SAPT 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Lift: Come Join the Fun
Thanksgiving is this week. Awesome. I mean, come on, Thanksgiving rocks pretty hard. It's one of the only days of the year (if not, the only day...) where it's widely acceptable, and even encouraged, to make it your top priority to eat, sleep, play backyard football, and watch football as much as humanly possible. And then repeat as many times as you can before the day is over. Not to mention, this is the first Thanksgiving I can recall where the football games actually matter. Like, when was the last time the Lions were good?! On top of that, the 49ers are my favorite team, so it's awesome to seem them doing well for the first time since circa 2002. I have high hopes for they'll pull off something respectable this year. Admittedly, those who know me well understand that watching football is far from my favorite pastime, but I bring this up nonetheless as it's a fairly monumental shift on the Thanksgiving football side of things.
Okay, SO, since you're all going to be eating turkey and pie as far as the eye can see, and then laying down to nap shortly thereafter, what better way to start your morning than to train inside Northern Virginia's Mecca for all things awesome in the lifting department??
This Thursday morning, at 8am, SAPT will be hosting its 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Lift. All ye in the Northern Va area are welcome to to come and train with us.
Yes, you read that right. All you need to do is show up and have some fun. No excuses, either...it's early enough so that you all can finish in plenty of time to travel and/or enjoy the rest of the day feasting and relaxing.
Come on, you know you want to. Plus, you get to see all four of the SAPT coaches under one roof! While, yes, at any given moment you may find us lifting heavy things, or in a similar position as Coach Ryan in the picture below...
we are actually kind-spirited at heart, and appreciate the little things in life, namely:
- The smell of new tennis balls
- When others actually use their turn signal in traffic
- When your smoothie blends just right (you know...when all the frozen fruit and ice chops PERFECTLY and quickly, and doesn't get lodged in the blade or stuck at the top without going down to the bottom)
- Achieving that perfect, crisp brown on a s'more marshmallow without torching it
- The aroma/atmosphere of a good coffee shop
- Hitting the traffic lights just right on a busy main road
- Rescuing kittens that look like this:
Considering we will all be there, along with a fair number of the SAPT community, where ELSE would you want to be on Thanksgiving morning?
Feel free to join simply to socialize, try out new and quirky exercises/routines you may have never done before, compete in farmers walk and/or tire flip races, and render your stomach more eager than ever to go home and devour copious amounts of dead animal flesh.
And, in case you missed it last year, here are some brief clips of our 1st Annual Turkey lift:
Hope to see you there!
Inspiration from Matthias Steiner
So, yesterday I began to type up a post related to Olympic lifting, when I was reminded of a video Chris and I had watched together over a year ago that had literally blown our socks off. We were in the middle of a lift and it swiftly gave us a roundhouse kick to the face and re-centered our perspective on things. Not only did it remind me that there are people out there cleaning, and then pressing overhead, more weight than I can deadlift, but it showed me yet another example of what can be accomplished when your mind is unshakably fixated upon something.
Maybe most of you have already seen this; if not, then I encourage you to watch it below. This is taken from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and features Matthias Steiner, who, at age 25, is competing for the Gold medal. The most moving part about this was not only did he clean and jerk 258 kilograms (that's 568 pounds for us Americans....yep, I'll wait for you to regain consciousness....), but his young wife of only two years had died in a fatal car accident the year before.
While Matthias knelt by her deathbed, he made a promise to her that he would become an Olympic champion.
He was the underdog in the tournament, and cleaned+jerked over 20 pounds more than he had ever lifted before. (For those of you who understand elite-level lifters, you know how incredible this was considering Matthias's training age). I think my favorite part about this is watching his face as he stepped onto the platform and grabbed the bar. Despite the fact that there were millions of people watching him, there was NOTHING on his mind except the fact that he WAS going to rip that bar off the floor and throw it overhead.
Matthias took his body and mind to a level that most of us will never even dream of. He defied logic, and slapped the face of the limits that are often imposed on us by others. He took something tragic that happened to him and made it into something good. Instead of sulking in a corner for the years following his wife's tragic death, he allowed the loss of her to push him and strengthen him to the point of accomplishing a near-impossible promise. The last promise he ever made to her.
An indelible lesson for all of us.
Free Training
Experience our distance coaching system for 2-weeks absolutely FREE!!! That’s right, we’re opening-up the vault so you can try a taste of SAPT goodness for yourself:
- 2-weeks (6-sessions) of carefully balanced and scientifically backed programming. This program is designed to mobilize, strengthen, and condition a moderately active adult!
- Step-by-step, in depth coaching cues to ensure you’re performing the movements correctly!
- Training videos presented in HD and accessible via most mobile devices!
To receive your 2-weeks of free programming and access to our online database of exercise videos click HERE. Fill in the relevant fields and indicate “I’d like to try the 2-week free Distance Coaching Trial,” and a SAPT rep will be in touch with you shortly to provide you your program!
On a final, and unrelated, note - as I am posting this, I am drinking the worst "fresh" cup of coffee ever. It tastes like I'm drinking a coffee flavored wet paper cup and it is NOT good.
How Bad Do You Want It?
One of the girls showed this video to me earlier today and I had to pass it along. The imagery is focused on basketball, but the message can (and I think is intended to) stand on its own.
