James Henderson tells it like it is (his sweet haircut and shirt that says “BAAD” reaffirm this fact). He impressively preaches many lessons in the following video, and I’ll highlight some of them for you (you’ll appreciate them more if you watch the video, because Henderson is awesome).
Lesson 1: Light repetitions, heavy weights
You can’t get strong unless you lift heavy weights, yes. Heavier weights are necessary for structures to adapt and to neurologically get used to handling heavy weights. And light reps. Yeah c’mon.
Lesson 2: Thank you very much.
Be nice to everyone, even if you’re a big, imposing figure.
Lesson 3: Take your time, and do it right.
Be patient with strength training. Over time, you won’t need “all that fancy stuff like shirts and drugs”. It’s easy to say if you’re a massive human being, but exhaust solid training before reverting to other means.
Lesson 4: If you take shortcuts, you get short responses.
“We believe in workin’ for what you get, ya know, ain’t nothin’ gonna be givin’ to you.”
Lesson 5: “Why play with little change when you can go for the big dollars?”
Lesson 6: Be positive about your workout.
James requests 405 on the bar (to bench with), and says, “Gonna have a good workout today. A powerful workout.” There’s not doubt in his mind he’s gonna move some weight.
Lesson 7: Respect your warm-ups.
Watch James bench 405 for a few reps, then go back and watch him bench 225. They don’t look that different, and it’s because he reps out the light weights the same way that he’ll rep out the heavier weights. Respect your warm-up sets. At the very least you won’t expend any unneeded energy on lighter weights because of bad form, and you’ll establish solid motor pathways.
Lesson 8: Blow off some stress.
Training can be a sufficient outlet for stress. It’s probably preferable to murder.
Lesson 9: Call out your spotters.
If they aren’t doing their job, accuse them of being drunk.
(See 5:30 of the video. Might be the best part.)
Lesson 10: The Zone is a delicate place, and it requires good people and a good environment.
Pretty self explanatory. This is why there are a lot lifters who opt to train in their garage instead of the local fitness gyms.
Lesson 11: Speed.
Think speed on all of your lifts and it will make it feel faster, even on the heavier lifts. James did 500 for 6 reps while thinking “speed”, and THEN he bumped on up to 600 for a triple. His focus at 500 was to move the weight fast. Moving a weight fast will increase the number of muscle fibers that are innervated, so James is on the right track.
Editor’s Note: In case you can’t tell, this is another post by Brent. Oh, and it’s PR Friday so post your PR’s to the comments or update everyone on your training.
Chris Riley is a man of captivating words. Chris has always been very creative with language. We’ve mentioned it a few times before on the site – instead of saying “I need to wash my hands,” Chris will say, “I need to wash my gripz.” Instead of asking if he can taste or try something that you’re eating, he’ll ask, “Can I flavor that?” or “Do you want to flavor this?”
He also has an interesting way of insulting people. According to Chris, a “Todd” is someone who fucks everything up but doesn’t realize he is a total fuck up.
Brent: The Arkansas Razorbacks are a bunch of fucking losers. They couldn’t make a touchdown if the goalie was a paraplegic.
Chris: Goalies are in soccer, Todd.
Brent: Ooh KAY.
There are some other colorful terms that Chris is fond of using, but I don’t think they’d be appropriate to share here, but if you’d like to know more, call me, we’ll talk about it (<– this is also one of Chris’s sayings, often said in the middle of a conversation).
Oh, and the infamous WHAT ELSE ISN’T A SPORT that some of you may have seen in some of the comment threads actually originated from a night during which Chris had been drinking. Mustache Mike (not to be confused with Big Mike, who you’ve all been acquainted with) ascertained that figure skating wasn’t a sport, and Chris grew increasingly agitated as he interrogated Mike about what else wasn’t a sport.
Mike and Chris are currently training partners at WFAC. They follow a Texas Method-style program, with a volume day on Tuesdays, a light day on Thursday, and an intensity day on Saturday. Mike has observed that almost invariably, Chris comes into his Saturday workouts with the odds stacked against him. He got drunk Friday night, or he has to train in a hurry because of work, or he doesn’t eat an optimum amount of pre-workout calories because life gets in the way.
Chris, however, is a competitor.
Chris and AC are similar in that when they commit to something, they put all of themselves into it. It’s why AC gets so intense that he’s brought to tears before a 3rd attempt squat. Chris is the same way. Fight a +17lbs PR 650lbs deadlift for like 10 seconds and make it to above the knee? Ooh KAY. When Chris commits to a lift, he’ll throw everything he has into the effort, and if he fails, he’s gonna go down swinging for the fucking fences.
One particular Saturday, Chris went into the workout under shitty conditions, as usual. He takes his last squat warm up and decides to load 545lbs on the bar. He’s not sure how many times he’ll squat it, or if he’ll even be able to squat it at all today, but before he gets under the bar he turns to Mike and says one of his new trademark lines -
“I’m feeling reckless.”
And then he squats it for a PR set of 5.
Mike and I have agreed that Chris is a fantastic training partner. It’s hard to find someone who trains as hard as he does and has the raw desire to BEAT ‘EM. He’s overcome setbacks and has only gotten bigger and stronger. His performance is consistently excellent. Whenever I train with Chris, my motivation fucking sky rockets.
I don’t actually think my traps are that big. Well, they aren’t big ENOUGH. I admit they are disproportionate to the rest of my body, sure, and they are probably one of the only remotely visible pieces of evidence of the fact that I lift weights. The bottom line is I weigh 175lbs and this just isn’t a significant amount of mass in general.
But as you all know, I am aggressively working to rectify this.
Justin and I have had several discussions about the need for me to develop more muscular bodyweight, particularly in my upper body, but basically, it’s generally been agreed that I need to fill out 85kg with some quality weight, and eventually 94kg if I’m planning on doing anything cool.
There have been disagreements between us about how I should go about adding that mass though (paraphrased):
Brent: so i want to get more yoked, man
Justin: Oh yeah? What are you planning on doing?
Brent: probably some shrugs, Bill Starr style. i want bigger traps
Justin: (sigh) Your traps are big enough. You have the traps of a 215lbs guy on a 175lbs body. Maybe you should hit some other areas.
Brent: what do you mean?
Justin: I don’t know, maybe the rest of your upper body OTHER than your traps?
We’ve had some other disputes regarding this.
Brent: look, all i’m saying is, i don’t see why there’s a problem with me wanting to be yoked like a bull
Justin: There isn’t, but a big yoke requires the body of a bull, not a calf.
Well, here is my response to THAT:
Shrugging for 17 reps isn’t really standard ops for me. It was kind of a special day since I was training at the WFAC with Mike, and I wanted to get a PR set of 10 in. I typically have been doing these shrugs for a top set of 5 once a week, but I wanted to have some fun. I wasn’t counting reps; I think I was more concerned with telling myself I WANNA BEAT ‘EM. BEAT EM. BEAT EM. BEAT EM! with each rep. I figured at some point that I’d done about 10, and so I did two more “just to be sure.”
I asked Mike if I got 10. He said, “Seventeen. Close though.”
Sorry Brent, we’re gonna talk about football again. Roger Gooddell, the commissioner of the NFL, and the team owners want to increase the regular season from 16 games to 18. This would be a good thing because they’d eliminate the worthless pre-season games, but then the owners want more games (because they want to match or increase their revenue). Some of the players realize the problem here:
“I would vote to eliminate two preseason games and then keep it at a 16-game season because the longer you’re out there playing, the more your body breaks down,” Chicago Bears tight end Desmond Clark said. “When you get into December, you’re like walking zombies. You can’t feel your joints.”
The players are TURNING INTO ZOMBIES! OMG!!!1111@!@!11!224ehjr09fujdlvkn
NFL players have resorted to eating BRAINS and the NFL wants to increase the season? I always knew there would be a zombie outbreak, and now I know the source of its inception. (GASP)…Is this a dream? I’m gonna need a kick. But…how can you kick me without any gravity?
All right, the point is that the only thing left to seal the deal on the 18 game season is playing nice with the player’s union. Let’s just assume this will happen, much like we have to assume the whole “death, taxes, and Brent Kim will be shrugging” thing. NFL players get injured enough as it is in the 16 games they already have. A quick search yielded this bit of research about injuries in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association. Regardless if it’s good research or not (I only skimmed it), we know intuitively that players are more likely to be injured in a game, on turf, if they are veteran players, if they are fatigued, and if they have a pre-existing injury. Injuries can remove a player from participating in practice and games, or it can be a less severe injury that the player has to deal with depending on their position.
The point is that football players are injured enough, and now the work load is going to be increased to a point that will be more difficult to handle, genetic freak or not. It’s obvious that pre-season games don’t garner the same physical effort or intensity as real games, and the real games are where guys are more likely to get hurt. Owners don’t realize that this will be debilitating to their investments (the players), and players will find a way to survive: steroids or other drug enhancement.
Cooking has become increasingly popular over the years on television, and it has branched throughout the internet. I’d like to share two websites, Bargain Bites and swEEts, that may entice some of you. These sites are run by lovely ladies that are friends of mine who are also married to or dating some of my good friends.
Bargain Bites is pretty cool because it is focused on cooking all different kinds of foods while on a budget, and Aimee, who runs the site, has created all of the recipes on her own. She was just telling me the other day about her Triple Threat Cookies that look pretty awesome.
swEEts is run by Evan, another third of the top three funniest girls I know, and is full of, well, sweets — cookies, cupcakes, cakes, buttercreams/icings, breads, breakfast foods, and other desserts. Some of you might be amused by these Guinness and Bailey’s Swirl Brownies:
I can personally vouch for the cooking and baking prowess for both of these gals (especially Evan’s cookies, oh man), so you can just slobber at the recipes or give it a try. Both would be more than happy to help you out if you wanted to e-mail them.
We’ve also had quite a few posts on 70′s Big about food, and I’ll recap some of them here.
Chicken Fried Steak by Gant — First and second posts
Gant is also the king of barbecue — Brisket and lots of meat (totally no homo, Gant doesn’t play like that)
Jacob shares his chili recipe Eating to gain
And a great post by Gant on general eating habits that is applicable to lifters and people trying to eat healthy.
That should have made you hungry, so let’s talk about food in the comments. You can talk about your favorite food or what you’ve eaten recently. In the last few weeks I’ve had three of my favorite meals that my mom makes; pork loin, buffalo wings, and chicken and dumplings. It is the bayst.
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