Contest Update

The Novembeardly challenge is still going on. Get all your beard/burly pics in, and then we can vote/evaluate them and get a contest winner. Also, the results from the Thanksgiving weight gain festivities will be calculated.

I had a post all typed out for today, yet I determined it would be much better with video. In addition to that, I have a post coming about those of you that appreciate the benefits of strength, but may only be concerned with “looking great”. Here’s a preview:
“Hey man, I’m more of a Corvette; I’m made to look great in the garage instead of going out and performing on the road.”
–Shawn, to me after feeling the effects of our workout last Saturday
Stay tuned for more.

To ready you for the Novembeardly submissions, take a gander at this pic. WildCard1989 sent it to me, and I don’t know if it’s him or not. The subject of the e-mail was, “Is this manly enough for ya?”



I also can’t believe it’s real, because that mama bear in the background would be severing some heads.

Boom

Football is a sport: fact. Here’s a beautiful video of Browns running back Peyton Hillis bulldozing the Panther’s Charles Godfrey before scoring his third rushing touchdown. SB Nation says

Judging by his touchdown celebrations, he’s also a big fan of ’80s cage wrestling, all monster trucks besides Grave Digger (sellout), and the paleo diet.

Hillis is from Arkansas, so I’d tend to disagree with the paleo thing. He’s also definitely 70’s Big.

Also being a little shit (i.e. under 200 pounds) can only get you so far. Andre Johnson got pissed enough to punch Cortland Finnegan in the head. If you don’t know the background, Cortland is one of the dirtiest players in the league and has been fined several times this year for his assholery (I guess he’s trying to make up for being named “Cortland”). Aggressive, good; dickhead, bad. I want to point out that Johnson is 220+, and thus won the round.

Urlacher, Videos, etc.

Videos

Chris and Mike continue to make abnormal videos when they train. This first one includes Chris squatting 600×2, and Mike squatting 495×3 (amidst cutting weight for his upcoming PT test).


The following video includes Mike squatting 405×12, Chris’ shaky camera work, and some random narration by Chris.

Urlacher is 70’s Big

Duane weighs 225 and grew a beard, so he thought he was kinda big. Then he met Brian Urlacher at the airport (after that Thursday night game the Bears won last week), and Brian makes Duane look like a kid.



For you noobs, Brian is a very good linebacker in the NFL. He’s big, fast, and explosive. He’s also a strong lifter; I have a friend who played football with him at New Mexico, and Brian power cleaned 405. Probably looked like this:


PR Friday

Post any PR’s you had this week. I’d prefer if we kept the weight gain postings to yesterday’s Thanksgiving post.

Happy Thanksgiving

I don’t know what the hell you’re doing looking at a website on Thanksgiving, but I’ll provide you a beard of the day. Otherwise, simply comment your weight gains. And enjoy the holiday (and four days in a row of football).

Beard of the Day

Socrates was the original troll


Origins of Thanksgiving, Eating Challenge

Beard of the Day


The Origins of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday. It is a convoluted, weird interpretation of something that didn’t really happen in American history. It’s clear what has actually happened, and I will recount the sequence of events here.

70’s Big is an idea that started in early 2009 and developed into a website by September of the same year. Currently the site easily averages over 3,000 visitors a day. Instead of being concerned with number of readers, 70’s Big is more concerned with establishing a paradigm. Burly men and strong women go forth and take on risks and difficult challenges with fervor in their hearts. They learn this ability through the grueling battles with steel, iron, and gravity. Guts and courage are built through toil; they don’t simply appear at birth.

Alas! Food becomes an important part of this journey of self realization. It is fuel for the body so that the mind can push through each lesson. A man requires a hearty bounty, not egg whites and squash. And thus Thanksgiving was born.

“Bah! Thanksgiving hath endured for centuries; how hath 70’s Big birthed the Great Giving of Thanks?” A valid question, yet the reality is that Thanksgiving has not always existed. There was a time in an alternate universe in which Thanksgiving did not exist while all other things remained constant. The idea of 70’s Big was infectious upon the world as it grew into a dominant way of thinking. Society no longer bitched about being offended and the fame of celebrities waned to that of my big toe. It was a wonderful society that lived through the ages. Several millenia from now, the governing body decided to honor the inception of its way of thinking. Their solution: travel back in time and establish a holiday in which eating a hearty, complete meal was emphasized and glorified. The governing body sent their agents back in time to manipulate such a holiday. In a vain attempt to cloak their true identity, the time travelers showed up in black pilgrim costumes while others showed up as bare skinned Indians. The ruse worked to perfection because the public ate it up, and the Thanksgiving Feast was born.

70’s Big has been preceded by decades of proper eating, a testament to proper planning by the Time Travelers to ensure that skinny people have experienced good eating habits before starting their quest to 70’s Big. “Hard gainers” no longer have shitty excuses as to why they can’t gain weight, because they have done it correctly on at least one day of every year of their lives! Manliness is a choice, and Thanksgiving is as good a place as any to start.

The Thanksgiving Eating Challenge
Now that we have the origin of Thanksgiving out of the way, we can focus on the readers who have chosen Manliness over helplessness; Boldness over cowardliness; and strong over weak. I challenge all of you to an eating contest. We can’t really argue over subjective interpretations of how much you “actually ate”, so instead we’ll measure it by weight gained. You will need to weigh yourself before your feast, and then again after your feast (if you feast throughout the day, then weigh yourself at the end). You will also need to wear the same clothes throughout the day (i.e. wear the same stuff in your pre/post weighing). This would be a proper time to wear your 70’s Big shirt, since it’s our national holiday. Whoever gains the most weight will win a t-shirt. We are probably going to need video or picture evidence of your weigh-ins. This will cut back on cheating, even though it can still happen — don’t be a jackass. On Thanksgiving Day we’ll post our results to the comments.

Good luck to you all, and don’t forget to give thanks to the Time Travelers.