“I’m feeling reckless.”

Posted on September 3, 2010 by brent kim

Editor’s Note: In case you can’t tell, this is another post by Brent. Oh, and it’s PR Friday so post your PR’s to the comments or update everyone on your training.

Chris Riley is a man of captivating words. Chris has always been very creative with language. We’ve mentioned it a few times before on the site – instead of saying “I need to wash my hands,” Chris will say, “I need to wash my gripz.” Instead of asking if he can taste or try something that you’re eating, he’ll ask, “Can I flavor that?” or “Do you want to flavor this?”

He also has an interesting way of insulting people. According to Chris, a “Todd” is someone who fucks everything up but doesn’t realize he is a total fuck up.

Brent: The Arkansas Razorbacks are a bunch of fucking losers. They couldn’t make a touchdown if the goalie was a paraplegic.

Chris: Goalies are in soccer, Todd.

Brent: Ooh KAY.

There are some other colorful terms that Chris is fond of using, but I don’t think they’d be appropriate to share here, but if you’d like to know more, call me, we’ll talk about it (<– this is also one of Chris’s sayings, often said in the middle of a conversation).

Oh, and the infamous WHAT ELSE ISN’T A SPORT that some of you may have seen in some of the comment threads actually originated from a night during which Chris had been drinking. Mustache Mike (not to be confused with Big Mike, who you’ve all been acquainted with) ascertained that figure skating wasn’t a sport, and Chris grew increasingly agitated as he interrogated Mike about what else wasn’t a sport.

Mike and Chris are currently training partners at WFAC. They follow a Texas Method-style program, with a volume day on Tuesdays, a light day on Thursday, and an intensity day on Saturday. Mike has observed that almost invariably, Chris comes into his Saturday workouts with the odds stacked against him. He got drunk Friday night, or he has to train in a hurry because of work, or he doesn’t eat an optimum amount of pre-workout calories because life gets in the way.

Chris, however, is a competitor.

Chris and AC are similar in that when they commit to something, they put all of themselves into it. It’s why AC gets so intense that he’s brought to tears before a 3rd attempt squat. Chris is the same way. Fight a +17lbs PR 650lbs deadlift for like 10 seconds and make it to above the knee? Ooh KAY. When Chris commits to a lift, he’ll throw everything he has into the effort, and if he fails, he’s gonna go down swinging for the fucking fences.

One particular Saturday, Chris went into the workout under shitty conditions, as usual. He takes his last squat warm up and decides to load 545lbs on the bar. He’s not sure how many times he’ll squat it, or if he’ll even be able to squat it at all today, but before he gets under the bar he turns to Mike and says one of his new trademark lines –

“I’m feeling reckless.”

And then he squats it for a PR set of 5.

Mike and I have agreed that Chris is a fantastic training partner. It’s hard to find someone who trains as hard as he does and has the raw desire to BEAT ‘EM. He’s overcome setbacks and has only gotten bigger and stronger. His performance is consistently excellent. Whenever I train with Chris, my motivation fucking sky rockets.

I’ll have what he’s having.

Favre on PR Friday

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Justin

PR FRIDAY – post all KINDS of personal records to the comments, yo.

I played football throughout high school like most guys (that’s American football for you Euro readers), and I played a year in college. The sport of football fits well with this whole attitude thing that 70’s Big has grown into. One player exudes this attitude into the way he plays, and that player is Brett Favre.

Favre is a tough quarterback, likes to compete, comes through in the clutch, and has fun doing it. He’s started over 300 games consecutively — an insane feat that is probably one of the most impressive sport statistics ever. Oh, and he’s coming back for a 20th year.

Favre seen here NOT wearing under armor

This isn’t news to anyone who casually follows football or the NFL. The sports “media” (code for “annoying bunch of pains in the asses”) have been talking non-stop about whether or not he was going to retire or not because of his surgically repaired ankle. Without any evidence of whether or not he would retire, that maintained priority over most sport networks. I remember seeing the dorky guy with the mustache on ESPN talking to Favre as he sat in his giant diesel truck. The guy was all, “This humidity is making my makeup smear. Do you think there are any scones left in the media van?” and Brett was all, “I’m gonna go edge my lawn and drink a few beers.”

Three weeks ago I predicted that Favre would play this season and he was essentially skipping training camp on purpose. And you know what? I don’t give a damn. He should skip training camp. Why would you want a 40 year old guy having multiple practices a day, stressing his body (that can’t accept the same stress it did five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago), adding to his year’s work load when you want him to still make an impact in late January? It’s physiology, folks.

Too much stress would weaken Favre throughout the season. Take into account the ankle surgery — that is another structure in his body that shouldn’t be stressed more than necessary. Guys who have been in the league for 12 or 15 years shouldn’t have to worry about training camp so that they can actually be effective during the season instead of burning out. And don’t try and pull that shit that he “plays quarterback” and the QB doesn’t go through a whole lot of physical trauma. Favre gets his ass kicked on a regular basis, but he gets back up and continues slinging the ball down field. That’s 70’s Big.

I’m rooting for Favre and the Vikings this season. I’m a Browns fan, but we all know how that is gonna end. We’ll be talking about football more, probably about once a week when the season gets underway. It’s a sport that is pretty relevant for us since it involves above average strength, power, speed, and conditioning. Irregardlessly, (a term that is used specifically to troll you) most of us will be talking about it anyway.
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Workshop Update

This weekend there is a workshop in Ft. Myers, FL. Next week there is one near Atlanta, GA. Here is the info:

10:00 AM, Saturday August 21st, 2010 in Fort Myers, FL
REGISTER HERE
CrossFit Fort Myers LLC
10970 S. Cleveland Ave. #103
Fort Myers, FL 33907
crossfitfortmyers@gmail.com | 239-634-9898

Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Body Pros, Alpharetta Location
To register, E-MAIL JUSTIN.
1750 Founders Parkway
Suite 130
Alpharetta, GA 30004-7600

Late edit:

As long as we’re talking football, you may as well watch this. I have to hate Brandon Jacobs because he plays for the Giants, but I have to admire him because he’s…Brandon Jacobs.
-Gant

WATCH

PR Friday

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Gant

Justin’s still on his trip, and I’ve watched the sunrise from my office desk twice this week, so sorry for the lack of posts. That needn’t stop you from posting your record exploits this week. Lifting, eating, or pillaging. Let’s have it.

Hopefully a lot of you are going to participate in the Super Total Challenge. I’m doing mine this weekend. Choose your attempts wisely…maybe two per lift. I suspect that my deadlift will take at least a 60 pound hit by the time I get there.

Since we’ve already phoned it in the rest of the week, I’ll leave you with someone else’s work. These are a random selection of articles from sites you may not read that contain some good info AKA five bookmarks I can post about in five minutes before getting back to work.

Vegetarianism and Veganism Are As Logical As a Poopie-Flavored Lollipop

This is an article about vegetarians from ChAoS & PAIN. He’s a smart guy that writes a good training blog. He reminds me of myself when I was younger (goes hard, doesn’t care for rest, pushes it to the max every damn time), but he’s a hell of a lot more outspoken.

Just Because You Have a Vagina…

This one is for the ladies or the post-op trannies among us. C&P drops some good knowledge about how women should train.

Rebuild Yourself with Complexes

This is from Dan John, the man who corrected my KB swing before I even got my first one to chest height. It’s hard to pick out one article from the DJ universe, but I chose this one because it made a significant impact on my training. This spring, I ditched a lot of my old training stuff to get in shape for spring judo. I replaced all of my conditioning (other than mat work) with barbell complexes and prowler work. I got more muscular (from the time under tension), leaner (duh), and in better condition than I have been in a long time. I won the three big spring tourneys in the masters expert division, my best result in years. This article helped me towards that goal.

7 minute rotator cuff solution

A concise prehab and rehab routine for the cuff.

DeFranco’s Agile 8

The solution to hip mobility problems.

Of course it wouldn’t be a 70sBig post if we didn’t embed a video. Here’s a typical bowl of meat for me at Genghis Grill. It’s not a PR, but it’s a good portion. If your bowl doesn’t look like this, you need to rethink your strategy.

PR Friday

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Justin

I don’t have much of a post for you. We traveled to California today, and we’re tired. AC and I trained last night (got done at midnight), got a couple hours of sleep, then flew to LAX. We’ll be doing the first 70’s Big Workshop of the trip on Saturday at CF Intrepid (on the coast next to Los Angeles, click here to register).

Post your PR’s to the comments. I haven’t had any PR’s this week, but it’s been good to train the Olympic lifts heavy. Here is a video of a 120kg snatch I dedicated to Brent. Shirtless lifting is often done in training halls and Brent and I have joked around about it before, so I felt the need to include him on this session in Georgia.

USAPL 2010 Raw Nationals

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Justin

USAPL Raw Nationals

My group of friends that are involved in this website are competing at USAPL Raw Nationals in Denver this weekend. The five us will be flying there tomorrow from different locations. I’ll be flying from Panama City, Florida where I recently moved to, AC will be flying out of Georgia (he goes to school at Georgia Southern and his family lives outside of Atlanta, and Chris, Mike and Brent will be flying out of Dallas (Mike and Chris are coming from Wichita Falls and Brent lives north of Dallas). There shouldn’t be any confusion as to where any of us live now.

Raw lifting in the USAPL is relatively new, and in order to qualify for nationals you simply have to total as a raw lifter in a USAPL meet. USAPL is prevalent for its “low end gear” competitions since it resides under the International Powerlifting Federation’s (IPF) ruling. None of the aforementioned lifters are interested in competing in gear, and it isn’t something I’m interested in doing or coaching either. We may look for a new federation in the near future, but as of right now we’re just focusing on this weekend.

Belligerent Brent will be competing in the 82.5 kg class and will lift at 9:00 AM on Saturday. He’s the only one of us that will be lifting on Saturday. I imagine there won’t be any hi-jinks on Saturday since AC (100kg, 9:00 AM), Mike and Chris (110kg and 125kg, both at 2:00 PM) all lift on Sunday. I’ll be coaching them in their sessions, and it will be a lot more easy going than the Texas State Meet was (results and write up).

Don’t fret, though; we’ll have cameras rolling and AC will be directing. There were some folks that didn’t know I was in Peoria for USA Weightlifting Senior Nationals and would have come had I mentioned it, so you guys are welcome to attend and cheer them on. All of my friends are young and pretty strong and should do decently at the meet.

Here is the Roster and Schedule.
I’ll be posting our progress on the 70’s Big Facebook and Twitter pages.
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New Stuff

And since I’m announcing things, I’ll direct your attention to the schedule for the 70’s Big Workshops on the Services page. AC and I will road trip through California in early August. There are two workshops during the weekend of August 7th near L.A. and Monterey, and we’ll help out with some coaching while we’re there. We don’t have a workshop scheduled the weekend of the 14th, so if anyone wants to host us we’ll be in the bay area.

Later in the month we’ll be in south Florida at Fort Myers, then I’ll be headed up to western Canada in Kelowna, BC in the last weekend of the month. We’ll also have some stuff going on in Atlanta as early as September, and I’ll announce that as soon as we finalize it.

We’re also going to start Live Webcast Presentations that are pertinent to both Workshop material and reader requests. The audience will be able to ask questions via chat throughout the presentation as well as a Q&A section at the end. It’s too early to tell if speedos will make an appearance.

On top of the webcast theme, we’re going to have Chat Room Q&A which will allow users to ask us questions on whatever; training, programming, advice on bullies, how to become a bully, etc. If it gets popular, we’ll have themes for the chats and perhaps special guests. The Live Webcast Presentations and Chat Room Q&A will give the readers who live out of driving/sailing distance to interact and get some help.

Lastly, I’m going to start doing Form Check Help. No, I can’t coach you without being in person and I may not even be able to make an impact, but I’ve periodically helped people in all of the barbell lifts by giving them a helpful cue online. You’ll send in a video, I’ll analyze it and then we’ll chat on the phone about it for a bit. If your squat is a fucking train wreck, then I’m not going to charge you and will try and find you a Starting Strength coach to help you out. These little form checks will be very cheap ($10 and under depending on how many videos) and hopefully it will help those of you that train on your own.
Note: You can still send in videos to the site or my e-mail, but I won’t give it much attention and will only give you a brief response. You won’t get the whole “phone call” and “descriptive explanation” thing. Unless I like you.
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PR Friday

Go forth and record your Personal Beasts in the comments throughout the weekend. I hope to hear about your gained weight, lifted weight, children tossed, clothing ripped, and cannonballs performed. I also want to congratulate all the people that have written in and told me about their first lifting competition and how much they enjoyed it. I really like hearing about that stuff — it makes me proud of you guys…even if you are a pain in the ass 85% of the time. I’ll be posting about these exploits soon.
Take care and enjoy your weekend.