WESTSIDE BARBELL | AN INSIDE LOOK INTO 2 YEARS OF TRAINING

what's going on guys we have had some requests for some uh west side barbell footage we put some videos out previously and you guys seem to have some interest in it so we're just going to have put together a montage of clips that we've got of full training or partial training sessions from when we were down there we spent or christy spent about a year going down i spent about two um starting early 2017. i received an instagram message from somebody asking me if i wanted to come train down at west side barbell and i like to pat i was like what is west side barbell i got this message and he immediately was like okay we have to go so when we got there they kind of pulled us into a room and we're just kind of like basically you're going to work hard and you're going to work really hard here and that's what you're going to do and there's no excuses there's you just you show up and you do the work uh you guys can see like a lot of this was uh iphone footage so this is kind of previous when we have like a legit camera set up so we apologize for that but it is just you know raw behind the scenes footage from when we were down there um you'll see joe he was the guy that we work with super smart really nice guy uh nice but also no ruthless it's a very good word to put it so some of these sessions will be uh in full i spent a lot of time in the belt spot machine we both did you guys got a little clip there a lot of times there'll be weight on it but there's also a lot of bands as well so that band tension is pretty rough for me kind of one of the goals was to strengthen my post here which meant a lot of time spent in that machine christie spent a lot as well but yeah you'll see here this is when the buttery bros came down they did the road to the games video which was kind of wild in the belt squat machine it's really different because it works your posterior chain your hips your glutes it works everything in a different way because it's pulling down on you so you don't have a barbell loaded on your spine so your glutes and your hips and everything is on fire so basically what we were training is we were training movements we would do in crossfit like you just saw me doing some hang clean and jerks now you see me essentially doing some d-balls now i'm going to take a sandbag and learn to basically almost like i do a sandbag over shoulder but i'm learning how to use my hips when they're almost like weighted or tied down to be able to use the power from the closed tip and the extension to drive that sandbag and be able to put it on top of that that box plus some of those mats it was a very evil machine and with joe when he'd have us working a lot of times he wouldn't tell us what we were doing so the mental aspect would start to play into it he'd like you're gonna go until i say stop and sometimes i swear we surpassed his expectations and so he wouldn't say stop he died on 20 more seconds maybe from the original plan this is my my cause i could be wrong other times we probably did stick to the plan but we would usually come in go through a strength piece and then hit this kind of metabolic conditioning piece depending on what it was it usually ended in the belt squat machine and then we'd hit an accessory on the end yeah we started this going into 2017 it's still christy being a smaller athlete we even then we're looking to kind of add like boot strength or the ability to kind of do like the strong man objects and this they definitely help with that but at the same time i think something that we learned was the amount of stimulus and loading when training with that volume was hard to maintain this was actually logan collins who's another games athlete he's extremely fit he came up for the 2017 season as well to do some training with us and i had some of an unfair advantage here because i've been going down the west side regularly and he was definitely not reviewing this type of training uh so we put a hurting thing but as well but we basically did a crossfit workout in here i can't remember exactly what it was um but we were doing plate holds which was another stimulus of loading and then walking taps which was basically creating a standard so a lot of times in the belt squat machine you'll just do walking which works your posterior but this creates the standards where you're having to lift your feet off high enough to touch the band so i think we were doing something like 60 band taps 50 or 60 turning around doing dumbbell snatches look like maybe 50 or 60 pound dumbbells probably 60. then you turn around grab the plates again and do like 60 50 or 60 taps which was just horribly exhausting but the timer tension with the belt squat on your hips um is just absolutely exhausting and fatiguing so you guys can kind of see there there's also there's not very much weight but there is a band attached as well which is constantly pulling down on you and the feeling that i would kind of associate this with is like if you loaded a heavy back squat took it out of the rack and then just stood there with it on your back for three or four minutes where it's that kind of feeling where you're not necessarily squatting it but just that pressure uh accumulates over over a period of time and you don't have the compression on your spine though so it's specifically pressure on your glutes and on your hips and it's like where you start to feel like you have bambi legs and you can start to feel all of your muscles start to shake and you feel like almost like your legs are just going to give out underneath of you that's what the belt spot machine does to you yeah again like kind of what chris was saying the benefit is that it isn't loading your back and there is no spinal compression and there's a lot of benefit to that but at the same time it is a very heavy load for a long period of time that does take a toll on your cns where maybe not muscularly as much but you will feel so tired and fatigued or we would the next day after this especially not being like our primary source of training doing crossfit for a primary source of training and this for accessory i guess not accessory but strength training strength at this time we were going down once a week so without this being our primary source of kind of training doing it once a week took a large toll and to be able to cover from that was challenging so as many as much benefits as we got from christie training down there doing that at a time where you're trying to peak for the games was probably a little bit counterproductive at least at that point where the recovery from the volume of crossfit along with the volume of the heavy loading and timer retention was just a hard thing to manage so what the schedule looked like i would train crossfit hard all week long and i would usually go into players on saturday morning early and i would focus on like a steady state cardio piece no loading absolutely no loading because i knew we were going to be loaded down at west side then we would drive down to west side probably it was probably like one o'clock 1 30 and that was about a 35 minute drive from where we live it's literally the opposite end of columbus and the entire time driving down i would just i wouldn't be able to say a word like i was so scared i never knew what we were doing i knew the pain that was gonna come i think every time we were there joe probably brought me to tears and not tears like i don't cry i don't throw up when i work out and i don't cry and this guy brought me to tears multiple times because it was just pushing and pushing and it was pushing that he knew i was capable of doing it so i wasn't ever in danger but it was pushing past the limits that i mentally set upon myself and so when you do that weekly along with and on top of all of the crossfit training we were doing in the gym it just became to be a lot and i was finding that maybe looking back in hindsight i wasn't recovering the way that i should have going back into a lot of my crossfit workouts yeah and part part of it was like the idea was like you were going to hurt worse here than anybody's going to hurt doing any of their training there's definitely truth to that and there's actually a couple clips they're a little bit longer towards the end of this video where you they're almost hard to watch because you can see how hard christie is struggling where it's like should we stop this and pull the plug but again like you'll nobody else is putting themselves in that dark of a place but at the same time it was probably a little bit counterproductive and the overall stimulus that it was putting on um just became a little bit too much for christy for me i actually i really enjoyed it it did push me really hard joe was amazing and we kind of tackled different muscle groups that for me were a little bit weaker like posterior bench press and i got extremely i put on a ton of strength from the time that i spent down there and after 2017 i spent another year where i was going two days a week in preparation for i think the 2018 regionals and it did get a ton stronger and learn an incredible amount while we were going down there so now we're doing some bradford presses going back and forth i can't remember i think we're hitting a total uh hitting one large number going back and forth until we hit that and the bamboo bar is still some one of our favorite implements we've got one her house we've got one gym we use it regularly what the bamboo bar is is a super lightweight bar it's even lighter than a training bar and it it's a little bit more flexy so it's made out of i believe probably bamboo wood maybe that's why it's called that i don't know it's an earthquake bar and it has notches and you can hang with bands plates kettlebells whatever and the further so the closer notch to your shoulder the more stable you're going to be the more you work those weights out away from your body so longer access the more unstable that you're going to be and it's really going to cause you to stabilize with your midline with your shoulders and it's just going to highlight any imbalance that you have yeah it's it's really light but very strong so when you add those kind of those outside weights they're wobbling um it you you feel everything so a heavy stiff bar is going to kind of dampen that the light bar makes it where it accentuates it it'll work a lot of your stabilizing muscles this plow thing is where ro got the idea i believe for the 2016-2017 games i think that's what i was told don't quote me on that we did so much we did so much of this and it just completely and he on top of it he made us weightless everything and each week i would show up we would add more weights to my weight vest so we had not only the weights on our body but there was weights inside of the weight vest that he was taping to us and also sliding into pockets so we would add weight and we would record this and try to get stronger each week but something i really struggled with was a farmer home so this was a really good way of training being able to hold something super super heavy and also having to move that load for a distance these were insanely miserable so your hips are already loaded being pulled down by the belt spot machine you can see i've got a vest on there's actually a bunch of weights taped to the top of it and then you're also using your posterior to do these like basically deficit rdls which were just completely fatigued so they're exhausting and that time under tension is just crazy so this is something we would actually do for snatch positional work um which was like pulling the sled from behind so you had to work on your extension activating your back and then also stabilizing it because you're using the bamboo bar so any way you can possibly pull a sled or push it or carry it we did it 100 different ways but during this time it was the strongest i've ever been for sure there's no doubt about that more bamboo bar this time implementing it with the belt squat machine so what i'm doing here is i really struggled with overhead stability tricep strength one of my shoulders was stronger than the other and just just honestly just working strength just trying to get stronger my stabilizers my hips my pressing for me it's always a lot of triceps that was that were pretty weak so we which are still pretty weak but we were just working on that and then it's just taking these movements breaking down the movements we do in crossfit and just trying to strengthen them in in little ways or then pairing it with something that i would do regularly in crossfit and just making it harder so now i'm using a 100 pound sandbag because we knew in the 2017 regional there was going to be a sandbag so we are training that in every way possible so when i got to that sandbag i was more than ready just to crush it and i still feel like to this day this truly helped me learn how to use my hips when using a sandbag i'm thankful i'm grateful for all of this training it was by far one of the hey my shoulders look pretty jacked there this was by far one of the hardest times of my entire life uh we're gonna leave a lot of this footage here just for you guys to watch it was definitely no walk in the park and it made me a stronger athlete i do think it it challenged me outside of the gym to where i could learn to push harder and harder in my crossfit sessions and i'm very thankful for this time it's not something we currently incorporate because especially as i get older i'm 32 years old now especially as you get older like recovery becomes more and more important but we do incorporate west side methodologies and things that joe taught us into our training just not to this intensity for an entire session yeah it's hard to make yourself do these types of things for sure they were on the verge of torture or something yeah i would never do this by myself joe wasn't there screaming at me i wasn't going to be there also just the sheer volume like when we would do we spent some time working on my bench and tricep strength in general and the amount of volume we would do in an hour and a half session was insane but to be able to do that recover from it like i guess i don't have rabdo was also a learning experience of how far you can push yourself and make gains without being detrimental it was also super important so when we started there we were both wearing converse high top converse just to support our ankles and also super flat to the ground so we could feel the ground in what we were doing and you guys can kind of see us which into my high top nobles which i love and they're also super flat to the ground and they did the trick and did the job just well i'll never forget this this was my birthday one more that's a horrible birthday yes this is one of the harder videos to watch so it's a little bit long but we're just starting you can already see kind of a despair in christie's face and it only gets worse i will never have gone through pain so not only now are you supporting yourself and the belt squat that's pulling down on your hips you've got the that's the cambridge bar right yep that's also hooked with the hands pulling her forward so she's having to use her post here to stay in a good upright position her shoulders over her hips and those walks is simple as it looks just kind of lift one foot up at a time is incredibly challenging along with the stimulus of you know again doing something like picking up a deadlift you know say you're a heavy deadlift for you and then just holding it from a minute to the time where you're picking it up is challenging but just the emoting that it's putting on your body is extremely so for instance you'd start with an empty belt spot machine that just had the band as resistance and then maybe every 20 seconds he was starting to out of five we were going for as long as we could possibly go in and then at a certain point now it's okay because you have to do good mornings and you're sustaining that weight and so constantly in behind the scenes that that weight on the belt scott machine is going up he's calling out different things per the 20 seconds and i'm just i'm trying to get a stronger back i'm trying to get stronger glutes i'm trying to learn how to use my hamstrings and you know this memory for me sticks out very clearly this was probably one of my worst sessions that i was just like probably screaming and also praying pat was in the interview and making all the stops but soon and i did make it through but i'll never i'll never forget that section yes yeah yeah so i needed to see something so you can probably see that weight on the belt machine and this is where he's just sliding i'm thankful and grateful just for the opportunity that you provided for me to be able to come down and you know i think he took me to another level welcome back yeah it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience [Applause] is [Music] this is what we're gonna do now we gotta finish this walk [Applause] [Music] move as much as 2017 [Music] roll some of this footage because we get messages about it often and to share a little bit about that come on tracy this is making statements 2017. there's still quite a bit [Applause] [Music] there you [Music] and i didn't it's also a testament to chrissie's grit one she's going to turn your foot yes tan there you go come on she's strong mentally strong now there you go come on six come on five yeah four yeah three two one more one more amanda walking last thing you're doing one [Applause] i know throw some bands on it and make me work for five plus minutes at a time this was probably close to one of our last sessions before we took a break before heading out to that 2017 regional 2017 regional i took second to serious administrator i was going in who'd been keeping that region into this area and started trying it training at mayhem but i was super pumped i set one of the records [Music] [Music] i could not believe how you certainly can build up a tolerance to just about anything this is wrong come on now i got you come on now [Applause] you're going nowhere happy playing just like you watching big steps big steps come on last little bit here i think it's also costing in your coach so i that's probably trying to rescue me out of the belt squat machine at this point um but it's trusting in your coach and i trusted joe and i knew that he had my best interests and he wasn't gonna hurt me as an athlete but he was gonna push me to my limit and that's what i needed to be able to head to the chrysler games and be able to compete with the girls i needed to compete with and he was able to help me do that this was another terrible thing that we would do holding those balls which i think that was maybe like 50 pounds come on chris you can do it slippery these are sweaty so like trying to just hold that for minutes at a time was a challenge within itself um and you can see like depending on the loading now she's having a hard time even picking her feet up because of what the loading is it was probably a little bit lighter than that last video you could actually get your feet up and off the floor but there was definitely times you were just shifting your weight from what you can to even like pick that foot up yeah centimeter off the floor we do have a wide stance in our toes pointed out for a reason because that's firing a big piece of our glute which is what we want right now we want to be working strengthening the hips and all the stabilizers so i'm in a wider stance and if i would come narrow or my toes start he'd be yelling at me to get my feet back out wide and also just to keep picking him up and it was a really odd feeling he's like man i should be able to pick my feet up no problem but even trying to put them in a half inch off the floor was a dynamic [Music] and you guys can clearly see that that's not the case being down here at what side i couldn't hide anything and you know it was just in a crap kind of pain these are a great machine though and there's some things you can do to emulate it as well and being able to create the time under tension without loading your back is something that's very beneficial for sure come on now it's gonna be better for you yeah oh yes oh yes come on chris you're almost there you can do it [Music] yep got 30 pounds left nice yeah come on can i bring back memories yeah good one five big steps now but again it's a journey and it's a process and i'm thankful for it because it's gotten to me where to where i am today it definitely made me tougher made me stronger made me mentally more sound and i am lucky to have gotten the opportunity to you know break through scenes and challenge myself in a way that i absolutely never could have challenged myself on my own there you go sure and on this thing when you're in the belt spot machine do any of this kind of stuff there is no break so when you're doing most workouts when you find your spots kind of rest or break hear that constant time under tension even if you stop walking it it's not a break you're still heavily loaded it's going down your hip so even if you have your legs completely locked out when you're just standing there right it's exhausting and the stimulus is uh very tight you got 30s away put on your shoulder yep come on [Music] so here the belt squat's going down so i'm thinking about hip extension as i open i'll be able to drive that d-ball to my shoulder which if you think about it we use that hip extension and power cleans we usually hit the extension in snatches we use it in a sandbag we use it in push trick we use it in so much in crossfit and so this really taught me how to open up my hips come on down i almost look like i'm laughing but i'm pretty sure i'm crying yeah there's something in there but we hope this was interesting for you guys it's just a bunch of footage that you pulled together it's nothing too fancy but it is a behind the scenes it shows you kind of a raw raw experience that we have while we were down there super grateful for the experience we learned a ton from it but i think chris is probably glad that we're not going to or she's not going down right now you know that drive down would be quiet the drive back i'd be the most chatty person you can imagine because i survived and each week my goal was to work as hard as i could but also in a way survive so hope you guys really enjoyed this we'd love to see some comments i hope you have had fun watching it and learning and if you have comments about it let us know we'd love to answer them but don't forget smash that like button have a great day and we look forward to seeing you in our next video enjoy

Channel: Kristi Eramo O'Connell

Views: 16,308

Rating: 4.9578948 out of 5

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Id: jp_tJO3CC84

Length: 25min 21sec (1521 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021