Category: Lifting Mindset

Archives :
3/22/19

While the amount of strength and coordination required to safely start lifting weights is quite low there’s one thing I need to say :

The personal trainer coaxing teenagers to struggle with the ugliest of sub 100lb bench presses does not deserve to be making any money, let alone a good hourly wage, attempting to injure your child having them do something they are wholly unready for.

To safely be a beginner to weights a basic level of strength and coordination/athleticism is necessary.

Ideally all children grow up playing multiple sports, and constantly playing outside.

Sometimes an 11 year old will have the requirements. Oftentimes 16 year olds will still be lacking this base.

(Cheetos, PlayStation, and ZERO physical activity cause this.)

You as coach/trainer/big brother/father/who ever has a responsibility to help, not hurt the youth under your supervision.

I was lucky. I built this basic strength in karate class while still in elementary school.

Sensei had us throwing medicine balls, pushing towels across the floor, doing a bazillion pushups & a similar number of situps plus the occasional wrestling.

Basic strength.

In a gym setting I’d have kids doing similar.

You build them up with basic calisthenics, sled work, and catch.

However, you do know playgrounds are meant to be played on.

Sensei did it quite well. I’m sure I could go back to his dojo, observe a youth class, and not recoil in horror at all the youth barely escaping injury.

Youth sports? Youth trainers?

I doubt I’d make the same statement.

As I said calisthenics and sled work to safely build them up.

This can be done inexpensively just about anywhere. Make it a game for you and your kid, it’s a win-win-win. Both you and your kid are outdoors spending time together.

I still remember this 11 year old being dropped off to a roughly $75/hr trainer for “football speed” by his father during his weekend custody time. The whole thing bothered me. The father could’ve saved the money, exercised, and bonded with his kid. I’d run that errand on a day where I wasn’t with my son. For $0 they could have ran routes, the dad all time qb, it would’ve been just as effective, but far better.

I’m gonna branch off here and say something : if I’m in my future children’s lives I’m never (within reason) going to be unavailable to go outside and play.

I’m not going to always be too tired from work. I refuse that, you can’t let work suck the life out of you. Budgeting would scratch that necessity of overtime.

Lack of free hours is easily negated when there’s ZERO TV watched vs at least a part time job’s worth. You don’t have time for catch, but do for the television? Get your priorities straight.

Back to training :

Likewise when teaching to athletically competent teens… simplify.

I’ve seen trainers fail to get one kid to do anything resembling a coordinated power clean in an hour with a group of about a dozen.

1 on 1 I’ve taught three to competent in maybe 5 minutes each.

You show, and explain the method to the group, then go around evaluating and fixing minor errors.

The jump & shrug method is (in my experience) fool proof. I’ve taught a slutty 24yo (at the time, 2018) fitness chick to clean faster and more effectively than I’ve seen trainers TRY with high school football players.

(That day would’ve made an awesome instructional video for a group of high school guys. Their eyes would be glued to the screen as a taller slightly curvy athletic and thin tattooed 24 year old blonde does what they need to be learning.)

The lesson, in both, basic & simple.

Persistence & Tenacity

Ignore the elements. There is really no reason that you can’t train outside on any given day.

If it’s snowing, it’s snowing.

If it’s raining, it’s raining.

If it’s scorching hot, it’s scorching hot.

It doesn’t really matter. I’m going to workout regardless.

As a high schooler I enjoyed running during the first snowfall, not much clothing, cold air breathed in, huffing, puffing.

Gym is closed. Who cares? I’m lifting in the yard. Rain? Just about every other day. I’m still lifting.

Sunny out? Even if it’s colder I’ll generally take the opportunity to exercise shirtless. Vitamin D is good for you, I was always happier under the Cali sunshine, this is an obvious lesson I apply.

I’ll shovel snow shirtless. I’ve done so many times.

Weather is no reason you can’t workout.

Archives :
Early COVID

While it’s cute the college chicks training ass & abs in color coordinated name brand yoga pants and top, it’s downright comical, sad really how practically the same can be said of the male gym going population.

I used to care about the footwear, wrestling shoes, or hard soled (work boots, the poor man’s improvised weightlifting shoe) only, but as I mature even that slips.

I have a pair of roughly 8 year old Saucony running shoes, practically falling apart, they are all torn up with holes, from 3 years of heavy usage, that are what I walk through pf in with pride.

With the gym closed I’m mostly exercising in beat up $20 walmart work boots, complete with tape on one boot, that were actually hand me downs from an old timer when he moved into retirement apartment complex not needing to shovel any longer a few years back, the tape covering a hole gotten while chipping ice at work.

My track pants are almost all nearing a decade old, my tshirts worn til they fall off.

If you go by clothes I’m the most homeless looking person in the gym. Every article of clothing is beat up, and this is really the best way.

Worn in moves better, and things worn during physical activity get worn down. Use clothing til it’s so dilapidated that it’s no longer functional.

Talking about my clothing and girls a coworker told me I should peacock, if I’m gonna just live in basketball shorts and tshirts at least buy the name brands not the least expensive, “jordans man, not what are those walmart”, I told him in a fully true touche that “my trap muscles are peacocking enough”.

Often the biggest and strongest are just wearing whatever.

I’d see older roid head bodybuilders in only gray sweatpants and gray sleeves cut off sweater, New Balance (the old timers brand if ever there was one) sneakers, only replacing something when it became unusable by virtue of falling off completely.

The men just put in the work, it’s the misguided boys alongside the girls getting dressed up to exercise.

(Ye who be ineth a nightclub.)

The cheapest gym shorts or track pants will last for years, by the time you rip a hole in the crotch demanding replacement (I had this happen last summer/fall) the $7 pair of basketball shorts had lasted over ten years.

(And I joked about it to the cashier, probably the best built cashier I’d ever seen at walmart, I’d guess 19yo, and her response was hilarious. “You were washing them right!?!? It wasn’t 10 years of sweat just building up.”)

Working out can be expensive or as free as you like.

The true cost is in time and effort. You have to pay in hours and sweat.

The dollar cost can be effectively zero.

I train in the footwear and clothing I already have. I pay gym dues only because I like going to the gym. It’s a way to be social, out of the house, and has more equipment. Over time I have bought some equipment to use at home, and when I have to I’m entirely ok with just calisthenics.

Fitness is free.
Get moving.

Persistence & Tenacity

Archives :
Date Irrelevant

What if…

You have nothing.

Zero equipment.
Not even a pullup bar, tree, anything to hang from.

How would this even be possible? It’s worst case scenario shit.
As an American? Florence, CO. The Supermax. You’ve got a doozy of a federal sentence.

Will you be capable of being in shape?

Diets gonna be not so ideal. Would you even be allowed commissary ramen there?

Still. You. Fit Or Not?
Are you capable, competent, driven?

I can tell you this, I wouldn’t lose an iota of strength. Some size? Maybe. I’d probably be closer to military weight regs than 50lbs or more over, but I wouldn’t lose an iota of strength.

Pushups, horse stance, and bodyweight squats daily. Headstands too.

I’d flex for the rest of my body.

Cardio? Mix everything together.
Jumping jacks superset with everything.

Can’t forget the prison stereotypical burpee.

With zero equipment there are ways to build strength, and wind. Both. Together or separately.

Worst case scenario I’d still be just as strong, maybe even better!

Struggle strengthens.

Persistence & Tenacity

It’s easy!

The diet, the workouts, the process, it’s your perception of difficulty that defines it’s truth.

It’s easy!

That’s how I look at it.

If you’re lying to yourself of the difficulty…so what it’ll become so.

Hard…or easy? You’re lying to yourself. Lie to yourself in a manner that’s beneficial, constructive to self.

The difference between being a hardgainer and an easygainer is in the mindset taken.

When you’ve got the proper frame of mind of course it’s easy.

Potential is limitless.

My mental agreement (with myself) is that anything, everything, even doing nothing works effectively.

I can go do whatever (anything, everything, even nothing), and be set.

The only reason you’re a hard gainer is because you think you are.

It’s not hard to be a machine. Have an iota of discipline? All you do is make the decision to do it, bam! You’re a machine.

Gains can come extraordinarily fast.

The reason they don’t is a lack of belief.

Fuck your science, fuck your forum questions, just go train! Train!

Without preconceived limits there is none! There is none!

People thinking of themselves as a hardgainer is a problem, but ; but it’s not your problem.

“I’m an easy gainer.”

Say it.

“I’m an easy gainer.”

Think on it’s truth a moment.
Quiet. Reflecting. The truth.

“I’m an easy gainer. Anything I do, everything I do, even doing nothing, of course I progress, I’m an easy gainer.”

Repeat that as mantra.

I’m built like a beast. It’s in me, it’s in you. Lose the mental baggage.
You CAN do it, CAN!

Can! Can! Can!

Why? Cause I’m an easy gainer, and so are you.

Persistence & Tenacity

I was reading a diet book the other night. I’d known of it for years, even implemented some of it’s principles absorbed through reading of it, but not reading it itself.

I’m a quick reader, it was not heavy reading, and for the most part I skimmed it, as a way to relax before bed.

What I already had known of the book, was the info I had needed, and already have. Reading the book itself? There was a lot of science talk, too much so, and I as the reader was concluding from the pages, that building muscle is this needing everything diet and training lined up perfectly complicated thing.

I thought to myself, “how is the author built again”, and was thinking back to about 14 when I thought it all seemed so complicated, and just put in effort…

That’s what you need! You don’t need science! Talking science is prone to make you beleive, and wrongly so, that you need perfect training, perfect nutrition, perfect supplementation, and timing it all perfectly to gain an oz of muscle. That couldn’t be further from the truth!

Often the strongest, most musclular, the most enduring, those with the highest physical performance are not paying heed to science. Instead of paying heed to “science”, a belief system of overanalyzation, and limitation, they’re out there training hard.

Don’t underestimate training hard!

Training hard, truly hard, in a way that everyone on the outside views you as batshit insane, and you may find yourself in agreement…that’s where progress well past science comes in.

Science is overthinking, and overthinking is the culprit causing a dearth of muscle heads in society.

Any lunatic disregarding science, and pushing feverishly forward to make gains so quickly that everyone else says it is impossible? He’s the guy who’s gonna be gaining far past “natural limitation” (it’s pathetic how seriously low “science” draws this line) at a speed even those on steroids are going to be making steroid accusations.

(P.S. There’s nothing like someone on steroids accusing the one not on of being on. Hilarious!)

To make huge gains you don’t need anything other than yourself.

The right mindset and the right thoughts ALLOW you to break what are considered to be scientifically proven limits. I’ve seen the laws of thermodynamics seemingly be broken. Nothing is more powerful than the mind! Nothing!

A Heinlein book, Stranger in a Strange Land, has the main character think himself muscular in an extraordinarily short amount of time, so fast that a doctor in the story was going “what trickery have you used, what training, what drugs”, to the answer “nothing special, I thought it so”.

When you view impressive physicality as what is natural, take the actions, and view success as a given, you’re gonna progress, progress fast.

So where you are, decide right now, that you’re gonna progress, and no nothing can tell you different.

The gym is closed right now, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Going without for a few weeks has gotten my proper training mindset back!

I have everything I need, I’ll be going back to the gym more yolked, leaner, and with the mindset to match.

Persistence & Tenacity

So much of how the gym goes for you comes down to the mental contract you accept…ie your beliefs.

Do you believe you can get big?

Do you believe you can lean out?

Is strength loss a guarantee on a cut?

Is fat accumulation guaranteed on a bulk?

How fast does strength or the wind improve?

What is high reps?

What’s high volume?

How much sleep is necessary?

Are people cool on average or assholes on average?
Can you work in?
Is it acceptable to talk to the cute fit college chick, or the shockingly well build milf?

Are gains a given? Easy to come by?

Is losing gains a guarantee without gym access, a certain piece of equipment, or because of forced time off, et al?

Just how important is postworkout nutrition? How about pre or peri?

For that matter, how much does eating…bu dum chi, matter?

What’s high calorie? What’s low calorie?

Do you need supplements? If so which ones? How much of it/them?
None at all?

Do your clothes matter?

Is it better to train with a partner, partners or solo?

Will you make do with the one(s) not your ideal?

Preworkout? Coffee? Zilch?

Do you ask to work in?
Do you offer the work in?

Are you cool to staff?
Do you ignore them?

Do you ask questions?
If asked a question do you give an honest answer?

Are you willing to teach what you know? Mini personal trainer like moment, yea or nea, when it arises?

How capable are you of working around…whatever.

Is the gym joyous, fun, monotonous, drudgery?

Answer these questions, and those like them. Define what mental contract you accept, and how it affects your gym & co.

-J

18 times around a basketball court is roughly 1 mile.

My first wrestling coach made us yell out our lap count.

1-18, occasionally 1-36.

I even brought the practice to JROTC PT trying to hold slackers accountable. Nothing pissed me off more than a kid claiming done at lap 3 just ahead of my honest lap 4, and the instructor being a weakling without rigid standards, turning a blind eye to obvious slacking.

A Prison POV video recently reminded me of this practice, saying in the video “a loud count and sound off every burpee made it even harder, an even better builder of the wind”.

Pressing in the yard, instead of burpees at planet fitness I did the practice. I’m sure the neighborhood heard me, they were my first heavy presses in a length of time (the 26th).

Sounding off, hard and soft counts, regimented reps, it can all be useful.

I’ve noticed when I do pushups as a 4 count exercise that I get more militant minded.

Militant things build the war ready mentality. And that’s where training is most effective.

Persistence & Tenacity