This post was written by my pal AJ. I got to hang out with him a bit at USAPL Raw Nationals in Scranton earlier this year. His biceps are pretty decent. On a similar note, he coaches strength training and powerlifting in south Florida. This post is about one of his female lifters, (who he refers to as) “Big Cat”, who came to him with some hyper mobility issues yet has progressed very well in her 10 months of lifting.
Training the Big Cat
by AJ Loreto, The Lion Tamer
The Big Cat came into Just Lift to ‘tighten up’. Not in this kind of way, but in the ‘my joints are fucked up from BJJ and need to stop being so mobile’ kind of way. I’ve never really heard of this, but whatever we’re Just Lift Powerlifting Team so we’ll take in anyone who wants to be there. She wanted to lift, so I threw her at the weights and Starting Strength. By the way, I’m a “Starting Strength Coach”, the seminar was fucking great, and now I’m a good coach.
Big Cat already wanted to be in the gym, so there wasn’t much need for extra motivation. In her first round of programming she did the good old 3 sets of 5 reps, with little drama aside from some tricky shoulder joints requiring some extra warming up and an occasional rub to loosen up. She high bar squatted early on because of her shoulders and lack of traps and rear delts to hold the bar, but now she’s got a shelf that would make the Shrug Thug proud and no longer has issues holding the bar low.
We eventually got her to squat consistently without collapsing at the bottom. At first she would take some repetitions as “opportunities” to either go too deep or forget what she was doing and literally drop to the floor requiring some interesting spotting efforts and removing the bar from her back completely (we eventually got the hint and used side spotters). Her inability to recover from troublesome squat reps got better and now the Big Cat is capable of actually grinding reps out without going limp.
Big Cat Deadlifts 135kg June 18th 2011 USAPL local meet from Tony on Vimeo.
Her lifts were pretty straight forward; a solid deadlift, a strong, fairly wide-stance squat and finally a decent bench and press (when there wasn’t much shoulder pain). The Big Cat picked up a bunch of strength in the first few weeks, making good consistent progress once she figured out how to balance. It became clear that her athletic background gave her a good foundation of strength.
Oh, by the way, don’t ever turn your back on the Big Cat – you might be sitting on the bench talking about the fat pump you just caught doing rows for the bros and she’ll sneak up behind you and put you in a choke hold till you’re unconscious. The gym is a dangerous jungle.
After a few short months of training the Big Cat wanted to show off her strength and dominate other lesser domesticated animals. She had to work hard to make weight, and may have done so in a manner that wasn’t the safest; she may have fallen onto a hard object and showed up on meet day with bloody teeth (good intimidation for the other ladies lifting). This isn’t a meet recap so I’ll keep it quick: the ferocious Big Cat had a great first competition. Even with her coaches lack of attention she nailed a 242lb squat, 143lb bench and 297lb deadlift (above) weighing 132lbs. She had a bunch left in each lift, but we took it easy for her first comp. Did we mention she was the best female lifter? PRETTY FUCKING STRONG, eh?
Outside of Just Lift, Big Cat started noticing her legs where truly kicking ass. Sith her now more powerful legs she was taking chumps by surprise when getting hot and dirty in BJJ.
AJ points out a few things regarding women training. I’ll summarize them in a list:
– Addressing hyper mobility with strength training (learning proper end ROM)
– Big Cat didn’t need motivation
– Used high bar until shoulders and musculature allowed for low bar position
– The squat and muscle control evolved from “loose” and “collapsing at the bottom” to tight and controlled
– New types of balance and control were learned (in addition to the non-barbell balance developed in BJJ)
– This newfound strength and stability helped augment another sport
FIRST!
AWWWW YAAA BIGG CATTTT
Good post. Glad to share this with my special lady friend as I train her for her first USAPL raw competition in a couple months. She just got her first 135lb squat on Friday, so seeing stronger chicks in her weight class is good inspiration.
Is Big Cat planning on attending Nationals here in TX next year? We need to start getting a serious support group of 70sbiggers together, and planning a massive post-meet BBQ, of course.
Also, the Just Lift link goes to 2008 results. Sweet. Good info.
I’m impressed and humbled by chicks like Big Cat. Thanks for the write up, AJ.
Being constantly under threat of a rear naked choke in the gym is some next level shit.
“stronger chicks in her weight class” ?
How about she googles Jennifer Thompson and has all her dreams of finally getting 1st place in something-anything-dashed. Destroyed. … demolished.
If you’re looking for me, I’m the one thinking about commenting on Brent’s log, but instead deciding to stick my head in the fucking oven.
Oh, she knows all about Jennifer Thompson. But that’s just nuts. She has no ambition to be #1 in the nation in her class, she just wants to be competitive at a local level, look better, be healthier, etc.
Jennifer Thompson probably outbenches me, anyway. I don’t want to look at her videos myself.
I think J. Thompson walks around at like 150 nowadays. She cuts a lot of weight for competitions.
So, are you coming to Nats next year?
Just looked…her latest record is a USAPL Raw (hence, paused and drug tested for the other readers) 293lb bench in the 132 class.
Time for mass suicide.
Mass suicide is right. Holy shit.
Maybe if I have nothing super-important to do at the same time I’ll go.
Sorry for the threadjack but I have an unrelated question and I didn’t find an answer from the Gear post.
I’m looking to get some lifting shoes and came across the Adidas Power Lift. Does anyone (especially with wide feet) have these or know if they’re worth a try?
Damn, Big Cat is rockin it. I don’t think I’d want to roll with her.
I’m legitimately impressed. Not quite as badass as the one legged chick, but still fucking awesome.
Big Cat is only getting stronger, she’ll probably be competing again shortly if this story is well received im sure we can write another.
She was at Nationals this year and despite poor handling (by me) did very well, and is well on her way to competing with the famous JT in years to come.
I hope she will go to Raw Nats next year, but that is obviously her decision to make
lastlly the Just Lift powerlifting team website is awful, as is our f/b page, but hopefully we’ll improve it in the future in addition to making everyone damn strong
A.J., would you mind talking a but about what you did to address the loose/collapsing at the bottom of the squat issues? I see that a lot from ladies and some kids. Usually I have them progress via squatting to a seated position (onto a chair, onto a box, etc., getting gradually to full ROM with a bdoyweight squat, and then move to goblet squats and finally to the barbell. But I’m not sure I’m being efficient with such a long progression. I’d like to hear what you did/do with your litters.
AJ can respond to what he does. With hyper-mobile girls (especially in the hips), I’ll cue them to keep their toes tracked over their toes, depending on the toe angle. I’m of the opinion that toe angle is dictated by mobility, so very mobile girls will have a toe position that is just outside of straight ahead. Whether or not the knees need to be cued to be shoved out depends on the girl and her mobility. With normal guys who have a bit better mobility, the toes in the position described above plus “knees out” takes care of itself.
As for collapsing, I’ve always cued “control down, fast up” with girls. This takes care of a lot of problems.
Some times you can have an issue where the thoracic/lumbar or lumbar/sacral junctions are hyper extended. This requires some cuing, often thinking “straight trunk” with the tactile cue of my hands on each side of their trunk/hips depending on the location of the hyper extension. Wearing a belt can help this.
I could go on and on, but it’s always dependent on the girl and how she responds to cues. It’s merely teaching her movement patterns in simple, direct ways.
–Justin
Very timely post for me as my fiance started her LP on Saturday. She’s pretty diesel but from reading about other women’s experiences with lifting I think she’s probably going to need fractional plates within a month or two. Can anyone recommend a good, cheap fractional plate or an improvised solution? For instance as cheaper alternative I was thinking of going to the hardware store with my food scale and measuring out 1-lb links of chain.
All these other ideas are good, but they are way more complicated compared to just buying 16 oz (1 lb) baseball bat weights. They fit on a bar perfectly. But Jacob said he’d send you some. That Jacob is a sweetheart.
–Justin
Fastenal washers are excellent frac plates. Good them- you can get a couple of 2″ inside dia
Ether washers that weigh a pound each. Lighter and heavier ones may also be available. Cheap and effective!
Link (to get you started): http://www.fastenal.com:80/web/products/detail.ex?sku=33037&ucst=t
@Maslow
My girlfriend uses the Fastenal 2″ ID washers DaveN linked for bench (but I would shell out the extra 50 cents each for zinc plated). With them you have 3 steps between 5 lb. jumps, works really well.
Maslow – send me your address and I’ll ship you a set of 1.25 pound Ivanko plates. I have a couple pairs left, I think, and am more than happy to share them in the interest of getting chicks stronger. jcloud at gmailzzzzzz
be still my heart
please respond.
DaveN – for the bottom position issue, i can’t remember anything too specific besides trying to drill hitting the same bottom position every time, and always having someone call depth on each rep. As she became more consistent with depth, the bottom position got better and less falling etc. Also as Justin mentioned calling for a controlled eccentric and fast concentric helped so you’re not dropping to the bottom too fast to try and eek out the best of the stretch reflex.
Just Lift is where its at
Wow. Chicks like Jennifer Thompson amaze me. But above anything they make me want to jump in a fucking pool full of box jellyfish.
Brent- please, stay safe.
Completely off topic but I think this is a good episode of mobility wod for anyone with shoulder pains, especially if you have a problem with internal rotation…
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/09/episode-310365-load-ordering-the-chesticles.html
Good numbers, better than this guy. Altho I just drank some Mr. Clean so I’ll probably be on Big Cat’s level if I make it thru.
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@Jake My powerlift trainers have served me pretty well over the last 2 months, but I’m not lifting a ton of weight just yet! I recommend anyone interested in them read the reviews and watch the video on the wlshoes site. Here’s the link for the lazy among you – (wfs) adidas power lift trainer