Category: Uncategorized

Big Eating & A High Metabolism :

Generally I feel better when I both feel hunger and eat more.

Long periods of intermittent fasting trained my body to not often feel hunger.

I’m looking to change this.

By barely eating three days in a row at the dead end job I’ve been working, then eating as much as the hunger I’ve been feeling on days off dictates – I view this as an interesting experiment.

I am not counting calories nor am I counting macros.

I know my body is responding well to this, the same as it it to the front squats I’ve added back into the mix.

It’s comical how quickly front squats improve your midsection, and at least while doing them cross arm bodybuilder style – they’re a bicep and upper back movement.

That being said, for the time, I’m reimplementing…

The Dirty Bulk Life :

Even intermittent fasting I’ve never strayed far from “dirty bulking”.

With a big appetite it’s nothing to break 4000+ calories in two, even one sitting.

The fact I can easily eat big is why I easily stay big, even when I mathematically shouldn’t.

The human body is far more capable than everyone gives it credit for.

And it’s not science, you can’t quantify it.

Take it as a given that what we think of as superhuman is what was intended for human.

Humanity slipped!

We are, as designed, capable of far greater!

I get a laugh out of how quickly on the Internet you’ll find the mantra of the weak rationalizing “eat clen – tren hard”.

Like we can only absorb 30g protein at a time ; yet hunter gatherers were gorging on damn wooly mammoths back in the day.

Somehow I doubt they had the numbers or the preservation techniques to get so little per person off of a literal ton of meat.

It seems a badge of honor type indicator to “will he successfully muscle up or not” by simply looking at “can he eat a pound or more of beef in one sitting”.

Another useful one is “will he consistently drink milk, gomad, for months”.

I’m going to insert the thought here again, as I’ve oft typed…gym chicks tend to bring it, do whatever it takes far more than gym dudes on average.

I don’t think you ever really “need” over 200g protein a day, and notice the two indicators have you hit that in one solid meal of a beef and cheese bowl while drinking milk, with or without food, throughout the day.

Easy peasy.

Calories are the more important part of the anabolic equation.

And the guideline “some nutrition” is what you live by.

Opens you up to basically eating anything and everything, while you naturally tend to shy away from most things they are total garbage unless your body really needs it.

Meat and dairy first.
Plants second.

Trust your gut, follow your instinct.

Look at what worked for your ancestors, and then for the empowerment of your mind picture your ancestors as big, strong, rugged motherfuckers.

Everytime someone calls you a viking, says you could be a bouncer, asks how much you bench, etc – yep, fuel for the fire, positive reinforcement.

Shit bro, I’M REGULARLY SWINGING A TREE BRANCH!

That strikes me as a barbarian type of thing to be doing.

No gym?
Swing a tree branch under the night sky for an awesome upper body workout.

It can be that easy.

Persistence & Tenacity

6/23/22
It’s been a couple applications of front squats, and on the half the week away from the dead end job I’ve been pointedly eating more.

Stomach looks tighter, I could easily ride this to some visible abs.

more lifting, more calories = more muscular & leaner

The price of gatorade is stupid, I’ll switch back to a half gallon of milk or chocolate milk for work.

It’s more calories, fat, and protein that way.

I came across this marine corps article on fitness, everyone interviewed in it talking two a days.

“take what is useful, discard what is not”

It’d be worthwhile to go from 7x pushups, and 3-4 brief lifts, to include a bleacher run, some sprints…

Get back to my train all the time roots.

Working out really seems to me a modern day white collar thing.

I am doing well on yard weightlifting, and could easily direct it towards bodybuilding or strongman.

I occasionally carry a barbell, deadlift, straight bar, walk, funny you never hear of this – it’s all “farmer’s walk”, yet anything can be carried.

A long sand pit would be better training facilities than any platform…power snatch throws ala the old time egyptian weightlifting team, carries, in general lifting in the sun and sand.

You can walk with a bar overhead. I like doing so.

Training outdoors barefoot and shirtless?
I love it.

Yesterday I pressed 210lbs, a new lifetime 1 rep PR, leaving reps and weight in the tank.

Legs were sore, but you know my mantra ; “if it’s sore do more”, a couple of 10s front squatting the empty bar made me human again.

Rest weakens you. Active “recovery” progressed to just all the time training allows you the physicality of a caveman.

I like the barbell heave to shoulder.

Squats, both front and back, are a back builder.

It seems that regardless of what I do…with the yard barbell I’m always going to be back building.

No one takes a 300lb weight set to it’s limit, no one. Yard weightlifting provides a hell of a lot of potential for the everyman.

Fuck your climate controlled, level floored, platform, and bumper plate facilities – the world is a better place for those who lift outdoors.

Aside Alert! Aside Alert!
(Apparently I only do pullups consistently at a gym – funny to be developing a really strong, good looking back without a single chin or pullup.)

(Aside Ended. Aside Ended.)
lol

Go outdoors, c&p, starting with heave to shoulder, getting nicer form til you’re power cleaning with crisp pretty form for the heavier presses – this is minimalist program nirvana, lifting heaven on earth for unperfect logistics, the barbell touched by god.

hyperbole?

I’m genuinely curious to see how I’m going to look and how strong I’ll by the start of fall.

I am upping lift frequency, and always lifting barefoot, shirtless, in the sun.

The beard shall he proper length again.

Lots of yard barbell “light” is a lengthy period of base building.

It’s going well.

Persistence & Tenacity

5/20/22
I woke, having slept hard and fast, a few hours before my alarm even, from a nightmare this morning – an all in all bad dream, but yet in it…I could easily dunk a basketball.

Two handed from a standstill no less.

And I did it both rep after rep, and at any given time.

It was burnt in, walk around ability.
I loved it.

So maybe it wasn’t that bad a dream after all.

I tell my coworker of this dream, “I don’t even come near the rim in my dreams” he says to me all sad like.

I laughed.

Often I view the things I do in dreams as the universe showing me possibility.

There is no reason that I stay forever ground bound.

I am reasonably explosive at sprints and broad jumps, though naturally better on the horizontal than the vertical plane for whatever reason.

I could learn to dunk, and I feel that a two handed slam from a standstill alongside a ≤6:00 mile, and 20+ (preferably 30+) pullups is an attainable all around very athletic me.

I haven’t stepped on a scale since the end of 2019.

I do not care the scale.

This too means I am free to drop unnecessary bodyweight.

Though able to recall, in my early 20s, calculating that my lbm alone put me outside of military weight regs I am free to drop bw.

I’ll get some more training in.

Note :

high rep overhead squats did give me vertical ability when I did them daily

DKB :

I might as well call them “deep knee bends” – they’re similar to hindu squats, but without bothering to do the arm row motion.

Instead I hold my arms in something of a boxer’s guard.

An old school name, for an old school movement, deep knee bends is the more proper term for what I’m doing – right now I’m loving the movement, it’s back to my roots of…LEGS EVERY DAY!

The other night I wrote a rough draft “the key to fitness is found in kushti”, I learned a lot studying traditional grappling from around the world, and right now my training is very heavily inspired by kushti.

While I’m lifting weights pretty infrequently, I do vanilla pushups every day with the volume creeping up, swing a tree branch like a mace every evening after work, and have started to train legs daily with deep knee bends as said and described above with some of the same made into “hack squats” as per recommendation of George Hackenschmidt by holding weight at the small of my back while trying to keep my torso as upright as possible while doing this deep knee bend.

I’m liking explosive sets of 6 on the hack squats – which feels somewhere between driving a sled and a vertical jump, right now with a 10lb dumbbell, easily scalable from here to 20lb kb or 25lb plate, then to empty bar, 35lb or 45lb plate.

(aside : the purchase of an ez curl bar would add to the outdoor dips nicely)

I intend to run this movement awhile, Hackenschmidt himself was said to have done so with 187lbs – this made out to be truly heavy, I’m curious, and besides – I feel training the movement will help with athleticism firstly, and with wind should I push the reps high enough.

Spring/Summer :

I’ve went six months without a gym membership, and definitely notice it’s getting nice out.

Some of my friends are now willing to train outside. I used to play ultimate frisbee in this large walk in group which I haven’t noticed playing since covid/2020, however pickup basketball is regularly enough possible, and on the micro scale (friends only) I could reinstate “the game”…

Ahh, “the game”, that’s what my buddy and I called it, sometimes tackle, sometimes two hand touch, punt and 20ish yd returns with a rugby ball – we’d play for hours, and never have I enjoyed cardio so much.

It was training, snuck in, it didn’t feel like training, as it was play.

This, “the game”, gave me a whole lot of jog, cut, and sprint volume, without being conscious of it being work.

We all could use more physical play, much more physical play.

Will I run? Mostly no, yet will I do short sprint repeats for hours? Yes, when it’s in a game.

Plus it’s able to be shirtless and barefoot in the sun.

Training Mace + Sword Swings :

Touched on above I swing that tree branch like a mace.

The thing is that six months of doing so every night after work has gotten me a whole lot stronger with it though I’m using the exact same implement.

Soon I may mold a little concrete on the end.

I can now swing it with a form that puts it into my biceps very well.

When I started I could only revolve it this way on my strong side.

A swing into something of a pullover was the form I used the most aside from the biceps one where I tried to get the pattern as close to the same as possible on both sides.

As time went on this happened, progressing to being able to match the pattern on each side.

I’ve started rotating it hard, then applying the “brakes” fast. This fires small upper/mid back musculature amazingly.

I’ve started wielding it like a sword, then lifting it in reverse back to start.

Simulating the heavy mace and heavy sword is a tremendous exercise in upper body strength.

Kushti inspired, after work – this outside, then inside there’s deep knee bends, vanilla pushups, and calf raises before showering up.

Am awesome zero financial dues program.

The world does supply improvised equipment, and with these odd objects and serious focused, mostly calisthenics – you will get gorilla strong.

Example :

you get here quite naturally from massive calisthenic reps – I need to get this on camera but with chick instead of dude for viral video

Persistence & Tenacity

4/25/22
I did about 120 dips yesterday.

More than one set before you ask, 10s up til the final set which was an amrap of 36.

Aside from lots of pushups in the kitchen, some pushups in the parking lot at work (which amuses the waitresses to no end – silly girls), occasionally squeezing a gripper in my bedroom, and lifting in the yard at least once weekly…it was nice to get to those bars – still training outside, yet outside the confines of home/yard lol

Damn, when have I last played tennis!

I had a training partner too.
I hadn’t trained with any buddy in about five months.

I haven’t been huge into dips since the “dip odyssey” of now roughly three years ago.

2019-2022, it’s now been three years – damn

I don’t own a dip bar, I probably should – install one, reboot the “dip odyssey”

I’d forgotten how well I feel my lats from them. In my experience they don’t carry over one bit to pullups, but they’re still the highest lat muscular activation I get.

Oft called the “upper body squat”, I don’t disagree.

300+ a day was a game changer for EVERYTHING

For six months now I’ve been lifting a barbell outside, at “The Cold Air Barbell Club”, as known by name to family, friends, coworkers.

While I’ve felt that good gyms should have a name traditionally stylized in such patterns as “Last Name’s Gym”, “City/Location Name’s Barbell [ or Wrestling 🙂 ] Club”, etc, and what have you…

As a humorous (inside?) joke to myself “The Cold Air Barbell Club” would work for name, an apt choice the day I open my own facility.

Such a name alone likely shall suffice to keep the wimps, wusses, sissies, freaks, doofuses, and other such undesirable elements – those unwanted on a good gym floor OUT!

It’s 4am. I reintroduced caffeine into my system around 1am. This choice resulted in this typing, this not being asleep, and this mental state of euphoria.

I started typing intending to say this ; a 135lbs barbell feels like a toothpick in hand now, I don’t clean it any longer, it essentially shoulders itself – all the purposefully ugly shoulderings (ugly ass muscle clean) like power cleans have their use I shall say, and then I press many reps.

You put on shoulders very quickly with this program :

•barbell
•floor (technically ground for me, myself, and I as outside = dirt not flooring of man made sort)
•clean
•press, press, press, and press some more

And a bent row with a rounded upper back is working amazingly for me right now.

This is only a hop, skip, and a jump from what I already know :

You forget and relearn a lot about working out when you do so for long enough.

The key is to always do something (working out) always and forever

-J

Persistence & Tenacity

4/8/22
615pm
Press
7×170
Snatch
14×135 in 2:00
6:30pm
Snatch
15×135 in 2:00

A couple of days ago I heard of the Isabel WOD, snatching 135lbs for 30 reps for time, and a quick search says “beat 2:11” to be high level.

I decided to try out periods of 2:00.

This may be the main lift for awhile “2:00 density snatching”

The first set felt harder than the second set which I think I conserved energy better on – both had around 1:00 of rest, 30 reps will be a cinch as a sprint.

People have done this in about 1:00 unbroken.

The thing is a new challenge.

Many “americans”, the norm…are dumb.

Doing nothing mentally rigorous, while choosing a lifetime, day after day, spent as a tv baby does this to you.

The internet is a large place, you CAN use it for good.

The smartphone, mostly used for dumb things, can be SMART.

I’ve been using a math app on my phone.

Doing problems against the clock forces you to think quick.

It’s silly, simple, and free – I’ve been using duolingo for years.

I too have been grinding chess on a cellphone app – I’ve yet to kick into planning it out.

You may seem really stupid at first.

Beginner 101 is like that.
It’s all part of the learning curve.

This is great! There’s only room to improve.

Every Man should be a Renaissance Man.

I’m thankful that in 5th grade I was able to borrow a trombone from the school district, thankful that my grandmother purchased me a used one to keep playing once that was turned back in.

A used instrument is only $50-$75, even someone on minimum wage should go get themselves a trumpet.

Playing an instrument is joy out loud.

I still have my trombone.
I played it daily for 13 weeks last year, I’m currently running this again.

There are benefits, the primary I notice is charisma, yet physical benefits even.

I find, while not necessarily cardio, it is in some way a wind builder, and my instrument play in youth likely factors into my ability to be LOUD.

Get a heavyset kid into a brass instrument, sprinting, and weights – what a great combination!

Beginner sheet music is online, freely published by some teacher or other who wants that stuff accessible.

Basically all information is like that ;
some teacher or other has put it online wanting it accessible to all interested.

There’s no excuse to just spectate.
Participation in life has never been more accessible.

The internet is the world’s greatest library.

The smartphone puts a supercomputer in your pocket.

Find the resources of interest to you, and work on the skills involved.

Put your soul into all you do.

Fear not my friend, life is beautiful.

Persistence & Tenacity

1/16/22
On a heavier press set I may shoulder the bar with a good looking, good form power clean, but on sets lighter than ~90% of my press 1rm…you know it – I’m using some ugly form to shoulder the bar for to press off of.

I’ve already lifted today, but typing this as I eat breakfast-dinner (time of day dinner, but my first, possibly only meal for the day), sees me amping up to go press at the Cold Air Barbell Club again.

Frequency is making a comeback lol

Today I pulled into presses at 155lbs with a straight/stiff leg, with one pull – just accelerating, no finesse, and finding the bar at my shoulders after getting my arms under.

At 185lbs I did a good form power clean.

The previous described I’ve come to annotate as “sl one pull pc” or “slpc”.

It’s not the only purposefully ugly power clean variant I use :

There is the “martinez” power clean variant, named after us olympic medalist Mario Martinez, as I’ve heard his clean form described as starting with a bent row.

I basically bent row the bar, then with the bar at my chest, stand up.

So a bent row into something of a good morning to shoulder.

Oddly I don’t continental the bar.
I use really ugly power clean variants.

On the slpc you end up pressing very strongly through the foot into the ground.

One pulling the bar, no multiple pulls as you’re supposed to in oly is basically going dumb, expecting for the best.

If I need or want to I can (and do) pretty up the form for heavier presses.

I use these ugly forms, these two are not the only two, on purpose – ugly form is going to build more muscle and strength than power cleans using hip and trap.

There IS a method to my madness.

My way is more fun than perfectly clean.

Besides my gym, the Cold Air Barbell Club, is a piece of particle board and a pair of runner patio tiles OUTDOORS in winter.

That’s where I’m lifting my barbell.
Make it ugly, embrace the ugly, making it work.

Persistence & Tenacity

Honesty admits that the concept of “weekend warrior” is given a bad rap.

You don’t need to be in the gym everyday, and I almost can’t believe that I’m saying this…there are times where it makes sense not to be.

Any man putting in good effort on a leg or back compound exercise once a week, following something with a slow progression, will age far better than his inactive peers.

Buy a 300lb weight set – it’s great medicine…for life/for a lifetime.

Eventually stiff leg deadlift it with a snatch grip using some protocol involving effort, do this regularly, and you’re set.

Don’t necessarily make it solitary thing either, invite everyone to participate.

The german beer garden and gym combination strikes me as ideal.

Only in the current year is the gym far removed from healthy socialization AND the gaining of knowledge.

Socialization, knowledge, and lifting all in one – imagine…it puts a smile on my face.

The greeks had it set up that way.
The iranians and indians have their wrestling places be consecrated in addition!

Instead of watching “the game” in a gathering, imagine if the regular weekend thing was for you, your relatives, and your friends to meet up, barbeque, and deadlift!

Maybe too have a bonfire, throw some axes, shoot a bow, wrestle around, have a barbarian tribal party type thing instead of watching people you’ll never meet, who care nothing for you, run up and down a field on television.

I’m envisioning this already.
It too puts a smile on my face.

I should be in bed, but I have to type something regularly. Writing is a form of medicine for me, and I may think better with smartphone keyboard click clack clicking.

Thank you!

Persistence & Tenacity

Balance in training?
You’re giving it way too much thought.

I’ve had multiple periods of my training being reverted to naught but pushups, and my build has always been proportionate.

Maybe pushups are the perfectly balanced full body exercise.

Maybe it’s the fact that I have the best genetics.

Whatever the case I care not an iota that I’m training almost nothing but pushups, that my programming is imbalanced – it works for me.

Be consistent for long enough and you realize that any program works – it’s just a matter of the effort applied over a length of time.

That’s the magic required for physical progress – effort consistently applied over time.

It’s funny to compare what gym goers obsess about vs what is the “normal” way to live.

Most aren’t paying particular attention to any aspect of their diet.

Meanwhile there’s a “diet freak” type gym goer obsessing over every minute detail of what goes in.

The middle ground is the way for me here – I don’t count macros or calories, my diet starts with milk, meat is my second food group, and I try to have some bacon and beef each and every day.

That’s the guideline.

I can only laugh when people think I drink a lot of milk, as right now it’s not gomad, and in the past I averaged 10-12 gallons a week for a decent length of time.

I eat like men of yesteryear, and therefore I am built as rugged as they.

Look to and emulate rugged yesteryear to not be of the pansy current.

Simple.

I have immense physical strength, and while yes my mother was scary strong when she lifted as a high schooler, it for me was a matter of my training consistency and the eating of power building foods.

I actually shot myself in the foot from a strength and power perspective going from 212 to 178 as a high school freshman.

So much the gym goer buys into is detrimental.

The whey is going to raise your metabolism, not bulk you up.

I’ve been using some whey powder and protein bars the last month or two because I felt like it, stopped drinking whey daily as I wanted to keep weight on (I was losing weight faster than I expected with the utmostly scientific program of barely eat and work as a line cook), and have gotten a few laughs from people by referring to the met-rx bars I enjoy as “dessert protein”.

If you go to wherever supplements are sold, observe the display a moment, and are honest with yourself that is what the entire aisle is…dessert protein.

You don’t need that stuff, it can be amusing to incorporate, but you don’t need it

You can always just eat real foods, and thrive.

Meat and dairy, in either order, and some whatever else.

As far as training, I just want to get some implement to press with high frequency.

While a keg or yard axle (everyone should have a yard axle) sounds nice, I still have the giant duffle bag I used for a sandbag years ago.

That’d be the most sensible option at present – rebuild and daily use my giant sandbag.

Just go buy 200+ lbs of sand, a pack of contractor cleanup bags, a roll of duct tape, make 25lb miniature bags, then get to putting the thing overhead – 50/20 programming, bump it 25lbs when you hit that.

All the covid gym closures of last year could’ve been nulled by the individual doing just this.

Funny, I don’t think I once thought to do so, instead rocking ~150 pushups and an 8 mile bike ride daily, plus the occasional pullups during that period.

Sandbag training makes sense to me. Press a 200lb sandbag first, and you’ll press a 225lb barbell that way.

But, as it has been always, and is to be forever – I’m good doing my pushups.

And they are MINE
MY PUSHUPS

Now to practice on duolingo, drink some banana flavored whey in milk, and to bed.

Past midnight it’s already friday, I expect a good day, as one must always – there’s a million blessings to focus on, and as I continue to wake each day, there’s life to live – amen.

Persistence & Tenacity