I’m going to keep this one short and simple today because, well, the video speaks for itself. Simply stated: training environment is everything. Or, put another way, a component that’s – at the very least – highly underrated and something that most trainees never really get to experience.
In addition, one of the things we pride ourselves most with at Cressey Performance is the sense of camaraderie and “family” that’s instilled amongs our clients and athletes. We don’t have a secret handshake or anything (Note to self: we totally should), but everyone knows that when they walk through those doors, it’s go time. It’s time to work. And, even more importantly, there are absolutely no cell phones allowed.
^^^ See, I’m not kidding.
Anyways, getting to the point, the video below shows one of our clients, Dr. P, hitting a personal milestone of his – a 315 lb bench press.
Setting the stage, he actually missed his first attempt – bringing the bar down a little too high and failing just off the chest.
Not to be defeated, though, Dr. P wanted to give it another shot. He waited another 5-10 minutes, fired up his iPod, and set up for another attempt. Now, when I say that the entire gym literally stopped to watch and cheer on Dr. P, I’m not exaggerating. The video doesn’t show it, but there was a circle of clients and CP staff surrounding the bench as he set up for his second attempt. And well, I’ll just shut up now and show the video:
BOOM! Smoked it. Yeah, yeah, we can get all nitpicky and say that the descent was too fast, but it was under control. Don’t be a hater!
What you can’t appreciate, however (because the video was cut short), was that when Dr. P racked the weight, he leaped off the bench and was swarmed by everyone. People were jumping up and down, patting him on the back, as if he had hit a game winning walk-off homerun or something. It was pretty freakin cool. The only thing that would have made it more baller was if, after racking the weight, Dr. P got up and karate chopped a 2×4 in half.
Next time.
Congrats Dr. P!!!! You worked your ass off, and we couldn’t be prouder.
