I’m wholeheartedly inclined to believe, nay I know that there is no such thing as physical limits.
Before you joker’s comment about gravity, I mean as far as human performance is concerned.
There is no reason that a person couldn’t build up the work capacity and develop all aspects of performance to the point that they could move big weights,ultramarathon,and be explosive as hell; on a daily or near daily basis.
Look at history. There have been some amazing feats of labour,not even training. Simply men working with their hands,thier backs, and the sweat on thier brows.
A large percentage if not the majority of our abilities are rooted in our mind.
Former Navy SEAL Stew Smith had a quote paraphrased ” the human body will adapt to all you throw at it,running,calisthenics,swimming, weights do it long enough and the body will adapt ” This path of reasoning always resonated with me.( I wasn’t able to find the exact quote through Google or the notecard I wrote it on at 15)
It’s the weak thought that adaption won’t happen where so many gym goers go wrong.
I’ve been doing Olympic lifts near daily,and am treating March as shoulder specialization month.
The two and some extra back work are very synergistic.
I fully expect 225×20 jerks or better before the month is up.
Less than a week and I got it to around 10. I didn’t record that set so I’m unsure of the exact count. It was 9-11 reps though.
For the 3rd or 4th time in my life I power cleaned 255. I put it overhead,and barely missed stabilizing the 2nd jerk rep.( 1st time I overheaded that much.)
8 days in, and you can see a visible difference in traps,neck,and shoulders. Hell, all the heavy jerks have my abs thicker, closer to showing despite the highish bodyfat %.
I purposely am running myself into the ground with these. 5 days in a row of heavy and/or high volume. I know from past experience , like the quote says that if I do it long enough the body will adapt. I’m looking to not only up the power clean but lock in that new number as an everyday max.
I wasn’t supporting this with calories or sleep, just a strong dose of anger and never say die attitude.
Not eating enough. Train to light headedness, recover,next set the same. 50 reps of shoulders as a requirement, but I was closer to 100 heavy reps + 50-100 light reps each session . Far past required, and the hour minimum of Olympics + decent volume on rows.
The hunger was great for being aggressive and sttacking the bar, but after feeling very low I decided yesterday was calorie re-up day. I ate over 5000 calories, I’d estimate 5800. You know you need to eat when you zone out at the grocery store staring at a 10lb bag of chicken while contemplating what you’d like to do to it.
Today is going to be more of the same, tomorrow ditto. Training that is. Olys and shoulders. I need to hit some legs as well. Isometrics on the leg extension, some squats, maybe some inverse curls. Food no clue, I may keep low calorie for a few days . I am enjoying the aggression that is tied to it.
My gut says continue running myself into the ground,that adaption is close. I woke up mentally not wanting to do shit. Wanting the day off,and all that weakness. You know what I’m doing though? All the shit I have to. The closer and closer to gym time it gets the more I’m looking forward to a jerk PR attempt, on film, because I haven’t uploaded in a few days.
Holding the path always holding the path. Time to start cultivating the aggression again. Push the limits.
-J