Phone Outside The Bedroom = Porn Free

Where The Cellphone Sleeps :

Overnighting my phone on the kitchen table was a good habit I’ve recently resurrected.

When I went from October 2019 to January 2022 without watching porn it was a measure I instituted, daily, from the 2020 lockdowns when those urges born of loneliness were there – a practice I held to for about a year and a half – a practice that made the vice impossible to immediately hit (watch), as the paraphernalia (cellphone aka witchbrick) was not readily within arms reach.

I use drug terminology in relation to porn purposefully.

Holding to a positive regimen is easier when you set things up in a way that the temptations are more difficult to access.

As often as possible, instead of testing your willpower, simply be away from the temptation.

Penance :

This is the 6th year in which I’ve felt “if I cave, I shave”, and held rigidly to the sentiment.

It is a discipline challenge I’ve held to without exception.

Over time it varied, nay, gained stipulations.

It changed from shaving after watching porn to shaving 24+ hours after watching porn to signify a new day, a new start, a new period – A NEW ERA

At some point “with a fresh new razor” was too added.

You’d find me shaving at odd times throughout the day, basically asap, whether this was when the 24+ hours later was yet implemented or not, because I want my awesome thick red beard back AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Another stipulation, one I have not kept to without exception…

30 days, you go 30 days of discipline, of penance, without shaping, trimming, neatening, straightening up, or establishing lines.

I know where to establish the beard line. I’ve been shaving since 7th grade, growing a beard since 11th. I could establish that line as early as day 3 on the undergrowth…

But the discipline, the penance is to go 30 days…

So I’m going 30 days, not touching it once…

And this time another stipulation has been added –

nor am I buzzing my scalp in this period.

It’s gonna look real bummy before I look real good, and I may end up going 40 for the biblical connotation vs the 30 I initially expected.

What is another 10 days?

Persistence & Tenacity

May 2022 Flow – “The Value Of Woody Woodpeckers” :

meep meep

“Woody Woodpeckers” – the name my buddy bestowed upon the extremely short range of motion pushups he’s witnessed me do to infinity

Now see, I get shit from many for the woody woodpeckers, I do them anyway – they’re a part of me, my daily pushups, and though “cheating” according to many, as if in a bad way, they are in a way “cheating” in the best of ways…

I get a serious pump in my pressing muscles, generally two to three times a day – all the mini sessions of pushups which keep me sane via feeding the high frequency beast, that animal locked away inside me.

My bench increases always and forever since for always and forever I’ve been doing daily pushups.

You push to where you’re starting to gas, a quick 100 clip, banged out, and that 100th rep YOU HAVE TO LOCK OUT – this rep is the strength effect, everything else the pump, the preparty, the base building, the I’m about to make it worthwhile AND DOING SO

You do millions of sets of 30, of 50, over the years, and the body gets used to sustained effort while building power.

The 100, earn it earn it earn it, the 100th a sweat taste on the daily – 10 supersets of 100 jump rope and 100 woody woodpeckers – freakish ability ;

built anywhere (in the public eye)

A million reps and you can put people on your back.

A million reps and you don’t EVER need to warm up the upper body – it’s there, ready to go, maintained in the state of readiness.

I amp up via pushups.
AMP UP! AMPED UP! Arroo!

The kitchen floor sacred space – where I get most done.

The beauty in how it travels, the perfect logistics, the kitchen, the bathroom, rest stop, beach…hotel, motel, who needs a gym – use it when you’ve got it AT THE HOLIDAY INN! lol

The “woody woodpecker” always with me.

Persistence & Tenacity

5/4/22 Flows :

Flow 1 :

Earlier in the day I was
referring to the job as working in hades, it’s probably 95° on the line and the smell sticks to you.

I’d spent half the day desiring to call out for no reason other than “I don’t want to go there anymore” – psychological “life is hard boohoo”.

By the time I was free to call a manager, it was way too close to shift start – I’d consider it unfair to do so, so I went to work, reframing it mentally to “at the very least it’ll get my mind off of some negative stuff in my personal life”.

I went in with the attitude that nothing there is gonna bother me, that I’ll have a smile on my face/enjoy the shift regardless since it’s gonna allow me to refocus

And that’s what happened!
I had a fun time with this shift.

After Work :
Upon parking – I did my mace swings in the rain no less, weather really just doesn’t affect me anymore….

Others can stay inside.
I won’t.

The awesome in human history didn’t come from letting the weather dictate what you do or don’t.

Daily PT? It’s [insert weather} out?
Fuck yeah, let’s get it!

Pushups in the kitchen.
Shower up.
I still smell slightly of kitchen, maybe it’s in the stubble on my face, facial hair holding in the food proteins that saturate the air there. Shrugs.

No matter. I swung my mace, I did 200 pushups thus far on the day.

I’ll sit down to a nice employee comped meal in a minute.

My sternum is cramping. The mace swings are a high activation pullover, amongst other things.

I’d benched outside yesterday. I have a bit of sunburn from it, but I got vitamin d, and look massive.

I’m a firm believer in training, always training, when it comes down to it…

I’ve got a full body workout of mace swings with a tree branch (free – done most days), pushups (also free – done every day), and deep knee bends (and also free – done every day right now) that I hit repeatedly with heart and the buy in.

You can’t stop me…
You want to be jacked too?

DO SO

Persistence & Tenacity

Flow 2 :

It’s a rickety setup – PERFECT!

Go online, I recall photos of a bunch of jacked africans training with pipe, railroad wheels, and concrete in what appears a dirt floor courtyard.

Someone somewhere is doing more with less. Be that someone. Do it.

People really look for every minute detail as excuse instead of :

•what you have
•where you are
•with effort

It cracks me up – the dudes who say they can’t gain weight. I force fed 7000-8000 calories a day for the entire summer at 17.

5000 calories a day, the near universal big/bulking #, just is normal after such an experience.

I swung a sledgehammer, and skipped rope daily.

I did not lift anywhere near enough, and did not sprint as I should’ve.

This caused me to enter senior year of high school with fatceps…but at 253 whereas a year prior I had seriously doubted my ability to hit/break 200lbs.

(disregarding that I entered high school a fat 212, which was oblivious to me at the time on the ability to gain weight note, before seeing sub 170 on a meet scale as a sophomore…breaking 200lbs actually happened lickety split – from 195 to 215 in ten days upon junior year wrestling season ending, I growth spurted in the season, going force fed to 197 before, down to 185 by the first meet so as to not have to cut for 189, and back up to 195 by mid season managing to be starving – not eating, high activity, and yet gaining weight…then exploded the second the season ended mostly off a lunch biscuit tossed to me at lunch each day from a buddy who didn’t want it – a massive number of the school lunches came with a biscuit for some reason, many went in the trash, my buddy tossed me the one off his tray – I was thankful, apparently it was perfect muscle building macros and calories – one chick just about pissed herself upon seeing me “ten pounds in a weekend!?!?!?!”, my buddy, whom gave me the biscuits, had used to wrestle, understood, and corrected her “eight pounds in four days – two pounds a day”, he and I had just been discussing it.)

I’m looking forward to benching feet in the air, straight legs, 50+ x 225+.

High reps, especially on upper body, work really well for me.

And that’s an attainable goal.

Train for years. No ability is unattainable by then.

It’s no more than years of commitment to training.

Persistence & Tenacity

April 2022 Flow – DKB, Spring/Summer, & Training Mace + Sword Swings :

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 Flow :

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!

bro you’re welcome here

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

4/18/22 – The Sig Klein Challenge – Success @ A Hotel Gym :

“My First Successful Sig Klein Challenge”

Setting :
Date/Time/Location
4/18/22 – 1020pm – Hotel Gym w/A Pair Of 75s

Upon arriving at the hotel (7pm ish) I did two sets about 20 minutes apart, 9 reps which had some left in the tank (my phone and therefore camera wasn’t on me – I decided not to hit 12+ here, reps were left in the tank), and 7 reps which was fairly hard, it felt due to slick grip.

With some lobby coffee in hand I told my uncle if I hit 12 reps going back to do so on camera late night ;

1. that I’d shoot off a text to one gym chick or another (that I hadn’t seen in around a year, nor hadn’t deleted the number lol – maybe this counts as motivation by girl)

2. I’d have video worthy of uploading

…..

1020pm – “Three Hours Later” (say in SpongeBob announcer voice) :

Yeah, hang cleans.
Outside the legs even – because, well, I can.

…..

6 months without a gym membership, The Cold Air Barbell Club (yard barbell – truly has) carried over.

A week or so back I was getting a bit of reps c&p, floor to overhead each rep, w/185lbs.

That told me I’d gotten better at all encompassing floor to overhead reps.

I’ve long likened a 185lb barbell press to similar in strength to pressing a pair of 75lb dumbbells.

The Cold Air Barbell Club – I’d actually lifted there earlier, 4pm or so, before the drive to the hotel.

Upon completion of the set I spoke briefly with the fit (5’10” 160lb) latino off camera to my left.

(The next night the same dude gave me a thumbs up, minutes later I ended up basically maxing the cable machine on one arm shoulder presses (maxed the stack left arm, half rep right arm- in a way it seems that I’m supposed to be ambidextrous))

You can barely hear the music he had running, which he turned off upon my entering, to which I told him it was fine to keep on – I made no comment about my not being the gym police hehehe, it simply doesn’t bother me for people to have something playing out loud at the gym – he was thankful, we both were polite to each other – I make gym floors wherever I go.

I MAKE GYM FLOORS WHEREVER I GO

I think he was bugging out how I walked in, grabbed the 75s, did my thing (one set), spoke a few sentences while gassed (out of breath – wrestler slang that few seem to know), then left.

In and out, in about two minutes.

I was quietly amped, committed to the set’s completion on camera as I left the room and walked to the gym my phone in pocket.

I told the guy in there of the Sig Klein challenge, how this set (and video) had been years in the making – I laughed and shared how it came after six months no gym.

He looked mind boggled at that.

Back to the room, my uncle asked “12? Did you get 12?”. He was impressed, I showed him the video.

(Then again walking in the woods the next day :)- )

The 9 reps upon arrival was a PR.
It could’ve been completion of the challenge.

The 12 reps on camera is a PR, and is FINALLY having a Sig Klein challenge success on camera.

The Cold Air Barbell Club hours earlier in the day had probably primed me.

The dumbbell c&p made easier by having been primed with barbell presses, jerks, cheat curls, and deadlifts.

If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing no warmup.
That’s honest ability.

An hour prior I had eaten an entire large pizza, a few meats with pineapple and onion.

The lobby coffee adulterated with swiss miss powder and flavored creamer at 715 ish plus that 915pm ish pizza were what I ate on the day.

The hotel room ac is set low.

I’m laying on a towel having taken a nice contrast shower.

Those 12 reps, completing the Sig Klein challenge have me on cloud 9.

CLOUD 9 !!!

I texted this off to a couple of my old training partners.

1145pm – another 50 pushups, completing 300 pushups on the day.

Rare that I do under 200 lately.

I do quite well on infrequent/whenever barbell lifts outside in any weather, alongside a daily pushup habit.

It’s not difficult to be strong & jacked – do what you can with what you have ever you are.

Commitment.

Persistence & Tenacity

4/8/22 @ The Cold? Air Barbell Club – I’ve Heard Of The “Isabel” WOD :

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.

Answering A Gym Floor Question : The Simplest Bulking Implementation

From The Archives :
2/23/20

At the gym I hear “hey, can I ask for some advice” he says from the lat pulldown, “yeah, zup” and I pause momentarily at seated row, “I’m trying to get bigger, do you have any advice”.

I’ll write what my advice to him was :

The easiest way to get extra calories in is to drink them.

You obviously play around with the variables, but you make a shake with some combination of heavy cream, milk, raw eggs, and ice cream.

The raw egg shake.

No one got huge eating perfectly clean, junk food will get calories up, but a smorgasbord of garbage calories isn’t the way to go.

You want big calories filled with nutritious foods. Not super clean, not the stereotypical foods, but with more normal still nutritious foods.

Saturated fats from dairy and meat are your friend, nothing is more anabolic, and it’s high intake will improve how you feel, your quality of life. How I feel taking in high levels of saturated animal fats is why I continue to do so.

Complete overhaul isn’t as easily done as small changes are for most.

If you want to get bigger and are eating chicken breast at dinner (he is), eat ground beef or a steak instead. You’re keeping the protein level close enough to constant, but the switch just bumped up the calories due to saturated animal fat with no real effort on your part.

Meat and dairy are truly the foods of the big and strong.

Beef is better than chicken.

I didn’t even get into telling him of olive oil shots, or how simple a crockpot makes cooking to be.

Plus high reps on leg work.

PostScript :

~6 months later the same guy came up to me and thanked me, told me that he’d done exactly as I’d said during the lock down, had switched from primarily eating chicken stir fry to beef stir fry, and had implemented some dairy consumption, drinking eggs, cream, and ice cream surprised at how well he stomached it, and now was the largest/most muscular he’d ever been at 195 compared to the 180lbs that he implemented my advice at.

February 2022 Thoughts – “MMC” – Music, Math, & Chess :

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

January 2022 Flow – The Ugliest Of Power Cleans…Purposefully :

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