Normally the female posts are on Monday, but yesterday was Memorial Day. I want to keep highlighting 70’s Big readers who compete every weekend because it’s always been my aim to urge readers to compete in something. Given that all of us enjoy lifting, it’s natural to try powerlifting, but other things like martial arts or recreational team sports are fair game. For some people, being able to participate in an active hobby like hiking is enough. I just want you to do something.

People get so much out of competing. They put themselves in an uncomfortable situation to perform as well as they can against others while being judged on how well they do it. There may be similar pressures in a work environment, but the biggest fear for physical competition is, “I’m not good enough.” That’s exactly why you should compete; because you aren’t. If you were good enough, you’d already have been at the world level. But it’s not about how you compare to others, it’s how you compare to yourself. Can you overcome the fear, submit the entry application, and show up to something you’re uncomfortable with? Can you properly conduct yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally in a competitive environment?

99% of the time, people have a great time and learn a lot about themselves. Most importantly, it funnels your training into a single event. It not only gives you something specific to train for, but it holds you accountable every day to prepare for that event. Squatting heavy means more when you know it’s part of the build up for a state powerlifting meet.

You probably competed as a child or as an adolescent and it helped define your character. If you haven’t competed in a while, then make it a point to get back on the platform, the field, or the court. It’ll keep you keen and sharp.

This past weekend, a long-time 70’s Big reader, Kari (she posts as Karibot) competed in a push-pull meet. She benched 67.5kg (a PR and state record) and deadlifted 110 and 115kg. The 115kg was a PR, but “(she) stood up with it, locked it out easily, and was red lighted because (she) “apparently” put it down before the command. (She) will never let that happen again”. And she was complimented on wearing a 70’s Big shirt. Congrats, Kari — proud of ya.

Hi Justin —

Competed in my first meet today. Results are in the comments from Friday’s post, but I thought I’d send in a picture repping 70s Big.

And many thanks for urging all of us to get serious and compete. I never would have done this without the 70s Big support!

-Kari(bot)

Take a deep, luxurious breath. How does it feel? Normal? It should feel both normal and abnormal.

It’s normal because it’s the same as the million of breaths that have come before it. You’re an American breathing freely whilst pursuing your life’s happiness. Yet it’s abnormal and weird because the only reason you’re content taking that breath is because there is man or woman who has earned it for you.

An American soldier has pulled on his boots, shouldered his pack, and squeezed the stock of his rifle, sweating. This man forfeited his freedoms, left his family, and sacrificed his youth. This man did all of this, yet isn’t compensated for his sacrifices. In fact, he is often shunned for going out of his way to choose this fate.

Yet, this man is the reason you are able to take your next breath, the reason you can wake up in the morning and do whatever you damn well please. This man protects the richest of the rich, yet also enables the dredge of society to suck the teat and be rewarded for sloth. He’s the reason that a bar fight, this website, or a children’s spelling bee can exist. His sacrifice is blind to the recipients’ outcome, yet it is all encompassing nonetheless.

You may have known the man with the rifle, yet he has existed for more than 200 years and he gives you this next breath freely. You are free to do whatever you want with that breath, but it’d be a disgrace if it wasn’t spent doing everything you can to be the best person, father, brother, friend, son, worker, or stranger that you can. Your last breath was a freebie; now earn your next in honor of those riflemen who make breathing possible.

Lest we forget our fallen…

PR Friday

Post your training updates and PR’s to the comments. Last week I put a challenge to 70’s Big readers to do mobility work every day. Did anyone do it? Next week’s goal: meet your daily protein intake with primarily meat; only allow 25 to 50g of whey protein for your daily allotment.

I don’t have any awesome stories like last week; I’ve mostly been inside writing (will announce some new things soon). Chris will be visiting me in Florida and we’ll do a Q&A video with him. Post your questions to the comments as well.

I was kind of irritated on Wednesday (this may have something to do with it) and decided to squat 405 for as many reps as I can after snatching up to 120kg. I was going for 12, but got confused when I was dying. Squatting strength is not a priority in my lifting, but I was still disappointed in this.

Weekly Recap

[spoiler]On Monday we reviewed and congratulated the performances of various 70’s Big readers on their success in powerlifting and weightlifting meets. Tuesday I responded to an article that Matt Wichlinski wrote about CrossFit; it focuses on efficient programming. Wednesday we talked about some general mobility topics and then specifically how “The Stick” can help with soft tissue work. Thursday looked at two articles from recent news; one was unfortunate while the other was interesting. [/spoiler]

Q&A
Chris B., your question on hyper-lordosis that I promised an answer to is going to be the subject of a post next week.

CONTINUE READING Continue reading →

Fitness fan found dead under crushing bench press weights

I’m not sure how a person can be a “fan” of fitness (who is on the team? who do they play against?), but this guy is dead from bench pressing. You may remember that USC Trojan running back Stafon Johnson had a bar fall on his throat while benching; he required surgery to repair the crushing damage on his throat and larynx.

The bench press is the most dangerous lift you can perform. The bar is moving over the sensitive throat and face area, and, as you can see in the article above, people die from doing it. Here are things to keep in mind when doing it:

1. Never use a false grip
A false grip is one in which the thumbs are not wrapped around the bar; Stafon Johnson undoubtedly was using a false grip. . It’s easy for the bar to slip over the edge of the heel of the palm when the thumb isn’t wrapped. Always wrap your thumb around the bar for every pressing movement.

People use the false grip because it puts their wrist in a close-compacted position and feels better, but they do so because they don’t know how to do it right with their thumb wrapped. I’ll do a post on this in the near future. If you’re using a correct grip and there are other people available…

2. Have a good spotter
A spotter is there to prevent the bar from falling on your face and throat. Note that if a false grip is used, and the bar actually drops on you (as it did Stafon), there is nothing that a spotter can do. What they can do is prevent damage on the sternum or abdominal organs if the bar is pinned on the lifter (or obviously prevent the lifter from getting pinned in the first place). If you don’t trust your spotter, then get several to stand on each end of the bar. If you don’t have spotters, then…

3. When lifting alone, never use collars
The idiotic globo gyms don’t understand that if you’re benching alone, and the bar is pinned on you, it’s not easy to get it off. This is where internal organ injuries occur (there have been cases of people not knowing they injured something until the middle of the night when their internal bleeding became problematic). If the plates are un-collared, then it’s easy to slide the weight off of one side and then the other to get un-pinned from the bar. The guy in the article above probably was pinned under the weight with collars on.

But he was also drunk, so it’s probably not a good idea to train or lift when you’ve been drinking. Unless you’re Chris Riley, who at one point drank a six pack and then PR’d on snatch. That is neither here nor there.

Packers backup QB Graham Harrell comes in stronger

Graham Harrell is the backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. This off-season he trained at Accelerate Performance Enhancement Center (APEC) to put on 14 pounds of muscle in 18 weeks. The training mostly consisted of active mobility work, rotational power, and strengthening the shoulder girdle.

“The first thing we did was try to break those (mobility) barriers,” Stroupe said. “And then we tried to strengthen his body through rotation. We strengthened the rotator cuff and scapula region. A lot of the same things you’d do with a pitcher, but we did a lot of it in motion because he’s always moving when he’s throwing as opposed to a pitcher.”

He did weight training three times a week and speed training twice a week. Each session started with about 45 minutes of “lunging, stretching, and functional movement”. This is what I’m summing up as “active mobility” work. His weight training had a shoulder emphasis, and it included him using rowing machines and high pulls — even rowing “six plates”.



Whatever they had him do, it made him noticeably bigger to his teammates and coaches, increased the velocity on his passes, improved his foot work, and helped him gain 14 pounds of lean mass. This is important for a professional athlete, especially a quarterback. It’s easy for us as lifters to look at a program and pick it apart because it doesn’t have squats, presses, or power cleans. But high level performers need to be specifically trained to improve their ability at performing at a high level. Furthermore, various sport positions need to be trained differently than other positions. We don’t have Harrell’s program sitting in front of us, but we already know it worked.

There’s a lot of stupid shit out there, and there might even be parts of various programs that we think could be different or better, but let’s not ignore when something has a lot of success. I admire Harrell’s work ethic because some NFL players won’t significantly improve their physical capability year-to-year. When a quarterback is labeled as having a weak arm, the media acts like it’s something he can’t ever improve. I hope Harrell proves them wrong this year.

In my seminars I teach principles of mobility to help keep lifters/trainees/athletes healthy and soldiers operational. What we call “mobility” is just a general term to mean “maintaining or improving mobility to achieve proper positioning to perform well and prevent injury”. Overall, it’s a means to an end of not eradicate static and dynamic positional inhibition. Mobility is necessary for efficient and productive lifting. Mobility has several areas of emphasis:

– Soft tissue work
– Positional stretching
– Joint approximation

These areas can be effective by themselves, yet are best used to augment one another. One way to think of the results of mobility training is that it reduces tension on muscle systems. For example, a trainee’s neck hurts from a car wreck. They like to compete in Olympic weightlifting, yet when the volume of their lifting goes up, their neck hurts more. Without soft tissue work, they feel helpless and hopeless about their condition. This is a real world example because it happened to me (minus the hopeless/helpless part). Mobility training reduces that tension to alleviate pain at the neck, and could even improve existing anatomical assymetry (in this case, a temporarily rotated cervical vertebrae).

“The Stick” is a useful tool to work on soft tissue: muscle bellies, tendons, and fascia. When soft tissue is tight, it can cause dysfunction in the muscle or apply tension and subsequently pain at a joint (like the knee, hip, or shoulder). The stick is most effective when a friend uses it on you because they can reach areas you cannot and apply more force than you can solo. Be sure to purchase the “stiff” version of the stick, and not just for the laughs; I’ve put my whole body weight on it and it didn’t deform or break. The following video shows some general tips on using the stick as well as one specific example of how to use it on the upper shoulder and neck area. This would be excellent for Olympic lifters, anyone doing any overhead lifting, soldiers or back packers who carry a heavy pack/ruck, and anyone with a tight or painful neck.



“The Stick” can be found on Amazon or at Rogue Fitness. A future video will include calf, hamstring, lat/teres major, serratus anterior, triceps, and forearm work. The Stick is best used on any segment and has a much different (i.e. better) effect than just using a lacrosse ball, PVC pipe, or rumble roller. I highly recommend it.