I was up all night because a friend flipped their truck last night (they dusted themselves off and walked away with some scratches), hence the lack of a post. I’ll add something to the post in a bit.
There will be a chat tonight. Time unknown.
Talk about whatever in the comments.
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RIP Ricky Bruch. He was a great man. (LINK)
Thanks to Win for the link
Take a deep, luxurious breath. How does it feel? Normal? It should feel both normal and abnormal.
It’s normal because it’s the same as the million of breaths that have come before it. You’re an American breathing freely whilst pursuing your life’s happiness. Yet it’s abnormal and weird because the only reason you’re content taking that breath is because there is a man who has earned it for you.
This man has pulled on his boots, shouldered his pack, and squeezed the stock of his rifle, sweating. This man forfeited his freedoms, left his family, and sacrificed his youth. This man did all of this, yet isn’t compensated for his sacrifices.
This man is the reason you are able to take your next breath, the reason you can wake up in the morning and do whatever you damn well please. This man protects the richest of the rich, yet also enables the dredge of society to suck the teat and be rewarded for sloth. He’s the reason that a bar fight, this website, or a children’s spelling bee can exist. His sacrifice is blind to the recipients’ outcome, yet it is all encompassing nonetheless.
You may have known the man with the rifle, yet he has existed for more than 200 years and he gives you this next breath freely. You are free to do whatever you want with that breath, but it’d be a disgrace if it wasn’t spent doing everything you can to be the best person, father, brother, friend, son, worker, or stranger that you can. Your last breath was a freebie; now earn your next in honor of those riflemen who make breathing possible.
A lot of people like to hear about strength and conditioning programming. There are three basic ways that you derive a method of programming.
1. Directly observing set/rep schemes and what kind of progress they induce
2. Hard research on strength training
3. Understanding physiology, anatomy, and trends of how the body responds to stress over time.
The problem with #1 is that it’s typically associated with a rudimentary understanding of physiology. More importantly it lacks context. If someone increases their bench 30 pounds in six weeks, that doesn’t mean your bench will do the same. That’s why copying a famous lifter’s programming is largely irrelevant; the context of training history and expression of their genotype is lost.
The problem with #2 is that it is locked within the confines of academia-based research. There are some quality principles that have come from research like the rep range continuum (strength, hypertrophy, and endurance) as well as power production and rest periods. Yet taking research at its face value can be a mistake, because it also lacks context. Research is specifically designed to begin with specific populations and instead of making generalizations based on those findings, more research on other populations is supposed to be done. Furthermore, a lot of the questions in research are not focused to anything that can help a hardcore practitioner or go off on irrelevant tangents (or it’s so shittily done; there are many studies on the back squat that don’t even define the squat’s parameters).
#3 does well because it conceptually basis training on information known about the body and how it responds over time. However, #3 cannot exist without #1 and #2. Without the practitioners testing their own programs and without researchers definitively finding things in specific organizations, #3 wouldn’t have any trends to base their “educated guesses” on. The collection of all of this information lets us know how to progress a beginning trainee through the first year or so of their training, yet from then on there are various routes that can be followed. This is where the art of programming comes in, and it’s indirectly a collection of the three sources of information above.
When you read anything about programming, whether it’s on Elite FTS, Westside Barbell, Starting Strength, the Texas Method set-up, Strength Villain, or 70’s Big, you have to actually think about what you’re reading. You can’t just directly apply it to your situation, because it’s most likely irrelevant. You have to take into consideration your current ability, your training history, your recent programming, your height/weight/age, and several other data points. Not many people can do this objectively, but that’s the key to programming. Programming isn’t a “program” that a coach uses and implements. Instead, it’s diagnosing what a trainee or athlete needs and wants, and then structuring their training in order to make progress to achieve those things. It isn’t black and white.
Keep these ideas in mind when you consider your own programming or others. If you’re a “keyboard coach” who always pipes up and gives advice, then instead of telling people what to do, ask questions. Learn. That’s what a good programmer does, and that’s what I try to accomplish with this site; to help you learn.
Happy PR Friday
Post this week’s PRs or training updates to comments
Hey guys, this is Honey Badger reporting.
I actually read about this on the highly esteemed bodybuilding.com forums, but there is apparently a niche meet held in Russia in which lifters invited to the Super Cup of Titans compete for highest total irregardless of their weight class, so you have guys like Andrey Belyaev at 220 going up against Andrey Malanichev at 275.
The entire meet roster is full of badasses obviously. See Malanichev squatting 450kg/993lbs with a belt + knee wraps. Note that he misses it on his 2nd attempt and retakes it for a 3rd to get three white lights. lol?
Rules at Super Cup of Titans are the same as IPF, complete with walking the weight out of the rack and back in, stringent depth standards, and single-ply gear.
Before I go on, let me clarify that relative strength is irrelevant. A “double bodyweight squat” isn’t a big deal if you weigh 150lbs (or in my case, 164lbs ……….), and comparing the fact that a lighter lifter lifts “relatively” more than a heavier lifter is fucking asinine and pathetic.
One of the standouts in this meet, however, would be 220lbs Andrey Belyaev, who placed 3rd in this meet despite being the lightest contender. See the results here. Let me point out that the difference between Belyaev and the typical bodyweight-multiple wannabe is that Belyaev totaled fucking 1100kg/2420lbs in single ply and is also an insanely strong raw lifter:
Also, Belyaev may have been the lightest contender but at like 5’8″, 220lbs isn’t necessarily “small.” He’s fucking jacked like a motherfucker.
When it comes down to being reality, you don’t have to put the addendum, “and I only weigh xxxlbs” to your lifts if you are actually strong. If you are like Belyaev you can say “I deadlift 380kg/836lbs raw” and that’s the end of the discussion. Everyone nods their heads and says “yeah that’s pretty legit” and nobody has to add “… for your bodyweight” to make you feel better.
A short interview with Belyaev, his coach, and his family.
Take away points relevant to us:
1.) Everybody can be strong in their own gym, but result must be shown in competition. Fuckin’ A.
2.) No matter what place he takes at the tournament, he will stand. Who fucking gives a shit if he will be the lightest contender at a meet. Come at him, bro. Fuck excuses. If you go to a meet, go to fucking compete.
3.) He won a lot of titles in 2010 after leaving the IPF, but results were too far from ideal. Going to meets isn’t about placing when there are 3 lifters total in your weight class, and it’s not about being a big fish in a little pond. No one cares about a $5 medal you got because you just showed up. It’s about achieving the best competition results you’re capable of posting. Challenge yourself. Strive to get better. This is probably the most important thing you can do as an athlete. Titles, trophies, and medals couldn’t be more irrelevant.
Belyaev’s lifts at Super Cup of Titans:
[spoiler]936lbs squat
661lbs bench
826lbs deadlift
[/spoiler]
If you’re seeing some weird stuff, it’s because we are switching servers. Be patient. Or not, I don’t care.