When you do a minimal amount of work for the bodyparts you’re not specializing on, the body has no choice but to stay relatively proportioned.
If I was to get back on squat every day my upper body would grow as well as I’d still be doing dips, chins, pushups, and the added leg mass would force added upper body mass.
While I do high volume dips my legs will have to add mass as they’re supporting, moving around with, and sometimes being trained with a bulkier upper body atop them.
If you do some stimulus for everything…You can’t get disproportionate!
It’d be pretty hard to specialize in anything, and be overall weak as the whole!
Exact proportions may float some, but it won’t get ridiculous in either the twig legged or bird chested manners as long as some stimulus is given to it all.
My pants may be looser right now, a minor effect of no heavy squats or deadlifts, but work proves they’re strong as fuck, and they ain’t tiny despite gym work being mostly upper body, skewed to pressing in general, and dips in particular right now.
Calisthenics for the upper body will keep it proportional to the legs in heavy training.
The legs supporting the body will keep them proportionate to the upper body while in upper body specialization.
I wrote this article in my brain as I was on the dip bar. Typed it up a few hours later with dinner.
We’re in the customers living room, packing up a box of ridiculous dimensions, which ended up weighing about 170lbs. The coworker is suggesting I attempt to carry it myself…
Coworker : “You ever go on YouTube and watch mover fails? You see shit explo”
I cut him off.
Me : “No. (forcefully stated) And for the same reason I never watch gym fails.”
The customer (fit chick, about my age) laughs at the exchange, turning a little red faced in spite of her tan. I’d guess she doesn’t watch gym fails either.
Pistol Squats :
12/19/19 ~1215pm
The forklift was putting empty crates in a trailer. I was finishing the job by hand, pushing them into place manually which I’ve alluded to before…with them occasionally loaded past a literal ton.
“It seemed like a job for J” – the managers words.
(I have done it before. Crates inside trailers both in and out of the trailer, with pallet jack or without are one of the places where my size and gym strength shines at this job.)
Between crates, while waiting for the next, I goofed around attempting pistol squats.
With my left leg I got two singles.
I’d never done one before, mobility and/or balance always being an issue. Today I had the balance left legged, though I was in work boots and not barefoot. Right side was an issue of flexibility.
Cool, I’ve gained another one limb exercise/party trick. Add it to the one arm pushups, and I’m working on one arm pullups with the assisted dip/chin machine.
I mentioned it to a coworker.
“Since I got paid today to pistol squat that may make me a professional athlete”.
The same coworker told me he’d no longer bother telling me when an item is heavy, as it all weighs, and I quote “J light”.
He was surprised that I could do the pistol.
Surprise at what I do physically is something I come across a lot lately. The forklift last week a prime example. Everyone viewed that one as a big deal, one wished he had it on camera, and even the coworker driving it that yelled for me to push…was joking…yet I did it…by hand…by myself.
Gym Anecdote : The Hardest Man In The Gym
12/19/19 PF ~315pm
I thought nothing of him at first.
He was of normal height, fairly lean, a little more muscular than I’d call athletic. Probably mid-40s, doing well for his age, and honestly a bit broey wearing a yeti coolers shirt.
He was already seated at the lat pulldown, when I used the pushdown across from him and the cable flys next to him.
Then he stood, moving away with those short hand held crutches, and lame paralyzed legs.
Dude had a good upper body…on top of paralyzed legs.
Between work, being mostly fasted, and PF for a moment I wonder if I’m good to drive home.
The last time I pushed to this place was the SoCal bodybuilding gym about 15 months back. The true inspiration behind, and practice of the poptarts post.
It goes to show that you can make anywhere work.
You haven’t “gymed” right until you’ve experienced wondering if you’re going to be good to drive home.
Most never reach that level of intensity.
The wrestling room teaches you, and sometimes you’ll still reach that zone.
It’s in you. It’s in all of us, when we reach down inside and embrace it.
Fasting, working, training. It is what it is, it’s what I do.
(“Strict” diet no longer sounds like a hardship to me. With an increase in maturity, I’ve learned to view it all as the process, and to love it all.)
That intensity to where you’re spent, cramping a little, and a bit woozy is where I’ve found the greatest levels of progress to come from.
That spot day after day doing what others won’t because you’re not others.
I don’t suggest you go there, unless you must. We don’t get to that level because we’re normal or ever were.
Take it where you will.
Planet Fitness is enough of a gym. You can get in “hardcore” workouts, and achieve “hardcore” results there.
It’s fully on you. Environment is what you make of it.
You get out what you put in.
I got a good full body workout, and meditated, back and forth, back and forth, between the two.
Fighting off passing out by meditation to Wes Watson’s “gate money and a vision”, and “the shu”, then more training volume.
My physicality and physique are improving with the combination of labor and pf.
Being in my own skin I usually don’t notice. I do feel strong. Lately I’ve been getting comments. My pants are more loose, my bodyweight is up, and I see my potential to lean out bringing my physique to another level.
It might be “hardcore”, but there’s play.
Focusing on “conditioned” strength, and experimenting with stimulus I’ve never before done.
Feel good workouts on top of labor physicality, eating good food, and embracing a strong mindset.
The best dietary thing you can do is add a little meat to your daily diet, with red meat being preferable.
Ideally we’re talking a steak or homemade hamburger every day.
I’ve seen someone claim the biblical “give us this day our daily bread” as a mistranslation, or more accurately a misunderstanding of archaic terminology with not grain being meant, but meat, flesh.
Considering the bread in communion is supposed to be the flesh of Jesus, I can see it slowly going from flesh to grain over time in accepted meaning.
It wouldn’t have been economical, logistically possible, or wanted by the ruling class for the peasantry at mass to be getting a weekly meal of meat in supplementation to their all grain and vegetable all the time diet.
Instinctively it’s known that nothing is better for the human body than the intake of some high quality fatty flesh.
Do you know anyone robust and healthy eating low fat like the food pyramid and medical establishment suggest?
Eat your meat.
The animal died for your nourishment. Everything has a purpose. To die for your nourishment is the place of the hunted, farmed, and ranched animal, the natural relationship of edible beast to man.
Look at it this way to solve the nutritional arguments :
Would you rather have the burger or the bun?
Yeah, in the morning I may choose the bun, but not always, however if we’re talking all I’m gonna get that day it’s the burger hands down eaten late in the evening or at night.
Grass fed organic red meat is the pinnacle, but if 89¢ chicken thigh or a chicken patty is what you gotta do it’s what you gotta do as low fat or low quality meat (to a degree one and the same) is better than no meat.
I’m thankful for modern agriculture allowing me the turkey, kielbasa, chicken, pork, and beef I’ve eaten in the last week. It may not be grass fed organic, but it sure was nutritious.
We got it out with only me pushing.
The driver gunning it, me pulsing my upper body in mini “benches”, eventually with one shoulder against the forklift, feet dug in pressing as hard as possible into the slightly slick winter ground.
While pushing I saw that pushing it out was possible, everyone was surprised to see it back in the warehouse, even I’d thought we’d need a second man pushing, but gunning and pulsing it came out.
I’d head carried the half ramps thrice today, proving to myself once and for all my neck was not injured during the car accident.
(Head carries and headstands both are great for neck strength and health.)
Pulsing, I’m yelling “gun it” at my coworker behind the wheel repeatedly, when I knew it was close I let forth a primal groan, a second, then a Ric Flair “whoo” as it rolled clear. It had been a decent show of strength.
As he starts to drive back I yelled “hey, it’s time for my victory ride”, and rode back hanging off the side of the forklift, hamming it up, “interpretive dance” in front of the dumbfounded manager.
The manager was looking at me like I was insane, dumbfounded the forklift was there, a lightbulb overhead, as the realization that I’d pushed it out manually as tow straps and a pickup were went for dawned, wondering what was wrong with me as I was posing like a star half on, half off the forklift.
I step off into victory pose, making eye contact, saying “that’s right”. I’d seen the lightbulb of realization.
A while back coworkers were like “dude, you’re strong”, turning around in the company pickup a look of shock on their faces when I’d said I view myself as normal of strength and athleticism.
It was one of those super human performances, like when my uncle (not blood) ripped the atv stuck against the fence away from the fence as I sat on it.
Stories aside, and shout out to wildmantraining.com, things like a shoulder carry, or pushing heavy things are more natural than heavy regular usage of deep squatting. Squatting on the haunches is natural, but in a primal sense you’re not going to be doing reps, it’s just a way to stand with or without a load to carry.
Labor, grappling, and strongman style training are where day to day freakish strength is built.
I feel fluke gym/barbell strength with that freakish manhandling strength is more of an outlier.
I’ve had gym strength which didn’t carry over too far outside it, sprint speed in high school an exception.
You can’t do wrong pushing, dragging, shouldering, and carrying awkward loads.
I’d actually cut out the majority of gym leg training.
The only change between being unable to push out the stuck forklift in summer vs doing it in winter was the high horse stance holds…
Lately I’ve been using the assisted dip/chin machine to do an assisted version of one arm pullups.
I don’t care about the stabilizers.
I figure being capable of between 4 and 8 good real pullups at any given time at roughly 265lbs walk around bodyweight is enough to allow me some leeway in how I go about training the movement pattern.
It’s multiple progression mostly by feel. Thus far I like going long sets alternating left arm, right arm, back and forth.
Progression by upping the total reps per extended set, by matching total reps in less mini sets, PRs for first mini set, or as one normal set, and by lowering the amount of assistance.
An idea struck me :
Fuck the stabilizers, they’ll be fine by everything else I do.
People using the assistance for low rep sets is something of a travesty.
Why stop at 8? The assistance is greater than bodyweight for a lot of people. They could up the assistance and push the reps way higher.
I’ve written before that a base of very high reps is superior to low rep training, especially while starting out.
I’ve never actually hit 20+ pullups.
PR is 18 or 19 off of a tree branch around my 21st birthday weighing between 205 and 215.
I’ve hit about 15 at around 255, but only 9 or 10 around the current 265-270 bodyweight.
I’ve said before that you’d be superior in both strength and development coming up with 50 rep sets as your primary rep range.
I’d been doing giant sets with a resistance of 90lbs or 105lbs each side back and forth.
(The stack at full assistance is 175lbs, I’m assuming bodyweight is at 265lbs for calculating purposes.)
Instead of, or in addition to the one arm work I could go very high rep with both hands working my way down in resistance as I go.
I know how much strength endurance pushups have built me, and how massive strength endurance does build top and strength.
This could be my way of getting pushup style stimulus for upper body pull.
(I could also make the movement equal in percentage of bodyweight to pushups, .6bw-.7bw, and try to hit light pullup rep PRs.)
It’d carryover everywhere, and most likely would get me not only to, but past 20 reps on pullups.
Strength endurance training is the way. High reps are superior to low reps.
All I took was a 35lb dumbbell, and kept going left arm, right arm, with an occasional squat set.
You have a lot of play here in one dumbbell workouts.
(Or two dumbell workouts for that matter.)
It could be just pressing, switching sides, and going for a serious length of time.
You could go for a rep count.
You could do every rep as a clean and press upping the cardio requirement.
There could be more squats.
People think you have to lift heavy to be strong.
The example workout going 10×10 circuit style loaded with the 75lb dumbbell (pf’s heaviest freeweight) is not going to be anything other than a strong and conditioned individual.
Back in high school I knew this guy ; He was tall, skinny fat. He claimed to weigh 165, but I doubt he was much more than 140, weighing 150 tops with rocks in his pockets while wearing ankle weights.
Dude would be healthy for like 2 weeks, then have a catastrophic injury that’d put him out of commission for months, where he’d be back into his natural habitat of COD, Mountain Dew, and casts.
(He also could text extraordinarily fast on flip phones, I’m talking computer keyboard wpm. It was dumbfounding to watch.)
I probably saw him in casts/braces for every single limb in less years than one has limbs. (It was something like 6 in 2 years, covering 3 or 4 of the limbs) He’d broken every shin and forearm at some point in his life, often repeatedly.
Funny dude to hang around with, you always wondered if today was the day something would snap.
he too would fall through a trap door
I’m unable to say that I ever saw him eat or drink anything that qualifies as real food. His only liquids were soda as far as I can recall (with the exception of Gatorade once neener neener), and impressive quantities of Hostess Ring Ding Twinky type “foods”. If calories were everything he should’ve been a big fatass. Lunch was 2000+ calories of the aforementioned alone, by his word he did this multiple times a day, plus a box of cereal every morning with as little skim milk on it as possible (he claimed lactose intolerance) call it a box of count chocula.
During a short lived human period between catastrophic lower limb snaps, (“dude, I just saw you yesterday without a cast!”, “I miss landed a kick flip.” “You skateboard?” “Yeah, when I’m not injured” twas normal, this actually happened), he asked me how to be robust, I guess even then I seemed injury proof :
“Dude, actually exercise, and drink milk” – me to him
Of course he claimed he exercised seriously (via jogging, I had meant strength training), and with theoretical eastern european blood (he looked ? , had a hispanic-ish last name, but claimed to be polish) claimed lactose intolerance!
“Dude, if you’re really 100% Polish you should be able to handle milk.”
“I can’t.”
“Try digestion enzymes, you need the nutrition”.
I drank milk and lifted weights. He jogged (or at least claimed to) and effectively a vegan in the worst way drank gallons of Mountain Dew with that Twinkie diet. There was a noticable difference in injury frequency (none vs constantly), and at one point as teens me 17 him 16 there may have been a 100lb+ difference in bodyweight though I stood an inch or two shorter than he (low 250 vs low “you don’t weigh 165 maybe 150”)
Life, you couldn’t make this shit up.
The lesson here is give your body sound nutrition, and good physical stimulus.
Locker room ; a guy is taking his stuff out from the locker next to mine, as I open my locker I say :
“Good workout?”
He replies, “always”.
Simple. The truth.
Workouts are always good.
Why would it ever be anything different?
He asked me how mine went, “good, the first half hour was shitty, but I kept doing more, kept changing bodyparts, and it turned good, now I have a great full body pump”.
That’s the mindset, it’s always good! And that’s how you must train! With your mind right it can be euphoric cloud 9 every session.
If something ain’t going right, keep at it, do another bodypart, and something will click.
Pullups were okay strength wise, but I didn’t get a good pump, the feeling wasn’t there, mentally I was stiff, not yet fun loving and loose, tense, not yet outgoing.
I switched to inclined board situps. I do them every trip. 4×25. The last two sets were difficult. Is that the same blonde from the other day glancing at me again? I felt like she was as I did my pullups, if it’s the same girl she definitely was the other day, and seems to be doing so again today.
Dips, 5×20. Dips are my high t, mind right, movement at planet fitness.
Midway through the dips on a water refill run I initiated fist bumps with two regulars with whom head nods are always exchanged. Oh yeah, getting into the place. That blonde is glancing again.
If I’m social at the gym it gets exponentially better.
Leg time!
Leg press, straight to the stack. 4 sets. Stack x 35, 30, 20, 20. I took good breaks. Walking funny between sets. Great quad work. The blonde moves to next to me, she’s still glancing.
I go to the stretching room. Rest for long enough while noticing the college blonde is again in my immediate vicinity, and again keeps glancing. This went on from the point I was doing situps through.
Mentally prepping to wrestler’s bridge hold. Deciding whether to time it myself, or get someone to time me, which makes it easier mentally as I have them call out at every 10 or 15 second interval.
At this point, now half way to hitting on the aforementioned blonde I decide “I’ll have her time me”, and just feel her vibe out as in my bones I don’t HAVE to talk to her. She times me. I wanted to break 60 seconds on the hold, and preferably hit 90. I just about failed at 75.
Between unnecessary attractive blonde related nerves and the preceding leg pressing it was rough to do the hold. My glutes were spasming after this, on top of quads which were shaking preceding.
Notably I had actually eaten a Tootsie Roll between leg press sets as I had been getting low on energy from the efforts.
The girl called the time out weird. The ticks, 10, 10, 10, 10, 50, 1 minute, I say as I’m still in position “I’m keeping going”, and hear 10, and when I drop one fifteen. At 50 she must’ve sensed that I wanted it called out that manner.
While not the first girl to time me going 10, 10, 10, this one however mixed the manners. The other just called 10 indefinitely. Mentally I just count them 1,2,3 if they do count weird, and have taken to synchronizing my breathing in-out with every 10 second interval regardless.
That synchronized breathing, 5 seconds in, pause, 5 seconds out, pause, noticably extends bridge hold time.
Before parting ways, I thanked her, and introduced myself.
Spasming glutes as I recover and begin to mediate to :
3x on repeat. Near the end (~27th minute) I stand up, and start bouncing around, the wrestler next to the mat, fast and loose drills, shaking out tension.
She’s probably still glancing. I don’t notice at this point.
Amped up again I decide to rep out on dips. She leaves. I hit 46 reps bringing it close to failure. Drop. Immediately jump back up. 5 more.
On the gym floor 2 hours on the dot.
Walking to the locker room…the blonde is still training…and tries to hide the glance. She was there when I’d arrived, and repeatedly kept popping up in my vicinity all across the gym for two hours straight.
As I do a set of pushups it hits me, then again as I do the next set.
Work out your way.
I had been thinking and writing rough drafts about euphoria and essentially dancing under load in the gym.
Exercise is bliss when you do what you want, how you want, when you want.
Do you know how well I feel as I do my pushups?
Even on the darkest of days when I didn’t want to do them, doing them habitually from years long habit, those 15+ begrudgingly done reps (3 on the day I was delusionally feverish) have always been a ray of perfect warmth and sunshine to my life.
What stress is there?
Man, you can always workout.
Pushups dude, pushups, isometrics ; equipment if you have it. Pump it up!
I’ve done pushups for so long I no longer don’t want to do them.
I’ve been looking forward to them everyday for months now. I’d guess since back May 14th, the 3 year anniversary of no misses.
Daily pushups as rigid requirement (of joy) is quintessentially me, my way of working out.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
Whatever else I do by play or compulsion (I do inclined board situps every time I go to the gym) is quintessentially my way of working out.
Be it random, required, or required til it’s not.
I despise logging. I’ll do so from time to time, but really I just want to bring music or less onto the gym floor with me.
There is no need to bring balance into the training…if you don’t want to.
I’ve nearly always trained full body, at planet fitness, no legs the other day, WHOOPS!, I’d done so much extra shoulders and abs that I decided to leave without even one set of leg press or hip thrusts.
A-OH-KAY!
I did it my way.
Balance?
I’ve been so damn depressed where I’d sit inside all day, the ONLY physical thing pushups, one set, before Seinfeld 1120pm.
Fuck, guy, I’m alive it’s all joy now.
The gym, or any exercise you enjoy by extension…is a MENTAL performance enhancer.
The gym’ main benefit is mental, the physical is the side effect.
Physicality and some outgoingness will put you on a cocksure cloud 9.
I love it baby. It’s…natural.
The gym ain’t some serious shit, it’s play, and unless it’s how you making your living, even if it’s passion, your true work, it’s still not hardcore, it’s only a hobby.
What I’m saying ; why so serious, it’s play, work out YOUR way.
