Terminal City Training Vancouver Personal Trainer Strength & Conditioning

“Normalize failure.”
Quote of the day, from Shaun Taylor, a retired Canadian commando who continues to be a  badass. @shauntaylors1

This advice is to be applied often in life and judiciously when in the gym. 

Exploring and stepping over the line into failure makes all kinds of sense with certain barbell lifts, particularly the clean and the snatch. In fact, it is important to practice failing on these lifts, so that you can do so safely. Ultimately, the snatch and clean are the type of lifts where a small error can result in a missed lift and one must learn to work with this.

On the other hand, I believe that failure is to be avoided in the barbell squat, bench, deadlift and most other heavy lifts . 

I have three reasons for thinking this way.

1.  The chance of injury is much greater with a missed lift.
2. The impact on recovery is likely greater. 
3. We need to remember that with the technical lifting sports, a good deal of the training is neural. Poor lifts and missed lifts are training movement patterns that we generally want to avoid.

If you want to train to failure for either the physical or mental training effect, stick with lighter weight and body weight exercises that you do not use in competition. 

Train the body to train the mind.

2023: Fifteen years of Terminal City Training and the twelve year anniversary of the Terminal City Barbell Club.

Thank you to every patron and friend over the years who has contributed along the way.

We have built a legacy of physical culture and friendship in our little industrial garage in East Vancouver. 

In the photo: Chris contemplates why he does this to himself while recovering between alternating sets of front and back squats. He considers the wall which Casey has re-organized, on which Laura’s classic t-shirt design, which celebrated our ten year anniversary, now takes front and centre position. 

Here’s to the future of all of our students, past and present, who now live on at least three continents. May you find strength and health.
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February Challenge: 7,000 daily steps

7,000 x 28 days = 196,000 steps

Consistency: walk, ruck, run. Road, treadmill, beach.

Are you in?

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Do you have a goal-setting process for yourself? 

Turning 50, and then having a friend die, has really sharpened my awareness of time slipping by.

This year I am trying out a daily minimum standard. This is how it now stands:

10,000 steps
Read (especially classics of literature and  philosophy)
Write or work on the business
Physical Training 15 minutes
Quality time with my dog, especially training his retrieving skills

The bar is currently pretty low for some of these as I work to carve out time every day from a busy schedule of obligations. Most of these standards are more vague than I would like.

On top of that I am working on my standards for jiujitsu and martial arts training, which are far from daily at this point.

I don’t list it above, but time with the kids is always my first priority.

Please share your perspectives and experiences. Do you set goals? How do you do it? Is your process working for you?

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​As I get older I put increasing value on the importance of zone 2 cardio. 

For those without a heart rate monitor, you could think of this as movement at a nose-breathing or conversational pace.

For aerobic athletes this is a profoundly important base-building pace. Smarter people than me advocate that 80% of your training time should be in this zone.

As I listen more to Dr. Peter Attia and others concerned with studying longevity, I have begun to also see this as an essential practice for health-building.

What is your relationship to slower cardiovascular training for performance and for health?