Category: Lifting Mindset

2/8/21
In the fresh winter air I lifted weights.

Here’s the log of the brief session :

PC+J 1c+5j x205
Deadlift 5×205 DOH
P Snatch 1 x135
PC+P 1c+7p x135
Overhead Squat 15 x bar

I had a couple thoughts while doing this :

The clean shouldn’t have felt as difficult as it did, especially as the snatch feels so light.

Overhead by any means is still a good deal stronger than my clean.
I used a rough power jerk that may have still been pressed out.

I could negative 205 back down to the shoulders fairly well.

A not so great set up means I’d be much stronger in/on a good set up.

I have weights. If I want to lift weights I will. There is no such thing as an excuse.

I still love the jerk for reps. It’s probably my favorite lift, and the most carryover thing.

I’ve attributed the “most carryover thing” to high rep overhead squats as well.

Being able to say that about multiple barbell moves available with a 300lb weight set shows the versatility of the tool, and the value of thinking outside the box.

A List Of Most Carryover Barbell Things :

•jerk for reps – push
•bent row – pull
•high rep overhead squats – legs

Quads fire well/contract hard on a properly done press.

The press is full body and builds a mean animalistic athletic physique.

The “nonideal” setup gives me the opportunity to work on form (perfect the presses, hint hint), and really own a given weight before adding weight.

I thought that while pressing 135 with perfect range of motion, the last two presses being done heels together old school military style.

A bar, pair of 45s, 25s, and 10s can supply a great workout if you’re willing to make it work.

Your jumps are 45, 65, 95, 135, 155, 185, 205 with that set up.

Start at curls, work to olys, rows, and double overhand deadlifts with it.

Deadlifting properly feels like I’m leg pressing the weights off the floor.

Not pulling to start it, but pressing to start the lift.

I lift in work boots, the blue collar weightlifting shoe (they have the raised heel), which I’d say puts me in the proper positioning to do this.

I know that the little black winter gloves necessary to keep my hands from being double dog dared like glue to the bar add to grip strength.

I’ve long had the thought that a relatively light deadlift, always going double overhand (on an axle preferably), always within your means, treating the deadlift as a health builder instead of something trained hard is a better way for the majority.

I’ve seen some men in their 50s treat it as such.

It’s my opinion that this would build an unbreakable lower back, plenty of functional work capacity, while never giving you the ridiculous can’t move soreness.

Maybe just perfectly “leg press” the pull off the floor, squeeze the glutes at the top, treating 205 as a muscle builder and health improver while feeling great doing so.

This approach allows the deadlift to be high frequency, and more importantly in my eyes to perfect the lower back.

The 3×10 protocol was initially created by a doctor at walter reed hospital as part of the healing process of severe burn patients amongst ww2 veterans.

Like the motion of the weight itself, lifting is for building you up.

Sustainable health is the best way.

-J

The gym is leisure activity.

I have no pity for those who act like it’s impossible to be big, strong, and in shape.

The people of western countries have forgotten history.

The roman legions marched 20 miles daily, if they were past the gates of empire this was not roman cobblestone road either, and still they built a fortified encampment every night.

Maybe some homeless cover those miles, roaming around the earth like a fiend, maybe some laborers do.

But no one outside of starving dirt poor laborers in parts of the third world have ancient history levels of activity.

People rowed triremes! In the grecian era what was commonly done is deemed damn near physically impossible taking from any group of modern humans.

As a teenager I watched a short documentary on the british army’s selection of sherpa recruits.

It struck me that they were running good 5k times uphill with a pack (rock filled traditional carrying thing).

We act like 5k on the flat sucks.
They were running it at a fast pace uphill with packs at altitude!

Be physical all life in altitude amongst a laboring people and it’s gonna be all out and impressive in that army selection.

If you just think, you’ll realize that no matter what you enforce on yourself as your training… people were sent to the mines of libya to die in roman times.

They were sent there and worked to death!

What you do to yourself at a gym in the first world isn’t hard.

The gym is leisure activity.

The Charles Atlas course was no more than flexing and calisthenics.

It’s an interesting experiment ;

What if you did nothing as purposeful exercise past flexing and walking?

This is a very old school idea.
It works phenomenally, it’s just that nearly no one does it.

You don’t need a gym, and don’t shy away from physicality.

Do yard work, play a pickup game, have a physical job, just make your purposeful exercise entirely flexing and walking.

Walking is basic human locomotion.

As a human animal we are meant to cover long distances on foot.

We are meant to leisurely stroll, to shoulder weight and hump it, to carry, to ruck, to hike, to hoof it.

To trek.

It’s basic physicality.

We would all do well to walk 10 miles a day. The Roman legionaries hiked 20 daily regardless of terrain, then built camp every night. There’s a lesson here.

There’s plenty of examples of those who took flexing far.

The maxalding course can be your guideline.

The beauty of flexing is how it can be done anytime, anywhere, at any and all angles.

Flexing is the perfect logistics.

You want to improve a bodypart?
Start flexing it.

You’ll improve mind-muscle connection, and as you believe you will find yourself getting stronger and stronger.

Be influenced by all movement in choosing your flexing positions.

I find my upper body flexing is inspired by a mix of lifts, calisthenics, martial arts, and bodybuilding poses.

This would have been very useful had I done this for wrestling.

Regularly involved flexing will build a beast, a very strong and extremely lean freak.

Do so with your entire heart and soul.

Persistence & Tenacity

I did two sets of 75 pushups the other night, and frankly I was disappointed.

Range of motion was near full range, good enough in my eyes, but I was legitimately pissed that it took effort to get to 75 each time.

Not failure, but just starting to get challenging, I had done each set as intended – a set through without pause.

75 was the pause point both times.

See, I’ve done so many pushups, past 100 per set numerous times, enough so that 75 per set seems a poor performance in my eyes.

I recall in jrotc that I’d be so used to relatively low reps, up to say 40, that I’d worry about the PT test, be doing volume like a madman for a week or two precedingly, then do well on the test, performing better under pressure than training had led me to believe I would.

(That would be something like 80 in two minutes – worse than the performances I’m unhappy about in the present.)

See, pushups are an exercise simple to improve.

Just keep upping your regular performance ability, and your all out rep ability will go up.

Fairly fast at that.

I’ve been doing sets really no higher than 35 per set.

Okay, I can more than double it when I go for it, but that’s not good enough.

I’m the guy who was hitting damn near 120 in 60.

120 pushups in 60 seconds!

Think about that ability a moment.
Yeah that’s reps for time, I’d still be solid performing in that manner, you can strategize, while reps til pause is different, but only 75 – I’m not happy with that.

I’d slacked by not putting in effort, not doing challenging sets for my pushup PT!

Physically “Robust” As Mental Default :

From The Archives :
2/20/19

I’m going to let you in on the training secret. Ready? Come closer, what with only 10 YouTube subscribers and low website traffic this is only a whisper…

Here it is…

As your mental default choose to be physically robust.

Fine. Done.

Long Version :

The mind is far more powerful than anyone believes.

I’ve stayed injury free, rarely getting hurt, and not feeling physical fatigue nor soreness to much if any degree like most seem to.

I mentally was a physical workhorse from the start. Add in disgust at my own perceived weakness, a few sports, and thousands of hours training, mostly alone. It forged an unbreakable physicality.

I gave myself the best genetics.

I had tits at 13. I’m now the largest athletic guy around just about everywhere I go.

My uncle made an interesting statement to me ~4-5 months back. “You scare them because you are the strongest one there who hasn’t used anything. Just like you know they’ve used, they know you haven’t, and the gap is far closer than they’d like it to be considering.”

The truth of that recently really hit me.

From Cali through present my body has been crazy high responsive to any and all stimuli.

Why? Isolate the cause.

Because just like how I made myself impossible to injure mentally (I refused to even acknowledge or consider the possibility of such nonsense), I evolved a new part of my mindset towards physicality…

“I’m physically robust naturally.”
(IE to be physically robust is default, and my mental belief.)

&

“I have the best genetics.”

&

I’ve been THINKING myself robust.

This is another concept I recently internalized. The concept introduced to me years ago from a Heinlein sci fi book of all things.

(Stranger In A Strange Land – how the main character transforms himself radically eating a bit and occasionally swimming. How did he do it…”I thought it so”.)

Friend, when you heed my words, it’ll give you the athletic body of your wildest dreams.

You will do well…however, whatever, any which way.

The gym won’t matter.
Equipment will be inconsequential.
Diet? Inconsequential as well.
Training frequency, more, less, tons, some, any, none? All good.

I don’t expect you to believe me. I suggest that you see for yourself.

Belief is the most powerful thing we as humans can access and control.

No matter what I do I am physically robust.

I’m the strongest I’ve ever been.
My pants keep getting looser.
I don’t go to a gym, and I haven’t done any weights heavier than an empty bar in over two weeks.

My standard for a while has been roughly 30 pushups every evening, and balancing for a bit eyes closed on each leg. Of course as I’m doing my reverse curl challenge I average 50-65 reps of the empty bar daily for the time being.

I most often do 2 or 3 pullups daily, and occasionally hit a set of neck harness, wall sits, gripper, or hand opening.

Shoveling (hey, it’s winter) is my largest overall source of physical stimuli at present.

I’m looking and feeling more naturally athletic than meathead, though I doubt bodyweight has changed much, if any.

The problem many take to the gym with them is a belief in their own weakness, and thinking they can’t or would have to struggle to change it.

It’s a cruel facade. While reality is that there nothing more natural than to be robust, vigorous, strong, enduring, and full of vitality.

That is true unADULTered default.

Persistence & Tenacity

The Limits Of A 300lb Weight Set :

Everyone who thinks a 300lb weight set isn’t enough weight aren’t being very creative.

They’re thinking inside the powerlifting box, and not with vision of the wide world of strength sports.

Firstly if you aren’t hitting a 900lb pre-1972 style three lift weightlifting total (press/snatch/jerk), and a 300lb York combo you don’t get to talk.

May as well use strict early 1900s feet together to end the lift rules too.

Secondly going back to the same period in weightlifting you have one arm variations.

It’s possible that no one has snatched past 225lbs on a one arm barbell snatch since Charles Rigoulot set his 253lb world record with his specially made globe barbell in 1928 (edit : twice – Alekseyev with 231lbs pictured below, and Koklyaev more recently with 242).

Clearly you have a ways to go with a 300lb weight set.

And you’ve got one arm pressing in many variants :

Strict/military, push, side, bent –

315lbs for 20 on a back squat is something of an intermediate goal, one I’ve hit…

Now imagine 300 as a 20 rep overhead squat max!

High rep overhead squats are damn near limitless thinking in sets of 50+ with 300lbs to top out at.

One can get a 300lb weight set, put it anywhere (outdoors being preferable), and get very very strong with it – with no other equipment.

The limits are only what you accept.

Persistence & Tenacity

So you want to get big huh?

It’s a straightforward process.
The biggest thing is to eat. A lot.

Many don’t do this, hence the gym isn’t filled with the jacked, but a goodly portion of the skinny who say with mouth and without action that they want to be jacked.

Force feed. You’ll get big.

When you think you’re eating a lot realize this ; the one riding the scooter at the grocery store is outeating you daily.

He’s getting 5000+ calories.

You can out eat him. And you can walk, so you’ll put on more quality mass than him by default.

Food is the biggest factor in size.
Whether obese, sumo, powerlifter, football player, or bodybuilder – 5000 or more calories daily.

A small eater can eat 500-750 calories of anything and drink a quart of milk alongside it four times a day. Simple.

Besides it’s not the biggest dudes eating the most. It’s a patently absurd fact that the heaviest eaters are high metabolism, highly active… middleweights.

While barbell training is like a cheat code for increasing appetite and putting on size, any muscular stimulus will do.

I’ve come across big dudes who simply eat a lot and work physical jobs.

Honestly 5000-7500 calories a day while wrestling would do it.

There’s precedence in both kushti and sumo.

At present I favor calisthenics.

Eating alone puts on muscle.

Anyone obese with basic locomotion, ie walking around has a good deal of leg muscular development.

Enough protein (and grams of protein needn’t be super high) with big calories creates a metabolic environment where you sense the muscle growing.

All the better the more things you line up in your favor.

•Eat big.
•Be able to walk.
•Train in some manner.

The cost of groceries isn’t an excuse, as $5 a day will get you past 5000 calories easily with the chicken’s dark meat cuts, top ramen, and milk.

Chicken in a crockpot, ramen in the microwave, milk in a glass. The inability to cook can even be worked around.

The gym is so easy.

The biggest problem in the gym is
not believing in your own training method!

Anything will work when you truly believe it will.

I’ve been captaining this for a long time :

•Put in massive effort.
•Be a true believer in your method.

That’s it!

You do these two things and the greatest of results are guaranteed.

Persistence & Tenacity

Title : Commit To 20+ Years Of Daily Calisthenics – 5 Minutes!

What if every day for the next 10, 20, 30 years you did calisthenics, say a brief once, twice, or thrice daily workout?

Don’t you think you’d be head and shoulders above your age peers.

Don’t you think you would be 50+ and very strong, while extremely good at calisthenics.

Don’t you think you’d always be physically capable.

Well after most have resigned themselves to forever watching sports on the couch beer in hand…defeated.

5 minutes at most, one to three times a day, given the time frame you’ll be a freak of nature.

Years of pushups give you the largest chest, plus a good deal of strength to boot.

You don’t know the value of just one set a day!

Pushups with people standing on your back come naturally given years.

Years of pullups?
Most importantly strong hands and good posture via spinal decompression.

Years of wrestler’s bridges – the strongest spine around.

Bodyweight squats, lunges, you’ll be 75+ hiking, shoveling snow, just as capable as you were between 15 and 25 years of age.

No deterioration!

Notice the lack of logistics to consider.

Notice how this is all readily available.

Notice how there are no available excuses.

Are you committed, or are the flashing screens, and all that which rob you in this life just too important to you for you to keep your physical capability in your own hands?

5 minutes!

Persistence & Tenacity

PostScript :

Here is my video relevant to the post, I didn’t want either my own or another’s video link to cause a pause in the reading :

Weighted pushup ability came from years of daily pushups, often as little as one set of around 30 each day.

I haven’t listened to a single Wes Watson video in around six months, and yet I still hear his voice and my voice as one and the same coming out of me.

“What if you never took no more back steps.” – Wes Watson

The concept of commitment 24/7 on my mind.