I Just Lift To Lift

This post has been a long time coming, ah the reminiscing :

“I just lift to lift.”

Often I’d be asked what I was training for…

Powerlifting?

Do you intend to compete?

Unless I’m near a world record…I just lift to lift.

I like to lift.

I don’t give a damn about some referee’s or the internet’s opinion on my form, methodology, etc.

I like to lift, and I just lift to lift.

If I want to hit a certain number I very likely will mad dash towards it.

I may hit it, I may get bored and stop, goals will last as long as they last, and regardless I just lift to lift.

Whatever gym I walk into, commercial, powerlifting, bodybuilding, hole in the wall, planet fitness…I’m the odd ball, and why, because…I just lift to lift.

It’s not calisthenics, bodybuilding, powerliftering, weightlifting, or strongman…I just lift to lift

I’ll play…with whatever is there. A (real waterlogged) log in the water I’ll shoulder and try to push press, I’ll pick up the heavy kb and bottoms up press, I’ll balance on a bosu ball, walk while rolling a PVC pipe, max out the “bad girl” machine for sets of 50+, jump across that mat, try to one arm pushup, copy the guy doing standing ab wheel rollouts, or deadlift “cold”, to name a few. I play, and I just lift to lift.

It’s so unorthodox that it intrigues and simultaneously causes discomfort…

What are you training for!

“Dude, I’d like to train with you, but I can never actually tell what it is that you’re training” – a word for word quote

“I am the antitheses of bodybuilding”, a statement I once made hanging around talking at a gym one night, and you know what
…I just lift…to lift.

I’m not any of those groups, I may incorporate bits of all of them. I may improvise, or make it up.

It doesn’t need to make sense, though to me it does.

When I lift…I just lift to lift.

It’s terribly fun this way…my way.

I just lift to lift.

My number one piece of advice to a newbie lifter?

Alright here it goes :

I’m gonna assume that you’re kind of a nerd, getting into the most antisocial physical activity you can, and that you’re not here following your football coach’s advice, that you read up on how to train properly…for many many hours before you ever put a barbell on your neck or in your hands.

Here’s my #1 piece of advice to you…

The Number One Piece Of Advice For A Newbie Lifter :

Prove what you read wrong.

Everything you’ve read has told you the exact scientific way to do things, and now you’re stumped…

How the fuck do you find a one rep max and train based off of it!

Will those percentages actually make you stronger?

You must use a bodypart split, but bodypart splits aren’t functional!

You have to train everything once every 5 or 7, or is it 10 days?

Can you do cardio? Do you forgo cardio? Do you have to program it too!

How many meals to eat? 3 squares, 6 meals, 2 meals?

Whatever they’ve said you have to do…prove them wrong.

Train every day. You remember how sports make you do so (you played sports right?), so why would the weight room be any different?

The weight room is just another physical activity. It’s not a part of some alternate dimension where everything works differently.

Eat like you’ve stumbled upon a feast just as you were nearly starved to death. Why…Yes! I’ll have another gallon of milk and side of beef!

Prove what you’ve read wrong.
Instinct is superior to the reading, so prove what you’ve read wrong.

Do it your way, it is an individual endeavour afterall.

Decide what you’re going to prove wrong, and do so.

The best advice for a beginner to weight training is go out, and prove what you’ve read wrong.

Persistence & Tenacity

It’s impressive to see how badly the average person moves, and by extension is built.

Even the fit are functionally retarded.

(And just how do the swamp creatures waddling around walmart get so far gone?)

Does anyone escape this fate?

Step outside, hopefully there is nature close by in some capacity. Now watch how the animals move…

Animals move to a degree so far past the human’s ability that for one, say a squirrel, to be as dysfunctional as any given human would result in a dead animal.

Announcer voice : “Leaping from tree to tree”
Goofy noise : “awwhhowhowhowho”
Sound effect : “Splat”

Darwin culling the herd. Get the picture?

Animals in nature are goddamn elite athletes.

No matter how athletic you are you most likely don’t move well.

This isn’t damnation.

Fix yourself.

It seems a common assumption that bodyweight training can work for the upper body, but not for the lower body. It’s often said that bodyweight isn’t enough for the legs. That’s flawed reasoning, I can tell you it is, bodyweight training builds the legs.

To those who say it can’t I wonder many things :

Have they never done peak contraction bodyweight squats? Have they never done very high rep bodyweight squats? How about hindu squats?

Did they forget about glute bridges, and hip thrusts?

Are they incapable of finding space to lunge walk, or better yet do the same with swamp lunges?

Do they not know how to flex?

Are they sprinting? What jumping do they do?

Do they not realize the best quad exercise is the sissy squat, and the best hamstring exercise is the leg curl using an exercise ball?
(Those both work the muscle hard.)

Do they not do the step up, likely the exercise that develops the legs in the most muscularly balanced manner aside from sprinting itself?
Is there no park bench or similar that they can use to do these for high reps?

Have they pumped up then stretched the muscle with a nice deep stretch? The DC training quad stretch is fantastic.

Have they never held a horse stance, wall sit, warrior pose, wrestler’s bridge, or deep lunge split like they used to do in weightlifting?

Surely they must have tried stomping, and kicking.

Have they done high reps of shiko, the sumo wrestler leg lift, stomp, and squat?

Have they attempted pistol squats? (You can use hand balance to allow the legs to work.)

Could they possibly not be doing high rep calf raises?

If they can’t get a solid leg stimulus, enough to grow on out of bodyweight only…clearly they aren’t trying.