PR Friday: Post your training PR’s and updates to comments. This gives you chance to communicate with like-minded readers, get encouragement or tips, and to be a part of our community. I know there are a lot of lurkers because every time people meet me or message me they say, “I always read, but I never comment. I’ll have to start commenting.” Join in on the fun.
The NFL championship game is this Sunday and it has turned into big media frenzy. I’ve personally avoided anything about the game since the media hype can produce a huge let down on Super Bowl Sunday. But, more importantly, do you give a shit about this game? I love football, grew up playing and watching it, and I’ll be watching this Sunday, but the celebrity frenzy can be laborious.
What about pro athletes? Do you really give a damn about them? Are they clowns paid to perform for you? Do you care that Raven’s linebacker Ray Lewis possibly murdered or witnessed a murder on the weekend of Super Bowl 34? Does a different set of ethics apply to famous people?
If a white trash chick skipped trial 20 times, violated probation, then made some shit up about not showing up to court and everyone found out she was lying, and then was not sent to jail, how would you feel? Cause that’s the life of Lindsey Lohan.
And more importantly, do you care if Beyonce lip-syncs the national anthem?
Along with opening the site to reader submissions, I’ve asked various friends to contribute. Aaron is a PJ, or pararescue jumper, a Special Operations job in the Air Force where operatives are tasked with recovery and medical treatment of personnel in humanitarian and combat environments. His experience, attitude, and humor are unique and he can squat over 405. –Justin
I’ve been in the military for 11 years. I joined the Air Force after spending some time bouncing around Ohio where I grew up. I was always good enough at sports to make the varsity team – I swam and played water polo – but I wasn’t good enough to pay for school or to make a living out of it. I wasn’t challenged enough by college to care to keep going. For about 8 months in the start of 2001, I talked to recruiters, asked what they could offer me, took some placement tests, and scored well enough to get my pick of jobs. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in despite coming from a family heavily entrenched in military and civil service. I wasted a lot of time that year. Then September 11, 2001 came and went, and like so many other young men and women I was gone a month later.
I chose the Air Force to try out for Pararescue, or PJ – a special operations job in the Air Force where operatives are tasked with recovery and medical treatment of personnel in humanitarian and combat environments. It’s arguably the hardest Special Operations job in the United States military. I was attracted by the difficulty, the attrition rate (more than 90% fail), and the mission. Saving lives, bringing home fallen Eagles, no matter the cost. “That others may live” is the motto. Small teams are asked to do impossible things only to succeed time and time again. It’s mentally challenging, physically demanding, and packed full of the world’s best training opportunities. It took all of 5 seconds for my recruiter to tell me about the job before I wanted to sign papers.
This is usually the point in the story where I tell you how I completed selection, realize my dreams, but it’s not. I failed the selection course for Pararescue, called “The Indoctrination Course”, or colloquially “INDOC”. I did not have the maturity, physical skills or mental preparedness needed to be a PJ, and I found that out in the harshest way over the course of my first year in the military. I love the saying, “failure is not an option.” I assure you, it most certainly is an option.
I spent 5 years in Washington, D.C. working a very cool but very “desk” job. I excelled, made a couple stripes, and was well set up for a very “easy” career in the Air Force. I loved the people I worked with, I loved the Air Force, and I loved my life. I even got married, had a baby – the whole deal.
At 3 a.m., on the night I graduated from Basic Army Airborne School, my wife looked at me as she held my then-three-week-old daughter, and said the one thing that changed all of our lives.
“It made you want to go back, didn’t it? Did jump school make you want to try INDOC again?”
I responded with some really pansy type, “Uh, babe, you know…”
“Shut up” was the only response from my wife. “Put the packet in. Let’s go back. But I am changing the locks on the doors, and you aren’t coming home to this family unless you pass. You can get your new keys at graduation. You are gambling on our lives here, and I won’t bet on anything but a sure bet. Let’s do this.”
Fast forward to now. 8 years after that conversation, I am a PJ with multiple combat deployments, and international SOF experience. I just returned from a deployment, and I am getting ready for the next one, as usual.
But now the question: why did I spend 300 words telling you this, and what does it have to do with 70’s Big?
Well, it has everything to do with it. Along my journey, a couple resounding truths kept my head right and kept me on the right track.
You have to stand up, do the work, and grind out every day of your life. Some say, “Half of life is just showing up,” but the other half is putting out, and getting the work done. 50% is a failing score in real life; just showing up isn’t enough.
The second you lose sight of item 1, someone will call you on it and you will pay a penalty. In my line of work, that could conceivably mean a serious injury or death – or the worst possible scenario, that I would be unable to answer the call when it comes. It seems as if I got those two consequences in the wrong order. Trust me, I didn’t.
These lessons were taught to me at the gym. Not during some “cool guy” combat scenario or during a movie-type scene; I learned these things under a bar. Trying to find a way to push into a max-effort set; showing up an hour early to make sure I get my mobility work in; getting up hours before the sun because I don’t have enough time in my day; or refusing to miss a weight or a progression. These lessons were taught to me in the most unforgiving fashion possible. The weight is constant and the entry in your journal for that day is a pass/fail event. Would you like to skip today’s workout, or mail it in and only do 75% of what you had programmed that day? That’s fine. Just realize you will not be strong and you’ve increased your chance of failing. If you are ok with that, well, I’m not sure we are going to get along.
Throughout my career I’ve loved learning and passing knowledge on. Long ago I saw the value of strength training and have never looked back. Three years ago I found my way to 70’s Big and saw a community of like-minded individuals and have been an avid follower since. When I was presented the opportunity to contribute in any way, I was amped.
So, here we are. Hopefully, I can contribute some quality articles. I want to bring my military and Special Operations experience as well as my experience coaching athletes of all shapes and sizes – males, females, special operators, intel officers, housewives and grandparents. Hopefully my experience can help make 70’s Big readers better.
If not, at least I “showed up”, and that’s at least worth half credit.
Aaron is a Pararescueman (PJ), a special operations job in the Air Force where operatives are tasked with recovery and medical treatment of personnel in humanitarian and combat environments. He spends his free time eating meat and repetitively moving heavy things.
70’s Big started as a joke six months before the site launched in September of 2009. After coining the phrase, our group of friends saw 70’s Big in everything we did. Eating a one pound burger was 70’s Big. Getting eight hours of sleep was 70’s Big. Air guitaring was 70’s Big. Anything that pushed us towards the goal of being stronger and bigger was 70’s Big.
The attitude of 70’s Big has been in my life for almost four years, but the mentality has been around longer. Shouting the phrase, “Never miss a chance to get better!” and following it with impromptu exercise was one of my favorite public jokes. See two chairs together? Get a few dips in. See a sidewalk? Get some walking lunges. Never miss a chance to get better.
I distinctly remember shouting the phrase outside a bar on Halloween in 2008 when AC and I dressed up as speed walkers. I drunkenly shouted the phrase, jumped on an awning, and started doing pull-ups. When I landed, I looked down to see blood seeping out of a gash on my hand. “Never missing a chance” has its consequences, but this didn’t stop me from speed walking up and down the bar or doing jumping jacks in the corner.
This pic was taken a few minutes after the hand gash incident (I hold a napkin to stop the bleeding). Friends Brock and Taylor (gorilla) pose with AC and I.
This “joke” is a derivative of a long-time belief I established at an early age: people should not only never plateau in life, but they should never be satisfied with plateauing. The very idea should make them vomit.
Some people hang their hat on past accomplishments as if it gives them the right to complacency. “Success” is not something that a person ever qualifies for, but a state of mind that results from honestly striving for it.
Personally, I don’t think anything I’ve done is impressive. Graduating college, coaching people, or establishing this website — to me these are byproducts of the work I’ve put in. I don’t ever focus on what I’ve achieved, but focus on what I could have done better. And there’s a lot that I could have done better. I don’t dwell or fester on the bad, but use it as a tool to improve. Just like in lifting, if something goes wrong, figure out why, and then work towards rectifying the problem. Everyone has good traits that clash with flaws, yet it’s overcoming the flaws that allow us to show our quality while working towards success.
My intention with this website has always been to educate and subsequently motivate. If that means I have to act like a fuck-head to get your attention, then that’s something I’m willing to do. If you get nothing else from 70’s Big, I hope it’s the motivation to bust your ass in training, but it’s my sincerest hope that this rubs off into the rest of your life. Attack your life goals with the same intensity you use during a 3RM squat attempt. Train your mind, speak foreign languages, study history, understand philosophy, play musical instruments — independently think and actively learn to better yourself. It’s no different than training your body and equally important.
This is a slightly edited version of the introduction to my new book, “Paleo for Lifters”. It will be available very soon.
I just spent way too long trying to find a pic for this post, and finally chose this one.
The history of nutrition and strength training has roots in hearty caloric-dense meals – with good reason. Strength training places a toll on the body that requires adequate amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. There are stories from strength training legends that talk about how young, hard training men would go to the local diner for cheese burgers and milk shakes to recover from training. Other stories detail the amount of eggs, milk, cream, ice cream, and protein powder that they would throw into their shakes. This is what was necessary to get bigger and stronger, so that’s what you should do too. Right?
The old school nutritional paradigm is based on the misconception that dirty foods are the only foods that can help someone gain muscle and get stronger. The mindset probably evolved from the stories told in powerlifting magazines of super heavyweights. After all, the heaviest guys are the strongest guys, so their dietary habits are naturally highlighted. While a lifter like Lamar Gant is impressive, his 688lb deadlift at 132lbs pales in comparison to Bill Kazmeir’s 886.7lb raw deadlift at a body weight of over 300lbs. Furthermore, the impressive eating stories printed in strength training literature typically highlight young men during pubescent training. Teenagers and young adults have fiery metabolisms due to their high testosterone levels and are able to convert massive amounts of calories into solid muscular gain.
Every adult in Western society soon finds out that their teenage eating habits will result in fat accumulation through each aging decade. When people get old, their metabolisms slow and their body adapts to stress slower. “Body fat is 90% diet,” is a common phrase that has risen from trainees that are disappointed with their body composition despite hard training in the gym. Lean, athletic physiques require a lot of effort and will power.
Quality food doesn’t just yield a lean physique; it plays a role in how efficiently the body works. There will always be new fad diets that claim to lose weight quickly and easily – nutrition is a habit that is extremely difficult to change and capitalizing on laziness funnels money to pseudo-nutritionists. There have been huge nutritional advances in the last two decades that are yet to permeate mainstream nutritional and fitness knowledge. It’s possible to combine the lessons from unconventional nutrition knowledge with strength and conditioning to have an efficient dietary approach that will provide enough calories for recovery and gaining muscle without superfluous fat gain. Paleo for Lifters — a new book I have been working on that will be out very soon — will show how to do this in a variety of scenarios with guidelines.
Please voice any concerns or questions you have about trainees, athletes, and lifters using the Paleo diet as a nutritional foundation to achieve their goals.
For a long time Mondays were dedicated to female training topics, and recently this topic was requested (by females).
Image from SOFREP.com
Recently Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, signed an order that opens combat arms jobs to women. Previously, women were barred from jobs that were tasked with combat involvement, though they could serve in support units that often found themselves in combat (mostly in the Iraq war).
It’s a little known fact that women have not only been fighting, but dying in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 6,600+ service members that have died, 152 have been women (not including non-lethal casualties). Now they will have the opportunity to qualify for combat arms jobs.
Allow me to point out that I don’t think I’m fully qualified to have an opinion on this topic since I am neither an active duty service member or a combat veteran. Take that into context when reading my opinion.
Personally I don’t have a problem with women serving in combat roles, so long as they can meet the standard — a standard that has not been lowered for their benefit. It would be a disservice to both women and men in a combat unit if a woman was pushed through training without having to meet the same minimum standards of everyone else, regardless of sex. It would put the woman and her teammates in jeopardy. Pentagon officials agree and have repeatedly expressed that standards will not be lowered to facilitate female prospects.
In truth, I think most or all women would agree with that sentiment (and the military women I know have echoed this). Women make up 14% of the 1.4 million active duty force. Of the available women, there is probably only a small percentage of them that would physically qualify for a combat arms job. But what does “qualify” actually mean? Right now it means passing the course (e.g. infantry school) while passing the official physical assessments in the course. But the Pentagon is asking the services to define what the actual physical requirements of each job are (e.g. infantry may require pulling a 300 pound load x distance in y time — turning these expectations into actual graded events). I interpret that as solidifying what “the standard” is so that a woman (or man) knows exactly what is expected of them and if they do not perform up to that standard, they will not pass the course. It will prevent law suits (that have previously occurred) from women arguing they were removed from training simply because they are female — quite an ambiguous and difficult argument for either side. Women can find a Pennsylvanian employment lawyer to protect your employment rights.
It’s useful to obtain the opinion of women who have served in combat, especially women who have worked in a job where combat was more prevalent than a support element getting ambushed. I read an article the other day where a female NCO who has been in combat said something along the lines of, “I hope that women will join combat arms because they truly want to instead of doing it just because they can.” (My apologies, I know this is shitty reporting to not cite my source, but I couldn’t find the article). It’s a fair point — do it because it’s what you desire, not because you want to make a point about gender issues.
The most poignant female opinion I’ve seen on this topic was from an interview with a woman serving on a Cultural Support Team (CST) on SOFREP.com — men are at times barred from interacting with women and children in Afghanistan, so a CST woman is attached to a special operations team to do so. She was attached to a 3rd Group SF team and was trained for and saw combat during her deployment. She dispels the typical reasons men bring up about women in combat roles (protecting women, cleanliness, sex, etc.) and talks about her experience.
But the most important thing she stresses — more than once — is that standards should be equal for men and women. The women aren’t stupid and know that this is important, and it seems that the DoD is following suit.
To make this quasi-relevant to training, there are obviously different demands between combat arms and desk jobs. Women who aim to perform to standard will need to be strong and emphasize proper technique to make the most out of their likely smaller statures and lack of absolute strength (with respect to a strong male). In other words, if she needs to put things overhead, she’ll need to know how to push-press it. If she is going to drag equipment or a teammate, she’ll need to know to use leverage by dropping her hips low. This strength foundation should be built with compound barbell movements like the squat, press, deadlift, pull-ups/chin-ups, and push-press. Strength and technique will be critical for these women.
Personally I know women who could successfully meet these standards, but the reality is that muscular women who are strong and can ruck all day are not common. A skinny, weak male can get through infantry training by virtue of sucking it up, but a female may need to sharpen her physical attributes to be effective. Nevertheless, I’m sure there will be many good female role models when the changes officially occur.
The change will be slow, but this will be a transitional era for the U.S. military. They will join many other countries in allowing women in combat roles despite being late to the party. It seems like Leon Panetta has the right idea in fairly implementing this policy by saying, “Not everyone is going to be able to be a combat soldier, but everyone is entitled to a chance.”
The Super Duper Bowl
