Fitness fan found dead under crushing bench press weights

I’m not sure how a person can be a “fan” of fitness (who is on the team? who do they play against?), but this guy is dead from bench pressing. You may remember that USC Trojan running back Stafon Johnson had a bar fall on his throat while benching; he required surgery to repair the crushing damage on his throat and larynx.

The bench press is the most dangerous lift you can perform. The bar is moving over the sensitive throat and face area, and, as you can see in the article above, people die from doing it. Here are things to keep in mind when doing it:

1. Never use a false grip
A false grip is one in which the thumbs are not wrapped around the bar; Stafon Johnson undoubtedly was using a false grip. . It’s easy for the bar to slip over the edge of the heel of the palm when the thumb isn’t wrapped. Always wrap your thumb around the bar for every pressing movement.

People use the false grip because it puts their wrist in a close-compacted position and feels better, but they do so because they don’t know how to do it right with their thumb wrapped. I’ll do a post on this in the near future. If you’re using a correct grip and there are other people available…

2. Have a good spotter
A spotter is there to prevent the bar from falling on your face and throat. Note that if a false grip is used, and the bar actually drops on you (as it did Stafon), there is nothing that a spotter can do. What they can do is prevent damage on the sternum or abdominal organs if the bar is pinned on the lifter (or obviously prevent the lifter from getting pinned in the first place). If you don’t trust your spotter, then get several to stand on each end of the bar. If you don’t have spotters, then…

3. When lifting alone, never use collars
The idiotic globo gyms don’t understand that if you’re benching alone, and the bar is pinned on you, it’s not easy to get it off. This is where internal organ injuries occur (there have been cases of people not knowing they injured something until the middle of the night when their internal bleeding became problematic). If the plates are un-collared, then it’s easy to slide the weight off of one side and then the other to get un-pinned from the bar. The guy in the article above probably was pinned under the weight with collars on.

But he was also drunk, so it’s probably not a good idea to train or lift when you’ve been drinking. Unless you’re Chris Riley, who at one point drank a six pack and then PR’d on snatch. That is neither here nor there.

Packers backup QB Graham Harrell comes in stronger

Graham Harrell is the backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. This off-season he trained at Accelerate Performance Enhancement Center (APEC) to put on 14 pounds of muscle in 18 weeks. The training mostly consisted of active mobility work, rotational power, and strengthening the shoulder girdle.

“The first thing we did was try to break those (mobility) barriers,” Stroupe said. “And then we tried to strengthen his body through rotation. We strengthened the rotator cuff and scapula region. A lot of the same things you’d do with a pitcher, but we did a lot of it in motion because he’s always moving when he’s throwing as opposed to a pitcher.”

He did weight training three times a week and speed training twice a week. Each session started with about 45 minutes of “lunging, stretching, and functional movement”. This is what I’m summing up as “active mobility” work. His weight training had a shoulder emphasis, and it included him using rowing machines and high pulls — even rowing “six plates”.



Whatever they had him do, it made him noticeably bigger to his teammates and coaches, increased the velocity on his passes, improved his foot work, and helped him gain 14 pounds of lean mass. This is important for a professional athlete, especially a quarterback. It’s easy for us as lifters to look at a program and pick it apart because it doesn’t have squats, presses, or power cleans. But high level performers need to be specifically trained to improve their ability at performing at a high level. Furthermore, various sport positions need to be trained differently than other positions. We don’t have Harrell’s program sitting in front of us, but we already know it worked.

There’s a lot of stupid shit out there, and there might even be parts of various programs that we think could be different or better, but let’s not ignore when something has a lot of success. I admire Harrell’s work ethic because some NFL players won’t significantly improve their physical capability year-to-year. When a quarterback is labeled as having a weak arm, the media acts like it’s something he can’t ever improve. I hope Harrell proves them wrong this year.

In my seminars I teach principles of mobility to help keep lifters/trainees/athletes healthy and soldiers operational. What we call “mobility” is just a general term to mean “maintaining or improving mobility to achieve proper positioning to perform well and prevent injury”. Overall, it’s a means to an end of not eradicate static and dynamic positional inhibition. Mobility is necessary for efficient and productive lifting. Mobility has several areas of emphasis:

– Soft tissue work
– Positional stretching
– Joint approximation

These areas can be effective by themselves, yet are best used to augment one another. One way to think of the results of mobility training is that it reduces tension on muscle systems. For example, a trainee’s neck hurts from a car wreck. They like to compete in Olympic weightlifting, yet when the volume of their lifting goes up, their neck hurts more. Without soft tissue work, they feel helpless and hopeless about their condition. This is a real world example because it happened to me (minus the hopeless/helpless part). Mobility training reduces that tension to alleviate pain at the neck, and could even improve existing anatomical assymetry (in this case, a temporarily rotated cervical vertebrae).

“The Stick” is a useful tool to work on soft tissue: muscle bellies, tendons, and fascia. When soft tissue is tight, it can cause dysfunction in the muscle or apply tension and subsequently pain at a joint (like the knee, hip, or shoulder). The stick is most effective when a friend uses it on you because they can reach areas you cannot and apply more force than you can solo. Be sure to purchase the “stiff” version of the stick, and not just for the laughs; I’ve put my whole body weight on it and it didn’t deform or break. The following video shows some general tips on using the stick as well as one specific example of how to use it on the upper shoulder and neck area. This would be excellent for Olympic lifters, anyone doing any overhead lifting, soldiers or back packers who carry a heavy pack/ruck, and anyone with a tight or painful neck.



“The Stick” can be found on Amazon or at Rogue Fitness. A future video will include calf, hamstring, lat/teres major, serratus anterior, triceps, and forearm work. The Stick is best used on any segment and has a much different (i.e. better) effect than just using a lacrosse ball, PVC pipe, or rumble roller. I highly recommend it.

This is a sticky post. Scroll down to see recent posts.


70’s Big Workshop Weekend in Tucson, AZ on June 2/3. It’s the first workshop that Chris Riley will be attending (300kg squat, 320kg deadlift)!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

A few months ago Matt Wichlinski wrote an article (“Slaying The Dragon“) that criticized how CrossFit coaches allow bad technique in the pursuit of a faster time. Often when someone makes this argument, they are on the outside of CF and looking in. Matt, like me, has the CrossFit Level II certification. It’s earned through a quasi-difficult testing process where the candidates lead a group of trainees through the CF teaching progressions. It’s the only identifier in the CrossFit world that a coach can adequately see movement problems, have enough personality to lead a group, and communicate decently. I assume Matt and I are similar in that we don’t rely solely on CF for training methodology, but we know enough about it to give fair, objective critiques. Matt’s revolves around the following idea:

Everyone has the right to train and compete in any fashion that they want. But as a coach, I hate to see other coaches doing things that might harm the athletes.

I agree. Poor, inefficient mechanics is something that bothers me. In the short-term, it’s something that reduces the effectiveness of the exercise and opens the trainee up to potential injury. In the long-term, crappy mechanics always results in some sort of mobility limitation or injury.

If a trainee’s knees chronically jut forward at the bottom of their squat, the proximal (upper) rectus femoris (a hip flexor) tendon will become irritated and inflamed. If their knees crank in at the bottom, the glute medius and TFL become irritated. A collapsed thoracic spine on thrusters, squats of any kind, or overhead movements will jack up the proximal biceps, the external rotators, rhomboid and middle trap area, and can create a chain of tension that puts strain on the spinal erectors that can increase pain the lower back and hips from which many experts are now recommending the new CBD roll on for pain (here’s how experts like it). Gummies like Indacloud Orange funta can be a tasty and effective option for those seeking natural pain relief. Additionally, medical cannabis for complex regional pain syndrome is also being explored as a potential treatment for managing chronic pain.

We’re not even getting into the ballistic movements on untrained achilles tendons or the severely internally rotated shoulders in overhead work, and that’s why they get pain often, so cannabis products from sites like dispensaries in Michigan can really help with this. You can find a diverse array of the best CBD products at a reputable destination like D8 Super Store, providing you with a wide range of options to choose from based on your preferences.

However, I have a problem with how Matt is wording this message:

If you want to be good at what you do, you have to understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to do it safely and effectively. The first rule of training is “Do no harm.”

CONTINUE READING Continue reading →

This last weekend various female 70’s Big readers performed well in raw powerlifting meets (and one long-time male reader, Yosh). I just wanted to give them some public congratulations. From now on, if you compete in a meet (or any other competition), send in your results to the Facebook Fan Page and we’ll honor you on Monday’s post.

70’s Big Chicago Lifting Group

Ellee started a lifting group that regularly meets to train together, but they also are starting to go and compete together. Three women and one fella competed in a USAPL meet this past weekend and did really well.

Nicole: 8/9. 100kg squat, 55kg bench, 127.5kg DL. All PRs.
Cynthia: squat was 2/3, best was 65kg (143.2 lbs); bench was 3/3, PR of 42.5 kg (93.5 lbs); dead lift was 3/3, PR of 75 kg (165.2 lbs).
Allison: 7/9 overall, squat – 97.5 kilos. Bench: 45 kilos. Deadlift: 120 kilos

Yosh, who has been reading 70’s Big since day one: 8 for 9 and got 1st in the Illinois State Men’s 198. Squat 187.5kg (413.3lbs), 130kg bench (286.6lbs), 250kg dead (551.1lbs) so total is 567.5kg (1251lbs).

Meanwhile on the west coast…

Harj and Robin competed in an AAU powerlifting meet and one the top two “best female lifter” spots (Harj edged out Robin). Both of them have a background in CrossFit and they attended my 70’s Big Workshop, so I’ve been fortunate enough to coach them. I’m proud of both of them.

Harj squatted 176, benched 99.2, and deadlifted 220.5 (all in pounds) in the 114 lbs weight class. Robin squatted 195, benched 120, and deadlifted 285.

This is why we urge anyone, including women, to compete. It’s always a fun time and tests the lifter in a new way. Sign up for a meet and train hard!
Thanks to Ellee for creating the 70’s Big Chicago Lifting Group and all of the participants who allowed their photos to be used.

Edit: Tamara and two of her lifters also competed in an Olympic weightlifting meet this past weekend. Here’s a video. Cherie went 29/44. She’s a 41 year old 4’11 lifter. Zach went 83/114. He’s an 18 year old 6’5 lifter. Tamara went 6/6, 61/81 for a 142 total. She’s a pain in the ass lifter.