found someone called orange county strength club. i guess anywhere from 4-16 guys lift there at once. going to hit them up sat morning which will suck to wake up for. he said most everyone shows up sat morning but it's the weekdays where not many people show up. gas is gonna suck so i guess ill be showing up when i can. hopefully ill learn a lot between all the people whose places i can lift at.

so i found some guys to train with in the oc in fountain valley. big dudes. from what i hear sometimes they have 15 guys there and sometimes there are 4, which is how many were there when i went. one of them said some guys live closed to me and i can either lift at their place so i dont have to spend the gas or we can carpool every other week.

learned a lot from one day of squatting. they told me how i was taking the bar out wrong, i was doing a head bob at the bottom, my feet werent pointed completely right. i was squatting in a monolift and they said i was setting up like i was squatting in a monolift but then i stepped back like it was a power rack and to keep my stance close when i pop the bar out.

i didnt even really push a lot of weight, i was just using 150 but they taught me so much that i was squatting with muscles i wasnt used to so it wore me out

they have a GHR and a reverse hyper so finally i get to use some cool shit. ghr was hard at first but then i got the settings and everything right so i look forward to using that and the reverse hyper. look forward to benching there. they were asking about my bench arch and i said "ive heard it looks quite nice" and that got a laugh.

looking forward for big numbers!

also i wanna buy a squat suit but i cant until we find a new roommate money is real tight until then

sounds pretty sick

cool man... congratulations. hope it all works out for you. you live in fountian valley? how old are you?

naw im 23 and live in riverside

Don't drop any soap.

Damn, I live 5 minutes from Scott's gym!

Extremely knowledgable.. Too bad about his bicep tear though, huh?

I was invited there on the weekends for some sled dragging.. Are you planning on going there all the time (or our area) all the way from Riverside?

that's awesome. Tyler, training with other people like those guys will teach you SO MUCH. That's really what training and powerlifting is all about for me.

It's the only sport I know of where the top contenders are generally willing to chat with the little guy and help them out. Kind of strange because you'd think that the top contenders would spend 100% of their time trying to stay on top.

I met Anthony Clark when I was probably 14 or 15. Spent an hour just chatting with him...dude was cool as shit. At my gym there was a girl and her brother who both held world records at the time...the Ricciutos. Anthony Ricciuto now writes articles for Powerlifting USA and sells nutrition plans. Also Glenn Ranno was a top Submaster lifter at my gym who helped me more than once.

Joe Dougherty was competing in the 198's when I met him and last I checked he's still in the top 10 as a 181. I trained with him a few times and he helped me out more than I can say. At the time I didn't even know that Joe was as bad-assed as he was. I knew he was throwing up some weight but I had no idea that he was Top-10.

I visited Westside when I was 16 or 17. It was a cool experience, but in hindsight I didn't really learn much. It wasn't like Louie took really any time out of his schedule to show me anything. We chatted at length, ate dinner together with his wife and I ate breakfast with the sunday morning crew.

Really the best experience I've ever had was at Southside Gym...Vincent Dizenzo and Matt Rhodes. Those two spent hours and hours with me on a saturday morning. I learned so much in those hours. It put about 50 lbs. on my best bench over the following month.

It's worth the driving time if you're looking to be more than just an average lifter who is trying to figure things out on their own. Often times you can't see your own mistakes...reading can only get you so far. Training with people who are weaker than you isn't very helpful either because they won't challenge you like stronger guys will.

i havent met any scott yet i dont think. it's been hard to keep track of everyone's name so far but im pretty sure i have them down now. although ive heard about a lot of people being injured so it could be anyone!!

i plan on lifting there on sats from now on and bench at this guy mike's house on mondays since it's closer. ive been meaning to look into buying a sled for my house but then again id have to buy weights too haha. we just got a roommate too so now i can finally spend some money. im going to ask around to see if i can get a used one.

ya. it's really hard on squats cuz i know im not that great but it's like everytime i squat i got everyone telling me 50 billion things im doing wrong and it's hard to process it all. i mean i like that im getting better it's just difficult with everything being thrown at me at once you know? i think one thing at a time works better. like ok you fixed this now onto this. not slowly bringing up everything at once. but whatever

only thing i really didnt like was when i was squatting a few times people would talk amongst themselves what i was doing wrong. that really pissed me off cuz it's like they're talking behind my back but in front of me. AND it doesnt help me if i cant hear what im doing wrong cuz then i cant fix it, and it doesnt help THEM talking about what im doing wrong. so that really made me mad but whatever ill get there soon.

one funny thing is last time i showed up kinda late and i went to squat in a separate cage (they have a monolift AND a squat rack) and i felt like i was at the kiddie table at thanksgiving dinner. littler 220er squatting 225 trying to fix technique while everyone is on the monolift saying STRIP IT DOWN TO 400!!! and like 6 guys do it rocket fast and then some are doing 600-700. kind of intimidating to say the least. i mean i know ill get there it was just the fact i was off in the corner doing my little light weight and everyone is pushing that shit. i thought it was really funny. "hey im the 2 plate guy!!" *squat*

i like how my schedule is now though. heavy stuff at other peoples garages and speed/rep/accessory stuff at ballys.

also, this guy mike was like you're a what? 220? and you dont have a squat suit? we'll have to fix that. and bam. i now have a titan single ply super nxg+ squat suit. i dont know what his terms are, like if im borrowing it, or buying it at a discount, but it's really cool since these things are 170 bucks now. so awesome

Don't feel too bad...when I was at Westside they had 3 different benches in racks for LARGE, MEDIUM and SMALL.

I was amongst the small crew and I was the smallest of the small. We were hitting dynamic work and these guys were working with 225+ at the time, which wasn't far off from my max bench of 300.

But as far as the criticism goes...you should ask if you can come early or stay late to work on your technique a little more. The squat is SUPER technical. If you've been squatting like shit for awhile, you probably have those glitches programmed into your movement. It's going to take awhile to work them out. But once you know and have memorized the feeling, you can practice all the time.

It may sound stupid or corny or whatever, but there's nothing stopping you from practicing in front of your TV, every time you go to sit down or stand up, take your squat form. Same thing with bench...I used to do it all of the time. Try to cement those feelings and sensations into the mind as much as possible.

Take the criticism and the shit talking for what it is..."What would I say to you if I didn't like you?.....nothing." For those guys to be mentioning your screw ups, even if they aren't talking to you, it's helpful shit bro. Most powerlifters will recognize the fact that you're there at the gym, training to better yourself...right?

As far as the suit goes...I'd get some money together and offer it to him. If he takes it, cool. If he doesn't take it...cooler. Alot of guys will throw their older suits and shit that doesn't fit towards guys who need equipment who are just starting out.

i like all the criticism dont get me wrong. i just dont see the point of critiquing my technique to eachother. i still take it and better myself though

and ya i was going to ask him tomorrow what his terms for it are. i can pay him for it but i dont carry around cash and dont feel like bringing that much money around just to possibly not use it. if he wants money ill see him 2 days later anyways

LOL, I thought you were talking about OCB which is a totally different place. Funny you mentioned about OCSC because I also just started going there as well. Manny is the owner. Yeah, crazy how much stuff's in there. I'm planning on tweeking my work schedule to get in there at least on both ME days.

I was talking with Manny and he was going in depth about how everyone critiques each other.. We were talking about how a few guys come all the way down from the desert to train. Then I remembered about this thread and asked if one of the fellas was named Tyler. Yep, he needs some work with his squats.

Just don't get discouraged! He said a lot of people left due to that. Trust me, come ME day, I'm seriously all ears!

ya he was saying some dude showed up and was like huh tyler ya he posts on some mb haha

ya no doubt on my squat help. i really hope to drive it up really high really soon just on bringing up my weaknesses. funny thing is i dont get much critique on my bench form, just what i need to do to get it stronger. i havent deadlifted around them yet so who knows about that. i really hope with all these really strong people ill be raising my numbers up a lot real fast and then of course slow down once all that tweaking takes place. i really want like a high 3/low to mid 4/mid to high 4 by november.

There are different kinds of gyms...I'd say that Westside is a Squatters gym. Yeah they've produced some fairly big benchers but they aren't the world leaders with benching...They expected Kenny Patterson to break 800 lbs. years ago and he didn't.

There are other gyms where they really focus on the bench and they are really technical with it.

It sounds like your place is a squatters gym.

you know i never thought about that but you're mostly right
i mean on bench day it's not nearly as many people, but the uh....id say 2 guys in there that i saw show up both days are really good technical lifters and really strong. one guy has lifted and will lift in like any fed, raw, single, multi, doesnt matter. he's really cool and helped me out on both.

but like i said on bench day it's like 6 people, sometimes 4, but on squat there has been 10+ people somewhat consistently

A quick little story.

I visited Westside on a dynamic-bench day. Nobody told me that my form was good, bad, ugly or anywhere in between. Nobody told me to do anything different.
I was tossed onto a bench to work in with the small guys. I did my dynamic work, Louis wanted me to take out a max afterwards, which I did and I got crushed...then I did some DB tricep extensions and DB cleans and presses.

When I visited Southside, I had Vincent Dizenzo and Matt Rhodes critiqueing my every move and mistake. There were 50 different things that they were telling me to do at once and I'm doing my best to process it all.

The difference between the two experiences? After visiting Southside, my bench press jumped up substantially.

Why?

Louis has always preached that you work the supporting muscle groups and your lifts will increase. It's that whole "weakest link in the chain" thought. At the end of the day it's common sense...but not entirely.

They say that powerlifting is not technical...compared to Olympic Weightlifting, it's not. Powerlifting is still technical though. Technique makes ALL the difference in leverage and what muscles are being utilized.

If you're not taking advantage of your leverages and utilizing all of the muscles available to you for the particular lift...you're going to see LIMITED benefit in increasing the strength of a supporting muscle...if you know what I'm saying.

If, for example, you're a pec-bencher...and your bench sucks shit because you're only able to utilize 10% of your tricep strength benching the way you bench. So you start hammering the fuck out of your triceps...because that's what everyone says to do...increase your tricep strength and you can bench big. You spend 16 weeks hammering your triceps and your bench goes up by 10 lbs. Now what?
But if you were to shift your bench style to utilize your triceps more, you might have just added 50 lbs. on your bench.

Get what I'm saying?

Did you actually meet and get coaching from THE Louie Simmons? Or, was that a different Louis?

yes. Westside Barbell Club. Lou Simmons.