[dwagman]

Hi Lance,

Sorry for the delayed reply. As you might recall from previous posts/blogs, I’m off the grid and only get to town and on the Web about once/wk.

Please note that this is the first study that looked at a potential link between grip strength and suicidal thoughts. As such, the researchers’ objective was to only establish if a link existed and if so, what that link might look like. Establishing a correlation is a good first step and they didn’t perform any additional analyses. Now that we know there is a link, future research will likely try to ascertain more detail regarding the strength of the link, the direction thereof, etc.

As to your correlation comment, although you are correct in that correlation does not prove causation, it also does not disprove causation. Once again, that’s where future research will be able to provide more detail.

I hope you recovered well from your “Worlds Incident” in the pull-over and push. That lift is one that has frustrated me greatly, even though I was able to clock a 20-some pound gain over Worlds in 2012. But after watching you and some of the other guys and your difficulties, I have to admit that my issues with that lift are piddly in comparison. Good grief…

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

John, thoughtful questions. In the acquisition of lifting skill and strength for any particular lift, at any age, you notice relatively quick gains in performance/strength early on, then gains take longer to acquire. This, research has demonstrated, is seen equally in people in their 20’s and 80’s. It is initially due to your nervous system learning how to execute the lift and as a result your muscles contracting with greater, well, “synchronicity.” So the initial gains that you see, starting in week one and over about the first month to six weeks or so (which also depends on the complexity of the lift), are largely not due to true muscle strength. The muscle strength contribution comes afterwards and then continues with proper training strategies for decades to come. Therefore, there really is no continuous learning or experience curve in executing a particular lift that would mask any losses in strength, whatever a given loss may be due to.

So as you lift a weight the neuromuscular system is doing two main things at the same time; 1. it’s generating a certain amount of force (i.e., strength) and 2. a certain amount of speed at which the weight moves. Of these two aspects of lifting a weight, scientists have found that for older people (roughly 70’s) the generation of impulse (speed) becomes less while being able to generate force remains for much, much longer. This happens, however, many decades after turning 40 (when USAWA’s age correction formula takes effect) and is heavily influenced by the person’s training status, among other things. Put another way, if you’re not particularly well trained in your mid-60’s or so, you might demonstrate in the laboratory setting a reduction in impulse generation. But if you’ve spent nearly a lifetime training in a scientific manner then the loss of impulse development would turn up much, much later. From a practical perspective—e.g., how much weight you can actually snatch—that age-related loss in impulse is hard to measure in kg’s, you really need the laboratory for that to see it.

Well, time to head back up the mountain….

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Yes Al, numbers in kg and remember, these numbers represent AVERAGES of ALL lifters across ALL weight classes and equipped and unequipped TOGETHER. The data represent a total of 648 meets, there were 47,913 total participants with 21,953 individual participants, 6,038 of which were female.

Please bear in mind the OVERALL findings, then also consider that there are differences in average weights lifted by lift and then, of course, that in doing the statistical analysis those differences in numbers didn’t add up to anything significant (except for the women’s sq). So whatever percentage someone would want to apply to an age formula would be fictional because the actual differences don’t amount to anything significant.

Now, admittedly, there is a difference between statistical significance and meaningfulness. Statistical significance is based on irrefutable math; meaningfulness is what you and I might personally attach to the numbers. Therefore, say the actual change in strength between a 25-year old and a 45-year old is a 2.5% loss and it’s statistically insignificant. I would go with that and attach no meaning to the strength loss. You, however, might consider that personally meaningful. I cannot argue your personal feelings on that, only that regardless of the meaning you attach to the %-age, it still remains mathematically insignificant. For that reason, if that 2.5% change in being 25 or 45 years old would be used as part of a formula, I would have to argue that the formula is based on fiction. Another consideration is that USAWA considers a 1% drop in performance per year of chronological age. Like I mentioned earlier, how could one accurately draw that conclusion based on this particular data (not to mention the physiological data that doesn’t support that concept)? Let’s just look at the men…

Consider the 24-39 age category to be the “strong” ones because common thinking tells us this. Thus male sq is 193 and represents 100%, which means that the 190 the 40-49 age group squats is about 2% less. This 2% difference applies to averages over 15 and 9 year differences in age, respectively. How would one come up with a 1% drop in performance per year after 40? The drop in performance between 40-49 and 50-59 is at roughly 4%. Again, how can one conclude from that, that a guy who turned 52 will squat 1% less than he did when he was 51? And of course it would be impossible to generalize that his entire strength performance across all lifts would drop by 1%.

But that’s just for the squat. Consider that in the bench press the age argument doesn’t even hold true as the 40-49 group actually benched nearly 4% more than the 24-39 group. So at this point not only does the “percent by year” argument fall apart, but so does the base argument that age made a difference at all. CLEARLY, something other than a chronological age effect must be contributing to these numbers (which ONLY apply to USAPL and ONLY for the years investigated).

I could go on with this from a mathematical/statistical/research perspective but to be frank, I lay much more stock in the exercise physiology research that addresses physiological changes due to aging and the effect that bending barbells might have on ameliorating any aging effects (which adds additional power to the argument that the age-adjustment-formula is fictional because from a physiological perspective drops in performance cannot be supported until much higher ages than 40). But again, don’t forget that we’re talking about averages. This means that there are certain lifters that are actually lifting more weight as they age while others might indeed be lifting less. But for those that lift less, what is that due to? Clearly it’s not chronological age. Could it not be due to time in sport, losing motivation, a chronic injury, getting fat and nonathletic, poor diet and life-style practices are catching up, the training regimens are less than effective, stressful life/career events, etc., etc., etc, and a combination of any or all of this?

Any way you cut it, you simply cannot attach a cause and effect relationship to losses in strength performance and chronological age, at least not until decades after 40…just because there’s a direct positive correlation between amount of rainfall and ice cream consumption in Indonesia, that doesn’t mean rainfall causes Indonesians to eat more ice cream. So let’s just be honest about this—not that whoever came up with the age-adjustment-formula was being dishonest…he/she was most certainly trying to do something good based on commonly held beliefs—but isn’t it really done in an effort to allow people of different ages to remain competitive and to give them an opportunity to feel good? And isn’t it also true that if you can rationalize that your one-armed deadlift is now at 42 25-pounds less than it was when you were 28 is due to being almost 15 years older, you hold little if any personal responsibility for that loss in strength performance? So at the end of the day, what any argumentation about the effects of age on strength performance accomplishes is fogging up reality…and sometimes the truth can hurt and pointing out reality is taken as insulting by some….

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, you lucky meathead, I’m actually in civilization right now…darnit!

This study didn’t look at it in that way and didn’t provide percentages. What they did is take all of the publicly available USAPL meet results and simply analyzed it in different regards. As it relates to age they looked at all of the USAPL age categories, with some adjustments, and how male and female lifters performed in the equipped and raw divisions by each lift.

OVERALL—meaning equipped and raw numbers, regardless of weight class or gender—what the study found is that the weight lifted for men and women doesn’t differ significantly between the ages of 24 to 49. When looking at the differences in amount of weight lifted by lift, the only lift that showed a notable change with age was the squat for the women. Here’s how that broke down:

Age Average Weight
19-23 111
24-39 108
40-49 101
50-59 90

Compare that to the men:

Age Average Weight
19-23 193
24-39 193
40-49 190
50-59 183

One more example, since it’s a very popular lift, the numbers for the bench press in men are as follows:

Age Average Weight
19-23 128
24-39 133
40-49 138
50-59 130

Oh, heck, here ya go, the men’s deadlift looked like this:

Age Average Weight
19-23 218
24-39 228
40-49 220
50-59 208

So Al, if you want to look at percentages, how do you do that? Do you take the most weight lifted in an age category and a given lift and look at the difference in age categories that lifted less for that particular lift to come up with a percentage? How do you determine how much strength they gained/lost on a year-by-year basis when the time-frame is 4, 5, 9, and 9 years? And there are more problems than just that….

What I really wanted to accomplish in sharing this data is to show that even if you don’t look at age-specific physiological changes in strength via a bunch of peer-reviewed hardcore research, if you instead go directly to the published results from competitions, lifters will see that the commonly held beliefs about age and strength performance just don’t hold true (at least not until a much higher than commonly thought age).

So we’re back to the same ol’ thing…the formula that USAWA uses is fictional (not that the age classifications and formulas used by other strength sport organizations aren’t fictional as well…don’t want it to look like I’m just picking on USAWA) and arbitrary. How, then, could it possibly be fair? And isn’t sport principally supposed to be governed by fairness (among other things)?

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

ET, I argue with you guys based on scientific findings because I’d like to see y’all perform better, regardless of your age. I’m sorry you find that tiring. At the risk of tiring you even further, let me repeat a quote from the astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “Science is true whether or not you believe in it.” At the end of the day, though, your rejection of scientific results only hurts your performance and you’ll never know how strong you could really be. So any personal attacks on me for telling it the way it is are of no consequence.

DENNY, you raise a great point. At the time when Saxon wrote his book, or Louis Abele, or several others, it was nearly impossible for them to know what was going on in terms of exercise science, a field that actually didn’t exist back then. They’d have to go to the Library of Congress and look up Ben Franklin’s writings to know that he was one of the first individuals in America to talk about dumbbell training, how training intensity is more important than volume, and what he called the “quantum” of exercise (in a letter to his son, Aug. 19, 1772). Not until 1932 did John Capretta from Ohio State Univ. look into the commonly held belief that large muscles make you muscle-bound, something I’m pretty sure ol’ Ben would’ve laughed at, but then again, even 150 years ago he was smarter than all of us 21st century men put together. In 1961 Bringham Young Univ. researcher Vermon Barney looked at three different training programs in a controlled experiment to find out which one was best. In 1962 Richard Berger from Texas Technological Clg. looked at what the optimum number of repetitions might be. That particular work was expanded upon over the decades until my Editor was able to perform a meta-analysis on all of the studies ever done on that topic to come up with the proverbial bottom line; we published his findings in Journal of Pure Power after they appeared in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

I’m sharing this with you because the history of weight training research goes way back, but like you said, until the advent of the Internet getting a hold of this information was nearly impossible unless you had access to a university library. All you were left with were muscle mags that were purely based on conjecture. But today, it’s very, very different…and still difficult in different ways. First, here are some tips:

A good starting point are the American College of Sports Medicine Position Stands. Click on the one that you find interesting and don’t forget to look at the references for research the Position Stand was based on. This is not, however, necessarily easy reading, even though the language is generally for non-scientists. Click here: https://www.acsm.org/acsm-positions-policy/official-positions/ACSM-position-stands

Another good resource is PubMed. At the top of the page type in your search term. When the results appear, on the left side you can modify the search parameters. This will give you access to only peer-reviewed research and the abstracts/summaries of those studies, although for some of them you can also download the entire study for free (it’l tell you). I do have to tell you, though, that only going off the summary of the research can be a dangerous proposition as you’ll miss out on a lot of important information contained in the study itself. But it’s a start. Click here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

But my second point would be that there’s a definite downside to the Internet in terms of every self-proclaimed guru being able to publish his/her nonsense for the world to see. And some of them are really good at doing this which makes it very difficult to weed out the gem from the chaff. I remember one guy who made a video about a science-based injury testing method. He took you through it really well. But I had never heard of this approach. So I looked it up and found the researcher’s original work on developing these tests. The researcher outlined in detail what the testing approach was for and how to execute it properly. The guru misapplied the tests in their entirety, rendering the whole thing he did utterly worthless. But the moron made himself sound really professional and smart—to the peril of those who listen to him.

LANCE, I’m not sure I completely understand your question. Let me have a stab at it. In terms of scientific principles for weight training, that’s a question that people spend years in graduate school to learn about. No easy answers. Suffice to say, in an effort to continue to make gains into high age, it’s important to manipulate all training variables—not just volume and intensity—over time in an effort to allow for maximized adaptation. How to do that, however, depends on many variables such as, and not limited to, a person’s goals, what they’ve done in the past, what injuries they may have sustained, what life limitations they might have (work hours, taking care of rug rats…), etc. As the research advanced from the first look into what the optimum number of reps might be, scientists learned that different variables can contribute to what the correct answer is. It takes a deep understanding of exercise physiology and sport psychology to be able to be targeted and effective in providing an answer. So if someone tells you, “Lance, for grip work, do this…”, you couldn’t go wrong with rejecting the advice.

Regarding aging, there is some work that has been done longitudinally. But it’s very difficult to draw conclusions based on those findings because there are a lot of confounding variables to consider, not to mention to what degree YOU match the status of the subjects. As an example, while in the weight room you can only get injured due to one or a combination of the three reasons I listed in my first post, you could also suffer a rotator cuff tear from tripping over a dumbbell and landing on your shoulder. How do you account for that? You’d probably agree that when this or something simlar happens, maybe equipment failure, that doesn’t mean “weight training is dangerous.” So the progression of research into aging and strength is mainly not longitudinal and also didn’t start to take off until the 1980’s. Basically researchers had a pretty good idea of how the neuromuscular system works and what it looks like. But then, based on common beliefs the population holds, they started to ask, “What’s the difference in muscle, if any, in older people compared to young ones?” A study titled “What is the cause of aging atrophy?” from 1988 is fascinating to me. But then the research continued to advance and build upon itself to the point where researchers would then ask, “What effect does lifting weights have on aging muscle?” And many more research-based answers to commonly held beliefs have been offered. Look at recovery, as an example. How many times have you heard from guys in the gym, “I just can’t recover the way I used to.” It’s a common belief in weight lifters that as you age your recovery abilities decline. So in 2017 a study looked at the differences in recovery from pumping iron between young (early 20’s) and middle-aged guys (late 40’s). Bottom line—no difference. And consider that this study was done with high-volume isokinetic exercise. High volume was done to seriously stress the subjects and an isokinetic exercise was done because it’s easy to have each subject perform the exercise exactly the same way. So although this was done “in the lab,” it’s far more predictive than what you would be able to learn from a ”gym” study because they controlled for confounding variables, etc.

So you see, rather than being offended by what I stated earlier, it should be considered as a valuable tip when I state that if you experience injuries from training, or if you find yourself being 40 and weaker than you were when you were 27, it’s a solid indicator that your training approach is the culprit.

I hope I was able to address y’alls questions adequately.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

The problem is that age corrections are based on fiction.

The first fictitious line of reasoning is that as people age, they get weaker. A boat-load of studies into this area shows us that this concept doesn’t hold true until one reaches the mid-60’s or so, which is mediated by various different things, predominantly how one has trained. As a matter of fact, the rate of strength gains in untrained young people (20’s) compared to older untrained people (70’s) is the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah, several of you are going to think of your own, personal experiences, where over the years/decades you’ve lost strength. But at the risk of offending some of you, the reason you’ve experienced that is because you didn’t train based on scientific principles (like the subjects in all of those studies), rather myth and conjecture. This has resulted in your training taking a toll on your body, which has nothing to do with chronological age. And whatever injuries you’ve experienced that set you back are also due to poor training practices. Increases in chronological age do not cause ANY pathologies and injuries in weight training are only caused by doing too much too soon, poor technique, and being overtrained.

The second fictitious line of reasoning is that it’s fair and accurate to use the formula to compare an older lifter’s total to that of a younger lifter’s. It would only be fair if the formula was based on factual thinking. First, since there’s no difference in the amount of strength a 25-year old can demonstrate compared to a 55-year old, there can’t be any accuracy in the math generated to provide age corrections. And this leads into the next problem, which is the math for the corrections is not only based on fictitious physiological thinking, but also mathematical fiction, which, by definition, would lack accuracy.

In the end, applying the age corrections results in unfair competition…you might as well tell ET that because he’s younger than Al he has to break parallel in the squat but Al only needs to “approach” parallel–whatever that’s supposed to mean (ambiguity added purposely because, well, the whole thing is just nonsense). After all, common thinking holds that when you squat less deep, it’s better for your knees. Of course science tells us the exact opposite, that shearing forces upon the knees are greater in a partial squat than a full squat. And now I’m starting to sound like a broken record (remember those?)…

I’m in a bad mood now. This nonsense raises my blood pressure. I’m going to go train…and with any luck, since I’m older today than I was yesterday, the raised blood pressure won’t explode my heart….

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, I feel as though I owe you an apology for starting this thread…

My previous post was submitted yesterday prior to training. Throughout my training I had a chance to think about all of this a bit more. It came to mind that perhaps Al isn’t arguing against progressive steps for the organization based on reason—after all there’s no rational argument to be had against making voting easier in a democratic organization—but rather based on one simple fact: Al’s the only one who contributes to the organization in a consistent and in-depth manner.

How much more is this one person supposed to take on?

How much more can this one person take on?

The truth is that even if the majority of members would be for increasing the ease by which one can vote, who’s gonna get it done? AL! So I have to admit that now I almost regret bringing this up.

Since ET brought up his reluctance to “knock on doors,” I’ll be unavailable, too. I’m in the process of going off-the-grid (OTG), both in person and lifestyle. I’m going to leave the world and its general lack of enlightenment in my shadow. Since applying the latest scientific findings to my training is my life’s passion—and the sole reason for my continued athletic success—I’ll emerge from time to time to break open records, but that’s it.

And for those who might now wonder why I’m going OTG, the reasons are many with some perhaps most eloquently expressed by Charles F. Lumis in A Tramp Across the Continent, published in 1892:

…railroads and Pullmans were invented to help us hurry through life and miss most of the pleasure of it—and most of the profit, too, except of that jingling, only half-satisfying sort which can be footed up in the ledger. I was after neither time nor money, but life—not life in the pathetic meaning of the poor health-seeker, for I was perfectly well and a trained athlete; but life in the truer, broader, sweeter sense, the exhilirant [sic] joy of living outside the sorry fences of society, living with a perfect body and a wakened mind, a life where brain and brawn and leg and lung all rejoice and grow alert together.

And with that I might as well bid y’all right now…adieu.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, this is about doing justice to calling our organization a democracy, as so many members have in the past. At the foundation of a democracy is the ability to easily participate in the democratic process. Whether the membership participates or not is up to them. Besides, what’s the acceptable participation rate to base an improvement in voting accessibility on? And who makes that determination and based on what?

I would also argue that basing an organization’s governing structure on assumptions isn’t an appropriate approach–governing should only be based on sound methods of democracy. Besides, Al, how can you conclude anything about participation in a program that doesn’t even exist?

I might add that there was no time in which I suggested that the current approach was designed to purposely limit voting participation. But since we agree that the current system does in fact make voting very difficult and limiting via extensive travel to different parts of the country, why not try to improve it? Besides, I also didn’t state that voting should only occur Online, it would be in addition to the current system. So owning a computer or not wouldn’t be a factor, though for those who don’t, there’s always the public library.

Bottom line, making voting and participation easier for the membership is a winning proposition and elevates the organization to a higher standard of functioning. This would benefit it in innumerable ways.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, as you may or may not know, I sat on the USPF EC and was deeply involved in the organization. In fact, in light of all the wrongdoing (e.g., violations of bylaws and federal law) I was one of the main individuals involved in getting them kicked out of the IPF. After that I sat on the USAPL EC and was equally involved. So you’re right, I would most certainly cast a vote for USAWA matters if I was presented with an easy way to do so. But I’m not going to spend ~1k in travel and board…I don’t even do that anymore for purposes of competing.

There is, however, a major difference between the two: lifting is done for personal reasons, being able to cast a vote for the organization benefits the entire membership and the organization. My whole point is that voting shouldn’t be as difficult as it currently is.

I do see your point regarding voting on all issues. That, I contend, would also require an amendment to the bylaws so that the Forum would be able to serve as a sounding block and matters adjusted/refined that way before they go before a vote. I think this would be relatively easy to do, but would require the sort of progressiveness that, I’m sorry to say, I don’t see in USAWA. Besides, let’s be honest about this, there’s little to nothing being done to advance knowledge about all-round lifting. So within the context of priorities, this discussion about USAWA and democracy is probably secondary to growing the sport, making it more competitive, etc.

Please allow me to address your analogy between our nation and USAWA. Indeed, as citizens of the U.S. we elect representatives who then craft and vote on legislation; this, however, is not analogous to USAWA. Our membership doesn’t elect representatives who are the ones developing and voting upon issues, it’s the membership that does so. So it’s important to understand the distinction; our nation is a republic, i.e., a representative democracy whereas our organization is a pure democracy. But a pure democracy can only work when all of the “members” are afforded an opportunity to easily participate in the process. As it stands, USAWA makes it prohibitively difficult for members to participate in organizational matters—i.e., vote—thereby placing it’s intended form of democracy in to question.

Regarding your point of a benevolent dictatorship, doesn’t that depend on the working definition of benevolence and dictatorship? Couldn’t I also argue that they’re mutually exclusive? I think that our Founding Fathers had it right, in particular one of them— Thomas Jefferson. He expressed his view regarding human life—and how to govern—this way:

“Reason must be our only oracle.”

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, congrats on winning nationals!

Thanks for taking an informal poll on this issue; that was a nice thing for you to do. But I have to admit that I don’t share ET’s understanding for what you learned.

Of course the method by which this was done is highly limited, meaning that the findings should not be considered representative of the USAWA membership. As to that one lifter you quoted, I think it’s utterly preposterous what he/she stated; it’s selfish, ignorant, and utterly undemocratic.

You’re absolutely right regarding this being a bylaw issue and what’s required to change it. Of course when USAWA was created there was no Internet, so the current approach made sense at the time. But just because USAWA is about testing strength in old-time lifts, that doesn’t mean it has to be governed today by 19th century technology and mindsets.

Of course USAWA isn’t the U.S., but when one throws around the term “democracy” as it relates to our great nation and then applies it to USAWA, as many have, then I would argue that we should also consider that our Founding Fathers were among the most progressive people on the planet at that time. If those great minds were alive today, they’d be thinking about but one thing — how can we make things better and how can we govern in a more enlightened way? It would be so nice if USAWA could step up to the plate and propel this, the greatest of all strength sports, to the top by taking advantage of everything technology provides in terms of not only “getting the word out” but particularly when it comes to the “democracy” of our organization.

With that…happy 4th y’all!

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Yeah, I figured as much, ET. I simply can’t get the barbell over my hamstrings…unless I rotate my hips. Thing is, that’s a very dangerous proposition, especially under load; my lifting longevity is infinitely more important to me than a single lift. So I gave that some thought for this year’s Grip Champs because of the contested Hack-Fulton bar.

For one, using a thick bar, I reasoned, would likely have less potential of getting hung up on my friggin’ HUGE hamstrings. And then I incorporated this: pull the bar up to behind my knees and while the bar is in contact with my bent knees, forcefully extend the knees thereby propelling the barbell backward and at the same time straighten out so that the barbell moves upward in an arc.

It took quite a bit of training to get the movement down pat, but I did real good and since my grip isn’t an issue, I was hoping to hit low 4’s on the Hack with the Fulton bar. Just one problem…

I was training in my BDU’s and unbeknownst to me, that created sufficient “slippage” for the barbell using shorts will not provide. As a consequence, and since I’m about as stupid as a bodybuilder, I never trained in shorts until I got to Grip Champs and found the barbell getting glued to my hams, losing my balance, and falling backwards on my ass- -right in front of the meet promoter and head judge- –twice! before getting one attempt in with low 3’s.

The moral of the story is that perhaps for the Lurich you can get yourself set up so that upon an initial pull you can thrust the barbell back and then up so that it will only make contact with your hams toward the end of the range of motion…and make sure you practice it in shorts!!

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

No, not huge, but certainly capable.

I know you’ll probably do this, but I’d be real interested in reading about the Lurich Lift after you guys give it a ride. Something tells me it’ll be a ball-buster…which ain’t a bad thing.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

ET, thanks for that article. That’s a really nice picture, too. Do you know anything about Lurich’s height and weight?

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Oh, sure, bring beer into this discussion. I consider this an underhanded ploy to distract me from the topic at hand. 🙂

Al, I’m not sure you quite understand my proposed process. I’m not talking about polling the membership, rather online voting. The way I would see this transpire is to have all matters to be voted on made public on the blog in advance of the national meeting, then the matters can be discussed via the Forum to whatever extent the membership sees fit, and the final step would be to have a ballot available online for the membership to vote with and available in hard copy for those who’d want to mail it in. The ballots would then be counted at the national meeting along with in-person votes at that time.

Also, I wouldn’t at all disagree with your assessment of how much participation this would actually result in. I would argue, however, that anticipated and/or actual rates of participation in the democratic process should not to any degree interfere with the process of true democracy.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[dwagman]

Al, I’m not sure I understand…do you mean now a days people don’t know the difference between a guy or being nice? hihihi

As to democracy and making it easier for people to vote, I don’t see how past participation numbers should be in the way of making things better and easier. Only when participation in the democratic process is accessible to everybody in USAWA can we actually call it a democratic organization. As it stands, it is completely unreasonable to expect a person to travel half way across the country to vote on the issue he/she is passionate about, or even all of the matters presented. ET is right, it is in a way like a poll tax.

Besides, it would be so incredibly easy to make voting accessible online.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by dwagman.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[Author]

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