How to Get Strong Like My Friend Chad Griffin

Rated E - For Everybody

"I've known him my whole life." Have you ever said that about somebody? Well that guy lifting those heavy weights in that picture is my friend Chad Griffin, and I've known him LITERALLY my whole life. Not since high school or kindergarten. I've known him my whole life.

Chad is one of the best guys I've ever met. He's a hard worker. He's smart. He's nice to everybody. We played baseball and basketball together from T-Ball until we graduated. He gave me and Ryan Perkins a ride to school everyday our junior and senior year. He's just an awesome guy.

Now that I've said all these great things about my friend... Chad was absolutely, positively, without a doubt, the worst athlete on our 7th grade basketball team at Scott County Central. After basketball season, Coach Cookson had this workout program for us in junior high PE class.

Jump rope 300 times... Jump the weight bench (wearing a 35 pound weight jacket) 100 times... Climb the rope to the top of the gym (yes, we did that back then) and touch the I-Beam three times, and you were supposed to get strong enough that you didn't have to use your feet... Do three sets of 35 on the "leaper machine," this old spring loaded machine in the lobby.

Then we had to lift weights. We were supposed to do three sets of 10 on the bench press. I'll never forget that first day we lifted weights. Coach didn't put any weight on the bar. We were supposed to show him that we could bench press the bar without killing ourselves before we added any weight.

Chad could not even lift the bar. Not one time. He couldn't lift the bar! He was the weakest guy on our team. So Coach Cookson gave Chad some homework. He told Chad, "go home and do as many push-ups as you can do tonight." Chad came back and told him how many he did (let's say 10 push-ups?). Coach told him to go home that night and just do one more push-up than the night before, to just do 11.

So Chad would do this. He went home and did 11. The next night he did 12. The next night 13...

Chad ended up being able to do 80+ push-ups in a row. When we got into high school, and the rest of us were benching the "25's" (95 pounds), Chad was benching the "45's" (135 pounds). He went from being the weakest kid on our team to the strongest kid on our team. He went from the end of the bench to actually getting to play.

Here is the moral of the story... One, Chad put in extra work. It's hard to get ahead in life if you're not willing to put in extra work... Two, with the extra work he did, Chad didn't just "put time in," he worked HARD. He didn't just say "I can't do any more push-ups." He kept pushing through it, even when it hurt, even when it got hard.

I know a lot of coaches and athletes will read this. I know a lot of regular people trying to make self improvements will also read this.

What do you need to get better at? What do you need to work on?

So many people (myself included) will start out with a goal in mind, but we don't always follow through. We have great intentions, but eventually we lose focus. Things get too hard or we get bored or we get sidetracked. So how do we fix that?

Be consistent. Do it every single day, even if it's just one step at a time, like Chad did. One day at a time. Get better that way. Don't expect it to happen overnight. I saw him get better and better and better with my own two eyes. He's a great example of "if he can do it, so can you."

Maybe one day I'll be able to lift all that weight over my head like you Chad, you Egg Head :)

Thanks for reading. Get better today. Make today a win. #JWT