Month: July 2020

Ah, the inspiration to write from the day’s events :

Teens, twenties, and beginners are the perfect candidates for high volume.

There is a definite difference in mindset between those who came up in planet fitness, and those who came up in a more serious setting.

75lb dumbbells seem much lighter when you’ve seen/used 150s+.

Though the self imposed limitations can be rampart anywhere.

A hundred chins and 400 pushups is a fine 90 minute workout, not too easy, or too hard. It’s something you could do daily. Especially if you’re young and fit.

The young are perfect candidates for massive volume.

Lots of volume as a beginner is one thousand times better than low volume.

I can blow people’s minds with how fast I run through pushup, dip, and chin volume.

It’s work capacity showing.
My chin rep max is not high, though I can do set after set back to back with little rest. A million sets of three with barely any downtime adds up to a bunch real fast, mindblowingly so to others.

I’ll just rack up the reps, boom, boom, boom.

While I went to refill my water bottle, my buddy started warming up with chins and dips.

He’d barely caught me, 2 hours in I was about to go shower up. But I’m game to workout.

If I have available time, I’m always game to workout. It’s good for work capacity.

This fit 50ish black guy that I’m friendly with showed up soon after, and it ended up being all three of us doing rapid fire set after set.

The two of them dips and chins, me just chins. All three of us sharing the bar, that high energy bouncing off each other.

The 50yo, he said that he liked how it was like he arrived and we got inspired.

I had walked back with my full water bottle, saw both sharing the bar, and instantly I mentally switched from “no pullups for me to today” to “I’m going to race to 50”, which ended up being me racing to 100 while overshooting to probably 120 reps total.

The energy was good there.
That’s how you want it to be when you train, a group of people where you can just feel the energy, and everyone is getting more and more hyped, pushing more and more, the energy bouncing off of each other.

Quote Of The Day :
“A swagger walk to the bar adds reps” – me

Though in close contention is one of the women who works there telling me that my burpees spot has in fact been added to the mopping checklist, recently had been mopped, and that the burpees are spreading. Unbeknownst to me, others are now burpeeing in that spot. I burpee enough in that spot that it’s now added to the mopping checklist. I am inspiring others, and should walk around in a shirt that says “trainer”. At a different gym i used to have people come to me for advice, disregarding the paid trainers. This conversation was had during the pushups.

After the chins, I got my buddy, a fit 20 year old, to do 20×20 pushups with me set to a timer of a set every 2:00. It was at the end of my workout, fairly early in for him.

His mind was blown just on how he’d already done up to 200 each of dips and chins.

He’s not used to volume. He can handle it, but it’s not in his mind frame or something he’s ever pushed before.

He thinks too much in an “overtraining is possible” mentality.

I’m the first person he’s ever met without that hiccup of gym belief.

Though the 50yo guy, he seems to have a similar mentality as me. He pushes his dip and chin volume up there.

I should’ve got them to talk about volume. It would’ve allowed my buddy to see the same mentality in two individuals.

On the 400 pushups I talked him to finishing, the kid is capable of much more than he thinks.

What he didn’t know was I actually did extra reps, 450 something in the time frame.

It’s been 3 or 4 days in a row of 500+ pushups for me. He said he’s never going to do something like that again.

He was talking about the necessity of perfect form, how he can’t do anymore, how injury is a possibility.

But I talked him to the finish.
He did it.

I advised him regardless of how sore he is tommorow to do a few pushups anyway.

The proper mindframe to walk in with is to find “what am I capable of”, without self imposed limitations. To go hard, and expect high performance.

Saying that you can’t do, or saying that negative things can happen is only going to bring you down.

Walk in with positivity.

Couple hundred dips, chins, and a few hundred pushups?

The volume ain’t shit.
Man as made is physical.
You can do more than that daily.

Physicality is natural.

Peace,

Persistence & Tenacity

P.S. Of note was that more girls noticably take note when multiple guys are training hard. One is a show, two or more is a bigger show. I got the feeling that I was “supposed to talk” to a few different girls as I trained my buddy. This dynamic makes sense to me. They had seen me train, then were seeing me train him, with him. And he’s telling people that the volume I do is crazy. Social proof.

I’ve started doing wrestler’s bridges again.

Same thing I did last time (last fall), shooting for a 60 second hold or longer, then adding weight.

What I learned doing this before is to train some “reps” in addition to the hold, and to do some pullovers and pressing.

That way you’re training past the line of “damn it I can’t do reps here though I can support it” or “damn it I can’t pull the dumbells into position while in position”.

I had run into this issue when I’d hit the 60lb preload and was switching to dumbbells for the hold.

I’ll build the base at pf, and then go to my barbell for video when I’m pullover and pressing heavier from the bridge.

There’s an aspect to the bridge that I love :

It’s a whole lot more than neck training in one go.

The position builds the spinal muscles in a unique way which I feel is invigorating.

If I’m not doing glute bridges, a wrestler’s bridge has the top static for the glutes.

The thigh stimuli is analogous to wall sits.

It is a full body exercise.

Persistence & Tenacity

The push muscles easily lend themselves to bulking. That has been my experience.

My best muscles, most easily grown, and the strongest mind muscle connections I have are to my chest and quads.

While it may be imbalanced, lots of work for the two is a very easy way for me to gain weight.

Over the lockdown I was muscling up from pushups and riding my bike.

Back at pf, the growth is continuing, with standbys of burpees (contains pushups), pushups on the side, slow and controlled leg extensions, abs, wall sits, and machine curls.

After I shower up, I’ll drip dry in the changing room while stretching, hands interlocked reaching for the sky, elongating the spine.

Bulking, especially if the growth comes from the front muscles, is not necessarily a good thing for posture.

Without conscious notice, and the stretching, to have perfect posture at rest, I need more glute and upper back work.

Hip thrusts and seated rows would be a posture centric method for me.

At present I’m allowing the imbalanced growth, as it’s easy for me to muscle up like that, and my body is primed to grow.

I look at my natural proportions and see a few things :

•my upper body is naturally large in proportion to my lower body

•my quads are medium sized compared to the upper body

•my glutes, while powerful, are smaller in proportion to my quads, tight assed

•my chest grows easily, and my chest and triceps have better mind muscle connection than my back and biceps

So, when I need to focus on posture :

•Glutes
•Upper back
•Stretching

The push muscles however bulk very easily. You see this in kushti wrestling.

Victory pose regularly can be enough stretching to keep good erect posture.

Persistence & Tenacity

First of all, the average level of fitness at the planet fitness I go to is far higher than the stereotype, even higher than a “serious” gym I’ve went to.

Now, there’s tons of fitness chicks, and normal sized fit dudes.

As a buddy pointed out to me, a big guy there is fluky.

I had him with me, and a chick who I’m friendly with, that had checked me out before, seemed to check him out too.

I thought it interesting she acted similar to him and I.

(The difference being I had ended up talking to her before the day of this story, whereas he didn’t introduce himself to the obviously interested girl. That day she waved to me, whereas she self consciously hid her smile from him. That blew his mind.)

I was joking “oh her type must be 6′ men with red hair”, (my beard, his hair) he pointed out to me that yes those are commonalities, but what I wasn’t noticing is that the two of us are much more muscular than the norm there, both flukes of development in that particular building.

A lot of people come out of the woodwork at pf, complimenting me on how hard I train, how I’m able to be as big as I am and still do calisthenics (handstand pushup ability gained me a training partner)
, and asking me advice on bulking both dietary and training wise.

It makes me feel very good. It’s something I didn’t really have happening much before, that now is becoming a fairly regular occurrence, and at increasing frequency. I’ve even had gym chicks complimenting my work ethic, it’s not just from guys.

I’ve had a chick (petite overall with very muscular thighs) suggest we train together.

All the given props is one of the many things I like about the gym.

Another, is that the physicality just makes you feel good. You can’t put in honest effort and not walk out the gym high on life.

And cooly enough, I no longer have the urge for junk food. I’m living mostly on meat and milk right now. That’s very clean for me, considering my past eating.

-J

The kid I got to try leg pressing for a set of 100, not only had I gotten him to break some mental barriers as far as to his own self imposed physical limitations, he got extremely euphoric, obvious by his actions (literally running around and jumping), and by his stating “I’ve never felt a pump like this”.

“You’d never pushed that far before.”
“I hadn’t, I didn’t know you could.”

I got him to do his old workout’s total volume in one set, plus we’d been doing other stuff.

The day’s training just blew him past his priorly accepted limits.

He’d felt good from the gym before, but had never experienced “top of the world” from physicality.

I’m glad I taught him to go that far.
I knew this before, both in that he just needed a little push to get there, and that I myself use this methodology more than most.

That feeling, that he experienced for the first time, and I’ve known of for awhile, that’s what I’m looking for from the gym.

This feeling is what Arnold meant when he said the pump is like an orgasm.

You honestly push physically and when you pass the line you get euphoric.

Push further, you’ll get there.

Persistence & Tenacity

There’s a hell of a lot of good advice, freely available from people who know what they’re talking about, on any given gym floor.

The majority are happy to share, and love seeing their advice implemented.

7/4/20 ~430pm

“Hey man, I’ve been meaning to say this ; thank you, your advice worked.”

“Advice? Oh, on diet.”

“Yeah man, I’ve been doing what you said, and I’m now 195. This is the biggest I’ve been in my life.”

We talked a little more, he’d taken to eating ground beef and eggs fried with rice, tried drinking cream, and was liking the results of implementing what I’d said which was roughly :

Egg shakes, more calorically dense nutrition like beef in place of chicken, dairy if you can handle it, and simple meal prep like stew.

He’d implemented my advice during the lockdown, and ran with the guidelines.

I’m thankful that my advise was put to good use. Some people implement, some don’t, but spreading gym knowledge is a way I put positivity into the universe. I do it regardless.

I spent a good deal of the day hanging out and training with a buddy.

Back at the gym he asks me how to get his legs bigger :

So I answer the question “how to build big quads at planet fitness”.

With the equipment available I tend to stear people towards the leg press.

In this case the selector sled style one.

“I’d do this for a set of 100+, starting a little under bodyweight. When you get 100-125 reps, then the next time go up a selector pin or two, and keep doing that when you hit that 100+ set.”

First time trying it he got about 82 reps with 130 weighing 160 or so.

He rested maybe 30 seconds, went a second time and did reps in the low 40s. I laughed telling him about the “50% method” (one set, rest ≤90 seconds, and aim for half the rep count or better).

“I just did that instinctively!”

High rep abilities when honestly done for awhile get so far out of the standard gym frame of “3×10 and not doing too much” that most truly don’t imagine the possibility.

So you push, a voice who knows this can enlighten the ability.

It’s not looking at it like “what you can’t do”, but approaching it as “what am I able to do” walking into the thing without preconceived limitations, basically playfully gaining your way to superior ability.

Train everyday.

Don’t even think “is this too much”. Just go and do, and without that preconceived limitation you’ve got a lot in you.

I think in terms of the body in push/pull/legs. Each as a category. I want 2 of 3 categories trained daily at a minimum. All three is preferable, but it’s allowable to back one off if you did a crazy amount the day before.

Blood flow is healing. The pump is healing and euphoric. Each day even if it’s very little, do something to make it full body each day.

My buddy got lively, hyped up, super energetic after his leg pressing. He literally was running around and jumping.

“I feel great!”
“You’ve never got a pump like that before, you’ve never known to go that far.”
“No I hadn’t. This is great!”

He’d always seemed scared to get past 4×10 or so, I got him to hit an 80+ rep set, with something he’d maybe do for sets of 20 before, just completely obliterating that gym barrier.

Jon Anderson – Deep Water’s “agreement” principle, I taught that today.

Not counting can get you far further than counting reps. A training partner keeping track, and doing the thinking for you can obliterate your preconceived limits.

I didn’t tell him his rep count til he stopped, and he only racked the weight having gotten distracted, and back into his head.

Obviously if you get that sense to stop a set because your body has a red alert going off, stop the set, injury only happens in the gym due to stupidity.

But most of the limits are self inflicted, not real, able to be ignored.

Still hyped he was telling me how he loves my training philosophy “man, you’re like ignore that, stop thinking, don’t even consider it, just send, and send some more, don’t hurt yourself, you can do more, just send, send some more, and send some more”.

The conversation would’ve been very good on camera.

A big part of the gym is just doing, learning what works for you personally, and then you have the ability to teach what you’ve learned.

Persistence & Tenacity

Eating healthy is not expensive when you have a brain.

All the arguments that healthy food is more expensive than junk food is known to be false if one can read.

$15 a day is a lot of food, providing you use the grocery store and your kitchen.

I ate :

1lb ground beef – $3
2 buns – 25¢
2 slices cheese – 25¢

1lb bacon – $4

½ dozen donuts – $3

½ gallon of milk – $1.30

lemonade – $2

12oz apple juice – 20¢

Total cost $14

I rounded numbers up, and the lowest costs locally would drop 75¢ off the bacon, 20¢ off the milk, the donuts could’ve been cheaper as well.

2lbs of meat, buns, cheese, 6 donuts, milk, lemonade, juice, all for just $14, while not trying to keep the cost down.

You eat good foods from the grocery store and you’ll never be able to eat more expensively than $15 a day.

Eggs, chicken, and a carb get you down to around $20 weekly.

Grocery budgeting is laughably easy.

$50 a week is more than you could eat. $70 weekly barely requires budgeting. $15 a day is eating like money ain’t a thing, provided you buy groceries and cook them at home.

Working out makes you feel good, physically, and mentally.

I was in a negative headspace, went to the gym, and changed that.

Not only do burpees train the body, but they also train the mind in mental toughness…and to feel happiness.

You can’t make yourself momentarily spent, having worked out all your muscles, by choice, and not feel good.

Any, all, negative mindstates ; you can workout them pretty fast.

Burpee until the thoughts are gone or nearly so.

Then catch a good pump lifting, and then maybe burpee some more.

By the time you shower up you’ll be in both a very positive headspace, and outgoing.

The whole thing builds up your vibe, which could be the same as sensed pheromones.

The gym is a godsend for building the opposite of an unhappy recluse.

It forces you out in public and out of negativity.

I love the gym.