The Danger of Being A Woman

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Ladies, I’m here for you.

I’m here to lift you up, overhead in a pressing movement, to protect you from harm. And that harm comes from a formidable opponent. One that will belligerently scoff and argue with you until the end of time. That opponent is yourself.

Allow me to explain! Your sense of womanly propriety is going to kill your squat! No, I don’t mean putting a strap on your boobs (link is unbelievably safe for work) or wearing makeup — I mean crossing your legs and wearing high heels!

I once coached a girl who could barely squat or bend down without her knees touching each other. She had learned to keep her legs together because it’s the “womanly thing to do” when wearing a skirt or dress. After all, a womanly woman doesn’t want to have a Britney Spears-like-hooha incident. The unfortunate result is that her muscles adapted to this chronic application of poor mechanics to the point of having non-existant external hip rotators, shortened groin muscles, a lack of hamstring musculature, and a lack of quad development. I’ve seen women who literally push their knees together as a brace for standing up in the same way that your grandparents use a cane.

These examples represent the extreme, but chronically sitting cross-legged or with the legs together will probably create some muscular limitations. For example, one of the regular female 70’s Big readers once lamented how her lack of mobility in her internal hip rotators (the groin area) was inhibiting her split position in the jerk; I could see this being caused by “womanly sitting”. Merely standing up with the knees close together can also contribute to shortened internal rotators. The motion typically involves the knees pushed in and forward while the woman cantilevers her torso to push herself into a standing position with her knees; this completely removes the hamstrings and hips from the standing up motion. As a result, new clients or trainees may have a bit of trouble with exercises like squatting and will need to open their hips before training.

Combine dress-wearing etiquette with the likelihood of wearing high heels, and we have a situation that would make Kelly Starrett’s head explode. The raised heel severely alters the mechanics of the entire lower body; the ankle is placed in severe plantar flexion to change the force application on the foot, and force easily reverberates up into the knees, hip, and back. Woman know this is occurring because high heels are uncomfortable, yet they wear them anyway.

If the discomfort of wearing high-heel shoes were not enough, try this on for size: The point of a spike heel worn by the average-sized woman is subjected to nearly 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch with every step she takes. The force is shot into the heel and reverberates up the entire body. When air travel was in its infancy, women wearing high heels were actually prohibited from boarding airplanes because the heels of their shoes might pierce the thin metal floors.

—Trail Guide to the Body, 3rd Ed. 

 

Yikes. Not only do high heels put a lot of force on structures that weren’t adapted to handle the stress in that manner, but they also shorten the calves — an area that is almost always in need of “opening” for improved mechanics in lifting and athletics. Whether you’re planning on squatting, running/sprinting, snatching, cleaning, or jerking, making the calves tight will only be counter-productive.

What’s a girl to do?

Am I suggesting that you not wear skirts or heels? Absolutely not! What I’m actually saying is this: TAKE YO SHOES OFF AND SPREAD YO LEGS — WHOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEEEEEEE! 

Man, I really wanted to end the post right there. But I need to clarify my advice so that all of you don’t take it literally and emulate Paula Broadwell. ZING!

Okay…c’mon guys…focus.

 

No, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t wear dresses or heels. But, when you do wear skirts or heels, know that you’ll have some extra mobility work to do on the structures you shorten. You can also help yourself by avoiding this attire on days when you are plan to squat or Olympic lift, especially if you’re going heavy. While wearing a dress isn’t a big deal — especially if you’re diligent with mobility work — it’d be a good idea to limit the frequency of wearing heels in a week. Those gals who change from tennis shoes to heels as they arrive at the office have already figured that heels are inherently bad. You could even save the heels for a special occasion, like those times when you want to seduce a four star general.

Crossing legs and wearing heels won’t destroy your training, but doing so regularly without extra mobility attention will result in chronically tight structures. The result could be injurious, but it will most likely result in inefficient lifting technique. Figure out what’s more important: training or looking good at work. And if it’s the latter, then get working on that mobility like you’re working on a rousing biography.

Q&A – 51

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PR Friday: Post PR’s and training updates to comments. Mingle. Have a good time.

Continuing Weekly Challenge: Movember Fundraising: 

The 70’s Big Movember Network (including other countries) has raised $3,263 at the time of this writing. That’s purdy good, but we’re right after the halfway point in the month, and the goal this year was to raise $8,000. The approach this year was to ask as many of you to join the team as possible, and get as many donations as possible. It seems obvious, but there are about 30 members on the team who haven’t raised any money at all. Just ask your family and friends to donate $1 — literally one doll hair. If you accumulate $10 total, that will be neat. Especially if you other guys reading this join the team and raise your own $10. This cancer stuff can effect all of us; an old friend recently caught some early stages of cancer. Raising this money isn’t self serving; it’ll help people like him. Thank you for your time or effort in this fundraising.

Weekly Recap: Sunday was Veteran’s Day, and thank you to anyone generous enough to donate two bucks to two different veteran charities; showing vets that you are willing to take action for them means more than your words. On Monday Jacob Cloud posted about the women who competed at the Longhorn Open. Tuesday we talked about two good posts from Glenn Pendlay about weightlifting programming. Wednesday we dug into some of the reasoning why Misha Koklyaev was unable to represent Russia in the Olympics for weightlifting.

I replied/answered to a few posts from last week’s Q&A.

Not a single fuck was given. (Pictured: Donovan Ford. Thanks to Brian for pic)

Q&A

Connor on November 4, 2012 at 12:22 pm said:
Justin, I thought this might make an odd, yet informative question/post. It seems that I’ve run into a problem that every man runs into: the roids…not the steroids, but the hemorrhoids. I have them and they’re really fucking up my workout schedule man. I really don’t know what to do about them, so I guess I’m going to go see Dr. Jelly Fingers in a couple of days to see what he says because this shit is unbearable (pardon the pun).

So these are my questions:

Does squatting and heavy lifting cause hemorrhoids?  That’s what everyone keeps telling me and I deny it, but I really can’t attribute it to anything else. How should I go about my training until it gets healed? Squatting is pretty much out of the question when it gets irritated. Thanks for reading this man. I know it’s kind of a funny topic or  whatever, but it’s serious man. I can’t, and won’t stop strength training, which is what I’m 90% sure the doctor will tell me to do. So what is your knowledge and experience on what to do in this situation?

 

Dear Connor,

Interesting yet probably relevant topic, indeed. Let me preface this with the fact that my hemorrhoids knowledge is limited; I haven’t had them more than half my life nor have I coached anyone that has had them. I did find this article and will point out a few things along with adding some other information.

Hemorrhoids are an enlarged vein in the anus, and they can distend outside of the body. Dealing with existing hemorrhoids includes:

– avoiding putting pressure into the lower abdomen when lifting (thereby pushing it in the bully or up into the closed throat)
– stay hydrated, eat healthy fats to soften the stool (to avoid irritating the hemorrhoids)
– don’t strain when pooping
– take a sitz bath
– don’t take over the counter anti-inflammatories

The article above points out that it’s still possible to train with hemorrhoids, but you obviously want to take care to not make them worse. In order to prevent hemorrhoids, I think the best thing you can do is progress into heavy lifting when you aren’t adapted to it. Irritating the blood vessels around the anus is the result of two possible things: a) putting excessive pressure in that region when lifting or b) increasing general blood pressure when you’re not adapted to it. To avoid putting pressure towards the B-hole, take a big breath, and then try to expel it through your throat and mouth, but close the epiglottis so that no air can move through your throat. When you do this, you’ll probably feel your abdominal muscles contract and pressure in your upper body increase. If you’re not used to this, be careful using it when you are actually lifting; it’s a bit different than merely taking a big breath and holding it.

Keep in mind that the adaptation to pressure increases will probably dictate forming or irritating hemorrhoids. The guy in the article above can squat and deadlift over 700 pounds without symptoms, but you may need to work to adapt to a work load near or at your max. Oh, and obviously don’t put large pressure stresses on them when they are flaring up.

 

zapata on November 9, 2012 at 1:42 pm said:
brb still waiting for Justin to answer a Q&A about fucking magnets, how do they work?

Dear zapata: 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/magnet1.htm

 

patrick87 on November 9, 2012 at 4:55 pm said: 

QUESTION: During weighted chins I’m noticing that my right shoulder/chest touches the bar considerably earlier than my left side. I’m only doing barbell excercises – no dumbbell or other one-sided lifting work – and always check that I’m in the middle of the bar. What does it mean and how do I counter this problem? Is it muscle
imbalance or is my posture screwed up?

Dear patrick87,

I can’t say for certain what the issue is without seeing it. The likely culprits are a lack of mobility or poor posture. You could also have some strength or musculature imbalances. I’d try and figure out which of these you think it is and deal with it appropriately. In the mean time, try to touch both shoulders at the same time (you may have to cue the opposite side to lead the way).

 

 

First rugby game ever last night. We won, absolutely dominating what has long been considered the best team in the league. And the coach declared me “man of the match.” I haven’t felt so proud in a long time.

 

QUESTION: I have heard that NSAIDs can cause damage to the intestinal lining and tax the liver, but let’s be real now, after the beating I took last night, fish oil and mobbing aren’t going to cut it for getting me back into playing condition within a week, and definitely not enough to get me ready to squat on Monday. I know from past experience that NSAIDs have helped me get rid of problems in two days that fish oil and mobbing hadn’t solved in weeks. Is there anything wrong with taking ibuprofen for a day or two for a quick fix? If not, what are my options for getting myself healed quickly?
Note: I eat (mostly) paleo (I include dairy and potatoes fairly regularly) and take tons of fish oil and vitamins, and drink lots of water. The areas that are most hurt right now are my right shoulder and both of my quads. Last time I had tissue bruised this badly it took two weeks to feel better. I don’t have that kind of time anymore. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dear newgetelqueso,

A few things. First, let’s look at pseudodan’s response to you last week. He alluded to the fact that strength training “wasn’t paleo” and such. This is referring to the “paleo lifestyle” bullshit that people talk about (which pseudodan is against; I just wanted to rant about this). Paleo is just the nutrition thing, because anybody that is not brushing their teeth or squatting to shit (at home) is an idiot. Trying to avoid the “Neolithic lifestyle” is not only stupid as shit, but it’s hypocritical unless they are out in the woods and they’d still be using their neolithic knowledge they picked up before trying to devolve.

All that being said, potatoes are fine when following Paleo nutrition (I’ll talk more about stuff like this soon). pseudodan mentioned you should be weary of increasing fish oil, and I agree if you’re already taking 4 or 5 grams of it. Otherwise you could increase it to that. I agree with pseudodan that acute intakes of ibuprofen and such is okay. But, now that you’re a real athlete who is getting his body smashed, you need to start looking into advanced recovery techniques, particularly methods to reduce swelling as fast as possible like compression, elevation, ice (“Should you use ice?” and “How should we ice, then?“), contrast baths (they pulse the lymphatics system as a whole), and some basic movement with compression (depending on the advancement of the injury).

 

I have a question maybe for next weeks Q&A maybe its an easy reply. I have been rehabbing from back surgery with The diesel crew back rehab protocol, easy way to sum it up is lots of bird dog, planks, bridges, dumbell RDLs, band good mornings, anti latteral flexion and rotation work, along with hip and thorasic mobility.I have been doing good working out 7 days a week for a few weeks, 5 days a week for a few weeksand now I’m nearing the last few weeks of the program at 3 days a week before going back to regular barbell training 3 days a week. I’m excited to have come this farbut I’m still dealing with a good amount of back soreness. I understand that what I am doing is going to cause soreness since I am trying to over come the last year of my back being a mess and doing nothing physical for it, but I am wondering if there is any strategy to improving tissue quality in my low back to help speed this up. I have had sucess in other funky areas using foam rollers, soft balls, lacrosse ballsand other tricks but I’m unsure of safe ways to do the same in the low back. I don’t have 1 spot injury pain, just a general soreness and tightness that you would get from working out. I am overweight and have already gotten my diet and supplements under control, I’m sure that will help greatly as time goes on. I also take no pain medications. Any recovery advice for this area would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dear Shawn Zep,

I think that your active approach to rehab is good, and don’t be afraid to continue it. If it doesn’t accomplish anything for a few weeks, then you will want to reconsider the approach. In general, I recommend that you stay active — especially because you say you’re overweight. If you aren’t walking daily, then I recommend that. In FIT, I talk about speed walking for 15 minutes several times a week, and this sounds like a good idea for you in addition to whatever rehab or lifting you may be doing (walking is also good rehab for the back).

I’m a big fan of rotational exercises and lateral spine stuff, and it sounds like that is present in your routine. It may be a bit early to lift, so try to incorporate some basic calisthenics if you can (squatting, lunging, push-ups, pull-ups, etc.). When you do start lifting, start with very light weight (the bar) and keep your normal rehab stuff in. Standard rehab advice is: do a little, see how it responds, then do just slightly more next time if everything is fine.

 

 

Koklyaev and Russian Weightlifting

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Mikhail “Misha” Koklyaev is one of the coolest and most successful strength athletes ever. In his career he has put up impressive performances in strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and powerlifting (the strongman stuff is recorded here).

I’ve always said that we would get along really well with Misha. Need proof? Watch this video of him comically flexing during photos after he won the super heavyweight class at the Russian nationals in 2005. A simple YouTube search will bring up all kinds of impressive athletic performances — like doing a jerk with people on his bar — combined with his trademarked goofy humor and smile. Need more proof? Here’s a video of him lifting a stone while wearing a speedo with Andrey Chemerkin recording:

You’ll note that in the above video, Misha went 200/250 for a 450kg total. Recently he won the Russian Cup with 200/248 despite tweaking something during warm-ups (video below). This led many of us to think, “Does this mean he’ll be going to the Olympics?”

The answer most of us saw online was that the Russian team was not taking him, and it was because of his public admission of PEDs use. The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) and Olympic committee allegedly only give countries a couple of chances to fail drug tests. The PR storm over allowing a known drug user on the team would have probably made things difficult, and the Russians allegedly were unwilling to risk a positive test since it could remove their weightlifting team from Olympic competition. This seems to be the primary reason, but Russian national team coach David Rigert and Russian Weightlifting Federation president Sergey Syrtsov discuss other points in this translated press conference.

I get the impression that Koklyaev doesn’t get along with the RWF. Perhaps it stems from his admission of drug use? Or maybe it’s that Misha is unwilling to bleed himself dry for the RWF? Misha admits to “quarreling with people” (in the video below), and the Syrtsov says in the press conference that Misha pursued strongman in order to earn more money. If Russian weightlifters fare a quarter as bad as American weightlifters, then you can’t really blame him.

Syrtsov points out that Koklyaev regularly competed internationally as a teen and junior competitor, even besting the 2000 and 2004 gold medal super heavyweight Hossein Rezazadeh as a junior. Yet Syrtsov and Rigert basically come to the point that Misha’s international performance is poor, which effected his Olympic team consideration. They point out that international competition is different than success at home.

Rigert then points out that he coached Misha three times and he lifted up to 30kg lower in the total. Then he weirdly points out how Misha’s wife stopped working for Rigert once she and Misha got together — bitter much, Rigert?

This is a well produced video of Misha’s 2011 Russian Cup victory:

Rigert talks about how Misha was invited and attended training at the national facility. In Rigert’s words, after two weeks Misha just left. Obviously there’s more to the story, and there seems to be an obvious friction between Misha and Rigert, but this was what Rigert told reporters. He then went on to lambaste Misha by saying his eight national championships were all earned when his real competitors were busy preparing for bigger competitions. He’s basically saying, “It’s not that impressive because the real competition wasn’t there.”

Despite all of this, his victory in the Russian Cup made him a candidate for the team. Yet Syrtsov says that the documents they sent Misha were returned in the mail because Misha no longer lived at the address. Then Rigert candidly points out that all of the relevant information — about protocol and what Misha was expected to do — was explained to him. He was subject to a medical examination (i.e. a drug test). Rigert cannot put him on the team if he doesn’t pass this test, and Misha was not present for his test. Rigert then points out that they have two strikes regarding drug tests, implying that if they fail, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, they will be removed from Olympic competition. He finishes by basically saying, “Of course I’d want a strong athlete on the team, but not if he can only compete in Russia.”

I’m sure there is more to the story, but it all seems to stem from Misha’s drug use. It must be frustrating for him to go from strongman, a sport that inherently has athletes using PEDs, to a sport like weightlifting where the official committees pretend to stamp out PEDs while most of the athletes use them and don’t get caught. Perhaps Misha has a problem with authority, but he seems to be in good humor in all of his videos. It’s unfortunately clear that politics can decide a guy’s fate. Nevertheless, Misha is still one of the most impressive strength athletes of all time at 34 years old.

 

Pendlay’s Weightlifting Programming Tips

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Glenn Pendlay of MDUSA recently wrote a pair of articles titles, “How to write an Olympic weightlifting program” (Part 1 and Part 2). They are a good review of the basic principles for Olympic weightlifting. Believe it or not, many weightlifters get away from this foundation.

For example, there are assholes online who pose as weightlifting “experts” just because they trained with some random Chinese coach for a month. This means they “understand the Chinese weightlifting” system and miraculously gained the aptitude to teach it. Whatever the FUCK that means.

Anyway, I prefer Pendlay’s approach to weightlifting because he does it like a Socratic student who acknowledges there is plenty to learn.

“When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it, is knowledge.”
–Confucius

 

“…surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know.”
–Socrates

Personally, I don’t think Pendlay needs to approach it this way; he could get away with being an asshole about what he knows. But that’s not his style because he honestly still learns stuff every day; I like that. Let’s highlight some of the lessons from his two-part article.

Part 1 concerns itself with snatching, clean and jerking, and squatting. Again, read the Pendlay’s articles for his explanation and reasoning, but it’s good that he took the time to point this out. So many people will watch videos of successful international lifters and decide to emulate them. Monkey see, monkey doo doo in their singlet. I wrote about this concept in a triumphant “I proved my point because you’ll click on anything that says sex and shows a bit of T&A” post, “Sexy Isn’t Always Better.”

Part 2 actually provides enough information for a weightlifter to program his training for several years. He points out how weightlifting success selects certain training principles: not doing anything greater than triples on the Olympic lifts, typically not squatting prior to the lifts, and organizing them effectively throughout the week. But one of the things I like the most about Pendlay’s message is:

Keep a workout log, and take good notes. When you change your program, try to change one thing at a time, and give the change a reasonable amount of time to work before you abandon it. Approach things in a systematic way, and with every week and every success and failure you will add to your knowledge of how your body reacts to training and what you need to do to snatch more and clean and jerk more.

This may even sound painfully obvious to some of you, but I’d be willing to bet that you recently waffled your way through what was supposed to be a systemic approach to programming. Most of you guys just want to be told what to do — JUST GIVE ME A PROGRAM.

Read Glenn’s articles, particularly Part 2, and you’ll walk away with a good vision of a quality weightlifting program. Lift heavy, but vary your work load throughout the week. Accumulate work above 80%. Reserve sessions later in the week for maximal attempts. Pick a rep scheme, whether it be singles, doubles, or triples, and try to push it for 4 to 8 weeks. Once you start to stall on one scheme, transition to the next (exhaust triples, then move to doubles). Once you do go through this cycle a few times, vary the sessions in a week. Doubles on Monday, triples on Wednesday, and then maximal stuff on Friday? Sounds like a plan — but the point is to have a plan. Like Glenn said, “Remember that success in weightlifting is defined by snatching and clean and jerking more. It is not defined by having a huge squat or carrying an impressive workload in training” or by doing a bunch of random exercises. Pay attention to guys that simplify programming. Listening to them will help you more than a fool keyboard warrior claiming secret Chinese knowledge.

Hyde Park Gym Ladies at the Longhorn Open

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Today’s female post is written by Jacob Cloud. 

I’ve been following 70sBig since the beginning of time, and have tried to contribute in many ways. Sometimes that means writing guest posts, sending in silly videos, or meet recaps, but it also means being an ambassador in the real world, which is something I take pretty seriously. This site has grown into a community, and I’m damn happy to be a part of it.

Back Row: Caroyln, Jessica, April, Sarah. Front Row: Dana and her two trophies.

One thing I’ve been really proud of Justin for is his decision to make Mondays all about the ladies. I’m a huge fan of female lifters, and have a lot of fun coaching and helping many of them at Hyde Park Gym. My girlfriend has taken to competing this year, and the enthusiasm she shows is infectious. Between the two of us, we’ve successfully made a huge push to get more members of Hyde Park Gym in Austin competing. Remember, competing is one of the tenets of this site. Recently, we held a mock meet at the gym to introduce more people to the basics of a powerlifting meet, and on November 3rd we had about a dozen guys and gals from HPG compete (all raw) at the USAPL Longhorn Open in Austin. That group involved 5 awesome chicks which I’m going to brag about in this post. With their help, we were able to score a 2nd place combined team trophy in our first team competition.

Jessica showing off her bench arch

Let’s start with my special lady friend, Jessica. She’s relatively new to powerlifting, but already quite passionate about the sport. At Raw Nationals in August, she went 9/9 in the 60kg class, and was able to meet a bunch of legends, including sharing a platform with the famous Jennifer Thompson. For this meet, Jess cut down to 56kg, which had been a goal of hers for awhile. The cut was going great until the night before the meet, when a practice weigh-in at the equipment check proved that our home scale was a full kilo lighter than the meet scale. Drastic measures meant for a long Friday night and Saturday morning, and she ended up being the final morning lifter to make weight at exactly 56.0kg, with about a minute to go on the clock. This didn’t leave much time to re-hydrate before squats, and we made the easy decision to pass on her 3rd attempt to allow her to rest/feed/hydrate before benching. She ended up going 8/8 on the day, PRing her competition deadlift (125kg/275lbs), total (247.5kg), and Wilks, and then went on to help me handle several of the male lifters in the later flights. We learned some lessons for next time, for sure, but she made the best of her situation and came out smiling.

April in the warm-up room

We had two ladies in the 60kg class, both in their first official competition. April’s husband, Tanner, is a friend of mine who I really got to know at Raw Nats when I offered to help handle him, since I had another lifter in his 181 class (RoryT, who also posts on 70’s Big). I believe it was at that meet that Jessica convinced April she should also compete instead of watching from the stands. Since this was her first meet, April smartly stayed conservative with her lifts, and Tanner helped coach her to a very successful and confidence-inspiring 7/9 performance. The first meet is often the most memorable, but I have no doubt April will be setting lots of unforgettable PRs in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

Dana says “gotta wear the granny glasses to see the smooth and knurling and get the weight balanced!”

Our second 60kg lifter, Dana, is a self-described soccer mom. Her daughter out-cuted everyone at the equipment check, bragging about how strong her Mom was, and even asking her to flex her guns for all of us (we were impressed). Dana didn’t disappoint on Meet day, winning 1st in her Master’s class with a 8/9 performance. Her trainer at the gym, John, is an experienced (and ox-strong) powerlifter, and he set her up with a nice spreadsheet beforehand, so she had all of her attempts and even warm-ups planned out ahead of time. He wasn’t able to attend the meet, so I helped her out in the warm-up room (when, inevitably, timing always seems to go wrong), did my best to help settle her nerves, and everyone cheered her on for her big lifts. She ended up with a very nice 262.5kg total and an impressive 297 Wilks.

Sarah will kill me for using this picture.

We also had 2 more female lifters, both in the 67.5kg class. Neither of them had to worry about making weight, and ended up on the lighter end of the class. Sarah has competed in one other USAPL meet, and is a helluva lifter, though you’d never know it based on her Master’s degree in being a Librarian, or something along those lines. She and Jessica tend to talk a lot of smack in the gym (In actuality, Jessica does 90% of the talking, and Sarah just smiles and squats), and they have a very friendly rivalry that helps push them in a positive direction. Sarah ended up going 8/9, and I believe she PR’d her bench and deadlift. When contemplating what to call on her third dead, Sarah asked if she should go for 275 or 281. Jessica’s response was something along the lines of “If you don’t get 281, I’m going to punch you.” Sarah did, and in doing so, ended up beating Jessica’s Wilks score by 0.3 points (291.51 to 291.21). This rivalry has just begun, and will be a lot of fun to watch in 2013.

Carolyn killing a 226lb squat.

Our final lifter, Carolyn, turned out to be the surprise of the group. She’s an awesome and strong gal for sure; we all knew that. What we didn’t expect was that she would show up and and deadlift 330 pounds in her first meet! Her special guy friend, Eric, also a national level lifter, has only been coaching her in powerlifting for a couple months, but she showed a lot of talent and poise, and destroyed some serious weights, resulting in a 9/9 performance for a 310kg total and a 331 Wilks. Very impressive!

Jess showing off her trophy, and her proud Coach.

The point of this post is not only to brag on my female friends at the gym, but to urge more of you to compete. The first thing I usually hear people say is “I’m not strong enough!” That’s bullshit. These ladies are all of various strength and experience levels and I can say without a doubt that every one of them had a great time, and I know most of them are already planning to compete again in the near future. It’s important to prepare for your first meet, but it’s even more important to sign up and do the damn thing. All of these ladies ignored potential excuses, signed up, showed up, and lifted their asses off, and now they have a ton of fans, friends, and even rivals who are eager to see what they’ll do in their next competition. The bottom line is that competition helps you set and achieve goals, so get out and do it.