For the better part of a few years, throughout the majority of my training, I have trained with a stellar group of people. Well, more like a couple that were steady and always willing to do the work and stragglers who may or may not have been swell to have around, but they eventually faded away. As a human, chances are you have competed in something before. Whether you are a man or a woman competing with other men for a cheap lay in a bar, or you have competed in a ping-pong tournament, or you have competed for academic honors you have competed.
For this cheap slut, the winner must have a large wallet. Wallet+Trampstamp+an already cheap slut=The Clap. Congratulations, you win a doctor's visit.
If you follow philosophical thought, Friedrich Nietzsche espoused this theory of the will to power. One way--out of so many vastly incorrect ways--to interpret this is that humans don't merely adapt to survive and live and in complacency, but that the human will try to get better and better and become a master of its surrounding world, and also be a master of its reality.
The will to get better and not settle for mediocrity is why he had a bad ass mustache.
One way for a group of motivated people to get better is to compete with other people in sports. If I were to compete in sports against someone--say in powerlifting--I sure as fuck don't want some piece of shit to beat me, so then that is my motivation to win, and to get better. I would be less likely to achieve the best I could achieve if I didn't have to assert my will to power over other people. By the way, I say "piece of shit" regarding my competitor in jest, as in actuality these people might be my friends, or family.
If any of you remember the classic movie "Pumping Iron," we can recall that Arnold and Franco and the rest were all good friends, and ate together and partied together. And the fact that they trained together made them try harder. But when they stepped on the Olympia platform, they wanted to beat each other, and the process to exert their will over the competition started long before the competition--In Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding the Oak relates how the guys wouldn't show off their physique before a competition, but in order to weaken and demoralize their opponents, Franco Columbu would run around in shorts and show off how great he looked.
Franco was Arnold's best man at his wedding, but they still competed against each other at the Olympia's.
Overall the group dynamic was a good thing for these guys. Sometimes, group training is not always that fun, and it can leave you pissed off and demoralized. I have read of others having training partners who were nothing but whiny little pussies, but I didn't think it would affect me ever, until recently when some slackers started showing up to my group. Now, when I say slackers I mean, people who barely do anything and wonder why nothing is happening, when they didn't listen to instructions, or advice that was freely given out. Other times some people decide to take it easy because they worked out super hard, or maybe even maxed out a lift the day before. There is a difference.
The bad people in your group can distract you or other people from making any progress (though you can ignore them, if you got the willpower). The key to dealing with them? You can always expel them from your group. If you are a university club, it's not likely. So what is the next best thing? Ignore the problem and focus on what you want to do, and find others who you will motivate and be motivated by within the group and let the asshole be a pariah for the duration of your lifting session. In the end, only you can fuck your own goals up.
I used training in the title, but this applies to almost anything that humans tell themselves they need (or want) to do. Being that I started a weightliftingand that I teach guitar, I once thought that all the excuses I heard from people were different, regarding their time. For both endeavors, people will make the most absurd excuses as to why they cannot commit to the activity. In my circles, school work and jobs come up the most often.
In spite of all these excuses, what the person who says they do not have time to train or practice is saying is as follows: "I thought this would be easier than it is, and it turns out I am wrong. I promptly need to get fucked now because I can't assess any undertaking, and I see no value in this activity."
If you make excuses like those above, you are just as worthless as this fuck rag (Lindsay Lohan).
I am going to give you a list of things you can do to manage your time better, because for some people it seems to be an insurmountable task. As a preliminary, taking time to do an activity--we will say training in this case--is not something you do outside of your normal life. Your normal life encompasses training, and other meaningless shit comes later. If you are fat, and need to train, saying you are sick and that you are going to a party later is not a valid excuse, unless you want to settle for the mediocrity you are destined to achieve.
1. Stop watching TV. Or, if you are completely worthless, watch TV on the internet. You'll save time by not watching commercials.
2. Don't eat out often. Driving to a place, parking and waiting takes time. Even fast food restaurants are not worth the wait anymore.
3. Learn to cook. You'll save money. You'll eat better and you will feel better. In short, learning to cook equals a less worthless you.
Learn how to cook stuff like this on your own. If you can't learn how to cook, you should learn how to fire a gun and blow your own head off.
4. Invest in some of your own shit to lift. Your body is a good one, you can also get a kettlebell, or a barbell. Ideally, while you are waiting for your food to cook, lift said weights.
5. Read more. About any subject. Like cooking or lifting, to name two. You'll get smarter. And it will help you not watch TV. (See 1).
6. Don't check your phone and email so damn much.
If you can't follow any of these instructions to get some training in, you really do suck at not cheating yourself. Get some character, and make an effort to train, and make it a part of you. And as a bonus tip, if you must, break up an hour long session into four fifteen minute sessions if you "really do not have the time."
I was at the gym one day and I saw a guy doing something between a pullover and a lat pull down on the lat pull down machine. There was a minuscule amount of weight on the machine, to top it off. But this motherfucker thought he was really gunning his lats, I am sure. Oh, and he had a weight belt on too. What pisses me off is that I cannot find a hyperbolic picture to convey the message.
He and I had a brief conversation:
Me: Why are you wearing a weightbelt on this machine? And what's with the paltry amount of weight?
Idiot: I hurt my back.
Me: I invited you to come lift kettlebells with me and the group. You really should, it will strengthen your back.
Idiot: I know man, but it's too hot outside.
I left, at that comment. I live in Florida, for those who are unaware, and it is usually miserably hot outside. However, if you train outside as often as you can, you get used to weather variations. So, in short, he was making excuses.
Part of the problem of people whining about back problems (and I mean whining, I am not talking about people with slipped or herniated discs and what not, though they can use some back strengthening too) is that they don't have an ass. This comes from sitting a lot. Your ass is responsible for extending your hips. If you got no ass, it's your fault. And as a result your lumbar will take the brunt of whatever external load you have to lift, whether it is in everyday life or in the gym. Too much pressure, not distributed equally means you are fucked.
I bet Jaime doesn't have back problems.
This is just goddamn hideous.
A technical term for this is called "gluteal amnesia." The chick directly above looks as if she has "gluteal go fuck yourself I will never help you."
So what the hell do you do to fix this? I don't recommend going and start deadlifting yet. Even though deadliftin is the shit. Some things you can do to become aware of your glute include sex, kettlebell swings, hip thrusts, and bridges. If you are a woman, take up pegging and become aware of your glutes.
This is what pegging is. When you thrust in, act like you are trying to pinch a coin with your ass cheeks.
Here is the inventor of the hip thrust explaining how and why this is a good ass exercise. Also, he wrote a 600 plus page opus on glute training at www.thegluteguy.com.
Bridging is a good exercise not just for the glutes, but the spine as well. Every time I ever overdid it on deadlifts and hurt myself, bridges always sped up my healing process. Gymnasts know this stuff, and you can find information on it anywhere with a google search. Here is an example of bridging movements. (www.legendarystrength.com)
Fix these problems, and you can start working your deadlifts and stuff. I talk about kettlebell swings a lot, but I will include a video for completeness.
Spot on instruction on how to swing and not suck at it. Remember, the bodyweight shit is the stuff you do before you hit the weights. Especially if your back is really fucked up. Don't lift a heavy weight until you are ready, and stop complaining about your back and do something to fix it. Incidentally, bridging and hip thrusts and kettlebell swings can be done in your house. So you literally have no excuse.
As much as I would like to pontificate about whomever the hell this is, I will not. The missing link I am talking about is in your training. Here is the missing link in common movements:
Your lat muscles. This particular set belongs to Dorian Yates. Lat muscles are involved in pulling heavy shit. But what many do not know, except for seasoned bench pressers, and strength coaches that are worth a shit, is that your lat muscles can help you crank out more push-ups and help you bench or military press higher weights. And if you know how to use them, they can help your deadlifting too.
One way to have your lats come help you is to figure out how the hell to consciously use them. Stand in front of your counter and stick your hand straight out and try to press your hand through the counter. It won't work. Then run your opposite hand down your side, starting from your armpit and you will feel your lat muscle. Step one is complete. Now, you can do exercises to make them stronger, and stronger lats yield stronger pulls and presses, which I and others have said before are the basis of any good program.
Pull-ups or chin-ups are great for your lats. If you can't do them, get a friend to help. You'll be glad your did. You will also notice your biceps getting a nice workout too. But to concentrate on the movement and being aware of your lats, act is if you are pulling with your elbows. It's silly, but it works.
Now that you are aware of them and are hopefully making them stronger, here's how you use them to help your pressing. If you are bench pressing, do it with your feet on the ground with your shoulders and ass touching the bench, like you are supposed to do. And for the love of God, keep your goddamn head touching too. When you break the bar, lower it controlled style, and act like you are trying to break the son of a bitch as you press it up. Notice the difference.
If you are overhead pressing, it helps to imagine that you are pushing yourself away from the bar, or kettlebell. Once this simple cue comes to you, you will feel your lat working at the press. Another way to learn to engage the lat in pressing overhead is the bottoms up kettlebell military press.
Here I am with my friend at our kettlebell club, and we are both bottoms up pressing a 32kg kettlebell. FYI I am not the one wearing the singlet.
And for fuck's sake, if you are gonna do this movement, and have never done it, find an RKC kettlebell instructor or email me because I don't want any of you to hurt your fucking faces trying to do this.
Here is how you can maximize your deadlifting potential with your lats. Sort of. One of the things to think about when deadlifting is your grip. I mean think about it when you go for a maximal effort lift. If you actively grip the fuck out of the bar, you'll feel your lats flex, which will aid in the lift. This could be the difference between a red or a white light at a competition. Do this every time you deadlift, whether you pull conventional or sumo or use a trap bar, or what have you. Learn about your lats, and improve in life and lifting.
So in light of what happened on Monday--the 405lb deadlift PR, I decided to fuck around with some light deadlifting Wednesday and I also decided I should probably start barbell squatting again. It can only help my deadlift, and it can make my legs more muscular, and just generally make me more fit. As I had not done barbell squats in a year, my ass is really really sore.
I'd be worried that the hair on my ass would get singed, if I were the submissive here.
What this means is that my ass muscles--also called "glutes"-- got worked out in a different way than they have been lately. This is good, because often times in a deadlift, people who have a weak lockout tend to have their glutes as their weakest link. So, I'm going to bring up my lagging squat. Next time I am in the gym, I will show you how to squat and not look like a douchebag, though I am sure most of you reading hit parallel at minimum when you squat.
In other news, this guy above thinks that people shouldn't write their own lifting programs. He also has a lot of great information on how to get girls too, because apparently all males are incapable of said task. I don't see a problem with following someone elses program. I followed a bunch of Pavel's programs--mainly Enter the Kettlebell and Return of the Kettlebell and met with great success with these programs. The prevailing argument over at http://thenategreenexperience.com/blog/Stupid+People+Write+Their+Own+Programs/ is that people be biased towards movements they like, and not what they need to do.
And there's a grain of truth there. However, if you are a relatively smart human being, you can use this thing called willpower to do what you need to do, whether you like it or not. Do I like doing 15 seconds of kettlebell snatches followed by 15 seconds of rest, for 20 minutes? Fuck no. Do I do it because it is good for me? Yes. If you have been lifting long enough, and if you can read and think critically, you can look at something like Enter the Kettlebell or Westside barbell type of training and look past the movements, and see what it's trying to say--"Don't do anything stupid in your training, and get better at the movements." And you can corroborate that with The Science and Practice of Strength Training wherein the author tells you exactly how to not suck at doing both of those things.
I'm sure Lidia had to use willpower to win three silver medals in the Snatch in various European championships in the past few years.
Currently, I do whatever the hell I want to achieve whatever goal I need. I even started using an ab wheel, which is probably one of the more beneficial things I have done lately. I also military presses three or so times a week. I snatch kettlebells various days, and I deadlift and now squat, twice weekly. So, learn to read, and synthesize, and lift how you want, and be smart about it.
In the 13th century, the Fourth Crusade crippled Byzantium, which was once a cultural and economic epicenter for all of the West and the East. This paved the way for the Ottoman Turks to come and sack Constantinople and effectively ending the Byzantine Empire.
The last strike on Constantinople would turn the Hagia Sophia from a beautiful Christian church to a beautiful Muslim Masjid, over time.
Again, the religion seems to veil this concept of economic control.
Moreover, in other aspects of life, the believers of a faith or practice tend to legitimize their actions via their beliefs. And blame other external forces for events that happen in their lives based upon their beliefs. There's really no problem with that, however when believers pick and choose which events were ordained by their great higher power and which events were not.
To use religion as a force to legitimate anything, we have to accept the good and the bad. Jews seemed to understand this concept. When ever they wound up in the Diaspora, they thought it might be due to some sort of inherent flaw in the way they worshiped God, and they sought to reconcile this. These days, morons like this:
can also use their religion to legitimate their actions. Doesn't make it right, but people who believe a certain way will do so no matter what. The point of all this is for you, the believer to justify your own actions, without using something else to do so. Not only does it build character, but it's a far less of a shady practice. Take responsibility for your actions, and use your faith to make your life better, so that you might act better and make choices that don't suck.
Recently, some dick weed said he was going to burn a fuck ton of Qur'ans on 9/11. Centuries ago a bunch of white guys in sheets decided it would be a good idea to scare black people to protect "their" white women and their communities. Hans Gruber held a bunch of hostages so he could get a shit ton of money from a vault.
Early Americans wiped out a good portion of the Native American population. There were the Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, and a whole hell of a lot of holy wars out there.
What the hell is the point of most of this? The point is to talk about how at the center of it all, at least in appearance, religion was used as a form of legitimation for a lot of these acts. One thing we learned in history class is that pilgrims came here to America to reform the Anglican church. This crock of shit story covers the fact that if the people who come to America started up their own homestead, away from the Monarchs, they could do more stuff that they wanted to do, like start their own industries and make more money. And they could worship whatever they wanted and how they wanted as an afterthought.
I know that religious acceptance wasn't cool in England back then, and I am not denying the importance of legit believers--but who in their right mind thinks that The Cross was the number one issue?
People always look after their bread first. C.R.E.A.M get the money, dolla dolla bill, ya'll.
The Ku Klux Klan started in the aftermath of the Civil War, which was a war not bent at abolishing slavery, but preserving the United States. Later on, the Klan used protestantism to veil their terrorist practices--part of which included scaring the living fuck out of a lot of people, including immigrants who had shitty jobs, and could potentially revolt, like they were doing in Russia at the time (late 19th-early 20th century). This could be viewed as protection for keeping their money. If I get challenged on it, I'll develop the argument further.
