Here is a post by Brent that he wrote for his training blog. You can find his site HERE. Everyone here at 70’s Big loves Kelly Starrett, and Brent probably wishes Kelly was his dad. Go to MobilityWOD.com for a daily mobility video.

I started out with a shitty overhead position and 0 degrees internal rotation. Couldn’t get the bar behind my ears without hyperextending my lumbar spine. Couldn’t keep the bar close in the snatch because I had 0 internal rotation. Benching often hurt.

I’ve always leaned on a lacrosse ball to roll on sore spots on the anterior capsule of my shoulder joint, but the 3 mobs that I did early on that helped like, 30-40% were:

1.) Drive humerus towards back of socket, lateral distraction, external rotation. This is the least painful of what I did. I still do this for bench prep and sometimes front rack prep.

2.) Restoring rib/scap/external rotator movement, lacrosse ball between t-spine and scap, reach overhead, then freestyle to whatever hurt and roll on them until they hurt less. This caused spasming in places I wasn’t touching early on, was really tight apparently. See also this informed free-styling.

3.) Internal rotation stretching. Buddy stretch was super legit early on, these days I rely on band around shoulder with extension/adduction as a mainstay.

Some other things that helped me pretty significantly were:

– Double lacrosse ball to t-spine, this was one of the last pieces to legitimizing my overhead position.

– Rolling on the external rotators that wrapped around the humerus, i.e. lateral part of the shoulder and then towards the front. Had to get in creative positions, but I think this helped with some generic shoulder tightness that affected my benching and overhead position. See informed free-styling video regarding periscapular regional death above.

– Rolling on pec minor/pec insertion. Made going overhead easier. May have helped with internal rotation?

– Hip flexor/quad stretch. Couldn’t go completely upright until my 3rd or 4th exposure, but this definitely legitimized my hip extension in the snatch and clean.

– Anything involving external rotation of the femur with hip flexion. My deadlift feels a lot different now, in a good way, feels like I’m utilizing more musculature in the movement. Squat bottom position feels more legit. I used to feel tight before but weak coming out of the hole, now I feel looser but stronger driving out of the hole. Improving end range function means greater force production?

– Most recent addition has been banding the elbows together, get a wide-as-possible supinated grip on a pull up bar, then slowly load the movement with a neutral spine. Absolutely noticed a difference snatching today. Gonna try it before a heavy jerk/overhead press day and see how it feels.

Something that Kstar and other sources/people have mentioned is you can’t address mobility in isolation; i.e. if your shoulder function sucks, you can’t just do shoulder mobs and expect to get a lot better. Have to address movement as a whole, shoulders and hips are analogs to each other, I don’t fucking know, I just do every mob ok? My life fucking sucks and I am taking it one step at a time to try to make it better. Sometimes that means laying on a lacrosse ball every night. Other times it may mean wrapping a band around a limb or perhaps asphyxiating yourself while masturbating, while injecting nandralone.

Another guideline is, “you have to find where you are tight.” The mobs that helped me may not help you that much, but you may discover shit that really hurts to do that might be related. Do the shit that really hurts to do.

There’s probably shit that I don’t even know that I need to address. Basically I check the site and do the mwod and if it hurts or is difficult for me to do, I incorporate it on a regular basis.

[edit 9:13pm 4.23.11] – I was asked to link the mobs that I like to do. Really the best thing to do if you are looking for shit to do is test/re-test, which Kstar generously has for each mob that he posts a day. If your shit sucks for a certain test, do the mob. I’ve provided my history and how I approached my particular problems. In all honesty, I’d probably see a lot more benefit if I could see a PT of Kelly Starrett’s breed and get guidance from there. I move better now, but there are still some gaping holes in how “healthy” I should be.

Monday is 70’s Big Females day, presenting:
Growing Up Oly
by Cori Safe

Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to grow up in a strong, loving, and quintessential “70’s Big” community since birth. While we did not define it as 70’s Big, looking back I think we can name it as such. This is a story about growing up in the strength world.

One of my earliest memories from childhood is from my play pen. I remember sitting there watching my mom pound away at the stationary bicycle day in and day out. Obviously working on her six pack and getting ready for her next bodybuilding competition. I remember squats. Big squats. Powerlifting style with large men grunting, steel plates and bars banging against the floor and the racks. I remember my dad kicking a hole through the gym wall after a heavy squat. My brother and I would scoot our big wheels through our garage gym while friends of my parents would do endless pullups, deadlifts, and bicep curls. Yes, I grew up in a powerlifting and bodybuilding gym.

Luckily, my father Scott Safe (founder of Safe USA and coach of Team Cannon Weightlifting) learned from years of dealing with his own back pain and agony that competitive powerlifting was probably not the best way to train for sport or health. He had a different idea for his children. My brother and I were going to be Olympic lifters. And the plan was that we would be really, really freaking amazing at sports. Not to sound arrogant, but it worked.




As my father held an inventory for his weightlifting supply store, my brother and I would have free reign to the bars and plates in the shop after school. I remember playing with the “kid bar” around the age of 9 and thinking how empowering it was to power snatch. I absolutely loved how loud and annoying I could be. My father would say, “Okay that looks good, now try to take that snatch into the hole!” I would practice this afterschool until the age of ten when I decided that it was time for me to do my first weightlifting meet; The Minnesota LWC Open at a YWCA in Minneapolis. I was ready to show off my 20kg snatch with perfect technique, all the way into the hole. I stepped on the platform and completely forgot about the squat. My dad had told me prior to the meet that if I did not squat the weight, the judges would give me red lights. Of course, that is not correct, but he wanted me to lift correctly and I did not know any better. After my first snatch which I powered right up I said, “Hey dad, they gave it to me and I didn’t even have to squat!” He laughed and told me that I was correct and that he was just trying to get me to do it better than the other girls. Then, of course, I squat snatched from that moment on. Must be better than the other girls!

Speaking of, I remember showing up at meets and thinking that I needed to show these other girls who was the better lifter. I would take the bar during warm ups and be as loud as possible. When I would catch the bar, I would smack my feet down like it was serious business. (I realize that you should not be jumping and stomping, but you have to realize that my thinking as a teen was not about having perfect technique.) It always worked. Girls would stare at me, filled with fear and intimidation. Win!

Luckily, we always had a large competitive weightlifting team coached by my father. One of my biggest influences was my brother Nate and his circle of friends, all of which were excellent lifters. Not many girls wanted to lift with me, but the guys would always let me play. I would watch my brother finish his pull and explosively land the heaviest weights with ease. I would play copycat. I will credit having good technique to years of watching my brother and his friends and learning from them. It also proves how important it is to have good training partners and people to look up to.

After my brother graduated high school, he moved to Fargo to play football for North Dakota State University. He used his strength and power to become one of the best college left tackles in the nation. After he left, I struggled with my training. I didn’t want to lift and I did not feel that training was fun or inspiring anymore. I still ended up competing nationally and doing the Olympic trials for weightlifting in 2004, but I never felt the same about lifting. During the Olympic trials I acquired a bad case of Mono and was out for months.

I tried lifting again in college. We even started a team at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. There were a handful of us training together and we took a team to the Collegiate Nationals in Reno. I coached the team and lifted. Even still, my drive for weightlifting was dwindling. I was mentally burned out. So, I retired.
I took a few years off and I spent my weightlifting hiatus doing cardiotard classes like TurboKick, Zumba, and riding endless hours on the Elliptical machine trying to be skinny. Time to face the truth. My quads and shoulders are big. And strong. They are not meant to be compared to the twig fairy. They are 70’s Big. And beautiful.

Mentally, I was ready to lift again. I was ready to embrace the fact that I was born to lift. I was living in Chicago and wanted to lift and try this thing called CrossFit. A good friend of mine, Casey Burgener, suggested I check out Windy City CrossFit because they have an “Oly” program. GREAT! I can try out CrossFit and if I fail….I can just go back to lifting! While I will admit that I will probably never win a CrossFit championship, it has been great to push myself in new ways that I probably wouldn’t have done on my own. It is also nice to learn about other lifts besides the snatch and clean and jerk. And this thing called the pull up – moving my body around a bar rather than moving the bar around my body! What a concept! Anyway, I am not poking fun at CrossFit, but it is nice to have a balance between CrossFit and Oly lifting. It has helped me define my weaknesses (arms/shoulders/”core”) and strengthening these can only help my Olympic lifting.


And here we are today. Ellee and I both lift in Chicago and we are proud of our 70’s Big Female Asses! I feel good knowing that strength is appreciated in these parts. Again, I will say that I am lucky to be in a community full of strong females (and males) who believe that strength is more important that being skinny. I am lucky to have been in these types of communities my entire life.

I hope you enjoyed some of my stories from growing up Oly. I would like to thank my parents, brother, and friends who have molded me into the person that I am today. Thank you. 70’s Big Females – thank YOU for being YOU! Now go lift some heavy weights!

Love,
Cori

Getting stronger is a process that demands that you get smarter by learning from mistakes. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? You just go to the gym, have a “workout”, get strong, occasionally mess up, but fix it and keep “working out”…right?

No, sir. The process of training is grueling. It can be fun when training with friends, pumping loud music, having a grand ol’ time. But for most of us, we don’t get that luxury. We’re in a gym, a garage, or a “fitness adventure”…alone with our thoughts. There isn’t anyone there to encourage crushing the first set of squats or to hit a sixth snatch in a row. Each set, each rep requires that you make a decision: “Do I give it my all here?” Doing it on every rep isn’t easy.

It would be pretty easy to not try. It would be easy to slack on some reps, to not bounce the hell out of a squat or not finish the pull on your cleans. Sure, it’d be easy. It’d be so easy to quit. It’s much easier to quit than do something hard, so why bother?

Fuck. That. Never avoid doing something that’s hard. Avoiding “hard” makes you a coward, and you can never experience or learn anything by being a coward. By convincing yourself to do something that’s hard when you don’t want to, you won’t just grow physically. You display a quality of strength that correlates and resonates far beyond the barbell. By overcoming the difficult, that process sets you up for success. Your thoughts formulate your feelings, your feelings compose your emotions, your emotions are exhibited through your actions, and your actions define who you are. By structuring your thoughts to tackle difficult challenges, to strive towards success regardless of the obstacle, you formulate into a better person. You manifest into 70’s Big.

Happy PR Friday (post PR’s to comments)

TSC Results

View it webpage style HERE.



Thanks to all the participants and congratulations to MaceJunas (Men’s Elite winner), tommcadam (Men’s open winner), and mthornell (Women’s Open winner). Also congratulations to Men’s Elite runner up Antigen — who organized this 70’s Big TSC and compiled all the results — for tying an all-time TSC record of 24 pull-ups with a 10kg load. I believe Antigen was at an organized TSC event, so he had some strict judging.

Weightlifting, Squats

Glenn Pendlay joined the 70’s Big Chat the other night for longer than he probably wanted to. He had some interesting comments on “macro weightlifting” — or things that concern the sport as a whole and how we compare with the rest of the world. One topic in particular was this notion that American weightlifting coaches don’t focus on strength. Glenn kindly pointed out in this post that it isn’t the case. Max Aita aimed to do 5×5 with 260kg. That’s fucking 572 lbs. Glenn points out that “he doesn’t quite make it, but ends up doing 27 total reps in 7 total sets, rep counts were 4,5,4,4,4,3,3.” The video gets fucking intense, so watch all the way through.



As an aside, here’s Donny Shankle push-pressing 130kg for 11 reps from behind the neck. That’s 286 pounds. More on this topic in a future podcast with Glenn.

Still adding links below to the recaps
Some of the 70’s Big crew competed in the USAPL Texas State Meet again this year. Mike competed at USAPL Military Nationals a couple of weeks before, so he handled Brent, Alex (his brother), and Chris at the meet. He wanted to do a write up for each portion, and they are linked below.

The Ride Down
The ride from Wichita Falls to San Antonio was arguably eventful, but more so because of the lack of organization. Mike tells an amusing story of the ride.

Brent
Brent ended squatting with a meet PR (and matching a gym PR) of 210kg (463 lbs) weighing around 162. He missed his third bench, and hit all three deadlifts finishing at 200kg (441 lbs) on the last one (he was unimpressed). I want to point out that the dickhead did clean and jerks two days before the meet at 265 pounds…with iron plates. He clearly didn’t make any attempt to peak for this meet.


Alex
This was Alex’s first meet, and came out 8/9 with a 242.5kg (533 lbs) squat, an easy 165kg (363 lbs) bench, and an easy 227.5kg (500 lbs) deadlift (Mike probably held him back, wanting him to pull 500 for the first time).


Chris
Chris had an awesome meet. We’ve talked a lot on tweaking his program and peaking his training for this meet, and we also talked extensively on what attempts to make on each lift. The only hiccup was missing the third attempt bench by 2.5kg because he barely missed it, but that is more so attributed to the not-great meet conditions (they had 90 lifters and one platform, so Alex and Chris didn’t start lifting until late afternoon and finished close to 9 at night). Overall, I think we did a very good job of implementing an advanced Texas Method style program, tapered it well, and chose the attempts well.

He went 8/9, squatted an overall PR of 292.5kg (644 lbs), missed his last bench but meet PR’d with 165kg (363 lbs) on the second attempt, and deadlifted an overall PR of 300kg (661 lbs). All raw and drug-free of course. He then destroyed several villages.


Good job to Mike for handling the three lifters — it’s never an easy thing. Mike was apparently more tired after doing that then when he actually lifts. I’ll make sure and be there for all of them at nationals later this year. Oh, and thanks to Mike for the write ups and I think he and Alex made the vids.