(Something of a flow writing response after reading this : “The Reality Of The Fitness World”, read it so the named at the end make sense.)

I refuse to believe that anything a human can do with drug help can not also be done without the drug help.

A human body is still a human body either way, both ways, juiced to the gills, “natural/drug free”, and natural/drug free.

Mindset matters far far more.

Just how many times have you felt low energy, berated yourself into doing physical activity, and actually had good lifts that day, far beyond what the indicators indicated?

Man, how many times that’s been the case.

My opinion? There’s a misconception that soreness is guaranteed. Drugs, no drugs, whatever.

Work capacity can be damn high.
(It may take you a decade of mostly full body decent volume activity.)

Take any “crazy” soreness inducing protocol, and I guarantee that someone out there at some point did it nonchalantly waking up the next morning fresh as a daisy ready to do it again.

See if you can find on Ditillo/Dezso Ban the anecdote of the old man out 20 rep squatting an NFL player back in the day…work capacity, still feeling fresh, years of ADAPTION.

Personally I was thrilled to see Eric Bugenhagen doing 20 reps squats daily, it showed that I’m not the only one doing things like German Volume Training (10×10) squats on a daily basis.

I’ve likely said, but at least thought “fuck you, neither of our numbers are high enough to dip into recovery”.

State of mind is huge. Think like the above whatever numbers you are at.

Adaption is a thing, it exists, despite what everyone in your gym will say. And go hard enough, which really is quite a moderate amount, and oh boy, you’ll adapt…BIG TIME.

If frequent anything was the norm we’d have far better performances on any of those things, be it well anything. I don’t want to have to list EVERY damn exercise here.

The mistake people make is in taking the time off. Bob in the above link fucks himself over by not doing his damnedest on those stairs with more frequency. Yeah, it sucks at first, but then you adapt. The frequency forces your body to learn to function more quickly, and more often than not Newton’s law of an object in motion staying in motion applies. This extra motion will also make at least some of the soreness go away too.

The goal as a natural is to be so mad that you outwork and make progress past EVERYONE, be they natural, on steroids, good genetics, whatever.

Bob should have in mind running faster and longer than Joe while wearing a back pack, goddamn ankle weights, work boots, while shouldering Jessica, and still walking down when he’s done… breathing in victory and (hopefully) fresh air from the building roof.

TO OUTWORK AND PROGRESS PAST EVERYONE!

Go to the gym, and PT at home.
If you don’t go to the gym that day still PT at home, and maybe also lift in the yard.
PT, PT again, then PT some more.
Build up a FREAKISH work capacity and recovery ability.

EVERY DAMN DAY do at least a minimal amount of physical activity.

See that you CAN up the calories and OUTTRAIN them.

See that you CAN function fine on low calories, or low sleep, or while very sore. See that these factors can be combined, and…

See that you’re ALWAYS capable.

Get fucking mean and DECIDE…

THAT YOU WILL FUCKING WIN!

-J

Hard work is very conditioned, very much perception.

Between sets I pace around, shake out my arms and legs.

During the last rep or two I make a little noise, dropping the lever a few reps into the burn.

Yeah, I’d repped the stack even with some isometric holds, and slower negatives, but I stopped only a few reps into the burn.

It’s not like I used every intensity multiplier.

All in all it wasn’t truly all that hard of a set, after all, if it was would I really even have been able to do 5 sets in a roughly 10-15 minute time span?

Long rest periods for me yeah, but it definitely wasn’t a Metzer HIT set.

The girl using the leg extension after me throwing her head back in strain likely wasn’t going any harder either.

Imagine a person having a fully stocked bodybuilding gym…but with no prior knowledge, nor ever hearing any gym talk.

A twilight zone of an empty gym, with infinite weight, and every machine, but no lifting literature, YouTube, or talk.

Just the illustrations of the exercise.

With no preconceived notion of effort and using only common sense, this person would get far stronger, far quicker, and not act like they’re working hard until they’re far past where we act like we are straining.

Seeing a million grimaces of Tom Platz has conditioned us to act like that. We don’t need to.

-J

The weights are for building yourself up, not tearing yourself down.

You’re going too far if you’re snapping shit like that Viking did with his mast back in the day.

I’m not saying to not push, to not test yourself…I’m trying to hammer out a philosophical point here.

It’s insanity to push a barbell to the point you break down. Frankly, you should have seen it coming a long while prior.

The gym shouldn’t be so important to you that you’re willing to break yourself over it, especially when you consider the plain fact that more people have been strong without gyms than strong with gyms.

The gym is a simply a subpar substitute for something missing from our lives in the modern world…and no giant squat or big arms will truly replace it.

Ego.

We’re not conquering all that much physically training, at least not at the intensities you, me, everyone is truly training at the large majority of the time.

Lifting weights is a very easy and simple thing.

It’s not hard to lift more, longer, better.

You don’t need a billion helping hands in the form of dieticians, trainers, partners, air conditioning, calibrated plates, machines, and so on and so forth. In fact you’re better off with less.

Ahh, back to the original point.

Weights are for building you up.

When they are tearing you down, be it physically or mentally, you need to get introspective and reevaluate. Find out where you went off course.

The best days were truly those at the beginning, full of wonder and hope, where you were in it for all the right reasons.

Where location didn’t matter, where what equipment you did or didn’t have didn’t matter, when it was pure. No dues, sometimes locked out of the weight room, when those around you were as paint on a canvas that you hardly noticed.

Maybe I’m quitting the gym, maybe not. However I know this, I’m never done training.

-J

You ever heard those anecdotes of the little granny flipping a car off her grandkid?

I’ve read a million times stuff saying the average human being off the street, untrained, nothing special is walking around tapping into maybe 30% of their physical abilities.

I’ve seen it said that the world record holder is likely tapping into the 70%-80% of their true abilities.

Think about that for a second…the world record is leaving a good deal on the table, be this strength, endurance, or power.

I’ll use the example of Magnusson’s world record raw deadlift:

(Not the angle I’ve usually seen it from, though the side view of a deadlift is likely preferable, notice how low he dips, and…the blonde on the right holding the sign looks better from this angle.)

Now picture that as a 1269lb – 1450 raw pull…that’s what we’re talking is on the table…for Benedikt Magnusson specifically.

You have a governor/regulator on your physical abilities.

It can be shut off or ignored to a degree through training or circumstances. See the mental aspect:

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” – Henry Ford

and…

Your tendons and ligaments often are acting as this governor over your muscular power.

Partial reps, and other overload methods being a way to both up percentage that the governor kicks in at and strengthen the tendons/ligaments themselves.

Your muscles are actually capable of a lot more than your’re doing, catch those tendons and ligaments up and oh boy…you’ll be doing some high caliber shit.

However I stand by the mental being the far more important side. See the frequently used granny example, and whether you think you can or can’t.

Ever just not be able to grind through a weight? Particularly one that you know that you can do, likely having done it many a time in the past?

I’ve been like that for a while with ~500lb deadlifts. I’ve pulled 495 cold before, I’ve pulled 505 on an axle (both raw). Why am I missing them? It’s mental, that governor/regulator signal switches on signaling my brain to “dump it” at about knee height.

Now here’s where it gets weird.

I still have the necessary strength in every specific muscle group, that signal is a psychological thing. I’m actually stronger on everything now than when I was pulling 5 plates on a regular basis in the not so distant past, and…

I can hack past it…with a twist, by using simple variation.

If I didn’t have the necessary strength for a 5 plate pull, I wouldn’t have been able to hit a 495 Jefferson deadlift with a good deal of horizontal swinging of the barbell. In fact that Jefferson lift would look to any fitness YouTuber as me asking to “snap my shit up” or other such nonsense. Yup, I’m not weaker.

That’s my governor/regulator in action in frankly an annoying ass way.

We have far more performance potential than the level at which we are  currently performing, all of us, from the weakest runt to the world record holder.

Now that you know this, you can go past it.

-J

Ok, a rundown:

•You could go to the gym without headphones.

This is the option most “me” considering it’s my idea. The goal here is to get into the moment and become oblivious to the garbage pop over the gym’s speakers.

(Even when lifting with headphones, I often toss them for PR sets and/or top sets on certain movements.)

• A pre-made playlist.

•The 1 song playlist. (Basically you pick one song and have it on repeat for the entire session. I swear I got this from Bold And Determined, but I can’t seem to find the post.)

Recently done with:

though I’ve used songs across all genres depending on mood at various times.

•Something nourishing to your brain and soul…classical music (got the idea from Brooks Kubick), or bagpipes (my spin on that, listen to music that is part of your soul, the music of your blood).

There, I just simplified lifting music for you considerably.

-J

P.S. follow the classical and bagpipe music links, you’ll thank me.

Ok background, the above picture struck me as I randomly came across it on Google one night. I screen grabbed it, and figured I’d write an article off it.

“Odd that a random photo of a tiny Chinese man pressing struck me so much. ” (picture that as a Brian Alsruhe video greyed out aside.)

I know that I’m one of the few since 1972 who actually cares for the military press, and am just now getting consistent with 200lbs (which I most recently pressed using a yoke) while clearly a heavyweight weighing in the vicinity of 260lbs.

Between Bill Starr, Chaos And Pain, and a hatred of weakness, my (and everyone elses’) lack of press strength is pissing me off.

“If only I’d focused on pressing in high school…” (another Alsruhe style aside) “shot put would have been better.”

Read some Starr articles, he frequently stresses how many pre-1972 were pressing bodyweight plus, it used to be COMMON, and now…do you know anyone who can press bodyweight?

Chirp chirp chirp…crickets…

“Weakness” (while shaking head, picture the aside) “Damn those who butchered the form, and damn those who got the press dropped from the Olympics.”

So speaking as a heavyweight, or anyone for that matter…like the photo of Howe’s file upload title…will you let Howe Lin Tan … “or is it Tan Howe Liang” (you should know what to picture by now)…out press you?

I fucking hope not.

-J

Now for music…

a debate…

this or…that…

Fuck it, both. (Mickey voice, pronounced faack it, bothe)

and

I recall watching some black and white video of Soviet paratroopers.

(found it)

In it they did some impressive PT, gymnastics, and what is likely sambo as it looked like karate drilling.

One could easily watch the video and think “Damn, that entire unit must be made up of elite athletes. Some of that shit is superhuman.”

It’s when you hit that thought you need to stop and think for a second.

Likely that video was a paratrooper unit of, wait for it…elite athletes.

The Soviets had units like that, units made up of elite athletes. They were often Spetznaz. A Spetznaz Colonel that defected touched upon this in a book he wrote, forgive me for no link, or title. I don’t remember it, but do remember I’d read it after looking up the PT standards of Spetznaz. Use your own Google Fu.

(Update : Google Fu is no longer necessary, I found linkage for the book.)

Back to the real point:

You should never view another’s abilities as superhuman.

Claiming genetics is mostly a cop out.

I was looking at track and field events and noticed a couple of events that I thought were dominated by black/African athletes, are in fact won by them, but the #2, the silver medalist is often an Eastern European.

Don’t just say it’s cause they’re Russian.

While growing up I recall kids going to the now cliched fat white kid cop out of “he can dunk/run fast/whatever cause he’s black” excuse and thinking “why don’t you hit the weights hard, run your bleachers and see if you’re capable as well you lazy fuck”

Some are born gifted, and some become gifted by years of hard fucking work.

You won’t know until a year or two, maybe five or ten down the road, but that’s only if you try.

It’s NFL strong to clean 405+, yet there are high schoolers hitting in the 300s, maybe even the 400s.

My PR is still 275, but I know I’ll hit 405 in my lifetime…and jerk it overhead. I was stuck at 205 for years, then one day I finally hit 225, and it’s still getting better.

(Inspirational, yep I’ve linked this video before.)

As I high school freshman I was told I’d never bench 225. That took me till around the end of my junior year. 315 didn’t happen until 21. I feel very confident saying 2018 will see 405 should I pursue it. That would make it about a decade from sub-135 to 405+.

I’m 50/50 on whether hearing I have good genetics should be taken as an insult or as a compliment. I’ve been hearing it a lot as of late.

-J

(The link to rosstraining where I first saw the vid because…Google Fu it can work wonders. I watched that vid almost 3 years ago, and at the time of rough draft writing I didn’t know where I’d seen it. This was almost linkless…the horrors!!!!)