On 22 September 2009 this website launched in order to educate people about strength and conditioning, but entertain them at the same time. The focus was on being big, muscular, and strong in a time dominated by emaciation. Women were encouraged to train, men were encouraged to pound the calories, and everyone was pushed into competition.

Over the years the site has evolved due to a combination of getting jaded with the same kindergarten material available across the “training-sphere” as well as an obligation to not only teach people to get strong, but to keep them healthy through life. I always say, we should all aim to bang our significant other when deep into our 80s. The basic tenants of 70sBig.com remain the same:

– commit to training with reckless intensity
– develop a physique built with performance instead of vanity
– help encourage others in their training
– enter competition for ultimate introspection
– teach and learn about strength and conditioning, nutrition, anatomy, physiology, fitness, etc.
– tirelessly lead the charge to end misconceptions about females and lifting
– actively work towards changing societal body image
– have a gods damn good time doing it

70’s Big crew and friends from USAPL Raw Nationals in August

It’s always been my intention — and my bane — to help people through 70sBig.com. I hope whoever you are, whether you’ve been here since day one or just started reading yesterday, you have gained benefit through this website. I regularly work to improve our knowledge and synthesize material you can implement into your own training and life.

This wouldn’t be possible without all of you. I want to thank all of the readers, new and old. I consider you a part of the 70’s Big Community, one full of crazy assholes who are some of the nicest, hard working, and amusing folks around. The reach of 70’s Big is broad, and it’s comforting to know that we can go almost anywhere in the world, talk about 70’s Big and immediately have a bond with a stranger. One time somebody, who I’ve still yet to meet, told me in an e-mail, “70’s Big takes care of their own.” That’s a comforting thought; we’re building something really cool here. This is as much your birthday as it is mine.

To all of my friends around the world — whether I’ve met you or not, held a seminar in your gym, trained with you, or lectured to your unit — thanks for making this fun. And to my close friends who were integral in the creation of this website: thanks for being there for me with your absurd, unique, and borderline irritating personality.

The future is always bright to people who attack it with fervor. 70’s Big will always be around to educate, entertain, and irritate you. The idea of communicating with all of you assholes through old age is, at the very least, a comforting thought.

Train hard, get big. Get 70’s Big.

Happy Birthday

On this day 11 years ago the world was changed.

Families were broken, people passed away, others survived, and we all felt the pain of those heartless terrorist attacks. If you lost someone on that day, then I am sorry that you must go through the public pain every year of remembering history’s events.

I’ve toured the FBI building in Washington D.C., and they have a special room dedicated to this day. I was there in June for the second time. Upon entering there is a Star Spangled Banner, an American flag…that was pulled from the wreckage of the twin towers. My heart sinks thinking about walking into that room, knowing it would be there and seeing how dirty, torn, and tattered the flag is. Tears well in my eyes as I write this thinking of the survivors taking that beaten flag and thrusting it high into the air. This flag says that we were knocked down, but Americans always get back up.

The flag that was pulled from the twin tower wreckage on display in the FBI building

Across the room, there are pieces of one of the planes that hit the towers. I touched this twisted steel unemotionally knowing that it played a part in destruction. Across the room there are two murals for the fallen. One of them has the names listed in very small font. Thousands of names. The other has a small thumbnail picture of their face. There are so many faces, and once you lean closer, you can see each and every one of them. They are regular people. Fathers. Mothers. Daughters. Sons. A moustached man with glasses drinking a beer. A black woman with her children. A young, pretty blonde woman. I couldn’t take it, I had to walk away. These were normal people who were slaughtered because of an extreme ideology.

On the other side of the room, there is a letter. It wasn’t a letter from the fallen or a survivor. It was the letter given to the hijackers with their explicit orders on what to do. It explained how if they felt fear, that they should pray and rejoice in their martyrdom. It talked about the ritual in cleaning their knives, shaving their bodies, and oiling their skin. It explained how they should, before impact of their target, open their shirts and give themselves to Allah. Six pages of this. As I read, I broiled.

Later that day, I stood in the Pentagon looking out a window at the exact flight line the plane took to crash into the building. The room I was in is now a memorial room, but 11 years ago today it was completely destroyed. Majors and Colonels and office aides were killed. Some survived on the mere chance that they got up to refill their coffee or use the bathroom. Others sat at their desk and were relatively unhurt. Death was random, sporadic. Earlier in the day I touched a piece of the Pentagon wreckage in the 9/11 room in the FBI building. Then I stood in the building, imagining some of the world’s leaders wiped away in an instant. As I stood, I broiled.

America will forever remember this day, the eleventh of September. But I hope that you remember why it occurred and what it still means ever year. I don’t intend for this to be political, but what we call “Nine Eleven” occurred because there are bad people in the world who actively want to do bad things to western society, especially America.

This hate didn’t begin in 2001, and the hijacked planes were not the first attempt at killing Americans. There was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 African embassy bombings, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that preceded the 11 September 2011 attacks (and many more smaller, uncharted attacks). The toppling of the towers and the crash into the Pentagon were the final straw for the American people. We went to war.

More to the point, the Afghanistan war is not over; the conflict against terrorist organizations is not over. Conventional forces try to secure regions and nation build. Special Operations hunt the bad guys down. ‘Other’ personnel support it all in their own way. Every week a soldier dies. Every week more than one soldier loses a leg from IED detonations. There are fire fights, there are victories, and there are deaths. It’s a forgotten war. Many are quick to clamor that we don’t have any business in Afghanistan, that it’s a lost cause. Yet the Taliban and other terrorist organizations are poised to once again take control if we let them. There’s benefit in having allies in the Middle East, especially when Iraq and Afghanistan are pivots in the midst of a callous region.

We are comfortable in our lives. The economy slowly grows, we have a new election that focuses on class warfare instead of worrying about the national debt or how events across the world could have a bigger impact on our economy. We have that luxury because we are free. Yet too many people forget that there are bad people actively trying to kill us every day. 

And there are bad mother fuckers — Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians, and more — who are hunting them down.

And there are lesser known individuals, members of other government agencies who protect us too. I’ve seen the recent cases on display of the terrorists the FBI have thwarted. One case includes American citizens who bought into extremist cause to bring death and destruction to other innocent Americans. It happens regularly. Even the Ft. Hood shooter was in contact with Al Queda leaders.

We have a false sense of security because a) we have become complacent in the long years since 2001 and b) there are men and women — military, government, civilian, or otherwise — who successfully protect this and other countries.

Today we shall remember the fallen. However, as we sit nice and cozy at our computers, remember that the war isn’t over. Americans die daily, and yes, it is indirectly to protect you and I. Remember the warriors — whether they wield keyboards or guns — that have and will make it possible for us to only have one memorial from a terrorist attack each year.

Lest we forget…

As you celebrate traditions with friends and family, take a few minutes to reflect on the impact of this day. It’s more than just historical significance; it represents the foundation of our liberty, our freedom. Many complain about the state or future of our country, yet the United States of America is a wonderful place to live. Read The Declaration of Independence below, reflect, and then enjoy your day.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.