Month: May 2020

Archives :
12/8/19

Glass bottle, cane sugar, I’ve taken to spending about $10 a week to have some quality soda, in this case ginger beer on a daily basis.

The stronger the better.

Ginger beer has an amazing ability to clear my sinuses.

I try every brand, I’ve yet to find the one that customers gave us a few months back.

It was this memory and being clogged up that got me to start buying them the last few weeks.

Ginger beer serves the purpose better than ginger candies that I still have on hand, and ginger ale which
I drank ungodly amounts of while working over the summer.

So that day I was riding shotgun, I twisted off what may have not been intended as twist off cap off the bottles for myself and the driver.

We click bottles, in a company box truck, on the highway, both take a swig, and both cough hard.

I know that it was a local New England company, that’s it.

Actually told this story to the chick bagging my groceries the other day.

A goofy program done diligently, by one with a militant mind believing in possibility is going to produce greater results than the perfect program followed by a nerdy dweeb who puts more stock in the limits of human potential than in possibility of human potential.

The low iq going “I’mma bench hard every day” generally gets results, far more results than the masters degree possessing nerd who thinks he’ll magically math himself from never physical to non embarrassing powerlifter with nothing but a “well thought out” program.

Any program can work.
Any program can not work.

The program is irrelevant.

It’s the effort that counts, though most important is the mindset, the beliefs you hold as true.

That’s what matters :

•Effort
•The strongest belief in/on potential.

A lunatic who believes in his abilities will always grow more than the rational high iq defeatist.

There’s too much focus on diet and program, not enough effort, and not nearly enough belief sans ration.

5/6/20 ~0540-0600

It’s crazy cold for a May morning, about 30°, maybe 34°, it’s around that freezing point.

I’ve long made policy to get up and exercise if I can’t sleep a wink.

All nighter → Exercise @ 5am or 6am

Too early for much else, I’m not making the house smell like pan fried steak this early, with it actually too cold to open windows out.

I’ll wait til later in the day. Yesterday I bought a big gulp (32oz or so brisk blueberry iced tea lemonade) thinking I’d sit outside drinking it around 5am. I thought I’d rise early drinking it to the rising sun and sounds of spring.

The all nighter changed the plan : 100 burpees at the bottom of the driveway.

Corona may have the gym closed, but that ain’t stopping me.

I’d exercise on the sidewalk if necessary.

I had done horse stance near to both sides of midnight hour in my bedroom, exercise at present is mostly bedroom/kitchen/driveway in that order.

Though I spend a lot of time seated outside, and just pacing the yard shirtless to get the sun.

100 burpees, in roughly 23:30. Twenty three and a half minutes is a terrible time for 100 burpees.

The inefficiency is phenomenal.
My back covered in sweat, my skull cap (off at either 48 or 53 reps in) not seeming as clean as it had.

I usually do burpees in stomach hit, toe touch, hands up style, but today around half was the “normal” style of flop & jump.

That’s how I got through it.

The first set was 10, most were sets of 5-7, stopped at 88 reps total I powered through the rest with a couple extra reps to finish strong.
I’d lollygagged enough. So over 12, 14, 15, or 16 to finish.

The reps, the pure amount of sweat, hard exercise in a tshirt outside in 30° hit me as I walked back to my timer and tally clicker.

I spit phglem, fighting off what first felt like the need to puke, then coughed twice in a way very close to dry heaving.

The feeling is terrible…and extraordinary, invigorating.

At 14 from football (which I quit) to wrestling (which I also quit) to the daily mile runs in JROTC the next semester (where I decided I’d rather die than not give it my all), that feeling of my insides wanting to come out with every breath was what I felt today.

When have I felt that in the interim?

That was how I operated at 14, over a decade ago, that is honest effort, to which we all need more of the thing.

I remember the feeling.

I feel alive! What stresses are there in the world?

I tell you, whatever momentary physical feeling you get, the mental will be worth it.

I’d prefer to describe cardio not as an antidepressant, but as a euphoria builder!

No synthetic blue high fructose corn syrup big gulp, instead I type and drink water to come down.

You put in honest physical effort and :

•You’re not gonna feel negativity.
•You’re filled with confidence, hope, a sense of well being.

Hocked lugies being simply part and parcel.

In under a half hour you just got plenty full body Cardio Calisthenics ™, since it was an all nighter you both started and ended the day right.

No worries about corona.
Not hungry, or tired, I’m actually filled with contentment and energy.

As I found a place to sit, I couldn’t help but feel the emotion, that how a fight to the death would cardiovascularly demand you power through this feeling, I felt HUMAN knowing, understanding that will to power required in the described situation.

I feel outgoing, and though it’ll probably be a relatively solitary day, it makes sense that I talked to a cute sportily built chick 90 reps or so in one of the last times I was able to do burpees at the gym.

Burpees may be analogous to MDMA.

I’ve actually met addicts who went straight from pills/crack directly cold turkey into the gym.

Yeah, you could say addictive personality, but you can’t simply write off the exercise euphoria.

Redirection.

Mankind is made to be physical!

I’m feeling this good. The chick joggers I joked to in passing yesterday may have been feeling much the same.

Exercise puts you in a good great mood!

(I was actually surprised that they had the comprehension to get my comment and for one to laugh and for one to giggle with the look on their faces in such a brief passing. A fairly stock but honest joke, “I think I can walk faster than that”, they both responded “like omg cute guy is teasing us” – that look.)

Yeah, I clearly feel alive as I write this.

Sausage and grits won’t smell up the house. Shower washes off the sweat.

It’s all good.
Life is good.
There is no other way.

-J

Persistence & Tenacity

(It ended up being chicken scraps in cornmeal mush, and my abs were sore the next day, cool effect from the burpees, as I do them more I’ll post more on them.)

No one is going to workout for you.

There is no excuse not to have a minimal daily PT habit, doing what you can, where you are, with what you have.

No excuses.
Equipment is never a requirement.

The man doing pushups, bw squats, neck isometrics, and flexing is going to be light years ahead of the male seated at his xbox mountain dew on the side (waiting for something?) every afternoon.

Even if it isn’t ideal (though it likely is), I’ve done a great deal towards developing “man strength” simply by having my daily pushup habit.

Real world I have tremendous strength, upper body strength in particular, far more than what the weightroom shows.

Why?

Daily PT habit.

The volume, day after day, over time builds something more able to be seen and felt than measured.

Being rooted into the ground, immovable, vs what you squat or bench or leg press.

My idea of “time off” still involves a high rep set of pushups every night, building upon the above.

If instead of video games or television you were doing something likewise, you too would have that man strength.

No one’s going to do it for you!

Get up off your ass, and get out of breath. Doing so is euphoric, and builds energy.

The biggest step is standing up of the couch.

You can start small or go psycho from the start.

Fit fitness to your personality.
This is something not generally considered, something not common in “gym knowledge”.

1 set of pushups daily or nightly. Minimum.

Maybe for you it’s bw squats, or crunches.

Maybe you flex each muscle momentarily starting at side neck and ending at calves.

Whatever.

Make it yours. No one is gonna work out for you.

You can read for weeks, if not longer in measured time, of literature.

I can teach you anything you need to know.

Drive is internal. Even training with you, or training you, I’m not able to do it for you.

Make it personal.
You work out for yourself.

Only you can do it for you.

Persistence & Tenacity

I find that when I add upper body motions to my high horse stance holds that I hold for longer and with the perception of time being that it flys by.

I do a tai chi like arms in and out motion.

Hands together in a prayer position.

The hardest thing is to hold arms out straight parallel to the ground, as in a traditional horse stance.

I’ll do the pushing side to side that Wim Hof can be seen doing, this, and sumo one arm pushes I will count off by military four count.
50 reps generally equals over a minute.

I also do karate blocks in which I flex hard.

Occasionally some other flex.

Another good one is pulling the fists into a tight karate loaded for the punch position.

The creativity and options here are endless.

This practice of combining upper body work with a lower body hold makes it all the more effective.

Like the burpee, this can be the entirety of your training if you find yourself without equipment.

Persistence & Tenacity

Archives :
12/27/18

Karate was originally brutal no holds barred combat, in the truest sense of the word.

The original karateka was a peasant farmer. Under penalty of death he could not possess a sword. His weapons were his hands, and his tools. It was a matter of survival.

Now an original karateka was not a large man. He probably wasn’t able to lift very much weight (at least in the modern gym sense). Though it’s well known the strength and conditioning of a karetekas hands.

Originally this would’ve been a byproduct of labour in the fields. They being primarily unarmed specialized here.

Hands, wrist, a hard to define strength in the back and shoulders. This was their forte. This is the strength a labourer builds.

Moving odd objects, being on their feet all day. Shoveling, swinging a hammer.

Give the latter two a try. These can be done anywhere with any size sledgehammer, short or long handled.

Steve Justa loved his shovel lifts. Somewhere on the internet an office worker type testified about having duct taped a pillow around a sledgehammer and having got fit through old school shovel and hammering (simulated) inside his apartment.

(Update : Ahh, it’s called shovelglove.)

I love this. I do this from time to time. The long handle 8 lb sledge outside as a shovel, that or my old barbell with only one side loaded, and simulating shoveling​ and pick axe work inside with a short handled 4lb sledge. I also do kata like moves, simulate axe fighting,and the labour like movement focusing on really feeling those small “weird strength” muscles.

Not all of us work labour. We could easily get some of its benefits by investing the $25 or so into a sledge and giving it roughly 10 minutes a day shoveling, swinging, whatever.

Once you’ll start you’ll really see how old time boxers had cardio and power. You’ll get why karate hojo undo is similar to labour. It’s not much of a leap for your imagination to see yourself in a mine, or cleaving limb with a battle axe.

You may look strange, and even feel strange doing this, though trust me, it’s worthwhile.

For a long time I had decently muscular calves.

I can remember early on in high school liking dips and calf raises, and many times during transfer time or waiting for the bus my freshman, sophomore, and junior years going into the weight room for a quick set or two of each.

By high school graduation I was doing 100 standing calf raises every day as daily PT, I’d done it as a daily discipline earlier than that, and I kept the practice up at least through the summer. Easily 6 months long, probably more.

It was always just from the floor.

As I got good at it it’d be done in less sets, but it does behoove you to work into that.

If you think “I’ve done 100+ before”, but haven’t in months, then do, you’ll have trouble walking.

I must’ve been doing this early on in high school.

I do remember going from 212 to 174 in a year that my calves stayed roughly the same.

That was my first “trick”. My second size trick was the aforementioned high frequency calf raises.

And as I’ve said before calf raises alone are able to maintain the entire lower body for me.

I’ve started the habit up again. It’s most easily done daily.

•Pushup Position Plank/The Top
•Wall Sit
•6″
•Superman

Here’s an idea, set an interval timer, work long enough, rest briefly, enough to switch exercises plus maybe 10-15 seconds, and rotate through the various holds for a decent amount of time under tension in each.

I see no reason that I couldn’t start at about :45 each for 10 rounds. I can indefinitely go 1:00 with a 1:1 work/rest on wall sits, pushups are easy, as are 6″ and supermans.

Done right this is going to lean you out, make you very dense, and build a freakish strength.

Thigh and midsection.

That starting workout is 7½ minutes under tension for each, a full half hour of time under tension spread over the entire body in a timespan of 40 minutes or so.

While I’ve not done this exact circuit, I’m looking forward to it, and the principle has worked well for me.

The high horse stance has made my legs very dense and powerful.

Ideally I’ll have someone weighting those top of a pushup planks. And in an educated guess I’d just suggest they stand on my back.

To top it off do something back. Chins, bar hangs, a million trx rows or australian pullups.

This wouldn’t be every session. Gotta do the burpees. It’s a good idea to lift the barbell outdoors.

A small amount of daily PT makes it very much unnecessary to stress any exercise related variable.

A good mindset, meaning you don’t fear a loss of gains, while believing in your own human potential being a given natural thing, makes whatever you do or don’t do for the most part all irrelevant variables.

I remember in high school summers I just enjoyed the physicality I had. Not being required to run miles I didn’t, I just lifted, PT’d, and played all the time.
My buddy and I had “the game”, just hours of punting and returning a rugby ball over a 20 or 25yd stretch.

The gym is not open, what training I do is all over the place, my eating alternates between fasting and feasting.

None of that really matters.

I’m content at present to sit outside and read. Nightly pushups and the leg static holds are enough.

Good thoughts and brief victory poses guarantee an anabolic environment.

Step outside, take your shirt off, and get some vitamin d.

I can not stress enough how much good thoughts and good manly posture keeps you strong.

Another big role is filled by an instinctive and staunch refusal to self harm.

I refuse to watch porn, no matter how easy pulling up xvideos would be.

The disciplined refusal to self harm is deeply tied into the self perception of one’s own masculinity.

And the lockdown has just made me see how strong I can be alone in my thoughts.

Everything is what you make of it.

All that time, I deeply sense possibility and opportunity.

Life is good.