Month: January 2020

Some nights my PT looks like this, my pushups are nearly without exception repetitions of 23 mantras done for one set of 46 (twice through), with a possible extra set, and a high horse stance of between 3 and 4 minutes.

This takes a total of about 5 minutes.

For an effective no excuses workout try this principle :

You have two movements, one upper body, one lower body. You exercise for the entire 5 minutes no rest.

Tonight it was pushups and a high horse stance.

It could just as easily be pushups with hindu squats.

(It has been before.)

It’s the principle that matters, whole body (burpees or squat thrusts alone can cover it), and no excuses.

Persistence & Tenacity

There is no time to eat more conductive to growth than eating immediately before going to sleep.

Take a page from Sumo Wrestler 101, and eat before going to bed.

Sure the sumo wrestler is fat, but they’re natural, carrying HUGE amounts of muscle under that rotundness, and they’re not eating round the clock in the time consuming 5-8 meal a day bodybuilding manner.

Bluntly bodybuilding culture’s sought after physique is unhealthy for both men and women, as some amount of fat is natural to both sexes.

A female needs her curves to be healthily fertile.

In my experience I’m more powerful carrying a reasonable amount of bodyfat.

Being that I’m not a competitive bodybuilder, that I’m natural (not that it matters), have a healthy outlook on appearance, and know what is truly how a man is meant to be built…

I’ll just be physical and eat real foods.

You can diet eating from stereotypical sources, I’ll just eat meat, potatoes, drink milk.

Aesthetics?

I’m a hairy burly Man.

That’s what God had in mind when he designed man.

You don’t need drugs. You don’t need to be aiming for some metrosexual nancy boy hairless lean aesthetic.

You want to be big and strong?

Disregard bodybuilding as it currently is. Go old school, bulk & power.

It’s far more easily attained than you think.

Persistence & Tenacity

Don Buck, a 60s/70s hardcore karate guy, spoke of a psychotically determined student holding horse stance to the point of unconsciousness to end every training day. He spoke of how very quickly after having taken up this practice that the student essentially became superhuman in a fight.

Me? On just a few minutes of the hold a day…I’m convinced one, that the anecdote holds true, and two…

That horse stance is magical!

Never have I done one movement that carries over so well overall.

Snow on the ground I’m outside and out of breath, or inside much the same.

I’d just held horse stance for a few minutes, and had combined it with upper body motions, punching, etc.

It needn’t be lower body only, it can be full body, like pushups as to what is worked in reverse.

The #1 lower body training exercise, huge benefit, zero equipment.

(Like pushups are for the upper body.)

When outside I’ll do a few bodyweight squats, and leap up.

When inside I’ll just shake out my legs, fast and loose.

My legs feel heavy, but it’s a good feeling, nor is it soreness.

They feel solid, powerful.

Something intriguing is going on in the body with them.

A hard to quantify full body effect.

Horse stance, a high horse stance, has become my most consistent leg work these past 6 months.

6 months ago I couldn’t unstick the stuck forklift, now I can. As I said, solid, powerful.

Horse stance the only variable I can
isolate as “there’s the cause”.

It is a kind of isometric training after all. They, isometrics, have these effects.

Isometrics work so well that almost no one do them. It takes a little crazy, or what the norm calls crazy to stick to them.

The truest form of max leg strength is not a squat…it’s a push/drive/drag.

Horse stance is building that quality as the legs shake…while rooting you into the ground.

My feet are always solidly rooted to the ground, be it firm, or slick ground. Hindu squats gave me the same effect.

There’s a noticeable difference between myself and coworkers slip sliding around moving in wintery conditions.

I couldn’t care less if it has gained me strength on a barbell, real world it’s a few minutes of daily practice paying dividends.

Simple training is where the true gold is. Free in money, paid in sweat, and a temporarily increased heart rate.

Effort is everything.
Equipment? Nothing necessary.

Horse stance is magical.

Persistence & Tenacity

Look around you, you can tell a lot by how a person stands, walks.

It’s a simple hack really, and pays dividends when habit…

Carry yourself with the posture of a winner.

I advise everyone to take a moment to stand in victory pose every day.

(Victory pose, abundance posture, I’ve seen it referred to as multiple names. Pick one, and do it. If you need a mental image a variation could be called the Randy Orton, another called The Rocky.)

At 19 I majorly changed my life, by changing my outlook, by building my outgoingness, by building my posture.

At first I was self conscious standing in victory pose. I started indoors. Once that felt more natural I’d do some in the yard where neighbors could see. Soon after I’d do them between sets in the gym.

(Soon after I went from very shy, broken really, back to my natural childhood outgoingness.)

It can look like the “come at me bro”, which has an old funny gym memory to go along with it. That was a noticable leveling up in my self confidence visible to both my surprised buddy, and the intrigued blonde I was talking to.

Our posture as a society is terrible.

Weird seating in cars, desk, the forward neck posture epidemic correlated to electronic usage, et al.

I’ve started to place more value in yoga, in stretching.

Interlace your fingers and reach for the sky. The lengthening of the spine is euphoric.

Every day, even if it’s only in front of your bathroom mirror, stand in a victory pose. That’s where I started. And it progressed positively from there.

I’ve made a point to do “The Rocky” each day for a while now.

While doing so observe yourself, and tell yourself of your greatness.

You’ll find it taking hold in your life more and more. It’s truth.

You’re you. You’re the only you you’ll ever be. May as well be the greatest.

It can all start with an improvement in posture.

Persistence & Tenacity

From the archive :
5/9/18

There’s a truth in our needing to be patient, truth that our journey with the weights must be viewed over the long haul, as a trek (I’m dodging using the term marathon), and not as a sprint.

Your numbers may not rocket up. For some they will, for some they won’t.

Then I saw…

•the longer you maintain a size the higher quality it will be, and the better you will perform there

•greater consistency at a performance metric IS stronger. Example: I can walk up cold under any circumstances and power clean 225. A little over 2 years ago I couldn’t even clean 225.

•your strength cold and under less than ideal conditions is your baseline and walk around strength.
This is the best metric of how strong you truly are.

•the bigger #, doesn’t necessarily mean stronger…if it requires programming, peaking, form “tricks”, sleep, food, preworkouts, and so on and so forth. This is related to the last. Between 2 guys if similar size who’s stronger the one who peaks, and under lovely conditions pulls 600, or the guy who can pull 450 multiple times daily, up to and including within 30 seconds of an abrupt middle of the night alarm going off and sergeants screaming at you type situation.

•some gains just come with time, see the consistency point

•a lifetime of labor gives strength that gym goers do not expect…a physical resiliency…and the ability to just keep doing more and more.

•a farmer or mason as your father is likely the truest way to get a kid stupid strong by college age.

From the archive :
1/18/19

People think you need to lift weights to get big. Ha! Have they never been to Walmart?

Food is the greater part of size. No one starved half to death ever weighed 300+ pounds.

To be big you just need the calories, though without activity you may not like the end result.

Still fatasses can be athletic. Look to sumo, wrestling, football. The difference is in the training.

Eating big and being active is the whole of the matter.

The body won’t care whether it’s wide stanced power squats or hindu squats. It just needs the stimulus followed by the calories.

Give it both, and big, while still being able to move, you shall grow.

Enough activity and you won’t be fat period.

The most impressively built man I’ve ever met was a ~6’6″ over 300lbs and lean construction worker of Scottish descent. The giant Highlander never once set foot in a gym, he just worked, and ate. His plates were always heaping, and his hours long.

(You know I’ve actually met an Englishman fitting the exact same description.)

Actual high volume (really only found by working labor) has such side effects.

Eat enough you’ll be big, get enough stimulus you’ll be strong, move enough, and you won’t be fat.

Simple.

I looked to the oldest of files on hand, dating back to late 2015, here’s some from September 2015 with very minor editing for spelling, punctuation, etc.

From the archives :

9/9/15

High rep training builds old man / labourer strength. There’s a reason convicts and soldiers live and die by high volume high rep calisthenics.

9/12/15

If one was homeless one could do pushups, squats, sprints, and pullups at a park all day. Get sun, do isometrics, and practice kata (naihanchi), flexing, and tensing/muscle control. Theres always dumster diving, and soup kitchens for food. No excuses to be weak. Get It. Persistence and Tenacity J Out!

9/15/15

I think high reps when pushed high enough call all muscle fibers into play, sure you hit fast twitch with low reps, but me personally I just grind them. I feel high hits all my fibers, and adds a mental toughness component that low doesn’t really have. Low is easier to psych oneself out of, but high takes a good deal of self berating to get through the set. Bodybuilders, military, laborers, and convicts all seem to live by high reps. If they don’t specifically build strength , they build the size base necessary for strength. Simply do both, do what you like, or if in a shit situation do what you can. Effort trumps all. I’m living proof. Persistence and Tenacity J Out!

9/30/15

Squats, pushups, sprints, jump rope, not giving a fuck about appearance short term, and force feeding. Then normal eating and consistency of training got me from skinny fat to built.

Pushups and horse stance is the #1 minimalistic training program.

It’s the best, number one, numero uno because of it’s simplicity.

It is full body, requires no equipment, and can be done anywhere and everywhere.

Full body you ask? Yes it is full body. Pushups can be put into any/all upper body musculature, and the horse stance can be combined with upper body flexes and dynamic exercises.

I’ve fallen back on pushups as my minimal requisite amount of exercise for years.

A daily PT done without excuses. Habitual.

Horse stance is taking the number two, right hand spot, more and more. I’ve convinced it’s effects are magical.

Each one a simple “vanilla” exercise, yet able to be done in a countless number of variations, and a countless number of manners.

Just minutes before typing this up I discovered that by pressing my feet hard into the ground during a horse stance gives a feeling analgulous to a max squat taking a relatively easy minutes long hold to something difficult for 15-20 seconds.

I know from a decade of experience that pushups will never be maxed out. There’s always more value to be gained from the practice.

Exercise requires effort, nothing more. You can make zero equipment, with little square footage, and only yourself the best gym in the world.

Persistence & Tenacity