Happy PR Friday
Post personal bests and training updates to the comments.
When Ellee and I went to do the trapeze thing last Friday, there were at least five women who either did marathons or triathlons. They were probably between the ages of 25 and 45 and were all frumpy. One of them was wearing a marathon shirt so one of the girls asked her how many she had done. When she said she had done 32, the girls were impressed, “Oh my goodness! Thirty-two! Wow!”. I rolled my eyes, scoffed, and shouted, “Nobody cares!” (the last two aren’t true).
The world still defines long slow distance events as the premise that defines fitness. This marathoner, this Bastion of Fitness, carried body fat and did not have a healthy complexion. Guess what happened next? When she hopped off the 35 foot high platform to swing on the trapeze and wrap her legs over the bar…she couldn’t. This BASTION OF FITNESS lacked the strength to pull her knees up and throw her legs over the bar to hang upside down. Pathetic, but more so sad.
The 70’s Big community does a pretty good job of not being elitist concerning other forms of training, and I’d like to keep it that way. However it still bothers me when an irrelevant event like marathons are placed on a pedestal. Maybe it’s because everyone can get in their car and drive 26.2 miles and say, “Wow, what if you had to run that?” I guess there really isn’t an opportunity to look at five hundred pounds and think, “What if I had to lift that?” For example, a heavier average male black bear found throughout the U.S. weighs about 500 pounds. If you see one, the first instinct isn’t to wonder if you could lift it. Or if you could out run it in order to survive (you can’t — they can run up to 25 to 30 mph).
This black bear is unimpressed
It’s pretty unacceptable to not be able to put your legs over a bar and hang upside down. It’s not that this event is particularly specific to any relevant act in life, but the ability to do it should be a base line athletic capability. It’s kind of like PT tests in the military: they shouldn’t be the extent of your physical ability (or the primary measure thereof), but instead should be a minimum capability that someone can do randomly if needed (it’d be better if the events were more specific and relative to the job itself, but that’s neither here nor there).
I honestly feel I could train for a short amount of time and do a marathon. It would fucking suck, but things like that are more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge. The previously mentioned BASTION OF FITNESS revealed that she did a marathon at the north pole. Immediately upon hearing that I wanted to do a weightlifting meet at the north pole. Then I remembered that the north pole is located in the middle of the fucking Arctic Ocean, therefore it’s not possible to claim that you have run a marathon there, much less visited.
I’m just unimpressed with the average marathoner or triathlete. This doesn’t mean I don’t respect the good ones. I have a friend who has been to the Boston Marathon, and we’ve participated in a 1.5 mile run. He fucking smoked me, and I did it in about 10 minutes. But for the average goober, running is not the mark of health, capability, and most importantly, athleticism. But neither is only being able to lift. Play sports, work on agility, sprint around, maintain mobility — do these things so that marathoners don’t have anything on you. Not to mention you’ll actually be able to participate in random trapeze sessions. And bears will high five you.
Edit: I still need to edit/upload Ellee doing the trapeze, but here is my vid.
what if I’m a Midwesterner and would prefer to eat summer sausage over drinking whole milk? macros aren’t that different. thoughts? honestly curious.
Few PRs this week:
Press: 125 2×5, 1×4
Bench: 195 3×5, then 200 3×5. Awesome.
Powerclean: 145 5×3
PRs this week
All numbers in pounds,and all of these are 3rd sets of the GSLP
Press 137.5 x7
Bench 165 x 12
Squat 230 x 10
Trap Bar DL 290 x 10
@yosh etc
androgen receptor distribution difference? I google-scholared it and didn’t come up with much(that wasn’t gated) and most of it was on rats or studies. A little bit on male humans, all with tiny sample sizes.
Back to high-bar squats this week following a reset.
SQ: 300lbs 3×5
Bench: 240 3×5
Press: 150 3×5
Dead: 405 1×5 (wtf?)
I’m a COMPETITIVE cyclist by sport but mother fuck if I don’t like to lift some heavy weights too. But seriously, emphasis on the competitive part of cyclist. Yea, my sport is an endurance sport but I don’t do it to go and just ‘finish’ some long, drawn out ride with no time limit. I train and compete to fucking win. I’m 20 years old and in college and am surrounded by seemingly thousands of these ‘marathoner’ type people and it drives me in-fucking-sane at times to where I don’t even always let people know I participate in an endurance sport because I don’t want to start hearing about their ‘accomplishments.’ It’s just as bad with cyclists who do charity rides and crap and use cycling as their means to attain ‘fitness.’ If you can call still being fat with a giant gut and skinny legs that don’t have any true power ‘fit.’ People don’t realize that just going and running and cycling a long distance isn’t necessarily going to make you fit. You may lose weight, have some sort of endurance, and end up looking emaciated (except those old-men cyclists with guts, never understand those guys), but you are by no means a person in top fitness.
Do you do long or short races? Outdoor or indoor?
–Justin
Both, during the fall I race cyclocross, so pretty short and intense, during the spring a lot of criteriums so short and intense too. The occasional longer road race during the spring but there aren’t as many of those around my area as there are criteriums. Lots of interval type work goes into my training schedule. Although I know the downfalls of LSD and subsequently am not a fan I do feel a short base building period helps to prevent injury once I get into the really intensive intervals.
I would like to race indoors on a velodrome but unfortunately at the moment the closest (good)velodrome is about 9 hours away. However, that will be changing soon as a very nice track is being built in Rock Hill, SC. About 2 hours south of where I live.
Oh, and I’m currently trying to balance out any femininity I gain from cycling with hunting in the winter. Sloppy does… so good.
I have met a guy who was something like an Olympic hopeful who trained with Lon and Rip at WFAC. He was a bad mother in lifting. You’re style of cycling is just like a track athlete and is analogous to running; there are people who run and nothing else, then there are actual athletes who sprint.
Very cool. Stay in touch and let us know how training goes in the PR Friday. I’ve never really worked with or chatted with a cyclist, so seeing how you train intervals and stuff would be interesting.
–Justin
Pingback: strength vs. conditioning « Southern Maryland CrossFit's Blog