They do not truly believe, they only say that they do.
A true believer is fearless. The true believer may be steadfastly pacifist, or actively making war in his Jihad. Either way they are warriors. Fighting in their holy war the way in which they see fit.
After much meditation, reaching a deep abyss, this struck: There is nothing worldy to fear.
I believe in God. I was not giving him all of my faith. I was simply paying lip service.
There is nothing in life to fear. Nothing in this world worth fearing.
We all die.
The manner in which we do is irrelevant. Hopefully though it be an honorable one.
A death right in God’s eyes.
Be this by slow torture, a bullet,a beating,or asleep after 100 years on Earth.
Become alive in your life.
When you are at peace with, and right in the eyes of God everything is good. All is on the table.
This may be a grokking (deep understanding) of ego death. The concept feels as if it has clicked.
Dead is alive.
Could quit but can’t.
I’ll say it again: be right in the eyes of God, and all is on the table.
The Empire doesn’t build itself.
The human experience isn’t so different from era to era,age to age.
You could give it eons, and the base experiences would still be the same.
What are rules,laws but man playing a game of simulation?
A futile attempt pretending to be God.
When this is seen, what problems could be had?
All will become a joke. Everything a laughing matter as you quickly will find you possess all of the tools needed in abundance.
With God as a partner what could possibly get in your way?
There are no obstacles. There is nothing to fear.
We all die.
God is with all who choose it,who opt in,who allow his partnership.
What struggles?
Only the path.
Every age is the age of legends. One only has to see it.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. A secret that you’ll be hard pressed to hear anywhere else.
Protein powder isn’t necessary.
Nor is your post workout meal.
Throughout human history far more jacked individuals have made do without than have made do with.
You want to drink some protein and nutrition post workout?
Save the money you’d spend on some near useless powder and go Rocky style. Crack roughly 6 eggs into your shaker cup, and have at it. No sugar,the same protein as 2 scoops of any powder, less expensive, and far more anabolic.
Now the squeamish among you may be thinking that’s gross.
You can blend up those eggs with more ingredients, or as I said go Rocky style. Rocky style has been known to harden you up. Ain’t that right Adrien?
Salmonella? That threat has been far overblown by fear mongering. Don’t be a scared little pussy.
If salmonella was to be contracted by drinking eggs I or most definitely a certain one of my lifting partners would’ve got it by now. That shit isn’t going to happen. Just like visits to snap city.
An aside: the eggs will be fine a while, even at room temperature.
Here’s how one should handle post workout meals: Bring food with you as eat it if you’re ravenous or you think it is a necessary part of the ability to drive home safely.
If neither of those stipulations are met it’ll be just fine to wait.
Hell eat if you simply feel like it.
Whatever you do don’t be one of those goofs that obsess more over getting their protein shake in, than getting weight on the bar.
Don’t get me started on preworkouts.(rant for another time)
Go to any gym and talk with it’s patrons. You’ll find all manner of training programs, and a strict religious adherence to their program of choice. You’ll see members clique up based on their manner of training. Quickly you’ll find that training with others may be an issue solely due to the refusal of most to stray from their program one iota. The whole thing is ludicrous.
Humans are not robots. Some days you will be stronger than others. While not going to absolute failure it is often better to go beyond the sets or reps of what your program has in store for you. You may be very strong that day, or very weak. Show up frequently enough and you will have training sessions in all manners of ability.
Maybe you do a program of sets of 5. Maybe on that particular day 5’s feel like shit, but you’re good to go on 3’s or maybe 10’s. If that’s how your body feels go with it!
Would I make faster progress, better gains with every rep written out beforehand, and every weight precise to the ounce? On paper maybe, but I’d hate the sessions, and would end up saying fuck it real quick and reverting to pushups and hindu squats in large quantity.
Personally I like the effort, and simply going. Programming other than walking onto the gym floor and deciding what to do just doesn’t happen for me.
While I try to be the opposite of an accountant and just go with what my body says in the gym,I know a kid who tries to disconnect his brain entirely and go full caveman. Tell him the rep range to hit, don’t let him know the count, and he’ll go far further. If he had a strict program he’d be far weaker due to his brain getting in the way of possibility. While most are not this extreme you can see this going on with just about everyone if you look.
With the exception of a highly Bastardized version of Wendler’s 5/3/1 I’ve never seen much progress on a program. For me to progress I simply train, and if something needs prioritization I will give it just that. I PT for maintenance to a degree, and hitting the same lift daily, or my feeder sessions are how I program prioritization. Straight forward and simple.This isn’t rocket science.
Let me ask you this: Wouldn’t it be better to mad dash your gains, stagnate, then cruise and consolidate only to mad dash again than to inch up like a turtle and only get half as far?
I know where I stand. Let the race begin.
Sans Olympic Weightlifters who squats daily? I’m one of very few. The entire time I did this I heard such things as overtraining,stagnation, and how I wouldn’t recover, yet made the fastest progress of my life on my max this way. Sure there were periods in those 7 months where I was “stale”, and during those times I’d simply do another variation for a while then switch back. Adding 50lbs and a rep ie 1rm +50lbs = 2rm while at less perceived effort is far from any of those things big picture. In fact it’s fairly fast progress for an intermediate.
The best gains are made by lots of experimentation, and learning what works for you. Again you are not a robot. A cookie cutter program always will leave progress on the table unless by a stroke of magic the cookie cutter program just happens to be your perfect program written by hand with divine inspiration from the Gains God (who was thinking of you at the time).
Don’t be so glued to a program. Freestyle training can work, does work, and wondrously at that. Worst case scenario it will make your training a hell of a lot more fun, and with more fun comes more motivation. You know what more motivation leads to? That right more progress.
Yesterday was an off day because that’s what my body said. I did the minimal PT, ended up doubling the shoulder feeder, and took an afternoon nap instead of going to the gym. Today? Today should be fun. I feel front squat and bench PRs in the air.
It’s probably due to my wrestling background, and the fact I often view training as a survival thing but I never understood why people would completely disregard training their neck. Part of it may be the fact wrestling had me training neck within my first year or so of training, and the fact I’ve stuck with it since, if only intermittently.
I’ve heard otherwise strong kids worry about injuring their spine/cervical vertebra doing it. Do they not realize jacking up the neck will make it almost impossible to do just that? It’s the most important bodypart for being bulletproof.
Collisions,falls, making it much harder to man handle you. Training neck is very useful, but completely ignored by almost all.
At the gym a while back one of the kids there was talking non-stop about injuries. Thinking about old-time strength feats I decided right then and there to test bridge presses, I’d never added any real amount of weight to them before.
In the past I’ve done headstands, and can hold them for a long time. This is what probably allowed me to run headfirst into a 440lb guy during an amateur sumo match, and walk away just fine. With the win.
Obviously I’ve done a lot of bridging both front and back due to high school wrestling, and a refusal to stop training neck.
You can flex the hell out of your neck in every conceivable direction.
Isometrics and dynamics can work great. The most effective way I’ve found for hitting the front was having a buddy hold a towel while standing and me on all 4s leaning my head into the towel. A unique play on manual resistance isometrics. I found they work better positioning wise with the towel, not the partners hands.
You could try headbanging, I’ve heard it works for some.
Best overall though is to wrestle 10+ hours a week. Nothing grew my neck faster than wrestling season, particularly since my practice partner’s style involved a lot of patty cake(constantly pulling down on the head as main means of attack/set up)
Over the years I’ve at least trained my neck intermittently with periods of obsession particularly if I’m in any manner of fight sport. Just last night I had the urge to use my neck harness which is always a part of my gym bag. I sat on a bench,braced hands on knees and did 50 reps with 50 lbs, and using a couple forced reps to get it doing, and a few at the end I did another set of 50 with 75lbs.
Now the neck harness is probably the easiest way to know/track your volume, and progressively overload, but often it seems to leave my neck far too stiff, which no other method does. I’m not saying don’t use it, I’m simply advising that it may not be the smartest idea to use as your primary method of training. It’s a good way to know and show your strength though.
Don’t have a pencil neck. Build a neck so large that people are intimidated by it. You’ll be far better off for it. Old Timers focused on big necks for a reason. They’re an important part of manly physique.
Years ago I wrestled, and around the same time I read an article by Dan John talking about bulletproofing your body. That concept stuck with me over time. Think about what you did on the grass in the military or football practice, and what you did on the mats in wrestling. You did a lot of up downs, rolls,jumps, and other “grass drills”. Most don’t do anything resembling such things ever, and most who have stop doing them once they aren’t being made to by a Sergeant or a coach.
Quitting these drills is a mistake. These movements are crazy good for weird wrestling style cardio.They bulletproof you by teaching you how to land/fall properly, and often can reduce soreness.
The key is to never quit them, and unlike my normal views on the necessity of warm ups I prefer to start slowly( I warned you). This is key if you’ve never done them, or haven’t in years.
Now under this category most think of burpees (which suck,but work), my focus is on the much lesser used (and known) rolls. Forward and backward rolls, known as tumbling in gymnastic circles, or whatever your wrestling coach decided to call them. Mine generally wanted us to “Dive” over the progressively higher and higher stick, the opposite of limbo lower.
At The Old Gym
At the old commercial gym on the 40ish yard strip of stretching mat(the place most do yoga,stretch,and what not) I would end sessions where i thought I’d have a sore spine with forward and backward rolls straight out of wrestling practice. I recalled how during wrestling my back actually always felt good, and the Dan John article and made a habit of doing them whenever I could grab enough mat to do them. The first time doing them you will gas. Your first reps are better off starting low to the ground.
Relearning The Lesson
Last weekend I was at the (new) gym, and bored. It was early morning, few were there and i grabbed the foldable mats and the jumping box put them on the ground in the same vicinity and preceded to play with rolls,kneeling jumps, broad jumps, and box jumps, essentially no rest for 10-15 minutes. This play retaught me how one maintains and gains athleticism. I occasionally do jumps, the rolls I hadn’t done since joining the new gym.
I was gassed, and during the session progressively went into the rolls higher and faster ie I started kneeling and progressed into jog into dive, or kneeling/broad jump into the dive and roll.
Using It
The next day I did hand and thigh lifts, and knew my spine would be sore, that if I didn’t do something that I’d have to crack my back constantly so again more rolling. Low and behold just like at the commercial gym, and wrestling practice my spine felt pretty the next day. Nowhere near the soreness it “should” have had.
I seriously suggest that you start doing forward and backward rolling.Use a mat, the soft surface makes loads of difference. One could call this tumbling drills. They are a very useful tool that most never implement.
Strange Looks?
You may get weird looks, or even snarky comments while doing so, but who cares? You are doing what it takes to have recovery of a God, and allowing yourself to go harder than everyone. Have fun, and don’t be stupid.
Sometime the best progress we made as beginners, but I’m not talking beginner gains, I’m talking the movements we do.
I was in my high school’s JROTC program and my sophomore year our PT test consisted of:
Toe Touch Seated: Pass/Fail Based on how far past toes
Pushups: Max in 1 minute
Sit Ups: Max in 1 minute
Walking Lunges : Max in 1 minute
Shuttle Run: Pass/Fail Based on Time
1 Mile Run: Ace Standard was stupid fast sub 6 minute
This JROTC PT test was something I was training for before I started lifting weights in earnest. It was my sophomore year. My first time with a barbell was 2nd semester freshman year in PE class, and over the Summer I bought a 300lb weight set from Dick’s and a bench with squat stands from Walmart.
That summer, and sophomore year I really only hit some bench with friends or squatted sets of 10 by myself. That year I’d go to the school weight room and density train(unknowingly) dips and weighted calf raises in the gap between the bell and my bus.
Back to roots. The ace score for lunges was just under 60 in a minute, 58 I presume, so 29 reps per leg in a minute.My PR was about 72, and 1 or 2 cadets beat me. The 3 of us blew that Ace standard right out of the water.
You very well know my feeling towards pushups.(I love them with a scary OCD fixation),and aside from the run who cares about the other events.
Generally PT in class consisted of Stretching, Pushups, Flutter Kicks, then lower body meaning alternating A/B days. A days consisted of Lunges , and B days of wall sits super set with wind sprints. 3 out of 4 sessions were ended with a mile run.
Simply we did a shit ton of reps on all of them. Myself and a couple others also did PT at home.
Now I rarely squatted past 185 thinking(as a 15 year old would) that as long as I could squat bodyweight I was doing just fine on strength( my high school is pretty damn piss weak). One time i decided to test it and found I could rep my entire 300lb set for a set of 7. Every week for a while I’d do this,at the time weighing 174lbs at 6′ tall. So at 15 and 174lbs as a skinny fat kid I could hit 300 x7.
How the fuck did I do that?
The answer popped into mind yesterday(re-driven in this morning).
Lunges. Walking Lunges for high reps.
Yesterday I did 4 sets of 25 yards. 2 sets regular, 2 sets swamp lunges.
This leads me to:
Soreness
I don’t seem to get sore like most do. Yesterday’s end workout lunge fest caused some DOMS though.
My glutes are sore, whenever they are I’m stronger for it. Literally. If I squat today they’ll fire harder due to yesterdays activation. It’s part of why I advocate high frequency. Lots of sessions can act as primers for the next.
My traps are as well. Remember this 10 day ago?
Well I decided to shrug yesterday, and apparently I was stronger than on the 4th.
9 fucking reps with 675. Fuck your form, this is how one induces trap growth, and turns themself into a juggernaut.
Hell I even hit a fat bar power clean PR.
And repped it overhead because I can.
The session was a very much back to my training roots session. Knowing that forward rolls and backward rolls keep my spine feeling pretty(prehab style work anticipating shrug soreness) I did a 10 minute block of them(wrestling background)
Pound For Pound Strength
At 15 my squat reps pound for pound were just as strong if not stronger than now. It was do to all the walking lunges.
Pound for pound ability seems to be shown quite well by certain performance metrics. Pullups for one, and mile run ability for another.
When I was wrestling, and doing tons of mileage, or even running stairs post workout I made better gains. The aerobic work allowed me to train longer.
Back To Roots (Again)
Fuck mental feeling, I know what training makes me a juggernaut.
Outside the Gym: High Rep Calisthenics, Pushups, Chins,Dips, Lunges, Miles, Stairs, 40’s, 400m.
In the gym: High frequency squatting, regular volume squats, and heavy ass partials(squats, and shrug/rack pull/hand and thigh),stepper,rowing.
I know aerobic work must be kept in. It’ll only affect your leg strength for about 5 minutes.
Simply I need to combine my pre-gym training that worked, and my gym training that works. I’ve even mentioned this before only to slide after a few weeks of conditioning work.
I counted out how many times I’ve done lunges in the last two years. The result? 4 or 5 times. Sophomore year I did them 4-5 times weekly.
Back to the fucking roots. Calisthenics,Lunges, Partials,Frequency Squats, Volume Legs, And Motherfucking Cardio.
I’m wholeheartedly inclined to believe, nay I know that there is no such thing as physical limits.
Before you joker’s comment about gravity, I mean as far as human performance is concerned.
There is no reason that a person couldn’t build up the work capacity and develop all aspects of performance to the point that they could move big weights,ultramarathon,and be explosive as hell; on a daily or near daily basis.
Look at history. There have been some amazing feats of labour,not even training. Simply men working with their hands,thier backs, and the sweat on thier brows.
A large percentage if not the majority of our abilities are rooted in our mind.
Former Navy SEAL Stew Smith had a quote paraphrased ” the human body will adapt to all you throw at it,running,calisthenics,swimming, weights do it long enough and the body will adapt ” This path of reasoning always resonated with me.( I wasn’t able to find the exact quote through Google or the notecard I wrote it on at 15)
It’s the weak thought that adaption won’t happen where so many gym goers go wrong.
I’ve been doing Olympic lifts near daily,and am treating March as shoulder specialization month.
The two and some extra back work are very synergistic.
I fully expect 225×20 jerks or better before the month is up.
Less than a week and I got it to around 10. I didn’t record that set so I’m unsure of the exact count. It was 9-11 reps though.
For the 3rd or 4th time in my life I power cleaned 255. I put it overhead,and barely missed stabilizing the 2nd jerk rep.( 1st time I overheaded that much.)
8 days in, and you can see a visible difference in traps,neck,and shoulders. Hell, all the heavy jerks have my abs thicker, closer to showing despite the highish bodyfat %.
I purposely am running myself into the ground with these. 5 days in a row of heavy and/or high volume. I know from past experience , like the quote says that if I do it long enough the body will adapt. I’m looking to not only up the power clean but lock in that new number as an everyday max.
I wasn’t supporting this with calories or sleep, just a strong dose of anger and never say die attitude.
Not eating enough. Train to light headedness, recover,next set the same. 50 reps of shoulders as a requirement, but I was closer to 100 heavy reps + 50-100 light reps each session . Far past required, and the hour minimum of Olympics + decent volume on rows.
The hunger was great for being aggressive and sttacking the bar, but after feeling very low I decided yesterday was calorie re-up day. I ate over 5000 calories, I’d estimate 5800. You know you need to eat when you zone out at the grocery store staring at a 10lb bag of chicken while contemplating what you’d like to do to it.
Today is going to be more of the same, tomorrow ditto. Training that is. Olys and shoulders. I need to hit some legs as well. Isometrics on the leg extension, some squats, maybe some inverse curls. Food no clue, I may keep low calorie for a few days . I am enjoying the aggression that is tied to it.
My gut says continue running myself into the ground,that adaption is close. I woke up mentally not wanting to do shit. Wanting the day off,and all that weakness. You know what I’m doing though? All the shit I have to. The closer and closer to gym time it gets the more I’m looking forward to a jerk PR attempt, on film, because I haven’t uploaded in a few days.
Holding the path always holding the path. Time to start cultivating the aggression again. Push the limits.
I was inspired by two things to say fuck programming and lift daily by feal;
1. Chaos And Pain Blog
2. John Broz
Now Broz talked about a concept of floating pain. Pain will be on your body but isn’t serious,won’t stick around,and will change location seemingly daily.
Keep in mind I’d run myself into the ground over the weekend, having roughly 9 hours of gym time.
My lower back was locked. The insertion between it and my glutes made all movement uncomfortable.
Unlike my normal cracking of the back, I had to stretch as well, and often.
Even mentally I was leaning towards a day off. All “reasons” said off day.
I went about the to do list as usual,but had something come up that was stressing me,that I needed to metaphorically “sleep” on. I had to get out of my head so off to the gym I went.
Broz states that every session you do is an opportunity for a PR. Every session you miss is a lost chance for a PR. I wholeheartedly agree. It’s why I lift almost every day ( My normal is 2-3 days off monthly,with the occasional double session)
Every session is a PR opportunity.
Go in and you may surprise yourself.
Saturday having the desk girl film me I was at 99% of the way towards completing a 20lb (275) power clean PR, the fucker was high pulled to my chin. Sunday more jerks but was fatigued and so made it lighter and for higher reps. 3×10-15 with 185, ~5×1-3 with 205. Each set the first rep was power cleaned and the 205s were far harder than they should’ve been.
(Sunday’s Best Set)
Yesterday was something though. I went in purely to clear my mind.
Locker room, shit, out onto the gym floor and gave into the urge to step on the platform and do some caveman Olys. I figured I was fucked for cleans,so power snatches it was.
Singles at 135,165( little harder than it should be),185( slow but completed), even based on bad bar speed I felt I could get under more.
185 I only hit in the last 3 months, at first requiring a press out or straps, but progressed to put on show for chick staring level(meaning I could hit it practically gaurenteed), I had only tried to go past it a handful of times and even 190 would be failed abysmally.
There was no reason for it, I just knew I would hit 205. I loaded it up, grabbed a bodybuilder to film,he warned me the video might be shaky as his session was over and I’d assume his preworkouts crash and jitters were hitting. High pull very high, immediately reset, and got it overhead,but in a way that I had to throw it forward to keep from a possible break neck situation (I didn’t catch it well,had to dump it,but unlike a squat had no clue how to drop it behind me)
I stewed for a few minutes, grabbed one of the powerlifters, was instantly elevated when he thought I’d be going for reps, and hit it. Ugly ugly retarded caveman heave form,my ass actually dropped, it was almost too low to be a “power” snatch, but I fucking hit it, and celebrated in the most nonchalant manner as you’ll see in the vid.
Loaded to 275 and attempted the power clean twice. No dice, the pop was gone at that point. Joked with the camera men (same guy) about how quickly the pop can disappear.
He looked at me , commented it would’ve been pretty crazy to PR on both Olympics back to back. I am always my gyms psycho lifter.
A few triples of snatch grip high pulls , strapped at 275 lbs.
I ended up doing squats with a sort of Olympic form, then an hour+ of shoulder and back bodybuilding.
Some fun social shit there too.
Basically had I taken the day off, I would’ve ended up stewing at home,and wouldn’t have had the blast that the session ended up being. Hell it served its need for sleeping on my thoughts too.
None of that stuff would’ve happened had I not gone in though. For that reason get to the gym as often as you can make happen, and when you can’t there’s pushups and Hindu squats to be done.