As I was reading through the OYS threads this morning, I couldn’t help but think of a dude at my gym. I don’t know his name, so I’ll call him Chester. Chester is strong. If he were reporting here, he would say that he benches 320 lbs and squats 405 lbs. Chester is also a weirdly proportioned. His upper body is way bigger than his lower body. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s how he dresses. But most likely, it’s because Chester is a half-repper.

He half-reps his squats in the worst way. He is so far from a proper squat (like 6-8” above parallel) that it isn’t even close. But he also half-reps his bench, his chin-ups, his rows… I don’t know if you can half-rep a shrug, but if you can, he does it.

I’m not a lifting expert and I’m not ever going to try to coach Chester. He is way more experienced than I am and has been lifting a lot longer than I have. But I don’t need to be an expert to tell that he isn’t doing the full range of motion.

I didn’t give it too much thought until I watched another big guy at the gym. I’ll call him Adonis. Adonis squatted 405 lbs to parallel (and for reps) and it was a beautiful thing. You could tell it was a tough lift and that it took him awhile to get there. Adonis is also ripped as fuck and doesn’t have the weird body proportions that Chester does.

Both Adonis and Chester are significantly stronger than I am. But the difference between them was huge. I would rather progress more slowly towards being Adonis than progress rapidly towards being Chester.

Chester’s problem is that he will have to kill his ego and practically start over if he ever wants to do real squats. He (probably) isn’t willing to do that so he is stuck where he is.

There are too many men here that are half-repping their OYS. Yeah, it’s hard, painful, and scary to go all the way down. You might fall over and do the walk of shame. But to get the results, you must do the hard work. You must grind it out. The weights don’t get easier – you get stronger. Owning your shit doesn’t get easier – you get stronger. And if you have been half-repping for awhile now, you are going to have kill your ego, go back to the beginning and practically start over. Either that or you end up with a weirdly proportioned marriage that you choose to be stuck with.

Make your choice.