“When the game is on the line, a winner wants the ball in his hands.” – The Replacements
A miniature version of The Boy prepares for a match . . . he now weighs 200 pounds.
The other day I was on Amazon. Yes, I know. The fact that I cannot walk into my living room because of all the little boxes shows I might spend too much time there. Anyway, I was looking for hair regrowth tonic that actually works and carbohydrate free sugar cookies options for fitness equipment for Pugsley and The Boy. One of the things that I saw was . . . a box. You can buy it here (LINK).
I don’t get any money if you buy a box. But you do get a box. One box.
The idea of the box is that you . . . jump on it. That’s it.
What led me to the box I was watching a video of Александр Александрович Карелин. Oh, sorry, you don’t speak Russian – that’s Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Karelin spelled out in the strange chickenscratch that Russians use as a secret code that Putin and Trump devised so we can’t decipher their messages. Karelin was an internationally ranked wrestler for a while. Like for five Olympics. In fact, his career record is 887 wins and two losses. His nickname is “The Experiment.” Because he could do 42 pullups. And he weighed 285 pounds. His signature move? Lifting 285 pound people off the mat and tossing them up into the air so they landed on their shoulders.
The Experiment.
Yeah.
A quote from Aleksandr: “They call me The Experiment because they cannot conceive that every day I train harder than they have ever trained in their lives.” He might be just a bit intense.
Aleksandr was being interviewed in the YouTube® video I saw, and they showed the obligatory clip of him working out. One of the exercises he was doing was repeatedly jumping on a box that was 24” or 30” high. I was impressed. 285 pound guy jumping that high? Wow.
Here’s a picture of Aleksandr. Yeah, that’s a 285 pound human he’s going to toss into the air like a ragdoll. Not sure why they need tanks if the Russians have more guys like this around. Oh, and he’s buddies with Putin and has both a doctorate and a law degree. Don’t you feel like an underachiever now?
It turns out that “jumping on boxes” is known by the $250 per hour consultant word, “pylometrics.” From the Latin root Pylo for “pile of” and the ancient Greek word “metron” which means “communist measurement system.” Pylometrics came to world attention when the Soviet track and field teams of the 1970’s were turning in absolutely amazing performances. One trainer thought, “hey, it must be all of the jumping on boxes stuff that they’re doing,” and completely disregarding the simpler theory of, “win Olympic medals or we’ll shoot your family.”
Regardless, as noted above, he renamed it pylometrics so he could charge $250 per hour to talk about it.
Well, if one of the best wrestlers ever to live thought that pylometrics should be a part of his routine, well, why not? (Previous post: Pugsley decided he wanted to be an NCAA champion in wrestling. (LINK)) If you’re going to try to be the best, you emulate everything you can about the very best people you can find. Everything. Pugsley even has a poster of Putin up on his wall now.
So, I was on Amazon, totally not looking for hair tonic when I found the boxes shown above. Did I say boxes? Yeah. I saw the picture and expected three. Turns out that a cube exists in three dimensions, so they delivered just one box with three heights – 16 inches, 20 inches, and 24 inches. It turns out if you rotate the box . . . well, you get the picture now.
The Boy put it together when it arrived, but then he had to leave, so that left Pugsley and I in the wrestling room with the cube. To be frank, I was concerned that Pugsley wouldn’t be able to jump up on the 16” side and we’d have to get something smaller. I was hoping that it wouldn’t hurt his confidence to have to jump on the “short box.”
He set it with the 16” side facing up. He jumped, and stuck the landing on top of the box like an Olympic® gymnast.
John Wilder: “That was awesome. Okay, try 20 inches!”
He tried once, twice, and was up on top on the third side.
John Wilder: “That was amazing!! Try 24 inches!
Pugsley: “No, I can’t do that.”
John Wilder: “Try.”
He jumped up. Not quite.
Again. A miss.
Third time? He stuck to the top of the box like there were magnets in his feet.
Also this month, friend was doing Crossfit®.
Things you never need to guess about a person: if they are vegan, if they drive a Prius®, or if they are in Crossfit©. Now if you find an actual human that does all three of these things, you might have found a smug singularity – beware or you might get sucked into the smug . . . . (my friend isn’t smug, just often sore after working out).
Anyhow . . . when working up to a max in the deadlift (the king of all lifts) my friend tried to stop at 100 pounds. She thought that was enough. Too hard.
Her coach encouraged her – and she maxed out at 180 pounds.
Most days we have no idea of the things that we are capable of, if only we try. The thing that generally limits your life is . . . you. If you want to be the best, you have to start by working like the best. And believing in yourself.
You might not get there, but you’ll know that you didn’t hold back. You’ve put the game in your hands.
I know where you could go to buy a box . . .
