Category: Mindset

I have a hard time looking at a guy and writing off his gains as because he’s some genetic freak.

A perfect example is Ken Leistner.

Some will say he’s a strength genetic freak, yet I don’t see it that way.

(Aside: Isn’t genetic freak status supposed to only apply to elite bodybuilders and NFL players? Trolls and haters need more originality.)

Read all his stuff that you can get your hands on you’ll find some trends.

He did massive amounts of labor working with his welder father.

He ran massive amounts for football.

He always lifted.

He ate as best he could.

Simply it looks like he went hard always, and had a massive base from his youth.

Whether HIT works or not for most is irrelevant. I’d bet it worked for him because he believed it worked, add in that consistency and viola.

He likely had the right atmosphere the entire time AND the right mental outlook.

He likely recreated this with his son and adopted son too.

(An article on this note, Ken Leistner on Squatting Perspective.)

A lot of his trainings was at home, his own gym, or what seemed to be a semi-open to the public garage which had a slew of powerlifters, strongman competitors, and D1 + NFL football players come through.

Whatever you’re doing, you can likely up it a notch or more.

Genetics don’t vary so greatly that they matter all that much.

The right mind, atmosphere, and hard work will do a lot. Like the above linked article, it’s all a matter of perspective.

-J

I was thinking back a few years to a time where training made more sense to me…

When I stumbled upon this:

Sometimes we allow the mental and the environment to get in the way of us doing what we need to do.

Sometimes we need a reminder of more possibility to bring us to a different place.

It baffles me that there are haters to this. Put a heavy barbell on your back for 20-50 reps and then reply.

Once your hands have been numb, your groin feels like it’s going to explode, and you can’t control your breath, or stand up after your set get back to me.

405 x 42 reps.

Man just watching that got me somewhere else mentally.

-J

Our culture is set at only two speeds:

•100mph (rat race)
•Zombified (TV staring)

Sometimes you need to take a step back and simply breath.

Let the oxygen fill your lungs, for a moment have no troubles.

Yeah you can’t meditate your life away, but the rat race ain’t healthy either.

Deep breathing does something, you may not be able to explain it, but you can feel it… psychological, and physiological.

I believe it was Martin “Farmer” Burns in an old time physical culture publication that said “Deep breathing alone has made many a weak man strong”.

The more I focus on breathing the more I believe it.

The kicker? This may not mean physically strong, alone or primarily.

Sometimes the best thing to do is take a step back, and just breath for a while.

-J

Earbuds Put Sound Into Your Brain As If It’s Your Thoughts

Taking that into account…

A badass self recorded mantra track could be one of the most powerful things you ever create.

Instead of likely shit music, or stuff without 100% raw messages, you could tailor this very well to yourself, then have a massive positive effect on yourself.

This can be made with your phone and used anywhere. (One could even have background music in it, I’d likely use bagpipes.)

Phone→Computer→IPOD

A Few Hours Of Personalized Mantras

Even a few hours of it on repeat will do a lot, think of how easy a song can get stuck in your mind, then imagine 3 hours of your own voice saying how you conquer like a modern day viking. Now picture this on a daily basis like during your workout.

Tailor the words to get raw. We live in an age where to be gelded in thought and action is the vile norm. This could be the trick to get your mind back.

Try it, then thank me.

-J

You see these big guys that don’t really train, but are quite strong, and likely eat big.

This is an idea running through my head based partially on prior experience and things I’ve seen. Take it for what you will:

There’s a couple factors at play here.

First off food is anabolic. Doesn’t it make sense that with just a small amount of physical effort or even willing it into being that simply eating more would cause growth and strength increases? Yeah yeah nothing I just wrote there is anything new, I want you to take that and go a few levels deeper. For one think during formative years.

Often our brains limit us. If we don’t know something is “supposed to be” heavy it very likely won’t be. This is my issue with pussified culture leaching into the gym. The majority of gyms are naught but studios of convenience for Instagram photoshoots at this point where everyone fears double team nighttime rape from the overtraining monster under their bed and the injury monster in their closet.

We are not meant to be weak and unathletic. At young ages we generally function properly ie are strong and athletic. Some people (often book dumber, more impulsive, more in touch with their animal side) retain this into adulthood.

(A Samoan guy I knew who lived off of meat, beer, island music, and cigs once impromptu blasted off a competitive 40yd dash in front of me after his cousin who had taken his ball cap, never having trained at maybe 5’7″ ~260lb, I’d seen his tall heavyweight sister do similar but at a distance of closer to a 100yds. This is not race/ethnicity related, all humans who don’t think themselves out of the abilities can have them.)

I truly believe by being self conscious of being fat and losing at least 38lbs my freshman year of high school I set myself back years strength wise and likely did something bad hormonally (temporarily) by doing lots of distance work, starving myself, and when eating having little other than carbs. Prior to that I had a natural strength and explosiveness if not one iota of endurance at the time.

If anyone had fed me some meat, told me to sprint 40s and squat I believe I’d have likely grown bigger and much stronger faster while healthily recomping along the way. This was a trade off, I did it all wrong, set myself back a ton (I could feel how much strength I lost, and it showed in sprint/explosive efforts, now coming back big time), but in the process learned to get mean.

Feasting and fasting is the way of the predator. Prey graze all day. I think a lot of bigger stronger people even when eating throughout the day are loading more of their calories at night in a feast. Think of big dudes guzzling beers and pounding down pounds of barbeque. At the end of the day I think enough calories are more important than perfect macros, and fat is likely the most important macro of the three.

The good thing is though we can emulate all we need to, and not take part in this party of weakness. We can get our natural strength back. No one is too far gone, it’s only them choosing to be rolly polly sad sack examples of humanity.

Humans are animals, and animals are meant to be strong and resilient.

-J

There are many reasons that I don’t get injured such as:

•My refusal to acknowledge the possibility of such things.
•My not sucking at life.
•My not being an idiot.
•My not being weak sauce.
•The use of healing fire.

Healing fire: an esoteric visualization technique I picked up or came up with at some point in 2015 or possibly even late 2014.

Usually I do this in bed before sleep, although in near hurt situations I will do it on the spot:

It is started by saying a healing fire is running up and down my spine, I feel the warmth heeling me.
I visualize this starting at the base of my spine then running up the the top, the base of the skull.

From here I visualize it either going to the tips of all my toes and fingers one limb at a time and/or to the area that needs it most.

For example if the right quad is sore I picture the fire running to the proper bone and it’s healing warmth radiating outwards from the bone through the muscle. If it’s a sore joint I picture the fire healing from inside the joint itself. Tendons? Ligaments? I visualize the fire in a similar manner to how I do with joints.

My practice has changed over time.

In addition to the aforementioned visualizing of feeling it in the place of my body I’ve added an anatomical chart to the visualization.

A computer rendered blue image of me with a warm red fire on the chart in the same area as where I’m feeling it in my body.

I try to see myself looking at myself and at the fire in the proper area both on me and on the anatomical chart.

I’ve used this to great effect.

You may call this eastern like practice hocus, but I don’t. I believe it works and so it does.

Science can’t prove everything, many things unproven work.

Related: Wim Hof proving his breath work excites me as that opens up more esoteric methods affecting our physiology to being proven and accepted by the masses. More need to know.

This practice will bulletproof you.

-J