The Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnold is here!

It’s finally here – this is the week of the Arnold Sports Festival, which runs this Thursday to Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, and is so massively awesome, it might make you shit your pants. You’ve been warned. If you do, just own it.

This is a huge deal. We have a bunch of 70sBig lifters competing, a lot of readers attending, and there will be more sports and competitions and displays than we could possibly begin to preview, or cover. Luckily, I’m guessing not many of you care as much about the “5k Pump ‘N Run” or the World Jump Rope Championships, and we’ll be sticking to covering mostly the lifting exploits, and probably a few pictures of the IFBB stuff just for funsies.

In the spirit of Ladies’ Mondays, I thought I’d highlight two female weightlifters who will be competing on Saturday, and whose coaches actually post on here.

Glenn Pendlay is a household name in our world (unless you’re ow3n), and his MuscleDriver USA team will be very well-represented at the Arnold, which also serves as the qualifier for the Pan-Ams. I think he’s coaching around 9 athletes, which sounds pretty much like cardio. We’ll cover some of the guys later in the week, but you already know Jon North is one of ’em. Did you realize, however, that Jon’s wife is also competing? Jessica is a ton of fun to watch in the MDUSA training streams, because her quiet intensity and determination is inspiring as hell. Check out this video, ignore the cheesy music (really, Jon, really?), and tune in Saturday to see how she does in the 75kg class.

Big Ben “Brown Thunder” Claridad has also been a friend of the site for a long time, and was teaching us all how important it was to have ginormous arms before we even knew who CT Fletcher was. He’s not only competing (105+), but also coaching two female lifters, Emelie (75+) and Cecily (69). I haven’t met Emelie, but I can attest to the fact that Cecily is just as fun and inspiring to watch as Jess North. When I briefly met her and Ben at Cal-Strength, I got to witness one of the most badass jerk recoveries of all time. Little did I know she would make a habit of it.

Amanda and Jess at Raw Nats

In Powerlifting, I could go on and on about at least half of the female competitors. There are several who have posted on here in the past, and several who I’ve met in person and are flat out awesome. Amanda Padgett’s long humble discussion with my special lady friend at Raw Nats is something Jess still smiles about to this day. She also loves to tell the story about her competitor, the one-and-only Jennifer Thompson, taking time to cheer her on mid-meet. JT is one of the best powerlifters of all time, male or female, and at last year’s Arnold, she broke the 300lb bench barrier – raw and drug tested – at 132 pounds. I think she’s going to break that this year… Check out this vid she put out in the past week of her smoking a 305lb training lift.

We’ll continue coverage this week of more lifters, more sports, more hookers, and more blow. If you’re attending the Arnold and would like to submit some photos, I’d appreciate it – click on Submissions and get’r’dun.

Ryan Carrillo is 70sBig

I first joined this site as an enthusiastic reader, eventually started contributing as an occasional meet-reporter or recipe-guy, and now I serve as ze Editor. In my time with this site, I’ve been consistently in awe of what I’ve watched our community grow into. We come from all sorts of backgrounds – guys and gals, civilians and special forces, Weightlifters, CrossFitters, and Powerlifters. We have competitive lifters among our ranks, and people who are nervously adding 2.5 pounds to their linear progression workouts. One thing unites us, though, and that is the fact that we are part of a supportive community of badasses.

From time to time the site calls our arms to support a cause, like during Movember, and you guys always respond. That’s what I’ll be doing today. I met with one of our own, Ryan Carrillo, this weekend, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been as impressed by a 21 year old kid. He’s trying to reach his first World Event in May, the IPF Bench Press World Championships in Lithuania. I think we can help get him there.

I first officially met Ryan at 2012 USAPL Raw Nats, when the 6’5″ beast came up, politely introduced himself, and asked me about my beard. When a giant of a man compliments your beard, that is a very special thing. He asked if he could take this picture of me as part of a photo like this Raleigh family photography project he was working on (he really captured my…oldness, didn’t he?) He’s also supplied gritty facebook profile pics for some of our other lifters, like Mike Battaglino, and is working on even more videos and pictures of the sport he loves.

Ryan’s Self-Portrait

I’ve seen Ryan at almost every local meet around central Texas, either competing, coaching, or just supporting his team. You really can’t miss the guy. He’s bigger than Brad Gillingham, and nicer than Jenn Thompson. He consorts with other young world class lifters like Ian Bell and Preston Turner, and cheers on everyone. His coach is the legendary Gene Bell. He’s a full-time student, works a few jobs, is big into photography as a hobby/passion, and still makes time to become a world-class Powerlifter.
He has suffered through serious back injuries and is currently an equipped bench specialist in the USAPL, though his long-term goal is to return to full meets. For now, he has the chance to represent our country in Lithuania this May at the World Championships.
Ryan drove up to my neck of the woods last Friday and we shared a few beers and a lot of good stories. He is absolutely one of the most impressive, respectful, and polite guys you can imagine. At 33, I’m constantly made aware of how young most of the 70sBig crew is, yet I would have never guessed Ryan was 21 by how he handled himself. The two of us collected more than our fair share of slack-jawed stares at the Biergarten, and he handled it like a seasoned vet. I guess walking around every day of your life looking like a pro wrestler tends to create that kind of understated confidence. Having the words “SHUT UP AND SQUAT” on the back of his shirt was a nice touch, too.

Please check out Ryan’s site at txstrongman.com and send him a few doll hairs. Every bit helps, and I trust that Ryan will proudly represent us well not only at this year’s World Championships, but for many more to come.
This is what our community is. We don’t just praise the camaraderie, facial hair, attitude, and general awesomeness of the lifters of the 70s – we strive to create a new generation of strength. How do we do this? We open doors. We slam bars after PRs. We grow facial hair and don’t apologize for wearing tanks and short shorts when the sun’s out. We encourage new lifters to get stronger, healthier, and to have more fun. Most importantly, we support our own.

70’s Big Friends

Tomorrow will be the 70’s Big Thanksgiving Weight Gain Challenge. To clarify, submissions will consist of pre/post weigh-ins (on film) and extra points will be awarded to funny stuff. Be sure to check tomorrow’s post before filming (it’ll post at midnight).

Meanwhile, the friends at 70’s Big are all training well. Chris and Mike are getting ready for another strongman competition and AC is pressing his wang off. The fourth video are outtakes from USAPL Nationals and was fair at best amusing.

AC presses 270×2:

Mike squats 600 for the first time (decides not to double it after starting the second rep):

Chris continental cleans and push-presses 310 and 320:

And outtakes from USAPL Raw nationals:

Koklyaev and Russian Weightlifting

Mikhail “Misha” Koklyaev is one of the coolest and most successful strength athletes ever. In his career he has put up impressive performances in strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and powerlifting (the strongman stuff is recorded here).

I’ve always said that we would get along really well with Misha. Need proof? Watch this video of him comically flexing during photos after he won the super heavyweight class at the Russian nationals in 2005. A simple YouTube search will bring up all kinds of impressive athletic performances — like doing a jerk with people on his bar — combined with his trademarked goofy humor and smile. Need more proof? Here’s a video of him lifting a stone while wearing a speedo with Andrey Chemerkin recording:

You’ll note that in the above video, Misha went 200/250 for a 450kg total. Recently he won the Russian Cup with 200/248 despite tweaking something during warm-ups (video below). This led many of us to think, “Does this mean he’ll be going to the Olympics?”

The answer most of us saw online was that the Russian team was not taking him, and it was because of his public admission of PEDs use. The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) and Olympic committee allegedly only give countries a couple of chances to fail drug tests. The PR storm over allowing a known drug user on the team would have probably made things difficult, and the Russians allegedly were unwilling to risk a positive test since it could remove their weightlifting team from Olympic competition. This seems to be the primary reason, but Russian national team coach David Rigert and Russian Weightlifting Federation president Sergey Syrtsov discuss other points in this translated press conference.

I get the impression that Koklyaev doesn’t get along with the RWF. Perhaps it stems from his admission of drug use? Or maybe it’s that Misha is unwilling to bleed himself dry for the RWF? Misha admits to “quarreling with people” (in the video below), and the Syrtsov says in the press conference that Misha pursued strongman in order to earn more money. If Russian weightlifters fare a quarter as bad as American weightlifters, then you can’t really blame him.

Syrtsov points out that Koklyaev regularly competed internationally as a teen and junior competitor, even besting the 2000 and 2004 gold medal super heavyweight Hossein Rezazadeh as a junior. Yet Syrtsov and Rigert basically come to the point that Misha’s international performance is poor, which effected his Olympic team consideration. They point out that international competition is different than success at home.

Rigert then points out that he coached Misha three times and he lifted up to 30kg lower in the total. Then he weirdly points out how Misha’s wife stopped working for Rigert once she and Misha got together — bitter much, Rigert?

This is a well produced video of Misha’s 2011 Russian Cup victory:

Rigert talks about how Misha was invited and attended training at the national facility. In Rigert’s words, after two weeks Misha just left. Obviously there’s more to the story, and there seems to be an obvious friction between Misha and Rigert, but this was what Rigert told reporters. He then went on to lambaste Misha by saying his eight national championships were all earned when his real competitors were busy preparing for bigger competitions. He’s basically saying, “It’s not that impressive because the real competition wasn’t there.”

Despite all of this, his victory in the Russian Cup made him a candidate for the team. Yet Syrtsov says that the documents they sent Misha were returned in the mail because Misha no longer lived at the address. Then Rigert candidly points out that all of the relevant information — about protocol and what Misha was expected to do — was explained to him. He was subject to a medical examination (i.e. a drug test). Rigert cannot put him on the team if he doesn’t pass this test, and Misha was not present for his test. Rigert then points out that they have two strikes regarding drug tests, implying that if they fail, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, they will be removed from Olympic competition. He finishes by basically saying, “Of course I’d want a strong athlete on the team, but not if he can only compete in Russia.”

I’m sure there is more to the story, but it all seems to stem from Misha’s drug use. It must be frustrating for him to go from strongman, a sport that inherently has athletes using PEDs, to a sport like weightlifting where the official committees pretend to stamp out PEDs while most of the athletes use them and don’t get caught. Perhaps Misha has a problem with authority, but he seems to be in good humor in all of his videos. It’s unfortunately clear that politics can decide a guy’s fate. Nevertheless, Misha is still one of the most impressive strength athletes of all time at 34 years old.

 

Strength Training Is Not Powerlifting

There are heaps of new trainees and lifters joining the “online strength training communities” — it’s fantastic. However, there are some terms that are thrown around that are often misguided, confuzzled, or plain wrong, so let’s clarify them.

 

 

“I’m doing the powerlifts.”

This is almost always said by someone coming from CrossFit, but I’ve seen it in some general populations as well. Squatting, benching, and deadlifting does not mean that you are powerlifting. This is like saying that tossing a football around is “playing football”. Powerlifting is a specific sport with specific demands and powerlifting, at the very least, requires that you enter a competition. Many athletes will strength train to augment their physical capacity for their sport, but it doesn’t mean they are powerlifting.

Instead, just say that you are “strength training”; it will solidify the distinction. It’s sort of ironic that powerlifting includes the word “power” since there isn’t a lot of power developed (speed is relevant in high power production). I just refer to squatting, pressing, deadlifting and other slow movements as “the strength lifts”. It helps me sleep better.

Let’s be fair to “weightlifting” too. 

As an extension, we could say that you aren’t doing “weightlifting” if you’re snatching and clean and jerking. This misnomer isn’t as common (probably because weightlifting isn’t as accessible to the average trainee), but saying “I am doing the Olympic lifts” is more accurate. Oh, and Glenn Pendlay hates when you say “Oly”.  It’s a CrossFit thing to use certain lingo, but when it’s incorrect it alienates certain people.

“Should I do Wendler?”

I bet he’d fucking like that a lot, assuming you have the required equipment (a vagina, I’d assume). Jim named the program “5/3/1”, and it’s pretty simple, so let’s just say that. There’s no need to rename stuff, especially because it makes you seem like a hipster. And everyone hates hipsters.

“High hang super power balls snatch”

Everything above is just nitpicking semantics (IT MATTERS, OKAY?), but this is more of helping new people with the definitions. The Olympic lifts have variations, and I will help you know them. In a biblical sense.

If the movement is named by itself (i.e. snatch, clean), then it’s done from the floor to the fully squatted position (i.e. overhead squat or front squat to receive the bar). 

If the movement is preceded by “hang”, it’s held in the hands while standing straight up, lowered to ‘second position’ or the thighs, then the lift is completed as normal (fully squatted). The presence, or lack thereof, of “hang” tells you how you start. 

If the movement is preceded by “power”, it is not caught in a squat position, but at least above 90 degrees in the knees (i.e. it is caught high in the ‘power position’). The presence, or lack thereof, of “power” tells you how you finish. 

If the movement is preceded by “hang power”, then you not only start with the bar (hanging) in your hands, you also finish in the ‘power position’. 

There are some other variations, but if you’re having trouble with these, then let’s not worry about those. We don’t like their kind anyway. These variations can be used in weightlifting programs or complicated strength and conditioning programs. I say “complicated” because it’d be easier or more efficient to just say “do power cleans” instead of “hang power boner cleans”. Or something.