Category: Uncategorized

12/13/22
If it fits your macros lol – I don’t keep track of anything, I just wanted some food into me quickly before buzzing my head, showering up, and establishing the beard line on a few days worth of stubble.

Even saying to forgive myself, still if I watch porn I shave clean – maybe that’s just habit for life for me.

Unbreakable discipline on shaving the beard – it keeps me honest.

However, a few days ago it didn’t feel like compulsion, no it was something different, it was simply preferring to be able to say that I had not watched porn at any time while growing my beard.

Therefore at present I have days of stubble after what was a ten week beard, which coincidentally takes ten weeks to grow back despite taking just minutes to shave.

I type as I drink a raw egg shake, made of ice cream, some milk, three eggs, and a ½c oats, plus eat two small bowls of tortilla chips.

It’s all IIFYM when you’re not counting them.

I should be doing some food prep, simply a week’s worth of meat in a go.

I’ve been real needy lately about wanting meat immediately on hand, even eating burger king – fast food being real rare for me.

With the food access we have in this country we all should be eating far better than we do.

What does it take?
$10/day, an hour here and there to cook.
…..

Front Squat
10×135
3×185
C&P Every Rep
4×185
SLDL
15×185

…..

The above was today’s lift.

The three movements what I’m gearing up to treat as this winter’s lifting.

I can recall an early morning front squat of 185lbs for a set past 20 reps.

This winter I look to far surpass it.

Personally I enjoy doing movements you’re not supposed to for high reps for high reps.

I get a lot out of them.

Both philosophically and real world a high rep squat is worth more than a low rep squat.

The front squat, cross arm “bodybuilder” style, is the every man’s squat – there is no form excuses that people metamorphosise out of thin air like with the (back) squat.

Keep your cross arm elbows high and bury the reps!

Pause them ass to ground (grass, whatever) too if it floats your boat.

I like pausing buried front squats.

…

After the high rep squats you go into the clean and press.

For pulling horsepower and wind reasons you clean every rep, press every rep, back to the clean, repeat all day long 🙂

In 2022 I’d been lazy with this, only cleaning the first rep while the biggest thing I can do for my press is more/improve cleans.

…

To finish the session you deadlift.

I’m partial to the sldl – preferring it to conventional, as it’s more “feel good”, it’s a muscle and a great pump vs a movement.

Occasionally or everytime, whichever frequency you desire, use snatch grip.

Note : I’m talking snatch grip sldl.

I too expect these pulls all to be pulled double overhand.

Since it’s me all done in little black winter gloves.

I was impressed today that I was pulling those cleans sl, a little hip pop when the bar hit power position, and it’s shouldered.

……

The programming above?

I’m excited.
This is hard.

It’s not easy to front squat, clean & press, and sldl all for high reps!

I need the challenge.

It’s winter. I doubt I’d run 20-30lbs of fat off. The high reps were partially chosen for the wind effect.

As it is I’m not running, not going to a gym, whether that gym is with or without a prowler/yoke/etc, not pushing my car or a friend’s truck, not doing any form of combat sport – so high reps make sense to one stop being so damn chubby.

Plus high reps done earnestly have very high strength potential.

You can put a lot of weight up for 10, 15, 20, 30, 50+ reps!

This gets you jacked.

And the rep count pushed real high with honest effort gets you fit.

…..

Could you do 104 squats whether weighted or not?

Dude, do your high rep squats consistently.

Persistence & Tenacity

The one thing I’d say is advantage to a commercial gym over home based, park based, even strongman gym based (to some degree – despite atlas stones) training is the sheer quantity of options for angles whilst training back.

Yeah, you can do some pullups, a bunch of band pull aparts, and get real creative with dumbbell and barbell options – it’s still simpler to jump on a bunch of machines and use the cables as conventionally or unconventionally as you want.

(In addition to barbell pulls, pullups, preferably weighted, and dumbbell options.)

I miss the seated row, and I miss the concept2 erg.

Even with my current economics the $1045 price tag sounds more and more reasonable.

I always believed there to be some hypertrophy stimulus from the rowing erg – it’s not “just” a cardio machine.

Notably I’ve seen a bodybuilder type use a ski erg as a triceps tension exercise one arm at a time.

Two more things equipment wise – 7ft 45lb axles and 7ft 45lb ez curl bars.

I know both to be in existence, though they both should be, and are not, a common sight.

This society, in a far more awesome – imaginary utopian version, would have a strongman type gym, culture and equipment, be the norm instead of the mamby pamby no chalk, shoes on, shirt required, mirrors everywhere, pop “music” playing, overly cleaned, to use Brooks Kubik’s term “chrome and fern” type travesties that are common.

…..

12/11/22
Today I did not lift.

I had the time yes, though ended up spending the day with food and a nap.

It’s fucking bullshit how much my psyche has been conditioned to “need” a gym to commute to, to function more powerfully at life.

The yard doesn’t cut it!
Yet The Cold Air Barbell Club is a gift!

I have to make shit happen with it, whatever it is.

…..

Tomorrow I lift, buy groceries, etc.

My psyche has this deep yearning to do “bodybuilder” properly.

My take that is.
(Natural, “powerbuilding”, a bunch of unconventional training with it – weighted pushups, every strongman implement, etc)

Persistence & Tenacity

Anything you can pull sldl you can, by default, pull conventional.

I prefer the sldl, and am all for using it as the primary.

To me the deadlift is best done, in no particular order, as an sldl, a snatch grip sldl, or as a snatch grip deadlift.

I too prefer an axle to a barbell.

Treat the movement as a health lift moreso than as a lift.

I suggest only pulling double overhand.

Deadlifting in the smith machine, when I hit my power clean PR, and a 30 rep deadlift phase all have taught me the value of light to moderate loads.

In the smith machine with just insane levels of muscular activation, really locked in – letting the frame work for me – going with it – allowing me to pull firstly backwards and secondly upwards, again just locked in being one with the machine…I pulled my first 495 deadlift in years (raw, mixed, conventional) after anywhere from 3-15 sets of 2-4 reps at, I kid you not, generally 2p, maybe 2p10, sometimes 1p25, firing everything so hard that I’d be damn near falling over, looking punch drunk, appearing out on my feet from the thing.

Power cleaning 275 for the first time was done after lots of crisp singles at 225lbs, a moderate load.

Firstly I pulled 30 reps at a weight in as few sets as possible.

Once I pulled it as a straight set I upped the weight a little.

This is an amazing approach all around – strength, endurance, work capacity, fitness.

A guideline for what I’m starting with a 205lb sldl right now.

I’d been needing more pulling than just a clean into my press sets.

There is no reason not to have pull centric lifting programing.

As I intend to be sldl centric, the front squat is a good idea as the sldl is a more posterior chain deadlift variant – conventional makes use of more legs.

And again – pull double overhand.

Persistence & Tenacity

the hu – wolf totem

12/6/22
Press
9×195 (wore mouth guard)
4×195 (perfect form, no mouth guard)

The first set is loose form going for PRs, the second set, is following a Paul Carter suggestion – the 50% set, bout a minute rest, looking for bout half the reps, but my spin on it is go from loose to strict form.

…..

I’m in love with the press.
Yesterday I could’ve lifted and didn’t, even thinking that I may take a week off from lifting, at points this year I was lifting once every week to ten days at best, and plenty of world class lifters will take a season off yearly…

I took Monday, yesterday, one day, and lifted real minimally today – the two sets aforementioned.

Did my lunges a couple hours later, and really dug how they alongside a bit more bw leg movements really pumped up my legs.

If I was to take a season off, well I’d probably have to travel – some beach somewhere, or maybe make it the simplest thing ever logistically (like live next door to) a boxing, bbj, muay thai, or mma place.

As is I lift.

…..

It amuses me to know that many make a power clean out to be a complicated thing needing a coach.

If you were to start with a 300lb weight set thrown in the yard, massive desire to be strong as fuck, big as fuck – you’d eventually figure the shit out.

Does it really matter if you’re using textbook form?

Shit, the international oly girls way out pull me, and I’m known in my day to day life as being bullishly strong.

Go the Mario Martinez route, fuck the form – be strong instead.

It’s amazing how much being strong enough overrides little things like technique, the right attire, perfectly level floors, heat/ac (I lift at The Cold Air Barbell Club), etc.

It’s an open secret that effort, not programming, is what makes awesome results.

You can put me in any circumstance, and I always get stronger.

At present it’s c&p, for whatever reason ducking just about any other lift I do have floor based access to, and just talking about joining the current sports performance/powerlifting (trendy), admittedly well equipped local facility.

The answer for me really is :
•open my own gym
•fill it with people worth being there

Persistence & Tenacity

12/4/22
I’ve got a Wim Hof podcast playing, the title of this post sparked by something I was thinking last night – the day off of work, a buddy cancelled on me for us working out (he’s gotta hook up with a stripper – lol – hoe before bro in this case), and what I just lifted.

Press Ugly :

On today’s best set, a new 8rm of 195lbs (two and a half years since 8×185 which was only recently beaten for reps at the same weight), the form is UGLY!

I won’t be letting the bar go below my chin, it’ll be down to chin height at best, I lean back a little (rippetoe approved mind you), and something I noticed in research of old time austrian and german strongmen – I stagger my feet slightly.

This is more stable.

Fuck strict military form, none of us use strict military form anyway – have you pressed with your heels together? Zero layback, only the head angled (if that) backwards to let the bar pass the chin.

(Funny gym memory – a chick wearing a forward facing ball cap as she pressed – I recall looking over and saying “lose the cap, at least spin it around, you’ll be getting the reps again”.)

No. It’s better to use the looser form (still a muscular challenge), and be fucking strong!

When you put people’s benches overhead you can press however you want.

Emevas at mythical strength is right, Dan John is right, this past year+ I’m right – you can do nothing but the clean and press and thrive!

Ideally you’d have every sort of implement to press overhead, atlas stones, strongman logs, natural stones, sandbags, heavy dumbbells, a barbell, people, random heavy objects, EVERYTHING, etc.

I’ve got a barbell.
I intend to keep pressing overhead, outside, with my barbell.

Like I did today, you can use perfect form on light sets – the 10rm, the 20rm, the 15 rep maxes – today’s set of 15 probably a tad shy of a rep PR at that weight (155lbs – I was looking for 20 reps, as the 8rm of 195lbs was looking for 10 reps).

For heavy, reasonably get ugly, and be the strongest around for it.

I love the clean and press.
Though I no longer military press, it’s now the press, king of lifts.

Eat Pizza Like A Ninja Turtle :

Lifting big, to a degree you’re going to have to eat big.

Pizza.
It’s so easy.

There’s probably no other way to eat a bunch of calories as easily as pizza allows.

Maybe those 90s cartoons were trying to teach me something…how to build myself the muscularity of a 80s cartoon (He-Man obviously).

I’ve got the power!

Drink Milk Like The Tiniest Of Babes :

Arnold is quoted as saying “drink beer, milk is for babies”.

Mark Rippetoe is quoted as saying “babies drink milk, and look how they grow”.

Arnold might be more famous…fuck his outlook, I’m in agreement with Rippetoe – drink your milk!

A half gallon a day is nothing!

At 17 years old I was getting close to two gallons a day for a good six months.

I remember people thinking I insane when I described milk as my hydration drink in the sense of gatorade.

Funny, science caught up with that just now…a decade later.

While I’m not at gomad right now, I’m solidly at about 5 gallons a week.

Lately I’ve been running on apple pie heated up, scoops of vanilla ice cream over it, milk drinking with it.

Pizza may be easy high calorie mixed macros to eat, but milk is your easy high calorie mixed macros to drink!

Calories are easier to drink than eat.

Milk is sold at every gas station.

Hilariously, there is stuff online saying some bodybuilders are drinking breast milk, an article comparing ice cream and breast milk, all the word written about chocolate milk post workout, comparing eating ice cream vs drinking whey…

Drink your milk!
Eat your dairy!

Like the tiniest of newborn babes.
They grow!

I’m 200 something pounds of jacked from milk!

Thank God for the Irish blood in me which blessed me with full lactose tolerance!

Persistence & Tenacity

12/3/22
The fuck would you not do daily workouts for!

I swing the mace, tonight it was 2×10 each side, after work – it’s been after every shift for over a year now.

Yes, I’m a bit compulsive about my workouts.

I lunge down and back, getting about 30 total/15 each side.

Inside, another set of pushups before I shower. This is two sets before work, one after, probably another still before bed.

It’s so simple.
Just do daily workouts and eat real food.

As I drove home I felt this instinctive thing – my life needs to be harder.

Fuck the job, fuck whatever job it is that you’re working – you need to PT daily, which I do, but that’s not enough.

You need to rigorously study, and rigorously apply.

Run your own business, have a few hobbies, speak more than one language, have a social life too.

You know many muslims memorize the koran?

It’s always struck me every time I’ve heard of it. I’ve little heard of this being done by christians with the bible.

Read motherfucker!

What have you got to lose with vigorous study?

…..

An ideal day is run walking the line of your limit, study, work, PT – NO DOWNTIME, every moment budgeted into the maximum use.

I lived like that as a sophomore in high school. Live that way again – and make it build something grand!

…..

As I drove I felt it…”have no mental blocks”.

Get that 300lb clean and press.
It’s not even elite, yet in all likelihood stronger than 99.9% of those you’d ever have to come across.

Have I fucked up in that I’ll never be a professional strongman, never hold a world record in powerlifting?
I’m definitely not on that path right now, just cleaning and pressing in the yard.

…..

Timed deadlifts – one hour.

…..

Why not see if I can press 20×155, then work on that rep range briefly.

…..

Persistence & Tenacity

12/2/22
Having time after work I pressed.

Now 9¼ hours of food prep isn’t exactly ideal for lifting, you’re dehydrated from standing next to the oven, but in circumstances unideal you get a solid litmus test for where you stand.

I started daily lunges about a week ago…

Tonight’s cleans had horsepower!

Being out of position in all sorts of ways, and getting the rep anyway – exploding too early, managing to bump my thighs against the bar, GRABBING THE BAR OFF CENTER, etc.

My quads and glutes firing to press through the sticking point.

Tonight likely the first time this had actually been an efficient thing.

I swear my ass is more dense, more easily activated/often activated throughout the day, and in a week my thighs are bigger.

Why wouldn’t walking lunges quickly out thigh size back on?
They’ve been larger at 20-30lbs of bodyweight less (back when I did squat every day – highly recommended), so this could be muscle memory, and too – I respond really well to reps.

Lunges are a forte type movement for me.

It’s good to be back.

I’d not much trained legs these past few years.

…..

He who hath the biggest ass lifteth the most weight…while dem thighs provideth forth thy base from which thy press burst forth skyward.

I had much fun typing the last paragraph.

…..

Persistence & Tenacity

12/1/22 – Walking Lunges After Work :
17x/side, after the tree branch mace swings, when I get inside it’ll be another set of pushups, then shower up.

Tonight instead of down and back I went in something of a square around the yard.

Mentally I need daily workouts, they can be the one win, the one thing that keeps you going – “I worked out today! I workout tomorrow!”, and that’s you.

Teary eyed as I drove home.
My voice breaking as I state “no porn tonight!”

I’m not running to the vice like a bitch.

You have to trust that God will put the opportunities in front of you, and that you have the ability to take them.

…..

The manager who’s kinda a fitness dude gave me props, as occasionally I brag of my press numbers to him.

He said to me, roughly, “you’re pressing overhead what many are happy to bench – you’re getting into the territory of my max bench”.

I have no doubts I’ll clean and press 300lbs before 2024.

10×205, 5×225, and 255 as a 1rm are all numbers that are close.

The clean concerns me more than the presses.

It’s not exactly your best approach to hitting heavy cleans to do one per amrap set of presses, however lots of moderately weighted, crisp reps have in the past improved my max clean.

I’m actually very into this program of clean and press, with walking lunges.

It’s following the k.i.s.s. principle nicely, and enjoyable to me in the moment.

…..

In April 2017 I lunged 400m.

It makes sense to me to density train these with frequency.

…..

I just shot off a challenge text to a buddy, see if he’s gonna race me lunging 400m on new year’s day.

Persistence & Tenacity

11/29/22
I prefer sldl to conventional, and with this setup I’m not really going to pull sumo, which I never used much anyway.

An axle is preferable to a barbell for everything, though with pulls it should all be double overhand anyway.

Boiled down I’d make the same argument for straps as for double overhand – you’re not in a powerlifting meet, you’re training.

So mostly don’t mix grip whatever your approach.

My preference is to skip warmups.
Personally I don’t much need them.
Occasionally I’ll purposely use them, but it’s not my regular manner of doing things.

Today I pressed 10×185, a PR, on the first set.

As far as labor, I’d be happier than a pig in shit throwing hay bales.

The question is what path do I take out of the kitchen.

I like lifting, wrestling, being physical, and outdoor barbell has been far better than indoor lifting.

I don’t much like working indoors, though I’d like to try bartending (moreso than waiting tables), and sales would likely be the best pay outside of making something happen self employed.

My problem is wants, not musts, not needs.

Personal training out of a barn would be an enjoyable blending of many worlds for me.

…..

A plus to gyms is all the available equipment – you can hit many angles.

A quick, little equipment, full body session covering enough angles is power clean & press plus walking lunges.

I’ve started to press a little more volume, a little heavier, add in some minimal volume deadlift variation, and some walking lunges.

It bugs me to only lift half the days each week.

…..

I prefer pulling snatch grip to regular on the sldls I’m doing, but it’s worth doing both, as well as an occasional conventional (usually regular grip) for the full body tension effects.

Funny to prefer snatch grip deadlift variations, but never power snatch – just lots of presses off a power clean.

…..

When you honestly approach deadlifting, you get to reasonable pretty quickly.

I’ve been tacking on an sldl set of 10 or so at the end of each lift’s barbell time, and genuinely know it’s not a long time to 30 x the 300lb weight set (probably conventional).

From there I can start looking for double overhand 10s adding weight.

I have 500 available lbs. I can get to the strongest around without ever buying another piece of equipment or ever stepping foot into a gym again.

Freeing this notion.

I like the outdoor lifting sessions.

As dictator of earth I’d have proper height pullup bars, proper height dip bars, and lifting platforms everywhere for the good of the proletariat.

Fitness trails and parks are far too few, and crummy, when found in real life.

As dictator of earth I’d remedy this.

And have (mandatory) “optional” 0500 burpee PT for the health of the people and glory of the nation.

Prowler sprints for many too.

…..

I miss concept2 rowing machines.

$1045 shipped to the continental us – they’re awesome big man cardio.

…..

The “dip odyssey” is a far cry from the “press outdoors” of this period, and both work.

There’s a commonality…

“Effective training comes from passionate effort. You use passionate effort when the training method feels right. Design your own program, those always feel right.” – me

Persistence & Tenacity

“You were on a mission, I didn’t want to be in your way” the cashier, a cute though flat chested brunette of between 18 and 21, said to me when I came back to checkout.

(One of my food packages was open, I noticed at the last minute, and had turned around to get a new one.)

I mention this being said to me to the girl manager at work (25yo) who replied “I can see that, you always go around like that, you’re always like that- you’re intense”.

They must see this just cause 6′, muscular.

I don’t see it – especially now as I progress into my old age, the senior citizenship of 28 lol – whereas I feel like I’ve visibly chilled over the past few years.

Heck, one buddy said he saw that happen in the year from 26½ to 27½.

Reality?
Mine that is…

I’m a jokester, a big light hearted goofball, and I flip a switch somewhere from introvert to outgoing when I’m anywhere but alone (50% of the time, it has been, and needs be higher – talk to everyone, especially the cute college chicks).

Flip switch. Click. ✓

When my buddy and I moved to vegas everyone thought I was the one who was prior service.

I wasn’t. He was.
20 vs 22
People just notice that I’m wired, squared away, often easily enough on “up time”.

Up time!

Cali can be funny.

First it’s “what branch were you?”

“Marine Corps? Oh, you were army.
No? Neither?” They’re surprised.

Then it’s…

“When and where did you do time?
No?” They’re surprised again.

Big islander with airborne tats, fit black dude compton and crip tats blasted all over him – just respect nods as I pass.

Don’t know the vibe I have.

The gym out there, this GIANT black guy, 6’8″+, probably 400lbs, muscular (I don’t think it was Shaq, yes I’m confident it wasn’t Shaq) – we’d nod and fist bump.
Him leaving, me entering the gym floor.

Never spoke, just nod, fist bump, as the gym floor “crew/shift” changed.

Got a spot from one of those crips, broke “prison politics”, it visibly blew his mind, but I’m a civilian – in the civilian world.

All the blacks there gave me respect, watched me power clean -respect for that too.

A conversation with one chick, another chick witnessed, and seemingly ALL the chicks there became interested.

“Hey! Yo! We’re not done talking. Get back here.”

Gave her my #, “text me your name in a bit”, THEN she left.

That deliciously hipped and naturally blonde latina witnessed me doing that which was more exciting than her and two guy friends taking instagram photos for each other, decided she was smitten, and it snowballed.

“Dude, do you know her?” The redhead dude from detroit training with me asked.
“Nope.”
“Well that wasn’t for me.”

She had walked the entire way across the gym “to grab a plate” (either 2½, 5, or 10lb) from right next to me, an accented “excuse me”, with a huge smile up at me as she squeezed by before I could initially move, just radiating a smile as she came back by instead of going around the other equipment “thank you”.

We both recognized that as her making an obvious, chick hitting on guy, pass at me.

Cops tend to be tense around me.
It’s 50/50 on whether dudes who’ve been to prison will be chill or tense.

…..

Occasionally I do my daily pushups as 4ct reps.

Did so today, bout 1245am.
Got them out of the way still up after midnight.

Worked bout 8am to 930pm yesterday – a long weekend restaurant day.

Our reserves, our energy – it’s as high as we want.

I laugh as I hip check the doorway.
Yeah, 12 hours in the kitchen. Dehydration. Affects balance.

The mace workout. Last night’s extra pushups. Today’s early pushups.

4ct militant.

4ct Militant :
I count off the reps 1, 2 , 3 ,1, sometimes in my head, sometimes aloud – the whole set but the “and for good measure” 4ct, those words ALWAYS aloud.

AND FOR GOOD MEASURE!
aloud

I get more out of these reps, and sometimes will sound off.

Like picturing benching 405 for reps as I do pushups, the 4ct makes the vanilla pushup more valuable than just repping, done in these styles they’re done strictly vs what form police would forever “no rep” – the “woody woodpeckers”.

Persistence & Tenacity