So You Wanna Get Big, Huh?

So you want to get big huh?

It’s a straightforward process.
The biggest thing is to eat. A lot.

Many don’t do this, hence the gym isn’t filled with the jacked, but a goodly portion of the skinny who say with mouth and without action that they want to be jacked.

Force feed. You’ll get big.

When you think you’re eating a lot realize this ; the one riding the scooter at the grocery store is outeating you daily.

He’s getting 5000+ calories.

You can out eat him. And you can walk, so you’ll put on more quality mass than him by default.

Food is the biggest factor in size.
Whether obese, sumo, powerlifter, football player, or bodybuilder – 5000 or more calories daily.

A small eater can eat 500-750 calories of anything and drink a quart of milk alongside it four times a day. Simple.

Besides it’s not the biggest dudes eating the most. It’s a patently absurd fact that the heaviest eaters are high metabolism, highly active… middleweights.

While barbell training is like a cheat code for increasing appetite and putting on size, any muscular stimulus will do.

I’ve come across big dudes who simply eat a lot and work physical jobs.

Honestly 5000-7500 calories a day while wrestling would do it.

There’s precedence in both kushti and sumo.

At present I favor calisthenics.

Eating alone puts on muscle.

Anyone obese with basic locomotion, ie walking around has a good deal of leg muscular development.

Enough protein (and grams of protein needn’t be super high) with big calories creates a metabolic environment where you sense the muscle growing.

All the better the more things you line up in your favor.

•Eat big.
•Be able to walk.
•Train in some manner.

The cost of groceries isn’t an excuse, as $5 a day will get you past 5000 calories easily with the chicken’s dark meat cuts, top ramen, and milk.

Chicken in a crockpot, ramen in the microwave, milk in a glass. The inability to cook can even be worked around.

The gym is so easy.

ReBlogging – An Interview With An Old Timer Who’d Greco-Roman Wrestled In His Youth :

Anecdote Of An Old Timer Who’d Greco-Roman Wrestled In His Youth :

This is not my content, it’s something I came across years ago, can no longer find, and is useful information that groks to my recent experience with weighted calisthenics and calisthenic volume.

I write by recollection, paraphrasing. Here it is :

The author was sitting in public and struck up a conversation with an old timer seated nearby.

The old timer a small man at maybe 5’7″ 140lbs, he spoke of having wrestled in his youth, greco roman wrestling to be exact.

The old timer spoke of fitness in a prior era, possibly in Europe as where in America can one practice greco?

He told some stories :

Wrestling at around 125lbs he became able to bridge nose to mat with a heavyweight and 160lber both sitting on him.

The smallest man in the room, he was strong enough to wrestle live with the heavyweight, but did not particularly like doing so.

All the wrestlers essentially had this same pound for pound strength, it was just most striking on him being the smallest.

Everyone in the room became capable of bridging with one or more seated atop them.

Strength was built old school :

Deep knee bends, pushups, chin ups, straight leg situps, bridging, some partner resisted stuff including the calisthenics.

They did a lot of reps, and of course plenty of wrestling.

No one touched a weight, their coach was adamant about that.

They got strong from high rep calisthenics, partner resisted dynamics/isometrics, and wrestling. Adding another wrestler to the calisthenic exercises from time to time.

(↑ The above is pretty ideal.)

Those built in the gym, weight lifters, in the present are far heavier than anyone in that wrestling room was.

The heavyweight then was the heavyweight because that’s the size he was going to grow to irregardless.

(My note : you can grow muscularly, as a “natty”, past your ideal athletic weight to the point you’re less dangerous in a fight.

Not just cardio, but “muscle bound” which means overly tense in layman’s terms (muscle bound is easily defined as overly tense from large muscular development not kept loose), and according to my research due to physics involved of the head and neck…easier to knock out.

You want your neck to be thicker than your head, otherwise you’re not ideally developed.)

There wasn’t moving up a weight class, you walked around your natural weight, and likely had a crazy by current standards weight cut to wrestle in competition.

The old timers handshake was noticably strong.

Persistence & Tenacity

The Biggest Problem In The Gym & How To Solve It :

The biggest problem in the gym is
not believing in your own training method!

Anything will work when you truly believe it will.

I’ve been captaining this for a long time :

•Put in massive effort.
•Be a true believer in your method.

That’s it!

You do these two things and the greatest of results are guaranteed.

Persistence & Tenacity

Commit To 20+ Years Of Daily Calisthenics – 5 Minutes!

Title : Commit To 20+ Years Of Daily Calisthenics – 5 Minutes!

What if every day for the next 10, 20, 30 years you did calisthenics, say a brief once, twice, or thrice daily workout?

Don’t you think you’d be head and shoulders above your age peers.

Don’t you think you would be 50+ and very strong, while extremely good at calisthenics.

Don’t you think you’d always be physically capable.

Well after most have resigned themselves to forever watching sports on the couch beer in hand…defeated.

5 minutes at most, one to three times a day, given the time frame you’ll be a freak of nature.

Years of pushups give you the largest chest, plus a good deal of strength to boot.

You don’t know the value of just one set a day!

Pushups with people standing on your back come naturally given years.

Years of pullups?
Most importantly strong hands and good posture via spinal decompression.

Years of wrestler’s bridges – the strongest spine around.

Bodyweight squats, lunges, you’ll be 75+ hiking, shoveling snow, just as capable as you were between 15 and 25 years of age.

No deterioration!

Notice the lack of logistics to consider.

Notice how this is all readily available.

Notice how there are no available excuses.

Are you committed, or are the flashing screens, and all that which rob you in this life just too important to you for you to keep your physical capability in your own hands?

5 minutes!

Persistence & Tenacity

PostScript :

Here is my video relevant to the post, I didn’t want either my own or another’s video link to cause a pause in the reading :


Weighted pushup ability came from years of daily pushups, often as little as one set of around 30 each day.

I haven’t listened to a single Wes Watson video in around six months, and yet I still hear his voice and my voice as one and the same coming out of me.


What if you never took no more back steps.” – Wes Watson

The concept of commitment 24/7 on my mind.

12/26/20 : Handstands Come Quickly

With planet fitness access I do almost naught but calisthenics, the machine preacher curl the only machine I tend to touch, while rarely I’ll power snatch at home.

I’ve been doing some form of handstand work daily this month ; partial handstand pushups against the wall, timed wall holds, and freestanding handstand practice.

Freestanding handstands come fast, it’s not a particularly difficult skill.

It just requires practice.

Every little kid who’s done gymnastics, and everyone who grew up cheerleading can.

I got a very solid 10+ second balance today.

The skill something I’m getting as an early progression towards doing handstand pushups freebalancing off a bench.

Size? I weigh what I weigh. I’m good at calisthenics.

Calisthenics are something everybody must be good at.

It’s excuse free. Every body must be able to move itself.

I’m training for the abilities I desire.

Today’s was the first longer handstand where I really felt balanced in the balance point, and this amped me up.

It was a better balance than I ever got 5 years ago.

Relatedly – I notice more shoulder and midsection definition the more handstand practice I do.

This makes sense to me, 260lbs balanced on the hands is good stimulus for both, worth more than the equivalent poundage in a barbell held overhead.

Everyone can, and should, be practicing handstands.

Persistence & Tenacity

More Than One In One Flow – Calisthenics Where You Least Expect It :

The Two Assumptions When You’re Big & Good At Calisthenics :

When you’re a big guy and are good at calisthenics people tend to draw one of two conclusions about you :

•Convicted Felon
•Prior Military

I’ve been told flat out that “when we first met I figured you either just beat felony charges, or maybe were prepping to ship off”.

Big guy. Good at calisthenics.
One, the other, or both is assumed.

I’m neither, which surprises many.
I have so many stories on these notes.

A Junkie Coworker :

I had a junkie coworker who knew calisthenics via the jailhouse.

He spent a few months, a few times, doing pushups and lunges to alleviate jailhouse boredom.

Dude didn’t graduate high school, but to use his time locked up for heroin/meth possession he figured lots of pushups and lots of lunges as “what else is there to do”.

Pushups and lunges is a solid workout anywhere.

He was decently strong for ≤170lbs, and had the highest metabolism I’ve ever come across.

Remember what I’ve said about middleweights, metabolism, and calorie requirements?

He was like that to the nth degree.
Kid was effectively an ever starving space heater.

He’d eat pizzas, fast food, donuts, gas station food, and poptarts all day long, buying food every time the truck stopped, and drinking soda after soda, while always being so warm as to be uncomfortable to sit next to in the work trucks.

How meth didn’t cause him to automatically od I’ll never know.

Crazy Calf Development :

On a similar note I know two people with calves so ridiculous every bodybuilder is jealous, and the two don’t lift.

One grew up poor walking/jogging/running everywhere, no car in the family.

One’s mother had monster calves, while enjoying hiking in the summer, and taking long walks in the winter.

Some of the craziest human ability, genetics, development, etc is not to be found in the gym.

The Retiree :

A retiree doing burpees, bw squats, jumping jacks, db thrusters, and abs next to me asked if I was prior military having seen me do dips, weighted pushups, and probably pullups.

He was giving me props for being big and good at calisthenics, was surprised that I don’t currently lift weights, and himself being prior military assumed I must be too seeing as how I train.

Despite a bum shoulder, he was working around it, and going hard.

I gave him props for going hard at military PT…still.

Still!

A retiree doing military PT to this day. What’s your excuse!

That same day I saw another person who surprised me by doing burpees.

The Obese Girl :

A girl in her early twenties, taller, probably 5’8″, 5’9″, and obese, probably heavier than I, was supersetting burpees and leg raises, then thrusters and leg raises, kettlebell swings somewhere in there as well.

Funny, I’ve told an obese guy “you really want to change it, then 200 burpees in your garage/yard daily til you like where you’re at” before.

He’s done zero burpees since hearing the advice.

This girl was at the gym, with a worse starting point physically than him, and yet did to my estimation 100 burpees, 100 thrusters, about 200 reps of abs, and some kettlebell swinging probably 50 reps before each superset.

She’s putting in mad effort supersetting, she’s hungry, she’ll lose the weight!

Both the retiree and she were going hard at exercises I wouldn’t expect either demographic to be doing much less going hard at.

I love seeing this sort of thing.
Props to both.

Persistence & Tenacity

Gym Flow : The Christmas Eve Crowd 2020

The parking lot is fairly packed, almost equivalent to a monday’s busy evening hours.

Inside the crowd is made up of a high percentage of in shape regulars getting to it.

The energy is high, I love that.

Just as I had expected from seeing a not empty parking lot on a day with shortened holiday hours.

Thanksgiving morning, Christmas Eve morning – it tends to be packed…and high energy.

With short holiday hours the average level of fitness in any gym goes up, as those who care the most are the ones not sleeping in, getting in a gym session whilst most don’t bother.

I trained without headphones, not even bringing them.

One of the guys working at the front desk got me to laugh as I checked in.

Someone complimented me “looking good bro”.

I brightened a dour day with a personalized “have a Merry Christmas”.

I’ve always enjoyed the gym on holiday mornings.

Almost not going, 45 minutes in and out of upper body, and all that came with it brightened my day.

Merry Christmas!

-J

The 100 Rep Density Dips Challenge :

How fast can you do 100 dips?

100 dips for time is a challenge I like doing on occasion.

It cracks me up, in the last 18 months I’ve done this thrice, and each time I’ve been consistent at about 3½ minutes.

Dips are a high effect exercise that can be done with relative ease.

Pushing the pace allows a lot of work in a short time.

It’s a bit of a game too – the balancing of reps per set and rest periods.

Rep out and you get more reps, but need more rest, and the clock is still running.

Less reps per set mean more sets -tick tock tick tock.

Give density dips a shot. See how fast you can race to 100 reps in.

100 reps as quickly as possible.

An International Snapshot Of Physical Stature In The Year 1900

Soldiers from various countries of the eight nation alliance during the boxer rebellion.

The above photo is of soldiers from the various countries of the eight nation alliance during the boxer rebellion.

The photo taken in 1900, I find it an interesting depiction of human stature at the time.

From left to right are soldiers from Great Britain, America, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Japan.

No Russian soldier is present, and the Indian soldier technically is British military at the time.

It’s surprising that the Brit is taller than the American.

Americans by way of food abundance tended to be the tallest worldwide.

With sergeant stripes that Brit may have come from a more well fed background then the lower classes in England.

The Australian is near the American and Brit in height, this makes sense, all three likely share genetic background. Plus Australia had good access to meat despite money as compared to Brits across the board via economic class.

I have to wonder if as they formed up height was determined by headgear, not true height.

The German seems bigger than the Indian in build, while only slightly shorter due to height of their respective covers.

Germans at the time were not known as giants though in strongman they produced some.

Their stature improved by WW2. Americans after WW2.

You see that height amongst Europeans varied considerably at that point in time.

This is mostly related to the economics of food. America and Australia had much better access to affordable meat by being big ranching nations.

The stereotypes we have of who is short are somewhat seen in this photo.

Next to Japan the shortest is the Italian, and I’ve met barely 5′ Italian adults.

From this photo to the year 2000 stature likely increased most amongst the Japanese, and shrunk the most amongst the Indians.

It would be useful to know the rank of each soldier pictured so as to conclude food access.

Still on the tall side you had good access to meat, and on the short side grain centric diets.

I wonder how small the average boxer soldier was in comparison being their economic situation was worse than neighboring Japan’s in addition to their nation having a rampart opium problem.

Simple Ways To Change Your State

It doesn’t take much, only a conscious decision and some action to change your state.

With conscious effort, over time you build triggers – things that act as reset buttons/switches.

Pushups are one for me.
Positive mantras with every rep make them even more powerful.

You can write/type out all the shit to get it out of the system.

You also can change your mind by changing the body’s posture.

See, posture and mindset exist on a circular feedback loop, you can hack into it at any point.

While the military isn’t perfect about this, their chin up, chest up, shoulders back mantra is 85% of the way there.

Considering many are moping around at 10% or less, 85%+ is damn good.

Put a smirk on your face, and go stand in victory pose.

Take note of how you feel.

Now you know how to change your state.

Persistence & Tenacity