Family has me in San Francisco for the next few weeks. That means that I miss out on all the excitement surrounding the opening of Capital Strength, but I do get to enjoy a bit of sunshine and keep up with training here in the city at Hassle Free Barbell Club. It’s a great club, with a lot of talented and dedicated lifters and plenty of bars and weights. The only peculiarity is that it’s actually a high school club, in a high school, filled with high school students. Lucky for me, I’ve been taken in by head Coach Kevin Doherty. I must say, it’s humbling in the best way to be surrounded by kids ten years younger than me who are lifting more weight. And fortunately my ego can just manage to accept it, because, despite my age, they’re all still bigger than me!

Anyway, I got off to a good week of training, despite jetlag, family responsibilities and having to see all the my friends here (though not a chore, the late nights can really eat into recovery time). Harry has me in a volume phase at the moment, nominally to work on my consistency etc, though really I think he’s just trying to keep me out of trouble while he’s not around to supervise. Anyway, get ready to hear about complexes, snatch triples, clean and jerk doubles, and sets of five (!) in the deadlift and squat. For the moment here’s a quick video of some easy squats to start the week off (I apologize for the poor quality, I borrowed a camera and didn’t have the settings figured out at all!):