Okay so nobody is going to read this but I figure I would at least type some stuff I’ve been thinking. These are just random thoughts…
-I trained my friend who was in a motorcyle accident. He lost alot of weight and after rehab he never went under 10 reps on any exercise. I basically used westside for skinny bastards as a template. He started to do mostly heavy triples.
I got him to eat a bunch of peanut butter and pasta. He put on 9 pounds in two weeks. People shouldn’t be afraid of carbs or lifting heavy. Most are.
-Some asshole interrupted a female friend of mine while she was doing rack pulls. I preceded to then watch what he needed the rack for. Power curls with 95lbs, blue spandex shorts, a belt, and he was on his tippy toes. Hardcore man, hardcore.
-I heard a guy in the gym the other day, this is pretty good. This guy comes into the gym and starts decline benching on the smith machine, he’s only declining like 205 lbs and this teenage kid is watching him. The kid begins to ask him how he got so strong. This kid is learning from the wrong people.
The kid didn’t even way 140lbs and he was like 17. He then preceded to do upright rows, dumbbell curls and then posed in the mirror. I hold no animosity towards the kid but maybe he should choose his role models a little better and start eating. I need to have a chat with him and get him on T-Nation.
Let me say that I am by no means strong compared to others. I’m not really anywhere where I should be, I weighed myself today and I’m under 200 again and my total is only 920. My total last year at this time was under 600 and I was 175lbs.
What I’m saying is that I learned and practiced and read and I saw that what is considered manly today is rigoddamndiculous. Men are judged by their six packs and bodyfat. What happened to strength? I can’t find people to train with because everybody is afraid if they go under 8 reps that they will get fat.
You know how boring it is to train with somebody that only does high reps? Where is the challenge? Heavy singles doubles and triples test every ounce of your being because it’s not about the weight your lifting it’s about accomplishing, surviving, and proving to yourself that what happens in the gym carries over in life.
I was reading this month’s men’s fitness and it has like a list of the top fittest men on tv and I was looking at them and I was just dissapointed. Strength is just not valued any more. I understand having goals in sports, having speed, wanting a lower bodyfat but when did that become different from strength?
I’m not a world class sprinter but I have speed in certain movements. I don’t have the lowest bodyfat but I don’t value my self worth based on my fat percentage.
I just hate when magazines ask skinny bastards what their fitness secrets are. Then the tv star will say oh I run ten miles a day and do 100 pushups. And that is actually what one of them says in the mag.
I understand that 10 miles is a good cardio workout and 100 pushups is a test of muscular endurance but the thing is that putting skinny bastards in these magazines makes people think that if they don’t look like that then they are out of shape. News flash having a six pack doesn’t make you fit.
I’m not trying to bitch about it I’m just trying to examine some frustrations and I think I’m going to make more of an effort to help kids I see in the gym who walk around in wife beaters looking for new ways to cut striations into their “inner chest”.
Anyway I would love to hear any opinions,
Later on,
Hawk