Monday Bacon: Game Face

Posted on March 4, 2013 by tosabarbell

For the record, I do not like my game face. It looks very crabby and I do something with my chin which causes me to look like a baby Shar Pei. Bleh. I’ve had some good yuks with my lifter Katy down in Texas about her game face. A normally cheery gal with a gallon sized smile, it all goes out the window on the platform…

One of my all time favorite game faces comes from weightlifter Melanie Roach…

I mean, srsly, you’re smack dab in the middle of a heavy clean and you’re still smiling? That’s talent. Bigg has a pretty focused game face but last year he said he wanted to be a bit more dialed in prior to the start of the competition which produced this introduction game face in Gibraltar…

Very Bullocky. Understanding a game face isn’t hard. We put it on during game time. Some are fierce, some are friendly, some are ugly *coughMEcough*.

I’ve come to appreciate body builder’s game faces these last few years. They are twisting and contracting and still need to make their face look soft and relaxed. What is, I believe, misunderstood in the world is that a complete picture like this…

…is a game face picture. These types of images usually follow when women or men rant that women don’t want to strength train and get big and bulky (cuz they’d turn out exactly like this right? Dumbasses.) Folks, this is a game face. These images, whether on stage or in a photo shoot, are not how these people look walking around in the world. Because we don’t walk around the world in our game face. They’ve trained, dieted, and dehydrated for this look and it quickly goes away after the competition. Duh.

Lidia Valentin Perez’s game face is one of the best. Fierce, but cool. That’s what I aim for and fail. Every time.

Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.

Knute Rockne

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Weekend Update

Posted on March 3, 2013 by tosabarbell

We spent the day in Illinois at CrossFit Barrington today (it’s still Saturday right?) at a Pressing workshop with Brian, Chris, and some of their trainers and members. Everyone did great and as we pulled up, Chris was just finishing his Squat portion of the CF Total. He was saving the press for our session and ended up with a 20# PR after adjusting his technique. Afterwards, we benched and played with their Logs with more PR’s being set in the Log clean and press. Thanks to everyone at CF Barrington for having us out again, we look forward to the next time and have some exciting events in the works for the future. OH! I got a little nervous when I saw Tony walking up to Chris as he was pressing. Cuz we don’t spot the press ya know. Ever. But he was just getting into position to help Chris walk the bar in afterwards. All’s well.

While we were busy actually working, the big boys in Columbus were finishing up the 2013 Arnold Classic Strongman contest. Congratulations to Lithuania’s Vytautas Lalas for his win; Brian Shaw for his 2nd place finish and Misha Koklaev for his podium finish in 3rd place.

Sending strong healing thoughts to Americans Derek Poundstone with a bicep tear and Adam Scherr with a muscle belly tear.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Friday Jams

Posted on March 1, 2013 by tosabarbell

Today is the kick off for the 2013 Arnold Sports Festival. Last fall, Bigg and I decided we’d take it in. I’ve never been and he’s had a blast at past events. When he got his invite to the Iceman, we postponed the Arnold visit until next year since we’ll already be gone for that. Of course there’s a lot of crazy at the Arnold but that’s fun. The Strongman competition will be very interesting to see if Brian Shaw is back 100% after his issues during the off-season. We’ll see if Misha comes back stronger and harder after a couple of surprising struggles at last years World’s contest. It should be a great contest. Sending strong thoughts for a great and injury free weekend.

The Highland Games make their debut at the Festival this weekend which is very exciting. The top 8 Pro’s in the country will be there along with two of the best women doing a demonstration on Saturday (I believe it’s Saturday.) The weather looks to be very wintery for these throwers but these guys are Pro’s. I’m sure if little ‘ol us can throw all day in the pouring rain, 8 men can withstand a little winter. And I guess I equate the word “Top Pro Highland Games competitor” to “Tough MoFo’s.” Also wishing them solid footing and strong throws on Sunday.

In honor of the weekend, here’s Arnold. At his best and folks, his best was as best as best gets. Truth.

Enjoy the weekend.

I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with Guess on it. I said, Thyroid problem?

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Press Day

Posted on February 28, 2013 by tosabarbell

It was Press Day at tosabarbell on Tuesday. The press is my favorite lift, not my best lift, just my favorite. I don’t know why, probably because it’s a lost art. Sure there are bunches of people running linear progression who start pressing but once it stalls out, many put it to the side.

Another popular trend I’m seeing in recent press videos around the www. is to use just a little, itty, bitty part of a knee push in some big presses. Sorry luv, you can’t produce force out of the knee’s and still call it a press or a strict press. Knee use=push press. They are good push presses, but not a thing called a press. If you want to go old school and use an Olympic style press with a lot of hips at the beginning go right ahead. But no knees. Not at all. Not. At. All.

Personally, I’m working towards a “big” press (the “big” means big for me, obviously), 2-3 kilos at a time. I run 531 for three weeks and during my deload week I run up to a heavy single. I know, I know: Deload, I’m doing it wrong. This week I wanted to go from 55kg last month straight to 60. The bar had other plans. I hit 58 and I’ll take that, it’s still a PR. The nice thing is that my coach video taped the lift (ok, it was Oz. But he jumped in and said what I told him to at the correct point so we’ll say for that moment he was my coach.)

This also gives me a chance to see why I was missing 60. See how I push the bar slightly out instead of up towards my nose? Rookie mistake, I’ll know better next month. Hips. I need to use more hips also.

After, a new client came and pressed and is also falling in love with the lift. His reconstructed shoulder that hasn’t been put to use properly for years is finally feeling good and he can actually reach behind himself and be a useful human. Nahhh, he’s pretty useful already. The point is, he feels better than he has in years just from Pressing. Yup, it’s that good.

Then the Bigg man came in to work up to a slightly heavy double after that. Or what I thought was going to be a double. Memo to me, don’t stop taping until the bar is re-racked. Another rookie error. Anyways.

348# for three (but you only get to see two. MyBad.) I know, 348 is a weird number, it’s just how the iron and kilo plates ended up and we’re not douches so we don’t fudge the numbers. See? No Knees. Makes it a press. Cuz he’s not using his knee’s. No one does here actually and gets to call it a Press.

The best activities for your health are pumping and humping.

Arnold Schwarzenegger 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment