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:
This is Brent; 5’5″ of Korean anger and disappoint.
You guys will never believe all of the Brent look-a-likes I’ve been running into! For those of you that have been living under a stupid rock, Brent is my friend (and you’re not). He became infamous via his training log, and nowadays is pretending to run MopeilityWOD.com. He also sells some pretty sweet shirts HERE. To give you some perspective, I’ve had a 48 year old Australian man ask me, “Does Brent really act like that in real life?”
Anyway, I’ve strangely noticed how so many people out in the world look like Brent Kim. In June, Chris and I took this photo with our waiter, because he bore a striking resemblance to the sexually frustrated Brent Kim.
Whether or not this waiter is Mexican is immaterial
While I was in Denver, Shawn, Jeremy, Dan, and I continuously thought Brent was in our presence. We decided to take some pictures with these look-a-likes. Here are our findings.
This fun loving guy looks EXACTLY like Brent.
After some more beers at the Great American Beer Festival, this guy looked even MORE like Brent.
While sprinting back to our hotel, we found this guy stumbling around incoherently. Jeremy told him to flex, and he just yelled. Oh, and he looks EXACTLY like Brent.
On our way to breakfast the next morning, we found this studly Brent look-a-like.
We couldn’t believe how many Brent Look-a-likes we found! I can assure you that as I encounter them, I will photograph and document the moment for your viewing pleasure. If you happen to take any pictures with guys that look like Brent, then post the pictures on the 70’s Big Facebook or Twitter.
When the 70s big gang went to USAPL Raw Nationals earlier this year, I met a girl there named Becca. She was a pretty lady lifting in the women’s session, and I was paying a lot of attention to her pretty much as soon as she entered my field of vision. I was paying so much attention to her that Justin had to remind me, “You realize you’re currently at a meet, right?” as he was pacing me through my squat warm ups.
Many of you won’t be surprised at my response – “Irrelevant, I can squat 200k in my sleep. First attempt will be ez pz.”
“It is a chore to be your friend,” Justin said.
Justin would use that line a lot throughout the weekend, like when he asked me how he could get my adrenaline going before my third attempt lifts:
“Just tell me I’ll never see her again.”
“Thin ice, Brent Kim. Thin ice.”
To add to the fact that this chick was pretty, she was also a competent lifter with some solid mechanics. I asked her what she finished with after her squats, and she told me that she didn’t know – her parental units, who were handling her, wouldn’t tell her what she was lifting on the platform because she has a habit of over thinking the weight. But when she went in blind, and just methodically repeated what she did in the warm up room, she performed well. I knew instantly that I loved everything about her. She finished with a 286lbs squat, 171lbs bench, and 303lbs deadlift in the women’s 181lbs class. I was sold. Didn’t think I could ask for digits because she was with her parental units, but Justin encouraged me to tell her about 70s big – “Do it or I’ll do it for you” – and I would try to stalk her on facebook. I would ultimately fail, and feel that I would never see her again, but she ended up finding me and after a month or two of chatting decided we should hang out.
We’re a pretty typical, gross couple now, i.e. holding hands in public, which I think is awesome, and we decided it’d be a pretty cool date if I came to lift in Maryland’s state powerlifting meet with her.
I ended up not being able to lift with her because of the 60 lifter cap, and I was a guest lifter so in-state lifter entries take priority over mine, but I still went to see her and help out at the meet.
I loaded and spotted for probably a third of the meet, which was a fair amount of work, partially because a lot of state records were being broken at this meet and there was a fairly strong talent pool present, but pretty satisfying at the end of the day when it was all over. This is the first meet I’ve ever been to in which I did not lift. Met quite a few people from 70sbig, and you can hear all about their exploits in the comment threads of previous posts. Most notable was something that JMOvechkin said to me as I was passing by, “Spotting isn’t a sport,” which I thought was FUCKING awesome.
His brother also asked me if he should take his third deadlift attempt, after rating his second attempt at 501lbs to be a 9/10 difficulty.
“You’re asking me if you should just stop at your second attempt?”
“Yeah.”
“Uhhh I’m never going to tell you to not take a third attempt, but I’m reckless. Quitting isn’t a sport.”
“Yeah,” he answered, “And I’m not a quitter.”
Boom? Boom.
He ended up pulling 507lbs for his final attempt of the meet.
Becca, who was the main motivation for me being at the meet, also produced a strong performance despite not making weight by 2lbs. She dropped 11lbs in about a week, but started cutting too late. Throw in about a hundred other factors that would screw with her preparation in the final days leading up to the meet, and things didn’t look good. She ended up lifting as an extra, but would break some PRs despite horrendous rest and recovery.
I asked her to type a write up for her meet experience, but she declined and asked me to do it instead, so –
She went 9 for 9, and squatted 281lbs pretty easily. Her squats were iffy in the weeks leading up to the meet so her step-dad and coach was conservative here, but she PRed by 11lbs in the bench press with 182lbs, and 17lbs in the deadlift with 320lbs. I loaded and spotted all of her attempts and it was pretty sweet to watch my girlfriend wreck shit. She brought some intensity into her third attempts, which is apparently rare – Becca says that she’s never made noises when she lifted, but she was pretty fierce, especially with her third attempt bench and deadlift. Her efforts would earn her best lifter. I’m pretty proud of her, and seeing her commit to every single lift reaffirmed that I like everything about her. Watching her on the platform reminded me why my heart yearned for her in the beginning. You can tell a lot about a girl from how she performs under the bar at a meet.
It would have been a lot cooler if I was lifting at this meet, but can’t really complain that I still got to help with keeping the meet operational. “Giving back to the sport” is pretty pretentious and sentimental, and Brent Kim doesn’t really do sentimental, but generally speaking, raw powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting wouldn’t survive in the US without a lot of volunteer effort. Running meets is a lot of work, and in Olympic weightlifting it’s pretty common that meet organizers lose money with the event. But the athletes need to compete, and someone has to put in the money and hours and not expect to get very much in return. It was a good experience to be on the other side of things, “the strength training community” means a lot more when a bunch of powerlifters work together to run a meet.
In short, strength training is love, quitting isn’t a sport, and help your fellow man.
Delta Command out. (When I called Justin to let him know I would be writing an article for the site, I told him, “Hunter Two-One this is Delta Command, we’ll be taking over operations on the battlefield until the situation’s been brought under control.”)
70’s Big may cause adverse effects in your life by changing your physique and/or mentality. Take careful note of these possibilities and verify that you are prepared for such changes.
Abnormal Increases In Size
Beginning a proper quest to 70’s Big will result in exceptional increases in muscular development. This may cause problems if you are A) emo, B) attend art school, or C) live in California or Europe. Expect the following:
– you will fill out your 70’s Big shirts
– your pants will no longer fit
– there is a 50% chance that your clothing will rip and fall right off of your body in fear
– your underwear/spandex will become uncomfortable unless you upgrade
– if you wear swim trunks with the netting on the inside, it will wedge up your butt crack because you’ll have amazing glutes (if I do say so myself)
– dress shirts will not fit around your neck, even if you get fitted for a tux/suit for the specific reason of having it fit (he even measured my neck, wtf?)
Uncomfortable Gains In Strength
Your abnormal size gains express an uncomfortable (dare I say uncanny?) increase in strength. Take caution with your daily activities as they are now a smaller percentage of your absolute strength. Beware of the following:
– hug your lady carefully lest you suffocate her (don’t be Lennie Small)
– avoid fine China
– exhibit caution when pretending to be a zombie in order to show your friends what it would be like to be attacked by an intense zombie…who lifts weights…
– consider projectile motion trajectory when tossing children in the pool; anything other than a resultant vector in the vertical direction could land the child on the roof, a busy highway, or a grizzly bear den
– ready yourself for accusations of steroids or alien anal probing, for it is unnatural to the average person that you have doubled your squat and gained 25 pounds of muscle in a couple of months
Stark Changes In Personality
With this size and strength you will be overcome with a sense of honor and pride that throws itself intensely into tasks of self betterment. You will find yourself:
– knocking down personal goals
– ready to take on the trials of life
– and doing so with an intensity and focus that ripples the earth to its iron-nickel alloy core
Heed this warning; 70’s Big is a process that results in unfathomable changes.
I hate the Steelers, but DE Brett Keisel has a respectable beard
Story
In the fall of 2008, I was getting bored with the bodybuilding routine I was doing. It had been a few years since I played (very small-time) football in college and intramural sports were the only thing I “competed” in. I decided I wanted more of a performance type training program because I didn’t want to lose my athletic ability. My friend Shawn and I were catching a pump in our workout (it was probably arms, and I was probably pissed), and I spontaneously decided I wanted to run a mile.
You see, back in high school I could run a mile close to 6 minutes routinely (I weighed between 185-195 and played linebacker). I wanted to go upstairs to the indoor track and run a mile in 6 minutes. I don’t know why, but I just wanted to know if I “still had it” I guess. This turned out to be one of the worst experiences ever, and I want you to learn why.
The recreation facilities indoor track was short; it would take 9 laps to complete a mile. It was 15 minutes until the top of the hour, and I had to train someone…so I needed to be quick. I figured that was plenty of time; a few minutes of loosening up, run the mile, change clothes, and get started. Yeah, not so much.
I loosed up briefly (I like dynamic stretching, still do), readied my wrist watch, and stepped onto the track. I beeped my watch and got started at a pretty good click. I’ve got this pretty good pace, and I completed lap one, no big deal. Now, stop and imagine this. There’s this 203 pound guy running on the indoor track. Well, running isn’t the right word, I’m kind of bounding along. And then I have to dodge a person every now and then (there were a few walkers and joggers, what have you). Those pedestrians see me repeatedly, and I’m making more of a fuss each time.
You see, the first two laps weren’t that big of a deal, but all kinds of shit was going on in my body. Lactic acid started filling in my legs. The phospho creatine system no longer could supply ATP at my work load, and the glycolitic system was also unable to do much since I really hadn’t trained it all that much — especially at this workload. It turns out that riding a bike to class isn’t really an adaptive stress.
I don’t remember what happened on the middle laps, but I do remember lap 8 and 9 (this is Brent’s favorite part of the story). At this point, I’m convinced I’m going to die. I felt as if I was breathing through a snorkel and mask. My legs didn’t want to move. But I pushed ahead as hard as I could. By god I wanted to get that 6 minute mile. My bounding turns into more of a blundering as I’m struggling to keep my velocity. My breathing turns into gigantic rhinoceros breaths; I sounded like a cow giving a horned mating call to the African plains. Every time I breathed out it was a mixture of forced expiration and a sharp moan. As I neared the end it became gorilla-like, frantic. I pounded each step and pushed forward as hard as I could. Remember, there are people on the track, so they’re seeing this dude finishing a mile like he’s sprinting the last leg of the Badwater Marathon. I probably looked like an asshole.
I blew by the finish line and beeped my watch. I didn’t fall down on the ground (at this point in my life, it had never occurred to me to fall on the ground after doing something difficult; athletes usually stay on their feet because the game isn’t over), and waved my watch in front of my face. It read “5:31”. Elation. I did it. I continued to hyperventilate forever, but I walked over and told some of my friends who worked at the facility my time. I continuously said, “I’m not doing that ever again. Ever.” I wish I could say this was the end of the story, but the worst part hasn’t even happened yet.
I don’t know if any of you have done something intense when you aren’t adapted to it at all, but your body is confused. It experiences this work load, this stress that it isn’t accustomed to, and there are repercussions for this stupidity. My stomach started bubbling. I sneezed. I was still sweating profusely, still breathing hard, but my system seemed to be shutting down. My eyes became swollen, and my stomach bubbled. Again.
“Oh my god, I’m not gonna make it to the toilet,” is a censored version of what I thought to myself. I staggered to the bathroom, a journey that was more difficult than lap number 9. I sneezed. Again and again. As I walked into the bathroom I sneezed uncontrollably. Snot poured out of my nose and probably flew everywhere. The constant sneezing seemed to be shaking up the apparent chemical reaction in my stomach. I’m not going to explain in detail what happened, but it was very similar to THIS, yet way worse because I was constantly sneezing. I lost count at 47 sneezes.
I sat on the toilet for at least 15 minutes. After I finally stopped sneezing (after what seemed like half an hour), I sat there, sweating, exhausted, and nauseated. What happened next is the worst part about all of this; my sinuses turned into concrete. Everything in my head cemented itself into place and I could only breathe out of my throat. My eyes felt like they were being pushed forward, like when you shoot ping pong balls out of those air guns. I washed myself, dressed myself, and went downstairs to my personal training client 18 minutes after the top of the hour. I could talk, but I was so congested that I sounded like Meg Ryan if she were to get beaten with a golf club and then waterboarded.
So what in the hell is the moral of the story? When you’re doing something new, or something you haven’t done in a long time (i.e. you are unadapted to it), ease into the activity over time. If you have been lifting and want to be able to run a mile without feeling like crap, then do a light walk/run fartlek workout. If you’re wanting to do hill sprints on sand and haven’t even ran yet, then get adapted to running before sprinting. In my example above, I experienced systemic responses because I wasn’t systemically ready for it (by the way, you have to be strong enough to push yourself hard enough to get systemically fucked up, if you’re weak then it isn’t possible). The two running examples in this paragraph are more relevant to the localized structural stress in your joints and legs. You don’t want to have sore knees from jogging a mile when you haven’t ran in a year and half, and you certainly don’t want to pull a muscle trying to sprint since it will limit all of your other training too.
Don’t be stupid or stubborn; ease yourself into new activity. If you don’t, you can have a miserable experience like I did one night, or you’ll cause an injury that will last longer than sitting on the toilet. In either case, bad programming is to fault. You’ve been warned.
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