Category: Lifting Mindset

Just because plates are manufactured at a particular diameter doesn’t mean every lift has to be “full range of motion”.

A buddy and I were speaking about the making of concrete weight plates the other day.

He was saying they’d be too thick, I said I’d just make them a larger diameter.

If you’re just lifting in the yard who cares. It’s not a powerlifting meet, and strongman often pulls partials.

“Dude, I’d make them wagon wheel height. I’d just stand on a wicked tall box, probably higher than making it the equivalent of pulling from floor height, should I want more range of motion.”

I’ve pulled a deficit stiff leg at 90% of my deadlift 1rm. I’m stronger lower to the ground, bar at toes, while partials are a muscle builder to me.

Yoke “rack pulls” were great!

↑ Yoke deadlift “from the floor”

The radius of plates was initially settled upon, the design to keep one from crushing their skull should an oly go catastrophically wrong.

I’m not linking that photo, nope.

Certain builds benefit from shortened range of motion.

Dudes built like dwarves, and dudes built like, 6’3″ seems to be the minimum height, elves have very different leverages.

I knew a guy, 6’3″, and he entered college at about 120 – pounds, not kilograms. He showed me photos. Crazy. In his mid to late 20s he had trained himself to classic Arnold, his weight fluctuating between 225 and 245 dependent on how often he ate. Probably the highest metabolism I’ve seen outside of dudes in the 5’8″, 5’9″ 160-170lb range.

He didn’t eat enough and he’d look lighter within the same day.

Not properly hydrated it was the same.

You could see he hadn’t taken in enough food and water!

He’d always have abs, but he was always 2000 calories or a couple water bottles away from starting to appear like a starving skeletor.

Yet…

Doubled his bodyweight in less than a decade! With abs! He put in work!

He could pull all day. It’d be 495 for 4×12 sumo twice a week, a bit less when he pulled conventional, curling 135 for at least sets of 6 strict, good on the leg press, but make him squat? Lol. It’d be maybe 315 maxing, while 225 for 5s was a clusterfuck waiting to turn disaster.

Use the ranges of motion that work for you.

Persistence & Tenacity

Gains are a given.

The biggest thing I’ve shown to those I train with at planet fitness has been getting them to realize that “heavy at pf” is not the same as “heavy”.

You may think 5p on a leg press is heavy when the bar only loads 9p, but when you’ve done a nine drop dropset starting at 18p stripping 2p per each drop of 20+ reps the one bar planet fitness model of leg press will never be heavy in your eyes.

It’s the same with the dumbbells.

75s don’t seem so heavy when you’re certain you’d press the 100s should you have access, and when you’ve had access to 150s before.

Everywhere you go people think 12, or 15, maybe 20 reps is high rep. They go something when you count for them and they find out they mentally tapped at 70 something reps and are physically capable of 100+.

As long as your mental is right planet fitness is just fine, “limits” and all.

I’m committed to making the place work. I’m not choosing to sign up to lift barbells for a much higher monthly payment right now.

I’m milking pf.
I’m milking it for every ounce of gains to be had!

I’ve got a long way to go on girevoy dumbbells. I’ve yet to hit 20 pullups, and my dips are not surpassed, nor even at my dip odyssey levels.

One could aim for sets of 100 on every stack. Do you know how strong that is. Sets of 100 on every stack.

Gotta get that farm boy strength double arm curling the 75s!

You can simulate stone lifting with a bear hugged stack of plates!

You’ll even be alright catching pumps, patiently waiting to get back to a barbell, making the most of what you have, where you are, in the moment!

Planet fitness is not limited when you’re walking in thinking “I’m making better gains here than everyone at the local hardcore place!”

Bring that mentality.

Persistence & Tenacity

A big strong muscular ass prevents back pain.

Every guy I know with “back problems” or a “bad back” need not suffer from anything – they all are lacking in ass development, and would feel damn skippy should they but grow a muscular ass.

I Rx hip thrusts though any glute work will do.

I don’t hear any fitness chicks complaining about back pain, and there’s a reason for it.

They’re massively developing their glute size and strength, their lower backs and hamstrings less tight due to this.

Many would feel far better physically should they hip thrust a couple times a week, and stretch by touching their toes.

Health and wellness is all incredibly simple, minimal amounts of action regularly applied is all that is required.

Take care of yourself and you’ll be good. You’ve got the time – use it right.

You end up losing more time to developed problems not having taken care of yourself, than if you simply took 20 minutes twice a week to treat bodybuilding as prehab for quality a life.

Yes, 40 minutes of correctives a week is all that’s necessary to ALWAYS be a functional human without pain.

Glutes, back, and neck primarily.
The posterior is extremely important. Guys at the gym don’t often realize this, while the girls (even if it’s in pursuit of an instagram booty) tend to.

It’s basically training to maintain great posture, correct imbalances, and relieve overly tight muscles.

For guys it most often is boiled down to “dude, train glutes” hence Rx hip thrusts.

Persistence & Tenacity

Lab coat science is limits.
Bro science is action.

Action gets results.

Research oft slips into endless research, staying at square one, always circling back from a to a to a to a.

I don’t want to hear some overly studious overly degreed type’s findings on MY limits.

I go and find my abilities.

Science says you can’t.
They think you can’t.

Anecdotes, n=1, personal experience says you can!

I know I can!

Science is an excuse to suck.

Science says fear cholesterol, saturated fat, eggs, whole milk, red meat, butter.

Instinct says partake.

Science says treadmills and ellipticals.

Instinct says weights, calisthenics, and activity.

Science says that what every high school wrestler and many laborers do is impossible.

Guess I didn’t do it!

Why heck, in the eyes of science the railroads were never built!

“John Henry couldn’t have been so strong!”, says the scientist, “Paul Bunyan couldn’t have been based on someone! No no no, legends couldn’t have been based on reality”.

All these things that science says – limits I’ve seen broken.
Limits I know to have been broken.
My instincts say “possible. possible. always possible!”

Science sucks. Disregard science.
Instinct all day, every day, all the way.

I am a firm believer in possibility, capability, the greatness that humanity collectively, and the individual human, each and every one can achieve.

Reading a book the other night, needing to do my pushups, I used an approach I don’t usually use.

One that feels right now :

Every few minutes I’d set the book down, and do a set of 10 perfect controlled strict pushups.

10 sets of 10, getting 100 pushups, basically unnoticed, done within an hour that I was otherwise reading through.

No gym trip necessary.
A good book and pushups at home – enjoyable. 🙂

Get the idea of “a set time to workout” out of your mind.

Since 20 years old I’ve viewed the gym, even equipment, as icing on the cake.

The daily pushups are viewed through the lenses of military PT.

I have to do them.
There is never a valid reason to not do them. They have perfect logistics.

I suggest everyone view calisthenics as the primary work, and all else as secondary work.

Perfect logistics that way, and as there is what could be perceived as neverending talk of the gym closing down…meanwhile all the fat bodies are keeping their fingers crossed in gleeful anticipation of “an excuse” to stop the daily elliptical to become an even more slovenly ones with the couch…

I don’t care if the gym shuts down or not.

I’d prefer the access yes, however at this point I’m thinking, sometimes saying, “bring it! close the gym. I’ll come back better!”

I’ve done so before – multiple times.
Just watch…again!

No gym means I’ll just be reading more with this every so often pushups approach.

It’s what I did during the lockdown.

Lockdown lifted people were looking at me like the progress I made was physiologically impossible – but it wasn’t. It happened. Destroy your limiting thoughts.

Destroy them.

There is only capability.

Mix in fasting, the simplest approach to fat loss in existence, and – lean and mean.

Simplify.

Training and eating – keep it simple and workable.

No need for fancy equipment – I AM all the gym I need.

No need for fancy food – simple cooked meals with basic ingredients more than suffice.

The next few days I’ll be eating a keto casserole.

After that I have sausage.

All I drink is water, milk, and 100% fruit juice.

I go the gym when I like, but I’ll be doing my pushups regardless each and every day.

Lean out? Drop the liquid calories, drink cold water instead, eat simple nutritious low carb meals, and fast.

Go for long walks. Sometimes do cardio. More activity –

In my eyes an all in cutting diet is chicken breast and green beans – as said above right now my next two or three days of food is a ground beef and green bean casserole.

I’m taking steps in that direction.
Closer to all in on eating to lean out, and there’s no junk food – only fruit sugar from juice when I have it.

I’ve found I enjoyed fasting, recently I went two days without calories, and got visibly leaner from that time.

Makes sense, 2×5000=10000, 10k calories is 3lbs fat + I was active, I still trained.

Think like a warrior, be on a mission.

You eat good nutritious food when it’s time.

You fast, then feast – when it’s time.

You train, not like some slovenly fat body, but like a man on a mission…when it’s time.

I feel everything – training, eating, fasting, all coming together.

You can’t do the work and not get good results. Put positive work in and it’s guaranteed to work.

And don’t wrap your identity too much in what you do with weights.

There’s greater.

Persistence & Tenacity

In addition to the occasional set of deadlifts I’ve too added in the use of my neck harness.

The front of your body may be the show muscles, but the back of your body, the posterior, is your go muscles – the back is what gives you posture, it’s what makes you feel well, it’s the more important of the two.

“A well exercised spine makes you physically fine.” – me

I sense that deadlifts, I sense that neck work – I sense that they’re the builders of vigor, vitality.

That’s the strength you need!

That’s why I’ve added the two in.

Front or back?
Posterior is more important.

That’s why I’ve been doing hip thrusts – the fit chicks have it right, posterior is more important.

Deadlifts are medicine. The neck harness separates you from the weak. Don’t laugh at the yogi – many of his exercises, the bridge, are found too in the wrestling world.

You’ve gotta work the spine, you’ve gotta have a rightly exercised strong posterior chain.

A strong athletic spine, with well developed rear muscles is what seperates the physically functional from those who are not.

Be as rightly designed – strong, functional, and healthy – full of vigor and vitality.

Wild at heart.
https://youtu.be/qv3PJ1YSHFs

Persistence & Tenacity

2/23/21
Winter gloves? ✓
Double overhand? ✓
I have the bar loaded to 300.

I do a set of 5 or 6 purposefully using form as perfect as possible, and hold the final rep for a time.

I don’t know how frequently I’ll be doing this, I deadlifted last about two weeks ago, it could be a random every couple weeks kinda thing.

Never straining. Always double overhand. Minimalistic.

A set every so often because it’s medicine.

The body responds amazingly well to high tension.

The deadlift is the epitome of high tension exercise.

I feel my entire body working, and man does it feel good.

Shoes?
Whatever is on my feet – I’m not a wrestling shoes/chucks/ballet slipper/barefoot snob.

Not any longer.

Leg press it up and the footwear is inconsequential.

Heck, I did this outside in the soaked through beat up holey sneakers I happened to be wearing.

Fresh air making the set even better.

You don’t need to chase powerlifting numbers.

Just get good stimuli and you’re good.

I’ll stick to pulling 205-300lbs for my occasional deadlift set for a time.

Perfect form, get the reps up in perfect form – feel the medicinal tension.

Eventually the weight will be heavier, done just as effortlessly perfectly leg pressing it up using the double overhand grip.

I’m happy to pull wearing winter gloves, it just makes my grip stronger.

A partial deadlift used to be known as the health lift.

There’s truth to that.
The deadlift is the health lift.

That is when you treat it as something to build you up, not chasing a number with mixed grip or straps, and a belt.

Raw double overhand – perfect form – leg press it up.

Enough weight you feel the tension, but little enough there’s no strain.

That makes you feel alive.

Many have two things in their life :

•they have a job.
•they have the television/social media.

Everyone says you need leisure time.

So many say they don’t have time to workout.

Combine them.

I’ve had zero television time for about four months now. This is not bragging, it’s just what I’m doing, I’ve went a calendar year before.

I don’t watch anything, in fact the flash of the screens catching my eye at the gym is something I dislike.

My main version of leisure time is being at the gym or more accurately in training.

It can be and is done everywhere.
I’ve been committed to pushups for years – you. can. not. stop me from doing them.

I do my pushups regardless.

Frankly the gym is a stressful “leisure” for all those not doing much but wasting away at tv time on a treadmill.

“My training ain’t tv time on a treadmill” – me

The way I do it is pullups, burpees, db see-saw press, pushups, dips, hip thrusts, curls, overhead squats.

It’s not movement (barely) on a machine in front of a screen.

Calisthenics with a little bit of the supplementary use of equipment.

I perceive training as my leisure time.

That’s how I step away from the world, and destress, set my mind right.

As dictator of earth everyone will be doing burpees.

Not only will there be effectively zero unhealthy and sick, it is utopia created – Heaven on earth.

True physicality with honest effort puts your state of mind in Heaven.

Burpees are the simplest way I’ve found to go there.

Man, a number was done on many – convincing them they’re doing something of use jogging indoors in front of the television when there’s burpees to be done, weights to lift, mountains to hike, fresh air to be breathed, a world to see.

You have how much tv time?
And you’re still watching commercials – hit the deck then at the very least – off the couch!

When starting out what was more than my 1rm has now become something I can hit for nearly 30 reps.

A sub-185lb bench at 15 to hitting it for nearly 30 whenever I’d rep out at the weight, now able to do so for 30+ should I but touch a barbell.

I recall one summer, I was about 19, finding a tractor tire sitting near the high school track.

I attempted to flip it, and failed.

A few days later I got it for a single rep.

A few days after that I got it for a few singles.

By the end of the summer I was doing distance with it flipping it around 30 times in a row.

I even got my much smaller friend able to flip it for a single or two.

At the SoCal bodybuilding gym, I taught one normal dude (5’10” 180lbs) how to flip the tire there.

I flipped that tire as a finisher every session. I got crazy props from people for doing so.

I offered to teach at least one more dude (a 5’8″ 165lb men’s physique competitor) to do so, and he hemmed and hawed – not game.

That tire was rarely flipped since so many were not game.

I could’ve taught some of the women there to flip that tire.

The required strength levels were there from the tall big boned college senior/recent college grad always wearing farm related pun tshirts to the female bodybuilders, and if we’re being honest here more than just those most obvious examples.

Many could’ve went from no flip to using the tire flip as conditioning like I had with that other tire a few summers earlier.

Gym success is guaranteed with commitments to consistent effort over a period of years.

Something heavier than your 1rm will become something you can do for around 30 at least.

I’ve proven this to myself.
You too have this potential.

In fact all of our potential is higher than just the beginning 1rm to 30rm.

I’ve long felt that what many consider a 5-10rm can be trained to roughly a 50rm given the commitment, consistency, and time.

У меня лучшая генетика

Persistence & Tenacity

The perfect program is the one you believe in and will stick to.

Lifting weights? Calisthenics?
Easy peasy. I do my own programing as for this being a matter of individual expression I wouldn’t stick to anyone else’s.

I did a set of 25 reps on the overhead squat with an empty barbell.

Later in the day I’ll do pushups.

Aside from that who knows – I sure don’t.

My programming is rigid on pushups, rigid on anything I’m prioritizing for a time, and whimsical for everything else.

I’m consistently rigid and whimsical, that’s why it all works for me.

I’m not feeling a gym trip right now, but that could change in a few hours.

Gym. Home based. Doesn’t matter.

Pushups are everywhere.

Flexing, which I’ve been enjoying lately, is everywhere though I tend to do so in front of the bathroom mirror.

When the gyms shut down almost a year ago now, I was one of those who it didn’t affect physically in the slightest.

“No more machine access”, I shrugged, did pushups then hopped on my bicycle.

I’ve long viewed weights, bars, improv equipment, everything you use to train past your own body as tools that are icing on the cake.

This mentality gives me a lot of freedom in my training.

While my most enjoyed training style would have me in a place equipped with all the toys of strongman competitions, I can go anywhere and get good workouts.

I’ve used bars and rings at parks, bars and machines at pf, barbells everywhere, pushups even more, chins off of tree branches, sprints wherever, it’s all good, because I’m going to train irregardless as that’s, it’s no longer even viewed as a requirement to myself, what I do.

I picture 30 x 205+lb overhead squats and 20+ x 225lb jerks at ≤230lb (I’m not hung up on this number) alongside 25+ pullups, and regular 15:00 sets of jog in place burpees as things I’ll be doing in the next 3-9 months (much less for the burpees).

Whether I hit these or not doesn’t matter to me much as I train irregardless, will always train, and any training specific stays until circumstances change.

That could mean til I hit them, pass them, get bored of them, or lose access to the equipment.

It’s all laissez faire.
I succeed because I work at it.