Month: September 2020

I’ve met dudes weaker than me who were on gear, or had used gear.

(I saw a section/tab on some site titled the article title – ergo flow write rant time)

99.9% of the time it’s the trainer who decides if they’re capable of progress or not – not their supposed “natty” status.

Years back some kid offered to sell my training partner steroids, and get this ; the wannabe dealer kid was about 6′ 170 AND admitted that what he had taken did nothing for him.

That or they got him up to a bit bigger than 170 (175? A massive 180?) & he just couldn’t maintain.
lololololololololololololol

↑ I find using those horrid three letters to be full of distaste, but it’s longhand fits here – I went with it.

We both found it hilarious, that while we both actually ate food and trained hard, this goofball had obviously missed the memo about needing to do both.

Another story :

The kid I nicknamed “weaksauce”, he once told me that the doctors said he had a hormone issue, I thought to myself “damn right you have a hormone issue, your 1rm squat is barely over bodyweight, your bench is extremely sub bodyweight, and you have the highest pitch voice I’ve ever heard on a supposedly full grown man”.
I prayed, possibly literally, that trt would help him – preferably in his mindset, it needed a huge overhaul.

Think yourself muscular. Few do so. I’m convinced you, me, everyone can. I’ll link the inspirational book quote for this, then turn this into a blue link once posted.

I believe in high human potential fuckers, don’t care who is on shit or not.

I’m going to throw out two scenarios :

If I had to choose between being the only man in the world popping dbol and pinning both my ass cheeks and quads in rotation, or being the only man in the world not popping dbol and pinning both my ass cheeks and quads in rotation…

I’d choose to be the only man in the world not on gear!

Why you ask, thank you, how kind – I’d rather have the challenge of a higher average boots on the ground level to overcome, though I am not convinced that my ranking would change much ala the first story.

I’ve long wished to know who is on ; so I can train with them…and run them into the ground with psychotic levels of volume.

Say what you will – that situation motivates me.

It is pleasing to have those on accuse you of being on. Funny, I’ve heard he now owns a gym. I train calisthenics and machines at planet fitness. Obviously we’re no longer lifting (if what I do at pf even qualifies to meet this definition – do machines count? – they don’t to the “hardcore?”) at the same place.

Ah, the days of 50-100 missed pulls ; “damn dude, you don’t quit do you” – nope not I.

At pf I only get accused of good genetics.

Third story :

I once returned the sleeve of a barbell (that had followed the last 45 off – quality gym floor mishap if ever there was one) to the dude at desk, a Rich Piana lookalike if ever I’ve seen one in proportion and tats, though not skin tone and hair color…I! Pissed! Him! Off! Somehow! (stepped behind the desk to return the rest of the sleeveless barbell, whoops crossed a BIG line it seemed) and 300lbs of tatted up sleeved out juiced out bodybuilder HAD to been having weird coming off of cycle effects – he yelled using the mannerisms of a woman, his voice cracked, and he came very close to, if not tearing up. – I apologized (sorta), “just returning the rest of the bar, didn’t mean to invade your space”, and backed away holding in a giggle while thinking to myself “if that’s what coming off of a cycle is – reason #159728 to never use shit”.

Three different gyms – it’s up to you reader to place which to what.

Your options, as usual no real names :

•commercial gym hell/old commercial gym
•gym floor that’s half felons (guest pass)
•gym job group interview chain (guest pass)
•commercial gym chain with octagonal plates (guest pass, vaguely describes the above listing without other details)
•”hardcore?”/powerlifting? gym
•SoCal bodybuilding gym
•hole in wall place (guest passes)
•pf

And this could be a hint, or a misdirection – the biggest dude I’ve ever seen working front desk was at pf.

Here’s a link to an article with likely all the Charles Atlas comic book style ads :

Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension Ads

An opinion on the need/requirement of heavy lifting :

“gh15” on heavy lifting

Sri Chinmoy Partials :

You can do whatever you want with weights…do so with heart.

Pastor Kevin Fast Strongman :

I like this. Pastor & Physically Strong. And plays a piano. Renaissance Men – what we must be.

Persistence & Tenacity

Stamina, endurance, vitality – I’m undecided as to what word I’m looking for here. When you read Robert Howard stories (the author of Conan the barbarian) it’s frequent for the character to be described as having “fierce vitality”, or “the endurance of a wolf”.

What is it that allows some to be up for days and able to perform?

You hear of it amongst those in war zones, or in survival situations. Combinations of up for days, little food, little hydration.

It’s not ideal, but throughout human history many have done it, many still must do.

Every so often you hear of or come across someone who lives basically without sleeping.

It’s my impression that ancient battles often were fought fasted.

Even if you’ve experienced a combination of lack of sleep, low calories, and/or large physical workloads – on a low level you know that they can be performance enhancers.

A large part is the mentality involved. Is it something you disregard and march through, or do you cry about it.

It seems that those who just do are of a different breed. Most choose to cry about it.

Reading stories like Conan, other Howard characters, or Jack London’s Call Of The Wild have you visualizing true rugged physicality.

You don’t see it much in the modern world, but you know it exists.

Imagine if your life was a 20+ mile march everyday followed by in the ancient world battle or in present day say ; a wrestling practice.

The above is a fairly accurate description of a bare knuckle boxer’s training camp.

A lot of pedestrian/walking miles followed by fight training.

Have you heard of Robert Barclay Allardice who walked a mile every hour for 1000 hours straight in 1809?

This is more the type of endurance/stamina/vitality I’m talking about.

Have you ever witnessed it? Experienced it?
You have it in you.

Persistence & Tenacity

I just ate one of those bags of mini donuts after dinner of top ramen and chicken breast. With both I drank a quart of milk.

This isn’t the best choices of food, I didn’t eat any beef, but meat, carb, dairy, then a dessert I was craving.

Two main feedings this day plus the bag of dessert, this brings me to over 5000 calories.

The bag of donuts got me to thinking :

The skinny high schooler vs the built high schooler, when both are lifting their build comes down to which one knows how to eat.

The school linebacker, I remember senior year during first period he’d eat one of those bags of either hostess or little debbie’s donuts.

1500 calories during first period.
I’d guess preceding he had eaten a school breakfast or two, and at lunch a school lunch or two.
He’d eat anything up for grabs, I recall this.

His dad was the stereotypical big redneck, drove an suv with nascar stickers, into football, barbeque, and beer. I’m assuming dinners were hefty, full of meat and potatoes.

He got ample beer calories in at parties as well, this still counts as energy in.

Kid almost had abs, played linebacker, had a big bench, crazily enough could run a ~5:15 mile, and spent high school basically at 5’10 200lbs.

The other kids in the weight room had similarly high levels of activity, but he was eating calories, they weren’t.

He was built well, they weren’t.

Food intake and build, they correlate.

Persistence & Tenacity

I came across this at 14 or so :

It struck me then : “look a big guy can do calisthenics”.

You weigh what you weigh. Heavy is not an excuse to suck at calisthenics.

Calisthenics are more effective the bigger you are, it’s more resistance!

Get it!

I spend a solid half hour stretching, the focus on my shoulders with a wooden dowel.

Wouldn’t you know it, but the muscle pumped up again.

I’ve long known that there’s hypertrophy to be gained by really letting the muscles stretch after a pump ala dc training’s loaded stretching.

I take it as a good sign that the muscle, worked hard the day before, and lightly earlier in the session is pumping up as easily from stretching.

Even if I don’t need to, it’s a good idea to stretch more for the euphoria alone. That half hour felt damn good.

What a strange session for me, no pushups, no wall sit. I started with a few sets of leg press, did a set of chinups, a few sets of handstand pushups, and 10×8 of alternating db curls.

A session heavy on biceps, and stretching the shoulders.

It served it’s purpose. Physically I hadn’t terribly wanted to train, but mentally I wanted to, and did.

Sessions like this are just fine. They give you the ability to get more work in, and allow for doing things you wouldn’t normally do.

Since handstand pushups are going well, I see little need to do one arm db press 50s.

The ability to get better on chins and handstand pushups…I can taste it.

I see myself in the mirror and think “with the right calisthenic performances, body recomp without clean eating/dieting is guaranteed”.

Pushups I got great at by doing them all the time. I see no reason not to regularly hit handstand pushups.

Chins? Every other day may be better for me at the moment. I do feel something of a need to get to a set of 20…to show up a kid I sometimes train with.

“What’s that? I’m too heavy to be this good at chins? 100lbs heavier, I beat you to 20.” – calling it

I have this mental image of 30+ handstand pushups, and chins for 10xbw+90. I also have this image of alternate db curls for reps with the 75s.

I’m okay with doing heavyweight calisthenics based upper body bro programming.

It’s the present whim, and looking at my training history over the years, my programming tends to be naught but high frequency of what strikes my fancy at the moment aka on whims.

I’ve yet to max planet fitness out. It’s not absolutely required to be at a barbell gym.
Training? It’s all a game anyway.

Persistence & Tenacity

You’re either good at calisthenics or you’re not. Bodyweight is not a factor.

Whether 135lbs or 270lbs, you must be good at calisthenics.

You’d do well to place more faith in them, after all, if you take internet lore to be true, it’s how prisoners are getting jacked in spite of everything you’ve read that’s a rule.

At 20/21 realizing I could always do calisthenics, I put my heart and soul into what most look at as just a “it travels well better than nothing” write off workout.

I tell you the more you get into calisthenics the more you get out of them.

Go do a million pushups, by a million you’ll swear to do them forever more.

It’s amazing just how much more useful an exercise done for forever becomes after a period.

That skinny teen is not getting as much out of 20 pushups as I am, and the heavier you are the more effective calisthenics become.

A single push up at a 300lb bodyweight is equivalent to a bench rep at about 195lbs.

Frequently I’m surprised by just how strong I am. It’s higher than when I was using a barbell.

Why?
No excuses.

You approach calisthenics right and you’ll have zero excuses.

At the baseline level of my training I’ll be doing so many mantra pushups that big and strong is guaranteed.

Pushups and bodyweight squats can be done anywhere.

Some spots where I’ve done pushups have been downright comical.

Chin ups require something to hang from. Make like a monkey, trees are everywhere.

Handstand pushups, wall sits, require a piece of wall.

Headstands, and bridging, need a towel or a pillow…or grass.

Obviously there are more movements.

A cool effect of calisthenic exercises is that the body naturally fires the muscles hard.

You get stronger mind-muscle connection than with weights, especially when you’ve done the movement a million times.

Yet another day where I trained nearly equipment free.

It’s slightly funny to go to the gym to almost only hit calisthenics.

For the first time other than myself I saw handstand pushups in person, a small dude, late 20s maybe 5’6″ 135lbs, a few sets of around 10, a couple of sets wearing a (8lbs, we talked briefly) weight vest. Dude brought a weight vest and pushup bars with him to the gym for extra range of motion.

Craziest thing I’ve seen on this gym floor though was back in December, a taller, slightly curvy, but fit 40 something light skinned latina (she had the recent immigrant accent) doing sets and reps (~5×5-8) of standing ab wheel. She said she just liked the idea of doing them, so started practicing, and stayed consistent. Again aside from myself I’ve seen her, and a dude who plays pro hockey in Europe do them in person.

The last few sessions I’ve noticed that good chin up work feeds into stronger handstand pushups.

I’m getting consistent at the movement. I sense a lot of potential for me with them, reps, greater rom, freestanding.

-J