The Pan Am Championships take place this week in Isla Margarita, Venezuela. Jon North and Jared Fleming are both competing, and have been hitting big lifts lately in the gym during preparation. Donovan Ford has also being putting up some big lifts, I think you’ll be seeing his name a lot more often as the US 105kg lifter.
Unfortunately, (and per usual), USAW has stated there will be no live stream of the event, so you’ll have to follow them on twitter for updates.
The roster and schedule is as follows:
Women
Kelly Rexroad-Williams (Flowery Branch, Ga.), 48 kg-24th June at 4pm
Breanne Bassler Havard (Seabrook, Texas), 53 kg-24th June at 4pm
Cortney Batchelor (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 58 kg-26th June at 4pm
Jenny Arthur (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 69 kg-27th June at 6pm
Allie Henry (Marquette, Mich.), 69 kg-27th June at 6pm
Sarah Robles (Mesa, Ariz.), 75+ kg-29th June at 2pm
Shelbie Serpan (Johnson City, Tenn.), 75+ kg-29th June at 2pm
Men
James Tatum (Charlotte, N.C.), 77 kg-26th June 6pm
Colin Burns (Monroe, Wis.), 85 kg-27th June at 4pm
Travis Cooper (Charlotte, N.C.), 85 kg-27th June at 6pm
Jared Fleming (Shreveport, La.), 94 kg -28th June at 2pm
Jonathan North (Charlotte, N.C.), 94 kg-28th June at 2pm
Donovan Ford (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 105 kg-28th June at 6pm
David Garcia (Sacramento, Calif.), 105 kg-28th June at 6pm
Shane Maier (Chicago, Ill.), 105+ kg-29th June at 4pm
Team USA will be led by coaches Zygmunt Smalcerz, Paul Doherty and Joe Micela.
Today’s article was submitted by our neighbor to the north, Mark Marotta. Mark’s accomplishments include holding some Canadian national records, coaching kids at his school, and not totalling at the Arnold. He enjoys trolling vegans, underground canadian hip-hop, and eating meat.
Raise Your Ale Horn to the Sky
Toast it to Odin. For he is the one allows it to be full.
If you’ve eaten today, he is the one that allowed the quenching of your hunger.
Odin is the Norse God of War. He is not a kind God, but he is a fair God. If you wish to have any level of success in your quest for strength you must devote yourself to him. Strength is not something that can be bought with gold; if you wish to become a warrior you must show Odin that you are paying the Iron price. Rise with his steel bar on your back. Press it above your head. Pull it off the floor; let it forge you into the Viking warrior you wish to be. Weaklings are not allowed into Valhalla.
If you wish to be allowed to Valhalla you must prove to Odin that you will endure the beating the steel bar will give you; that the spoils of strength are worth the struggle against gravity. If you cannot fight the steel bar, you are not built to wield the axe, the sword, or the hammer in his war. If you can’t fight for Odin what good are you to him?
Men, how would you like to be known? As the so-called ‘modern-man’ who hires others to do his yard work? Who crafts neither steel nor wood? Or a warrior whose body is capable of turning any mountain set before him to rocks and dust?
Ladies, how would you like to been known? As the woman who needs a man to open large doors for her? Someone who feels threatened on dark streets? Or as the woman whose purse is safe from the scoundrels of the night, for they feel threatened by her proud march and confidence in her strength.
If you’re a skeptic I have proof that all strength is gained from Odin. His most famous son, Dan Green totalled 2160. Try to tell me that this is not an Odin fearing man you see:
It is even said that Jennifer Thompson bench presses the weight she does because she devoted her body and soul to Odin. If you speak to Odin, he will listen, not to your words, though. Odin knows the words of men are not worth the weight of the ink used to write them, you speak to Odin with your actions. You push yourself to your limits, he will make your body strong for it. You care for his land; he will provide you with its nourishment. You die fighting for him, he will collect your soul to his haven.
Poems have been written for Odin, read them to fuel your mind. Songs have been sung for him, play them loud while you train. Raise your mead to the sky before every meal and thank him. He gives you the flesh of beasts, feast upon it to absorb their strength and add it to your own.
Now go forth, and train for Odin, and he will be your guiding light in the darkest corners of hell.
Today’s post is courtesy of long-time reader, contributor, friend, and chili-maker, Jake Brisket. You should already know who he is. Keep the submissions coming! – Brian
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve contributed anything substantial to this site. Long time readers may remember the writeup I did of my first powerlifting meet; it’s a shock to realize that was two years ago. I guess it’s time to start fixing my incredibly high ratio of lurking to contributing.
Anyway, it’s Monday again, so I thought I’d give some publicity to an up and coming female lifter who I started coaching last summer. Iris has a solid athletic background outside of the gym, and excels as a hockey defender. Since she started doing dumbbell curl and presses (AKA Arnold presses) in her basement around the age of 7, she has enough natural swollertrophy that more than one random person has told her that she would make a good powerlifter. Surprisingly, she had never actually been on a structured lifting program until last fall, when she asked me to put together something that she could follow around her practices and games; at time of writing, she just finished a third season captaining her university’s club team while also playing a few games each month for the Honey Badgers, her local men’s rec team. Now, I don’t know jack about hockey, but I can confirm that Iris plays hard for all four periods, and she brings that attitude into the gym.
I first saw Iris lift in July when her best friend brought her to Cambridge Strength and Conditioning. At the time, CSC’s upper echelon was experimenting with an advanced Russian system called “put everyone on an LP and have a Woodchuck“, so Iris just jumped in with what our other trainees were doing. First impressions were good, when she easily squatted 135x5x3, benched a couple sets in the low 100s, then deadlifted 205×5. Those are reasonable numbers for a 130lb woman, but I wasn’t really surprised until I found out that she had just returned from a semester abroad in New Zealand, and hadn’t touched a weight in over six months. Not bad imo.
Fast forward to the present: hockey season is over, so Iris has put on about 10 solid pounds and is hard at work getting ready for her first powerlifting meet, date to be fixed for this summer.
Finding a new trainee with good natural ability is always reason to celebrate, but her 70sBig attitude is the real reason I think Iris deserves to be featured here. As hard as it is for men and boys to find good training information in the ocean of broscience that is the internet and print media, it’s at least twice as hard for women, because unfortunately many women have also internalized sexist attitudes about what is “appropriate” for them. Remember being a scrawny and confused teenage boy, bouncing back and forth between TNation and bodybuilding.com, searching desperately for a clue? That’s a hard enough time, but at least your quest for swole wasn’t being hampered by friends and family pointedly wondering why a lady would want to lift weights (read: be useful), or magazines reassuring you that no really, that low-fat Yoplait is a great source of protein. Gag me with a pink dumbbell.
Anyway, I’m happy to report that Iris never internalized any of this, so her attitude is refreshing change from all the issues that cause Justin to completely lose his shit. She didn’t need to be cajoled into lifting heavy, and I think she already eats more protein than half of the guys reading this post. I’m not making that up. The first time I asked to see her food log, I looked at the summary for a single week, Monday-Friday and the row “Protein (grams)” read: 210, 215, 204, 283, 243. Read that again. A 140lb woman ate over 200 grams of protein every day for a week, and on Thursday she cracked 2g/lb of bodyweight. If any of you guys want a safe space to discuss how this makes you feel, I would check out http://mopeilitywod.com/ imo. I know that’s where I was headed after comparing my own poor eating habits.
But despite having a few good reasons to feel self-satisfied, Iris doesn’t like getting on her high horse (which is why she wanted me to introduce her) and prefers to just quietly show up and do work. As she said to me the other day after seeing one of her peers doing 3lb dumbbell front raises “there’s no attendance credit at the gym.” Make a note of it, and stay tuned for updates from Iris on her meet prep. Over and out.
Today’s article was submitted by our neighbor to the north, Mark Marotta. Mark’s accomplishments include holding some Canadian national records, coaching kids at his school, and not totalling at the Arnold. He enjoys trolling vegans, underground canadian hip-hop, and eating meat. 
