Your Monday Moment of Zen #17

 

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.” – Ghost Dog

The Shankle Shuffle, ‘nuff said:

 

Sarah Robles is profiled in a video by Cronkite News Online.  She’s the #1 ranked weightlifter in America (male or female), and is looking like a strong contender for a spot on the Olympic team in 2012.  Oh, and she’s also one cool lady. Here’s a link to her blog and a post on the recent Collegiate Nationals.  Here’s a video of her at the same meet:

Glenn Pendlay is interviewed by Jon North in a 20-questions format.  What’s fun is that none of the questions have anything to do with weightlifting!

Bret Contreras has some advice on how to train when you don’t want to.

Adam Stoffa has a great post on the duplicity of Sports Organizations that say they want to clean up drug use, but really don’t.  It isn’t just Lance or the Baseball guys.  It’s ALL sports.  Drugs are rampant, and the biggest gainers are the organizations themselves.  Here’s a quote from his article:

Once upon a time, I wrote a paper (Betrayal of Trust) on the regulation (or lack thereof)of performance enhancing drugs in horse racing.  My take then and now is that the promoters (and this includes sponsors) have the greatest interest in maintaining the façade of regulating the sport and keeping its participants clean, while allowing (read as tacitly encouraging) a culture of secret use and abuse of performance enhancing drugs.

Michael Hartman has 2 posts that can help you to increase your training frequency.  Part I and Part II.  Here’s a sneak peak:

Example: Workout A and Workout B (I know, clever name…)

Workout A -    Snatch 1×1 @ 75, 80, 85, 90, 92-95%

  Clean & Jerk 1×1 @ 75, 80, 85, 90, 92-95%

  Squat 1×3 @ 87, 90, 92%; 1×2 @ 87, 90, 92%

Workout B -    Squat 5×3 @ 80%

  Snatch 8×1 @ 75%

  Clean & Jerk 6×1 @ 75%

*Exercise Sets x Reps @ % of max

Donny Shankle has a tasty lookin’ recipe for BBQ Tri-Tip.

 

That’s right, not only can he shuffle, but he can cook.

70’s Big via Spencer Mormon on how to not give a shit … like a man.

Marilou Dozois-Prevost does a near double-bodyweight clean and jerk and makes it look easy:

Roger Lawson has a guest post on JC Deen’s blog about improving your Bootay. 

Bret Contreras takes a particularly Zen-like approach to dealing with ones attitude.  Here’s his inner dialogue with Clint Eastwood:

Clint: Are you paralyzed?

Bret: No

Clint: Do you have cancer?

Bret: No

Clint: Do you have AIDS?

Bret: No

Clint: Did any of your friends or family recently die?

Bret: No

Clint: Are they safe and healthy?

Bret: Yes

Clint: Then man the hell up son! Your life is going pretty well.

AMEN.

Brad Pilon is interviewed by Mike T. Nelson about his version of intermittent fasting and his take on sports supplements.

Ben Claridad. There’s something about this drawing of Ben’s that I really like:

 

Ben’s a weightlifter and an artist.  I like that, since I’m a weightlifter and a musician.  I think there are connections between working hard on your body to make it into something beyond what most think is possible, and in creating art – something many people find impossible.

Peter Roselli has an article on Pendlay.com about using the Medvedyev system to train beginners that I think is quite interesting.  It’s very different than the methods used by we neo-Bulgarian types. 

USA Weightlifting has finally decided to join the modern world and start posting some of their training to Youtube!  Thank the lord above.  Here’s a vid of Zack Krych and Jessica Gallagher

Ian Wilson, Silver Medal winner at the Jr. World Championships in the 94k class, gets profiled in USA Today! as the USA Today Olympic Athlete of the Week.  Congrat’s Ian!

He had the second-heaviest opening lift (376.2l pounds) in the clean-and-jerk and lifted 396 pounds in his final attempt. Wilson won silver medals in both the snatch and the total (704 pounds).

Risto Sports Training Center relays some success stories regarding their open house for their new facility.

Coffee and Prostate Cancer.  A new study suggests that drinking higher amounts of coffee is correlated with lower risk of the worst kinds of prostate cancer.

A Harvard School of Public Health study of nearly 48,000 men found that those who drank more than six cups of coffee per day had a 60% reduced risk of developing lethal prostate cancer compared with nondrinkers.

The reduction in lethal prostate cancer risk was similar between decaf and regular coffee drinkers. Thus, the researchers conclude, caffeine isn’t the wonder element — good news for those who already consume far too much caffeine (you know who you are).

While this study needs to be repeated, I’ll use it as a post-facto justification of my over-the-top coffee drinking habits regardless    (By the way, in the study, the people who drank the most coffee were also the ones who were most likely to smoke and drink a lot.  So, that muddies up the study quite a bit.  However, that actually makes it even more interesting.  If the smokers and drinkers were at higher risk because of those behaviors, but the coffee dropped their risk even lower than the average, then that is really something.  I’d love to see a follow up study.)

Pretty Strong Blog on the hands-free clean.   Hannah Crowe does it this way on purpose:

I remember when i first cleaned with no hands at juniors 09 everyone gasped, i think they thought it was an accident and they applauded really loud when i got my hands back on the bar. People that have never seen me do it tend to have that same reaction the first time around. I’ve even been at a local meet and the announcer mentioned something about it after my last clean in the effect of " well i guess she meant to do that"