Ha Ha Sucker! Oh wait, that’s me....

We all play the fool sometimes. 

Bamboozled, hornswoggled, hoodwinked. 

If we live life long enough, we find ourselves playing the jackass from time to time. 

I’m particularly good at it. Not sure if I should be proud of that.

Here’s a quick story of how I was led astray, and finally found the real way of strength training.

When I was about 40, stud wrestlers on our National Team started feeling stronger to me. They were moving me around like I was hollow inside. I was getting weaker. 

I decided to up my strength game. 

That off-season, I found a jet fueled muscle building program. It used dumbbells and a bunch of fancy exercises. It had drop-sets, super-sets, tons of exercises each session, and lots and lots of repetitions. 

I got big. I had defined muscles with veins, and was pretty damn good looking if I say so myself.

Anyway......

Next season I strut into the wrestling room, with everybody wondering what the hell I did to look like this. 

Me, half way through the fancy program. So embarassing.

Oh yeah, I was ready. 

That practice I wrestled the up and coming state champs.........and they still felt strong to me! 

I couldn't believe it. They were moving me around just as much as the year before. After the first week of wrestling ended, I realized I gained very little strength and power than the year before. 

Total defeat.

These new muscles were all show, and no go. 

Something was wrong. I knew my muscles got stronger as the weights I used for the fancy program kept increasing. 

What the hell happened? 

I had no idea. 

So I researched the heck out of strength training. It became my mini-obsession. 

I read book after book, devoured articles and countless websites. I hyper-educated myself on the difference between muscle size vs strength.

I finally pieced together some answers.

I found that I trained my muscles to get strong only by themselves. The fancy program only used exercises for individual muscle groups. 

I wasn’t training my muscles to become strong when working together, as in real-life situations. It was great for bodybuilding, but bad for usable strength and power.

There you go. 

We can train to look strong and powerful, but not be strong and powerful.

Let me tell you, there is a HUGE difference. And it’s just embarrassing - I felt it.

I studied and searched even more. The science nerd in me wanted to know everything. I found the works of Mark Rippetoe, Jim Wendler, and Bill Starr. 

With the knowledge of a physical therapist, I knew......these guys had it right. 

To Be continued........