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It took me a few hours upon waking to realize this hadn’t happened, it felt real.

I was at the gym, and a couple people didn’t believe I could do handstand pushups.

Standing around was this dude into calisthenics, and a few chicks. Someone I don’t know had to have made the “he can’t ___” comment.

I walked over to the wall kicked over and hit it.

1,2,3,4,5 “I’m at a PR, this is easy I’m hitting 10”

…10,11,12 I realize I’ve got a lot more in me.

20…25 in, I’m almost not believing this myself. “From 4 to 25 like that? The hell?”

Between 25 and 35 I almost lost balance nearly falling seeing the look of disbelief on this tall blonde watching with her looking upside down (as I’m inverted).

I start to get nauseous tasting acid burps of what I’d guess was pepperoni pizza as I’m still upside down.

36-38 my range of motion is a little shy.

I hit 50 basically doing singles from 35 onward. There’s peanut gallery about a few “no rep” reps.

The peanut gallery is still squawking. That tall blonde is still upside down which I find hilarious looking up at my own crotch and the funny look on her upside down face in the same line of sight.

I mentally decide to go ham, fuck range of motion, and get to 75, 80 real quick. I continue repping.

Soon I get bored, drop down, stand up, brush off my hands, make eye contact and nod saying “What’s up! How’d you like that for range of motion”.

I walk away giggling inwardly to myself about the show I’d just put on, and wondering what the hell I’d done that allowed me to not only do good handstand pushups, but good handstand pushups for around triple digit reps, with easily 75+ being done strict.

In that dream universe I’m scary ass strong. Thing is though, every gym dream I’ve had is within the realm of possibility. They’re often not nightmare, but darker, and tend to hype me up.

Triple digit calisthenic reps in a set are possible. Not only have I done it with pushups, but I’ve done it with dips as well.

Persistence & Tenacity

The other day I went to the gym without headphones…purposefully.

You know what?

I preferred it.

It’s one less thing to charge, keep track of, no sweat pool around my ears, but these aren’t the real benefit.

It had been awhile since I’ve done this. I decided I wasn’t going to be bothered by the pop radio, and wasn’t. Mostly I didn’t even notice it missing. A few times my ears peaked up, and I found myself enjoying “california girls” reminiscing. Almost in disbelief that I was enjoying working out in planet fitness to Katy Perry.

My neighbor was in disbelief that I go to pf. A buddy had thought I was pulling his leg, only to months later see my card and realize that I had been serious.

I left my phone in the locker, just as I’d done at the SoCal bodybuilding gym. The gym is better this way.

Without the phones watch functions I don’t know exactly how long my wrestler’s bridge holds were. It’s freeing in a way, to not have exacts in your workouts. To lose count and just go.

Our society is very lonesome, aside from cashiers/front desk/etc people don’t interact much in public, it’s depressing really – as opposed to what my grandfather and my impression of his generation did. Everywhere I went with him he always would have friendly conversations with those around him.

I did notice a lot of surprised looks, I figured these to be surprise at my being without headphones…the only one without headphones.

Naturally I was a bit more outgoing as I had no artificial barrier over my ears taking my attention away from the world in which I’m living.

I’m not even going to frame going to the gym without headphones as a challenge. Going without headphones is natural, you don’t pop out of the womb with earbuds in. I’m going to go this for awhile. It’s better to live in the world without distraction.

Persistence & Tenacity

What people don’t realize when in that “hardcore lifter” mindset is how destructive it can be.

You should never be injuring yourself with weight training.
If a joint is buggy don’t aggravate it more. Let it heal, no lift is worth otherwise.

I had wanted to say I did horse stance every day this year, but January 15th my knee was buggy, and knowing that horse stance can on a low level contribute to this I switched it up to a different static that still hits the legs, but doesn’t bug my knee.

(Wrestlers bridges if you were wondering. They are full body. I’ll still be contracting my legs/glutes in static postures daily, just not horse stance every day. Warrior pose always feels good.)

Just like in November 2017 I stopped hindu squats daily and switched it to the broad category of leg/glute, keeping the streak alive mostly with a muscularly engaged warrior pose.

Weight training as intended is something to build yourself up with. A little known historical fact ; 3×10 was invented to rehabilitate injured WW2 veterans, burn victims as I recall.

You should never be breaking yourself down in the weight room.

Help, not a hindrance to your life.
The opposite? You’re better off not lifting.

If something bugs a joint…don’t do it OBVIOUSLY. Always train effectively which means injury free.

You want longevity.

Don’t do stupid shit that hurts you, instead be the guy 50+ still training…cause he built strength without injuring himself.

Longevity > “Hardcore”

This view is the truly hardcore of the two. Unnecessary physical pain/hurt/injury/etc is stupidity, nothing more, nothing less.

Use common sense.

Persistence & Tenacity

Every choice you make, every action you take is the first step in forming habits.

My preference is to train asap daily, immediately after work when I have a shift, within an hour or two of waking on days when I don’t.

I like training after a day of effort, I like training fasted on days off, it’s just how I roll.

I’ve never been one to try and coddle the circumstances leading to the gym. I’ve found less is more preworkout, no food, no stimulants, even kinda fatigued/tired. Just hyped up on life.

Water only. Hydration matters, though the occasional training thirsty recalls a primal power that most never experience.

My preference is to train asap daily, immediately after work when I have a shift, within an hour or two of waking on days when I don’t.

It’s not trying to get it done in the sense most think, I legitimately love my gym time, it’s simply keeping the habit strong.

I’ve had a friend from the gym tell me my lifting is addictive behavior.
In the same thought he said that it’s not necessarily a bad addiction to have.

It goes back to the formation of habits.

Aside from a day off when I’m truly tired (it can happen is when you’re working labor with a part time jobs worth of gym hours on top of it), when I take a day off that little voice of bitch ass weakness is there saying such malarkey as “I’m too tired”, “I feel low energy”, “take another day off”, etc.

The only time I’m not high frequency was during a real dark mentally burnt out and depressed period, and even then I’m usually still high frequency.

There were many times the gym was my only enjoyment of the day (which is no way to live meatheads), with lowness coming back while showering up.

So it boils down to this ; I’m gonna train regardless.

It gives me something positive every single day.

Usually done in the kitchen, I’m on my face, my pushups are getting done daily.

You need good positive habits. This is what I was preaching to my buddy in Cali as we walked that night summer 2012 advising him to start nightly pushups to create a victory for himself daily.

I pray he’s still pushing himself up when the worlds got him down.

I know the daily habit has helped me.

Form for yourself good habits.
That’s why I train 365, that’s why I train daily.

Weakness is everywhere ; as men we can’t be part of it.

Until tomorrow,

Persistence & Tenacity

From The Archive :
6/3/18

High rep side bends, I have the ability to do them heavier and for higher reps than most, doing so in a nonchalant manner.

Now the question of what came first comes here:

Did I have mad oblique strength from the occasional ab work, or from the beltless compound lifts?

I lean towards it coming from the compounds, but really the side effect of hypertrophying up my core does come from both.

The thickness of my core is what causes the crazy strength and stability and the thickness is caused by my beltless compounds, partials, overhead work, and the aforementioned high rep heavy side bends.

Farmers Handles : “Can I hit 95lb x 25 a side”, yep.

One of the first times I loaded them up was with a former D1 linebacker lifting partner. He topped out at around a 75 dumbbell and was flabbergasted that I matched him in reps every set using the 100.

“Man, aren’t you going to start lighter? There’s no way you can use the 100.”

6×10-15 later he had this shocked look on his face.

By never using a belt and not caring for aesthetics ie a waifish waist I inadvertently got my core very thick and very strong.

Incidentally I found I can do ugly standing ab wheel rollouts now, inspired to try having seen some likely hockey player (aside : I later found out he plays professional hockey in Europe) do 4 or 5 sets of 3 a few days ago. Inspired to try via seeing someone either do them or fail to do them being the manner I found out I can do one arm pushups one night after my buddy has a visible light bulb go off over his head and preceded to bang his nose off the floor.

Commercial gym, ~5 years back, there was this guy who did nothing but yoga, slow deep dips, and a super slow clean and press with the empty barbell touching it to his feet at the bottom, and easily taking 30-45 seconds to lock out the press before reversing at similar speed.

Fast forward about 3½ years…

I was hanging out with my buddy, we were in the back yard, and instead of going to the gym like my usual, I broke out the barbell and we pulled in the yard.

I was doing super slow reps with 225, going as “fast” as 10 seconds up, 10 seconds down to as slow as 30/30. He didn’t buy that I was honestly putting in effort, he thought I hamming it up, until we dropped the weight and had him attempt.

Fast forward a few years…

Time : Recently

I’m laughing at myself. Doing dumbbell deadlifts with a pair of 35s, I can’t help but laugh noticing the college age chick near me is pressing 25s, and thinking how about a week ago I saw this super petite college chick wearing straps for her dumbbell deadlifts with either the 30s or 35s.

I’ve regressed to using girl weights, something I remember joking about in person to a fit asian all those years back (place of the first anecdote as I was on the down half of a pyramid on cable rows) , but in reality…I’ve progressed.

If you can’t go heavy an easy way to increase the difficulty is slow it down, slow your rep speed down.

The dumbbell deadlifts, technically rdls, with 35s the other day were mostly sets of 20, and the negative I was countng 1-10 (probably 6-8 seconds) from lockout back to knee, before violently thrusting to lockout, some of the time with a pause at the bottom.

Making reps super slow gets it to a place kinda analgulous to static postures.

Usually only a more advanced trainer has a solid mind-muscle connection, but super slow reps are going to be like isometrics in teaching you how to fire the musculature pronto.

While moving it is on the isometric scale of physical effort.

My training at current between the combination of super high reps, normal high reps (10-20 per set), slow reps, and high volume is resulting in lots of time under tension.

Time under tension is the truest key to physical strength.

I can see the Sandow recommendation of light bells being done on the assumption that you’re going to go all out with them between reps past 100 and speed slowed down.

I see myself muscling up right now with the super high reps and the super slow rep speeds (both, and/or, it depends on the exercise). I have this hilarious vision of being the strongest presser you know just boggling people’s minds getting lots out of the 10lb or 15lb dumbbells for one arm military pressing as the small fit chicks are pressing the 25s.

You can get a lot out of a little.

Relatedly dig into anecdotes of how top bodybuilders truly train…you’ll find a lot of screaming with ridiculous intensity, and…tiny weights.

It’s more the rule than the exception.

Food for thought.

Train hard. Eat well.

You’ll be good.

Persistence & Tenacity

Some nights my PT looks like this, my pushups are nearly without exception repetitions of 23 mantras done for one set of 46 (twice through), with a possible extra set, and a high horse stance of between 3 and 4 minutes.

This takes a total of about 5 minutes.

For an effective no excuses workout try this principle :

You have two movements, one upper body, one lower body. You exercise for the entire 5 minutes no rest.

Tonight it was pushups and a high horse stance.

It could just as easily be pushups with hindu squats.

(It has been before.)

It’s the principle that matters, whole body (burpees or squat thrusts alone can cover it), and no excuses.

Persistence & Tenacity

There is no time to eat more conductive to growth than eating immediately before going to sleep.

Take a page from Sumo Wrestler 101, and eat before going to bed.

Sure the sumo wrestler is fat, but they’re natural, carrying HUGE amounts of muscle under that rotundness, and they’re not eating round the clock in the time consuming 5-8 meal a day bodybuilding manner.

Bluntly bodybuilding culture’s sought after physique is unhealthy for both men and women, as some amount of fat is natural to both sexes.

A female needs her curves to be healthily fertile.

In my experience I’m more powerful carrying a reasonable amount of bodyfat.

Being that I’m not a competitive bodybuilder, that I’m natural (not that it matters), have a healthy outlook on appearance, and know what is truly how a man is meant to be built…

I’ll just be physical and eat real foods.

You can diet eating from stereotypical sources, I’ll just eat meat, potatoes, drink milk.

Aesthetics?

I’m a hairy burly Man.

That’s what God had in mind when he designed man.

You don’t need drugs. You don’t need to be aiming for some metrosexual nancy boy hairless lean aesthetic.

You want to be big and strong?

Disregard bodybuilding as it currently is. Go old school, bulk & power.

It’s far more easily attained than you think.

Persistence & Tenacity

Don Buck, a 60s/70s hardcore karate guy, spoke of a psychotically determined student holding horse stance to the point of unconsciousness to end every training day. He spoke of how very quickly after having taken up this practice that the student essentially became superhuman in a fight.

Me? On just a few minutes of the hold a day…I’m convinced one, that the anecdote holds true, and two…

That horse stance is magical!

Never have I done one movement that carries over so well overall.

Snow on the ground I’m outside and out of breath, or inside much the same.

I’d just held horse stance for a few minutes, and had combined it with upper body motions, punching, etc.

It needn’t be lower body only, it can be full body, like pushups as to what is worked in reverse.

The #1 lower body training exercise, huge benefit, zero equipment.

(Like pushups are for the upper body.)

When outside I’ll do a few bodyweight squats, and leap up.

When inside I’ll just shake out my legs, fast and loose.

My legs feel heavy, but it’s a good feeling, nor is it soreness.

They feel solid, powerful.

Something intriguing is going on in the body with them.

A hard to quantify full body effect.

Horse stance, a high horse stance, has become my most consistent leg work these past 6 months.

6 months ago I couldn’t unstick the stuck forklift, now I can. As I said, solid, powerful.

Horse stance the only variable I can
isolate as “there’s the cause”.

It is a kind of isometric training after all. They, isometrics, have these effects.

Isometrics work so well that almost no one do them. It takes a little crazy, or what the norm calls crazy to stick to them.

The truest form of max leg strength is not a squat…it’s a push/drive/drag.

Horse stance is building that quality as the legs shake…while rooting you into the ground.

My feet are always solidly rooted to the ground, be it firm, or slick ground. Hindu squats gave me the same effect.

There’s a noticeable difference between myself and coworkers slip sliding around moving in wintery conditions.

I couldn’t care less if it has gained me strength on a barbell, real world it’s a few minutes of daily practice paying dividends.

Simple training is where the true gold is. Free in money, paid in sweat, and a temporarily increased heart rate.

Effort is everything.
Equipment? Nothing necessary.

Horse stance is magical.

Persistence & Tenacity

Look around you, you can tell a lot by how a person stands, walks.

It’s a simple hack really, and pays dividends when habit…

Carry yourself with the posture of a winner.

I advise everyone to take a moment to stand in victory pose every day.

(Victory pose, abundance posture, I’ve seen it referred to as multiple names. Pick one, and do it. If you need a mental image a variation could be called the Randy Orton, another called The Rocky.)

At 19 I majorly changed my life, by changing my outlook, by building my outgoingness, by building my posture.

At first I was self conscious standing in victory pose. I started indoors. Once that felt more natural I’d do some in the yard where neighbors could see. Soon after I’d do them between sets in the gym.

(Soon after I went from very shy, broken really, back to my natural childhood outgoingness.)

It can look like the “come at me bro”, which has an old funny gym memory to go along with it. That was a noticable leveling up in my self confidence visible to both my surprised buddy, and the intrigued blonde I was talking to.

Our posture as a society is terrible.

Weird seating in cars, desk, the forward neck posture epidemic correlated to electronic usage, et al.

I’ve started to place more value in yoga, in stretching.

Interlace your fingers and reach for the sky. The lengthening of the spine is euphoric.

Every day, even if it’s only in front of your bathroom mirror, stand in a victory pose. That’s where I started. And it progressed positively from there.

I’ve made a point to do “The Rocky” each day for a while now.

While doing so observe yourself, and tell yourself of your greatness.

You’ll find it taking hold in your life more and more. It’s truth.

You’re you. You’re the only you you’ll ever be. May as well be the greatest.

It can all start with an improvement in posture.

Persistence & Tenacity