Honoring Your Mentors

I have always liked learning and asking questions, as you have guessed by reading this continual journey.  Over the years, most of my teachers were in school settings, others were indirect via music and magic (sleight of hand, not the card game) and others were my own family.

The best of my teachers didn't mind my questions and they often answered them in ways such that I would think critically and form my own opinions and ask my own questions.  Others did not like my questions or were unable to answer them in a productive way.

For instance, in the second grade.  I was seven years old, and my teacher was a sexy young Italian.  She was the type of women who if I were a teenager, and she tried to seduce me, I would never tell a soul.  She always leaned over the desk and often times her cleavage would thereby become exposed.  I always asked for help on my class work, whether it was needed or not.

Mrs. Ippolito had a friend who would always come in to the class, and they would chat.  Being somewhat of an attention whore and caring about my education at a young age, this irked the ever living shit out of me.

So, Mrs. Ippolito and Ms. Fernandez always talked.  In one such instance, they talked about a previous weekend wherein they had rented a second rate flop with Kurt Russell and Ray Liotta called Unlawful Entry.  So for about five minutes, which in seven year old kid time seems like 8,834,845 years, they talked about this interrupting the math lesson.

Shortly after Ms. Fernandez left, we resumed our math lesson and we were handed our class work. Before I started the class work, while the rest of the children were silent, I walked up to Mrs. Ippolito and said, "Mrs. Ippolito, I think you spend too much time talking to Ms. Fernandez."  Being as young as I was, I couldn't articulate how I felt--namely like I was getting ripped the fuck off, which is absurd since it was public education and you can potentially always be getting ripped--but at any rate, I did the best I could with my abilities.

Mrs. Ippolito flipped right the fuck out and said it was none of my business what they talk about or for how long.  Being seven, I left it at that.

In her class, for those of us who got to school early, we were allowed to go to stations and play games, usually math puzzles or some such stuff.  I always enjoyed that.  At one point, Mrs. Ippolito was meandering about making sure we weren't gouging our eyes out with scissors, or whatever the hell kids at seven years of age do, and I walked up to her to ask her if I could go to the particular station that had a puzzle a liked--a rectangular box, that you fill with squares that contain partial shapes, and at the end, if you did it right you made a particular shape shown on the outside of the box.

She told me no. I got pissed and asked why, and she lost it again and told me not to question her.  So, not being able to argue rationally, I let it go.

Another time, about a year later I was 8.  I had been recently baptized by my cousin, who also happens to be a priest.  He also lifts, and is insanely jacked for a 62 year old guy.

As an aside before all the jokes come in, he has never been transferred for any 'transgressions,' and he never molested any altar boys.  For a guy who has been a priest for god knows how long and is as devoted to Catholicism, he is a pretty smart guy and has his head on straight and is generally a thoughtful guy.

However, I fell from any kind of a belief in a deity because when I asked my cousin who created God, all he could recite from the Catechism was the belief that God had simply always been.  This didn't make sense to me because the Catechism states that "without the Creator, the creature vanishes."  I started a lifelong spiritual questioning that continues to this day, based on that one instance.

One of my absolute favorite albums and something to remember Tampa by.

So though his answer was unsatisfactory, it was most likely the best thing for me, since I never stopped asking questions.

Fast forward to later in my life, when the people at the Dragon Door forums got absolutely butt hurt when Adam T. Glass, and others started posting regularly about biofeedback testing and Gym Movement, I started to question how an insanely strong guy like Adam was now looking younger, leaner and getting stronger than hell.

This questioning leads to Frankie, who taught Adam the protocol.  In religious terms, Frankie would be the magus figure.  The magus decided to speak.  What I am going to include here is a ten part series (all brief, so don't get all butt hurt about the length) where Frankie talks about his questioning process.  It's my way of honoring a guy who can fish for himself and teach us how to do so.  And it will save you the trouble of waiting.  Here it goes:

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten

There you have it.  I know the posts are collectively long, but I waited since August to read the whole series, just so I could learn more about a more recent teacher in my life, thereby saving all of you the suspense.  If you want to check out more of Frankie's writing, go here, and here. 

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

More enjoyment before you go.

How the fuck do you deadlift (conventionally)?

I've never talked much about this particular subject, as I assumed it was not rocket science--you pick it up and set the goddamn thing down.  However, people do some weird shit.

First, it's not a clean. So don't bother with that shoulder blade squeezing bullshit, and dropping into a parallel squat.  The shortest distance between two points is a line, and if you drop down and deadlift as if you were doing a clean, you probably won't be able to put as much ass into it and you are making the line longer than it needs to be.  The Lift Big Eat Big folk explain it well.

In short, let your thoracic spine do whatever the hell it's going to do.  Also, you might experiment with slightly externally rotating your feet so you can put more ass into it, which I think they mention in the previous video.

Another thing most people like to stop from happening (though it occurs naturally in most of us) is dorsiflexion.  Go walk up a staircase.  When your foot ascends to the next step, your ankle joint moves.  This is called dorsiflexion and it happens all the time.  It even happens when you deadlift, because your knees go forward.  It also happens when you squat--sometimes to a great extent.

Bet his coach is super disappointed because his knees tracked over his toes.

In a deadlift (or a squat) too much of this could lead to an inefficient lift, or some stress on the knee.  So figure out how much you need to keep your deadlift as efficient as possible, but do not fear it.  We are supposed to be able to point and flex our feet.

The variables regarding how much one should are highly individual.  If you have size four feet, and a two feet long shin, your knee will go over your toes severely, and you will look like one weird sonofabitch.  How high your hips start will affect this too. 

Christine keeps her hips fairly low and has a little bit of dorsiflexion.

I am taller, my knees definitely go further and create more of an angle at the ankle joint and my hips are higher. 

And the third example is still different in terms of thoracic extension, dorsiflexion, hip height at the start and even how close the bar is to the shins at the start (which is something you'll wanna fuck around with to make the lift efficient with respect to your body).

For another nuance, pay attention to your grip if you deadlift with a staggered grip.  It is very hard to tell in my video, but my left hand (the pronated hand) is even with the knurling--index finger is right before the smooth.  However, the pinkie of my right hand is about an inch or an inch and a half away from the end of the knurling.  Not real symmetrical, I know, but I hit a 60lb PR in a year that I was injured and didn't deadlift much so I think I might be on to something. 

If I were to match it up to where my right pinkie and left index finger were both even with the end of the knurling, the bar itself wouldn't be in a straight line.  I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but it is certainly worth noting and tinkering with in your free time.

Lastly, your history might dictate an asymmetric foot positioning.  Think about your own history and figure it out.  I still can't figure out why I have to turn out one foot slightly more and keep it an inch behind the other foot, but really it only matters because I am curious.  What matters is that it doesn't fuck my body up and the deadlifts feel easy all the time as a result.

Hopefully, this will give you some ideas to play with.  If you test something and it doesn't jive with what I described, that's cool. It just means your needs are different than mine.  Maybe you do need more thoracic extension in your life.  What tests well trumps the aforementioned.  Play with it.  Nobody got good at deadlifting overnight--except maybe Ed Coan.

2013 RAW United Record Breakers Meet

After long last and many setbacks, my GF and I were finally able to do a meet.  This would be my second, her first.  I think there were over 100 lifters lifting, so they actually split it up into a two day event, with two meets each day--a morning session starting at 9am and the afternoon session starting at 3pm.

My day of lifting was on Sunday 20 January.  I had chosen 430 as my opener on the squat and succeeded in completing the lift.  460 was my next attempt, and I got red lighted for depth, and on the third attempt, I got red lighted for missing the cue.  So, practice your goddamn cues.

Bench pressing was dismal for me, and I wound up with 255 again, much like I did in my first meet.

Deadlifts were awesome.  I went three for three (480,502,520), hit some PRs, and wound up with a 1205 total at 181lbs.  No cutting of the weight involved like last time, which means I legitimately weighed about 10lbs less than my last meet, and got strong enough to add 150lbs to my total.

Here's a deadlift video:

All in all, I set two contest PRs, and on the deadlift I set an overall PR and added 60lbs to it in about a year and had a good time doing so.  RAW United runs their meets like a well oiled machine.

In other news, Saturday the 19th Arielle  captured an award for best lifter, and at 148lbs ended up with a 225lb squat, a 120lb Bench, and a 285lb DL.  Not bad for using Gym Movement only since March of 2012.

Tough Mudder Success

Guest Post by Abby Dix


Before a couple weeks ago,* I’d never ran more than five miles (and those five miles were on a treadmill). On a whim, I signed up for Tough Mudder with some coworkers. I knew I wasn’t ready, but at the time I had about 8 weeks to train and decided that was good enough.

Two weeks later, when I realized I hadn’t trained at all, I started panic. I didn’t lift free weights unless it was
5lb dumbbells in a cardio aerobics class and I was out of shape with my jogging too.

That’s when Peter Baker came to the rescue with excellent advice that kept me motivated and helped
me avoid injury: Keep it easy. Because I hadn’t ever tried to lift anything heavy before, I didn’t know
what I was capable of. It may sound puny, but I was shocked and amazed to learn I could sumo deadlift 60
lbs. on my first day with no problem. And over time that grew to 65, 70 and 75 pounds.

I started jogging again, but kept it easy. To keep the motivation going, I signed up for a 5k and 10k that
took place several weeks before the 12-mile, 24-obstacle Tough Mudder. I took an easy pace at both the
5k and 10k and felt fine afterward. Then the big day came, and it was fine. I was definitely exhausted
afterward and needed help over the big walls, but I did it. I survived a 12-mile, 24-obstacle Tough
Mudder---my greatest physical accomplishment to date---and I had fun doing it.

I’ve signed up for the 6-mile, 25-obstacle Savage Race in April and I fully intend to do Tough Mudder
again next year. Best of all, I feel good and I’m having fun staying in shape.

PFB's commentary: Abby, I never doubted you a moment.

Note the look of ease, not of consternation.

A Squat Medley

On 19 November, I squatted 450 lbs.  I managed three singles.  That marks a 105lb increase from last year. Most of you who read this have already gotten the idea that I squat every training session and that I do a variety of squatting movements to maintain that type of consistency.

A candid shot of my girlfriend doing a back squat. 

I intend to explain to you readers out there how you can squat better and frequently to increase your squatting efforts to put up higher numbers.

 Jim Wendler wrote an article about some of the things I will cover.  Read it here. 

One of the first things you can do to vary your squat is monitor your hand placement.  You can test it, or just do it and hope for the best.  You'll want to find an optimal place to place your hands on the bar.  A lot of reliable sources say get your grip as close to your shoulders as possible.  Lots of records have also been broken with a really wide grip.  You will probably want to experiment with that one on your own to figure out whats comfortable. 

Here's a tip: using an asymmetric grip--one hand closer to your shoulder and the other not as close, in this particular instance--can help you get the level of flexibility required to attain a comfortable close grip, and might feel better if one of your elbows and shoulders is fucked up from benching too much without perorming any contraspecifics.

The same goes for a false grip.  Do which one is comfortable.  Or what tests the best.  I've heard arguments in favor of the full grip along the lines of being able to use more tension and being safer, as well as arguments in favor of the false grip saying that it is safer if you to bail from the weight.  Use the squat cage and find some spotters if you have to do that sort of thing.

The next item of import is feet placement. This can range from really fucking wide to just about shoulder with.  Your strengths and body shape will determine the best form for you to use.  You might even get away with a couple of different types.  This is a good thing, and will lead to more frequent squatting.

Test out an asymmetrical stance, too.  You might be pleasantly surprised at how good it actually feels.  It can be slight, anything like having on foot slightly in front of the other, or one foot with more of a turnout than the other. Of late, my right foot is slightly behind my left foot when I squat.

Once you have the stance width figured out, your next job is to figure out how much to rotate your feet.  Your limitations will determine this.  For some variations, more rotation will work compared to less.  Remember, there is no right or wrong.

In the above video, feet have a good bit of external rotation--not to the point where it's like Charlie Chaplin or anything--and the grip is so close it must make every large and inflexible powerlifter cringe. 

Here is the opposite--a short guy with a wider stance and wider grip who has set a record or two in the Raw United Federation.

Tony Conyers (above) is probably one of the nicest and pound for pound strongest dudes I have met.  Interestingly enough, since we talk often I ask him what his training is like.  He recently told me that he is switching his training schedule to twice a week, as opposed to the once a week program he was on.  He is doing so in preparation for Raw Unity this February.

Another way to vary your squat is by varying the tool you use.   I have mentioned these before, but today I am going to talk about the safety bar.  The bottom line is that if you can handle heavy weights on the safety bar, your regular squat will go up.  The difference between your max and your safety bar max can be one or two hundred pounds.  I managed 345 for a set of one, and had to bail trying 355.  One guy at the gym who does pause squats for 800+ keeps his safety bar squats between five and six hundred lbs.  So choose cautiously when you use this tool.

The leverage of this movement will be different than your back squat, so your feet placement definitely will not be the same.  For my my safety squat stance is very narrow compared to what I did in the above video with the back squat, and sometimes my feet are turned out less than normal (but that's highly variable for me).

The other advantage to the safety bar is that since your hands are out in front of you, you can keep a comfortable arm position if your shoulders and elbows are injured.  And you also get the option of manipulating the leverage by pressing the handles so that they are continually parallel to the floor, or keeping the handles resting without your assistance, like the woman in the video.

For me, the safety bar helped out because I still get to squat, but I feel a greater emphasis on my abs and my quads which makes it a swell tool to add for variety. 

In order to maximize it for you, one idea would be to take these variations, find your stance, and do them without and with a box. There you have four different squat varieties you can do to keep your squats up for an entire week, even when it isn't "leg day."

If you intend to squat at a higher frequency, make sure you use the minimal effective amount of effort.  Squats can be taxing, and doing them daily can be too.  Going balls to the wall is not the way to go if you plan on going for daily squatting.  Using the minimal effective amount of effort will keep you to a point where you can build up to frequent squatting. 

Now, for a note on variety.  These aren't completely random exercises with no purpose.  Will the variations be different than your standard back squat? Of course.  Will the leverages, and paths of the bar be different? Of course.  Are you still squatting, despite all that? Yes? Good.  If those deviations in form will fuck you up so bad that you can't do your competition lift in practice, you might want to reevaluate your life. 

I say this because a guy at the gym saw me lifting using some Fat Gripz attachments.  He said his grip strength sucked.  I told him he might want to train his grip.  I advised him that since he had military presses left, he could try them out on his barbell military press.  He did.  His refusal to press with the Fat Gripz hinged on the fact that he 1. wouldn't abandon the false grip, 2. wouldn't do his pressing any other way than from behind his neck, and 3. wouldn't deal with a different bar path.  I am not ripping on the guy too much--I Have seen him put up some impressive numbers in competition and respect him as a lifter.  But to overlook the obvious fact that you want to fix something, and it might be different than normal, but won't make the change to do so is patently absurd and rather dogmatic to me.

There is a reason it is called variety. It is going to be a little different, yet still train the same general movement, which will better your skill set.  It will also help you get higher numbers.

 

Deadlift still stuck? Poor you.

To be honest, in light of the crap I was physically dealing with this year I am surprised I was able to hit a 500lb deadlift, much less a 400lb deadlift.  Though at the beginning of October, my PR was only 40lbs up from the competition ten months before, I expect that to go up by another 20lbs.  If you aren't increasing your deadlift at a rate of speed your satisfied with--or at least able to deal with, if satisfaction is not possible--do something different.  Deadlift more, and deadlift with varieties and do more contraspecifics.

A deadlift is a hip hinge.  Pretty simple, right?  Yes.  There's also a shitload of ways to hinge at the hips.  Testing this sort of thing will be of great help to you, since it will allow you to hip hinge more often.

One of the first ways to get started is to test out the difference between a conventional stance and a sumo stance.  This shit is your call.  You have your own form for each, and it won't be the same as mine or anyone else's form.  The best we can agree on is that a conventional stance has a narrower distance between your feet, and your hands will be on the outside of your legs.

The sumo stance has a wide(er) stance, depending on who you are and your biomechanics.  And your arms will be inside of your legs.  If you have ever done ballet, think second position plie.

What do you do if those don't test well?  Shorten the range of motion, and see if that tests well.  You can do rack pulls, or Plateau Buster Swing Handle Deadlifts.  You can find innovative ways to further vary the heights of those lifts too.  Racks are adjustable, and you can use all sorts of size plates on your Plateau Buster.

There's Arielle and myself demonstrating these things.  She catapulted her deadlift from a mere 155 to 285 since March using this model.

Now, you might be asking yourself "I tested out all that shit, and it still won't test well. What the fuck do I do?"

Fear not.  One of the best alternatives is to squat.  Just in general, this is a good idea.  Its a variety of hip hinge, it makes your ass look nice, and provides more range of motion than a deadlift.

On to the subject of your spine.  A lot of people give us at the Movement a lot of grief about some of the shit that we do that looks really fucking odd.  The reason it looks so odd is because we promote moving as much and in as many ways as you can.  So applying this line of reasoning to our deadlift, we come up with cool variations to test.

Here is a good one.

This is a one handed deadlift.  Easy note is the fact that it is good for your grip.  It's also good for practicing your spinal rotation.  Since your spine is capable of it, you might want to do it.  If you have ever moved shit up flights of stairs, or picked up weird shit, this sort of thing happens.  You don't want to be that guy who shits his spine out on the slightest rotation because you deadlifted the exact same way for years and years.

Here are some other good ones too.  I am a big fan of the Jefferson lift with the eagle loops.  It is a huge confidence builder, it is asymmetric, and it gives you a feeling of picking up heavy ass weight.  You will do more in this than in your conventional or sumo stances.  It is also good for spinal rotation.  Ditto the dinnie lifts.  I can't speak much for them other than they are done on rings, which is a different way to tax the grip.  Perhaps I will try them one day when I get some rings.  The axle is also a good one to throw up in the "things to test" section, since it is close to a regular deadlift.

Adam explains the model sort of too in this one.  If you look over his video training log, you can see as he explained that all the shit he did allowed him to deadlift again.

This is not an exhaustive list of deadlift variations.  There are a lot more.  I think I have mentioned swinging a shitload of times so that it doesn't need repeating.  There are also things you can do with your hands to change it.  Use youtube, or your own creativity to figure it out.

If all this fails, test your contraspecific movements.  Some of my favorites include hanging leg raises, hanging leg raises to a tuck, sit-ups (weighted), pull-ups in an L-sit, and reverse hyper extensions.  I figured these would be most common to all of you, I didn't link a video.

On second thought, this chick is hot, so I will put a revers hyper video up.

Hopefully, these will help you if your deadlift fucking sucks.  Drop me a line and let me know.

I'm pretty sure she hinges her hips at some point in her life.

Specificity, or how to get better at what you actually want to do

One of the things we strive for at The Movement is to practice specificity.  So, in the context of me, that would mean practicing the powerlifts with their cues as often as possible.  I hadn't done so at all this year because I was worried about getting out of pain.  Now, I am out of pain. So last Saturday I decided it was time to give it a go under contest conditions. I was nervous that the lack of deadlifting would have affected my total (before the mini meet, 1055) negatively--I have only pulled the way I would at a meet 26 times this year as of last night. However, I was nicely surprised.

I arrived at the Powerhouse at 9am ready to lift with a bunch of people I had never met, and a few I knew already.  Among them, several badasses and overall great dudes: Tony Conyers, Layne Norton and Jon Bernor.  The latter two I train around and with occasionally, and despite what the morons on forums say, Layne is a very approachable and knowledgeable guy.  In addition to that, he gets psyched up for lifts, so that I don't have to.

I didn't warm up, it didn't test well and all my lifts were as follows:

Squat: 380, 410, 430.
Bench: 245, 260, and a miss at 270
Deadlift: 460, 480, 500.

Though it is not the best I could have done, I am extremely proud that I added 40lbs to my deadlift and 90lbs to my squat. And a paltry five pounds to my bench.  That ups the total by 135lbs (1190 if you can't add) in just shy of ten months since the last competition.  Bodyweight this time around was 177, no cutting involved.  I think the majority of the bench problems are involving me not finding out what works, and me not enjoying the lift nearly as much as the other two.  Incidentally, due to the injury I got to really enjoy squats because that was all I could do for a while.  And once that cleared up, I got to do them with more weight.

Once I was able to deadlift again, shit got real.

One thing I will address now, is how I added 90lbs to the squat. I have talked about it before, but it still baffles some people. Since 29 September 2011 I have squatted 154 times. My max was kicking about 330 or so.  Out of the 154 times, five sessions were box squats with a cambered bar, 34, were with the safety bar to a box below parallel, 68 were with a regular bar to the same box, 32 were competition squats with no box. The rest were with the safety bar and no box. How can a human withstand all that? By stopping when it gets difficult.  No, that's not a joke. 

My deadlift went up the way it did due to the technical issues of my own form and possibly due to doing so many box squats. Compare the above to the below:



Big difference. I wish I had gotten 500 on tape, but I was busy worrying about lifting and decided to not worry about it. Rest assured, by next competition (8 December) I will add more pounds to the total and meet at least 1220 with a 520lb deadlift.

Apparently, deadlifting is popular among the women of Scotland.