Red pays a visit and lives to write about it
11 January 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I invited guitar freak up for a visit and a workout a few weeks back and was pleasantly surprised on all levels: this guy was and is an expert musician whos studied under maestro Danny Gatton and played the Chicago Blues scene for years. Retrenched and reinvigorated, living in suburban DC, raising a young family and living the sane life (as opposed to the often insane life both elite athletes and elite musicians need participant in to further their trade and career) Lil Red, as he was dubbed by the other hardcore blues players on the Southside Chicago scene (differentiating him from Big Red, another pentatonic scale practitioner) came to train. He was kind enough and inspired enough to write a recapitulation of his visit and when he passed on to me I asked to pass it along to the readers.his tome was long and detailed I remarked to him after reading it that crack musicians usually have great recall and postulated that it was likely from being forced to remember intricate musical pieces in exact detail he retorted that it also was a result of having to spend hours in isolation honing craft. Musicians tend to be introverted extroverts.
Tags:From the Basement to the Shed
Last April I started lifting weights again. Prior to that I spent 3 years lifting regularly, the last year of which I began to incorporate what I was learning from reading Marty Gallagher’s web chats on the Washington Post. I had read some magazines and some basic books. I had a couple friends who lifted who would also answer my questions. But there was something extra special about having a champion lifter and trainer to chat with. During that last year I started making drastically better gains than I had before. In fact… for a long while I had not been able to make any gains at all.
As the saying goes, sometimes life gets in the way and my workouts stopped once
I moved from my old house to my new house. First, there was a month living in my mother-in-law’s house and then there was the new house itself. It was a bit of a disaster and my weights - as well many of my other belongings - were stored in a room in the basement while I worked on rehabbing the rest of the house. Cut to today: I outlived the nightmare: the interior completely redone and finished in March of 2005. In April 2005 I restarted lifting weights. This time there was a big difference: Marty wasn’t doing chats on the Post. He now had his own website blog and held his weekly chats there. There was so much more information. It was daily inspiration.
There was a message board where others were asking questions and others were answering them with Marty occasionally chiming in. On one chat Marty asked me to come up to his house in Waynesboro, PA to lift there. I work out by myself in a room I finished in my basement. It’s a combination music room and workout room. I wake up early in the morning, do anywhere from 15-60 minutes worth of cardio and then begin my lifts for that day. Four days a week. The only spotters I have are the triangular shaped safety bars that jut from my bench. When I squat… I squat so the bar comes down into those safety bars, touches them lightly, and then I explode upwards. There is no one awake when I’m doing this. I have always worked out this way. Going to Marty’s would prove to be a bit of a culture shock. I made my way up 270 and across some windy mountain roads and came to the town where Marty lives toting my copy of his book “Ed Coan: The Man. The Myth. The Method” in hopes of getting Marty to sign it. I also had on my Purposeful Primitive t-shirt that I had just received the day before. I suggest any who have received help from Marty purchase one to support his website. Marty was having some folks over to do some lifting in the evening and I was going to slide in and work out with them. We would be doing three lifts, squat, bench press and deadlift. This was a Thursday and the previous Saturday morning I had done the same three lifts for new personal records. My deadlift was 280X2, my squat 300×1, and my bench press was 240×1. Only thing was that I missed the bench press. I had done a single of 230 the week before and at the time it felt fairly easy.
My theory was that I had spent too much on the warm-ups before the single. I secretly hoped that I could retry that bench press and hit the 240 at Marty’s. It was burning me up that I had missed that lift after preparing for it for 3 1/2 months. I arrived at Marty’s about 4:00 pm and we were going to lift around 5:00. When I got there I didn’t know what to expect. I left my digital camera and the book in the car not really wanting to come bounding in like some deranged fan. Well… it was real mellow. Marty had on some pretty cool video of some blues cats and we sat and talked about music. Turned out I would be working out with some of his famous Cat Herd. If you don’t know who they are… read Marty’s site. After talking about a ton of music (I can definitely talk non-stop about that!) the herd members showed up. I was hoping that they wouldn’t show me up: I knew they had made big gains training with Marty. The time came. We started out the back door towards the shed out back. It was cold but there was a kerosene heater in the shed. There were also some old plates, a power rack, a bar and weights that had obviously been used for years. Marty informed me that we would be doing 6 rep sets. I was a little disappointed thinking that I wouldn’t get to try 240×1. I had told him I’d missed it but I hadn’t told him I wanted to try it again. After a bit of small talk in the shed it was time to get serious.
First, we started out with squats. The two women from the cat herd were Jen and Connie. I watched them do a warm up set each and then it was my turn. One thing
I immediately noticed was how fast they exploded from the bottom position. I usually
came up slower - although I had thought I came up pretty quick. Marty gave me some pointers about taking the bar off the rack. I never thought so much about this little action.
Getting directly under the bar, feet close together, standing straight up with the
bar and then taking a step back and getting in my stance. Once I felt comfortable
it was time to go down. The women watched my form. Connie mentioned that I should
be looking up at the ceiling, I always had looked at a spot about eye level for
my whole trip up and down. Jen said that my squat depth looked good. I like to go
really deep. After a couple of sets we went on to bench pressing. Here was the first total form change that Marty hit me with. Using a wide grip, I had always come straight down and straight back up with the bar. Marty said that this was a good assistance exercise but that more power would be gained from hitting a point lower on my chest and then coming up in an arc to lock out. He used the analogy of a blocking lineman. The point on my chest is about an inch and a half or so above the tip of the sternum. I was to touch that and then push the bar upward and lock out over my eyes. This was a very strange motion for me and I will have to work on it for a while. I watched the women do this to perfection. I however was feeling a bit off balance. I did a few warm up sets: low and behold Marty was going to have me do that 240 single. I got underneath the bar, got set brought it down to my chest and then started coming up with it… about half way it
started the barbell started to slow down but I felt I could get it all the way up. Marty was spotting me and with his hand pushed the bar back to get me to arc it. In my struggle I had reverted to pushing straight up. As Marty pushed the bar back it seemed to go up easy. Wham…I had done 240!
Now it was time for deadlifts. I used to feel like this was my worst lift but lately
had gotten quite comfortable with my technique. I had come up there hoping to hit
the bench number and wasn’t too worried about hitting anything higher in the squats
or deadlifts. Well if working out with a group of people I had just met after having
always worked out by myself wasn’t shocking enough I was in for a major shock. My
deadlift technique was pretty bad. Marty asked me to take a couple of reps. After
about 2 reps Marty had me put the bar down and then asked Jen and Connie what they
saw. They both started in with quite a bit of analysis. Marty started to rebuild my technique from the beginning. First I was starting too far away from the bar. My shins weren’t vertical; I needed to look up at the ceiling. I was told I needed to keep
my shins as vertical as possible throughout the whole lift. I had heard this before
but never understood how to do it. I now know it was because my shins were
too far from the bar to begin with. Starting from this position seemed like it affected
the rest of the lift. I use a double overhand grip but Marty explained to me about
how by putting your weak hand underhand you can increase your lift totals. I will
have to work on this one because when I tried it I felt like I was going to fall
over. We went through some sets and I hit a 280 double: this felt easy. Marty
agreed and decided to put more weight on the bar. Low and behold I hit 325 for a
double! I felt I could have hit a third with it but my grip gave out.
Marty wanted me to try more. I felt game so I waited a few minutes and tried to psyche myself up for what I didn’t know at the time was 355. I actually broke it from the floor which always seems to be the hard part but I think my legs were spent from
squatting and the previous 325 double deadlift. I pull the final deadlift up any further. Still I was feeling pretty daggone happy about hitting the 325 double, a 45 pound increase! Jen and Connie had done great. They each hit personal records in the three lifts.
It was an amazing thing to witness and made me feel like I wish I had a shed and some folks to lift with. No question I’m going to build the shed. I had gone up to Marty’s with two hopes. First was to hit that 240 bench. Second was to get my book signed. Well I completely forgot about the book and though I’d brought my camera the only picture I took was on the side of the road to Marty’s. Still I was armed with new knowledge and a 45 pound increase in my deadlift which had me giddy the whole drive home.
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