I’m not from Philadelphia.
I’d certainly never put Cheez Whiz (blech!) on a steak sandwich.
I’ve never truly been punched in the face.
I’m not remotely Italian.
Yet, despite all of this, I absolutely adore the Rocky movies.
They’ve got the perfect mix of Dan-loving themes - underdog, hope, overcoming struggle - along with great training montages. So it’s not hard to see why I (along with plenty of others) put the franchise at the top of my list.
As my son was about to turn six I did the fatherly thing and brought him to the Philadelphia Art Museum to both see the Rocky statue and run up the famous steps. Here are a couple of photos from that day {WARNING: These are cute as hell}.
What I clearly disguised as a rite of passage for him was much, much more a rite of passage for me (I ended up feeling wildly emotional running up those stairs).
And reminiscing on this recently got me thinking:
What are some common rites of passage that we all face in our training?
This is actually a tough question to answer.
Everyone has their own goals and starting points. Add in that people are different sizes and strength levels and have varying amounts of training experiences and it’s almost impossible to create an egalitarian list that would apply across the board.
But I’m here for nothing if not to attempt the impossible.
These are just a few of the things that you can aim for in the gym (and out) that can serve as milestones to train for and mark a moment in time when you’ve taken things to the next level. Feel free to debate these as they are certainly debatable.
When it comes to strength measures I like to look at the main powerlifting lifts - the barbell squat, the barbell bench press and the deadlift.
In the squat, for women, a one repetition max (1RM) of 1x body weight is very solid with 1.25x body weight really being exceptional. For the guys, we’re looking at 1.5x bodyweight as a real benchmark of strength.
Similarly for the women, a bench press of .75x body weight is great and guys should be able to press 1x their body weight for a single.
In the deadlift things get considerably heavier with women going 1.5x bodyweight and the guys going 2x bodyweight to get over the Mendoza line.
So, as an example, for a woman who weighs 70kgs (154lbs) a squat of 87.5kg, a bench of 52.5kg and a deadlift of 105kg would be amazing strength goals to aim for.
Feel free to apply the math to your particular situation and see how far away you are from some of these numbers.
On the power side, a 36 inch box jump can represent a great breakthrough as well as a bodyweight barbell snatch and a 1.5x bodyweight clean. Quite tough.
When it comes to conditioning let’s look at a few samples that are most relevant, quite honestly, to the equipment we have in our gyms.
A 2000 meter row at under 7 minutes for men and under 8 minutes for women is fantastic. If you’ve ever accomplished this (or been close) you know what a mental and physical grind this is.
Same can be said for a sub-ninety second 50 calorie fan bike for men and sub-three minute for women.
And I’d argue that, regardless of gender, a sub-6 minute mile time in the run indicates that you are pretty speedy.
Now, some fitness rites of passage don’t even need to be tied to a specific performance. Just the ability to endure them to the finish line is an accomplishment worth celebrating. I’d say this is true of running a marathon, certainly true of completing a 50 mile trail run or a 100 mile bike race and, if you can put several skills together and complete an Ironman competition you have earned the right to call yourself a badass.
I’ll add one more that seems to be relevant to our population recently - a sub one hour HYROX time either as a solo or as doubles puts you in pretty rare strata.
If you are far away from any and all of these there is no need to despair. These are all very challenging achievements that take a long time to accomplish. Which is really the point. If they were easy they wouldn’t be that special.
And if performance isn’t your thing I’d like to challenge you to achieve perhaps the most impactful and controllable metric in all of training: consistency. Completing a certain number of sessions annually or hitting 2 or 3 sessions per week for 52 weeks in a row will do more for your training than nearly anything else and, in turn, is also a critical component of reaching any of the other capabilities I listed above.
To me, the greatest moment in Rocky is not him punching the hanging slabs of meat or the one arm pushups or the epic fight scene with Apollo or even him running up the iconic stairs.
For me it's the night before the fight. When he confesses to Adrian that he knows that he can't win. That his only goal is to go the distance as no one has with Creed before. To prove to himself that he's just not another bum from the neighborhood.
Now, you shouldn't place any sense of self-worth based on accomplishments in the gym. However that doesn't mean you can't place value and meaning to your training.
Quite the contrary. Placing some sense of purpose on your training makes it more engaging, more impactful and, honestly, more fun.
It allows you to build your own set of stairs, climb up them and thrust your hands up in triumph when you get to the top.