I received this in my email yesterday from one of my clients, John, who is kicking ass in training
A Month of Steel and Counting
Exactly
one month ago, much consideration, I enlisted the help of James Steel
with my training. I say after consideration because there are a plethora
of coaches/athletes, many of them quite impressive, out there offering
online consults. I had become aware of Mr. Steel from Elitefts and
subsequently followed his writings both on his site and various others.
When
I stumbled upon "Steel Reflections", I purchased read and thoroughly
enjoyed it. Jim's experiences in my neck of the woods (rural NC)
resonated with me as did his very practical and earnest philosophy on
lifting and life (is there really any difference?). Despite his now
residing on the other side of the line (any southerner should be able to
figure that out), I decided to overlook that and get in touch.
Boy am I glad I did.
My Background
I
have always been active and fit, though nothing on any elite kind of
level. Though I have a 30 year history of Okinawan karate training, I
did not seriously pick up the weights until the last decade. Of course,
the first 5 or so years were spent in newbie purgatory, where I
haphazardly trained in accordance with the current trends. I did
experience the novice effect but quickly leveled out.
However,
I did have the bug and hunger to get bigger and stronger. My goals were
simply to get stronger and as someone approaching 50 (did I just write
that?), I wanted to be old man strong and kick ass. When my wife and I
moved to our new house, I bought a power rack and weights, GHR and
various bars for training in my garage. I prefer to train alone, because
I am somewhat asocial. I made decent progress following a few popular
programs, but I always knew I was not training optimally.
Contact
After
a quick query and response, I provided Jim with a pretty detailed
breakdown of my training history. I included by stats and my best gym
lifts as well as my goals. Within a couple of days I had my first weeks
training program in hand and like others have written, the first thing I
thought was "volume!". Jim had taken into consideration my busy life as
well as my equipment and stats for a program that would tax me, but not
kill me. Every week, adjustments are made and new goals are created for
that week.
Training
Since
I train alone, I have never really had the confidence to push things
and though I certainly train hard, I seldom pushed myself to the point
of grinding/straining. Because of that, I was not really getting the
most out of my training. Along the way, Jim has challenged me and I've
had the motivation to get my reps in as prescribed. This has made a
tremendous difference in my strength levels. I still get my weekly
training and think "Holy shit, he's fucking crazy!", but each week I
"lift the weight" and get it done. Each week, I can feel myself getting
stronger and I am beginning to notice some hypertrophy changes too. He's
designed a program around my weaknesses and is always forthcoming with
critique of my form (through video) and encouragement. Through video,
I've been able to make adjustments to my form and its making a
difference. With notes in my training for the week like, "push the
lockout!" or "gotta get these, lots of speed", I have a mental focus
that I never had training solo.
I am only a
month into working with Jim at the time of this writing, but I have
arranged ongoing consultation. I highly advise anyone on the fence to
make the jump, you will be shocked at your progress! No matter how
seasoned you are, there is always a great benefit to working with Jim,
simply because he has done it all, seen it all, and has come out on the
other side with a no bullshit philosophy that centers around hard work.
