When Paul Vaillancourt was born, he jumped out, grabbed a razor, cut his own cord, got shaved up, demanded a pair of welfare cut offs, and took the wrist watch off the drs own wrist because he had his first shift at his new job and he wasn't going to be late and still needed his breakfast shake.
I'm not joking, the guy is that focused, and that laser driven. In one of the rare times he let himself go around me, he told me a story about Jessie Ventura from Predator..."That was me man, that's who I was every day.. I was that sexual tyranasaurus"
He was referring to himself at 12 years old.
Some guys are so scared of having something wrong with them, that they only train by themselves or with high level guys, and sometimes even brag about it... that's just fear and honestly, piss poor leadership.
I've always followed Paul, because anyone who could make it to train the same time as him for a year straight got STRONG... it didn't matter about their background, or anything else, Shane Church, Peter Wagner, Dave Droeske, Daine Blimkie, his wife is an IPF champ the list goes on and on... the guy is the strongest leader i've ever seen, and he has learned to rarely burden himself with it. You could say it's because he owns the gym, but that's bullshit. From a real entrepeneur, Paul Vaillancourt is all entrepeneur, and he just lives his values all day every day, his word is his currency, and whatever he says, he does. His clients get good, they compete, they rock the block.
I'm going to go ahead and say, if Paul stopped lifting and stopped eating, he'd be around 180 pounds... I've seen his skinny pics, he's just a regular guy, and he built himself there. I've heard some guys who were blessed with good posture, and high level athletes their whole life but wasted it.. I know one guy who's blamed every failure in his athletic career on POLITICS... I can't even stand to listen to it. He never once would tell me what he could have done differently, it was all the other person... this guy also had horrible relationships where he'd blame everything on the other person, and they'd be amazed at how I could forgive anyone for anything.
Paul has always been a high level athlete, but I knew he was the guy to follow when he told me about his skateboarding career, and if he ever took any time off he'd lose a lot of his skills. I can completely relate, I've always been a wayne gretzky of an athlete, I was good because I played and practiced the sport like crazy. if it was basketball season, every single day I was shooting, baseball season and I was throwing against the barn wall all night, or playing catch with my dad every night, or he was picthing to me, and if I wasn't hitting them to the fence, my dad would throw at me... He knew I had to get a little pissed to perform, and knew I loved him enough to forgive him for it. My father raised me to not be scared of anything.
Training with Paul is a lesson in Sports psychology. It's always game time, and he competes against everyone, and he does this to always be competing against himself. That's what powerlifters don't get... in Strongman, it's you against the other guy, not you against yourself. Paul only competed against himself in training, but he made sure he was either beating you, or outworking you. I can't come close to competing against Willie, so I'd turn it into a competition, I find ways to compete against the guys I train with, I always try to bring the best out of them... Some guys can't handle it, some will, some won't, so what?
Like Vasily Aleexev.... who would go into competitions to do his best, everyone I saw in srtongman made the mistake of trying to be stronger than Paul and beat him... that was their mistake, I used to think I'd be the only guy who had a chance to beat Paul, because I was the only one who understood what made him so good. I've watched guys make it their goal to beat Paul, get frustrated, give up, and place lower than they should. If you had a bigger deadlift than Paul, big deal. His core strength is off the charts, and he'd beat you somewhere else. His total body strength is off the charts, and he's still very strong, but he doesn't give a shit about the power lifts, they're just assistance to Paul, his main lifts are the competition lifts, and he doesn't waste energy in the week with assistance, he saves it to compete every single Saturday, and our training sessions are 4x as hard as any competition, at least his was. He's like wayne gretzky, he's good at strongman, he didn't waste time with shit that didn't matter to him.
Like my real father, I was absolutely terrified to let Paul down. I'd train until I threw up, I'd train until I wanted to literally cry, then he'd find you, point his finger in your face and tell you that you're up.. He'd put that pressure on you, and if you wanted to stop, you had to let him down. For other guys, they could just say no... for me, I had to do it... I'd never ever stop, I'd just go and go, and I'd get home Saturday afternoon, and sleep until i had to set up equipment on sunday. I gave my weekends away and drove an hour each way to try to support that guy. How could you not? the guy would do anything for you, and would never ever quit, and was always setting up the equipment so you could rest another couple of minutes, and he'd be somewhat pissed you weren't up pulling your weight.
My girlfriend Megan saw me just about have an anxiety attack telling her about training at the garage. Shane went to Westside and fit right in because that's the atmosphere that he's used to. Guys will tell me how I'm a glutton for punishment, and I just can't even explain what I've seen Paul work threw. I've seen him destroy his back, then come in, go light, and still outwork all of us. I can remember being so nervous heading to sessions, get there, start to have some fun, then it was time to get to work, and it was like watching Lance Armstrong bike in the rain. I'd try to get some other guys out so they could understand what it was like, and stop bugging me about focusing on the powerlifts, they thought Paul was nuts, and they saw the light version.
I hope I'm not making Paul sound like a mean guy, he's one of the funnest coolest guys I know, but if you're not on his page, you'd better just keep your mouth shut, trust me. I made the mistake of letting my mouth flap too often, I was like a little kid trying to sit at the grown ups table, and talking out of turn. Paul was kind enough to not skull fuck me in front of people, but sometimes I swear he'd be visualizing it so hard I could see it in my own mind. I one time mentioned that my lifter was somewhat catching up to his wife, and then I promptly tried to run away. It was like I could feel heat coming off his body. The left side was too narrow, and he was on the right... it was scarey man. I was trapped. Paul always would forgive you for it, I wish i was more of a man to face him all those times, but I wasn't. I've got a message in my inbox from one time he thought I was ragging on him, it's been a couple years, and I still can't bring myself to read the fucking thing.
Maybe I will now that I understand what it was really like training with Paul.. Paul made you his son, and he was your father, and you'd better be like Dad or you're going to feel shame. If you didn't feel shame, you probably didn't belong there. If you weren't going to give back with your hard work, the garage would suddenly get a little smaller, and there'd be hints that maybe this winter was too tight a space for so many guys. He was nice about it, but sometimes guys wouldn't take the hint, and it was like walking on eggshells man, I can't believe they didn't drop dead sometimes.
I was there during a time, I just wanted to get strong, and I wanted to do it in a variety of ways, I got pretty half decent at the events to the point where I can enter competitions without really training, and that's fun. If I was to ever make a serious run, I'd ask for Pauls permission to train there again, but I've gotta squat 600 first, otherwise, I've got no place there in my mind.
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