Category: Lifting Mindset

The Two Assumptions When You’re Big & Good At Calisthenics :

When you’re a big guy and are good at calisthenics people tend to draw one of two conclusions about you :

•Convicted Felon
•Prior Military

I’ve been told flat out that “when we first met I figured you either just beat felony charges, or maybe were prepping to ship off”.

Big guy. Good at calisthenics.
One, the other, or both is assumed.

I’m neither, which surprises many.
I have so many stories on these notes.

A Junkie Coworker :

I had a junkie coworker who knew calisthenics via the jailhouse.

He spent a few months, a few times, doing pushups and lunges to alleviate jailhouse boredom.

Dude didn’t graduate high school, but to use his time locked up for heroin/meth possession he figured lots of pushups and lots of lunges as “what else is there to do”.

Pushups and lunges is a solid workout anywhere.

He was decently strong for ≤170lbs, and had the highest metabolism I’ve ever come across.

Remember what I’ve said about middleweights, metabolism, and calorie requirements?

He was like that to the nth degree.
Kid was effectively an ever starving space heater.

He’d eat pizzas, fast food, donuts, gas station food, and poptarts all day long, buying food every time the truck stopped, and drinking soda after soda, while always being so warm as to be uncomfortable to sit next to in the work trucks.

How meth didn’t cause him to automatically od I’ll never know.

Crazy Calf Development :

On a similar note I know two people with calves so ridiculous every bodybuilder is jealous, and the two don’t lift.

One grew up poor walking/jogging/running everywhere, no car in the family.

One’s mother had monster calves, while enjoying hiking in the summer, and taking long walks in the winter.

Some of the craziest human ability, genetics, development, etc is not to be found in the gym.

The Retiree :

A retiree doing burpees, bw squats, jumping jacks, db thrusters, and abs next to me asked if I was prior military having seen me do dips, weighted pushups, and probably pullups.

He was giving me props for being big and good at calisthenics, was surprised that I don’t currently lift weights, and himself being prior military assumed I must be too seeing as how I train.

Despite a bum shoulder, he was working around it, and going hard.

I gave him props for going hard at military PT…still.

Still!

A retiree doing military PT to this day. What’s your excuse!

That same day I saw another person who surprised me by doing burpees.

The Obese Girl :

A girl in her early twenties, taller, probably 5’8″, 5’9″, and obese, probably heavier than I, was supersetting burpees and leg raises, then thrusters and leg raises, kettlebell swings somewhere in there as well.

Funny, I’ve told an obese guy “you really want to change it, then 200 burpees in your garage/yard daily til you like where you’re at” before.

He’s done zero burpees since hearing the advice.

This girl was at the gym, with a worse starting point physically than him, and yet did to my estimation 100 burpees, 100 thrusters, about 200 reps of abs, and some kettlebell swinging probably 50 reps before each superset.

She’s putting in mad effort supersetting, she’s hungry, she’ll lose the weight!

Both the retiree and she were going hard at exercises I wouldn’t expect either demographic to be doing much less going hard at.

I love seeing this sort of thing.
Props to both.

Persistence & Tenacity

There are certain things you don’t discuss at the gym.

These things are :

•Injury
•Hurt
•Pain
•Soreness
•Tiredness
•Hunger
•Limits

You keep your mind and mouth clear of these things and suddenly you’re superhuman.

You’re indestructible.

Persistence & Tenacity

Description:

A talk on the similarities of monkey, chimpanzee, and human DNA, how close human DNA is between people, and the proper interpretation of your genetic potential with a big point for endomorphs and ectomorphs. Shout out to the big fat dudes, and the skinny fat on how far you can go.

With special guest Ronnie Coleman off camera.

Transcript :

“Yeah buddy yep yep yep light weight.”

That dude never quiets down.

On DNA Potential & Genetic Potential :

When you run a Google search it says that rheasus monkeys and humans share 93% of the same DNA.

When you compare humans and chimpanzees it goes up to 99%.

A university study ; that says that the average difference between two humans is one tenth of one percent.

1/1000 is on average all that varies between a human and another human.

This tells me that DNA is so so common that great genetics are inside me, and inside you.

How you have such a huge variance with such a tiny true DNA variance – that’s gene expression.

And putting it in a sentence gene expression is solely based on the actions you take.

If you sit around all the time you’re gonna be out of shape.

If you train, and eat, and do them both well you’re going to be built well and in shape.

It’s that simple.

It’s not a complicated thing.

Perspective Of Genetics :

When you talk to most young adults, they all – the ones that are in the gym seem to view themselves as not having good genetics.

That’s just shooting yourself in the foot from the gate.

You need to look at it from a positive angle, regardless of what like you think your “genetics” are

You have to look at it from a positive perspective, not a negative perspective.

A dude who’s super super wiry, and has very little muscle, and zero body fat.

He’s never going to put on an ounce of fat, he’s always going to be lean.

Positive.

The mesomorph? He’s muscular, he’s pretty much always going to be muscular.

Positive.

Big fat dude? He’s got like 100lbs on that mesomorph.

He could cry about it, be like “uhhn, I’m fat”, or he could look at it from the positive angle, calculate his bodyfat percentage out, then look at his lean body mass and go “oh shit, I’m the same height as the mesomorph, but I have 40lbs more lean body mass than his entire bodyweight”.

Positive.

And that brings me to the so called skinny fat, the one that the internet claims is the never to be built well dude.

Which is wrong.

Everyone can get built well, it’s just a matter of effort, and years – that’s all it comes down to regardless of where your genetics are.

Effort and years, you’re good. Period.

That skinny fat dude?
Negative perspective is “ohh, ohh, I’m skinny fat, I’m always going to be skinny fat”.

That’s wrong!

What he needs to look at it is :
•”I’m skinny fat.”
•”I’m gonna change it.”
•”I, by having the worst starting point, I’m allowed the most epic journey to overcome it.”

Those are my thoughts for today on DNA, genetics, and genetic potential.

Persistence & Tenacity, J Out!

Cut it.

What if you viewed whatever equipment you have access to at present at home, including what you can improvise, as all the equipment you’ll get.

I know people who are buying all the gym equipment they can get at a premium right now in anticipation of another covid shutdown.

I’m not going to pay double and a half for equipment. I’ve got what I’ve got.

As I played with an empty barbell outside I was thinking to myself “what if all I had was me, and the 300lb weight set I bought as a teenager”.

Most gym goers don’t have the heart to make do in those circumstances.

Me?
If there is to be another lockdown?

One :

I’d be seeing how far I can pc&p, power snatch, do one arm olys, and goof around with my weights.

Goofing around for example by amongst other things hitting snatches with my hands together.

That is where I started thinking all this.

Two :

I’d revert to pushups and other calisthenics.

I did this before.

At present I’m wicked happy to use books to train progressive range of motion handstand pushups.

Regardless of shutdown or not, those who will to be strong will, and those who won’t won’t.

Persistence & Tenacity

If you have a barbell and plates you can do the olympic lifts.

No bumper plates necessary, you do like they did before bumpers…always lowering the bar under control.

Never drop the bar.

You teach yourself form.

Weightlifting Form Simplified :

•Knees and elbows in alignment, shoulders in front of bar to start.

•Pull out the slack. You’re primed.

•Slowly deadlift to around knee height, then jump & shrug as hard as possible.

•Dip/Dive & Catch

•Use Power Variants

Simple.

The best training effect comes from reps done from the deadhang.

The bar stopped, paused completely at jump & shrug height.
Then you jump & shrug. Hard.

Pull with all you’ve got.

That’s brute force acceleration.

Don’t lower the weight down at the hang preloading yourself with added momentum before the jump and shrug.

Do reps from the deadhang for the majority of your training.

Use normal reps without pause for maxes.

Any shoe will work. I don’t own weightlifting shoes.

Work boots are the blue collar oly shoe.

Lately I’ve worn beat up sneakers.

My flexibility has improved. I don’t need the work boot’s heel to comfortably overhead squat.

You don’t need a $1000 Eleiko bar.

The bar I lift with is sturdy, not a name brand, though a decent all purpose bar. I paid around $150 for it as a teenager.

I bought nice, but generic.
Functional. Affordable.

I’ll pass this barbell down to the next generation.

You don’t need to go for max weights every time, or often for that matter.

A light to moderate weight will give a good training effect, especially from the deadhang.

I power clean and power snatch, sometimes from the deadhang, but the two are really ways to press and overhead squat for reps.

Occasionally I deadhang one arm snatch light or do a javelin press.

Nor is there anything wrong with emulating girevoy sport with your barbell.

High rep barbell jerks are a great builder of ability.

At my own cold air barbell club I train by my own rules.

Training by your own rules – that’s the training philosophy to live by.

And since I want it, I get it, training outdoors in the winter.

The fresh air is phenomenal.

Persistence & Tenacity

The cold air is invigorating.

“Easy! Easy!” I yell during the first sets, dialing in form, adjusting to the temperature and gusts of wind as I warm up.

I’m not recording sets and reps this workout, just enjoying the fresh air as I oly at my barbell gym.

Checking off my overhead work for the day.

With overhead work daily this month, I’ve grown shoulders. I attribute this most strongly to the dumbbell see saw presses.

Using “base weight” – 135lbs, no more no less, I’m set on making it work for me.

Oh no the horrors of warming up and working with one weight…outside…in the cold.

Unideal set ups make ideal set ups that much easier, I’ll circle round back to this.

The power cleans and presses feel real good with form dialed in.

I don’t intend to push bar weight up fast, just doing olys easy like whenever through the winter.

A jump in weight here and there.
A session here and there.

The power snatches were good with explosion. I’m not starfishing.

The overhead squat is a bomb movement.

Power snatch into overhead squats likely being the best all around complete barbell workout in one movement.

I know how to train the entire local high school football team.

I’d forgo benching, not bother squatting out of a rack, and just get the team good at calisthenics and olys done real old school style.

Power variations, mostly from a dead hang, while never dropping the bar.

You don’t need bumper plates.

Reps once the bar is overhead, presses, overhead squats, jerks, alongside pullup and weighted pushup beasts.

1000x better than what my high school football team did…what I called “the silly circuit”, where big boy linemen got away with never front squatting harder than 8x115lbs, doing lackluster sets on every machine, while paying attention to and mostly being an embarrassment on ez bar curls and benching.

My way – 1000x better.
My way builds beasts.

It being something I’ve learned outdoors in the cold, the footing a piece of particle board which means perfect never starfish foot form, little black winter gloves keeping my hands from getting double dog dared stuck to the bar.

“If only I’d done this every summer through high school”.

The high rep overhead squats would’ve been a game changer.

You could train for weightlifting under these circumstances.
Bar. Plates. It’s there.

In my mind at the moment I see this as the real lifting base to bodybuild and calisthenic at planet fitness off of.

I can teach this and train others to superior results.

This far into typing I went back to working out.

Oh man a set of 15 overhead squats with 135 let me know I’m alive.

I barked back at a neighborhood dog going off at the sounds of my lifting barely into that set. A few Ric Flair “whoos” to keep the set going, the set slightly breathing squat style.

Into it.

Before stripping the bar another clean and a few military presses bringing my heels together to finish each rep like they used to a century ago.

I stripped the bar, did a few one arm snatches from the deadhang (a movement worth focus), and a javelin press on each side, then happy having lifted and written put the weights away.

The cold air barbell club hosted at my state of the art facilities is in session.

Cold air & barbells, you’re on top of the world.

Love it.

From The Archives :
3/23/19
(“я машина” wasn’t the first time I wrote this down.)

“I’m a machine.”

I’m a machine.

High reps? Timed sets?
It’s nothin, there is only doing the work.

A machine feels nothing.
A machine just does.

Nothing phases him.

No days off? A machine doesn’t even notice. There is required training to be done.

The squats are pistoned off, up, down, up, down, up.

Food? Fuel.
What did you eat again?
_________

Feasting, fasting, dirty, or clean… the reps get done regardless.

Is that lactic acid? The machine puts it out of mind.

“Lactic acid? Does not compute.”
Back to skipping rope.

A joint feels buggy? The machine does some prehab work (maintenance), and gets back to work.

“Dude, you’re curling!”
“Just to keep the elbows good for squat everyday.”

Every human has weakness. With a machine mentality you get rid of that shit.

Who knows when I’ll step inside a gym again. Thing is though, I’ll always get stronger. Machine mentality. There is no other way.

It’s easier to have the task oriented outlook of a machine without weakling outside influence.

Training solely alone either turns you weakling or robot.

Persistence & Tenacity

Upon waking up I realized that over the last two or three nights I’ve had something happen reoccuringly in my dreams :

Sets of 20+ pullups.

Now at present I can get around 5.
The dream was set in the present, the difference in performance was going to a different place psychologically.

It wasn’t seeing red, though that can make you stronger.

It both was and wasn’t putting on a show for onlookers, in one dream I did 20+ off of some scaffolding while waiting in line at some movie premier in nyc.

That was to show off for my girl, and amusing myself rubbing in my superiority to a couple dudes who I knew from school and their girls.

It wasn’t particularly asshole either, I wasn’t being vindictive, it was just zen – thinking “look scaffolding, I’ll have some fun” saying “babe you see them all staring angrily, watch this”, and done with innocence and a smile on my face.

There was something far more base, far more primal, far more natural than showing off as the reoccurring motivation to do however.

I clicked out of the modern world’s conditioning, and into the “alpha state”, a place of zen, a place of truth.

One set at the gym was the thought I can keep going as I’d hit 5, then again at 10, and 15.

I dropped at 20 when I realized what I had just done which caused me to get out of that state.

Moments later in the same dream someone (pf manager) said “I’d like to see you hit 20”, and I immediately went and did so with them watching.

This time thinking at 6 reps in “I can do more”, then again at 11, 16, and dropping at 21 when I realized what I had just done which caused me to get out of that state.

They realized that I’d said how I went from around 5 to 20, and noticed that I’d just did 21, another improvement.

As the dreams progressed the reps progressed from a set of 20 to a set of 30+.

You know those usmc pullup bars set up at events?

With some guy who had advised me before on pullups (an older felon who had done federal time, character based vaguely on a real life dude I’m acquainted with from the gym) steadying that rickety setup upon having told him of the few times from 5 to 20+ he told me ; “this time keep going, at 20 something say to yourself I can do one more, then keep saying it”.

I jump up, soon it’s 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, “I can hit 30”, 27, 28, 29 are hard, I do one difficult rep to get 30.

At 30 I realized that throughout the set I was actually getting progressively more powerful each rep, that is was just mental my perception of struggle on the ending reps.

The guy is congratulating me for going from 20 to 30 just like that, I’m still hanging from the bar, I look at him…

I see…
Instantly I’m free!

30 pullups in I start repping extremely explosive STRICT muscle ups.

No kip, no hip usage, just the mental clarity that “I’ve got the power”, and “this is my natural ability as a human” as I’m exploding without needing to attempt the pullup to dip transition.

I’m throwing myself to the top, easy as pie, on back power alone.

The guy is barely keeping the rickety setup from falling over.

I don’t think anyone else was around, but in the state I was in I wouldn’t have noticed.

I was present.

I knew that the setup was tipping, but it was of no concern, if I had to jump off I’d just backflip off landing on my feet like a cat.

I’ve got the power! This is my natural human physical ability!

I awoke, the line between dream world and real world being very blurry.

I had spent about 6 hours doing yardwork.

Maybe an hour after getting done I was at the gym.

I had relaxed a bit, had a cup of juice, and despite not being much interested in the gym, went anyway.

It’s better than staying home.

Getting out of the house is almost always better than staying home.

This was not the exception.

Going to the gym after physical work reminded me of all the times I’d done so after shifts at the moving company.

I felt grimy, and smelled rank. I was a bit dehydrated and had very little food in me.

No matter, go anyway.

I changed before going and as I said had a cup of juice.

Little things can make going far easier.

I’m glad I did, I ended up having fun.

And you can always find some movement that clicks each and every day.

As I dried off, having showered up at the end, I thought to myself “the more physical you are during the day, the easier it is to get to the gym”.

It’s the people sitting at a desk all day who struggle to get to the gym.

Anyone with a halfway physical day that isn’t lazy easily brings themselves to the gym.

For example I see shockingly high numbers of construction workers working out.

A lot of the best built and strongest dudes at the gym often have physical jobs.

They’re doing it on top of labor which to the low energy office worker sounds insane, and is viewed as superhuman.

The thing is that workouts on top of labor is actually in their favor. The two feed off of each other.

Not many believe it when I say this, though it’s truth.

Do more physically to be capable of doing more physically.

The human body is capable of evermore.

It just gets used to one way or the other.

Physicality or sloth? Sloth or physicality?

Even if you work seated at a desk, it’s still your choice.

Do you walk an hour in the morning? You can.

In fact it’d be a big help towards getting you into the feel that laborers live with, their natural high energy.

What do you do after work?
Pickup basketball or pickup the remote?

Do you do stuff on the weekends?
Bike rides, hikes, your own yard work, etc.

The more activity you do the more energy reserves you will discover inside you.

That’s why I want you doing stuff, being at least naturally physical daily.

This is why I envision myself as a multimillionaire who owns amongst other things a moving company so as to have a place to undercover boss style work part time for the physicality benefits.

Nobody needs know that J is not only a part time coworker, but their employer.

Good day yesterday.
Good day today.
Good day tomorrow.

Life is good.

Persistence & Tenacity

Lifting Weights Is Easy, Stop Making It Hard :

I realized the other day that a dude I’m friendly with at the gym, his shoulder, chest, or back always hurts.

Every time.

Dudes barely 30.
He’s young.

It’s all in his head.

As I enjoyed the bourgeois aspects of planet fitness I thought to myself, no realized that :

“I have the best recovery”.

See I’ve been doing shoulders day after day lately, and I don’t break down, all that happens from the frequency is I get better at the thing I’m prioritizing.

I can taste success on the Sig Klein challenge.

Taste it.

And if I was at a barbell gym it’d be straight up bulgarian to the same effect.

Less than 9 months of squat every day brought me from my first 405 squat to a 455lb double (around month 7) done around two in the morning tired, but able.

I don’t believe in the existence of getting hurt or injured.

It’s not in my accepted reality.

Fundamentally I view myself as ever capable of doing more.

Daily training?
That’s easy. I thrive off of it.

You can too.

It’d be more of a challenge to hit two a days and an mma class each night on top of a labor job.

Lifting weights isn’t difficult.
You just have to frame it that way.

You’re not a coal miner circa 1880.

You’re training as a leisure activity.
This shits easy.

Quit psychologically making it difficult. It needn’t be.

Reality is it’s very very easy.

Persistence & Tenacity