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I once watched this strange amalgamation of reality show and documentary about the French Foreign Legion held at what had in a different era been a legion fort in North Africa.

On it a bunch of guys, the “recruits”/contestants were getting to play at the FFL boot camp “experience”
(without truly having “march or die” circumstances) complete with a former legionnaire Corporal-Chef playing the role of drill instructor to them.

This “instructor” made them do a set of 10 pullups before entering the chow hall each and every meal.

(Mocking and PTing those who couldn’t do all the pullups in one set with pushups to the point of puking as an alternative.)

Before you sit and eat do a small amount of PT, this is a great concept sure to amp your body up to more effectively use the calories you are about to consume, as well as provide the opportunity to prioritize a PT movement, or a certain bodypart.

(Frequency of activity to keep the body amped up is a topic for another time.)

I say earn your meals, that without preceding physical activity you don’t get to eat. This alone is a discipline capable of keeping fat asses from existing.

I myself have been doing pushups, generally a set a 25 or more, each and every time I stop and consume calories. Every time I consume calories really adds up, as not only am I doing this before meals, I’m also doing it before such things as drinking a glass of juice.

Note that this is about the only way I pay attention to post workout nutrition.

Persistence & Tenacity

Alternatively titled Pop-Tarts : For Post Workout Survival

(From the archives : written February 2019 about the SoCal experience of Fall 2018, published because I joined that gym a year ago.)

While going to the SoCal bodybuilding gym I often was running on empty. High stress levels, and to be honest my body was not enjoying the high temperatures of Californian year long summer fall when it expects New England in the 40s given the time of year.

I was on empty, and psychologically this either has me training the bare minimum, basically just going as begrudged habit, or the psycho switch flips and I train like a madman.

I trained like a madman there.

Psychologically it was only natural.

No warmups into 10 sets of presses, 10 sets of bent rows, some assistance, and tire flips in the sun was the norm.

I’d be haucking lugies into the trash to keep from puking by the first set of bent rows.

Tire flips in the sun were masochistic. I’d get into the high reps on the days the sun smiled upon my pale Irish self, but some days I’d be leaned over the railing haucking some more lugies, or better yet looking to the sky questioning why I’d pushed the point of wanting to die as I repeatedly dry heaved (a plus to running on empty).

You’ve never “gymed” unless you’ve had the thought “can I drive myself home without dying” seriously cross your mind.

So in self preservation you’d sit there, as shaded as possible, and maybe petting a dog tied up outside the place, for 15, 20, 30 minutes being looked at strangely as you sit there by bodybuilders and fitness chicks sipping nasty aas warm whey as they leave by the gaggle
before you decide the highway ≠ certain death, and proceed to freak out the desk staff by entering and exiting 5x to refill water bottles and drive home…

But wait!

As you’re in SoCal you do what is only rational…you don’t go straight home, but straight to the beach instead as :

Per Regulations :
Section G Subsection 8 :
“You are not truly living in California if you have not at least had beach sand inbetween your toes each and every day, and better still to have been fully submerged in the Pacific. Beach walks are mandated, though it does not truly count as a trip to the beach unless your entire body has been submerged in Pacific waters. Shoes belong in your car, maybe your hands, though not likely as who carries shoes, but most certainly not on your feet. Shirt is required to be in car as men walk shirtless so as to get more testosterone producing Vitamin D. If you’re wearing a shirt there’s a problem. The water is not cold. Go under! – Thus Spake Rationality”

I walked most days, and went in as per regulation the majority of that.
I never took my shirt or shoes down to the beach…regulations.

Now thus far Pop Tarts have not been mentioned, allow me to remedy this.

When you’ve likely had no more than a thin cheese sandwich and maybe a random cookie, trained like a maniac, been tormented by the sun as you flip the tire of everyone else’s nightmares, are required to go to the beach (shirt & shoes stay in car remember) to possibly feel dehydration and sunburn…

It makes sense to have an energy source that can stay with you at all times…

Hark! An amendment to the regulations!

(…Enter Pop Tarts…)

Per Regulations :
Section V Subsection 39 :

“Pop Tarts are to be eaten as an energy source of cheap cost, dubious nutritional value, and utmost seriousness towards survival of J. Tryeth to use good flavors, but wasteth not the nasty ones as both are still of dubious nutritional value, and are of the utmost seriousness towards the survival of J as he goes abouteth his day. Eateth a pack in the gym parking lot while you drinketh 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or more 16.9oz refilled water bottles if death by highway commute to beach seems imminent. If death by highway commute to beach is unlikely through fault of your own, as it’s fact that everyone there cannot drive which is outside of thy power to control, but death by heatstroke, or drowning seems likely drinketh thy last refilled 16.9oz of gym water fountain goodness encased in much worn plastic as ye eateth thy pack of Pop Tarts at beach parking. Understandeth ye? Pop Tarts : Good good sugar & Good cahbs.”

Having shoveled snow at 330am in New England it seemed fitting to reminisce about the weights, sun, & sand, of California.

Persistence & Tenacity

P.S. This article is serious in tone, I am not kidding about the necessity of poptarts to survival.

At present I’m doing little more than pushups, dips, horse stance, pullups (usually neutral grip), incline board situps, and the wrestlers bridge.

I pulled out my dip belt once, and was quite surprised how much weight I could add (I hit PRs) simply having done high reps.

The same principle was at play when i attempted a pushup with a 170lb coworker sitting on my upper back. I nearly got it. Just from high reps.

People get sucked into the propaganda that takes their money, never attempting or even realizing how much progress they’d make with effort and simplicity using as little as their body alone.

I’m not against weights. I enjoy them. They, however, ain’t necessary.

The body between high rep calisthenics, flexing, dynamics, static holds, and isometrics in every variation is more than enough.

I find when I’m forced to shift to more use of my body vs external equipment that I :

1. Not only progress more, but…
2. Improve more on the weights than when I am using the weights as the primary training stimuli.

Use whatever you’ve got. Improvise. I’ll never say go equipment free when you have access to some equipment, and can use it to accentuate your bodyweight work.

I’m starting to focus on wrestlers bridge presses. Why? Because I like how it feels.

Use what’s there with your body as the base and everything else as extra.

But know that the body alone will take you as far as you choose to go.

-J

Persistence & Tenacity

Alternatively Titled Long Hours, Strong As Fuck, Overtraining My Ass

If you cut off my ears, shaved the skin off the back of my neck and threw the ingredients in a sandwich you’d have a crispy long pork sandwich with extra skin.

The shift was 11½ hours.

Both at a job site and the warehouse. A month or two back I’d probably call it medium. Now it was light.

Stronger.

The truckers coming through the shop were shocked at what I was doing by hand. No tools, using brute force.

(Moving crates around inside the 53′ trailers via manhandling ie pushing/driving them around in every manner, without a pallet jack.)

I drank a few quarts of Gatorade/Powerade at work, plus at least half a gallon of water. And still I’m struggling with hydration.
Hydration : the only physical issue.
Despite the physicality I’ve started to eat a little at work. I can’t eat breakfast as of late, I feel sick in the mornings.

After shift I got an iced coffee, and two donuts. I no longer worry about my $50/week food budget. I eat. Gatorade/Powerade is all I can usually stomach half the day, so I’ve allowed myself a few a day (and the possible iced coffee and treat) to blow that budget.

Like usual I went to PF and just like at 715am, I blasted shit at roughly 715pm.

Stomach is still off, no matter, I’m a worker.

My manager yelled across the yard to me her thanks for my simply working without complaint. I signed up for it, so I work like a man. The job is means to an end, I don’t mind the work, part I enjoy, and it has it’s other benefits.

At PF I’ve upped the volume.
Loads of dips and one arm shoulder presses. I cut out leg work, then added it back in with sets of 20+.

Volume is high like the reps. My physique is improving.

Today I was strong as fuck.

I was out of breath from the caffeine (the iced coffee was ½ milk, about a ¼ creamer, very little coffee and ice, 5 sugars…I’m just high response to stimulants), hyped up on sugar as well, and in a certain mental place from long hours, no days off, and sunburns.

Strong as fuck.

I took 110 a side on machine one arm presses for 30 reps. Later in the workout the stack (155) for 15l/14r. A set of 30+ dips. 5 pullups without specific overhand work.
I’d already done a grip feat at work. Leg press a couple sets of 25 with a narrow stance. I never did 2 sets of an exercise in a row, it was always switching.

The bands with handles I’ve started using for back/bis. I’m getting benefit.

The difference between labor 2017, and labor now?

I’m still in the gym daily.

2017 : squat every day, underpaid, corn dogs, Quaker Oats bars
2019 : pumps, volume, fair wage, kielbasa and…vitamins.

I take zinc, zma, magnesium/calcium, and vitamin d in some combination daily as well as the massive amount of Gatorade/Powerade.

I feel the minerals are making a physical difference.

Today if I was at a barbell gym would’ve been a clean PR, and a military press PR.

I saw what I was doing at work. I felt the PRs in my bones. I did some ridiculous reps on shoulders.

Persistence & Tenacity

Ahh, a stream of consciousness,

Some Job Conversations :

“So what do you bench?” – coworker

“325, 335. It’s been a while. My best low rep set was 315×3” – me

(Now that I think about it, it likely was x4.)

15 minutes later…

“He’s the perfect guy for this, he benches 365.” – coworker

“325, 335” – me

“Ok then, he’s the perfect guy for this, he benches 335.” – coworker

“Man, that doesn’t matter at all here.” – me

We proceed to get shit done, and with the task finished another coworker, whom I know from the gym, and I have this conversation :

“Dude, all the gym strength, it doesn’t mean anything”

“You did good.”

“Still, there’s almost no carryover”.

“Though you still did good. But sad isn’t it, all those hours”

He seems to agree with me. The gym doesn’t mean much on the job.
I’m stronger lifting heavy weird shit than deadlifting, though I’d murder most coworkers if we had a barbell contest. At the same time a lot of these light and middleweights out perform me with light or medium shit. It’s kinda random, basically you just have to put in effort. The coworker is strong as hell at work not nearly as much in the gym, though he has crazy leanness. I’m I’d define as ok, above average, in both.

I’m saddened that I’m not stronger at work. He’s saddened that he’s not stronger at the gym.

And We Transition To Shoulders :

Now I recently wrote about machine to barbell carryover.

I knew this guy. Probably 6’2″ 320 with weird ass measurements. Giant shoulders and traps. Giant quads. Big triceps.

He trained machine only. I’m not sure how much steroids he took, though he flat out told me he uses, to which I have mad respect for the honesty. He had basically a healthy bodyfat percentage, similar to mine, just HEAVIER.

On a hammer strength shoulder machine he’d be repping with like 5 plates a side. Remember I said massive shoulders at 320lbs.

Now here I am at PF where the stack on their shoulder machine is 155lbs. 3 plates and change.

I’m usually going many sets of 10-15 reps, one arm at a time on that machine.

I’ve already seen the development a shoulder machine pushed hard can give.

I’ve experienced the carryover from the machine to barbell press.

One arm at a time keeps the midsection thick, strong, and muscularly engaged.

By engaging the core via one arm at a time you bypass the possible lack of carryover from machine to barbell. The support is still firing, it’s more similar than expected.

When I’m going 10×10 or better with the stack one arm at a time my free hand out to the side, not as support on my thigh, full range of motion, and firing the reps up…

(I’ll be at this level soon enough.)

My military press will be much stronger. 225, 255, or greater without direct training.

Conclusion :

Manual labor is necessary for men, and the gym is a decent pastime.

Squatting ain’t as functional as it’s touted. Loaded carries, and shockingly a low (not high) step up. Short chopppy steps boys, short choppy steps.

We carried a piano up a sandy hill, me going backwards today.

Persistence & Tenacity

There is no excuse to be an obese beached land whale.

~1205am – I do a quick 25 hindu squats, a little over 40 pushups by the time the mantra reps are done, and following instinct down a glass of cold milk.

See, those pushups are my habitual daily PT, almost being unbroken since 14 years old, since the summer before freshman year I’ve been doing them.

Watching Lockup Raw from ten to midnight, PT with the initial inklings, the philosophising of the “survival mode” mindset, and rolling over onto the bedroll looking for meaning, a kid who’s Grandpa was now gone.

It’s been over a decade now, on the path to 4 years without a miss, and I’m still getting benefit.

I’ve had periods where I did nothing physical past the daily pushups. In a dark place it was at that point where I first broke 90, then 100 reps in a minute, my PR something like 112.

Under 5 minutes of daily physical effort done with intent, is enough.

There is no excuse to be an obese beached land whale.

A slob is a slob because their mind is sloppy, weak, undisciplined.

Daily PT fixes that. Moreso than the physical it’s the mental discipline involved that equals excellence.

The brain going “I don’t wanna” may pop up daily, and fucking Terminator like you end up on your face 15, 25, more in.

Can’t be like the rest, won’t be like the rest.

Get on the fucking floor and bang em out.

Add mantras into the meditation, and that’s what the daily PT truly is
physical meditation.

I don’t understand those fucks…what they can’t do a few minutes of their PT in the kitchen daily?

-J
P&T 7/8/19

I’ve seen enough hen pecked (male) bitches on trt to be nearly convinced that while synthetic testosterone can do good shit for the body…it most likely does nothing for the psyche.

A bunch of roided out bland chicken eating, gerbil like bodybuilders gave me the same impression.

I think in the soul, it knows that you’re injecting your manliness vs doing it yourself and then acts accordingly.

But hey, I’m natural. Probably normal (at least in my eyes, I feel all are capable of being physical specimens) in the physical “genetics” department (though there’s some Viking and/or Highland blood in there), just stubborn, a strong dose of willpower in my genetics…natural, and likely always will be.

My buddy who’s done prohormones, and is into sarms says I’m blowing smoke out my ass here, that you feel far more manly, primal, on shit…

I present ideas, you can think on them. This is my opinion.

Do you really need gear, or is it really that you need to live more manly?

The perfect training, diet, supplements, “supplements” regimes…my opinion? They don’t mean shit unless the solid base of primal manliness/masculinity is strong and in place.

Persistence & Tenacity

Continue reading “A Short Drive”

To progress well you really have to know yourself.

Me personally, I’m impatient when it comes to physical progress. I feel stifled if I do what most think of as methodical, have a set routine spelled out with accountant like preplanned precise progression.

This mental roadblock is entirely bypassed by either/and/or :

•Having no plan past guidelines.
•Milking a few things for all their/they’re worth.

I am zero or one hundred, black and white, passionate or indifferent.

So instead I play.

I need to.

Training is a game.

I’ll do whatever I feel like.

I may hit something daily for nearly a year. I may epitomize “muscle confusion” and seemingly never do the same thing twice.

Training is best by design as fun.

The fun CAN be physically challenging, tough, or whatever.

(Though sports and labor 99% of the time allowed me/had me/force(d) me to push harder than the gym which is really a hobby/leisure/pasttime activity. With that outlook you’ll always enjoy the gym, and never suffer the “gym dread” oh so common.)

When necessary I revert to nothing required past doing some pushups daily.

I internalized the K.I.S.S. principle in regards to the gym.

It may look like a clusterfuck, chaotic, pell mell, grab bag, yet the madness has method.

Randomized by feel…on purpose.

Or entirely repetitive (squat every day, years of daily pushups, etc).

I actually use the gym as meditation where my brain mostly turns off.

I’ve sat on the seated row for over 100 sets of 10 before because because because because because. It’s what I felt that day, and I went til it was time to stop.

I’ve done a single set both as minimal requirement in certain phases, or in others because one set was enough to know that I’d done enough on it and moved on.

I’ve kept a squat every day phase alive with a single meaningfully weighted cold single.

I’ve walked into the gym, took my boots, and hoodie off, pulled a deadlift 20rm cold, put my boots, and hoodie back on, stopped to explain to a shocked buddy that I was in fact leaving (I had far more interest that Sunday morning in the steak on sale at the grocery store, even telling him so), and left.

It’s a very Zen Eastern approach to a Hard Western thing.

The gym is where I have the mind of no mind, the program of not program, the principle is and of itself.

Mind bogglingly simple to me.
Possibly complicated to another.

The randomness makes “complicated” yet I can milk a few movements to a degree that causes involuntary shudders and severe cold sweats in those turning dollars in the gym/fitness industry.

Over The Years :
•A heavy clean and press.
•Pushups
•High rep light overhead squats.
•Clean for reps.
•Jerk for reps.
•High volume bent rows.
•Lunges/Swamp Lunges
•Isometrics
•Jump Rope

(To name some.)

Find a push, pull, and leg exercise and milk them for all they’re/their worth.

There’s bound to be a movement (or a few) in each category that you are high response to.

Don’t think. Just do.

And always be willing to make whatever you have available work.

Your psyche is the only major detail towards your gains.

Persistence & Tenacity

The value I’ve gotten over the years from plain old vanilla pushups is staggering.

I’ve had periods of high volume pushups to near exclusivity, and as a rule have better training results when I have their volume high.

In short more pushups is always superior to less pushups.

While it may not show in your gym strength (though pushups seem to have given me a baked in 315 bench, even done sans warmup), a pushup habit will give you grappler style conditioning and old man type strength.

I do them daily. It’s a sizeable reason that physically I am how I am.

My wind will never be terrible as my nightly set keeps me at a minimum level of conditioning.

(Real pushup sessions give wind even moreso than strength, though both, and to really get it in back and forth them with hindu squats.)

The reps and volume always keeps me building strength (even if at a slow pace), and this type of work gives strength, gains, that become part of you…unlike so many other’s experiences in the gym, my gains stay with me regardless/irregardless/despite/in spite of/etc.

I’d warm up before a buddy and I would spar bare knuckle (a solid choice of red blooded male activity) with pushups, and he swore they amped me up, that they made me hit harder.

“I prefer it when we just box. You fire, lay the hooks in harder when you do that quick set first”.

If I had the requisite bodies and logistics available I’d be alternating rounds on the mat with sets of ~35 pushups til the vicinity of 30 rounds and 1000 pushups on a regular basis. This is how one makes grappling strength.

I need to up the pushup volume. It’s true. At present I’m only doing 40 or so daily. That’s pretty lazy.

There’s no limit to how far the simple pushup will take you. You simply have to put in the effort to dominate them, to milk them for their worth.

It’s summer. Go outside shirtless, get some vitamin d, and pushup to ∞. You’ll be better for it.

Persistence & Tenacity