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TEAMREADING. It's good for you.Page 1The ABCs of Tire FlippingBy Bryce KujatUnless you live under a rock or in France, you know that incorporating Strongman events into training has become a popular way to add variation to any program. At Gorilla Pit Strength Sports, weve trained several athletes in the discipline of tire flipping and are starting to see very distinct patterns of how the uninitiated approach the process and how the successful have mastered the technique. Yes, technique. As with any aspect of life, one may be able to muscle through, but the skilled make the difficult look easy with mastered technique. Most newbies come into the gym and figure they can just flip over all our tires, but they often end up looking like monkeys fornicating a football, or in this case, a large tire.You can teach this motion any way you like, but we divide the flipping of a tire into three segmentsthe start, the raise, and the push. Were going to look at each segment and the differing ways to go about them.THE STARTThis segment begins when the athlete decides to flip a tire and ends with the first upward motion of the tires edge. Its important for the athlete to realize that the tires edge will move upward and forward for the same distance, traveling along an arc and making a line between its horizontal starting point and its vertical finish point of 45 degrees. The force applied to the tires circumference should be neither parallel nor perpendicular to the ground but should match this 45-degree angle upward.Foot placement should mimic this. If you want to get your protractor out, thats fine with us, but we want our athletes feet placed far enough from the tire that they lean against the tread. If at any moment during the movement, the tire could be magically removed, the athlete should fall forward. We establish proper foot placement by having the athlete squat down in front of the tire and fall into it with their chest. They should have to rock away from the tire to stand up. Feet are generally slightly more than shoulder width apart, but this varies with each athlete. Hand placement will also vary slightly but should be much wider than the shoulders. The bottom edge of the tire should be gripped with fingers on the sidewall or around treads. We always chalk very heavily.Approaching the tire is where we see two distinct techniques. We call one the set and the other the attack. The set technique involves the athlete approaching the tire, setting their feet, squatting down, leaning against the tire, setting their hands, tightening their core, and lifting the tire. Several seconds will pass between the setting of the feet and the beginning of the lift, and several seconds may pass with the athlete in a squatted position against the tire. This simulates a deadlift type situation with no use of the eccentric stretch and is favored by many of our heavyweights.READ THE REST AT ELITEFTS.COMThis is a text box which has a scrollbar enabled.As you add text longer than the box size the scrollbar will appear.Double click here to edit and add your own text.Page 2run strongBy BEN TETLOWLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Fusce tempor arcu ac urna. Fusce congue eleifend mi. Pellentesque metus sem, elementum eu, rhoncus sed, gravida sit amet, nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean condimentum, odio quis pharetra dignissim, diam nisl dignissim diam, eu interdum magna erat sit amet felis. Etiam non felis at urna tempus luctus. In ullamcorper nisl congue elit. In convallis nibh vitae justo. Quisque ac lectus vitae sem consequat sagittis. Donec turpis nisi, feugiat sollicitudin, fermentum vitae, volutpat sed, ligula.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Fusce tempor arcu ac urna. Fusce congue eleifend mi. Pellentesque metus sem, elementum eu, rhoncus sed, gravida sit amet, nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean condimentum, odio quis pharetra dignissim, diam nisl dignissim diam, eu interdum magna erat sit amet felis. Etiam non felis at urna tempus luctus. In ullamcorper nisl congue elit. In convallis nibh vitae justo. Quisque ac lectus vitae sem consequat sagittis.Donec turpis nisi, feugiat sollicitudin, fermentum vitae, volutpat sed, ligula.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Fusce tempor arcu ac urna. Fusce congue eleifend mi. Pellentesque metus sem, elementum eu, rhoncus sed, gravida sit amet, nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean condimentum, odio quis pharetra dignissim, diam nisl dignissim diam, eu interdum magna erat sit amet felis. Etiam non felis at urna tempus luctus. In ullamcorper nisl congue elit. In convallis nibh vitae justo. Quisque ac lectus vitae sem consequat sagittis. Donec turpis nisi, feugiat sollicitudin, fermentum vitae, volutpat sed, ligula.Pellentesque metus sem, elementum eu, rhoncus sed, gravida sit amet, nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean condimentum, odio quis pharetra dignissim, diam nisl dignissim diam, eu interdum magna erat sit amet felis. Etiam non felis at urna tempus luctusThe End. This is a text box which has a scrollbar enabled.As you add text longer than the box size the scrollbar will appear.Double click here to edit and add your own text.Page 3chronICLES FROM THE CARIBBEAN iiBy Bryce KujatPast Midnight(04 MAY 08)The breeze through the windows does little to raise my spirits, even less to dry the sweat. The heat is oppressive in here, beyond Congo hot, more like Alabama hot. I feel like Ive been swimming, even my socks are wet. I have to be back in an airplane in one hour and Im doing my best to squeeze this workout into my schedule. The community centers weight room in Long Look is better equipped than the Charlotte Amalie High School gym in St. Thomas, but as I look around it shares many of the same qualities. Drab walls, rusty equipment, bars over the broken windows, a tattered carpet floor over the busted tiles of CAHS, but this room is still more about what it is than what it isnt. This is a place where strength can be built, where pain can be inflicted and overcome, where weaknesses can be exposed and trampled.It was a step back to come here for me. Im flying more, rent is cheaper, and traffic is lighter, but Ive lost my team. My training has fallen dramatically. I dig as deep as I can, I fight through the pain as best I can, but its not the same. The only other here is myself in the chipped mirror. I cant believe how much I miss them. The Big and Beautiful Beauty Queen, the ex-con tour guide, the radio personality, the fire fighters, the old men. I miss the motivation, the yelling, the intensity. Those people that I would have never imagined myself with, people I never knew beyond the confines of that shabby room. They made me stronger when I didnt want to be, we made each other stronger, I wonder if they miss me, wonder if they wish I were still there.I shoulder the bar and look into the mirror; I think to myself that the best gyms have no mirrors. I center myself and glance at the six plates on the bar, four times, just four. Three reps later I rack the weights, shattered with disappointment and fear. Fear of getting pinned, fear of the pain of injury, fear of failure. Two weeks earlier I smashed that weight as a warm up, no one in the gym even paid attention to me, just another rep on another day, call me when you move some weight. I smile to myself in the mirror, shoulder the weight again, and bump out four reps.Pausing as I add more weight I smile and laugh, maybe its not so different now. Page 4chronicles from the caribbean iBy BRYCE kUJATWhere I Go(10 Feb 08)I dont need a thermometer; I know its hot. Its stifling in this breathless room. The windows are all closed, but even if they werent theres not a hint of air outside. My arms are wet, my shirt is soaked, theres nothing dry enough to wipe the sweat from my face, it collects and runs rivulets down my chin and neck, dripping off my fingers when I let my hands hang. The tropical sun slipped below the horizon hours ago, but the humidity keeps the heat close. A broken radio competes with the hum of the florescent lighting, and sounds from the street wander in through the bars over the only door, which is chained and padlocked shut to keep the posers and wanna-bes out. The clock stopped years before I showed up, but I know weve been here at least two hours.I rub a chipped block of chalk over my cracked, callused, and rust covered palms to dry the sweat, clap my hands together and walk through the cloud it produces. I set my feet under the bar with my scabbed, bleeding shins an inch away and bend down. I can feel the warmth from the last pull when I grab the bar, and somewhere in the distance I hear, Get set, good pull, and easy weight, get this, and come on, COME ON, dont waste my fucking time!! I drop my hips and set my back, theres well over a quarter ton in my hands now, and all I have to do is pick it up. I square my shoulders and with a final inhalation look up across the drab room, past the rusted weights, the chain-link covered windows, the torn and battered benches. Its Friday night in Charlotte Amalie, and its party time.Ive been coming here, to the dungeon-esque weight room at the Charlotte Amalie High School, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night that Ive been on the island. For every hour I spend in this room I log about thirty seconds at a beach. Theres no chrome here, no mirrors, no treadmills, just homemade squat racks, two benches for pressing and a few tons of weight. The tile floor is scarred and marred and will never be clean again; the beige, cement block walls dont offer much in visual stimulation, this place looks more like a Cambodian prison than a weight room at a high school. People with degrees and educations will say that we train too long, and do motions that are too taxing on the central nervous system, and that were damaging our joints, but this room has produced world ranked powerlifters since the early 1990s, and the USVIs only gold medal winners in international competition.Its a very small, very dedicated, very intense group of people here, a group that has taken me in and agreed to help make me stronger. People that are my only friends on the island, people that I am grateful to know. All I have to do is show up three times a week and try to kill myself. Its a strange kind that works a twelve-hour day and then comes to this dump at eight oclock at night to beat the hell out their bodies for three hours. So why, on Saturday morning, am I already looking forward to Monday night? Why do I get home at midnight, crumple into a ball on the couch, and smile at myself in the reflection of my sliding door? Why do I accept the 4 a.m. wake ups with pain in my legs and back? If I wanted to be healthy Id be an aerobics instructor, and the only six-pack Im interested in sits in the cooler at a gas station. This place, this dirty, stinking, airless room builds something in me that is lacking in this modern world of get it now instant satisfaction.Strength.I can feel my eyes watering as I lock out my legs. The knurled bar tears at my hands and I cant hear anything. I drop the weight and everything comes to me in echoes. My legs are shaky and I have to kneel to keep from falling. Then I stand up, reposition, and get set to do it again. March 15 will be here very soon and I need to be ready.ARTICLESTHE ABCs of tire flippingBy Bryce KujatRUN STRONG

By Ben Tetlow

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