How and I Train and Why - Part II

Enter Big Mike - I first met Mike when I would come home from college during the summers to lifeguard at the local swimming pool.  Mike worked at the same pool I did.  Mike was a mountain of a man.  Larger than life.  The first "real" bodybuilder/powerlifter that I had interacted with.  After befriending Mike, I knew he was the right guy to be around if I wanted to learn the ins and outs of powerlifting and become as strong as possible.  I think most lifters have that one person who took them under their wing and showed them the ropes.  For me Mike was that guy.   I owe most of my success in powerlifting to Big Mike.  He was an excellent training partner, who in my mind, was one of the best lifters Texas had ever seen.

From 2003 - to 2007 it was "westside" all the way.  Box squats and board presses, dynamic effort and max effort, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday training sessions were a staple of my life back then.  Max effort nights consisted of rotating main exercises and working up to a max single, double, or triple.  After that we would training more of a bodybuilding style focusing on our weak points.  Dynamic days were 10-12 doubles on the squat and 9 x 3 on the bench just like Louie prescribed.  We would wave our loading from 50% - 60% just like I would read about in Powerlifting USA.  I started reading every article Louie put out and I even still have his old Westside Barbelll VHS tapes.  I tried to learn as much as I could about the conjugate method.  The GHR became my best friend and in only a month's time added over 100lbs. to my squat.  We started out training with straight weight and when we learned about accommodating  resistance we started using bands on our dynamic days.  We never did use chains all that much.  Mainly because chains were expensive and bands could be ordered and received very quickly.  Training with bands added a whole new dimension to our training.  Using the westside template took me from a 1656 single ply total all the way up to totaling my first ELITE total - 2127 at the 2006 APF Senior Nationals in Las Vegas, NV.  I must note that also during that time I switched over from single ply gear to using double ply.   Training with Mike was great because of his passion and knowledge of the sport.  We quickly developed a "team" and would routinely have over 10+ guys training together at the same time.  It was my life.  We would train together, travel together, and compete alongside one another.  We never had to worry about paying gym dues because Big Mike owned the gym.  He didn't want to charge us dues because of all the other money we were spending between gear, travel, and entry fees.  Big Mike had an even bigger heart.  Big Mike opened his house to us, which was awesome, because Big Mike had a hot tub which made for great therapy and also great parties.  As you would imagine we all got very, very strong.  I couldn't wait to train and would often stay at the gym for 4+ hours.  Not necessarily training that long, but just hanging out and soaking in the "gym life."    I consider this time period in my life the "golden age" of my powerlifting career.  There weren't many distractions, I was able to dive into the sport full tilt and gave it everything I had.  It was my life.
It was during the later part of this time period that I met Sean, was the founder of a hardcore powerlifting gym which, at the time was located in Carrollton, TX.  Meeting Sean opened my eyes to a whole new world of dedication and training.  Stay tuned for Part III.