I’m a bit late posting because we got in late last night from doing a barbell seminar in Denver — a guy needs sleep, ok?
It’s a lot of fun having friends who are strong, and my good friend AC is one of those people who is pain-in-the-ass strong. He’s on the brink of plateauing in his linear progression. Yesterday he squatted 450 for three sets of five, pressed 212 for three sets of five, and a few weeks ago deadlifted 500 for five…all at a bodyweight of 205. Oh, and he’s 20 years old.
Since he has pretty much linearly progressed his deadlift, I gave him the green light to work up to a 1RM yesterday. Keep in mind that he squatted and pressed the previously mentioned numbers before pulling this.
He missed 575 at the knees after that last attempt. AC will start competing in powerlifting and eventually weightlifting. He’s also a pretty good coach, so if you’re in the Atlanta area and want some coaching, e-mail him. You can also find him in south Georgia when he’s at school.
AC is also the one who edits the Rippetoe interview videos, and here is part 7 of the 70’s Big Interview with Rip:
“You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight?”
The following is a write up by my friend Gant
This nugget comes from JM Blakely, a bench press specialist who was known for gaining and losing significant amounts of weight depending on where he was in his training cycle. He wrote several articles for Powerlifting USA, including “The Big Boy’s Menu Plan“(reprinted here).
The article is gold. The summary: there are no hard gainers, only undisciplined eaters.
Blakely is specifically addressing bulking cycles for powerlifting. But anyone on the path to 70’s Big can can benefit from this knowledge. Make no mistake, eating for mass requires effort equal to that which you put into your training.
The mustache is good for another 10 pounds.
In a recent article article, Dave Tate tells how Blakely helped him over a mass plateau. Prepare to be inspired.
There was a time at the Old Westside gym where I couldn’t gain weight to save my fucking life.
There was this dude who trained there who could just put on weight like fucking magic. He’d go from 198 to 308 and then to 275 and back down to 198. And he was never fat. It was amazing.
I finally asked him one day how he did it.
“You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight? Come outside and I’ll fill you in.”
Now remember, we’re at Westside Barbell. And this guy wants to go outside to talk so no one else can hear. Think about that for a minute. What the hell is he going to tell me? This must be some serious shit if we have to go outside, I thought.
So we get outside and he starts talking.
“For breakfast you need to eat four of those breakfast sandwiches from McDonalds. I don’t care which ones you get, but make sure to get four. Order four hash browns, too. Now grab two packs of mayonnaise and put them on the hash browns and then slip them into the sandwiches. Squish that shit down and eat. That’s your breakfast.”
At this point I’m thinking this guy is nuts. But he’s completely serious.
“For lunch you’re gonna eat Chinese food. Now I don’t want you eating that crappy stuff. You wanna get the stuff with MSG. None of that non-MSG bullshit. I don’t care what you eat but you have to sit down and eat for at least 45 minutes straight. You can’t let go of the fork. Eat until your eyes swell up and become slits and you start to look like the woman behind the counter.”
“For dinner you’re gonna order an extra-large pizza with everything on it. Literally everything. If you don’t like sardines, don’t put ’em on, but anything else that you like you have to load it on there. After you pay the delivery guy, I want you to take the pie to your coffee table, open that fucker up, and grab a bottle of oil. It can be olive oil, canola oil, whatever. Anything but motor oil. And I want you to pour that shit over the pie until half of the bottle is gone. Just soak the shit out of it.”
“Now before you lay into it, I want you to sit on your couch and just stare at that fucker. I want you to understand that that pizza right there is keeping you from your goals.”
This guy is in a zen-like state when he’s talking about this.
“Now you’re on the clock,” he continues. “After 20 minutes your brain is going to tell you you’re full. Don’t listen to that shit. You have to try and eat as much of the pizza as you can before that 20-minute mark. Double up pieces if you have to. I’m telling you now, you’re going to get three or four pieces in and you’re gonna want to quit. You fucking can’t quit. You have to sit on that couch until every piece is done.
And if you can’t finish it, don’t you ever come back to me and tell me you can’t gain weight. ’Cause I’m gonna tell you that you don’t give a fuck about getting bigger and you don’t care how much you lift!”
Did I do it? Hell yeah. Started the next day and did it for two months. Went from 260 pounds to 297 pounds. And I didn’t get much fatter. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, though.
Follow the jump to watch Pisarenko in the clean and jerk portion of the 1982 World Championships. Continue reading →
Today wraps up our week-long dedication to 70’s Big co-captain Doug Young as well as the marker for his induction into the 70’s Big Hall of Fame. The behemoth that is Doug Young is one of the most impressive men I’ve ever seen in pictures. It’s a shame that he passed away a few years ago.
Our pal Mark Rippetoe saw Doug in person 29 years ago, and tells us the story in the following video:
Let us know what you think about Doug in the comments.
I get a lot of questions about what kind of stuff someone should eat if they are trying to get 70’s Big. Well, recently I wrote out a food log for my pal Cliff. Remember, getting enough protein and calories is vital, especially when dealing with a guy that has been skinny his whole life. Cliff needed an extra boost to continue his novice linear progression, and here is what we did:
Cliff’s food plan
Here are a few things to note:
I immensely underestimated the calories for some of the snacks, especially the ice cream and magic shell combo
The “10 oz” refers to sirloin steak
The “8 oz” refers to chicken breasts
Notice he eats two of each per day
Cliff drinks a gallon of whole milk a day
Cliff was only eating almonds for a snack at work, now it is calorie dense trail mix
Cliff found ice cream and nutella to be a nice little combo at night
The most important points are that Cliff has increased his bodyweight from 185 to 215, improved his squat from 145x5x3 to doing 305x5x3 last night, and launched his deadlift from 225×5 to 405×5. All this in 2.5 months.
No, he is not fat. When you are skinny your whole life, not only is it hard to gain fat, but you don’t get to have an opinion on what fat is.
And he’s not done yet.
Let us know about any cool meals or snacks that have helped you recover. Remember, you can e-mail videos or pictures to media@70sbig.com.
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As promised, here is the fourth part of the 70’s Big Interview with Rip:
Tomorrow we will wrap up Doug Young week. A story will be told about how he was an imposing individual who was respected by the entire powerlifting community. This is why he is the co-captain of 70sBig.com, and why he is our first entry into the “70’s Big Hall of Fame”.
Women typically have a paranoid view of barbell training in that they think it will make them “bulky” or “big”. This is a typical misconception that forgets that women don’t produce the same levels of testosterone that men do. Furthermore, “bulky” is a meaningless subjective term that is relative to all of the underweight women scattered around television and magazines.
Women can and should barbell train. For the most part they adapt in the same way that males do, albeit slower. And to be honest, most girls, regardless of body composition, can stand to gain 10 to 20 pounds of muscle (the same way that most guys need to gain 30 to 50 pounds of muscle). It’s important to note that women will not achieve the status of 70’s Big (since that would be scary thing, indeed), but being stronger with more muscle mass improves the “toned” look that so many of them aim for.
In any case, even with all of these sterotypes and misconceptions, there are women who barbell train successfully. We have a few here at WFAC:
Shelley has squatted 180x5x3, but needs to eat more
Prior to breaking some ribs, Melissa deadlifted an easy 225x5
