Yesterday, I had the best workout experience in my life. My brother and I were just starting our last exercise of the day, the power cleans, until a fellow gym trainee (who was fairly built) came up to us and asked us how long we have with the olympic lifts area (my gym has a special area for Olympic barbells and weights). At this point, the guy didn’t know we were doing cleans, so he sat back and wanted to jump in during our rest periods. With that said, my brother went up first to perform the power cleans. He quickly finished his first set and sat back down. I got up and the guy came up to us once again, astonished this time, asking “How come you guys are doing cleans?”.

I’m thinking to myself, why wouldn’t I be?

Worried, I asked him: “Umm… are we doing it right?”

The guy replies; “You guys are doing a fantastic job at it. I’m really surprised you guys are doing this exercise since the rare people who usually do it never get it right. You guys have the technique all written down. Great job guys!”

At this point, I never felt so good during a workout. For the remainder of our exercise, we had a good conversation about strength training and how the majority of people who “train” at the gym simply do it to look good (he referred to them as ‘pretty boys’, haha). Alvaro, which we later found out was his name, gave us a few great pointers on the cleans (don’t forget to use your legs) and pretty much reinforced the knowledge I had gained through reading the Starting Strength book.

I felt great after that. Damn great.