Random Thoughts and Things

Well February was a very successful month for my blog. It received the second most page views of all time, only behind October of 2010 when I made an insane amount of entries. One complaint I have is that feedback from my blog is next to nothing. I know that many people are viewing it but rarely if ever do I hear anyone's opinions on what they like or dislike about it. I hate beating a dead horse but if you enjoy a certain entry or like certain types of blog posts let me know. Otherwise I will just keep doing what I want to do and that may not be exactly what the majority of people like to read.

This blog originally started as a way to monitor my training for powerlifting. In many ways it still fulfills that role somewhat but now I really see it more as a way of getting my writing out there to the general public. I am working on a novel that I want to publish as well as several short stories that I feel will later be combined in an anthology. The more people I can get viewing the blog on a regular basis the better my chances of having the right people read it. That's where the people reading the blog (you) come in. Leave comments, let me know what you like or dislike, agree or disagree with, and share a link on your facebook wall and encourage people on your friend's list to read the blog and share the link. I am only one person, I need help in this.

Training wise things are going great. Missy and I are both sore and beat up but she broke her personal record on deadlifts and squats this week and I made a personal record on deadlifts so it has been great so far. There has been tooo many days off though in between training which is causing me some frustration. Bullshit that I don't want to talk about causing interference with training that I will not tolerate. Missing a training session every now and then is one thing but when it becomes an issue you have to decide what you want more, to be the best you can be or to wallow.

I am working on chapter 13 of my book and almost completed with it. I should be done by tonight and then onto chapter 14. I have an interesting short story brewing in my head that I can't wait to write about as well. I probably will before the end of the weekend and post it up on here.

Other than that nothing much to say.             

Bench Press Training Last Night

Training went well last night. Utilizing our new power rack we worked up on a 2 board press. Missy nailed a three rep max and I hit a 2 rep max. Because of the bench we were using inside the power rack I had a problem unracking the weight which really affected my tight set up. All the same I did hit a fairly big 2 rep max so I was happy. We then followed that up with rack lockouts. I grinded out a tough one but Missy hit a really nice triple and I was very proud. Here is an outline of our training.

Max Effort Lift- 2 Board Press
3 Sets of 1-3 reps Rack Lockouts
The following four lifts were performed as 2 giant sets with very heavy weights used.
Incline Dumbbell Press
Dumbbell Rows
Overhead Dumbbell Tricep Extensions
Hammer Curls

The max effort lift and heavy rack lockouts had already taken us an hour so we decided to condense the accessory work into one big giant set performing each lift for about 10-12 reps. Used weights that we could only just barely finish each lift. You will notice that we started with a compound pushing lift (incline dumbbell press) and then followed that with a compound pulling lift (dumbbell rows) and then did an isolation pushing (tricep extensions) and then an isolation pulling (hammer curls). This was done on purpose to utilize opposing muscle groups and allow for a small amount of recovery.

All in all it was a great day. Broke another PR which seems to be happening on a regular basis for both of us. Couldn't be more proud of our progress.

Update on the Blog

I just wanted to announce that February has been the second best month ever for my blog in terms of traffic. The only month so far to beat out February was October of 2010 which was the month that I made 58 posts in a single month. So far this month I have made less than half that and have achieved about half as many page views.

During that time, much like now, I do most of my advertising for my blog on my facebook account. Back then though I had a far larger friend count. I believe at one time my friends list was at least four times the amount that I have now if not more. I slowly but surely deleted many people from my friends list since then and even deleted my own page for several months. Too many people use facebook as an outlet for drama or posturing and I will not have a part of that any longer.

So while I have significantly reduced the amount of people who know about updates to my blog I am still pulling in a lot of viewers. I am happy about this but I could always use help. Please feel free to pass the link to this page around. Far too few people make comments on this blog compared to the number who view it. Quite frankly I am almost to the point that I am going to start eliminating more people from my friends list unless I start getting some feedback. Obviously if you repeatedly look at my blog and enjoy what you read then help promote it by making comments and sharing links to the page. I put a lot of effort into this page so spending a few moments to share the link at the least is not asking too much.

McMissys!!!

One thing that has helped me drop weight and get back to my competitive weight class is what I dubbed McMissys. A McMissy is a breakfast sandwich that consists of a 100% whole wheat english muffin, a turkey sausage pattie (or slice of ham), slice of cheese, and one fried egg. I eat two of these every morning and they taste great. Lately I am even having them for lunch. I honestly cannot get enough of them and they do a great job of keeping the hunger at bay.

There are many foods that can be made quite a bit healthier just by adjusting the ingredients. We made MissyMacs the other day. We used lean ground turkey patties, whole grain buns, and a homemade big mac sauce with better ingredients.

Don't forget to enjoy the real deal at times too. Training hard and eating right doesn't mean denying yourself, it just means to keep things in moderation. This week alone I have lost 3 pounds but had taco bell twice, an italian sub, and papa john's pizza. The thing is I didn't have to gorge myself in the process but I did eat well. Hell I took down half a large pizza but still woke up a pound lighter than the day before. Besides the pizza all I ate was two sets of McMissys for breakfast and lunch and also a snickers bar. Not the best choices but still I dropped weight even while eating what others would tell you would be horrible for losing weight. I just don't do that every day. Plus I train my balls off and that makes a big difference.

Gym and Training Update

Training has been going great since Missy and I got the gym up and running. We put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it but now we finally have a place to call our own that we can be proud of. The Deadlifter’s Fortress is hardly state of the art or cutting edge. It can probably only comfortably handle about 10-15 trainees at a time and lacks almost all of the bells and whistles that big chain gyms have. We make up for those short comings by maintaining an absolutely hardcore atmosphere of extreme powerlifting, bodybuilding, and strongman training.

We did not start out to build a gym to make money or to attract a lot of people. In fact our goals were quite the opposite of that. Whereas Missy might be a bit of a social butterfly I am quite shy around people I don’t know and quite frankly strongly dislike most people. Some would call that a defect of my personality but I feel it is one of my greatest strengths. I would be happy and content if only ever Missy and I train at our gym, I would rather that than have anyone who is not 100% committed to being the best they can be.

The name of the gym itself embodies this as it derives from both Missy and I. She used to use the username Fortress on web forums and such and I would use Deadlifter or Deadlifter14. We brainstormed a few different name ideas but at the end of the day we came back to the Deadlifter’s Fortress. Just as Superman had his Fortress of Solitude I have my Deadlifter’s Fortress and so does she.

Last night we did Max Effort Squat and Deadlift training. We worked up again to a 5 rep max and both Missy and I broke our previous records from the previous week. We followed that up with 2 sets of 5 reps of heavy squats to a high box and then 2 sets of 8 reps of Romanian Deadlifters. We then called it a day. I was beat up from work and those good mornings took a lot out of me. We went really heavy on all the lifts and they took a toll. We were going to do some lat work but decided to save that for today which would normally be an off day.

I have lost more weight, as of last week I have lost 30 pounds. Really cut back my calories this week and it is taking a toll but I feel really good, just not strong. I am breaking personal records still but getting really fatigued during training. Yesterday I trained around 5:30 PM and had not eaten anything since 11 am. While it was tough I managed to break my previous record by 45 pounds on a 5 rep max on good morning. It was rough but I made it.

Been having some computer problems so I haven’t been able to update the blog like I like but I will throw some more stuff up today.

Training and Progress

We were supposed to do dynamic squat and deadlift training Friday evening but we ended up pushing back training a day. Friday was a very busy evening for us as we got some more equipment for the gym and by time we end up driving all over the place and getting things set up it was just too late to train. The extra day of recovery actually serves me quite well as my lower back is pretty beat up as it is.

We got a nice power rack for next to nothing along with a nice heavy duty bar. A gym whether home or commercial can never have enough bars.This brings our gym total to two power racks, a squat rack, a lat pull down machine and low pulley row, a bench press bench and a FID (flat, incline, decline) utility bench. Two leg extension and leg curl stations and two preacher curl stations (that we never use but got them all the same). Two Olympic bars, two curl bars, multiple lat attachment bars, about a thousand pounds worth of weight, and two sets of dumbbells. We also have a box for box squatting at multiple heights, boards for board pressing, bands and chains, and a sled for dragging. And of course no gym would be complete without a chalk bowl.

Not a bad set up and always expanding. I hope to have a heavy duty flat bench soon, some more weights, a l;eg press/hack squat machine, and to get some specialty bars like a safety squat bar and a cambered bar. For right now though my main focus is getting the gym organized and laid out in the best fashion possible. We should have this done (at least mostly done) by this evening. If we do of course I will post on here an update.

Last night we did the dynamic squat and deadlift training.

10 sets of 2 reps dynamic squats. We did 5 sets straight weight and then the last five sets we used reverse mini-bands and ended up working up to heavy singles.
3 sets of rack lock outs with the squat. We set the safety catches to about a quarter squat position and did lock outs. We did about 5 reps or so each set, we really weren't counting, we just made sure to do them heavy.
4 sets of 12 reps pull throughs
4 sets of 12 reps heavy leg extensions.

Normally we would of performed lat work as well but it was late at that point and we were pretty beat up and I was having some stomach issues to say the least. We made a judgment call and decided to do some lat work along with our shoulder work today. As my best friend always says, not that big a deal, since we do not train our lats again until Wednesday.

I lost three pounds this week. That brings my total to 35 pounds. I still have a ways to go but soon I will be at a point where I no longer will try to lose weight or more than a pound a week or so but for the next few weeks I am reducing my caloric intake again to get to that point where I will want to slow down my weight loss. My strength levels are still up but they will not stay so indefinitely as I reduce my calories. I have been losing about an average of 12 pounds a month or so which is actually a fairly big number but inconsistent at times. More like I lose a pound one week and then 4 the next. Trying to level that out. So long as I am moving towards my goal and staying strong though, why change anything so I won't until one of those two things change. 

Max Effort Bench Press Training Tonight

Tonight we are doing our max effort bench press training. Last week Missy went to a single rep max on a 4 board press and I went for a 10 rep max on a 3 board press. This was done out of necessity because I could simply lift too much weight to safely control without more spotters. I hit a big weight for the 10 reps all the same so I could not be disappointed. For her part Missy nailed a single with 120% of her one rep max on a standard bench press which was very good. She had for three weeks been struggling with a certain weight on the bench press so I came up with a three week cycle involving a max effort rotation of a 4, 3, and then 2 board press on max effort lifts and then heavy triples and doubles on her dynamic effort day. So far she has met and exceeded everything laid out for her and I could not be more proud. I have every confidence that when she attempts that weight in another two weeks she will nail it easily.

Since we did 4 board press last week, tonight will be a 3 board press. I will work to a 2 board press for safety reasons. I am hoping to have our power rack done by this weekend so it will fix this issue but for now I cannot go higher in weight and must simply make the lift harder. Not a big deal since I am in a circa max phase on my dynamic training day so I am already going quite heavy.

After our max effort lift we will perform 2 sets of 5 reps on close grip bench press. By taking a close grip it transfer more of the workload onto the triceps and builds a lot of power on the bench press lockout. We will then perform 3 sets of 15 reps on incline dumbbell presses. The key on these is to do as full as range of motion as possible. On a barbell bench press you can only go as low as your chest but with dumbbells you can go even lower so you should do so. It will build strength off your chest as well as really develop those pressing muscles.

We will round out our training with some kind of tricep extension and dumbbell curl. Doesn't really matter what lift these are, all that matters is that you hit about 40-50 reps on each. I usually do either 3 sets of 15 reps or 4 sets of 10 reps. Sometimes I might superset these two lifts if the training session has already lasted a long time.

Training Thoughts

Missy and I made a mutual decision to hold off on training until after the weekend for  us. We have been training very hard since the last week of November and we were on a small vacation so we decided to take it easy. I did some sled dragging Friday but other than that we hadn't actually lifted since Tuesday. I am not a fan of taking time off and we never made a conscious decision to take the weekend off, we just kept putting it off and putting it off. Late Saturday we decided we would do it first thing in the morning on Sunday. Wake up, eat breakfast, and then train an hour later. That obviously didn't happen so we said we would do it in the afternoon. Then when it was the afternoon we pushed it back to evening. Finally around 7 pm we just said screw it lets just do it on Monday.

I think it was the right decision. I enjoyed the hell out of my weekend with Missy and sometimes those small breaks from training can make all the difference in the world. We came back and did excellent tonight. I am yet again in stunned disbelief just how quickly Missy has picked up everything and improved. I find myself asking her a lot of times about how we should train. In fact she is the one who picked the max effort lift we would use for the next 2 week cycle. She chose Good Mornings and I decided since she was new to the movement (as a max effort lift she has performed plenty in training as a supplemental lift) that we would go to a 5 rep max rather than a 3 rep max.

Overall I feel this worked out great. My previous best on the good morning for a 3 rep max is 405 lbs. but that was over a year ago. I wanted to make sure that while I was going very heavy I was making sure the movement was going to make my squat and deadlift stronger and not just make my good morning stronger. To that end I cut it off when my form started to break down. I left a bit in the tank so I have something to shoot for next weekend.

Missy did great with the lift. She had excellent form and nailed a good "opener" weight. Next week her goal will be to beat that weight by at least 10 pounds. If she is feeling particularly strong she can go even higher but I would rather she not go all out. Always good to leave a little something in the tank most of the time. It gives you room to go heavier next time.

That might sound weird but say I can absolutely go no higher than 300 pounds on the bench press and I am on a two week cycle for the bench press. On my first week I would hit a 285 or 290. It is very heavy weight but I could of had "just a bit" more. The next week if say I did 285 I would do 290. It beats my previous weight, is a max lift and sets me up for a new goal. So a few weeks roll by and I come back to bench presses again for max effort lift. This time on week 1 I hit 295. On week 2 I might finally hit that 300 but by this point I could probably nail 305 but I keep that in the tank for on down the road. Maybe I can't hit 305, in that case when I do go for that weight it lets me know I should back off again and go back to say 295 and work up again. It sounds a bit complicated and it really is. Most of the time you will do this instinctively. Most people will miss a lift that they should by every right make but their form might be slightly off or they psyche themselves out of it. On rare occasion will you actually hit that absolute max because quite frankly it damn near kills you to do it. Beginners never will and intermediates will only do it rarely.

When I hit that good morning that was my absolute max. I saw stars after I made the lift and almost passed out. I really feel that I left a year or two of my life in the gym that day. The human body isn't meant to be pushed to that kind of limit.

As a side note a lot of people wonder whether they are a beginner or advanced lifter and some people (most) quite frankly throw out those terms far too loosely. Honestly if you have any doubt then you are a beginner lifter. My best explanation would be that unless you have trained with weight training non stop for over 5 years under good coaches and people who know what they are doing then you are a beginner. You should easily be able to total over a 1000 pounds on the bench press, squat, and deadlift (if you are a man at least), and should preferably be at least a class II lifter or above. That is to simply not be a beginner. And off and on training does not count, all that means is generally you have spent more time off than on. I was out of lifting for close to a year with two hand surgeries but I would never say that I have trained off and on.

And no I do not consider myself an advanced lifter. I know what I need to know, I am more than capable of training anyone whether they want to be a powerlifter, bodybuilder, or just get fit, but I know that I still have a long ways to go. Maybe when I finally total in the top ten in my weight class then I will consider myself advanced.

As far as the rest of my training it went pretty much as I laid out in the entry on Friday but I will repeat here for clarity sake.

Worked up to 5 Rep Max on Good Morning
2 Sets of 5 reps Squats (we went for as many reps as we could on the 2nd set which meant I hit 8 and Missy hit 10).
2 Sets of 5 reps Romanian Deadlifts
2 Sets of 5-10 Reps Bent Over Good Mornings

We are going to do our abs in the morning. Be good to get moving first thing.

****** I have to take a brief time out and congratulate Missy in an outstanding training session. Tonight on Squats she took the weight that was her one rep max a month ago and nailed it for 10 reps and she made it look nice and easy. She could of easily busted out 3 or 4 more reps as a grinder. Talk about a huge improvement! I couldn't be more proud but as she knows this just means we will both expect more out of her next time. I am confident she will more than meet that challenge as well.

Chapter 10 of My Book and Other Thoughts

This is going to be one of those random blog posts. I am sitting here at my dinner table with a million thoughts running through my head. Missy and I just returned back from a wonderful mini-vacation yesterday and since then I haven't really been highly motivated. We went to the store yesterday and I wrote chapter 10 of my book but other than that I haven't accomplished too much.

Not that I have had much on my agenda. Today we are doing Max Effort Squat and Deadlift training but I am doing my best to put that off as late as possible. This seems to be fine by Missy as evidenced by her taking a 3 hour nap just now. I cannot blame her, if I wasn't knee deep in finishing a book I am reading I would of napped as well. We will still train tonight it will just probably be a little later than normal which is not a big deal.

The book I am reading is "God King" by Graham McNeil. It is the third book in a trilogy based upon the founder of the Empire, Sigmar, in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. It is a hobby that began as a miniature tabletop battle game that later expanded to include a role playing game, video games, books, and even a movie (if you count its sister setting Warhammer 40,000). The original tabletop game has continued through multiple editions (it is on the 8th Edition now) and has a wide and varied background that has changed somewhat significantly over the years. The book is not bad, certainly not the best but entertaining.

I banged out Chapter 10 of my novel tonight and began work on Chapter 11. This is actually a rewrite as I had already written Chapters 10-13 but was very disappointed in them. I normally do not edit my books until I complete them as otherwise I simply will never finish because I am very critical of my work. I had to make an exception this time as the direction I took the story left me seriously unhappy with my work. It was so bad I hadn't touched my book for months because I lost all motivation to write it. I am infinitely more happy with the rewrite I did and I added elements that I feel increase the quality of the book several times over.

As well as writing Chapter 10 I wrote a 3 part excerpt from the book recently that I posted on this blog. The excerpt actually takes place much later in the book, a part I will probably not get around to writing for many months. The excerpts will be a later chapter and will stand pretty much as I wrote them on this blog barring any major change of directions.

Likewise I wrote another chapter detailing some new characters that I am not sure where I am going to put in the book. That is one of the things I love about writing, watching my own story evolve in my head. Every night when I go to sleep the story plays out in my head like a movie and it really gives me a chance to see what works and what doesn't.

Sometimes something as simple as a small part of a dream or a painting I might see or any number of things might inspire me to think of something new I want to put in the story. The basic story outline has always remained the same but I continuously change minor details.

For instance in chapter 2 the original story outline just vaguely describes the characters of Balimor and Neycara entering a refugee encampment and finding some items that were stolen in chapter 1. As I wrote about the people in the encampment I just started typing about an old hermit approaching the pair. As I typed it I had no idea if he was a beggar, an assassin, a friend, a foe, or any number of things. On a whim I wrote an entire encounter that has turned out to be one of my favorite so far. I didn't alter the original outline what so ever but by writing a single line I significantly changed the story in a subtle way.

Tonight is Max Effort Squat and Deadlift Training. Tonight we are starting a 2 week wave of doing good mornings to a 5 rep max. Since Missy is new to doing heavy good morning I wanted to keep them to a 5 rep max rather than work to a 3 rep max which I more commonly do. I rarely go for a max single on good mornings because I have found almost 100% of the time what ever I can do for one rep I can grind out 3 reps. This is our first week so we will work up to a very heavy but conservative 5 rep max. This will allow us to beat that record next week. Tonight's training will look like this.

Work to 5 rep max Good Morning
3 sets of 5 reps squats
3 Sets of 10 Reps Romanian Deadlifts
3 Sets of 10 Reps Bent Over Rows
3 Sets of Ab Work

For dinner tonight we are having 93/7 lean ground turkey with either rice or potatoes on the side and a salad. We will probably train after dinner so I might down a BCAA drink after training but then again I might not.

I am still going to write parts 2 and 3 to my trip up. I am just too lazy to load the pictures from the camera. I will probably do it tomorrow.

And as I side note I want to congratulate Missy. Over the past couple of months training she was improved head and shoulders and shown the kind of dedication and desire that you rarely ever find in someone. She has been as much of a pleasure to train as she has been to fall in love with.

Updates on Training and Diet

Things have been going great training wise and I have not been updating this blog as much with training logs. The truth is they do not change that often and I tend to post when I do make changes. The facebook page for our gym Deadlifter's Fortress has more regular updates on our training.

One thing of significance we are changing is taking our training from 6 training days out of an 8 day week to 5 training sessions out of an 8 day week. That might seem a bit confusing but bare with me. We train on an 8 week rather than a 7 day week. We did not want to sacrifice a training day but we felt we needed to days off a week so we used an 8 day rotation not a 7 day rotation. Here is an example.

Sunday- Max Effort Squat/Deadlift
Monday- Heavy Lat and Bicep Training
Tuesday- Max Effort Bench Press
Wednesday- Off
Thursday- Dynamic Effort Squat/Deadlift
Friday- Shoulders and light lat and bicep day
Saturday- Dynamic Effort Bench Pres
Sunday- Off
Monday- Max Effort Squat
And So On.

While this meant that what day you trained what changed it wasn't that big a deal. It is not like your legs know or care whether you trained them heavy on Tuesday last week but now Wednesday this week. The good part about this was if I was sick or something came up we could just do that days training session the next day and it did not effect the rest of the week. There were some downsides though, namely having three heavy training sessions back to back. The first thing we altered was to switch the heavy lat and bicep day with the light lat and bicep day. This changed things up a bit. I think that Missy and I really needed to drop another training day though. So we have decided to make some minor changes. Notably we will now be training our lats on our squat and deadlift days and our biceps on our bench press days. The shoulder day will stay the same but we will really hammer our upper back that day. So our training schedule now looks like this.

Sunday- Max Effort Squat and Deadlift
Monday- Off
Tuesday- Max Effort Bench Press
Wednesday- Off
Thursday- Dynamic Squat and Deadlift
Friday- Overhead Press and shoulders
Saturday- Dynamic Effort Bench Press
Sunday- Off
Monday- Max Effort Squat and Deadlift
And So On.

This will give us 3 days off every 8 days so we can do more non training things and also allow us some recovery between our two heavy training days. Now while they are off days that does not mean we won't be staying active it simply just means we won't be training with weights that day. When the weather gets nicer we will be going on walks again and we do a lot of sled dragging and other conditioning work.

I have completed three weeks of a circa max phase for bench press. On my dynamic bench press days I am using 25%-35% of bar weight plus enough chains and band tension so that at the top of the lift there is 90% or more of my one rep max. This has been very hard on my elbows but I definitely feel it helping my bench press considerably. It is not something I would advise people to do very often unless you are an advanced lifter and peaking for a meet. If you don't know what you are doing you can hurt yourself quite seriously trying to do a circa max phase.

As far as diet and nutrition goes I have went from one extreme to another. Early on as I got back into training I was weighing out all my food and tracking absolutely everything I was eating. I had almost zero "cheat meals" and kept up a steady regime of vitamins and supplements. Protein shakes and other concoctions made up a large portion of my diet.

My results were less stellar than I expected. While I was getting stronger and felt better I didn't really see the kind of weight drop that I had expected. It seemed like my body was rejecting the intense regime I was subjecting it to. I decided to slowly but surely back off the strictness and started having more cheat meals and did not track what I ate nearly as closely. The funny thing was that the less "clean" I ate the better results I have had dropping weight. I have lost about 2 pounds a week and lost a total of 22 pounds since the second week of December. During this time I have gotten stronger on all my lifts, even breaking all time records for myself. This lets me know that I am on the right track.

While I have experimented with eating 5-8 small meals a day I have found 3-4 to be ideal. It seems like any more frequent than that and my body simply does not have time to digest the food from the last meal fully. I really don't take any supplements. I should be taking creatine but honestly things have been going so good for me I just don't feel the need to. I have had maybe 2-3 protein shakes in the past 3 weeks. I get almost all my food from whole foods. Lean pork loins, ground turkey, chicken breasts, potatoes (white and sweet), and rice make up the bulk of what I eat now. I tend not get enough fruits and vegetables sometimes but I do try to have some everyday. For breakfast I have been on a kick lately to have McMissys. That is two fried eyes, two slices of cheese, and two turkey sausage patties and four slices of whole wheat bread. These are made into two breakfast sandwiches. They are tasty and I love them.

I don't really have a set plan for cheat meals. When we want to eat something out we do it. We do not do it often and even when I do eat out I don't go all out all the time, although sometimes I do. Well that is it for now. I will post up a few logs over the next couple days so you know where we are at.

Keep Focused On What Your Goals Are

I read training forums quite a bit. While most of them aren't worth a damn there are a few quality ones out there. One of the better ones is the Wannabebig forum. It is run by the At Large Nutrition supplement company. Normally that would give me pause because most supplement companies are nothing short of the biggest frauds in history. Seriously they peddle worthless shit for large sums of money to gullible people.

I cannot stress this enough, because I have people I consider friends in the industry that I absolutely think are shady as hell for their business practices. I could go on and on and I probably will in another article but that is not the purpose of this article. My only point is that when I say that At Large Nutrition and its owner Chris Mason is one of the few people in the industry I respect it means a lot.

The Wannabebig forum attracts a lot of big time powerlifters. On a regular basis Travis Bell, Vinny Dizenzo, Rob Luyando, and Matt Rhodes answer questions on the forum. Those names might not ring many bells for people that read this blog but suffice to say they are great powerlifters. The point being that when you ask for training advice on wannabebig you have some guys who know what they are talking about.

Most forums are full of idiots who have no business giving any sort of training advice to anyone. Hell 95% of training advice in general is downright horrible. All these self-professed gurus with bizarre training systems that all seem to contradict one another promoting mindless drivel. The truth is that training needs not be complicated, getting strong and in shape just requires hard work and dedication.

The one area I noticed a lot of people struggle with based on a lot of the questions that get asked on the forum is that of staying focused on what your goals are. People seem to want to try and serve two masters at once but honestly you need to set one goal and work towards that and the other things will fall in to place.

For instance a common statement made by new posters is that they want to lose belly fat and build muscle. That makes no sense because you either want to get bigger or smaller, you cannot do both at once, it is simple physics.

Now unless you are significantly overweight you should be looking to get bigger. Despite what the media tells you everyday, weakness and smallness is far more of a problem in this country than obesity. If you train to be strong and big and watch what you eat you will build muscle and get leaner over time but you cannot do both at one time. Get big and yoked and then watch what you eat and lean out. If you are a man and 185 lbs. what the fuck are you going to cut to? You can't flex bone just remember that.

A lot of people seem to ask about squat depth, use of lifting straps, and other things. I always wonder about people who ask these questions because unless you are planning on competing in powerlifting it really doesn't matter that much. That is where staying focused on what your goals are come in to play. If you want to compete in powerlifting then those things are very important, you cannot use straps in competition so you should rarely use them in training.

On the other hand if you are training just to build muscle it is silly not to use them on the last couple of very heavy sets. Say you are doing bent over rows, you are doing them to build a big thick back not to build your grip strength so use straps, your lats won't know the difference.

For that matter if your goal is to build muscle then you better be training like a bodybuilder. They are experts at building size and despite what a lot of internet gurus would have you believe, they know what the fuck they are doing. If you are training to be strong then train like a powerlifter. If you want to just be the best at excising then train like a crossfitter.

This guy plays real sports, he is not just trying to be the best at exercising

Seriously, don't train like a crossfitter. Figure out what your goals are and find a real training program that has periodization and cycles and stick with it. Don't get caught up in training a.d.d. and keep switching programs every couple of months, all that will guarantee is that you never know what works and what doesn't.

This goes well beyond just training by the way. In any aspect of life you have to stay focused on what your goals are and then work towards them. Set specific goals, not just "I want to make a lot of money." Instead say "I want to find a higher paying job" and then decide how to work towards that goal. Maybe you will go back to school, start submitting resumes, or whatever. The point is that you have to be clear what your goal is and to ask yourself will doing something get me closer to that goal or will it be pointless.

My goal is to be stronger. Some of the biggest strength gains are made by working with very heavy weights and low reps (with the conjugate method we do 3-4 sets of one rep at 90% of our one rep max and above). This is a rather simplistic explanation but generally true. To optimally train to build muscle mass rep ranges of 8-12 for multiple sets are ideal. Does that mean I only use low reps in my training because I train for strength? Nope, I train many lifts with higher rep ranges because a bigger muscle will be a stronger muscle. If my goal is simply to get bigger I would not use the lower rep ranges as it would be pointless. While building bigger muscles will give you bigger potential for strength gains, your strength gains will have less an impact on building bigger muscles and can be adequately covered by those repetition sets you are doing.

Those are extreme generalities but you can kind of see where I am getting at. Do those things that will help reach your goals. Those that have the biggest effect put your most energy into, and those with less effect put less energy into. The energy I expend doing max deadlift work is a hell of a lot more than what I spend doing 4 sets of 15 reps on leg extensions.

Book Excerpt Part 3

This is the third part of the excerpt from my book. It continues the story of Aldric as he and the Wulf Clan is attacked in the woods. Please read parts 1 and 2 first if you have not already.

----

            Aldric saw the shadows rushing towards him and his Wulf Brothers. Hulking creatures clad in make shift armor and animal skins. He rushed forward with his axe held high to meet their charge headlong. The first beast-thing tried to swing a massive sword but it missed Aldric by mere inches. Aldric’s axe found its mark though as it came crashing down on the beasts iron helm. The beast-thing staggered back a bit dazed before reaching its hand up and pulling away the dented helm. The snarling green skinned beast gazed at Aldric with fierce yellow eyes and let out another roar. Aldric struck again, swinging his axe in a side swipe catching the beast in the ribs.

            This time the axe tore through the beast’s mail armor and planted itself deep in the beast’s side. Blood gushed from the wound as the beast staggered back with such force that it ripped the axe handle from Aldric’s hands.  Aldric quickly reacted by drawing a dagger from his belt and plunging it deep into the beast’s neck. Blood sprayed out from the beast’s wound covering Aldric in crimson. There was no time to celebrate felling the beast, as another one was on him quickly. He picked up his vanquished enemy’s sword and attacked the new foe. The weapon was clumsy but heavy so the effects were devastating when he struck home with it. He killed the second beast but soon a third one was on him. This one was armed with a giant spiked club but Aldric easily evaded the slow ponderous attacks and after striking out a dozen times he killed that beast as well.

            Aldric had heard of these green skinned beasts before. His people had called them Drugan’s and they were not killed easily. Each one that Aldric had slain had taken multiple mortal wounds before going down. All around the campsite Aldric’s Wulf Brothers were finding themselves in dire straits. The Drugans were just too hardy and tough, for every one that was slain two of Aldric’s Wulf Clansmen were killed. Even in the darkness of night he could tell that the enemy outnumbered their paltry hundred or so warriors, so they could not sustain such loses.

            Aldric heard a plea for help beside him as a young Wulf Brother was knocked over by a large Drugan warrior. He rushed over and slammed his sword into the Drugan’s spine with brutal efficiency. The green skinned warrior furiously roared out as it reared up and turned towards Aldric while swinging out with its cleaver sword. Aldric tried to dodge out of the way but could not move fast enough. The cleaver’s tip skimmed across his belly opening a large gash. Aldric staggered back and instinctively grabbed his stomach while dropping his sword. The Drugan moved in for another swing but a spear tip suddenly stabbed out from its stomach. The young Wulf Brother had risen back to his feet and had speared the beast from behind.

            Aldric breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the young Wulf Brother. His wound hurt greatly but had not pierced anything vital. He grabbed the sword lying beside him and rose back to his feet. A wave of horror swept over him as he saw a mighty drugan enter his field of vision. The young Wulf Brother’s attention had been on Aldric so he did not even notice the hulking beast behind him. The foul creature hoisted the young man over its head and then brought him crashing down over top its knee. The young man’s spine was snapped in two and he died instantly.

            The sword dropped from Aldric’s hand as stood there transfixed on the young man’s lifeless face. Drugans started to surround Aldric as he stood there. All around his clan brothers screamed out in horror as they were overwhelmed and butchered.  Aldric thought not of that, instead for first time that he could remember he thought back to the windswept arctic plains of his homeland. In a perverse way he missed those rugged lands as his life was now going to come to an end. The snarling Drugans circled closer, their lower jaws protruding out with tusks on both sides. The horrifying cries of his Wulf Brother’s were now silenced as the last of them were extinguished, only the snorts and hisses of drugans filled the night sky.

            Aldric saw a bright flash of light and figured that the death blow must have been delivered. For a few brief moments he assumed that he was now on his path to whatever the afterlife might have in store for him. The second and third bolts of light snapped him back to his senses. One by one drugans were being felled by these bolts of energy. Aldric was spurred back to action, grabbing a nearby sword and throwing himself at the closest beast he could find.

            Neycara stood by the edge of the woods casting out bolts of light from her finger tips. Since her love Balimor had been slain she fought with an aggression she did not have before. Bummels stood beside her unleashing bolts from his crossbow striking the drugan’s with pin point accurancy. Jearjn and Jenkins had already struck out amongst the drugans felling them left and right with strikes from their axes. The Dwarf warriors were experts at slaying fel beasts and their fierce attacks made quick work of their foes.

            In contrast to their brutal blows, the elven warrior Aladahar used his finesse and accuracy to deal one mortal wound after another. His twin blades flashing like brilliant sparks of light through the night sky. Aldric was too busy slaying drugans to notice those who had come to his aid, he was still certain he would be slain and wanted to take as many beasts as he could with him.

            Bummels dropped his crossbow and drew his sword and charged into the fight. There were only a score of drugan left and he wanted to claim one or two up close for personal satisfaction. Neys ceased her magic attacks and spied the hulking drugan that had earlier broken the young man’s spine. It was huge, even for a drugan, and had to be some sort of warlord or chief. A small smile crept across Neys face as she sized up the beast. She drew her scimitar and then like a bolt of light flung herself into combat with the chief. Despite its fearsome size and strength it was no match for her as she lashed out with super human speed. In the blink of an eye the massive beast was lying on the ground with a hundred lacerations all over its body.

            The battle was now over, the campsite littered with human and drugan corpses. There were piles of bodies everywhere, each with massive wounds and looks of sheer horror frozen upon their faces. Aldric was too mesmerized by Neys to grieve for his fallen brothers. Her features were obscured by her cloak as she stood overtop the body of the fallen drugan chief, but in the breeze of the night her raven hair flowed out and she took on a god-like appearance. Aldric stood wide eyed and then dropped to his knees before her. In the past Bummels would of laughed at such an act but he had seen far too much now to make light of the situation. All of the companions had been changed, even the haughty Alahadar had lost much of cynicism.

            Some of them started to wonder if perhaps Aldric was right, maybe she was a God.

-----

Excerpt from my untitled fantasy book

Here is a sneak preview of an excerpt from the fantasy book I am writing.

----

                Embers from the campfire illuminated Aldric’s wizened face in the night’s darkness. The heavy lines and deep scars were a product of the windswept arctic plains that he called home. That desolate region of the Savagelands was home to the hardiest of men who carved out a bleak existence in the harsh climate. He had propped up his shield against a fallen tree to form a makeshift bed to rest upon. In Aldric’s youth he may have not been bothered by such conditions but now his back ached as he tried desperately to get some needed rest.

                Sleep never did come easy to the barbarian though. As a boy his father had taught him the ways of battle and one lesson hammered home to Aldric was to always sleep with one eye open. He wished his father was still around so that he could ask him how to do that when he had bad one eye left. As he lay beneath the stars he thought back to when his father fell in battle. Aldric was but a boy then really, barely old enough to join the menfolk of his tribe as they did battle with another northern tribe. Too many years had passed for him to remember why they put axe to axe, all the memories that remained were just that of the blood that was spilled.

                Aldric could still see his father on that day. He looked much the same as Aldric does now, big and square with a long mop of hair and a bushy red beard. With his tattooed chest exposed as he wielded a great axe, he looked nigh unstoppable as he cleaved through the ranks of the enemy. Aldric was locked in his own melee at the time so he did not notice when the first arrow sailed through the air and pierced his father’s chest. Such is the chaotic maelstrom of battle that rarely until it is over do you know the full scale of what transpires.

                As Aldric sat by the campfire he could still remember the wild look on his father’s face as he lay dead on the ground. In that moment he saw the mask of death and knew that there was nothing glorious about it. His father, the great warrior, looked no more than a slaughtered stag in the forest. It was a lesson of battle that would last a lifetime for Aldric. Even a great warrior can fall in an instant, death cares not for reputation or skill it takes all with impunity.

                Aldric reached up to his right cheek and felt the deep scar that marred it. He had gotten the scar in that battle, a gift from a fellow clansman who gotten clumsy with his axe swings. He then dragged his hand over to where his left eye had once been. He then thought back to the battle that had claimed that eye. The Clans of the Northern Wulfmen had been united, a great king from the west had promised wealth and glory if they would fight under his banner. Rival clans who had waged war with one another for centuries now stood together turning their destructive might to the east, to the Shadowlands.

                Aldric remembers the scores of battles they fought and the hard fought victory after victory they achieved in the name of the Kingdom of Pelador but that one battle stood out most of all. The Tuskmen, primitive tribes, even by Wulfmen standards, from the Eastern Savagelands had been swayed by the Dark Lords to fight for them. These naked brutes were a mass of muscle and fought with an inhuman fury. The King of Pelador decided to throw the Wulfmen tribes against them, better to waste the lives of barbarians rather than true soldiers of the Kingdom.

                Aldric still remembered that fateful charge into the Tuskmen’s lines. While he no longer held on to the notion of the glory of death in battle, he did accept it with a calm reserve. His axe swung through the air and tore into the guts of one large Tuskmen. The primitive howled in pain as he fell to the ground. Aldric brought his axe around and cleaved the head off the shoulders of another brute. Though the Tuskmen were fearsome in appearance, he found that they died the same as any man. One by one he cut a swath through their ranks as the enemy dead piled up around him. Just as his confidence soared he felt dizzy and then dropped to the ground.

                As he felt where his eye had once been he chuckled to himself that he had not even seen the blow coming. Most of the scars he bore were from blows he never saw coming. He looked to his right and saw his axe propped up beside him. He reached his hand out to it and felt its haft. In his head he reassured his trusty weapon that soon it would taste the blood of the enemy again. Though Aldric was now missing an eye and a finger, and could not longer tell if he had more scars or wrinkles, he still craved battle. He was not mad with bloodlust like some, war had simply become a part of him.

                Not that it mattered whether he craved battle or not fore it was coming one way or another. The enemy had swept through Pelador like a plague killing everything in its path. The Otani Empire had swept in from the western shores while the black dwarfs of the Inferno Mountains had invaded from the east. The Dark Lords of the Shadowlands followed in their wake bringing with them even more horrifying creatures. For men like Aldric and his clan there was only war.

                Off in the distance Aldric and his group heard a loud braying sound. They scrambled to their feet readying their axes and shields. The younger warriors had the false look of bravado while the older warriors like Aldric had a disassociated look of indifference. Whatever manner of beasts had made that sound were not human and they would soon be upon them. Aldric gripped his axe tightly and quietly whispered to his father that he might be seeing him soon.

------

I Can't Believe I Tried This

Have you ever done something for a really good reason that was really fucking stupid. I know that when it comes to getting stronger I have tried about every damn thing under the sun in my quest. Some of these things were actually quite effective and really improved my overall strength and power. On the other hand some of the things I have tried over the years have made me question whether I was borderline retarded.

With the over abundance of fitness guru's and self proclaimed internet stars it is easy to get confused. Everyone seems to have vastly different ideas on how to train and eat and they all seem to contradict one another. This has led me on more than one occasion to follow some pretty shifty advice to say the least. Luckily for myself early on I got to train with some really good people, guys who held world records, and it set me on the right track as far as training is concerned.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that I haven't fallen prey to attempting other things to increase my strength. You see when I am confronted with a problem I try to find a multi-faceted solution to the problem. Many people in the iron game are pretty simple minded in their approach. To them the only thing that matters is training heavy and eating big, fuck science and all that "gay shit".

This could be one of the smartest men in the world but he looks like he is more likely to eat a book than read it.

There is something to be said for this kind of simplistic approach. At the end of the day the desire and motivation to lift and eat heavy will go farther than almost anything out there. I am a big man and I love being a big man and I agree with those two basic tenets wholeheartedly. That does not stop me from attempting other methods though to reach my end goals.

Over the past couple of years these attempts have represented an entire spectrum of ideas. I have tried spiritual means to increase my lifts. I must of prayed to every god of every culture of every time period a time or two. I selfishly demanded that they grant me strength and to forsake all those who are actual believers because I really really really wanted to be strong. If I prayed to Thor one week and missed a lift I  prayed to Jesus the next. If he produced I stuck with him until I missed another lift and it was on to praying to Ares. This might seem like I am making a mockery of religion but ask yourself this, am I the one making a mockery of religion or are the ignorant jackasses who honestly think God gives a shit about the outcome of a sports game the ones really making a mockery of religion.

But this post is not about religious beliefs. It is about the things outside of training and eating that I have done to try and get stronger. One of the more dumb things I tried was to shock myself before a big training session. Due to my job I work around voltages ranging from 60 to 120 volts AC. This is not enough to kill you but unless you are into S&M it is enough to cause you a bit of a jolt. So on more than one occasion I purposely shocked myself with 90 volts to jack me up before a big training day. I have no idea if this helped or hurt my performance but I know that it did leave me feeling a bit weird for a few hours afterward and I don't recall every being dazzled by my progress at the time.

Those things were stupid sure but they really don't hold a candle to what has to rank up there as the dumbest thing I ever did to try and get strong. It started out innocently enough, like a good internet junkie I was surfing the web. This took place in 2009 so at the time I was probably trying to drown out my miserable existence at the time (this was a year before I first met the beautiful Missy [Still want to kick her family's ass for no reason though]). Although I cannot remember the exact circumstances that were going on at the time I am fairly certain I was probably trying to ignore the drunken insults being thrown at me from someone I am glad I no longer have to tolerate. It was under these conditions I found an article online that said that the colder a man's testicles were the more adrenaline his body would produce.

I sat there skimming over the first paragraph of the article and was fascinated. Apparently exposing your suede man-bag to frigid cold triggered some fight or flight response in men. Obviously I could see how this could benefit my quest for maximum strength. Powerlifters are always looking for an edge to get more pumped up before a lift. Some guys listen to violent death metal music, others have people smack them in the face, and the really crazy ones sniff ammonia caps.

So just imagine how excited I am that I may have found that secret edge that would give me an advantage over my training partners or fellow competitors. My only problem was how the hell was I going to expose "das boys" to frigid cold temperatures before a lift.

It was October and while not exactly the high sweltering heat of say August it was still relatively warm outside. It was another two days before our Squat/Deadlift training session and I really wanted to get that extra boost as our training sessions were getting extremely competitive at the time. I think the first night I barely slept at all. I was laying on the sofa staring at the ceiling trying to figure out a solution. After much deliberation the only solution I could come up with was to place a baggy full of ice down my pants as I drove from my house to the gym. It was about a 15-20 minute drive so I hoped that would give me enough time to really get the boys nice and cold.

The day of the training session I was amped up all morning. I could barely concentrate on work as all I thought about was the extra edge this would give me. I kept staring at my cell phone counting down the time until finally it was 5 O'clock. I rushed home as quickly as I could and made a bee line for the refrigerator. I grabbed a baggy on the way and as fast as I could I scooped up the ice and placed it in the baggy. I sealed it up and then changed into my training clothes as quickly as possible. Before I even left the bathroom I wedged the baggy of ice down my pants. I had purposely wore some tighty whities, which I never do, so that the bag of ice would stay put.

Howie Long has the right idea

I placed the bag under the balls so that it kind of rested in between the underwear and the taint. The cold didn't really both me as I have a high tolerance to cold. I was now set so I grabbed my gym bag and headed out the door. I rushed to my car and opened the door and flopped into the seat. That is when I heard the distinct sound of ice getting crushed and felt and intense rush of pain shoot straight up my body all the way to the head. That initial pain was nothing compared to the pain that set in my lower stomach about twenty seconds later.

Somehow as I was sitting down I put so much pressure on my balls that they smashed into the bag of ice basically crushing but the ice and testicles. It was honestly the most painful thing I had ever experienced up to that point. I must of sat in my car for nearly ten minutes not knowing whether I should go to the gym or the hospital. I hurt so bad but I just didn't have the mentality to allow myself any option but to still go to the gym.

Let me tell you this now, trying to drive after smashing ice cubes with your balls is one of the most uncomfortable things you can ever attempt to do. I felt all kinds of hurt that I didn't even know existed. Someone must of been looking out for me though because I somehow made it to the gym unharmed. I literally had to hobble through the door and barely made it to the gym lockers. One of my training partners immediately saw that something was wrong but I played it off as having strained a hamstring and that I would be okay after we started warming up.

I sincerely hoped that would be the case but I can't say that I believed it. I was too scared to examine my balls so I just hobbled my way out of the locker room and made my way to the monolift. I got under the bar and set up to do my first warm up set. I unracked the weight and started to sit back and screamed out in pain as I collapsed back on to the box.  My training partners lent hands to help me up but I told them to leave me be for a minute. My one training partner was a physical therapist and asked me what hurt and I told him I smashed my sac on the way down (I still didn't want to give up my secret yet). So there I am in the middle of a gym that is open to the public and he has me drop my shorts right there. I am literally balls out and I can see from the giant gym mirror that my boys were a horrible color of blue and swollen like tennis balls.

I heard him say an audible "what the fuck" when he saw them. I think he was dumbfounded just how the fuck I managed to do this just by sitting back to squat on a warm up set. I was too embarrassed as it was to say I had shoved a bag full of ice down my pants to try and get an edge and smashed my sac in the process. He told me that I should go to the emergency room but I refused. I pulled my shorts back up and hobbled back to the locker room. I sat on a bench in there for some time wondering just how the fuck could I have gotten myself into this mess. I mustered the strength to rise back up and I checked out the gym computer at the front desk. I looked up the article I had read because I wanted to make a warning comment. The anonymity of the internet allowed me the courage to say what I had done to warn others not to attempt my methods. So I opened up Mozilla firefox and found the article. I scrolled down to find the comment section and ended up reading a bit more of the article.

IT WAS A BULLSHIT ARTICLE, A JOKE, A FUCKING FARCE. Yep despite having above average intelligence I failed to notice that the article was a joke written in jest about how people on the internet fall for all sorts of bullshit "bro-science" when it comes to training.

Yes this is true and yes it took nearly two weeks of pain and swollen balls to return to normal but I learned a lesson that will last a lifetime.

Don't Fall for the Latest Trappings

It is so easy in this world to get lost in the maze of high tech gadgetry and newfangled inventions. Anymore it seems like unless you buy a new television or computer every week you are left behind in the race of technology. I am not even sure if I know the difference between an Ipod, Ipad, PDA,Kindle, E-reader, or any other assortment of high tech gadgets used now. Hell is PDA even cutting edge anymore or is it now in the techno graveyard alongside VCRs and fleshlights?

I feel like a dinosaur anymore. Where as at one time I tried to keep up in the techno race with all the latest cutting edge stuff, I have now accepted that my time has passed. I prefer a good old fashioned desktop computer or laptop to the fancy nancy tablet bullshit I see metro-sexual looking guys with painted fingernails using. I remember  back in the days of the world wide web when only the super dorks and geeks used the thing and if you were chatting with people there was zero chance you would ever meet them.

Now a days you can go online and strike up a conversation and be fucking that person later that night. It is a crazy world we live in I guess.

That is the reason why I love powerlifting. No matter how fancy the world gets there is just something so primal and beastly about lifting heavy ass weights. There is no complicated equations or fancy gadgets that will make you strong, only hard ass work and dedication.

I know some people might take exception to that. You see several decades back someone came up with the concept of gear for powerlifting, squat suits, bench shirts, etc. While at the beginning these were mostly just extremely tight fitting polyester or canvas shirts or suits that protected the lifters from injury when lifting heavy weights, it was quickly found that their tightness provided a certain amount of rebound for the lifter allowing them to lift heavier weights. Of course this turned into a race to see who could make shirts and suits that provided the most amount of carryover in the lift.

So powerlifting gear makers started experimenting by making multiple layers (multiply) and making the shirts open back so you could jack them tighter and also using newer and better material. While at one time you would be lucky to be able to lift 20 more pounds in a bench shirt now a days 200 lbs. or more is quite common. To give you an idea, the current unequiped (raw) bench press world record is 715 lbs and the current equiped is 1075 lbs. That equates to over 300 lbs. of carryover at the least.

You will find about the same numbers in regards to the squat. There is the famous example of a guy squatting 1200 pounds in a multiply meet and then in a raw meet barely hitting over 600.

This has created a big divide in the sport of powerlifting as some people believe in using all the gear they can, while some believe in a moderate amount of gear (like single ply divisions that allow only suits and shirts made of certain materials and only one layer in thickness) and those in raw divisions. Even the raw brigade is divided over whether you should be allowed to wear a belt or knee wraps to be considered raw. And then there is the whole debate over using a monolift for squats verses having to use squat stands and walking the squats out. It is enough to make one's head spin.

But honestly fuck all that debate. No bench shirt or squat suit has ever lifted a goddamn pound of weight. At the end of the day it is human strength and power that does the lifting. I could care less how someone powerlifts I respect anyone out on the platform making personal records. While I think gear has gotten out of hand it is not going to change anytime soon. Most of the strongest men in the world (especially from the USA) lift in multiply gear and it is here to stay.

Back to the topic at hand and that is the simplicity and beauty of powerlifting. At its core it involves the BIG THREE lifts, that is Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift. Although it is no longer a contested lift at major events some people like myself like to lump in the Overhead Press. While it does not contribute to one's total I like having two upper body strength lifts as well as two lower body strength lifts, plus I think it is just goddamn awesome to lift something over your head like some goddamn caveman.

Powerlifting allows me to channel my anger at the world into something. I am pissed off a lot quite frankly. I feel like this world looked at me on day one and shook its head no and from then on I just never fit in. I have always felt like I walked alone in this world and things would never really make sense for me. I feel like when things finally started to make sense and I started to feel some happiness the world decided to steal my father away from me in revenge.

Underneath it all I am a ticking time bomb of rage and anger. I want to lash out at the person who cuts me off in traffic or the idiot who blocks the lane in the grocery store. I want to unleash my fury on every motherfucker who has ever gotten in my way. I am so full of hatred inside of me I feel it boiling over any minute now.

Powerlifting keeps that hatred in check. I channel that raw emotion into each lift and put it all on the platform. I know every time that I train I leave a little bit of my life behind. It is  not healthy to push your body to its physical limits and beyond but I do it because otherwise my hatred would of consumed me long ago. I was a moody and angry child and grew up to be a moody and angry adult and I need my outlet before I go off the deep end. I have it in me but I keep it down but only barely.

Powerlifting needs not to be complicated. Its beauty is the raw simplicity that it beholds. Men have been picking things up off the ground or lifting things over their heads since prehistoric times. Signs of strength and power meant that you were the one who bred with the beautiful women and passed on your seed. Now all kinds of weak people bred and we have a weak society.

Don't get caught up in the fads of strength training. Kettlebells, barbell complexes, hand stand pushups, and other things are nice but never forget what has made man strong for thousands of years. Squat, deadlift, overhead press, and bench press (if only so you can throw out some big ass number anytime someone asks what you can bench).

Oh and keep in mind if you ask me what I can bench it just lets me know you don't train. Anyone worth a damn knows that deadlifting or squatting are much better representations of strength than benching is. In fact bench pressing is the least functional of all the big lifts. If someone tells me what they deadlift or squat I know exactly how strong that individual is, bench pressing tells me nothing.

I Hate Being Sick

There I said it. I hate being sick and do not react well to it in the least. I am a big old baby and want to just curl up and die when I am sick. I hate anything that I think debilitates me whether it is a cold, flu, fever blister, poison ivy rash, or an out break of genital warts.

I don't have genital warts mind you but I have to imagine that I would hate if I had an out break of them all the same. You see you don't have to try things to know you would not like it. Some things, like herpes, gay sex, or getting fisted I just know I would not like to experience.

So this latest bout of sickness started on Sunday. For weeks at work I had been bombarded with genetically inferior sickly piss ant motherfuckers spreading their filthy degenerative sicknesses around the offices. Seriously what kind of piece of shit subhuman child raping scumbag would show up to work sick? The same kind of sick fucks that have herpes or aids and fuck other people without telling them. Sorry but a sickness is a sickness and you have no right to spread your filthy diseases and illnesses to innocent people. There would be no health care problems in this country if not for losers who go to work while being sick. If you are sick keep your week genetically inferior fucked up ass at home. You seriously deserve to die otherwise.

So after weeks of fighting off repeated exposure to low life sick people I finally felt a tickle in my throat on Sunday. I knew what this was a sign of but I tried to be in denial. Missy and I loaded up in the car and went over to lowes to buy some concrete blocks to put in the dragging sled we made. I ended up buying about 200 pounds worth of blocks for about 7 dollars which wasn't too bad. Once we got home we gave it a go and did some sprints while dragging a weighted sled behind us. These are intense under the best of circumstances but they were even harder because of the chest congestion I was feeling.

You see, while other people I work with just go home and pulp their lazy asses down and play video games and drink beer I am actually busting my ass smashing fucking weights and doing sprints and other conditioning drills. For them being sick is a minor inconvenience where as for me it affects my training which to me is the most important thing in my life outside of Missy's Boobies (honk honk).

So on Monday my chest congestion was far worse and extremely painful. I still muscled through a training session. It was not easy but we nailed a great squat/deadlift training session. Tuesday I felt even worse. I somehow managed to still bust out a quick but intense shoulder and lat training session. I set a pretty big personal record on overhead press so I was happy. Wednesday was absolutely brutal and I barely managed to scrap by. Missy and I both came to the conclusion that it was in my best interest to push back that night's training session another day to try and recover. Unfortunately Thursday I was doing worse. Chest congestion was now joined with head congestion, fever, cold chills, and long balls that kept falling out of my shorts.

Thursday we decided to hold back our training yet again. It would probably do more harm than good at this point. I don't like missing training for being lazy but I have no problem when it is the right thing to do and in this case it was the right thing to do. That is why Missy is great, she tells me earlier that my non-erect penis looks like a big muffin, and she helps guide my training. An objective observer who's opinion I can trust. She can let me know when I am being lazy and when I am being smart. The perfect trainer and she is smoking hot so me and my blueberry muffin win out on all accounts.

Today is Friday and I am still feeling like shit. My head is no longer congested thanks to clariton but I am still coughing like crazy. We are going to train tonight. A quick but intense dynamic bench press session. Just 4 lifts but we will hit them heavy and hard and get in and out. These can be the best training sessions you will ever have. Boring but strength and size builders.

And just for the record Missy got sick before me and didn't falter for one second. She trained right alongside me without complaint and helped work on the gym and always woke up early to make breakfast and do other things for me. She really is a champ because I am a total weeny when I am sick but she troopered through. That is why women have children and men don't. We would cave under the pressure.

Alright I am done with this shit for right now.

Moving North of Vag

I wish I could take credit for this statement but I sadly can not claim that. In fact the person who turned me on to the statement cannot even take credit for it. His name is Jim Wendler and he actually got the term from his friend. I don't want to reprint parts of his book since enough people pirate his hard work but suffice it to say the concept of Moving North of Vag is to stop being a pussy and man up.

First I want to take a small step back. There is nothing wrong with vag. I would also like to say that I have seen far more women who endure terrible hardships and preserve than I have men. Most men fold at the first sign of struggle. When the going gets rough they get going out the door.

So while this may not be EXACTLY what the Jim Wendler (yes that is correct, Jim Wendler is no longer a man but an entity) or his friend meant I take the statement North of Vag as manning up. Whether you are a woman or man you can man up. What does man-up mean? If you have to ask that it means you have not manned up. In fact you should just stop reading this blog altogether and go back to you're mommy's tit because you might start crying.

You cannot get in shape without getting stronger. Sorry but no one will convince me otherwise. In order to get in to real optimum shape you have to get outside of your comfort box. Don't listen to any half ass personal trainer or bullshit diet pill infomercial that tells you they have some secret method to getting in shape. They are worse than drug dealers. Hell drug dealers are at least honest and as a bonus get you high as fuck. On the other hand 99% of personal trainers, bullshit university studies, miracle supplements, and other shit they peddle will make you worse not better. It gives you a false sense of expectations and once you fail to see results you will surely throw your hands up in the air and give up. I know because I had been through that more than a few times. Empty promises and no results.

Here is what they will never say to you, to get the results you want it will take very hard work and it will take a while. Whether you want to be a powerlifter, athlete, or just "in-shape" it will be a marathon and not a sprint. Slow consistent day in and day out adherence to a training and nutrition plan. You have to push yourself beyond what is comfortable and you must deny yourself cheap fixes.

"But but but... Ms. Smith lost a ton of weight after going to some shady doctor and getting an adipex (or insert another diet drug)." That's nice. Really I am impressed.

Wait for it...

Wait for it....

Okay now fast forward a year from now and Ms. Smith is fatter than fuck. But it really does work right? Get the fuck out of here with that kind of menial bullshit. Hell even when she was "skinny" dare her to take her shirt off and you will find the ugly truth she went from being fat to "skinny-fat". An illusion of the weak. Hell look at these lap band fucks and you will never see someone in good shape, they might be smaller but look horrid.

All they ever needed was a little manning-up. Want to know the secret to manning up?

1. Warm up/Stretch
2. Lift Weights
3. Hill Sprints/Sled Dragging/Tabata drills
4. Fast paced walking

Yes that is it. Lift 4 days a week focusing on heavy compound lifts each day (ie- Sunday- Squat, Monday- Overhead Press, Wednesday- Deadlift, Friday- Bench Press). That is just a rough guideline but those lifts have been the key to people getting stronger and fitter for generations. I obviously don't train in this fashion but I do use those key lifts as the cornerstone of what I do and quite frankly you don't want to do what I do. It would eat you up and spit you out so don't even entertain notions of doing what I do. Keep your training to 30-45 minutes, get in and do your lifts and get out. The 2 hour marathon training sessions Missy and I do are killers and really not ideal for most people. We are actually working on shortening the length but a good portion of that time is spent coaching her since she is new to this.

Number 3 might be a bit confusing but rather than list what exactly to do my whole point was that you should perform some type of higher intensity cardio. Not often but three times a week would suffice. Should take 20 minutes or less. Missy and I do sprints while dragging a weighted sled behind us. 6 sprints at 60 yards. Might not sound like much but try and it and if you are still alive tell me how it went.

Number 4 might sound like a south of vag item but let me tell you that a 30-40 minute fast pace walk at least 4 and up to everyday a week. If you do nothing else but this I guarantee you will feel a hundred times better and enjoy life more. The key is to walk quickly and not just a leisurely stroll. I hate to quote a number but aim for at least a pace of just before you start to jog. And no you don't have to do that funky power walk walk, just walk with a fast pace and enjoy the health benefits. It will keep blood flowing and your heart will thank you.

Next article will contain a no non-sense guide to nutrition and a big fuck you to diet guru's who I consider one step above rapists.