Alex "Gus" Gustafson

Category: Fitness

  • Coaching for 5-Years-Ago-Me

    Five years ago, I still struggled with barbell math. I knew nothing about making a training program, but I appreciated being told the underlying ideas when I was given one. Most of my effort was still about just showing up. I was still coming to grips with the fact that even if I trained well, I had missed the best time of my life for training. I still had no idea why you couldn’t outwork a poor diet.

    But five years ago I finally let coaches tell me what to do instead of flailing on my own or arguing what they had to say.

    I’m running my own little gym now. And I want to serve others the way those coaches served me. I’m not a gifted athlete, but that serves me well with a lot of people. Because all the problems I’ve had to solve and all the mistakes I made and all the little victories I’ve won… it’s normal people stuff. It’s the stuff for folks that groan getting out of the recliner. For folks that walk into the gym and are scared of everything but the treadmills.

    I couldn’t help you lose your water to get stage ready at a bodybuilding competition. But I know from experience plenty of tools to help an obese person lose 50+ pounds.

    I couldn’t guarantee you an athletic scholarship at a D1 school. But I know from experience how to help a sedentary person enjoy moving their body.

    It’s been tough gaining members at the gym. But at the core of the work I put in is a memory of who I was and how much I needed a coach. So I’ll keep trying my best to help. If you’d like to find out more, check out Gus’s Barbell Club at gus.coach.

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  • Seen on StartingStrength.com

    Had the pleasure of attending a Squat and Deadlift seminar at Starting Strength Indianapolis, and a photo from that seminar was used for a recent article on StartingStrength.com.

    Strength Training Will Force You to Fix (Almost) Everything

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  • CrossFit L1 Seminar

    My own body scared me all my life. For the last two years, I’ve been on a mission to change that.

    What helped me turn the corner was trusting in coaches. I stopped expecting myself to know everything before going into the gym: let a coach guide you. Stop racing around the internet for answers: listen to the coach who’s watching you right now. Give it the best you can that day: the coach will tell you if you need to ease up or pull back. If you don’t have much that day: show up anyway and let the coach help you make the most of the time.

    I don’t know exactly where my life is going to take me: but I know I can help people with my own example. And if someone asks me what I do, I want to share it proficiently. So what’s scared me for the last few months was signing up for the CrossFit L1 seminar, the first step to becoming a coach of the CrossFit methodology.

    The experience was incredible. I learned so much and everything I was scared of proved to be so different than expected, that I never should’ve feared it to begin with.

    It was the right thing to do right now.

    Planning out what’s next.

    Update: I passed the test, earning my CF-L1.

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  • The Little Gym Keeps Growing

    Our home gym is a cozy, efficient pressure cooker of fitness.

    For Father’s Day, Amber got me the new set of 50lb dumbbells.

    Other additions since I last blogged about the setup:

    • 20lb dumbbells
    • 10lb dumbbells
    • Abmat
    • 100lb Strongman Sandbag
    • PVC pipe
    • New Buddy Lee Ropemaster jump rope

    All proven to be great investments as I continue to work out primarily at home instead of a gym.

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  • My Lockdown Gym

    Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all at their worst yet in the United States. In Kentucky, a new set of restrictions has gone into place and in general I support them all. Gym capacities are restricted as part of those measures. While they’re not closed, I’m electing to train in my home gym until further notice. I’ll still keep my membership at White Buffalo to support them while they weather all this.

    I thought it’d be fun to think through all the stuff I have available to me. When it’s all listed out, it’s obvious I’m not deprived at all.

    Running. I have routes from my front door for 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, and 800m runs. I have measuring tape and cones (okay, cat litter jugs with some water in them) to set up for shuttle sprints. MapMyRun for long runs, jogging, intervals, and tempo running. Fancy running shoes I got from the fancy running shoe store.

    Pull up bar, also useful for knees-to-elbow, hanging knee raises. My bar is stable enough for toes-to-bar but I don’t have the core strength for that movement yet. The room my bar is in doesn’t have the clearance for muscle-ups but I’m not there yet either.

    Rings hanging from the bar for ring rows, low-ring muscle-ups, dips, L-sit and other static holds.

    35lb dumbbells. My ideal weight for dumbbells at intensity: thrusters, squats, shoulder press, push press, clean and jerk, single-arm dumbbell snatches. Better-than-nothing for accessory work: single-arm stiff legged-deadlifts, bent-over rows, farmers carry, overhead carry, lunges with load. Substitute heavy lifts with additional volume of dumbbell variations and accessory movements. Substitute olympic barbell lifts with dumbbell variations plus technique work with broom handle.

    5lb dumbbells. The 4-year-old likes to workout too.

    30lb kettlebell. Swings, single-arm swings, clean and jerks, snatches, windmills. Would prefer a 53-lb now, but this one has served me well for 4 years.

    Jump rope. Still working on long strings of basic bounce single-unders and alternating single-foot single-unders. If I get those more stable can move on to double-unders.

    No-equipment training: push-ups, air squats, pistol squats (still working on these, but they’re coming,) burpees, broad jumps, sit-ups (substitute Abmat with towel), wall walks, shoulder taps, planks, mountain climbers, hollow rocks, hollow holds, v-ups, candlesticks.

    Mobility and recovery: Foam roller, lacrosse ball, peanut balls, Theragun, GOWOD mobility app. Mats for yoga and stretching.

    Bands for pull-up assistance, mobility work, and accessories.

    Programming: CrossFit Linchpin’s limited equipment option. Endurance training schedule for half marathon in May. Beyond the Whiteboard app.

    I’d love to have olympic barbells and bumper plates, lifting platforms, rope climbing, pull-up rigs with more height and clearance, wall balls, rowers, and a bunch of other amenities I’m used to at White Buffalo. Not to mention the value of in-person coaching, community, and the habits around attending classes and going to a specific location for a task. But if I couldn’t get fit with all the stuff I do have, it wouldn’t be the equipment’s fault. I made the most of the summer and I’ll make the most of this.

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  • Weightlifting Cheatsheet

    I’m procrastinating real work, so here’s a project I made that I’ve wanted for a while. Alex’s Max Cheatsheet

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  • Another Day, Another Deadlift

    Today

    Second trip to the new gym. Deadlifts and overhead presses plus walks there and back.

    Made some decent choices about food – the only irresponsible thing being a trip to Dairy Del in the evening.

    Grocery shop, dishes, laundry folding, straightening up the house all as a matter of course.

    Tons of time with Grace today since it’s the weekend and Ber had an event to attend. She’s getting a lot better at playing with toys of her own accord. We haven’t even be trying to potty train and she apparently figured out how to do that on her own to our pleasant surprise.

    Podcasts

    The last episode of Cortex, Minimum Viable, was so freaking good. Made even better today when listening to ATP. I audibly snorted at the reference to fanny packs.

    Reading

    Been re-reading a bunch of classic MMM articles recently. Also a lot of re-visiting Apprenticeship Patterns as I think I’m at somewhat of a milestone in position at Makespace and needed to remind myself what road I’m on. I finally got started on Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators and I’m not far into it but really did enjoy the section on Ada Lovelace.

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  • Back at the Gym

    UofL has a small gym about a 15 minute walk from my house. We’ve meant to join it ever since we found out just how much cheaper it is than the Y. We finally joined on Monday night.

    Tonight was my first workout there and I had a blast. The walk itself is just enough time for warmup and to think through what I want to get done. Since this was my first time working out there I first walked around the place, just to feel more comfortable. Once I was ready to lift, I stuck my old favorites: squats and deadlifts. They’re never not good for you. More variety will come soon.

    Walk back home was the perfect cool down and I was ready for my weekly “decompress” night.

     

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  • Feeling Fat and Looking Back

    We paid for a gym membership all 12 months of 2017. Turns out I only went during the first six months of that:

    • January: 10 visits
    • February: 13 visits
    • March: 12 visits
    • April: 1 visit
    • May: 4 visits
    • June: 6 visits

    There may have been a couple more in that last half of the year that I didn’t record in my workouts note. But I know I didn’t go once from October to December and it doesn’t sound like me to workout and not record it.

    It’s a trope to be thinking about this kind of thing in January, but I’m getting too fat again and who cares what month it is.

    46 workouts isn’t really a high number. Plenty of people work out for 40+ hours a month and that’s all I did all year. One real workout a week is 52, so even that would be better than what I did last year.

    I’ve also been stress-eating a lot and eating sugar way more than usual. It’s systemically a bad time for me and my body.

    Looking into changes but right now I more just feel sorry for myself.

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  • Spray Paint Motivation

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    Spray-painted message in the YMCA parking garage.

    “From this point to the Downtown YMCA front desk using the stairs, you will burn around 14 extra calories. Do this every day and that will add up! It’s my Y.”

    A quick Google search says losing a pound requires about a 3500 calorie deficit. 14 calories every day is 5110 calories a year, so that’s 1.46 pounds a year.

    Skip the elevator; I always do.

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