Author Archives: Al Myers

Making Weight for Competition (Part 1 – fat loss)

by Larry Traub

Randy Smith performing the Cheat Curl at the 2011 USAWA National Championships. Randy maintains his competition bodyweight year-round by regular exercise and proper diet. (photo and caption courtesy of webmaster)

This is going to be a two part article.  First I will write about the process of slowly losing weight over the course of time to get you reasonably close to your competition weight. (Probably within 5%.)  The first article will be the fat loss article, which in my opinion would apply to anyone who would like to reduce the amount of fat on their body.  The second article will deal with water loss (dehydration) and it’s very important that you distinguish between the two.  It should also be noted that muscle loss is in no way desirable and is generally what happens to millions of people who just think in terms of “weight loss”.

Trivia question: What was Arnold’s first major movie?  ————– Wrong !  Before the documentary “Pumping Iron” Arnold was in a movie with Sally Fields and Jeff Bridges called “Stay Hungry”.  Prior to this movie I had spent what seemed a great deal of my life ‘staying hungry’ trying to make a competitive weight class, due to my involvement with high school and collegiate wrestling.  The great irony is that it wasn’t until I decided to try my hand at bodybuilding (Arnold’s sport) that I realized that staying hungry was counterproductive to what I was trying to accomplish.

Muscle is good.  I know I’m preaching to the choir given the readership of this site, but we know that muscle is so desirable that we are willing to do what we do to attain it.  The question is, what can we do to retain it during the weight loss process?  To make sure we retain all that valuable muscle we need to understand survival mode.  The cave man eats well when game is plentiful but never knows when things will change and he may have to go an extended time without food.  When he gets hungry his body anticipates a period of insufficient food and switches to survival mode.  First, it slows down the body’s metabolism.  Secondly, it makes muscle the preferred source of energy in order to preserve as much fat as it can, because the stored fat is what it needs to get through the period of little or no food.  If it sounds like staying hungry is a bad idea then you’re getting the picture.

Not only is staying hungry a bad idea, it is a battle you have little or no chance of winning.  Ghrelin, sometimes referred to as the hunger hormone, is there to make sure you lose this battle. The caveman has very little energy because his metabolism has been slowed to a crawl, he has depleted much of his muscle so his strength levels are way down and yet he has to go out there and do whatever it takes to hunt down and kill a wild animal or he will die.  Ghrelin becomes his friend.  It makes his hunger so intense that he is willing to do whatever it takes to feed himself.  If ghrelin can make a hungry caveman go kill a bear with a club then there’s a good chance that it will make the modern day hungry man get off the couch, get in his car, go to McDonald’s and supersize whatever combo appeals to him.

How do we avoid survival mode, retain muscle, and accomplish our weight loss needs?  We must avoid being hungry.  I feel certain that most everyone could eat as much or more as they do now and reduce calories sufficiently to achieve a slow steady weight loss.  A maximum of one pound per week is the rule of thumb that I think is ideal for weight loss.  Since there is 3500 calories in a pound of fat then a reduction of 500 calories per day is what we need.  You need to discover your basic metabolic rate (BMR) which is simply how many calories you would normally burn in a 24 hour period.  The old formula is 15 times your bodyweight but you can google BMR and get a more sophisticated formula. The number you come up with, regardless of your method, is based on averages and it’s probable that yours is significantly better because you (as a reader of this site) should have a greater percentage of muscular composition.  Finding out your true BMR is a matter of trial and error.  I would suggest you use the number from your formula, subtract 300 to 500 calories and carefully evaluate the results.  First, disregard the results of the first 2 weeks because there will be significant water loss due to the fact that you are changing the types of food you eat.  You should probably be weighing daily, first thing in the morning and pretty much disregarding the weekly highs and lows. If you are losing slower or faster than a pound a week then make small adjustment until you are consistently losing a pound a week.  At that point you’re BMR is 500 calories greater that your intake.

You can use this knowledge and an adjustment in the types of food you eat to avoid survival mode.  The basic concept is this.  Eat as much food as you possibly can in the process of taking in your prescribed calorie intake.  You need to know that fat and sugars provide the most concentrated amount of calories per gram so minimizing your intake of both will probably result in you taking in a lot more food than you ate before you reduced your calorie intake.  You will not be hungry, therefore no survival mode and your body will gladly use stored fat for energy and allow you to keep, or even build muscle during the process. And you will feel great.

As a clueless high school wrestler I was convinced that staying hungry was what I had to do.  For years my parents would tell the story that during wrestling season their electricity bill would go up because I would constantly open the refrigerator, stare into it for several minutes, and then eventually close it without taking anything out.  It was me against the ghrelins and I guess I defeated them for a few months each year.  The sad part was, even though I loved the sport I learned to dread wrestling season because of the misery of being hungry.

Contrast that with the dieting that I did years later in preparation for a bodybuilding contest.  I was eating practically no fat or sugar and I was counting every calorie by carrying around a little clicker.  I can remember many times where I was watching TV in the evening and thinking about going to bed.  I had eaten very well all day long and was not at all hungry.  I would look at my clicker and tell my wife, “geez, I still have to eat 300 more calories.” I can still remember the sympathy my wife would express when I made these announcements.  Fortunately she is not the type of person that is prone to using hand gestures.

I know that carrying around a clicker to count every calorie is probably a bigger leap than most are willing to take.  In more recent years I have had a more haphazard approach with similar results.  The last time I made 198 lbs for a powerlifting competition I determined how much fat loss was necessary.  I allowed one week for every pound I needed to lose and made adjustments in my diet without actually counting calories.  I watched my weight closely and made adjustments if I was losing too fast or too slow.  It’s been several years ago now, but for a period of 6 or 7 consecutive years I competed in the masters nationals held in early May.  After letting my weight climb during the holidays I would do the math and alter my diet shortly after the beginning of the year.  I can honestly say I started looking forward to this time of year.  I knew I could do it without any hunger and my energy level would actually improve.  I guess the word diet will always contain four letters but maybe when you learn how to defeat the ghrelins you won’t have to think of it as a four letter word.

NOTE:  I feel compelled to admit to plagiarism.  Dr. Bryant Stamford is the local fitness Guru in the Louisville Area and writes a fitness column for the local paper and does fitness segments on the radio.  He is also an accomplished author and a college professor.  I am a math teacher but for years I taught an elective PE class called strength and fitness.  I used many of Dr. Stamford’s articles in my class for all sorts of topics.  I did not really go back and pull any articles while I was writing this but I know that most of the ideas in this article are ingrained in my head because of the many times I discussed his articles in class.  Dr Stamford and I knew each other a lifetime ago when we served on an AAU committee together but since then he unknowingly become a mentor to me and I thought if I said some nice things about him then maybe I won’t hear from his lawyers.  I heard him say something on the radio several years ago that relates to this article and really stuck in my head.  When people realize who he is, they often want to tell him about their accomplishments.  Quite often someone will brag about losing a significant amount of weight in a short period of time. (I’ve lost 25 lbs in 6 weeks.)  Dr. Stamford says that he politely congratulates them but, what he really wants to say is, “Oh, I’m so sorry !”  Sorry because you’ve lost muscle.  Sorry because you’ve messed up your metabolism.  Sorry because eventually the ghrelins will win, you will gain it back and because of your muscle loss you will be fatter then before.

2011 Postal Series Final Ranking

by Al Myers

Al Myers was the overall best lifter in the 2011 USAWA Postal Series.

Last year the USAWA started a quarterly Postal Series that would “add up points”  for the 4 postal meets for a FINAL STANDING.   There were postal meets before these, but this was when the postal series started.  This series is a way to acknowledge the lifters who participated the most and best in the postal meets the USAWA offers throughout the year.

The Postal Series Ranking is done using this simple scoring system. Each lifter accumulates points based on their overall placing in each postal meet. For example, if there are 10 lifters entered, first place receives 10 points and the last place finisher receives 1 point. This way EVERY lifter at least receives some points toward their yearly ranking total. If more lifters are entered – more points goes to the winner. The National Postal Meet is worth DOUBLE POINTS since it is the most important competition in our Postal Meet Series.  Now for the final 2012 POSTAL SERIES RANKING:

WOMEN’S DIVISION

1. Karena Fobes – 2 pts
2.  Helen Kahn – 1 pt

MEN’S DIVISION

1.  Al Myers – 46 pts
2.  Orie Barnett – 39 pts
3. Joe Ciavattone Jr. – 31 pts
4. Joe Ciavattone Sr. – 24 pts
5. Denny Habecker – 21 pts
6.  Eric Todd – 18 pts
7. Chuck Cookson – 17 pts
8.  Chad Ullom – 16 pts
9.  Dave Beversdorf – 14 pts
10. John Wilmot & Randy Smith – 13 pts

Overall the participation was OUTSTANDING in the postal meets this year.  A record 26 lifters took part (24 men and 2 women).  Three lifters need special recognition for participating in ALL FOUR meets: Orie Barnett, Denny Habecker, and John Wilmot. The first quarterly postal meet (Eastern Open) drew the most participation of any postal meet to date – 19 competitors!

There are no awards for the final postal series standings.  Postal Meet Director John Wilmot sends certificates to the winners of the individual postal meets, but the series ranking is just an accumulation of the results from the individual meets and does not have awards.  This year at the National Meeting I am going to ask the membership to allocated some funds to the Awards Program to at least send out some small awards to the Postal Series Best Lifters.  I think having some awards for the “final standings” would provide a nice “closing touch” to a our great postal program within the USAWA.

Making Your Weight Training “All-Around”

by Jarrod Fobes

Dean Ross performing an Index Fingers Deadlift at the 2012 USAWA Grip Championships. This is one of the many variations of deadlifts within the USAWA that could be done as a "warm up" prior to a heavy deadlift training session.

Let me start off by saying that I am very new to the sport of weightlifting, and in that regard my opinions on how weight training should be done don’t count for squat. But I am a long time athlete and coach, and I do know a thing or two about creating an effective training program. So I thought I would share how I have been incorporating all-around lifting into my overall strength training, and see what the athletes of USAWA think.

Initially I tried training two days a week; one day of Olympic lifting and one day training whatever all-around lifts I was most interested in at the time. This didn’t work because if I had to miss a day of lifting, I either had to sacrifice my beloved all-around lifts, or miss out on some desperately needed Olympic practice. Also, my all-around sessions tended to focus on the lifts I was good at, rather than the lifts I needed to do. I needed to find a way to make sure I got a good full body workout on either day.

The general program I settled on is nothing revolutionary or even particularly intense: one or two full-body workouts a week, three or four lifts, each one for three or four sets of heavy singles, doubles, or triples. I pyramid up each set. I realize this is a pretty inexact scheme, but between teaching four martial arts classes a week and holding a physical job, I have to be able to vary the intensity based on how rested and ready I am. What is not inexact is my record-keeping. I think it’s important to diligently record the weight lifted each workout, regardless of whether it was a PR day or not.

With such a necessarily limited workout, it’s pretty hard to train the nearly 200 lifts included in the USAWA. So I’ve started “stealing” sets from the core lifts. For instance instead of doing four sets of Clean & Jerks, I might warm up with a set of Miller C&J. While this is a tough finger lift, it’s just a warm up for the back, leg, and shoulder muscles. Afterwards, I’ll struggle through a couple sets of Clean & Jerks, going up in weight if I feel my technique has improved enough. Then I’ll do one or two sets of an all-around lift that trains muscles or movement similar to the clean & jerk. If I’m sore and tired that day, I’ll pick something I’m not very good at (like One-Arm C&J, Judd C&J, etc) and focus on technique. If I’m feeling strong, I’ll pick one of my better lifts like the Turkish-Get Up and really try to push weight. Not only do the all-around lifts function as assistance exercises to the core lift, but the strength and technique gained from the core lift helps the all-around training too!

I bet there are a ton of creative ways to get some all-around practice in during your training, and I’d love to see some follow-up stories from veterans as well as other beginners.

LESSONS

BY DAVE GLASGOW

WILBUR MILLER TRAINED ALL-ROUND LIFTS ALONG WITH OLYMPIC LIFTS AND POWER LIFTS.

I DON’T SUPPOSE THERE IS ONE OF US THAT, AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, DON’T THINK, “GEE, IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN THAT BACK WHEN….” OR “I SURE WISH I WAS YOUNGER.”  FOLLOWING MY WORKOUT LAST EVENING, I HAD SUCH A MOMENT.  YOU SEE, WHEN I FIRST STARTED LIFTING, IN THE LATE ‘60s, EARLY ‘70s, POWER LIFTING WAS MAKING A BIG ENTRANCE.  BY THE TIME I LEFT COLLEGE IN THE MID ‘70s, IT WAS KING.  FOR STRENGTH ATHLETES, IT WAS POWERLIFTING AND THE REST BE DAMNED.  OR SO I THOUGHT…  THIS IS WHERE THE LESSON SHOULD HAVE STARTED, BUT WAS LOST IN THE TRANSLATION.  THIS WAS ESPECIALLY TRUE TO ME, A KID IN HIS EARLY 20s., AND NOT A BIT ‘HEAD STRONG’ , I MIGHT ADD.

IN AN ATTEMPT TO ‘EDUCATE’ MYSELF, I SUBSCRIBED TO ‘IRONMAN’ MAGAZINE.   THOSE OF YOU IN MY AGE GROUP WILL REMEMBER PERRY AND MABLE RADER AND THE VERY, EXCELLENT PUBLICATION THEY PUT OUT.  (TO MY MIND, THIS MONTHLY CHRONCILE HAS YET TO BE MATCHED.  YES, I UNDERSTAND THIS IS GOING TO START A RIFF; HOWEVER, THAT IS MY OPINION.  THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MORE DIVERSIFIED AND UNBIASED MAGAZINE, BEFORE OR SINCE.)  I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER PASSING OVER THE OLD TIME STRONGMAN ARTICLES, SKIMMING THE OLY LIFT STORIES AND INSTRUCTIONAL ADVICE TO GET TO THE POWERLIFTING SECTION. WHAT WERE THESE OLD GUYS FROM THE TURN OF THE CENTURY GOING TO TEACH ME?  HOW COULD OLY LIFTING POSSIBLY HELP ME?  I CAN ONLY SHAKE MY HEAD, NOW. WHAT A MISTAKE!!  I HAD ALL THE INFORMATION I NEEDED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME BUT I CHOSE TO TOTALLY DISREGARD IT.  ALL THAT WAS IMPORTANT WAS A BIG BENCH PRESS.  ‘WHAT CAN YA  BENCH??’, WAS THE COMMON PHRASE BACK THEN.  AS I KNOW NOW, THE CATCH PHRASE SHOULD HAVE BEEN, ‘WHAT CAN YA SQUAT OR DEADLIFT??’

THE MORE I GET INVOLVED IN THE USAWA, THE MORE I REALIZE THAT I, TOTALLY, MISSED THE BOAT.  THERE ARE SO MANY LIFTS THAT INVOLVE STRENGTH, ATHLETICISM AND POWER THAT IF ONE BECOMES ‘STALE’, IT WOULD CERTAINLY BE THE FAULT OF THE TRAINEE FOR NOT IMPLEMENTING THESE MIRIADE OF LIFTS.  IT JUST STANDS TO REASON THAT AN INCREASE IN OVERALL BODY STRENGTH WILL ONLY INCREASE THE ABILITY TO PERFORM ANY OTHER LIFT TO A HIGHER DEGREE.  HOW CAN ONE GO WRONG DOING SNATCHES, CLEANS, OVERHEAD PRESSES (WHICH I TOTALLY AVOIDED IN MY IGNORANCE), ONE HANDED LIFTS, DUMBBELL WORK…….MY GOD, THE LIST IS ENDLESS.  FROM TIME TO TIME, I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY SOMEONE TO SET UP A ‘PROGRAM’ FOR THEM.  WHILE I AM ALWAYS QUICK TO HELP, I HAVE GOTTEN INTO THE HABIT OF TELLING THE INDIVIDUAL TO DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH AND GET BACK WITH ME.  IT IS AT THIS TIME THAT I WILL TELL MY OWN STORY AND STRONGLY ENCOURAGE THAT PERSON TO MAKE HIS WORKOUTS WELL ‘ROUNDED’ AND DYNAMIC.  I NEVER FAIL TO CAUTION THEM TO BE CAREFUL THEY DON’T FALL IN THE SAME RUT I DID.

MAYBE THOSE ‘OLD TIMERS’ HAD SOME LESSONS TO TEACH, AFTER ALL!!

USAWA: The First Year

by Al Myers

Steve Schmidt, of Clark's Gym, was the first member of the USAWA.

This is a big year for the USAWA. It is our 25th ANNIVERSARY of being an organization. I got wondering the other day, “just when was the official beginning day of the USAWA?”. I had a general idea of when this was, but not for sure on an actual date (if there even was one). So I did some research and now I’m going to share what I found out with everyone. The “FIRSTS” are always noteworthy. Here it goes, and I’m going to try to stay on a timeline.

November 29th, 1986

Bill Clark met with several lifters from England in Grimsby, England to “draw up the final plans” of the IAWA. There had been previous meetings, but this was the date the final, BIG DECISIONS were made. The USAWA origins correlates directly with the creation of the IAWA (which will be the topic someday of ANOTHER STORY. I will try to keep on track here.). The constitution and bylaws of the IAWA were approved, which were the basis of the original USAWA bylaws. On this day it was decided that each individual country involved with the IAWA would form their own governing body. Also, the Rules of the original 110 lifts were decided upon.

January 1st, 1987

The first USAWA officers took office. These officers were appointed (by Bill I assume) at the November 29th meeting. This included Jon Carr of Missouri as President and Joe McCoy of Texas as Registrar and Record Keeper.

July 1st, 1987

The USAWA began collecting memberships. Dues were $12, of which $6 went to the USAWA bank account and the remaining $6 went into an IAWA bank account. Club dues were set at $10 and sanction fees set at $10 (which are the SAME FEES we charge today!!!). Steve Schmidt was the first person to buy a membership card in the USAWA.

September 20th, 1987

The first sanctioned USAWA event was held in Clarks Gym. Steve Schmidt put on a solo exhibition of lifts. He did a 2450# Hip Lift, 405# Neck Lift, 3205# Harness Lift, 1125# Hand and Thigh, and a 270# Wrestlers Bridge Pullover and Press. Steve’s Bridged Pullover and Press is still in the Record List, and is the oldest record in the current Record List. This sanctioned event would also make Steve the first USAWA member to officially do a lift in the USAWA.

July 9-10th, 1988

The FIRST EVER USAWA National Championships were held in Plymouth Meeting, PA. John Vernacchio was the meet director. The meet’s best lifter was Steve Schmidt, followed by Phil Anderson, Joe Garcia, John Vernacchio, and John McKean. The Team Champion was John’s club, the Valley Forge Club.

Bill Clark began publishing THE STRENGTH JOURNAL in the fall of 1989, which covered all the news of the USAWA. Bill continued this until 2009, and throughout the years “turned out” over 150 issues. This publication was the “backbone” of the organization for years. All of this research came from old Strength Journals. As I said earlier, this year will MARK the 25th USAWA National Championships held. That is why we are going “big time” and having our National Meet in Las Vegas this year. I plan to have several awards to present to recognize those that have been involved with the USAWA since the beginning.

But back to my original question – Just when did the USAWA officially start? I’m going to say July 1st, 1987 as that was the day the USAWA was officially “open for business” and collecting memberships. Also I like that day because it is the same time most of us will be in Vegas, so that we can celebrate this special day the way it should be celebrated.

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