Last night was the first weekly 70’s Big Chat. As of now, the normal schedule will be on Sunday evening (but I’m going to have a vote off for Tuesday vs. Sunday evening — see end of post). I typed non-stop for almost two hours straight to answer questions on various topics.

I don’t claim to know everything about strength and conditioning (because I don’t), but I know a decent amount about the human body. The knowledge of anatomy, biomechanics, and gross physiology compounded with critical thinking allows me to help most people that read this site. The majority of them are still relatively new to lifting and aren’t advanced powerlifters who squat 650+ and have been training for a decade. That’s okay because highly advanced and experienced powerlifters are rare relative to the amount of lifters who frequent the internet.

In any case, I’m able to help beginners or intermediates in different aspects of training, even if it’s only giving an opinion on their given situation. If the issue isn’t cut-and-dry, like squat mechanics, then I’ll be sure to insist that it’s merely my opinion.

There were several cut-and-dry topics such as, “Why does my back hurt when I squat?” The chatter provided a video, and it was easy to say that the chest wasn’t raised, the knees weren’t shoved out, and he was going way too deep, thus his lumbar spine rounded under a load. It makes sense that his back hurts, and I’m sure he’ll do a pretty good job of correcting his faults even though I (or anyone else) am not coaching him in person.

Other questions were about things that I don’t know much about, such as the Greyskull linear progression. Greyskull Barbell is a training facility owned by my friend Johnny Pain around Philadelphia, PA. In any case, I hadn’t seen this linear progression, but I liked it a lot. I didn’t read the topic thread, but people kept asking me about the comparative advantages/disadvantages to a linear progression like Starting Strength. The most important thing I’ve noticed is that when some guys gain 40+ pounds, they get a lot of muscle on their legs and torso, yet their arms and neck are left looking thin. The Greyskull linear progression includes curls, body weight chins every day, weighted chins, neck harness work, and some other things. I haven’t seen JP in a while, but when I did, establishing a yoke was important. I was asked what the neck harness was for, and I had to repeat that it was for “Fucking Yoke”. There’s more to the Greyskull LP, but the four major factors are: 1) two days squatting, one deadlifting, 2) presses come before the squats and pulls, 3) the last work set is done for as many reps as possible, and 4) there are some additional movements to help build muscle without causing too much systemic stress. I like it, and see it as a good transition after the early stages of a more bare linear progression. Check out the thread to learn more about it. Also, JP knows his shit and I support anything he says. Bony for president.

There were some injury related questions too. Basically the trend that I see with injuries is that most lifters don’t know how they originated and don’t know how to deal with them. I won’t elaborate too much, but usually injuries that don’t have an explanation (i.e. you didn’t twist your ankle, your knees or hip flexors are starting to feel sore) are caused by either a form fault or accumulated work and stress. The form fault could be blatant or subtle, and the accumulated work could be a clear case of overtraining or just an indication of needing a back off period. If you are or were a skinny guy, gaining a lot of weight is going to have a profound change on your body. If you haven’t been lifting for the past ten years (including silly lifting in high school), your joints and structures will be in a different stage of adaptation, and may get a little irritated as you progress. It’s up to you to either figure out what is the cause (form or stress), and figure out how to deal with it (whether you do that alone or asking someone). If I can help through the chat, I’ll be happy to do so.

There is some kind of benefit that most people can receive from participating in the chat. I learn a lot by helping people, and hopefully the people I help get something out of it (that’s what they say, at least). It was a good time, and I look forward to the next one.
Note: The next one will probably have AC, Chris, ShrugThug, and Mike in it if you wanted to chat with them. They are all pretty weird in their own way.

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StillGrowing is a Canadian lifter named Mark. Last weekend he competed in his second powerlifting meet and sent me a write up of his experience. There are some pretty funny parts to his story, so I edited him a bit and posted the story in its entirety. Enjoy.


I’m 18 and have been lifting (properly) for just over a year now. I started on the Starting Strength program and switched pre-maturely to Texas Method before my first meet back in June. After my first meet back in June I went back to SS, and worked up to 345x3x5 Squat, 215x3x5 Bench, and 405×5 Deadlift, at 180 bodyweight. By that time I was stalling out pretty hard, and went back to TM which I have been on since then. My second meet was December 11th with the Canadian Powerlifting Federation.


After weigh-in we (my parents and I) had a few hours to kill, so we went out for a quick lunch. I foolishly had a pulled pork sandwich – something we’ll get back to that later. I was lifting in the second flight, so I was warming up as the first flight was lifting. All was going well until we got up to 3 plates and someone put the pins up. I went for my last warm up, a single at 315, just like I always do, but the pins were too high and I bounced the bar off them causing me to miss it. This threw me off a little, but I got my composure back.

I stepped up to that platform with a 370 opener, crushed it, but my belt was feeling a lot tighter than usual. I have a lever belt and I know for sure it wasn’t in the wrong hole. My second attempt was an easy 400 because I wanted to leave some in the tank for my last attempt. I crushed it, but the belt still felt too tight. I went up for my third attempt of 430 – I had done it in training twice – so I was confident I’d hit it no problem. Unracked it, waited for the command, sunk down, and barfed; the pulled pork came back to bite me in the ass. I managed to keep about 99% of it in my mouth, but a bit came out on to the mono-lift. This wouldn’t have bugged me very much, but it caused me to miss my squat. I swallowed what was in my mouth (which was gross), apologized to the judges, and went to clean myself up and swear.

Now I was pissed; I hated missing that squat. It’s still bugging me now and it will until I make that much or higher at a meet. After I was cleaned up I went to look at the current results. I was in the Under 19 class even though I signed up for the open class. I decided I’d still try to beat all the other 82.5ers regardless. I was ahead of most of them with the 400 squat, but one guy had 420. This made me angry, but it was bench time, so I had to focus.

Warm-ups went as usual, no problem. Opened with 250, crushed it, and called for 260. About 5 lifts out from mine, we were notified that the hand off guy was busy so we had to find our own. I went and grabbed my dad to do it for me, explaining in detail what he had to do. I get up there, he helps me unrack it and position it, I’m ready to press…wait something isn’t right…”LET GO OF THE BAR DAD!” He let go and I nailed it. Call for 265. I looked at the projector screen and the same guy with the 420 squat; let’s arbitrarily call him Joe, called for 275. Now you never want someone to miss, but I wouldn’t mind it happening. As I went up for 265, I was pretty nervous as I’ve always been pretty shit at bench, but I got it pretty easily. Joe was right after me, and he was goddamn close to getting that 275, but he missed about 2/3 the way up, leaving him with 260, and me only 15lb behind.

While the third flight was benching I chatted with Joe for a bit, He was 23, had been training for about 6 months more than me, and I had no clue if he was clean or using. We talked about deadlifts; he was opening with 410, and hoping to get 480, I was opening with 440, my second was 495, and third would be an iffy 500; being good natured I told him all of this. As I walked away I did some quick mental math, and that would leave us both with 1160 totals, and he was a couple pounds heavier than I was. That would give me the “win” even though I wasn’t in his age class (I’m competitive, so sue me).

Stepped up for my first Deadlift; I smoked it, but Joe smoked his 410. I called for 495 while Joe called for 475. Joe made his lift as I was pacing the warm-up room with DMX blasting from my iPod. I chalked up and stepped to the bar. I pulled it off the floor and it started to slow down after it got above my knee, but I locked that S.O.B. out. Then I called for 500. Now, I don’t know whether Joe was as competitive as I am, or if he was just feeling reckless, but he called for 490. As I watched his attempt, he couldn’t get it off the floor, but I applaud him for trying. I was next; I have failed 500 7 times in my training, but already had 495 in the books, so I was going for it. I started the lift and it felt about the same as the 495. I thought I was going to make it, but as I got above my knee, it halted, completely; I pulled like hell, but to no avail.



In between my lifting I had a chance to watch the third flight lift; it was inspiring to say the least. One guy had a 615 squat, 500 bench, and a 750 deadlift and a few others weren’t that far behind. It’s damn impressive what the human body is capable of when pushed, and this is a great example of it.
I ended up with my 1160 total to Joe’s 1155, and there were 3 others in the 82.5 class that were between 1050-1100 totals. All in all, most would call that a good day, but I’m not most people. I’ll be back in the gym on Friday, pissed off, going for my 430 squat.

For anyone who’s thinking about competing, you should go for it. Even if you total a couple hundred pounds under the top of your weight class, you’ll have a fun day, meet some really awesome people, and you’ll be motivated to train harder to get your total up. For ~$75, that’s a Bargain.

Thanks again to Justin for giving me a hand picking my attempts.

Note: I helped him choosing some of his opening attempts in the 70’s Big Chat Room. We are going to have a chat on Tuesday evening, and then have a weekly chat on Sunday evening (since that’s what you guys voted for).

Periodically I’m going to re-post certain articles from this website’s past. This post is from 18 Nov 2009 and highlights some of the women that were powerlifting in the early 80s — and there weren’t many that didn’t look pretty good. Enjoy.

We don’t really get an opportunity to talk about women on 70’s Big, so I’d like to highlight some women lifters from the 1981 Women’s National Powerlifting Championships. You’ll see that these women were not only strong, but pretty good lookin’ too. All the numbers from this meet are in kilograms (2.2 pounds = 1 kilogram). All of the following women won their respective weight classes. And “(WR)” denotes a world record.

Terry Dillard squatted 137.5 (WR), benched 57.5, and deadlifted 145 for a 340 (WR) total. That’s a 302.5 pound squat for a 105.6 pound woman. She also won Best Lifter.



Gayla Crain, a 56 kg lifter, squatted 152.5, benched 70, and deadlifted 180 for a 402.5 (WR) total. I dare say she is very good looking. Nice hair. She’s my favorite of this bunch.



Vicky Gagne competed in the 82.5 kilo class. She squatted 202.5 (WR), benched 115, and deadlifted 220 (WR) for a 537.5 total! That is a 445.5 pound squat and a 484 pound deadlift. In the picture, she had been red lighted on a 507 lb. deadlifted, and said, “It’s ok, I’ll get it next time.” Kinda cute, eh?



Wanda Sander won the 82.5+ kg class with a 192.5 kg squat, 110 kg bench, and a 210 kg deadlift. Pretty strong.

I keep going back to the idea that these women are both real strong and attractive. There has always been a silly misconception that lifting weights will make women bulky, but they tend to forget they have one-tenth the testosterone of a male. Being “toned” means being strong, and being strong means you are probably gonna lasso a 70’s Big fella real soon. Once you go adult male (>200 lbs.), you’ll never go back.

PR Friday

Post your weekly PR’s or training highlights to the comments. We can also talk about sports and food or anything else. We should also make fun of Jake Briskin for apparently eating the same three meals over and over for the past few months.

Motivation

70’s Big boils down to having fun while training hard, but some times times may get difficult. There are hundreds of reasons your training can deteriorate, and even more reasons that can prevent you from striving for success in life. Most of the time your mindset is the primary culprit or beneficiary. I saw this picture yesterday and felt kind of bad about myself. Then I heard he had an assistant, was majoring in creative writing, and probably paid for some credits. I’m still impressed that he has a successful acting career and wants to get an education, despite this.

In any case, I have an interest in successful people. I came across this article about a guy who graduated from California State University with two degrees in three semesters (no summer school). If you aren’t impressed, his degrees were in Computer Science and Mathematics. He talks about fully committing himself to a given goal and eliminating anything else that would inhibit the process of achieving that goal:

Think about what would happen if you elevated one of your goals or projects to the level of “mission” or “purpose” and became deeply committed to it for 30-120 days, ruthlessly triaging out of your life everything that wasn’t connected with that purpose. Some type-A behavior patterns would naturally emerge, such as being driven, hard-working, and busy. But the negative side of type-A (aka “hurry sickness”) need not be present. That type of behavior is in fact induced by a lack of clear focus, trying to label too many things as urgent AND important instead of taking the time to discover the core of what’s most important and meaningful to you.

Too often people will create excuses, avoid risk, and convince themselves that they aren’t capable of something. I think that life success is more important than training success, but training can create the foundation to other successful routes. If you’re struggling with decisions in life or a commitment to training, evaluate what’s important, where you want to go, and push forward with a committed mindset. There isn’t such thing as luck, so start putting the time in. I know I will.

Strength Makes You Harder To Kill

You’ve seen quotes about how strength can help you survive in various ways. Well, there is actually some research that shows how strength can improve a man’s survivability. Dr. Kilgore has been using an article from the British Medical Journal since it was published, and has even put it on a t-shirt (use the code “70BG” without quotes to get 10% off any order over $25). The article, Association between muscular strength and mortality in men: prospective cohort study, is a great step towards mainstream health and fitness appreciating the utility in strength.

Conclusion Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes and cancer in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.

There have been several sites that summarized the article, such as this one, and they had this to say:

After adjusting for known risk factors for cancer, heart disease, and death, the men with the lowest level of muscle strength had:

* 1.46 times greater risk for death
* 1.59 times greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease
* 1.24 times greater risk of death from cancer

Cardiovascular fitness did appear to have a stronger beneficial effect than strength training. The benefits of strength training carried across all age groups. It also appeared to provide benefits even if a participant was overweight or obese.

The large sample size and variation in age and medical conditions in this longitudinal study makes the findings very interesting. Additionally, this study used 1RM leg and bench presses to measure strength as opposed to the often used hand grip test (there is a correlation between hand grip strength and overall strength which is why it’s used in epidemiological studies — and it’s easy to implement). This study continues the trend in other related studies that strength is inversely related to mortality rate.

This isn’t profound to what we do; this website has a mantra of strength as a primary goal and then using that strength to get conditioned for something. Yet this BMJ adds to the growing mantra that strength = health.

Novemburly Beard Contest

Josh from Quebec pulled a stunning Joe Namath-like upset by declaring himself the winner, and aiming to get 1870’s Big. When the polls closed he was beating Trampas by a pube of 142 votes to 136. Honorable mention goes out to Tallahassee’s Robert with 124 votes. Thanks to all the man-men who submitted their beard pics.

70’s Big Euro Tour

My Irish pal John Benton and I are creating a diabolical plot that would bring the new and updated 70’s Big Strength and Conditioning Workshops to Europe. John has sent some feelers (I guess feeling is an Irish thing) and the following cities are potential hosts: 2 venues in Dublin, 2-3 venues in the U.K (Manchester,London, and possibly Cardiff Wales and Newcastle), Copenhagen, and Basel, Switzerland.

If you are interested in attending or hosting, then let us know in the comments, on the Facebook fan page, or e-mail me. The more venues or attendees there, the more likely the trip can happen.

Chat Room Vote

We are going to start a weekly chat room meeting. During this time readers can ask questions to me or anybody else (AC, Chris, Mike, Brent, and others assuming they are present) about pretty much anything.
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