Small World…and Finger Pointing

Posted on June 18, 2014 by tosabarbell

smallworld

Going down as perhaps the worlds most widely known annoying song, it seems appropriate today. See, as expansive as our current world is with the whole interwebz and all, it’s actually quite small. We are now able to keep in touch with those we otherwise wouldn’t (or shouldn’t;) Heh. We are able to briefly meet people and then become closer “friends” with them through the Facebook and blogs and such. That’s kinda fun.

We can keep current on competitions and our favorite competitors; we learn in almost real time about training injuries (boooo:( and can keep ourselves busy for days watching idiotic training videos (yeah!!!:) We can read from various folks on topics such as diet; programming; dogs; Iceland; Blueberries; Pugs; and general training just to name a few things I check each day. Many of us write about the benefits of strength. Many on my FB feed anyway. Many of us write about food issues, or how to avoid them. Many write on miracle foods or supplements that has folks scrambling to the nearest GNC for their very own special jar of $75 worth of crap. Not so much any more I guess for the Dr. Oz fans. That’s awesome.

It’s also awesome when you write something that seems to hit a connection with people. My post on the “Toned Ban” seemed to do that. According to the WP, I got an up arrow that day (SO happy WP gives me up arrow hugs.) I guess it was on point enough to be repeated. Only not by me. Huh. See, the problem with being so well connected to each other is that we can see when blogs start to repeat themselves. It’s too small a world.

Now, I will be the first to admit that from a strength/diet writing view, there is very little new stuff out here. Most of us are speaking on what we’ve observed, lived, or proven. There’s no surprise that we all sound similar. True story. But when you go toe to toe, point to point and don’t even bother to change up the wording a bit, well then you’ve got my attention. At the heart of it? It’s unnecessary. I’m a mid-aged mom and strength coach in little ‘Tosa who uses a blog to mostly vent and put up pictures of our food and our dogs. That’s SO worth $19 bucks a year YO! I don’t take this thing very seriously. A few people who mean something to me do and have decided not to be friends with me anymore after various blog posts. That blows my mind. It’s a blog. It’s usually full of the F word and lamenting that folks don’t want to be strong or eat right. But as I’ve said before I own my words so if you decide not to like me anymore, well, buh bye. Take care. Really. Take care.

But I am usually happy with what I write. Happy enough that when someone with a much larger audience and name in the fitness/strength world wants to cut and paste the words that took at least 2 cups of coffee’s worth of time to write, well, you go for it. Cuz a few folks will recognize where they’ve seen that before and say, “Hey Jules, didn’t you write on this a week or so ago?” And I can say Yup.  And move on. But we, the two of us who pay our blog fee’s, know what’s what and big fish get’s to live with that. True story.

Also…

As I said up there, the WWW. gives us the ability to view training, advice, fail video’s and all sorts of nonsense. It also gives those internet warriors a voice to let others know how a geared squat isn’t as cool as a raw squat. We can fight about whether knee wraps are ‘raw.’ We can post on CF Fail compilations on how one of the shots wasn’t at a CF gym. We can shout from the mountain tops (errr, I mean mom’s computer) that those squats were high. We can post our own video’s and reason off a knee bounce in a “press” or just pretend we don’t see that our squats are loose and shitty and we just can’t understand why we’re not making progress. Mostly…we can point fingers.

That’s the fun stuff. YOU suck and I’M so awesome! Oh wait, I’m not awesome? Well YOU TAKE DRUGS AND I’M CLEAN! So that’s why you’re not as strong as the strongest? Uhhhhh, okay. Ya, sure. I am so completely bored with this little argument I can’t even stand it. Once you utter those words, by voice or by keyboard, you’ve just become a whiny bitch. True story. Whether or not people choose to take a little testosterone or a lot, shut up. We don’t care. Slather a little T-cream each morning? BOOM. You’re a user. You think that doesn’t count so you’re okay calling out other people? You’re wrong. Think ‘well I only took ‘X’ for a certain period of time, not my whole competing life so I can sit on a throne of lies’ get’s you a free pass? Nope. You took. In my opinion, the steroids finger pointing on the internet, especially directed at big strong groups of athletes is hypocrisy akin to the religious. Know why T-Clinics do so well? Cuz people like to feel better. Duh. Do I point fingers? Yes, I point every male I work with to get there levels checked and then force their doctors to prescribe something other than some stupid cream so that they can begin feeling better, dealing with life better (there are TOO many men with TOO much estrogen!), become mentally more strong, and just overall being better. I’ll point them that way every day of the week and the quicker doctor’s help them do that, the more respect I’d give the medical profession. Instead, they’ve bought into this idea that a T-count over 300 is SCARY and could induce ROID-RAGE. Oooooooo.

Anyways. What was I talking about? Oh ya, pointing fingers. Hey, ya know why the guys you see on the video pulling over 800 for reps are pulling over 800 for reps? Cuz they’ve worked for years to do it. They worked hard. They sacrificed a lot for those reps. Not because they take drugs or not JUST because they take drugs. There is no 600# bench pill. Doesn’t exist. Really. I looked. I tried to buy my husband a 220kg Loglift pill last year for his birthday to take before the World Loglift Championships and I couldn’t find one. Really. So he had to work hard and train for a top 5 finish. Shit! I tried! I even tried Amazon and really, if Amazon doesn’t carry it, it just doesn’t exist. Duh.

But hey, if it makes you feel better to call out someone on the interwebz who is demonstrating strength beyond your capability (or desire to work for it if you ARE capable) then go ahead. But you’re boring. And whiny. And are clearly in need of that T-clinic. True story.

There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy: hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.

Frederick  William Robertson

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Monday Bacon: Homework

Posted on June 16, 2014 by tosabarbell

Are you a new powerlifter and don’t recognize this man? Then you’re not quite ready for the big leagues son.

I believe that when another noob gets the powerlifting bug, it makes the strength gods happy. Someone else deciding to be strongest will send smiles down from the black iron heavens and those who have gone before us give a well done clap that appears as thunder. Dramatic? Well, maybe a bit.

I equate it to how welcoming Highland Gamers are to new folks at the Games. Trying to encourage us along to get the bug, expand the ranks, bring more visibility to a fringe sport. But we have a responsibility in that. Ya know? We can’t just show up at these games and believe we’re going to dominate without doing our homework first. Doug Edmunds; David Webster; Alistair Gunn, and Francis Brebner. Know who they are? No? Well get on the Google and start doing your homework. Are you sharing the field with a Top 10  competitor? Show respect. If they hold a world record in an event, shut up and pay attention. Shag for them. But mostly shut up. Us noobs don’t get to be the stars of the show. Yet. Give it time. But give it the respect it deserves.

The same goes with powerlifting. I can recall at least 14 times a new lifter who’s lifted in one or two meets has claimed that they ned to drop or gain up to another weight class in order to “be competitive.” Ya know how to get competitive in your weight class? Get stronger. Duh. Whenever I hear this silly statement, my first question is, “Do you know who Jim Wendler is?” If I get a “no” (and I ALWAYS get a “no”) my response is always the same. Get experience, get stronger, get a total (no, you cannot total at a push/pull meet. They’re fun, and you get valuable platform experience, but you need to show up at the full meets. Warm up your squat  at 7:30am and pull your first deadlift attempt around 8:00pm to fully grasp how hard a full meet can be.) Put the time in the gym needed to gain strength, experience, and do a little bit of homework.

Ed Coan. Are you a “powerlifter” and don’t know who he is? Then you need to open up the books and do some reading. Matt and I went down the list of folks you should have a strong grasp on how they’ve molded the strength world here in ‘Merika.

Dave Tate along with the contributions of EliteFTS. If you’re new to the sport and don’t spend time reading on the site, you just really are lazy. It’s a treasure trove. Plus they have cool hoodies and shirts so you can look like a real powerlifter to your friends instead of just a fat guy who hangs out in the gym a lot. But SRSLY.

Louie Simmons and Westside Barbell. Oh I know, I know. All those huge guys and girls with the bands and chains wouldn’t be nearly as strong as they are without their special “vitamins.” Holy god if I hear that argument one more time I’m going Pulp Fiction on the stupid person’s ass. Look. I have the smallest amount of knowledge of the Westside methods and I can recognize how they’ve impacted the strength world. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of their lifters at meets and their feats of strength were absolutely amazing. Hard work and a program that works for them did that folks. FOKKK! Do you know how boring you are if all you can say is, “well ya, but is that person clean like me?” You mean WEAK like you? No. No, that lifter is not weak like you. Have you foraged through their medicine cabinets? No? Then S!T!F!U! If you are such a small minded, weak person that you need to fall back on pointing fingers…well, tune in tomorrow. You’ll be the star of the next post. And by Star I mean asshole. Cuz, ya know, it’s me.

Anyways.

This guy. He’s my favorite. I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s because I have the perception that what you see is what you get. One of the more challenging parts of learning more about “famous” people is that often times our ideal image of them is torn apart the closer we get to them. Maybe that’s the case with Wendler, but I dunno. I’ve seen him work. He seems level. At times harsh, yes. But I like that. He also has appeared humble; honest; self aware. He remembers a face and will ask how you’re doing. That’s solid. Oh ya, he’s also been around long enough to know what’s worked for him and shared it with the world. People want to complicate 531 but he seems to have none of it. The absolute greatest experience of my time with the Texas crew was a weekend where Rip, Tommy Suggs, Johnny Sheaffer, and Wendler sat at the same table for a Q&A. It was quite amazing. I had the unfortunate job of being in charge of the time per answer so if a question had 4 minutes of total time to get through it, I’d have to call a warning out to the speakers as they were talking. Ok, first off, I’m not shutting up Tommy Suggs. Nope. Not happening. So often times what would happen is Tommy would talk for 3 1/2 minutes and then Wendler would begin giving his answer and guess who got to tell him time was up? Yup. Me. I was horrified. That was Wendler’s first impression of me. Some bitch with a stopwatch telling him to shut up.

Wendler and Sheaffer Flex

Scheaffer & Wendler hamming it up in Texas.

Others you need to know about…of course Rip. Love’m or hate’m, don’t care. Laying out a sound mechanical argument for his methods is unmatched in my opinion. We train to his methods. They work. We switch up programming a bit more but as for the lifts, we’re dialed in. Dan John, it amazes me how many people believe CF has invented the complex style of training. Gawd. SRSLY. when will you people realize that CF invented nothing? They grouped shit together that’s been around forever and called it CF. Now, they have excellent marketing and a community that has come to mean a lot to people around the globe and I respect that. Good on ya. But you have nothing original in ways of training. Sorry I’m not sorry.

Also, some honorable mentions (and I know I’m missing some here…) Mark Philippi; Mark Bell; Mike Tuscherer; and ya know, Arnold. Who else?

Now, if all you want to do is show up to a local meet once a year and bench and deadlift and are happy with that. Fine. We can help you with that goal and getting stronger for whatever reason is a good thing. But if you consider yourself fully bitten by the bug, get reading. You’ve got homework to do. Something useful to look up on your phone in between sets other than the Facebook or porn. Really.

If you even dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologize.

Muhammad Ali

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The Bar is NOT your Bitch. Bitch.

Posted on June 11, 2014 by tosabarbell

bitchbitch

This…is a Barbell…

It is a picture of an old York Barbell, the only thing missing from tosabarbell. I know where three of them are, extreme self control has prevented me from doing a bar swap when no one is looking. It is my favorite bar on the planet. I love our B&R Bars; I love the snappy feel of a Werksan and Eleiko bar, but the old York bars are my fav. I love how they get pushed aside at gyms lucky enough to have one and don’t even know it. They look rusty and old and ucky so people go for the shiny new ones that feel like crap. I trained at a gym in little town Minnesota that had one and the day I got kicked out of the gym (for “turning it into a Powerlifting gym”…dick) I seriously stared at it for 5 minutes wondering if I should take it. Yes, there were cameras and I see the asshat at the VF when we played Bingo so I eventually would have paid for it but then I’d have an old York bar. Damn values.

But I do like the bars we have. Bigg loves his Texas Deadlift bar and I did enjoy training on the York Weightlifting bars down in Texas. But that old York bar, Oooooo she’s a honey. She’d have a good home here, cuz we take care of our bars. Ya know what we don’t do? We don’t throw down our bars. We don’t allow people to roll them around with their feet. We don’t allow people to slam them into the rack after they PR’d. Cuz your PR, as fabulous as it is, is not more important than my Bar. True story.

There are so few circumstances where a bar thrown from overhead is appropriate I can only think of one. A Gold medal. As in…

By the way, why do people only kiss the plates? I always give my bar a pat after a good day. The bar was with me the entire session, plates come and go. Heh. I remember one silly boy down in Texas who got pissed that his horribly form and lack of taking coaching (not by me) got out of control enough that when he missed his umpteenth consecutive snatch, he threw the bar across the platform. I told him that he was done for the day. He was shocked, why would he be done? Cuz you’re an asshole and will never throw a bar again while I’m in the vicinity of a mile. Get. Out.  I was so amazingly pissed I thought I’d like to throw HIM across the platform.

I am Hawaiian enough to believe that there is stored energy in a bar. What you put into it will come out. I will not always PR; the bar WILL always want to win, but we’ll work together and afterwards the bar will always get a pat. That bar helps me to maintain strength and health. It is never my enemy. If anyone comes into our house and disrespects our bars, they are done here. I don’t care if they are our best friend’s, they’re done.

Thrown bars (minus the Gold medal) are a sign of immaturity. Silly boys and girls throw bars. Those who have been taught by silly boys and girls that their 75 pound push press was elite. I’ve actually seen videos of folks throwing down their bars with 10# iron plates on them. That’s not badass. That’s dick. Don’t be dick. But really don’t be dick at tosabarbell, cuz if you get me on the wrong day, it won’t be pretty. The bar is never your bitch. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. If you can’t understand that? Then you’re not ready to touch it. True story.

Sounds naive respecting someone who doesn’t give a shit about you.

Toba Beta

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50 Like 5

Posted on June 10, 2014 by tosabarbell

This is light. RIGHT?!

After yesterdays post on my worldwide ban of the word ‘Toned’ our tosa friend and awesome graphic designer asked a very poignant question: “If all I do is sit at a computer all day and occasionally have to pick up a 50# bag of fertilizer, why do I need to be strong?” I loved this because I believe this is one of the most common misconception of civilized man. My quick response would be:

What if that 50# bag of lawn food felt like 5#? 

That’d be better. Right? And wouldn’t that highlight the exact reason that stronger is better? Because we CAN DO THINGS BETTER. That’s a good thing. It’s the perfect illustration that stronger is best in every day life. Yes?

I cannot for the life of me fathom how Strength went out of style. Like the 80’s. Toto and Strong, poof, out along with Jelly shoes and leg warmers (but I still wear leg warmers. True Story.) Anyways. I honestly have no idea. Why did strong become a four letter word in America? We were out last night to watch the hockey game with Bigg’s Russian pal, also a hockey player, and as I looked around the Brew Pub I realized that there was not one man in the joint that “looked” strong. There were a couple of maybe construction workers so by trade, they needed to be strong but guess what? Their job would go better and they’d last longer if they were not only job strong, but gym strong. Duh. ( By the way, LA is up 3-0. Suck it Rangers.)

I read this article yesterday written by John Romano. It made me ask Bigg this question, are modern American men afraid of Testosterone? Has a T-count over 250 become so scary that men will do whatever they can to avoid it? Are women who demand girly men equally terrified of becoming a victim of the media popular “roid rage” monster that exists as true as Bigfoot and ‘Nessie? Has the media/Congress circus that has revolved around steroids and raised testosterone actually caused men to welcome the low count AND teach their sons that they don’t want a level of 800 or they’ll end up raging and then dead of steroid cancer? Steroid cancer, I’ve actually heard that one.

Why do I need to be strong if I don’t live in a world where I don’t need to display strength? Well, I would ask, what world exists where you don’t display strength? What is the alternative? Well sure, there’s a grey area before ‘weak’…maybe. I had a stint this spring where I tried some different training. It didn’t work. I actually became weaker and fatter. Yuck. See, since I’m strong to begin with I recognize the feeling of weaker. I don’t like it. Do those who aren’t strong  just accept that weakness feels okay? I dunno.

But I want to know. Why is Strong out of style? Why don’t we want 50 pounds to feel like 5 pounds? Why is a T-count higher than 246 scary and why are men so afraid to go to a T-Clinic to remedy the situation? Why do skinny jeans in the men’s department even exist? Why don’t more beefy men train in Ranger panties?  (Okay, I just threw that one in for fun. But really…)

Brandon Lilly’s 800# deadlift…in Ranger Panties style shorts. You’re welcome ladies.

Really.

I like there to be some testosterone in rock, and it’s like I’m the one in the dress who has to provide it.

Courtney Love

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