Sucker Punch: Charles Staley

by Nate Green

Maybe it's because the NBA Playoffs are currently underway, but I just can't help comparing Charles
Staley to Lakers' head coach Phil Jackson.

Both are experienced leaders in their respective fields. Both have a holistic, simple way of coaching
their clients (or players, in Jackson's case). Both are almost stoic-like in their mannerisms. (When's
the last time you saw Jackson show any emotion? And I can't even imagine seeing Staley upset
about anything.) And both have white hair (OK, now I'm just reaching).

I guess you could call Staley the Zen Master of weightlifting.

Known in strength circles as "the secret weapon," Staley, an Olympic weightlifter and world-class
coach, has the uncanny ability to simplify the most complex training theories and turn them into
nice, quotable one-liners that you can actually use in the gym.

Having trouble gaining muscle? Need help losing fat? Staley just may have the answer for you.

TMUSCLE: What's the purpose of training?

Charles Staley: Well, that's a big question right off the bat.

TM: Y eah, I figured I'd go with it.

CS: Training is about getting out of your comfort zone and exposing yourself to challenges that are
greater than you've experienced in the past so your physical body and your mind can grow.

TM: Y ou must have had that written down. That's way too good an answer for the first two minutes
of the call.

CS: I'll tell you what training is not: using pain to assess the value of what you've done. That's when
you start to get into poor decision-making.

TM: Explain.

CS: Soreness, fatigue, joint pain, and other "negative" indicators may be the residuals of training but
they should never be the goal. The goal is to have excellent performance with every set and every
workout. Fitness is the result of what you do, not how it feels to do it.

TM: So are you saying you shouldn't be sore after a workout?

CS: Not at all. I get why it feels important. When you wake up in the morning and you're sore from
yesterday's workout it's a reminder that you were a good boy and you did what you were supposed to
do. Conversely, there are a lot of ways you can hurt and they won't make you stronger and fitter.
That's the distinction. There are a lot of dumb things you can do in the gym that won't help you
progress. Y ou could do 100 forced-rep sets of curls and it'll hurt like crazy. Whether or not it'll work
is another question. Interestingly, one hallmark of training like an athlete is that you're not sore all
that much.
TM: Speaking of athleticism, I know you're a huge proponent of Olympic lifts. What can the average
musclehead learn from Olympic lifters?

CS: A couple of things. First, weightlifters know how to lift as fast as possible. Every concentric is
explosive. As you guys know, any weight moved at a high speed produces more muscular tension,
which means you'll tap into a larger number of motor units, and more of them will be fast-twitch
motor units. That means more muscle. It's also psychologically more fun, I think. It's less daunting.
Y ou know you'll be able to lift the bar, and the only thing you're focused on is how fast you can
move it. Of course, you don't have to be an Olympic weightlifter to move the bar fast.

The second thing most guys can learn from weightlifters—and powerlifters and strongmen, now that
I think about it—is how to cheat.

TM: What do you mean by "cheat"?

CS: Well, those sports rely heavily on finding the easiest ways to accomplish a task. So if you're
doing a snatch in a high-level competition, the technique used to finish the lift will be the easiest
way to get the bar up. Think about powerlifting for a minute. When you look at a high-level bench
presser, they're not benching the bar with their pecs, delts and triceps—they have their whole body
involved. Some guys tear their quadriceps while benching.

If you read Dave Tate's articles on benching and squatting, he's effectively showing you a way to
accomplish the task—within certain safety parameters—in the simplest way possible. That's what
cheating is. It's certainly not a negative thing in the right context. Also, cheating isn't just a
biomechanical thing. It can be a way you organize your loads in a workout, too.

TM: Is this something we could use in the gym?

CS: Sure. Here's a perfect way. Let's say you normally do three sets of ten with 225 pounds on the
back squat. Three sets of ten will make you tired, but remember we're trying to improve
performance, not just make ourselves tired.

I'd break those sets up and organize them into ten sets of three reps with the same weight done in the
same time frame. Y ou're prioritizing performance over fatigue.

TM: So you wouldn't increase the weight?

CS: Nope. The load is just one variable. Each rep on the concentric phase needs to be super-
explosive. That's where you work hard. And if you do it right, you'll have a lot of practice at
targeting those high-threshold motor units.

Is there ever a point to do a high-rep set? Sure. If you were to tell me that I could only do one set of
squats, then I'm gonna go to failure. But I've never been told that. It's okay to do more than one set,
you know?

In fact, if I had to point to the biggest misconception people have about fitness I'd say it's the need to
make a single set as hard as you can make it. I disagree. The goal of training is to maximize
performance.

TM: More performance, more performance. It's starting to sound like a broken record.
CS: That's the thing, though. People just gloss right over it because it's so simple. I have to keep
repeating it. Everyone reading this could get much better results if they simply organized their
training loads.

TM: Let's talk about you for a minute. As an elite coach, you must have it all figured out, right?
Like, you're always on point with your training and nutrition?

CS: Occasionally I'll find myself reading about high-level nutritional concepts when I'm eating the
worst possible food. I'll read Berardi while eating ice cream or something. I'm not even kidding.

But that's an interesting question. It's funny, when you go to seminars and you see a group of
"experts" talking, most people think we're hatching up crazy ideas. The thing is, we're talking about
the same stuff as everyone else. One guy will say, "Man, I've been doing three sets of five on
deadlifts every Saturday. What do you think?" They're completely novice-sounding questions, but
they're legitimate. We're always learning and getting second and third opinions.

If you're in the public eye, it's your job to present yourself as an expert. It may well be that relative to
the masses you are an expert, but I don't think you get to a high enough level of skill unless you
have a beginner's mind.

I think I do have insights that are unique and helpful to people, but I certainly don't have it all
figured out. Whenever I'm giving advice to someone I'm also giving that same advice to me. It's a
reminder to myself.

TM: What's the best workout advice you've received from another coach?

CS: I've got a buddy, Mark Rippetoe, who I asked to help me with my programming. He had me do
back squats on Monday where I worked up to a heavy set of five. Then on Thursday I'd do three sets
of five, but focused on doing the same weight for all three sets and lifting explosively. Every
Monday I was supposed to do a simple linear progression and add some weight to my heavy squats.

A few weeks in, I did 352 pounds for a set of five. I got him on the phone and asked, "What do you
think for next week? A five-pound increase? Ten pounds?"

He told me that when in doubt I should use the smallest possible increase, since the goal is to string
it out for as long as possible and keep making progress. I could get my rocks off and really hit a new
PR if I wanted, but it wouldn't do anything for my long-term progression. I thought that was an
incredibly mature attitude and some great advice. In fact, I'd say that a telltale sign of maturity is
when you're able to forgo immediate gratification for long-term gain.

TM: I like that. One of your mantras over the past few years has been "base your goals on behaviors,
not outcomes." What do you mean by that?

CS: A goal is based on a number of factors, many of which aren't controllable by you. What I
suggest is coming up with a behavior and following that. So if you follow a behavior (A) it should
lead to the goal (B). If your premise is correct then you'll achieve the goal relative to what your
genetics and other factors allow. Let's talk diet for a minute.

Let's say you want to lose fat. Well, we all saw what happened to Dan John on the Velocity Diet and
we know that the V elocity Diet delivers fast fat-loss. So instead of saying, "I want to lose 20
pounds," you should be saying, "I'm going to do the V elocity Diet." That's a behavior you adapt.
If you have someone who needs to lose fat and you put them on the V elocity Diet, what's going to
happen? They're gonna lose fat. No big surprise there. There's no way to trick the system.

And if they lose 18 pounds instead of 20? They shouldn't be pissed. They achieved their goal of fat
loss and all they had to do was adopt a new behavior.

So that's what I mean when I say base goals on behaviors and not outcomes. You can't control the
outcome.

TM: Another one I remember is "The majority is always wrong." You're like the champion of
quotable one-liners!

CS: Well, most people aren't terribly successful at what they're doing. I've heard numerous times that
when people reach retirement age, only something like five percent have saved enough money to
fund their retirement. If that's the truth, ninety-five percent of people are doing it wrong. So you
need to do the exact opposite of what they're doing. It sounds simple, but it all comes back to doing
stuff. It doesn't take a genius to know you shouldn't carry high credit card debt. But how many
people are doing it anyway?

Everyone knows they need to eat well, get enough sleep, train hard, and recover, but how many are
really doing it? Not a lot. Therefore, do the opposite and you'll see some amazing progress.

Another thing: I'm a huge productivity junkie. I'm fascinated by the kinds of books that show you
how to be a better organizer or whatever. But really it's all mental masturbation. It doesn't matter
what your system is.

To get anywhere you need to do stuff. You have to work. It's easy to distract yourself by making
things complex.

TM: V ery good point. Well, let's end with the question of all questions: tell us something we don't
know.

CS: Huh. Well, let me think. At age 16 I became the youngest person ever to be deported from
Canada. Or at least that's what they told me at the time. I'm not sure if my record still stands.

TM: Wait, what? Y ou? How did that happen?

CS: Well, I had recently met this girl who lived in St. Clair, Michigan. I decided to hitchhike out
there from New Y ork to hang out with her. Looking at a map of the US, it seemed like a much more
direct route to go above the Great Lakes [into Canada] than below them. So I decided to cross the
border at Niagara Falls on a bus. Apparently, if you have no money, no ID, and no destination, you
get deported. I was scared shitless since at the time I didn't even know what that meant.

So I had to stay overnight in a police station until the constable came in the next morning to take me
back across the street to the US side of the border.

TM: Ha! Well, that's not exactly what we were looking for, but we'll take it! Thanks for the
interview, Charles.

CS: Anytime. Thanks to everyone at TMUSCLE for reading!

The Zen Master of Weightlifting

Take a tip from weightlifters and move the bar as fast as possible.

Maturity is when you're able to forgo immediate gratification for long-term gain.

Instead of saying "I want to lose 20 pounds", adopt a behavior instead. Want to lose fat? Do the V -
Diet.

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