2012 Backyard Meet of the Century Results

2012 Womens ProAm Results

http://supertraining.tv/live/

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/supertraining-tv

Weigh ins for the men’s meet are 10 – Noon on Friday and 8 – 8:30 am the day of the meet.

Weigh ins for the women’s meet are 10 – Noon on Saturday during the men’s meet and 8 – 8:30 am the day of the meet. REMEMBER TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK SATURDAY NIGHT.  Daylight savings time ends during the night.

For both days, YOU MUST BE WEIGHED IN by 8:30 am on meet day. NO EXCEPTIONS. We need your help to make sure this meet gets started on time. Arrive early on meet day. Do not cut your travel time too close and run the risk of missing the start of the meet. It will start without you and if you’re not weighed in, you cannot compete.

Remember that all lifters will need a singlet and anyone who is deadlifting will need deadlift socks (or other long socks such as baseball or soccer socks). You must also wear some kind of shoe or deadlift slipper when deadlifting.

Important Notes for Lifters and Spectators

There is limited off-street parking at the gym, and the on-street parking close to the gym is metered on Saturday. We suggest that you park in the neighborhood to the east of the gym.

There will be food/drinks available for purchase during the meet as well as a Sling Shot/Power Magazine booth.

Please note that there will be a limited number of chairs available. The expected size of the crowd means that we’ll be standing room only much of the time.

The meet will be streamed live on SuperTraining.TV beginning at 10am both days. There will also be links on the Super Training Fan Page on Facebook. For fastest notification of each time the broadcast goes live (there will be short breaks in broadcast during the day both days), follow @jimmcd1234 on Twitter. The live streams will be recorded and available online after the meet.

Women – Lightweight – Full Power – Raw

JoAnne Lauer

Kimiko Yamamoto

Kirsten Kinneberg

Janelle Gonzalez

Tara Getty

Andrea Paphavasit

Perla Tapia

Elizabeth Wayne

Kim Tran

Edith Ortiz

Tara Hissen

Ruth Pardue

Iryna Piatrovich

Jo Ann Aita

Jennifer Petrosino

Andrea Searby

Brittany Cino

Serena McCabe

Tami Lacy

Sara Powers

Elizabeth Cohen

Elizabeth Cabral

Women – Heavyweight – Full Power – Raw

Tanya Christiansen

Jenna Doyle

Leila Almahdy

Diane Anderson

Kristin Newman

Christle Guevarra

Karen Bruns

Sandra Laines

Women – Lightweight – Full Power – Single Ply

Georgiann Puckett

Women – Lightweight – Full Power – Multi Ply

Gracie Vanasse

Vikki Traugot

Erika Lutz

Women – Heavyweight – Full Power  - Single Ply

Aura Morris

Women – Heavyweight – Full Power – Multi Ply

Allison Lockhart

Women – Lightweight – Bench Only – Raw

Laci Jackson

Women – Heavyweight – Bench Only – Multi Ply

Liane Sabourin

 This meet is closed. Contact Cara Westin (riotbarbie@hughes.net)  if you’re not listed and feel that you should be. 

Men – Lightweight – Full Power – Raw

Paolo Ferretti

Addison Turney

Paul Tongiani

Mark Kolc

Navid Kiassat

CarsonFox

David Liu

Mark Giarratana

Jake Brown

Shawn Schantin

Michael Baxter

Keith Hopkinson

Men – Lightweight – Full Power – Raw  (CrossFit)

Marc Kaiser

Mark Galvin

Trent Simmons

James Kusama

Jason Bannister

Men – Middleweight – Full Power – Raw

Eric Kotynski

Andrew Saarni

Connor Payne

Brent Bergener

Max Aita

Eric Gohler

Ben Servais

Pete Rubish

Ernie Lilliebridge Jr.

Dan Green

Lars Lucear

Jimmy Doyle

Mike Farr

Chris Ramos

Travis Collier

Men – Middleweight – Full Power – Raw  (CrossFit)

Ted Henderson

Jason Burnett

Cory Boyd

Mark Wilson

Matthew Thaxton

Men – Heavyweight – Full Power – Raw

Adam Eriksen

Brent Willis

BrandonLilly

Eric Lilliebridge

Tiberius Catinas

Stan Efferding

Jesse Wheeler

Men – Lightweight – Full Power – Single Ply

Brian Pacheco

Men – Lightweight – Full Power – Multi Ply

Douglas Tice

Greg Buffington

Richard Smith

Men – Middleweight – Full Power – Multi Ply

Tim Pigeon

Alexander Ayres

Josh Bosma

Johnny Phung

Men – Heavyweight – Full Power – Multi Ply

Jesse Burdick

Ricardo Morales

Taylor Thompson

Reilly Cook

Men – Lightweight – Bench Only – Raw

Michael Russell

Men – Middleweight – Bench Only – Raw

Jim Doyle

Men – Lightweight – Bench Only – Single Ply

Bob Levering

Men – Middleweight – Bench Only – Single Ply

Dennis Reneau

Charles Rice

Men – Middleweight – Bench Only – Multi Ply

Juan Laija

Men – Heavyweight – Bench Only – Raw

Eric Spoto

Men – Deadlift Only

Ernie Lilliebridge Sr.

Mark Bell

George Leeman

Chris Hickson

On Sunday, November 4th, Pro and amateur women from all over the world will be returning for the 3rd Super Training Women’s Pro Am. Already scheduled to attend is Laura Phelps-Sweatt, the two-time multi ply Pro Am champion. Many other women are training hard in preparation and the turnout will be huge.

Registration information for both meets is available here (Click the Upcoming Meets & Events tab).

Finally, on Monday November 5th, world-renowned mobility expert Kelly Starrett will be conducting a half day clinic focused on mobility and optimizing performance for the strength athlete. No powerlifter, olympic lifter, strength athlete or coach should miss out on this special clinic! For more about Kelly check out his MobilityWod.com or go to his website at www.sanfranciscocrossfit.com. More seminar details here (or click the Seminars tab).

Plan to spend this power-filled weekend with Super Training Gym. This will be the strongest event on the West Coast!

Some of you may reject the idea that you picked up heavy stuff to impress girls. You may say, “No way man, not me,” or “I got into this to make myself stronger.” Look man, don’t deny it, embrace it. Everything in life centers around chicks.

In addition to getting broads, you also realized that with a better and stronger body you can probably kick the crap out of that jerk that punted your New York Jets football into the woods and then ride off into the sunset on his girlfriend. Everyone knows that having a big bench will increase your street cred, plus chicks dig big benches. Okay, chicks aside for a minute.

When you first got into lifting you got some results from doing a lot of basic training, like three sets of 10 reps. Maybe you took it a step further and started out overloading with more weight from one week to the next. I bet you started to get into everything you thought would make you better: forced reps, super sets, negatives and so on. The effects of your early training go a long way.

After a year or two of training hard, the gains start to slow down. The fun hammer is coming to halt your progress in its tracks. How does a person continue to make progress and not get hurt? How do the pros like Shawn Frankl, Dave Hoff and Donnie Thompson make any progress after they all have reached such a high level? What is their secret?

Pro secrets

Super D

I hate seeing people write the word de-load in their training logs or that they had to shut it down because of severe forearm pain, or whatever. Stop being a bitch! But just because I hate the term de-load I’m not going to tell you that de-loading is totally worthless. However, I will argue that it’s probably not needed if you’re training optimally and not maximally all the time. If you are training heavy and doing overload work every week, then you will most likely need a de-load.

The amazing athletes I mentioned are in tune with how their bodies feel and how they react to a certain training stimulus. Plus, many top lifters have a trick up their sleeves. I call it underloading.

Underloading?

You may be asking, “What in god’s name is Underloading? And is it free? Because every time I turn around Mark Bell is reaching into my wallet.” Underloading is free — for now. Underloading refers to using less weight to lift more.

“Wait, time out!” you say. “Coach Bell, you’re trying to tell me I can use less weight to get better results?” Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. This means you don’t always have to go heavy and kill your whole face to make progress. There are ways to trick your body into training maximally and optimally without overdoing it. Using underloading will help you go into your next workout fresh without feeling like you overdid it.

Underloading will work for you because it:

• Varies with similar exercises

• Allows you to stay fresh and keeps you ready to kill shit at all times

• Allows you to pack on muscle

• Controls volume and intensity

• Prevents injury by using less weight

• Allows you to get stronger with less

The Underloading Method

This is a method that will force you to use less weight but still make outstanding strength gains. Keep in mind that underloading is a method, not a training system. Underloading needs to be utilized within a sound training system like Westside Barbell. Implement this method for one- or two-week cycles, then resume your regularly scheduled programming. One of the simplest examples is to do something for reps instead of a max. Doing a set of three to five reps will still give you enough weight to get stronger, but it will also be a light enough percentage to keep you from destroying yourself. Remember, the athlete who can handle the most work wins. You can’t handle the most amount of work over time if you destroy yourself in one day. You need stimulation without annihilation.

Forms of Underloading

Most forms of underloading should be done in the one- to five-rep range. No gear, no belt, deep ply squats, deficit deadlifts, using a fatter bar. You follow? Your making lifts harder by adding range of motion or taking away supportive gear. All of the above methods will force you to use less overall weight, but you can still go for a max on them. You may find yourself 5, 10 maybe even 15 percent weaker on these lifts, but it will force you to work hard.

Let’s say your best squat is a 450-lb. box squat with a belt for one rep. Try doing a low box squat (about 3 inches lower than your normal box) max double with no belt. You may end up with around 330 to 360 lbs., which is about 75 to 80 percent of your 450 lbs. After you try this, you will see how demanding using 75 to 80 percent can be. At this point in the workout, you can add the belt and see what you can get for double. You may end up with 380 to 400 lbs., which is about 85 to 90 percent. The weights are still about 10 percent lower than your best. You just dipped your hand into the strength bucket and extracted a lot of points without being bitten.

Dynamic effort work, also called speed training or compensatory acceleration, has protocols suggesting the use of 50 to 70 percent of your one-rep max for multiple sets (eight to 10) for multiple reps (two to three), but you are moving the weights as fast as you possibly can. You are working on becoming more explosive by producing the most force possible. Although you are using less weight, you are producing similar amounts of force or even more force on this day then you would with a max lift.

Bands and chains allow for speed work to become even more effective by accommodating resistance. Bands and chains will force your body to accelerate throughout the entire movement faster. Force = mass x acceleration. The weights are lighter at the bottom of the lift, where leverages are the poorest. As you finish the lift, the bands are stretched as you get into a better mechanical advantage.

Dumbbell bench press is a great example of underloading, as even a 600-lb. raw bencher will only use 150 to 200 lbs. in each hand, which is 300 to 400 lbs. total — about 100 lbs. less then what they’d normally train with using a barbell. I like using 10- to 20-rep sets for dumbbell work.

Try further range of motion lifting, like dumbbell bench press, deadlifts while standing on mats or low box squats on to a 10- to 12-inch high box. The greater range of motion will make the lift harder and force you to use less weight.

Change from a stronger stance to a weaker one, or change to a weaker grip. For example, try doing a wide-grip bench press when you rule at close grip, or vice versa. Ultra-wide sumo pulls would be another example.

Add reps to an exercise. Try sets of 10, eight, six or five, instead of what we normally do: triples, doubles and singles.

Add tempo to the exercise. Use pauses, eccentric and concentric tempos. This refers to moving the weights slower to increase time under tension. An example would be counting to four on the way down in a bench press.

Finally, have the guy who is lifting off to you teabag you on the bench. Underwear is optional. This approach is probably overused at Super Training. Or have a pit bull chew on your undercarriage while doing Sumo deadlifts. This method, on the other hand, may need to be used more often at Super Training.

More details on underloading

The Underloading Method can be used by lifters of any level. However, a newer lifter may need to focus on handling heavier weights in order to prime their bodies for bigger weights. A more experienced lifter will be able to draw upon more muscle mass when using sub-maximal or lower weights.

The idea of underloading stems from years of training using Louie Simmons’ Westside Barbell method. Simmons advises using to the lightest weights to lift the heaviest weights. He often talks about getting a big carryover. For example, at Westside they will smash a big squat off a box with bands in briefs and their suit, but they will do so with the straps down and no knee wraps. This forces their athletes to use less weight. However, at the very top of the lift, because they have a band on the bar, the weight may be about equal to what they do in a meet. When they do go to the meet they have extra gear to lean on for those world record attempts. Basically, you want to find optimal weights to get the best results.

Does heavy always mean strong?

Maybe he’s slow as dog shit off the floor. Deficit speed pulls against bands would help a ton in this situation. Deficit deadlifts are performed while standing on 1- to 3-inch mats. This exercise increases the range of motion, thus making it more difficult. The more difficult the exercise, the less weight that will be used. Knuckledragger can make some great gains by training with less weight rather than more weight. Another option, if you are good at a lift, is making it more difficult by adding reps, bands or chains. Knuckledragger could try 555 to 575 lbs. for a set of three in the rack if he is really that obsessed with rack pulls. The bottom line is, don’t let your ego paralyze your progress.

Points of difference

To better understand underloading, let’s look at the difference between overloading exercises and underloading. Underloading should be used with forms of overloading, which consists of exercises that allow you to use about 100 percent or more of your max. Conversely, in underloading we are looking for exercises that force us to use at least 10 percent less than our best. A quick example: I did 675 lbs. with the Zercher harness a while back. The next time I did the Zercher harness, I got up to 500 lbs. for six reps ith no gear, off of a lower pin. The 675 lbs. for one rep was more like a strength test and the 500 for six was more like a strength builder. I personally use underloading on my max-effort days. I flip flop back and forth between under- and overloading as I see fit. Normally I do two weeks of some type of underloading followed by one week of overload. I use overloading less because it’s more demanding. I choose to either overload or underload based on how I feel, what I did the workout before and what I did the week before.

I’m looking for a solution that’s optimal. Oddly enough, bands and chains do a little bit of both under- and overloading. Again, weights are lighter at the bottom and heavier at the top. They allow you to overload the top of the lift but they also force you to use less overall real weight on the bar, which is important when using a method like underloading. Bands and chains can be demanding but, in my opinion, they allow for a safer way to get to bigger lifts due to the fact that you’re not just loading up tons of iron on the bar.

A.J. Roberts recently hit a 1,140-lb. squat, and the heaviest squat he did in training was a 935 lbs. with the cambered bar (underloading). Roberts also hit a 695-lb. squat with 440 lbs. of bands. That equals 1,135 lbs. at the top of the lift (overloading), which is needed as a meet gets closer. Both squats were done to a parallel box in gear. The same is true with his 50-lb. deadlift PR. Roberts did a block pull with 800 lbs. for two reps, which is 97 percent of his 825 in the meet, but a partial range of motion. The partial range movement allowed him to go heavy, handle a big weight and not over-tax himself. Could he have done 800 lbs. for two from the floor? Maybe, but who cares? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. (That statement of awesomeness was made by my fat little world-record-holding buddy, Donnie Thompson.) The rest of the time Roberts worked on skills, form, explosive strength, speed and mental prep. All of his hard work combined led to an unheard of 175-lb. increase on his total.

I recently did a 1,003-lb. squat in a competition (measly compared to Roberts, Hoff and Carroll but hey, I’m trying) and pulled 760 lbs. The heaviest weights I handled were on a reverse band lift, which is a form of overloading — and that was done only once in eight weeks. The heaviest squat I did was about 940 lbs., the heaviest pull was 635 or 655 and some chains.

The rest of the training time was spent on being fast, becoming more mobile (aka building the supple leopard) and keeping the best form I could. In addition to that, I am constantly learning and adapting.

Powerlifting legend Donnie Thompson came and trained with Super Training for four weeks and, in that time, I saw the 390-pounder use 515 to 550 in the deadlift for sets of five while maintaining an 800-lb. raw pull. Thompson likes using sets of five as a form of underloading. He’s using more reps to limit the amount of weight he can use, but still build up the proper muscle stimulation needed to pull 800. Super D also squats 500 to 550 lbs. raw on his dynamic/recovery day for sets of three, while doing kettle snatches for sets of six to raise his work capacity and force the muscles to work hard with weights that are measly compared to his 1,260-lb. world-record squat. Remember why I said we all started training? To get chicks. Super D has 99 problems (one of them being that he is nearly 400 lbs.), but getting a chick ain’t one of them. (See Donnie’s rep deadlift workout below.)

Both over- and underloading have their place in making a bar-bending, ass-kicking power athlete. Underloading is a fantastic method for building strength the old-fashioned way. Overloading is effective in many ways as well, but it can kick your ass if it’s overdone. Overloading for geared lifters is how they can be so strong when they take the gear off. Now, here me out on this before you raw peeps jump down my throat. Powerlifting gear allowed Scot Mendleson to bench over 1,000 lbs., but Mendy also holds the raw world record with a bench of 715 lbs. By using powerlifting gear (or my Sling Shot), you can get in some great overload training, which over time can make you stronger.

The Great One

The great Ed Coan used a lot of underloading in his training. He’d use reps, paused squats and stiff-leg deads to allow him to train optimally, but not maximally too early in his training cycle. Coan trained his ass off to be the best, but do you recall seeing him do lifts that were at 100 percent in the gym? Maybe he did, but most of the videos show him leaving a little something for the next training session — and, even more important, for the next meet.

As a meet got closer, Coan would begin to start to “overload” his body by using lifts and gear that would allow him to lift the most. I put overloading in quotes because Coan told me recently that he never took maxes in the gym. Think about that for a minute. He also said he never missed a weight in training. Wait a second. Really? That tells us that even the Great One left a little in the tank when he was training. In addition, underloading-type methods early in the cycle helped Coan lay down the bricks for a bigger foundation going into the heavier training sessions. You remember that all this strength training and muscle building is to get chicks, right? Well, Coan has had a very pretty girlfriend for more than 20 years. If he wasn’t so strong and jacked, I seriously doubt his personality and height (5’5”) would have gotten him any women.

Underloading Rules

No missed reps. Ever.

Leave something in the tank. This leaves something to the imagination and keeps you intrigued. Kind of like how a chick in a skirt is sometimes hotter than a naked chick. Leaving a little strength in the tank also keeps you in a positive frame of mind at the end of the workout, and going into the next one.

You know you want to be jacked.

Wrap. If you’re not in the gym to get jacked or to get strong, then what are you doing there? Even those of you who want to lose body fat or get skinny, that is done out of the gym, not in the gym. You lose body fat and keep bodyweight in check by controlling the foods you eat, not by burning an extra 300 calories on an elliptical. If you want to go from dud to stud, then you may as well train properly to get the fastest results and the hottest chick possible. Use the underloading method and feel yourself get reloaded for future workouts. The next time someone says, “Hey, how much can you lift?” you don’t have to give 20 excuses on why you suck. You’ll be able to look them right in the eye and say, “A lot more than you!”

“Look how strong I am!”

This phrase normally means you’re probably telling a lie somewhere else. “Look how strong I am with my 700-lb. rack pull!” Then it comes time to do 700-lb. full range in a meet and you can’t budge the damn thing off the floor.

Louie Simmons says that if you’re about 10 percent stronger on an exercise, it’s time to flip over a few more rocks and find the next one that’ll take you to the next level. I’d go as far to say to try finding exercises you’re 10 percent weaker at and utilize them two or three times per month on your max-effort days. Let’s face it, doing things we are not good at sucks — but sometimes it’s necessary, right? I hate reading, but I love lifting. Well, you can’t get better at lifting unless you’re educated. I hate to write; I practically finished high school at a fifth- or sixth-grade reading and writing level. But here I am, writing to help spread the word. Do the things you suck at, and get ready to go from dud to stud. Remember, it’s what you think you already know that prevents you from learning. Do not let your ego paralyze your progress.  PM 

This article originally appeared in the July/August edition of Power Magazine.
© Power Media, 2011.

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