Month: February 2021

You’re always going to be stronger than what you’re used to doing in training.

It would be interesting to just work a labor job for a year without lifting, and see where you are on a super total (powerlifting and weightlifting, even the pre-1972 weightlifting) at the end of it.

The right work and you’d find yourself having gained in strength.

I’m convinced any training where you make progress carries over across the board.

I’m getting better at pullups, so therefore every pull is improving.

I laughed at how easy a power snatch was outside in winter.

It’s carryover from the pullups.

The presses felt easy – because of how much time I spend inverted free balancing and against the wall in handstands.

I did a variation on what I call the “york combo”.

•floor to overhead.
•bar to upper back.
•10 squats
•bar to overhead
•lower to ground

I used a power snatch, then a heaving push jerk to get it back overhead after the squats.

You could do nothing but lifts from the floor, never using squat stands and be the strongest person you’ll ever find.

Power snatch into overhead squats.

Overhead into the york combo.

Press off of cleans.

Bent row.

Deadlift.

It doesn’t matter that leg and press work is limited by pulling strength.

It’s fine.

Get to a 405 power clean, overhead, 10 squats, back overhead, lower it nicely, and then tell me that’s not the strongest dude anywhere.

If you 20 rep overhead squat #s some are happy to 20 rep back squat?

Ditto.

A 225+ power snatch into 20 overhead squats is very possible, and with a mental reframe something likely easily done by world class weightlifters.

Probably even by a girl much smaller than you.

Just train with effort.

Everything else is minutia.

Not only does somatotype change, but so much more.

Recently in conversation I was described as broad shouldered.

I said it’s the muscular development, not the bone structure, saying naturally I’m medium framed, my best track events as nature intended being the 400m and 800m, but I got it in my head to put the shot, found the barbell, and force fed.

To this day I am flukey with strength-endurance and power-endurance able to take what you’d expect to be an 8rm to closer to a 50rm.

I’ve found more carry over from the higher reps, I’m able to specialize more effectively off of them as a base, and frankly I feel more real world strong being strong on high rep than on low reps.

You’d be better off going as hard and heavy as possible on sets of 15, 20, 30, 50 than on under 10 reps or under 5 rep sets.

Strong in those rep ranges I’ve seen described as “human forklift” status.

That’s why we lift. To be physically the juggernaut, capable of functioning as a forklift.

However, as I look in the mirror, and check inward I realize he’s partially right.

My frame is no longer medium, it’s more like medium-large.

Bones do grow.
Obviously.

That’s how we progress from baby to adult sized.

A muay thai fighter is going to see his shin bones thicken.

That’s wolfe’s law off the top of my head.

Why wouldn’t adult bone structure change?

It can.

Not too long ago rib cage expansions was all the rage, pullovers and the like mixed with heavy exercises figuring to stretch the rib box to allow for much more mass to be built on top of an expanded, enlarged structure.

I’ve seen the principle work.

So again why wouldn’t adult bone structure change?

It can.

I don’t intend to ever do this, but it’d be interesting to see if I could even starve myself to under 185lbs.

I remember stepping on the scale for the 171lb weight class around 167.

15 years old.

At 24 years old I left the SoCal bodybuilding gym and exploded into the 270s driving back across the country.

In a period of about a week I looked like 15lbs had been put on, mostly in my traps.

People (some being junkies) were staring at me like I was not human as I ordered big mcdonald’s dinners.

A friend from the gym here saw me in the grocery store once I got back, and went “damn, the last few months out west coast worked for you, you’re leaner and heavier”.

100lbs heavier in less than a decade.

5’10” to 6′ in that time frame.

The growth spurt I hit while wrestling my junior year of high school on under 2000 calories a day, I wonder sometimes if that robbed me of some adult height.

My grandpa told everyone that I’d be 6’3″, then I seemed to have stopped at 6′ at 19.

185 to 195 on what appears to be a caloric deficit fighting to still make 189 with the +1-4 late season weight allowances, then 195 to 215 in ten days once the season ended.

I just remember wanting to eat more, and how a handful of kids would give me their unwanted bread rolls and/or milks from the school lunch.

I grew 20lbs in 10 days on an extra bread roll a day!

lol, I’m exaggerating a bit.

Like so many have, I’ve made myself far more muscular than my teenage years would lead you to believe possible.

I find it offensive when people say good genetics or steroids.

I put in work.

I’ve always trained since I started at 14.

I force fed (the first time) as a high schooler, a time when it behooves you to, and is something most trainees never do.

On widening the shoulders : I say lots of shoulder work would do this to the bone structure beneath the muscular development.

Lots of handstand work and pullups, especially from a young age, as well as other physical outside the gym things that work shoulders well.

I’d bet boxing and rowing would do it.

And don’t forget rib cage expansion, there’s enough anecdotal evidence of it being possible to prove it in my eyes.

Even if you go the route of expanding your frame, building a massive upper body and becoming captain upper body man in the process – the legs will come along for the ride.

The human body is after all an interconnected system.

Push right to the point of something being about to give, then back off, relax awhile before going back at it.

I’m backing off of pullups. Still keeping the daily streak alive I’ve done one set of five chins for a few days now, having been very pleased with how easy 5 reps feel each and every time.

It took awhile to get to this level.
It took awhile to see 20 pullups as near.

12+ years.
It takes as long as it takes.
I’m coming to know this.

It’s staggering to recall being 14 years old unable to do one chin up, and now 12 years later, as much as 90lbs heavier to easily do sets of 5 as part of a purposeful layoff.

I’m nearly at 20 pullups!

I expect 30 in the not so distant future. Video that. Put it online.

You don’t have to train all that hard.

Moderate weights. Moderate reps.
It’s fine to go this way. It’s entirely sustainable physically.

However I tend to psychologically want more.

When I’m in my normal mind states I don’t want to take days off, to rest.

I want to do more.
Modern life is too easy physically.

For general bodybuilding purposes I love dumbbell see saw pressing.

Shoulders, triceps, and abs.

When you rep the 75s all day long here planet fitness isn’t so limited.

Though I miss back squats, power cleans, and axle work.

The deadlift and bent row to a degree.

It would behoove me to work towards seated rowing the stack one armed.

That’s likely the most brute force it can get at pf.

I find some days I eat high calorie, other days consumption is hilariously low.

A pack of hot dogs, a can of baked beans, a plate of cornbread with some butter and honey, and a few glasses of milk is maybe 2500 calories.

I know how southern the above sounded.

It’s easy to maintain size in one big meal a day.

One small to medium sized meal a day drops weight fast.

Savor the food while eating slowly.
You’d be surprised just how little calories you end up taking in like that.

Often I feel the urge to go very strict with eating, a “hard cut”, chicken breast and green beans for as long as I can (I feel I could go ≤2000 calories of them for a month with a bit of butter to keep fat in) while walking 10 miles/two hours daily to see where I end up.

I would hold all my muscle, and strip the softness off/out of me.

It’s not like I’d quit training.
I’d still do pushups.
I’d be flexing.
And probably doing more leg work than present.

Intermittent fasting is incredibly easy.

As is pigging out.

It’s far more disciplined to eat multiple times throughout the day in controlled portions.

My mental approach to physicality is hilarious in how intellectual I am about stopping thinking.

Choosing not to care about some aspect others magnify gives you what to them is super powers.

I know a guy who regularly complains of wrist pain, pain I’d likely just ignore as inconsequential, while strengthening what is weak and allows for the pain.

He doesn’t do the strengthening.

His wrists continue to hurt. Mine keep getting stronger.

Just holding the sledgehammer horizontal to the floor, progressing closer and closer to the end, with the head of the hammer in both directions is a very simple, highly effective grip exercise.

I’d love for that kid to do this for his weak wrists.

He won’t.

10×10 weighted pushups has been on my mind.

It’s funny that I’m doing so well at planet fitness. I’d read so much online disparaging the place, and have proven that stuff wrong to myself.

I make it work because that’s what I have decided.

I miss barbells, but don’t give a shit.

I’ll just train like a convict with a bit more toys at pf.

It works.

I’m actually forcing myself to take a few days off from the gym.

Forcing myself to take time off.

I look better in the mirror.

I have no pity for those who can’t improve themselves, as they choose to do no better than lacklusterly ellipticaling and mundanely machining.

Give me 90 days training all of them.

They won’t be the same. His sad ass will be better than he ever has been.

I believe positive change comes right quick with the right positive outlook and action.

Persistence & Tenacity