Shooting My Mouth Off... again

I remember when I was in high school doing essay writing. The basic idea was to make a point and then spend the rest of the writing to prove it. So, I've written like that for a long time out of a combination of necessity, habit and enjoyment. So, once a in a while, it's nice to just say stuff without having to spend hundreds of words making my point.

So, here goes another edition of shooting my mouth off...

-I'm sick of hearing about "Soviet Training Secrets!" You want to really know what their secret for making some of the most powerful humans alive? They looted the most, and the most useful, steroid information from the Germans in the aftermath of WWII. That's it! It sure as hell wasn't Kettlebells!

-Speaking of Kettlebells, here I am at one of the Bodytribe Kettlebell workshops...That's a shitty smile because it's fake. Holding this thing in a rack position was really, fucking uncomfortable. The handle's too damn short! Were KB handles always this short or are they getting that way so you can do more reps? If so, I take this as yet another sign that kettlebells are starting to get hopelessly "gamey" Why swing endlessly five minutes on end? This is the same high-rep bullshit that dogs BW training.

-Find a strength training fanatic blog. Read it often. I don't think that I'm a fanatic, but I find fantatics' writing highly motivating!Fanatic? Possibly... she's still awesome!

-The perception of lack of stature from being short often times gets filed under the reasons that men turn to building muscle. I wonder if women do the same. I've noticed that a lot of the women that I know of who take strength training seriously are pretty short...I think I'm just looking for reasons to post pics of buff women at this point...

-Superfood is bullshit! It's a marketing term. Superfoods don't exist!!!! Look it up... apples and cherries have as much nutritional value as pomegranate and acai! Hello marketing!

-Along the same lines, I'm sick of hearing about plant foods that are "loaded with protein." "PACKED FULL OF PROTEIN!" Compare most of them to 4-6 ounces of chicken or steak. Some will come close. A couple might surpass. Then again, look at the PER (protein efficiency ratio)...

-Anyone who talks about mass-gaining and barely ever mentions diet is utterly ignorant. Eating counts for more than the movements. It's better to screw it up in the gym a little now and then and get it right in the kitchen. Frankly, mass-gain should alway start with what you're eating and not how you're exercising!

-Ever think of training, in part, as preventative maintenance? I think the few that dare to use the term "funk-SHUN-al strength" anymore screw up. Sports and and manual labor have the potential to be abusive on the body. Training ought to strengthen us up not just to do our thing but to withstand the rigors of that thing. Best exercise I found for heavy shoveling work? Ab wheel roll-outs. I never have a sore back from shoveling since I started doing ab wheel roll-outs.

-You can't buy fitness! How many people go out there and buy tons of shit to work out with and the only thing they lose is money and the only thing that they build is a pile of junk in their basement or garage that they never, fucking use? Getting a good workout is as much mental as it is physical so it's not about what you can lay your hands on.

Reflecting back on International Women's Day, from a training perspective

Allyson's kewl. There's just no other way to put it. She put up with my phallic Shake-Weight jokes and is always there to make sure I don't blow my vertebrae up in the air while doing upright rows. Another thing that makes her kewl is this article that she wrote last year for Sally's Synopsisum for Women's Day (Oh, and Sally's kewl too!). She reposted it on Facebook the other day for International Women's Day, 2011 and it got me thinking again...

Well, that wasn't the only thing that got me thinking. While probably not planned, it still coincided with an article from Wild Gorillaman. Like Allyson, Gorilla and others, I'm a big fan of the ladies that do real strength training. I don't view it as a man's thing and I'm (just barely) smart enough about training to know that the whole, "heavy weight lifting makes women bulky , manly, and ugly," is the zombie-like myth of the physical culture world: It's a blood-spewing, puss-covered thing that just won't die!

As a quick refresher as to why that's false, I'll spell it out yet again. To get huge muscles, someone has to eat large quantities of the right food along with some very intense strength training. By large quantities, I mean doubling, or even tripling, your caloric intake, most likely into and beyond the 3,000 calorie per day range. FOR. MONTHS. ON .END. Even if a women did that, it's still very hard to reach man-bulk territory without anabolic steroids. So, it's not just a simple matter of picking up a weight that approaches the triple-digit poundage. It's a complete lifestyle overhaul!

So, is that it? Do we just need to tell the scared gym gals that paragraph I just wrote? End of blog entry?

If that was all that there was to it, then I would have ceased typing by now. I see something else going on though. I still see a problem. This is the article that The Ape-Man wrote. The first two paragraphs really deserve repeating:

Today's Update is spite-fueled, and inspired by The Gorilla's trip through the supermarket checkout last night, where he was confronted by a celebrity gossip magazine with a sickening picture of Gwyneth Paltrow in a bikini on the cover. Thirty seconds of Googling didn't dig up the exact picture, but take The Gorilla's word for it, it was substantially ickier than this one from TMZ.

Ladies, aside from the fact that no one in the real world that you're trying to impress is attracted to or impressed by such an appearance the reality is that, contrary to what fad trainers like Tracy Anderson who are cashing in on their 15 minutes will tell you, going after that look doesn't require training a certain way or eating a certain diet. If you want to look that way, just have sex in exchange for heroin and don't eat anything at all. That would be cheaper and less time consuming.

The last line may have a touch too much coarseness but it got my wheels turning: how much drug addicts have influenced what is considered attractive in women. Yes, I'm being serious. At the tail-end of the Victorian Period, the ashen-white skin complexion and heavily-dilated pupils were considered highly attractive. That would explain why prostitution was so popular back then: most soiled doves were drug addicts. Things haven't changed too much, unfortunately. We all know that too many models are the products of a champagne and cocaine diet.

If you read Allyson's article thoroughly, you'd have come across a link containing some information that indicated that women would rather too fat than too muscular. Unlike the origins of the waifish look, I don't need to explain how to make a woman fat.So, the problem that I see with all of this is that we (men AND women) still strive for aesthetic standards that discourages women from any kind of meaningful movements. A woman could look drugged-out skinny or cupcake-"curvy", or anything in the middle, as long as they don't look like they are physically capable of doing, well, anything really.

Now, on a day were women worldwide celebrated the notion of equality, that kind of thinking about the feminine physique is troubling. Those of us who sacrifice sweat at the altar of getting strong know that strength is ultimately about ability. We find out that the stronger that we get, the more capable we feel and better off our lives are. It's easy to understand why women 140 or so years ago weren't encouraged to look physically strong: it was a sign that they worked, and that usually wasn't fashionable. Some of the looks contorted and modified the body to the point where they couldn't do much of anything. That was the point! Probably the most disturbing example of I'm talking about above!

In a world were we're supposed to accept that women are capable and able, why do we only find them good looking if they drain themselves of any obvious signs of either?

No, I'm not talking' about women having big biceps and back muscles here. Many of us know that the those aren't really good signs of strength anyway. How about training that gives someone good, strong posture? Or, doing some upper body exercises that get rid of the all-too-common winged scapula? Perhaps even the ability to squat down, below parallel, to pick something (or someone) off the ground without serious effort?

Wait, this is starting to sound like promoting healthy bodies. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe that's what we should be doing to begin with here: promoting real strength training for real health for the sake of being able to do real-life movement. Then, after we've got that mastered, maybe we can all learn to appreciate a healthy, strong body and learn to find it desirable, maybe even attractive.

Yes, I'm going to Review Bodytribe Stuff...

So, I've got my Bodytribe T-Shirt, my Bodytribe DVD's, my Bodytribe book, and I'm waiting for my Bodytribe G-string. Wait a second, is this place starting to control my mind? Maybe I've turned into some kind of BTer-roadie hybrid. Or, was this place that I, with a heavy heart, had to leave behind as I bounce around from state to state, even country to country, just that much of an awesome fit for my way of doing things?

You can make the call...

So, I've become a collector of Bodytribe paraphernalia, and for good reason. It's awesome! The first acquisition was, "Lift With Your Head," along with the T-shirt. The T-shirts awesome too. I swear that I'm at least three times more sexy when I wear it (You're still the only one, Melissa!). The take-out girl at Outback in Sacramento seemed to dig it...

The book might not have made me sexier to women that I can't/won't touch but it did something that we all need to do before we go to our prospective places of body worship: THINK! This book really made me think about what I'm doing, why I do it, and how I go about doing it. The first part alone could be it's own book, worth the asking price of $22. This kind of thought provocation shouldn't be missed. The second section deals with the lifts. Some are pretty standard. Others are more elderly, lesser-used, and pretty damn funky. All are well-explained. One thing that I have to give kudos to Chip on is the Bent Press. I've read a lot of descriptions on how to do a bent press. None of them described it with enough clarity for me to feel confident trying it on my own. His does, along with the enough of the right pictures to show how it's done.

The Brutal Recess DVD's are pretty easy to sum up. It's done early on in the production: it's Bodytribe's concept that calls for adding both mobility and a sense of creative playfulness into training. Sure, it does that in the two-set DVD's but to leave it at that is like saying a Mercedes is simply a car. Or Earnest Hemingway is simply a writer. This set is a real rarity: a fitness DVD that's actually fun to watch! The level of training creativity is simply off-the charts! Much of the demonstrations of Brutal Recess are done outdoors in very cool locations with some even cooler music! A good way to describe some of what you'll see would be strength music videos! Don't take this as a way of saying that there isn't some good information here. This has some seriously-solid training information. If you're smart, you'll start doing some of this stuff. NOW! It doesn't take very much of this in your workout(by, not very much, I mean less than a week!) to realize that the Brutal Recess concept will make you a stronger, more physically-capable human being.

Oh, and no mullets spandex, or high tops! Here...

If you're reading this blog on a regular basis, then you probably agree with me that that there are a lot of things that are seriously wrong with our subculture. It's one thing to drone on and on about the problems without providing any good alternatives. That's the beauty of Bodytribe's stuff: They provide their customers with great alternatives to the modern gym culture.

Now, I realize that a significant portion of my readers are from Bodytribe and therefore, they live in California. If you're one of those people and you're complaining about how out-of-control your states' debt is and how expensive things like your water bill are, I have a simple explanation as to why it is that way:

SO I CAN BUY MORE STRENGTH TRAINING STUFF!

I made enough money working in California for two months that I was able to buy that Alpha-Strong sandbag I mentioned a few weeks back as well as two more Ironmaster Kettlebell handle and another 128 lbs of weights along with the pins to use them. I haven't been shy about confessing my love for their Kettlebells and the love affair continues. The KB handle starts out at 22.5 lbs. The first weight set brings it up to 57.5 lbs, the second 80 lbs and the final (special order) brings it up to 103 lbs. After playing around with other KB's, I really began to appreciate the the Ironmaster's adjustability even more. Most solid KB's graduate upwards in roughly 5-7 lbs increments, until you get to 53. Then, it abruptly jumps to 70 lbs. With a lot of exercises, it's a pretty big difference.

That's where the Ironmaster really shines. It's allows a far more gradual ascent. I can strict press two-53 lbs pretty easily. 70 lbs is a bit too much (although I can do it). 62 lbs is just right!

Any downsides that I've discovered? Well, kind of. The upside to these KB's is that they're adjustable. The downside is they're adjustable. Anything with moving parts requires some work. After traveling in back of a truck, they do get some dirt in the mechanism. Every once in a while I have to take an old toothbrush and some WD-40 and clean it out or the screw won't tighten properly. That's minor though.

.and these KB's are awesome!

For Love of the Bent Press II: The Two Hands Anyhow!

Did you know that the original Christmas Carolers were bums simply looking for a new, innovative way to beg for money? That's right, they were no different than those annoying bastards that clean your windshield for you without asking and get pissed when you don't give them money. They weren't a welcomed sight outside the windows of Victorian England. They weren't any more welcomed than the loosely termed "underground" strength training's "singing" about more holistic and comprehensive training outside the doors of the equally snotty Victorian-equivalent modern gym world today.

Ironically, we look back to the tail-end of the Victorian era for sources of training information. This was the dawn of weight training in the Western world. Most of us who read training manuals from that era know what most enduring image of strength is...

Arthur Saxon's Two-Hands Anyhow lift(herein known as THA). He set a record of doing a 448 lbs THA at a bodyweight of about 210 lbs. Back in 1900, this was probably the most common challenge to prove your strength. For those of you who don't know what this entailed, it was pretty simple: get as much weight in both hands overhead as possible. The most common way to do this was to bent press a barbell overhead. At the bottom of the bent press, the lifter would grab a kettlebell and curl, or clean, and press the kettlebell overhead, completing the THA. It's a crying-ass shame that this series of lifts got dumped in the trash can of history back in the 1930's, along with prohibition and corsets.

The latter were bad ideas from their inception. The bent press is as good as it ever was. I know because after I picked up my second kettlebell set-up from Ironmaster, I've been playing around with this more and more. It's so much fun because there really isn't anything else out there quite like it. It's all about slow, steady control the whole time that you perform it. Nothing can be rushed. Everything must be smooth. It's almost like ballet... with iron and sweat.
It's also murder on just about every muscle that you've got. This is definitely a full-body experience!

I just started doing this very recently so my level of expertise isn't any more grand than the 130 lbs of weight that I'm putting overhead. I started with a 75 lbs kettlebell (At the first draft of this article, I was using two KB's. Currently, I'm using a sandbag and kettlebell combination since I left one KB back in CA) cleaning it up to a rack position. Once I've done that, I bent press it, reaching down to grab a 55 lbs kettlebell waiting near my foot. That's really important: make sure you put the weight near the inside of your foot. You don't want to be searching around with that much weight above your head, unless you like testing your Lat-tension!

Low ceiling. Sucks!

Anyway, I've done both curling the second kettlebell and cleaning it before pressing overhead. I think that both have their advantages and disadvantages. Curling feels a little smoother with the first, heavier weight overhead, but it definitely is harder to get up to a racked position. It's far easier to clean it there but like I said, that makes it harder to control the big guy overhead! Experiment: do it both ways. Just for fun, I like to throw in a windmill action to put one of the weights down too.

I'd like it if someone, somewhere, would start throwing this back into a lifting competitions again. Some ideas are too good to forget in the sands of time. In the meantime, try this one out sometime. We may not be able to achieve Arthur Saxon-like poundages but there's still lots of good work to be had in this old lift.

See it here first: Spring Straps!

A lot of my long-time readers know that I don't claim to be the first at anything exercise-related. It doesn't take a whole lot of research to realize that every good and bad idea in training has been tried at least twice, lost, rediscovered, and tried twice more. So, claiming to be an original in this sub-culture tends to make you look foolish, poorly-read, or a hype-happy con man.

However, I'm going to do just that!

I thought of something a while ago. Something that I've never seen, heard or even remotely alluded to ever with strength training. It happened as I read through John Jesse's book, "Encyclopedia of Wrestling and Physical Conditioning." I saw exercises for, among other things, rings and chest expanders. Then, it hit me: what if these two had a baby? What would it look like?

Well, it might look like this...

I'm getting to the point in my training where I can spread my rings out quite a ways apart and still knock out 15 dips without much of a problem. That's usually my cue to look for ways to increase the difficulty. The ring dips (or any other suspension rig) make the dip much harder for several reasons, chiefly the extra work that the pectoralis majors have to do. A quick run down of of the action of the Pec-major...

...has four actions which are primarily responsible for movement of the shoulder joint[2]. The first action is flexion of the humerus[upper arm bone], as in throwing a ball side-arm, and in lifting a child. Secondly, it adducts[moving towards the center line] the humerus, as when flapping the arms. Thirdly, it rotates the humerus medially[rotation towards the mid-line of the body], as occurs when arm-wrestling. Finally it aids in deep inspiration[3], as in taking a deep breath before jumping in a pool. The pectoralis major is also responsible for keeping the arm attached to the trunk of the body[4].

Fixed bar dips don't require the pec-major muscle to keep adducting the arm bone nearly as much as the suspension trainer will since they don't move. By adding the spring into the suspension trainer, the spring pulls the arms away from the center line. Now, the pecs have to work harder still. I've tried these a few times and they cut my reps down by a third! More specifically, I struggled (and sometimes failed) to get 10 reps on this set-up.

The key to making these work properly is the placement of the rig. They have to be farther than shoulder-width apart. If they're not, then the weight of the body compresses the springs and there is no pulling-away action for the pecs to resist. Another important key is to find a very strong, extension-type spring. After some searching I found these springs at Lowes (I saw them at Home Depot as well) used for porch swings. They're rated for 300 lbs. If they're too light, then your BW will simply stretch the spring without offering resistance. To sweeten the deal, these springs only cost about $10.00, well worth the investment as far as I'm concerned.
I haven't tried this out yet with push-ups but I'm sure that they'll also make push-ups a lot harder too.

I thought I'd pass this along in case anyone out there is looking for a cheap way to make pushing exercises on suspension gear harder.

Sun, Sand and Alpha-Strong

...or, another heretical post since this is, in name, a Bodyweight Blog!

The mere sight of the Alpha Strong, Thy Beast, on the web site might make a lot of fans of improvised, underground strength training puke a little in the back of their throat. A $150 sandbag that can only be loaded to 80 lbs and has a bunch of handles? That stamps on some major sandbag traditions..

1. Its a cheap way to lift a lot of weight. By a lot, I mean 100-200 lbs.
2. Grabbing the bag is a great grip strength tool.
3. Did I mention its supposed to be cheap?

Or, maybe thats the way I viewed sandbags. Better still, thats the way that I viewed sandbag training before I actually got a chance to hold one in the flesh, work with it a little, and actually had the money in hand to buy one after trying it out. I guess poverty breeds pig-headedness!

Customer service is a major plus with Alpha Strong. My wife and I planned a trip to Peru after I finished up in Sacramento. At the last moment, her family decided to rent a beach house. I figured that sandbag training would be a great way to work out at the beach. So, at the last minute (and I mean the THE LAST MINUTE) I called Alpha Strong, got Cathy on the phone, and arranged to get one shipped to me ASAP so I could fly with it down to Peru. She came through for me and that was much appreciated.

The first impression about this bag (not to mention all of their other bags) is that it's seriously tough! Actually, there's the outer bag that you hold onto and an inner bag that holds the sand. Either way, this isn't yet another overpriced and underbuilt piece of exercise equipment. It's built like a piece of Samsonite luggage! Everything about it screams heavy duty, hard use, and throw-me-around-for-all-you're-worth!! This could easily pull duty at any commerical gym. Let me put it this way: I would have no problem checking this thing as luggage at the airport!

So, I threw it in my bags, along with two-1 1/4" ropes (I'll get to in a second) into my luggage and headed to Peru. A few days later, I hit the beach for a week, training with it pretty much every day for a week, sometimes twice a day. Since I was on vacaction, I freed myself from set routines and goals for a bit. Whatever seemed like a good idea to do that day, I just went ahead and did it.
Cards on the table time: I really beat the shit out of this bag. If I blew it apart, called Cathy back demanding a replacement after explaining what I did with it, I wouldn't blame her if she said something to the effect of:

Justin, you stupid shit! What the fuck were you thinking? Why don't you
just stick to bodyweight because you obviously don't know how to
treat your equipment?

The first thing I did was overload it. According to the paperwork, this bag is designed for 40-80 lbs. I didn't ask if that was how much they estimated it could hold or how much they designed it to hold. Not all sand is the same coarseness, and the hills surrounding Punta Hermosa, Peru are nothing but super-fine, dust-like sand favored for cement-making all over Lima. The bottom line is that the first time I loaded and used this bag, it probably weighed well over 100 lbs. Still, no problems with the bag.

The beach house was constructed in a terrace-like manner into the side of the hills. The stairways are narrow and I found that it was easier to toss the bag from the upper deck to the lower deck if I wanted to bring it down to the beach for some improvised-sled dragging work.

That's what the ropes were for. The reenforced handles looked plenty tough enough for the task. So, I tied the ropes to the handles and did several types of drags and still the bag laughed this off too, much like the overloading and the floor-to-floor throwing. I'm not saying that you should do any of this with this bag. I'm just saying that I did and it survived without issue.

In addition to dragging the bag high pull, face pull and standard dragging, I did clean and presses, military presses, Sotts presses, Zercher squats, Cossack Squats, bear hug and behind the neck good mornings, bent over rows, and half-moon snatches (I adjusted the weight of the bag as necessary). The addition of the handles does take away from the grip training somewhat but it does add a lot of versatility to the bag. Plus, you don't have to be as consciencious about nail-trimming. If you're that much of a grip junkie, you could just grab the bag, old-school style.

In short, I could find absolutely nothing to complain about with this bag. It was a a great companion to the sun, sand and waves. Yes, it's a bit pricey but just like you wouldn't expect to pay less than $100 for a good suitcase, you probably shouldn't expect to pay less for a bag that's this well-built. Suggestions? I'd buy a bigger bag if they decided to make one. In the meantime, I think I may have found the ideal travel companion if I want to do some weighted training on the road.

I should have taken some pics of me using this bag. Sorry about that! After all, I am on vacation...

As you can see, in spite of the obvious drinking I did while at the beach house, I managed to stay in good shape. Thanks, Alpha Strong!

Not strength training, just gloating. MY SON, HENRY EMILIO!!! First picture...

Is unilateral good? Is this unilateral? Two Ropes One Climb and some Cossack Squatting...

Being disconnected from the industrial gym complex has numerous perks. I don't know what's going on there, sure. Then again, I'm not burdened by people telling me that what I'm doing is wrong, even when it probably isn't. Take "unilateral" training. I never knew that there was any debate on it's usefulness. Apparently, it's not all it's cracked up to be, for reasons that I couldn't quite grasp. Explanations left me with a typical, intuitive yet highly intelligent response: SO WHAT?

Okay, a lot of the stuff I'm going to mention isn't strict unilateral work. I know this. I call it that because the load isn't spread evenly on both limbs. I don't want to confuse things further by coming up with yet another term.

I like unilateral srength work. In the bare-bones world of broke, traveling and/or otherwise cramped for space/stuff strength training, working out out one side/limb/whatever disproportionately at a time works out nicely. It lessens the demand for more stuff. Take my friend Fred's Facebook page profile pic. He's doing (I think) a 100 lbs Cossack squat. That's bad ass! When I saw that, I slapped myself for not thinking of it sooner. Squatting 100 lbs with my sandbag is getting pretty easy for me, even in Zercher format. So that was a nice way to use the same amount of weight to make for 20-30 seconds of "OH SHIT THAT'S HARD!" muscular tension. Hey, I'm not training for a competitive lifting sport so what difference does it make if it doesn't help out any competitive lifting? I just want to get that special feeling that I love so much!

That was the weighted side of things...

So, yeah, I escaped from California, and rain and snow and cold and work, for a couple of weeks down in Peru. On the downside, I had to leave all my big-ass ropes, along with my work equipment, in Sacramento to pick up later. All I had for rope back home was my old 1 1/4" rope (25' long) thate I don't use a whole lot anymore. Too thin, but I had an idea. Cut and eye spliced it into two pieces and dragged it to Peru (for reasons you'll read about later, in another blog entry). It was just blind luck that I found out that the beach house my in-laws and I rented had a spot to hang these ropes for climbing. So, hung them both up and started climbing them.

It's important to give credit where it's due. I know Ross Enemait didn't invent this idea but I got it from him so kudos anyway, Ross! It was in his awesome book, "Never Gymless." This is an idea that doesn't get used a lot, or enough as far as I'm concerned. Each side of the body has to work a lot more than if they were grabbing onto the same one rope. It's a lot more unstable and it really hits the biceps hard! Finding that out was really a case of making lemonade out of lemons since I started realizing that my biceps seem to be my weak point for rope climbing work.

Eventually, all my ropes will make their way back from California and I'll get back on track for the 3" rope climb. I made it halfway up not too long ago. In the meantime, I can make happy time with two ropes after finding out how hard this really can be. If you've been getting into ropes as much as I have lately and you've left behind a smaller-diameter rope in favor of the big stuff, this is a good way to squeeze some more life out of those old ropes.