Persistence and Tenacity

I’m going to let you in on a secret. You ready? I’ll tell you how to train.

You’ve got a barbell? Good. That allows more variance, though you can be the strongest person you know simply doing thousands of pushups.

Put the barbell on the ground, shoulder it, press it.

Sometimes go a bit lighter and power snatch it.

Sometimes overhead squat it, as many as you can. Reps? From 15-50 is good here.

I like the high rep overhead squat.

If you want to, go heavier, simply pick it up – deadlift.

This is better with snatch grip or as an sldl, conventional and sumo are best as occasional tests, the other variants the better choices for training and muscle building.

To mix it up on occasion do any of the above one handed.

A staggered stance, “b stance” (kickstand), is worth mixing in, particularly on your power snatches both one and two handed.

I too like it with the deadlift.

The old time strongman had it right, just lifting the barbell off the floor every which a way.

And when you don’t have a barbell or any improvised equipment ; the military has it right – dominate the space when you’re on your face.

Everything you could possibly need to train is seen in the blend of old time strongman, girevoy sport, military pt, prison workouts, wrestling, and boxing.

Lift – weightlifting in all rep ranges like you mean it.

Calisthenic – with a passion, lots of reps, even weighted, weight can be anything.

Improvise – with the right mind you often don’t have to workout without equipment, something in the environment can be used.

The tree branch becomes a mace.

That rock a perfect implement for one arm pressing.

All sorts of places to do pullups to be found, used.

Random things to shoulder, stand, attempt to get overhead, like a waterlogged log.

I’ve spun a wok around in my kitchen as a grip exercise before.

And yes, I try to pick up that large piece of railroad track. I do every summer.

I think with my strongman strong buddy it would be done as a two man lift.

Best store for exercise equipment?
Walmart? Dick’s?
Nah, try the hardware store.

A heavy sandbag is civilization’s accessible, great logistics version of a manhood stone.

Persistence & Tenacity

There’s that Bruce Lee story of him holding an 8lb steel ball for hours, alternating hands, in a front raise hold.

The front raise hold isn’t given the credit it’s due.

One light dumbbell kept bedside (I have a pair of 10s in my bedroom) easily becomes a front raise hold as a shoulder feeder workout and results in fairly quick gains.

Even :60 is great, meditative, you breath in and out deep, and you find it’s not just the shoulders firing, like horse stance you feel your legs, glutes firing, and the grip is worked.

Lengths of time see the entire body pulling that dumbbell up.

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