The CrossFit Games Analysis

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I watched a little bit of the 2012 CrossFit Games this past weekend. I don’t regularly follow CrossFit, so I don’t know many competitor names. I didn’t watch it enough to follow who was in what place, and what needed to happen for an individual to win. I do know that Rich Froning and Annie Thorisdottir (arguably the coolest name ever) both repeated as champions (they won the 2011 contest as well).

Instead I’d like to look at the events that were chosen and some basic statistics. I’ll admit that I’m kind of out of touch with CrossFit, so I won’t be crazy with my critiques. Regardless of what anyone thinks of this competition, it must be taken seriously because there is big money up for grabs. Each individual winner earned $250,000! That arguably makes CrossFit more “relevant” (as ESPN talking heads would say) than Olympic weightlifting or powerlifting. It really is genius on the part of CrossFit, because paying one individual winner is just pocket change for the company. Discover the newest game at ค้นพบเกมใหม่ที่ UFABET and immerse yourself in endless entertainment.

Aside from the spoils of victory, I’m fascinated with what a trainee needs to do to prepare for this type of event. Every sport in the world is standardized, therefore there is an optimal way to prepare a trainee based on their current state of adaptation. CrossFit is completely random; the competitors don’t even know what they’ll have to do until they get there. And, as this year’s competition has shown, they will have to endure insane amounts of volume and work. Competitors who lasted until the last day had to undergo about 12 workouts (depending on how you count them) with 10 of them on the last three days. Winners not only have to survive, but perform well enough so that they aren’t cut.

Froning eats whatever he wants, loves God, and shaves his chest

COMPETITORS

Rich Froning is 24 and Annie Thorisdottir is 22, so you could say CrossFit is a young person’s game. I took the average age of the top ten finishers. The men’s average age is 27.1 and the women’s is 28. The range for the men was 23 to 34. The range for the women was 22 to 33. This pretty much fits in line with top American sports. Athletes are typically in their prime in their mid to late 20s while they aren’t really competing at the same level as they get a little ‘older’ (I don’t think 30s, or 40s for that matter, is “old”). I would expect this type of competition to get more difficult as someone hits their early 30s. It’s very different from something like powerlifting which can yield performance progress into the 40s. It’d also be interesting to look at the height/weight averages, but I’m too lazy for that. I did notice that the women seemed to come in pretty different shapes or sizes, but generally weren’t over 150 and the guys were around 200 pounds or so.

Annie has a badass last name, rippling abs, and a pretty cute smile

The Workouts By Day

[spoiler]

There were many events, and sometimes an event preceded an actual workout. Participants were awarded points based on how they finished relative to one another. This kind of set up is similar to strongman, and it helps keep things close. Eventually, there are cuts that decrease the number of competitors. From a spectator standpoint, this keeps it interesting since the only “survivors” should be close to one another in point totals. CrossFit does a pretty decent job of designing their competitions and making standards for individual movements.

Wednesday

The competitors were informed the night before that they’d be doing a triathlon the following day. Yikes. It consisted of

In this event, athletes will begin by swimming approximately 700 meters with fins. They will then grab their bicycles and ride approximately 8 kilometers across undulating terrain, with approximately 400 meters through unrideable soft sand. They finish with an 11 kilometer dirt-road run across steep hills with over 1,400 feet of elevation gain.

That’s about a half mile swim, 5 mile bike, and almost a 7 mile run. I’m pretty sure this event wasn’t televised, which is probably a good thing since they were just slogging it away for 2 to 2.5 hours (which seemed to be where most of the times fell).

About an hour later, the competitors ran heats on the O-course on Camp Pendleton, which takes less than a minute to complete. I thought this was a pretty cool idea since O-courses require an array of skills, like balance, coordination, and ignoring fear. With the CrossFit and military relationship, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a road march or ruck based mission future competitions.

Friday

The competitors had Thursday off, and Friday kicked off four events, but primarily two workouts. The first event was a standing broad jump for distance, which must have been thrilling to the crowd…The broad jump is one of those things that, with the vertical jump, are not going to change very much as a result of training. It’s a test of power, but there’s a little technique involved. The guys that finished in the top 10 overall didn’t really place very high in this event (though there were two top ten broad jumpers in the overall top 10). There are probably better tests of power, and it seems like this was just thrown in for the sake of trying to validate CrossFit as something that can accomplish all physical attributes (especially since there was an endurance event at the start of the week) or validate that the winner was truly tested in all “domains” of “being fit” (which is debatable).

The next event was a “ball toss off of a GHD sit-up bench”. The presence of this event seemed to want to validate why every CrossFitter should do their GHD sit-ups. At least it was a low volume event. After all, hip flexor power is one of those markers of athleticism and fitness…

Right after the ball toss, they had:

Three rounds for time of:
8 Split snatch, alternating legs (115 / 75lbs)
7 Bar muscle-ups
Run 400 meters

A pretty standard, non-stupid met-con that requires some more advanced skills. I didn’t have a problem with this workout, and it kind of fits the mold of the classic not-crazy-volume met-cons that Glassman used to write <2003. The time cap was 13 minutes. I fully support the time cap in this competition, but also in a gym environment. I hate when someone will turn “Fran”, a sub 5 minute workout, into a 15 minute affair. It completely changes the intended stress, so as a Programmer I’m going to account for this by scaling weights and/or capping times.

Later that day, they had:

Three rounds for time of:
8 Medicine ball cleans (150 / 80 lbs)
100 foot Medicine ball carry
7 Parallette handstand push-ups
100 foot Medicine ball carry

This seems to be another one of those, “Every good CrossFitter must do their med-ball cleans,” type of situation. Nevertheless, this isn’t a terrible workout, especially given the context that it’s for more advanced competitors. It has a bit of strongman to it, and that’s never a bad thing. The time cap was 10 minutes.

Saturday

This day started off with some football oriented stuff on the field. The first event was a “shuttle sprint” where the competitors sprinted down a 50 yard field and back, then sprinted down a 100 yard field and back. This isn’t a true “300 yard shuttle” as it is usually done in six legs (which requires stopping/starting while fatigued). 300 yard shuttles are pretty friggin’ hard. Immediately after this, they did:

Five rounds for time of:
20 foot Rope climb, 1 ascent
20 yard Sled drive

I think that “the games creators” didn’t foresee how difficult this one was going to be. I actually watched this on TV, and there was a lot of competitors dying in the California sun as they tried to drive the football sleds. This was capped at 13 minutes, but sled driving is amazingly fatiguing. It’s not the same as a prowler; it requires leverage and fast feet, and those things are hard to do when fatigued. Even so, I think that the 20 yards was a bit long, and it probably would have been better with 10 yards. I mean, we’re still watching people exercising, but it could have been a bit more up-tempo with the shorter sled drive.
A couple of hours later was the “Clean ladder”, which is a repeat of last year’s deadlift ladder (cleaning a rep every 30 seconds with ascending bars). The heaviest weight cleaned was actually 365, which is pretty impressive (nice job, Neal Maddox). Most of the top 10 male overall finishers did around 330. The heaviest female clean was 235, which was the last bar — the men didn’t reach the last bar of 385. The top 10 female overall finishers cleaned around 200, though their range was greater. This marked the event where competitors were starting to get cut for the following events.
About an hour later, they did “The Chipper” which was:
For time:
10 Overhead squats (155 / 105 lbs)
10 Box jump overs (24” / 20” box)
10 Fat bar thrusters, (135 / 95 lbs)
10 Power cleans (205 / 125 lbs)
10 Toes to bar
10 Burpee muscle-ups
10 Toes to bar
10 Power cleans (205 / 125 lbs)
10 Fat bar thrusters, (135 / 95 lbs)
10 Box jump overs (24” / 20” box)
10 Overhead squats (155 / 105 lbs)
If you know me, I’m not a fan of chippers. That being said, this Chipper wasn’t too terrible because it was capped at 15 minutes. If it was a half hour slog fest with 50 reps everywhere, then I might have a problem. Do you see the trend? Each event in itself isn’t too bad, but there are a bunch of them over the course of the weekend.
Sunday

The first workout was called, “Double Banger”. I’d actually be kind of impressed if there were a bunch of threesomes going on, but instead CrossFit wanted to inject that “manual labor” thing into their competition.

For time:
50 Double-unders
Low banger
50 Double-unders
Down banger
50 Double-unders
Mid banger

The “banger” portion refers to the competitor driving a heavy weight on a sliding rack by hitting it with a sledge hammer. The workout was capped at 9 minutes, so it isn’t too terrible. I don’t know what the fascination is with manual labor. Yeah, it is hard. Yeah, you’ll get sweaty. But as I say in my seminars, I can do a lot of things to get sweaty like digging a trench or have a lot of sex — it doesn’t mean it’s a good adaptive stress. Will Reebok start selling sledge hammers?

At this point, there are 18 competitors left. They are about to go through the gauntlet, and I do not envy this last portion of the overall competition. The competitors were slated to complete “Elizabeth”, “Isabel”, and “Fran” in back-to-back-to-back workouts. The only pause between them was to get the results compiled. Each was capped at 6 minutes and a few competitors were dropped after each portion.

I don’t know if you guys have done these workouts, but I’ve done all three (I’ve done “Fran” in 2:30). They are a fucking doozy. One of them alone is enough to provide an adaptive stress. I realize that the CrossFit Games are not designed to be a workout to make someone better, but a test of someone’s capability. However, this would have been brutal.

[/spoiler]
The Thoughts

That marks the end of the workouts that the competitors had to complete. As you already read, Froning and Thorisdottir were the victors for a second year in a row. I wonder if that bothered CrossFit or not. Regardless, it’s pretty impressive on their part.

This competition is supposed to gauge the “fittest person in the world”. They certainly found that…in the way CrossFit defines “being fit”. Personally I’m not a fan of the crazy amounts of volume that are prevalent in the competitions. 12 intensive workouts, especially 10 in three days, is insane. Yet it’s what they choose to do, and I can accept that. Yet, I’ll disagree with how they define “the fittest”, because it puts a premium on “high intensity endurance training” as well as “the endurance to endure the high intensity stuff for several days”. I’m not equating it to long, slow distance type stuff, but it clearly has a “conditioning bias”. Moreover, it ignores other components of being fit, like agility and coordination (two things CrossFit claimed in Glassman’s “What is Fitness?”). Sure, the obstacle course tested a bit of balance, maybe some agility, but ask any practitioner or researcher in the field of “exercise science/physiology” or “strength and conditioning”, and agility is defined in very specific ways.

Why not test them in cone drills? L drill, T test, or 5-10-5 shuttle run. Or do all three with several minutes of break in between. Or even create new methods of testing agility. I suppose it starts with how you define fitness. As someone who has helped write a book on the topic, I define it as strength, mobility, and endurance. “Mobility” includes those things like agility, balance, and coordination. Strength was sort of represented with the clean ladder, and yes competitors needed to be strong to do the various workouts, yet they mostly tested their “high intensity endurance” capability. For being an organization that used to preach balance, it just seems pretty unbalanced in the form of testing.

With the method that CrossFit tests in the major competitions, you could make an argument that these people are the “fittest in the world”, but that doesn’t make them the “most athletic in the world”. By testing these other parameters it could sort of account for that. But, like I said about the Olympics, it’s just more impressive when an individual must use reaction. It requires a completely different set of physical attributes to be able to see, decide, and react with movement accordingly. I don’t know if it’s possible to include this element in the CrossFit Games, but it would legitimize it in my view.

Don’t get me wrong, what the competitors did is very impressive. The top 10 finishers are all impressive performers. Yet, at the end of the day, they competed in exercising. There’s nothing wrong with that! They are certainly “fit”, and this competition didn’t really have anything stupid in it (I’d probably grade Castro and the organizers with a B+, considering what they were trying to achieve). Yet, it just seems like CrossFit is still stuck in the frame of thinking that being conditioned is supreme. As long as they don’t try to claim supremacy over athletes, I’m fine with it. If they wanted to, then they would need to include more tests of athleticism, because an obstacle course doesn’t validate coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.  I don’t know, maybe the CrossFit Games should keep a focus on met-cons; after all, it’s a conditioning training program.

Note: In case you get offended and want to bitch at me, I don’t hate CrossFit. I’ve been involved with it for a long time and love the people I meet through it. Read this if your panties are in a wad (WOD?).

Using the Olympic Lifts for Powerlifting

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I started to answer this question in a Q&A and thought it was a good topic, so I saved it for a post. It starts with the question below. Thanks for the question, Jared. I think that this topic will be informative and interesting.

Hey Justin,

[spoiler]

I wrote you awhile back talking about Thoracic Mobility. Thanks for the response. I have a question about the Oly lifts in a power lifting program and you are the only coach I know that trains both types of athletes. I focus mostly on power lifting for amateur competitions. I feel that the snatch and the clean both do a lot for my upper back and shoulders, as well as my explosive power off the floor and out of the hole. I am pretty technical at the power and hang variations of both Oly lifts but I have recently started focusing on learning the full version (catching lower instead of with a quarter squat like in the power variant). I have noticed that due to the need to relearn the technique, my weights have dropped considerably. My question is; In your opinion, is it worth the time to learn the full lift or should I just stick with the power variants considering that I am only using these movements as assistance for a raw power lifting program? Am i going to get a performance boost worth the time that it takes to learn the new technique? By the way 70’s big is what inspired me to learn the Oly lifts in the first place. I am 235 and when I saw someone that weighs 180 snatch my body weight when I couldnt even do an overhead squat with the bar, I was embarrased. I thought, how can I call myself strong when I cant even perform one of the basic lifts. Time to fix that. I know that you are busy and it means a lot to me that you take the time to help me out. Anyway, thanks for the inspiration and the advice. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

WO1 xxxx, Jared
AV, US Army[/spoiler]

TL;DR – Learn full lifts, or stick with power variations to supplement powerlifting training?

Here’s an old picture of me doing the jump method. Please ignore it.

The Olympic lifts can be looked at in two ways: a) using the lifts to supplement another activity or sport and b) doing the lifts to compete in the sport of Olympic weightlifting. Personally, I would teach the lifts in different ways depending on the end product. The first method above would do the simplified “jump” version while actual weightlifters would use a more specific method to allow them to get under the bar with heavier weights (the distinction is briefly explained in this post). I’m sure weightlifting coaches may disagree with me, but if I’m training some Army Rangers, I don’t give a damn if they are getting under the weight properly. Instead, I want them to jump the weight to train a loaded hip extension movement so that it can augment their “operational capability” (i.e. ‘cool guy’ term for ‘doing their highly demanding job’).

The same concept would apply to anything else like martial arts, field or court sports, or any other activity or sport not called weightlifting. The exception is CrossFit; CF competitors need to learn the more technical version in order to excel in their hypothetical competitions. Powerlifting fits into the “any other activity or sport” category.

The value of these pursuits lies not just in the physical exertion but also in the mental acuity and strategic thinking they demand. Whether it’s the disciplined movements of martial arts, the teamwork in field sports, or the precision required in court sports, each endeavor presents an opportunity for personal growth and skill development. For instance, Youth Martial Arts programs play a crucial role in instilling discipline and focus in young individuals. The structured training in martial arts not only imparts self-defense skills but also cultivates qualities such as resilience and respect. Much like other sports, the journey of learning martial arts is a continuous process that not only shapes physical abilities but also nurtures essential life skills, making it a valuable pursuit for individuals of all ages.

How the Olympic lifts should be used in powerlifting

If your primary goal is powerlifting, then all of your training should funnel into that sport. The power clean and power snatch are usually good at developing power necessary in the slower lifts in powerlifting (ignore the fact that the slow lifts erroneously use the prefix “power”). However, this depends on training advancement. Lesser adapted trainees will benefit from using the power variants of the Olympic lifts, but more advanced trainees will not receive much benefit out of them.

For example, Chris can deadlift 705 pounds. He uses 435 on his speed deadlift sessions (and performs ten singles on the minute). He cannot clean or power clean 435. When he was deadlifting around 633, his power clean singles (performed on the minute) were around 275 lbs. If the power clean weight was any heavier, he would have had to squat them and I didn’t want that to happen since it would add more squatting stress to the program. This is one key point on why the full lifts aren’t used in powerlifting: it will increase the squatting stress without significantly improving the power stress.

The power cleans were 43% of his 1RM (275/633 = ~43%) while the speed deads are 62% (435/705 = ~62%). As you see, his speed deads are a higher percentage of 1RM. If we used the same percentage to figure what his power clean weight would be based on his current 705 deadlift, he would be using right around 300 pounds on the power cleans (.43 x 705 = ~303). 300 pounds is over 100 pounds less than 435. Some may argue that he can pull the 300 pounds faster than the 435 through a longer ROM. I’m telling you, if you watch Chris speed deadlift, the bar can’t move much faster; he rips the hell out of the bar. More importantly, the speed deadlifts are specific to deadlifts. The mechanics are exactly the same, he uses more weight (causing a greater power stress), and he gets more practice greasing the groove of his deadlift technique. Power cleans are absolutely inferior to speed deadlifts for Chris.

A weaker lifter may get a good power stress out of power cleans because a) their deadlift 1RM is lower and b) their power clean is a higher percentage of deadlift 1RM. This is really only relevant to “novices”, “beginners” and “weak lifters” (all of the terms are in quotes because they’re arbitrary). Keep in mind that we’re specifically talking about training for powerlifting here. If a trainee had a 600+ deadlift, but he played American football, I would still have him power clean because it trains physical traits necessary for his sport.

Specificity

As previously stated, power cleans are not as specific to “intermediate and higher” powerlifting programs. It also stated that the full Olympic lifts wouldn’t be applicable to someone focusing on powerlifting. This is because the amount of specificity the full Olympic lifts demand will leave the scope of powerlifting training. The opposite is true as well: using a powerlifting focused version of the squat (low bar) and deadlift would leave the scope of specific Olympic weightlifting training.

To answer Jared’s question, no, I don’t think it’s worth his time to learn the full Olympic lifts if his goal is to improve his performance in powerlifting. Jared said that he is training for “amateur competitions”. Well, most competitions are amateur in nature and I could argue that all competitions are since nobody is getting paid. Nevertheless, Jared may want to be the best he can be in powerlifting, or he may do powerlifting competitions once in a while because they are fun. What if he wanted to be a strong guy all around? Maybe he’s just training to be strong and conditioned, but competed in powerlifting to shut me up about choosing a competition or meet?

Being a manly lifter

The readership of this site is sort of equal parts powerlifter, weightlifter, and CrossFitter, yet there’s a larger percentage that are concerned with “General Physical Preparedness (GPP) or strength and conditioning”. This type of trainee typically has the following generic goals:
– press 200
– bench 300
– squat 400
– deadlift 500
– snatch 220
– clean and jerk 330

Those are cool numbers. Being able to hit them on any day of the week means you’re pretty strong, manly even. And sometimes that’s what it is all about. Some of you may do a powerlifting meet, but you don’t devote your life to powerlifting. That’s okay. My advice would be to acquaint yourself with the Olympic lifts, because they are pretty cool and will augment your physical attributes. Don’t get me wrong, having a big squat or deadlift are impressive too, but you don’t want some 180 pound dude snatching more than you. That’s just wrong.

What about other sport competitors?

We already know that the power variants of the Olympic lifts will benefit other sport competitors, but should they bother learning the full movements? Eh, this depends more on the person’s skill. If Guy A is a spaz and finds the full clean or snatch difficult, then I’m not going to waste time training the specific motor skills to do the lifts well. I’ll just use the power variants. If Guy B can seamlessly learn and implement the full Olympic lifts, then I’ll probably use them in his training. I’d probably use both the power and full variants of the Olympic lifts for Guy B. A good example is Peter Upham’s athlete in Sydney named Blake. Blake is going into his sophomore year of playing football at Hawaii and regularly snatches and clean and jerks.

If you’re not committed to one type of sport, or you aim to compete in several, I would urge you to learn the fully Olympic lifts in order to be well rounded in the weight room — and subsequently in other sports or activities . Some of you will simply suck at them. It’s okay if you have “spaz athleticism”; good coaching and practice will help. Program them in a classic S&C style by putting one of the lifts first in the workout.

If you’re a powerlifter, then your advancement will dictate whether or not the power variants will augment your training. If you choose to see how far you can go in powerlifting, any version of the Olympic lifts will eventually be a divergence from optimal training. In this case, I wouldn’t worry about lighter dudes snatching more than you as long as your powelifts are decent. Comparing lifts, especially ones you don’t compete in, is just a dick measuring game that children play.

To learn more about the “more advanced” powerlifting programming mentioned int his post, check out The Texas Method: Advanced.

The Enemy

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HarveyMushman AKA Kyle has been reading 70’s Big for a while. His wife, Julie (hi Julie!), competes in roller derby and also had an ACL replacement in March of 2011. When she started her linear progression, they focused on using the leg press to help strengthen her knee through a full range of motion.

One day when Julie was using the leg press at the gym, a woman approached them and said (according to Kyle, who shits you not), “Women shouldn’t use this leg press with plates because they’ll get big. You should be over there [gestures to the selectorized side of the room] using the machines with light weight and high reps to tone instead of get big.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we’re up against. This is The Enemy.

This is a persistent myth that women hold onto, but it ends up being an excuse that keeps them from doing anything that is hard. I want to review why this is such an absurd assumption — aside from how it isn’t based on any factual evidence.

1. Women have 1/10th the testosterone of men. 

Hormones regulate our body and our life, yet women lack significant amounts of this very important hormone that creates a domino effect in a complicated neuroendocrine system to “get bigger”. In fact, you can’t even truthfully say that “lifting heavy weights makes men bigger” because there are thousands of goobers who prove this wrong every day. “Hard gainers”, skinny guys, and the misinformed prove to us that lifting weights hardly results in getting bigger, even when it’s the goal.

So why would we assume this would be the case for a female? And even if it was the case for men, women have a small fraction of the testosterone that a man does making it incredibly difficult to “get bigger”.

2. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. 

When you have more lean body mass (AKA muscle), your metabolism is higher. That means you use more energy when you have more muscle. That also means your body is more efficient at using fat as energy, thereby reducing body fat. Lower body fat also results in a higher metabolic rate. All of this means your body is efficient at being lean and strong, which is what “being toned” really means.

Erin Stern is my stock example of a fit woman. She competes in figure competitions, but implements a variety of training methods

3. Lifting weights to get stronger with compound movements significantly raises metabolism too. 

Crayola style:
When you lift weights, you damage muscle fibers. When you lift weights with compound movements, you damage muscle fibers all over the body. When you recover from lifting weights, the body will repair this damaged muscle. When you recover from heavier, compound movements, your body will repair lots of muscle all over your body. It requires energy to repair things, and a greater energy demand is a higher metabolism. Of all the women I’ve trained, I’ve never had anyone gain body fat; they’ve always lost body fat while increasing muscle (by a little bit). 

4. Why would a woman suddenly become bulky anyway?

I know, I know, I’m trying to apply more logic to a person that holds onto a belief without any factual evidence. But if you’re a female, especially a skinny one, why would you suddenly become bulky if you’ve been skinny your whole life? If you’re a heavier female, you definitely are carrying more body fat. If you accept # 2 and 3, then you know your metabolism will be higher and you will burn more fat by a) lifting and recovering from lifting  lifting weights with compound movements, b) having a greater lean body mass (even if it is only several pounds).

In order to be truly bulky with muscle mass, a women usually needs chemical help (AKA steroids). The women who are naturally muscular are genetically gifted and comprise a very low percentage of the population. If you were one of these women, you would already know (and you’d probably be proud of your physique anyway). 

5. Higher reps with lower weights seems to be the thing that actually increases muscle mass the most in women. 

Perhaps a literature review is in order for this topic, but those of us that are actually practitioners in the fitness or strength and conditioning field see that women seem to develop muscle very well with higher reps. I’ve heard of various people (including Robb Wolf) talk about how this seems to stimulate growth hormone. It’s an observation I’ve had for a while, because when you look at fitness/figure competitors and CrossFitters, they carry more muscle than average. The commonality in training is doing higher amounts of volume for sets of higher reps.

I’ve pointed out in the past (can’t find the post) that a good program for a girl who wants definition in her musculature is to strength train, then do some back-off work like walking lunges and leg curls to accumulate reps and volume. That’s what the gals do who get paid to do it. The point is that the method of training that women typically use (lower weights, higher reps) to avoid “getting bulky” is actually what helps stimulate lean body mass gain anyway. It’s just that they are doing it with three pound dumbbells instead of 50 pound dumbbells. Getting stronger is the key to metabolic activity, lower body fat, and being a kick ass woman.

The truth is that none of this really matters. I could keep going with a list of bullets 50 items long. Facts or statements are just a hodge podge of information that won’t sway an emotional belief. Some of you can print posts out like this and show it to your clients, spouses, or friends and they may take action. I don’t expect that to work in non-gym environments (i.e. It’s easier to convince a woman who is doing CrossFit than someone who lives and dies on the elliptical). Instead I’ll take the Robb Wolf approach and say, “Just try it for a month.” There are plenty of examples in the “Getting Girls to Train” series to get women training, but the hardest part is convincing them that the big scary physique that they think they’ll grow is just a silly myth.

Q&A – 34

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Sæl!

Jesus, what a busy week on the site, eh? For all of you new readers, welcome. You probably came here because you thought there were gonna be hot babes or you wanted to argue with me. That’s fine. This website will entertain you (albeit poorly), but it’ll also aim to educate. Regardless of your training goals, there are gems you can glean for your mechanics, mobility, programming, nutrition, health, sleep, strength training, conditioning, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and more. It won’t all come at once, because that’d be an information grenade that would make your head explode (and not necessarily the head on your shoulders).

Doug Young is one of Chris’ dads

PR Friday

Every Friday we post about our training personal records (PRs) in the comments. If PRs weren’t achieved, then readers can at least update everyone on their training. Posting regularly means that other people remember you and enjoy hearing about you; it helps them stay motivated as well. Join the fun.

Weekly Challenge

This is where I pose a challenge for readers to complete. Last week I actually forgot to write something and included a .gif that basically said, “Don’t suck.” Woops.

Next Week’s Challenge:  Perform these foot drills every day in the next week. It should help those of you with lower extremity issues, but let’s see if it does anything else. You can do it prior to lifting and running.

Week In Review

Oh boy. The week started quietly with a post about the New England Women of Strength. Then things got interesting on the subject of treating very simple neural issues. Then things got kinda rowdy. Mark Sisson linked to the site; he runs Mark’s Daily Apple, an enjoyable website about health, nutrition, and primal living (Mark: Do you ever read fiction? My gods, man!). However, in conjunction with that I wrote a post about not needing sexy programming or equipment in training, but at the same time making a point about superficial websites that focus on selling “sexy” things, like pictures, slogans, memes, or catchy phrases instead of content with substance. The following day I pissed off a bunch of runners because I’m not impressed with completing a marathon. I’ll be honest, I only read the first half of the 80 or so comments. I get bored of the same, “Well, why don’t YOU do a marathon, tough guy,” comments over and over, which only prove my original point. I don’t enjoy people who get offended easily.

Q&A

This is the one day of the week where I pick a few questions from the Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, comments, or other messages and answer them. It keeps me on my toes, and I don’t know the answer I have a lot of friends who are smarter than me that I can ask.

Justin,

[spoiler]

More of a lurker, but I’ve been following 70sbig since the beginning.  After reading your marathon post today, I felt compelled to tell you how utterly awesome that was.  Please write a history book describing significant battles and “athletic events worth emulating” in the same way as you have done today.
I recently bought the TM Part 1 e-book and have been debating whether or not to buy Part 2.  Heading over to the 70sbig store after I send this to you to pick it up.  The quality of information you put out is some of the best in the fitness community and it dawns on me that I need to do my part to support you in this so you can continue to do it for a long time.
Enough ass-kissing, just wanted to say thanks.

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While I’m at it, I’ll throw out a question.  I’m a pretty tall dude at 6’5 with a very short torso relative to my long femurs.  Current bodyweight around 215.  Current 5RM low bar squat around 315.  All time best is 360×5 at 240 lbs bodyweight.  However I can deadlift mid 400’s for a set of 5 (all time best 500×5 at 240 lbs).  Squatting is just a very difficult movement, and anything above 225 feels slow as shit; while deadlifting feels completely natural.  Is there a certain type (low, high, front, etc.) of squat a guy in my situation should focus on?  Goals are general athleticism for basketball, jackedness, but would also like to hit a 400 lb squat in a powerlifting meet.
I recently dropped some excess bodyfat, so I’m back on an LP for a few weeks and then will transition to TM.  I’ve read your posts about low bar vs. high bar squatting and you’ve addressed this in your Q&A before, but was just wondering if there were any special considerations/recommendations for a tall guy with long legs?  Just continue driving up my low bar squat 2x/week?
Thanks man,
Tim

Dear Tim,

As you know, I’ve talked at length on high bar and low bar squatting. To simplify:

Powerlifting: low bar
Weightlifting: high bar
GPP/S&C: Kinda doesn’t matter, but whichever suits goals best

Guys with your body type — long femurs and a short torso — have difficulty with the vertical style squats (high bar and front) because of the angles and lever arms. That means that you’ll have to lean over a bit more because your torso is shorter. If you have good mobility and “not as extreme” segment lengths, this may not be as much of an issue.

The reason your deadlift is so much better is because you probably have longer arms (judging by the long femurs), and this helps tremendously with the deadlift. Since your back is short, it may not round as much relative to a guy with a longer torso, and it results in a lever system that is more efficient than normal (or at least more efficient when compared to your back squat).

Without seeing your technique (which could limit you), you just need to keep plugging away at the low bar squat. Part of your issue will be filling out the musculature on the front and back of your legs, and proper squatting, deadlifting, RDLs, or other posterior chain work will do that for your hamstrings. It may be necessary to work on your anterior chain a bit in the form of front squats, but if you’re still sloppy in the movement don’t worry about this for a while. The vertical alignment will train a different motor pathway and it’s some times hard for people to go back and forth between vertical squatting and low bar squatting. This would be something I could determine if I was coaching you, or even had some video.

Continue squatting twice a week with the low bar. Your segment lengths will work best with that style for now, and you stated a powerlifting goal so it reinforces my support for the low bar. The front or high bar squat may augment your low bar (by improving the strength and musculature of your quads), but it may be a bit soon to use that. Be consistent, make sure your technique is solid, and train hard.

Paul posted this link and said, “Look where weightlifting was placed. Discuss.

Dear Paul and whoever wants to discuss,

The guy writing the article is just some editorial doofus with arguably no athletic experience. And the piece included several poor attempts at humor. Let’s ignore all that.

To really rank these, we’d have to define what we mean by “hardest”. Hardest to do that activity on any level? Hardest to excel at the highest level? Hardest to win a gold medal?

Instead, let’s just talk about what Olympic sports could be considered some of the hardest and ignore how they relate to each other. I don’t know where I’d put weightlifting, but I know that it wouldn’t be the “hardest”. The lifts are very technical, yes, but all athletic skills considered, it’s just repeating the same movements over and over. It’s been documented that there are plenty of successful lifters that are not great athletes in other sports. In fact, I think Glenn Pendlay said that in one of our podcasts; the American weightlifter is typically someone who couldn’t cut it in another sport, like football, and they found something they could flourish in (let’s ignore the fact that is specific to our country’s situation for now). Generally speaking, being able to repeat the same movements over and over doesn’t necessarily make you very athletic, though they are athletic movements (especially by a novice’s standards).

Personally, I’m more impressed with sports that are dynamic. Things like weightlifting, swimming, and sprinting are all very impressive, but true athleticism is shown through reaction to an opponent. This would include wrestling, judo, taekwondo, hockey, boxing, volleyball, basketball, soccer, fencing, and rugby. Personally, I’m more impressed with sports that require significant physical skills, perhaps a broad spectrum of them, to be successful in the sport. This would eliminate things like tennis, table tenis, handball, and fencing from “the hardest” category. Soccer and basketball seem to require a specific kind of skill set, and you can develop the physical attributes to participate purely through playing them, so they fall off of my list. Rugby and hockey aren’t relatively technical, they they are both physical. They are high on my list, but maybe not the highest. Taekwondo appears to be more skill dependent than boxing (though boxing is technical, there are only two weapons compared to, well, more than two in taekwondo). This leaves wrestling, judo, and taekwondo. To be able to react to your opponent is so significant in the realm of athleticism, and it’s something we ignore in our “online S&C communities”.

In the realm of precision and consistency, where the skill lies in executing a repetitive motion with unwavering accuracy, archery stands as a testament to both focus and discipline. While it may not demand the same physical exertion as some other sports, the mental fortitude required to consistently hit the mark cannot be understated. Much like a steady hand drawing back an arrow from its arrow quiver, each shot requires a blend of technique, concentration, and control. So while it may not fit the mold of traditional “physical exertion,” archery holds its own unique challenge within the realm of sporting endeavors.

You’ll notice archery or shooting sports, while incredibly technical, did not really get mentioned. It’s not because they aren’t hard, but because they are more in that “doing a skill repeatedly without too many changing variables” group, yet they also have the, “not really exerting oneself physically, relatively speaking” tag. All kinds of things are hard, like triathlons, rowing/kayaking, curling, and golf, yet they are more hard in one kind of way than several ways.

All this being said, I think that decathlons are the hardest thing to be successful in. There is such an array of skills across a broad spectrum of physical attributes. If decathletes were more jacked, they’d probably be my favorite athletes. Oh, and gymnastics is pretty hard and has a large skill set and demand of physical capacity. However, both gymnastics and decathlons don’t have that reaction component, and I deem that as incredibly important

If I had to pick one sport that is the hardest, I would pick wrestling. There’s not too many sports that are so heavily dependent on physical capacity, technical skill, as well as the ability to react to an opponent.

What do you guys think?

Kind of limited on questions this week, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of discussion with people still pissed off from the running post. 

Marathons Are Yawn

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I’m getting sick of the runner’s narcissism that permeates throughout life.

“You mock marathons because you can’t do one!”

That’s such an 8 year old mentality. I cringe whenever I see the “26.2” stickers on car windows; it’s just a participation sticker. I went to kindergarten too, so I guess I understand their pride. You don’t see anyone putting a “500 lbs” sticker on their window, but if they did it would make more sense. After all, being able to do anything with 500 pounds requires some sort of development. There’s a huge portion of the population that will never understand what 500 pounds feels like. On the other hand, a huge percentage of the population can complete 26.2 miles if they gave enough of a shit. You can even walk part of it! It’s not that impressive.

I’m almost tempted to go do a marathon to prove a point, but, oh yeah, I don’t care.

Marathons aren’t even practical. If you need to run over 20 miles to avoid something, you can probably avoid it by walking. Or you would have died already. In fact, the storied hero Pheidippides dropped dead after completing his “marathon”! Even if this story was real (it isn’t), it’s not near as impressive as what actually happened.

The Persians were planning an attack on Athens by landing 24 miles north along the coastal plains of Marathon with an army 80,000 strong. The Athenians only had 10,000 infantry to deflect such an attack. One Athenian leader, Miltiades, had big coconut sized balls (equally hairy, no doubt); his idea was to march their asses straight to Marathon and fight the Persians at the pass. Everyone realized it was either a) get their asses kicked or b) try and have a Leonidas moment (which wouldn’t happen for ten more years, but stay focused). The Athenians marched up to Marathon to find 80,000 assholes camping in the plains.

“We are so fucked,” the Athenians thought. A few days later they got word that the Persians slipped off into the night to sail the bulk of their army down to Athens. They only left a 15,000 strong holding force. Miltiades, that guy with the gigantic balls, said, “Good,” and let everyone know that it was clobberin’ time. It would take the Persians 10 to 12 hours to get to Athens, so if they whipped some Persian ass and then rushed back home, they should have time to defend their wives and children. While some of the leaders pleaded to wait for the Spartans to get there (which was not a certainty), Miltiades whispered, “We attack at dawn,” and then he put a cigarette out on his own arm to prove a point. Okay, that last part may not have been true.

“Oh, how I love the smell of blood and carnage in the morning,” is probably what Miltiades said when the battle ended at 9 AM. After three hours of fighting, the marshy water ran red with Persian blood. The Athenians lost fewer than 200 men.

Now imagine this. You have been strung out for several days at the though of your entire way of life being annihilated. A Persian victory would destroying the Athenian government, sell your children into slavery, and rape your wife countless of times. After days of this prospect, you finally unleash fury in a three hour battle. All of that pent up emotion has been wrought down on your foe, but as the final battle cry of victory ebbs away, you think of your son back home, sitting in your wife’s arms. Your dog sits with them wagging his tail. And those Persian fucks are on their way to kill everything you love.

“Ruck up, boys, we’re headin’ home,” Miltiades said followed by swigging straight whiskey. The Athenian soldiers had 7 hours to travel 24 miles in full battle gear. Armor, weapons, and rations. They pounded home as fast as they could. Imagine the pain of each step with their blistered feet. Imagine the fatigue their bodies felt. Imagine the fire in their bellies knowing that every second counted to protect their wives, their children, their city. At 4:00 PM some of the Athenians crested the cliffs facing the ocean where the Persian army was  arriving. After seeing those fierce Athenians caked with blood, no doubt flashing their asses and clanging their shields, the Persians thought, “Uhh, this probably isn’t such a good idea, mmkay.” Deuces.

Now that’s a fucking story. That’s an athletic event worth emulating.