Cooking has become increasingly popular over the years on television, and it has branched throughout the internet. I’d like to share two websites, Bargain Bites and swEEts, that may entice some of you. These sites are run by lovely ladies that are friends of mine who are also married to or dating some of my good friends. For those who are looking for delicious soup recipes, consider visiting sites like https://makeadish.net/recipe/french-onion-soup-du-jour/.
Bargain Bites is pretty cool because it is focused on cooking all different kinds of foods while on a budget, and Aimee, who runs the site, has created all of the recipes on her own. She was just telling me the other day about her Triple Threat Cookies that look pretty awesome.
swEEts is run by Evan, another third of the top three funniest girls I know, and is full of, well, sweets — cookies, cupcakes, cakes, buttercreams/icings, breads, breakfast foods, and other desserts. Some of you might be amused by these Guinness and Bailey’s Swirl Brownies:
I can personally vouch for the cooking and baking prowess for both of these gals (especially Evan’s cookies, oh man), so you can just slobber at the recipes or give it a try. Both would be more than happy to help you out if you wanted to e-mail them.
We’ve also had quite a few posts on 70’s Big about food, and I’ll recap some of them here.
Chicken Fried Steak by Gant — First and second posts
Gant is also the king of barbecue — Brisket and lots of meat (totally no homo, Gant doesn’t play like that)
Jacob shares his chili recipe Eating to gain
And a great post by Gant on general eating habits that is applicable to lifters and people trying to eat healthy.
That should have made you hungry, so let’s talk about food in the comments. You can talk about your favorite food or what you’ve eaten recently. In the last few weeks I’ve had three of my favorite meals that my mom makes; pork loin, buffalo wings, and chicken and dumplings. It is the bayst.
Act: 2010 Olympic Weightlifting European Championships
Scene: 105+kg weight class
Actors: 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Matthias Steiner (144.4kg body weight), 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist Evgeny Chigishev (130.6kg), 20 year old Ruben Aleksanyan (144.5kg)
Snatch
The 20 year-old Aleksanyan opened with a pretty solid 190kg snatch. Steiner, who hasn’t competed since the 2008 Olympic games, took the same weight as his opener. Steiner racked the weight solidly overhead but had a hesitation in the bottom of the snatch before he stood up with the good lift. Chigishev, who was beaten by Steiner by 1kg at the 2008 Olympics, opened with a beautifully easy 195kg. Even though Chigishev has gained 6kg since the Olympics, he still weighs 15kg less than the other two lifters, but looks extremely strong and powerful (especially with his beard). Aleksanyan hit 195 for his second attempt all though he had to wrestle with the squat. Steiner lost his second attempt of 195 behind, much to his chagrin. He went for it again on his final attempt, but looked slow on the pull and never racked the bar. Aleksanyan called for 197 on his third and final attempt, but didn’t pull the bar high enough for a no lift. Chigishev lumbered to the bar for his second attempt of 200kg, and it almost looks like the bar flies out of his hands before he racks it. Easy second attempt for Chigishev. He asked for 205 on his third attempt, pulled the bar, racked it, and squatted it with some trouble, but it looked good for his third made lift. This was significant for Chigishev because he is only 6kg away from his best of 211kg, and he’s doing it 2 years out from the 2012 Olympics. Look for him to storm into those games looking for retribution for his missed opportunity in 2008.
Looks like Chigishev is gonna roll with this one, right? Not so fast my friends…
Clean and Jerk
Steiner opened with a white lighted 230kg clean and jerk that seemed some where in the range of medium to heavy. Chigishev opened with pretty standard 235, although I would have expected him to be a little faster on the clean (the front squat was easy, though). Steiner calls for 236 on his second. The clean required some extra oomph but it was never in doubt, but he had to wrestle the jerk into place once he racked it. Nevertheless it was still good for a 2-1 good decision. Not to be out done, Aleksanyan hit 237 for his opener. The clean wasn’t picture perfect, but he rocked the piss out of his jerk. And here’s where things get a little hairy…
Chigishev came back out for his second attempt of 240, and he was ready to do work. You could tell he was going to hit his lifts and force the other two lifters to push it for a medal advancement. He cleaned the weight and started squatting it up when his thigh comes up lame. He missed the lift and would sit out for the rest of the competition. Chigishev was sitting on a 440 total. Ain’t too shabby, but now his European Championship was in jeopardy. Aleksanyan smells blood so he calls for 246 on his second attempt to go into the gold medal position. He has a victorious, yet tough clean, and then left the jerk out front. No lift. Aleksanyan follows himself to repeat the 246 on third attempt. This is fucking competition after all. The clean and front squat were equally painful, and then he held the jerk overhead for a wonderful instant…but he let it drift forward and he tried to hang on but it drove him into the ground. No lift. A valiant effort by the 20 year old who was crushed by his defeat.
But don’t forget about Steiner. He’s been watching in the back this whole time and has One. More. Lift. He had found himself in a eerily similar situation to the 2008 Olympcis. All Chigishev can do is watch from the warm-up room. The room is tense as Steiner approaches the bar. The clean is racked, and Steiner is stuck, seemingly pinned at the bottom. He battled with the bar, and by god Steiner is a fighter, and the crowd roared as he ground out a dead stop front squat with about 550 pounds. Steiner, who is known for his come from behind victory, knew he was close. He dipped, he drove, but it wasn’t enough. The bar fell to the floor as he agonized over his loss.
There is a 70’s Big Workshop in Alpharetta, GA this Saturday (near Atlanta), and you can still sign up by going here. The price is $85 and we will start at 10:00 AM. E-mail me if you have any questions.
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The Super Total is this month’s challenge. Some of you dudes were being a pain in the ass about stuff not being heavy enough in the challenges, so now is your chance to do a challenging lifting day. The details for the Super Total are here.
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Since I haven’t been talking about it, I’ll extend the 70’s Big Face Picture Challenge until Labor Day weekend. To learn how to make the face, go here, and go here for info on the picture submission contest (including where to send the picture). Winners will receive posters from Killustrated.com.
Also, you can receive a 10% discount on any order over $25 at Killustrated.com by using the code “70BG” when you check out. There are some sweet posters and cool shirts.
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PR Friday
Let us know if you’ve had any PR’s whether you think you are strong or not. If you don’t have any PR’s, let everyone know how your training is going. The discussion probably makes everyone’s work day go faster on a Friday.
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Random Video — Kendrick Farris clean and jerking 211kg in training.
Mikhail Koklyaev is an impressive human being. He is crazy strong in every lift you can think of, powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting. Watch the following demonstration where he does a 270kg behind-the-neck jerk, deadlifts 400kg for a triple, does a 290kg NO HAND squat, and a 190kg snatch. Egad.
His best snatch is 210kg and his best clean and jerk is 250kg. Those numbers would put him among the best in the world in the super heavyweight category, and if he trained the lifts exclusively he probably could win a gold medal. Look at this video of him push pressing 220kg (to clarify, that’s 484 lbs.):
He also has some pretty damn good powerlifting numbers. His bests are a 365kg squat, a 240kg bench, and a 415kg deadlift — all raw. In pounds that is 803, 528, and 913! He could be a top contender in powerlifting too! Here is a video of him deadlifting 415kg:
Koklyaev is a good strongman competitor — he finished on the podium for all the IFSA World Championships and has done well at the Arnold Strongman Classic (5 finishes in the top 5) and has won a lot of Strongman Champions League in Russia. Plus, he’s got some other skills. You can see more of Koklyaev’s domination of the iron at his YouTube channel.
In the 70’s Big Workshops I go into depth on the topic of conditioning and programming it in a strength program. I always mention barbell complexes and their effectiveness regarding conditioning, especially with a person who lacks conditioning.
Dan John is known for his use of complexes, and they can be traced back to Istvan “Steve” Javorek’s creativity. This article by John is a nice introduction to the complexes. Here is some stuff by Javorek, and this is a list of Dan John’s favorite complexes. A barbell complex has the lifter performing multiple reps at sub-maximal weight in different exercises. An example of one of John’s complexes is doing reps (5, for example) on a bent over row, power clean, front squat, military press, back squat, and good mornings. Running through each exercise at five reps each would be considered a “set”, and you would do 3 to 5 sets of them.
Barbell complexes are pretty useful for a few reasons. They have the lifter performing a lot of volume in a relatively short amount of time. If you did the above complex at 8 reps each, that’s almost 50 reps on your entire body. From a conditioning standpoint, complexes use a lot of musculature and keep the muscles working for 2 to 5 minutes at a time. This creates a deficit in energy substrates, and the deficit is the stress that the body adapts to over time to get conditioned. Also, the high reps on full range of motion lifts helps maintain lean body mass when in a conditioning phase, and potentially will increase the LBM as well.
Gant used barbell complexes and prowler work to condition for Judo season earlier this year to great success. Even though he dropped the big lifts (he was already strong and needed to cut to 220), he actually gained a bit of muscle while dropping body fat. Gant does really well with creating conditioning programs for combative sports, so if you ever need help, he’s the guy to talk to. He made a good point to me on the phone last night. If you are doing a complex for five sets (with roughly 50 reps per set), and each set you increase the weight 10 pounds, then you increase the tonnage by a ton (2000 lbs.) throughout the workout. And that’s not even counting the tonnage you’re doing with the movements themselves. It’s not surprising that he built some muscle doing a month of barbell complexes.
I differ from Dan John in that I don’t program barbell complexes for the sake of LBM or strength gain. Dan runs a high school weight room, so he has to have quick workouts to make progress and keep kids motivated — the logistics probably get hairy and I don’t have to worry about that. If I’m working with a person that is sedentary, de-trained, or just de-conditioned, I’ll get them strong for a few weeks and start introducing some basic conditioning where I vary up the work to rest ratio. I have used a pseudo barbell complex before, and it’s simply doing 5×5 squats, 5×5 presses, and 5×3 deadlifts at a lighter weight on the minute. This is challenging enough where the person gets a little sweaty and breathing hard, and then I once they do this a few times, I’ll make things more complicated. Generally speaking I’ll get someone strong, then use stuff like barbell complexes or interval training to start getting them conditioned.
Complexes are a great tool because of the higher rep volume the whole body receives. Because of this it can turn into a very effective conditioning tool. Plus it only requires the most basic gym equipment — a barbell. If you’re interested, try sticking in one of Dan John’s complexes after one of your training sessions. Start off lighter than you need to and take the rest breaks.
Last night I did a complex that I created. I haven’t been able to train a lot recently (lots of travel, contracting the plague, etc.) and don’t have access to a gym for a few days. I wanted some light, but thorough work on my body so that when I do get to a gym, I’m not too far behind. I also wanted to use a complex for some conditioning workout in the garage so that the Florida weather would provide extra stress. Turns out it was plenty.
I ended up doing five reps each of power cleans, front squats, presses, back squats, bent over rows, deadlifts, power jerks, back squats, and RDLs. I did that three times with 60kg (134 lbs.). The first set took me about 4 minutes. I rested 4 minutes in the garage (I wanted to have to recover in the heat/humidity), and the next set took me about 3.5 minutes, but I was sucking wind. Then I rested 5 or 6 minutes and finished the last set in about 4 minutes. Barely. Then I sprawled out in the A/C for 20 minutes.
I wouldn’t recommend doing something like that in your first conditioning workout. I have pretty good work capacity for a lifter and I also can adapt to things pretty quickly, but it still kicked my ass. If you haven’t been doing any conditioning, then it doesn’t take much stress to induce an adaptation. It’s always better to ease into things. Since my body went through that shock, I had a headache throughout last night.
In order to be “in shape”, the average lifter won’t need more than one or two conditioning workouts if you plan them well. Barbell complexes are already set up so that you don’t have to do a lot of planning or tweaking. If you have wanted to add some conditioning to your program and didn’t want to do any running, give complexes a try.
Arnold and friend hit up some barbell complexes
Gant’s note:
Complexes can be a good addition to any program. You can use them as assistance work, conditioning, or simply to add volume to your workout. Read the articles Justin linked and the list of Dan John’s complexes. If you must create your own, try to be reasonable. When I talked to Dan about them, he said “pass over your head once and don’t get stupid with the movements.” Can’t beat that.
My favorite one was Complex A for eights. I did this two ways. In one, I would work it like sets across with a five minute rest period (the minimum amount of time you get between judo matches). I can tell you now that five sets of Complex A at 60 kg will get your dander up in a big way.
The second way I did this was to do five sets and add weight each time, resting as necessary between sets. I worked up to 90kg, which was basically a three-minute slugfest.
Row x 8
Clean x 8
Front squat x 8
Military press x 8
Back squat x 8
Good mornings x 8
