The Bill Starr Memorial Weightlifting Meet was at the WFAC this past weekend. No, Starr isn’t dead, and the meet is a memorial to his lack of visiting (says Stef, the meet director). The meet went pretty well for most of our lifters. Here is a quick recap.


15 year old Kyle started lifting at the WFAC around last September, and has improved pretty consistently in his total due to getting stronger. After the Texas State meet in January, he went back on the linear progression with an emphasis on improving the technique in his lifts. Sometimes this is frustrating because it may require the lifter to drop weight on his lifts, but the payoff is worth it in the long run. This was the case for Kyle, who weighed in at 106.2 He had PR’s in snatch, clean and jerk, and total at this meet. The last week of training leading up to the meet went really well, and Kyle was hitting his lifts smoothly — he was definitely in a groove. This carried over on Saturday as he cruised to a 76 kg snatch, then stepped up big with a 96 kg clean and jerk — both gym and meet PR’s (a gym PR is something you hit in training while a meet PR is done officially in competition). Nice lifting by Kyle, and congrats on the 172 kg total.


Sammerr is a 21 year-old 94kg lifter, and things looked good for him as he hit his opening snatch at 112 kg. I wasn’t able to watch him lift since I had to warm-up during this time (there was only one session in this meet), but he ran into some trouble and didn’t hit another snatch. He was frustrated during the break (the period between the snatch and clean and jerk sessions) since his gym PR is 120. Nevertheless he came out and hit 140 for his opening clean and jerk, matching his gym PR and setting a meet PR. He attempted 145 on his second attempt, but apparently missed it on the clean because he didn’t finish the pull. This led to a heated lecture from Rip (Rip and Josh were handling most of the lifters). Sammerr’s goal was to clean and jerk 150, so Rip decided to give him 147 on the third attempt to force him to step up in a big way. After hearing about the 150, Rip said, “fuck it” and told announcer Tom Witherspoon that Sammerr would attempt 150. I don’t exactly remember what Rip said to Sammerr next (I was mentally preparing for my opening attempt), but I remember him jabbing his finger in Sammerr’s chest, probably saying, “Now go finish the goddam pull and get this fucking weight.” Well, Sammer stepped on the platform, finished the pull and stood up with a hard front squat. Amongst all of the yelling from Rip, Josh, and I, he reset his breath, dipped, and nonchalantly drove the weight up — it didn’t seem like it was going to be enough and then all of a sudden it was overhead. Three thumbs up made it a good lift, and Sammerr finished with a respectable 262 total in his second meet.


Quincy is a 105+ lifter who is getting back into training after a layoff. Rip and I encouraged Quincy to go on primarily a strength training program — in this case, a linear progression — with some Olympic lifts sprinkled in a couple months ago. Josh had been cleaning up Quincy’s technique earlier in the week, and Quincy has the potential to do 140/170 right now. I watched him do 130/160 earlier in the week, and this is exactly what he did at the meet. Not bad for his first meet back, and I fully expect him to improve his total by at least 20 or 25 kilos before the next meet in nine weeks.


I came into this meet hampered by set backs, as is the case for all three meets I have done. After the Texas State meet in January, I went on the Texas Method and was progressing my squat and deadlift pretty well until a low back injury occurred from squatting the day after airplane travel. In the last ten days of preparation for this meet, I could not jerk over 120 — it seemed like the acromioclavicular ligament in my shoulder was unhappy with a few things, which gives me one more thing to consider in my programming. I wasn’t snatching very well, and was only cleaning without the jerk in the last week of preparation.


I dropped a day of training last week and figured I would go for broke at the meet with a strategy of opening conservatively with the best case scenario to qualify for nationals. The qualifying total at the end of last year was 287 for the 105 kg class, so this was my goal. I had been watching my friend Brent snatch (who did not have a great meet and seemed to have some kind of shoulder issue on his jerks), and sort of forgot about warming myself up. I had to speed through my warm ups, power snatching 60 a few times on a 20+ year old York weightlifting bar. I power snatched 80, then proceeded to miss 100 and 110 on the bar. I was baffled by the misses as I don’t usually miss warm-ups. I may have been unfamiliar with the bar, but whatever the case was, I wasn’t sticking it at the top. After a talking to from Josh (who coached me through the warm-up room and my attempts with Rip helping), I hit 115 as my last warm-up before heading out to the competition room.


I wrote 120 down as an opener, but had planned on moving it up to 123, and this is what I did (you cannot lower your attempts, but you can raise them). The platform that we were lifting on is one of the platforms that I train on all the time, so when I approached the bar, I knew I would have to pick something to look at since there was now a head judge in my face with 20 people or so behind him. I picked a spot on the judge’s left shoulder, set-up, and stroked 123 kilograms like a kitten. I called for 127 on the second attempt, which would match my gym PR that I had hit many, many times and it would be a 2 kilo meet PR. The approach was the same, and it was business as usual. I had apparently smoked this weight because Rip wanted me to go to 132 or 133, but I told him about the necessary 287 total I would need for nationals, and if I hit 130, then all I would need was a 157 clean and jerk, which I could do on my second attempt. He agreed and told me to seal it up with this next lift.


The best I have done in the snatch is going 2/3 last October, but that thought never came to mind. I approached the platform with the same set-up, found the judge’s left shoulder, got set, and stuck the weight just as routinely as the first two attempts. I was pretty happy with the snatch performance, especially with the trouble I had in training…not to mention I dropped 130 on my neck in December when my left shoulder “turned off”, which didn’t feel good.


The clean and jerk warm-ups went well, and Quincy, Travis (a guy who trains at the Spoon Barbell Club near Dallas), and I used the same bar. 150 was written down as my attempt, but I planned on taking 153. Josh coached through this portion and chalked my shoulders as Sammer was getting his “un-fuck yourself” speech from Rip before he hit his 150 clean and jerk. After Sammerr’s good lift, the bar was loaded for me, and I made an easy clean — so good in fact that I over pulled it and the bar landed higher on my clavicles than it ever has, which allows the bar to press on the carotid arteries. When I jerked the weight, I couldn’t really see, but got the weight over head easy enough. I walked over to Rip, and said, “I couldn’t see on the jerk.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to see.”
Fair enough. My second attempt was at 157, and if I made a good lift, then the qualifying total would be wrapped up, which was all I could ask for earlier in the week with a sore back, hurting shoulders, and bad training. I don’t remember anything profound about the clean, routine as usual, and the jerk was stuck ovehead, albeit a bit goofy. It looked good enough for Rip to suggest that I go to 163 for my final attempt. This would be a big meet PR, and would be near my old gym PR of 165. I went out to the platform, adrenaline surging while thinking about one or two cues from Josh and Rip. I finished the piss out of the pull on the clean, so much that it landed high on my clavicles again. I had a pretty tough front squat, yet it wasn’t ever in doubt. The problem was the pressure on my carotids, because my vision was fading — apparently my head was beet red. I exhaled three quick bursts, breathed in deep, and started the dip for my jerk, yet everything felt weak, and by this time my vision was totally gone. I dumped the bar dumped forward, and toppled to my left like a dead tree. I haven’t seen the video (there will be video of the meet soon), nor could I see, but I remember the noise my lifeless body made as I plopped on the platform as my elbow slammed down. It felt like I more or less rolled like a tea cup, because I was back on my feet instantly, although I staggered two steps. I felt like I had my balance, but Rip nonchalantly commanded, “Take a knee”, so I did. I was slightly bummed that I missed my first chance at going 6 for 6 with a huge increase in the clean and jerk, but I quickly put it in perspective, especially since I couldn’t really have done a better job. If I was at least a half second faster in my transition from the clean to the jerk, I might have staved off the collapse. It just goes to show how much efficiency is important in these movements, and efficiency and mechanics are what we emphasize in coaching. But hey, I went 5 for 6 at 130/157 for a total that qualifies me for nationals, so it was a good birthday present.


I don’t have any pictures (I was coaching/lifting, give me a break), nor do I have any video yet (although it will be here eventually). In the mean time, watch Alexander Kurlovitch and his efficient mechanics in this 250 kg clean and jerk. He catches the clean precisely in the the position that he will jerk from.

16 Comments

Quick post today (it was my birthday yesterday, so give me a break), and it is mainly a call to arms. I have been referencing a new t-shirt design on the site, and the ideas are narrowed down. However, none of us have the ability to create the image on a computer to get it ready to go to print. If there are any of you who specialize in logo or image design and want to create the next 70’s Big shirt as a side project, e-mail me. We can work out the logistics, but you will be getting some shirts and the image will be credited to your name (which will potentially bring you business to make other simple logos for gym t-shirts, logos, etc.). If you aren’t a “professional”, you could always send in a few things as part of a “mini portfolio” to entice me.

Note: The Bill Starr Memorial weightlifting meet was held at the WFAC this past Saturday. Things went well for most of the lifters at the meet, and I will have a recap on it tomorrow (a video will not be up tomorrow, but will be in due time). It is important to note that Bill Starr is very much alive, and the “memorial” is a Texas joke.

23 Comments

Today is PR Friday, so post weight lifted, consumed, or gained to the comments. You still have time if you are trying to rip some jeans or hoist a female friend overhead. If you hoist a male friend overhead, regardless of your gender, this is not cool (for females it is not because your male friend is not heavy enough).
———-


I have trained Glennis, a 34 year old gal, here at the gym for about 7 weeks now. She came here a bit underweight, and was really gung-ho about getting stronger and gaining weight — she even made the comment that some increase in bodyfat was A-okay. I put her onthe linear progression with a mission to eat much more protein.


An average girl doesn’t eat enough protein in general, especially one that is training correctly. She didn’t have any restrictions on calories or carbohydrates, I just told her to include protein in every meal, drink more milk (which she likes), and get her protein intake to be a bit above her bodyweight if she wanted to increase muscle mass (measured in grams, of course).


Glennis’ progress is not profound by any means, but it is a bit interesting in that it dispels all of the silly shit that women think is going to happen to them when they train with barbells. They think that some how they are suddenly going to get supreme genetics and “bulk up”, as if it is gonna happen over night. Also, eating more is not the same thing as getting fat. We saw the other day that Zach gained almost 80 pounds of body weight with about 60% of it as muscle, and the same thing can happen with girls, but just on a different scale. In general, girls are weak, and whatever they are interested doing will be augmented by an increase in strength. Period.


In seven weeks Glennis lost a skosh of bodyfat, gained some good muscle, and got a good deal stronger. I have the data for those of you who are interested, since it’s fashionable to call bullshit on training progress on the internet. Oh, and it’s important to note that in the sixth week of training (which was last week), Glennis was pretty sick and didn’t train at all. She probably lost some weight because of that, but I went ahead and took her bodyfat today anyway.

34 years old, 5’5″
Weight is in pounds unless otherwise noted, and all lifts were done for three sets of five (deadlift is only one set).
Body weight
128 –> 133
Net: +5


Bodyfat
22.7% –> 19.8%
Net: -2.9%


Lean Body Mass
98.9 –> 106.6
Net: +7.7


Fat Mass
29.1 –> 26.4
Net: -2.7


Squat
45 –> 95
Net: 50


Press
25 –> 57
Net: 27


Bench
45 –> 63.5
Net: 18.5


Deadlift
30 kg –> 58 kg
Net: 28 kg

As you can see, Glennis lost fat, and gained muscle to have a net increase in body weight of five pounds. Obviously she was already skinny and not fat to begin with, but this is an example of a real life scenario where a girl gained almost 8 pounds of muscle in 7 weeks. Glennis also lost bodyfat without even trying to, which means two things; A) she probably could have eaten a bit more, but I’m not scolding her, and B) it goes to show that when a girl trains PROPERLY, results are inevitable. Full body, multi-joint strengthening exercises are going to be the most useful in any training program.


This last part is for the ladies:
Glennis also developed a rump — the kind that girls want to have. I say this objectively (since I have a lady friend and Glennis’ boyfriend is a friend of mine who trains at the gym — pretty strong dude); her muscle has increased in the region. Even though 7.7 pounds of muscle may not seem like a lot, I can see definition in Glennis that previously wasn’t there (in her arms, legs, etc.). More muscle with the same or less bodyfat is what makes a girl “toned”, and this is what you happens when you get stronger.

89 Comments

The internet is such a goofy place. I have a friend here at the gym who has gained 78 pounds in the time that he has been here. He walked in one night at 164 pounds and said he wanted to get bigger and stronger. Usually you don’t know if a guy like that is serious or not, yet I taught him the lifts and gave him the low down on eating. He has gained lots of weight and a decent amount of strength, yet there are people on the internet who refuse to believe this. I don’t know, maybe they think Rippetoe is lying, as if fabricating a fake story about a guy gaining a lot of weight is something that he is into.


In any case, here is the data. Rip, an experienced bodyfat caliper user (he has owned a gym for 30+ years), did a 7 site pinch test on Zach to measure his bodyfat. Here is the data (you can find Rip’s post about it here):
Note: The following is a comparison of the progress Zach has made in the last 15 weeks. He has been lifting here for about six months.

Zach Evetts
March 1, 2010
Bodyweight: 242
Bodyfat % measured at 7 skinfold sites (equation detailed below): 20.95%
LBM: 191.29 lbs.
Bodyweight increase in 15.4 weeks: 25 lbs
191.29 – 177.07 = 14.22 lbs. LBM increase
14.22/25 = 56.8% of gain as LBM, .92 lb./week


Equation: 1.112 – .00043499(x) + .00000056(x^2) – .0028826(age) = body density


(4.57/body density – 4.142)100 = Bodyfat %
Skinfold total: 162mm, 7 sites measured and marked


Equipment used: Lange Skinfold Caliper (Cambridge Scientific)

Here are some pictures of him at his current body weight.











Zach has gained almost 80 pounds, and right under 60% of that is muscle. If he wanted to, he could lose the bodyfat that he currently holds, but the last I heard, he was pushing towards 275. The conversation went like this a few months ago,
“So what are your goals?” I asked.
“Other than getting stronger, I dunno. I guess I’ll weigh 275.”
“Cool.”


Zach is not unhealthy right now. Sure, the larger he gets, the harder it will be to complete endurance efforts, but endurance efforts are not a measure of health. Eating to grow for x amount of time is not going to negatively affect long-term health. Furthermore, eating in a manner that skinny people consider “un-clean” when you are training hard will not produce health complications in a normal person.


But a very important point is that the first time Zach ever benched 225 or squatted 300, he did it for a set of five. And that is what matters to him.

29 Comments

“Ah, a boy. I don’t work with the males, because I used to be one.”

Everybody has a point in which they started lifting weights or training (keep in mind that lifting weights does not necessarily mean that you are training). Back when I was a wee lad, I had the inspiration of wanting to have larger muscles after watching wrestling on TV. I look back now and consider it a bit weird that my mom was okay with my brother and I watching a show where men ran around oiled up in their underwear hugging each other — but hey, I turned out all right.


In any case, that was my original inspiration — to be big like the guys on TV. I started messing around with a dumbbell in 6th or 7th grade, mainly doing copious amounts of curls. I had stopped playing baseball at around ten years old and primarily played basketball…badly. I was pretty good at boxing people out, and that is about it. In eighth grade I was more or less recruited to play football, and we would go lift at the high school a few times a week, and this is where I knew I belonged. In my years of high school I loved getting stronger, and I always did. Every time we would max out I would put at least 30 or 40 pounds on my squat (high bar) and increase my favorite lift, the power clean– it was a glorious feeling.


And this is how I got into learning how to lift and learning how to teach people to lift. By the time I was a junior, I was teaching my teammates and continued to help out others in the weight room. I would go on to play a year of football at a very, very small college, and then after I quit that I had a few years of feeling lost in the gym. For a while I worked out in the same way I did in high school, then it shifted into more of a bodybuilding approach (with squatting — I never stopped squatting). After getting very bored and very annoyed with this, I messed around with CrossFit for half a year and got good at that…meaning I was just faster than other people at exercising.


I bought Rip’s books and combed through them multiple times and immediately started implementing it and teaching it to friends (I was a personal trainer, and then co-owned a small CrossFit). Then, in January of 2009, I ended up here in Wichita Falls and started training more seriously. I went through a linear progression, got into intermediate programming, and then took a likening to the Olympic lifts.


Blah, blah, blah, that is how I got into training properly and effectively. Other than intramurals I didn’t have any competitive events in my life, and none that my training revolved around. It is better this way for reasons that we have previously discussed. Whether you are old or young, new or experienced, why don’t you share how you got into training?

47 Comments