Month: August 2020

Me, you, our society as a whole – too negative.

Everyone is operating on negative conditioning.

Negative is the norm, I blame everyone being plugged in, to the point of addiction, to the television, to news broadcasts.

You can choose for the world to be bleak, just as you can choose for the world to be joyous, wonderous.

Get out of your head, get away from flashing screens, and put it all into true perspective…

The birds sing their songs, the cricket chirps, the wind blows, the clouds roll, and tomorrow’s am the sun will rise.

Nature moves on.

What matters is your interior, think on it – the kingdom of God is inside you!

Silly people, fearful of everything the screen tells them to be.

How few truly believe in God.
It’s shameful.

The only thing we truly know to be coming…is our death.

Why be afraid?
It’s our only guarantee.

Instead we, me, you, all, we should be focused on making life, our own life, great.

Fearful every second by trying to extend it all for another second, is the silliest of things.

Attempting to fight a definite, that’s a losing proposition.

Your life is gonna go on for as long as it’s gonna go.

Every close call? Not your time.

By all means, live a healthy lifestyle.

Eat well, exercise – it’s important for quality of life.

But it’s the motivations behind this where you see who someone is.

Are they exercising so that the here and now is more grand, or are they on an elliptical begrudgingly hoping for a few more seconds senile and shitting in bedpans at the end?

So many are hoping for those senile bedpan shitting seconds so badly that they aren’t loving the now, often not noticing it, and by their actions are turning that senile bedpan shitting time into more of a guarantee and it’s prospect closer to fruition.

tick tock tick tock

As a teenager, I looked at the tasteless white water, and thought to myself “even if they’re right, which I don’t believe they are, and the fat is gonna kill me, I’d rather drink the whole milk, without worry, but with enjoyment”.

You can’t just watch television and follow someone else’s dietary guidelines with fingers crossed that you’ll end up a spry senior citizen, still here mentally AND physically*.

That path fails for too many. It’s why we have alzheimers, dementia, and the evermore common cancer.

(*Maybe it is better listed as physically AND mentally. This is arguable either way.)

They were never in the moment. Never saw the now, let alone how it sets up the future.

It’s amazing how such “little” things can play into quality of life.

A smile, trusting your gut instinct on something, a ray of the sun hitting your bare chest, making yourself out of breath with pushups wherever you are, the water flowing by, drinking water at the most right of times, taking a deep breath that proves again that surely you are still alive, that you’re not done yet!

Worry about every little thing is feminizing. Chicken or egg first? Doesn’t matter, quit caring, stop worrying.

Even if you must force it – smile. While you’re at it hit some victory posing. And use your brain.

That’s right now.
You’re here.
Don’t waste it.

And right now, you’re here, living, breathing. That means it’s all good.

Persistence & Tenacity

The craziest thing about training is that any method, every method, works…as long as you believe it will, and you consistently put in effort.

There’s a point where research only reinforces self doubt, that’s what online forums are you know, and stereotypically known to be worst amongst teenagers at bodybuilding.com.

If you trained meaningfully twice a week, ate big and dirty, within a few years you’d be the biggest and strongest man in whatever gym you’re going to.

Likewise “I’m into bulgarian, and ribbed for squatting everyday…when I have a gym membership” eating fairly dirty yet nutritious, and when without a gym membership just massacring pushups (done 365 regardless) and eating in the same manner has worked well for me.

Yep, any training alongside big eating will get you built. The scrawny are scrawny cause they don’t eat.

It amuses me to no end that unless I’m in very specific locations that I’m the biggest and strongest around…while I don’t lift weights almost at all anymore.
Comical.

I’m waiting for my cousin and I to push his truck around empty parking lots. That’s fun. And not indoors.

A problem many have is always training inside the bodybuilding box or in the weirdly trendy powerlifting box.

Weights are an individual endeavor, trainers, trainees, lifting partners aside – the gym is solely you on your own path.

Treat it as such.

Inside the box is just limitation.

You’re doing the gym right when people think you’re insane, yet admit you’re flukily strong, and revert to accusations of steroids.

In a study I’ve made up on the spot, peer approved by me, myself, and I, science has proven beyond a doubt that those who accuse others of steroid use to be dweebs with mental weakness and lower testosterone than the men whom stand proudly accused.

Be proudly accused.
You’ve built yourself up this far.

Building yourself up, that’s what the gym is meant to be.

Persistence & Tenacity

While the gym for many seems to be a fashion contest…

Me?

The holes in the armpits of my gym shirts just keep getting bigger.

My gym shoes have holes, rips in them.

Some of the stuff has paint on them.

I’m generally the only one I see dressed like this, and you know what?

I don’t care.
I’m there to workout.

Beat up clothes work great for exercise.
Logically it’s practical.

You demolish your worst condition tshirts by relegating them to yard work and the gym. Why put good clothes through the ringer unless absolutely necessary?

Shoes that are years old you wear til they fall apart at the gym.

Brand names? Nope, more like the $7 walmart special, plain, on its last legs 5+ years of use in.

I’m muscular enough that my build overshadows how I’m dressed. Meaning she’s looking at my traps, not the hole in the side of my shoe.

High Testosterone trains, low t (and estrogen) worries about gym attire.

It cracks me up that only dudes ever trash talk on this note, and very rarely at that. Chicks never care…on me that is.

As far as I can tell I’m the only one to go to the gym without perfect clothing, and often enough they color coordinate.

That includes guys!

I’ll never stop cracking up at the color coordinated chick who I’ve mentally nicknamed “oompah loompah” dressed daily in teletubby colors.

Be built well enough that your build overshadows your ragged gym clothes!

Persistence & Tenacity

Using dynamic tension, without equipment, you can simulate any movement to stimulate any muscle.

The crazy part is that the contractions I get this way are far more intense than I get with weights.

Simulating lateral raises, for instance, feels nearly as heavy as a 5 rep max. And it’s far more accessible.

I use this the most for 4 way neck, though I’ll train the entire upper body, and sometimes the lower body with the same.

It’s flexing while moving, and it gets you stronger.

As I said I’ll use it for 4 way neck training, which often turns full body by leaning to the side, and sucking in my arms simulating a double leg takedown.

I’ve held side kicks, flexed my glutes in a quarter squat, tried to drive my feet through the floor in the same (this can be done with hands and pushups), triceps flexed, curled to my most intense biceps contractions, activated the shoulder girdle with karate punches and blocks held, lateral and rear delt raises standing vertically, you can think of throwing ala grappling and feel the stretch across your obliques, abdominals, and even chest…even with out an object to hold onto just letting your body act as resistance.

A few hours of research into isometrics, dynamic tension, and everything on the isometric spectrum will pay dividends when you decide or are forced to train without equipment.

So many cry when they lose gym access, some of us thrive.

You find out how important training is to a person when they have to make do with only themselves.

Persistence & Tenacity

Start The Day In Victory Pose :

In a world where everybody bows down in submission to their master…the smartphone, there’s a better way :

Start the day with victory pose.

End it in the same.

Throughout the day (the bathroom mirror is a perfect place) victory pose, look at yourself with an air of cockiness telling yourself of your greatness, and feel the power boost you receive.

Body language is incredibly important.

Switching body language changes everything, for good or bad.

Those who walk around looking at their feet are defeated, they carry themselves like those who have lost.

Even a raggedy dressed bum standing with chin up, shoulders back, militarily erect, will command respect – for he’s carrying himself as a man.

Stand large, take up more space than less.

Consciously stand feet wide, hands on hips.

Sit sprawled out wide, arms draped over the backrest.

Negate the epidemic of slouched over posture.

Stopping being glued to your phone, as it often makes one look and behave like a scolded monkey, may be required.

It’s simple homework. A few times a day stand in victory pose, while thinking good thoughts.

Reach your hands towards the sky, stand tall, lengthen the spine. Don’t have terrible posture.

Victory pose.

Persistence & Tenacity

When you need to progress you will.

The people who go to the gym begrudgingly, take no joy in it, and make no progress, I honestly say they’d be better off staying home.

If you don’t enjoy the thing, nor see the purpose behind it strongly enough to at least put in a modicum of effort, you’re just wasting time.

So many aren’t doing enough to even warrant calling it going through the motions.

Somehow our country, one ridden with obesity, it has become trendy to “gym”.

It seems like more than not have gym memberships.

Yet, we’re not able to find healthy robust men and women everywhere we go.

Why?

Inactive gym memberships, and those showing up to only use lackluster intensity day after day negating their trips, wasting time, taking up space.

You don’t need to go to the gym, you just need to be as Wim Hof says happy, strong, and healthy.

You could do some calisthenics regularly, cardio outdoors, and never pay a gym a penny and be good.

Swimming at the lake, or a shirtless bike ride in the sun is a better choice than cardio indoors.

You need to lift at the gym? Do so after the activity in the out of doors.

Americans between work and leisure are not physically active enough.

Prior generations would walk regularly. It’s amazing how much this made a difference between my grandfather’s generation and now.

My grandma spoke to me once of an Irishman up the street, carrying home on his right shoulder two 50lb sacks of potatoes stacked one atop the other every Thursday evening on his walk home from the factory for feeding his family of wife and ten kids.

You almost never see anyone carrying groceries on foot anymore. Eating would require far more calorie burning if you had to walk to the store and carry your food home.

The occasional old timer, the homeless, and some hispanic immigrants are the only ones I’ve ever seen do this.

They’re the ones living with activity levels found 50+ years ago.

Sometimes having less requires healthier practices as lacking a horseless carriage can force you to go on foot or get on a bicycle.

I have a feeling somewhere out there a homeless man is capable of competive bicycle racing. Think about it, many of them biking around are lean and wiry and they’re on foot all day often enough. I see them biking 10+ mile stretches, and occasionally one is hauling ass bombing alongside traffic.

I’ve long felt america could be land of the jacked homeless. You’ve got to spend time somehow.

Regardless of your station in life, an hour a day dedicated to pushups, going amrap/density training in that time. After a month it’d be silly how quickly your upper body had muscled up.

That’s training simplified with logistics erased.

If you’re sedentary, unemployed at the video games or employed in a seat – train 2 hours a day! I’d spread it out over more than one session, filled with density calisthenics, and just see how fast you get fit.

Each and every human is meant to be happy, strong, and healthy. And it’s pretty simple to get there.

You can have these three things, so smile, train well, and eat as best as you can.

It’ll be good friend.

Persistence & Tenacity

Paddy Doyle did 34 pushups with a 100lb pack in one minute.

The moment I heard this I thought “easily doable, I could break that record”.

See I was thinking that just off of regular vanilla unweighted pushups I could hit around 10-12 with 2p25 (115lbs) on my back.

I checked to see if I had logged it in my phone, and it was 5 reps at 115, 11 fail 12 with 2p/90lbs.

I’ve done 100+ unweighted that would count on a military PT test in a minute before. So I’ve got a lot of reference frames of achievement here.

Now, all the weighted pushup numbers above involve stacked plates on my upper back.

This requires slow and controlled reps, like it will when I have a petite chick stand on my back for the “girl pushups” video.

The straps of a backpack will allow me to fly through the reps as the weight is secured, strapped to me, and the pack will also more evenly distribute the weight than plates directly over my chest.

How to train for this…

•a backpack
•sand (poured into contractor cleanup bags, duct taped up well, in small 5lb-10lb increments)
•towels, rags, clothes (as filler for inside backpack)

I’m used to flying through certain numbers between 20 and 50 based on the mantras I repeat in my head.

Being I’m so used to pushups up to 50 reps, I don’t see how adding a secured 5lbs-10lbs to my back would even be noticed in effort or by my body. 5-10lbs is not even a large water weight fluctuation.

Do a set of mantra reps, between 20 and 50, flying, but with the pack on.

Keep the space in the pack filled with material of some kind, old torn up towels are perfect, and every so often add another 5 or 10lb homemade sandbag to the thing.

Do it regularly, a set or two a day, by the time I’m at +50lbs for 50 reps, the pace is still at 25-30 seconds in, not the full 60, and I can break a Paddy Doyle world record.

Train further than that and it’ll only be a larger change in the record.

Persistence & Tenacity