Category: Lifting Mindset

This article is golden :

Mythical Strength’s “No Respect”

The premise groks with me, and the idea struck me the other day between sets of military press that…

Frequency is my way of respecting the lift, falling into it’s frame.

I’ve never really done infrequent for any length of time. While I don’t hold it against myself for getting into the place (the bodybuilding gym in Cali), having lasted 2 or 3 weeks at 2x weekly before upping it to ~5 since I dug the atmosphere (it’s amazing what crawling with hot chicks can do), in the yard the infrequency comes naturally.

(Aside : Maybe I feed off of “show mode” when lifting, and prefer other training styles in solitude.)

I’d been worrying about that (frequency) and my lack of squat rack a ton.

Mythical strength’s article changed my perspective.

Already I don’t respect the “lifting knowledge” that getting injured is a given…as to me it’s not even a possibility.

I’ve always disrespected the idea of needing time off to recover. I got great results from 6-9 months of daily squatting, and my lifetime deadlift PR was after 21 or 23 days and ~30 deadlift sessions in a row.

I already know that for me to squat sub-405 it would take a full fledged smiting by God. I’m always good for it. ALWAYS.

Perspective change : all my lifting can be like this.

Not only will they not drop, but they’ll progress without being trained.

My self imposed daily PT takes care of it all. (I’ve felt this a while actually.)

I may simply lift once a week, and very likely only one lift.

The opposite of my frequency love sounds like 52 sessions in a year, one lift per session, and a few lifts total.

The initial idea was alternating military press week and sldl week.

Pretty close to the ultimate of disrespect to frequency.

Ditto to no barbell squatting at all…which still will have me at 405+, though I’ll likely hit some overheads, or drop the bar to my back for some…whenever.

(There’s also goblet squats. Have I posted the one dumbbell workout yet?)

Needing everything gym and gym related to be pristine is…prissy.

That petite chick telling me ” yeah, but all the guys at this gym are bitches” (related to tire flipping) was just so…right. I’d made myself gym persona non grata for roughly that belief before, and hearing it come out of a sexy little thing was admittedly a hilarious and well appreciated external validation. It’s hard to not like a place where a hot chick mocks the gay & metrosexual thang that is ingrained in male gym culture… absolutely hysterical!

(Girlie had no idea why that statement amused me so much.)

While I’m yard lifting that bitch (the barbell) deserves the worst of me, neglect, and utter disregard/disrespect while still going my way (getting stronger).

Maybe this made sense, which coincidentally the linked article wholly did, well at least to me anyway.

Physical strength is a mental decision, the right thoughts make every factor from program to diet to the available equipment wholly irrelevant.

When you’ve decided you will be strong, it shall be.

No ifs, ands, or buts.

When you’ve decided you will be strong, it shall be.

I’ll let you in on a secret…ready?
Here, come closer…I can only whisper…

There are no rules in your training.
There is only the law, the one law…that your mind be right.

Physical strength is a mental decision.

Tommy Kono trained primarily from the hang in his dirt floor basement.

Norb Schemansky seemed to train with the mindset of “because fuck you that’s why”, even getting fired for requesting time off to lift at the Olympics. He trained hard but within his limits, generally maxing in contest, and occasionally in impromptu gym contests.

They didn’t have bumper plates. Strength was the priority. Technique just needed to be good enough, self taught was the way, lifters did for themselves, what they needed to.

I once found old footage of and a write up on a lifter who trained in his kitchen.

They still had the overhead press.

No certifications, no seminars, and little coaching. What they had was a can do attitude.

It was a time worthy of emulation.

You don’t need pristine conditions.

You don’t need to train perfectly scientific.

If taking the weights outside to do hang variants is how you can train…

If high rep overhead squats are your way to train around no rack or stands…

If you like the military press, despite it no longer being contested..

If your platform is dirt…

If your lifting shoes are whatever you happen to own…

Do it.

Your attitude towards it all is all that matters. Fuck the minutia. I’m a big strong heavyweight, the bar’s goin overhead.

As I pant from the last set I can’t help but feel connected to an older age, if my Grandpa in the 50s was training with weights for football I bet it looked something like this.

Sometimes the way forward is to look back, and run with it.

Back in 2015 while I was doing the large majority of my pushups in a very short range of motion I learned how to “put” pushups in just about any muscle group of my upper body.

Not only could I put them in my chest, triceps, and shoulders, but I learned how to put them in my traps, lats, biceps, and even my forearms.

You have to play around with hand spacing, hand angle, “stroke length”/range of motion, rep speed, and most importantly…intent.

Most importantly INTENT.

You have to believe it possible, and figure out how it is.

Within 20 minutes of experimentation you can have the pushup able to cover ALL your upper body work.

I do 10 bodyweight squats, locking the glutes at the top of each rep, then tense my glute and leg musclature alternatively in a modified warrior pose.

I think to myself about all the wasted breath dissing bodyweight training.

Have those people never flexed hard during a simple calisthenic?

(Like the top of a bodyweight squat or pushup. No need to even get out of “vanilla” and into gymnastics work.)

Have they never pushed the reps very high, well past 100?

Surely they’ve never combined the two.

Calisthenics and bodyweight work truly will bring you as far as your mind will allow.

Or maybe I’m just different, after all who else would dream they were racing flights of stairs, and doing straight leg situps on the landing?

Use what’s available. If you enjoy lifting…then do so. However ; if you have no equipment other than your God given self…it’s all there.

You could lock me in an empty room, and I’d still get it in.

PT mindset. Who else has it.

I exhale, and see the cloud of breath rise before my eyes.

This was a test run.

The question : can I lift in the winter cold comfortably?

15°F

The answer?

A resounding yes.

Running shoes, track pants, a sweater, little black gloves, and winter cap pulled over Bluetooth headphones.

It works.

I’m not in a gym, hell I’m not welcome in most of them.

I have yard space, a barbell, plates.

It works.

Overhead squats for high reps, and a lot of pulling work. It’s mostly pulling work, fat grips mixed in on certain exercises, but NOT ON CLEANS, don’t make that mistake. It’s damn near impossible to lower cleaned fat grips with metal plates, it’s not an axle, and you can’t drop it.

The gym gives me social, but I’m unwanted, unwelcome, and the dues are too high. It’s not the bodybuilding gym, I’m about 3000 miles away.

There is the yard, it’s free, and I already own the equipment. No dues, no gas, no wear and tear on the car, no socializing.

If necessary I can purchase more plates, though I can make a lot happen with what I have.

Just 3 weeks ago I was telling this sexi Brazilian chica at the gym that the SoCal heat was killing me, and now here I am in 15° lifting comfortably.

Nausea & dry heaving from the heat at 80° to comfortable lifting in 15°-20°…Viking blood, cold weather adapted.

A throwback to those wintry sessions at 17.

(Side note : I was overtraining for 2-3 months straight, adapted, and came out better. The fear of overtraining is highly overdone. It’s basically just coughing and gains. I trained through it.)

Only me. Most wouldn’t gut this out.

I must be a madman whether I’m in the gym or in the yard.

I knew the snow can be shoveled away, and now I know I can take the cold.

Years of lifting without warm ups prepared me for this, I won’t be a gym member unless I’m getting it comped as staff. I’ve lifted outdoors in the winter before, but never primarily. This is new, and…it works.

•Overhead Squat
•Bent Row
•Clean
•Military Press
•Deadlift                                      •Snatch

Real old school lifting, no rack, and on frozen ground.

I’ve seen lifting in rougher circumstances. It’s not like I’m getting shot at in Afghanistan, or dodging shanks and shivs. This is cozy, even if chilly.

I have the how, and…I have the why.

Whatever you could say against it, this is back to my roots. The pure intention is here, now, again.

 

I’m talking with this kinda light skinned mixed race with hauntingly shaded white-blue eyed 50 year old bodybuilder about the tire.

“It’s not as hard as it seems. I could teach just about every male here how to do it. The effort done right is equivalent to a speed deadlift, 60-65%, for a triple. You know continentals, strongman?”

“Yeah”

“Done wrong or heavy enough, it’s like a pseudo continental.”

I tried to talk him into flipping it. Described the steps in a theatrical manner. Sadly he wasn’t game.

It did give me a laugh his opening with “You ever do that fresh, at the start?”

“No, I like using it as a finisher. It’d be too easy then. The tires not big enough. My high school had a bigger one.”

And he was yet another person to think I’m a Midwesterner.

“Well you do have those big tractors in the Midwest.”

“I’m not from the Midwest.”

A chick recently guessed I was from Minnesota.

Iowa has been a popular choice for “guess my back home”.

I guess I just seem country boy.

Easily flipping that tire must just be part of that image.

Whadda ya think about that?

-J

Shoulder Feeders To Start The Day

(written a few weeks back)

What do you do with the last 2 minutes before you walk out the door?

A feeder session seems the obvious answer. Shoulders. Why? Because they’re more badass than curls.

1 quick set of lateral raises.

It works exceedingly well despite only using a pair of 10s.

The fact your traps take over is a ok.

Traps activated feel good, improve your posture, and make you feel more animalistic.

That’s exactly what you want before opening the door and stepping out into the world.

Shoulder feeders always do good things for me.

Last year a month of them upped my press, both military and bench.

7-10 days of them this time around brought my shoulders up a level. Once I got back into the weight room the frequency dropped to 2 or 3 days a week.

I needed them this morning. It gave a solid boost. Any time I go out aside from the gym it makes sense to do.

There are short term and long term benefits.

Shoulder Feeders For Carrying Yourself With Confidence

(the recent rewrite)

It takes about a minute, and a pair of 10lb dumbbells will do.

A moment before you put on your shirt and step out the door you’ll take those dumbbells and do one high rep set of lateral raises.

I usually do 50-60 reps, and hold the last rep at the top for a few seconds.

It pumps the traps and the deltoids, and helps you stand a little straighter.

Placebo or not, on “work” days doing this before stepping out the door has made a noticeable impact on how I feel, how I get shit done, and the responses I get from the world.

I’m standing tall, unphased by bullshit, and look damn good.
I notice and am noticed.

-J

Postscript (which includes some funny anecdotes from today) :

I felt like throwing em both up as I unintentionally wrote it out a second time. Try it. You will carry yourself better.

Fuck it, may as well throw up some music.

Was banging my head to this between lever squat sets, and this Native American looking chick on another leg machine was looking at me, head banged for a moment, and smiled at me. Gave me a good laugh.

Also I had the funniest broken equipment thing happen.

So the gym has essentially no clips, hang clean and press without clips is best using only 2 plates per side for everything over 135. I started to load the bar with a pair of 45s, realized I’d need 3 plates a side with this, saw the 25kg plates, realized a 25kg+10lb each side would give me the 175lb I wanted and pulled the plate off. The rotating sleeve came with it. Look at the end of a barbell, for it to rotate there’s a nut there screwed in. That was very loose to say the least. And up to the desk it was… “y’all got a wrench” while presenting the sleeve and nut. My asking the gear head at desk if he wanted me to bring up the rest of the barbell too caused a PMS like outburst from him. There’s so much I could say cause of that. “My Impressions Of Roiders” sounds like an article for another time.

Okay. It’s still boggling my mind, but people at this gym view flipping the tire as this object of Herculanean effort.

I likely could make a post every week on this subject as it comes up that frequently.

Yesterday : I somehow talked a dude into giving the big one (cause who gives a shit about smaller size tires) a shot.

It’s my opinion just about every male at this gym could get it…that dude at 5’10” 185lbs got it simply being talked through how to do it.

Took him til his 2nd attempt.

Today this petite and curvy little college chick told me that I win this gym at the ability to flip the tire.

(Picture a 5′ pretty faced latina with curves, it’s a close enough description.)

Hilariously she’s apparently seen big dudes fail to get it over, even seeing tears from said big dudes who had failed to do so.

There’s this crazy odd object mental block to everyone in the building but me.

(And the dude who was game yesterday, but I removed his mental block, and talked him through it.)

A 275lb roided out bodybuilder made a big deal of it, suggesting only some 300lb+ strongman competitor was the only one on location to ever do so…

Yet I talked a normal 185lb male into flipping it. Hell, I’ve heckled a 165lb buddy into doing so with a larger tire with more worn down tread.

165lb male, flipping a bigger and harder tire. Perspective.

It’s amazing how a small amount of ribbing and 30 seconds of technique how to makes so much difference.

The 185lb dude yesterday told me that the story of my 165lb buddy flipping a harder tire caused a mental switch in his brain as to it’s possibility for him.

I told the chick today that I could talk/heckle almost any male at this place into flipping it.

As she was 5′ and petite I don’t think I could get her to flip it successfully with my 30 seconds of coaching, I do think there’s at least one female at this place that could.

I’m serious. There’s some diesel females here.

I’ll just start taking the compliments. I am after all King Of Awkward Strength.

-J

Intro :

There is something effeminate in the attitudes common in most gyms.

Like :

•The discussing of injury as if it’s a badge of honor.
•The obsession over perfect programming.
•The obsession over perfect diet.
•Worrying about loss of gains.

The Worry Over Loss Of Gains :

People who lose gains when life tries to fuck with them have something very weak deep in the core of their mentality that they need to destroy and replace with inner power.

Oh this is gonna get good.

Gains don’t go away. The Gains Goblin ® ©™ is an imaginary character, a figment of the imagination in the minds of little boy lifters.

Whatever equipment you do or don’t have access to, you can always progress forward.

All the fitness rules aren’t.

You can lose weight, significant amounts, and keep your strength.

Maybe I’ll do that cut down 70ish lbs to 185 just to prove this.

You can bulk like a motherfucker and still have calisthenic and cardio ability.

This would be me going up to superheavyweight. I picture about 330lbs.

It comes down to a matter of belief.

Would the ideal training be doing partials in a power rack at home with a blonde and redhead having loud moaning lesbian sex at the same time, in the same room?

Yeah probably, but you can still make do with pushups alone on your living room floor, or anywhere for that matter.

What equipment your gym doesn’t have doesn’t matter.

What equipment you don’t have doesn’t matter.

Calisthenics can be enough.

Calisthenics and feeders with a pair of light dumbbells can be enough.

Highly infrequent heavy training can be enough.

Working labor can be enough.

Any and all of it will work. It’s the mindset you approach it with.

Hell, a blank mind can work and does more effectively than a mind believing weak gym rules.

I’ve known plenty who’d never heard of the gains goblin ®©™ and therefore weren’t affected by his shenanigans and thievery.

If you’re not progressing, if you’re regressing. If life is blocking you access to the gym perfect for you in any capacity…

You won’t lose your gains. IF your mind is right.

The only reason weaklings lose their gains quickly is because they believe it so.

The body is robust. It prefers to keep strong. Want proof? Two words : muscle memory.

Your gains experience is solely on your mind.

-J