Category Archives: Inspiration

Real vs Relative

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The following is an article by my friend Phil Stevens. Phil has competed in powerlifting and strongman, and is pretty damn strong. He works with Charles Staley and is a contributor on the Staley Training Systems website.

Real vs. Relative

I often find myself thinking on the subject of strength, and of course the whole relative strength concept, or more so fallacy (fallacy in My Opinion, and remember my opinion is one that’s has seen me as heavy as 320 and light as 165 at 6’1” so it’s pretty damn diverse where I have been) comes to mind. In reality, reality meaning the real world, there is NO such thing as relative strength,. There is ONLY strength. Relative only comes into play in a contrived situation such as a weight classed sport such as power or Olympic weight lifting. In the real world, the one that 99.9% of the population lives in, aside from us athletes, there is NO relative factor to strength. (HMM so why is the relative fad such a highly sought and contrived pinnacle when most people are not in a competitive situation that demands it)

In the real world if there is a task to be done, the task does not care one iota how much the person doing it weighs. The one and only factor is that the job must be done. In such a case, a case that is a many and very much so the majority, strength is the most residing factor to your ability to compete such a task. A factor that by far and large most lack including those that seek and triumph there supposed superior relative strength.

So lets bring the relative world in to the real world. Of course the situation is going to still be contrived, it’s a story, and any story will be, But we’ll make the tasks these two have to complete as real world as we can.

So we have Carl. Carl is a self proclaimed stud. He is a jack of all trades and pretty damn good at pretty much any sport he trains. He’s 6 foot 190. He can run a 6 and a half minute mile, run a 4.3 40, has completed a half marathon, can do 20 dead hang chins, can press 225 (1.18 x bodyweight), bench 275 (1.44 x bodyweight) , squat 475 (2.13 x bodyweight) , deadlift 570 ( 3 x bodyweight)and is Ripped at 8% body fat with HOT Abzz. Those are damn good numbers in relative terms, and dude is Hot and mean he has Abzzz.

Now we have his polar opposite Abbot. Abbot is the same 6 foot but he is 280. He hasn’t ran a mile in ? god knows how long, can still run a 5 second 40, gets sick thinking about running a half marathon hell even walking a half marathon, can do 8 dead hang chins, can press 275 (.98 x bodyweight), bench 345 (1.25 x bodyweight) , squat 490 ( just 1.75 x bodyweight) , deadlift 600 ( just 2.15 x bodyweight) Abbot is over fat with a 23% body fat with not a hint of abs and some killer love handle. He’s strong but his numbers aren’t great. He’s no elite athlete by any means he dabbles in strength training pretty good at making it 2-3 times a week and just trying to get Strong when he does make it. He thinks about some day maybe getting serious and being a power lifter or Olympic lifter but who knows.

Again polar opposite one jacked ripped pretty down strong stud and one guy that’s again has a good level of strength but in relative terms not that great and his capacity for distance is likely crap as he hasn’t done any. What happens when we put these two in a simple real world situation? Meaning a situation that like life doesn’t care what you weigh just that a task MUST be completed?

Abbot and Carl are dropped on an island ( told you contrived but stay with me here remember the definition of real world) They are told you each have 24 hours to do two things or you will face death on this island which has no food and no escape. You have to first cross the island. It is 30miles then you must lift a 580 lb lead weight off of a trigger that will then send the alarm to have the chopper come save you.

OK GO. Carl smokes it he paces himself and to conserve energy and still makes the 30 miles in 6 hours. Abbot on the other hand, he is over fat and not “fit” he slugs along at 30 minutes a mile, takes the time to take in the scenery etc. and makes the trip in a piss pour 15 hours.

What does Abbot find? He find Carl laying on the ground next to his weight to move crying his eyes out knowing he faces certain death even thought he kicked the hell out of Abbots travel time, even though he has HOT abuzz and is a superior physical specimen. Despite the fact his relative strength in as high as three times body weight a HUGE feat in any sports realm he just can’t move the weight, it is 10 lbs more then his best ever effort.

Abbot smiles then waddles his fat as over to his lead weight. He takes a big breath expanding his bowl full of jelly, grunts turns 16 different shades of red as his blood pressure shy rockets due to his over stressed heart but he moves the weight and he lives, While his relatively stronger competitor is destined to die.

What’s the moral of the story? Abbot was relatively less “fit” ( an abused and over used term) but when the rubber hit the road he could do everything his counterpart could and more. It may take him longer at some things that required endurance but he could do them. While Carl even though he was a human freak and had great relative strength when face with one task vs. a seemingly lesser opponent in all ways except one (maximal strength) LOST.

In the real world, on the field of life. What matters most is your ability to DO the job, not so much how long it takes. If you cant do it, it will by default, take you forever. More times then not in life the reason someone cant do something, be it a chin up, to carry an injured soldier or co worker off the field. The ability to push your car off the street. To beat down an oncoming attacker. Or simply be a useful man and have the ability to move your old washing machine out of its basement home, and move a new one in its place is limited by your lack of maximal strength. All of the other strength qualities, as Mark Rippetoe has a very unique and entertaining way of explaining and I urge you to hear in person by attending one of his seminars, relies first on maximal strength. For example before you can have strength endurance you better damn well simply have the strength. You cant endure without the base level of strength to do one.

This is not me proposing you to become an over fat, un-conditioned but fairly strong slob. It me telling you to wake the hell up and realize you live in a real world, and the real world doesn’t care how much you weigh. If you care about real world ability one of the main things on your mind should not be your Abzz and if you can fit in your skinny jeans and still knock out 25 chins, but that you have the ability to DO the tasks that are asked of you, with no regard to how you look doing it. More times than not that will mean getting bigger, and adding a bit of healthy body fat to get stronger. A healthy focus on performance instead of aesthetics and you’ll find out an amazing fact that if you do so, your form will follow your function.

I’ve had visible abzz myself and I’ve still never seen an ab do a damn thing in this life in the real world. Now go ponder these words and ask yourself really how useful are you, in real, not relative terms.

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You can find the link to this article here. And here is some training footage from Phil:

Gary Gibson – Part 4

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The 2010 USAPL Florida State Championship
by Gary Gibson

The meet directors confirmed that I was not large enough to be considered an adult male. The first flight was composed of all the ladies and men in the 82.5 kg class and below, which meant that I got to lift with the women and the teenagers…the women and children. Ah well, if we were on a sinking ship, I would have made it out first!

It had been a very long drive from Geneva, Florida, to Fort Lauderdale. My sister and her boyfriend went along for the ride. Baby sis operated the camera at the meet.

Michael and Gail at 2010 USAPL FL State Meet

Michael and Gail at 2010 USAPL FL State Meet

That’s her voice you hear the loudest because it’s closest to the camera’s mic.

I only had her record the squat and deadlift attempts because my bench is never really worth recording and I was planning on playing it very conservatively on the bench for this meet. I’d not made any clear progress on it since my last meet and just planned to match my top weight from last time. Turns out I should have gone a little heavier. The 105 kg/ 231 was really, really easy.

I played it conservatively with my squats and went 5 kilos under my gym best, mainly because I wanted my last squat to be pretty and not get me all bent over. Squatted 418 on my last attempt and made it look pretty good. I matched my gym best on my second deadlift attempt and then bested that by 2.5 kilos on the last. I’d wanted to get in at least one pull over 500 lbs, but I might have done even better if I’d made the second attempt lighter and then went a bit higher on the last. Oh well, I’m not complaining about the 506.

I didn’t quite hit my targets of a 200 kilo SQ and 240 kilo deadlift, but as usual I still enjoyed myself thoroughly. I love powerlifting meets. I love lifting in competition. I love training and competing more than anything else outside of black pornograhy on the internet.

A real highlight of this meet was getting to meet 70sBig member and ridiculously strong deadlifter AJ. AJ’s about my height and currently just a few pounds heavier, but he is much, much stronger and a lot more pleasant to be around than I usually am.

I also got to see a few records set. April Shumaker came down from Minnesota and set an American bench press record on her second attempt…then broke that on her third! “Little Supergrrrl” powerlifter Maura Shuttleworth came down with April and her family and lifted strong and looked ridiculously cute doing it.

There were quite a few men and women competitors in their seventies. My heart swelled. Barbell training is as essential to a complete life as a good dog and it’s good to see people taking it up even in their later years. One of women in the Masters 70-79 division was the mother of another competitor at the meet in the men’s Masters 50-59. Her 50s-something son deadlifted well over 600 lbs and benched something over 500. The meet results aren’t up yet, but I believe those were also records of some sort.

Aftermath
Oh, my aching quads. Immediately after the meet, my hamstrings were singing and now two days later, my quads are burning. Upper body is feeling no pain because I just didn’t push the bench hard at all since I’d fail to make any measurable bench progress in the last cycle. I just matched my best bench from the last meet and left plenty on the platform. I’ve already dived right into linear progression with a fairly heavy bench day precisely because I didn’t tax my bench at the meet. But I did tax my squat and deadlift so even a light SQ x5x3 with 335 was fairly hard today. I’m hoping lots of meat and milk will sort me out soon. I’m going to take a few days off of squats, too, then hit 355 and go from there next week.

Next time we catch up with each other, I hope to have broken the 200-lb barrier.

Till then.

Gary Gibson – Part 3

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Two Steps Forward, One Back
by Gary Gibson

I got a lot of nerve showing up here again like this. I was called out as being decidedly not an adult male because at 5’10″ I am still under 200 lbs. And now I’m even under-er.

The 2010 USAPL Florida State Powerlifting Championship is coming up in ten days and I’m planning to compete in it. I’d wanted to compete at least once in the 82.5 kg, but in my zeal to get bigger and stronger I jumped over an entire weight class in one month and landed square in the middle of the 90.0 kg.

I’d competed at the tippy-top of the 75 kg class at exactly 165 lbs in September when I ground out a very hard 369 lb suitless/wrapless squat on my third attempt. (I also just missed a 474 lb deadlift by failing to lock out. Don’t ask about my bench. Ever.) Next I went up to 175 lbs and a 405 single squat in the gym and then got smaller and weaker in an attempt to make the 75 kg once more at the 2009 USAPL Maryland States in December. The meet got canceled the night before because of that incredible snowstorm.

Heavy training began again in late December. In just over a month I went from 165 lbs and squatting 325×3 to 185 lbs and 405x3x3. I even manage to hit a high bodyweight of 190 for a couple of hours.

As I type this I’ve been dieting lightly for almost a week and I’m down to 181 lbs, just under the 181.9 lb limit in the 82.5 kg class. I made it! I also just deadlifted a little over 500 lbs a few hours ago in my last heavy session before meet day.

Looks like I’m on track to squat 440 and pull a little over 500 in my weight class which you’ll notice is almost 20 lbs shy of my adult male size. And I’m…OK with that!

I’ll get back on track right after the meet. In fact, I’ll probably be 200 lbs before spring has fully sprung…though I fully intend to compete a little under that in the 90 kg/198 lb class in the USAPL Raw Nationals. I also plan to be an awful lot stronger by then too.

So forgive me for not being fully grown just yet. It will come. I hope you will enjoy my posts anyway as I get there.

Gary Gibson – Part 2

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I didn’t have time to write tonight, so this is Gary Gibson’s update on his situation. Also, it is PR Friday, so talk about any PR’s you had this week in the comments: weight gained, lifted, or consumed. Giddyup.

Justin and A.C. are on Iron Radio today today at 2 pm eastern time. Listen here

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Did Nature Mean to Make Us So Skinny And Useless?

This week I am officially a big step closer to manhood. I’ve been weighing in consistently between 183 and 188 lbs. That’s about a 25-lb increase in the past 30 days. Squat and Milk. Granted I hit a high of 176 a month prior to the start of this latest cycle, so half of that weight is reclaimed ground, not new territory. Still, the way my weight and my lifts are going, I’m going to get to 200 lbs (and a triple bodyweight squat i hope) a lot sooner than I would have believed just a few months ago.

An adult male of average height should weigh at least 200 lbs…at least he should if he wants to be strong. If all he wants to do is run away from danger or difficult situations at low speeds, then he’s much better off jogging a lot and “watching what he eats” so he stays at 150.

But those 200 lbs of useful man assume both a reasonable bodyfat percentage and strength level. Reasonably fat is under 20%, but not the “about 10%” that gets tossed about so casually. Reasonably strong is a 1.5x bodyweight squat. (Athletes in strength and power sports may want to shoot for over double bodyweight and those in the barbell sports should aim for triple.)

Those guidelines are all well and good. But I got to wondering just why it is that so many adult males of average height are about 150 lbs with the low strength levels to match. And an awful lot of the adult males who are over 200 don’t train properly and are “skinny-fat weak” and wish they were just plain skinny weak 150-pounders. What gives? How did this happen? We didn’t evolve with barbells, and there’s no way in hell I could get to 200 without using a barbell for heavy back squatting. No amount of physical activity I would have been likely to do in the ancestral environment would have gotten me close.

Ultimately I don’t care all that much what nature had in store for my body sans barbell training. I’m happier, healthier and a hell of a lot stronger and less painful to look at thanks to my journey to over 200 lbs. Moreover the speed at which this metamorphosis is taking place tells me that it was meant to be.

Train Hard

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“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’ first day of pork chops

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.