Month: July 2020

Whatever your rep range, be it 50s or 100s, you get on the machine, do at most a quick low rep warmup set or two, then you do your meanigful, but not necessarily all out, set.

You aim for that rep range, 50 or 100, try to minimize rest pauses, and every time you hit the goal number you move up a pin on the stack next time.

You start light, then go up pin by pin at your high rep range that no one else trains.

On a barbell it’d be jumping 10 or 20lbs every time you hit the goal.

50 reps or 100 reps. Trust the process. It builds a huge base. You’ll be hellishly strong.

Who says you can’t make machines work!

Persistence & Tenacity

In the parking lot, pulled through/backed into the handicap spot is a minivan.

A woman, sitting in the passenger seat, is watching television on her phone.

Hours later, she’ll still be there, the vehicle having run the entire time.

I’ve seen this in every season, she does this year round.

I can’t help but wonder to myself “why doesn’t she go inside”.

I know who her husband is, a recent retiree with parkinson’s, he’ll alternate between running on the treadmill and pacing the building for hours at a time.

He’s there easily two or three hours daily, and she spends that entire part time job’s worth of time every week sitting inside the running minivan.

She’s not disabled, he’s the reason for the plate. I’ve seen her get out once or twice to help him get stuff in/out.

You’re at the gym, why not go inside?

You’re just wasting gas running the minivan. The building has heat/ac. You could go inside and do the same thing…sit and watch tv. Save some gas money, and the environment one less idling vehicle.

Though, and here’s a trick :

Whatever your excuse, just get to the gym, then walk inside.

It’s pretty hard not to workout as long as you get yourself into the building.

Persistence & Tenacity

2am
Bathroom

Since I’m there, I decide to do 4 way neck dynamic tension style to check that part of PT off for the day.

A good neck pump makes you feel rugged, masculine.

Science says ; the larger a man’s muscular neck the less he feels fear.

This is one example where both science and instinct (always go with instinct) are in agreement.

You work on your neck and as you make progress you’ll know it to be the truth.

Or maybe you’re a troglodyte blessed with a 20″ tree trunk holding up a george lopez sized skull and never once thought of this as it naturally was.

Very few train their neck, just as very few are troglodytes blessed with a 20″ opposite of pipe cleaners attached to their head.

This lack of muscular neck development has been proven as a major factor in the causes as to why most people suck.

They suck because they have tiny little girly necks instead of a man’s neck development.

“Bulldog neck development 101” will be one of the most important pe classes you ever take.

Persistence & Tenacity

I choose to believe in human potential.

I prefer to think 999/1000 suck, and 1/1000 rocks not because the 1/1000 is special, but because the 999/1000 have chosen to suck.

I choose to believe that all have that potential, and due to various chosen weaknesses, vices, are not shining…by choice!

This outlook is one of vast potential.

The elite 1/1000 is the only one doing as well as a human as designed by God ought to.

Humanity as God intended is every Man being at the level where the earth bound 1/1000 shining amongst a sea of mediocrity is.

The potential is there, it’s in you, it’s in everyone!

Amazing is meant to be the norm.
You don’t have bad genetics, the potential is within you.

When someone on the internet writes about a feat they’ve done with no proof, doesn’t mean they haven’t done it.

For every pro athlete, there must be 5 or a half dozen others out there just as athletic, just not in the spotlight for whatever reason.

Powerlifting squat world records have been unofficially broken in weightlifting training halls, even on video in some cases.

You don’t think it’s possible someone unkown is out there and could have the record right now if only they would compete?

I’ve known a bodybuilder who benched 315 for nfl combine 225 rep test numbers.

I’ve trained with a former d1 linebacker during his second year away from football. He flat out said to me “how is it you didn’t even play high school football” as we ran sprints with me (50lbs heavier) breathing on his neck.

A former d1 rower told me I’d pay for only one year of college if I was to walk on.

I don’t view myself as having any super secret terminator special genetics. The ability is within everyone.

Choose to believe in vast human potential. You’ll go farther.

Persistence & Tenacity

I remember this pretty vividly ;

I walked into the gym wanting to do some form of drag or carry, but the space was taken.

This dude working as an independent trainer out of the place (charging something like $75 or $80 an hour) had a morbidly obese woman client walking with an empty sled, making her technically dragging the sled, but with effectively no resistance.

He’d allow her around 5 minute rest periods, and after maybe a quarter mile walking total, if that, over a 45 minute time frame had her end with 2-3 sets of about 10 reps benching a pair of at heaviest 10lb dumbbells to end the allotted hour.

Now, I get obviously he’s providing a service that she found worth the money at least that one time, but I personally struggle to be dark enough to charge for something like that.

I’d rather consult with a morbidly obese client, fix their diet, and have them diet + walk off 100lbs while doing yoga like and calisthenic top position holds before bringing them to the weights.

I saw this dude do dangerous stuff, having frail prepubescent boys, and frail barely in puberty girls benching when the empty bar was far too much for them.

Now having the kids work towards chins, and doing sled drags for the legs isn’t bad, but every time he had them at the weights I cringed, praying the kid wasn’t going to get injured.

He was at best 50/50 good/bad, and generally unnecessary.

I’d seen him training an 8-10 year old kid for football, and thought to myself “why isn’t the dad just playing catch with the son, having him run routes”.

The dad spent the money to drop the kid off for an hour of training during his weekend custody. That blew my mind.

The trainer was making at least low six figures. I could see him pulling off 200k.

(He had a regular job, plus his lucrative personal training thing, and coaching youth sports, they all fed into each other. I’d guess he was convincing parents their kids need training, and convincing the morbidly obese among the parents that they needed training.)

I just need to market myself, as I’m not gonna injure kids, and I actually want my clients to be healthy and get results.

I struggle a bit with how I give help for free, yet want to make a living from the gym.

Back to story ; I watched that woman train with him for the hour, and thought “She doesn’t need to pay for a trainer, or even come to the gym for this. With what he brought her through, she could stay home, open her front door, and instead of walking to her car, wasting gas, time, and money, she could do this for free out in front of her house. It’d even be better, getting fresh air, and sun, while dodging the fluorescent lights.”

I had the same impressions about the football elementary schooler and his dad.

Why on earth was that dad dropping $75-80 for a guy to make his son run fancy gadget sprints while he bought groceries instead of doing the shopping a different time and actually tossing a ball to his kid?

In some ways a beginner guided right could do better at a planet fitness than in the same state of newbieness at a more “serious” gym.

I’ve seen rank beginners play the “I’m a hardcore powerlifter” role in a way that immeasurably sucks.

Barely bodyweight squats and deadlifts, benches even worse…while making these ghastly numbers official at a meet.

The weakness of pf is the beginner won’t often be exposed to someone who trains well, meaning has an iota of intensity about them, and gets at least some results.

Many on the gym floor at pf are a normal middleweight sized fit, not huge & jacked. Of course there are exceptions, and steroid users just like seemingly at any gym.

Beginners aren’t doing anything resembling efficient when they’re running a percentage based powerlifting program.

Stuff like 5/3/1 or Westside is going to barely get them gains.
Programs like that can come later.

Starting Strengthen isn’t a bad starting point, but with what I know having played sports, the volume is far too low.

If a beginner must do starting strength that’s fine. Just on every off day they’re gonna be hitting volume calisthenics and preferably in addition a bit of bleachers or jump rope.

You can lift, PT, and wrestle all at once. Just don’t think about I can’ts, think about I cans.

I’d love to take a rank beginner to pf.

It has calisthenics, and you can supplement with machines.

A barbell while useful to build strength quickly isn’t actually a requirement to do so.

The best thing one with experience can do is not teach a beginner the lifts, but the mindset required to make working out effective anywhere.

For me, and many this requires actively taking the brain out of it.

Physical ability is far greater when you don’t have a self imposed limit on yourself.

Think too much, and what you heard are limits pop up…and you quit the set.

A beginner by themselves, without a mentor, is well served :

•Reading
•Considering all the suggested limits
•Proving them wrong

Whether at planet fitness or with a barbell I’m going to have you doing full body every single day.

You’re gonna progress fast like that.

I’ll also be pushing you, calling you out when you’re quitting, telling you to stop the negativity.

It’s what you can do, not what you can’t.

I’m not in the business of milking a client for money. I’m in the business of helping you reach your natural potential.

A beginner will go further with high frequency and high volume than by doing less.

Persistence & Tenacity

Working at the gym, even as a janitor or desk staff is the perfect opportunity to be running high frequency double sessions.

It never ceases to amaze me all the gym staff that don’t use the facilities.

Between fat staff, and the like I think “why would you work at a gym”.

I’ve seen a gym owner workout so infrequently I figured he didn’t actually like lifting.

One gym manager honestly stated to me “do I look like I deadlift heavy” implying he doesn’t lift.

(This is part of my “kicked out of a commercial gym story”.)

I had a running joke at one place ribbing the desk girl when she’d workout “oh, I didn’t recognize you for a second, I thought staff never worked out here”.

The night shift guy at planet fitness told me he had yet to workout today. I told him “man, working desk is the perfect job for working out, you’re already here, you could lift before and after shift”.

You saw the light bulb go off over his head.

More and more I’m able to spread gym knowledge. I love this, and it’s only increasing.

I’d love to have a gym job so as to be able to two a day squat every day, and be able to grease the groove with deadlifts.

Persistence & Tenacity

I’ve noticed something ; as far as I can tell (based on conversations I’ve had) for the most part I don’t feel soreness in the way most do.

However something just clicked for me as I showered up after my lift, I feel soreness when I’m growing in bodyweight.

I’ve been feeling soreness lately, and am at my lifetime heaviest being around 270lbs.

In high school I would feel sore whenever I was getting enough growth stimuli, and was about to grow soon.

Without soreness I seem to stay in the 230-240lb area, I’d get sore when getting to that number, but past this every time I grow I’ll feel soreness.

Staying in that 230-240lb range, high frequency, full body training I’d just be fresh day after day.

While you don’t need soreness to grow, my experiences have shown me that soreness is a good indicator that your body is ready to grow.

Soreness is your body telling you to eat more so as to grow.

The guys who grow most easily tend to feel more soreness than those who don’t. The fastest of the “easy gainers” is a guy who gets sore easily and consistently, while eating big alongside it.

The less it takes to get sore the faster growth is possible.

You see this at play on all levels.

Infrequent big powerlifts will hit the soreness growth trigger, as well as body part splits which are infrequent as it pertains to each individual muscle while more lightly weighted.

Now I like full body, it’s a psychological thing. Would a bodybuilding body part split or one day a week powerlifting program grow me bigger, faster?

Probably…if I was to actually do it.

High frequency is baked into my personality via daily PT. Therefore high frequency works for me. I don’t generally take “off days” well.

At this point I’m debating jumping back into barbells via one weekly heavy lift while pumping 4-5 days a week at planet fitness.

I do feel the call of the barbell, yet I can also see myself just maximizing planet fitness for years then blowing people’s minds when I touch a barbell again.

An athletic 300lbs is right there for me. My years ago having stated as a lifetime goal “275lbs with abs naturally” is within sight.

Even when doing high frequency full body, for growth you can make it like a mix of full body and bodypart split by doing something each for push, pull, and legs, but doing one bodypart each day like a bodybuilder, the other parts more minimally.

The above is how I was able to run squat every day while lifting with a buddy who always ran a bodypart split.

I’d squat while he did exercises I had no interest in, and for years if not training with him I’d completely neglect the concept of “arm day” (until finding a love for high reps on the machine curl at planet fitness).

I never felt arms meaningful enough to warrant their own day.

(I could improve mindset here by focusing on arms so intensely that they become able to warrant their own session.)

As far as specific growth sets ; my opinion is it has to be one end or the other, at the extremes of the rep spectrum.

You grow best on a set or two of ≤5 heavy reps or a challenging set or two of 50-100 reps weighted anywhere from moderately weighted to as heavy as possible given the rep range.

Challenging but not 50rm sets of 50 reps, one or two in the session, sometimes even goofily light are amazing growth & to your surprise strength stimulus.

Start incredibly light, and add weight as you go. The hardest part of a set of 50 is figuring out how to count so as to not psychologically stop yourself because of preconceived notions before you hit 50. Psychologically you have to get used to sets of 50+.

Once you’re used to them however, a 50rm will be far closer to your 1rm than most would believe.

Picture something you can take for 5-8 reps, a 5rm-8rm, given enough time and consistency this number is far more accurate an estimate of a potential 50rm than whatever silly low number you’re thinking AND that’s assuming your 5rm-8rm is already decently strong.

For a weaksauce dude his eventual 50rm will be higher than his current low rep to 8s numbers.

The set of 50 is effectively magical. Because it’s psychological almost no one explores it’s potential.

A buddy of mine knows of the sets of 50-100 and is the biggest strongest dude you’ll likely find.

I’m up there, and a few years after seeing my buddy use it, sets of 50 have given me my lifetime heaviest and based on feel…my lifetime strongest, and I’m still gaining.

I taught the set of 50+ to a buddy recently, and he felt something he’d never felt before, and learned that his physical limits are far higher than he’d thought.

Around new years I’d written about “what if – high rep sets only otherwise high volume/high sets on low rep things”, and I’ve been doing great from it.

It’s about time to stop typing and eat a second serving of dinner.

You’ve got to eat big to be big.

Editing done before finishing daily PT and eating a bowl of late night ice cream.

Persistence & Tenacity

When you’re living life, active, in the moment, experiencing, it’s easy to forget to drink.

There’s two conclusions from this :

1. You need to remember to drink. Hydration makes everything go more smoothly.

2. Every day must be lived in a way that you easily forget to drink, and/or eat. Live life in a way you can forget the basic necessities. This shows you’re living. Truly living. You’re that in the moment, doing, so much so you forget to drink water.

On a mission.

Persistence & Tenacity