In this last instalment we begin to wrap up our interview with Greg Nuckols by asking about meet preparation.
By the way check out the Youtube below of his record raw lifts this year!
Greg Nucksols: Well, peaking aside
(I saw you linked my blog post about it, thanks
:) ), meet day is more of an art than a science.
Competing is just as much as skill as squatting, benching, or
deadlifting. I have some tips, but
honestly the only way you can really nail it is practice. My first successful meet (where I hit the
numbers I was capable of) didn't come until my 6th or 7th trip to the
platform. I even had Travis (a guy who
knows more than a little bit about hitting big totals) handling me in two of
those early meets. People want to lift
big in their first meet or two, but honestly most people need several before
they figure out how to perform on the platform.
However, here are some tips.
1. Don't stress about
anything. You may have slept poorly the
night before, didn't rehydrate as well as you'd like, woke up with a stiff
joint out of the blue, etc. Once it's
meet day, things like that are out of your control. They are not solvable problems. If you devote mental energy to worrying about
stuff like that, it lets the subconscious message weasel its way into your mind
that you're not ready to compete. On
meet day, only focus on thoughts that build your confidence. Dwelling on problems is for training. Dwelling on strengths is for meet day.
2. Do not pick aggressive first
OR second attempts. You should never
never never never never never miss an opener.
I also don't think you should ever have to grind a second attempt
much. The first attempt is to make sure
you don't bomb. The second is to gauge
what you're good for on the day. The
third is to hit a number on the platform that reflects the training you put in
leading up to the meet. When in doubt,
pick conservative weights. Numbers on
the platform are numbers that matter.
Give youself a good number to improve upon next time rather than calling
for a long shot and either bombing or only getting your opener. Once you get good at gauging how you handle
weights, you should be able to pick a spot-on third attempt based on your
second.
3. Don't fixate on numbers too
much. If you show up at a meet just to
take a particular record, that's one thing.
Otherwise, meet day is about putting together the best total you can FOR
THAT DAY, not hitting an ideal dream-scenario total. I understand having a "game plan"
for your first two attempts to reduce the stress of planning your attempts on
the fly on meet day, but you third should be based off your second, not a
pre-planned number. You'll stress
yourself out about your third if you're not feeling it on meet day, or you'll
limit yourself if you stick too rigidly to a planned third that's way too
conservative.
4. Big breakfast, small lunch,
fluid throughout the day. Use the bloat
to your advantage. A ginormous bloat
will help you on the squat and bench, but will screw up your starting position
for deadlift. Eat a big breakfast on
meet day (enough before warmups that you don't get sick), make sure to salt
your food liberally, and get plenty of fluids.
If you do it right, you should be rolling into the venue with a bloat
that'll put 10 pounds on your squat automatically. You don't want to overdo it for lunch,
however, because a bloated stomach can keep you from sinking your hips into a
deadlift.
5. Find the level of focus that's
right for you. I personally find it
mentally exhausting to focus on lifting all day. I like chatting with other lifters, cracking
jokes, etc. between attempts. If you're
on the other end of things and you need to stay 100% focused all day, then find
a corner, bring an ipod, and have a friend tell you when you're up. Don't think there's one "right" way
or do things.
6. Manage arousal. Research shows that there's a roughly
bell-shaped curve for how arousal affects performance. If you're zoned out, you don't perform
well. If you're way over-aroused, you
don't perform well. Most people learn
how to find that happy medium in the gym by using things like music, yelling,
or ammonia for increased arousal or visualization, mediation, or inter-set
mobility work to decrease arousal. With
hundreds of eyes watching (including three judges), the dynamics change
somewhat, ratcheting up the level of arousal for most people. It's easy to over-psych in meets and make
dumb technical errors, or simply be burned out by the time deadlifts roll
around. Be aware that you're have a much
easier time getting "up" on the platform and a much harder time
coming "down" between attempts.
Plan accordingly.
There are probably some things I'm forgetting, but those are the high
points. More or less, get on the
platform repeatedly and find the style that works for you.
Training Truth: Great feedback Greg, I wish I had stuck to a better plan for my first
comp. While I had a blast I pretty much made every rookie mistake, from
overdosing on Gatorade to being hyped up for the whole 7 hours!
During your study breaks you work at Mash Elite Performance, tell us a
little about the facility and the man himself Travis Mash? What impact has he
had on your lifting career?
Greg Nuckols: The facility is
exactly what you'd want from a performance gym:
Racks, platforms, specialty bars (power bars, weightlifting bars, swiss
bars, trap bars, etc. No crappy gym bars
that get canoed from a 405 squat), some jerk/plyo boxes, ropes, GHRs, a
vertimax, some TRXs, and some prowlers, sleds, tires, a couple stones, some
dumbbells, bands, etc.
The most important thing about the gym itself, though, isn't the
equipment. It's the people and the
atmosphere. The guys I train and coach
with account for probably 90% of my close friends. We strike a good balance between constant
expectation of success and lack of judgement.
When we're training, we're simultaneously focused on trying to beat each
other and building each other up. It's a
tough balance to strike, and there are (admittedly) days that we end up goofing
off or getting overly competitive, but a surprising amount of the time it's an
unbelievably constructive dynamic, and the results speak for themselves. We carry that same ethos into how we train
groups of athletes and adults.
Good coaching is about more than giving someone a good program and
monitoring technique. It's about
interacting with the athletes, finding ways to motivate them when they try to
slack, reeling them back in when they start pushing a little too hard, knocking
someone down a peg when they're starting to get cocky in a way that poisons the
group dynamic, or building someone up when their confidence is holding them back
more than their physical ability. There
are plenty of places you can go, including Mash Elite, that are solid on the
fundamental, objective duties of coaching.
Mash Elite nails the intangibles better than any other place I've been,
though.
Now, Travis Mash. I think this
would best be covered in a narrative fashion.
Although I met Travis when I was 14, early on we didn't really talk much
about powerlifting in depth. He moved to
Chicago before I had the chance to learn much from him. However, the lesson he imparted early on,
without saying a word about it, was the value of high expectations. I'd train in the same group with him a pretty
fair amount. When you max is his second
warmup set (or, in the case of the deadlift, his first warmup was often 495, so
I couldn't even budge his first warmup weight), it really puts things in a
different perspective. I had lifted a
little at school, but in a football weightroom, 4 wheels is an impressive feat. Just getting used to seeing 8+ plates on each
side of the bar, and letting it sink in that people could lift that much
weight, did wonders for my psyche.
I didn't see Travis again until he moved back to North Carolina and
opened Mash Elite. I needed an
internship for my major, and I figured I could get one with him. That summer I learned a lot, but it was a
give and take relationship. I remembered
Travis as someone who was really arrogant, but marrying his wife Drew did
wonders for him, and he was much more open to learning new things and
exchanging ideas. That summer I was
running a modified Bulgarian Method program which, conventional wisdom said
(including everything Travis had ever learned) wouldn't work for a drug-free
powerlifter. Well, lo-and-behold, I got
a lot stronger. Travis, seeing that,
took some of my input and modified the program for the athletes to include more
near-max lifts for the clean and snatch, and it paid off. There aren't many 20 year olds who's
internship directors give them that level of respect. Travis, though, will give someone respect and
listen to anyone's ideas as long as they're logical and getting results. If nothing else, he's constantly evolving the
way he does things, rather than building a brand around a specific way of doing
things and consequently stagnating.
As I'm sure you've figured out, though, Travis and I are very different
people. I'm the type who likes to read a
lot, tinker with things, and come to a really robust understanding of the way
something works before I make any sweeping claims or recommendations. Travis is more brash and
action-oriented. Sometimes he says or
does things before really thinking them through, but much more often than not
me makes the right call and it's paid off for him as an athlete, coach, and
business owner. I temper his enthusiasm
sometimes, and he give me the impetus to climb out of my head and actually *do*
things. I think it's been a really
beneficial relationship for both of us.
Training Truth: I am a huge believer
in nurture over nature and that good mentors provide
an exponential boost up the learning curve whether it be in business or sport.
Sounds like you have a perfect set-up working with Travis at Mash Elite Performance
and from your insights he is obviously an elite coach and great mentor for you.
Greg this is probably a fitting place to end our interview series.
It's been great to have you stop by and give us an insight
into 'Nuckol's powerlifting prescription. You certainly have an analytical
approach to your training and preparation and no doubt you will have a real
push soon at some of those raw records you alluded to earlier.
No doubt plenty of questions will come from this series and I'd love to
host you again down the track! Hey you could always come lift raw down under at
a GPC event as hopefully Dan Green will be back on our shores in 2014.
It was great to have Greg give up some time and if you want to follow his blog and training progress head to his excellent site at http://gregnuckols.com/
Or learn more about Travis Mash's Mash Elite Performance at www.masheliteperformance.com
Stay Strong
Thomo
