Brain train feats and tactics
23 September 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Back in the day, I once wrote an article on psyche-up tactics for weight training in Muscle & Fitness and in response Jeff Everson wrote that you didnt have to read Plato before a set of bench presses. Im pretty sure this barb was aimed at me and in my book on incredible Ed Coan I wrote that while getting your mind right was not all that important on the little stuff, on the top set of a particular exercise being centered, in the moment and in what Arnold called the heightened arousal mode psyche undeniably helped performance. Every single top athlete Ive ever had the pleasure of working with has had some method of getting themselves psyched-up for a big effort. They use psyche for one reason: getting fired up prior to tackling a heavy weight improves performance. The top guys are the top guys because they have an ability to mentally force their body to perform above its actual capacity. There is no handbook or single mental technique that is universally used and each of the elite has developed their own individualized psyche-up tactic. One of the best was the great John Kuc, a multi-time world powerlifting champion and a guy built all wrong for the sport. To be a really great powerlifter requires you have great density per inch of height; the best powerlifters are short in relation to their bodyweight as thickness and bulk provide incredible leverage. In a time when top 242-pound lifters stood 5-8 Kuc was a basketball player-like 6-1. He looked positively skinny. With his thinning hair and lean look he seemed more like a college professor than a power dominator and much of his dominance could be traced to his ability to put himself into a trance state that bordered on psycho.
I remember in the late 70s watching Kuc come out for a world record deadlift of 852-pounds. With bugged-out eyes and an odd stutter-gait he looked exactly like a zombie in Dawn of the Dead. The barbell was loaded and he was making his way to the platform to attack the weight when an official stepped in front of him and asked if he wanted the barbell placed more to the front or to the rear of the platform. I doubt Kuc even saw the guy, so deep was he into his psyche space, his mad eyes drilled holes through the guy. He made Charles Mansons famous killer stare look like a high school year book photo by comparison. He said not a word and likely didnt hear the request. He refused to acknowledge the mans existence as taking that instant to say, get the hell out of my way little clown man would have shattered his carefully construct psyche as surely as smashing a glass figurine against a concrete wall. Pompous and imperious (as some officials are) the blazer-clad butterball took offense he asked once again, this time in an insistent voice: he was determined he would have a piece of Kucs spotlight as he knew all eyes in the packed auditorium where on John and by default the official who was inserting himself into Kucs orbit with his frivolous inquiry. The second request was forceful and indignant; the official would have his answer and if that destroyed the delicate strands of Kucs spider-web psyche than so be it. An elite lifter watching in awe from the immediate vicinity caught what was happening and without a second thought unceremoniously and violently jerked the hapless glory hog in blue blazer from behind by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a rag doll as zombie Kuc, now unimpeded, walked on by, lost in that Private Idaho where the mind wills the body to do that which it is incapable of doing. He strode to the bar to thunderous screams he did not hear and pulled the bar effortlessly to lock out.
It was a great example of psyche and portrayed the reverence other lifters have for psyche. It is totally taboo amongst those in the know to walk up to a lifter prior to an all-out attempt and make small talk. More than once Ive seen ignorant gym rats stroll up to an elite lifter readying prior to a set of say 775×5 in the squat only to be roughed up by the lifters training partners. When a man is getting prepared for an assault on gigantic poundage they need to prepare mentally and this requires utter and complete internal focus free of all distraction. Other top lifters know this and woe be onto any civilian, gym mullet or ignorant passerby who wanders up to a psyche-ing lifter and asks, HEY! Are you using this 5-pound plate? Or my favorite, How much longer are you going to be? I need to use this squat rack for curls. Ive seen em swatted over benches and Ive seen em backhanded and dropped on the spot. My boy Karwoski was Kuc-like in his ability to transport himself to otherworld mental places. One of my major coaching responsibilities backstage at national and world competitions was to keep away the army of well-wishers, glad-handers, other lifters, officials and the press during that delicate time after the last warm-up and prior to the 1st attempt onstage. Kirk had a very specific psyche procedure: he would put on a Walkman and insert a tape that he had recorded at home. The tape had the same song playing over and over and over in an endless drone of continual repetition. He would walk in time to the music, ten paces one direction, turn and walk ten paces in the opposite direction. Listen to the music, walk, listen to the music, walk, back and forth, back and forthhed increase his pace and always stared at the floor as he walked.
Every few minutes he would lift his head and search the room for me, when he caught my eye I would raise a certain number of fingers, from ten down to three; this signified how many lifters were ahead of him before it was his turn. When three lifters were ahead of him hed take off the Walkman and throw it into his gym bag. Hed wordlessly walk to where I stood. Hed have tears in his eyes these were not tears of sadness these were tears of hot rage he would work himself into such an intense psychological fury, barely contained, that it would bring tears of murderous emotion into his eyes. He would unleash this pent up fury on the unsuspecting barbell. I always thought that he improved his performance by 10-15% strictly through his incredible mental ability. Does this mean you have to work yourself into a state of bug-eyed, teary-eyed, cold fury prior to doing a set of 10 with 100-pounds in the deadlift? No but by taking training seriously, particularly the all-important top set in a particular exercise, you will improve performance and enable yourself to squeeze out more reps or extra poundage. If you are casual about your weight training youll reap casual, half-ass results. If you are intense, focused and dead serious than.well, you know the rest.
Tags:Popularity: 4% [?]
Related Posts:
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
