Droppin' Knowledge Like Elbows On Fools' Faces- The Big Seminar II

Though I sort of backed into powerlifting like a blind man at the wheel of a 1980s Cadillac, I've been invited to participate in a powerlifting seminar hosted by South Carolina Barbell and Total Performance Sports and featuring members of Team EFS.  This seminar will represent a couple of generations of geared and raw powerlifters, which is something you don't often see.  From what I've seen out of this bunch already, it should be pretty-much nonstop hilarity from the type of people most of us wish we were surrounded with on a daily basis, rather than the sloppy tards in which we're usually drowning.  Among the presenters will be:

CJ Murphy, aka Murph:  This dude is the man behind Boston's renown Total Performance Sports, which has been named one of the top 20 gyms in America by Men's Health a couple of times and churns out badass athletes like Score's churns out scantily clad Eastern Europeans with VD.  Murph's a former national champion in powerlifting and boasts pretty much every strength training acronym a person could have, in addition to being a former strongman competitor, boxing instructor, kettlebell teacher, and USAW club coach.  Additionally, Murph apparently knows how to throw a fireball Dragonball-Z style, but will only do so when it accompanies a Crowbar or Pro-Pain song, as he derives strength from his fellow shaved heads and goatees.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, use the google machine- I would not be surprised to discover Murph was actually a member of Crowbar at some point, though I have no idea when he'd have found the time.

Molly Galbraith:  Yes, the hot broad above who's squatting 225 to depth will be presenting.  She's a figure competitor and powerlifter, which is about as common as finding a midget who can dunk a basketball on a regulation hoop.  Just as you'd pay attention to the midget, so should you pay attention to Galbraith.  She's a regular contributor to EFS's website, where most of her articles revolve around looking good while being strong, which is something all of us should get behind [ah, the double entendres].

Julia Ladewski:  Not one, but two hot chicks are presenting- Murph knows how to schedule shit while growing out epic goatees.  Ladewski's ranked 15th on the all-time list at 132 for geared lifters, just jumped to #5 on the all-time list (and is currently ranked #2) for 123 lbers in gear, is a former Division I strength coach, is the Program Director at the Parisi Speed School (aka the guys who train most of the dudes going into the NFL draft for the combine), and rocks abs the entire time.

Dave Kirschen:  Fifteen years ago, a princess kissed a bullfrog that then began an incomplete transformation into a human.  That semi-human's name is Dave Kirschen, who in spite of what appears to be debilitating tumors on his neck is 19th on the all-time list at 198 in multi-ply.  Dave's been featured in Men's Health, a frequent contributor to EFS's site, the master of all systems conjugate, and might have a stroke when he reads this writeup, but hopefully his stroke will be minor and he'll just drool and twitch a bit during his presentation.

Matt Rhodes:  Weirdly, I've likely met Rhodes before at the football weight room at the University of Arizona, though neither of us would have known it.  I talked my way into using that gym in spite of the fact that I wasn't a football player, only to get ejected when I bragged to one of the strength coaches that I pulled 500 for the first time (weighing around 150) while I had mono.  In any event, Rhodes played for U of A in the mid-90s, coached football at the University of Richmond, worked as a personal trainer for a while, is the current strength and conditioning coach at the University of Albany, has totalled 2110 at 308, and enjoys the occasional bout of sodomy using capsaicin as lube.  It's ok, though- he wears a condom so none gets in his pisshole, which apparently hurts like a motherfucker.  Happily fat and sweaty, Rhodes isn't just another pretty face- knows his shit and represents it on the platform.  As I meet none of the criteria for acceptance into Rhodestown, he and I will likely drown out all of the other presenters casually insulting each other while demonstrating random feats of strength.  I will win, obviously, as my superior abdominal vascularity confers victory on me as a matter of course.

Vincent Dizenzo:  Contrary to popular belief, he is not the lost third member of the Mario Brothers.  Instead, Vincent (hereafter to be referred to as Vinnie D, because typing "Vincent" for a guy with a name mafioso would jack off to is odd) is a three-lift geared lifter converted by the magic of ruptured discs into a bench press specialist.  At 322, Vinnie D benched 605 raw, and then dropped to the 242 class and hit a 770 shirted bench at 16% bodyfat, which is seriously impressive for a former circus fat man.  His personal motto is fucking awesome- “Anything worth lifting is only worth lifting once”, and he proved that by busting out an utterly ridiculous strict overhead press with 405.

Me:  I'm fucking awesome, and you already know this.  In case you just stumbled drunkenly across this blog in search of porn, I'm an inciter of riots, defiler of virgins, fomenter of revolutions, petter of dogs, and all around asshole who occasionally competes in powerlifting.

The Big Seminar II is going to be a two day event held at Williams Strength in West Columbia, SC.  On day one, each of the motley crew detailed above will expound upon the following topics:

Me: The Art of the Bottom Position Squat and (if there's time) ketogenic dieting for the strength competitor. I've been holding off on detailing how extensively I've been using the bottom position squat of late on the blog for really no reason whatsoever, and figured it was high time I talk about how I get all Bud Jeffries on the deal once a week.

Vincent Dizenzo: The Little Things-recovery, mental focus and more

Matt Rhodes: Training College Athletes

C.J. Murphy: The TPS Method-the superior training system for your clients

Julia Ladewski: From Treadmill to barbell-debunking fitness myths for women (great for men too)

Dave Kirschen: the Conjugate Method for beginners.

On Sunday we will put everyone through training stations covering the bench press, the squat, the deadlift, the power clean and Turkish Get ups/metabolic circuits.  I believe I'll be working the squat station on that day, as that's sort of my forte.  Since we're going to be at Williams Strength, the guys who run it are going to let us train on their badass equipment and are apparently going to take us around their workshop, which I assume will be manned by jacked elves who will be listening to King Diamond's No Presents for Christmas on repeat.  We're going to then grub on meat-filled working lunch on Sunday to learn about the use of the Tsunami bar, which Dave Tate has been raving about on his logs.  Given that I've been fiddling about with fat bars, crazybells, and chains on my second bench day every week, I'm pretty pumped to find one more wacky thing I can do to get my bench up.  In short, you can learn more from this group of maniacs in a weekend than you'd likely learn in a lifetime on your own.  Thus, you might want to up your frequency on car thefts, steal your little brother's lunch money more often, and sell some ass on Craigslist to get the scratch together to bask in the glow of our collective testosterone-drenched genius.

Register here for Big Seminar 2 at Williams Strength with the inimitable Jamie Lewis, two hot (and strong) chicks, a bullfrog, and some fat, sweaty motherfuckers who toss about huge weights like they're ultralight children's toys in the polio ward in a hospital on June 29th&30th.

I promised that I wouldn't put any porn in this post, so this is as close as it's going to get.

Keto Diets- Why They Work, How To Make Them Work For You, Why Vince Gironda Made a Song About Them... And I Finally Use Decllenium In A Sentence

Vince Gironda says: 

“Fuck you, Carbos. You can suck my dick. You can’t get me, Carbos, because you’re just God’s farts.”

In the information age, more than ever, it seems extremely common for trends in what passes for rational and intelligent thought and discourse to emerge wherein a particular opinion is held aloft as unassailable truth.  For whatever reason, one of the most insidious and pervasive of these opinions in nutritional circles seems to be one that presents ketogenic diets as catabolic and useless for strength athletes.  Simply put for the new jacks in the audience, this means they believe that ketogenic diets will cause you to lose muscle mass faster than an AIDS patient in a Somali slum. This, however, is simply not the case- in fact, the polar opposite is true.  In fact, catabolism is blunted as the body metabolizes ketones for energy during a ketogenic diet.

Dave Palumbo's legs seem not to have suffered any ill effects from ketogenic dieting, unless "freakish muscularity" is considered an ill effect.

I realize it's a popular notion that I'm some sort of genetic freak who thrives on a diet that would kill a lesser man.  True, I am awesome, and true, most of the shit I do on a daily basis would kill lesser men, but I'm hardly a genetic anomaly in regards to the ketogenic diet.  A study conducted at the University of Connecticut in the early part of the last decade showed that thyroid function was greatly increased in a six week ketogenic dieting period, and that significant fat loss and muscle gain occurred- all of the participants had extraordinarily positive recomposition in a short period of time, and they accomplished this in spite of being fatties and saddies.  If fatties and saddies can lose an average of 7 lbs of body fat and gain 2 lbs of muscle in a six week period, I'd think that the average techno-death metal-Viking Hooligan would thrive on it.  Dave Palumbo certainly did- at his best, he squatted 800 for four and deadlifted 600 for 8, which is pretty fucking impressive for a guy training for size and definition rather than strength.

I suppose tentacle rape and ketosis go hand in hand.

For those of you unfamiliar with the myriad benefits of ketogenic dieting, allow me to educate you while I torture metaphors like they're Chechen teenagers in the greater Boston metropolitan area:

• ketosis is protein sparing, which means your body will not metabolize protein for fuel at any point in your day, provided you're eating enough fat.  Your body will actually learn to love burning ketones for energy more than the Japanese love tentacle rape and your protein synthesis will dramatically increase (Nair, Harber, Kadowaki).
• IGF-1 levels will raise like a true Belieber's current interest in shitty tattoos and girlish haircuts due to your body's low levels of insulin, which in turn will lead to greater hypertrophy (Harber).
• ketosis allows your body to utilize stored bodyfat for energy because of the aforementioned low insulin levels, and insulin blocks stored fat utilization like a fat girl cockblocking at a bar.
• ketosis suppresses your body's release of ghrelin, which means you will be less hungry on a ketogenic diet than you'd otherwise be.  This is particularly useful for the aforementioned saddies and fatties, who often have Charley Sheen-esque impulse-control issues when it comes to stuffing their faces (Halton).
• it may make you smarter- ketones seem to be a more efficient fuel for the brain than glucose (Amerman, but for a ridiculously complex explanation, go here and skip to the paragraph beginning with "We will use Alzheimers").  
• recovery will occur quickly and wounds will heal like you've got a hirsute, irascible, pocket-sized Uncle Logan (Nishira).
• in ketosis, your body becomes a furnace that would be the envy of every man named Goering in 1940s Germany, as you burn fat simply by breathing and pissing (Perez-Guisado).
• for those of you amusingly concerned with the effects of dietary salt in your diet (and there appear to a be lot of you people living in 1982 in that way), high protein diets seem to counteract the negative effects of high sodium intakes and lowers blood pressure (Debry).  As ketogenic diets are almost necessarily high protein, you're safe from an exploding heart on the ketogenic diet as well.

Living in the 80s has its perks- you get to wear cool outfits.

Sounds pretty fucking awesome, doesn't it?  Quite frankly, it is- I've been on a cyclical ketogenic diet for going on three years and have gotten continually stronger and leaner.  I'm not the only one who thinks this diet is the tits, either- one paper from the University of Cordoba (Spain) stated that "These diets are also healthier because they promote a non-atherogenic lipid profile, lower blood pressure and decrease resistance to insulin with an improvement in blood levels of glucose and insulin" and that "Such diets also have neurological and antineoplastic benefits and diet-induced ketosis is not associated with metabolic acidosis, nor do such diets alter kidney, liver or heart functions"(Perez-Guisado).

Keto doesn't appear to be hurting my gainz- weighing in at 195, carb depleted.

That's all well and good for the average saddie, you might be thinking, but it's got fuck-all to do with athletes and strength athletes in particular.  There's a reason for that- there've been almost no studies on the effects of ketogenic dieting on resistance training.  I was able to hunt down a single study on the subject, but it's not particularly relevant to the issue at hand, as it studied the effect of resistance training on obese, middle-aged women on the ketogenic diet.  We're about as dissimilar to that sample group as toasters are from Transformers, so there's no point even delving into that one.  Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence shows that ketogenic diets, in their myriad forms, have worked pretty fucking well over the last few decllenium for hominids.  

As I believe I've not ever done so, it seems useful to outline for you guys exactly what ketogenic dieting is, and what forms it can take.  A ketogenic diet is a diet in which a person consumes so few carbohydrates that their  body beings breaking fat down into fatty acids and ketones for use as energy.  Keto diets come in three flavors, standard, targeted, and cyclical.  They work like this:

• SKD (Standard Ketogenic Diet) – This is the diet of which most people traditionally think when they hear the words "keto diet".  Developed in the West by an undertaker named Banting in the 19th Century, it was resurrected as the Atkins diet in the US in the 20th Century.  Amusingly, the peoples of the Arctic Circle have been eating this way forever and haven't known they were dieting at all.  In any event, on a traditional ketogenic diet you simply keep your carbs at a certain low level indefinitely.  
• CKD (Cyclical Ketogenic Diet) – Cyclical keto diets are my personal favorite, and that's what my Apex Predator Diet is.  On a cyclical keto diet you rotate between ultra low carb and high carb days and in a less common fasion, rotate between low and high carb periods every day.  
• TKD (Targeted Ketogenic Diet) – Targeted keto diets are diets in which one eats extremely low carb and then consumes carbs at very specific times of the day.  I wrote a bit about these types of diets in my Apex Predator Diet For Italians And Athletes entry and noted that there is a difference of opinion by noted authors on when best to consume the carbs, but they're generally consumed either immediately before or after a workout.

It was time for some Warhammer.

Clearly, I'm the biggest fan of the CKD, as that's what I've been on for years.  I monkeyed with the TKD a bit in the past, but I never liked the idea of eating high fat and then spiking my insulin, so I never ate high enough fat to really have called it a particularly ketogenic diet.  It was more of a paleoized TKD.  In regards to CKDs, I've given you guys the broad strokes of how I've modified the traditional cyclical ketogenic diet for myself (i.e. the Apex Predator Diet), but thought it might be prudent to share with you a few of the tricks, hacks, and cheats I've developed along the way to make the diet work even better. Thus, without any further adieu:

• Protein is your primary concern at every meal.  I've seen nonstop gibbering out of people whose opinions would best be left alone in their empty heads about the value of coconut oil online, and it's ridiculous.  One douche actually asserted that his diet of naught but eggs and coconut oil was one to follow, which I found as fascinating as I found it absurd.  You are not eating unless you're getting upwards of 40 grams of protein.  Less than that isn't a meal and can barely be construed as a snack.  Cheat meals should start with protein and be followed by shakes- I always kick mine off with some kind of meat, be it hamburgers, wings, nuggets, or a meat-lover's pizza.  The more protein you consume, the greater the thermic effect of your meal and the better you will look and feel overall.
• Get at least two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.  Chicks can get by with a gram to a gram and a half- apparently more than that fucks with their hormone levels.  The mysteries of the vagina aside, no man is truly eating for strength if he's consuming less than two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.

She might keto diet.  I find myself not caring so much about the relevance of this pic, however.

• Take a break every once in a while.  That's not to say you should adopt the asinine practice utilized by people who follow a "periodization" routine wherein they take one week per month off from lifting.  Every now and again, though, it's good for your mind and body to stop giving a shit so much about your diet.  I realize that sounds fairly ridiculous for a guy who's essentially been on a diet for three straight years, but I do actually take a couple days to a week off from my diet after meets, and take a week or so off from my diet over the holidays as well.  I don't go nuts eating garbage, but I don't eat super-strict or super clean.  Instead, I keep my protein levels very high and fill in the gaps with whatever I want.  Again, caveats- I don't really care for ice cream or particularly sugary foods.  Thus, when I am am REALLY off my diet, the worst thing on which I'm generally snacking is Cinnamon Life, unless it's Thanksgiving Day or Christmas, when I'll eat desserts.  Eating sugary shit will make you fat.  It's science.
• Modify your total food intake to match your activity level.  This does not mean you should count calories, which is pointless even off a keto diet by truly worthless on one.  Instead, you should be eating more if you're training harder, longer, or heavier, and less if you're training lighter.  
• Do not skip your carbups.  Skipping your carbups might have a small effect on fat loss but will ultimately render all of your training feckless.  Type two muscle fibers require glycogen to function, and depriving them of that glycogen will force you to train lighter, which defeats the entire purpose of the diet in the first place.  No one gives a shit if you're ripped and you're weak, and no one gives a fuck if you're strong and you're fat.  The goal is to be strong as fuck and ripped to the bone, so you need to do your refeeds if you're keeping your carbs under 30 grams a day 5-6 days a week.
• Experiment.  Once you get your bodyfat to a manageable level, feel free to experiment.  I've tried supplementing with BCAAs post workout, and I think that post-workout BCAAs with additional leucine are a tremendously good idea, since leucine uptake and utilization is higher when in ketosis.  Try utilizing insulin modulating supplements like cinnamon and chromium to see if they accelerate fat loss.  ProSupps has a new product out called iLoad that looks to be good in that regard.  Mix up days wherein you have multiple food meals and days wherein you only eat solid food once or twice if you're doing the Apex Predator Diet.

CKDs work and work well for powerlifting, no matter what the message board know-nothings might assert to the contrary- I'm living proof, and science has my motherfuckin' back. 

Eat like a beast if you want to lift like one.

Sources:
Amerman, Don.  Benefits of Ketosis.  Livestrong.  28 Jul 2011.  Web.  7 may 2013.  http://www.livestrong.com/article/503671-the-benefits-of-ketosis/

Butterfield GE: Whole-body protein utilization in humans.  Med Sci Sports Exer 1987, 19:S167-S165.

Debry G: Data on hypertension. In Dietary Proteins and Atherosclerosis. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2004:191-203.

Deprospo, Jonathan.  In depth look at ketogenic diets and ketosis.  Bodybuilding.com.  25 Sep 2002.  Web.  4 May 2013.  http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/keto.htm

Harber MP, Schenk S, Barkan AL, Horowitz JF. Effects of dietary carbohydrate restriction with high protein intake on protein metabolism and the somatotropic axis.  J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Sep;90(9):5175-81. Epub 2005 Jun 21.

Halton TL, Hu FB.  The effects of high protein diets on thermogenesis, satiety and weight loss: a critical review.  J Am Coll Nutr. 2004 Oct;23(5):373-85.

Kadowaki M, Kamata T, Noguchi T.  Acute effect of epinephrine on muscle proteolysis in perfused rat hindquarters.  Am J Physiol. 1996 Jun;270(6 Pt 1):E961-7.

Layman DK, Evans E, Baum JI, Seyler J, Erickson DJ, Boileau RA.  Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition during weight loss in adult women.  J Nutr. 2005 Aug;135(8):1903-10.

Manninen AH.  High-Protein Weight Loss Diets and Purported Adverse Effects: Where is the Evidence?  J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2004; 1(1): 45–51.

Manninen AH.  Very-low-carbohydrate diets and preservation of muscle mass.  Nutr Metab (Lond). 2006 Jan 31;3:9.

Motil KJ, Matthews DE, Bier DM, Burke JF, Munro HN, Young VR.  Whole-body leucine and lysine metabolism: response to dietary protein intake in young men.  Am J Physiol. 1981 Jun;240(6):E712-21.

Nair KS, Welle SL, Halliday D, Campbell RG.  Effect of beta-hydroxybutyrate on whole-body leucine kinetics and fractional mixed skeletal muscle protein synthesis in humans.  J Clin Invest. 1988 Jul;82(1):198-205.

Nishihira J: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF): its essential role in the immune system and cell growth. J Interferon Cytok Res 2000, 20: 751-762.

Paddon-Jones D, Sheffield-Moore M, Zhang XJ, Volpi E, Wolf SE, Aarsland A, Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR.  Amino acid ingestion improves muscle protein synthesis in the young and elderly.  Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2004 Mar;286(3):E321-8. Epub 2003 Oct 28.

Pérez-Guisado J. Arguments In Favor Of Ketogenic Diets. Int J Nut Wellness. 2007 4(2). http://archive.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-nutrition-and-wellness/volume-4-number-2/arguments-in-favor-of-ketogenic-diets.html#sthash.cJEX08G1.aI3fkmC0.dpufhttp://archive.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-nutrition-and-wellness/volume-4-number-2/arguments-in-favor-of-ketogenic-diets.html#sthash.cJEX08G1.aI3fkmC0.dpuf

Phinney SD.  Ketogenic diets and physical performance.  http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2

Volek JS, Sharman MJ, Love DM, Avery NG, Gómez AL, Scheett TP, Kraemer WJ.  Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet.  Metabolism. 2002 Jul;51(7):864-70.

Fuck The Bottom, We Belong At The Top: Hooligans Abound!

A couple of months ago, I started offering training consultations with the idea that there were some people out there who just needed a bit of help to get them out of shit and into suck.  Or out of suck and into ok.  In any event, I thought there were a few proud individuals out there who might brave my wrath and acerbic wit to get a big of training advice.  Surprisingly, there were, and the results were even better than I had anticipated- there are a couple of your brave fuckers out there who are quite good at listening to my sage advice and picking up heavy shit.

One of these courageous individuals is Joe, a dude who came to me with a physique already in pretty good stead.  Though some of you might think that this is cheating for me, I'm not sorry to report that you might be mentally retarded.  People who've already been training a while and who have had a reasonable amount of success are some of the hardest people to convince they've been fucking up.  As such, this is proof of my immense skill, as this dude went from pretty damn good to fucking awesome inside of two months.  Bear witness to the glory that is my coaching skill.

Alrighty, give the peeps a bit of a background on yourself. I know you live in the wilderness and have a longer daily commute to work than I have two and from work in a week. Beyond that, hit us with with you relevant stats- height, weight, age, years you've been training, etc, along with your best lifts prior to kicking this bitch off.

Yeah, I live in a small town on the Eastern Shore of MD. Mostly farm-land. Long-ass commute. Work a desk job during fairly standard hours. Recently bought my own house and assembled a home gym so I could train whenever the hell I wanted. Decided to consult with you to give me a new perspective on training and I knew I would end up learning a lot from you. Somewhat obsessed with the strict press and chasing the feats of those like Saxon and Maxick.

24y/o, 5-10”, 189lbs, 6 years training (with the obligatory first year or so being complete fucking about).

Taken on March 5, 2013.

Previous Best Lifts
Strict Press- 205lb
BTN Strict Press (Klokov Press)- 185lb
Squat- 352
Bench- 253x5
Deadlift- 420x4 (single set to failure)

And what are your stats now?

Weight is hovering around 185lb, as far as composition changes, bodyfat has dropped a good bit along with some muscle gain. You’ve seen the pics. I will provide more, though.

Taken March 30, 2013

Current Best Lifts
Strict Press- 212lb
BTN Strict Press- 200lb
Squat- 387lb
Bench- 300lb x2
Deadlift- 418lb x18 reps (singles, within 30min workout)

Also, pull-ups have increased like crazy, I can bang out sets of 20 now, whereas I was previously struggling with 10.

Taken today, April 30th.

Not too shabby!  Those are some sick increases in a month.  To what do you attribute your rapid progress (other than my genius, of course)?

I think the major factor was that I was busting my ass in the gym basically every day (minus the 1 rest day per week). I’d never trained with that sort of frequency in the past. It was the hard work and diligence toward the goal, that your program instilled in me. I think that’s the key.


We messed with your diet a bit, as I recall.  Nothing too crazy, but just increasing the protein.  By and large, you're doing the APD, right?  Tell the people about your diet, as with those abs they're definitely going to ask.

My stint on the APD was rather short actually. Less than 2 week, right at the beginning of the consult. I gave it an honest shot, but I tolerate carbs rather well and made much better progress with them in the diet, so I immediately returned to the diet that has worked well for me. I actually wrote a decent article about the diet on my blog, so its probably easiest to just link that somewhere [how about right here: http://circastrength.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-biorhythm-diet_18.html.. Although im sure there will be questions regardless.

No cardio of any kind as you leaned out, correct?

No cardio whatsoever.

Good man.  You've made huge gains in the last couple of months- are your goals changing as you progress, or are they pretty much the same?

Goals are still exactly the same, continue getting stronger & leaner. I want to look like I eat sheet metal and shit nails. The goal is simple, become the baddest motherfucker my body will allow.


What would you say was your biggest takeaway from the training consult/program redesign?

My biggest take-away is that I can train more often and heavier than I let myself believe was possible. Most days I was sore, certain body-parts always ached, but I just went ahead and trained anyway. To my surprise, the gains kept coming quickly. It came down to trusting the plan you designed and working as hard as possible on that particular day.

Yeah, you definitely seemed to enjoy a hell of a lot of rep work, and as I recall were fairly skeptical dropping the reps would work.  Any words of wisdom to impact on the slavering beasts reading this thing?

The point I want to drive home is that more work nets more results, at least in my experience.

... Which is exactly what I've been saying all along.  Check out Joe's blog here to keep up on his progress.  At the risk of divulging all of my amazing training secrets, I'm not going to give out the exact details of the program Joe used, but you can rest assured it involved six days a week of training, a lot of volume, a lot of Joe busting his ass, and a lot of weight.  Joe had been doing a fairly typical upper/lower split routine, but as he wanted to improve specifically on overhead pressing and get stronger overall, I dropped his reps very low, shifted the emphasis to overhead pressing, and cut out some of the bullshit he was doing.  That, some form tweaks on his squat, and a hell of  lot of work on Joe's part, and his lifts improved dramatically in less than two months, as did his physique.

This shit isn't rocket science- it's just that some of you need a rocket scientist to fire your asses in the right direction. Go lift something.

Ask The Asshole: Comic Book Edition + Hotties And Nootropics

I get asked questions so random that a group of ninja specops guys would need years to find the secret nazi machine necessary to decode the code that would unlock the rhyme and reason behind the questions.  In any event, the questions occasionally provide a nice break from mocking sundry fat people (if you think my commentary on Capes is a bit stiff, wait until I start in on Rulon Gardner) and this has proven to be a highly entertaining exercise, at least for me.  In any event, my comic book heyday likely predated most or all of your collective comic book experience- I started reading comics a great deal in the 5th grade, when I had the ability to ride my bike to places that sold them.  At that point, it was a weird time in comics- the Comics Code was still in effect, but both Marvel and DC were paying less attention to it.  For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the comic book industry's self-censorship period, allow me to explain- in the 1950s, comic books were getting far too awesome for Christians.  As such, people in American states who thought that the banjo was an acceptable medium by which they could convey a musical message started burning comics, apparently in an effort to promote the illiteracy for which the Bible Belt is so famous.  After watching massive piles of comics get burned by psychotic hillbillies, the comic book industry decided they'd just censor themselves, and really went balls-out with it.  The rules they set forth, as summarized by the good people at Wikipedia, were the prohibition of

"the presentation of "policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions ... in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority." But it added the requirements that "in every instance good shall triumph over evil" and discouraged "instances of law enforcement officers dying as a result of a criminal's activities." Specific restrictions were placed on the portrayal of kidnapping and concealed weapons. Depictions of "excessive violence" were forbidden, as were "lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations." Vampires, werewolves, ghouls and zombies could not be portrayed. In addition, comics could not use the words "horror" or "terror" in their titles. The use of the word "crime" was subject to numerous restrictions. Where the previous code had condemned the publication of "sexy, wanton comics," the CCA was much more precise: depictions of "sex perversion", "sexual abnormalities", and "illicit sex relations" as well as seduction, rape, sadism, and masochism were specifically forbidden. In words echoing the Hollywood Production Code, love stories were enjoined to emphasize the "sanctity of marriage" and those portraying scenes of passion were advised to avoid stimulating "lower and baser emotions."

In other words, if it was cool, anti-authority, scary, bloody, or in any way badass, it was disallowed.  that left very little for anyone with an imagination and a love of excitement to work with.  By the mid-Eighties, however, comic book companies were starting to take risks, and even the odious DC comics got gritty for about five minutes.  By the early nineties, comics were understandably at the height of their non-golden age popularity, and a number of Marvel's titles were revamped with the most popular artists at the helm (basically, the guys who went on to form Image) to push popularity even higher.  they got a little big for their britches, however, and started putting out multiple versions of the same issue with slightly different covers to capitalize on the fact that people were at that point collecting comics as an investment.  that, of course, backfired, and the glut of comics on the market, combined with declining quality as comics were rushed to print, caused a crash of the industry that left Marvel bankrupt.  At that point, my interest in comics flagged for a while, and I've only periodically gotten back into them when interesting artists or story lines emerge.  In short, most of you guys will likely have never heard of the shit I'm about to recommend, and you may well fall asleep as I nerd it up hardcore.

Though this has nothing whatsoever to do with comics, it's hilarious:

Who are your favorite comic characters and why?

Before I get started on what my favorites are, I need to address Wizard's top 200 comic book characters, 2008.  For those of you who got laid in high school and had more friends than you could count on a single hand as a youth, Wizard is a magazine devoted to the world of comic books, and as such is pretty much the final word in comics.  As such, this list comes as something of a surprise, as it's incontrovertibly wrong, in almost every regard, past the first seven entries.  This list could probably suck more, but it'd be hard to do.  I'll just give you guys the top twenty, as it's long as fuck and consistently horrible, especially as the numbers get higher.  There are "heroes" on this list so obscure they make the random references of Dennis Miller seem downright banal by comparison, and most of the list appears to just be filler.  Nevertheless, here's their top 20:

1. Wolverine- Granted.
2. Batman- Granted.
3. Spider-Man- Granted.
4. Superman- Granted.  I've always found Superman to be the least compelling superhero on Earth, but for people without a scintilla of backbone, I'm sure the magical Superman empowers them.  Somehow.  For those of you who are unaware, Superman was inspired by a book I love entitled Gladiator.  The protagonist in Gladiator is a complex character, hardly invincible, certainly not a Boy Scout, and more of a Juggernaut-style bad guy gone good than a dithering bitch-style Superman.  Whereas early on in the comic Superman echoed Gladiator's darker, more philosophical tone, and Superman had only the abilities of the Hulk with a greater intellect, we all know that Superman later became more of a god than a super-strong humanoid.  A very whiny, uncompelling, unquestioning, vapid, soulless god.  As such, the original incarnation would have made for a far more interesting character.  Instead, we're given a goody-two-shoes bitch who has every power under the sun and only serves as a cautionary tale against letting downtrodden pussies write for comic book companies.

5. The Joker-  Absolutely.
6. Rorschach- I'm not a 100% on the Watchmen bandwagon, but Rorshach's a character worth paying some attention due to the dialogue in the Watchmen comic.  Were he a real person I would meet on the street, I'd bounce his head off every hard object I could find and toss his body off an overpass, because moralistic psychos are hardly what the world needs more of.  Nevertheless, his general brand of insanity does lend itself nicely to the page.
7. Captain America-  Frankly, I've never liked Cap, but he's an American icon and pretty integral to Marvel.  I'll let it slide, but I'll go on record saying the only more boring character in the top ten is Superman, and not by much.
8. Hellboy- Debatable.   Mike Mignola is perhaps one of my least favorite artists, however, so my opinion is biased.  I lump Mignola into the same camp of heavy-handed, overhyped, painfully simplistic, imaginationless artists as John Romita Jr., Sal Buscema Sr., and Steve Dillon, which for me made Mignola's books completely unreadable.  I'll accept it in the top ten, however, as it's an Image comic, the movies were decent, and my personal bias against his particular brand of shitty artwork colored my opinion of the writing.
9. Magneto- A bizarre choice and generally shit.  If Magneto had ever been written correctly, every human on Earth would be dead and the X-Men comics would basically be mutant hentai.  I have no problem with that, either.
10. John Constantine- WHAT THE FUCK?  Constantine was well-written, granted, but it was barely a comic book- it was an illustrated novel.  Constantine has as much right to be in the top twenty list of comic book characters as Oscar Pistorius has for being "Boyfriend of the Year 2013".  Moreover, the movie managed to place an American golem in the role of caustic-witted, chronically overtired, and occasionally hilarious Brit John Constantine, which shows how much respect the world at large has for his character.
11. The Thing-  Sweet jesus christ.  Let's get this straight- the Fantastic Four are, without question, the worst pack of do-nothing, shit-powered, useless, whiny, badly-drawn fucktards in comic book history.  The Thing was perhaps the worst of the bunch- he was a semi-literate juggernaut who should have been wrecking shop 24-7, yet was bound by the strictures of his lame-assed superhero quartet to do nothing more than give Sick Of It All a badass song title.  When he could have been a perfect amalgam of the Hulk and the Punisher, he was instead a weepy, rock-faced, shitbird in the single worst comic book not named "Dazzler" of all time.

12. Snake-Eyes- Definitely.
13. Kitty Pryde-  How in the fuck did she make the list?  In a group of individuals whose powers range from teleportation to invincibility to shooting earthquakes out of your hands to an unimpenitrable arm-plated body on a Soviet super-soldier, the emotional broad who can turn to vapor when shit gets real is at the top of the list?  Christ almighty, even fucking Jubilee was a more compelling character than goddamned Shadowcat- at least that broad could set shit on fire and was somewhat punk rock.  If I were to rank the X-Men from first to last, Kitty Pryde wouldn't make the top twenty of that list, and would likely find herself at the end of a long list of shitty, lazy comic book characters that include... Dazzler.
14. Jesse Custer- Preacher might have been drawn by the same spastic who later went on to make Frank Castle look like a half-starved hobo, but Jesse Custer is badass nonetheless.
15. Wonder Woman- Had the original incarnation simply kept getting ramped up ad infinitum until modern WW comics were nothing but femdom torture porn, I'd be on board.  As they're not, fuck WW in her unused asshole.
16. Lex Luthor- Meh.
17. Morpheus-  Sandman sucked, Gaiman is awful, and everyone at Wizard should be sad.
18. Doctor Doom- Should have been WAY higher on the list.
19. The Hulk- Granted.
20. Miracleman- Never heard of him.  I researched him to discover that he's a Captain Marvel (i.e. Superman) knockoff, and thus sucks even harder than Superman.

Apparently, the Red Skull was based on actual events.

My top ten?  Glad you asked, as it's a damn sight better than the shite Wizard has given us.
1.  Wolverine-  Short, ultra-violent, bloodthirsty, and generally irascible, he's the ultimate anti-hero.
2.  Batman-  Basically, Batman at his best is Wolverine without the claws.  At his worst, he's your average shitty DC character, which is to say, your average DC character.  DC has done more to create bland, useless, almost laughably bad comic book characters than NAMBLA has done to cause fecal incontinence in our nation's youth.  In fact, were NAMBLA to artfully smear the feces from the anuses of their young boy lovers across a page, they'd likely match the artistic quality of your typical DC book prior to the hiring of the entire Image artist stable to restore some semblance of artistic credibility to the publisher.

3.  Lobo-  Like the other two, he's a asshole who'll kill anything in the galaxy that's not a space dolphin, though he'll do it with far more fervor and hilarity.  At some point, DC will get off its ass and make an "R rated" Lobo movie that will either go down in history as the greatest film ever made or Green Lantern 2, which would put it at the other end of the awesomeness spectrum.
4.  The Joker- Not much needs to be said about the Joker- he's the ultimate villain and one of the very few things DC's ever done right.  Equal parts insanity and sadism, the Joker's only real failing is that he was in the DC universe rather than Marvel, which meant that he'd never be used to his full capability.
5.  Dr. Doom-  Given that he's the main villain for the odious Fantastic Four franchise, you'd think I'd avoid Dr. Doom like he was the little-known fifth member of the tragically useless "Fantastic" Four.  Doom, however, is a super-genius king-scientist-magician with delusions he could expand his tiny kingdom into worldwide domination.  He's every Eastern European despot who's ever lived, only less successful at spreading his particular brand of evil over the Earth than Russia's current beady-eyed death dealer, Vladimir Putin.  Had Dr. Doom ever been capable of being wedged into a Todd McFarlane-penciled Spiderman comic, he'd be ten times as popular as the Joker at this point, and would be as quotable as he was awesome at not doing much of anything worth talking about in any Marvel comic, ever.

6.  Venom- As a kid, I bought the Secret Wars comics off a kid who used to sit at the back of my schoolbus- a kid I thought was a total badass.  I was, of course, eight years old, and about as well-qualified to identify a badass as Christina Aguilera's tone-deaf ass is capable of identifying a talented singer.  Nevertheless, I was able to see the advent of the black Spiderman costume as it happened, and was incredibly psyched to see that badass garb make its way back into the comics four years later, even after Peter Parker killed his black suit harder than an eight year old at a track meet.  For those of you who don't get how cool the debut of the black suit for Spidey was, it'd be like seeing an affable but homely Will Ferrell return for another season of Saturday Night Live looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, all the while managing to be even funnier than he had been initially.  It'd be like Slayer following up Reign in Blood with Pantera's Mouth for War.  In short, it was the coolest fucking thing that could happen in the life of a 6th grader.  Venom never disappointed either, showing up under Todd McFarlane's pencil as a jacked, slobbering, juiced-up, psychotic Spiderman clone.  Fucking awesome.

7.  Pitt-  Pitt is perhaps not-terribly-well-known, but is a super-sweet Image series created by the best artist to ever draw the Hulk- Dale Keown.  Like other image comics, the story never made any fucking sense, the issues were always delivered late, and everything but the art was phoned in harder than Robert DeNiro's lines in the lates Fokkers sequel, but the splash pages were fucking epic.  Pitt was a badass alien who protected a kid named Timmy from something or other- the plot never mattered for shit.  Pitt beat and gored everyone who got close to the kid in the book, and the art kicked fucking ass.  Like Marius Pudzianowski in the cage, it was all aggression and no technique, and it fucking worked.  Ten thumbs up for Pitt.

To be fair, Jim Lee could make Kenny G look fucking cool.

8.  The Punisher- As a libertarian, I have trouble backing a character who consciencelessly mowed down jaywalkers as if they were crack dealers... and who devoted himself to supporting a legal system based on a set of laws so arbitrary they make the rules in the Bible seem downright well-reasoned.  In any event, he had badass branding, the storylines were crazy violent even in the Comics Code era, and Jim Lee made him look so cool you couldn't help loving his comics.

9.  The Stalkers- Alright, it's not one character, but this comic is definitely the best comic of which you've never heard.  Set in a dystopic future and drawn (with the exceptional couple-page horror show perpetrated by Val Mayerik) by one of my favorite artists of all time, Mark Texeira, and written by the guy who went on to give SciFi fans nerdgasms with the Battlestar Galactica TV show.  the series only lasted a year, but it was a badass year filled with vigilante, privatized paramilitary police battling very well-spoken domestic terrorists.  If you can find these books, pick them up- they're fucking amazing.
10. Red Skull- A Nazi terrorist with the coolest henchman of all time, Crossbones.  The Red Skull managed to make Captain America comics tolerable, which is a hell of a feat.

WAKE UP MOTHERFUCKERS!  Sofia Jaramillo demands your attention.

Who are your favorite artists and writers?
Frankly, I never really gave two shits who was writing the comics, provided the art was good.  I was never really a fan of Chris Claremont and generally tried to avoid shit he wrote, but other than that the writer was a non-issue for me.  My favorite artists are, in no particular order:

Mark Texeira- Tex, as he was known, became my favorite artist when he started drawing Punisher War Journal in the 90s.  His art was far more dynamic and gritty than anything else in comics at the time, and I stuck with him even after he started drawing Black Panther, who is perhaps my least favorite comic book character.  He's not working in the industry now, to my knowledge, but his stuff is worth grabbing if you can find it.

Philip Tan-  I found Philip Tan after having purchased every book I could find drawn by Frank Teran.  I was looking for further artistic inspiration, and googled "artists like Frank Teran", and out popped Tan.  Unfortunately, the story lines Tan's drawn have usually sucked, but his art is pretty fucking awesome.

Frank Teran- Frank Teran is, as I discovered after looking for similar artists, one of the most reviled artists in the comic book industry, apparently because the people bitching never had a chance to have their eyes raped by the hacks who learned to draw by badly copying Rob Liefeld's work, which was of course a terrible copy of Jim Lee's stuff.  Teran's stuff was gritty and often grotesque, and was as such right up my alley.  he now maintains a blog with sketches and works in the gaming industry making art for video games, as I understand it, but if you ever find his work in Punisher, grab it- the art's fucking amazing.

Simon Bisley- Biz is another oft-maligned for being too fucking awesome artist, best known perhaps for his work in 2000 AD.  I got into Biz because he did the art for three of the first issues of Verotik (Glenn Danzig's defunct, yet infuckingcredible comic book line)- Death Dealer, Satanika, and Jaguar God.  All three of those books were incredibly drawn, ultra-violent, and contained a fair amount of sex, which is all any growing boy needs.  His stuff seems to be heavily influenced by the inimitable Frank Frazetta and drugs, and that combo's working swimmingly for him.

Todd McFarlane- The man who revolutionized comic book art and saved Spiderman from becoming the joke that Superman is.  Not much needs to be said about McFarlane- he changed the way Spiderman was drawn by making him far more dynamic and interesting, invented Spawn, gave us the fairly badass Spawn movie and the only movie in which John Leguizamo was even slightly tolerable, popularized my personal favorite style of comic art (overwrought, over-inked, dark, grotesque, and basically awesome), co-founded Image, and founded the coolest toymaker in history.  Todd McFarlane also gave the world Greg Capullo, who went from copying the styles of Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to copying McFarlane, and their work (as you can see above) is completely indistinguishable.  Frankly, that's a good thing, because Mcfarlane's stuff kicks ass.

Ben Templesmith- Templesmith's famous for being the artist half of the Templesmith-Niles team that brought the world the gritty and often incomprehensible vampire series 30 Days of Night, and the movie of the same name.  30 Days is to Twilight what Re-Penetrator is to Warm Bodies- violent, dark, and not safe for work.  Though Templesmith would suck as an artist on a traditional superhero book, he's great for stuff that can be a lot weird and occasionally terrible.

Jim Lee- Lee did for the X-Men what Liefeld did for X-Force and McFarlane did for Spiderman- he took a book with flagging sales but an amazing pedigree and completely revitalized it.  Though most of his splash pages consisted of people standing in impossible poses, frowning and clenching their fists, he inspired a lot of great (and even more godawful) artists to enter the field.  After throwing in the towel at Image, Lee reentered the big two to do for Batman what he'd already done for the X-Men, and Batman's comics were worth looking at again.

On a side note, one cool thing about the image founders- Lee, Liefeld, Larson, Portacio, and McFarlane, is that they all lifted at work when they worked at Image.  I don't think they kept up with it, and I don't recall reading anything about awesome gym-going exploits, but I thought it was cool they had that as part of their corporate culture, given the fact that they made their money off heavily muscled bodies.

What are your favorite comic story arcs?

Lobo: "Highway To Hell"- What could be better than a mini-series written by Anthrax's Scott Ian?  A comic book miniseries starring Lobo, drawn by Sam Keith (whose style is very similar to Biz's), written by Scott Ian.  In it, Lobo travels to hell to beat the shit out of Satan (who appears as a little girl in a party dress) because Satan killed a space dolphin.  there's nothing more to tell you about the plot- that's it.  Lobo kills a shitload of demons and beats the brakes off Satan to avenge the death of one of his beloved space dolphins and to prove, once more, that he's the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy.

Punisher #94-95- Like most of the series I love, this is just an all-out brawl with awesome art.  Frank Teran pens this all-out brawl pitting the Punisher and a huge, scarred mob enforcer named Grisham against a warehouse full of underground pit-fighting deathmatch enthusiasts.  Over-hated and under-rated, these are the two best issues of any Punisher comic, ever.

Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious and Batman/Lobo Elseworlds- In the former (drawn by Sam Keith), Batman and Lobo end up on the same interstellar cruiser, kidnapped, and team up to fuck up some baddies.  In the latter (drawn by Simon Bisley), Lobo gets hired by the Joker to take out Batman, and the two go head to head.  Again, good art, good old-fashioned rassoodock ultra-violence with no appy polly-loggies, and badass characters.

Secret Wars- This was my favorite mini-series growing up.  It's basically a full-tilt war between all of the Marvel heroes and all of the Marvel villains, and it can pretty much serve as an encyclopedia for the whole Marvel roster in the mid-80's.  Plus, you get to see the advent of Spider Man's black costume, which is awesome.  Witness the birth of Venom!

Good looking out on the Noopept suggestion- that stuff is the shit.  As I have finals looming, do you have any other suggestions for stuff that might help?

First, let me preface this with a rejoinder to the parties who have speculated that I receive some sort of sponsorship from supplement companies- that is utterly fucking retarded.  I recommend shit from multiple different companies, none of whom give me anything more than a hearty "fuck you" for doing so.  Does anyone actually think a company wants me as their public face?  If so, they're likely guitarists in Syndrome of a Down. They're also likely fans of Rant's blog, as retardation and yoga seem to rule the day there.

Synedrex-  Though this stuff is technically a fat burner, it has a bunch of the stuff a growing brain needs, including stuff that goes great with Noopept.  Namely, it contains Sulbutiamine (which improves memory, lowers inhibitions, and reduces depression) and 1,3 Dimethylamylamine (DMAA), which increases alertness.

CTD Labs Adralin- This product is the balls.  CTD created it to be an over-the-counter replacement for Ritalin, and as such it's the best companion for Noopept money can buy.  I like the inclusion of Vinpocetine and L-Huperzine A as well- those are two little additions that could provide a nice boost.

Two you cannot get in supplement stores but can get online:
Aniracetam- This is another member of the racetam family that seems to improve perception, both visual and aural.  I add it to my noopept daily.

Oxiracetam- Another racetam, use of this one in studies "lead to higher scores in tests for logical performance, attention, concentration, memory and spatial orientation" (Wikipedia).  This is another one I add to my daily stack.

There you have it.  The guys badgering me about comics can now chill their tits, and the rest of you can look at the tits and chill.

Baddest Rivalry Ever- Kaz Vs. Jon Pall Part 2

The face of sanity.

Having set the stage for the battle between the incomparable titans of World's Strongest Man, it is now time to examine the Kaz-Sigmarsson rivalry in detail.  Though their first meeting is often believed to be the 1988 World's Strongest Man, the first meeting between the two roaring beasts was in 1985, in which Kaz and Sigmarsson went head to head in the World Muscle Power Classic.

Prior to the inaugural World Muscle Power Classic, Kaz had bounced around a bit.  After taking third in his initial foray into World's Strongest Man, Kaz went on to win it three times in a row, beating his (alleged) rival Capes by an average margin of 21.6 points.  As such, in their first three meetings, Kaz and Capes were rivals in the same way the US Army and the Iraqi Army were rivals in the 1990s.  Thereafter, as Kaz made a triumphant return to powerlifting to dominate that sport, Capes went on to beat Jon Pall by very slim margins a couple of times, and then lost handily a couple of times to the Viking berserker.  Sadly, as Kaz languished in the frozen tundra of Don'tcomebackbecauseyouembarrasseveryonewhenyoubeatthefuckingbreaksoffthem-land, Pall and Capes had to compete in the shadow of Kaz's greatness and endure constant commentary about how neither of them would be a true champion until they beat Kaz in a WSM.  It wasn't until 1985 that Kaz and Jon Pall would face off, with Capes in the middle like a thong crammed between two beautiful Brazilian ass cheeks, and it wouldn't be until 1988 that Kaz would be welcomed back into the warmth of World's Strongest Man's pillowy bosoms.

Life could be worse.

Kaz's return to strongman was hardly triumphant, as he came in third to Jon Pall and Capes in one of his only losses to the latter.  Not much information is available on the event, save for the event list and the placings.  Surprisingly, the events were by and large Scottish Highland games-style events, which makes it odd Kaz didn't fare better.  He failed to dominate either Capes or Pall, and Pall walked away with the gold.  What's curious here is that the events should have come as naturally for Kaz as banging teenagers and making boring movies is for Woody Allen.  Instead, Kaz found himself for two years on the outside looking in to the world of strongman, about as capable of winning a competition as an armless broad would be at winning a flapjack-flipping competition.  After sitting out the 1986 season in major strongman compeitions, Kaz again attempted to best Capes and Jon Pall.  1987 was the only year since the WSM's inception that the contest was not held, and in its place, was an event some consider to be the seminal strongman event of all time- Pure Strength.  Were I pressed to give my opinion, I contend that Fortissimus is in fact the greatest Strongman competition of all time, but Pure Strength certainly wasn't too far off.  Intended to be a fill-in for the defunct WSM, Pure Strength was initially a competition between the three best strongmen of the era- Geoff Capes, Bill Kazmaier, and Jon Pall Sigmarrson.  What was intended to be a three man race was really just a two man competition between Kaz and Jon Pall, however, as Capes didn't post a win in any of the events.  Instead, Capes won the off-camera cake eating competition and received a shiny participant's medal, which he also ate.

We should all look so good.

Should you attempt to look up Pure Strength, you'll likely only find youtube videos reminiscent of the Playboy channel of the 1980s- if you recall, most of us spent much of our formative years in an effort to discern what the fuck was being displayed, as it was for us mostly static and blurred lines set to a backdrop of passionate moaning.  If you paid close attention, you might occasionally see a titty with a nipple on it, but the majority of the image was analog nonsense.  That's the video quality of most of the extant Pure Strength footage, but like the Playboy Channel of yore, close attention to the image pays off.  Nevertheless, the competition featured a somewhat pudgy Kaz facing a bloated Jon Pall in his prime, with a bearded Eric Cartman in a tiny track jacket looking on from the sidelines.  Pure Strength was interesting not just for the fact that it featured a 1980's strongman competition between King Kong and Godzilla, though- it was unique in its events as well.  Despite their uniqueness, none of the events proved to be terribly difficult for Jon Pall, as he went on to win 8 of the ten.  Kaz only managed two wins, and displayed both an astonishing contempt for the world at large and for anything resembling good form throughout the competition.

Viking power.

In the forward hold, for instance, Jon Pall screamed encouragement to himself as he dominated the field, while Kaz simply seemed to give up with a look of disgust on his face in pretty short order.  The event was actually pretty cool, as each competitor had to hold a claymore at arm's length in one hand and a shield in the other.  The McGlashen stones went no better for Kaz, as he utilized none of the form one typically sees in stone lifting, instead choosing to basically bend at the waist somewhat lazily, throw the stone onto his shoulder, and walk rather lackadaisically to the bin in which he had to deposit it.  Kaz then went on to lose at a number of events for which he was famous, including the log lift, the deadlift, and the caber toss.  Jon Pall, to his credit, had been training in the Highland Games events for some time, making his transition from powerlifting to strongman to Highland Games rather easily.  Kaz, though an accomplished Highland Games competitor and all-around strongman badass, couldn't manage to channel his obvious hatred for all things great and small long enough to win anything but the weight for height and the stone carry, though he should have won some kind of award for "best look of boredom and contemptousness in history".

I'm paying attention and I care.  Seriously.  I do.

At the time, Kaz held multiple world records in powerlifting and was the only three-time World's Strongest Man.  Thus, in spite of the fact that he placed behind both Sigmarsson and Capes in strongman, he was still arguably the strongest human on the planet, and his workout belied his superhuman stature.  Surprisingly, Kaz only trained four days a week, though his volume was pretty much what you'd expect- a hell of a lot of work.  You've likely seen some nonsense online wherein Kaz trained with high reps, though that's not what I found, and it's not what would make sense- high reps would make about as much sense for Bill Kazmaier as a donkey would be for transportation in a race against a Ferrari.

In case you want to see it for yourself.

When getting ready for a meet, Kaz would plan out his workouts months in advance, so he'd be able to envision exactly what he'd be lifting in preparation for the lifts he'd be making.  Thus, once he actually got underneath the poundages that would liquefy the bowels of lesser mortals, he'd already lifted them dozens of times in his head- this way, everything he did was old hat, even the first time he actually lifted it.  Though you'll read all over that Kaz only did sets of 10 and higher, his competition prep would begin with sets of 5, then drop to 3 and then 2 as the meets approached.

Monday
Bench (heavy)- warm up, then 4 work sets
Wide Grip Bench- 3 x 10 reps
Narrow Grip Bench- 3 sets x 10 reps
Front Delt Raise 4 sets x 8 reps
Dumbell Seated Press 4 sets x 10 reps
Side Delt Raise 4 sets x 10 reps
Lying Tricep Push (after 2 warm up sets) 6 sets x 10 reps
Tricep Push Down 4 sets x 10 reps

Tuesday
Squat (heavy) warm up, then 4 work sets
Deadlift (light) warm up, then 3 work sets
Shrugs 2 sets x 15-40 reps, 1 set x 10-20 reps
Seated Hammer Curls 4 sets x 12 reps
Standing Curl 4 sets x 10 reps
Close Grip Chin Ups 3 sets x max on each set
Seated Row 4 sets x 10 reps
Leg Extensions 3 sets x 10 reps
Leg Curl 3 sets x 10 reps
Calf Raise 3 sets x 15-25 reps

Thursday
Bench (light) warm up, then 3 work sets
Wide Grip Bench 3 sets x 10 reps
Narrow Grip Bench 3 sets x 10 reps
Dumbell Seated Press (heavy) warm up, then 4 sets x 8 reps
Front Delt Raise 4 sets x 10 reps
Tennis Backhand Cable Extensions 4 sets x 10 reps
Prone Tricep Extension 4 sets x 10 reps

Saturday
Deadlift (heavy) warm up, then 4 work sets
Squat (light) warm up, then 4 sets x10 reps
Shrugs (heavy) 4 sets x 10-15 reps
Seated Hammer Curl 4 sets x 8 reps
Concentration Curl 4 sets x 12 reps
One Arm Row – 3 positions 3 sets x 10 reps
Wide Grip Pull (down to chest) 4 sets x 10 reps
Leg Extensions 3 sets x 10 reps
Leg Curl 3 sets x 10 reps
Calf Raise 3 sets x 15-25 reps
(Ab Work When Possible)

I've no idea how long these workouts must have taken, but it's longer than most of us are willing to spend in the gym... or is it?  In the next installment, we'll take a look at how Jon Pall lifted to prepare for battle with Kaz, and I'll probably just dispense with pics of Kaz, Jon Pall, and Cartman for pics of a certain Brazilian broad with a gigantic booty.

One more Andressa Soares pic, because booty.

Sources:
Hercules, Iron.  Bill Kazmaier Routine (apparently sourced from Marty Gallagher article no longer available online).   Muscle and Brawn.  28 Jun 2009.  Web.  3 Apr 2013.  http://muscleandbrawn.com/bill-kazmaier-training-routine/

Smoker, John.  A Seminar with Kazmaier.  Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  Nov 2009.  Web.  3 APr 2013.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/11/seminar-with-kazmaier-jon-smoker.html

No homosexual is gay enough not to fuck this broad.