PR Friday, 12 April 2013

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Cloud

Annnnnnnnd we’re back! Our servers made some mistakes yesterday (burpees instead of squats…tsk, tsk) and had to be put in timeout for half a day. Some unplanned maintenance later by our men in Berlin, and the ISIS mainframes have been upgraded with new neural net processors – learning computers – and our R2 is back on our 6, by the light of Kate Upton’s eyes. Bueno? Bueno.

So, let’s get back to business. This week, we had a post about Iris’s strength journey. AC taught us how to press more gooder (this was real, real popular on reddit). Markotta had us reflect on our motivation. Mike used the time off from reading the site to ignore Paul’s question and answer everyone else’s.

Additionally, USAPL Collegiate Nationals is this weekend in Killeen, TX. There’s going to be some pretty impressive single-ply lifting going on, and there are some fierce rivalries between teams. Naturally, I think Preston Turner, Ian Bell, and the rest of the Longhorn Team is going to take the cake, but watch and see for yourself.

http://mass-lift.com/2013-collegiate-nationals/

Last week, I asked you guys and gals to submit pictures of your “70sBig face.” Wait, back up. First, I asked you to go back and re-read the original post on HOW to make a 70sBig face, and then to submit some examples. I got some great ones, and I got some that, well, I’m pretty sure were taken on the shitter in a time of duress We’ll get there, folks, but this might take some work. I appreciate the flood of pics I got, and will post some each week.

“Billy” (we’ll use a code name to keep his identity a secret) sent in a picture that proves his commitment to the cause. He gets bonus points for the glasses, but the striped v-neck is hit or miss depending on yokeability. Guys, you can wear v-necks, but only if there’s chest hair poking out, mmmmk?

MeneGene spent the better part of the morning posing for this pic, showing off a pretty glorious mustache. There are literally ninja chicks beating up Abercrombie wannabee’s in the background, and he is sitting there stoicly not giving a fuck. I approve. I think there’s real blood on his shirt, too.

Jason lacks facial hair, but I’ll cut him some slack. If he was sporting a ferocious Viking beard, half the grease from this amazing burger would go to waste. Is that HAM on that hamburger, too? Shit, now I’m hungry – with a few fried eggs on top, that’d be a pretty dece breakfast. Good job, Jason. Next time, cut the sleeves off your plaid shirt for date night. Trust me, she’ll be impressed.

CriedTheFox shows us a classic selfie here, driving in some sort of van with “Free Ice Cream” scrawled on the side of it. Facial hair? Check. Cheap sunglasses? Check. Thrift-store t-shirt you’re unafraid to rip in half in case of emergency? Check. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Blake’s got a pretty dece face here. The bushy brows, the insane look in his eyes, and a ‘Murican flag in the background are all excellent. A little more jaw-jutting would be nice, but HOLY SHIT there’s a Mustang snorting FIRE on his shirt.

We didn’t get nearly enough female face submissions, but Amanda played the game…sorta. She sent this in with the comment “No, this is not a 12 y/o boy but a 34 y/o woman.” I…I….look, I really appreciate the pic, but I….well, shit. I’m scared. You took some creative licensing and the end result is equal parts terrifying and awesome. I award you all the points, and hope to never cross your (bar)path when you’re angry.

That’s all for today. Keep the submissions coming, make sure they are LESS THAN A MEGABYTE (you’ve seen what happens when our systems get angry), and I’ll keep posting these on Fridays until I run out or get bored. Post your PR’s below. Have a great freaking weekend. Stay safe.

Why Do You Do It?

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Cloud

Today’s guest post is by Mark Marotta, long-time reader, Strong College Kid, Competitive Powerlifter, and a Canadian, to boot, eh? I edited out all the funny vowels. – Jacob

The first thing to consider, when talking about motivation, is “WHY?” You have to figure out WHY you want to do this – what fuels you to do five or even eight sets of squats in a row? What could possibly make you want to take a barbell on the ground and throw it straight over your head 10 or 20 times a day if you’re a weightlifter? What justifies walking away from a heavy deadlift seeing stars with a face full of burst capillaries? If you’ve been training for more than a year or two, and reading this site on the regular, this probably won’t be the same reason you first picked up a dumbbell/barbell/cable machine handle, but it’s important to know WHY.

Personally, I started lifting dumbbells as a dweeby little 9th grader figuring “If I get all jacked, all the pretty girls at school are gonna wanna smooch me.” Yep. That was my motivation. I’d go to the gym 5 mornings every week, in a tight tank top and black, fingerless workout gloves, and that was why. Inevitably, between realizing things aren’t that simple, and ‘driving my dick in the ground,’ as Justin would say, with a Typical5DayBodyBuildingSplit.xlsx program, I changed my tune. Eventually I stumbled onto Starting Strength, and my motivation became being stronger than all my peers. This not being much more mature than my past goal, I moved on from it as well. Now one portion of my motivation is becoming better. Not becoming better than someone else; simply becoming better than I was. It’s the physical equivalent of picking up a physics textbook and reading it. Not because you’ll get a better job from knowing physics, or do better in school, but because you want to know physics. I want to become stronger, to find a current limit I have, and take a step past it, then next week, go a step further. Another part is that if, as an adult human being, you don’t have something to work towards, short or long term, inside or outside of training, something that’s more than a hobby, you’re most likely gonna be pretty miserable. For me, and I’m sure quite a few of you, training is that something. Finally, out there somewhere for each of us there are some asymptotic values for our squats, presses, pulls, snatches, whatever, that are a finite limit. What motivates me most is chasing that limit.

Now, I figure there’s probably a fair sized group of readers on this site who lift just because it’s something to do, and that’s fine if you only see lifting as a hobby, but by taking that attitude you put yourself in a cage if you ever want it to be anything more. If you intend to put up serious numbers, you need a serious reason to push yourself to do it. You need to figure out what in your life, hell, in the universe makes you want to get as strong as you feel you should be. For some of you it might be competition in weightlifting, powerlifting, or another sport. It could be that you think training will improve the general quality of your life (it more than likely will). Whatever your reason is, you need to identify it, and furthermore understand it and think about it every time you step into the gym.

Which brings me to the dedication side of things. You need to apply yourself to the reason(s) that you lift. You need to understand that if you don’t put everything you have into it, you can never get everything back out of it. Since I started training properly, I have never ‘skipped’ a workout: sick, inconvenient, tired, doesn’t matter. I have done PR sets of 5 squats where I coughed/sneezed between each and every one of my reps. I know that if I skip out on lifting, I’m saying my goals aren’t that important to me. Well, they are. Of course there are scheduled weeks off, deload weeks, etc. I’m not talking about that – I’m talking about taking the attitude of “My program is to do ‘X’ today; I’m doing ‘X’ today.”

You cannot take the attitude that it’s an option. If you give yourself a choice to opt-out, then at least once, and probably more, you’re going to take it. You need to use the reasons that you lift to alter your view of training into something that you need to do. You need to make it a part of your life. Those words weigh more heavily on me every time I think about them. You need to dedicate yourself to the level that if you don’t train on a day you’re supposed to train, or skip out on a few sets and leave early, you’re fucking up. Once you can take that attitude for training, that it’s either succeed or fail, you can know, definitively, that you’re putting everything you’ve got into your training.

So in summary, what I want you all to do this week is reminisce about why you started lifting, and after that, let your mind wander about why you lift now, and how you can turn that into motivation to keep pushing forward. Once you motivate yourself, dedicate yourself to lifting for your reasons (whatever they may be) and adopt the attitude that this shit is not an option. “This is why I lift, this is why I can’t fuck this up.” Until you understand why you’re training, and dedicate yourself to it 100%, you can never take things to their full potential.

If by some chance you can’t think of a reason yourself…

Feel free to discuss the reason(s) that you train in the comments.

AC Discusses the Press

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Cloud

You all know and love AC. For the next few weeks, we’ll be posting some of his coaching articles on the individual lifts. In this first installment, AC discusses the Press, a lift he’s pretty dece at. He’s hit 285 for a single, and 260×4…at under 220lbs bodyweight. So, you know, maybe he kinda knows what he’s talking about, and stuff. I heard he also likes Batman. – Jacob

We’re going to talk about the Press. Soon, I’ll also talk about the entire process of Squatting and Benching. Yes I capitalized those words, because fuck you, that’s why. The first thing we talk about when we discuss the Press is grip. When most people Press their grip is usually way too wide. The forearm should be perpendicular to the bar. That’s 90 degrees. Not angled in and NOT angled out. Better external rotation can be achieved with a perpendicular grip. With that said, just because you are gripping it where you are supposed to doesn’t mean that external rotation magically happens. Justin talks about this HERE. That should give you a visual of what to do with your grip and your elbows. You should also have an erection by now as well. It’s hard to explain the grip via writing so just watch the video in the link I have provided.

Moving on, the elbows have to be cued. Some of you have your own cues. I just say to myself “Elbows in” or “Elbows.” Remember – if you know the meaning behind the cue you can shorten it to one word. If your cue is “Anal,” but you know what that means (elbows externally rotated), then you can yell “Anal!” to yourself all day. With a compact wrist and the elbows in, the drive from chest/chin (depending on anatomy) will be much faster and easier. That’s assuming you haven’t been Pressing with internally rotated elbows. Remember that you can get strong doing it the wrong way, but you can get even stronger doing it correctly. After all, you want to be able to break backs, don’t you?

If only Batman knew how this was gonna turn out.

Before you even begin to Press, you have to have a slight lean at the hips. This is NOT over-extension of the spine. Your whole body leans back. The easiest way for me to describe this is that it’s almost like stretching your hip flexors. Keeping your back in extension, you lean your hips forward. This obviously happens at the beginning. This sets the bar up for a vertical path with nothing in its way. Your huge dome and chin no longer risk getting hit. This lean is also important for something that happens later in the lift. So, as you are pressing the bar, you also want to keep it as tight to your face as possible. This is achieved by aiming for your nose. A nice cue to say is “Nose.” The bar gets pressed back in a vertical fashion instead of out in front of you, which would be bad news bears. Once the bar starts to clear the face/forehead, the next thing you are going to do is “Punch” your body “Under” the bar. At this point you are no longer leaning and you are physically driving yourself under the bar. This will get rid of the lever arm between the bar and your shoulder. From there you are just pressing it out for the last few inches.

Now we are at the top of the press. When you are at the top you should continue to “Reach” the entire time. This little reach/shrug causes upward rotation of the scapula. This little movement clears the shoulder up for any impingement that might occur. This is also when the breathing happens. First, there is a big breath for the first rep when you take it out of the rack. Then, when you have completed a rep, another fast breath occurs before you lower the bar. This might take a few days to get used. Consider the bottom of the Press like the bottom of the Squat – you don’t want to re-breath when you are rebounding. At the top, it is a quick exhale-inhale to regain whatever air you have lost during the rep.

Now for the “Rebound.” The rebound is best described as bouncing your triceps off of your armpits. This is very similar to the reflex that happens at the bottom of the squat. For some of you this may get tricky. If you remember all the leaning and shit you did before, you now have to reverse it on the way down so you are set-up again for the next rep, just like you would on a Deadlift.

There is a quick how-to guide to Press. The easiest way to learn is have a coach with you that knows what he/she is doing. I hope this can be of some help to those of you that wanted this write up. I can’t promise that you will Press as much weight as you want to, but with patience and perseverance you can conquer all of your goals. Everyone is different. Some people are stronger than others. Hell – I fucking hate tall people because I wish I was taller. So remember to play the hand you are dealt.

AC pressing 275 and 285 for singles. No big deal.

Iris’s journey from curls…to squats and curls

Posted on April 8, 2013 by smithb9

Today’s post is courtesy of long-time reader, contributor, friend, and chili-maker, Jake Brisket. You should already know who he is. Keep the submissions coming! – Brian

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve contributed anything substantial to this site. Long time readers may remember the writeup I did of my first powerlifting meet; it’s a shock to realize that was two years ago. I guess it’s time to start fixing my incredibly high ratio of lurking to contributing.

Anyway, it’s Monday again, so I thought I’d give some publicity to an up and coming female lifter who I started coaching last summer. Iris has a solid athletic background outside of the gym, and excels as a hockey defender. Since she started doing dumbbell curl and presses (AKA Arnold presses) in her basement around the age of 7, she has enough natural swollertrophy that more than one random person has told her that she would make a good powerlifter. Surprisingly, she had never actually been on a structured lifting program until last fall, when she asked me to put together something that she could follow around her practices and games; at time of writing, she just finished a third season captaining her university’s club team while also playing a few games each month for the Honey Badgers, her local men’s rec team. Now, I don’t know jack about hockey, but I can confirm that Iris plays hard for all four periods, and she brings that attitude into the gym.

I first saw Iris lift in July when her best friend brought her to Cambridge Strength and Conditioning. At the time, CSC’s upper echelon was experimenting with an advanced Russian system called “put everyone on an LP and have a Woodchuck“, so Iris just jumped in with what our other trainees were doing. First impressions were good, when she easily squatted 135x5x3, benched a couple sets in the low 100s, then deadlifted 205×5. Those are reasonable numbers for a 130lb woman, but I wasn’t really surprised until I found out that she had just returned from a semester abroad in New Zealand, and hadn’t touched a weight in over six months. Not bad imo.

Fast forward to the present: hockey season is over, so Iris has put on about 10 solid pounds and is hard at work getting ready for her first powerlifting meet, date to be fixed for this summer.

Finding a new trainee with good natural ability is always reason to celebrate, but her 70sBig attitude is the real reason I think Iris deserves to be featured here. As hard as it is for men and boys to find good training information in the ocean of broscience that is the internet and print media, it’s at least twice as hard for women, because unfortunately many women have also internalized sexist attitudes about what is “appropriate” for them. Remember being a scrawny and confused teenage boy, bouncing back and forth between TNation and bodybuilding.com, searching desperately for a clue? That’s a hard enough time, but at least your quest for swole wasn’t being hampered by friends and family pointedly wondering why a lady would want to lift weights (read: be useful), or magazines reassuring you that no really, that low-fat Yoplait is a great source of protein. Gag me with a pink dumbbell.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that Iris never internalized any of this, so her attitude is refreshing change from all the issues that cause Justin to completely lose his shit. She didn’t need to be cajoled into lifting heavy, and I think she already eats more protein than half of the guys reading this post. I’m not making that up. The first time I asked to see her food log, I looked at the summary for a single week, Monday-Friday and the row “Protein (grams)” read: 210, 215, 204, 283, 243. Read that again. A 140lb woman ate over 200 grams of protein every day for a week, and on Thursday she cracked 2g/lb of bodyweight. If any of you guys want a safe space to discuss how this makes you feel, I would check out http://mopeilitywod.com/ imo. I know that’s where I was headed after comparing my own poor eating habits.

But despite having a few good reasons to feel self-satisfied, Iris doesn’t like getting on her high horse (which is why she wanted me to introduce her) and prefers to just quietly show up and do work. As she said to me the other day after seeing one of her peers doing 3lb dumbbell front raises “there’s no attendance credit at the gym.” Make a note of it, and stay tuned for updates from Iris on her meet prep. Over and out.

Iris is squatting 200×5 and deadlifting 210×10 these days.

PR Friday, 05 April 2013

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Cloud

Haaaaaaaaave you seen our posts this week? Monday we had a guest post by Jackie. She seems pretty cool. Cooler than anyone else who hasn’t submitted an article about grabbing life by the balls, competing even when nervous, and kicking ass, at least. She added me as a friend on the old facebooks, and now I see that she’s competing AGAIN this weekend at USAW University Nationals in Tennessee, so let’s wish her well and hope for an updated post from her in the near future. Anyone else competing? Seek and Destroy, friends.

On Wednesday, Brian had an in-depth interview with powerlifter Carlos. Brian is a quiet but valuable part of the team behind the scenes here at 70sBig. He makes sure our social media junk is up to date and every once in awhile, photoshops ridiculous pictures of everyone but me. He showed off his writing chops in this interview, and I think it was pretty damn good. It’s long, but worth the read. You guys really seem to enjoy these interviews, so we have a few more coming. Tsypkin is still working on a 2 or 3 part series of interviews with Niko Hulslander, so hopefully that will be ready to publish in the next week or two. I am also working with AC on a whole slew of upcoming articles that don’t include pictures of his butt. Or do they?

Tsypkin didn’t receive enough questions this week to warrant a Q&A, but Mike scoured the internet (facebook and the comments sections of the posts) and made another very helpful video. Watch it, tell your kids and doctor to watch it, and enjoy. Keep asking questions on the facebook page. Apparently these guys like it.

Now, I have some homework for you guys and gals. Some of you (most?) are relatively new to our humble section of the internet (just kidding, we’re not humble, we’re fucking awesome). It’s time for a flash-back. Read this post:

http://70sbig.com/blog/2010/08/the-70s-big-face/

Homework Part 1: Give us your favorite quote out of that article. Mine: “Fucking Brent.” It just makes me laugh, what can I say? Fucking Brent.

Homework Part 2: Take a pic. Send it to submissions@70sbig.com with the title “This is my 70sbig Face” or something funny. I will take the best ones and put them on the site.

I thought of this a couple weeks ago when I was supporting a couple of my lifters at the NAS Texas Strongest Man contest and saw our buddy Ryan Carrillo . He aimed his Canon and 17-40L in my direction, and without really thinking, here’s what happened:

This is just how I walk around now. It’s fine.

Last week, I talked about the lifestyle we choose to live. We lift heavy things and we have a damn good time doing it. This face helps show the world just how ridiculously awesome we are, so send me your best shots, and I’ll post them up. (Make sure they are less than 1MB each, please. Do you know how much a MB of storage costs in the 70s? Prolly about a hundred.)

To get us started on PRs, our buddy Brooks Conway, a notable young 181lb IPF equipped lifter, sent in this video of a recent 600×1 Raw Deadlift.

CrossFitters take note: He pulls 600 raw, with some bumpers…and doesn’t DROP it. K? He also recently raw squatted 495×3, which happens to tie what one of my 181’s is squatting this Saturday, and benches 365 for raw doubles, so…everyone, get stronger. The bar is high around here. Even if you aren’t there yet, get stronger every week, and keep us in the loop! Post your PRs, do your homework, take your vitamins, and have a stellar weekend.