Note: If you are an SOF operator, I’m interested in having you join other operators in a group where we can talk about different aspects and issues regarding physical training and requirements to optimally perform (among other things). Together we can gain insight on proper physical preparation and potentially synthesize the material. If you’re interested in participating, e-mail me at Justin@70sBig.com or post in the comments.
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I get to meet a lot of people through this site, and one of them is The Scott (I don’t know how this name came to be). The Scott has e-mailed with AC and I over the past year, and he has had some great improvement in his strength. The Scott trains at Ian Carver’s CrossFit Centurion where we did a workshop in August. Scott is a stocky dude at 5’9″ and weighed 216 for this meet. If I remember correctly, he was informed of it just a couple weeks ago (meaning he didn’t have a significant taper).

I helped him out with choosing his attempts before the meet (actually it was when we did the 70’s Big Chat Room last week) and gave him some general advice. Well, The Scott went 8/9 and PR’d on squat and deadlift.

Squat 456.5lbs PR
Bench 325lbs
Deadlift 501.5lbs PR
Total 1283lbs

In his last e-mail he told me

In just over a year since following 70’s Big, my squat went from 320 to 456.5 (+ 136.5lbs), bench 315 to 365 (+ 50lbs), and deadlift 370 to 501.5 (+ 131.5lbs). Thanks again for all your help and correspondence. I’m looking forward to 2011.

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You may remember reader Matt Nolan’s (NolanPower) 325kg (716 lb) deadlift in the 100kg/220lb weight class at the New Jersey State powerlfting comp last year. Well, he’s still training hard and sent me this PR squat vid:



Nice fucking work, Matt.

At the end of 2009 Gant had a solid idea to force some of you to commit to…something. He called it “Letter of Intent Day”, and it was supposed to incite some of you to figure out what your training goals were for the near future (first half of the year at least). A lot of you responded with quasi-vague goals that sorta pissed me off. Go to the bottom of this post and read Gant’s goals for 2010 (for good measure, read the second post too). His goals were specific to the point that there was no question whether or not he would accomplish them or not. He didn’t set a time line for his annual goals (the goals were varied to the point where they couldn’t all be done at once), but most of you should.

Also notice how the emphasis is on competition. Lifting in your local gym or your garage is okay, but it doesn’t place demands on you the way that competition does. It requires that you funnel your training into a single event that is judged by officials who have a standardized way of critiquing you. Even if you were to compete in mountain biking (one of Gant’s goals last year), you would still be put in a vulnerable position where you are competing against other people…for real. Right before the starting gun you will feel a surge of adrenaline and increased heart rate whether you are about to start pedaling, squatting, or running. Do yourself a favor and commit to some kind of competition related goal this year. How you place is irrelevant; it’s how you perform under duress and how you improve. Gym PR’s are not the same thing as meet PR’s. It’s time that you learned why.

Post your specific goals to the comments. I don’t care about hearing that you want to squat 400 or 500 pounds this year — tell me what you plan on doing in a meet. Training is irrelevant — by definition it implies it’s simply the process of working towards an end goal.

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who strives…who spends himself…and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

–Teddy Roosevelt

Post your own conditioning workouts and I’ll tell you whether they are useful or not.
With the advent of CrossFit and other various conditioning methods out nowadays, the average trainee or lifter think they have a good grasp on conditioning. Personally, I don’t like most suggestions readers make for their programs for various reasons. Instead of giving you guidelines for conditioning (I’ve done this before and will do so again more specifically in the future), this post will give you an opportunity to post conditioning workouts that you would use in a strength and conditioning program.

I shouldn’t have to clarify, but there are two such versions: 1) a program that aims to increase strength while maintaining or improving conditioning and B) a program that aims to maintain strength while improving conditioning. #1 is the case of a person who still needs to get stronger and wants to add some conditioning in OR an athlete in their off-season who is increasing their strength base; #2 is someone who is already strong — they are fucking cocked-diesel, or have more than adequate levels of strength for their sport/activity — or someone who is in sport preparation and needs to add conditioning in.

So, post your conditioning workouts and I’ll grade them out on their usefulness in a program while making other relevant notes.

PR Friday
If you’re new to the site, Friday is the day where you can gloat. Post your PR’s to the comments. They can be lifting, eating, tossing, or cloth ripping related. If you didn’t hit any PR’s, then give everyone an update on your training. The regular posters will remember your name and mostly say nice things, and the lurkers will continue to creepily stalk you. Fun!

You should notice a trend in my advice and opinion on training; illicit an adaptive stress to improve. A person who hasn’t done serious and consistent strength training will benefit from a Linear Progression (LP). There are different kinds of LPs, but the best will have a given set and rep scheme and will increase the load each workout. An LP will allow one day of rest in between training days and will typically average three training days per week. Some very good LPs include Starting Strength (SS) and the Greyskull LP (from Greyskull Barbell).

When a trainee can no longer recover after resetting several times, they will need to upgrade their programming to something more complex. The trainee is unable to adapt on a daily (by workout) basis, and must now shift into a weekly adaptation. During this time the trainee needs to specify some kind of goal; the goal will begin to funnel the training. That’s why I like to recommend that people compete; it continues the funnel into a spout that ends in competition day. In any case, a good next step for a trainee is upgrading their program to the Texas Method (TM).

The TM is designed to create a stress with higher volume, and then express the adaptation and further the stress with intensity. The by-the-book program (from the book, “Practical Programming” by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore) is
Monday — 5×5
Wednesday — Light work, commonly 80% for 2×5
Friday — 5 rep max (5RM)

Many people see this and implement it in all situations. If a person has come off of a LP, particularly SS, then this is a good transition. However, it works best as a general strength program and will be better off if modified for most trainees. When I use the term TM (I usually say “a TM set-up”), I imply a program that manipulates volume and intensity to yield a weekly progression. This means that you don’t have to be locked into the above template. After the beginning phases of any LP, there is no cookie cutter program. One-size-fits-all doesn’t apply to the human body because each individual is full of variances and peculiarities, and this is why programming is an art. It’s also why I bitch about needing more information if you ask me a question on pretty much everything (I do this all the time; my friends and girlfriend sometimes get annoyed). Most people don’t implement programs very well because they don’t know how to modify them for their own goals or situation. Tweaking the TM will be a focus in subsequent posts on the TM.

What is the TM good for?
The TM is a very good general strength program. It continues an appropriate dose/response of tonnage on the body while moving along the upper limit of stress that the body can handle (the latter references experienced trainees who have been on the TM for a few months). A proper LP will have established a good body size, and the TM can continue to build and refine mass, although it is not optimal. However, properly positioned assistance exercises can help increase the size of some body parts that may have been neglected during an LP (barbell curls, weighted dips, power shrugs, and neck harness being the best options for size).

The TM is also a good off-season strength program. Season athletes, those that compete in a sport with designated seasons of competition, will benefit from re-establishing or improving their strength base before getting into a strength maintenance and conditioning phase. It is also possible to switch early novice lifters (those who are on a LP) to a TM set up for various reasons. I have done so in trainees who have anatomical issues (typically asymmetry) as well as to has out subtle form issues — mostly in females in either case. I’ve had a trainee increase on a LP, yet had pelvic asymmetry (rotational scoliosis in the lumbar) to the point where a 3×5 volume three times a week was giving her problems. Instead, we switched to a TM set up; the volume 5×5 (and lower weight) allowed us to work on positional issues as well as conscious neurological innervation, and the intensity day of heavier weight allowed us to push the weight up without worrying so much about the technique. I have several other examples, but the point is that forcing a LP in spite of problems is going to exacerbate things.

The TM is great at continuing to establish a base of strength and can be tweaked for powerlifting competitions, but it has some drawbacks.



What is the TM not good for?
TM is not a good program for Olympic weightlifting — straight up. There is no way you can get appropriate work in the Olympic lifts (anything over 80% on a regular basis — i.e. each training session) while maintaining a good 5×5 to 5RM squat program. It just doesn’t work. I’ve tried, and I probably recover better than you. If you aim to compete in Oly, then switch to it. In my run up to going to senior nationals, I used the TM to get my strength back up after a low back injury, but it didn’t leave me with much time to focus on the Oly lifts for nationals (only five or six weeks). In any case, don’t attempt a TM while trying to get good Oly work.

Additionally, the TM is not a very good program if you need to get conditioned. This should be obvious, but when you’re training for strength it obviates for conditioning since conditioning will take away from recovery capabilities. Conditioning can be added to the TM, but it’s placement should be careful as not to interfere with strength (this principle is necessary in any strength and conditioning program).

TM consists of a lot of stress. If you’re doing it to get as strong as you possibly can, it is not easy. Eventually it will take seven to ten minutes of rest in between the 5×5 sets on volume day. The 5×5 can sometimes be a survival based workout (my most poetic moments when lifting, aside from the Olympic lifts, were on volume squat day). Not many people can handle it and not many people should. If you aren’t serious about competing — meaning you aren’t serious about eating, sleeping, recovery, mobility, and doing everything you can to improve in all aspects — TM will become too much for you. If you are an older guy (let’s say around 35 and up), then you will probably find that a TM set up is too much on your body. A good, hard TM is a young man’s program. The lifters who have had the most notable success using it (arguably limited to the people involved in this website) are all young and reckless. If your body can’t handle it (which is not the same as your mind handling it), then tweak it or change the overall program. If you admit that you don’t eat or sleep well, there are other programs that will help make progress, albeit slower progress for your capabilities (Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 is wonderful).

The utility of a TM set-up is very useful if you know how to tweak it, and use its principles for your goals. Remember, a program is supposed to work for you. In a TM set up, it aims to manipulate volume and intensity to improve strength. This doesn’t necessitate a 5×5 volume day and a 5RM intensity day, and in future TM posts, we’ll learn why and how to tweak it for your needs and goals.

Dr. Lon Kilgore is a patient, intelligent, and innovative man who continuously campaigns against conventional fitness wisdom and has mentored plenty of lifters, graduate students, and schmucks like me. He is releasing a fantastic — and incredibly practical — anatomy book entitled, Anatomy Without A Scalpel. This book is not only well put together with unique photos and drawings (Lon is an excellent artist on top of having a doctorate in anatomy and physiology), but it also features me as one of the models (no speedo, sorry). Dr. Michael Hartman was a graduate student of Dr. Kilgore and interviewed him about this textbook. Here are Dr. Hartman’s Blog and Dr. Kilgore’s store, book, blog, and site. I highly recommend the anatomy book and hope you enjoy the interview. If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments (I can get a response from Dr. Hartman or Dr. Kilgore if they are good questions).

The following is quoted from part I and part II of Dr. Hartman’s blog that hosts this interview in its original form. These are just highlights and the full interview can be found in part 1 and part 2.


On how this book can help a trainer or coach:
A trainer should be able to use the information presented to produce a better and more efficient training plan for their charges. You would not ask a mechanic to supercharge your engine if you knew they did not know how your engine was built, how it turned the wheels, or what tools they needed. A trainee is paying the trainer to “supercharge” them and it is incumbent on the trainer to know the nuts and bolts of both the trainee’s body and the tools (exercises) they use.

A trainer should also end up being better able to identify which muscle or anatomical feature is presenting pain or soreness during or after training. If you don’t know anatomy, you can only guess at the site of the problem or hope that you can create a solution that works. Anatomical knowledge takes out guesswork and prompts correct solutions.

On how this book helps a trainee:
A trainee that trains himself would reap the same benefits as a trainer. Their exercise selection, programming, and assessment of problems will improve. For a trainee who is paying a professional trainer, it can serve as a means of assessing whether the trainer is providing your money’s worth.



On the content of the book:
The book is 324 pages – 310 pages of chapter content. I believe there are about 525 individual photographs and illustrations. About 1/3 pencil illustrations and about 2/3 photographs.

One (very good) reason why this book is different:
The other difference is in the level of explanation. The most popular exercise anatomy book in print has about 400 illustrations on less than 150 pages. Its just images with bullets and blurbs of text – very pretty images though. I’ve added a great deal of explanation on how to find the various anatomical structures along with information on why they are important and how they function in the real world.