“Come on you apes! You wanna live forever?”

PR Friday

As usual, post your training updates and PRs. Mingle with the crowd. Talk about the Olympics.

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge aimed at getting you to create a food log for three days (2 weekdays, 1 from the weekend). How many of you actually did this? This is the standard type of food log that a coach or trainer will ask from a client. It is a pretty good representation of how they eat (by looking at both week and weekend days), yet it isn’t more invasive than a few days. I’d suggest estimating your macro count for each meal and the day and see if you can improve it given what you want and need.

Next Week’s Challenge: Curl 40kg or 90 pounds for as many reps as possible at the end of one of your training sessions next week. And watch the Olympics. Post your reps to next week’s Q&A comments.

Week In Review

Monday there was a nerd-jizz-worthy post on hyperlordosis. Tuesday focused on helping powerlifters, CrossFitters, or strength trainees to transition into Olympic weightlifting. Wednesday talked about how much of an asshole Andrei Aramnau (won gold in 105kg class in Beijing) won’t be attending the 2012 Olympics, but it’s okay because he’s an asshole. Thursday was a “deep thoughts” moment from Dr. Kilgore. There were also posts on the live streams for the NAPF Powerlifting Championships (going on right now and throughout the weekend) as well as the Olympics (the opening ceremony is tonight).

Q&A

Justin,

A little context first I’m 32 and have a 13 year old brother, dad was active after he and mom split. So to the question at hand, I have a basic garage gym set up, rogue squat rack and bar w/some bumpers a pull up bar the basic crossfit set up. I’ve been doing “crossfit” for about 5 years now. My 13 year old brother is going to be starting football this year and wants to start working out. My old man not knowing any better almost bought him one of the cheap academy/sports place “home gym” things. I luckily advised him against this. But now he wants me to show the kid how to work out and set him up with some work outs. Stephen is 13 just started puberty and hit a growth spurt he is know about 5’8” and all skin and bones. I personally know how to do the lifts but would by no means call myself a coach or an expert. Would it be wise for me to teach him how to bench and squat correctly to knowledge and set him up with a squat rack and bench and pull up bar, or just run him through body weight movements and the like? I’ve tried finding some past q&a on the subject in your website because I know I’ve seen it before but just can’t seem to find it now. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

PS- doing the goruck in Austin in dec after reading your write up. Thanks for the extra push to get me to actually sign up for it.

Dear Mike,

The GoRuck will be a good time. I’ll be doing a post soon on preparing for one, so keep an eye out. In the mean time, I’d suggest walking around with about 30 pounds in a pack for about an hour once a week and add some calisthenics after you lift.

As for your little brov, the thing that will help him the most is to get stronger. That doesn’t mean you’ll ignore spatial awareness or body weight stuff, but, yes, it’ll be worth your (and his) time to learn how to squat and bench. This could be fun or frustrating for you, but with kids it’s best to be patient. As long as you have him a) squatting down all the way with b) his chest up, and c) his knees out, he’ll be fine. Remember, any weight room coaches he has will probably know less than you. As for bench, just get a little bit of pinching the shoulder blades together and work on keeping his elbows from flaring. If you need to, use a bit more of a narrow grip than you’d expect to help the elbows stay under control. Don’t progress him if they flare. This will build his triceps, which is important for any football position.

Basic agility work wouldn’t hurt him. You could teach him the “athletic position”. It’s easier than it sounds: the athlete is on the balls of their feet (which is the base of the toes), stance shoulder width, knees and hips slightly bent. It allows quick change of direction. You could have him do the standard “chop the feet” and do whatever. Side shuffle, back pedaling, up-downs, or whatever. 30 seconds to 60 seconds of whatever you think of with half that time in rest. Do this to finish his workouts off. Total training time could be less than an hour. Make sure he’s having fun and be encouraging on his progress. Teach him that this stuff will make him better at football. If he believes it, then he’ll be a better player automatically. Give him confidence and teach respect, and he’ll do well in football.

@70sBig Justin love your site. Question: tweaked my knee front squatting. Back of knee swelling but no bruising. Normal or am I a pussy?

—@NicMcCool

Dear @NicMcCool,

This type of injury is related to toe angle and squatting (see first and second posts). Most people see that we eventually should have the toes pointed relatively forward, yet forget that toe angle is dependent on mobility.

Last December I had a similar injury. I did 72 clean and jerks, 31 of them with 300 pounds, for the Movember fundraiser (I don’t recommend this). My knees were crusty after this Thursday night session at my buddy Adam’s Panhandle CrossFit. Saturday I did an hour long ruck, and then Monday I was trying to warm-up to do some light or medium squats. I was squatting the bar, and tweaked the rear of my knee, just like Nic did above.

The reason is torsion. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that we want torsion, AKA torque AKA rotational force, at the hip because it helps to actively engage more musculature and more efficiently distributes the force of squatting or deadlifting across the thigh and hip. However, if a lifter doesn’t have the mobility — or their mobility has artificially been reduced due to structural stress (as in my case with the 72 clean and jerks and rucking) — then torsion can actually be an injurious act.

In this case, I think it’s a straining of the popliteus, a small muscle on the back of the knee (see image to the left). See how it attaches medially below the knee and laterally above the knee? When the toes are more forward, the tibia will face relatively forward. Then when the knees are shoved out, the femur (thigh) will angle outwards. See how this would tug on the poplitues if the upper attachment was pulled out while the lower attachment was kept in?

The popliteus normally aids in un-locking the knee from terminal knee extension. When the knee is flexed, as is the case in the bottom of a squat, it is contracted. My reasoning is that the muscle is shortened (contracted) at the bottom of the squat, and then the attachment sites are pulled apart (described in the preceding paragraph), resulting in a strain. For me, I know that the rucking also “worked” or “fatigued” the poplitues since each step applies more than body weight on the structure (it inevitably distributes force during walking, yet adding 50 pounds more than body weight to an already tired structure (from the CJs) will weaken and damage it even more). When I went to do the squatting movement a couple of days later, my popliteus was “crusty”, which means it was damaged, inflamed, and tender. Then I contracted it with knee flexion and then shoved my knees out which applied tension on a shortened muscle belly, and voila, it was “yanked” AKA strained.

I see this as a potential problem for people attempting “forward toe angle” style squatting when they lack the mobility in their hips, knees, and ankles to accommodate it. That’s why my suggestion has always been to make small, gradual changes to anything, whether it be mechanics or programming. At the same time, you have to take into account the other things that are going on in your training or life, because a lack of recovery can open a trainee up to small injuries like my popliteal strain. This is why when I climbed a 9,712 ft mountain last Saturday, I rested for three total days before snatching and CJing up to my month’s goals (more on this in a later post).

As for your injury, Nic, I suggest icing it as much as you can for the first several days. Mob the upper calf area with compression tack and stretch (you can do this above the knee as well) or joint capsule work with a rolled up towel tucked inside the back of the knee while in knee flexion (kind of like this vid). Ease back into squatting with light, medium, and then heavy days.

for some background, i’m 20, 5’8″ 195lbs with 15%bf. ive been lifting since high school, and it was always for football performance, so it was mostly the power lifts and just power cleans, with football conditioning. after high school i started learning the oly lifts. i’ve been doing them for about a year now, still not the best mechanics and deffinately not with a lot of weight, but i really want to focus on them because i like them so much. ive checked out the pendlay outline for a beginner template and i made my own up. could you tell me how dumb or smart it is?
mon- snatch 5×3@80% 1rm, high pulls and hang cleans 5×2 (not with significant weight, just to reinforce mechanics) high bar squat 3×5. (recently switched from low bar about a month ago when i decided to focus on oly lifts) pull ups
tues- clean and jerk 5×3@80% 1rm. high snatch pulls and hang snatches 5×2, rdls 3×8, sprints
wed-bench 3×5, bent over bb rows 3×5, db bench 3×5, db rows 3×5, push ups, lower back and ab complex
thurs- snatch 2,2,1 @90% 1rm. high bar squat 3×5, high pulls and hang snatches, press 3×5 (was doing 3×3 with ascending sets, but neglecting presses for a while has left me weak on them and im gonna just do an LP with them till i hit a wall) chins, if i have time ill do a bb complex
fri- c and j 2,2,1 @90% 1rm, high snatch pull and hang snatches, deads 1×5, dips, sled pullslooking at it, it seems like a lot. maybe it is. i havent been able to actually do this program for longer than two weeks uninterrupted due to travel and vacation, but it hasnt been too much to handle for the time ive been able to do it. i feel like i can do this template, but if it seems like im gonna drive my dick into the ground just let me know.

Heil og sæl!

PR Friday

Post your training PR’s AND updates to the comments. This community can provide a lot if you do. If you don’t post, you’ll never know.

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge consisted of completing these foot drills daily. I highly recommend you make a habit out of doing this, especially if your feet and ankles are all wonky.

Next Week’s Challenge: Keep an honest to gods food log. At least do it for two week days and a day from the weekend. Tell us next week what you learn (not enough protein, too many carbs, etc.).

Week In Review

On Monday, we acknowledged our ENEMY against women lifting weights and learned why the misconceptions are silly. Tuesday we looked at whether or not the Olympic lifts should be included in powerlifting training. Wednesday we analyzed last weekend’s 2012 CrossFit Games and pontificated if they could have been better. Thursday I tried to teach you guys about a man you’ll never know, the legendary Mark Brown.

Read on to find out why this Indian is receiving a back breaker from this centuar

Q&A

From @btnewgent on Twitter:

@70sbig 3 wks. into TM & going great. Sprained my ankle Sun. walking down f’ing stairs. Any tips for rehabbing fast?

Dear @btnewgent,

Sprained ankles are no fun. I’ve sprained my right ankle pretty bad three times. The last time was the first CrossFit Football seminar and someone mocked me for being a pussy in the comments afterwards. This is a generic way that I would progress back into good ankle health. This assumes you haven’t broken any bones. Also, consult your doctor and sue him or yourself if you make things worse. Don’t listen to me. Ever. These progressions may take several days due to severity; rehab means you do a little bit, see how it responds and heals, then do a little more next time. Do not do too much, but be consistent and progressive with rehab.

– Ice it ASAP after the injury. It’s best if you can submerge your foot into a bucket of ice water. They make little rubber toe covers to protect your toes. Just don’t exceed 10 to 15 minutes if your toes aren’t covered.
– Ice it some more. You should be icing it, letting it return to normal, and icing it again as much as possible, especially during the first few days.
– Ice it. Hey, see the trend?
– If it’s bad enough where you can’t put any weight on it, then start doing ROM stuff prior to icing. Ankle circles, plantar flexion/dorsiflexion, inversion/eversion, or whatever you can handle. Note that pain during these movements probably won’t make it worse. You may need several exposures of this over a few days. Ice after ROM work.
– Load the ankle lightly. Do this by standing on the good foot, and giving the bad foot a little weight. The progression moves from a little weight, to equal weight, to more weight on the bad side, and finally to full weight on the bad side. Follow this up with ROM work and icing.
– Do the same loading with calf raises on a step. Progress from barely any load to full body weight load. Always follow up with ROM work and icing.
– Begin walking. Do not limp and do not look down. The neuromuscular connection will be, uh, fucked, and you need to reestablish it. Don’t hamper progress by allowing limp so that people realize that you’re hurt, but a heart-filled warrior. I would quantify the distance of the walking so it can be progressed. Finish with ROM work and icing.
– At this point you are fine to do non-explosive lifting and training. You might have been able to do some after the calf raise progression. Do ROM work and icing after training.
– The ankle will probably feel good after the walking progression. Do not start doing something idiotic like box jumps. Go through an “extra body weight loading” progression. Start this by pretending like you are going to jump, lowering your body as if you’re about to jump, extending the hips and knees, but do NOT leave the ground. This will probably apply a force 4 to 9 times your body weight on the structures (I’d have to check some data to be more specific). I would quantify reps of this. Eventually you can have short little hops and landings with loading similar to the standing and calf raise loading (more on healthy side, progressing to more on bad side). ROM and icing will obviously follow.
– Things are probably pretty good now. I’d jump rope as a warm-up and regularly do the foot drills before I do any lateral activity. Go ahead and ROM and ice it.

At this point, you should have gotten hundreds of ROM reps, which act like rehab in itself. I didn’t even mention using therabands (for resisted inversion/eversion/plantar flexion/dorsiflexion) or compression tack and stretch (“voodoo flossing”, a term I do not like), but those methods would work extremely well. If you followed a progression and didn’t act like a Tommy Tough Guy, then your ankle should be back to normal, and probably even better than before the injury. Icing can be irritating, but if you get an ice bag (at most $5) from any pharmacy or convenience store and wrap it with an ace bandage, it will stay on without effort (plus those ice bags don’t produce condensation or drip water).

Tom H.

Justin, would you program high bar back squats and low bar back squats in the same way (in terms of sets and reps) despite the mechanical differences and subsequent difference in stress upon the musculature?

Dear Tom,

The high and low bar will pretty much be trained the same. The systemic stress isn’t terribly different and it’s still back squatting. The only differences to note is how the rest of the program will change depending on which movement is used and what the goal is. For example, I often like to place RDLs with high bar squats because of the subtle difference in posterior chain work during the high bar. But, then again, I obviously like RDLs for low bar squatters too.

John F.

Is training in a headband and sunglasses considered ‘geared’ lifting?

Dear John,

Headband and sunglasses are essential “lifting gear” much like a good belt and lifting shoes. However, like a belt and shoes, they provide an ergonomic aid to the actual lifts. The specifics are a bit complicated, but the headband essentially increases cranial pressure which resonates down the cerebrospinal fluid into the spine. The fluid swells, ultimately increasing the pressure inside of the spine. This not only improves stability on the spine, but the vertebral segments will exponentially increase in density. It’s possible to receive a back breaker in wrestling and not experience any spinal damage after this type of training (see image below).

This was fun to google.

The sunglasses function in a different way. High levels of retina photon exposure can be debilitating to power output and absolute strength, so it’s only natural that sunglasses would limit this. Polarized sunglasses are preferable as the increase the clarity of the site picture, ultimately making it easier to balance and stabilize with a good point of reference. This assumes that the cervical spine is in neutral alignment — if it’s in extension, then it’ll complicate the cerebrospinal pressure increase and result in your rectum blowing out of your asshole.

Eric R.

I’ve been doing CrossFit for about 2 years now. 6 months ago, these were my numbers: 500lb DL, 380lb HBBS, 175lb SP, 255lb BP. I’ve kind of fallen off a steady workout regimen since returning stateside. I want to get back into it but now I want to focus more on raw strength. Where’s the best place to start? Specifically, any books or websites that spell it out for me? Thanks.

Dear Eric,

I am receiving a lot of these messages lately. Eric is a bit more specific, but they often ask, “Where do I start?” with respect to strength training. First, learn what a linear progression is. Second, try to learn how to program. I try very hard to get this across on this website, but I also spend a lot of time teaching it in my books (solo or with other authors). You shouldn’t be picking a program and following it like a drone. I know that’s what you want, because you don’t want to think about your training and just be told what to do, but that won’t work. You either need to pay someone to do it for you (you can pay me if you want, or attend a gym with a good coach if you’re lucky) or learn how to do it on your own. It basically means you’ll use a programming template and make subtle changes to it when necessary.

I think FIT is a good start on all things programming, because it touches on different components of fitness and training; there are extensive strength and endurance chapters. You won’t believe me, but I’m not just saying that because I helped write it (I don’t get as much money from you buying FIT as I do one of my solo books); I’m saying it because it is a good resource. My goal is to give you tools that you can use to work on your own program. Other guys out there will just give you a program and tell you to do it. The program will probably work, but it’s not specific to what will be optimal for you, because you are an individual.

In reality, all of this shit has been pretty much the same for over 50 years. We call things different names, make some tweaks here and there, but it all focuses on applying an adaptive stress based on your current state of adaptation. Nothing more, nothing less. If that doesn’t make sense, then get reading.

PR Friday

Join the fun and post your training PR’s and updates to the comments. I PR’d by driving 2,000 miles across the country (4 days of driving) — I do not recommend this. If there was ever a time to learn a lesson from Justin doing something stupid, it is now. Pay someone else to move yo’ shit. It continued to destroy my lifting (travelling and GoRuck Challenge started that), reduced my food intake, ruined my sleeping ability, and annihilated my mobility. Pay someone else to move your stuff, trust me.

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge called you to help a stranger by lifting something heavy and declining compensation. Did you get a chance to do so? That’s nice, Leroy.

Next Week’s Challenge:

Don’t let this be you in your training:

Week In Review

Last weekend the site theme was updated. This was long over due and something I have been working off-and-on. Thanks to Nick and Lucas (readers of the site) at Nytrix Media. If you have web design needs, then hit these fellas up. There will be a few more modifications, but the main updates are a better menu system and threaded comments. The threaded comments will allow for more seamless conversations.

Monday was a quick post on Beverly Crawford’s big squatting ability, but she also pulls some heavy weight. Tuesday was a quick post I wrote at 3AM (was travelling) about some of the concepts I teach at the seminars about belts, and it turned out to be a hot little number. Wednesday was the 4th of July, and I posted the Declaration of Independence (mandatory reading). Thursday was a blast from the past; I put up a story Jacob Cloud wrote in 2009 to which he responded, “Aww shucks. Thanks, Justin. Nice to look back a couple years and see that, though older, I’m hairier, leaner, stronger, and oh yeah, I have more hair. Heck, Floyd even has a new engine, but is still tickin’. Unfortunately, the jorts ripped in half long ago.”

Q&A

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PR Friday

The weekly tradition continues. Post your PR’s or training updates. I PR’d by completing every lift in the universe while loading a moving truck yesterday for 7 hours. Squats, presses, deadlifts, cleans, continental cleans, farmer’s, pinch grip, curls, rows, RDLs, good mornings, curls, curls, curls, curls, curls, curls, and curls.

Chris at the seminar in Tucson earlier this month

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge asked you to “put 25 to 35 pounds in a pack, wear it on your back, and walk for 30 to 60 minutes non-stop on at least one day”. When I made this ‘challenge’, it was more so to give you an appreciation of the military. However, in light of my interests in hiking, survival, guns, and EDC, it’s an activity that would only help your ability to “go”. Under any worst case scenario — zombies, nuclear war, the apocalypse, alien invasion, etc. — you will need to have basic survival and movement capabilities, the kind that revolve around carrying your supplies and moving the fuck out. Did anyone complete the challenge? I would expect a report of sprouting more chin hairs, cause there’s something manly about carrying relatively heavy shit around.

Next Week’s Challenge:
Go out of your way to help a stranger by lifting something heavy. Do not accept a reward.
I know, I know, it almost sounds like we’re starting a fight club or something. My ‘job’ is centered around helping people, but I help people I don’t know all of the time. I’ve returned wallets full of money, helped push cars and trucks out of the road, picked things up and put them down, and laughed when a girl fell on the stairs. Last year while visiting in Texas, in a 12 hour period I helped push two vehicles to a gas station. Do it.

Weekly Recap

On Tuesday there was a quick post on obscene levels of motivation from Ben and CC as well as a post on using crappy equipment. The latter post’s comments were full of people erroneously equating a cheap econo bar with a Texas deadlifting bar. On Thursday I linked to a preview post for the lifting at the 2012 London Games that Peter Upham wrote. Thursday was a quick post on the new “70’s Big Insiders Newsletter” that will be sent out several times a month; read more here.

Q&A

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