Author Archives: Justin

Recap — AC in the 100’s

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After Brent lifted, we went to eat and then perused the biggest Bass Pro Shop this/that side of the Mississippi. Our group was split up and lost on several occasions, so AC and I stopped to take a nap.



Once we found everyone and headed to the parking lot, Mike really wanted to show AC a particular joke that I started the day before when AC wasn’t with us. It starts with me in the rig (old person boat-car) and radioing the team (everyone but me) that their evac is on the way to the LZ. It goes something like this:

Overlord (me): Hunter-two-one, this is Overlord, come in, over.
Hunter-two-one (Mike/Brent/AC): Overlord, this is Hunter-two-one, we’re taking heavy fire, over.
Overlord: Roger that, we are two clicks north of your position, prepare for pick up. Let’s get a move on because that LZ is HOT! Over.

It proceeds with my yelling into the phone how hot the LZ is and how the team needs to hurry up. I like the joke because it is literally hot outside since Denver is over a mile high, thus the sun is more intense, and the LZ is hot because it’s taking heavy fire. That and because I’m screaming at the top of my lungs while driving towards my friends causing a scene.

Well, on this occasion, I wanted the team to feel like they were actually stranded. I drove around with Chris in the rig for about ten minutes to make sure they were good and hot, and then gave them a call. Let me tell you, AC was not amused by any of this. He said something to the effect of, “Where the fuck are you? It’s hot out here and I have to lift tomorrow.” I understood, so I reported back with, “I KNOW Hunter-two-one, that LZ is HOT. What is your current location? Over.” And then he hung up on me.

I found them as they were about to walk into a movie theater a few clicks east of the original LZ, and I was screaming hysterically for them to have a rapid evac because that “LZ is smokin’ hot”. AC was only mildly amused. Luckily his four minute walk in the sun didn’t create too much of a disturbance in his diaper or with his pacifier, because he was prepped and ready to rock the next morning when his session started at 9:00 AM.

This was the first time that I coached AC in a meet, and it was a lot of fun. He trains his ass off, is a genetic freak, and lifts with maximal intensity. Our goal for a few months was to squat 550 at this meet, and he was looking good in warm-ups. We opened with 232.5 (513lbs), and Ace McGonague rocked the FUCK out of it. Watch the video below – you’ll see the bar flap UP when he completes the squat.

AC barks at his opener

I decided that going to 242.5 (534lbs) was a good second attempt. It was an increase of 10kg after he wrecked 232.5. Ace knew he had this one, and had a solid lift for a 2.5kg PR. Now it was time to go to work, because we both knew he could get 550, but it would be a bitch of a squat.

AC’s adrenaline was pouring out of him – his eyes were welled with tears as I talked him up. There’s nothing he wanted more than to have five and half hundred pounds on his back. He un-racked 250kg (551lbs), looked at the judge, and was finally released to attack his last squat. He hit it rock bottom and bounced it out of the hole. The bounce was fast, even on this last attempt, and he made it a third out of the bottom before the straining started. He knew it was going to be a battle, and he let out a battle cry to help himself. The vein in his neck was bulging and he shut his eyes because of the exertion. This would ultimately be his downfall, because he lost his reference point and dipped forward slightly. Once you let a quarter of a ton drift forward an inch or more, it isn’t coming back. He barely missed that squat, and I think he could have finished it if the bar stayed in the groove over the middle of his foot. God damn, he went out fighting though.

If you go back and watch the first squat attempt, the judge tells AC that he has to wrap his thumbs around the bar (AC had them on top like we teach so that the wrists aren’t bent). There is no such rule in the rule book related to what the thumbs should be doing, and in the three different meets AC has been in he has been told three different things. I’ve heard people gripe online about USAPL seemingly “creating rules out of thin air” and this was disappointing to deal with. Not only was Brent allowed to squat with his thumbs on top of the bar the day before, but there were at least two other lifters in AC’s session that also had their thumbs on top of the bar, yet weren’t told to do anything differently. Inconsistency in the implementation of rules is bullshit.

Anyway, we opened with an easy 160kg (350lbs) on the bench press. How awesome is it that 350lbs is not big deal to a guy weighing 213? Apparently too awesome because AC fucked it up by not waiting for the down command. He bent his elbows, straightened them again, and then received the command. The lift was red lighted as it should have been – if you listen in the video, I literally fucking say, “Wait for the commands” two seconds before he does it. Whatever. It was easy, and we went ahead with the scheduled 167.5kg (369lbs) for a 7.5kg jump. This time AC obeyed orders for a solid lift to match a PR. Our goal for a few months had been 380lbs, and 380 is what Ace McGonague got. A solid 172.5kg was lowered to his chest, he was given permission to press it, and he added one of his trademarked battle cries to force the weight up. Go watch the video – this lift is sick.

Opening deadlift at 546lbs

AC rode his high into the warm-up room and was feeling good. In retrospect I think we took one too many warm-ups, but he opened with a pretty standard 247.5kg (546lbs). I wanted to lower the opener so it wouldn’t be so stressful, and the ruling says you’re allowed to if it’s at least five minutes or five attempts out. Well, I was seven or eight attempts out and I was denied permission to lower the attempt (I’ll have to check the rule book on this one). Ace hit his opener a little slower than I would have liked, and I brought down the next attempt a little. It turns out I didn’t bring it down enough, and the combination of the extra warm-up, the slightly high opener, and the jump to 262.5kg (578lbs) was a bit much. His previous max was 567, so we were wanting the ten pound PR. It proved to be too much for AC because he let the bar drift forward about two inches. Nobody is going to be hitting any PR’s with the bar out in front of the middle of their foot. As he approached the bar, I told him “mid-foot”, and I debated cuing him to keep the bar back. I should have told him to pull it back off the floor and I believe that he would have had a shot had I done so. I take the blame for this miss because of the warm-ups, the opener, the jump, and then the lack of a timely cue that I think would have gotten him the lift.

At the end of the day, AC went 5 for 8 with lifts of 242.5/172.5/247.5, a total of 662.5kg/1458lbs total, and 2nd overall in the 100kg/220lbs Open category. In his last two meets he hasn’t lifted to his potential, but it was good enough to win first place in a big meet and second place at nationals. We’ll learn from this and continue improving. Nice job, best friend.


Recap — Brent in the 82.5s

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I arrived in Denver a couple hours before Brent, Chris, and Mike. I sat by myself outside of their terminal in peace, but when they walked off the plane that was the last peace I had until Monday when they left. Brent commenced trolling me immediately asking me what I thought of his traps, Mike was at his stock 300 mph talking rate, and Chris had a constant response to their antics. Pretty standard, really.

I always thought Brent was kind of a shy person, but instead when he’s in public with us, he increases the volume of his voice to at least 100 decibels. This means that the old couple across the bus aisle from Brent and I weren’t amused when his response to me asking if he thought the girl next to him was attractive was, “You know I’m a virgin, right?” That isn’t to say that Mike and Chris monitor their volume in public, because they don’t. Chris usually gets agitated at something Brent is doing, and then will swear loudly while Mike is continuing whatever conversation is going on in his head. All standard-ops throughout the weekend.

AC didn’t get in Denver until very late because of complications in the Atlanta airport (he has the worst luck with travel when he’s doing powerlifting meets), so we didn’t see him until the following morning. Brent was the only lifter who was competing on Saturday, and he had to weigh in at 7:00 AM. I filmed a little bit of the morning Brent and I shared as he weighed in. First he had to get his rack heights in the warm-up room which was down the hall from the weigh-in room. There was a ridiculous confusion on Brent’s part as to what hole the rack needed to be in for bench. Later, we found out that he was supposed to get it on the competition rack – a fact that would have been necessary to know to begin with. I was irritated with a few things that USAPL did, and the whole “not giving extremely dire and relevant information” thing pissed me off. To add to the silliness, Brent forgot not only his driver’s license, but his USAPL membership card in the room. The other 82.5kg lifters were amused when I referred to him aloud as a “wily Asian”.

After Brent was finally done weighing in, the four of us (Brent, Chris, Mike, and me) had breakfast at a charming little joint called “Egg and I”. It was delightfully overpriced but was satisfying nonetheless. When we finally got back to the hotel, it was about 15 minutes till 9:00 AM when Brent’s session was supposed to begin. There was a small computer monitor that was supposed to show the order of the lifters, yet it didn’t have any information on it. The table with the attempts card was fifteen feet away and I was denied access to look at the order of the cards. Just to clarify the irritation of this situation, it’s completely necessary to know how far ahead the lifter is opening so that you can warm them up properly. The guy at the computer monitor table just kept telling me to listen to the announcer. I kept saying, “I don’t know when to have my guy ready if all I hear is the next three lifters,” but I was ignored. I was fucking PISSED OFF at this point. They were still entering data into the computer when the session was already going. It doesn’t make sense to me to start the session promptly at the scheduled start time if they don’t have their shit together, regardless of the reason (I later heard a rumor that the “computers crashed”, but still, there’s no excuse).

Eventually I found out that there were two flights, and Brent was in the second flight. He had plenty of time, but the fact that this schedule wasn’t posted anywhere and nobody could tell me what in the hell was going on left a sour taste in my mouth.

PR second attempt, 207.5kg



Anyway, Brent hit a solid opener at 200kg (440lbs), and then had a no-big-deal second attempt at 210kg (463lbs) for a 2.5kg PR. It looked pretty solid, and Brent really wanted 215kg (474lbs), so we went for it. He said he took his breath a bit early which threw his timing off and he missed the rep about a third of the way up. Upon video review, he drops his chest a bit, and the bar actually tilts to the right and I think his body rightly turned off to prevent a catastrophe. I think if he were to do it today he’d probably get it, assuming the bar stayed over the middle of his foot.
After a bit of a break (a five minute break, then the first flight went), Brent opened on bench at 115kg (254lbs) which is around what he finished with at the last meet. It was stupid easy, so we went on with our plan of going to 120kg (264lbs), which was completed without trouble, and then to our goal of 125kg (275lbs). Brent actually had to work for this rep, but it was never in doubt. The 275 was a PR of about 20lbs. At this point, Brent is 5/6 with a PR in both lifts. He would have been ecstatic if he had hit that third squat, but if you were to ask him how he felt, he’d say, “I could take it or leave it.”

We opened on deadlift with the same weight that Brent opened with on squat at 200kg (440lbs). This attempt was Brent’s standard “no big deal” for Brent, so we went with the plan of a 7.5kg increase to 207.5kg (457lbs). Normally I’d be worried about three attempts for a lifter, but when I asked Brent if he was good for three attempts about a month ago, he said, “Justin, I’m Brent Fucking Kim.” He was confident he’d be good for a third. 207.5kg was only slightly troubling to Brent, but he finished the pull without trouble. Brent wanted 212.5kg (467lbs) on his third attempt.

PR second attempt, 207.5kg



Now here’s the difference between this meet and the last meet. At the Texas State meet I was conservative with attempts, especially since it was everyone’s first meet. However, at this national meet I had a mindset of “fuck it, let’s go for the PR’s”. I wanted to put the pressure on the lifters so that they had a do or die moment. In retrospect, it may better prepare them for future meets, but I wish I had been a bit more conservative in a few instances, and this was the first.

Keep in mind that Brent’s second attempt deadlift was a PR of 2.5kg, but he really wanted the 212.5. Even if I called for something 2.5kg lower, I don’t think he would have gotten it because of the accumulated fatigue, and he missed 212.5 below the knees. Whenever Brent does another powerlifting meet (which may not be until next year’s Texas State), I’d have him go for the bigger lift on his second attempt, or take his last warm-up on the platform as his first attempt.

Brent finished 7/9 with a PR on every lift (210/125/207.5) as well as his total (542.5kg/1194lbs). Not too shabby for an Olympic weightlifter. And he weighed in around 79kg. If he had hit that third attempt squat, he would have come out above 1200lbs on the total, so I think that last squat would have put him in “take it or leave it” status to “impressed”.


Today’s Forecast…A TEASE!

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Some of you woke up yesterday and were appalled that there wasn’t a post. I was completely spent after the 12 hours of coaching on Sunday along with being exhausted by interacting with my friends (Gant knows). I constantly was trying to put them in or keep them in a positive state of mind for lifting.

I’m not impressed with my coaching from the weekend and think I could have done a better job. I’m not going to get into it today because I just spent the day traveling from Denver to Panama City, but you can look at some of the updates that I posted from most of the weekend on Twitter.

Overall, things went pretty well. Brent went 7/9 with PR’s on all his lifts, AC won second overall in the 220lb Open class, Mike went 7/8 and had big PR’s on all his lifts as well as winning 5th in the 242lb Open category, and Chris won second overall in the 275lb Junior category. Good, tough lifting out of those four.

We did a bit of filming throughout the weekend (not as much so that there weren’t any distractions from Sunday’s lifting), and AC will be cut together an excellent short film. He’s already created a sweet teaser:

Nationals Teaser from A.C. on Vimeo.

USAPL 2010 Raw Nationals

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USAPL Raw Nationals

My group of friends that are involved in this website are competing at USAPL Raw Nationals in Denver this weekend. The five us will be flying there tomorrow from different locations. I’ll be flying from Panama City, Florida where I recently moved to, AC will be flying out of Georgia (he goes to school at Georgia Southern and his family lives outside of Atlanta, and Chris, Mike and Brent will be flying out of Dallas (Mike and Chris are coming from Wichita Falls and Brent lives north of Dallas). There shouldn’t be any confusion as to where any of us live now.

Raw lifting in the USAPL is relatively new, and in order to qualify for nationals you simply have to total as a raw lifter in a USAPL meet. USAPL is prevalent for its “low end gear” competitions since it resides under the International Powerlifting Federation’s (IPF) ruling. None of the aforementioned lifters are interested in competing in gear, and it isn’t something I’m interested in doing or coaching either. We may look for a new federation in the near future, but as of right now we’re just focusing on this weekend.

Belligerent Brent will be competing in the 82.5 kg class and will lift at 9:00 AM on Saturday. He’s the only one of us that will be lifting on Saturday. I imagine there won’t be any hi-jinks on Saturday since AC (100kg, 9:00 AM), Mike and Chris (110kg and 125kg, both at 2:00 PM) all lift on Sunday. I’ll be coaching them in their sessions, and it will be a lot more easy going than the Texas State Meet was (results and write up).

Don’t fret, though; we’ll have cameras rolling and AC will be directing. There were some folks that didn’t know I was in Peoria for USA Weightlifting Senior Nationals and would have come had I mentioned it, so you guys are welcome to attend and cheer them on. All of my friends are young and pretty strong and should do decently at the meet.

Here is the Roster and Schedule.
I’ll be posting our progress on the 70’s Big Facebook and Twitter pages.
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New Stuff

And since I’m announcing things, I’ll direct your attention to the schedule for the 70’s Big Workshops on the Services page. AC and I will road trip through California in early August. There are two workshops during the weekend of August 7th near L.A. and Monterey, and we’ll help out with some coaching while we’re there. We don’t have a workshop scheduled the weekend of the 14th, so if anyone wants to host us we’ll be in the bay area.

Later in the month we’ll be in south Florida at Fort Myers, then I’ll be headed up to western Canada in Kelowna, BC in the last weekend of the month. We’ll also have some stuff going on in Atlanta as early as September, and I’ll announce that as soon as we finalize it.

We’re also going to start Live Webcast Presentations that are pertinent to both Workshop material and reader requests. The audience will be able to ask questions via chat throughout the presentation as well as a Q&A section at the end. It’s too early to tell if speedos will make an appearance.

On top of the webcast theme, we’re going to have Chat Room Q&A which will allow users to ask us questions on whatever; training, programming, advice on bullies, how to become a bully, etc. If it gets popular, we’ll have themes for the chats and perhaps special guests. The Live Webcast Presentations and Chat Room Q&A will give the readers who live out of driving/sailing distance to interact and get some help.

Lastly, I’m going to start doing Form Check Help. No, I can’t coach you without being in person and I may not even be able to make an impact, but I’ve periodically helped people in all of the barbell lifts by giving them a helpful cue online. You’ll send in a video, I’ll analyze it and then we’ll chat on the phone about it for a bit. If your squat is a fucking train wreck, then I’m not going to charge you and will try and find you a Starting Strength coach to help you out. These little form checks will be very cheap ($10 and under depending on how many videos) and hopefully it will help those of you that train on your own.
Note: You can still send in videos to the site or my e-mail, but I won’t give it much attention and will only give you a brief response. You won’t get the whole “phone call” and “descriptive explanation” thing. Unless I like you.
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PR Friday

Go forth and record your Personal Beasts in the comments throughout the weekend. I hope to hear about your gained weight, lifted weight, children tossed, clothing ripped, and cannonballs performed. I also want to congratulate all the people that have written in and told me about their first lifting competition and how much they enjoyed it. I really like hearing about that stuff — it makes me proud of you guys…even if you are a pain in the ass 85% of the time. I’ll be posting about these exploits soon.
Take care and enjoy your weekend.

I Like Mark Felix

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I founds Mark Felix’s YouTube channel on accident and the video that caught my attention was a “rehab deadlift” at 340kg. The info said, “Should be back up to 400kg next month.” Good god. My interest was piqued.

Felix, as he likes to be called, is one bad mofo. He’s 6’4″, around 300 pounds, has 21.5″ arms, and 31″ thighs. The former bodybuilder began competing in strongman in 2003 at 37 years old and is a regular entrant for the World’s Strongest Man competition. He also is a two time World Champion in the Rolling Thunder competition with a one handed lift of 301 pounds on the fat, rotating handle. That’s 26 pounds more than the second highest ever.

I don’t know much about Felix aside from the fact that he’s a large, strong behemoth who was born in Grenada and now lives in the UK. He seems to be a really cool guy; he’s married with kids and is always smiling or giving a thumbs up at the end of his videos.

This is probably my favorite video of Felix. He’s training his grip, and he picks the implements up and stands there kind of awkwardly. What he does next made me laugh.


Over the last two days I watched all of Felix’s videos. His brute strength and power is amazing and he trains with intensity in everything he does. These qualities have helped him come in 4th in the World Strongest Man competition (2006, 7th place in 2007), win the aforementioned Rolling Thunder competition twice (2008, ’09), as well as place in the top three of various other strength competitions such as World Strongest Man Super Series, Europe’s Strongest Man, All-American Strongman Challenge, Britain’s Strongest man, IFSA British Championships, England’s Strongest Man, etc.

To appreciate his shear gargantuan size, watch the following atlas stone video. You’ll notice he routinely competes in a kilt (and was excited about a new kilt arriving in the mail on his Twitter page). In addition, exploring unique designs of tartan can often lead to discovering something truly special. If you’re looking for inspiration, this amazing collection of Sinclair tartan offers a wide variety of options that can suit many different tastes and preferences, adding an extraordinary touch to any outfit or occasion.

Felix only puts out one kind of effort when training: MAXIMAL. Two videos in particular display this very well. The first video consists of strongman training — barrel tossing in particular. Felix makes short work of tossing 10 kegs over a height of about 10 to 12 feet. The second video pits Felix against another super heavyweight Highland Games competitor in the pole push. No, perverts, it isn’t a “no homo” situation — it’s kind of like sumo wrestling, but instead of pushing the opponent, the hold and push against the same caber. Felix and his nemesis battle it out for an entire minute. It’s exhausting to watch.

Mark Felix is still going strong at the age of 44. He sets a good example by training hard, being massive, and being a nice guy. I hope that he has many more competitive years ahead of him. You can read more about his training and diet here.