January 2021 - Persistence and Tenacity

A Couple On The Go Real Fast Food Breakfast Options For Bodybuilding :

Real Fast Food Breakfast Options For Bodybuilding :

Here’s some real food, quick things you can do when crunched for time instead of partaking in fast food in the morning.

Precooked Bacon:

Now amongst those who eat breakfast are many who go through drive thrus.

This is entirely unnecessary. There are better options.

The time excuse doesn’t apply, and these are better nutritional options to boot.

The grocery store sells precooked bacon.

I always knew this since in 2nd grade I’d often have bacon on the sandwich I brought to school, while being able to count on one hand how many times my mom fried bacon up over my childhood.

It’s a lot pricier than if you cook it for yourself, but it’s only $4 or $5 for a box, can be eaten off once or twice, and is no worse on your wallet than a drive thru would be.

It’s a lot cheaper than trying to pull something keto off through a breakfast menu though.

Bacon is a natural energy bar.
Precooked bacon shines this way.

OJ Ala Rocky :

Now I’ve talked before about egg shakes.

This is a simple preparation, and the most breakfast like of the variants.

“OJ Ala Rocky”

OJ Ala Rocky is something I did one day, initially to keep noise down in the middle of the night.

I thought orange juice may hide the egg well enough, and could be quickly stirred instead of running a blender.

It can.
Though this is something I discovered in the middle of the night, it’s traditional breakfast foods, and I find easily stomached.

A TALL glass, fill it mostly with oj (I prefer pulp, but use whatever is on hand), then crack 3-5 eggs, and stir.

Then you down it.
Rinse the cup, give your hands a quick wash.

A nutritional breakfast taken care of in 90 seconds.

You could put it in a shaker cup, take it on the go, I drink it at the sink.

There ya go,
-J

persistenceandtenacity.com

75 Pushups – That’s Not Okay!

I did two sets of 75 pushups the other night, and frankly I was disappointed.

Range of motion was near full range, good enough in my eyes, but I was legitimately pissed that it took effort to get to 75 each time.

Not failure, but just starting to get challenging, I had done each set as intended – a set through without pause.

75 was the pause point both times.

See, I’ve done so many pushups, past 100 per set numerous times, enough so that 75 per set seems a poor performance in my eyes.

I recall in jrotc that I’d be so used to relatively low reps, up to say 40, that I’d worry about the PT test, be doing volume like a madman for a week or two precedingly, then do well on the test, performing better under pressure than training had led me to believe I would.

(That would be something like 80 in two minutes – worse than the performances I’m unhappy about in the present.)

See, pushups are an exercise simple to improve.

Just keep upping your regular performance ability, and your all out rep ability will go up.

Fairly fast at that.

I’ve been doing sets really no higher than 35 per set.

Okay, I can more than double it when I go for it, but that’s not good enough.

I’m the guy who was hitting damn near 120 in 60.

120 pushups in 60 seconds!

Think about that ability a moment.
Yeah that’s reps for time, I’d still be solid performing in that manner, you can strategize, while reps til pause is different, but only 75 – I’m not happy with that.

I’d slacked by not putting in effort, not doing challenging sets for my pushup PT!

The Weight Room Origins Of The Terrible Towel :

Credit to Colin Webster, son of NFL hall of famer Mike Webster, this is me paraphrasing something that he used to have online :

There was more to the terrible towel than a marketing gimic.

… … …

The terrible towel originated in the Steelers weight room from a finisher akin to Mas wrestling.

The players feet to feet and holding onto (eventually) as many as three towels as (picture a couple of very strong heavyweight lineman) players were ripping the towels during the “terrible towel” drill.

Frankly I’m unsure as to why they didn’t just use a sturdy stick, pipe, or length of rope.

Towels were on hand.
Towels it was.

Eventually the towels made their way into the seating.

1/27/21 Honesty

This morning –
I fucked up. I DID.

I wrote this down multiple different ways throughout the day, tried to write gym stuff, did, and still had nothing I felt postable.

This was weighing on my mind, and here is my slice of soapbox and accountability, a blog I don’t know I can ever quit.

It’s been around 15 months of daily posting.

Find something.
Read. Audio.

I used to listen to what music called to me, then flow write after in effect having warmed up by audio.

I haven’t done that consistently since probably 2017 here.

Trying to spark the writing muse, normally I just write. I tried music first.

Wes Watson audio did it.

After four months I listened to about an hour of Wes Watson, I briefly cried at one point.

It still surprises me to hear him and I as one voice.

Take three, and honesty :

This morning –
I fucked up. I DID.

100th day, about eight hours shy of 100 days, I jerked off.

I had said I’m done doing so FOR LIFE!

Then I did so.
Then I did so again upon waking.

99 days 16 hours? 7 hours after that?

That’s not for life!

Doing so? That’s weakness, my weakness.

WAS my weakness.

I chose to do something I said I wouldn’t do.

I CHOSE TO!

I chose to go against my word.

No. Can’t do that shit.

That was me slipping on my own standards.

Can’t continue, won’t continue doing that shit!

I’m going to be honest, I’ve been in emotional pain lately.

It’s not an excuse.
There is no excuse.
There is no such thing as a valid excuse!

I fucked up. I chose to fuck up.
I chose to!

I chose to fuck up! That amount of emotional pain got me? What the fuck! I’m better than that!

I didn’t watch porn, but who cares.
I chose to masturbate, which is somewhere on that same path.

It’s a negative, one that I chose.

As time goes on you, by improving, naturally you raise your standards.

It’s no longer only no porn!
It’s evolved to no porn and no jerking off!

I treated it like when I “half a caved” to looking at booty instagram around six months back, and trimmed my porn free beard.

I had never mentally agreed to require doing this, the discipline shave, like I had of myself back when I used to cave to porn, but I did so anyway.

The beard was getting wild and unkept, and this is more presentable.

(In pure narcissism I now get to enjoy walking around with my muscular neck visible.)

Shaving half the beard off? Here, today? An action in self betterment.

Because that’s what life is for!

I’ve always hated when one writes “we are all human” about their fuckups, I hate to admit being human, I hate that I fucked up, and honesty – gotta tell the truth, and it’s that I fucked up this morning!

Transcend!

2/8/21 – I did so again. I view masturbation as a vice, just like I did porn before I rid myself of that. I don’t like going back on what I decide, I’m better than that. Start over.

Old Time Calisthenics – Pushup, Wrestler’s Bridge, Deep Knee Bend, & Chin Up :

Old Time Calisthenics :

If you spent your lifetime simply doing floor dips, chins, deep knee bends, and the wrestler’s bridge you’d have plenty of functional strength, and have it for your entire lifetime.

Old school calisthenics, like my Grandpa did, they’re really all you need.

The more I emphasize this, the better I do. The old school approach is simple, requires effort, and works.

-J

floor dips – an old time way to say…pushups

1/25/21 Flow – Lean Back :

Back in Cali there was this trainer chick, we never did introductions, but after one funny interaction whenever we were on the gym floor at the same time she’d laser eyes at me, paying more attention in my direction waiting for me to stare back, smirk, or nod than to her dude client, 40ish, seemed to have money, and fit, who was paying for her attention, and not getting it.

Blonde, mid to late 20s, pretty enough at about 5’7″ with that build that’s a very good looking mix of curvy and muscular, wide hips, some chest, atop muscular thighs and glutes.

I observed something I thought strange about her ; standing around she’d put her hands on her glutes, and lean back about as far as she was able. It was almost how she normally stood around.

Seemed to feel good to her.
My educated guess says she was muscular enough to get overly tight, stretching something we think of guys needing to do, yet actually something the women who lift may find they need do.

I’ve known petite chicks who this applies to. She may be 5′ nothing and sub 115lbs, but she’s lifted hard enough, to be muscular (yet tiny), and have to pointedly stretch for recovery.

I figure this principle, but more obvious since this blonde trainer chick wasn’t extremely tiny, and was muscular.

This lean back, I’ve known dudes who crack their back that way, then a long while later I found this, I’m going to call it posture, present in tai chi/chi kung.

It’s said to be very good for you, to lean back like this, and is euphoric, especially considering how much we hunch forward in modern life.

In tai chi/chi kung there is the purposeful use of standing while leaning back postures.

I find myself leaning back during rest periods.

Limbo like I go as far back as I can muscularly stand back up from, and frankly feel that one could get themselves to back bend fully regularly practicing like this.

Go back as far as you can, hold awhile, restand. Eventually you’ll go deeper and deeper.

It will be rather cool to back bend to a lightly touched wrestler’s bridge, and restand.

The principle feels good.

8 Simple Things That Improve How You Feel Immediately :

•Pushups
•One Legged Eyes Closed Balance
•Victory Pose
•Captain Morganing
•Deep Breathing
•Qigong
•Horse Stance
•Walks

They’re all free, and all make you feel great.

Persistence & Tenacity

1/23/21 – Another Chin Up PR & How I’ve Done Double Digit Reps Over The Years :

1/23/21
Thus far this year I have done pushups, some form of handstand work, pullups in some variation, and sledgehammer levering daily.

My daily chin up set was 17 reps today.

This is very close to my lifetime PR of 19 in any grip – that set done with an open handed nuetral grip off of a thick tree branch at 21 years old.

Every few days I’ve been hitting another PR in some capacity.

17 on the doorway bar is worth more than the equivalent somewhere I can fully hang.

I’m pumped up.
I don’t know my bodyweight.
I do know that I’ll be working weighted reps in.

Weighted reps have helped me before, about a year ago hitting 9 weighing high 250s/low 250s.

I feel the PRs are coming for a couple reasons :

•Daily Practice

Doing anything daily gets you better at it.

•Sledgehammer Levering (& by extension improving grip)

My best pullup sets over the years have always come after I’ve improved my grip.

I’ve often felt over the years that my back was strong/enduring enough, but my hands didn’t have enough reserve in them to allow me to show what my back can do.

They have that reserve now.

At present it’s from the levering.
Sledgehammer levering will improve your grip very quickly.

In the past it was from :

•lots of one arm row simulating isometrics against my bathroom doorway, and deadlift isometrics with a hot tub rail in the apartment’s pool complex

•working as a mover, which saw me become capable of one arm hangs holding a 70lb kb for sets of :45+ at 235lbs

Now, and in the mover example involved daily pullups, the isometric example was a bit less rigid on frequency.

With the pullups I’ve never regularly pushed to failure training them and had the rep count improve much.

I’ve always gotten better results leaving a bit in the tank each set.

Supersets with machine curls have helped, while being a challenge, but just racing to a rep count density style didn’t really work for me as far as improving rep count.

The two movements I could push harder together than I could with chins alone at the level of effort allowing me to still improve.

I’m at a higher level of chin ability now.

Often you have to slog your way till being at a higher level, and then everything comes together more and more easily.

I’m having an easier time now approaching a set of 20 than I did at 14 struggling to get anywhere from one to three reps.

If you struggle with chins, keep working, eventually they’ll improve.

That’s a guarantee.

Persistence & Tenacity

1/22/21 Gym Dream – “Perfect Programming” At My Own Gym :

1/22/21
I can’t help but laugh, that was quite the gym dream.

I had found, through trial and error, the “perfect programming”, and had opened a large facility halfway between warehouse and commercial gym where I taught it.

There I was massively successful getting athletes from the college to professional level.

I woke up briefly conscious of what I had dreamt, even recalling the minute details of this holy grail like programming, oft searched for by those who care little for actually training.

I fell back asleep, into the same dream. However, upon waking for the day I retained little of the exact details (the horror, I had not scribbled it down while more asleep than awake), the gist being somewhere around 80% of lifting being done on machines, using precise slow tempo, for muscle building/bodybuilding purposes, and 20% of training being barbell, particularly weightlifting, and strongman implements, which got more emphasis than the barbell.

80% bodybuilding, 20% converting all the built muscle to useable strength and power.

Ahh, I flashed back to axle cleans in real life, and struggle to recall if throughout the dream a single rep of bench press was done.

I do recall on the spot doing high rep heavy log pressing, proving a point about what I, and by extension my trainees, were capable of on a silly 225lb reps test with a twig to some scout or another.

I ranted and raved about the glories of pressing with real implements vs twigs, saying how everything (not just pressing) with a twig can be more better done with an axle or another implement.

That’s how I started recalling real life axle cleans, and really came to the realization I was dreaming, it was lucid dreaming from at least that point on if not before.

There was a clear emphasis on leg work, and pulling. Which even without all the minute details is the way of significant strength.