Fran"
Three rounds, 21-15- and 9 reps, for time of:
95 pound Thruster
Pull-ups
Week 1, I stood in front of 15 ladies and gave them the kind of speech I would g
ive my football team before the season. “Commitment, ladies. I need you to commit yourself for 6 weeks.” As they raised their eyebrows and swapped recipe secrets during me speech, I could tell they had no idea what they were about to put themselves through. I had to get them focused on our main goal, which was a conveniently timed Power Lifting meet on Virtualmeet.net, and not the fact that they would be telling the guys in the gym to, “Get out of the cage, I gotta squat.” After repeating the word commitment over and over like a bad used car sale radio commercial, they started to see how serious and passionate I was about this 6 week pilgrimage.
Before they even touched a weight, they had to buy into being a Barbell Betty. A strong, but still beautiful, Betty. I knew the buy in wasn’t going to be easy for some ladies, especially after what I was about to tell them next. “No cardio”. Gasp! It was like I told them there was a 2 for 1 sale on diamonds. They were shocked. I was shocked they all stayed. This was good. They wanted to be stronger and this was the next step.
The passion of lifting grew like wildfire throughout the ferocious 15. Scattered throughout those 15 were leaders, motivators, swearers and skeptics, all working together towards a common goal. They were out of their comfort zones, becoming a team, and seeing progress. But more importantly, they were doing.
It wasn’t easy. Ladies walking in sore, unable to squat but not wanting to sit out and squatting anyway! Ladies getting their very first box jump! Ladies box jumping on a 29 inch box! Belting up! Squatting with the big scary red plates after 2 weeks! Ladies actually FAILING on squats and bench and living to tell about it! Jumping squats with a bar on their back! After failing, screaming out ONE MORE SET! Lets go up 5 more pounds! It wasn’t easy.
Now I don’t have kids, but on meet day, I felt like a proud father with his video camera sitting in the first row watching their first recital. Only thing was this recital had a little less glitter and didn’t take place in a magical forest. I saw a 310 deadlift, multiple 100+ bench presses and , squats so low with 200lbs you would have thought the plates were Styrofoam. I saw ladies helping each other with form, taking plates off and putting plates on for one another. I saw ladies have 25lb PR’s in their deadlift. I saw ladies really, really mad they couldn’t lift a certain weight and try until we had to kick them out of the gym.
Thank you ladies. Thank you for committing to a rough 6 weeks. I was so proud of all of you and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to coach you. Your success was a direct reflection of your attitude, so keep it up! You are strong, you are beautiful.
Barbell Ken aka. Coach Tyler