Category: Lifting Mindset

Flow 1 :

Earlier in the day I was
referring to the job as working in hades, it’s probably 95° on the line and the smell sticks to you.

I’d spent half the day desiring to call out for no reason other than “I don’t want to go there anymore” – psychological “life is hard boohoo”.

By the time I was free to call a manager, it was way too close to shift start – I’d consider it unfair to do so, so I went to work, reframing it mentally to “at the very least it’ll get my mind off of some negative stuff in my personal life”.

I went in with the attitude that nothing there is gonna bother me, that I’ll have a smile on my face/enjoy the shift regardless since it’s gonna allow me to refocus

And that’s what happened!
I had a fun time with this shift.

After Work :
Upon parking – I did my mace swings in the rain no less, weather really just doesn’t affect me anymore….

Others can stay inside.
I won’t.

The awesome in human history didn’t come from letting the weather dictate what you do or don’t.

Daily PT? It’s [insert weather} out?
Fuck yeah, let’s get it!

Pushups in the kitchen.
Shower up.
I still smell slightly of kitchen, maybe it’s in the stubble on my face, facial hair holding in the food proteins that saturate the air there. Shrugs.

No matter. I swung my mace, I did 200 pushups thus far on the day.

I’ll sit down to a nice employee comped meal in a minute.

My sternum is cramping. The mace swings are a high activation pullover, amongst other things.

I’d benched outside yesterday. I have a bit of sunburn from it, but I got vitamin d, and look massive.

I’m a firm believer in training, always training, when it comes down to it…

I’ve got a full body workout of mace swings with a tree branch (free – done most days), pushups (also free – done every day), and deep knee bends (and also free – done every day right now) that I hit repeatedly with heart and the buy in.

You can’t stop me…
You want to be jacked too?

DO SO

Persistence & Tenacity

Flow 2 :

It’s a rickety setup – PERFECT!

Go online, I recall photos of a bunch of jacked africans training with pipe, railroad wheels, and concrete in what appears a dirt floor courtyard.

Someone somewhere is doing more with less. Be that someone. Do it.

People really look for every minute detail as excuse instead of :

•what you have
•where you are
•with effort

It cracks me up – the dudes who say they can’t gain weight. I force fed 7000-8000 calories a day for the entire summer at 17.

5000 calories a day, the near universal big/bulking #, just is normal after such an experience.

I swung a sledgehammer, and skipped rope daily.

I did not lift anywhere near enough, and did not sprint as I should’ve.

This caused me to enter senior year of high school with fatceps…but at 253 whereas a year prior I had seriously doubted my ability to hit/break 200lbs.

(disregarding that I entered high school a fat 212, which was oblivious to me at the time on the ability to gain weight note, before seeing sub 170 on a meet scale as a sophomore…breaking 200lbs actually happened lickety split – from 195 to 215 in ten days upon junior year wrestling season ending, I growth spurted in the season, going force fed to 197 before, down to 185 by the first meet so as to not have to cut for 189, and back up to 195 by mid season managing to be starving – not eating, high activity, and yet gaining weight…then exploded the second the season ended mostly off a lunch biscuit tossed to me at lunch each day from a buddy who didn’t want it – a massive number of the school lunches came with a biscuit for some reason, many went in the trash, my buddy tossed me the one off his tray – I was thankful, apparently it was perfect muscle building macros and calories – one chick just about pissed herself upon seeing me “ten pounds in a weekend!?!?!?!”, my buddy, whom gave me the biscuits, had used to wrestle, understood, and corrected her “eight pounds in four days – two pounds a day”, he and I had just been discussing it.)

I’m looking forward to benching feet in the air, straight legs, 50+ x 225+.

High reps, especially on upper body, work really well for me.

And that’s an attainable goal.

Train for years. No ability is unattainable by then.

It’s no more than years of commitment to training.

Persistence & Tenacity

10/5/21 – Late Night – Gym Floor
He comes over to me to talk, well vent, at 5’8″ and a 170lbs that looks like 200lbs, he’s very well built, lean and muscular, with his right arm is in a sling.

“I dislocated my shoulder.”

“Damn dude, what in a motorcycle accident? There’s a massive bruise above your eyebrow.”

“Huh, there’s no bruise on my forehead”, he turns and looks in the mirror, wiping what was grime from the weight plates off, “I was at the other gym I go to, overhead pressing 95s, and felt something pop on that side”.

“It’s good to see that you’re here training legs when you can’t do upper, what day did this happen?”

“Sunday.”

Now consider this – WE’RE TALKING ON TUESDAY!

He fucked up his shoulder on Sunday, and 48 hours later he’s working his legs on the machines because that’s what he can do.

We had a good conversation, I was dropping ideas to him on leg stuff to try right now like all out 50 rep leg pressing, and some philosophical gym notes.

We part ways and I train my full body as usual.

Deciding to end with a little more chin ups, while walking back to the bar, I was surprised to see him on the machine preacher curl.

We spoke a few more minutes, and he’s there seeing what he can do for the bad side, after having done some one arm work that I hadn’t seen.

This is the mentality you see in those who truly are in their training.

Hurt and injury don’t stop you, you’re going to be in the gym doing something, because there’s something you can do.

I love seeing that heart!

Persistence & Tenacity

I like to keep my mental point of origin as “more than human” while doing things physical, so I hate to admit that, of all things, I’m having something of an elbow tendonitis flare up.

It’s been the case for maybe two weeks, and is tied wholly to my having loaded up squats too quickly.

For me, the handful of times I’ve had elbow tendonitis, it’s always been when I’ve pushed up my back squat max – the elbow tendon(s) adapting more slowly to squat every day (or heavier weights alone) more slowly than the rest of the body.

In general I hate taking time off from the gym.

I only do so when mentally I’m okay with doing so.

This isn’t that time!

I’ve been in the gym daily, with some double sessions.

Why?
•I want to.
•screw sitting around the house

You learn things observing the gym floor.

I’ve noticed the in shape 50ish crowd tends to just do lots of light pump work.

So I took a page out of their playbook – I’m doing lots of light work, training around the flare up.

I cut pushups down to 100 a day, 200 tops.

I actually get a euphoric stretch from dips when I’m strongly checked in mentally, so I’ll hit an easy 5 rep warmup set at bw, then one set easy, but more meaningful – for more reps, at bw+45.

Just for a laugh I’ve refused to do bw pullups this month, only doing weighted chins a handful of times.

(This decision was before the elbow tendonitis flare up, and low volume, not amrap sets of weighted chin have been fine on it.)

I actually wonder now if dropping the loads of bw chins I was doing in some manner led to the elbow tendonitis flare up.

I could see less work actually have been a problem in this case, the chins may have kept the tendon good, or better than it/they are right now with the flare up from the heavy smith squats.

But I’ve been loving the squats so I’ve just been hitting sets of 10 at 1p each session.

So light, but enough to get a pump, my glutes and quads having been feeling nicely solid.

Hell my back feels “one piece”, the muscular system well worked, but not in a way so as to create soreness.

This feeling also comes with the volume wrestler’s bridging that I’ve been doing.

The wrestler’s bridge is your best friend if an elbow bugs you!
All day baby! Bridging all day!

This full body light feel the muscle work has the muscles left in a way that I’m amped up to go back, and have been – it’s been double sessions for days.

Look around the gym, plenty of women have nice firm builds using very light weights, often on machines ; you, as a man, effectively are on testosterone overdose in comparison, and therefore can do the same thing.

So I’ve been training light with high frequency – fuck giving up to an inflamed elbow tendon!

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archives :
7/30/18

Le Prelude (Said In Terrible French Accent) :

I’ll be honest, I spend way too much time reading about training. Articles, blogs, forums, way too much time reading, soaking up the information available. For accountability starting a little while ago I’m reading none for at least the next 30 something days. I have an experiment in mind:

Oh yeah, the article :

The Article…Mad Scientist Hour :

Here’s an idea :

Quit researching.

In fact go dumb.

The crazy idea in your head? If you ask on a forum 99% of the responses are going to scream like a banshee meaningless words like “overtraining”, “rhabdo”, or similar implanting a seed of limitation and goddamn weakness in your mind.

You’re far better off just walking into the gym asap and starting whatever psychotic sounding program your mind came up with.

Bulgarian powerlifting? Please fucking do.

What will happen with daily pressing (I intend to rotate variants) and deadlifts (will olys count here) on top of the daily squats? How much stronger will I get?

Add in a shit ton of assistance on top of it? Why the hell not!

It’s your mad scientist hour, enjoy it.

Go out and try whatever your twisted as compared to normal and beige and fucking boring mind came up with and reap the rewards that PASSIONATE training brings forth from the depths!

-J

I can get a great workout anywhere.

I can train with anything.

“I wish you’d go to a real gym, not planet fitness”, he says to me.

It’s a sentiment I’ve had expressed to me repeatedly.

That was from a former coworker the other day when we ran into each other – he’d like to get into working out, particularly with me as a training partner, and my buddy – the one I trained with 364/365 days a year with for about 18 months has repeatedly said the same.

“Will you train for strongman” another guy says to me, and heck I’ve had college chicks tell me that they view pf as limited.

Me? I can train anywhere.

I crossed the threshold for “needing” equipment/a gym/whatever a long time ago.

I train wherever I am, with whatever I have.

Thank you LV age 20/21!

A duffle bag filled with sand, a rock, a wok, sledgehammer, a pullup bar, a barbell empty or heavy, the hotel’s or apartment’s fitness room, playground equipment, any gym, myself as equipment – it’s all good.

“Man, North Carolina was the shit”, the former coworker says to me, and it was – I had a blast on that trip, delivering a home to Charlotte.

If I hadn’t volunteered to go I’d have never ran a 40m dash on Sprint Drive.

Sprint Dr – it’s a story :

Carlisle, PA – I did dip odyssey dips at it’s pf, and while there was cussed out by a 70ish woman for asking to use the dip bar as she took long rests on the ab/leg raise portion of the piece of equipment before she stormed off (mission accomplished, though not as intended), and ran that 40 walking back to the hotel.

Stories – we must make them.

“Oh, I watched blah blah”, that’s not a story.

“Dude, yesterday I ___”, that’s a story!

Fill In The Blank Example :
“During last year’s lockdown I’d go for 5-8 mile bike rides each day, and set it up so that near the end I got to bomb downhill faster than I could peddle shirtless on my bike!”

What did you do?

You best not watch, that ain’t living!

Often I think to myself “there’s a whole wide world of opportunity, and you’re wasting every available moment at a fucking screen!”

I can’t live like that. I’ve chosen not to.

I could’ve watched porn – nope not living, so I didn’t.

I have to train. Daily.
Even if that’s naught but reversion to nightly pushups.

More and more I think to myself about how much more world opens up to you if you’re willing to but drive 20-30 minutes each direction.

Man, you’ve got to live.

From The Archives :
6/23/19 ~12pm

One of the things I dislike about gyms is that they’re indoors.

It’s summertime. I want to get my pump on, which requires being inside, but there’s a strong urge to be outside and physical.

The pump urge was covered with about 400 reps back, 400 reps shoulders, and 100 reps hammer curls.

However my legs feel fresh, they’re usually shot to a degree from work and gym volume, it’s a day off, and I’d been waiting for this…

Safe assumption, it’ll be frowned upon for me to be shirtless, running 40s indoors, so I step outside.

Round back is an abandoned parking lot. It’s not very well maintained, but I find a suitable strip of pavement.

Ahh, sprints after a layoff.

Shirt? Off.

Shoes? Beat up.

Elation from sprinting (slowly I might add)? Priceless.

Never only be physical inside a gym.

(Adding walking lunges in the same spot is a solid idea.)

Psychologically I’m far better when I’m shirtless in the sun moving around or am working a labor job.

The gym will never scratch a man’s urge for pure physicality.

Persistence & Tenacity

6/21/21
My buddy touched base. We hadn’t seen each other in six months, and had barely used the phone in the same.

“What’s up?”
“Gym later.”

We ended up going to the gym together.

When you make planet fitness work you get good at improvising.

One of the ways you gain ability in improvisation is by seeing the ways that others improvise.

Mostly on the machines, however :

Not just on the machines, though я машина.

My buddy came up with a few I’d never thought of, nor seen.

“This looks like a row”, the story of the night.

Glute machine – “this looks like a row”.

Ab machine – “this looks like a row”.

More tricks in the bag, more angles, more growth.

Never view what equipment you have access to as a limitation.

You can go as far as you decide to.

There are people, jacked, with zero equipment.

There are people, jacked, lifting scrap metal.

You can walk the earth and find rocks and other sundry items, both natural and man made, to lift in various ways and get strong.

How bad do you want it?
Most don’t!

I do!
Heart is what carries you.

Heart leads to consistency.
Consistency with effort guarantees results.

I’ll always be big and strong.

I actually wonder how light I could even be starved down to.

What is bodyweight is bone rack status on me?

I don’t picture myself ever getting below 185. 165 would be freaky.

I’ve trained so much that my body would still hold onto much muscle.

The body doesn’t just go catabolic.
It’s a whole lot more resilient than what most “science” says.

Mindset overrides every study.

Some study doesn’t know how you react to certain macros, foods, training stimuli – you define that.

You can always train harder and longer.

The fact that full blown addicts don’t just drop dead, that they don’t just die on the spot, prove that the human body can take essentially infinite punishment, abuse, and still keep going.

You can always train harder and longer.

The studies that define limitations make you weak if bought into.

Believing in growth and human ability makes you grow, capable, and actively doing so.

Buy into prosperous beliefs.

I’ve been jacked with zero equipment, full body strong on pushups alone!

It’s my truth. Has been for years.
So at any gym I feel like a kid in a candy store – look at all the joyous options!

Persistence & Tenacity

Running on empty is SUPERHUMAN

On my feet all day, physical all day, a 24 hour fast but for just a little more than one gatorade – I hit the gym late, stoked, motivated, and get it

All the daily PT, on overhead squats I combine three sets into one to get it in fast.

Loving life! Loving life!
Motivated! Motivated!
Hell yeah! Hell yeah! Alright.

The five sets of mantra pushups with just enough rest…barely.

Quick. Next set.

The gym In N Out style – under 45 minutes, everything, fast.
Whole body.

Strong

I’ve found that pushing outside the gym makes me stronger in the gym.

Fuck thinking about recovery, you don’t need it*, it’s overrated*!

People need to dig deeper physically, and live their lives in defiance to the softness that is the modern world.

Be ancient levels of physical in modern times.

If you don’t have a physical job you should be walking lots, hiking being even better.

Hike the appalachian trail while doing PT daily all the way – you’ll exit the woods a specimen.

Whether you have a physical job or not you NEED to be doing daily PT, lots of calisthenics.

I’ve done my “dip odyssey” before, and now I’ve concluded that pullups done habitually are the training way to be old school farmer/viking/highlander strong.

Do lots.

Persistence & Tenacity

*in the commonly accepted gym sense

P.S. Well hydrated makes this easy, food is far less necessary than water.

All those “natty” limits, the ones you see online…Don’t buy into them!

Such low standards – they’re only there to coddle mental weaklings as to their suckitude.

I’ve went farther!

More lean mass than is supposedly what someone my height could step on stage weighing as a natural.

More lean mass than what I could supposedly step on stage weighing!

Think on that a moment.

Those published internet standards are bullshit.

It’s all a matter of time, years, and work.

“Good genetics” means putting in more time while younger.

That’s the truth.

I saw it growing up, while in high school, middle school, even elementary school.

Start as a teen, and you’ll be superhuman before 30.

Guaranteed.

Otherwise you’re playing catch up.

The kid climbing trees beats the kid playing playstation come high school.

Start soonest, then always train.

Most don’t participate, so within a decade you win.

“Misguided”? Doesn’t matter.
Any effort beats no effort.

Plenty have thrived on the most basic of workouts done consistently.

Having started at 14 I’ve given myself a huge gift – about half my lifetime training.

As I age the percentage only increases.

I’m committed.
I’ll always train.

Make the decision. Follow through.
A decade is what it takes at most, you won’t be the same person physically…you’ll be superhuman.

Everyone has the potential.

Natty limits are bullshit.
Beast Building 101

Persistence & Tenacity

Burpees function as a system reset.

Whatever it is – give yourself ten minutes, drench yourself in sweat, get down, pushups, STAND (back) UP enough times – and the world is right.

Don’t overlook burpees – their value is immense.

You’ll be covered in sweat, able to wring out your shirt, and in a great place – euphoric, uninhibited.

Persistence & Tenacity