You Are Not a Beautiful and Unique Snowflake

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Gant

Superlatives have been bandied about way too much these last few years. We used to reserve terms like “great,” “best,” and “elite” for truly rare, truly spectacular moments or performances. Now, everything is great. Or it’s the Best. Post. Ever. And elite…hell, we all know what happened with that one.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. You are not elite. That’s fine. I’m not either. We do the best with what we have. But there are a few among us who have the genetics, mental focus, ambition, support, and luck to make it to the top.

I would like you to meet a friend and teammate of mine who may one day join the elites. His name is Devin. He has already won nine junior national championships in judo (there are three each year). He is 6’2” tall and weighs 210 pounds. He is twelve years old.

I am not one to pimp child athletes. Kids are usually too young and too immature to handle the scrutiny they get. I make an exception in this case because Devin is well-adjusted, has good family support, lives in Wichita Falls (where there aren’t many distractions), and plays judo (a sport nobody really gives a damn about).

The physical gifts are obvious. And because he is so big, he has been able to train with adult players the last few years. As a result, he has acquired some “game” from each weight class he passed through on the way up. He is a 200-pounder that throws stuff normally seen on the 66kg mat.

Mental focus and ambition go hand in hand. Judo is about mat hours and competition. The training is fun because we have a good club. State and regional tournaments are fun because we take a good size group. That’s easy. It gets harder at the national level, where it’s just the kid, the parents, and the coach. At the international level, it’s the kid and whatever coach is assigned to that squad (not always your personal coach). Beyond that, it’s spending every weekend on the road, sleeping in cars or hotels, and fighting in every gym in North America.

A typical match for Devin against an older opponent

There is a social cost to be paid as one advances in an individual sport such as this. Luckily Devin trains with several older junior athletes who are already on that path. He also got to spend some time with Ronda Rousey (2-time Olympian, Bronze in Bejing ’08, Silver in Worlds ’07), who talked a bit about her life as an elite judoka. He has time to be a kid now, but that free time will quickly vanish as he continues to pursue an Olympic dream.

Support is key to succeeding in judo or any other sport. He has great family support (meaning parents, not judo parents). He has a good local club. And he has friends when he wants to cut loose.

And then there is luck. In our club, there is a core group of adult players who have been competing, training, and teaching with each other for several years. These guys have all been able to train with and teach Devin SAFELY. As fortune would have it, we are all in different weight classes. So Devin has basically spent 6-9 months learning the habits and techniques particular to each weight class. As I mentioned, as he moves through weight classes, he retains some of the “game” from each. This kinda sucks for me, since I’m just now getting him. It’s like fighting Duncan McLeod.

Devin throwing me with his favorite technique, harai goshi

The coach is the most crucial piece here. Roy Hash has been Devin’s coach since he started judo five years ago. He makes the decisions of how to push, when to push, when to let Devin fight up a weight or age class, when to fight in senior tournaments, and when to put the brakes on. It is a delicate balancing act that can make or break a player.

So, with all the pieces in place, how does he train? He spends two (sometimes three) days a week in class with the Texoma Judo Jujitsu Club. He spends another evening a week training with a club in Dallas that has several older nationally ranked junior players (this was Roy’s recommendation, which is rare in the coaching world). He supplements with the occasional camp, including a recent one he was invited to at the Olympic Training Center.

He trains two days at the gym (he recently started linear progression with Justin and is currently squatting 205x5x3, benching 130x5x3, and deadlifting 205x5x1). He also does 2-3 sessions a week of running and cardio with his mother. This will change some as he hits puberty (kids are not suited for anaerobic training) and when his matches start lasting more than a few seconds.

I spend one day a week with him working on throwing combinations and groundwork. By the time he is fourteen, I will no longer be able to handle him. And I’m ok with that.

Demonstrating a few throws

The bottom line is that, to be elite, you have to have the right gifts and be in the right circumstances. Devin is a good kid with immense physical gifts, talent, and interest in judo. He has a good group of coaches, parents, training partners, and friends around him. If everything stays on course, he could make a run for the rings in next decade or so.

But right now, he is twelve. The best anyone can do for him (or any other kid) is to encourage him and cultivate whatever talent he has. Me? I’ll be slamming him into the mat for the next year or so…just in case.

Goal Setting

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Justin

In two “Letter of Intent” posts (first and second) we urged 70’s Big readers to go out and compete. The fear of taking a risk is what holds most people back from taking the first step to compete, and that is usually the fear of “not being good enough”. One important aspect of committing to a competition is that the athlete has to focus their training into a specific event. They require a plan, and that plan must culminate into a specific event. Programming exercises, sets, reps, and conditioning may be a part of that plan, but in order to be effective, the athlete must accomplish something throughout their training as well as at the competition itself. The athlete must set, work towards, and achieve their goals.

Goals can’t just be set in a shoot-from-the-hip style — properly setting goals is important to its effectiveness. Instead of subjectively thinking “I want to lift well at the meet”, the thought should be, “I want to at least complete four of five lifts and total 250 kg”. This makes the goal objective, tangible, and can help unlock an athlete‘s potential.

All goals are not created equal. Outcome goals are based on the result of a competitive event. Performance goals revolve around hitting objectives within competition — such as going four for six at the meet. Process goals are the actions within the athlete’s performance that they must execute properly in order to achieve the performance goals. In lifting this might be bouncing out of the bottom of the squat, or having a sharp dip/drive on a jerk. In football this might mean the defensive end must maintain outside containment on the quarterback in specific plays. Each athlete will have different kinds of goals based on a variety of factors, such as skill level, importance of the competition, physical/mental state, and experience level.

While goals are important overall in life, specifically applying these principles to training for a competitive event is the focus here. Having goals can induce effective behavior change, maintain persistence in preparation of competition, mobilize the athlete’s efforts, and create an environment for the athlete to develop effective strategies. Most of all, it helps the athlete stay focused on the task at hand. However, these benefits are dependent on the goals being set properly.

A good rule of thumb is to create “SMART” goals. These are goals that meet the criteria of being Specific, Measurable, Action oriented, Realistic and Timely. If the goal does not clearly state what it sets out to do, then it’s worthless. Do you want to “do well”, or do you want to break your personal record on the snatch? That specific goal needs to be measurable as well — if your PR is 120 kg, then 121 is the minimum if you are going to set a personal record. If your goal can’t be measured, then there is no sure fire way to know if you achieved it or not. Indicating a specific number means there is something that needs to get done. You have a task before you, and you will either succeed or fail. Making this goal realistic is important though. Has the lifter snatched more than 120kg in training? Or are they only successfully snatching 110kg? If the goal is unrealistic, then the lifter is only setting herself up for failure. Timely goals have a deadline. There shouldn’t be any leeway on accomplishing it because then there isn’t a sense of urgency to do so. If your goals meet each of these five criteria, then striving towards success will be easier.

Remember the different types of goals; outcome, performance, and process goals. Unless the athlete is an elite level competitor, performance goals will be the emphasis (trying to better a previous performance). In order to achieve performance goals, process goals will maintain priority — doing the little things correctly to execute the task at hand. For a new lifter, this might be listening to the judge’s commands and executing a single cue from their coach. If the process isn’t properly performed, then the lifter won’t be able to achieve their performance goals. This is where having a coach is a luxury in single competitor sports. The coach will dictate these details to the athlete so that the athlete it is not bothered by ancillary details and can remain focused.

If an athlete is new to goal setting, then a competition makes for a great opportunity to start. Set a performance based goal for the competition as well as a process goal for training (the SMART goal principles will help). Keep it simple in the beginning — an athlete shouldn’t be bogged down with superfluous amounts of goals early on. As the competition nears, an honest evaluation should take place to see if the goal(s) need any adjustment. Properly setting goals can help direct an athlete’s focus into successful training and competition efforts.

Source:
Gould and Weinberg (2007). Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology.Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Set Backs – Part 1

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Justin

“I’ll buy you a drink…”

Most activities that are rewarding are difficult. If you involve yourself in things that are difficult, you will undoubtedly encounter some obstacles in order to obtain the reward. This is a frustrating yet necessary truth.

Barbell training is a low risk, high reward activity. You train, get stronger, enhance athletic ability, learn to be mentally and physically tough, and ultimately become more useful for things like moving furniture, tossing small children, and lifting attractive women (men?).

Yet, there will be obstacles in barbell training. When training correctly, bad things won’t happen often, but they will happen nonetheless. Set backs can come in the form of missed lifts, recovery problems, scheduling problems, and the most unfortunate…injuries.

Whenever there is a set back, the logical step is to identify what went wrong and fix that thing so that you don’t do it wrong in the future. If you are under-recovered from lack of food, sleep, or sandwiches, then you need to remedy your situation. Schedules can be worked around, but injuries are a big giant pain in the ass.

Injuries usually happen because of form faults. This is why having a coach in some regard is useful and necessary. If Rip hasn’t watched me squat in a few weeks, I will typically require some kind of feedback to validate what I am already doing, or to tweak a small problem. Last year I squatted in some capacity two or three times a week, every week. I have seen at (the very least) 20,000+ squats in the past year. This means that I typically know exactly what the hell I’m doing wrong right when I do it, but little cues from Rip help clean up the movement. In other words, everybody needs a coach, and the extent of how often they need one depends on their experience.

Injuries unfortunately will also occur…”just because”. When a person is lifting significant amounts of weight, the margin for error decreases because of the injury potential (another reason why having a coach is useful — they can prevent or correct that error). Last week Chris, who has chosen to train for powerlifting and strong man, tweaked his low back while power cleaning. Today I tweaked my back (which was already tired from traveling home yesterday) on my second set of squatting. These injuries are irritating for Chris and I. It is easy to get frustrated when injured, and it is easy to make the injury worse by doing too much too soon. Furthermore, when you put it in the context of progress goals and/or a meet schedule, it can be really fucking frustrating.

But, here’s the deal. Instead of getting all pissed off or upset by injuries, there is only one useful mindset: Figure out what went wrong, fix it in the mean time, and implement a strategy for doing it better in the future.

Read that again. This is one of those lessons that resonates out of the realm of barbell training. Such logic can and should be used outside of the gym. The harsh reality is that bad shit is going to happen to you all the time, including when under the bar. Realize that this is normal, and how you respond is going to define your success.

Tomorrow in Part 2 I’ll talk about some guidelines for working through or around a given injury.

Cinnamon roll french toast, eggs, bacon, and sausage in San Diego this past weekend

Train Hard

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Justin

“By the beard of Zeus!”

I hope you enjoyed Gary’s post yesterday — it made me cry tears of joy. I have enjoyed reading Gary’s post on the Starting Strength Forums, but every time I would watch a video of him squatting, I would think, “Egad! Surely there is food where this guy lives…” In any case, I am excited to see Gary gaining body weight. He will be formidable indeed.

Let me ask you a question; after seeing Gary’s picture from 20 years ago, do you think he is genetically gifted? Did he have the qualities that make him a genetic freak? The answer is an obvious no.

I do know that Gary has busts his ass to get where he is now. Most of the people that are highlighted on this site have done the same. None of us are exceptionally gifted. AC was less than 185 pounds until last year, I squatted 325 for my work sets my first day at the WFAC, and Chris was just a low 400s deadlifter a year ago. We are not special.

The thing that we have in common is that we train correctly, and we train very fucking hard. Someone asked me how many training days I had missed last year. When I thought real hard about it, I realized I didn”t miss any. Sure, I had to take forced breaks because of (irritating and unnecessary bouts of) overtraining and getting sick, but I never missed scheduled training days. In other words: we are not dicking around.

Furthermore, nobody seems to have eating problems at the WFAC. Besides, if they do, the are berated until such problems are resolved. Here is a real conversation that occurred between a skinny high school kid and me:
“How was that set?”
“It was pretty good. You’re doing a better job of bouncing out of the bottom since your knees are shoved out, but it would look better if you gained 20 pounds.”
“Aww, I’m trying!”
“No. You aren’t.”

For example, I got sick and had a few set backs before a weightlifting meet a couple of weekends ago. One scale in the gym said I was about 225. I weighed in at 100.2 kilos at the meet (in my skivvies). This means that I weighed 220 in a weight class that is capped at 231. This was mega embarrassing since I run a mother truckin’ website dedicated to not being a wee man. I was pretty pissed off (especially with the results of the meet), so I started eating seriously that day while still in Austin. I got chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, scallop potatoes, and macaroni and cheese for dinner. Then a half gallon of milk on the ride home, among other goodies. Six days later on Friday I weighed in at 228 on the lighter scale at the gym, 230 on the other. In other words, I gained about eight pounds in six days. While starting at 220. And Skinny Guy is pumped about gaining five pounds in a few weeks. Bah…

When I started working with and training with Chris, he was about 245. He has accidentally gained weight while getting a great deal stronger. His deadlift started in the low 400s and we got it up to doing 540×5. He easily pulled 600 for a single, and has since been doing rack pulls and haltings (intermediate programming style). He has done 515×8 on haltings (an exercise that has no hip extension, just knee extension off the floor) and 575×5 on rack pulls (an exercise that has no knee extension, just hip extension with the bar starting right below the patella). I expect him to pull 700 in the next few months. Oh, and did I mention that he accidentally weighs 285? That’s right, his normal diet (that does not include many carbs) makes him gain muscle consistently. And no, he is not on steroids — none of us are. That bastard ate 21 pork chops in two days last week. That was not a typo. 21 pork chops. In two days.
I told Brent about this online:

me: chris ate 21 pork chops in two days
Brent: chris is a man
me: that he is, brent, that he is
Brent: i wish he were my dad

Chris loves pork chops

Look, the point is that getting bigger and stronger is a lot of hard work in and out of the gym. We train very hard. We don’t think we are done with the linear progression when things seem hard. Likewise, volume days in the Texas Method are grueling, sometimes painful endeavors. AC has helped a lot of guys get strong in Statesboro, and I have helped a lot of people get strong in Wichita Falls. Neither of these cities are a mecca for genetically gifted strength athletes. We just help people train hard, eat right, and they will inevitably get strong. Make sure that this is what you are doing.

Intervention

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Justin

Women heart guys that are 70’s Big

I’m not quite sure how I can top yesterday’s post. It was probably a bad idea to start the week off talking about sex. In any case, I need to be cavalier to get out of this self-emplaced rut.

Today I need to have a pep-talk with the guys in this open forum. Women are welcome, but this message isn’t really directed at you.

Due to the increasing popularity of this site, I get a lot of e-mails. So far, these e-mails don’t annoy me. I’m happy to help in whatever way I can. Eventually I’ll organize the popular themes of these e-mails and create some kind of a FAQ (you know, after I create the Hall of Fame page). One subject in particular requires attention.

Hey, skinny guy. It’s time for an intervention.

You’ve been skinny your whole life. This isn’t much of an accomplishment in the same way that being fat your whole life isn’ much of an accomplishment. Fat guys aren’t weird about getting less fat. Skinny guys are definitely weird about getting less skinny. Damned weird. The cause for such a misconception probably includes Hollywood, advertising campaigns, expensive clothing stores, muscle magazines, Calvin Klein jeans, and fanatic fitness methodologies.

When training to get stronger, muscular body weight is gained. After the initial stages of this happening accidentally, a protein and caloric surplus will be required to continue making gains. In the presence of a surplus, it is likely (with regular genetics) to have an increase in body fat along with muscular body weight. To any sane person with eyeballs, muscular body weight is clearly increasing substantially with a little bit of fat. This is not only normal, but it’s going to be necessary if strength is going to be gained.

Even though this is a reality, guys freak out about losing their abs. Really. Usually these are guys that have been awfully skinny their whole lives, and they accidentally had abs that sat below emaciated bony protrusions called ribs. You skinny guys know who you are, especially those of you who are tall and skinny.

Here is my official statement to you: since you’ve been skinny your whole life, you don’t get to have an opinion on what “being fat” is.

There are only two things that I can think of that might be motivation for keeping a set of abs in light of what you’ve learned from 70’s Big: 1) you’re worried about impressing the opposite sex, and 2) there is a fitness methodology that exudes the idea that having a low body fat percentage is vital for elitism.

1) Do you really think that the girl you want to sleep with isn’t going to because you have a bit of body fat (or your interpretation of “a bit of body fat”)? Even if this was the limiting factor in you getting laid, and there is plenty of empirical evidence otherwise, this isn’t someone you’d be keeping around for longer than a half-hour anyway. I’ve recently been told by multiple females that not only do they prefer adult males (>200 pounds), but they spite guys who are 90’s Small. Besides, what woman wouldn’t want to be hauled to the bedroom over a beefy shoulder?

2) Just because a large collection of people, on the internet no less, think you need to be skinny to perform well doesn’t make it true. There aren’t many elite athletes at 5’10″, 165 pounds, and chiseled abs never accomplished anything useful. Sorry.

Depending on your height, you really shouldn’t be worried about being fat until you’re at least 225 anyway. Stop being so damn self-conscious about being fat, because being a self-conscious won’t bring in the ladies, and it sure as hell won’t make you 70’s Big. Grow up. And get strong while you’re at it.

———-

Mike from Charlottesville, VA is a graduate student at the University of Virginia. He’s 6’ tall, and weighs 200 pounds (as of last week). At one point, he weighed a silly 140 pounds. Mike sent me some pictures of smoking eight pounds of pork shoulder which apparently only lasted him for about 5 days.

8 pounds of pork

Homemade smoker