Clinically Pressed in Madison: What We Learned and a Preview

By: Joel Luedke

It's spring break for AJ and I and we decided to kick back, relax, pull Kyle away from work and get down to Madison, WI to shoot three upcoming episodes for Clinically Pressed.  We shipped out of La Crosse at 6:15am and got down to start shooting at 9:00am sharp.  We learned a lot through the day and without giving away what the episodes are completely about we wanted to use this article to high light some trends and themes we experienced throughout the day that are very relevant to what anyone trying to achieve goals in fitness or in life in general.

Life Themes:

-Finding a passion and getting after it, relentlessly.

• There are so many options for careers out there but you have to find something that excites you to get out of bed in the morning (well most mornings).  When it becomes work its time to re-evaluate.

-Limiting your desire to be a 'jack of all trades'

• This one is up in the air but it is almost impossible to be all things to all people.  Find your niche and find other people that can help fill the rest of those where you work.  In sports performance its finding the combination of experts that know enough about everything to consult but still have the area they thrive in.

-Listen to everything but accept nothing without challenging it with your own ideals.

• This goes along with out 'jack of all trades' point.  Always be listening to other 'experts' but critically think based on your own ideas and knowledge.  If you always go back and try and argue against what you think and you can't, you know what you think it pretty good.

-Never stop learning

• Simple said and the best part of health, wellness and nutrition: You can never know it all but that means you can always learn something new.

Training/Performance Goals:

-Training vs. Working Out

• Just going into the gym each day and blowing it out until you can't walk isn't going to allow your body to get to where it needs.  You need to have a plan and understand just working as hard as you can won't always help you out.

-It's all about progression and figuring out where you're at. Build a stable foundation while establishing a good base and build upon it.

• We can't just look at what the 'elite' are doing and say, we need to be doing those same things.  We need to look back at what those 'elite' were doing when they were where we are.  Understand it takes steps and time.

-There isn't one solution to every problem, you have to figure that part out.

• No one training system or tool fixes everyone or creates elite athletes every single time.  That is the pain and the beauty of it all that you have to adapt to what works for individuals, then you can start setting yourself apart.

-Don't speak in absolutes, it rarely (or never works)

• This ties into our one above.  Don't get so set in specific ways that you never vary and won't have it any other way, you will most likely get set for failure.  Have your system but remain adaptable.

Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for the release of all the episodes on Clinically Pressed.