Great Grandmother Sets National Deadlift Record

This is 72 year old Roberta Dearden competing in the 100% RAW federation's Potomac Open. This video shows her attempt to break the javascript:void(0) in the woman's 165 lbs class 70-74 year old division with a lift of 120 lbs.

She began weight lifting while recovering from a broken hip three years ago. It has helped to not just regain strength but her doctor has been able to take her off some of her other medications. Her next goal is to set a world dead lift record.






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71 Year Old Great Grandmother Deadlifts for 100% RAW

It is never too late to start to get healthy. My Mother is pictured here in her first Powerlifting meet deadlifting 95 Lbs. She has been training since January and plans to continue. She is lifting in the 100% RAW federation.







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Un-supersize Me

Everyone has heard about the movie Supersize Me. That is the documentary of Morgan Spurlock's 30 day McDonalds only diet resulting in him gaining 27 pounds and the health problems associated with such a gain. His purpose was to look into the effects fast food may have in contributing to the increase of obesity in the US.

Contrast that with the experience of Chris Coleson of Quinton, VA.

Frustrated by a number of false starts with losing weight, he made a bold prediction to his wife, Tricia Sumner -- that he could lose weight and do it by eating only at McDonald's. He chose the fast-food chain in part because its locations are convenient for his busy schedule.

"There was a level of fear after I said that," said Coleson, who has no affiliation with McDonald's other than eating almost every meal there during his diet. "At that point, I had to stick with it."...

... Coleson dropped from 278 pounds when he started the diet Dec. 3 to 199 as of yesterday, the last time he weighed himself.

What Chris did was simply cut the bread and restrict the calories. He consumed between 1200-1400 calories a day. The single most important thing he did though was he kept a food log. By saving the receipts and then pasting then in a notebook, he kept track of what he was eating at each meal. This is the critical factor to my own weight loss. Knowing I would be putting every item into a log that calculated my calories, cabs, fat and protein I was very careful about mindless eating. Mr. Coleson needs to make some adjustments to his eating habits to add to his healthy gains but he has slain the giant, He no longer eats mindlessly. It matters little what one eats if one eats less calories than one uses. That is why any diet will work if one sticks with the program. Issues such as insulin resistance and cholesterol can be addressed at the same time with a proper diet but if it is not one that is appealing enough to stay on it, it is of no value. Chris Coleson achieved this.

Coleson said he got to where he couldn't fit into a booth at restaurants, barely could tie his shoes, and had to sleep sitting up to be comfortable. His children, James and Meghan, would call him old and fat and pound on his belly as a joke. He put "OLD-NFAT" on the license plates of his car...

...For his wife's 40th birthday in April, Coleson spent $274.18 on McDonald's food, which he catered at the YMCA for about 35 people (the receipt's in one of his journals). But the big present for his wife came when he put on his wedding ring, which he had removed from a painfully swollen finger seven years ago.

The license plates on his vehicle now say "MCFIT." His waist size has dropped from 50 to 36.

Cut the calories, balance the carbs, fat and protein to 40%, 30% and 30% respectively but most importantly, keep a food log. It will transform the way you eat. Chirs Colesome did it eating at McDonalds.











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2008 VIRGINIA STATE IRONMAN

The meet went well. John Shifflett puts together a well run meet. The members of 100% RAW are a big part of what makes these meets enjoyable. Take Justin Vorrasi and Brian Kelleher for an example. They were in a different flight during the Bench Press yet they made sure I had a lift off even though they were warming up for their flight down stairs while I was lifting.

I originally planned to Bench 250 and Dead lift 375 as my top lifts. Training leading up to meet week went so well I raised the third lift for the bench to 260. I hit 250 on the second lift but 260 only went up 2". I hit 375 on the Dead lift as planned. Take a look at the results and you will see I was the oldest competitor, lifting the lowest weight. There were some very strong men at this meet.

I also got to meet two fellows from Crossfit RVA. They were also quite friendly. The photo from the meet is of their lifter, David Powell and from their web site.






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Blogger Defeats Lawyer's Subpoena

As some of you who know me personally know I have been embroiled in a lawsuit with the former managing member of Ruthless Training Concepts LLC. I have during the past two years only posted once on the issue. That post has generated a host of hits and at least two threats of legal action by people associated with her at the new company that she fled to, Team Ruthless. I plan on posting the results of the lawsuit after the final order is signed. Today I would like to highlight a legal proceeding against another blogger that those people who wish to hide from my revelations about my former colleague with similar action may find enlightening.

Blogger turns attorney, defeats trial lawyer's subpoena
by John O'Brien

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (Legal Newsline) - When blogger and admitted information-hoarder Kathleen Seidel received a subpoena asking for nearly every piece of data associated with her website, she had two choices -- get mad or get an attorney.

Trial lawyer Clifford Shoemaker of Virginia requested in March, among other things, "documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research and maintaining" of her site, which frequently links to articles and features blogs pertaining to Shoemaker's main litigation area.

Not willing to dish out the dollars for defense, Seidel filed her own motion to quash the subpoena. It was granted Monday.

"I wrote that motion on a days-long surge of adrenaline and outrage," Seidel said. "I was served the subpoena on a Wednesday afternoon and began doing my homework Thursday morning. I filed the response on Monday afternoon."...

... The subpoena made 10 separate requests, and was quashed by Magistrate Judge James Muirhead. Muirhead ordered Shoemaker to show cause why he should not be sanctioned for filing a "burdensome" subpoena.

"Hallelujah! That is good news," Seidel said. "My privacy was preserved."

I suggest interested parties go to Ms. Seidel's own blog to read the details. She has posted a link to the judge's order just as I will with my own case. It is nice to see that the old proverb is true, "When you do what is right you have nothing to fear."








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Fitness Plan Bearing Results.

I'm scheduled to do another powerlifting meet this Sat. I lift in the 100% RAW federation. The meet is the:

2008 VIRGINIA STATE BENCH PRESS, DEADLIFT, IRONMAN
STRICT CURL
American Legion Post #128,
636 Madison Road
Stanardsville, Virginia 22973

I don't do the curl just the Ironman which is two lifts, the Bench Press and Deadlift. I hope to hit 260 and 375 respectively.

I'm real close to having been seriously lifting for two years. At the age of 51 I feel real good. Much better than I did three years ago. At this age I've had to make some adaptations to the normal routines. The biggest change has been placing a download week in every fourth week rather than every sixth or seventh like you young men do.

After this meet I plan on going to another one at the same place under a different federation so I can do my first Powerlift meet. It is a three lift meet starting with the Squat then the Bench Press and Deadlift. If all goes well with my current training plan I may be able to challenge the VA state record for my weight and age.

Getting old is not for wimps.






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Workingout With Tucker

Friday we took Tucker, the big white dog to the vet. He has been favoring his left hind leg on and off for a couple of weeks so we needed to find out what was up. The examination suggested that he had a ligament issue that may need surgery. More detailed examination through x-ray would be necessary.

The next day I had scheduled a hay pick up but the weather was not cooperating. It looked like an opportunity to restart my weight lifting. Tucker decided for me that I needed to do the stubble part of the Wood, Hay and Stubble workout.

We had taken him into Manassas while we bought groceries. While I was unloading the car my mother pulled up. Normally Tucker is excited to see her so opening the gate to come in is not a problem, except today. He crashed the gate and went into my neighbor's cut cornfield. Without saying a thing I just jumped in the truck, put it into 4 wheel drive and went after him. He ran alongside the truck all the way to my neighbor's driveway, about half a mile. There he stopped. Figuring he was out of gas I got out and went to grab him and take him home. No dice. He turned and kept running. I stripped off my jacket and went after him full speed. When I reached the creek in the woods on the other side of the field he was nowhere to be seen.

There being no more need to hurry, I just jogged back to the truck, gathered my stuff and went around the block to tell the folks on the other side of the creek to keep an eye pealed for the big white dog. I then went back out to the main road to see if he was waiting for a ride like he tends to do. Not seeing him I went back down my neighbor's drive to go to the back of his farm where Tucker has been found more than once.

Halfway up the drive I saw Tucker coming back out of the woods. When he saw me stop he stopped and we just sat and stared at each other. I knew if I got out he would think something was up even if he did want to go back home with me and I would only add to the time before I could apprehend him.

While I sat there someone with a car just like my wife's came up the drive and went around me. Tucker must have thought it was her because he began to go toward it thinking she was driving off without him. I followed the car and that set the trap. He was now sure that we were going somewhere without him. He ran to catch up. When he got close enough I opened the door so he could jump in. Back at the house I told my wife that any dog that can run that far that fast for that long does not need money spent fixing his leg.









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The Wood, Hay and Stubble Workout

My workout program has been going along quite well. I started withe a workout based on the book, The New Rules of Lifting. In May I swiched to a classic 5x5 workout. Both gave me good results.

Right now I'm doing what I call the wood, hay and stubble workout. I chop wood one day, put hay up into the barn another. The stubble part of the workout is primarily cardio. It occurs when my Big White Dog escapes and I get to chase him through my neighbor's cut over corn field. The last time this happened was last Sat.

I was leaving the horses out to the field after feeding them when Tucker the Big White Dog saw an opportunity and rushed the gate. Too surprised to reach fast enough I had to wait until all the horses were out before I could begin the chase. He zig zagged the back field before crossing into the field next door giving me the chance I needed to try and catch up. Fortunately a trespassing hunter had killed a doe sometime during the week. After he cut the head off he must have beat feet leaving it behind. I grabbed it and went over the fence with it. It worked like a charm. Tucker just could not resist a deer head gladly giving up his freedom for such a prize.

Lifting weights in the comfort of my garage is much easier. .






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Update on New Year Project

It's been six months since I announced my intention to use weight lifting to counter the effects of aging in the post entitled "Something New for the New Year". I started with the template detailed in the book "The New Rules of Liftng." I was happy with the results but continued to struggle with choosing the correct weight for each workout. The most efficient way of determining a proper weight is to use a precentage of one's maximum for one repititon on exch exercise..Unfortunatly no guidelines on this are provided. The result was a cycle of workouts that were too easy or too difficult. Finally in May I tested my bench press max to find it had not increased in four months. My squat and dead lift numbers were steadily going up but the bench press has always been a week spot for me so I knew I had to do something different.

In June I went to a varient of the Bill Star 5 x 5 program. A spreadsheet was availabe that needed only for me to enter my maximum weight for 5 reps on each exersice. It then calculated the weights used for each set of 5 reps for each exercise in a three day a week, 9 week cycle. The workouts went smooth and I made steady progress.

Along the way I had looked into the powerlifting sport. While I have no illusions about my abilities in a competative environment I felt preperation for a meet would help focus my traning.One federation, 100% RAW, looked attractive. They had many local meets, they forbid the use of drugs and assistant equipment and the members at a meet I attended in April were friendly and supportive of each other during the competition. The internet forum on the web site is quite helpful. It was here that I was convinced to compete

This past weekend I competed in the Freedom Cup at Standardsville, VA. The help I received on the forum resulted in a satisfying performance.

The results of six months of lifting are best understood by the numbers.

January 2007 Body weight 225 Bench press 215, Deadlift 285, Squat 265

June 2007 Body weight 217 Bench press 235, Deadlift 350, Squat 320.


I can tell you that the change in the way I feel on a daily basis is dramatic. I used to feel rundown, stiff and ill most of the time where now I feel strong. I can describe it no other way. My work capacity has gone way up and my general attitude is better. I never would have belived that I could feel so much better.

The workouts are not a chore, in fact I look forward to them.






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