Back from paradise to our paradise....

Good afternoon everyone.  Sorry you haven't been able to read my ramblings for a bit.  Things have been quite busy for us out here.  Wedding prep for Codi and I had kept us quite busy.  Now we are back and still at it with the reception coming in two weeks, but I thought I would sneak one in with a quick recap of our trip.  I know I know, most my blog post are about training and shit like that.  Don't worry I'm going to sneak a few things in here about how not to be a douche at the gym.

I'll start of by saying this trip for Codi and I could not have been better.  So much fun and we are so thankful and greatful for the people that made the trip down to share this awesome part of our lives together.  We flew out on Sunday AM early.  Was a long day of flying around the world but totally worth it when we landed in Cancun around 4.  A short trip about 45 min and we were at the hotel checked in and sipping drinks.  

Over the next 5 days people started to filter in every day.  We had a whole week of pool lounging and beach lounging.  Town exploring with taco eating contest.  As well as a Tulum ruins/ jungle cenote /zip line/ crazy ass uni-mog trip.  This seriously was a week of nothing but awesome.  Oh, we squeezed a few workouts in, but nothing crazy.  Lots of awesome dinners and drinks let up to the main event Saturday.  

Couldn't have been happier with the resort and set up for the wedding.  We really didn't have to do anything which made for a great day.  Wedding went off without a hitch and the venue was unbelievable!  I'll just hit the pics to help you get an idea.  

Ok now I want to take a quick second to say how dam lucky I am.  I can hands down, sorry guys, say my lady is the most smokin hot bride ever!  Pics to prove

After the wedding was done and over everyone started to head back over the next few days.  Codi and I were now on our honeymoon and relax city started for the next week.  We had an awesome week laying around relaxing and studying.  We squeezed a few more workouts in but tried to take as much time for ourselves, we know that it's going to be a while before we get to do this again so we soaked it up.  

Now let me get into the small portion of this blog post that will  be about training.  Just a few tips I thought I would give so that the next time you are at a commercial gym you aren't the one being a douche bag.  

1- Re rack your weights.  Few things here.  Don't just leave your shit and take off, no brainer but you would be surprised.  Also, if you are using a set of DB's and there are a shit ton of other people in there and you are going to rest and finger yourself for 5 min between sets take them back and re rack them so others can use them.  I should not have to come over and tell you I'm going to use them, and take them.  

2- Don't stand right in front of the DB rack and block all the weights when there is a shit load of people trying to get in and out of there.  Step back far enough to let others use the shit.  

Some might think these things are just common sense, but there are a lot of dip shits out there.  

Side note- wearing a bandana with a hat on top of it is stupid.  

Ok now back to the story.  Looking at the pics I forgot about speedo day.  Man, that was a hoot and we got some good pics of that.  Somehow my speedo ended up being the most high cut of the bunch haha, but I made it look good.  Pic to prove

After nearly 2 weeks in a paradise known as the Riviera Maya/ Playa Del Carmen, we are back and at it in our own paradise of Eternia Athletics and Grants Pass, Oregon.  Being gone for 2 weeks, even in a place like that can leave you thinking of how much you love where you live.  For me it made me miss my home, my dogs, my friends and our paradise of Eternia.  There truly is no place like home.  

What should I eat? What supplements do I need to be taking?

Well hello there Eternia! We are getting ready to kick of this Easter Weekend and I thought I would put together a few words on a screen for your reading pleasure.  Today I wanted to touch on a question I tend to get alot. What should I eat, and what supplements should I be taking.

First things first.  Supplements are just that, supplements to your normal diet.  When I say diet, I am referring to what you take in on a daily basis of REAL FOOD.  Sit down and take a real look at what you are eating.  For a male, if you are training with us and eating under 1500 cals a day or a female under 1000 a day we will start there. These numbers are even on my low end of where I would want to see people consuming.  You cannot recover from training by not eating.  I know you all want to loose weight, but the not eating approach does more damage than good.  Food people food! That is what helps you burn fat and recover from your workouts.  There isn't a magic supplement you need to be taking besides good food, water, and rest.  After you address these situations then you can look into the only 3 supplements to your regular diet that you will hear me suggest.
1) Protein
2) Fish Oil
3) Creatine (for some)

The reasons for these is for a whole other blog post, but in general these are things that will be hard to get enough of in your normal diet that have a great impact on your overall life and health.

Next up... setting an example for your family..

Your Duty

Good afternoon Eternia! Sun is shining and it's looking like we have plowed through another week, kicking ass and taking names.  Eternian's here in GP and afar have all been putting up some great numbers this week.  I've been pondering what to write about this week.  After a chat I gave this week to a group of Eternians and some things I have seen, I feel inclined to talk about giving it everything you have and passing that along.

Here at Eternia we foster a pretty awesome environment.  One that I have been told by many that come from out of town is something they haven't seen anywhere, or only in some of my opinion awesome spots.  We take that as a pretty bad ass compliment.  As an Eternian you should feel pretty dam proud of that, because you help build that.  Your duty is to keep doing that.

We ask a lot of each and every person that trains with us.  We know that is a lot.  We ask you to do that because we want you to get the most out of what we are offering.  We aren't in this to get rich, all the money we make goes back into making Eternia even better.  We do this shit because we LOVE IT!

As an Eternian, rule numero' uno.  DON'T HALF ASS ANYTHING.  If you want to come in and just go through the motions, honestly this may not be the place for you.  We expect the best you have every day.  If you are worn down or not 100% that day, and lets say you are 80%. Give every bit of that 80% you have.  I promise you that you won't regret it.

Next I want to touch on a few things that don't have to do with your training but the others around you.  Your duty is to help your training partners to get stronger than you.  If you see somebody slacking off or sandbagging some shit, let them know what's up.  You know it, you see it.  Don't worry we will be doing the same thing as your coaches as well.  Having training partners that push you ads to the environment and fosters some awesome results.  You see somebody just "going through the motions" let them know.  Hey what's that, way to easy lets go, get with it. They will thank you for it.  Along these same lines, if you get somebody new in there and you see something way crazy, help them.  Examples come to mind. Hey man that might be to big a jump.  How about 10lbs not 30.  Or hey, that % looks a bit high lets take some off and move that shit quick(speed day). That's what we do in Eternia.  Take them under your wing and pass on what we have taught you.  Don't worry we will be there as well.

I will end on this.  Our environment is one you will not find in many places and we are dam proud of that.  You guys helped build that, now keep it going.  From that "great" Travis Osborne, "Never half ass anything, always use your FULL ASS"!

FifteenPointNope

Well well well, I've been pondering what random subjects I should blog about next.  So many good options this time of year, but I chose to go with one that gets asked a lot.  "So what is different between Eternia and CF?"

I hear this question and I'm like... really haha. Joking, well kinda.  I get the question and why it is asked. We do run our structure in a warehouse, we coach in hour blocks, and we train in a group atmosphere.  That is where it ends. Does that mean if our members wanted to compete in some CF style stuff they couldn't. Nope, they could do that if they wanted to. I will say this. With the CF money machine fired up, otherwise known as the CF Open, going on right now our number of members doing that is.....0.  Number of members from Eternia competing in as USPA Powerlifting meet in June...23.

Eternia, as most of you know, runs a WestSide Barbell conjugate system.  WestSide is the strongest gym in the world.  Westide Barbell is ran by the great Louie Simmons.  He has put his whole life into building a system that is tried, and proven.  The system is built for powerlifting, but can be used to get anybody strong as shit and fit as fuck haha! We do not only lift heavy weights, we condition as well.  This program can be tuned nicely for who it's for.  We run 2 separate conjugate programs at Eternia giving our members options.  We, squat and or deadlift twice a week, and bench twice a week. We also, clean and jerk, do a ton of strongman movements, and a SHITLOAD of special exercise and accessory work. In fact 80% of our workload for any given day is acc work. Below I am going to give you an example of a day of our programming, then I will give you a few examples of programming strait from CF.

Dynamic Effort Lower
A) Box Jump to max height
B) Box squat (at parallel) with Safety Squat Bar at 50% plus 25% band tension 10x2 45 sec. rest
C) Sumo dead at 50% plus 30% band tension, 8x1 30 sec. rest between
D) Bulg. Split Squat with SSB, 3x10
E) Dimmel deadlifts 3x20 @ 40%
F) Banded back ext 3x20
G) 3x20 banded ghd situps
Cond-
12 min Air dyne 15 sec sprints, 10 b.w lunges every minute on the minute style
Finisher- 100 banded pull through's

Above is a usual layout from a dynamic lower day with conditioning.  Another form of conditioning on this day may involve some sled drags, atlas stone to shoulder, cleans, sled pushes or sled sprints etc.

Below is taken direct from CF main site

Today- Run 1.5 miles

Yesterday-
With a running clock every minute perform 1 lift and add 10 lbs
Start with Snatch and go as heavy as possible
once you can't snatch it, go to the clean
once you can't clean go to deadlift.

Day Before that
10 rounds of 205lb front squats 5 reps and 5 parallette hand stand push ups as fast as possible

I could keep going but I'm hoping that just that kind of gives you an idea.  This is not to say that every CF gym goes off that programming.  Actually every CF gym can run whatever program they want, witch could be anything from dancing to napping.  Don't take that as I don't like naps because come on now who doesn't haha.

I think most people want to try to group us into that, and we have tried to be different from the get go. We train in group structure, because that is how we like to do it.  Nobody likes training alone, it sucks.  Having a group of like minded people there to push you and keep you accountable helps.

In the end it boils down to this.  Do we not like CF?  No not at all we have plenty of friends in the CF world.  We just have a little bit different goals, and thoughts on what is more important.  Not everybody needs to snatch, overhead squat, walk on their hands, swing around on bars and rings to be fit or use those methods to build strength.   Different strokes for different folks, that's what makes Eternia... Eternia.

Come to the DarkSide.... Your lack of strength is disturbing.... and we have donuts.  

Suns out, stop half assing it!

Sunny days here in good ol' Grants Pass Oregon! Yesterday I even set up a pad and a foam roller outside and took in some rays! Felt like I was back in Venice for a second.  I'll take that for a nice change out of the cold fog we have been stuck in.  Vitamin D for everyone fo free haha!

Today I wanted to get into how we at Eternia expect the programmed accessory work to be done. I believe I have went over this a bit, but from time to time I think it's a good idea to go back over it again.  Roughly 80% of our training is accessory work or special exercises.  If you think you are going to get everything (all the gainz) out of the training by half assing 80% of the workload you are highly mistaken.  There is a reason we harp to you about tracking and logging what you are doing on a day to day basis. We expect you to attack your accessory work just as hard as your main lifts.  You should be pushing to push more weight each week in each acc lift.  If you don't know what you did on that movement from a previous week then how will you know what do to the following.  Going through the motions on 80% of your workload isn't going to get you anything.  Eternians don't have ass shit. We have sayings at Eternia for a reason.
1) We Don't Miss
2) All In/ Both feet in
3) Two Footed Jump Kick Shit
4) Don't half ass  anything, always full ass it

From my writings I think you can get a good idea of what we mean by all of those.  Those sayings are there for a reason.  Follow the code and you will be on the way to where you want to be.
Lastly I wanted to talk about the exact opposite side of the spectrum.  Biting off more than you can chew.  We see this happen a lot as well.  You feel like you want to try to keep up with somebody, so you try to do the weights they are doing.  You know that you can't, but you do it anyways.  You either don't get all the reps and quit or you pretend you did.  You're cheating yourself.  The rep layout is there for a purpose.  You getting 5 out of 10 reps isn't what we are looking for. Do yourself a favor and hit the weights you know you can for the amount of reps you are supposed to.

In summary, if you want to get all the possible results of your training you need to be all in and commit to the whole load of work.  Don't just hit the stuff hard that you want to do and leave all the rest on the table by half assing shit.  Buck up, hammer down and get the work in.  You can thank me later.

Sleep easy Eternians

Weekend at Deuce, WestSide Barbell and golden nuggets!

Good afternoon Eternians near and far! More ramblings coming at you from yours truly.  This last weekend I had the opportunity to fly down to sunny Venice Beach, Ca. for a Westside Barbell seminar at Deuce Gym.  I thought why not write a blog about that since it was such an awesome weekend!

Well where do I start?  I'll kick it off from the beginning and how it all came together.  My brother from Norther California Joey Hoey of the Fitness Coalition posted about Deuce Gym having a photo contest giveaway for a free Westside Barbell seminar taught by Shane and Laura Sweatt.  Now, some of you know we train the conjugate system at Eternia, so the first thought that came to my mind was.. that would be awesome to get to go to that!!   Being the person that never wins that kind of stuff and saving for my wedding that's coming in a few short months, I thought that will never happen.  My boy Joey posted his photo and I kind of felt like I had to at least give it one shot.  A vision popped in my head!! I got to the gym to train that afternoon and told Mike what we had to do.  We got to it.  Here is the outcome of that...

That there is what started this whole thing off.  After a few weeks, Logan from Deuce Gym hit me up and told me if I could get down there I won!  I couldn't even believe it! This was an opportunity I could not pass up and had to make it happen.  Booked a plain, hotel and car and it was on.  The next few months seemed to take forever and I couldn't wait to get down there.  

Friday comes, bags are packed and it's time to roll! Codi drops me off at the airport and I'm all jazzed up! They tell me my flights about 30 min late and that I'll cut it close but should make it to my connecting flight.  Well long story short after a bunch of delays and missed flights I got to LAX around 8:30. rental car by about 9:30.  I was just happy to be down there! Joey was kind enough to keep me posted as to where he was and I hooked up with him and the whole crew for some much needed grub at this place called Clutch.  Now let me tell you, this was my favorite place I ate while there.  The tacos and wings were Clutch at Clutch.  We ate at some awesome places all weekend but this was my favorite.  

OK now to the good stuff the seminar.  Being able to be coached through the movements from Shane and Laura was an awesome opportunity! Picked up some great cues on things I can work on that will for surely help my game.  Next, being able to watch and take in how they cue and coach others is another big takeaway for me from the weekend. I want to go over two other big takeaways from this weekend of awesomeness, both which attack the mental side.

1- Attacking your acc work as hard as you attack your main lifts.  Accessory work is 80% of our training.  If we are attacking 20% of our training at 110%, and going easy on the other 80% that's not going to get us the results we want.  Tracking our Acc work is not only needed but necessary to keep the advancement going.  We also need to be moving quickly though it at a good pace and looking to move heavier loads each weak.  I think allot of people can focus so much on the main lift and just kinda cruise control the accessory stuff.  Attacking the acc movements with as much intensity as the main is an important piece of this puzzle of strength.  

2- Mental toughness.  Mental toughness has to do with what I just went over as well as a few other parts of training.  We also need to look into our mental game.  We cannot defeat ourselves before we even try something.  Just because you haven't done something before, doesn't mean that you can't do it.  Beating yourself up mentally before you even try will shoot any change that you had of doing whatever that may be right in the foot.  Whether that is a weight you have never squatted before, or something else but if you start off by having doubts in yourself that is a major whole in your mental game.  Being mentally strong is just as important if not more important that being physically strong.  Being physically strong will not make you mentally strong, but being mentally strong can help you get physically strong.  

Being able to make this trip and get this opportunity was an awesome experience I am so very grateful for.  Got to hang out with some amazing people, learn, lift, eat, learn, laugh, and eat for an entire weekend.  Can't thank Logan from Deuce and Shane and Laura Sweatt for such a great weekend.  Everyone showed a guy from a small town up in Oregon, which I think Logan has figured out now -hint it's the one above California and below Washington hhah, a great time that will not be forgotten. Pics below from the weekend! Photo cred to Logan from Deuce! 

This is Deuce! 

Wanna use chains? Set them up right!

As I flip the ol Facebooks, Instagrams, and YouTubes I constantly come across a lot of people using chains in there lifts.  Although I think this is awesome, it seems as though lots of them never got the memo on how to set them up and use them correctly.  So in this little blog I will go over setting up chains, why and also pop some vids.  I'm going to try to not get to technical on you and just give you the basics and maybe some tips to help you out.  After you read all this please take a look at the vids I posted for your viewing pleasure. 

The goal when setting up chains is that we get as much of the chain to unload at the bottom of the lift while maintaining some chain touching the ground at the top in either the squat or the bench. 
 Here is a picture of how NOT to set your chains up.

In the picture above you will see the chain attached from on end with the rest of it hanging down.  You will see chains sold with some contraption to hook it to the bar as well.  Shy away from places that sell these.  First reason is because you don't need that shit you need leader chains to hook them on the bar and two because these sellers don't have a clue and are just trying to make money off you because they think they are the "cool" thing.  In the pic above if you were to picture somebody squatting you would see as the bar lowers only about 5-6 links of that chain would be unloaded at the bottom of the lift.  Now lets say each link is about 1 lb.  That's a total of 5-6 lbs of resistance accommodated or change of weight through the movement.  So a total of 10-12 lbs out of the 40 lbs of chain that's hanging on there.  Sure doesn't sound like what they are meant to do to me.  Now lets take a look at how it should be done.

In these pics you can see how as you descended in the squat you would be able to unload most of the chain if not all at the bottom of the lift.  As you ascended back up you would load all the chain back up.  That's how it's done.  A good rule of thumb is to have 3 links as shown in the pic above on the ground when you are setting the height of the chain with the bar in the rack where you will squat out off.  You always want at least a link of chain touching the ground while you are standing before your squat unless you are using the chains for more of a stability work purpose.

Wanted to toss in a couple tips that we have come across when setting chains up for the bench.  One thing I ran into when setting that chains up for bench was the range of motion is shorter in the bech than the squat.  Meaning the bar doesn't have to travel so far up and down, exspessially for my tiny ass.  To work around this and get the chains to be able to fully deload at the bottom we attach the bottom of the chain up higher to make the whole stack of chain a bit shorter.  Below are a few pics to help explain.

So in the first pic we lay the chain out longer than normal, second pic we take the remaining leader chain and put it through the end links of the chain and attach up higher off the ground. Now when at the bottom of the bench the chain is fully de-loaded.  If I was not to do this we would get about half of the chain de-loaded at the bottom.

Another easy tip, set up both sets of chains on one side together.  This helps get them both the same length quick and easy. 

Next tip, although may sound stupid, was something that just had to be done.  Now we have all sorts of sets of chains.  All 5/8's and a few smaller sets.  Now they all look the same from a distance, but they are from different places and are all different.  We have 3 sets that are the same and others that are from different places.  What happens is some are longer some are shorter.  Some of them have different leader chains  and let me tell you this turns into a mess.  Constantly having to lay them out and match them back up is a major pain in the ass. What we have done now is color coded them in pairs and each pair has a corresponding color for where it is hung.  Now this may sound anal, but if it saves me from having to pull them all down and lay them all out every few days it's worth it to me.

OK that's it, short and sweet! I'll leave you with some videos that I hope can hammer home what I am trying to get across.  Set your shit up right and get the most benifit out using chains.

Above the man Louie Simmons on chains


Below another of my favorites from EliteFTS.