BBA Club Manifesto

Basic Principles

The Billy Bad Ass (BBA) Club is dedicated to helping our members become more BBA. Here are our basic principles:

• BBA Club doesn't have anything to do with looks - we don't care how fugly your body is. We don't give a shit about bodybuilding.

• 90% of success is simply showing up. Get your ass to the gym. Train hard.

• Get stronger and more powerful. All other training benefits proceed from a base of strength and power.

• The best way to increase strength and power is lifting heavy weights using the following five barbell lifts: squat, press, deadlift, clean, and snatch (and all their varieties).

• You must squat. Yes, it's THAT important.

• Bodyweight (gymnastic) movements are absolutely essential and must be trained at every opportunity. The four most important are: pull-ups, dips, push-ups, and hand-balancing (and all their varieties).

• Increase your stamina. It doesn't matter what you can do if you can only do it for a second or two.

• Kettlebell (or dumbbell) swings and weighted carries (backpacks, farmer carry, sandbags, and sled/car pushing/pulling) are useful and should be done every week.

• Strongman training is fun and a good way to change up your workouts.

• Do sprint. Don't jog. Always run fast.

• Always strive for perfect form, but don't let striving get in the way of your training. (This applies only as long as you are doing the lift/movement "safely" even if your form isn't perfect.)

• Don't get injured, it really fucks up your training. If you do get injured, continue to train around the injury. Don't stop training.

• We don't do aerobic training (which literally burns muscle) when training BBA. Anaerobic training "can be used to develop a very high level of aerobic fitness without the muscle wasting consistent with high volumes of aerobic exercise" (Glassman1). This training is often called "interval training" but we just call it "fun." Running any distance over 800m is aerobic and should only be contemplated with a knowledge of the consequences. (see Glassman2)

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We use athleticism, athletic ability, athletic prowess, and fitness interchangeably. CrossFit defines fitness as your work capacity across broad time and modal domains. This is a great definition; however, we believe that the testing of any time domains (with continuous work) in excess of 20 minutes is unnecessary and anything over 30 minutes is useless. Why? Quite simple, really. Any test in excess of 30 minutes will almost certainly have been decided (that is, current results = final results) by the 30 minute mark.

Physical and Mental Skills

CrossFit recognizes ten general physical skills. They are: accuracy, agility, balance, cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, flexibility, power, speed, stamina, and strength. We don't believe these skills confer athletic prowess in equal measures; on the contrary, we believe there is a definite hierarchy of importance based on the correlation between each skill and athletic ability. In simple terms, when we say that strength is the most important skill, we say this because we believe increasing your strength will have the highest impact on your athleticism.

The following is an ordered list, from most to least important, of the skills that must be trained to become a BBA:

1. Strength - How much weight can you move? Example: max squat or max press.

2. Power - How quickly can you move heavy loads? Example: cleans, snatches, jerks.

3. Stamina - How long can you sustain high output power? Example: high rep clean and jerks with a substantial weight - a lower time indicates better stamina (all else being equal)

4. Agility - How quickly can you transition between various movements? Example: dot drill or 20 yd shuttle

5. Speed - How fast can you move or how fast can you perform a movement? Example: 100 m dash

6. Cardiorespiratory Endurance - How long can you perform prolonged, large-muscle, dynamic exercise at low-to-moderate levels of intensity? Example: 2 mile walk

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We aren't in the business of explicitly measuring your flexibility, coordination, balance, or accuracy; however, deficiencies in any of these areas will be punished due to the variety of movements and workouts we perform. For example, overhead squats heavily punish inflexibility of the shoulders, hips, or ankles. Snatches punish any who lack the coordination to perform them. Moving with weight overhead, such as walking or lunging, will punish anyone lacking balance. Hammer and axe throwing punish the inaccurate (and anyone standing too close).

Being a BBA isn't all physical. There is a definite mental component as well. You have to be able to push through pain, eliminate negative thoughts and ignore any obstacles on your path to a great workout. Always go hard.

Our Motto

Our motto is Go Heavy. Go Ballistic. Go Nuts. We mean it:

• Go heavy - lift heavy weights, get stronger and more powerful.
• Go ballistic - throw weights around, get your body moving, and make shit FLY around the gym.
• Go nuts - develop a near psychotic intensity towards your workouts and don't be afraid to rip shit up in the gym.