Two Minute Clock

Hi Friends,

I hope this email find you well... And I don't say that is to speak in boring 'email speak', but more so to the fact that I don't entirely know what I'm doing when it came to creating this newsletter.

Example being, considering everyone received the 'welcome email' once subscribing, know that it took me an entire day just to figure it out 🤦‍♂️ ... A little embarrassing to admit, but it reminds me of a quote that I find rings true in many aspects, including weightlifting. The quote talks of taking 'messy action' over 'perfect inaction'.

I remember when I first had plans to start my own eventual podcast. The first attempt involved months of planning... Setting up a space, planning, strategising, shopping for a microphone, alongside buying other 'cute' things I didn't really need. Safe to say I didn't end up starting after all that work trying to be 'perfect'.

It wasn't until almost a year later when I thought 'fuck it', and picked up a blanket, pillows, that $99 microphone I bought a year prior and pulled out the voice memos app on my phone to record episode. Here's how the set up looked...

For reference, that is my infrared sauna, not a sound studio... From what I learnt after this recording, is that the two are world's apart!

The moral of that story was, that by limiting the time between idea and execution (which for this email newsletter, was about 5 days prior to sending this), gives myself a much better chance in not only starting, but sticking to it.

This goes out there to those out there with aspirations of competing in their first weightlifting competition, or something else they're putting off... The best thing I did for my weightlifting career, was entering my first competition only three weeks after my first ever session. It performance certainly wasn't a display of technical brilliance, but it was a start...

RAISING YOUR MINIMUMS

I recently posted on social media about the power of 'raising your minimums'. This is in regards to those not being able to lift in training, what they can on the competition platform. Or simply being a little hit and miss in training. Sometimes simply hitting a new 1rm won't serve you as well as improving your success rate on the attempts prior.

If I were to talk of the elite weightlifting scene, and the competitions I have personally attended. If there was one thing I initially noticed in joining the top level athletes all of these training halls, is that these top level lifters don't miss...

Take a 2016 interview with the pound for pound best female weightlifter by Sinclair, Tatiana Kashirina from Russia. Yes she one of the human pin cushions involved in the whole Russian systematic doping regime, but beside the point I'm making here.

She and her coach once sat down for an interview and was asked, "How often do you miss an attempt in training?". Her reply? "I don't miss"... The interviewer pressed a little further to try get an answer, so she turned to her coach to discuss, and after thinking it through for some time, they simply couldn't remember a time in training that she missed an attempt.

She is of course an outlier in this regard, but you get the point. By raising your minimums. Reaching closer to your 1rm with quality repetitions, and simply minimising your total training misses. It can then in turn, lead to a higher success rate on the platform.

This is something I personally haven't been the best with until my most recent competitions. I remember once trying to snatch 120kg for the first time and missing 23 times in a row before my body simply wouldn't allow me to attempt any more... Now I try follow my coach's words, in that you want to surprised when you miss an attempt. So you can miss attempts, we aren't robots 🤖... But at least be confident you'll make the attempt prior is in a sense what I aim in current times.

IN OTHER NEWS

As I said in the welcome email and sign up form, I'll add in pieces through my week to week that I found worth sharing. It'll change each week depending on what I have been up to...

WHAT IM WATCHING

The Act (On Binge)

Despite not being a fan of the Binge app... Essentially it's a barely functional Netflix clone that has ads scattered throughout your choice of movie/show. But, the mini series 'The Act' is worth a watch. A dramatised series of the real story of Gypsy Rose who thought at an early age due to her mother, that she had a severe illness that kept her wheelchair bound and eating out of a feeding tube... I won't spoil it, although you may know of the story, it gets wild.

​Zackdfilms (Instagram Page)

Not really a 'show'. But if you're a random fact lunatic like I always have been, then you would enjoy this page... 'Why clothes get darker when wet', 'why some people attract more mosquitos', 'why is grass wet in the morning'.... I LIVE for this type of content.

Leading into another instalment next week, which will more than likely include a deeper dive into a weightlifting specific topic. If you have someone you believe would benefit from receiving this newsletter, forward them this email.

If you have been forwarded this, press the button below to subscribe:

Until next week.

Happy Lifting 😎,

Brandon

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