The adage is true, “Days are long and years are short” (Gretchen Rubin). As I age I try to remember to take moments and be thankful for everyone and everything around me. With that in mind today I want to introduce you to a few friends of mine (that you may already know). This is my chance to thank some of the people that keep UF running, and me from working too hard :-).

 

First up is CeJ, also known as CJ or Charles Edward Jasper. What you may not know is that CJ and I have worked together too many times to count. He began interning with us when I was director of strength and conditioning at Robert Morris. He spent years bouncing around as a strength coach with stops at The Ohio State University, The Mets, Morehead State, Youngstown State, as well as a return trip to RMU with yours truly.

 

One thing I can say separates CJ is how he thinks. My running joke is CJ always thinks outside the box, so much so that sometimes I have to pull him back into the box. Due to how he thinks, and works, he always has an idea. Most of the summer events we run are his idea, he also handles all programming for our most popular class (powerful). In addition there is an added bonus with CJ, we also get one Skylyn to hang around the gym and be a positive force.

 

CJ I am thankful for your friendship and the chance to work with you. CJ is a friend and a co-worker for that I am grateful.

 

Next up is Toria Crispin! Tordawg is a two time MVP employee of the U! Toria came to us while working full time at Pitt. She was living in Parkview and wanted to pick up a part time job. Curtis hired her she brought her awesome self here from day 1. She worked here while holding down her full time job, and was awesome stepping up during the Covid time period.

 

She did leave us to take a job at University of Colorado at Denver. When a position opened up she was my first call. I knew she would not only be a great fit for us, but that we would also be a great fit for her. After some arm twisting I convinced her to come back and join us at the U. I can honestly say she keeps me on point most days. Without her at work we would probably or definitely mess up more things than I already do daily.

 

I am thankful for Toria’s friendship and that she is here with us at the U. When you see her pat her on the shoulder (make sure it’s her good shoulder) and thank her for all she does for us.

 

Finally, the new guy, Zain. Zain had some big shoes to fill, he took over after Curtis moved on from the U. If you don’t know his story (because he is humble and rarely tells his story), I will share some of it here. Zain is a veteran. Zain served in the Navy, his 21st b-day was ruined by international battles. He has seen more of the world than most of us.

 

After his service Zain went to Pitt where he competed in bodybuilding and powerlifting. He was on Pitt’s powerlifting team and received his masters at Pitt. Additionally Zain has been working two full time jobs for the last 3 months. In order to finish his masters he needed to do an internship, he did an internship at the UPMC complex in Cranberry while working here full time. He rarely talks about it and shows up everyday ready to work. I respect how he handled this. It also means that he set a high standard so if he gets lazy I can always remind him that his work load is now half of what it was all summer.

 

Zain we are lucky to have you at the U and we appreciate all you do and bring to the U.

 

There are many other people at Union Fitness that make us better everyday. I also want to thank all of our people for what they do. I know I am an imperfect leader, yet I keep trying to learn and grow daily. Our goal is to empower our people so they can empower our members and our community.

 

Thank you for spending time reading about these awesome people!

 

Todd Hamer

 

 

Throughout the summer we try to get outside and be involved in as many of the fun activities around the area as possible. Rarely does a weekend go by that we are not hosting or participating in an event. This past weekend was one of the biggest for us here at the U. We hosted the Iron City Open 6. This was the 11th full powerlifting meet here at UF. Following this on Sunday we hosted Gay 4 Good’s Yoga 4 Good. I want to thank everyone involved in each of these events.

 

The Iron City Open is one of the premiere events we host here at UF. This was the sixth year we were able to host this event. If it were not for Doug, Candi, and Doug’s crew we could not host this event. We also must thank the WRPF for governing this event. I do want to personally thank all the UF lifters, spotters, loaders, friends, coaches, and employees who were here that day making this event special. Pitt Powerlifting did a great job, as they always do. They spend the day spotting and loading weights, if you have never done this, I don’t recommend it, as it is not easy. Here is a short list of gym members who did great and spent their Saturday with us; Josh, Ava, Bobby, Tim, Joe, Shane, Dan, Sydney, Jared, Katie, Curtis, Skylyn, CeJ, Toria, Justin, Amelia, Yessica, Zain, Daria, Dahveed, and I hope I didn’t miss anyone. Congrats Skylyn on winning best lifter. I will also thank some of our class members for coming by to support. Jaclyn and Lexi we appreciate the support!

 

Yoga 4 Good was our second event this weekend. We had 22 people come out and enjoy some Yoga with our wonderful instructor Lauren. Thank you Lauren for leading this group. We made some donations of food and clothes to The Open Door, Inc. If you do not know who The Open Door Inc is please click on their site. They house HIV positive people who have little to no other options and are a local non profit. I was not aware of this organization yet we already have plans to work with them in the future.

 

Now that these events are over let’s start looking forward to our next big events. We will be sponsoring Open Streets on June 25th. Come see CeJ and his wheel of exercise, and support our friends at Bike PGH. July 15th come out to our 3rd annual pride event. We will have a bootcamp style workout (with special guest coaches), and a comedy show following the workout. We are also going to host United Not Divided to end July. This year we will have more than 10 local gyms coming down to the U for a day of working out and building community.

 

Thanks and I really hope I didn’t miss anyone.

 

Todd Hamer

 

 

 

 

 

Do you ever get bored in the gym? Hit a plateau? Show up with no plan?

 

Far too often, we find ourselves scrolling social media and getting caught up in influencers workouts on Instagram and tiktok. This makes us want to get up and go to the gym, which is a good thing, but it can lead to a lot of confusion. The result is you show up to the gym with no plan, just some stuff you saw on Instagram which is specific to someone else’s plan. You end up doing their workout , then the next day you do another different one, then another, the cycle continues. This leads to no linear progress in the gym and constant novelty. How can we solve this problem? How can we break strength plateaus?

 

Set a goal, one that is specific. An example would be: I want to increase my bench press by about 20lbs by the end of the month. 

 

The proper approach to this would be to set up a training block of about 4 weeks, the idea is you do the same movements for 4 weeks and get better both physically and mentally. 

 

• Bench Press 5,3,2,1 (Set of 5, set of 3, set of 2, set of 1) (Increasing the weight every time)
• DB incline Press 3 x 8-10  (Secondary bench)
• BB Row 3 x 6-10 (Heavy Rows)
• Chest fly 3 x 10-15 
• Heavy tricep Ext. 3 x 6-10
• Rear delts 3 x 10-15

Pick a day of the week to be your bench press day, and execute this plan for 4 weeks straight increasing the weight a small amount (5 to 10 lbs) each session! 

 

Give this a try for your bench day for at least a month, let me know if you get stronger! The same method can be applied to anything. 

 

Come to the gym prepared. Stick to the plan.

 

• Michael Dowling 4.13.23

I have been lifting consistently for over 2 decades. I have also been a vocracious reader throughout that time. In an active year I have achieved 200 training sessions and read 50 books. I am now closing in on having read 1,000 books throughout my lifetime. The process of finding this number was not easy, I had to go back to my childhood. As for training I have no idea how many sessions I’ve had, what I do know is that I have been under the bar often. Of all the books I’ve read and all the training sessions I have been involved in I have forgotten most of them. Some reps and some words books have stuck with me, yet most are gone. Today I am going to take a trip down memory lane for some reps I recall, and some words I recall. I take all credit for when my memory fails me.

 

1. First rep I will never forget is 2001, training with Jim Roney (then strength coach at University of Richmond). We were learning about bands, chains, and boards. We would read Louie Simmons articles then go experiment. The gym was a basement in the infamous Franklin St gym. The building was Virginia Commonwealth University’s original gym building, and it looked like an original gym building. It was dirty and I loved it. Now to the training, we were doing heavy board presses and decided to add bands. I can’t recall the weight, yet when I unracked it I remember one emotion, fear. I honestly don’t even recall if I got the rep or missed it. What I recall and learned is that fear is an amazing motivator. The first lesson here is fear is OK, and can be great when used sparingly.
2. The first words from a book that I will never forget are,“To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat- and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.” (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle). I read The Jungle while on the beach one Christmas in St Simon’s Island Georgia. This is one of the books that haunted me. Sinclair’s writing style is amazing and how he can paint the picture of an immigrant family is top notch. This quote says so much about humanities struggle against any challenge we may face.

3. Rep #2 that I will touch on here is a rep that I missed. This was probably around 2003. My goal was to squat 500 for the first time in my life at 165 lbs weight class. I opened at 430 lbs, then went 465 for my second attempt. After this rep I was not confident, I was going to go to 490. Jim Wendler came over to the table and asked what my next attempt was, I said 490. He replied with, “What did you come here to do?” I said 500. He said, “Then go to 500, it won’t kill you.” Jim has always had a way with words. 500 did not kill me, yet I did miss, and I also came back and got it at my next meet. Again, this taught me to put my chips on the table, I also know many young lifters wouldn’t agree with this approach, but that is the beauty of life.
4. Francis Slakey provides the quote from our next book,“If you get to the end of your life and you have regrets that you could have done better, then you blew it.” Francis Slakey, To The Last Breath. I read this book about a decade ago. This book reminded that life is about the journey. I was lucky enough to share a few emails with Mr Slakey, and he truly lives through the growth that he had shown in this book. 
5. The next rep I am going to write about shows how great the powerlifting community truly can be. I am going to guess that the year was probably 2004 or 2005. I was competing in Charleston, West Virginia. I don’t recall all my lifts, yet squat and bench went well (if my memory serves me). I moved to dead, I was opening at 505, I had pulled this many times. well, after a long day of lifting the first rep felt like a ton. I missed my first pull, then I went on to miss my second as well. I was preparing for my final attempt when some guy I never met said, “Hey man how’s the lifting going?” I said, I missed my first two deads. He looked at me and said, “Who do you think you are? You are not Ed Coan, you are not good enough to bomb out on deadlifts.” He then followed me around until my attempt all while screaming, the bar has 135 on it and you will lift 135. I have edited some of his words for the masses. I went and pulled my final attempt and he immediately took me to the hotel bar for a whiskey. To this day I have no clue who the guy is or why he cared so much for my lifts. This shows that we are one team and a rising tide lifts all boats.
6. My final book thought is from one of my favorite authors.“He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.”  Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food. Few humans have written about how food and culture come together as much as Micheal Pollan. I have been lucky enough to share a few meals with Micheal Pollan, and he is one of the wisest people I ever met. This quote reminds me of my good friend (and UF member) Ward. Ward really understands having a healthy relationship with food important for a lifetime of health. 

 

There it is a few memories that hopefully have change your perspective.