Monday’s are devoted to female related topics to help females begin or continue to train. This particular post is relevant to fellas as well.



I like Erin Stern. She’s not weird and trains hard with sprints, plyos, squats, and (sorta) does Olympic lifting. The “being athletic” part makes me like her over regular figure competitors, but she’s also positive and likes to inspire other people. Lastly, she eats pretty much the same in her “off-season” as her “in-season”; her fitness is a way of life instead of something she cycles.

She posted the above picture on her Facebook page, and it had received a lot of responses. It’s obvious that she’s not out shape in the picture on the left, but there is a significant difference in her development between the two pictures. Erin’s caption was, “If you want something badly enough… you will push through every rep, each set, the tears, and the sweat! Through patience and perseverance, you can achieve anything :)”

Kinda corny, but Erin’s goal was and is to be win the biggest figure competitions in the world. 8 years separates the two pictures above. 8 years of training hard four to six times a week and making consistently good decisions in her diet. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s goal was to become the best bodybuilder in the world. Then the greatest bodybuilder in history. A successful businessman. A Hollywood star. A politician. Successful people aim their goals high and bust their ass to achieve those goals.

I looked at the comments on Erin’s photo, and some of them irritated the shit out of me.
“ya, like we’ll ever look like that”
“so how do u stay so lean now without gaining all that back with one cheat meal… do u eat “diet food” all the time?”

“Ordinary” people think that extra-ordinary feats are out of their reach. There were also other comments from people who were fawning at Stern’s feet, expressing how AMAZING it was that she could accomplish this change and how MOTIVATING she was. The former group doesn’t think that they can do it all and the latter didn’t think they could until they saw someone else do it. I have a secret for you: successful people never feel either of those things. In actuality, successful people don’t have a set of skills that are different than you or “ordinary” people. Instead, they have an extra-ordinary desire to “get after it”. They look at the pinnacle, or beyond, and say, “That is where I want to go, and I won’t rest until I’m there.” They will fight, bite, and scratch their way to get there. They will push harder and farther, they will bloody themselves nearly to death, but they will never second guess themselves. They know only one thing: they should go forward and never look back.

It pisses me off when someone looks at a picture of Erin Stern or a video of Chris deadlifting 705 and voice how they think that the performer just “has something” that they don’t. They see the end product and compare themselves to it. What they don’t realize it that there are hundreds, thousands of hours of sweat, grit, and pain to get to that point. What they don’t realize is that the person they compare themselves is not any different than them. It’s just that the successful person made a decision a long time ago to be the best that they could possibly be.

I can also tell you that a successful person is never satisfied. Do you think Erin Stern is okay with not winning the figure competition at the Arnold this year? Do you think Klokov is content with the fact that he hasn’t won an Olympic gold medal? Do you think that Arnold thinks he has peaked? Some in the Army consider Ranger School as the pinnacle of success, but I know guys who get their tab pinned on and then quietly walk away as they think, “What’s next?” Chris didn’t go home and think about how he’ll deadlift 705 for the rest of his life. No, each person craves the next challenge and busts their fucking ass to get there.

Someone recently commented on the site and said something like, “Some of us aren’t trying to be mega jacked and just want to get good, healthy workouts in.” I responded respectfully, but I honestly don’t understand that statement. You don’t want to be as strong or jacked as you can be? What does that even MEAN? It’s totally fair if someone’s family and work are the focus in their goals of success, but you’re never going to have any meaningful progress and success if you don’t step into a gym and aim to crush your god damn enemies.

Male or female, weak or strong, make a fucking decision to be great and never, ever look back.

There were five events spaced out on Friday and Saturday. Shawn and I attended the bodybuilding finals that (thankfully) also included the Strongman Classic final event and awards presentation.



View all of the competitors HERE.
View all of the events HERE.

I’ve known of Jeff Martone (owner of Tactical Athlete) since I got into CrossFit in early 2008, but I had never met him. After Shankle lifted in the 105 session on Saturday morning, Martone was sitting at his booth by himself and Jeremy and I decided to try the 90 pound pull-up (for a free t-shirt). I, of course, missed it:



Then I asked Jeff he was going to do any kettlebell juggling, but he only had 90 pound kettlebells (a bit heavy for KB juggling). Then I asked if he was going to do any Turkish Get-ups, and he said he needed a female that weighed 135 or less.
Mission: Find female who was 135 or less.

I went up to an over-cooked-tan blonde girl, and said, “Hi. I realize this isn’t a question a guy would typically ask a girl, but how much do you weigh?” I didn’t get slapped because I’m a little more suave than that, but she was 155. Then I saw a little gal walking with her husband. I politely asked the husband, and after hearing the question he chuckled and said, “Ask her,” while pointing to his wife. Well, we already know that that MISSION WAS ACCOMPLISHED, and here’s the vid (she weighed 110 pounds):



Jeff Martone has tons of experience in a variety of things including kettlebell training, martial arts, SWAT, self defense, and more. Read his accolades HERE.
And here’s an interview with Jeff Martone by Tyler Haas.

I first saw Preston at the 2010 Texas State and he’s…grown a bit. Now he’s 19 years old and kicking ass in USA Powerlifting. He’s a 120kg/264 lb lifter who competes in single-ply gear and has recently squatted 821 and deadlifted 650 at Junior Worlds. His raw bench is about 550. He ended up benching 300kg/661 at the bench only meet on Sunday and missed a second attempt 312.5/688.94.

Preston is friggin’ stout, and he’s a really nice guy. Again, there are a lot of good people in powerlifting. Keep training hard, Preston, and good luck.

Sorry folks, there’s not Q&A. I’ll also save my reading list for next week. There are still more posts that will be trickling out today from the Arnold including an interview with the young Preston Turner, the Arnold Strongman Classic Finals, the bodybuilding finals, some clips of Arnold, clips of me dicking around with one of the booths, random expo footage, Jeff Martone, and Mark Bell (probably put Bell’s up next week).

This post is where you should tell us about your weekly training PR’s and training updates. You may have some overall training goals for 2012, but now reverse engineer that and tell us what your goals for March are.

Train hard. If you can’t, read this.