BLOG POSTS BY AUTHOR
Matt Foreman
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Weightlifting and Relationships....Yeesh
Matt Foreman
| May 22 2012 |
General
I once broke up with a girlfriend because I had a bad squat workout.
Seriously, I did. I was around twenty at the time, dating this saucy little redhead. We were having a lot of fun for a few months, baking brownies and playing Uno, all the cool stuff you do when you’re going out with somebody at that age. Then one day I went to the gym and my front squats folded me like a card table. I was convinced that my girlfriend was making me soft, that my legs were getting weak from too much Uno......
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How To Avoid Sucking When You Get Older
Matt Foreman
| May 15 2012 |
General
How many of you have seen a movie called Vision Quest? It’s a 1985 flick about a high school wrestler who wants to make his mark in life by accomplishing something huge, so he decides to drop two weight classes and challenge the toughest undefeated grappler in the state. Along the way, he falls in love for the first time and has to weave through all the confusion and frustration that go along with that. It’s a fantastic story about being young, about searching for a direction to go w......
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Training with Pain, It's Such a Happy Thing
Matt Foreman
| May 7 2012 |
Weightlifting
A neat little motivational motto has been gaining popularity in recent years. It’s the one that says, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” You’ve seen it, right? It’s all over t-shirts, gym posters, etc.
“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”
Let’s analyze this. None of us want weakness in our bodies, right? That’s affirmative, captain. So, when weakness leaves our bodies, it’s a good thing. Apparently, it’s a moment of purif......
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Risks, Decisions, and Courage
Matt Foreman
| April 26 2012 |
General
This one might not grab you right at the beginning. But if you stay with me until the end, I promise we’ll get something good out of it.
If you’ve read some of my other stuff, you know I’m a fan of Ernest Hemingway. I don’t know if any of you have interest in him or his works, but I’ve been reading him for years and I’ve also learned quite a bit about his life. As we know, he’s generally regarded as one of the best authors in history. But aside from ......
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The Mental Switch
Matt Foreman
| April 18 2012 |
General
All great athletes have a mental switch, and it should be your goal to get one too.
Think of a light switch in your house. You flip it, and the lights turn on. Pretty simple, right? Well, a mental switch is in your brain. When you flip it, your mind goes to a state of perfect concentration, intensity, and confidence. The most experienced athletes usually have really effective, powerful mental switches. They can make themselves internally sharp with a snap of their fingers, just by recog......
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Learning Technique Through Imitation
Matt Foreman
| April 2 2012 |
Ask Greg
Has it ever occurred to you that weightlifting is a monkey-see-monkey-do activity? I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. If there is one thing I’ve become absolutely convinced of, it’s that most athletes learn primarily by imitation. When people are trying a new athletic skill, like a snatch or a clean, the best tool for their learning is to watch that skill being performed correctly by somebody else, and then basically mimic what they’ve se......
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Back to the Bottom: Squat Stance in the Snatch and Clean
Matt Foreman
| March 20 2012 |
Weightlifting
I went to a weightlifting meet last weekend where almost sixty lifters were competing. It was a huge contest and a very long day, but it was a great one too. As with all local meets, there was a wide range of athletes in attendance. I recognized a few experienced names from recent national championship competitions, and of course there was also a large crowd of newcomers who were still in the early stages of their weightlifting training. As I watched lift after lift, I got......
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Hot Streaks in Weightlifting, Volume Two
Matt Foreman
| March 9 2012 |
Weightlifting
Have you ever sat down and written out your lifting goals on paper? I think it’s part of being on a hot streak. When your lifts are going through the roof, you start to think about how much progress you’re going to make in the future months based on what you’ve done recently. So you plan out a month-to-month max out schedule, or maybe you plan out a whole year of meets if you’re a competitive lifter. You write a timetable where you’re going ......
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Hot Streaks in Weightlifting, Volume One
Matt Foreman
| February 28 2012 |
Weightlifting
Let’s talk about “hot streaks.”
Plainly stated, a hot streak is a time period where you’re making major progress. Training is basically perfect, competitions are huge successes, and personal records are falling like Irishmen on payday. It’s a phase you hit where you’re just kicking serious ass, plain and simple. You’re en fuego!
Both athletes and coaches have hot streaks from time to time. As an athlete, it’s p......
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The Pusher Don't Care: Ibuprofen and Weightlifting
Matt Foreman
| February 16 2012 |
Weightlifting
What’s your opinion about ibuprofen?
I know it’s a subject that some of you probably aren’t hip to. Based on what I’ve seen on Catalyst Athletics, I think we’ve got pretty educated readers. It’s obvious from the comments I see on this website that many of you do thorough research on things, so I’m sure there are a lot of you who have done some reading on ibuprofen.
Consequently, I’m betting that many of you have ne......
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