Chris and Mike

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Novemburly Beard of the Day:

Frank Herbert


(Since I just finished Dune Messiah, the second novel in the Dune series)

Videos

These videos are pretty sweet, so they’ll take precedence over what I was gonna type.
First is Mike pulling 585×2 in his final workout before he has to start cutting weight to ace his PT test. If I’m not mistaken, he hit 581 at USAPL Raw Nationals in July, so this is significant improvement. The bar kinda gets away from him, but I think he could have gotten 600. Boom? Boom.


Here’s Chris squatting 590×2. Brent thinks he could have gotten a triple. Chris’ best comp squat is 600, and we’re hoping to blow by that in training.


Chris then went on to deadlift. I think the squats hampered his heavy pulling, because he only got 600×3 (he was going for 5). That and he’s been traveling and hasn’t pulled heavy in about a month. He compensated by dancing and pulling 585 for fun. Oh, and he’s still sporting his Halloween haircut.

43 thoughts on “Chris and Mike”

  4. @rpbrown

    possibly this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9adW5No9IM

    also awesome:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

    No, the song Mike is listening to is from Star Wars: Episode I (the first of the newer movies). I’d have to look (I won’t), but I think it’s on at the end when they are fighting Darth Maul.

    Also, I don’t think O Fortuna was in LotR: Return of the King. Actually, I’m almost positive it wasn’t (I’ve seen the three movies more times than any of you would be comfortable with). It’s in the film “Excalibur”.

    –Justin

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt0UuNpUqK4

    It’s Duel of the Fates you Star Wars noobs.

    –A.C.

  5. @Justin, I’ve never seen any of the LOTR movies, so I wouldn’t know, that was just the first vid for “o fortuna”

    I found an artist called “immediate music” that has a bunch of awesome o fortuna-like music though.

    I wasn’t implying this is your fault. I just thought it was weird that it was uploaded as such.

    –Justin

  9. This post has a bunch of my favorite things.

    1) Dune – one of my favorite novels. I just re-read earlier this year.

    2) Heavy deadlifting.

    3) Star Wars music.

  11. Didn’t see this till earlier today and had to comment:

    LaHabra Says:
    November 3rd, 2010 at 1:05 pm
    The Giants suck regardless of a fluke win.

    Anyone who says baseball isn’t a sport was never any good at it.\

    Lacrosse is not a fucking sport.

    HA! Anyone who thinks lacrosse isn’t a sport probably didn’t make the team and had to settle with baseball. Now they try to validate their “decision” by saying lacrosse isn’t a sport…classic

    As always, great lifting fellas.

    goddamnit i love the shithead trolling in the comments of this website

    – brent

  14. Those vids were epic. I’m so watching those to get pumped up for my maxes this weekend. Also, duel of the fates is fucking awesome music to lift to.

    Time to go eat more meat. I mean really, when is it not time to go eat more meat?

  19. I want to be just like Chris when I grow up.

    This has really helped me come to terms with the fact his new haircut is a genetic inevitability for me. As long as my deadlift increases at the same rate my hairline recedes, I think I’ll be okay.

  20. Is Chris still squatting three times a week? His squat has really taken off.

    No, he’s squatting twice. You can’t really squat more than twice a week once you get to a certain advancement.

    –Justin

  21. Thanks Justin. Is he doing a volume day and an intensity day?

    You could summarize it like that, but it’s a little different than the Texas Method.

    –Justin

  25. Also for everyone’s information, the only things that are sports are things that primitive man had to do to survive like running and swimming fast to get away from something or being strong to fight whatever stands before you. Everything else is just a game.

  26. Brent if you read this, What’d are your PRs for Squat/Bench/Dead? I weigh a similar amount and wanna see how I measure up to the ShrugThug himself.

  31. uh well you’re fucking murdering me in the deadlift

    i hate being such a bitch at pulling, don’t tell Justin but i’ve been gradually increasing my volume in deadlifts and eventually hope to reach LSUS weightlifting program-level volume

    shortly after raw nationals i started dead-stopping all my reps (used to just drop the bar, then immediately pull again – so it wasn’t touch and go but i still think you get some sort of stretch reflex), which i think has helped a lot, the first rep of a set of 5 always felt like the hardest and now it’s ez pz and i can just fucking go

    and i’ve also added another set of either more deadlifts or RDLs or rack pulls, and i think those have helped quite a bit too, also has helped with swollertrophy (or fat loss, i’m moving down to 77k for an oly meet in Jan) … i RDLed 180k x 5 last night after pulling 188k x 4 dead-stop, both of which are PRs

    i’m really hoping that i’m good for 475lbs on my 3rd attempt DL at this next meet, going to get real fucking crunk on next week’s DL day and just pull some motherfucking DEADLIFTS you feel me?

    I don’t care how you’re doing deadlifts, but what the hell are you talking about? You’re saying before you would pull shortly after the bar was back on the ground? As in not resting very long? And you’re completely stopping now?

    –Justin

  32. I’ve always done them dead-stopped. I DL every Friday, haven’t done much direct assistance other than some shrugs.

    I’m wanna total at least 1200 at my December 11th meet.

    Hopefully we can both get it.

    NOW LETS PULL SOME FUCKING WEIGHTS. FUCK YEAH.

  34. Question about Chris’ belt setup:

    I noticed the belt was under the belly button, somewhere like the pants belt area. why is that? makes it easier to setup the deadlift?

    I wasn’t able to use my belt so far with deadlifts, because the belt hasn’t let me setup correctly.

    Don’t worry about what Chris is doing, figure it out on your own with experience. He has a long torso, and that may or may not apply to you.

    –Justin

  35. The song is AWESOME. Most of the time I listen to Tool and that kind of thing but I also listen to a lot of John Williams/Joseph Williams/Mozart/Beethoven/Stravinsy while lifting. The soundtrack from the N64 video game “Shadows of the Empire” is spot on. Most songs have 3-5 minutes of calmness followed by 1 or 2 minutes of intensity in ten cities.
    Check out these two

    From Shadows of the Empire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_deMfDs9jY

    From Stravinsky Rite of Spring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZbMOq_Ge8 —fast forward to 4:00. That shit gets me so pumped.

  38. @Justin

    Taking from pretty much everything on this site, you suggest that linear progression is the way to go, and that people have milked it to squats in the 4-500’s.

    By “linear progression” I had kind of thought you meant the SS program, but after reading Rip’s article on TM that was on T-nation recently, it seems that SS is good for 5-6 months, and then TM is more applicable? I hadn’t really looked into the TM program all that much as I didn’t realize it was still considered linear progression.

    Also, I assume for Olympic lifters, the program you posted a while back with the 4x/week training is probably the best way to combine linear progression w/ the lifts?

    “Linear progression” could refer to anything where weights consistently go up, but I reserve the term when they go up every workout. This would be in something like Starting Strength or similar (anything drastically different wouldn’t be as effective). TM is like a weekly linear progression, and it’s an appropriate transition. It may not always be the best choice based on goals and other variables, but I think it’s the best transition into programming appropriate for someone who is advancing.

    –Justin

  39. The Dune series is too good.

    A word of warning: do not read the books written by Herbert’s son. They are so bad.

    P.S. Chris is a monster – is he going to keep that haircut to complement his beard?

    I didn’t plan on reading the books by his son. Spawn off novels/stories always suck.

    And Chris has weird, patchy facial hair that isn’t really conducive to a solid beard.

    –Justin

  42. @Justin:

    I wasn’t able to figure up myself. where does people with short torso-long legs antropomorphy usually place the belt?

    I have deadlifted 185kgx3\190kgx1 with no belt just because of that reason.

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