“You can’t just go around killing people!”
“Why not? I’m a Terminator.”
At 70’s Big I have always encouraged people to compete in something so that training can be pinpointed to a goal. Competing is a lot of fun, it makes training more interested, and it gives you more of a sense of purpose than just exercising (which is what you do if you say, “I just want to get better at everything, tee hee!”).
Well, if you ever were interested in competing in the barbell sports (powerlifting or weightlifting), then you better get acquainted with the rules.
USA Powerlifting (USAPL) is a member of the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF). Their rule book is found here.
USA Weightlifting (USAW) is a member of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). Their rule book is found here.
It’s a good idea to become acquainted with the rules so that you don’t have a booboo in a meet. Kinda like Jacob did on his third attempt squat…
Nevertheless, nice job, Jacob. I will let him recap the meet in the comments.
Haha great minds Jacob!
About 3 weeks ago I also did my first PL meet in an IPF affiliated federation.
On my 2nd squat (admittedly, far lighter than your own :P) I failed to wait for the rack command and was red lighted!
Good work on your squats buddy.
Great job bro! I”m going to have to find something local to try out.
Congrats Jacob!
Nice work Jacob! Very impressive lifts.
I have 2 questions for you guys, hopefully you can provide some insight from your own experiences:
My 1×5 for deadlift is 420# this week, but my 3×5 for squats is only at 275#. Any ideas regarding the discrepancy between the two? It seems like most guys have squat deadlift numbers within a closer range.
Second, what are your daily intakes like? I”m just interested to see how other guys are eating. For example, I eat a lot of red meat and a lot of ground beef, along with other high saturated fat and high cholesterol foods – is this any cause for concern? Are you guys doing the same?
For example, here”s what I ate yesterday:
Breakfast – 6 whole eggs + shredded cheese + a banana with a generous amount of peanut butter + around 1/4 gallon of whole milk
Throughout the day – almonds and cashews + an apple + a pork chop
Workout – some whey with powerade
Dinner – around 1 1/4 pounds 80% ground beef + shredded cheese + salsa + around 1/4 gallon of whole milk
Not that I”ll change what I eat, I love consuming huge quantities of food and eating large amounts of animal on a daily basis, but any word on 70s big cholesterol levels?
Nice squating Jacob… I”ve entered my first meet- USAPL event in Charlotte on the 10th of March. Will anyone else be there?
@ Mike
Your only established meals are Breakfast and Dinner. I think your diet will improve itself if you stop with a 3 meal system and just have at least 4 real meals a day. 2 meals won”t cut it. If you are going to have a shake for breakfast, don”t just put in the 2 scoops and some water. Break out the blender, put in your protein, milk, fruit, raw oatmeal, eggs or egg whites, peanut butter, and ice.
Your breakfast will normally be something like eggs or a big ass protein shake because you don”t have time to prepare a lunch/dinner style meal. You”ve just been fasting for 8 hours (while sleeping) and you need food in you now.
Your other 3-4 meals should be solid food. They should be something that could be a hearty lunch or dinner. I noticed you had shredded cheese in your meals but no vegetables. If you and your colon are going to survive the road to 70s big, you will want to eat some vegetables. If for no other reason than eating vegetables leads to better quality shits.
I think you should have fruit or vegetables with every meal. For breakfast you can either get in fruit somehow or you can have baked beans as your vegetable. How to integrate veggies into your other meals should be move obvious.
From what I”ve read, cholesterol levels are far more correlated with triglyceride creation than they are with dietary cholesterol. This means high cholesterol has more to do with all the cholesterol free pixie sticks people pound down and allow to turn into fat than it does with eating meat. So if you aren”t fat, you exercise your heart, and you include good foods in your diet (fish, vegetables, good carbs like oatmeal and ezekiel bread) then you can keep putting down the big servings of lean beef, chicken, eggs, fish, lamb, whatever without fearing for your health.
Jacob, good job at your meet.
Diet is a hard thing to talk about.
There are guidelines but nothing set in stone.
I prefer two huge meals. As i suffer from an insatiable hunger.
Breakfast and Dinner.
Lunch is smaller.
I just aim for the 1g/lb of bodyweight in protien at the end of the day.
Eat to fit your life, dont fit your life around eating.
Can one still be 70sBig and not compete in the IPF? I lift in the WPC affiliated feds.
@ Phrak. I will have to respectfully disagree with you about only eating 2 large meals a day. I will do my best to explain my reasons. You will not see the best results you could have by only eating 2 or 3 meals a day. Simply put, the human body wants to jettison muscle tissue from itself.
Understand that your body constantly has a need for amino acids because it is constantly creating new tissue. Not just muscle tissue. There is a constant turnover of new bone, liver, muscle, skin, hair, nail, and organ cells. If amino acids are not present in your blood stream when your body needs them to create new tissue, your body will break down muscle tissue in order to meet the demand. Therefore, in order to preserve the muscle tissue you already have, so you are not stuck in a standstill where you are constantly rebuilding the muscle you have just lost, you want to keep your blood stream flooded with amino acids by eating protein frequently. This cannot be accomplished by eating one or two large portions of protein because once the protein is broken down into amino acids and is in your blood stream, these amino acids will not sit around forever. They”ll go away somehow, either by becoming fuel, fat, pee, or sweat.
Also, eating regularly will ensure that your body does not go into any level of starvation. If your body senses there is a lack of food, your body will seek to lower its metabolism. What is the best way for your body to lower it”s metabolism? For your body, this is an easy answer: burn muscle for fuel. Muscle will be the first thing to go, followed by fat. I forget the exact numbers, but a pound of muscle tissue takes something like 50 calories a day for your body to maintain. On the other hand, a pound of fat takes something like 5 calories a day for your body to maintain. The exact numbers aren”t important as long as you understand it takes more energy to hold onto muscle than fat. If your body senses that food isn”t plentiful, it will not hold on to the calorically expensive muscle. Instead, your body will keep the fat but burn away the muscle so you can survive without as much food.
But the goal of being huge isn”t to be efficient. We don”t want to be hybrid cars. We want to be Mac Trucks with rocket engines strapped to the sides.
At full throttle the Bugatti Veyron can consume it”s entire gas tank in 12 minutes. That”s the kind of vehicle you want to be.
I DO agree that you should eat to fit your life, but sacrifices must be made to be 70s big. You might have to wake up early to prepare all your meals for the day.
Multi ply feds get a bad rap from the RAAAAAWWWW Crowd but damn, IPF judging is weird. Since when do you get two side reds and a centre white for skipping a rack command? Of all the people there, one would think the guy who is supposed to give it would have noticed you jumped it, but hey ho.
Being 70s Big has nothing to do with the IPF, and if it does I no longer have any interest in being 70s Big. That rulebook should be taken with a grain of salt by the way, since the IPF is well known for making shit up as it goes along.
Has the IPF given up trying to take away even more money from the companies that support powerlifting yet, or have the companies capitulated to their silly and unnecessary sponsorship fees which will no doubt hurt lifters in the long and short run? If the former, I might actually pay entry to go to an IPF meet again. If not, fuck that shit.
I do not know a thing about IPF or other federation lifting rules, regulations, politics etc…
All I can say is nice lifts Jacob
Justin, great quote, Terminator 2 is one of my all time favorite movies. It is one of those movies if it is on cable, I will stop to watch it.
Thanks guys! My previous PR”s were 475 BS, 495 DL, so beating those was my main goal. I”m bummed about the 507 squat, but at least I”ll never make that mistake again.
I can”t speak highly enough about my contest experience. It”s a great opportunity to push yourself and meet like-minded folks – this would be even more helpful to you guys toiling away in globo-gyms next to the squat rack wrist curlers. Lots of strong dudes, everyone very supportive, and overall, a lot of fun. Can”t wait to go back and improve my numbers in a lighter weight class!
Let me know if you have any questions; otherwise, it”s pretty self-explanatory. I”m not a very good technical lifter, obviously, but hopefully you guys can still dig the video.
@Penn
Multiple meals are not required. A couple big meals would be fine if the person managed to get in their requirements during those big meals. Multiple meals would be better to get in more calories easier but it is definietly not required. I know I couldn”t do it all in two but that”s just me.
And your metabolism doesn”t slow down that fast haha.
Oh yeah – to continue the discussion sparked by AC”s vid a couple weeks ago – I was told after my first squat that my thumbs had to be in CONTACT with the bar, which jives with the rulebook (which does NOT require them to be wrapped around the bar on the squat). If you look at my first attempt, you”ll notice I have a habit of sticking them up in the air a bit. You can see me struggling with this on the second rep after talking to the judges, and I actually ended up holding too much weight with my thumbs on that one. I got it ironed out on the third squat. Keep this in mind during your training.
It should go without saying, but there are strict rules against the suicide grip on bench. Hopefully everyone here is smart enough to never do that anyway, though.
Alright guys, whenever i start wondering about my diet or stray from massive eating i always come back here. http://70sbig.com/?p=238#comments
motivates me every time.
@MustardTiger
Sorry man, but your metabolism DOES slow down that fast. 2 meals might cut it if your only goals are to survive in a sedentary world, but if you want to eat for progress in your training you”re going to be eating a lot of food – dare I say it an uncomfortable amount of food.
You have to look at what the top people in your sport are doing. If your goal is to be strong and 70s big, look at what successful powerlifters, weightlifters, throwers, and strongmen are doing. They”re not eating only twice a day, I can tell you that.
You also need to be honest with yourself. When you hear about athletes putting on a good 20 or 30 pounds in a year, how do you think they are eating?
If you are adding 90 pounds to your squat every year and making consistent, gangbuster gains in lean mass by only eating twice a day then I have no business telling you what to do. But if this isn”t the case and you are not adding weight to the bar or to your frame, then you need to evaluate whether or not what you are doing is right.
But beyond the science of it all, I”m not convinced that you”re eating enough if you”re only eating 2 meals a day. I know I would vomit if I tried to cram all I eat into 2 or even 3 sittings.
@ Jacob
Dude, you”re a big, strong dude. You kind of look like this guy I”ve seen on youtube called holymoly1234.
Here he is at about your strength level maybe 3 years ago and looking like he”s at about your weight.
http://www.youtube.com/user/holymoly1234#p/u/55/tH88apmQc4o
Squatting 440X5. Something I”m sure you could do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/holymoly1234#p/u/6/d21TFyOYFv0
Then here he is more recently looking a little bigger squatting 680. Something you have the potential to do.
I think you have the bulk and the build to follow these footsteps. Hell, since he focuses on Olympic Lifts and you focus on Power Lifts, you could go from squatting the heavy weights to the super heavy weights quicker than he did. So you better keep us all posted on your progress for when you hit a 545 squat, a 600, upward and onward.
Stay Big!
@ Penn
See everyone has their view points.
I have done a lot of reading from Lyle McDonald and Layne Norton.
There seems to be new thought that a meal every 6 hours is more beneficial then every 2-3.
I have a curse, some people have a struggle eating 70sBig. I can eat 70sBig at one meal and be hungry 15 minutes later.
@Jacob
Planning on taking an time off the gym after that meet?
Rock solid numbers!
I lift in a multiply fed, and get a lot of flack from “RAW” guys. Egos are way to big in this sport.
Jacod is a strong dude. We were all wondering what happened when he got the red lights. Lots of cool people at that meet, everyone seemed friendly.
Jacob, you need to get that shoulder healed up and go for 275!
Penn, thanks man. That dude is a beast. I”m not a naturally strong guy by any means, but I will hit 600 BS/DL, and soon. I”ll keep you guys posted for sure.
Phrak, I”m taking it a bit easy this week, but plan on hitting the upper body pretty hard starting next week. I don”t care what fed people compete in, really. I personally refer raw, but as long as people are out there getting stronger, I”m stoked. Not to say I wouldn”t give you a few jabs while you and your buddies are squeezing you into a suit, but it”s all in good fun for me.
KittenSmash, thanks again for coming out and cheering me on! Can”t wait to see what kind of numbers you put up soon – I”m sure you”re gonna set the bar even higher!
Jesus, guys, you are taking way too much liberty here. I need to set some of you straight.
Penn — Stop jumping the gun to give people advice while you have very little information on them. There is no one approach to doing this stuff, and you definitely can’t keep laying down absolutes with your advice. Besides, only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Regarding food, the ONLY considerations are that you are A) getting enough protein and B) getting enough calories. How you do that is based on the individual, and we do not recommend a diet that is the same for everyone, because doing so would be silly.
George Noble – Are you seriously suggesting that either A) I said that 70’s Big ONLY lifts in the IPF and B) if I did make such a claim that you have no interest in following 70’s Big? C’mon man, we are both more logical than that. I’m sure you can agree that going and finding every powerlifting federation available would have been an ill use of my time, however I could have mentioned that there are obviously many others. Feel free to post other federations and rule books to give them all a fair look.
Also, I am totally inexperienced with all things IPF or powerlifting competitions. Objective views of this topic are welcome.
Is there a definite length of time that would be recommended for GOMAD? I have been drinking a GOMAD for almost two months, and am still making steady gains on the novice SS program. If any more info. is needed please let me know.
Second, i have heard some people mention putting raw eggs in their morning shake. Is there a snot-like consistency in those shakes, or is it unnoticeable?
@ Justin. You are right. I need to chill.
@ J. I don”t think putting eggs in your morning shake will make the shake snotty unless you”re using a crazy mixture like half eggs. Just make sure you use pasteurized eggs so you don”t risk getting salmonella. Or egg whites from a carton. Putting some ice cubes into your blender will make the texture better too whether you use eggs or not.
Justin;
A. No, I am not suggesting you said that. I was responding to Phrak, who asked:
“Can one still be 70sBig and not compete in the IPF? I lift in the WPC affiliated feds.”
B. I would still probably read the blog and think it””s a cool concept, but I would be disappointed.
I do not have a problem with what you posted, I merely responded to the above quote and got caught up in a bit of a rant. I agree it would have been a bad use of your time, since all the rulebooks are essentially the same and only interpretations and equipment rules differ.
As for objective views, we have just Jacob verifying what I said about the IPF making up rules WRT the thumb thing. I have also heard of meets where IPF judges require you to hold the bar with your thumbs around. The take home message is, if you choose to compete in IPF, bring the rulebook to show them and ask them to cite any rules they pulled out of their asses.
Gotcha. That was my misinterpretation. Apologies good sir.
That makes sense, because Jacob is referring to my friend AC who was told he had to wrap his thumbs. Do you compete, and if so what federations do you stick to?
–Justin
By the way Jacob – well done on your meet.
RE: Dave Tate eating – yeah, it””s cool to eat like that every once and a while, but then 10-15 years down the road, you get your blood tested and find out that you””re a french fry away from cardiac arrest.
Jeez, nobody is suggesting you eat like that for 10 to 15 years. Why would that be logical? You see, someone may need to eat like that in order to grow, especially if they are already 270 (or whatever Tate was at the time) and training very, very hard.
–Justin
George – thanks! To clarify, the referee used similar terminology as stated in the USAPL lifter handbook, which I had printed out in advance. Something along the lines of the fingers must all “grip the bar.” He did not redlight me and was pretty fair and kind in the manner in which he approached me and told me after my first lift. The guy was actually pretty cool. As for the single white on my last lift, I dunno. I will say that several times I saw whites turn into reds, but this was also just a small time local meet and honestly, since I”m new, I didn”t know what to expect anyway. The bottom line for me, is that ANY association, IPF or otherwise, is a great one to start with for us 70sbig guys if it actually has local events. MANY don”t, at least in my area. The fact that USAPL drug tests and has a raw division made it an easy decision for me, since that at least levels some of the playing field. We can discuss the juice topics some other day, I hope.
Jacob, come on back to Central TX so we can do some lifting (and eating…Salt Lick…family style???)
Edward, don”t tempt me! I miss salt lick, have had a few birthday celebrations there in the past and it”s only a few miles from my parents place. Good stuff! I”ll holler when I”m back in town for a visit.
What do you guys do to warm-up for squats prior to the warm-up sets?? I use an exercise bike for 5 minutes at a light pace, then I generally do the squat stretch where I get down in the bottom of the squat position and push my knees out with my elbows and hold it for 20-30 seconds two or three times, and even after all that I still can”t seem to squat with an empty bar! I need about 25 pounds per side before I can really do them properly it seems like. Is that just tight hamstrings still?
Jacob – I actually agree with you entirely. I don”t like the central IPF policies and their general penchant for making up rules, but a good meet organiser is good no matter what fed he chooses to support. Same for a referee. I have had very good experiences with meet organisers in the GBPF (UK IPF affiliate).
@Pen
while some of the information you wrote is currect, you have some things your are misguided about, the first thing would be starvation, being hungry doesn”t mean you are starving. Its your caloric intake againset your caloric outake that will detremen if your body is starving. While you may be hungry between two of the meals you eat if in those two meals you go over your caloric outake your body will not be starving and the metabolic rate reduction you are talking about will not occur so qucickly even if you are starving. Another thing you seem to be misguided about is the fact that eating two meals with the same amount of protien as 6 meals will not cause a lack of protien, the main reason for that will be the fact that the body can only digest about 10G of protien per hour, by that it doesn”t mean that if you eat 30G of protien a meal the rest of the protien will dispear or become fat (or whatever myth you”ve heard), it means that it will take longer to digest.
Another thing that i would like to comment about is the statment “You have to look at what the top people in your sport are doing. If your goal is to be strong and 70s big” you should understand the reason those people don”t eat two meal per a day. you see its not because it is not a good way to eat it just that it easier to split thier caloric intake to more meals, than two.
Is there a way to edit comments here?
Anyway I hope you understand what i meant.
There is, but I hope this conversation is over.
–Justin