Clarity of vision
Stillness of mind
Power of foresight
Lessons of hind
Strength in the grasp
Strength in the pull
Zen in the movement
Explosion trumps all
. . .
When function meets force
Then it looks easy
It becomes easy
It is its own reward
Showing posts with label art: writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art: writing. Show all posts
Climbing the Mountain
We are the ones who do not forget our bodies.
We are the ones who climb the mountain
not because it is there,
but because it will be difficult
and climbing it will not only
bring us closer to the heavens
but it will make us stronger.
..Ran across this forgotten poem in the back of my training journal last night...
The constant
It's not that it's more important than everything else.
It's that every other thing in my life may be transient, but as long as I am able to do it, I will always be weightlifting. At the end of the work day, on my day off, on vacation, during a crisis, before a trip, after a trip, before the laundry is done, whether the housekeeping is done, before I return phone calls, after I return phone calls, before the sun sets, into the dark.
If I lose my job, I will still be weightlifting.
If I lose my house, I will still be weightlifting.
If my loved ones fade away, I will still be weightlifting.
Whether my mind is upheaved or my soul is quiet, the bar is my constant. It never wavers. It never leaves. It is always ready. Whether I succeed or fail, it is ready. When I am spent, it is still ready.
As singular and private as my love for the bar is my love for those who help me grasp it, who return to the bar themselves when I am not there, who live in this space between the rest of life's incidents, who tomorrow and tomorrow, will still be weightlifting, just like me.
this inner life
All day long I am training.
In my head, I am squeezing the bar, feeling
the good drag across the thighs
the sock-it-to-me dig into the ribcage
and then the explosion
nipped quick, ass to grass.
The push.
I lean back and shrug
in my office chair
while we’re talking,
so slight you cannot see,
but it’s the movement
the pattern
the neurokinetic pathways
I’m paving as we speak.
I am thinking of how the bar feels
in my hands.
I am hearing the swell of music
from my speakers
when I drive under the bar.
A chunk of day down.
I’m making the money
that will pay my coach
and pay for the airline ticket
to the big meet
and buy more chalk.
Keyboard clicking,
inbox filling,
to-do list with bullet points.
I glance at my palm and it centers me.
It’s my hands that bear witness to my inner life,
the calluses and torn blisters,
the strange brown marks set in over time.
Steal a moment on the computer
to watch lifters like me
bend under the bar,
throw up the weight
tumble or triumph
and teach.
A chunk of day down.
I am eating to make sure
I will have energy at 5:30.
I am drinking water
So my body will be ready.
As I straighten my collar in the mirror,
I plan what will happen tonight
in the gym,
rehearse the movement I need to learn
replay the words
I need to hear
from fellow lifters
from my coach.
Replay the emotion
I let him see,
that somehow he understood.
Know I scraped the ground
and he helped me back up.
This struggle
this inner life,
it is comfortable alone
it is vulnerable revealed
and from this, growth can come.
This inner life
intensely private,
intensely shared,
intensity breeding intensity
Drives me.
Drives lifters like me.
There is lifting,
there is thinking about lifting,
and there is interruption in-between.
Weight over my head
This is life. This is real life.
One-hundred pounds
is always one-hundred pounds.
When the house is quiet
I like to turn off the TV
and go to bed early
to be in the dark,
lost in the lifting,
the gym,
the lifting talk
from the day
from last week
from what is to come
and what is to be.
Interview with Chip Conrad, Part I
Chip Conrad: owner & operator of Bodytribe Fitness in Sacramento
Chip Conrad has done more than create an exercise system, build a business or attract a group of followers. He has forged a discipline of strength and mobility training with a solid and unique philosophical base, drawing worldwide from established basic training techniques and incorporating their time-honored tools, and infusing the discoveries that his intuition, experience, experimentation and dogged research have earned him.
Conrad shares his approach generously and with panache through his gym, traveling workshops, his blog, a book, videos, a growing body of DVDs and conversation anytime, anyplace. So information about his discipline is accessible. What I want to explore in this interview is the man himself. He is the embodiment of his own creation, the creation of his discipline, philosophy and lifestyle; and that is so large and bright that the man himself can vanish in its light. I want to learn about the parts that built the sum, because by understanding the history of the messenger, we are freer to examine the message.
And so we begin.
I. Personal Evolution
What did you want to be when you grew up? Talk about the significant changes to your first vision of your adult future.
Not sure if growing up was something I’d ever fully wanted to do. Once I started playing music when I was 8-ish, and that was a career path of choice for a while. Not one to embrace a standard idea of responsibility (fancy, blame-dodging speak for ‘lazy’), I wanted to rock.
What brought you to exercise? Were you involved in sports, movement or athletics growing up?
I played a season of little league and half a season of soccer, which I quit for choir, which I quit for something I can’t even remember. I wasn’t hopelessly bad at anything, more like radically mediocre… the middle kid to get picked to play. I’d rather thrash around on my BMX, climb trees, hike or simply explore; stuff that didn’t have to always have a winner and loser.
What was your introduction to physical training?
I needed a job and started working at a cross country ski resort when I was 21. I believe my eyes had never set on a pair of cross country skis up until then, but within days I was hooked. I remember my first trip out thinking myself naturally gifted because I covered an entire kilometer. Then I found a map of the resort and realized that there were over 300K worth of trails, and the average skier went out for 10-30k in one session. Oh.
But this new hankerin’ to get better at something, something physical and downright exhausting, was an exciting new trek, and I started embracing the concept of training to increase ability. Guess I haven’t stopped since.
Describe your evolution in training. What did you try, what did you like and develop, what were dead ends for you?
When I first strapped those skinny planks on my feet, I weighed about 127 pounds. Training for xcountry skiing gave my muscles something to do and they responded with a pound or two of extra weight, thanks in part to my voracious eating habits.
A few folks introduced me to a weightroom, and the introduction was so pleasant that within two years I was working in a gym. Oh, the iron bug struck big, but like most folks, my education at that time was limited to the world of bodybuilding magazines and driven more by vanity than anything else. Why should I be 130 pounds when I could be 230 pounds and look like a monster. Chicks dug that sort of thing, right?
Here’s a quick, rather personal insight:
My sexual activity stayed about the same no matter what I weighed. Muscles never got me laid as much as personality (which, thankfully, I can pretend to have when needed).
I never hit 230, by the way. Can’t possibly see how I could, even if I were putting needles in my tush. But it started mattering less and less and my motivation shifted to being able to DO, rather than just look like I could do.
What or who influenced your evolution in movement and training? Who or what has significantly inspired you and driven your thought?
Well a big chunk of my paradigm shift was simply grokking the lessons I had from the folks. Moms and Dads do have a bit of influence, and I think the lessons and support my parents gave this sort of average kid with a lot of imagination seemed to alter my thinking about training when I started asking myself why I was doing what I was doing.
The answer? I hadn’t a clue. Big muscles had no real purpose, despite my dreams of a bolstered self esteem through being bigger. Truth was I wanted to have a purpose behind my training, and that’s when I decided to start figuring our what strength really meant.
You buck the conventional, commercially-driven fitness mentality that is pervasive today. Where you ever involved in it? Did you ever buy into it? Did you cleave away from it, and if so, what was the story?
I was fitness director of a corporate gym for almost a decade. There is no better lesson in how much crap goes on behind the curtain of the fitness industrial industry then having a position of pseudo importance in said industry. There is no actual “fitness” in the fitness industry, and as I was going through a redecorating of the inside of my head to make a more comfortable pad for my spirit, the vacuum of passion and value in the corporate fitness world made it a very inhospitable place.
Do you have formal education in exercise, certifications, did you ever hold related jobs?
I’ve had over a dozen certifications (probably close to 15) and I worked not only for a corporate gym as their ‘fitness director,’ but also for a certifying body, giving the 2-day workshops that allowed people to call themselves ‘certified trainers.’ All of it crap, by the way.
I decided at some point to seek out the people doing the best work and learn directly from them. This eventually led me to the doorstep (literally) of Dr. Mel Siff, considered by many to be the leading brain in exercise physiology and biomechanics at the time.
The physical culture is still a place where we can find mentors and sit at their feet to let their sagacity trickle down to us. It is a tribal-style initiate-teacher scenario that is too rare in our modern scholastic hierarchy. I worked with a few folks like this and learned more than any college would even come close to offering. In fact I have yet to meet anyone fresh out of school (no matter how big the degree) who actually knows how to train anyone.
Are any of your family members deliberately physical? How has your family reacted to your path?
The parents were a bit surprised, mostly because I never stuck with anything for any length of time. 16 years with this particular passion (including my books and DVDs) seems to have finally convinced them I might be into something this time. Also I have the dreaded role of making people feel guilty just through my career. Who the hell wants to eat with a trainer?
How have your life goals changed since you decided to open Bodytribe?
Ya can’t change something you don’t really have, and up until I started developing the Bodytribe concept, I was a bit aimless. It takes the defining of a passion to completely own it, to become complete with it, and when I finally gave words to what I was feeling about all this movement and strength stuff, paths unfurled in front of me.
What is your vision for your empire now? Is your gym the top priority? How do you prioritize your gym with your related endeavors – writing, producing DVDs, the documentary you are filming now?
The TRIBE is the priority… the extended family of folks who grok what I do and what Bodytribe means. So much of my mission seems to be simply showing better alternatives to what is currently offered. From the fitness industrial complex tothe modern physical culture movement, folks limit themselves WAY to quickly. The first thing to be abandoned as adults who are engaged in movement again in their lives is creativity. Instead we trust our time, ducats and self-respect to modern day gurus called trainers, living free thought and our concept of frolic at home.
Something deep in our souls is vehemently screaming towards the surface of consciousness that we need movement… intense, glorious movement, sine qua non! But somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we identify movement and strength with work, not the kind of work that puts food on the table and a big screen on our walls, but the uncomfortable kind that reeks of obligation and pain. That screaming from our souls is so muffled, we feel it more than we hear it, and only in brief moments of introspection. We know it is important, but we don’t get that it is US, not something beyond us.
So when we finally make the decision as adults to once again embark on a movement quest, our immediate, media-basted lexicon isn’t full of words like ‘passion’ or ‘fun’ when thinking about fitness. In fact we want to think as little as possible, so we simply hand ourselves over the an industry that seems shiny and exciting but is actually incredibly droll, sort of icky, and in many cases, nothing short of creepy. Folks who have very little knowledge about the history or passion of fitness are the educators your average gym member has to rely on to create change in their lives. That seems like an empty quest.
And this is seeping into the groovy little Narnia I call the Physical SubCulture. With CrossFits opening like Starbucks and anyone with a laptop offering up their words of wisdom through forums, blogs and websites, there are a growing number of folks who started off a decent path, but decided to teach before they even began to learn. I like the enthusiasm, but shut up and listen for a while. Learn your history. Go sit at the feet of the masters and ASK SOME FUCKING QUESTIONS! And, for the love of all things heavy, get under a damn bar and do some things with it for a big chunk of your life before you feel it your duty to put your word (or, in most of these cases, someone else’s word) out as gospel.
In other words, there is now a frightening vacuum of creativity in the modern physical culture movement as there is in the corporate gym world. Hyperbole seems alive and well in both camps, whether it’s a million member gym chain, or a lump of metal on the ground called a kettlebell or an eating program fit for a caveman, the sheep are flocking around and the brains are being left at home.
And we’re taking it all too seriously. That’s the ultimate mistake.
Competition photos of Chip taken by Allyson Goble at Tommy Kono Open V 2010
The Daculi Witch Chronicles
This is my new novel, available at this preferred eStore and on Amazon. More details are on the Daculi Witch Chronicles webpage.
The Daculi Witch Chronicles weaves history with fiction to present the story of a line of women struggling to live their lives during the Great European Witch Hunts.
Janet Wishart, accused in the Aberdeen Witch Trials; Gilly Geillis Duncan, accused in the North Berwick Witch Trials; the secret daughter of Queen Elizabeth and more find power and peril through intellect, education, beauty, forbidden love... and magic.
Their stories combine to illuminate a dark era in Early Modern Europe and the dynamics which made it possible, to highlight the strength and good in human nature which enable survival and inspire change, and to remember fondly the dreams of innocence.
This adventure flows through major moments in history, tying them together to chronicle an extraordinary family line and reinvestigate witchcraft from a fresh perspective.
Tonight's journey (or, working out under a Harvest Moon)
Tonight I could not clean.
My feet dragged into the garage
(sanctuary)
and I yearned for the high-voltage days
I'm sure I almost always had before
(younger).
But I love the feel of the bar in my hand
I know this space is opportunity.
Tonight I smashed my pinky
and clipped my tailbone
within the first three minutes.
Snatch finally came but light.
(Center. Focus.)
Tonight my Jerk got strong
quickly
(fast feet)
and I felt the "perfect moment"
(timing)
when my body was ready to handle the Jerk
(reality?)
and took it.
Tonight I felt extinguished after I made that heavy single
(Do it again!)
but went on to overhead squats anyway
(what I wanted from the start)
and those
were
amazing.
I
was
amazing.
(For me. Just.)
Tonight I hit the bag,
losing patience with my damaged shoulder,
and knew the power of focused force
and the warning of sloppy aim
(Life lessons, always).
Tonight I could not clean
and juggled permission to quit weightlifting
with the heroism of perseverance
(10,000 hours),
the threat of insanity
(performing the same motion),
and uncertainty
(identity, validity).
And I know that somewhere,
in all of this,
is who I am
as well as who I want to be
and who I wish I could be.
Finally, I walked out
(dark now, Harvest moon)
feeling tentatively better
(about myself)
knowing that tonight
was just that –
tonight.
Photo taken atop a mountain in Idaho this month
my photo makes the cover of Oregon Coast Today
My photo of a Northern Fur Seal made the cover of Oregon Coast Today.
Great issue about stranded marine animals. Download the PDF version here. Read the cover story online here.
Who do you call? If you're on the Oregon coast, put these marine mammal stranding numbers into your phone.
- Oregon State Police: 800-452-7888
- OSU Marine Mammal Stranding Network Hotline: 541-270-6830
Issue 34, Volume 5
Our 242nd Edition
training article in Fitness & Physique mag
My article on rigging hanging handles and training similar to basic ring work is in the spring issue of Fitness & Physique magazine. You can also read a version of it at Straight to the Bar.
This is the magazine of the Organization of Competitive Bodybuilders, or OCB, a steroid-free non-profit.
Fitness & Physique is sold at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Hastings, International News, Meijer's, QFC, Kroger, Supervalu, Winco Foods and other retail outlets, or can be ordered online.
Mother's Day wishlist at Straight to the Bar
On Mother’s Day, it’s time to return the favour. She helped out by bringing you up; now help her become strong enough to deal with, well, you.
Straight to the Bar features my article Grrls Mother's Day Fitness Wishlist.
Mother’s Day should be about the woman - not Hallmark, not sugar, and definitely not the floral industry. If she was tough enough to survive raising you, give her something to complement her indomitable strength.
(Pictured is mother of four and 2007 OCB Yorton Cup Nationals champion Cheryl Szarmach. Photo by Matt Shepley)
review up: Complete Sandbag Training Course
My endorsing review of the booklet The Complete Sandbag Training Course by Brian Jones is up. Read it at Mighty Fit Review.
review up: Jim Schmitz weightlifting DVD
My warm and smiling review of the DVD set Olympic Style weightlifting with Jim Schmitz is up. Read it at Mighty Fit Review.
world champion deadlifter Christine Neff
This article originally ran in Straight to the Bar
World Champion deadlifter Christine Neff (formerly Rovnak) is one of the few women in the world who can deadlift more than 500 pounds. She has been powerlifting for 11 years and competing on and off for nine. She holds world, national and state powerlifting records in various weightlifting classes in various federations.
And, I’m proud to say, she’s my sister.
Stats
Born: 1980
Height/weight (at 27 years old, time of this interview): 5’11” 192 pounds
Hometown: Coeur d’Alene, ID
Has competed with: WABDL, APA, APF, USAPL, AAU, USPF
Stats: World record 502.6 pound deadlift in 2007 for WABDL in the open women's 198 pound class, signed by Gus Rethwisch. Bench 315 pounds at 181 assisted, 275 pounds at 181 raw; Squat 440. For more details on competition history, see bottom.
Did you set out to become a world record holder in this lift?
Not at all. The fact that I hold the world record is still surreal to me. I am one of a few women in the world pulling over 500#, yet I am always surprised when people walk up to me after a competition with compliments and handshakes.
Did this lift come easy to you? How long until you felt competent?
The deadlift HAS always come easier to me than the other lifts. Compared to bench pressing, I have had to train very little to get where I am now. Unfortunately, knowing this has allowed me to be lazy and (give me) the feeling that achievement is constantly just out of my grasp.
Is the deadlift your favorite lift? If so, was it always?
Absolutely. Deadlifting is, in some circles, considered to be the bluecollar lift of the powerlifting world.
During the beginning stages of my competing, I did not deadlift. People are rarely seen training this lift, and a normal gym setting can be an embarrassing place to do it, especially to someone who doesn't know what they are doing. I was somewhat influenced to try it after watching several very strong women pull at the end of our competitions.
It is not as popular, nor can it be as easily influenced by the use of supportive gear. Take benchpressing for example. In the 80s and early 90s men benching in the 500-600 pound range were elite. Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea to change the single-ply bench shirt into scientific armor. We went from having denim then double-denim, to lifters wearing shirts 3x too small for them with 4 inches of stitching across their chest and a split down the back. I read an interview from a girl who benched just below 400 pounds openly admitting that she gets at least half of that from her shirt. Now I watch amateur lifters in the gym spending money on shirts before they even have their true form down, and lifters shattering their forearms in competition because they were not built to support upwards of 800-1000#.
There is a time and place for everything, and whether someone lifts equipped or not is their decision. In many competitions, I too wear a shirt (though drawing the line at a double poly), but feel the deadlift is more raw in form. Deadlift suits cannot add 100# to your pull, and training without a partner is possible. At a competition everyone shows up to watch the bench, but the Lifters are the ones left watching at the end.
Describe your training, and how it differs between on and off-season.
I am a strong believer that heavy lifting is mostly done in the mind. If you allow your body to soften up during "offseason", you take the chance of coming back weaker and less enthusiastic than you would have been if you'd stayed disciplined and focused.
Training the deadlift is different than the other lifts in the sense that overtraining is very easy to do, and for that reason, I do actual deadlifts only leading up to a competition or occasionally on a back night at moderately heavy weights.
If I deadlift every week, I find my body and mind becoming bored. Instead, I focus on working my hips on the sled or by doing squats/hack squats. My grip leaves something to be desired, so I also do forearms and try to keep the rest of my body tight.
About 6-8 weeks from a competition, I will begin doing heavy deadlifts twice a week. On the first night, I use the same form as I would in competition. On the second (about 3 days later), I like to stand on a platform or plates and do hyperextensions. Both nights I do sets 6" above and 6" below the knee from the Smith Machine with weights I normally wouldn’t be able to pick off the ground with the intent to work the sticking points and refining my form. Additionally, I move my focus away from arm exercises and anything not directly tied to the deadlift. The last week before competition, I stop deadlifting altogether and give my body time to rest.
Does your philosophical approach to deadlifting differ between the on and off-season?
I am ALWAYS working to shatter my previous records in competition, but I seem to do worse if I train the deadlift every week. My focus is pointed more at keeping everything strong all the time and training the deadlift primarily leading up to a competition.
What goes through your head while you're executing a deadlift?
Clear your head and walk up to the bar like you hate it. Ignore the crowd, and don't look down when you place your hands. Take a deep breath in, bend your knees, and set your hands. Push down with your legs and roll your shoulders while exhaling, pull with all your might. Then try not to pass out.
What are the biggest mistakes you see others make in their deadlifts?
Form is a real killer in the deadlift. Some people are gifted with bull muscle strength and have the ability to pull up great amounts with their knees locked and backs bent. Eventually, however, the increasing amount of weight can cripple the spine. Having a firm stance and utilizing the large muscle groups in the legs and pelvis will allow for steady improvement and keep a body healthier in the long run.
Are the mistakes generally the same between regular lifters and competitors?
I think competitors are less likely to have sloppy form because they can appreciate the lift from a judging point of view. However, there are always a few, both competitors and regular lifters, more concerned about showing off than the gradual climb to core strength. This probably has more to do with individual personality, but does not improve ability to lift in any way and annoys the rest of us in the gym.
What was the best piece of advice you ever got on your deadlift?
My husband Roger, who has taught me almost everything I’ve talked about so far, told me to relax and stop thinking so much.
I had to learn the hard way that nagging myself to death to do better can be sabotage.
You cannot become discouraged when a particular night in the gym yields less weight than it did the night or week before. Daily activities, diet, and frame of mind directly affect the ability to lift and the more you think about how badly you are doing, the worse you do.
An example of battling my expectations happened just before I broke the world record. I had been out of lifting for too long and became easily discouraged. When I wasn't rapidly progressing, I beat my self up mentally. It had gotten so bad that the last session in the gym before the competition I couldn't even budge 465# off the floor, which was 20# lighter than I’d been lifting the week before!
After getting a firm talking to and taking a week off, the day of competition came. I kept my head clear and allowed my training to take over…then pulled the best numbers of my life.
Adrenaline can do wonders, so don’t worry if you haven’t pulled what you want to in practice. Training in a family gym, probably listening to music that is not your choice, and being stared at by parents or teenagers that have no idea what you are doing is much different than standing under the lights on a stage covered in sweat and chalk looking out over a crowd.
Give us a bit of background about you as a competitor.
I had very little opportunity to play sports in high school, but have always had a fanatical drive. Being 6’ tall, I was the largest girl in my class and convinced I wanted to be a model. Unfortunately, I felt I was built more like a football player than a model, and the tiny girls surrounding me didn’t help. I would get up very early in the morning to run before classes, then finish the day in the school gym before work trying to get stick thin. It was only after I entered college and met my future husband that I got into serious lifting. At the time, I thought bodybuilders were gross, and was afraid to lift real weights for fear of getting manly and muscular. Roger, a 2-time Olympic World Team wrestler, had been lifting and competing all his life. He showed me proper form and encouraged me to work out, but never pushed me to lift heavy. About 8 months into our relationship, he invited me to watch him at a powerlifting meet. I had never seen one before, and made the assumption, as many do, that I would be watching a bodybuilding show. Several hours into it, Roger asked if I would be interested in trying it out since I was having such a good time. Embarrassed and self-conscious, I refused and told him it wasn’t for me. For some reason or another, he took that as a yes and secretly entered me into the novice teenage bench competition. I was so scared I cried. When the time came for me to get onto stage, I walked up, turned my back to the crowd and proceeded to bench press the bar and 15# on each side. Oddly enough, there were no other girls in my division that day and I took home the trophy for a 75# bench press. There on out, I was hooked.
My most embarrassing moment of lifting came a year or two later in Seattle. The competition was in a hotel conference room, atop a stage overlooking 2-300 people. Anthony Clark, who was still alive at the time, had a t-shirt stand set up in the back of the room along with several other venders. All in all, a relatively large event. Several lifters were there that day, but I was among the youngest and least experienced. I had forgotten to bring a singlet, so I bought one off the back table and got ready for my lift. Those of us competing sat in the front rows below the stage, and when you were about 3 people out, you’d stand at the bottom of the steps and wait your turn. I was standing there in my brand new singlet, and when the judge called my name, Roger took my t-shirt and led me to the bench. The only thing I had on under the singlet was my sports bra, and I didn’t know that was against regulation rules. The judge took one look at me, looked at Roger, and asked very politely into the microphone if I could go back off stage and put my clothes on. The competition was put on momentary hold while everyone in the room watched me walk down and crawl back into my shirt. In hindsight, I am probably the only person that remembers that incident, but I never made that mistake again!
Who are athletes you look up to and why? Have any specifically influenced your deadlift?
I respect a person who remains humble and clears their own path, who despite of money made in their sport, gets up every day and keeps going. They are the ones that influence me, deadlifting or otherwise.
I respect Michael Jordan for talking kindly of others when he himself ruled the world.
I respect Becca Swanson for breaking social norms for women and deadlifting more than most men.
I respect the dinosaurs that trained with only a belt and chalk, who weren’t afraid to bleed from their eyes, and whose records remain to this day.
Have you met your goals for this lift? What's your plan for what it means in your future?
My goal is to lift 600#. Four years ago, if asked the same thing, I would have said I wanted to deadlift 500#, but every time I reach that mark, it moves up. The hungry feeling of dissatisfaction is probably something all competitors feel when setting goals for themselves, and is what separates them from the pack.
More competition stats
Note earlier records were under maiden name Rovnak
World Deadlift Record WABDL 485.0# 198 open women (also set that in Junior Women division and holds the state and national title)
WABDL National bench press record 305.2# 181 junior women
WABDL National DL record 457.2# 181 open women
USAPL State bench record 275# 198 lb open women
USAPL State DL record 450# 198 open women
APF National BP & DL record in 165 junior women division
Sisters Kat Ricker and Christine Neff
gifts for a fit grrrl
What does a strong, active gal want? Things to help her be strong and active! Check out my article on what to get her for Valentine's Day at Straight to the Bar; it's the #2 article since the site launched in 2004.
Perhaps a print out of this PDF version will just be found - er - lying around your house, with certain items circled?
If you like it, please give it a Digg, Stumble, or whatever bookmark you use.
my guest post at Jen's Gym
It is my utter honor to be a guest blogger at Jen's Gym, one of my favorite blog stops. Jen (see photo) is a self-proclaimed CrossFit nut, a fabulously strong Amazon, an inspiring blogger, and a woman who can do muscle-ups on the rings.
Here's an excerpt. Read the full post here.
Sports was never my thing, and it can be tough to stumble into a fitness discipine. I had a few early inclinations. I picked up my father’s dumbbells when I was a kid, and carefully followed the exercise diagrams for building shoulders. I noticed people’s musculature and admired fit bodies. I called a gymnastics place and asked about the rings, but was told they didn’t teach girls the rings.
In elementary school, I was the only girl who could climb the knotted rope at the fire station, and I did the flexed-arm hang for longer than any girl in the county, they said. I did the hand-over-handle bars until I grew too tall.
I mention these things because there are kids out there like this right now, and maybe you can spot them and guide them to opportunity. I think adults take kids’ playing for granted, especially girls, and can overlook natural inclinations that could blossom with the right environment. So I pass on this tiny flag.
gym ideas: handles on chains
For the gym that has everything, and for the space that has nothing but could become training space for a tool that gives great bang for the buck and takes up modest space, here are handles suspended from chains, staple equipment for me.
My full article is posted at Straight to the Bar.
Handles hung on chains
These are more versatile than their more glamorous cousin - the rings - because they can easily be adjusted into every possibly degree of proximity to one another, and their level of suspension from the floor can easily be manipulated as well. They’re not just fixed into a ceiling beam for time immemorial. You can move them as often as you like, even during a work out.
new reviews up
I've posted three new reviews at The Mighty Fit Review. They're all thumbs up.
The book Lift with your Head: The Training and Movement Philosophies of the Physical Subculture, by Chip Conrad
No Sweat, 100% union-made apparel
Harbinger leather wrist wrap weightlifting gloves, by a big company that doesn't need my help
reading Something Familiar
I gave a reading of Something Familiar at a bookstore on the coast over the weekend. Cozy, relaxed atmosphere. Note bookstore cat named Tom on chair. Good excuse to go to the coast.
...and here's the terrific pizza we had. dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, feta cheese, green olives, walnuts...lots of it all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
