Haters gonna hate – longish and not for feint of heart

Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one and irrespective of knowledge, experience of anything resembling intelligence people will tell anyone willing to listen about their wonderful views and throw criticism around behind the safety of a keyboard and the sheltered lids of blinkered eyes.

Haters gonna hate so the saying goes.

Of course I reference the recent video of the #TeamAwesome pseudo power lifting competition and the barrage of hate mail I have now received from around the globe (along with many of praise for the effort and willingness to subject myself to the haters) regurgitating every text book ever written on lifting technique and having no thought of their own or clue about actual real life experience and what happens to your view of safety when winning and pride is on the line. Technique and safety always lose to winning, at any costs. (Just ask the chap who recently asked a number of world class athletes if they could take a pill that would ensure a win but would cause health problems later in life would they take it…you’d be shocked how many said yes) Winning is winning Truckers.

I hate bad technique as much as the next but who are you to say what bad technique is, really, who are you and what are your qualifications and how many people have you studied? Did you know that a percentage of the population naturally have protruding vertebral discs without ever knowing about it because it never caused them any problems? How do you know that round back deadlifting or forward leaning in the squat will cause me any harm? DO you know my body better than I, have you lived for 16 years with a massive tibial implant and knee replacement and learnt how to work around it? Well shit kickers, have you? Do you have a scoliosis and one leg an inch shorter than the other and have to lift with one shoe on? Oh didn’t notice the one shoe part because you were too busy trying to find your grab ass reason to slate someone about something you know less than nothing about weren’t you you cottonheadedninnymuggin (yes I did just quote Elf).

At any point in any of our Tweets, blogs or videos did we say “Hey pencil necks listen up, this is how you should train with weights, our tech if spot on” did we?

OR did we in fact always say from the beginning that in competition and max lifts that safety and thus technique goes out the window when the desire to win outweighs the desire for your textbook form…oh sorry, you hadn’t bothered reading those parts but still felt the need to weigh in and spit your venom in our direction. Shame on you anal itches.

Some of the worlds greatest ever deadlifters are/were “roundbackers” and some of the worlds greatest strength coaches in varying disciplines freely state that without round back strength your back is not truly strong (Ask me how to get round back strength and I wont tell you, come and pay for my time and I’ll show you). Worthy of note here the study on Strongmen stone lifting events by Stuart McGill (spine health expert) and he noted that the muscles create a “protective stiffness” to keep the spine safe – who would have known that muscles create stiffness to protect joints?

 A strength coach by the way, should make people stronger and not better at dancing around doing stupid drills with pansy ass medicine balls and playing tug of war horse shit. Strength comes from heavy loads, not balancing on stuff or twanging over sized elastic bands.

And for those that have asked for references on my round back ideas, here’s one; pick up a text book on how muscles adapt to strength training, learn why isometrics don’t transfer over to full range strength in at least 80% of the population, read how the spine is supported by the surrounding musculature and how it handles loads with and without support, spend the next 14 years reading more, testing everything, throwing out the horse shit, learn for yourself and stop taking every authors word as gospel and get under the bar for yourself and earn the right to talk shit. You want me to hand you my adult life’s research you lazy jock, think again, put down your copy of Mens Health and start reading because dear boys, you have a lot ahead of you.

Your ever loving Personal Trainer, Epsom,

Richard “Peg Leg” Ham Williams

Tags: deadlift, Epsom Personal Training, squat, strength training, strong