T-Bone linked this horrible article on facebook. Normally, I wouldn’t want such a website to get clicks from me, but you’ll have to see all the silly shit for yourselves.

People call Tracy Anderson an “exercise genius”. Amendment: making people skinny, small, and weak makes you a torturous interrogator. Don’t they use the same techniques in third world countries? Barring sodomy or genital removal, this is one of the worst things you can do to someone.

And before any of you crazy assholes start ranting about how (allegedly) attractive Paltrow is, I will shut you up. When Gwynneth is on screen with other skinny people, you don’t see the relative skinniness. Also, the fact that she is on screen (TV, movie, your computer as you touch yourself, etc.) means that her value to you is elevated. Human beings are attracted to higher value targets. The combination of her screen time, your hand shandy time, and her standing next to other emaciated goons means that you think she’s more attractive than she already is. Okay, she has nice hair, I’ll give her that, but you or your girlfriend would too if you had millions of dollars and the best stylists available. The same goes for how someone’s face looks (makeup artists earn their money).

Haven’t you ever heard, “There is no such thing as ugly women, just lazy ones,”? In any case, any ol’ girl can be made into an attractive broad on screen via hair and makeup stylists. Paltrow is horribly skinny. And, if her nude body was lying underneath me, I’d look at it and say, “This could be better. I’m not impressed.” Those of you who disagree are either skinny yourselves, or just want to live out your hand shandy fantasy of banging someone you saw on screen.

Enough about Paltrown, I’m trying to make the point that Tracy Anderson is a terrorist. The author of the linked article has this to say about the diet:

Yet all this would have been bearable if it hadn’t been for the diet part of the regime. On the first week of the plan I’m only allowed to eat seven different foods, mostly blended…I don’t actually chew anything for a whole week.

What? I think Frank Abignale, Jr. ate better when he was a prisoner in France (and he was in a 5x5x5 cell with no waste disposal for his feces).

I am encouraged to weigh myself daily and measure my results with the ‘Tracy tape measure’ every ten days.

At first this made me feel quite uncomfortable but now I’m fanatical about my daily weigh-in and refuse to eat or drink anything until I know my weight first.

This sounds really fucking healthy.

Well, I’m no Gwynnie but since January I have lost a stone in weight and dropped from dress size 12 to 10. I am happier with my body than I have been for a long time. Those are the positives. On the downside I feel woozy and find it difficult to concentrate. At first I had loads of energy but now I’m always tired and am told I’m hor…ribly grouchy to boot. My skin is terrible and my nails are flaking and weak.

For fuck’s sake, HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY?!? (LINK)

For the women reading this site: Keep getting stronger, ladies. And trust me when I tell you this: you are far more sexy and healthy than the dumb broads that follow the advice of terrorists like Tracy Anderson.

Military Nationals were hosted by Willie Mastin at Brooks-City Base in San Antonio, TX on Saturday, March 19th. The meet was run pretty well; everything was efficient and there weren’t significant time delays. 40 lifters were broken down in three flights. The first flight started at 9:15 AM and the last deadlift hit the floor in the third flight around 4:00 PM. As you can see, this medium sized meet still took all day. Last year’s Texas State meet used two competition platforms to accommodate over 100 lifters. USAPL is often criticized online for issues with the implementation of the rules, but there were no problems and only one mis-load on the bar (for an opening bench). The warm-up facilities were above average and weren’t too crowded during the competition (which can get irritating at a bigger meet). In fact, all of us who didn’t compete trained in the facility the day before; the only complain would be the stop sign plates that seem to be prevalent at most military bases.



70’s Big had two lifters competing: Mike and my girlfriend. Together they went 17 of 19 and had four PR’s. Both lifters didn’t have optimal training leading into the event. Mike recently cut weight for a PT test (that didn’t stop him from gaining almost thirty pounds to compete in the 275 class) and my lady had various speed bumps including a week long illness that made her a bit nervous for her first meet. She squatted 160 lbs. on her third attempt (to match the most she’s done in the last six months) and then deadlifted 237 lbs. on her third attempt for a twelve pound PR. Her 490 pound total was shy of the desired 500, but the first meet is about hitting solid lifts, gaining experience, and having a great time.

Mike had his attempts mentally planned pretty well; I only had to modify them slightly in our discussions leading into this week. His previous meet PR on squat was 529. We opened at a routine 513, hit a 534 PR on the second attempt, and then moved to 551 for a successful third attempt. That’s a 10kg jump from the opener to the second, and then a 7.5kg jump to the third attempt; the jumps weren’t crazy, and the third attempt jump was a smaller increment. Mike came out with a 22 pound (or 10kg) PR on squat.



The bench press is Mike’s goat. He has long gorilla arms and, according to Brent, isn’t on enough d-bol (for the record, all of us, including Mike aren’t using drugs — I say this because Mike got drug tested and Brent’s new favorite trolling method is to talk about steroids). Mike’s goal was to finally bench over 300 in competition, and we made good on a 303 lift on the second attempt. Mike was wanting to hit 314 for the third attempt, so I gave it to him. I would have preferred to only make a small jump to 308, but I don’t coach him in training so it’s a little more difficult to gauge how hard a lift is. He barely missed the 314 when the bar drifted towards his face a little. Upon video review, I’d like to see Mike improve his set-up, specifically the upper back musculature. We’ll also address some swollertrophy concerns.

Mike is a pretty good deadlifter; it’s his favorite exercise. He has done well improving his starting position. Mike has long femurs and a short back, so his set-up can get goofy. We took his last warm-up on the platform at 513. 560 was a no-big-deal second attempt; it was an intermediary jump to prep for the 600 third attempt. 272.5 kg is 600.759 pounds, and that’s what Mike wanted to pull; he merely wanted to get 600. Last year at Texas State, I gave Mike a heavier third attempt squat than what we had talked about. He hit it for a good lift, and then when I told him that it was heavier than he thought, he gorilla mauled me in excitement. At military nationals, I took a knee in front of the score table debating whether I should give him the 272.5kg or bump it to a nice, clean looking 275kg (606.2 lbs.). I had confidence that Mike could pull 600, and I thought he would be elated to hear that he pulled more than we talked about. However, if Mike were to miss that third attempt, it would make or break his meet.

I stared at the kilo conversion chart debating for a while. Ah, fuck it, it’s only five pounds. I gave him the 275kg. I was feeling reckless…or as reckless as you can feel by adding five pounds on the bar.

I figured that if he couldn’t pull 606, then he wasn’t gonna pull 600. However, if he missed that lift, he still would have been pissed with me. Mike summoned the demons — Brent’s video commentary says, “As you can see he’s a fucking serial killer,” — and cranked the bar off the floor. He usually has good speed off the floor, but because of his weird body (long femurs, short torso), the lockout is usually a grind. Well, this 606 pull was never in doubt. Mike finished his pull, was issued the down command by the head judge, and then calmly looked to his right and said, “70’s Big,” before carefully placing bar back on the platform. White lights.



Mike PR’d in all three lifts and increased his total from 635kg (1400 pounds) to 662.5kg (1460 pounds) since last year’s Raw Nationals. However, his defining moment was when he was awarded his first place medal while carrying around his own bottled urine for his drug test; Mike held vials of piss in his hairy hands for at least 20 minutes.



You’ll notice in the video that Brent has some good commentary during Mike’s squats. You’ll also notice that he isn’t commentating during the deadlift. It’s because he left during the bench pressing to take a fucking nap in his car without telling anyone. Yes, the Shrug Thug apparently wasn’t impressed by the prospect of Mike deadlifting and slept through this crucial part of the meet. His traps must have consumed too many calories. Irre-fucking-gardless of Brent’s narcolepsy, I had a great weekend with him, Chris, Alex, and Mike. A 70’s Big hangout is always a telling event.



If you’d like to share your meet experience, whether it’s your first or you’re a veteran, then shoot me a concise recap with a video or pictures.

Johnny Sheaffer AKA Johnny Pain from Strength Villain is a good coach and programmer. In order to be good at those things, you need to be an innovator, and JP fits the bill. He has created a modified and effective linear progression known as The Greyskull LP, and just released an e-book with the same name.



The Greyskull LP isn’t just a reiteration of a program outline. Instead, it’s a 56 page synthesis of material that JP has talked about for years. For those of you who are uneducated, the Greyskull LP is a linear progression that differs from other LPs; it reduces the squatting frequency (a significant change in itself), changes exercise order, and adds in various twists like going for max reps on the last set of each exercise. JP explains all of this in detail, but more importantly he explains why these alternative techniques work. I’ll also point out that they don’t merely work, they work better.

After establishing the reasoning for the program’s outline, he spends 30 pages discussing variations, “plug-ins” (or subtle changes that push the trainee towards particular goals). He discusses ways to improve pull-ups and push-ups via the frequency and ladder methods. He discusses that trainees can in fact get big and strong, yet do so with athletic body fat and conditioning levels by using short, intense conditioning workouts. He discusses the effective, yet boring (his words, but I agree) aspects of low-intensity conditioning. JP contributes effective methods of accomplishing each individual goal.

The “Putting it all together” section creates a focused synthesis of his material and programming for different LP goals such as mass/hyper/swollertrophy, fat loss (including female fat loss), and the ever popular “linebacker” focused Greyskull LP that gets guys bigger, stronger, and athletic.

It’s rare that I wholeheartedly endorse someone in their coaching and programming, but JP doesn’t merely apply programming templates; he thinks through and around situations and always comes up with something better and more efficient. It’s almost as if his tattoos augment his brain power. The Greyskull LP is simple to read and contains more information than what is merely contained in the program itself. It explains a lot of side topics that are frequently asked about on 70’s Big and Strength Villain and gives reasoning for their utility (JP’s observation on body fat and his burpee challenge is probably worth the price alone for most of you). If you want to read a text that will help you get bigger, stronger, leaner, and more conditioned, check out The Greyskull LP by John Sheaffer AKA Johnny Pain.

PR Friday
Post all your personal records, meet results, or training vids to the comments. We’re out in San Antonio for USAPL Military Nationals. Will report back.

Traveling today. Enjoy these videos.

Chris is getting ready for a meet in about a month. He squatted a reported easy 630 the other day (he told me he could have doubled it). I had him pull a heavier single at 640. Here it is:


Mike is competing this weekend at USAPL Military Nationals. His brother Alex is getting nice and strong again. Here’s 485×3.


Chris doesn’t like that he can’t bench well, but in January of 2009 he had a pretty serious shoulder injury in an Oly meet that probably should have had surgical attention. Instead I helped him rehab and he’s pushing towards a 400 bench. Here’s a paused single at 375.


You can send your training vids in, and feel free to post them to the comments. Get reckless.

Unfortunately you thought this was another awesome post on brisket. Instead, it’s a meet recap from a guy named Briskin, but we just call him Brisket because it’s smart. Here is his meet recap:

Short version: I hit PRs in all my lifts, experimented with some new substances, and had a terrific time. Everyone involved was extremely supportive and a credit to the sport, except for one idiot who I will talk about later.

To prepare for my first meet, without going into excruciating detail, I used a version of the Texas Method I’ve been doing some form of TM programming for more than a year (started in January 2010) with good results, especially in the squat. Then, about three weeks out from the meet, I succumbed to the flu, which didn’t derail me completely, but it did cause me to miss a couple of important sessions. I bounced back quickly by pounding down water and protein, and was feeling okay one week out.

I showed up the afternoon before the meet. Ted Isabella, the USPF official in charge, was patient in helping me submit my openers and figure out my rack heights. In training, I weighed about 190, and I decided that instead of worrying about cutting a significant amount of weight for my very first meet, I would just show up at 190 and be in the middle of the 90kg class, no big deal. Then I got a shock when I stripped down to my underwear and stepped on the scale; 82.9kg (182.7lbs). My first thought was “There’s no way that’s right,” closely followed by “I hope Justin doesn’t find out about this.” Even though the flu had caused me to lose some weight, my appetite had mostly come back, my clothes hadn’t felt any looser, and I thought there was just no way in hell I was still down over seven pounds. Still, the scale said I was .4kg over the 82.5kg class. I decided if I was going to be that guy who weighs under 200lbs, I might as well do it properly, so I went to the john and caught up on some reading. Later I realized the meet scale must have been light, because the other lifters said they had the same experience. I was relieved to know that I wasn’t really that depleted, because it would have completely shot my confidence, but for better or worse, I was in the 82.5kg class.

This meet turned out to be small, only 22 lifters. Each lift went in two flights, with the first flight of each lift mostly composed of a team of kids from a local high school (more on them later). I served as my own handler and coach, which worked out fine. I started warming up each lift, taking plenty of time between sets, when I heard the start of the “A” flight announced. Between my lifts in the warmup room I stepped back in to the main room to watch some of the high school kids lifting. Then, when the end of the A flight was announced, I knew that it was time to hit my last warmup and move to the staging area. Of course, not having a handler to keep me updated on events and give my attempts to the officials meant more standing and walking around for me, but since I had nervous energy pouring out of my ears at this point, that suited me perfectly.

Before this meet I hadn’t really understood the wonder of adrenaline, or how well the competitive environment can channel it. As the last of the “A” squats was announced, I hit my final squat warmup at 385. “Damn,” I thought, “that felt pretty heavy.” Five minutes later, I was walking out for my opener at 195kg (430). I don’t usually scream or get very emotional in the gym, except for some quiet, inner psyching up for PR sets, but today I was foaming at the mouth on nearly every attempt. I unracked 430, waited for the “squat” command like a good boy and bounced the ever-living hell out of it. I was getting the “rack” command faster than I could blink. I was so excited at how light the opener felt that I stormed off the platform all the way to the back of the staging area, and right past the woman asking me what I wanted for my second attempt. I went back and called for 205kg (452), then resumed pacing.

My second attempt started much like the first, no problems waiting for the squat command. Again, I blasted it up fast, so fast that my left foot did a stupid little jig before the “rack” command, which got me three reds. This put me in a bit of a jam; I knew I had more in the tank, but if I missed my third attempt I would get credit only for my opening 430. I went back to the staging area and considered calling for 210kg, which I knew I could make. Then I thought “Fuck it, this is competition,” and called for 215kg (474). This was 20lbs more than I had ever had on my back before. When I heard my name five minutes later, I stormed out to the bar, bellowed, and walked it out. I was mad as hell, but I knew I couldn’t afford to miss either of the commands. I could feel in my entire body how hard the bar was trying to staple me to the floor, but it went up faster than I dared hope. My lovely assistant didn’t get the aftermath on video, but I went ballistic when I turned around and saw the three white lights. I also got he honor of being the very last squat of the day, because a 60-year-old suited lifter who had squatted 600 on his second attempt passed on his third. I hope the audience who saw me cap off the day’s squatting by yelling like an asshole feel they got their money’s worth. The bench is my least remarkable lift, and it went smoothly. I opened with a conservative 115kg (253) and threw it at the ceiling. My second attempt at 120kg (264) got a red light from the center judge due to a slightly uneven elbow lock, but it passed. I took my third at 125kg (275), a weight I had failed in training a week ago. I gave it just enough pause and pressed it more easily than my second attempt, probably because I had my feet and shoulders positioned better. I had about half an hour until the flight B deadlifts, so I hurried off to take my tenth nervous leak of the day.

Warming up my deadlift, I could feel some fatigue seeping through my adrenaline shield. I decided that if I could tie my PR of 507, which I had set while completely fresh, I would consider that a victory. I came out for my opener at 210kg (462) and pulled it easily. I asked for 230kg (507) next, and paced a little more. Earlier in the warmup room a lifter who I had been buddying around with all day suggested I try dabbing a bit of talcum powder on my thighs to reduce the friction with the bar, and I may have gotten overzealous with it, because I got the bar within an inch of lockout, and then it slipped forward. Stupid. I walked back to the official’s table to declare my third attempt, and wondered aloud whether I should go up 5kg. Ted Isabella, sitting in the head judge’s chair, looked over while the loaders were working on the bar, saw me hesitating, and said “Jake, stick with the same weight. Work the total, don’t work the ego.” Even considering how small the meet was, I was impressed that he cared enough to pay attention to me personally and advise me. I had seen him do this throughout the day, making sure that lifters who missed lifts understood why they had been red lighted. So I asked for 230kg again.

It was also at this point that I decided to try an ammonia cap for the first time. I was facing the prospect of having to redo what I thought would be my last lift of the day, and getting my blood up one last time after having it up almost constantly for the whole day. I’ve heard many descriptions of the feeling of ammonia inhalants, but I’ll add my own experience: imagine taking a giant gulp of the hardest liquor you’ve ever tasted, then right as you swallow it, K. Konstantinovs runs up and slaps you in the face. I stormed out to the platform, yelling my head off and asking for more crowd noise, then pulled for a ll I was worth.

Once I got it past my knees I knew I had won, and it was just a matter of staying committed to lockout. Putting the bar down and seeing three whites after that was difficult to describe. In the end, I went 474/275/507 for a raw total of 1,256 in the 181 class, and a nice shiny trophy.

Remember when I said I would talk more about the team of high school lifters later? Well, now’s the time; I hold nothing against any of those kids, but their form on all the lifts was absolutely egregious, and for that I can only blame their coach, the one errant turd in the bowl of otherwise delicious punch that was my day. I won’t apologize for blasting him, and because his kids are too inexperienced to know better, I feel like I have to rail him twice as hard on their behalf. This prick, who by the way was practically spherical, has cheerfully taught half a dozen kids to high-bar squat piddling weights in running shoes and knee wraps while looking up so far you’d think there was a porno being projected on the ceiling. For doing this massive disservice to the kids in his care, he deserves to be fined at the very least. About the only good thing that can be said about this clusterfuck was that I didn’t see any of the kids squatting high.

Now, I’m not one of those people who argues that Olympic lifting is better than powerlifting because it looks sexier, or requires more flexibility or balance or eleetness, but I will say this: when you go into a gym where people call themselves weightlifters, you learn the snatch and the clean and jerk properly, and you either follow the same high standards as internationally competitive lifters or you find yourself another gym. Powerlifting would benefit greatly from this kind of quality control. Powerlifting is a great sport, but teaching impressionable kids to do stupid shit is NOT A SPORT, and wrapping your knees to squat 150lbs as your third attempt is definitely not a sport. It seems like some people–not many, but a few–are willing to throw any combination of squishy-shoed, porn-on-the-ceiling squats, sloppily paused bench presses, and butt-ugly deadlifts into a pot and call the resulting gruel “powerlifting”. And that is a damn shame.

To end on a high note, I owe many thanks to Ted and the other USPF officials and lifters who made the meet possible. You are all class acts, I respect the hell out of you and I don’t blame you at all for the actions of this one fool. Thanks are also due to all of my friends who encouraged me or sent me any kind of positive vibes–you know who you are. And to the audience at the meet, I apologize again for screaming in your faces.