“Bro Science”, Anecdotes, Self Experimentation, & Studies
From The Archives :
11/19/18
Science has done nothing good for the pursuit of physical strength.
All it has done has overcomplicated
things easily discovered, and stifled potential progress.
Those who need to see a study before doing don’t truly have their heart in it.
Coincidentally the only approval you SHOULD need is your own.
I’d much rather have an idea and try it regardless of outcome than waste my time trying to find what lab conditions say is the one true and only way™.
I’d also rather hear the EXPERIENCES of someone who’s been there than some lab coat’s report.
Anecdotes are truth… for those who experienced it. However individual experience may vary.
I don’t expect 100 calf raises done daily to maintain YOUR leg strength through an 18 month layoff, the anatomy as far as I know doesn’t support this, but I know it worked for me (heck one lifting partner admitted he thinks it would work, that I’m not the only case), but I don’t expect it to work for you, as on average you’re the type who’s never seen a study and needs to confirming my experience.
Clear your mind, if you had no equipment it’s very much worth a shot, after all it may just work for you like it had for me, or maybe even better. Don’t like that? Do lunges, flex, or do stances/poses. There’s always something you can do to make the gains goblin too fearful to visit you.
People don’t self experiment, and with weights that is (for me) the most beautiful aspect.
My success or failure is my own…
I did it my way.
Does anyone else even attempt such things any more?
In some cases beginner gains may be going so well since there is no self imposed limitation. You haven’t swallowed a megadose of “gym culture” and it’s limits yet.
There is such a thing as researching too much, trying too hard to find published standards, methods, and what to expect.
At the start I hadn’t read too much, in fact I’d decided what I’d read was too complicated and just used intuition. Those were magical months…then I read too much. (and have slipped in and out of such actions over the years. At least some of the sources advised pushing the limits, it wasn’t all calculators and shit.)
Insert picture of scrawny nerd type lifting piddly weights
Caption : With a calculator you too can take your beginner gains to this exact level!
Personally I’ve done some high rep stuff that seems like it shouldn’t have happened, yet it did. Those were light shining through the clouds moments getting rid of read limitations.
Over a 1000 pushups before I dropped, or for that matter stood.
Uneducated can be superior to knowledgeable. Intuition will carry you damn far.
People are meant to be physically awesome, I am. Maybe you’re not. Is it genetics or limiting belief? Is it genetics or living the true possibility?
There’s a lot of physical ability the gym doesn’t think possible. I’ve seen too much of it to buy into gym knowledge.
Gyms are generally stifling.
Hardcore doesn’t exist.
The most motivating gym atmosphere I’ve found was a bodybuilding gym with a sizeable contingent of figure, bikini, and instagram chicks.
You lift stronger when your test is flowing, and you’ve refocused from the frequent erection inducing distractions. That gym floor was packed with attractive women, and as far as I saw I was the only man there who’d talk to them. It felt like I was in the twilight zone, as I had a hard time wrapping my brain around how shy guys there were.
However there’s something freeing about lifting outdoors, something you’ll never get under fluerescent lights.
It’s the forced atmosphere ; the fluerescent lights, the climate control, that ruins gyms.
The lifting would all be better on a grass field or sandy beach.
Make powerlifting and weightlifting both field events like the throws already are, so as to be done outdoors.
Atmosphere makes a big difference.
If the atmosphere ain’t right go PT alone. PT in those cases is the best option.
Another set of pushups. And another.
You can still make any place work, you have to find your why, the how follows naturally.