Month: May 2021

May 2021 Gym Dreams – Freestanding Handstand Pushups & 50 Pullups :

5/20/21 – Freestanding Handstand Pushups :

I keep dreaming that I’ve done freestanding handstand pushups.

It’s been two to four nights in a row.

A good deal later in the day did I realize that not only was it dream, but that I’d dreamt doing freestanding handstand pushups more than one night in a row, each night in front of different people and in different situations.

5/21/21 – 50 Pullups :

Man how I thought this was real!

Now I realize it was envisioning the near future, one kid at the gym had brought a 20lb weight vest in with him, and between the trash we talk to each other I ended up the on the bar for pullups to show what a real pullup performance would be.

Near future, I was weighing about 220, and had on that 20lb weight vest.

Right now, at 260 I’ve done as many as 22 pullups, 20 on a handful of occasions over the past few weeks.

Right now, being fatigued I’m good for 15 chins daily. It’s baked in.

Consistency builds results.

You don’t need your 100% ability to be a daily performance ability.

Tiring yourself to where you get 85% of your peak out on a daily basis, then adapting to that level of fatigue, and seeing what is a performance under fatigue increase and increase until it’s passed your previous peak performance…

YOU’RE A WHOLE LOT STRONGER

Yesterday I did 15 chins as my best set for the day.

I dreamt that I did 50 pullups with a 20lb weight vest on!

In the dream I took into consideration the day’s (15 chins) performance, and decided “no I’m going to put in a real performance”, and did so.

I knew I was built lean and mean, the weight vest inconsequential, I’d recently weighed more myself than myself wearing it then (260 vs 220+20).

15 in I started thinking “there’s no need for this to be hard”.

20 in I was thinking “I’ve done 22 at 260, this is only 240, I can hit around 30”.

Around 30 I realized I was thinking, turned off conditioned limits, and just got into the moment.

I counted reps yes, something that tends to turn the brain on too much, flow state is more easily reached when you do, but do not think, just do.

I stopped at 50 reps, weighing 220, while wearing a 20lb weight vest.

As soon as I realized that I had dreamt this my immediate thought was :

“It’s possible! It can be reality!”

Persistence & Tenacity

May 2021 Flow – The Right Outlook About The “Limitations” Of Planet Fitness :

He’s a ripped welterweight, late 30s, sounded sad as he focused on his perception of having an inability to go heavy at pf.

Thing is that it’s just a perception, and a negative one at that.

I told him how to look at it :

“Dude, see that as the challenge – to take the “lack of equipment” and “inability to go heavy”, and make it work.”

I’m not lifting barbells, and I’m thinking PERFECT! Perfect!

I don’t need barbells – it’s :

What you can, with what you have, where you are.

There are no limitations, I choose to put in a couple hours of volume a day.

I choose to.

I choose to have a blast at pf making it work for me.

I choose to.

Sometimes I’ll have a negative thought like “there are no barbells”, or “I’m sick of ___ machine”, AND I STILL GO ANYWAY.

I’ll find something to do, I’ll get in the moment, and I ALWAYS TRAIN.

planet fitness has plenty

That’s my reality.

You could be in a different pf setting…

You could be involuntarily be doing prison fitness.

There IS equipment at pf.

Stop emphasising perceived downsides when there’s plenty!

I see a dip bar, a pullup bar, there’s a seated row, and a machine or three I enjoy.

Bridging is done head on a stretching mat.

I improvised overhead squats.

I eat pushups for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (both at pf and at home).

THERE ISN’T LIMITATION!

Don’t be a barbell snob.

A Man can train effectively anywhere.

Persistence & Tenacity

May 2021 Flow – His Hidden Damaged Leg :

I’m not sure if he’s missing part of his leg, or if it’s just messed up…

Now this isn’t the guy I wrote of before, the upper body bro with paralyzed legs. He’s always on machines.

This guy I see hitting clean & press often, hindu pushups or burpees occasionally.

Today it was some squats holding a medicine ball.

That struck me.

He’s SQUATTING!

You could see the compensations for the bad leg clearly.

Dip to the good side, it’s obvious that beneath his track pants aren’t a pair of normal legs.

One is wicked thin. It might be prosthetic to the knee. It could be a condition. I’ve never seen the leg.

It’s easier to see the issue as he squats. While walking he has a limp.

I’ve never seen his bad leg.

However there is something I do see :

He’s in the gym regularly, built like a normal healthy mid to late 40 something…WHILE HE CAN’T WALK!

I love seeing this!

May more be like him!
Have his drive to train daily!

I love it!

Dude is squatting all the while unable to walk right!

Go for it!

Persistence & Tenacity

May 2021 Flow – Rack Pulls In The Smith Machine :

When at planet fitness, you do what planet fitness does.

I’d long went without shrugging, and without doing a deadlift variant.

That has changed.

I’ve found snatch grip rack pulls from about knee height are a “deadlift” that works for me there.

I too have started shrugging with the snatch grip.

Spud Inc straps.
Bungee cord.

Props to Dante Trudel…

The trick works.

May 2021 Flow – Improvising Overhead Squats :

Every day this month I’ve done a set of overhead squats.

The logistics of daily overhead squats sometimes cause me to improvise at pf.

I take a wooden dowel, and slide a kettlebell on it.

The stabilization is off the charts, it’s like a tsunami bar.

It’s different to using a barbell.
In my eyes that’s the #1 lift.

I’d always slid on a 30lb kettlebell.

However, I’ve now upgraded from a 30lb improv bar…I slid a 20, a 5, and another 20lb kettlebell (in that order) onto the dowel.

A barbell weight tsunami bar.
It’s better than the 30lb improv.

Sometimes taking deep deep breaths with them.

Getting the results with just a little time put in.

Doing a set a day takes less than 15 minutes a week.

Overhead squats give huge payoff.

Try it for a month or so as a light sustainable bulgarian frequency experiment.

I get huge value from the practice.

5/15/21 Freestyle Hopping Pushups :

I was freestyling pushups, not vanilla pushups, sorta being ten pump burpees, but resting :45 between sets of ten, and jumping hands if not my whole body every repetition.

10×10 like this, then rest a few minutes, then another 5×10, and another 5×10.

New stimulus, I feel the growth that’s gonna happen.

I’ve yet to run that one arm pec deck experiment.

It’s amazing how simple it can be to implement new growth stimulus.

You’ve only to come up with it.

I’d actually done 3×25, and a handful of sets of 10 before settling into the groups of freestyle pushups with the jumping.

Hopping across the ground – it’s fun.

I’d taken in caffeine, caffeine fun for me on the rare occasion, and I timed it well – then add the loads of pushups, I’m on top of the world.

Inhibition free, I’m freestylin.

Four mantra sets after.

I live on pushups.
I’ll always train.

May 2021 Flow – I Don’t Have Time For TV :

It’s like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Work, gym, eat, sleep – the day is mostly filled.

I’m not doing enough.
I admit this.
I’m changing it.

And I can’t see myself ever turning on a television.

There’s much that needs to be done.

There’s much not getting done.

There is zero available time to waste on my ass watching what?
It’s all garbage – this says a lot about people’s self respect and pride being television is their second full time job.

Work. Make a living.

Train.

Actually do meal prep.
Don’t just eat frozen pizzas.
The time is there, we all have the same 24 hours a day.

Find your way to working for yourself!

There is no time to sit wasting away in front of a tv!

There isn’t!

I have a life to live.
There’s life to experience.

May you choose the same.

Persistence & Tenacity

5 Years Of Daily Pushups :

On Friday May 13, 2016 I missed my daily pushups, something I had been doing without miss since around the 4th of July, 2012 – a daily habit to create a daily win in life so as to not be hypocritical having advised the practice to my best friend.

Going back further, I had initially started the daily pushups in the summer of 2008, stopping for a decent amount of my senior year in high school preceding the restart in summer 2012.

2012-2021 I had one missed day of pushups.

Assuming I didn’t do them, I didn’t give benefit of the doubt.

Today I hit the five year mark without missing one.

With Certainty.

Of the last 13 years I’ve done them daily for more than 12 – you could average this out to maybe two days off a month throughout the whole period.

With what I know now I’d never have stopped for the maybe semester of school, and I’d have missed zero days, not the maybe – I’m not exaggerating – maybe 12 days in 12 years.

(The first three and change run was around 8-12 misses, a few missed a year.)

It’d be 13 years unbroken.

Daily pushups over time became a practice of high value.

At 14 I was doing them to make sense of the world in which my grandpa had just died.

Telling myself that “if I don’t put in my true 100% here and now on these two sets it could be death for myself or for those I care about in the future”.

A survival mode lense on daily PT opted in, self chosen at 14 years old.

My arms were shaking on those sets.

The small glass of water from my grandma’s fridge following the nightly 2&2 sets tasted real good.

(I’d never before, or for the most part since went that far to true 100%. It was two sets of pushups and two sets of situps at that point, the only two exercises I knew, from having taken karate.)

As a fat 14 year old I had taken my first step in self betterment.

I’d stopped part of my senior year of high school.

Stopping a positive is always a negative. Just as starting a negative is always a negative.

I started back up Summer 2012, a lost “adult”, a young Man struggling to see a way in a messed up world.

Where I was at mentally, my friend was worse!

The ssris and shit prescribed by the medical establishment, supported/enforced by his own mother were smothering his soul!

The suburban ennui, his hot blonde neighbor (our age, biker dad) was doing meth!

As we walked those Cali hills talking, I stopped him, and suggested the practice as a way to win every day in the world.

I remember the exact spot. The beat up car, bush, the trimmed shrub, the sidewalk…

I haven’t heard from him in years. I pray he’s doing well.

I hope he’s 28, doing well, not 6′ under.

I get more than the physical out of my pushups, they too to me are metaphysical – I’m pushing up against the negatives of the world.

Up down up down, an action in positivity.

The world can’t keep me down!
Up down up down – I stand up!

My ritual.

It’s getting done regardless.
A win every day.

I’ll never stop.

May 2021 Flow – A Gym Philosophical :

I realize that no single workout is of any importance.

What you do performance wise during it that is – it’s of no importance.

The important thing is the consistency, it’s the consistency that causes the development over time.

You’re stacking the gains, and building the ever increasing potential for them as you train day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and yes – decade after decade.

The important part is getting in the gym and doing something.

A lackluster session in performance is grand!

It happens due to circumstances not being ideal, but getting into the gym anyway – that’s stacking the wins!

It’s training habitually, with little to no days off, disregarding circumstance that is the real value in training.

Unbreakable consistency, and this habitual training is what truly makes you the peak of physical ability amongst the masses.

You get to where your lackluster sessions are stronger than everyone else.

Imagine your peak days!

Training is something to do, and I don’t like taking days off.

It’s something I look forward to, and even when I don’t I’m going to still do so regardless.

It’s habit.
I enjoy doing so.
It’s what I do.

The performance in any particular session is inconsequential.

Train hard.
Performance easy.

May 2021 Flow – Art That Strikes You :

I’ve heard before advice to look at artwork, just walk through a museum until something jumps out at you.

This isn’t limited to a museum however, you will come across art that leaps out at you on the chance viewing.

There you stop, take it in, make note of what it is, take it in some more, and later think on why it struck you, what your subconscious is telling you.