Yesterday I told you to enjoy your holiday break, but to reflect on 2013’s training. Now I want to hear what it is you accomplished. Though PR Fridays have been less frequent, they historically provide a venue to talk about your own weekly improvement or personal records. Let’s face it, sometimes your wife (husband?) or co-workers just don’t give a shit or understand what it’s like to get a 10 lb deadlift PR, so sharing it with other lifters nets an appropriate response.
Look back over 2013 and think about what you accomplished. Did elevate your training to the next level? Did you compete? Did you experience any injuries? Let us know how it went. Training is intimately related with what else is going on in your life, so recap the non-training part of your life. Did you get married (I did), graduate, or get a new job? All of these things effect your training but also count as leveling up in life.
Lifting isn’t just something we do because we love it; we need to do it. It’s the great leveler, the thing that brings you back to reality or reminds you how progress requires blood and sweat. The lessons under the bar have direct application in life’s success; let us know how training has influenced your life in 2013.
PR Friday — Post training updates, PR’s, and what you are going to do to become more of a man in the comments (read this post first).
Quick Tip #3 — Be A God Damn Man
Look, I know the website has been in anaphylaxis. Shit ain’t the same, right? Well that’s fucking BULLSHIT. We need some adrenaline injected into our veins. We needed to be reminded of why we’re here. I’m loaded up on copious amounts of coffee and am listening to heavy metal. No, not the pussy-ass new-age shit like Disturbed that predicates itself on being angry at their mom for catching them wanking into their favorite tube sock. I’m talking about Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, possibly some Mötley Crüe. Grit, attitude, and uppercuts.
You know, the qualities that make a god damn Man. But what is a man?
What makes a man, is it the power in his hands? Is it his quest for glory? Give it all you’ve got, to fight to the top, So we can know your story.
– Now You’re A Man
What a nice summary. A man fights for glory. He’s doing everything he can to beat the FUCKING SHIT out of every day to meet his goals, to be successful. A wiser feller than myself once said, “Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.” That means some days you’ll get elbow dropped from the top rope. But a man — a true hairy-chested sexual Tyrannosaurus — will wipe the blood and shame off his brow, get up, shake the top rope like an asshole, and get in the ring one more time. That’s what a man is.
Why is it so important to be a man? Aside from the intuitive notion that being a man is just, true, and innate, it’s the desire for success that makes it important. Life is a wonderfully beautiful thing; to sit idle like the oily surface of a swamp is a crime. Criminal is the man who doesn’t who doesn’t constantly strive for success, who doesn’t crave experience, and who doesn’t want it all. Criminal are the timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Are you on the path to getting whatever the hell it is that you want? If you could be doing more, then you need to slam your fist down onto a hard wood table, lift the table up to the heavens, and then break it in half over your head. Take these lumber pieces and light them on fire. Breathe the smoke before screaming as loud as you can. This will increase your testosterone levels by 37% and immediately make you more attractive to the opposite sex (women love the smell of “outside”).
Now get on track. What do you want to be? Need to be? What challenges sit between you and manliness? I understand some of you can’t just quit your job or family to try and choke slam your truest desire; that’s why 70’s Big is here for you. Because at the very least you can step into a weight room, load the bar, and move some god damn iron. Getting stronger requires commitment and desire. It’s never-ending; you can’t be “too strong”. It teaches the mentality that meeting your goals is hard, grinding work, but you can face each step with an animalistic intensity. You know that attacking the bar is more successful than just trying to move it. Your mindset before each session, set, and repetition is going to dictate how badly you destroy it. The same concept applies to life; attack your non-lifting goals with the same berserking intensity and you’ll have a hard time failing.
While being a man is chopping wood, bulging quadriceps, juggling beer kegs, John McCain, and bending re-bar, anybody can be a man by taking a risk and challenging themselves. Have you been lifting in the gym for a year? Sign up for a meet and put your ass on the line. Bored with your job? Fucking do something about it. Be innovative, create your own job, make your company better, or say, “Fuck it,” and do something else.
Everybody has something locked away in their mind that they wish they would have done or wish they had the balls to try. Go and do it. Explore the world, compete, and challenge yourself. If life takes a fat shit on you (as it often does), wipe it off, get back up, and keep striding forward. Be a god damn man.
Post a comment about what you are going to do in order to be more of a man — NOT what you are already doing, but something that you can and will do in the future.
Quick Tip #2 Lots of ideas and little time means you will get a quick tip with each PR Friday post.
Set 9 hours aside in your schedule solely for sleep. Everybody knows sleep is important, but it’s usually the recovery component that lifters willingly sacrifice. The irony is that it’s arguably the most important aspect of getting stronger.
Getting at least 8 hours of actual sleep spurns hormonal processes that aid recovery and create an efficient body. It not only helps your last recovery session, but it’s preparing you to perform optimally in the next session. As I explain in “Importance of Sleep“, you can’t just oversleep in a single night to make up for several nights of poor sleep. Get it in your head that “recovery components” like macro nutrient intake, hydration, mobility, and sleep need to be implemented chronically to reap their true benefit. Start this weekend by fully resting, and when your school or work week starts, manage your time to have nyyyyyyne hours of pillow time.
Here, two puppies demonstrate how to sleep.
Discuss your training week and highlight your recent PR’s in the comments.
Quick Tip #1 Lots of ideas and little time means you will get a quick tip with each PR Friday post.
Consider adding an agility work into your program, especially if you aren’t signed up for any competitions or meets. Since you aren’t locked into peaking for an event, you can afford to add training to develop non-strength physical attributes.
In FIT we define fitness as strength, mobility, and endurance (this is also the foundation for performance). Navigating your body through space is an element of mobility, and it shouldn’t be ignored. The easiest way to throw it in is part of your warm-up. Add some tuck jumps, carioca, side shuffles, and power skips into your warm-up and you’ll get a little dose of explosiveness and lateral movement. Will it turn you into an athlete? No. Will it help make you a bit more athletic if you’re a goon? Yeah. More importantly it will let your joints and structures in the legs adapt to some non-lifting and non-linear activity. Joints that are able to withstand explosive forces are less prone to injury, something that will be a key in longevity (more on this next week). The basic movements above are not invasive, easy to do, and don’t take a lot of time if you do a few sets of each. If you don’t have great joint mobility (range of motion), then use movement prep instead of agility work to help rehab your body.
Ladder work is another great agility tool.
Discuss your training week and highlight your weekly Personal Records in the comments.
2013 has been busy. Some of you regular readers may be wondering, “What the PISS is going on?” I’ve just been busy with a job that doesn’t leave a lot of free time. That being said, I’ve got some things planned for 70’s Big.
First, posts will pick back up a little bit. I’ve got at least seven topics to write about right now, and plenty of stuff I’ve been mulling over. The goal is to get two posts up a week. I’ll admit it’s hard to get topics up with a hectic schedule, but it is my doody. Ahem; duty.
Second, I’m putting together the logistics to start doing a regular podcast again. Mike and I will be doing it, and it’ll function similar to the Paleo Solution podcast with a main topic of the day followed by a reader submitted Q&A. The availability of the show will depend on scheduling, but I at least want it to be every other week with the hope of doing it every week. You can listen to past shows with the old show format by searching “70’s Big Radio” on iTunes.
Third, I’m working on some ways that will allow our community to interact and mingle a bit better. The best part about 70’s Big is that it’s fun getting to chat with other lifters, male or female, and talk about this big part of our lives that ‘normal people’ just don’t understand.
Fourth, 70’s Big is still open for content submissions. If you have images or links to share, just throw them up on the Facebook Fan Page and we’ll re-post them for everyone to see.
My goal is to teach readers about training, lifting mechanics, anatomy, physiology, programming, nutrition, recovery, mobility, performance enhancement, and so on while providing a dash of entertainment. Expect to see a little push out of 70’s Big as the year winds down, and hopefully we’ll have some fun along the way.
And we need this education. Look at this stupid-ass product that Sorinex is selling from their website. It’s a back extension bench with a swiss ball on it. For 1,000 doll hairs. (Pictured below to avoid giving the company hits on their site.)
This is what we’re up against.
For PR Friday, discuss your training week and highlight your week’s Personal Records.
