rip off 80lb renegade rows.

Here is the video, in case there was any doubt....

"I thought this was a De-load Week"

After every few weeks, we incorporate a "de-load" week to allow our bodies to recover from heavy training.

The reason I refer to it as a "de-load" week is that I remove all max effort, full body movements from the sessions.

In addition, we reduce the training volume from 3x per week to 2x per week.

I have found that these de-load weeks keep us from reaching plateaus too quickly and burning out mentally.

Unfortunately, there are times when the sessions during the de-load week can become rather intense.

I have often heard some of our pretty hardcore athletes saying: "I thought this was a de-load week?"

While we do not perform any max effort deadlifts, we do perform timed circuits to help build our mental toughness.

Below is an example of what we would do on a typical de-load week.

Warm Up

• Jump Rope - 150 touches
• Squat to Lunge (Front to Back) - 3 each way
• Good Mornings - x10
• Leg Cradles - x5 each side
• High Knee Pulls - x 5 each side
• Slow Long Stride Mountain Climbers - x 5 each side
• Jump Rope - 150 touches

Shoulder Savers

• Face Pulls with rope - x 20
• Band Pull Aparts - x 20
• Diagonal Band Pull Aparts x 20 each side
• Band Dislocates - x20
• DB Y,T,W L - x 5 each side

Day 1 Circuit

• Jump Rope - 150 touches
• Pull-ups to 100 (Use as many sets as possible to reach 100 total pull-ups. Do not allow more than 1 minute rest between sets)
• Rest 5 minutes
• Walk-Out + Push Up x15 (Perform 3 push-ups at the end of every walk-out) 
• Jump Rope - 150 touches

Day 2 Circuit

• Jump Rope - 150 touches
• 3-way Bodyweight Ladder Circuit
• Perform 10 rounds of circuits of push-ups, groiners, and body weight squats
• In Round 1, perform 10 reps of each movement
• In each subsequent round, reduce the reps of each movement by 1
• Continue until you get to 1 rep for each movement
• Do not take any rest between reps, movements, or rounds