San Francisco 49ers defensive end Justin Smith is a man. A horse. A horse-man. A centaur.





High-motor and aggressive defensive lineman are so cool.

I spent most of the Mondays in September and October talking about ways to get your lady friend into lifting weights. The goal wasn’t necessarily to brain wash her and turn her into a lifter, but to teach and implement quality barbell training and high intensity conditioning. Today I want to talk about transitioning from the “slow lifts” to the Olympic lifts. This will not be approached from the perspective of a weightlifter with the result of having a girl compete in weightlifting (although that’s cool). Instead, we’re merely going to add things to the program to have a general strength and conditioning focus that is fun.

By this time the lady in question will understand the utility in lifting and enjoy it. If she didn’t have any experience with lifting, it may be a good idea to get about half a year of lifting before worrying about this transition. Even if the gal has an athletic background, mastering the intricacies of body position while lifting can take time (every girl won’t be like Eva Twardokens or Lindsay Taylor). Pre-existing musculature, strength, coordination, injuries, and skill will dictate when the transition should happen, but if there is no lifting history and athletic history is limited to high school, then don’t rush it. Remember, the idea with gals who are skeptical of lifting is to progress them slowly yet consistently. In order to shift into the snatch and clean and jerk, here are some preliminary lifts to use for a while to ease the transition.

The Front Squat
The first amendment to a standard program is to throw in front squats about once a week. If she was already high barring, then this won’t be a big change, but if she was low barring this will help quite a bit. I’ve seen the front squat solidify positioning in the LB squat and develop quadriceps musculature faster than the low bar. Even more important is that it teaches a good rack position. The elbows should be up and in, and the bar can rest back in the fingers (as opposed to gripping the bar in the fists). Note that the elbows should be “in”; this puts the shoulder in external rotation to allow a good “chest up” position with the shoulders “back and down” in their socket. If the elbows are in, then she won’t need to think about any of that, but will need to maintain the “chest to chin” cue I’ve mentioned here before. The squat itself has the same cues as a high bar squat: “shove the knees out” and “heels out of the bottom” (shortened to “knees out” and “heels”). The rack position consists of passive cues that she shouldn’t have to think about (but should be corrected from day one) while the “knees” and “heels” cues are active cues that typically need emphasis while the movement occurs. The following position is a pretty good rack position, although I’d see if she can bring them “in” or closer together a little more.


Use the front squat every week, but not exclusively. If there are three training sessions a week, make one a front squat session. If there are only two sessions, then front squat on one of them. If high bar is already being used, consider front squatting before or after the HB squat on a volume-type day to teach the rack position.

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I hope everyone’s training is going well so far this year. Post your updates or weekly PR’s to the comments to celebrate PR Friday

Also, I don’t have confirmation on this, but apparently Allison Bishop (AllisonNYC for you CF vets) has allegedly committed to doing a max effort clean and jerk in a bikini if Donny Shankle gets to his fundraising goal (read the first part of this post). Now let’s get on with the bloody Q&A, eh?

sdanleyjr asks:

This week’s collection of articles has me all worried about balanced ham/quad development. If I look in the mirror I’d say I’m pretty quad dominant, however I just LBBS my way up to 405# before switching back to HBBS. If I’m doing all of the following once a week – HBBS, front squat, snatch, C&J, deadlift – should I be doing some RDLs as well?

Dear sdanleyjr,

I’m a huge proponent of RDL’s, especially for lifters who aren’t in the ‘later intermediate stages’ and beyond. I’d even to venture and say that the RDL’s will be better for your programming than the deadlifts — CRAZY TALK. It looks like you’re training for weightlifting, and heavy deadlifts are going to require significant local and systemic recovery. Not only are you using your limited supply of recovery credits on the expensive deadlift, but you may be inhibiting the clean, snatch, or squat workouts that occur after the deadlifting (even if they are the following week). If you’re primarily training to be a weightlifter, you’ll get good hamstring and lumbar musculature work out of the RDL and still have some zing for the rest of your program.

jaygreenshirt asks:

At the Chicago lifting seminar you discussed the phenomenon of one’s hamstrings sputtering during a heavy deadlift (you referred to it as ‘tut-tut-tut’). I can’t remember your explanation on this and was hoping you could explain it on the site. I recently pulled a one rep max deadlift and my hamstrings were tut-tut-tutting like The Little Engine That Could.

Dear jaygreenshirt,

It’s awesome to hear from you. For everyone else, Jay was one of two Jays at the Chicago workshop, and when I said the name “Jay”, my friend Jay S. kept saying, “What?” So I resorted to calling this Jay “Jay Green Shirt” since he was wearing a green shirt. Apparently Ellee still has him saved as that in her phone.

Anyway, this is a good question. The “tut-tut-tut” sputtering that occurs when locking out heavy deadlifts (watch the second rep at 625) is a neurological result of not being adapted to high levels of tension in the hamstrings. Assuming good mechanics (that would maintain hamstring tension), the intrafusal muscle fibers (in this case, the golgi tendon organ) of the hamstring are monitoring levels of tension in the muscle. If tension is too high, then the GTO will essentially shut the muscle off to prevent injury. Your conscious effort to pull the weight forces a resuming in the contraction, or “turning the muscle back on”. The GTO then senses high levels of tension and turns it off again. This back-and-forth could occur several times and feels like a stuttering lockout that I sum up as a “tut-tut-tut” (usually I mimic the move as I say it in a workshop).

So what the FUCK does all of that mean? You are relatively unadapted to the higher levels of tension that you were imparting on the muscle and it’s associated nerve functioning. How can this be fixed? Rack pulls are usually the go-to method of improving that ability to experience high tension. If you watched the linked video above of Chris first couple reps at a 600+ pounds, you can see it occur. Shortly after that I had him do rack pulls and he never had those tension issues again (see below for Chris pulling 655×2 the other day). RDL’s are also another good way to improve the hamstring’s ability to experience tension. The weight won’t be as heavy, yet the different mechanics will still stretch the hamstring and make it contract under tension. Regularly using both of these lifts will eradicate the tut-tut, yet also getting more reps with higher intensity deadlifts will help in the short term as well.

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Readers occasionally ask me what the 70’s Big’s “official stance” on steroids is. That boils down to what my stance is, albeit with the opinion of some friends. We have talked about steroids on this website in the past (the first two links were posted by me, the last two posted by Gant):
One
Two
Three
Four

For the sake of discussion, when I say “steroids” in this post, I’m referring to steroids and anabolic type compounds — the whole gamut of stuff that enhance performance via hormonal manipulation.

When I was younger, I was staunchly against steroids. Nowadays, I don’t really give a shit. If someone wants to use them, then it doesn’t bother me. And for the record, I think that it’s their right to decide if they want to or not. I haven’t ever used steroids, do not currently, and won’t in the future any time soon. I don’t have a problem with guys around the age of 35 to 40 and up supplementing a little bit of testosterone to stave off negative health effects (though I currently don’t have research to link to support this idea). Technically, I don’t have a problem with anyone currently using steroids. But when someone asks me, “Should I use steroids?” my answer is always the same:

1. Do you do everything in the realm of training consistently including, but not limited to, eating right, regularly training, mobbing, sleeping right, etc.?
If not, then it’s clear there are things to address that could improve your goals, whatever those goals are.
2. If you make the decision to use steroids, then do so with an informed opinion. Learn as much as you can from people who do it right. Don’t learn from some dickhead at the local Gold’s. Don’t learn from some guy on the internet who has gotten results from them. Learn from someone who has done it properly and has learned from or actually is a knowledgeable person that you can actually trust. This person should be able to explain the ‘why’, ‘how’, and ‘what’ about steroids. Changing the hormones in your body is serious business, and I wouldn’t want you to have something bad occur because of negligence or ignorance.

Personally, I know very little about steroids. In every book I write, I clarify that I don’t have experience in coaching anybody that uses them, and I’ve already pointed out how I don’t have any experience taking them (though I’ve been accused of it at various points in the last 8 years). I also never knew a simple, direct source to learn about steroids basics. Every resource either seems to be chemistry related that is a bit over my “steroid knowledge” head, or it’s forum-type information saying “use this and this, it’ll work like a charm”. However, now there is such a source of information in the Beginner’s Guide to Steroids by Brent Larson at Strength Villain.


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Despite the increase in popularity in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, there are still aspects of it that always work “behind the scenes”. The average fan doesn’t really understand why the U.S. may or may not have a spot in the 2012 Olympics in London. Instead of grumbling and talking about how much American weightlifting sucks, let’s review the process that will determine what male weightlifter will represent the U.S. in London.
Note: If I’ve misconstrued or left out anything, just let me know and I’ll amend it.

I had a quick phone call with Glenn Pendlay the other day so that he could explain this to me. Basically we need to first earn a spot, and then whichever lifter has the best total (relative to the world average in their weight class) will be chosen. The timing of how this will occur is what makes it weird.

First the men need to earn a spot to go to the Olympics, and that is done at the Pan American Championships a couple weeks after Nationals. Chances are very good, almost certain, that the men will earn a spot. Pendlay even said, “God would need to strike down four or five of the best lifters in order not to earn it.” He even said that if everyone had a bad day then the spot would still be earned. However, earning a spot is still dependent on performing reasonably well at the Pan Am Championships to lock a spot up.

Olympic hopeful Donny Shankle rests with Jon North between attempts