Month: December 2020

I’ve been prioritizing handstand pushup work lately, finding reps with a shortened range of motion (two books from the floor) to be quite the tricep builder just as I’ve found with the military press.

The overhead pattern activates my triceps strongly, and this activation carries over to my nightly pushups.

Recently in conversation I said this work consistently will change my proportions.

When you think about it, that’s the effect of working out.

You change your proportions, and the human body is an extremely modifiable organism.

Somatotypes?

Endomorph?
Mesomorph?
Ectomorph?

Your type will change given the time and stimuli.

Adult height may be set mostly in stone by childhood/young adult nutrition and activity, but adult build has a huge margin of play.

Do you think every 16 year old entering a sumo stable is already 300lbs?

Nope, many are normal thin teenagers.

At 14 I was an endomorph.

A glowing hatred of remaining fat saw me lose 40lbs fast with obsessive compulsive stationary bike riding and a bunch of pushups.

At 15 I was an ectomorph.
I’d changed my somatotype.

I’ve changed it since.

All the weights have me at what I’d define as a meso-endo or endo-meso hybrid that for the most part shifts more and more meso as I keep with the weights.

The prioritization of calisthenics causes an interesting body type shift.

My track pants are more loose now at 250-260 than they were when I force fed up to 197 at 16 years old.

Heavy weights really do make the body bigger.

I’m always thought to be 20lbs lighter than I am.

The crazy thing is between 230 and 260 I don’t see much of a difference visually, though I can feel it.

Bonkers on bent rows and hc&p then eating saw me noticably break into the 270s leaner with the mass gain being mostly in my traps.

Calisthenics make for a more sleek, animalistic look.

At 215lbs (21yo) I felt primal walking around. I did pushups and hindu squats.

It was after six months of tight food budgeting, and little variation.

Lately I’ve been ravenous. While my proportions are changing into the calisthenic sleek animalistic look again.

Occasionally I’ll press or overhead squat.

The majority of my training is pushups, burpees, handstand pushups, bw squats, pullups, machine curls, dips.

I swear I look smaller, yet don’t think the scale has moved. Maybe it’s an optical illusion.

I could be underfeeding.
Sucked in.

It could entirely be the training.

I’m looking more calisthenics built than weights which reflects what I do.

I’ve been ramping up the Cardio Calisthenics™.

If I was to go get rack and barbell access I could partial front squat my way to barbell built in look and feel within weeks.

I’ve even found that military presses and overhead squats alone for barbell work tend to keep with the more sleek hungry wolf calisthenics build.

The overhead pattern just builds more and more triceps.

That minimal lifting on top of calisthenics gives a more and more dense build.

The body is highly changeable.

You can get fat.
Just eat a ton, and quit exercising.

You can starve yourself to skeleton status.

Though once the muscles have been built in the past there are hints when you look at skeletor.

My buddy still had biceps and quads though he’d went from a healthy solid 220 to a sickly looking 160 in a short period of time.

I’d still have a massive chest.

You can get jacked.

The simplest way is 5000+ calories and frequently lifting heavy things.

The human body will move between all the possible variations according to what stimuli your life entails.

It’s an amazing thing.
And it’s always possible.

Everyone has God given genetics, the potential is within you.

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archives :
8/21/19 during the “dip odyssey”

The way I see it, the way to be the largest you can physically, while still able to perform basic locomotion isn’t sumo wrestling, superheavyweight powerlifting, bodybuilding, or strongman…

It’s serious use of the buffet/feasting and lots of reps on calisthenics.

I’m thinking 500 bodyweight squats plus a serious amount of dips and pushups a day while eating enough to get past 300lbs, up to the 350-400lb area.

If you did short sprints the entire time you’d stay explosive and athletic in the sumo/football lineman way, and as a side effect of all the reps (and your size) would be seriously strong.

300+ pounds of basic locomotion has to be. And from there better is better and stronger.

Calisthenics build you up in a more athletic way than weights do.

Especially if you maintain a minimal level of gymnastics ability with it.

There is no doubt in my mind that a diet based on mixed macro feasting combined with high volume of shiiko (the sumo wrestler squat, leg lift, and stomp) and pushups would get you scarier than everyone in the gym.

I’m in the labor world. My experience there and in sports proves to me that the gym is soft.

I know how I respond to calisthenics. I’m always physically superior with my workouts leaning more heavily towards calisthenics than weights.

Eat for your desired size.

Train like someone in the wrestling or martial arts world.

The norm? Always be high activity.
Hundreds of reps on top of being on your feet all day.

The occasional rest with high calories is when you’ll explode. I’ve done so on a road trip.

Weights are for fun, they’re entirely unnecessary.

You can train and eat your way to big & strong without them.

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archives :
9/14/20

What so many don’t get is that is that you’ll get built as long as there’s food intake and training stimuli.

I took the training path I took, it wasn’t the norm that’s for sure, but it’s worked for me, here it is :

Near the end of my junior year of high school, wrestling having ended, I learned how to eat.

I wanted to get as big as I possibly could, so calories was the name of the game.

I’d eaten like a pidgeon during most of the preceding two years, and the small growth spurt from 178-185, then force feeding (mostly pouring olive oil into my mixes of milk, whey, soy powder, and peanut butter) from there to 197 before wrestling season, taught me if I wanted bodyweight to go up, calories would have to go up.

I wasn’t going more than 200-250g protein a day, but calories were bonkers. I averaged 6500-7000 calories a day for a long while that summer.

Instinctively I ate “dirty”, meaning whatever I wanted, while keeping mostly to nutritious things.

I’d drink milk to the tone of as many as 11 gallons a week, would eat chicken nuggets and waffles for breakfast, a greek yogurt while it was heating up, and wouldn’t get up from the breakfast table until 100g of protein was in me.

A couple hours later at my aunt’s house I’d lounge at the pool, and eat handfuls of hostess and little debbies.

I had two dinners every night, half a frozen pizza, and a bunch of whatever my mom made.

I’m big cause I get in calories from “dirty” but nutritious sources.

At present I eat a lot of kielbasa, salami, drink milk, and have multiple dinners.

Food and drink with protein and high fat makes bulk easy.

Training in the weight room has never been consistent year after year.

I have God tier consistency however with calisthenics.

I like lifting, but by no means am I wed to it. I’ve lost access to weights off and on almost half the time.

I view pushups as daily PT, and isometrics, when I do them, in whatever form have served me very well.

I train every day without equipment regardless.

After the gym today, everything required to train checked off, I did extra pushups and warrior pose back at home.

I don’t need the gym.

Size is related to calorie intake first, and training stimuli second. Almost a year back after a set of about 70 wide grip pushups I texted a buddy “dude, not caring for bodybuilding aesthetics I’ve managed to give myself the build of a defensive lineman mostly from military PT style calisthenics”.

I’ve been able to get plenty of stimuli from calisthenics without break, and isometrics in various forms when I do them. Yes lifting weights helps, but I don’t need them. My gym is forever with me.

Pushups for life!

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archives :
10/29/19

Stocky, not lean, with a thick midsection where the hint of abs is present. I look in the mirror and see a physique similar in appearance to the Great Gama’s.

This makes sense really as I do a massive amount of pushups, view hindu squats as a staple, rounding it out with lots of full body calisthenics, a decent dose of ab work, neck work, and forearm work.

Lots of calisthenics and big eating will make you big, strong, and athletic. It won’t make you look like a bodybuilder, it’ll make you look like a heavyweight wrestler.

Combine that with mat time, and you’re dangerous, having spent a lot of sweat equity, though at little financial cost.

The two years I wrestled in high school cost a total of $30 – a pair of black Asics Matflex 2s that were on the clearance rack, last year’s model.

They in total lasted me 5 years of heavy usage, being put into their last days by first a seriously sharp rock and then a nail attached to a board left on the sidewalk by a sloppy contractor while walking vegas streets.

(I ran, lifted, put the shot, even wore them as street shoes for 5 years. The Matflex 4s replacing them can be summed up in a word…garbage. When I tossed the Matflex 2s they were in better overall condition, just a small amount of duct tape to close a hole on them, than the Matflex 4s became after less than one year of light weight room usage. Asics Matflex 2s are a great shoe for a wrestler with a wide foot, the Matflex 4s are garbage, my pinky toes putting holes in them worse than a sharp rock and a nail had done to the Matflex 2s.)

Having wrestled I always kept my head into it. I researched traditional wrestling the world over.

I’ve learned a lot from kushti.

My training philosophy is something of an amalgamation of research and experimentation with the methodologies of kushti, military PT, and the workouts inside CDC prisons.

Wrestlers are often stocky, so with enough height by eating and training in emulation of heavyweight wrestlers one can grow as muscularly large as nature allows.

Look particularly at sumo, but you can see this worldwide, throughout history.

Physicality alongside big calories makes a robust man.

It needn’t be fancy.

Eat well. Train hard. No excuses. Do it forever & always.

Persistence & Tenacity

99% of your electronic usage can be cut out, not only not missed, but an improvement to your life.

I was at a diner with my father and grandma. 19 or 20 years old.

At the table next to us was a good looking brunette, tall, my age (at the time both of us 19-21), wearing a hoodie from a nearby college, iphone in hand, out with her grandpa.

She paid more attention to her texting than to the conversation in person.

I didn’t understand how he tolerated her behavior and still had genuine interest in how her classes were going, nor how she could be out with a grandparent – yet not with them.

My grandfather had been gone for around 5 years at this point.

She was my age. Her grandpa was no older than mine would’ve been had he still been alive.

I didn’t like the dynamic.
You have to make the most of time like that.

Recently I was at a restaurant with my parents.

At the table next to us was an ok looking bottle blonde, 23 or 24 years old, with her father.

He was listening to her life at the office, she was texting, not looking at dad as she talked about herself.

She was more checked into her long distance texting than her face to face talking.

I cringed thinking of the preceding story, expecting to witness much the same.

Luckily it didn’t play that way.

Shortly after, when the mom/wife arrived the phone stayed away for the rest of the time, the family having a conversation.

When out with family your electronics should not be out.

It’s basic human manners.

Fuck the digital.
Live in the real world.

That’s my choice.

Persistence & Tenacity