Little Muscles, Big Jobs

One of the rugby players pulled me aside.  ‘I’m worried about my ankle,’ he said.  ‘We had our first day of practice yesterday, and I can already feel it.  Do you know anything about ankle strengthening?’

‘I don’t,’ I confessed.  I had provided programming and a bit of coaching for their summer strength training, and a group of us had just discussed the transition to conditioning and preparing for the season.

‘I’ll look it up and get back to you,’ I promised.  On YouTube is a video in which a coach hops on one foot from side to side as well as up and down onto bumper plates lying flat.  I had seen a training manual in which athletes hop on boards slanted to one side or another.  The coach in the video mentioned this.  ‘If you’re hopping from side to side, this accomplishes the same thing.’  He went on to explain that these plyometrics train your capacity to handle ground forces.

I sent the link, saying, ‘What I don’t know about ankle strengthening this guy does.’

Afterwards, I began to notice that a lot of kids already include plyometric drills in their training.  The other day, at the outdoor gym, one young man was leaping up onto a platform with one leg, the other, and then both, and then similarly leaping down.  He then went over to a basketball court and proceeded to skip and bound up and down its length - spending much of each trip three or four feet in the air.

An aside:  If basketball star Michael Jordan was a ‘gifted’ athlete, then one of his gifts was a phenomenal level of plyometric reactivity, especially during an era when only the Russians knew how to train this.

Also, because I looked up that video, my big computer has convinced my little computer - my phone - that this is important, so now I’m getting all kinds of video suggestions for fine tuning body parts like knees, feet, and rotator cuffs.  This stuff is in.

It’s a little disconcerting how well my electronics have sensed the moment.  If not knees, feet, and rotator cuffs, then other body parts have come up.  The major roles played by seemingly minor muscles have become a trend in my coaching and training.

Another student e-mailed me last weekend:  ‘My lower back still hurts.  Stretches aren’t working.’  It had been a week or 10 days.

‘OK,’ I wrote back.  ‘I’m going to Home Depot.’

A second aside: this is one of the two leaders of the school weight lifting club.  Upon listening to my introductory lecture, they elected to follow the plan I drew up.  In five months, one increased his squat by 80 pounds, the other by 60.

At Home Depot I bought some lengths of 2x8 and 2x4 and a box of screws.  In my driveway, I fashioned two flat platforms, really each just a pair of 2x8’s running in parallel, modeled after the one I’ve had in my home gym for years.    One went to the outdoor gym, the other to our main indoor gym.

Because things can move a little slowly around here as lawyers ponder everything, I included the following explanation in an e-mail to the athletic department staff:

“It’s come to my attention that a certain number of athletes are suffering from the lower back strains that typically come with training, but they don’t know how to treat them.  The reverse hyper platforms are valuable tools in a protocol that should have them back to strength in about a week’s time - which 99 times out of 100 is faster than simply allowing the injury to rest.

The rationale for the protocol is as follows:

1.  When a small muscle in the lower back is pulled, not only will it hurt, the surrounding muscles will tighten up and similarly hurt to protect it.

2.  This mechanism is counterproductive, particularly if the original pull is minor.  These muscles will stay immobile and painful - accidentally - far longer than necessary.

3.  The best way to heal the injured muscle and reintroduce motion to all its confederates is to put it - and them - through a full range of motion with very light resistance.

4.  However, lower back muscles tend to be locked up at the very end of their ranges of motion.  They’re there to hold position, namely the lumbar curve, so they don’t get much of a chance to perform their full function.

5.  The reverse hypers allow an athlete to bend and then extend his lower trunk so that those muscles do work through their full ranges of motion.  Neurologically the muscles are reminded that they must function; they are not allowed to lock up and refuse to behave.  Circulation is also stimulated; the molecular damage of that injury is carried out, and new restorative groceries are brought in for healing.

In the event of a back pull, this is the protocol:

1. An athlete undergoing severe or sharp pain will have to take painkillers and wait at least 48 hours for the pain to ‘blur,’ which is to say lessen in severity and not seem like a knife driving through one particular point.  **[I threw this in because I know how trainers and coaches can fall down dead over how crippling and dangerous back injuries are - in their minds {mainly when you don’t know how to treat them.}  As I used that word ‘blur,’ you can see that this is clearly plagiarizing the many articles available on the Starr Protocol.]

2.  When they’re ready to try the reverse hypers, they set a pair of squat rack spotter arms to slightly above waist level.  The platform is made to span the spotter arms and not slide in any direction.

3.  Grasping the forward edge and with their forearms on the platform, they will belly down onto the platform.  Their legs, behind them, will extend to horizontal and swing down to beneath them - and past vertical.  They can look down and see their toes ahead of them as their bodies bend.

This motion rounds the lower back and stretches tight, unhappy muscles quite effectively, as the legs swing forward.  When the athlete lifts their legs to horizontal once more, the glute muscles and the hamstrings will take the primary load - leaving a small percentage of the weight for the back to lift.

4.  NO WEIGHT is attached to the legs.

5. Typically, an athlete will knock through 4 or 5 sets of 10 or 15 reps.  The relief can be so profound that they’ll want to do more.  Really, healing can take as much as a week of hitting these daily, stimulating activation and circulation in the muscles.

Even uninjured athletes will like these.  A football player with a ‘stiff back’ tried these when [Esau] and I were testing the platform, and he was impressed.

This is a very simple if unorthodox approach.  Stretching a tight back would seem obvious, but this is the best possible leverage for doing so.

The reverse hyper platform was invented by powerlifter Louie Simmons.

[I also included a video link.]

Of course, light weights and high reps to heal muscle belly tears is an old trick in strength circles.  You can Google 'The Starr Protocol,’ named for strongman and coach Bill Starr.

Once again, the Bat Signal shone into the night sky.

A third aside: the kids at this school tend to be so busy and their schedules so full that they lift when they can, which is various times on various days.  That means that the club does not have designated training times where I can roam around and supervise.  I’m meeting kids here and there, functioning like a consultant.

This body part is buried deep in the shoulder, in the seam between the pec muscle and deltoid.  This latest kid wrote,’Since the week I hit 270 on bench I have started losing strength due to an extremely tight left shoulder with no mobility. Over the quick summer break before the Halifax trip I was able to get back up to 265, but after returning anything over 185 gives a debilitating pain . . . I am unsure what to do to loosen that up as I would like to keep progressing towards the goal of 3 plates. Do you have any suggestions for shoulder stretches/ exercises in that plane of motion?’

I answered, ‘I bet I know what this is, but in any case we’d have to follow a protocol, loosening up that pec muscle by way of massage with a softball or lacrosse ball, getting some stretches in with a band, and retraining your bench press set up by way of the floor press, to teach you how to set your shoulder blades - and shoulders - the right way.

You’re probably beating up some little muscles that are not meant to bridge the gap between chest and shoulder and carry a great deal of weight - SO you might have to bag the bench press for the immediate future.  Inclines wouldn’t hurt, but dips do, right?

You’ll bench, but by way of floor presses, to retrain your brain and give those little dudes in your shoulder a chance to heal.’

My coaching is taking on a new and nearly infinite dimension, wisdom gained from the moronic things I’ve done to myself, a far greater category than all my magnificent exploits.

The cure for a shoulder in flames is in the floor press, which teaches an athlete to set his shoulders properly.  A coach can say what’s supposed to happen: ‘Put your shoulder blades in your back pockets,’ and athletes will get down on the bench and do it - some better than others, but everybody loses the position pretty quickly.

The floor press allows an athlete to lower the bar (in a bench pressing motion) to where the backs of their arms rest on the ground.  From there, and on each rep, he or she can hoist their torso up in the air in order to squeeze their shoulder blades together and down to where they belong.  In this position, the lifter’s chest is held high, the arm bones are buried deep in the sockets of the shoulders where they belong, and the pec muscles are stretched backwards to full length, primed to contribute as powerfully as possible.  Furthermore, those smaller muscles between the chest and shoulder that had been handling a load not intended for them are now tucked safely away.

A month or more of floor presses will train an athlete to set their chest correctly in the regular bench press.

Near my house is the campus obstacle course, which is a pretty dicy challenge with a particularly cruel final event.  It’s a rope climb - but with a very thick rope, probably four inches in diameter, like a fat, full firehose and not the typical two-inch rope in your high school gym, or which would be like the end of an Olympic bar.  Climbers already exhausted from the entire course cannot muscle themselves up to the crossbar.  Typical grip strength cannot manage a rope that thick, so they must wrap it in their legs and feet and inchworm upwards with their entire bodies, which is brutal as a final test.

We had a guest over the other day whose kids wanted to try the course.  As I stood by the ropes as fresh as a daisy, I wondered if my grip could manage the thick rope for a quick legless climb - which I could do on a two-inch line any day of the week.  It could not.

I’ve had two opportunities to sail along the East Coast on a tall ship.  The first trip was on the smaller of the two ships, with a smaller crew who had to work very hard.  Everyone’s forearms were noticeably developed.  After only a few days aboard, heaving on manila lines of all sizes, I could see a difference in mine.

This is all to say that the Popeye Effect - the giant sailor’s forearms lampooned in the old cartoon - is a 100 percent valid scientific proposition.  It’s an adaptation I have to regain so that if any more visitors pop in I can make a suitably quick legless dash up these four-inch ropes.  This means a stop by the O-course for a few climbs at the end of my upper body days - and I’ll eats me spinach.

If I’ve broken down the major lifts into their component movements, then this is the next level of specificity.  We can’t take the little muscles for granted.

Trunk Strength

Here’s one of my more unusual career statistics: I’ve quarter squatted 700 pounds, back when I was in the 11th Grade.  My high school coach was a veteran of Bob Hoffman’s York Barbell program for power rack training, so at some point between our conventional progressions for back squat or front squat he’d set aside a week or two for specialized ‘overload’ training.

At the onset of his teaching career, when he arrived in town newly married and fresh out of grad school, he had to get a summer job to generate some cash flow.  He took a job at a trucking company, where the boss led him to the back of the property, to an ancient warehouse awaiting a cleaning.    

Coach would soon discover stacks of flywheels from trucks and construction vehicles of all sizes.  They were giant, heavy hunks of iron -  but wheels, like barbell plates.  It was a fortune’s worth of gym equipment for someone willing to be a little unconventional.  Some of the wheels found their way to his house after work.  If the boss knew, he didn’t care.  They were all candidates for the scrap heap as far as he was concerned.   

In our wonderfully rough and tumble high school weight room, down in the coal cellar deep in the foundation of the giant mansion in which our Prep school was founded, with its yellow painted four-foot thick stone walls, we had two sets of these flywheels that I can recall: two saw toothed 85-pounders, which were from full sized garbage or dump trucks, and two ferris wheel shaped, spoked 110 pounders that were from a crane.  On a bar, they would account for an immediate 400 pounds.  With our remaining plates, we could create loads in excess of 800.  Coach considered quarter squats essential for the big guys who’d be throwing the shot and discus.

They did us all a great deal of good, certainly more than we realized at the time, if my recent experiences are any indication.

Influenced by the idea behind Westside Barbell’s training - not the conjugate max work but the assistance work on the lifts’ various components - I’ve made a point of deconstructing my major lifts.  Starting with the bench press, I realized that pectoral muscles that are not trained through their several ranges of motion will have little to contribute to the lift.  Thus the dumbbell rotation I’ve described in the past.

In the squat, another Westside analogy applied: a 28 year old squatting 700 quickly discovers his weaknesses under such extremes.  The same is true for a 58 year old guy squatting 400.

Belt squats, with a lever arm attached to my rack, allow me to drop into a deep position and attack my legs without any strain in my lower back.  The pain from a heavy bar on my back had to be sorted out, I was thinking.  My legs could lift a ton.  That span between the bar and my lower back was the weak link.

This was the moment my eyes fell upon the pair of old saw toothed 85-pound flywheels I had picked up on a visit to see Coach a few years ago.

Quarter squats are done by engaging a bar set at nipple height, or just below the pec muscles, driving it up from a dead stop, and lowering it to repeat the process minus any bounce or touch-and-go at the bottom.  I started at about 500 pounds a few weeks ago for 3 sets of 3 once a week, and I’ve worked with 665 most recently.

The trick is in bracing like a champion, which interestingly does not mean going to extremes like taking ten gallon inhalations and straining madly.  You do have to take a decent breath but not so much that you can’t focus on bracing your back muscles and setting your abdomen against your belt.  Another trick is in not standing up quite all the way, which would allow your hips to sway in beneath you.  You maintain the same position and muscular tension that got you up to begin with.

It took about three weeks for me to notice any difference while picking up my 300-pound-plus conventional squat weights.  With improved bracing strength, the usual sets and reps no longer hurt.  My progressions are headed back in the right direction.

I haven’t broken my deadlifts down into components in this fashion just yet - maybe because I already have long ago, doing Romanians and heavy shrugs in the rack.  The deads themselves had needed the same reset that squats did about two months ago, but they too are on the move once more, so interesting questions arise:

Was the whole issue a case of bracing strength - for both of these lifts?

In the dead, I’m not doing Romanians or any other hamstring assistance work, mainly because I’m a little beaten up and sick of it.  How far will the bracing work of quarter squats take me?  Are conventional deads once a week enough to get the job done?  Stay tuned.    

Muscles Are People, Too

They just want to do simple jobs and be happy.

I’m developing a theory, which is probably not original, so let me re-state this: I’m developing an understanding of what others have figured out before, that muscles just want to move quickly and well.  From the top to the bottom of a given lift and back again, the trip should be about two seconds, a ‘one-one thous - ‘ down, which is a bit less than a second, followed by a full ‘one-one thousand’  and maybe a bit more on the way up.

The lift also has to run through the muscles’ full range of motion, the better to maximize the stretching and contracting functions of the central nervous system.  For example, as you’re gazing at the screen, put one fist up, ready for a biceps curl.  You let that fist down at a reasonable speed: ‘one-one thous - .’  Pause briefly, and then it’s ‘one-one thousand,’ coming up.  That’s generally going to be your rep speed as you train.  Things could get a little slower at the end of a set of 5 or a heavier 3, and especially at a top level single, but by and large the muscles are happy to be operating according to design.

What would it mean if muscles were not happy?  They would be slow, sore, and tight from moving slowly and holding the weight too long.  In what is clearly a defensive measure, they would give every indication that they don’t want to train.  This could be because the wrong muscles are doing too much work for too long, like the quads being forced to put on the brakes during squats.

Unhappiness could be from the complete opposite:  the muscles that are supposed to engage don’t really get a chance.

Compound lifts like the squat and the bench press are not the simple leverages of that biceps curl you just did.  They involve multiple joints, limb lengths, and muscles operating in conjunction.  Leverage dictates the share of the load each body part bears.

Some combinations of bone lengths and muscle insertions move weight more efficiently than others.  For example, I’ve always been a decent squatter but a fair bencher at best.  A thick chested and comparatively short armed friend of mine can bench press magnificently.  He’s pretty incredulous at how I struggle along.      

Since natural leverages vary, some athletes do not make effective use of the muscles tasked to perform a given lift.   That bench pressing friend of mine has gigantic pectorals that wrap around his rib cage, with all the fibers primed to heave in unison.  I’ve benched and benched, and my pecs have never had much to contribute or show for all the effort.    

The bodybuilders of this world have long known this about the bench, and experienced powerlifters like the folks at Westside have been making up for it for a long time: the bench just doesn’t fully work the chest for most people.

I’ve also discovered, through my own example, that lifters can be counted on to make bad situations worse.     

My legs had become slow, sore, and unhappy from squats into which I lowered myself far too slowly, feeling my way through while wondering how far back to send my hips, incline my torso, and spread my knees.  I was crouched like a ski racer tearing down the slope.  Heavy weights had become misery.

This is wrong, I realized in the middle of a workout.  The solution has been some nice deep box squats with my feet set wide to simplify the motion.  This sends my knees way out, so I’m not going to do a great deal of inclining with my torso, and I can drop straight down into a nice, low adductor stretching position with that ‘one-one thous - ‘ timing as I commit my weight to the box.

I confirmed the logic of this approach by watching a YouTube video by powerlifter Matt Wenning, a former champ and now coach.  My hamstrings are engaged simply and directly, like in that biceps curl earlier.

One day in high school 43 years ago, Joey [Salerno] and I were bench pressing, gutting through sets of 5 with 165 pounds and pretty proud of ourselves.  Neither of us had ever reached a 200 pound max, but this had to be the day, we decided.  We loaded up 200 pounds.  Joey got it.  I did not, which had me near tears, fighting not to bust out bawling completely - which of course amused everyone and made the entire ordeal worse.

Joey must have had some reserve muscle mass or some quirk of leverage in his frame that made him a superior bencher from that moment on.  I would have sold my soul for greater mass or leverage, but I had no way of knowing I should have been cycling through dips, flat and decline bench dumbbell work, and lying triceps extensions to get them.

That’s in bold in case someone is actually reading this blog and stumbling upon something that might make a difference in somebody’s life.

Each pec muscle is the size and shape of a deck of cards fanned out by a magician, with the ends all tied in where the shoulder meets the armpit.  This construction means that the pectorals are involved in a number of different motions: primarily horizontal adduction, which is to say sweeping your arm, if it were held out to your side, in front of you.  This is on all levels, from your hand being above your head to all the way downward, as if you’re flapping your wings and slapping your thigh with the palm of your hand.

It rotates your humerus inward as you’re throwing a punch or a ball, and it brings your arm back up in front of you from behind, if you had your hand in your back pocket.

When you bench press, which means your elbows are flared out sideways when the bar is on your chest, the sternocostal heads are most likely the ones drawing your upper arms forward and across.  The variables in this leverage are upper and lower arm bone lengths and the distance the bar travels.

However, what the barbell bench press does not cover in pectoral action, dips and flat bench and decline bench dumbbell presses do.

(So do incline dumbbell presses, though I’ll explain why I don’t use them in my rotation*.)

I’ve finally grasped what may other lifters have known, that the bench press is an assemblage of various strengths that are fully realized elsewhere.  Dumbbells allow for greater ranges of motion around the shoulders, and the stabilization necessary to control independent weights would appear to activate greater muscular recruitment than does the comparative stability of a barbell.

The various leverages of my pecs have been met with simple movements and quality reps, and they are now better prepared to contribute in whatever mysterious way they do to my benching.

The barbell benching remains important, however, because it allows for a greater amount of weight than that of the two dumbbells to be handled.  This means greater strength development for the entire enterprise.  The pectorals must be fully and thoroughly developed in order to contribute, so these exercises would best be described as interdependent.

*Incline dumbbell presses can be part of the rotation, but I personally don’t think they contribute much to the pectoral phases used in the bench press.  I train the incline as a barbell strength lift once a week, along with the seated press.  Those lifts are unique enough to be strengths unto themselves.

My legs are willing to squat again because I’ve cleaned up my rep speed and trajectory.

My chest is happy to bench because I’ve finally prepared all its facets with clean rep speeds and trajectories.

Just keep everybody happy, and they should be willing to get strong.

Do Leg Extensions

That might be blasphemy to the Starting Strength and Westside styled low bar back squatters out there, but I’ve found leg extensions on a machine necessary to heal an injury as well as train my knee joints and quadriceps.  Powerful as my legs and knees may be in squatting over 400 pounds and deadlifting up near 5, I’m not sure they’re all that strong or healthy all the way through their range of motion.

A quick aside: I’m between writing projects, not that they’re not piling up on my desk, and our new life at this small college has been wonderful.  I’ve been coaching weight lifting, with a pretty humble start; only a few kids were interested, but now others, seeing these first kids succeed, are asking for help.

When I was a high school and collegiate squatting stud, I had quadriceps that looked to be hacked from granite.  I did high bar back squats back then, which might be part of it, but youth’s surging hormones and capacity for growth were probably the real reasons.

Nowadays, despite hamstrings the size of bridge cables, my quadriceps aren’t much.  They’re enough to handle my squats and deads, but particularly down by my knees they’re not the big, meaty things they used to be.

For years my right knee has been tight.  I cannot, for example, drop down to my haunches, my rear end on my heels, as if to examine something.  However, when I’m on a rowing machine and cruising along with a few hundred meters behind me, the blood flow is enough to allow my rear end to slide to my heels.  I don’t believe my joint is damaged or gummed up.  It’s just old age, wickedness, and tight muscles.

I’ve kept up playing hockey on Wednesdays, but two weeks ago, the President’s Day vacation schedule canceled our session.  I chose to do some runs on our nice, new turf field to satisfy my aerobic action quota.

Something in my right leg became very unhappy, so everybody else tying into that knee stiffened up to protect it.

You know these lingering muscle pulls: time and healing slow to a snail’s pace while your thoughts run wild.  This friggin’ hurt, too, like the bones were grinding, especially when I got up from sitting or out of a car.  I’ve wrecked it, I thought.  The sooner I get a shiny, new titanium joint, the better.  I should have taken better care of it when it was stiff, I admonished myself.

On YouTube, there’s a fitness dude known as KneesOverToesGuy who is always bounding around and lunging into deep knee flexion before leaping over tall buildings or dunking basketballs to prove that bullet proof knees are the key to elite performance.  He’s right: being able to activate your strength from complete flexion, your rear against your heel, is a muscular and neurological trick that requires specific training.

That’s compelled me to hit the leg extension machine  - not with anything heavy, but enough to remind my knees and quads of the old days.  They felt dramatically better even after the first time around, at the end of a workout of squats and deads.  The squats, by the way, were special, too;  they were box squats with my feet set widely apart, the better to attack an adductor muscle who seemed to be the prime suspect behind all that pain.

The bones are no longer grinding; the tight muscles have been sprung loose.  Luckily, there are very few injuries that cannot be addressed by some weight and the right leverage.

Lift Weights Outside

Google this so you know what I’m talking about: Beaver Fit Dam Strong outdoor gyms.  If I had to guess, this operation started by outfitting deployed military units with containers full of equipment: racks that can be bolted to the container and then piece to piece to form big configurations of power racks and pull up stations.  Various items can be attached, such as hooks, dip bars, and spotter arms, and the container would also be full of bars, plates, benches, and possibly dumbbells.

The college where I am now has an outdoor training area built around one of these containers, under a giant, steel framed arch covered in some kind of all-weather polyester.  The arch is open to the elements at both ends - and despite recently chilly weather some of the students show up in only a T-shirt and shorts.  In fact, I had to ask whether there was an unwritten rule I didn’t know about, that one had to be willing to play it tough in order to lift outside.  No, that’s not the case, they assured me.  They were usually lacking time or laundry.

The place has been invaluable for imparting an important lesson: Lift weights outside.  I had been, back in Maryland, but I’ve just been reminded of how important that is.

Our gym in Maryland was in a detached single car garage, an old stone block that had once been a smokehouse.  I’d roll the door up and lift, regardless of the weather.  On cold days, I’d imagine myself as Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre at an outdoor game in Green Bay, protecting my hands until it came time t grab the bar for a set of deadlifts.  In the heat of the summer, I’d have to blast myself with the mister from the hose just to get a cooling effect without having to provide all the sweat myself.  That place got me through the pandemic as healthy as a horse - but I’ve always known anyway that being outdoors is the best thing for one’s immune system.

Our house on campus is a great, albeit ramshackle, old mansion, but there’s no garage.  The weights are all in the basement, indoors.  In fact, I should probably change the name of the gym since I’m no longer in a smokehouse.  Down at the very end of this basement is a set of thick steel doors and a combination lock like an old bank vault.  It was the estate’s Prohibition Room a century ago, ghostly and dark inside with an ancient bottle rack against one wall.

The gym is nice and bright, but after years of isolation I’ve been keen to get out and mix with other humans.  Aside of the Prohibition Room, we have three options for training: the outdoor space, the main indoor gym, which is a typical collegiate joint with lines of squat racks and platforms running the length of the room, and an old school, rough and tumble rowing center complete with squat racks and benches beside a rowing tank.

I hit the outdoor place a few times, but then wanting to meet some of the kids, I lifted in the main gym for a week or two.  Two things happened: I met surprisingly few kids, and I got the muck.

A decent number of people were in the weight room, but this was the strangest thing: it was utterly silent.  Everyone was listening to their own ear buds and not socializing.  I was just as isolated as before.

They did share with me the muck that was going around campus, so before long my throat was getting gluey.  It was not COVID; my wife made me take a test.  It was, however, a stubborn thing which only went away when I went back outside for my workouts.

It was surprising how fast a day or two outside cleared up all the congestion.  The lesson here must be that the cold air stimulates the system and creates far more good than simply removing one’s self from the source of infection.  If the air doesn’t, then the outdoor living will harden you up.  Speaking of tough games in Green Bay, we had a nor’easter blow though a week ago, and everything - bars, weights, racks, and benches - was soaked by mist and rain, since the north and south facing ends of the arch are open.  I had to pull deadlifts in the crooks of my fingers on a bar that was dripping wet.

That’s today’s science lesson.  I’m still waiting to see where I’ll fit in in the coaching scheme.  Lots of folks lift weights here, mainly for one sport or another, and lots of coaches are in on the act.

NEWS FLASH

Those of you familiar with this blog know that I have long wanted to coach strength training but have been frustrated with the lack of opportunities in my local area. More accurately, some opportunities exist, but I am not certified with an NSCA or CSCS credential. I’ve written before about my misgivings concerning those.

The news flash is that my wife, the mover and shaker in the family, has accepted a position as head of a small college - where the athletic director is eager to get me involved in coaching. This is a fantastic blessing I have done nothing to earn or deserve, but I’m going to make the most of the opportunity.

Stay tuned for reflections on the topic.

Boys are Better Than Girls at Sports

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

- Ulysses S. Grant

I’m reading a book of critical essays by Daniel Mendelsohn of THE NEW YORKER, NEW YORK BOOK REVIEW, and NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF BOOKS in which he makes an interesting point about modern writing: ‘the new technologies and media that allow us to be private in public,’ such as [this blog,] smartphones, iPods, Facebook, and so on, are eroding the boundary between the inner and outer selves.  This, in turn, alters writers’ senses of truth versus fiction.  Readers must now be willing to discern the difference between ‘real reality’ and a writer’s reality.

A case in point is the recent “Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense,” in which Maggie Mertens, in September 17’s THE ATLANTIC magazine, argues that separation by sex is ‘harmful behavior,’ which is ‘rooted in the idea that one sex is inherently inferior.’  She willfully overlooks the fact that boys will always outperform girls in sports, even under the revised standards she advocates.  As a writer and researcher, Mertens draws from multiple sources but gives little indication that she is an athlete or has spent any time among the strong, fit, and fast.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/09/sports-gender-sex-segregation-coed/671460/

I run the risk of looking like a big jerk here, so I should state a few things outright:

Of course not ALL boys can beat ALL girls in all things.  There are plenty of women athletes who are vastly superior to men, be they Olympians like Katie Ledecky or more commonly the hundreds of accomplished Brazilian Jiu Jitsu students who can hold their own against men, for example.

Even if boys are by and large bigger, faster, and stronger than girls, girls are no less noble or worthy of respect in their athletic pursuits.  I’m the father of daughters, both of them athletes, and I’ve unreservedly cheered at cross country races and hockey games though the years.  The younger one is a dedicated strength athlete who has squatted 250, which I happen to think is just as awesome as my high school 460.   

Perhaps Mertens is in fact a very good athlete, and in her travels she’s spent time with many female stars.  That’s all well and good, but as elite as those women might be, they’re not the best in the world at what they do.  The men are - and if Mertens is willing to put her private reality to the test, she’d see that this trend bears itself out in the wider world as well.

Her article in THE ATLANTIC has a dual approach: anecdotes that display the corruption in gender based segregation and references to studies that call into question the real extent of the difference between the sexes.  We hear about a high school girl in the Bronx who wanted to play football but faced a physical exam and a battery of fitness tests that none of the boys had to undergo.   Also in New York, a young man with a love of field hockey, the son of a long-time teacher and coach, was barred from playing by a vote among opposing schools in their prep-school league.  The belittlement, he felt, ran against the girls from all the other teams, whose heads of school or athletic directors ‘didn’t think that they were strong enough or had the physical capabilities to play against me.’

Mertens cites statistics showing increasing numbers of girls joining football and wrestling teams.  We hear that ‘Decades of research have shown that sex is far more complex than we may think.  And though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential.’

‘Sex is dynamic,’ according to Science: social experiences can change levels of hormones on a second to second basis or even month to month, says one researcher.  Another adds, ‘Part of the reason why we have this belief that boys are inherently stronger than girls, and even the fact that we believe that gender is a binary, is because of sport itself, not the other way around.’

Mertens goes on to say, ‘Researchers have noted for years that there may even be more diversity in athletic performance within a sex than between the sexes. One recent small study in Norway found no innate sex difference when it came to youth-soccer players’ technical skills. The researchers hypothesized that the gap they did find between girls and boys was likely due to socialization, not biology.’

Is Mertens operating in her own reality, something separate from ‘real reality,’ as critic Daniel Mendelssohn would say?

I think so.  Actually, I think she’s laying the groundwork for another fictional construct, the feasibility of transgender athletes competing in school sports.  If she can convince people that any differences between the genders is minimal, then she could make the case that any disruption caused by transgender participation would similarly be minimal.

My idea was to follow Ulysses S. Grant’s approach above.  If an idea (or a law) seems especially bad, let’s implement and enforce it fully, the better to illustrate the misery or mayhem it would create.  I had imagined inviting Ms. Mertens to some high school sports complex, where the athletic director could stage any number of games, the Varsity Boys Soccer Team against the Varsity Girls, and so on in hockey, swimming, and basketball - just to see how things turn out.

One can’t go around quoting Norwegian studies on youth soccer, with kids who are eight years old, and expect the comparison to remain the same through the years.  In fact, what we should do is analyze sports in the wider world - which interestingly, the Duke University Law School’s Center for Sports Law and Policy has already done:

(by Doriane Lambelet Coleman and Wickliffe Shreve)

“If you know sport, you know this beyond a reasonable doubt: there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females.  The gap is smaller between elite females and non-elite males, but it’s still insurmountable and that’s ultimately what matters.  Translating these statistics into real world results, we see, for example, that:

Just in the single year 2017, Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Tori Bowie's 100 meters lifetime best of 10.78 was beaten 15,000 times by men and boys.  (Yes, that’s the right number of zeros.)

The same is true of Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Allyson Felix’s 400 meters lifetime best of 49.26.  Just in the single year 2017, men and boys around the world outperformed her more than 15,000 times.

To demonstrate this, we compared the top women’s results to the boys’ and men’s results across multiple standard track and field events, just for the single year 2017.” 

[They display a series of tables, comparing results in events ranging from 100 meters to the 5000, as well as the pole vault, long jump, and high jump - including results from boys under 18 years old - all driving to the following conclusion:]

“Not only did hundreds and thousands of males outperform the best results of the elite females, they did so thousands and tens of thousands of times.  (Yes, again, that’s the right number of zeros.)”

Coleman and Shreve make this blunt statement:  ‘This differential isn’t the result of boys and men having a male identity, more resources, better training, or superior discipline. It’s because they have an androgenized body.’  Male athletes have more muscle mass and a better ability to use it than do females.

Among the places where Maggie Merten’s work has appeared is SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, ESPNw, THE YEAR’S BEST SPORTSWRITING (Triumph Books), and WOMEN AND SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES (The University of Chicago Press).  She’s been nominated for the 2021 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting.

THE ATLANTIC is also mentioned in her biography, and maybe that’s a less athletic crowd than some of these other readerships, but I can’t imagine she’s going to fool a great many people with this latest piece.  I have one last guess about what she might be driving at: elite athletes and varsity teams aside, couldn’t a set of boys and girls just start from scratch and play or train together without all the usual assumptions?

I’ve been part of a program exactly like that.  [On this website, click ‘Coaching Experience.’]  I was a coach for a high school sailing program, where on the water, one of our top three skippers was a girl, and other girls were solidly in the mix in race results.

I ran their off-season strength training program, which started in early January as school picked up after Christmas.  For ten weeks, until we got on the water on St. Patrick’s Day, we followed a novice linear progression in the squat bench, deadlift, and press, as I provided coaching on technique and safety.  All of these kids were new to the weight room.

I did this for two years; come that second January, none of the kids had touched a weight since St. Paddy’s the previous year.  Sailing has Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons on the water.

Boys and girls threw themselves into the routine, training together, seeing each other as complete equals, and getting along fabulously.  Everyone increased their strength - but at different rates.  The senior and junior boys increased by the most in each lift, as their bodies were hormonally more primed for adaptation.  I also made this observation: ‘The gains made by the girls, who were juniors and seniors, and the freshmen and sophomore boys were largely the same. This might suggest a certain hormonal equivalency between these groups.’

Those winter training sessions were as positive, equitable, and healthy as Maggie Mertens or any of her like minded readers could hope.  Everybody had fun - but the boys were better at lifting.

Love Thine Enemy

Your government has kept me busy for the past month writing things that will be quickly tucked away and forgotten.  Two weeks ago, however, I came across an item that stuck with me, a Facebook post about my old elementary school.

It’s a handsome 1930’s era brick building that’s been a fixture in my New England hometown.  The playgrounds are in the same places as ever, despite being immensely scaled down from the long-chained swings in two-story frames or towering stainless steel slides that could burn off layers of skin on hot summer days.  One iron jungle gym was so big it was called the Muscle Man.  It’s where my friend Tim [Crosby] broke his wrist - and I saw the whole thing: the fall, the deformed ledge of bone above his hand, and the cast he wore for weeks afterward.

Kids today cannot imagine the danger we faced on a casual basis.  Compared to the pathetic little plastic toadstools they climb and the rubber safety flooring underneath, we were high in the rigging of tall ships every recess, when we weren’t blooding ourselves in games of Kill the Carrier out on the field.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a present day playground without some kind of soft headed, schlocky sentiment attached.  In that Facebook post was a plaque dedicating one of these installations, forged from recycled diapers  - suitably - to the ‘beloved physical education teacher Jim [Bridges.]’

Jim Bridges was a bully.  He’s probably one of the reasons I’m still lifting weights at age 57.  He wasn’t a teacher in any sense of the word, since he just collected easy money putting kids through activities that largely bored him.  I can still remember his black three-striped Adidas soccer shoes and track suit pants.  Apparently, he had once been a professional soccer player, and he drove a Porsche 914 to school everyday.  By the time I knew him, he was merely scorning those who could not function on the level to which his life had sunk.

This disappointment eventually killed him.  He died of early onset Alzheimer’s disease, news that in my college days or shortly thereafter drew little more than a satisfied chuckle.  That’s a grave to piss on the next time I’m passing through town.

We all have enemies or people who don’t think much of us, but the problem in this case was that he was a grown man with power over a squirrelly eight year old boy.  Bridges was quiet, given to stillness and a steady expression to quiet a class.  A mistake on someone’s part was met with a subtle glance at the rest of the class and the slightest shake of his head, which would prompt giggles and thus scorn and punishment by proxy.  Any greater sin brought out the word, ‘Fifty,’ which was nearly under his breath and meant 50 sit-ups, done as the class took stock of the struggle and the justice it represented.

I found myself doing 50’s often enough that the haplessness became self fulfilling.  Of course I couldn’t dribble the soccer ball between the cones, because Bridges had proven a hundred times already that I was an idiot.  It was just going to happen again: ‘Fifty.’  Bridges’ real legacy was making other kids realize they could pick on me.

I’ve been a teacher off and on through the years, and some of my greatest successes have been in handling squirrelly kids, precisely because I can understand the wild trajectories of their brains.  The reason I hold my high school strength coach in such high regard is that he took kids’ weaknesses in stride and knew how to address them.

I left that elementary school in June 1976, at the end of Sixth Grade, and never saw Jim Bridges again.  Bullies remained a bad subject.  Before long, I left that set of kids as well, commuting to Prep school a few towns away.  I was pretty much forgotten, gone in the mornings and back at night, going to school and lifting weights under the tutelage of a kindly History teacher - who had also been an All American shot putter at Notre Dame.  It wasn’t until 11th Grade that I signed up for rec-league hockey in my hometown with another commuting Prep school dude.  On the ice were some of the kids who picked on me or chose me last for teams at recess.  They were treated to bone splintering, concussive checks, since I learned how to dip my forehead in football and drive it into their facemasks or ear holes.  ‘You guys still play rough, don’t you?’ I’d ask as they were sprawled on the ice.

Thinking about Jim Bridges again compelled me to ask myself whether my life would have been better without him in it.

It surprises me to realize this, but the answer is, No.  He’s probably the guy who kickstarted the process of my growing up.  His timing was impeccable, since that whole sequence of events made me ripe for the influence of that high school coach.  After that came collegiate Olympic lifting and then Judo, endurance sports, and countless adventures that called for abundant confidence.  That’s a quality earned through long hours in the weight room, pool, on the road, or training combative skills.  It’s probably born of Jim Bridges and a reflexive feeling of defiance: ‘You will not deny me the opportunity  . . . ‘  Intimidation is best met with the strength of Mike Webster or the aggression of Jack Lambert.

In my idyllic little life in a nice family in a wealthy suburb, phys ed with Jim Bridges was my first realization that not all people are good or nice.  Maybe he did me a favor in the grand scheme of things.  I’d still piss on his grave, but maybe without such ill will.

Idle Chatter (an e-mail on an old subject)

{My old high school Coach,]

Here’s some idle chatter, an exchange between my sister and me after she sent a NEW YORK TIMES article on the death of a Navy SEAL candidate at BUDS, their Basic Underwater Demolition School. Between 1994 and 1996, when [the wife] and I were stationed in Guam, I trained a fair bit with members of Teams One and Five in running, swimming, and martial arts. That was a feather in my athletic cap, being able to play on that level.
I also knew Navy guys who were training in hopes of going to BUDS, which was a life defining rite of passage for those approaching it and the guys who had made it through.

In a separate conversation, an Army General friend of ours, who once oversaw the Ranger training command, knew of my interest in training and so on. He explained that it’s actually not hard to get folks in shape for Ranger School, in terms of ruck marching and sustained aerobic output - but the problem is bone density, or lack thereof. Some of the best candidates go down with stress fractures, at an alarming rate. ‘Kids don’t run around and play - or lift weights - anymore, so they don’t harden their bones the way we used to.’

My sister had also recently made the remark that I’m insane, still lifting weights at my age.

This is the note I sent after she sent the article:

“ . . . . it’s very interesting, raising questions about what on earth the Navy can do while faced by the crisis of a substantially weaker generation of kids entering the training pipeline.

The story seems straightforward at first: a SEAL candidate, run ragged by training and the brutal milestone of Hell Week, dies of edema in his lungs. That’s a fairly common condition, though his severity was off the charts in terms of duration and intensity. Criticisms arise: the SEAL’s have lost candidates before, so they should tone down the training.
No, say the SEAL’s. This is life and death. We’re selecting warriors for the most dangerous business in the world, and that’s part of the bargain. This debate is not new.

So the SEAL’s start going through his belongings, and they find a giant load of steroids. Tests subsequently reveal more than 40 BUDS candidates are popping ‘roids. Hang on, they realize, this means two things:
1. Pathologically, things aren’t so clear any more. Did the ‘roids contribute to his death?
2. ‘Roids - again? The first steroid scandal, or discovery that kids were using them, was in 2009. They tested folks for a few years, but that ran out of gas, probably because the budget couldn’t swing it.

A larger question hangs in the air: kids have to use steroids to handle the class? Also - the class still has an 80 or 90 percent failure rate, so a lot of ‘roided up folks are still failing. These kids are so weak, so untrained, that they can’t pass the class while on performance enhancing drugs?

Already the Navy is running a BUDS-prep, to get people in shape for the class. Those poor bastards are probably wondering what to do.

Were we insane then? Am I insane now, or was HG Wells right all along in THE TIME MACHINE? The Eloi, the soft, above ground dwellers, will be preyed upon and eaten by the Morlocks, the below ground folks.”

She replied,

"There's a lot of similar conversation in the parkour world. Two friends, {Ernie and Bert] are Special Ed tutors. And science is discovering that some kids who can't sit still in class have an underdeveloped part of their brains from not tumbling enough - literally, hanging upside down from a swingset, somersaults, etc -- and their internal gyroscopes are off. Other examples abound.
It's also partly the Cult of Safety. Some woman at a park told us off once for jumping from the ground onto a bench, which is probably about.... 2 feet? We were teaching children to do "dangerous" things.”

So, Coach, this is all to say that as your son has moved in with the grandchildren, I trust you’re bolting the squat rack back together and telling them, ‘OK, gang: after school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it’s going to be fun with Grandpa in the garage. It’s for your own good.’

The Cave of Despair

Whoops.  That was a mistake.

I’ve heard of judging a book by its cover, but I managed to judge a painting mistakenly.  Granted, it was a much-reduced illustration in a book, but despite the lack of clarity or detail, I was willing to pronounce the idea of it awesome.

The work in question is 1772’s ‘The Cave of Despair,’ by Benjamin West.  My first impression was that it depicts the dramatic moment in which a forlorn, long suffering figure, slumped on the floor in what had been the darkness of a cave, is liberated by a lady knight who had somehow smashed open the cave wall.  Behind her is open air and blue sky.  Sunlight fills the space that had once been nothing but crushing darkness.

That’s outstanding, I thought, particularly the juxtaposition of the poor victim and whatever gloriously explosive, powerful entry brought in the outside world.  In those dark nights of the soul, when you feel utterly imprisoned, it’s important to remember that the walls are only so thick.

The painting depicts a scene from the First Book of Sir Edmund Spenser’s FAERIE QUEENE, published in the late 1500’s and one of the longest poems in English Literature.  A gigantic allegorical work presented as an homage to Queen Elizabeth, the six books of the poem, each following a knight who represents a certain virtue, were to ‘fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline,’ according to Spenser.

The Cave of Despair scene takes place in Book One, in which the Redcrosse Knight, who represents Holiness, is tasked with guiding Una, a pure and chaste maiden who represents the true Church.  They are separated on their journey yet must remain faithful to one another through their many ordeals.  The story is familiar probably only to English majors, but Book One has one other scene possibly famous enough for the outside world to recall, the procession of the Seven Deadly Sins and Satan in the House of Pride.

In a caption for the painting, I saw that it’s Una rescuing the Redcrosse Knight.  Got it: she’s burst in; he’s in rough shape, but all will be well.

I was way off.

In a better reproduction of the painting, more people turn out to be in the picture than I realized.  That’s not Una in the armor; it’s the Redcrosse Knight, a young man handsome to the point of being pretty.  The worse for wear character on the floor is Despair himself, who not long before convinced a knight to slay himself.  That body is partially visible in the bottom right hand corner.

The Redcrosse Knight has a dagger raised and turned toward his own neck.  He’s about to do the same, but to the far left is Una - who didn’t even register as anything beyond background the first time I looked, since her purity, loveliness, and any other features that might draw focus are masked in a great cloak.  She’s rushed in and placed her hand on his arm at the very last instant, crying, ‘For shame, faint hearted knight!  Where is the courage and honor now that was yours when you rode out to seek the dragon?  Why should you let Despair bewitch you, when you well know of Heaven’s mercy?  Come away from this cursed place.’

Whatever might be under that cloak is clearly not intended to provide any measure of inspiration or devotion, and this was hardly a SEAL Team Six dynamic entry, as it turns out.  The sunshine filling the room is simply from the cave’s entrance as the artist economizes space.

Now, I don’t want to make another shortsighted and ill-informed assessment, so I’ll be careful to qualify this, but THE FAERIE QUEENE might be a crushing bore.

Even 400 years ago, its style of writing was ‘deliberately archaic,’  and while seemingly based on Arthurian legend, it’s more evocative of epic Italian poetry.  It appeared in the time of the Reformation, a period of religious and political upheaval, and clearly pushes a political agenda.  In Book One, Una is ‘the personification of the "True (Protestant) Church". The Redcrosse Knight represents England.  Una defeats Duessa, who represents the "false" (Catholic) church and the person of Mary, Queen of Scots, in a trial reminiscent of that which ended in Mary's beheading. Una is also representative of Truth.’

Una’s scolding Redcrosse in his moment of crisis is typical of Spenser’s overly heavy hand.  The long winded harangues on virtue would drive centuries of readers into their own Caves of Despair.

In recognition, Queen Elizabeth presented Spenser with a modest and disappointing pension of 50 pounds per year.  Scholars point out, ‘there is no further evidence that Elizabeth ever read any of the poem.’

My first reaction at getting the painting so wrong was that my story must pale in comparison to Spenser’s.  On second thought, in light of all of Spenser’s complexities, I think my tiny little scene is more dramatically compelling.  I’m not trying to fit the action to convey some set of pre-selected messages.    

I’m just picking up where some fantastic deed has taken place: a lady knight has just breached a thick and heavy cave wall to rescue her friend or lover.  To her, this represents some kind of massive achievement, a great display of strength or ingenuity, whatever way she busted that thing open.  For the poor knight inside, the sudden freedom from darkness and oppression is exhilarating.

Then - AFTER - the deed is done, readers and scholars can ponder what it all means: ‘I would do anything - even move a mountain - to find you,’ or in the darkness, the trapped knight must fight his own battles against demons real and imagined.

My instincts were correct.  Score one for the simple yet rippin’ yarns.

Disarming Monsters

As dinner draws to a close and the Danes make themselves scarce, Beowulf prepares to battle the monster Grendel by casting aside his weapons and taking off his armor.

This is a surprise to his fellow Geats, (GAY-OTTS) the tribesmen who had sailed with him (from present day Sweden) for this fateful encounter.

Don’t worry,’ Beowulf says in effect.  ‘I’m not going to fight him the way you think I am.’

Earlier that day, the Geat warriors lept from their longship and waded to the beach through Denmark’s cold surf.  They were challenged immediately by a sentry who stopped mid sentence at beholding Beowulf - the Bee-Wulf, a man with the size and strength of a bear.

Beowulf and his men are welcomed by the king, Hrothgar.  Denmark is the reigning superpower of the day, safe from the advance of any force on land or sea, a magnificence represented by their unrivaled mead hall, Heorot, the center of political and military life.

However, Denmark is stalked by an enemy more terrifying than a foreign army, a monster from within their own walls, Grendel, who in his dismal lair has long nursed a grudge compelling him to slaughter innocents 30 at a time.  The light, music, and laughter that spills into the night from Heorot galls him particularly.  From the beginning of his bloodthirsty spree, Heorot sits silent while Hrothgar despairs at his helplessness.

At more than 1200 years old, the poem BEOWULF  is a swashbuckling military epic, yet it contains a surprising insight on the monsters within our walls in this day and age, the active shooters.  The raiding and pillaging tribes of the Anglo-Saxon era knew something about violence, according to scholar Robin Bates, who in his book BETTER LIVING THROUGH BEOWULF shares their wisdom concerning the Grendels of our day, who nurse their grudges and attack our schools, synagogues, and shopping centers.  (BEOWULF also contains messages on despair and even politics, namely the guarding of a hoard plundered from a populace - subjects for another time.)

The night grows still.  Many of the Geat warriors, dulled by the food and spirits in Hrothgar’s extravagant welcome, start to snore.  Beowulf feigns sleep yet remains alert.

Grendel enters the mead hall.  Quickly he bolts down an unsuspecting Geat in a bloody, barely chewed mess.  Next, he reaches for Beowulf.

Beowulf captures Grendel’s claw in a fingers interlaced game-of-mercy grip which surprises him with its intensity of force and pain.  As Grendel tries to draw his arm back, Beowulf rises with him, turns, and brings his other arm over Grendel’s, sinking a powerful shoulder lock.  The first of Grendel’s earsplitting, in human screams reverberates within Heorot and across the Danish countryside.

The struggle is mighty, and at its margins as the two figures grapple furiously, splintering the furniture and buckling the walls, Great warriors in full armor stab ineffectually at Grendel.  However, this is anything but a fight.  From the very instant his claw is captured in Beowulf’s vise-like grip, Grendel is possessed by an absolutely alien sensation, fear.  He wants nothing to do with Beowulf.  All of his murderous intent has vanished, and he is merely trying to pull his arm free so he can rush back to cower in his lair.  He screams in self pity and terror, if not at the unbearable pain in his shoulder.

Grendel escapes only when Beowulf has completed uncoupling his shoulder joint, tearing apart all of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments one after another and twisting the bones through his skin.  Grendel runs off, trailing blood into the darkness.

As the sun rises, Grendel dies in lonesome misery in his lair, while back at Heorot the warriors gather to stare at an arm the size of a tree limb.  On one end are claws as long as knives; on the other is a gelatinous mass of mangled tissue.

I have a theory on the ultimate inspiration for BEOWULF.  One night 1200 years ago in Denmark, outside the house of an aspiring poet, a ripping thunderstorm brought down a huge tree branch.  ‘That looks like the claw of a monster,’ he - or she - thought, and its sheer mass and the fury of the thunder, wind, and rain suggested a struggle between unspeakably powerful forces.

The poet created a story of a monster and a hero, and as he tried it out on audiences at home, among friends, and then at the mead hall, the feedback helped him shape it into an epic depicting what his culture found terrifying and awesome.

Beowulf does not simply come rip Grendel’s arm off.  He also does not lay a hand on Unferth, a Danish warrior who speaks out of turn at dinner.  He actually handles the beery Unferth with words alone, to devastating effect.  Already the reader has witnessed Beowulf’s trust in God and his honor: he has come to Denmark to repay Hrothgar for shielding his father from enemies years before.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel is similarly sophisticated: he took the fight out of him first.  The fall in Grendel’s mental state, from murderous intentions, the gory satisfaction of the blood smeared walls Hrothgar describes, to abject fear, is his true defeat.  That’s his death, a greater crippling than the loss of an arm.  This would reflect the view of a warrior culture, for whom the greatest victory would be to see fear in the eyes of an enemy, which comes shortly before surrender or defeat.

Now, we must apply this lesson to battling the monsters of this day and age.  The murderous intent within Grendel was in the grudges he nursed in his dark and lonesome lair.  Whatever kind of fantastic beast he once was, it was the hatred and jealousy he allowed to consume him that transformed him into a monster.  Alone and unhappy, he attacked those behind the merriment he heard all around him.

Today, we must ‘disarm’ the monsters who would smear the walls with innocent blood, yet the state of our politics and law won’t allow us to tear the assault weapons from their hands.  Instead, we must focus on the other half of Beowulf’s battle, the greater victory, taking the fight out of them.  If we cannot prevent them from buying weapons, then we can stop them from nursing their grudges.

We take away their internet access.

Mounting evidence tells us a number of things: social media can have a destructive effect on some people, sparking and then intensifying feelings of loneliness and alienation.

These troubled souls then plunge deeply into dark and soul destroying content, worsening their views of themselves and the the world around them, and making violence seem like the only answer to these cruelties.

We know this to be true, based on investigations into shooters’ computer use - and interviews with those who did not turn their gun on themselves.

From Seamus Heaney’s translation:

"When it comes to fighting, I count myself as dangerous any day as Grendel.
So it won't be a cutting edge I'll wield

to mow him down, easily as I might.
He has no idea of the arts of war,
of shield or sword-play, although he does possess a wild strength. No weapons, therefore,
for either this night: unarmed he shall face me
if face me he dares. And may the Divine Lord
in His wisdom grant the glory of victory
to whichever side He sees fit."

I’m not going to fight him the way you think I am, Beowulf is saying.

“But the Lord was weaving a victory on His war-loom for the Weather-Geats.

Through the strength of one they all prevailed;
they would crush their enemy and come through

in triumph and gladness.”

Soft Bones

Who would win this naval battle, the high tech Arleigh Burke class destroyers of today, with their sophisticated missiles, radar, and ability to see an engage an enemy over the horizon, OR your great grandfather’s Navy of World War Two, which had to slug its way in close quarters across two oceans with bombs, shells, bullets, and planes?

The new, state of the art destroyers would win, you’d say.  The technological advantages are too much to overcome.  Of course, that’s true on the face of it, but suppose this became part of the question: what if the crewmen on the Arleigh Burkes didn’t know how to operate all the fancy equipment?

That would change things.  In fact, that would be worrisome, since part of our national security relies on the idea of these destroyers patrolling off the coasts of North Korea and China, ready to counter any ill-conceived attacks or missile launches.

In 2017, two of these ships were involved in fatal collisions with commercial freighters.  The USS FITZGERALD lost seven sailors off Japan, and the USS JOHN S. MCCAIN lost 10 off Singapore.

Subsequent investigations showed that these ships - two of the supposedly most formidable pieces of hardware in the American inventory - had no business being out at sea, out in the open or certainly not in busy shipping lanes.  In the case of the undermanned FITZGERALD, their preparations in port were woefully inadequate.  Sailors spent too little time in their actual jobs.  They were busy with more basic chores: chipping, sanding, painting - all to fight rust, as well as fixing engines and generators that were seemingly in constant disrepair.  Consequently, they were badly deficient in skills like navigation, ship handling, radar, and manning the digitally driven combat information center.  The MCCAIN relied on an automated navigation and propulsion control system the Navy ‘considered a triumph of technology and thrift,’ according to ProPublica.  The report goes on to say, ‘The Integrated Bridge and Navigation System, or IBNS, as it was known, was no technical marvel.  It was a welter of buttons, gauges, and software that, poorly understood and not surprisingly misused, helped guide 10 sailors to their deaths.’   

Navy ships must prove themselves combat ready to be certified for deployment.  The validity of this process was called into question in 2017.

Consider the sides in my hypothetical battle: the crews of ships with wonky mechanical and electrical systems, who in one case could neither work the radar well enough to see ships near them nor fire the weapons on board - and in the other case, couldn’t even drive the ship.  They would be taking on men hardened by sailing in all weathers and manning battle stations as they engaged enemies on sea, land, and air for months, if not years.  The FITZGERALD and MCCAIN would be sunk within minutes.

This is my metaphor for an essay in the vein of ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to,’ particularly in regard to young athletes.  However, it’s occurred to me that i don’t have any empirical evidence for any of the rants I want to rave, so I should instead pose a central question and flesh out what else i don’t know, the better to guide future research.

How do today’s young athletes compare to those of previous decades?

Broadly, we know that the statistics on health and vitality depict a steady decline: we are experiencing record levels of obesity, depression, and diabetes.

Still, records continue to be broken in the sports world, which would indicate that things are moving onward and upward.

Then again, coaches would seem to have their work cut out for them: many high school football teams spend the entire summer training, in the weight room and on the field, in an effort to make up for years of inadequate childhood play.  Former NFL lineman (and now head of Power Athlete Training) John Welbourn has remarked that many young linemen at the high school and college level ‘look like they’ve never lifted weights.’  He’s also described instances when he’s provided impromptu skills instruction and been surprised by profound deficits in agility.

So, which is it?  Are today’s athletes better or worse than their predecessors?  Who’d win a special Super Bowl between the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers and today’s Los Angeles Rams?

The progress in a few areas are almost reason enough to be optimistic about today’s youth.  Most significantly, women’s sports have come a long way in my lifetime, as the federal law known as Title Nine banned sex based discrimination in higher education and created a massive increase in women’s sports participation.  Which came first, college girls venturing onto playing fields or parents and communities starting developmental programs throughout the country?  The answer in this case has been Yes.  Generations of female athletes have risen through the ranks, and a standard of excellence has long been established in every sport.  As I’ve written elsewhere, the domination of US Women in international soccer is the result of the head start America had in this process.

The sheer amount of knowledge on strength, speed, and agility, as well as injury prevention and treatment has the potential to revolutionize training.  It already has, of course, but the evolving science and expertise on the field hold even greater promise.  Interestingly, a recent podcast explained how many strength coaches are arriving independently at the idea of concurrent and conjugate training, the approach introduced by Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell.  Programming for coaches is available commercially or academically, making effective training possible for just about all athletes.

This can all be taught at the many sports performance centers that have sprung up around the country.  This is a burgeoning industry geared toward injury prevention and preparation for ‘serious’ athletes who intend to play varsity high school and college sports.  In the best possible light, these centers help kids develop strength, skill, and confidence.  In the worst, they play upon the fears of neurotic parents seeking to give their kids every advantage.

I remain to be convinced that every single one of these places is providing effective programming, but the competition is probably fierce enough that they’re doing some good.

Perhaps thus far I’ve proven only that enhanced opportunities exist.  If the numbers show that athletes are by and large weaker than in years past, then they’re not seizing these advantages.

A government colleague of ours is a top Army general with multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and a number of significant commands at stateside installations.  He was involved in enrolling the first women in Ranger School - and before you ask, he had absolutely no compunctions about it.  Having seen two decades of combat and a force strained by a demanding operational tempo, he didn’t care about any of the political debates of the day.  He would take talent that was black, white, gay, straight, male or female.  He needed anyone who could get the job done.

‘It’s actually not hard to get people in shape for Ranger training,’ he said, ‘in terms of endurance for all the long ruck-marches and so on.  We can work up to it.  The real problem is bone density.  We lose way too many people to stress fractures.’

Bone density comes from running, jumping, falling, rolling, and generally crashing around, which hardens the bones with an infinite number of tiny shocks in a lifetime of normal play.  (Barbell training also does a great deal for the bones.)

The problem is way worse than it used to be, according to this old Ranger.  The broader talent pool, even the upper tier from which the Rangers draw, has softer bones than in years past.

Couple this with another astonishing statistic: 70% of today’s high school aged kids are ineligible for military service for three reasons: obesity, lacking a high school diploma, or having a criminal record.  80 years ago, their great-grandfathers fought their way across Europe and the Pacific to save the world from tyranny, but the vast majority of our kids lack the physical, mental, or moral capacity to do the same.

Years ago, when I was coaching CrossFit, I was presented with a nine year old girl who had never done a forward roll, could not swim, and one day while hanging from a pull up bar was terrified of the six inch drop to the ground.  She had never climbed or jumped off a jungle gym.

This is supposed to be a piece on what I don’t know.

It would appear this generation is softer boned, flabbier, and weaker than those of 40 or 50 years ago.  I wonder what the statistics are concerning time spent in outdoor play and sports participation.

If the internet and the sports pages are any indication, there are plenty of young, talented swimmers, lacrosse, hockey, baseball, and basketball players -  you name it -  boxers, and jiu jitsu competitors out there.  I wonder what percentage of the population they represent.

Then, as far as non-athletes go, since I fit into that category as a kid, I still find it hard to believe that such a large percentage of kids are sitting at home playing video games or doing nothing.  They’re not compelled go out to the park or some nearby school field and play something?  Shoot some hoops or toss a football?  How about as they grow older?  How can such a wide swath of the young population not want to get in shape, lift weights, or be awesome somehow just out of vanity?

Suppose it were possible to track athletes.  How do the Ninth Graders of this era compare to those of 50 years ago?  Think of the kids trying out for freshman football and the possible differences in size, speed, strength, and obesity.    

How many of these kids have prescriptions for which they must visit the school nurse at lunchtime?

It would be easier to make the size, strength and speed comparisons at the 12th Grade mark.  College coaches might even have a sense of the trends over time.  This is not just for football.  Swim coaches, for example, might know of how many record setters or collegiate level fast kids are walking in the door each year.  Women’s sports are so well established now that while they might not go back 50 years, they go 30, so coaches can make the same comparisons.

Let’s assume for a moment that the college coaches are doing just fine.  Plenty of fast and strong tennis, soccer, and football players - etcetera - are coming through the door.  If this is a smaller but more highly motivated segment of the general population, then how did they get this way?  What kind of coaching, club sports, and parental support did they have?

If they trained at a sport performance center, what was the training focus?  Some of these places have kids running around cones in the pursuit of athleticism, and some have them lifting heavy weights and getting dangerous.  Which works best?

Of course getting any of these answers would as impossible as witnessing some old vs. new naval battles or Super Bowls between champions past and present.

A Splendid Fellow

I had a great view from where I sat on the bench with my shift mates.  Our team, the White team in pick up hockey, had suddenly found itself in a flurry of confusion at center ice, as they skidded, shifted direction, and raced our color shirted opponents after a suddenly errant puck.   It wound up on the stick of one of our defensemen, a great bearded bear of a man who had surged forward, moving from my right to left.

The color jersey team scrambled to their blue line and skated backwards to form a defense.  The White forwards were caught out of position, so the big man opted to unload a slapshot.  That’d give the goalie something to think about in case he and the defense thought they were ready.  

He skated close by our bench and took the shot right as he was in line between me and the goalie.  I could see his shoulders rotate as he wound up, the arc of his stick blade, and the hard, level, waist high shot that sailed from the red line and passed about a foot outside the goal before cracking like a gunshot against the boards.  

His nonchalance made the feat all the more impressive.  He watched the shot go but then leaned away in a great swoop to get back to where he belonged on defense.  He was a natural skater boasting no doubt decades of experience.  (This was an over-50 pick up game.)  He was a natural leader, too, a jolly 250-pound giant.  Earlier I was part of a more focused offensive charge with him.  He came down the left side and let fly a shot from close range.  I had similarly dashed in from the right.  The goalie flung himself over to block the first shot, but the rebounding puck came to me.  I quickly put it in the open net.  

The big man pointed at me with an approving nod.  Well done: I had been in exactly the right place.  He also gave a great laugh and shook his head.  After all that work, the other guy gets the goal.  So it goes.  

Generosity must be one of the hallmarks of the Alpha Male.  These guys are so comfortable in their own skin that they can be welcoming to those drawn to them.  (I should bear this in mind for a future comparison.  We have another guy who is just as Alpha in hockey, if not more so, but he’s a darker presence.)  

My pick-up teammate two weeks ago was a rather splendid fellow, a model of hockey skill and self assurance I’d like to emulate.  

As a freshman in high school I was similarly in awe of a senior named [Dan Schneider,]  whom I first beheld on a trip into the school weight room, somewhere I never would have dared venture on my own.  I was in the smallest weight class on the wrestling team, and we had been sent over for a conditioning session.  

Schneider was doing rack pull deadlifts with what must have been 275 or 300 pounds.  He was in a tank top and sweats, and like all of the Class of 1979’s seniors, he looked like he was 40 years old with a dark, hairy chest and lamb chop sideburns.  We were pink skinned boys.  

I had seen weight bars with a plate at each end before, but Schneider had two big plates on each end, a strange, powerful symmetry like multiple locomotives linked together at the head of a freight train.  

I would see Schneider around campus from time to time.  He seemed to be a pretty model citizen, if not a Superman beneath his normal clothes.  I wondered, would I ever be that impressive as a senior?

The Stoic Philosophers tell us that to get past any emotions, good or bad, these broad portraits might inspire, the trick would be to delve into the numerous details that make up their subjects, including the thousand ways others must see them in different lights.  In the case of Dan Schneider, I had far exceeded his lifts by the time I was a senior.  If I pondered any details, they concerned my own long campaign of sets and reps.  I had no animosities or pride; I knew I had simply outworked him.  

Similarly, I have no envy or jealousy that would compel me to boil down the persona of that hockey playing Grizzly Adams.  I do, however, see some of the dangers that would concern the Stoics.  I could relegate myself to a permanently lesser status whether I’m dazzled by him, critical of myself, or both.  

You don’t have to like him any less, the Stoics would say, but do be mindful of a few realities.  His greatness and self assuredness around the rink are the result of decades of traveling and playing in different parts of the country, judging from the stories I’ve overheard.  Many of these over-50’s played in college and for men’s league teams their entire lives.  I’ve played for three months.  That my puck handling or game acumen is a bit behind theirs is only logical.  Conversely, none of them are squatting and deadlifting north of 400 every week. 

Focus on specific skills to narrow the gap, the Stoics would urge.  Put to use all that desire and hustle from last time around.  Celebrate what you have in common with the other guys, but keep all the details to yourself.  That will make you a splendid fellow.  

Louie Simmons: Enemy of the Hypocritical, Hypothetical

I’m sorry I was gone for such a long time.  The real world had its hooks in me for one last pair of projects in a long running affiliation.  

A handful of items in world events did catch my interest, each of which would have merited its own entry, but I’ll string them all together to inform the discussion of the last and most significant item on the list, the death of powerlifter, coach, and author Louie Simmons.  

1.  The U.S. Women’s Soccer team won a long running battle against their governing body.

From THE NEW YORK TIMES on February 22, 2022:  “For six years, the members of the World Cup-winning United States women’s soccer team and their bosses argued about equitable treatment of female players. They argued about whether they deserved the same charter flights as their male counterparts and about the definition of what constituted equal pay.

But the long fight that set key members of the women’s team against their bosses at U.S. Soccer ended on Tuesday just as abruptly as it had begun, with a settlement that included a multimillion-dollar payment to the players and a promise by their federation to equalize pay between the men’s and women’s national teams.

Under the terms of the agreement, the women — a group of several dozen current and former players that includes some of the world’s most popular and decorated athletes — will share $24 million in payments from U.S. Soccer. The bulk of that figure is back pay, a tacit admission that compensation for the men’s and women’s teams had been unequal for years.”

I’ve been scouring my conscience for times in which I have been dismissive of women as athletes.  I MUST have been, as a kid in the 70’s and a teenager in the early 80’s.   Perhaps it wasn’t that I felt women could never be serious, dedicated athletes; it’s just that there were so few of them that I probably didn’t give the subject much thought at all.  College had concentrated quite a few female athletes, but still the vast, vast majority of young women at that age were social creatures first and foremost.  

As the father of daughters, I’ve grasped what’s happened over the years, how parents and coaches all over the country have built developmental programs from the ground up in any number of sports, fostering thousands of great athletes who’ve gone on to success in college and international sports.  In fact, a generation or two of American parents are probably the reason for the American women’s team winning so many World Cups.  It will be interesting to see how the landscape changes as other countries - and other parents - catch up to the Americans’ system.  

2.  I think former President Donald Trump is pulling a Vincent ‘The Chin’ Gigante routine.  

From the Associated press:  “The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol said Wednesday for the first time that its evidence suggests . . . Trump and his associates engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College . . . Trump and those working with him spread false information about the outcome of the presidential election and pressured state officials to overturn the results, potentially violating multiple federal laws, the panel said.”

Vincent ’The Chin’ Gigante, who rose to lead the Genovese crime family in New York, had not only a prolific career but went to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  He rarely, if ever, used the phone.  He never left his house unoccupied, for fear of the FBI sneaking in and planting a bug.  For years he had his lawyers claim he was mentally unfit to stand trial, and taking that strategy to the extreme he started wandering his neighborhood in a bathrobe and pajamas, trying to pass himself off as significantly deteriorated.  He’d even be out in the freezing cold, bent over and shuffling along as he made strange noises and faces at the sidewalk beneath him.  His kids were part of the act, running out to get him after a while or bring him a coat.  The aim was to convince the watching FBI agents and their federal prosecutor bosses that this poor bastard couldn’t possibly be accountable for anything past - or responsible for anything present.

One of the legal considerations in the charge of conspiracy is that the defendant(s) knew what they were doing was wrong, or that they knew full well that the message they were seeking to present was false.  Some 60 lawsuits that Trump and his campaign tried to file after the 2020 election were defeated or flung out of court - which would appear to be ample evidence that the election was not stolen, and by January 6 they should have known better.  

Still, everywhere Trump appears, he maintains a wide eyed shock at how the election was stolen.  It’s the first and often the only thing out of his mouth; in one appearance FOX News terminated the interview almost immediately.  FOX’s lawyers no doubt realize what’s at stake as much as Trump does, and do not want the network to be seen aiding his attempt to beat the conspiracy rap.  Like Gigante years ago, Trump is working furiously to litigate the issue outside the courtroom somehow, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Gigante was indicted by a grand jury unmoved by his theatrics.  Soon after, Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano became famous for cooperating as a government witness, testifying that Gigante’s behavior was all an act.  Gigante died in prison.  

3.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has bogged down into a startling display of incompetence.  This is the horde we feared for decades would sweep across Europe and end freedom as we know it?  

They look more like those poor idiots on the side of the highway whose mattress has gone airborne from the roof of their car.  Russian advances, if they’ve not been stopped by a lack of food and fuel, have been stymied by surprisingly fierce Ukrainian resistance.  It’s no longer World War Two, Vladimir Putin is discovering.  Tanks, once elements of invincibility, are now targets for modern portable missiles.  Russian generals, pressing forward to restore some level of order to the chaos, are being killed.  Mobile crematoriums are disposing of casualties so they won’t have to be brought home to a Russian public oblivious to the carnage.   

Just the other day, in a bold THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO stroke, Ukrainian helicopters flew into Russian territory and destroyed a critical fuel depot.  Like a thrashing Cyclops, Russia can only cruelly and blindly strike cities with missiles fired from a safe distance.  It’s unclear if leader Vladimir Putin is being informed of the true state of affairs.  

4.  Actor Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards.  This has ignited a firestorm of debate over who was in the wrong, given Rock’s joke about the shaven scalp of Jada Pinkett, Smith’s wife, who suffers from alopecia and hair loss.  

The real issue would seem to be the delusional level of entitlement on Smith’s part.  There he was, seated in the front row, poised to win the Best Actor Award for his role in KING RICHARD and be crowned King of Hollywood.  If that weren’t heady enough, his non-stop presence on social media and innumerable television talk shows had likely convinced him he could do no wrong.  He was not only King, he was Louis XIV at Versailles, among courtiers and with nothing to restrain his impulses.  This would be a fascinating psychological study, the unmooring effect of fame and power.  

FINALLY, powerlifter, coach, and author Louie Simmons died on March 24, 2022.  His Westside Barbell Club in Columbus, Ohio, named for the Culver City, California gym that launched his career in 1970, became an elite training center and the birthplace of a methodology that has transformed the off-season preparations for football, rugby, track and field, mixed martial arts, and other sports.  Simmons was an acquired taste, introduced to the wider world when he became CrossFit’s subject matter expert on strength training.  He brought with him a strenuous and complicated system of maximum and dynamic effort days, along with a mind-bending use of bands and chains to vary the load within the course of a single lift.  This also came with quite the cast of characters, enormous shaven headed, goateed men, gigantic 300-plus pound versions of Simmons himself, for whom this system had worked.  They were world record holders, benching 700 or 800 pounds and squatting more than 900.  

Simmons quickly learned to follow CrossFit’s example in establishing a commercial presence on the internet.  Decades before, powerlifting excellence had been a solitary pursuit.  Before the Berlin Wall fell (and all the prominent Eastern Bloc strength coaches came running for the big money at publishing houses and the major college football programs) Simmons delved into any Eastern European training manuals - or translations - he could get his hands on, since those were the athletes dominating the international sports scene.  He discovered that strength and sports were not so simple.  Five separate speeds exist in the human neuromuscular transmission: quickness, speed-strength, strength speed, maximum strength, and isometric strength, each of which has a specific athletic role and can be targeted with suitable weights in training.  

Russian scientists knew, for example, that training with 50 percent of one’s maximum is ideal at the very beginning of a lift.  However, as the motion nears completion, a lifter would benefit most from 85 percent of that load.  It was Simmons who figured out how to saddle a lifter with 50 at the bottom and 85 near the top in the same lift.  The solution was accommodating resistance, the use of chains or bands on the lifter’s bar.  The more a chain piled on the floor is reeled into the air by a rising bar, the more weight it places on the bar.  Giant bands anchored to the floor, slack at the bottom of a lift, increase tension as the bar goes up.  ‘That’s genius,’ remarked the Russians who visited the Westside gym.  

Having read that it can take as long as an impractical seven seconds for an athlete to realize their full strength in a given contraction, Simmons sought to improve athletes’ rate of force activation by way of jumping.  The instant acceleration necessary to leap to a decent height is analogous to the rapid demands of any sport - including powerlifting.  Though the Russians had been at it for years, Simmons made leaping onto boxes commonplace in American gyms, along with chains and bands.  

If chains and bands were genius, then so was the invention of the reverse hyper extension machine, the belly-down, legs swinging behind and below you rehabilitative exercise for the lower back.  It’s proven so beneficial that versions of it have appeared in chiropractors’ offices everywhere.  Still, as with everything with Louie Simmons, it comes with a certain duality: Simmons invented this because he had broken his back with an obscene amount of weight in a squat.  So he’s a genius, but what was he thinking to get himself in that predicament to begin with?  

That’s the essence of Simmons: he’s a controversial figure who defies immediate judgment.  The criticism that his Conjugate Method, with its Maximum and Dynamic Effort days, does not work for ordinary lifters is true - but the principles within, applied properly, work very well.  He’s not the one who figured this out; his focus was on the big guys, but an approach associated with his tattooed behemoths, the New Zealand All-Black Rugby Team, and NFL players was adapted by other coaches for CrossFit athletes and mixed martial artists of all sizes, both of whom must emphasize conditioning over pure strength, as well as skinny guys, old guys, women, and ordinary gym goers of lesser capacities.  This was probably a happy accident in Louie’s view.  In his books he never shifted from the orthodoxy that worked for the big men, (he might not have known enough) but generously he referred readers to his Eastern European source material.  The way to judge Louie Simmons is to hold him up against the larger world he blundered into, for example the issues I mentioned above - women’s sports, criminal activities, and so on [and not in that particular order.] He was indeed a consistent, positive force in a murky world.

Unlike Donald Trump, Vincent the Chin, or Sammy the Bull, Louie never tried to distance himself from his outlaw proclivities, particularly the use of anabolic steroids.  He’d been a user for at least 50 of his 74 years, and was untroubled by the notion to the point that he felt that the rules prohibiting their use in sports were arbitrarily drawn, if not ridiculous in the first place.  In an interview, he brings up two examples to illustrate his point: An NFL player’s elderly father can go to a doctor for all the testosterone he needs, yet that player is banned from taking any.  A collegiate hockey player was kicked off the ice for their use while a number of his teammates, guilty of driving while intoxicated, are still allowed to play.  Of course steroids confer advantages, he’d say.  That’s the whole point, no different from optimizing coaching or programming.

The powerlifting federation under which Louie and his lifters were competing had no bans on steroids, so to use them was not cheating.  It was never unethical.  He never had to lie about it, or betray any confederates, or look ridiculous in having to change his story.  This would be inspiring to the handful of Proud Boys or Oath Keepers presently in prison for the role on January 6 while Donald Trump is golfing.  

If he was an enemy of the hypocritical, he was also an enemy of the hypothetical, the kind of training where an athlete never quite knew where he stood in terms of progress.  Wandering into a powerlifting meet without training at limit level poundages would be tantamount to invading Ukraine without any knowledge of whether you could accomplish a single task you set out to do.  Those poor idiots: they believed the propaganda on their awesomeness and might.  The only thing that failed more than Russia’s military or propaganda is American intelligence, which seemed to think very highly of Russian capability.  

Louie reminded us to keep things real.  His system called for maximum attempts just about every week to alleviate any uncertainties and provide feedback for changes.  Executing a limit level lift is an art and science all its own, quite apart from working through sets and reps.  Being practiced in that would be the highest form of readiness, a lesson for athletes and warriors.  

If Mark Rippetoe is any indication, it must be hard to be prominent in your field and produce a steady stream of content for clients and subscribers while sticking to the subject at hand.  Rippetoe’s ‘Ask Rip’ webcast started with him being his curmudgeonly self on topics concerning strength training, but his online presence has devolved into a curmudgeonly take on everything: the coronavirus, guns, Dr. Fauci, Trans athletes, and anti-Biden ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ jokes.  To be fair, this is a question of degree; he was never exclusively weights before and is not exclusively right wing talk radio now.  Rippetoe is a top tier expert in strength training, yet I can’t help but imagine that the way he loves to hear himself talk and his staffers guffaw - along with the subject matter - would make people doubt his objectivity.  

The analogy here is Will Smith’s epic level of entitlement, the feeling that the world was in the palm of his hand and people simply couldn’t get enough of him.  Rippetoe is not this deranged, but clearly the fact that he has only been rewarded for opening his mouth on any and all subjects has had a destructive influence.  Louie Simmons, by contrast, while he was likely not lacking in ego either, stuck to the subject of training.  His blog entries, his podcasts . . . books, even a memoir about the history of Westside, full of stories of lifters come and gone, are all focused on what happened on the platform.  

If Louie was pleasantly surprised that his method held a wider appeal than he ever imagined, then he met the moment.  He was able to look beyond the steroids and the 300 pound monsters he was used to coaching.  He shared his knowledge with ‘hardgainers,’ Olympic lifters, sprinters, NBA and NFL players, and even women bobsledders.  He was happy to test his template and research in any sport, with both men and women.  He coached a number of successful female powerlifters, but on the topic I think Louie is best summarized by a story he told:

Here’s the ending first, so I don’t sound too trite: this young woman went on to become a collegiate champion in track and field.  As a high schooler, she and her coach asked to visit Westside one day.  (Westside was always a private club.  Athletes trained by invitation only; visitors were allowed after making appointments.)  The gym had become famous online, and excitedly the girl ran from place to place, recognizing people or pieces of equipment.  She must have been fairly local; she wanted join and train with the champions she admired.  Louie watched her and was trying to summon the courage to tell them that he really didn’t have room for her to join.  The coach caught on to what was happening.  ‘It’s OK,’ he said.  ‘She’s not very good, but she tries hard.’

Louie cut him a quick look.  ‘I’ll take her,’ he said.

Renewal

I just beheld one of those moments that captures perfectly why coaches get into the business of working with kids.  It was bittersweet, utterly raw and real, which might have been as simple as a Seventh and Eighth Graders’ junior varsity hockey game, if it weren’t so laden with meaning and set on a dark and somber Monday afternoon, as if the occasion didn’t merit turning all the lights on.  

The rink was silent compared to five days before, when the Varsity Girls lost a heartbreaker in the playoffs, suddenly ending their season in a shock that gave way to tears.  The bleachers were filled with students and parents who roared with every surge up and down the ice.  Even the ice had roared, shaking with the weight of a train passing, since that was the sound made by the skates of the team captain, a foreign born, international elite-level player, who in the blink of an eye could double the speed of anyone around her as she made terrifying - or thrilling - rushes with the puck, depending on which side you were on. 

On Monday, those echoes made the building all the more empty.  The personalities were gone.  The numbers and jerseys we were used to weren’t there.  

The Zamboni finished resurfacing the ice.  Two referees appeared and pushed the goals into place before one of them gave a quick gesture to the players waiting outside the glass.  With that, the JV team trickled onto the ice, skinny little things pushing along on coltish legs, albeit with eager faces behind their masks.  The coaches probably fought to keep their composure at the sight.

Only seven minutes into the first period, the JV squad was up six to nothing.  One coach looked down the bench to the other, over the girls’ heads, and motioned with his thumbs and middle fingers: Spread them out.

Women’s hockey is relatively new in the sporting world, so the number of girls who’ve availed themselves of Pee Wee and developmental programs is limited.  Most of them flock to my daughter’s Catholic girls’ school, which does no recruiting whatsoever for athletics - though they’d hardly need to.  Two Olympians, including one famous multiple Gold medalist, were students, which has filled the pool with aspiring swimmers.  The hockey team has attracted a number of experienced young players and inspired many more to strap on skates.

The opponents on Monday have not been so lucky.  

’Spread out.  Hit the corners,’ the coaches instructed as they leaned down to the kids on the bench.  ‘When you get in their zone, you have to make five passes before anyone shoots on the goal.’   

This worked - mostly.  The team was so dominant that the puck kept winding up in the net.  

‘FIVE passes!’ the coaches insisted.  

The girls really were trying to be considerate.  While they knew better than to charge in at the goal, the spreading out and the passing was a new skill which went better some times than others.  However, the genius of this was not lost on the coaches.  One criticism of this year’s Varsity is that the reliance on that elite hotshot captain and the few other girls who could similarly skate circles around the opposition meant they had never established a disciplined passing plan.

This five passes drill might be a blessing in disguise, and soon a training plan, an objective, a blueprint.  On a cloudy, quiet Monday, when no one noticed, a future dynasty quietly tottered onto the ice.  The JV won, 13-2.  

[Postscript: Two nights later, the seniors, universally feared and admired and who have driver’s licenses, boyfriends, and no doubt far more glamorous things to do, all showed up to stand behind the bench and scream their support for the JV - who had their hands full but won, 2-0.]

No One Cares

This is how I started my letter to the editor of THE WASHINGTON POST:

The parenting advice given by Megan Leahy in her January 22, 2022 article, “How Do We Help Our Teen Son Deal With Being Too Thin?” is fundamentally flawed.  Based ultimately on an acceptance of his predicament, it would prove damaging to the boy’s psyche.

As the parents describe in their inquiry, puberty and physical development have arrived in uneven fashion among their son’s age group.  So far, he has been passed by.  It’s upsetting, and the teasing has already begun.  

Leahy sympathizes, explaining that not only are teens prone to insecurities, ‘people are born to suffer.’  Supportive parents should allow kids in these situations to ‘cry’ and ‘move forward.’  Listening, reflecting, and ‘providing context’ are important.  These parents could share pictures of once-skinny family members who must have been similarly miserable or expose their son to books and movies in which characters undergo the same struggles.   

You’ve got to be kidding, I thought as I read.  For the Post, printing such an abdication of responsibility verges on an ethical lapse.

Embracing helplessness is hardly a solution for weakness, I wrote.  Any rationalization intended to foster acceptance is a house of cards that would survive neither the stormy weather of adolescence nor any test of time beyond.  

I can’t be the only red-blooded father having this reaction, I figured.  Time and experience teach that teenage angst is actually a summons from the gods, the same call that all warriors, athletes, artists, and statesmen have heard through the ages: it’s time to do your own growing up.  

Instead, this is the standard of courage society is going to advocate?  I decided to type something up on strength training.  

That got me to thinking about the last time I typed something up, to that hockey coach, a copy of the note I posted a week or two ago.  I’ve heard nothing back.  That happened with a football coach; an athletic director who agreed with me completely in a conversation on the subject never followed up, and a father, who after expressing admiration for the power in my daughter’s tennis strokes asked if he could bring his ‘weak’ kid by for some coaching - to which I said, ‘Sure!’ - disappeared.  

No one cares.  I never sent the letter.  

Here’s the solution I was going to offer the poor skinny kid’s parents:

Physical inferiority is a problem that can be solved.  The kid should lift weights.  Using barbells, he should squat, press, and deadlift, exercises that eventually can be done with hundreds - plural - of pounds.  A good coach can establish expectations and a routine based on a young man (or woman’s) age and hormonal maturity.  

Those worried about the danger of it all should ask themselves how kids slung around bales of hay for generations before this age of listening and compassion.  

The boy will see the benefits on the playing field and in his physical appearance, and his parents, siblings, teachers, and friends will admire the confidence born of challenges met.  

Oh, God - it’s probably me, I’ve thought.  People might agree that strength training is swell, but it’s me or my version of it they want nothing to do with.  Still, they don’t seem to have imposed their own programs.  

They don’t know anything about lifting, and they don’t care.  If I were to come along and say I’m a video gamer or a bird watcher, it would hold the same zero relevance to their life.  They could consider me a complete wacko: Dear Coach, the best thing for your team would be an intensive Summer of training at altitude in the Praying Mantis style of Kung Fu . . . 

The other night, I was sitting next to another Dad at a hockey game.  His daughter, a sophomore, ‘is really starting to get the hang of it,’ he said.  ‘She’s been working on skating faster.’

‘It’s time to get her lifting,’ popped into my head, but I didn’t say it.  I have to stop caring as well, which struck me as sad.  

Fights Nearly a Century in Progress

Two stories intrigue me:

The great boxer Jack Dempsey was stepping out of a cab in New York City when he was confronted by two young toughs who demanded his wallet.  At least 75 and no doubt in his customary double breasted suit, he must have presented a pretty easy target.  In an instant, everything was over.  The two assailants lay unconscious on the sidewalk, sledgehammered before they knew what hit them.  

I saw this second story recounted by the young woman involved: 30 or more years ago, she was a blue eyed, blonde haired 14-year-old and part of a summer sailing expedition around the Mediterranean, a program run by a ‘charming’ older man who was about 70 and happened to have served in the Special Air Service in World War Two.  Apparently, they were ashore in Algeria when three locals made it clear they wanted to ‘buy’ this beautiful young thing.  They didn’t catch the leader’s declining the offer, and in fact they were seizing the goods when suddenly the charming 70 year old leveled the three of them.  The police arrived after some minutes and were very apologetic before hauling away the broken bodies.

How did these guys do this?  What kind of movement and kinetic energy did they harness to make such short work of these attackers?  It had to be at once ruthlessly effective, imparting either phenomenal impact or devastating penetration, as well as incredibly efficient, since speed was of the essence and neither of these guys was young or infinitely powerful.  What exactly cracked these skulls, a fist, an elbow, palm heel,  a swift drop to the pavement, or a stomping for good measure?  

Clearly, the aged Jack Dempsey didn’t waste time putting up his dukes.  In his book CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTING: EXPLOSIVE PUNCHING AND AGGRESSIVE DEFENSE, the Manassa Mauler explained that speed and power come from a drop step that capitalized upon gravity and a fighter’s weight.  He refused to use the word ‘jab’, insisting that even the most preliminary shot should be a ‘jolt’ containing knockout power.  

For the SAS man, it probably wasn’t all fisticuffs.  Knees and groins were likely among the targets destroyed in an assault the Algerians had not imagined.  

 A few friends and I have some ideas about the skills and speed involved, which we practice in weekend combatives workouts.  Whole bodied movement, especially turning, is key to creating force.  Elbows are critical weapons in very close quarters, and the essential aim is to avoid staying in place and trading blows; always one should seek to flank an opponent, moving to a position of advantage - from which you can inflict damage while he cannot answer.  

We’ve also discovered some larger psychological truths: aggression and confidence come from practice.  That means conceptual understanding and successful repetition.  Crossing the divide to land a shot on an opponent is not only a case of bridging the physical distance; it’s overcoming your own reservations and knowing how to bypass his defenses, which can be two very real barriers.  The ability to drive down a guy’s throat does not come from merely the desire to do so.  A fighter who knows how to ‘fill the air’ with an effective offense can rally - psychologically - behind it, like troops running behind a tank blasting its way into enemy territory.  

Jack Dempsey was known for his ‘Dempsey roll,’ a constant bobbing and weaving that generated rib cracking punching power.  Films of this were devoured by a young Mike Tyson, whose trainer, Cus D’Amato, promised him, ‘Trust me, the other guys won’t know what to do.’  

Dempsey was such a whirlwind of power and fury that boxing established its ‘Go to a neutral corner in the event of a knockdown’ rule to handle him in the ring.  

The Special Air Service badge is a standard of lethality tracing back to the commando group’s first exploits in North Africa during the Second World War.  Sailing unseen across the vast desert in jeeps and trucks, they crept on foot into German airfields and created strategically significant mayhem.  Through the decades they have remained Britain’s first choice in handling its dirty work, often hostage rescue or anti-terrorism, and in so doing have produced a breed of superbly capable warriors.  

Classified as their hand-to-hand training was then or remains today, physically it’s no doubt similar to Dempsey’s ability to link well targeted blows to powerful steps and turns.  Mentally the result is the same: these skills are repeated extensively to give the soldiers faith enough to employ them at a moment’s notice.  

The content is not so secret, as it turns out.  Plenty of films and books have made World War Two combatives accessible to historians and athletes, lessons that are often deceptively sophisticated.  Their greatest fault can be in appearing overly tame or simplistic; their genius is in the broad conceptual foundation they provide.  

An example that’s caught my attention recently is pugil stick fighting, which was invented during the war as a means of bayonet training.  Two players, clad in helmets, pads, and protective gloves, handle long poles with canvas and padding at each end.  Their hands are near the center of the poles, and they can strike with either end.  

A recruit’s first attempts at stick fighting were very likely mad rounds of flailing that exhausted their arms and shoulders very quickly.  If they had a chance to study the art, however, they’d learn to be cooler under pressure, realizing how easily shots could be deflected or evaded entirely.  Bringing a leg, hip, shoulder, and stick around all at once could lend great power to a shot.  

When the horizontal swinging turns into a stalemate of pushing and shoving, a fighter can change his axis of rotation, bringing a shot straight down on an opponent’s head or looping an upward swing into a knee or groin.  This teaches the recruit to capitalize upon opportunities.  Rather than give in to a fear driven,  frenzied collision, a thoughtful, experienced fighter will take the fight to his opponent beforehand, striking unguarded targets with speed and force.  

Though Jack Dempsey’s professional career ended in 1927, his methodology counts as World War Two combatives, since in 1942 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Coast Guard Reserve and published HOW TO FIGHT TOUGH; 100 ACTION PHOTOS TEACHING U.S. COMMANDO FIGHTING.  

Our little Sunday group can attest that the Dempsey roll makes the close quarters elbow work very effective.  Elbows come highly recommended by the famous Paddy O’Neill, author of DEAL THE FIRST DEADLY BLOW and trainer of the joint Canadian and American Devil’s Brigade.  This sets up knee strikes, of which every instructor is a fan, particularly Colonel William Fairbairn, the godfather of military combatives.  

All of our repetition has taught us another very important truth.  These attacks must be launched in a split second.  As we count down our ‘3 -2-1 . . . go’s,’ we all edge into our first moves between ‘2’ and ‘1,’ practically twitching, knowing that the tiniest advantages in position and timing make all the difference. 

That’s what Dempsey understood.  He knocked out those muggers out before they had even realized that things might have to get rough.  

The SAS man of course did not drop his three bad guys as fast as a ricocheting bullet.   He probably did sucker punch the first but would be wise enough to groin the second one, who’d have had time to put his hands up.  He turned to the third, whose eyes went wide as he had no time to form a plan, ran him down with an elbow or knee upon arrival, and threw him with concussive force into the pavement - before turning back to the gasping, wounded Number Two.  

Initiative is everything on a physical level, when you’re both primed to fight and itching to sink that first critical shot.  Psychologically, it’s even more profound.  The advantage of training, and the lesson from the combatives of World War Two, is that your immediate action and the nature of your attack are decisions that have been made months or years in advance of any situation that might arise. 

Those thugs in New York and Algeria walked into fights that had started 50 years before.  They never stood a chance.  

A Slapshot

Every so often I attempt to merge my private little world with the larger universe, as I did in this e-mail below.

The context is that my 12th Grade daughter has taken up hockey, joining the team as the warm body they desperately needed to play goalie. This has awakened my old love for the game. 40 years ago I too played in high school, but as I headed off to a Southern college, my career ended with a sense of unfinished business. Now, with new skates and a pile of used equipment, I’ll soon be joining a men’s league and getting back into the action. That’s a story for another time.

[Bob],

You might recall from a Stick-n-Puck just before Christmas, when you were coaching [Poopsie] in goal, saying that you’d help me find my way onto the right Men’s League team when the time came.  I’m still planning to take you up on that, but in the meantime, I’d like to return the favor to you and the [Sweet Valley High School] hockey team.

I think I can be helpful as you plan your offseason training program.  I know a fair bit about classical barbell training, having experience 

- as a competitive weightlifter and assistant football team strength coach while at [Trump University]

- running a CrossFit styled business a decade ago in Hawaii

- and coaching strength training for high school boys and girls in a sailing program while we were stationed in Cleveland in 2018 and ’19.

I’m compelled to write after reading the January 9 e-mail from Coach [Smith], which contained a handful of suggested circuit workouts since the COVID surge was precluding team gatherings.  

To put it bluntly, the only thing circuit workouts are good for is managing a crowd over a given period of time.  True, it is exercise; it will call forth exertion, make people sweaty, and wear them out, but it is not training.   As written, those circuits are a blend of exercises that are 

- exceedingly difficult:  (any girl who can hit 10 diamond push ups should go to Ranger School)

- ineffective: (planks; 12 squats with 2 second pauses provide neither strength nor endurance)

- strangely advanced: (Bulgarian split squats, the latest in the dangerous fad of using skill development exercises in beginner level conditioning, are best reserved for collegiate level wide receivers or track and field athletes.)  

Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s good for you.  Beginner athletes are best served by a focused, incremental process of stress, recovery, and adaptation involving natural and balanced movements.  

Strength is defined as the ability to apply force against external resistance.  The best lifts for building strength are the big classic four: the (barbell) squat, bench press, deadlift, and overhead press, all of which use the greatest amount of muscle mass to move the greatest amount of weight through the greatest distance possible.  Young athletes who are taught these skills can then proceed in a novice linear progression in which they add a bit of weight in every workout and gain significant strength over the long term.  

The resulting leg, trunk, and upper body strength would provide a solid foundation for the development of skating and stick handling skills, as well as staying power for the duration of practices and games.  

Unlike the flouncing around in other programs that waste substantial time and money, the performance improvement in barbell strength training is guaranteed and can be objectively measured in pounds lifted. 

If you’d like a proof of concept, you’re invited to watch one of Poopsie’s workouts in our [Potemkin] garage gym.   She’s presently squatting 190-some-odd pounds for sets of 5 and deadlifting 225 for reps.  

I’m not sure that what you’d see is entirely feasible for Sweet Valley High, given the equipment you have on campus, but if you were to consider barbell training, I’d be happy to provide information on the necessary equipment  - (and unnecessary!   Trust me, you will be sold a bill of goods) - as well as creating a program.

As coaches meet with the athletic director and administration, they should be well informed concerning the best possible investments in the future of Sweet Valley athletics. 

I Thought Age Brought Wisdom

This is good news, if not a little confusing: I benched 290 the other day.  That’s not far from my all-time best, 310, and way better than expected, considering I hadn’t really been training for it.  Instead, I’ve been doing high reps with fairly light weights and fooling around with a little rack work, on a break from the heavy grind.  Startling as it is, this is good news.  If I handle my programming right, then even greater feats await.  The only problem is that I’m not exactly sure what to do, having confused much of what I thought I knew about training.   

I learned what NOT to do last Spring, which is keep at heavy sets for a long time.  I had a hip hurting from heavy deadlifts, a leftward hitch at the bottom of my squat, and a bench press that had regressed from 310 down to a 280 I was glad to get just before jumping ship.  

In July of 2021, I dropped my weights to 55 percent of max and hit sets of 10, fixing my form errors and lifting pain free.  I’ve debated with myself over whether that was too light; it’s been a long, slow trip back - but then again it was great: easy in many ways, and it cleared my head.  By the time Christmas approached, I had notched upward enough that I couldn’t make 10’s anymore in the squat and bench.  The Romanian deads were getting dicey, and the narrow grip inclines had already died two or three weeks before.  

Christmas seemed to present a natural break.  It was time to switch into a familiar 8-5-2 weekly progression and push the heavier weights once more.  

Fate intervened.  The 17 year old brought a case of Omicron Coronavirus home from school, canceling our holiday travel plans.  (No symptoms, no drama . . . ) but with not much to do, I figured I’d still lift during vacation week.   At this age, the soreness upon returning from a week off can be more trouble than the rest was worth, so I just messed around with some maxes.  

290 is exciting and not too far away from 315, three plates on each end of the bar, a longtime goal, a notable, not heavily traversed peak in the rugged mountain range of masculine achievement.  If the light stuff has gotten me this far, then a reasonable, judiciously applied amount of additional work can get me the rest of the way.  

How do I get there - and come to think of it, how did I get here?  

Really, the truth is that it wasn’t just the light stuff.  I probably shouldn’t admit this, but for a while I thought it was - until I remembered something I had considered pretty extraneous, the handful of pin presses I’d been doing. Starting a bench press from a dead stop on set of rack pins down near chest level forces the central nervous system to activate the maximal number of motor units needed for that given weight - which will be more motor units than if you had lowered the bar from arms’ length and taken advantage of the stretch reflex.  Pin presses are very direct, very focused, and therefore very potent, but done in excess they quickly become counterproductive.  A few of my reps have included driving 285 from near my chest, so Holy Smokes - that probably has something to do with the 290.       

Now, wait a minute: this changes the entire ballgame.  The strength focus is now a surprisingly small amount of heavy work, two rounds of 6-rep drop sets: 2 with 285, 2 with 255, and 2 with 235 - much of which is not really that heavy.  The sets of 10 at 70 or 75 percent of max in the bench join dips, inclines and kettlebell presses done in the same manner, providing a general, multi-faceted strength development at an intensity from which I can recover.  

If this particular combination of heavy and light carries my bench press to 310, 315, and beyond, then I’ve found the Golden Ticket, the best regimen for my age.  

My age . . . my age has probably figured in to all the difficulties I’ve created for myself.  I’ve been told, ‘You can’t handle weights like that at your age,’ to which I’ve responded with, ‘Watch me . . ,’ and grinding along in Sisyphean struggles with heavy, heavy sets in the bench, squat and dead, all in the hope of building the capacity for outrageous maxes.  

I have to decide whether this discovery reflects something bad or good.  

‘You can’t handle the tonnage, old man.’

‘You are seasoned and far more efficient than you ever imagined.’

I guess this is good news, as bizarre it all seems.  Strength gains, like all good things in life, are usually more hard won.

It’s a new way to proceed.  The old way hasn’t worked lately, so we’ll avoid insanity, at least from the standpoint of doing the same thing all over again.   I’ll use similar approaches in the squat and dead, and I shouldn’t exhaust myself too soon.  

A Gin Rickey on Cold Stone

Not far from here is St. Mary’s Catholic Church, a big complex with its own school, where years ago on a  September evening my daughter attended her first dance.  When we arrived, she was mortified that I pulled into a spot and shut off the engine.  ‘You’re not going to stay here, are you?’  she asked.  That would throw a serious wrench into finding her friends and disappearing into the large crowd of eager Seventh Graders.  

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’re going to go see the guy who wrote the book on Friday nights.’  My wife and I were headed to the cemetery on the other end of the property.

More than 80 years after his death, the grave of author F. Scott Fitzgerald still attracts admirers, many of whom leave bottles of gin, large and small, as well as coins or pens in tribute.  When my wife and I arrived, we realized with some surprise that somebody was already there.  A young woman was holding a gloomy vigil, seated at the grave in the growing darkness.  

We stood back to be polite.  ‘Both Scott and his wife Zelda are buried here,’ I whispered.

The woman rose and walked off.  

Quickly, I knelt next to the stone for a few pictures, hoping the woman would see we’d soon be gone.  She seemed to need the visit more than we did.  

A novelist, essayist, short story, and screen writer, Fitzgerald wrote about life, love, meaning, and desire in numerous combinations.  In so doing he chronicled the ‘excesses and flamboyance of the Jazz Age,’ as introductory descriptions so often say, but really he was interested in the excitement of being young in an America that had just saved Europe in the First World War and was fast transforming into a modern society.  Fitzgerald’s great talent was his crystal clarity, which could impart all the promise of a crisp Fall day on the leafy Princeton campus or the the sense of Fate Knocking as a train rumbles into a station.   His landscapes set the emotional scene, whether it’s the sun’s limitless reflection shimmering on the ocean, wind and snow angrily slanting across an empty golf course, or on a summer’s evening, music floating out of the country club, down the lawn, and out across a moonlit and silent lake.  These are the hearts of his young male characters laid bare, and on this ground the entanglements with beautiful, fearless young women are exhilarating and often terrifying.  We feel the turmoil of young men with uncertain futures.  

Fitzgerald’s was an uncertain life, perhaps marked most significantly by the heartbreak of losing his first love, the glamorous Chicago debutante Ginevra King, the result of his apparently limited financial prospects.  He then fell in with another debutante, the Southern belle Zelda Sayre, glamorous and exciting in her own way but increasingly difficult after they were married, to the point of needing numerous sanitarium stays.  Fitzgerald ultimately became a figure of frustration and defeat.  When he could find moments to himself, he produced works of genius.  However, his peers and publishers lamented, Zelda was crippling his ability to produce more novels.  She insisted on the easy money that short stories would always bring, the better to support the high rolling lifestyle they had adopted, decadence and excess that seemed to be a counterpoint to the strain of marital unhappiness and Zelda’s private demons.  Even on their wedding day, Fitzgerald knew he was making a terrible mistake.  

The courses of his characters’ lives are determined by mostly critical moments in courtship, but also at school, the country club, or office.   Fitzgerald’s trajectory is the most errant of them all.  In one experience perhaps too cruel to commit to paper, Fitzgerald was reunited late in life with his long lost love, Ginevra.  He dreaded the meeting, since he had forever held in his mind’s eye an idealized version of her - and he certainly couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing what had become of him.  

He had drunk himself to death by the age of 44.  It’s enough to make one wonder what might be happening beneath the ground at St. Mary’s.  Is he desperate to escape the suffocation created byZelda?   Are all those people brooding at his graveside or leaving bottles of gin having similar crises in their lives?  

It’s not a crisis and maybe even not a shortcoming, but my connection to Fitzgerald has been less a brooding vigil and more a mere set of snapshots.  I’ve long been a fan but not an expert.  In fact, those paragraphs above represent my deepest attempt to understand his life.  In college, intrigued by a class discussion of his story ‘Winter Dreams’ and assigned a paper on an author of my choosing, I found myself in the Fitzgerald section of the stacks down on a basement level of the library.   I was immediately captivated by a short story entitled ‘The Sensible Thing.’  

Panicked, delaying the inevitable as long as he can, the desperate and unhappy young insurance clerk George O’Kelly rushes several hundred miles from New York to his Tennessee hometown to convince his love, Jonquil, not to lose faith in him or his prospects for providing a stable basis for marriage.  Despite a degree in engineering at MIT and dreams of steel, concrete, and skyscrapers, he is stuck professionally and consequently bankrupt - financially and emotionally.  

His relationship with Jonquil dissolves within hours, minutes really, of his arrival.  The ‘sensible thing’ of the title is her mothers’ gentle suggestion that it’s time to move on.  George feels ‘ridiculous and weak;’ his farewell at the train station is marked by an ‘ill-concealed agony.’  

‘Dumb, almost blind with pain, he seized his suitcase, and in some dazed way got himself aboard the train.’

It’s as brutal as the next scene is awesome: 15 months later, George steps off a train at that same platform.  He’s tanned, scarred, and cuts a rugged, swashbuckling figure.  He’s been in Cuzco, Peru, raising a city from the jungle.  He had lucked into a surveying expedition and then suddenly into an important role when one of the lead engineers died of yellow fever.  His life and his prospects have turned around entirely.  

At the time I read this, early freshman year in college, I too had recently undergone a brutal separation from a girlfriend as we headed off to separate colleges.  Our futures had been tossed into the air as dramatically as George’s, which made a similar validation an ambition of mine as well.  

George and Jonquil do not reunite.  ‘There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice,’ Fitzgerald says.  However, as the two stroll during his visit, they lock eyes in an instant that surprises them both.  It’s their first truthful moment in the midst of a giant pretense, but the significance is clear: the score has changed, and they both know it.  

That was the happy ending for me, his showing her what he was truly made of.  I ignored the rest of it.

When I was a high school sophomore, my English class studied THE GREAT GATSBY, an experience that went largely over my head.  I grasped the descriptions of Gatsby’s grand parties and all the excess, but I utterly lacked the life experience and emotional depth to pick up on the longings and cruelties Fitzgerald also depicted, let alone that he was expressing disillusionment with the idea of winning one’s way back into someone’s heart.  It’s possible that Fitzgerald did once feel that success and daring were all a man needed to win at life, but many of his short stories make us realize that’s not so easily done or even true for the guys who do hit the ball straight down the fairway.  Maybe the short stories show an evolution of thought, or maybe he was circumspect about the ‘Jazz Age’ all along.  

I’m the simpler case study.  Decades ago I was concerned only with heartbreak and the need to prevail over it one way or another.  Now I’m worldly enough to pick up some of Fitzgerald’s misgivings even as his direction seems clear.   I had completely glossed over how in ‘The Sensible Thing,’ George is struck with a realization upon his triumphant return to Tennessee: ‘For four long seasons every minute of his leisure had been crowded with anticipation of this hour, and now this hour was here. He had thought of finding her married, engaged, in love--he had not thought she would be unstirred at his return.’

She’s ‘unstirred?’  How’s a guy supposed to swagger in and win the day - win that long year and win her heart if she’s not emotionally invested?  Things change, Fitzgerald is telling us.  All those absolutes by which a young man can chart his course might not be so absolute after all. 

Now I’m thinking about those brooding vigils and the bottles of gin left at Fitzgerald’s grave.  Maybe those people are not commiserating.  Maybe they did find themselves in a tough spot, but they’re thanking the Master for one of his lessons.  ‘You taught me to see truths I would have missed otherwise.  Can I buy you a drink?’