Baddest Motherfuckers Ever: Phil "the Man With Four Legs" Grippaldi

Child stars are invariably more fucked up than a bondage scat porn film set to the looped theme songs of beloved childrens' movies, yet the world constantly looks at them, hands wringing, and wonders "why?" and "how could we have saved them?" when in fact the answer is usually obvious.  It likely surprised no one when Dana Plato offed herself with Valium after years of being shit-poor on the heels of starring in Diff'rent Strokes- her cunt mom had been forcing the kid through audition after audition as a toddler, and Plato was whacked out of her head on coke as a 14 year old actress.  Same goes for Justin Bieber- the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief when that human shitstain hangs himself in a closet wearing nothing but a pair of thigh high stockings and a butt plug after being forced into pop stardom by an overbearing, formerly drug addicted, super ripshit pissed for Jesus (yet hates the Jews) mother.  Though strength sports rarely have child stars, they're not immune to this issue either- that's why when Phil Grippaldi, former protege of bouncer and bodyguard to the half-dead starvation model Twiggy, got arrested as the world's oldest crack dealer at age 61, exactly no one was surprised.

On the left, Phil Grippaldi, at under 90kg.  On the right, Russ Knipp, world record holder in the press at 75kg, flexing his paltry 15" arm.  Apparently the 30 lb difference in bodyweight was entirely in the arms.

Born in 1946 in the postapocalyptic nuclear wasteland of New Jersey, Grippaldi started training at age 14 under the watchful eye of a massive amateur, non-competitive bodybuilder Mike Gubliano.  Gubliano had this little guido trashing his arms for three hours a day in the company of like-minded spaghetti-gobbling benchbros, and by age 16 all of his hard work paid off.  No, Redditors, the kid didn't end up in a cemetery from doing hours of curls and close grip bench presses every single day- he ended up a 16 year old kid with 19 inch arms weighing under 190 lbs, and likely more sopping wet vagina thrown at him on the street on a daily basis than most of us will see in the span of our lives (Everson, Gallagher "Phil" 2).

Shortly thereafter, Grippaldi met the coach of the legendary Keasby Eagles weightlifting team, which churned out badass American Olympic weightlifters throughout the 1960s and 1970s.  In his weightlifting debut, Grippaldi smashed the Junior World Record at 90kg by 35 lbs, then entered the Senior Nationals for his second meet and placed second to world record holder Bill March with another Junior World Record in the press with a 348 lb attempt.  The following year he switched coaches and broke his own record again with a 352 press.  At this point, the dude with arms so fucking big that he was studied by Soviet scientists seemed like he was on the verge of bending over the Eastern block and fucking it in the ear by himself.  That, however, was not exactly how things would play out.

"The grimly serious Grippaldi’s arms were so hypertrophied from bodybuilding done in his teens that the Russian weightlifting experts at the Soviet Academy of Sport—in an article translated for American magazines—diagnosed those prodigious arms as the cause of a technique problem that inhibited his ultimate success. Phil may have been okay with that. He didn’t get Olympic gold, but a silver medal and a band of worshippers is not too bad" (McKeen 87) .

In 1968, Grippaldi beat weightlifting legend Bill March in the national championships like he was a 20 year old Mike Tyson going up against an aging Joe Frazier, clocking a sick 1,055 lb three lift total.  Grippaldi went on to be a sensation on the international circuit, racking up some incredibly impressive finishes for an American whose nation had turned its collective back on weightlifting 20 years prior.  Working as a teacher by day and putting in 20 to 30 hours of training a week, Grippaldi continued to log massive numbers, even after his pet exercise, the press, was discarded like a used condom to cut down on duration of weightlifting meets (Gallagher "Phil").  In spite of his nearly legendary success, however, an elbow injury sustained in competition in 1980 destroyed Grippaldi's Olympic gold aspirations, although he attempted a comeback training only his legs that was apparently comprised of nothing but thousands of 1,000 pound-plus leg presses (McKeen 93).  No one's quite sure how a teacher consumed with lifting could only have an ending crazier than the beginning, it seems, but it seems only fitting looking at the way he lived.

Phil Grippaldi's Relevant Stats
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 195 lbs.
Arms: 20"-22" (depending on the source)

Best Lifts
Clean and Press: 396 lbs.
Clean and Jerk: 451 lbs. 
Snatch: 341 lbs.

Competition History
1st- 1967 Pan American Games, 90kg
2nd- 1970 World Championship, 90kg (160kg Press, 140kg Snatch, 190kg Jerk)
1st- 1971 Pan American Games, 90kg
1st- 1975 Pan American Games, 90kg

By all accounts, Phil Grippaldi's training methods ranged from "jesus fuck, he's a maniac" to "my eyes are bleeding watching this guy."  According to Jeff McKeen, a light warmup prior to pulling consisted of 5 totally cold reps with 495 on the squat, at which point he was ready to rock.  The guys around him considered him to be a demi-god, so Grippaldi was always the one setting the pace for their marathon workouts.  Thought the workouts varied widely, their mainstay lifts almost never changed.  On average, Grippaldi's workouts looked like this:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Front Squats
Back Squats
Snatch
Power Clean

Tuesday, Thursday
Press
Snatch
Clean and Jerk
Bench Press
Power Rack:
Four 10 second holds in full extended position

Saturday
Total on all three lifts

Unlike most Olympic lifters of the time, Grippaldi absolutely refused to quit curling and benching, and for that reason often had trouble making weight at meets (Charniga).  Though most Olympic lifters though bench pressing would impede their shoulder flexibility, Grippaldi just knocked out shoulder dislocates before, during, and after benching to maintain a full range of motion.  Additionally, Grippaldi was famous in his gym for breaking lifts down into their component parts and training his weak points doing that.  This is how he build his press to such prodigious poundages- he'd identify component parts and use unrelated lifts to strengthen different parts of each lift, rotating the assistance work on a weekly basis (Gallagher "Grippaldi"). 

To make his sick overhead press so disgusting it caused nubile women to spontaneously ovulate in his presence, Grippaldi did the following three things:

1. Blast his body with a wide array of non-shoulder specific assistance exercises
2. Focus on press-related assistance exercises
3. Refine his technique like a hipster refines his palette for wine tastings

In regards to the first point, which might seem about as sensible as owning one of those massive diesel pickup trucks dudes with micropenises have embraced during a global energy crunch, Grippaldi identified his abs and intercostals as incredibly important factors in his press.  Just as it'd be retarded to build a house on a sinkhole, it'd be fucking stupid to attempt and overhead press with a weak midsection.  According to the man himself, “A lifter must have excellent abdominal and intercostal strength and to that end it is imperative that the lifter employ some of the following abdominal exercises in his routine.  Ab work aids in creating the ‘giant spring.’ During the Olympic press the abs and hips must be coordinated to create the initial thrust. On a related note: remember to drive the hips forward as the weight is being pressed. A lifter must isolate and work on his thrust” (Gallagher "Grippaldi")

Everyone's heard about the exercise du jour in that era for abs- guys like Serge Nubret and Frank Zane were famous for building their shredded midsections with thousands of unweighted Roman Chain situps.  While Grippaldi gave no fucks about stepping on a bodybuilding stage, he did take a page out of the bodybuilders' book and start doing Roman chair situps holding a 20kg plate either behind his head or on his chest.  Unlike Frank Zane, who would do sets of over 50 reps, Grippaldi held his shenanigans to 20 reps or less (Ibid).

181lb Gennady Ivanchenko regularly did hyperextensions with a 220lb barbell behind the neck to build that sick impression of the Grand Canyon where his spine should be.

After he knocked out abs, Grippaldi would flip over and do weighted hyperextensions to build thick spinal erectors.  This was the exercise of the Russians, and powered some of their most famous lifters to greatness just on the strength of their spine.  Though some Russians did these with a 220lb barbell behind their neck, Grippaldi stuck to a plate behind the neck or held to the chest and kept his reps between 5 and 15 (Ibid).

Grippaldi's direct shoulder assistance work was fairly conventional.  It consisted of:

70-degree Incline Barbell Press- 6 x 5

Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press- 6 x 5
Push press- 5 x 3
Isotonic/isometric rack pressing- 4 x 3.  This bears some explanation, as this was incredibly popular in the 1970s but has completely fallen out of use, likely because racks only come with a single set of pins.  Should you have access to two sets for a single rack, here's how these are done- break the lift into thirds.  Set one set of pins at the bottom third of the rep and the other set at the top, then press the barbell from one set of pins to the other, holding the third rep against the top pins for 3-5 seconds.

"There was something wrong with us.  We chose a sport with no pot of gold and no rainbow.  Weightlifters didn't get appearance fees or product endorsements, do commercials or interviews, and most spent their entire income on their training and travel to competitions.  Some lifters got fed up, and turned pro wrestler, or switched to the new sport of professional strongman competition; the strong legs and backs of Olympic lifters made it a natural transition. 

And we usually passed on fun.  Fun was tied to spontaneity outside of the weight room.  Skiing for the weekend?  Might get injured.  Trip to the Outer Banks?  Where should I train?  "You are going to the gym on Christmas Day?" my wife demanded, incredulous.

"It's Wednesday.  Wednesday is jerk day.  I'll just be a couple of hours," I said.

"It is Jerk Day, isn't it?"  She turned away.  Why the turn wasn't permanent, I'm not sure.
All that for the possible reward of respect by a few thousand or so Olympic lifters in the country, of being a Grippaldi.  We few, we slap-happy few" (McKee 90-91).

So, he might not have ended up a world champion... and he might have ended up a piece of shit slinging crack rock on the corner, but for a decade, Phil "The Man With Four Legs" Grippaldi was the baddest motherfucker under 200lbs the world had ever seen, and was regarded as a god.  He represented everything awesome about an entire generation of lifters to that generation.  For ten years, no one looked back to the past for inspiration- they just looked across a dimly lit shithole of a gym to a dude with sides of beef for arms and an abject hatred of being a mere human.

Sources:
Charniga, Jr., Andrew. There Is No System, Part IV.  Sportivnypress.  2009. Web.  25 Jan 2014.  http://www.sportivnypress.com/documents/54.html

Connelly, Michael.  An Informal Boston Education: Boston Boomers, Beaches, Buddies, Broads, Bars, Beer, Baseball, and Barbells.  Bloomington: iUniverse, 2007.

Everson, Jeff.  True Or False.  The tight tan slacks of Dezso Ban.  30 Sept 2008.  Web.  25 Jan 2014.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/09/true-or-false-jeff-everson.html

Gallagher, Marty.  Grippaldi the Great: How to Train the Overhead Press.  1 Aug 2013.  Web.  25 Jan 2014.  http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/article/grippaldi_the_great_how_to_train_the_overhead_press/P3#.UuSHtPQo5tQ

Gallagher, Marty.  Phil Grippaldi: Boy Wonder.  Starting Strength.  2012.  Web.  24 Sep 2014.  http://startingstrength.com/articles/grippaldi_history_gallagher.pdf

McKeen, Jay.  Heavy Metal Days.  Cimarron Review.  May 2012.  Web.  24 Sep 2014.  http://cimarronreview.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/169mckeen.pdf

The Lemmy Of Strength Sports- Inside The World Of The USAWA #2

I'd fuck her, but then I also like odd lifts.

As we covered in the previous installment of this series, all-round lifting is about as popular in the strength world as an obese woman in a thong is on a Miami beach.  Part of the reason behind this, one might surmise, is the complete ignorance of the vast majority of lifters that all-round lifting exists.  The only magazine to acknowledge the existence of the sport is Milo, which though awesome could hardly be described as well-known.  In spite of their obscurity, the competition lifts of the USAWA / IAWA seem like they might be fun to try.  That said, one could write the coolest fucking book on the planet, but who gives a shit if it's printed on newspaper in the back lot of a porn shop in Detroit?  No one's ever going to have the chance to read it, so the hilarity and awesome inside will languish in some sticky, unlight corner of Detroit's back alleys... just like all round lifting.

As such, it's time to get the word out about odd lifting, as it'll serve a s a break from the tedium of doing the same things over and over in the gym, if nothing else.  There are over 170 contestable lifts in the USAWA, ranging from the commonplace to the comical to the ridiculous.  I'm not going to bore you guys with the complete list of lifts and how they're to be conducted, because that'd be a waste of everyone's time and the USAWA handbook, which contains all of the lists, is available online if you wish to check it out.Instead, I'll just cherrypick some oddities and obscurities you might find interesting, compelling, or at least a pleasant distraction for whatever boring bullshit you happened to be doing before reading this.

Allen Lift: As many of you know, I'm a hell of a researcher, and I take my research seriously.  In spite of that fact, I occasionally come up short- the only place I could find any information on this lift at all was in the USAWA rule book, so I have no idea who this is named after, when people started doing it, or why.  As for what it is, it's a sit-up from the ground with arms locked overhead, holding weight.  If the bar moves inside a straight line from hip to shoulders or arms bend, the lift is disqualified.  In that way, it's similar to a competitive stone lift I've written about before from India.  Lest you think there are people out there with abs that make Ross Enaimit look like a doughey chump, no one in the IAWA has used more than an unloaded bar for this, and most lifters are considerably weaker than that.

Arthur Lift: The Arthur Lift is so named, if you couldn't guess, because it seems to emulate a trick lift Arthur Saxon used to do in his act.  That lift, however, used a powdered ovoid bag with no corners to grab filled with flour, and one end of the bag had a loose, heavy block of iron in it to make grabbing and balancing it more difficult.  Edward Aston stated of the Saxon Sack, "I do not believe that any man in the World, save Arthur Saxon himself, could lift and carry off his sack in the manner on which he insisted. This style compelled one to grasp and lift the sack from the floor to the knee, then to the thighs, and thence to the shoulder and finally overhead" (Aston).  That sack weighed 280 lbs, and the other sack used for similar competitions the Apollo sack, was heavier and had to be walked off stage on the lifter's back.  Apollo's sack, however, could be raised any way the lifter liked, so both Aston and Saxon lifted it by laying on the ground and pulling it onto their back, then standing with it.  The Arthur Lift seems to be a weird Sci Fi Channel monster-style chimera of the two lifts mixed, and it appears (very anecdotally), that Saxon himself did 386lbs on this movement.  Modern lifters haven't come close to that- record lifts range from 105kg to 135kg between the 65kg and 105kg weightclasses, and superheavies (who outweighed Saxon by at least 40 lbs) have only managed 135kg.  Essentially, if you're moving 200-300 lbs on this lift, you're a bona fide Chuck Norris-esque hardass and likely grow a full beard in a single day.  You also have way to much fucking time on your hands if you're doing this silliness with any regularity.

Danny Padilla, "The Giant Killer", busting out a sick 225lb cheat curl at a bodyweight of around 180lbs- a 1.25x BW curl!

Cheat Curl with 5' straight bar.  Before you scoff at the picture above due to indoctrination propegated by halfwits on internet messageboards, bear in mind that Arnold was famous for doing these and was quoted as saying "cheating barbell curl stands alone for building mass” (Muscle and Fitness Editors).  Not even the USAWA give a shit if this turns into a bizarre reverse power clean- Arnold started this lift with a huge forward lean and then ripped the fucking bar up in a half swing/half hip thrust aided reverse grip clean.  Per the USAWA, the lifter stands upright at finish of lift, but there is no rule about how the rest of the lift is conducted- just get the fucking bar up and eat a steak so you can bath in the gainz that are surely coming.  In competition, spotters can lower the weight after the "Down" signal.  If you want metrics for what's awesome, the tiny 55kg guys are curling 62.5 kg, and the range pretty steadily increases by weight class to 110kg for the superheavies.  or the ladies, the grouping is much tighter- ranging from 42.5 kg to 50 kg between 50kg and 105kg in bodyweight.

Strict Curl.  This record might still be held by none other than rambling, jacked Youtube sensation CT Fletcher, who busted out a 225 lb strict curl with a cambered bar about 25 years ago.  Since then, the there's not really been a single federation or a single source to determine who's the best at the lift, so I doubt anyone's sure who the superheavyweight record holder actually is.  In the USAWA, the lifter's ass and upper back must stay in contact with wall, and they must use a 5' bar (the fed CT set his record in allowed a cambered bar).  Spotters can lower the weight after "Down" signal.

1 Person 1 Finger On Each Hand Deadlift:  A favorite of Hermann Goerner, I can attest personally to the fact that this lift fucking hurts.  You never know what true soreness is until your fingers are swollen and achy from one finger deadlifts.  Well, I would surmise it'd be not unlike the saddle soreness a chick might get after a 100 man gangbang.  Yeah, it's that painful.  In competition, the spotters can lower weight if need be, so the lifter really just needs to get the weight to lockout.

The IAWA actually contests this lift with each one of the fingers (I cannot imagine trying to deadlift with pinkies only), so if you want to give some of these a shot and see how you stack up, go here.

Ziegler Clean: Quite frankly, I cannot imagine how in the fuck this lift could be completed- it's a clean while balancing a 2.5 lb plate on your head.  If the plate falls, it's no lift.  In an effort to locate the source of this lift, I came up empty.  The only possible attribution one could give this lift is to Dr. John Ziegler, who was the physician who came to be known as "the Father of Dianabol" after supplying Bob Hoffman's lifters with gear in the 1950s.  Ziegler wasn't just some pasty-faced nerd, though- at 6'4" 240lbs, he met Hoffman's lifters in a Maryland gym.  While I can't state definitively that this goofy nonsense was thought up by the man responsible for the proliferation of steroids in the US, it's not outside of the realm of possibility (Fair).

Judd Clean and Jerk: This, for me, is a recipe for disaster- I have all of the balance and grace of a drunken Andre the Giant.  As such, attempting a clean and jerk while standing on one foot seems on par with Hitler's decision to make a three pronged attack into Russia.  Normal people who aren't as wide as they are tall might enjoy this lift- frankly, I have no idea what normal people enjoy.  If you want to give the Judd a shot, you just follow the rules of the normal clean and jerk, but must be done on a single leg only, and your non-lifting leg cannot touch the ground or your body at any time.

Kneeling Military Press: Being the witty motherfucker I am, I prefer to think of this as the Gloryhole Press.  As you can imagine, it's just a strict press from a kneeling position.  The lifter must clean the weight from the floor while kneeling, then press without excessive layback.  For the skeptical amongst you,  I'll remind you that world destroying strongman and log press world record holder Zydrunas Savickas (499lb log press) is famous for doing seated overhead presses on the floor, in the rack.  As I lack the flexibility to sit on the floor like that, this seems like a viable alternative.

Miller Clean and Jerk: The Miller clean and jerk is an odd one- it's an ultra painful clean and jerk using only the middle fingers of each hand, and only a couple of lifters in history have beaten his 135 lb effort in this lift.  Wilbur Miller was a top ten heavyweight in the US at Olympic weightlifting, and for a while was the world record holder in the deadlift at 242 with a 725 pull.  For any of you who've seen the ancient, deep dish York plates in an old gym, it's said that Miller was the reason York ditched them- he couldn't fit enough weight onto the bar to max out (Myers). In any event, if you manage 135 in this lift, you're kicking the ass of an American strength sports legend, and if you can hit 167 you've beaten the heaviest effort ever recorded on this lift.

Jackson Press: Named after one of the founding members of the USAWA and rival lifter to the aforementioned badass Wilbur Miller, the Jackson Press is so named because USAWA lifter Wayne Jackson was famous for his 300lb reverse grip clean and press.  Some of you may recall this seemed to be a popular lift in the US for some time, as John Grimek is legendary for having nearly been beaten in a competition at that lift by a drunken, geriatric longshoreman.  The Jackson Press omits the clean, though, and is simply a press from the racks, using a reverse grip.  Start position for the lift is with the bar on the chest, at least two steps away from the rack.  At the press command, the lifter presses, and holds the bar at lockout until they receive a down command.  No world records are listed for this one, but if you find yourself in the 70+kg range, you're in with the world record holders on the reverse grip clean and press.

Scott Lift: In spite of diligent searching, I've no fucking clue where this exercise comes from- even the USAWA admits it's obscure.  It is, however, a Zercher Lift that starts with the the lifter on their knees with the bar placed in the crooks of the elbows.  If need be, momentum can be built by rocking the bar back and forth, but the lifter must stand with the bar in the crooks of their elbows.  This is basically the USAWA's lifting version of Kuato from Total Recall, if you could imagine making Kuato even more disgusting and less easy to understand.

Kelly Snatch: This lift is also known as the Reverse Swing and is as obscure as it looks painful.  Looking at this lift, I'm wondering if the USAWA lifters would start jamming sewing needles into their taint and rose stems up their urethra to get an extra 50 lbs on their bent press if they discovered Albert Fish secretly broke Saxon's record.  Granted, is it worth trying out with a dominatrix just in case?  Probably, but that still wouldn't have me in the gym doing Kelly Snatches, which seem far more likely to rip my shoulders out of the sockets than they do useful.  In any event, for these, the bar is behind the lifter on the floor, as in an Arthur Lift.  Grip width and foot placement is up to the lifter, but the feet must be parallel and in line with the torso. Then, through a combination of bad decision making, double jointed shoulders, child sacrifice, and sorcery, the bar is somehow teleported at arms length over the lifter's head.  No world records are listed for this bad boy, either, presumably because people really like having full use of their arms.

That'll do it for now, as you'd not imagine how much random research goes into hunting down these lifts.  I'll hit you guys with another installment of wacky lifts soon, however, just in case you've got a bug up your ass to crack a world record in a sport not even the guys at your gym are aware exists.

Sources:
Aston, Edward.  The physical superman.  The Superman Magazine.  Dec 1930.  http://www.davidgentle.com/sandow/aston/hints.pdf

Fair, JD.  Isometrics or Steroids? Exploring new frontiers of strength in the early 1960s.  J Sport Hist. Spr 1993;20(1):1-24. http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1993/JSH2001/jsh2001b.pdf

Glassman, Greg.  The odd lifts.  The Crossfit Journal Articles.  Jan 2003;5:1-3.  http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/05_03_The_Odd_Lifts.pdf
USAWA Official Rulebook

IAWA World Records.  IAWA.  8 Jan 2012.  Web.  16 Sep 2014.  http://www.havengym.org.uk/PDF/WR_Index.pdf

Myers, Al.  USAWA Official Rulebook.  8th Ed.  Web.  16 Sep 2014.  http://www.usawa.com/USAWA%20Uploads/2010/05/RULEBOOK-8th-Edition.pdf

Myers, Al.  Wilbur Miller.  USAWA.  16 Apr 2013.  Web.  16 Sep 2014.  http://www.usawa.com/tag/wilbur-miller/

Smith, Art.  Wilbur Miller, power perfectionist.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  24 Sep 2009.  Web.  16 Sep 2014.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/09/wilbur-miller-power-perfectionist-art.html

Van Vleck, Thom.  Wayne Jackson: chasing strength.  USAWA.  20 Dec 2013.  Web.  16 Sep 2014.  http://www.usawa.com/tag/wayne-jackson/

Insecticidal- Getting Jacked On A Zoophagous Madman (aka Renfield) Diet

"R. M. Renfield, aged 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish" - John Seward.

It's pretty rare, even in the modern era, that one refers to a 59 year old man as either having great physical strength or of being "possibly dangerous", provided his name isn't John Grimek and he's not carrying a loaded firearm.  RM Renfield, however, was considered to be both, in an era when life expectancy in the United States was right around 45 years.  Sure, you might say, but RM Renfield wasn't a real person, so this conversation is about as useful as pixelated Japanese pornography.  Not so, however, because I'm going to take a leap of logic and ascribe the great strength and dangerous nature of Renfield's character not to a flight of fancy, but rather to his diet.

Anyone who's seen a Dracula movie is familiar with Renfield's diet- he's the dude crazier than a bag of wet cats eating mealworms in the lunatic asylum.  Tom Waits apparently munched on one in the filming of the cinematic travesty Bram Stoker's Dracula, and though that had most viewers in the West recoiling in horror, it happens that 80% of the world's population eats insects as a part of their regular diet.  In fact, it's only the pinkies-up-when-quaffing-our-champagne developed Western world that doesn't partake of our exoskeleton-clad friends, as we can afford far more expensive protein sources than insects (Michels).

They love their bugs in Thailand.

The practice of eating arthropods (non-seafaring ones), which modern science refers to as entomophagy, is shared by all primates and is ubiquitous to every corner of the world.  Over 3,000 ethnic groups around the world are known to engage in this practice, and the number of creepy-crawlies they eat makes the "diversity" of my own diet seem laughable- I never even considered the fact that there were over 1,400 species of meat-sicles for me to eat, but then I despise seafood and generally stick to beef and chicken (Ramos-Elorduy 13, 44).  As you might have noticed by my qualification, most people are already used to eating one type of arthropod- crustaceans.   The other three types, insects, spiders/scorpions/horseshoe crabs, and trilobites, are all related edible species.  Well, one would assume trilobites would be edible, but they're extinct.  In any event, eating arthropods is hardly unknown in the West.

The Club of Rome is Full of good news.  Don't worry- this is how we're going to hang onto our gains in the coming apocalypse.

Though it's become very popular among the effete and the "green" to advocate the consumption of insects as a protein source, just as the Club of Rome nuts advocated soy as the savior of all mankind in the 1970s, Western authors have been advocating for the consumption of insects at least as far back as the 1880s, with the publication of Why Not Eat Insects?  As many of us in the strength community, at least those in the know, are averse to faddism, one might otherwise shy from a discussion about insects as a protein source- once something is advocated in the New Yorker, most skeptics turn a blind eye.  This concept, however, has both precedent and merit, as the consumption of insects is so common and in many cases lauded.  Why then, do we shun the shit that crawls on shit, in spite of the fact that half of the modern world under 40 has seen 2 Girls 1 Cup?

I'd venture to guess most people would react the same way to a plate of live mealworms as they would to that video.

Damned if I know, because by all accounts, insects are good eating.  "Because of their exoskeleton most insects give off very little odor and, therefor, smell has little influence on palatability.  Conversely, this same shell greatly influences texture.  Insects are crunchy and the act of chewing, couples with the resulting salivation, carries with it great oral satisfaction, similar to the pleasure of eating pretzels or crackers.  The exoskeleton is chewable and is actually an excellent source of fiber" (Ramos-Elorduy 16).  After spending time in Cambodia, Angelina Jolie stated that her kids were eating crickets "like Doritos" because they loved them so much (Angelina), and the wealthy housewives of Mexico City flock to upscale restaurants for a dish referred to as "Mexican Caviar", which is actually boiled ants' eggs (Armstrong).  Dubious?  This dish, known as escamoles, was selling for $25 a plate in 1999, which means it's running closer to $35 these days if one adjusts for inflation (Defoliart 36).   White "gusanos", or maguey worms, which are larvae of the skipper butterfly, sell for the same price, and the harvesters of those two insect dishes are the richest people in rural Mexico (Defoliart 37).  Apparently, eating bugs is literally the tits.

I am psychically sensing that no one is as yet on board with this idea.  Would it help to know that ancient Romans, conquerors of the Western World, ate snails and referred to grasshoppers, which were eaten incredibly frequently, as 'four legged fowl'" (Brothwell 66, 70)?  Or that ancient Greeks, rampaging through East Asia on an empire-building mission led by the inimitable Alexander, thought cicadas were one of the world's great delicacies (Brothwell 70)?  Eating snails in the desert could actually keep you alive in lieu of finding a water source, as a snail common to Libya, the Eremina, would be sufficient to enable survival for days if eaten in sufficient quantity (Brothwell 67).  Not in the desert but trying to get ripped?  Fried termites are the ultimate keto food- their exoskeletons provide fiber, and the rest of them is 44% fat and 36% protein, and rocks hard as a caloric belly bomb at 560 calories per 100 grams (Brothwell 68).  On a hike through the desert, leaving the granola at home and bringing a big bag of snails and another of fried termites would have you crushing trails like you're a one man Badwater Ultramarathon.

Judging by those scars, Edward James Olmos got less ass in high scool than I did, which is impressive.  How do you get negative amounts of ass?

I realize that this is, quite literally, hard to stomach- the thought of eating insects is more repellent than Edward James Olmos's acne scars.  I can attest, however, to the fact that ants actually taste pretty awesome.  In a hilariously failed effort to get small children to leave me alone at a backyard party- I tried to gross them out by eating ants.  I ate a hell of a lot of them.  Instead of grossing them out by eating what essentially taste like tiny little lemonades, the little shit machines decided I was officially the coolest adult on Earth, and they proceeded to collect a wide array of bugs for me to eat.  As I had no interest in having a live grasshopper in my mouth, I declined.  The memory, however, still serves to remind me that bugs definitely taste better than you'd think.  According to people braver than I, here's what the most popular edible insects taste like:

If I were trying to sell beetles to people as food, this is not the posterchild I'd pick.  Nevertheless, there aren't many picks of Westerners happily munching beetles, so you fuckers will have to settle for a forlorn Sub-Saharan African.

• Beetles.  Most beetle larvae taste like pork rinds, and those from aquatic environments have a fishy flavor (Ramos-Elorduy 20-21).  One type of beetle, the sago palm weevil, is supposed to taste exactly like bacon (Strochlic).
• Butterflies and moths.  These are, thankfully, always eaten in the larval or pupal stage.  Their flavor depends on the environment where they lived and the manner in which they're prepared- some taste like chicken, others like codfish and herring.  The white agave (the worm at the bottom of bottles of mescal) is the most popular insect in the world from a luxury standpoint- a kilo of them costs $32-$35 (Ramos-Elorduy 21).  Like the white agave in South America,caterpillars are considered delicacies in southern African countries. Because it eats nothing but bee wax and honey, the wax moth caterpillar / wax worm, apparently tastes like an enoki mushrooms mixed with pine nuts (Strochlic).

• Bees, wasps and ants.  Wasps are known for their pine nutty flavor.  Bees, however, range in flavor from pine nuts, peanuts, or almonds.  Ants are almost always nutty, though certain species have a citrusy flavor (Ramos-Elorduy 23)
• Grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts. Grasshoppers are the most consumed type of insect in the world, and their flavor depends entirely on their method of preparation (Ramos-Elorduy 24).  Some people describe cooked locust as similar to smoky bacon, which most of you should get excited about (Dubois).  Africans call them "desert shrimp", though, and claim they taste quite a lot like the locust's sea faring cousin (Murray).  There, the dip fried locusts in a chili powder called yaji (the recipe for that is here), and it's basically become one of the most sought-after protein sources in Nigeria in recent years. As such, I'd start here or with ants and a bunch of sriracha.

• Flies and mosquitoes. The flavor of flies depends on where they were raised.  Flies raised on cheese (like in Sardinia) taste like cheese, while ones from water environs taste like duck.  Fresh mosquitoes taste like fish (Ramos-Elorduy 24)
• Water boatmen and backswimmers. I grew up calling these things water striders, but irrespective of what you call them, their eggs are known as Mexican caviar and taste like fish when fresh and shrimp when dried (Ibid)
• Stink bugs. Horrible as it would seem to eat one of these noxious motherfuckers, they're damn good for you.  They possess anesthetic and analgesic properties, and add an apple flavor to sauces.  Additionally, they contain iodine, which is awesome for people in regions where it is not readily available (Ibid).  Just don't eat them raw, or the toxins they contain might kill you.
• Witchetty (witjuti) grubs.  Apparently these are only found in the land of Crocodile Dundee, but the larva of the cossid moth has been a staple in the diets Aborigines for centuries.  These little high protein, mobile boogers taste like almonds, and when cooked their the skin becomes crisp like roasted chicken (Food).
• Tarantulas.  Having seen wolf spiders up close, all I can think when approached by a spider as big as my fist, all I am capable of is complete arachnid destruction.  For those of you who can stave off the "destroy everything" Hatebreed-esque respond and just stick to simple murder, tarantulas are said to taste like to soft-shell crab or shrimp (Strochlic).  As I hate seafood almost as much as spiders, I'll leave that to you lunatics to test.

What's weird in the above list is that the favorite of internet weirdos, paleo outliers, super-green non-vegan psychopaths, and every bizarre foodie on Earth is the mealworm.  When looking for Thanksgiving Day recipes, I happened upon 10,000 recipes involving mealworms, for no reason whatsoever.  Mealworms are apparently the shit.  They can be eaten live, they can be pan-fried, or you can do what most people do- dry-roast those nasty little sons of bitches.  Dry roasted mealworms would make for excellent post-apocalyptic food, if nothing else- roasting removes most of their moisture and retains all of their nutrition.  On top of that, they apparently taste just like peanuts, but lack the allergens that have housewives all over America shitting their collective pants (even though it's half as common as bee sting allergy), and their macro nutrient and amino acid profiles ball harder than P Diddy in a room full of ATMS and big bootied white women.  Mealworm meat compares incredibly favorably with red meat, as mealworms average between 45-55g protein, 40-57g fat, and 1.4-2.3g fiber per 100g of dry weight.  As for aminos, they contain more of every amino strength trainers care about (especially leucine) than beef:      

(T. molitor = tenebrio molitor = mealworm beetle)

Please disregard the hilarious mispelling of "beef".  Not sure who fell asleep at the wheel proofing this academic paper.

  
As I don't own anything ironically, don't wear tweed, and cannot stand indie rock, I've not yet tried eating mealworms.  Since I lack that hipster street cred, I'll just relay the preparation methods for mealworms I've found in case you're curious:

"Dry roasted mealworms can be salted or dipped in chocolate and eaten as a snack, sprinkled on salads, and added to soup. They taste a lot like peanuts and can replace nuts in cookies, cakes, and other desserts. Since roasted worms are brittle, they can be ground and mixed with flour when you bake muffins, pancakes, or bread. The different ways these insects can be added to recipes is almost limitless.

How to dry roast mealworms
Place your live mealworms in a colander and toss and rinse them under cool water. This is to remove any food and substrate from the worms. Be sure to pick out any dead worms or pupae.

Pat the worms dry with paper towels, place them in a container or plastic bag, and put them in the freezer for about fifteen minutes. This will quickly kill the worms.

Spread the mealworms out evenly on a non stick cookie sheet. If you are worried that the worms may stick, you can lightly grease the sheet.

Place the worms in an oven at 200 degrees and bake them for one to two hours until they are dry and crispy. Some people do not like the smell of baking worms and prefer to cook them outside on a gas grill set to a low temperature" (Mealworm).

That is precisely what it looks like- a chick masturbating with her a cunt overflowing with carnivorous (yeah, they start a-nibbling right away) mealworms.  I circled the overflow for you, just in case you wanted a closer look.

If worms aren't your bag, it's not just mealworms that crush red meat in a battle to protein overdose induced kidney-failure death- insects in general hand beef and chicken a pretty stout ass whipping.  They're crazy high protein, keto-friendly, paleo-friendly, organic, naturally fed, free-range, and the only carbs they contain are fiber, so they have no chance of throwing you out of ketosis.

For most of you, this will have absolutely no impact on your life- you'll just carry on eating the same poorly fed, poorly treated, factory farmed animals... as will I, likely.  This information is likely going to fall into the "good-to-know" category, then, but if you ever find yourself in a situation wherein you're heading facefirst into catabolism without a helmet fashioned from an array of protein bars, you know know you can get your anabolism on ancient Greek and Roman style.  One thing to note, however, is that not all insects are edible.  Though the list I'm about to give you (Bryant, "How", seems pretty much a full listing of insects, it's apparently not. I'm not an entomologist and don't pretend to play one on TV, so I'm not even going to make an attempt to help you identify the safe ones.  

They are, however:

• Anoplura - lice
• Orthoptera - grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches
• Hemiptera - true bugs
• Homoptera - cicadas and treehoppers
• Hymenoptera - bees, ants and wasps
• Diptera - flies and mosquitoes
• Coleoptera - beetles
• Lepidoptera - butterflies and moths
• Megaloptera - alderflies and dobsonflies
• Odonata - dragonflies and damselflies
• Ephemetoptera - mayflies
• Trichoptera - caddisflies
• Plecoptera - stoneflies
• Neuroptera - lacewings and antlions
• Isoptera - termites 

Given that most of us couldn't tell a caddisfly from a sparrow, you might want to bear in mind the following little rhyme if you decide to much on bugs:

"Red, orange yellow, forget this fellow.
Black, green or brown, wolf it down"

(Bryant, "Entomophagy").

It's also best to avoid eating overly colorful bugs or bugs with a strong odor (Bryant, "Entomophagy"), as that sort of gay pride parade style flamboyant is intended to warn predators they'll get fucked up if they try and fuck with the bugs.  If that's all you have for eating, just boil, roast, or smoke the bug.  Boiling is the safest way to kill of toxins, but roasting or smoking should serve the same purpose, and any kind of cooking will vastly improve the taste and texture (Bryant, "Edible").

Entomophagy: Third world tested, hippie broad approved. 

So there you have it.  Bugs, they're what's for a ketogenic, paleolithic, green, socially conscious dinner.

Sources:
Angelina Jolie admits her children eat insects.  Mai FM.  20 Jul 2011.  Web.  4 Sep 2014.  http://www.maifm.co.nz/Angelina-Jolie-admits-her-children-eat-insects/tabid/76/articleID/1402/Default.aspx

Armstrong, Hilary.  Ant’s eggs, Mexico.  MSN Travel.  Web.  4 Sep 2014.  http://travel.ca.msn.com/international/photogallery.aspx?cp-documentid=23957391&page=17

Brothwell, Don R.  Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples.  New York: Prager, 1969.

Bryant, Charles W..  "How Entomophagy Works"  15 April 2008.  How Stuff Works. Web.  3 September 2014.  http://people.howstuffworks.com/entomophagy.htm

Bryant, Charles W.  How can I tell if a bug is edible? How Stuff Works.  14 April 2008.  Web.  8 Sep 2014.  http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/edible-bug.htm

DeFoliart GR.  Insects as food: Why the Western attitude is important.  Annu. Rey. Ennmol. 1999;41:21-50

Dubois, Sirah.  The Nutritional Value of Locusts.  Livestrong.  24 Oct 2011.  Web.  3 Sep 2014.  http://www.livestrong.com/article/549444-the-nutritional-value-of-locusts/

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  Edible Insects: Future Prospect for Food and Feed Security.  Fao Forestry Paper.  Aug 2013;171:67-89.  http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e06.pdf

Mealworm Care.  Web.  3 Sep 2014.  http://mealwormcare.org/recipes-nutrition/

Michels, Spencer.  Bugs for dinner?  PBS. 7 May 2012.  Web.  2 Sep 2014.  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/bugs-for-dinner/

Murray, Senan.  In pictures: Desert shrimps.  BBC News.  Web.  3 Sep 2014.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/africa_desert_shrimps/html/7.stm

Nutritional Value of Various Insects per 100 grams.  Iowa State Entomology Department.  Web.  3 Sep 2014.  http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectnutrition.html

Ramos-Elorduy, Julieta.  Creepy Crawly Cuisine.  Rochester: Park Street Press, 1998.

Siemianowska E, Kosewska, Aljewicz M, Skibniewska KA, Polak-Juszczak L, Jarocki A, Jędras M..  Larvae of mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) as European novel food.  Agri Sci.  May 2013;4(6):287-291.

Strochlic, Nina.  Cicadas, Grasshoppers, Locusts, Ants Among the Tastiest Insects.  The Daily Beast.  14 May 2013.  Web.  3 Sep 2014.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/cicadas-grasshoppers-locusts-ants-among-the-tastiest-insects.html