Author Archives: Cloud

About Cloud

I'm a coach, lifter, and writer based out of Austin, TX. Contact me at Vintage Strong.

Sumo Deadlifts Are The Devil!! …Right?

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Today’s post is brought to you be the letters A and J, as in AJ Loreto. AJ trains out of Just Lift Inc., in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His best competition lifts (all USAPL) include a 240kg squat, 150kg bench, 297.5kg DL, and 687.5kg total at 90kg body weight. He also has a boat, and runs a sweet t-shirt company. So read what he has to say, and learn from one of the top raw lifters in the country…that has a boat. – Jacob

 

The sumo deadlift. Competition legal for powerlifters, but hated worse than carbs in a Crossfit gym. Why do sumo pulls receive so much hate? It seems everyone’s got a hard-on for deadlifts nowadays – probably because you can stack some plates on the bar, pick it up, and feel like a bad ass. Crossfit, Strongman, Powerlifters, Bodybuilders; everyone can use them, and move a lot of weight. Feels Good Man. Now, I suspect sumo is disliked because it APPEARS you can be able to move even more weight compared to conventional, and well, haters gonna hate. So how many people in the 70sBig community have tried to pull sumo? Why not get out of your typical routine and give a barbell a tug with your legs spread wide? I bet you’d be surprised at what your strength is like going from conventional to sumo.

Why did I start caring about sumo? I was training on an afternoon with friends who dared me to sumo in a typical pissing match that occurs training hungover on Saturdays (editors note: Yessssssssss). It turns out I managed almost 90% of my conventional best for a double. This was pretty good motivation to give sumo a real go. Anything to increase my powerlifting total is a good thing, and if I get bigger and stronger in the process, I would probably like that as well.

To begin incorporating sumo, oddly enough, I maintained my conventional pulling as prescribed by the program I was running at the time (a modified 5/3/1). To add in the sumo, I began pulling each warm up weight both sumo and conventional. Then, at each work weight I would tug a single at each weight sumo. By doing only a single I was not changing the volume of my workout significantly. After 1 wave (phase, cycle, whatever) of this (4 weeks of training), I switched the movements. I pulled a single conventional and the prescribed reps sumo. Again, the intention was to keep my volume similar. As it turns out, I was smashing the shit out of my rep maxes sumo (nearly twice as many reps as I could hit conventional at a given weight but with consistent small increases in work weight – the changes in volume after the switch were not extreme). I ran this programming for several waves and believe it was effective and getting my form in order and increasing my strength.

Initially, pulling singles sumo helped develop the ‘groove’ for sumo and helped stretch out my hips a significant amount. Sumo requires, just like the squat, for you to keep your knees tracking out over the toes. Without enough flexibility to keep your knees out, many people will complain about knee pain pulling sumo. Maintaining enough ‘knees out’ will also work to get your glutes involved and is paramount to a good sumo pull. Of course you can consult your favorite coaches for advice on knee and toe placement, but I would bet that by and large most coaches would recommend knees and toes in a line, and pointed out.

 

Knees Out = Good

Knees caving in = pain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of the change in relative angles of your body parts, when pulling sumo, the back of the trainee will tend to be more upright than a conventional pull.

Conversely, the femurs will be more horizontal and the knee angle more acute. Because of the changes in the joint angles for the lifter, most will note that their back is not the limiting factor in the pull, but rather the legs and or hips will be the weakest muscles involved. What does this mean for you? If you suspect your back is weak-sauce when pulling, why not try sumo to grab a few extra pounds in the ego bank? If your back is as thick as thieves, maybe your hips and legs are lame and sumo can get them up to par with your upper body (why you no train legs bro? why?). In any case, developing strong hips at the bottom of a sumo pull should carry over nicely into a great number of lifts: your squat, conventional deadlift and even stone lifting.

 

Sumo: Note the vertical torso and knee angle

Conventional: Note the more horizontal torso and larger knee angle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone lifting is an item that I personally have not read much (anything) about. I learned to pick up stones in a garage where my friend told me to ‘pick it up.’ No matter how one is coached (or not coached) in stones, one thing WILL happen, and that is the lifter will straddle the rock in some capacity. The spreading of your feet to the outside of the stone will put your legs outside of your conventional deadlift stance (unless you’re some weirdo who hates Vince Anello and has their feet super wide and grips the bar even wider). Granted, your foot width might not be as wide as a sumo stance when handling stones, but the idea still remains: you’re grabbing an object off the floor, using plenty of hip and hamstring, and trying to push your chest up off the floor. Attempting to keep your stance narrow and the stone in front of the feet will not be an easy task, if it is possible at all. The stones are generally large enough in diameter that even if you had the strength, you physically would not be able to balance with your feet behind the stone (imagine picking up a barbell greater than your body weight that is 6+ inches in front of your toes). So spreading your legs and pulling with similar joint angles to stones will probably make sumo a tasty movement for strongmen.

For me and some teammates, I have found that my 1 rep max is incredibly close for both versions of the deadlift. Interestingly, for a given percentage of 1RM, I have noticed many lifters will hit more reps sumo. This has been my personal observation, and I’d encourage you to see how your numbers pan out. Training with a higher percentage of 1RM in a given rep range, or using higher reps at a given percentage of 1RM, may prove to be helpful in your training. Either of these will increase working volume and, if recovered from correctly, should increase ones strength. Increasing volume over time is a staple to most (if not all) training philosophies (when considering a consistent, long, multi-cycle period of time – not a single training cycle). With this in mind, if the overreach in volume is not too great to prevent adequate recovery, switching to sumo and achieving more reps or using a higher percentage should be a benefit to your training.

Initially, when training sumo the differential in reps can be deceiving and you might think that your 1RM will be significantly different. Therefore, it will be worth your while to hit some heavy singles in the gym before you hit the platform and end up making a bad attempt call. Most trainees will find properly performed sumo attempts to be slow off the floor, but fast towards the lockout of the repetition. With this in mind, if your attempt is too heavy, the bar will be glued to the floor, whereas a conventional pull will break and might wind up stalling around the knees.

I hope you give sumo a go at some point or another. I know it’s made me a more well rounded lifter, and I believe it will add to your strength in other movements, from squats to stones (note: I really believe it is huge for stones) and even your conventional deadlift. As always, Implement changes carefully and track your progress! And stop hating on sumo, fool.

 

PR Friday, 12 April 2013

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Annnnnnnnd we’re back! Our servers made some mistakes yesterday (burpees instead of squats…tsk, tsk) and had to be put in timeout for half a day. Some unplanned maintenance later by our men in Berlin, and the ISIS mainframes have been upgraded with new neural net processors – learning computers – and our R2 is back on our 6, by the light of Kate Upton’s eyes. Bueno? Bueno.

So, let’s get back to business. This week, we had a post about Iris’s strength journey. AC taught us how to press more gooder (this was real, real popular on reddit). Markotta had us reflect on our motivation. Mike used the time off from reading the site to ignore Paul’s question and answer everyone else’s.

Additionally, USAPL Collegiate Nationals is this weekend in Killeen, TX. There’s going to be some pretty impressive single-ply lifting going on, and there are some fierce rivalries between teams. Naturally, I think Preston Turner, Ian Bell, and the rest of the Longhorn Team is going to take the cake, but watch and see for yourself.

http://mass-lift.com/2013-collegiate-nationals/

Last week, I asked you guys and gals to submit pictures of your “70sBig face.” Wait, back up. First, I asked you to go back and re-read the original post on HOW to make a 70sBig face, and then to submit some examples. I got some great ones, and I got some that, well, I’m pretty sure were taken on the shitter in a time of duress  We’ll get there, folks, but this might take some work. I appreciate the flood of pics I got, and will post some each week.

 

“Billy” (we’ll use a code name to keep his identity a secret) sent in a picture that proves his commitment to the cause. He gets bonus points for the glasses, but the striped v-neck is hit or miss depending on yokeability. Guys, you can wear v-necks, but only if there’s chest hair poking out, mmmmk?

 

 

MeneGene spent the better part of the morning posing for this pic, showing off a pretty glorious mustache. There are literally ninja chicks beating up Abercrombie wannabee’s in the background, and he is sitting there stoicly not giving a fuck. I approve. I think there’s real blood on his shirt, too.

 

 

Jason lacks facial hair, but I’ll cut him some slack. If he was sporting a ferocious Viking beard, half the grease from this amazing burger would go to waste. Is that HAM on that hamburger, too? Shit, now I’m hungry – with a few fried eggs on top, that’d be a pretty dece breakfast. Good job, Jason. Next time, cut the sleeves off your plaid shirt for date night. Trust me, she’ll be impressed.

 

 

CriedTheFox shows us a classic selfie here, driving in some sort of van with “Free Ice Cream” scrawled on the side of it. Facial hair? Check. Cheap sunglasses? Check. Thrift-store t-shirt you’re unafraid to rip in half in case of emergency? Check. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

 

 

 

 

Blake’s got a pretty dece face here. The bushy brows, the insane look in his eyes, and a ‘Murican flag in the background are all excellent. A little more jaw-jutting would be nice, but HOLY SHIT there’s a Mustang snorting FIRE on his shirt.

 

 

 

 

We didn’t get nearly enough female face submissions, but Amanda played the game…sorta. She sent this in with the comment “No, this is not a 12 y/o boy but a 34 y/o woman.” I…I….look, I really appreciate the pic, but I….well, shit. I’m scared. You took some creative licensing and the end result is equal parts terrifying and awesome. I award you all the points, and hope to never cross your (bar)path when you’re angry.

 

 

That’s all for today. Keep the submissions coming, make sure they are LESS THAN A MEGABYTE (you’ve seen what happens when our systems get angry), and I’ll keep posting these on Fridays until I run out or get bored. Post your PR’s below. Have a great freaking weekend. Stay safe.

 

Why Do You Do It?

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Today’s guest post is by Mark Marotta, long-time reader, Strong College Kid, Competitive Powerlifter, and a Canadian, to boot, eh? I edited out all the funny vowels.  – Jacob

The first thing to consider, when talking about motivation, is “WHY?” You have to figure out WHY you want to do this – what fuels you to do five or even eight sets of squats in a row? What could possibly make you want to take a barbell on the ground and throw it straight over your head 10 or 20 times a day if you’re a weightlifter? What justifies walking away from a heavy deadlift seeing stars with a face full of burst capillaries? If you’ve been training for more than a year or two, and reading this site on the regular, this probably won’t be the same reason you first picked up a dumbbell/barbell/cable machine handle, but it’s important to know WHY.

Personally, I started lifting dumbbells as a dweeby little 9th grader figuring “If I get all jacked, all the pretty girls at school are gonna wanna smooch me.” Yep. That was my motivation. I’d go to the gym 5 mornings every week, in a tight tank top and black, fingerless workout gloves, and that was why. Inevitably, between realizing things aren’t that simple, and ‘driving my dick in the ground,’ as Justin would say, with a Typical5DayBodyBuildingSplit.xlsx program, I changed my tune. Eventually I stumbled onto Starting Strength, and my motivation became being stronger than all my peers. This not being much more mature than my past goal, I moved on from it as well. Now one portion of my motivation is becoming better. Not becoming better than someone else; simply becoming better than I was. It’s the physical equivalent of picking up a physics textbook and reading it. Not because you’ll get a better job from knowing physics, or do better in school, but because you want to know physics. I want to become stronger, to find a current limit I have, and take a step past it, then next week, go a step further. Another part is that if, as an adult human being, you don’t have something to work towards, short or long term, inside or outside of training, something that’s more than a hobby, you’re most likely gonna be pretty miserable. For me, and I’m sure quite a few of you, training is that something. Finally, out there somewhere for each of us there are some asymptotic values for our squats, presses, pulls, snatches, whatever, that are a finite limit. What motivates me most is chasing that limit.

Now, I figure there’s probably a fair sized group of readers on this site who lift just because it’s something to do, and that’s fine if you only see lifting as a hobby, but by taking that attitude you put yourself in a cage if you ever want it to be anything more. If you intend to put up serious numbers, you need a serious reason to push yourself to do it. You need to figure out what in your life, hell, in the universe makes you want to get as strong as you feel you should be. For some of you it might be competition in weightlifting, powerlifting, or another sport. It could be that you think training will improve the general quality of your life (it more than likely will). Whatever your reason is, you need to identify it, and furthermore understand it and think about it every time you step into the gym.

Which brings me to the dedication side of things. You need to apply yourself to the reason(s) that you lift. You need to understand that if you don’t put everything you have into it, you can never get everything back out of it. Since I started training properly, I have never ‘skipped’ a workout: sick, inconvenient, tired, doesn’t matter. I have done PR sets of 5 squats where I coughed/sneezed between each and every one of my reps. I know that if I skip out on lifting, I’m saying my goals aren’t that important to me. Well, they are. Of course there are scheduled weeks off, deload weeks, etc. I’m not talking about that – I’m talking about taking the attitude of “My program is to do ‘X’ today; I’m doing ‘X’ today.”

You cannot take the attitude that it’s an option. If you give yourself a choice to opt-out, then at least once, and probably more, you’re going to take it. You need to use the reasons that you lift to alter your view of training into something that you need to do. You need to make it a part of your life. Those words weigh more heavily on me every time I think about them. You need to dedicate yourself to the level that if you don’t train on a day you’re supposed to train, or skip out on a few sets and leave early, you’re fucking up. Once you can take that attitude for training, that it’s either succeed or fail, you can know, definitively, that you’re putting everything you’ve got into your training.

So in summary, what I want you all to do this week is reminisce about why you started lifting, and after that, let your mind wander about why you lift now, and how you can turn that into motivation to keep pushing forward. Once you motivate yourself, dedicate yourself to lifting for your reasons (whatever they may be) and adopt the attitude that this shit is not an option. “This is why I lift, this is why I can’t fuck this up.” Until you understand why you’re training, and dedicate yourself to it 100%, you can never take things to their full potential.

If by some chance you can’t think of a reason yourself…

Feel free to discuss the reason(s) that you train in the comments.

AC Discusses the Press

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You all know and love AC. For the next few weeks, we’ll be posting some of his coaching articles on the individual lifts. In this first installment, AC discusses the Press, a lift he’s pretty dece at. He’s hit 285 for a single, and 260×4…at under 220lbs bodyweight. So, you know, maybe he kinda knows what he’s talking about, and stuff. I heard he also likes Batman. – Jacob

 

We’re going to talk about the Press. Soon, I’ll also talk about the entire process of Squatting and Benching. Yes I capitalized those words, because fuck you, that’s why. The first thing we talk about when we discuss the Press is grip. When most people Press their grip is usually way too wide. The forearm should be perpendicular to the bar. That’s 90 degrees. Not angled in and NOT angled out. Better external rotation can be achieved with a perpendicular grip. With that said, just because you are gripping it where you are supposed to doesn’t mean that external rotation magically happens. Justin talks about this HERE. That should give you a visual of what to do with your grip and your elbows. You should also have an erection by now as well. It’s hard to explain the grip via writing so just watch the video in the link I have provided.

Moving on, the elbows have to be cued. Some of you have your own cues. I just say to myself “Elbows in” or “Elbows.” Remember – if you know the meaning behind the cue you can shorten it to one word. If your cue is “Anal,” but you know what that means (elbows externally rotated), then you can yell “Anal!” to yourself all day. With a compact wrist and the elbows in, the drive from chest/chin (depending on anatomy) will be much faster and easier. That’s assuming you haven’t been Pressing with internally rotated elbows. Remember that you can get strong doing it the wrong way, but you can get even stronger doing it correctly. After all, you want to be able to break backs, don’t you?

If only Batman knew how this was gonna turn out.

Before you even begin to Press, you have to have a slight lean at the hips. This is NOT over-extension of the spine. Your whole body leans back. The easiest way for me to describe this is that it’s almost like stretching your hip flexors. Keeping your back in extension, you lean your hips forward. This obviously happens at the beginning. This sets the bar up for a vertical path with nothing in its way. Your huge dome and chin no longer risk getting hit. This lean is also important for something that happens later in the lift. So, as you are pressing the bar, you also want to keep it as tight to your face as possible. This is achieved by aiming for your nose. A nice cue to say is “Nose.” The bar gets pressed back in a vertical fashion instead of out in front of you, which would be bad news bears. Once the bar starts to clear the face/forehead, the next thing you are going to do is “Punch” your body “Under” the bar. At this point you are no longer leaning and you are physically driving yourself under the bar. This will get rid of the lever arm between the bar and your shoulder. From there you are just pressing it out for the last few inches.

Now we are at the top of the press. When you are at the top you should continue to “Reach” the entire time. This little reach/shrug causes upward rotation of the scapula. This little movement clears the shoulder up for any impingement that might occur. This is also when the breathing happens. First, there is a big breath for the first rep when you take it out of the rack. Then, when you have completed a rep, another fast breath occurs before you lower the bar. This might take a few days to get used. Consider the bottom of the Press like the bottom of the Squat – you don’t want to re-breath when you are rebounding. At the top, it is a quick exhale-inhale to regain whatever air you have lost during the rep.

Now for the “Rebound.” The rebound is best described as bouncing your triceps off of your armpits. This is very similar to the reflex that happens at the bottom of the squat. For some of you this may get tricky. If you remember all the leaning and shit you did before, you now have to reverse it on the way down so you are set-up again for the next rep, just like you would on a Deadlift.

There is a quick how-to guide to Press. The easiest way to learn is have a coach with you that knows what he/she is doing. I hope this can be of some help to those of you that wanted this write up. I can’t promise that you will Press as much weight as you want to, but with patience and perseverance you can conquer all of your goals. Everyone is different. Some people are stronger than others. Hell – I fucking hate tall people because I wish I was taller. So remember to play the hand you are dealt.

AC pressing 275 and 285 for singles. No big deal.

PR Friday, 05 April 2013

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Haaaaaaaaave you seen our posts this week? Monday we had a guest post by Jackie. She seems pretty cool. Cooler than anyone else who hasn’t submitted an article about grabbing life by the balls, competing even when nervous, and kicking ass, at least. She added me as a friend on the old facebooks, and now I see that she’s competing AGAIN this weekend at USAW University Nationals in Tennessee, so let’s wish her well and hope for an updated post from her in the near future. Anyone else competing? Seek and Destroy, friends.

On Wednesday, Brian had an in-depth interview with powerlifter Carlos. Brian is a quiet but valuable part of the team behind the scenes here at 70sBig. He makes sure our social media junk is up to date and every once in awhile, photoshops ridiculous pictures of everyone but me. He showed off his writing chops in this interview, and I think it was pretty damn good. It’s long, but worth the read. You guys really seem to enjoy these interviews, so we have a few more coming. Tsypkin is still working on a 2 or 3 part series of interviews with Niko Hulslander, so hopefully that will be ready to publish in the next week or two. I am also working with AC on a whole slew of upcoming articles that don’t include pictures of his butt. Or do they?

Tsypkin didn’t receive enough questions this week to warrant a Q&A, but Mike scoured the internet (facebook and the comments sections of the posts) and made another very helpful video. Watch it, tell your kids and doctor to watch it, and enjoy. Keep asking questions on the facebook page. Apparently these guys like it.

Now, I have some homework for you guys and gals. Some of you (most?) are relatively new to our humble section of the internet (just kidding, we’re not humble, we’re fucking awesome). It’s time for a flash-back. Read this post:

http://70sbig.com/blog/2010/08/the-70s-big-face/

Homework Part 1: Give us your favorite quote out of that article. Mine: “Fucking Brent.” It just makes me laugh, what can I say? Fucking Brent.

Homework Part 2: Take a pic. Send it to submissions@70sbig.com with the title “This is my 70sbig Face” or something funny. I will take the best ones and put them on the site.

I thought of this a couple weeks ago when I was supporting a couple of my lifters at the NAS Texas Strongest Man contest and saw our buddy Ryan Carrillo . He aimed his Canon and 17-40L in my direction, and without really thinking, here’s what happened:

This is just how I walk around now. It’s fine.

Last week, I talked about the lifestyle we choose to live. We lift heavy things and we have a damn good time doing it. This face helps show the world just how ridiculously awesome we are, so send me your best shots, and I’ll post them up. (Make sure they are less than 1MB each, please. Do you know how much a MB of storage costs in the 70s? Prolly about a hundred.)

To get us started on PRs, our buddy Brooks Conway, a notable young 181lb IPF equipped lifter, sent in this video of a recent 600×1 Raw Deadlift.

CrossFitters take note: He pulls 600 raw, with some bumpers…and doesn’t DROP it. K? He also recently raw squatted 495×3, which happens to tie what one of my 181’s is squatting this Saturday, and benches 365 for raw doubles, so…everyone, get stronger. The bar is high around here. Even if you aren’t there yet, get stronger every week, and keep us in the loop! Post your PRs, do your homework, take your vitamins, and have a stellar weekend.