Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[slowmotion]

I was following the European Weightlifting Championships, and yeah, some of the women looked .... a bit weird.
I am not saying anything more than that, though. Since I don't know.
All of them did their best, and it was fun to watch!

[stuffedsuperdud]

No one worth mentioning apart from Kostova and Talakhadze, you mean?

Kind of funny how the Chinese aren't quite bringing the same approach in their Nationals / Trials...unofficial bests galore!

I forgot about Kostova because that whole session consisted of me waiting for them to get the other girls out of the way so that BK could come out and power snatch their best deadlifts. It's almost bad for the sport that she's so dominant; the other girls are marvelous athletes in their own right, but all of their efforts are stuck in her towering 4'8" shadow. The Chinese probably can't afford to hold back during their Olympic Trials; it's just like how the old USSR Nationals was almost always more competitive than the Olympics themselves. I just saw the video of Lu Haojie trying to save the 173kg snatch, dislocating his elbow, and then just walking away glaring at the world. I can't imagine the stakes that would compel a guy to go balls to the wall like that.

All of them did their best, and it was fun to watch!

Hey! No room for this kind of smiley positive upbeat attitude on my log. Only depression and and suicide fantasies please.


Training:
Today pigs flew and I snatched...a little, but at a globo gym with no chalk, only the worthless liquid stuff I have.

Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3x2
60x3x2
70x0x2

For 70, the weight felt light but my grip was slippy, I didn't have my straps, and I could not stabilize it overhead. Will try again tomorrow, with straps.

Boozing:
I just tried Bowmore 12 for the first time ever, and really like it. Another Islay, but not as one-dimensional as, say, Lagavulin or Laphroaig. There's quite a bit of creaminess to it, which combined with the extreme smoothness makes it almost like a dessert. BTW I got it because there were price hikes on other whiskys. Anyone else notice this? I heard rumors that distilleries didn't see the rise in popularity 16 years ago when this stuff was casked, and are now having trouble meeting demand, but I did not realize it'd have such a dramatic effect on price...

[Chris McCarthy]

The Women's Supers was probably the strongest in-depth field ever - 3 x 140+ snatches, 4 x 170+ Clean & Jerks and 4 x 300+ Totals.

And Zhou didn't even lift...

[slowmotion]

Hey! No room for this kind of smiley positive upbeat attitude on my log. Only depression and and suicide fantasies please.

Yes, Sir! I will endeavor to be more depressive and negative from now on.

[ChasingCurls69]

TIL that driving moccasins are a real thing and not made up for that joke on an episode of New Girl from several years ago.

[idlehands]

TIL that driving moccasins are a real thing and not made up for that joke on an episode of New Girl from several years ago.

buddy has some. They are shaped for heal toe down shifting and give you better feel to pedal. Assuming it's the same kinda shoes we are talking to. Autocross and folks that do track days tend to wear them. Not for walking. For beating the shit out of your too expensive car.

[Simon Rest]

Picking up suspenders for the terry crews Brooklyn 99 jacked in a button down shirt look.

I have been umming and ahhing over doing this for about 6 months now. Sydney is very casual though, even in business wear so I fear I'll look like a Corleone brother sitting around his mamma's kitchen waiting for spaghetti

[idlehands]

I have been umming and ahhing over doing this for about 6 months now. Sydney is very casual though, even in business wear so I fear I'll look like a Corleone brother sitting around his mamma's kitchen waiting for spaghetti

First time I wore suspenders out when in college i got jumped cause of them. I'm very pro suspendeds


Also buddy says "there are very few times I've felt a suit is the wrong choice" just cause people don't dress up at work doesn't mean you can't stand out. Is alpha !

[stuffedsuperdud]

I have been umming and ahhing over doing this for about 6 months now.

Do it! Strictly functionally, human shoulders are naturally a load-bearing structure, and suspenders are thus the most intuitive way to hold up pants. Belts work by increasing friction between your pants and your torso, and (thanks to Lagrangians and such that I don't remember how to derive) actually accelerate pants droppage, for those of us who have been GOMADing unnecessarily. They really only came into fashion when the vest that covered them more or less went (temporarily) extinct, which coincided with a whole bunch of guys coming back from WW1 having discovered the belt as part of their military uniforms.

I've had friends who treated suspenders like coming out of the closet, wearing them for only a few hours a day under a sportcoat, gingerly exposing them for a few seconds at a time, etc etc. Totally unnecessary; just make sure your first pair is a neutral blue/grey/burgundy affair that matches everything, since the obsolete "rule" for suspenders is that they're supposed to be the vest and thus are an undergarment; that's obviously no longer true, but maybe save the fashion statement (Trafalgar Ltd Editions, a la Niles Crane) for your 3rd pair. Technically, now that suspenders are to be seen, the leather loops are supposed to match your shoes, but only goobers care about that and they're too busy being fedora neckbeard m'lady weirdos for their opinions to matter.

First time I wore suspenders out when in college i got jumped cause of them. I'm very pro suspendeds

Everyone giggled and pulled on mine on Day 1. They were boxcloth though and not stretchy except for the back piece, and I am still feeling the long-term effects of that day's wedgies.

Also buddy says "there are very few times I've felt a suit is the wrong choice" just cause people don't dress up at work doesn't mean you can't stand out. Is alpha !

Remember guys, it pays to be about 10% spiffier than your peers, and well-tailored suits make everyone look better. I've recently expanded this idea to casual, and have been having a lot of fun at it. What I mean by that is, suits are awesome, but they don't always scale down as hard as you need. For example, for offsite meetings at the bar or on weekends, there's not a lot you can do to dress down a suit besides losing the tie and adding a louder shirt. The fabrics also tend to be more delicate, which gives you an extra thing to worry about if you're walking around Disneyland or something. What does scale across a wider range, I've found, is a well-tailored blazer/sportcoat in a cloth/pattern slightly less formal than your standard navy or gray worsted suit jacket. I usually use a cheapo navy cotton one from J. Crew Factory that pairs with everything from khakis and a polo for the weekend to gray dress pants, white shirt, and tie for when a suit is just a haaaaaiiir too formal, e.g. at an academic get-together, except in the rare case where I'm one of the speakers. Since it's cotton, it's much lower maintenance and runs cooler during the summer. That said, given our proclivity for barbells, I get the feeling guys on this forum lean more towards the classics, so you can't go wrong with a standard blue blazer with gold buttons. That thing's basically a suit jacket, except perhaps cut a bit shorter and with patch pockets. Looks great with everything except you miiiiight start running into trouble with jeans.

Related: The other day, I walked in on Vic and his son putting an awesome camel-colored 100% cashmere sportcoat with brown plaid and blue overcheck onto an older guy. Looked something like this:



This is a great example of why this whole smart-casual thing has really grown on me. The pattern is pretty loud, too loud for me to wear as a suit (though guys with bigger balls might pull it off), but for a sport coat paired with quiet light-colored pants, it's a great way to add a bunch of color and depth that can pair with any number of pants, ties, and shirts, all the while looking super casual and relaxed, as opposed to classic blazers, which again are very useful but can bring to mind the image of a rich asshole....when I'm actually a poor asshole.

BTW Idlehands in particular, check out THIS guy, easily the best dressed IT guy on Earth:
https://kingofdhaka.com/


^Standard ops.

I could do without the bedroom eyes, but everything else about this guy is on point.

[Simon Rest]

Excellent information.

Complicating factors:

1- Sydney is essentially sub tropical. Wearing suits puts a huge strain on my dry cleaning budget
2- I'm a consultant to the building industry. A good portion of my job involves being on site. The steel capped safety boots take the edge off the suit
3- I essentially work for myself so I don't need to "dress for the job I want"

Can you wear suspenders with jeans?