Author Archives: Al Myers

Training with Friends

by Al Myers

Thom and I lifting the previous "unliftable" Combine Axle on a Tuesday night workout.

I am very fortunate by having great training partners.   We may only all train together as a full group a couple of times per week, but these are the days I look forward to the most.   A good training partner will bring out the best in you (and vice versa a bad training partner will pull you down), because during the workout you don’t want to let them down by giving nothing but your best effort.  I do several of my weekly workouts by myself, and I can tell you from experience, when “things are going good” you can have great workouts by yourself, it is just on those days that you are not feeling in top form that your workouts will suffer when training by yourself.  The Dino Gym is a family – we support each other even when one of us is not having our best day, and usually before the workout is over, the workout takes a turn for the better and this lifter ends up having a great workout.  This is what good training partners should do – help one another and in turn get that extra encouragement back when needed.  Often when one of us is getting ready for a big lift or set, everyone will stop lifting and just spend all our energy supporting the lifter on the platform.  I get “a rush” when someone else gets a big lift or personal record, just as if I had done it myself!

This past week I got to work out with my good friend Thom Van Vleck.  Thom and I only get to train together once or twice per year because Thom lives 8 hours from me (he says it is only 6 hours, but I don’t believe him).  We put aside our rival gym differences when training together, and ALWAYS have a great workout.  Just recently I acquired a very large combine axle with a solid shaft of over 3.5 inches.  My father found it in his scrape iron pile and  brought it down to me using his front end loader tractor, and dumped it in front of the gym.  It was much larger than what I had imagined, and I  knew that it would beyond what any normal man could lift, so I didn’t even weigh it.  I “guessed” it to be in the 800-1200# range based on the strain it was putting on the loader when it was set down.   Several gym guys have looked at it, including many strongman who showed up for my strongman competition a couple of weeks ago.  You KNOW it must have been an intimidating sight because it was in front of the gym for 3 weeks and NOT ONCE did anyone put their hands on it, or try to lift it.  When Thom and I started our workout, I TOLD Thom that we were going to lift that HUGE combine axle tonight, as a joint 2 man team.  I was trying to portray confidence that we could do it, but secretly I had my doubts (especially with his end, haha).  On top of the weight, the grip was going to be problem.  Thom agreed (because he knew I would not let him forget about wimping out if he didn’t).  We warmed up with some heavy Trap Bar Deadlifts, and then took our shot at being the first to lift what seemed previously like an unliftable object.  Relief soon rushed though our muscles as it came to lockout without an overdose of strain on either of our parts. 

Experiences and memories like this is what has me “hooked” on weight training.  So there is my advice of the day – enjoy your workouts, enjoy your training partners, and take the time to test your strength in unusual ways.  And THAT is what it should be all about!

Rulebook 5th Edition Now Available

by Al Myers

The USAWA Rulebook 5 Edition

The 5th Edition USAWA Rulebook is now available on the website.  As voted on by the membership at the 2011 AGM, the new rulebook became effective August 1st.  The Rulebook is free to download from the website.  I do want to warn you that the Rulebook file is a large one (over 4MB in a pdf) and may take a while to download depending on your connection speed.  It contains over 80 pictures of various lifts, with most of them in color.  I will have the Rulebook available in a bound hard copy if anyone wants to order one.  Just email me at amyers@usawa.com if you prefer it this way.  I plan to go to the printer shop at the end of the month, so that is the deadline.  I don’t have a cost yet for it, but plan to just “take orders” and sell it at the price it takes to get printed.  The price depends mostly on whether or not I have it printed with color.  Black and white is the cheapest way to go (which I had done last year) and the price will be in the $30 range.  Color print will at least double this.  I also have the summary of the 2011 Rulebook changes/additions/substractions posted on the website so if you already have a prior Rulebook and just want to print off those pages to add as a “loose leaf” addition, that might be a good way to go as well.   I also have the 2010 Rulebook changes posted.  All the new approved lifts this year are included in the Rulebook Changes file.  The Rulebook was completely overhauled in the Third Edition so you will want to have at least that edition to be somewhat current.

New Official – Judy Habecker

by Al Myers

Judy Habecker performing a Ciavattone Grip Deadlift at the 2010 Gold Cup in Walpole, MA.

I just received word from the USAWA Official’s Director Joe Garcia that Judy Habecker has passed the USAWA Rules Exam and is now a Level 1 Test Qualified USAWA Official.   I just placed Judy’s name on our ever growing list of officials.   I now feel sorry for the lifters in Habeckers Gym, because with Judy in the chair there won’t be any “shoddy” lifts passed. When I was sitting by Judy at our past USAWA Nationals (I was the announcer and she was the scorekeeper), it was obvious to me that Judy had a keen sense of the rules.  She ALWAYS KNEW what the infraction was when a lift wasn’t passed.  A few times she felt that certain shouldn’t have been passed!  (and a couple of times it was when her husband Denny was lifting! haha).  Like I said already, I now feel sorry for the lifters in Habeckers Gym!    I know Judy will make a great judge, and all I can say is IT IS ABOUT TIME she became an USAWA official!  There has been some confusion in the past with the thinking you must be a competitive lifter to be an official.  This is just not true.  There is NOTHING in our rules or bylaws saying this must be the case.  I’m not inferring that Judy is not a competitive lifter either – she often makes a least one appearance to the platform every year. She has USAWA records dating back to 2001, and is the holder of 30 USAWA Records.  She is most proud of her 304 pound 12″ base deadlift done at the 2005 Gold Cup in Hawaii. 

Congratulations Judy!

Welcome to the Century Club Chad and Rudy!

by Al Myers

Chad Ullom "in action" at the Ledaig Record Breakers last weekend. Chad is the only lifter in the Century Club that has done ALL of his USAWA records in the Senior Division.

I predicted this would happen this summer as Chad Ullom and Rudy Bletscher have been “knocking on the door” of joining the Century Club.  The Century Club is a club that recognizes the elite group of USAWA  lifters that CURRENTLY hold over 100 USAWA Records.  However, it didn’t happen exactly as I thought it would.  I predicted it would take place last weekend at Dave’s Ledaig Record Breaker.  This was the case for Chad but not for Rudy.  Rudy was not able to attend.   At the time, I thought it would take another day for him to make this milestone accomplishment (and a little more effort after watching Rudy’s nemesis Mike Murdock take down a couple of Rudy’s records at the Ledaig Record Breaker), but I forgot at the time that at the 2011 Annual General Meeting of the USAWA in June it was voted and passed by the membership to retroactively implement the records set at the 2011 Dino Gym Old-Time Strongman Challenge since the lifts in that competition were approved as new USAWA lifts at the meeting.  So Rudy is IN on his prior performances!  Chad knocked down several new records at the Ledaig Record Breakers putting him in as well.  We celebrated this accomplishment after he broke the USAWA Record in the Snatch on the Knees with a lift of 135 pounds. Coincidentally, both these lifters now stand at 107  USAWA records, which put them at a tie at the number 19 spot out of 21 lifters in the club.  Chad is the only lifter on the list that has done ALL of his records competing in the Senior Division (which makes him only eligible for OVERALL RECORDS).  This makes his accomplishment all that more impressive.  If you are in the Junior Division or Masters Division you have the opportunity to “double dip” on records, which means you may set or break an age group record and an overall record with the same lift.  This helps tremendously with “padding” your record count number.  I counted back through the USAWA Record list and Chad’s sits NUMBER TWO in OVERALL RECORDS (not age group records)  with his 107 (and all I will say about the guy at number 1 is that he has 141 overall records, and Chad knows him quite well as he is his training partner! ). 

There are several other lifters close to joining the Century Club that I’m keeping an eye on.  But just because you get in the club doesn’t mean that you can “sit back” and revel in your accomplishment, and spend too much time “patting yourself on the back”, because if others break enough of your records you can fall out of it.  This has happened (and it bothers me to see it) to a couple of legendary lifters in the USAWA recently, so you must keep up your involvement in the USAWA to “maintain your spot” in the Century Club.  Congratulations to Rudy and Chad – I’m very proud of both of you two, and you deserve this recognition.

Glute Ham Machine

by Al Myers

Dino Gym member Bryce Meuli performing a Glute Ham Raise.

After my recent Daily News stories on the Roman Chair, I alluded to a similar (but much different) machine called the Glute Ham Machine (or also Glute Ham Developer, or the old name of Calf-Ham-Glute Machine).   There is often confusion between the Roman Chair and the GH Machine, and I have heard lifters interchange the naming of these two distinct different apparatuses.  First of all to me, they look NOTHING the same.  And secondly, the muscles they work are completely different.  The internet is loaded with information on  GH Machines.  There are many manufacturers of them – some better than others.  The price tag for a good GH Machine runs from around $300 to over $1000.  (there’s another difference – Roman Chairs are MUCH CHEAPER!).  Most commercial gyms have a GH Machine, and the new age fitness crowd loves them.  They are very popular with powerlifters and Olympic lifters as well.  Dave Tate and Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell have done their part in promoting the GH Machine, embracing the many strength benefits the GH Machine offers.

The Dino Gym's homemade Glute Ham Machine.

As I said, the GH Machine works entirely different muscles than the Roman Chair.  The Roman Chair primarily focuses on the abdominal muscles and the lower back, whereas the GH Machine focuses on the “posterior chain” muscles, ie the calves, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles.  I really feel the hamstrings are the most undertrained muscle in most strength athletes training program.  Competitive lifters place most of their training emphasis on the front quads (in form of squats) and neglect the ever important opposing hamstring muscles.   In my early days of training I thought just doing a few high rep sets of leg curls at the end of my leg workout would suffice, but I learned the hard lesson with suffering a few hamstring muscle tears as a result of heavy deadlifts which proved to me that my hamstrings where indeed not trained adequately, and lagged in opposing strength.  The hamstring muscles are a fast twitch muscle and needs to be trained with low reps, not high reps.  Plus leg curls neglect the upper hamstrings which serve as a primary hip extensor.  Louie Simmons knew this before anyone else, and that is why his “secret training programs” always included hamstring exercises like the GH Raises (as well as other things like Reverse Hyper exercises and weighted drags) to strengthen this typical “weak spot” in competitive lifters.  The most common exercise done on a GH Machine is the Glute Ham Raise.  I don’t have enough time in this story to describe how to do this exercise – just do an internet search and you will find TONS of descriptions on how to do this exercise as well as YouTube Videos demonstrating the GH Raise. 

Bryce performs a Back Extension on the Glute Ham Machine. The Back Extension is an Official USAWA Lift.

There is one detail in a good GH Machine that needs mentioned.  It should contain a knee pad that keeps the knees from “dropping” at the top end of the GH Raise. I have seen several commercial GH machines that don’t have this on them.   Also make sure the GH Machine adjusts adequately so each lifter can get the right settings to allow for  a GH Raise to be done correctly.   Another very important distinction between a GH Machine and a Hyperextension Machine is that the “pivot” should be at the knees for a GH Raise, instead of the waist as when using a Hyperextension Machine.  The body should remain straight from the knees up when performing a GH Raise.  My GH Machine can adjust so it can also be used to do Back Hyperextensions.  The Back Extension is an Official USAWA lift, but this lift has not been contested very often.  It is a tremendous lower back exercise.  The main difference between a GH Raise and a Back Extension is that you bend at the waist when performing Back Extensions, and the stress of the exercise is on the lower back.  

GH Raises are a difficult exercise for heavier lifters who carry alot of weight in their upper body.  I use my harness “walker” as a safety device in front of me when I do GH Raises.  I do this so if I have problems on my last reps, I can push off the walker with my arms to finish the rep.  GH Raises are one of my THREE FAVORITE hamstring exercises (and leg curls is not on my list!).   You will feel the entire range of the hamstring muscle engaged (from the  knees to the hips) with GH Raises, and afterwards you will feel the effects of your training in your ENTIRE hamstring.  I also want to mention that  GH Raises are a great exercise for young lifters who want to increase their vertical leap.  The muscles of the hamstrings and calves are the biggest players in leaping ability, and this exercise focuses intently on these important leaping muscles.   I don’t normally use added resistance when doing GH Raises, but it can be done easily with holding a plate on the chest.  I feel the best rep ranges are between 5 and 8 repetitions with the GH Raise.  If you have access to a GH Machine, give this exercise a try!

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