I don’t know Spencer, but he seems like a happenin’ guy. I like his reaction to hitting 197kg; the slow six shooters. Then he hits 200kg. And he’s 19 years old.


I’ve never met Donny Shankle, but I’ve heard that he’s, uh, unique. Here’s a vid of him talking about hand care:


I actually know Chris and we’ve used speed squats (AKA dynamic effort) with a lot of success in Chris’ training. Here is a video from about a month ago — he’s doing doubles on the minute every minute for ten minutes at 385 (I watched him do around 400 the other day when we were in San Antonio). The focus is on a ferocious bounce. Technique is secondary to getting the sharpest bounce and fastest ascent possible:

Today’s post is incredibly pertinent to everyone here. Learning from other people’s mistakes is almost as good as learning from your own mistakes. The powers of observation will help you from having to experience it yourself in order to ingrain the lesson. For example, if the dumb broad that wrote the linked article in yesterday’s post had made logical observations, maybe a couple inferences, and not performed the Tracy Anderson POW program, she wouldn’t have had to waste her time getting so obnoxiously unhealthy.

I have two stories that should blatantly teach you not to lift heavy after a long day of traveling. Traveling itself is a necessary hindrance (we haven’t developed a floo network yet). My observation has been that training hard upon getting to the new destination is doable. However, once returning home — typically after a busy few days that are capped off with that last “I can’t wait to get home” traveling day — it would be best to ease back into training.

Traveling, though tiring at times, broadens our horizons and exposes us to new cultures. It’s a necessary hurdle to jump over if you want to experience the world’s wonders firsthand. Take Hawaii, for example. Imagine sinking your toes into the warm sand of Waikiki Beach, the sound of gentle waves lapping at the shore. You could be snorkeling in crystal-clear waters, surrounded by vibrantly colored fish and coral reefs. Or, perhaps you’d prefer to cruise the island on a mopeds, feeling the wind in your hair as you explore hidden coves and charming towns. Hike through a lush rainforest, enveloped by the scent of plumeria flowers and the call of exotic birds. Hawaii offers a unique blend of relaxation, adventure, and cultural immersion.

When I worked with Rip we came home from doing a Starting Strength Seminar in California. The next day I was volume squatting for the Texas Method; I was on my third set of 5×5 at 430. When I went down on the third rep, I felt a sharp movement and pain in my lumbar/sacral area. I actually squatted it up with help so I didn’t kill my spotters (Chris being one of them). There were some other circumstances that made the injury worse, and it ended up preventing me from squatting for about two months. During that time I qualified for nationals in weightlifting without squatting heavy and a yanked back.

The second story happened yesterday. I traveled back from San Antonio (where the military nationals for USAPL were) on Monday; the day started at 3:50 AM and I got home around 8:30 PM (this included six hours of driving). It was arduous. Yesterday I was squatting heavier than I have in a while. I planned on doing two or three reps. At the bottom of the second rep, I feel kind of a pop in my left TFL/hip flexor area, yet it doesn’t necessarily hurt and I squat the rep up well enough. I stood there debating whether or not to do the third rep; it didn’t hurt, so I descended. When I got to the bottom it didn’t hurt, but it felt…fluid, like there wasn’t normal support. So I just eased the bar onto the pins knowing that things weren’t normal.

A day later, it’s sore. I am continuing to treat it (especially with ice), but I’m irritated with myself because what happened is obvious. The day before I was sitting a lot with my hips in complete flexion; they were undoubtedly tight. I worked on my back and lateral hips a bit before going to bed, but I didn’t really give the anterior thigh any attention (I’ve never had issues in this area, with injuries or as a result of squatting technique). In any case, the negligence in not working on them when I got home and choosing to lift heavy resulted in an injury that will take at least a week to rehab (by my estimation).

Be aware of how certain body positions can effect training. If you sit at a desk for 8+ hours a day, you are more than likely experiencing something similar. Whether you are traveling or working in an office, give your hips and low back attention. Stop and think; what is my back doing all day? Is it in weird lumbar flexion with bad posture? Mine is if I’m traveling; my torso is long and I don’t fit in regular chairs. I have to slouch in order to be comfortable (why airline and car seats don’t have lumbar support is beyond me). What are your hips and knees doing all day? My thighs are bigger than average, and they don’t fit in seats comfortably. Hips are in flexion when sitting and I’m usually externally rotated so that my thighs don’t smash down on my junk. Based on that observation, right away I should know to pay attention to my sacral/lumbar and lateral hip areas. It’s obvious that when the knee is in flexion all day that the rectus femoris would be tight (or even the TFL or adductor longus). The easiest way to address these muscular irritations is with a foam roller or PVC pipe. Roll over the area, and when you find a painful spot, spend some time working it out.

To bring this lesson full circle, remember that your body adapts to stress. “Stress” doesn’t necessarily have to be something you’re imparting on the body for performance gain. “Stress” can be a lack of activity, or even a lack of movement. You intuitively know this; when you get out of bed or up from the couch, you have to stretch or move to loosen your muscles up. Sitting for long periods of time makes you feel stiff and rigid. Here is Dr. Gil Hedley talking about this topic. He conceptualizes it by calling it “fuzz”, but after watching this video you’ll have an understanding of why sitting still can make you stiff. Staying stiff without addressing the muscle tissue with stimulation or movement can make muscle too “rigid”. Rigid muscle and tendons are easily injured.

T-Bone linked this horrible article on facebook. Normally, I wouldn’t want such a website to get clicks from me, but you’ll have to see all the silly shit for yourselves.

People call Tracy Anderson an “exercise genius”. Amendment: making people skinny, small, and weak makes you a torturous interrogator. Don’t they use the same techniques in third world countries? Barring sodomy or genital removal, this is one of the worst things you can do to someone.

And before any of you crazy assholes start ranting about how (allegedly) attractive Paltrow is, I will shut you up. When Gwynneth is on screen with other skinny people, you don’t see the relative skinniness. Also, the fact that she is on screen (TV, movie, your computer as you touch yourself, etc.) means that her value to you is elevated. Human beings are attracted to higher value targets. The combination of her screen time, your hand shandy time, and her standing next to other emaciated goons means that you think she’s more attractive than she already is. Okay, she has nice hair, I’ll give her that, but you or your girlfriend would too if you had millions of dollars and the best stylists available. The same goes for how someone’s face looks (makeup artists earn their money).

Haven’t you ever heard, “There is no such thing as ugly women, just lazy ones,”? In any case, any ol’ girl can be made into an attractive broad on screen via hair and makeup stylists. Paltrow is horribly skinny. And, if her nude body was lying underneath me, I’d look at it and say, “This could be better. I’m not impressed.” Those of you who disagree are either skinny yourselves, or just want to live out your hand shandy fantasy of banging someone you saw on screen.

Enough about Paltrown, I’m trying to make the point that Tracy Anderson is a terrorist. The author of the linked article has this to say about the diet:

Yet all this would have been bearable if it hadn’t been for the diet part of the regime. On the first week of the plan I’m only allowed to eat seven different foods, mostly blended…I don’t actually chew anything for a whole week.

What? I think Frank Abignale, Jr. ate better when he was a prisoner in France (and he was in a 5x5x5 cell with no waste disposal for his feces).

I am encouraged to weigh myself daily and measure my results with the ‘Tracy tape measure’ every ten days.

At first this made me feel quite uncomfortable but now I’m fanatical about my daily weigh-in and refuse to eat or drink anything until I know my weight first.

This sounds really fucking healthy.

Well, I’m no Gwynnie but since January I have lost a stone in weight and dropped from dress size 12 to 10. I am happier with my body than I have been for a long time. Those are the positives. On the downside I feel woozy and find it difficult to concentrate. At first I had loads of energy but now I’m always tired and am told I’m hor…ribly grouchy to boot. My skin is terrible and my nails are flaking and weak.

For fuck’s sake, HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY?!? (LINK)

For the women reading this site: Keep getting stronger, ladies. And trust me when I tell you this: you are far more sexy and healthy than the dumb broads that follow the advice of terrorists like Tracy Anderson.

Military Nationals were hosted by Willie Mastin at Brooks-City Base in San Antonio, TX on Saturday, March 19th. The meet was run pretty well; everything was efficient and there weren’t significant time delays. 40 lifters were broken down in three flights. The first flight started at 9:15 AM and the last deadlift hit the floor in the third flight around 4:00 PM. As you can see, this medium sized meet still took all day. Last year’s Texas State meet used two competition platforms to accommodate over 100 lifters. USAPL is often criticized online for issues with the implementation of the rules, but there were no problems and only one mis-load on the bar (for an opening bench). The warm-up facilities were above average and weren’t too crowded during the competition (which can get irritating at a bigger meet). In fact, all of us who didn’t compete trained in the facility the day before; the only complain would be the stop sign plates that seem to be prevalent at most military bases.



70’s Big had two lifters competing: Mike and my girlfriend. Together they went 17 of 19 and had four PR’s. Both lifters didn’t have optimal training leading into the event. Mike recently cut weight for a PT test (that didn’t stop him from gaining almost thirty pounds to compete in the 275 class) and my lady had various speed bumps including a week long illness that made her a bit nervous for her first meet. She squatted 160 lbs. on her third attempt (to match the most she’s done in the last six months) and then deadlifted 237 lbs. on her third attempt for a twelve pound PR. Her 490 pound total was shy of the desired 500, but the first meet is about hitting solid lifts, gaining experience, and having a great time.

Mike had his attempts mentally planned pretty well; I only had to modify them slightly in our discussions leading into this week. His previous meet PR on squat was 529. We opened at a routine 513, hit a 534 PR on the second attempt, and then moved to 551 for a successful third attempt. That’s a 10kg jump from the opener to the second, and then a 7.5kg jump to the third attempt; the jumps weren’t crazy, and the third attempt jump was a smaller increment. Mike came out with a 22 pound (or 10kg) PR on squat.



The bench press is Mike’s goat. He has long gorilla arms and, according to Brent, isn’t on enough d-bol (for the record, all of us, including Mike aren’t using drugs — I say this because Mike got drug tested and Brent’s new favorite trolling method is to talk about steroids). Mike’s goal was to finally bench over 300 in competition, and we made good on a 303 lift on the second attempt. Mike was wanting to hit 314 for the third attempt, so I gave it to him. I would have preferred to only make a small jump to 308, but I don’t coach him in training so it’s a little more difficult to gauge how hard a lift is. He barely missed the 314 when the bar drifted towards his face a little. Upon video review, I’d like to see Mike improve his set-up, specifically the upper back musculature. We’ll also address some swollertrophy concerns.

Mike is a pretty good deadlifter; it’s his favorite exercise. He has done well improving his starting position. Mike has long femurs and a short back, so his set-up can get goofy. We took his last warm-up on the platform at 513. 560 was a no-big-deal second attempt; it was an intermediary jump to prep for the 600 third attempt. 272.5 kg is 600.759 pounds, and that’s what Mike wanted to pull; he merely wanted to get 600. Last year at Texas State, I gave Mike a heavier third attempt squat than what we had talked about. He hit it for a good lift, and then when I told him that it was heavier than he thought, he gorilla mauled me in excitement. At military nationals, I took a knee in front of the score table debating whether I should give him the 272.5kg or bump it to a nice, clean looking 275kg (606.2 lbs.). I had confidence that Mike could pull 600, and I thought he would be elated to hear that he pulled more than we talked about. However, if Mike were to miss that third attempt, it would make or break his meet.

I stared at the kilo conversion chart debating for a while. Ah, fuck it, it’s only five pounds. I gave him the 275kg. I was feeling reckless…or as reckless as you can feel by adding five pounds on the bar.

I figured that if he couldn’t pull 606, then he wasn’t gonna pull 600. However, if he missed that lift, he still would have been pissed with me. Mike summoned the demons — Brent’s video commentary says, “As you can see he’s a fucking serial killer,” — and cranked the bar off the floor. He usually has good speed off the floor, but because of his weird body (long femurs, short torso), the lockout is usually a grind. Well, this 606 pull was never in doubt. Mike finished his pull, was issued the down command by the head judge, and then calmly looked to his right and said, “70’s Big,” before carefully placing bar back on the platform. White lights.



Mike PR’d in all three lifts and increased his total from 635kg (1400 pounds) to 662.5kg (1460 pounds) since last year’s Raw Nationals. However, his defining moment was when he was awarded his first place medal while carrying around his own bottled urine for his drug test; Mike held vials of piss in his hairy hands for at least 20 minutes.



You’ll notice in the video that Brent has some good commentary during Mike’s squats. You’ll also notice that he isn’t commentating during the deadlift. It’s because he left during the bench pressing to take a fucking nap in his car without telling anyone. Yes, the Shrug Thug apparently wasn’t impressed by the prospect of Mike deadlifting and slept through this crucial part of the meet. His traps must have consumed too many calories. Irre-fucking-gardless of Brent’s narcolepsy, I had a great weekend with him, Chris, Alex, and Mike. A 70’s Big hangout is always a telling event.



If you’d like to share your meet experience, whether it’s your first or you’re a veteran, then shoot me a concise recap with a video or pictures.

Johnny Sheaffer AKA Johnny Pain from Strength Villain is a good coach and programmer. In order to be good at those things, you need to be an innovator, and JP fits the bill. He has created a modified and effective linear progression known as The Greyskull LP, and just released an e-book with the same name.



The Greyskull LP isn’t just a reiteration of a program outline. Instead, it’s a 56 page synthesis of material that JP has talked about for years. For those of you who are uneducated, the Greyskull LP is a linear progression that differs from other LPs; it reduces the squatting frequency (a significant change in itself), changes exercise order, and adds in various twists like going for max reps on the last set of each exercise. JP explains all of this in detail, but more importantly he explains why these alternative techniques work. I’ll also point out that they don’t merely work, they work better.

After establishing the reasoning for the program’s outline, he spends 30 pages discussing variations, “plug-ins” (or subtle changes that push the trainee towards particular goals). He discusses ways to improve pull-ups and push-ups via the frequency and ladder methods. He discusses that trainees can in fact get big and strong, yet do so with athletic body fat and conditioning levels by using short, intense conditioning workouts. He discusses the effective, yet boring (his words, but I agree) aspects of low-intensity conditioning. JP contributes effective methods of accomplishing each individual goal.

The “Putting it all together” section creates a focused synthesis of his material and programming for different LP goals such as mass/hyper/swollertrophy, fat loss (including female fat loss), and the ever popular “linebacker” focused Greyskull LP that gets guys bigger, stronger, and athletic.

It’s rare that I wholeheartedly endorse someone in their coaching and programming, but JP doesn’t merely apply programming templates; he thinks through and around situations and always comes up with something better and more efficient. It’s almost as if his tattoos augment his brain power. The Greyskull LP is simple to read and contains more information than what is merely contained in the program itself. It explains a lot of side topics that are frequently asked about on 70’s Big and Strength Villain and gives reasoning for their utility (JP’s observation on body fat and his burpee challenge is probably worth the price alone for most of you). If you want to read a text that will help you get bigger, stronger, leaner, and more conditioned, check out The Greyskull LP by John Sheaffer AKA Johnny Pain.

PR Friday
Post all your personal records, meet results, or training vids to the comments. We’re out in San Antonio for USAPL Military Nationals. Will report back.