Monthly Archives: March 2010

Your First Lifting Meet

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I started a little series called Your First Weightlifting Meet that went into detail how a trainee should prepare for their first Olympic Weightlifting meet. I will follow up that post with some general stuff you should know about the meet itself. There will also be a powerlifting version of this post, and it will be either written by or commented by my friends (and powerlifting veterans) Andy Baker and Phil Stevens.

Today, I’m just going to give very general guidelines for competing in either sport. This will not be comprehensive on purpose as it will help you start thinking about what will happen on meet day.

Get Someone To Handle You
No, they aren’t going to have their hands all over you, pervert. “Handling” someone at a meet means you are their platform coach, and you will be dictating their attempts. If you are going into your first meet, it would be preferable to have an experienced lifter helping you out. I understand that this is a luxury for most people, but if you can weasle your way into it, your experience will be profoundly different.

A good platform coach will count your attempts (weightlifting) and/or know where you stand in your flight (powerlifting). They can update you on this knowledge so that you know when to hit your warm-ups in the warm-up room, or they will even dictate your warm-ups. They will be your objective friend, deciding what jumps you should make in your subsequent attempts. If this is someone that has been working with you, they will also be able to help out with your technique. In other words, having a platform coach will make you feel better. I’ve been fortunate enough to coach with and be coached by Rippetoe at meets. He is very good at challenging his lifters when they need an extra kick in the ass. My friend Josh Wells has helped me out a lot as well, and I don’t know if I would have had the small amount of success I have had without them.

Be Smart
Choose an easy opener, especially on your opening lift of the competition. You should gracefully execute your first snatch and you should fucking annihilate your first squat. This will set the tone for the rest of your day. You will do something that you know you can do. This means you are hitting a routine snatch — something you’ve done in training plenty of times. In powerlifting, this should be something you know you could do for a triple. You want it to be easy so that you get on the board. If you bomb out (or miss all of your attempts on that lift), then you don’t total. Trust me, you don’t want this to happen.

Your second attempt can match a gym PR so that you can bring your competition total up. The third attempt should be your PR attempt. If you play it smart, then you’ll add to your total with each lift. Your goal in your first meet should be to go 6 for 6 in weightlifting and 9/9 in powerlifting. This means you’ll play it a bit conservative, but this is fine in your first meet. It leads me to my next point…

Have Fun
For fuck’s sake, you’re in your first lifting meet. You don’t want to go home disappointed, so purposely set yourself to enjoy it. You want to walk away knowing that there was more weight on the bar. If this happens, then you’ll already be thinking about PR’ing at the next meet. You’ll feel so razzed and accomplished. This is what is supposed to happen. The last thing you want is for your first meet to turn into a shit storm. So be conservative with your attempts. Open with something that is painstakingly easy. It should be so easy your teeth hurt. Do something moderate on the second attempt. This means that you would have had to have done it before. Third attempts are when you do something hard. Stick to this template. Have fun. For fuck’s sake.

Weight
Oh, yeah. Don’t cut weight. That’s silly. You don’t need one more thing to worry about if this is your first meet. If you think you are going to be competitive in a certain weight class, then you will deal with that later. Just sign up for the meet, don’t worry about your body weight, lift well, and then take stuff like this into consideration. Don’t be silly, just set yourself to have a good day.

The previously mentioned Andy Baker will also talk about how a novice would tailor their linear progression to get ready for a meet, so stay tuned for that.

And the results are in…

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Yesterday’s polls will, at the very least, make good conversation material. I don’t necessarily know if the polls are a good indicator of the entire readership on 70’s Big, but they are at least a glimpse. We have to make a lot of assumptions in order to generalize; did I word the questions properly (probably not), did you interpret them correctly (unlikely), did you answer them truthfully (erroneous), and if the sample size is indicative of the entire readership (who knows?).

In any case, there are some telling results.

70’s Big Is A Sausage Party
I blame this on all of you. I try to reach out to females, really, I do. I do it at the gym too, but the truth is, there aren’t going to be a lot of girls coming into the WFAC, and not a lot of girls are going to accidentally coming across 70’s Big either.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t prefer sausage parties. It’s not a homophobic thing, it’s just that I’d prefer to have some gals hanging out too. This means that you, the guy who is more likely to be reading this, must chat to your girlfriend, your wife, your lady friends, your cleaning lady — whatever — about strength training. My main goal isn’t to get more females reading the site; I just want more of them to get stronger. Everyone likes progress, and this means more strong. It also means a nice lookin’ butt, and this is a win-win for everyone. So, either you have to talk to them about strength training, or send them to someone who can teach them, because letting anyone grow up thinking that 30 minutes on the elliptical is going to yield sexiness and longevity is gonna be bad news bears for everyone.

We Are Mostly Young People
I consider someone in their thirties young. They think they are old. I don’t really think thirty-something is old, because I sure as hell am not going to think my life is nearing its end when I’m thirty. My friend Scott in Washington state is in his forties, and he is probably the most enthusiastic guy on a quest to 70’s Bigdom. In any case, a lot of us are young. We have the potential to influence a generation of popular culture that has taught the country that emaciated is not only okay, but what is desirable. And this is what we’re up against, my friends.

Gant just sent me a picture of someone in the airport, a poor guy wearing skinny jeans. Gant was most displeased with this display of societal influence (except he said something about a person like that should get gender reassignment therapy), and I’m upset that a guy thinks that being obscenely skinny is okay. I’m not saying that everyone is going to weigh 225, but men don’t weigh 150 pounds. Period.

But 70’s Big Readers Need To Grow
Half of the dudes who voted on their weight are less than 200 pounds. It’s not like people who read 70’s Big are all 5’6″ or shorter, so this needs to be addressed. I want you all stronger. If you are going to really achieve some potential in strength, you will need to gain some muscular bodyweight. Jeez, you guys who are less than 200 pounds seem like you’re mad at me for wanting to help you get strong.

Adult Males > 200 lbs.

Someone Did Something Wrong
Either you guys didn’t know how to train until recently, or your training sucked. If you have been training for at least one year, and you weigh less than 200 pounds, then something is fucked (females, the few of you are excluded from this comment). Get your muscular bodyweight up, and then address your bodyfat if you want. But if you’re one of these guys running around the internet claiming that gaining a little bit of fat with a lot of muscle is bad, then you’re just as much a goober as the stooges that say you should never wear a belt. Do a proper program while eating like we tell you and you will grow into a muscular behemoth.

Most Of You Are At Least Sorta Serious
The majority of voters have a tangible training log. This is good. The internet won’t always be available, especially when the zombie outbreak occurs. The few of you that don’t have a training log aren’t training, you’re fucking around. Decide if you want to get stronger. Decide if you want to be muscular. Females, decide if you want to get stronger. Decide if you want a nice butt. Barbell training and food can give it to you.

Let Me Ask You A Few Questions…

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Happy Monday to you folks. Nice to see some quality PR’s from last week and over the weekend. I want to take today to get to know you, the reader, a little bit. This shouldn’t hurt, but you may feel a little pinch. Shall we begin?

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Bam!

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“Today is Evaluation Day. The key word being value. Do you have any? Not yet you don’t”

Well, there are lots of things to announce on this fribbling Friday, so let’s get on with the bloody thing.

1. New T-shirt…BAM!



The image was dictated to my new pal Al Viquez, who until recently was a graphic designer in the videogame industry. He belted out a draft, and it was damn near perfect. A few adjustments later and we have this sweet, succulent image that bleeds 70’s Big. The t-shirt will be going to print in a day or so. There are also four other t-shirts that will be announced soon.

2. WFAC Training Camp
We still have some spots open for the group training package Josh Wells and I are hosting at the Wichita Falls Athletic Club (a shrine of sorts). Coached training sessions include all of the barbell lifts: squat, press, deadlift, bench press, power clean, power snatch, snatch, and clean and jerk (along with assistance exercises). For more information, go here or e-mail me.

3. PR Friday
Post your weights lifted, consumed, or gained to the comments. We also like silly stories about lifting spouses, tossing children, and ripping clothing.

4. Online Programming
70’s Big will now be offering online programming to monitor your training regime and gear it towards whatever your goals are. Do you train on your own and don’t know what to do when your deadlift peters out while your squat rages on? Are you trying to figure out a way to include some conditioning for your rugby season, judo match, mountain bike race, football season, deployment date, etc. into your strength program? Need the advice of experienced coaches? All of those shenanigans and more with a month-to-month subscription of help for under $100. Oh, and form checks are inherent to make sure you are doing the program properly.Shoot me an e-mail to learn more, and stay tuned for further information on the site.
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Leda belts up for some lifting


Gym Directory

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“I want more weight! I wanna beat him!” (voice crack)

WFAC Virtual Tour from A.C. on Vimeo.

Over the past year I’ve had the pleasure of training at the Wichita Falls Athletic Club. As you can see in the video above, the gym is stocked full of squat racks, barbells, plates, and conditioning equipment — it’s a training paradise. I guess you could say that I’ve been spoiled and I’ve forgotten how bad it can be for some people. In reality, you can’t get effective training done in an ineffective facility. How many of you are stuck in a shitty training facility? What if there was a facility five miles away that you never knew about? What if you were that facility’s owner and you were missing out on some potential business and/or lifters?

Well, this is where we come in. We are now taking applications from gym owners to be included in our Gym Directory. In your application you will need to submit a list of your equipment, pictures of the equipment and facility, as well as contact information. As of now there is not an objective criteria to be included in this directory, but it should be considered an honor because only the finest training facilities will be accepted.

Some basic requirements (that are subject to change) will be decent bars, squat racks, benches, and plates. There is no square footage requirement, and ideally these facilities should be commercially available (in other words, you training alone in your garage doesn’t count). The credentials of the gym owner or coach should also be included so that folks browsing the directory will know what crowd the facility caters to (i.e. beginners, experienced lifters, or both) and what sports they can get involved with (Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, etc.). As we induct more gyms to our directory, I’m sure there will be some kind of form to fill out, but as for now, stick to the information above.

The goal here is to provide a very useful and comprehensive directory for gyms around the country so that people can find a proper gym to train properly in. Gym owners will get more exposure to their websites and facilities, readers of this site will be able to find gyms wherever they live or if they are on the road traveling, and we all help each other get stronger. Fuckin’ A.

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Update, as of 7:53 AM CST
Concise list of requirements and info to send in:
– Decent bars, plates, squat racks, and benches (bars and plates must be identified by brand and model)
– Commercially available facilities only
– Credentials of the gym owner or coach
– What kind of crowd does your facility cater to (beginners, experienced lifters, etc.)?
– What sports trainees can get involved with (Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, throwing, judo, etc.)?
– Open gym/personal training only/class only?

And be sure to include:
– pictures of your facility
– your website URL and public contact information
– list of equipment
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Charles Staley continues to bring useful information to the internet training community with this new audio interview. Charles, a funny guy, good coach, and new friend of mine, plays the part of moderator in a discussion about programming with a panel of the following top-notch coaches: Pavel Tsatsouline, John Godina, Mark Rippetoe, and Yosef Johnson. That’s a pretty stellar cast, and I’m sure it will be very interesting (I’m in the midst of listening). Click here to listen.