Today I took my first trip to Coffee's Gym for a workout. I decided to write about my experiences, though I will avoid giving away any training secrets. I don't think there will be any big secrets, though, just hard work and lots of it.

Background:
Started bodybuilding at 21. Kept it up off and on through 25 or so, when I benched 225, squatted about the same, and didn't deadlift at all. Took a few years off, joined a Gold's a few months ago and got back to about 75% of my peak strength. Decided I was going to get bored with bodybuilding/powerlifting stuff, so I started trying other things like one leg squats and handstand pushups. Then I discovered a real gym nearby, Coffee's Gym, where they would teach me the olympic lifts.

Day One:
Went in and was told to wait a few minutes so Kelly could finish. Kelly is a very cute, very petite woman with a 1 year old child, and she competes nationally in the o-lifts. Today she was working on the snatch. Once she finished a couple of reps, John, the owner/trainer, had me grab an empty bad, hold it in a partial dead position just over my knees, and shrug it up> Doing various partial movements, we worked our way up to doing full power snatches (just like a snatch, but without the squat part) with weights on each end, though they were practically weightless, and only there so the bar would sit on the ground at the proper height. And at the end of each set of 4 or so reps, I would do 4 or so overhead squats. I had been working on those on my own, and John Coffee seemed impressed at my base level of skill, if not strength. Then he had me move on to front squats with ever increasing weight. I usually use a fold over grip, but he made me use the correct grip where your forearms bend over backwards and your fingers are holding the bar. Hurt my wrist, but he says that will go away soon enough. This whole time between my sets, Kelly and this big black dude named Larry were also trading off sets of front squats and clean and jerks.

Coffee started asking me how I heard about the gym, which is when Kelly and I came up with a new slogan for their t-shirts: "Coffee's Gym, A Gym That Doesn't Suck." And he was asking me about my lifting background and seemed to approve that I've read Rippitoe and shocked (but impressed) that I have "Essentials of Weightlifing" by El-Hewie. I was surprised that he hadn't heard of Dan John, but he definitely approved once I mentioned that Dan John is why I started overhead squatting.

After the front squats he told me to do whatever I felt like doing, so I did some pullups, one arm overhead press, and then just felt wiped out. Said my goodbyes with plans to be back tomorrow. And I need to order some weightlifting shoes.

BTW, I haven't sweated so much lifting weights in a long time. And it wasn't even much weight. I should take a before pic and see how I look after a couple months of this training.