Sarah Bertram and Jessica Gee got 1st in the 69’s and 4th in the 63’s, respectively, at Nationals this year.  Both of them are from here in Oregon.

Both are also coached by Tom Hirtz, a legend in his own right.  My club competes against their club all the time, and it’s fantastic to see the two of them doing so well.  They both work extremely hard, and are genuinely cool people.  Congratulations!

Here’s a news story about them from KEZI news Eugene, OR. It includes shot of them practicing, and interviews.

It’s a vegan revolution in the world of iron.   My friend Robert Cheeke, of Vegan Bodybuilding, has been pushing the boundaries of what people thought possible for a while now all while living a Vegan lifestyle.  He’s really started a movement.

I just got an email from Rob Bigwood (his blog is here), a New York based Professional Arm Wrestler, who is also vegan, about some tournaments coming up.

Here’s a vid of him in competition.   No joke, he takes the first guy out in less than a second!

Sweet!  Arm Wrestling rocks.

[Full disclosure:  I'm not a vegan.  But, I live in Portland, the vegan capital of the world, and I train many people who are.  It's very possible to meet your goals while sticking to your principles.   Don't let something as silly as a lack of meat eating keep you from reaching your potential.  These guys are doing it.  So can you!]

A while back Coach Dos posted some videos of his lifters doing some power cleans.  He got hammered.  The internet “gurus” and forum guys flipped out saying that his people were doing power cleans with god-aweful form, and that he must not know what he’s talking about.  He now defends himself.

I don’t normally like getting into a mud-slinging match, so I stayed out of it.  I didn’t even watch the videos until recently.  I figured it was just more guys on the net spouting off their puristic and fanatical bs. I was right.

Dos’s lifters are doing fine.  Perfect, no.  But, no one EVER is.  What guys on the net who hide behind their computers never truly understand is that in the real world, it isn’t about optimization.  It’s about doing what you have to do to get the job done.  Sometimes you accept that some athletes are gonna have sub-par form on some exercises, but you make sure they do the best that they can.  They’ll be better athletes for TRYING.  It’s in the trying that progress is made.

My guess is that all of the people who were criticizing Coach Dos have never actually coached anyone in their lives.  Let alone any competitive athletes.

Besides, Dos’s guys power cleans aren’t THAT bad.  They’re rather decent actually.  Here’s the video in question:

Yes, his feet splay wide!  Oooh.  And his elbows are too low in the catch.  Not perfect.  He needs to work at it.  But, it’s a heavy lift!  330.  He’s young, and he’ll get there.  How many Community College lifters have YOU coached that can do that?
Coach Dos defends himself:

It never ceases to amaze me when internet gurus insist on picking holes in my training videos. The funniest one is a blog that was forwarded to me drilling me about the form that “I allow” in my weight room. It was a power clean sequence of one of my kids pulling 333 x 3 reps. yes I say ‘PULLING’ as you can see if you take it frame by frame to make sure the he gets complete quadruple extension each rep (and that he does…this is the entire reason we incorporate Oly lifts BTW). The knock is that his feet are too wide etc. Oh yeah, I teach all of my kids to catch with their feet wide all the time (please note the sarcasm). I have females and lots of my male athletes who I can vid that would display clinic form on their lifts…I just happen to think that 333 x 3 is pretty special.

Here’s another vid:

This kid is much better.  Not perfect either, but very good.  The point is that there is ALWAYS room for improvement.  ALWAYS.  That’s one of the things I love about being an Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  In this sport, you can never be good enough.  It’s a constant challenge.  And as a coach I’m constantly being challenged to help my athletes improve. So is Dos.  He’s a strength coach for a college and regularly pumps out top level athletes.  He must be doing something right.

And finally he says:

Lastly, for the ‘gurus’ who have somehow become experts at the Oly lifts behind their computer desks I need to clarify something. At the blog where I got hammered on allowing such awful form they posted an example (see below) of what they considered a ‘good power clean’. One problem, it’s not a Power clean. This is why I have a prob with internet wizard trainers, when you don’t know the difference between a ‘power clean’ and a ‘clean’ or ’squat clean’ you probably shouldn’t be hosting a ‘fitness blog’ (what exactly does that even mean? ‘Fitness Blog’…sigh).

It is suprising how few people in the fitness industry haven’t the faintest idea of the difference.  The vid:

Alwin Cosgrove lays out a workout designed to kick start your metabolism.

1A: TRX suspended lunge (with hop and knee drive)
1B: TRX Suspended Incline Press

2A: TRX single leg squat (each leg)
2B: TRX Atomic Push up

3A: TRX Sprinters Start
3B: TRX Single Leg Chest press

4A: TRX Hamstring Curls
4B: TRX Inverted Row

5A: TRX Hip Press
5B: TRX Power pull

6A: TRX Hamstring Bicycle
6B: TRX Swimmers Pull

I used a 2 x 45s on, 45s off interval split for this workout and finished with TRX curls, tricep pressdowns, side planks, pendulums and suspended crunches for one set of each.
Give it a try.

Looks very intense!  If you try it, post your experience in the comments section.

Nate Green discusses how to double the number of reps you can do in a pull up in a few weeks.  He’s talking to people who are under 10, I’m assuming.  If you can do 30, you’ll need more work.

How many pull-ups should you be able to do? Is there any link to the amount of pull-ups you can do and the size of your testicles? While I can’t help you with the latter, strength coach Charles Poliquin has a general rule for the former: “Anybody in the weight room should be able to do at least 12 pull-ups.”

I agree that everyone (at least every man) should be able to do 12.  If you’re under 200 lbs, I’d say 20.  Women who are small boned (I’m NOT talking about fat), and not carrying a lot of muscle should be able to do at least a few.

It’s always harder for female strength athletes, though, as most of them are carrying a ton of extra mass in there lower half.  But, it can be done!

One tough Sumo Wrestler

I’ve had my pair of VS Athletics for some time now.  They’ve been a good and sturdy shoe–surprising, considering how cheap they were.  But, it’s time to move on and try a new pair.  After some searching around, I’ve settle on a pair of Risto’s:

So Pretty

They’re still in the mail.  I’m excited!  I’ll keep you posted on how they feel.

EDIT:  it’s been a few weeks now and they are still on back order.  Been notified that I’ll need to wait another 3 weeks.  I’m OK with that, but I’d like to have them before the Oregon State Championships.

EDIT (2):  OK, I got ‘em!  I wore them for the Oregon State Championships and they felt great (I got 3rd by the way).  I’ve been using them since and they are truly great shoes.  I’ll do a full write up in a new post soon.  But, if you’re looking for a pair of cool looking, and very well built, shoes, Risto’s are the real deal.

John Hawks reviews an article by Roni Caryn Rabin on the connection with glucose metabolism and age related cognitive decline.

The original authors made clear that we remember:

Previous observational studies have shown that physical activity reduces the risk of cognitive decline, and studies have also found that diabetes increases the risk of dementia. Earlier studies had also found a link between Type 2 diabetes and dysfunction in the dentate gyrus.

But John Hawks worries:

Here the causality is not necessarily clear. Maybe people who have healthy metabolic profiles are more likely to be active and less likely to exhibit cognitive declines. In that scenario, you wouldn’t necessarily benefit from changing your activity pattern.

I disagree with him here.  In our society people do not (generally) exercise because they find it fun, or because it’s something they are naturally good at.  People exercise because they believe the have to.  There is a strong cultural pressure that leads people to feel like they should work out regardless of how natural it feels.

Nearly all of my clients come to me wanting to change how they look.  They know they need help from me, a trainer, precisely because they don’t find exercise natural.

Because of this, I think that the causal link is more robust.  Most exercising Americans are far from athletes with great natural metabolic profiles.  But, exercising does improve their metabolic profiles, and can bring them up to the level of those lucky few (very few) who have it naturally without working out.