Believe it or not, this is actually a topic that’s really hard for me to write about. This week in particular. For those of you that don’t know, the world of strength athletics lost one of strongman’s finest on Thanksgiving day (11/28/13), Mike Jenkins – 2012 winner of the Arnold Strongman Classic and one of the World’s Strongest men. He was 31. A gentle giant and a true inspiration that I had the pleasure of learning from and watching compete. I’ve been a huge fan of the sport of strongman since I was kid. People pulling fire trucks and planes, deadlifting cars, squatting 1000+ lb apparatuses, loading 300+ lb Atlas stones onto podiums for the best time? Freakin’ incredible. I credit the late Jesse Marunde for sparking my interest in the sport. But I blame guys like Mike Jenkins and Derek Poundstone for making me love it.
When Jesse Marunde passed away in 2007, the first thing I did was buy basic gym equipment for my garage. Then I promised myself, one day, I’d commit myself to the sport of strongman, just like he did. He’s the reason why I started working out. And he's also the reason why I want to pushy myself to be the best strength athlete I can possbily be. However, over the years, I strayed away from that promise and I dabbled in anything that’d spark my interest. But when I heard about Big Mike the other day, I immediately went back to that promise and said it’d be different this time around. This time, I made myself realize that it’s a goal to work towards. I have to build a foundation that I can build off of to set myself up for success. Jumping into strongman without a decent base for conditioning, overhead presses, squats, deadlifts, and explosive power is a recipe for disaster.
I talked to my coach about it the following day and got him to scrap whatever workout he had planned for a heavy day instead. I amused him with 1-2 sets of his plans so he could gauge what would be optimal for me, then we switched up the game plan from there. (I haven’t tested for a max in 2+ years so I don’t train based off calculations from my max. It’s not relevant to me when I’m fortunate enough to have a coach that knows me so well he can gauge my max effort everyday based off how I feel, previous performance, and 1-2 warm up sets) He asked what had me so fired up and I told him, “It’s a tribute workout (to Mike)." Last night, it finally hit me – why only do tribute workouts after tragic events? Why only commit myself to a higher standard after I lose an idol? The answer? I shouldn’t. Tribute workouts aren’t about burning myself out and getting beat down because I think Big Mike would’ve wanted me to push myself. Tribute workouts are about finding inspiration to go all out, max effort, while still training optimally. It’s about getting stronger. It’s about focusing on your goal and it’s about getting better. And yes, for me, it’s about keeping certain people in mind, not only to remind myself about why I’m doing what I’m doing, but also to make sure I don’t forget the people that have inspired me.
So this revelation renders me to ask, Nation – what keeps you guys inspired? What keeps you working towards your goal?