Mistakes, theft, and follow through...

I would like to say a greeting to all you Wicked Iron Undergrounders, however, there aren't any... No one has had the guts, the drive, or the money, to change their lives for the better. Not one person has joined the Underground, and that makes me sad. I am sad, because, you people think that you know what real training is. You think that you have the best personal trainer around. You think you can't afford to hire us...But you can certainly afford cable t.v., a huge comfy chair, and a 30 rack....Can't you? Guess what, the only way to change your life for the better, is to stop making excuses and start taking chances.
I would like to talk about mistakes for a minute, now that I have your attention, if you are paying attention that is. My business partner and I had a great opportunity this summer. We got a chance to run a boot camp for a brand new high school football team. That's right, brand spankin' new! This team was in it's first stages of creating a football program for their town, and we snuck in on the ground floor. You might be thinking, "well, good for you", and wondering, "why is he being such a jerk in the first paragraph", well, I am about to tell you.
We went to this practice, after a meeting with the coach. In that meeting, we outlined our intentions and what we would like to do for this team. We told the coach, we would get them in a place where they were "out of the box", head and shoulders above the already seasoned teams they would face this year. Our plans were robust, focused, and pertinent, and when we got to the end of our outline, the coach scratched his head and said..."I like your ideas, but, I can't pay you, and I think that I need to have more time with them before I have you guys come in. How about if we just try one day, and see how you do, and then we can talk about having you come in."
You are asking yourself, what is the big problem here, right? Nothing really, we told the coach we just wanted to ENHANCE his training methods with our own, not replace his. Which I am now going to lay out for you: This coach believed, and still believes, that football players need to be able to bench 200lbs. That doing lat pulldowns, and using peck decks, and pull over machines, and even the horrid Smith machine, will get his team into the kind of shape they needProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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o be in, to WIN!
What's wrong with that, you ask? EVERYTHING!!! Sure, the bench press can help, and all the other machines do something, however, if you have ever played football, and tried to block a tackle, you know for sure that this is a whole body function, not a single movement. Everything is done at the same time. How else can you move a 2oo+ pound guy out of the way? By bench pressing him? Really?
I digress...
We show up on a Saturday, get set up in a soaking wet field, and wait for the team to show up. They do, and let me tell you, I shuddered to think of how this team would fare, seeing the kind of kids they had on the team. The coach ran them around the field, made them do jumping jacks, all of that warm up stuff. Then it was our turn.
We did a short explanation and demonstration of each circuit station we planned out. Burpies with a strongman log, chain pushups, sand bag cleans, sand bag squats, tire flips, and kettlebell work. All things that use the WHOLE BODY to perform. We ran these kids ragged. We harried them at every point, pushing them to their utmost. The coach and his assistants....Fell in love with us, and what we were doing. The team, though exhausted, was having a blast, finally doing some hard work. Sounds great eh? Alas, it was all for naught.
When we were done, we were summarily dismissed, with promises that our business cards would get out to the team, and we were never called again. Before I go further, I want to let you in on something....We did all this work, for this brand new team, FOR FREE!!!! I know, right?
I called the coach, and offered another bootcamp, and he was excited for it, though he was quick to mention that he could not pay us. I decided, along with my business partner, that this was not in our best interest, and we declined. Doing something for free, once, is one thing. More than once, that is just idiotic.
Because of our success witht his team, at the boot camp, we decided to try and hit the other teams in the area. The "rivals", of the new team we trained for free. It didn't work out, for a whole host of personal reasons. Needless to say, things stalled. We had made a mistake. That much was clear.
The other mistake we made, was indirectly giving away our ideas. No sooner had we left, then the coaches of this new team, went out and got their own tractor tires for flipping, and using our methods, began to train their team with them. Essentially, stealing from us. Now, I know, we did not invent tire flipping, and were even trained by a pro how to do it, however, this team had never heard of such a thing before we showed up. Now, all their teams, including the middle school team, does it. Mistake number two.
Now, I have the privilege of being a middle school teacher, and many of my old students were on that team, and many of my current students play on the middle school team. This is how I came to learn about a few things going on with the football teams. The first was the theft of the tire. The second, validates what we here at the Wicked Iron Underground believe. Not too long ago, I was visited by an old student, who is on the high school football team, and was at our summer boot camp. He told me a story about his team. The team had won a few games, which was surpising, and I was happy for him, and the team. However, when he told me the scores, I was confused. All of the games they won, and lost, had huge scores on the board, for both teams. Now, if you watch football, very rarely do you see both teams scoring 40-50 points in a game. Yet, this was happening with my students team, EVERY GAME! I asked why. It was this...The offensive line was so weak (fitness and strength wise), that they were getting blistered every time they were on offense. When on defense, the team would actually make up the difference and pull ahead. In case you know nothing of football, this happens to be the opposite of what you are supposed to do. The coach brought his boys into the weight room for a strength check. Guess what? Not one of them could bench over 100 pounds. They lacked the stamina, and physical strength they needed, to do it on the field. When the coach asked the boys why this was happening, they told him..."We don't do enough lifting, or push ups, or conditioning during our practices, we just do it if we mess up, and then you only make us run..." When I heard my student say this to me....Let me tell you, I had a grin on me that went from ear to ear, bigger than a cheshire cat's I swear.
You see..The coaches fundamental mistake was this....He did not train his team to use their whole bodies. He did not keep them training with enough frequency. He did not keep them training in the correct methods of body weight excercise. He literally threw them in there off and on, and hoped for the best. What would happen if the Patriots did that? The Steelers? Any other NFL team? They would lose, plain and simple. This coaches mistake...Was thinking that the things HE used to do as a high school player, were going to work for his team. Bench pressing with a Smith machine, does little or nothing for the rest of your arms and chest. It works only the big muscles, robbing you of extra strength. By not using kettlebells or logs or FREE WEIGHTS EVEN! The coach hamstrung his own team. MACHINES SUCK! They do nothing to help you get stronger or fitter, they are a hoax.
What can I say Coach F....You should have called us, and you should have payed us a little scratch to do your work for you, now you have to suffer with what you have, which is a weak team!
Follow through, you have to have it. We didn't follow through this summer, with training the other teams in the area. The coach I described above, didn't follow through in training his team properly. This team, I have been talking about, not one of them called us for extra training. In a word, they lacked follow through. Now, I do this part-time. I would do it full time if people had follow through. So while, we lacked the follow through ourselves, to promote our business, who's lack of follow through was the most devastating? I say, it was the team and the coach. They are the ones losing, not me.

So, if you are tired of not following through with your own fitness goals, give us a call. Write us an email. We would be happy to help you achieve your goals. You would be helping yourself, and you would be helping us, to actually follow through with something.

We are the Wicked Iron Underground...And that is all.