Arguably the most BAD ASS MOVIE ever made, Vision Quest is about High School wrestler Louden Swain who made it a goal to wrestle against the best wrestler in the state during his senior year. In order to wrestle the seemingly unbeatable Brian Shute, Louden has to drop a ton of weight and do so without much support from his father or coach. Throw in the fact that there is an “experienced” 21 year old female staying at his house and this is a recipe for disaster. However, despite the overwhelming task – Louden prevails. He was on a Vision Quest, nothing was going to stop him from accomplishing his goal. It’s time for us to make our own vision quest.
My Goal Not Vision Quest
Two years ago I set a long term goal. The goal was to bench press 405 pounds while maintaining a body weight of less than 170. At the time my bench press max was barely above 315 so it’s not like this was really in my sight. Everyone I talked to told me this was impossible. Even though I had a strong bench press I was going to need to gain some size in order to put up four plates. I agreed. I put my goal on the back burner. In the meantime I kept my nose to the grind training hard eventually hitting 335, 345, 350 and last December 365 all while STILL maintaining my bodyweight under 170lbs. Although I was making good progress this is not what I would consider a vision quest.
Even then I still hadn’t really thought about my goal of benching 405lbs all that much. A vision quest is something you NEVER forget about, you eat it, breath it, and live it every single day. Bench pressing 405 still seemed out of reach but all that changed today.
My Vision Quest
Today’s training session started out kind of below average in all honesty. If you are anything like me I typically know how a workout is going to go as soon as I grab an empty bar and start pushing out the first couple of warm up reps. Today was going to be one of those days where I just had to grind it out. Dan John once wrote about what he calls the “rule of five”. In every five workouts you will have:
One – awesome, PR setting, I’m the biggest bad ass in town session.
Three – average, nothing special, just put in the work days.
One – complete shit, struggling at everything, just not your day type of workout.
After only doing a couple reps with the bar, 95lbs and then 135lbs I was convinced today was going to be of the average variety. My last set was supposed to be 315lbs for 5 reps. In my head I just wanted to get it done and move onto the next exercise. I was slightly rushed for time this morning, was late to the gym and had to get my workout in before a client came to train with me. I didn’t even eat before I went in, I was a wreck and full of excuses. However, as I started my set with 315 it felt surprisingly light. At five reps I decided to push myself for more and ended up hitting a PR of 8 reps with 315.
At first I didn’t think to much of it but after a couple minutes it hit me. I am finally well within striking distance of my ultimate goal of 405. Like a light switch in my mind I immediately realized the time is now. I feel like I am right there. A 405lb bench press is no longer my goal, it is my vision quest. I am going to give everything I have during each and every bench press session from here on out until I achieve that goal. Nothing is going to stop me!
The Time is Now
It’s your turn. I want you to dig deep and find something you want to achieve this summer. However, for this to be “real” you have to pick something you are extremely passionate about. This is the summer where you make progress and accomplish what you set out to achieve. Remember, this is not just a goal, this is a vision quest.
I want you to realize now this is not going to be easy. Accomplishing your vision quest is going to require that you step outside of your comfort zone and acquire some Mental Toughness.
However, if your goal is similar to mine (become a monster on the bench press) I am actually going to be able to help you out. I am in the process of developing the ultimate bench press program. It is a 10 week bench press specialization program designed to blast you past your bench pressing plateaus. I am going to be using the very same techniques outlined in the 10 week bench manual to achieve my vision quest of a 405lb bench.
If you need some motivation check out my latest YouTube video on Mental Toughness. Everyone has been telling me this might be one of my BEST videos.
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Email: KyleHuntFitness@gmail.com
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