AND ANOTHER THING

-Go to r/fitness on reddit, read only those comments that are downvoted to the point of being hidden, and you might learn something.

-I did daily training for a month; a max set of dips, increasing rep total of NG chins, and 100 pull aparts.  Accumulated a lot of volume, gained weight, got stronger, but my joints started feeling really beat up.  Think the answer is to keep volume stagnant or make very small increases.  Still, a good approach to break out on occasion.

-I tend to have great training sessions while I am sick. I imagine this is because I take a bunch of pseudoephedrine, which is supposedly a PED.

-I miss forums.  Stupidity wasn’t tolerated.  Now, everyone uses social media, and there I feel like stupidity is the norm.  In fact, I feel like it is a competition to see who can come up with the most ignorant, ugly and stupid thing to say. However, I DON”T miss the line by line dissection of posts that occurred on forums.

-RIP Tommy Kono.

No funny caption; we lost a great man.

-Elitefts (the company) has grown too big, and the customer service sucks.  However, the staff is still very awesome, and Dave seems like a great guy who really wants to give back.

-Remember when creatine was a big deal?  So much debate.  Nowadays, people are mainlining pre-workouts without a second thought.

-Quit teaching beginners form; teach them principles of successful lifting.  If a trainee can brace and hinge, they can deadlift.

-I notice that lots of big and strong folks suggest drinking a gallon of water a day.  It is typically small and weak people who refute this.

-I saw a trainee mention that form was their #1 priority when lifting.  Really?  It isn’t progress?  Or results?

I'm just saying maybe it's ok to cheat a little

-One of the best nutritional tricks I have stumbled across for gaining weight is greek yogurt mixed with protein powder.  Lotta good stuff in there.

-“Abs on a skinny guy don’t count”.  Sure, and neither does a 400lb squat on a fat guy.

-Anyone concerned about lifting ratios is looking for an excuse to be weak.

-I feel like the pendulum is once again swinging toward “all compounds, no isolations”.  My, that was fast.

-Lifting weights gets you bigger and stronger.  Everyone knows this EXCEPT the lifting nerds, who believe it does one or the other, but never both.

I mean, I guess sometimes it does neither

-My physical therapist put me on a “return to running” program, which reminded me of the joke about asking the doctor “will I be able to play the piano?”

-On the above, I can now run 4 miles in 30 minutes, which isn’t fast, but is still ridiculous to me.

-My wife told me that there are people in the running community that run “virtual races”.  You buy your own medal, then go run “a race” on your own and give yourself the medal.  I am honestly shocked this hasn’t caught on in the strength training community, what will all the self-appointed powerlifters and youtube heroes and trophy hunters.

-Long rest times do not equal strength.  Long rest times equal crappy conditioning.

-On the above, the reason why short rest times are associated with hypertrophy is because you can cram more volume into an equal amount of time.

 
Probably not doing a whole lot of supersets

-To the people that get upset when PED using athletes don’t admit they use; what was the last felony you confessed to?  How about a misdemeanor?  Piracy even?

-No one gives unsolicited form critiques out of concern for the safety of others; it’s all about feeling superior. 

-Counter point to the above: no one posts a form check video where they list how much weight is lifted with the hope that someone actually checks their form.

-I don’t understand people who post PR videos asking if they “count”.  What does the “P” in “PR” stand for?

-Right now, at this very instant, someone is weighting their food instead of eating it.  They are weighing it on a tiny scale, taking away little bits of the food until its weight is agreeable with some sort of system.  That sounds like something Kafka would write.

 
This just screams "insanity"

-One of the biggest dietary pitfalls I observe is people believing that they need to eat until full.  I do that when I want to GAIN weight.  If I want to lose or maintain weight, I walk away from meals a little hungry.  You gotta learn how to comfortably be miserable if you want to surpass everyone else.

-Happiness is a blessing I would wish on my enemy, in hopes that it keeps him from growing stronger.

-I feel no need to argue about training.  If someone disagrees with me, and they are weaker than me and haven’t coached anyone to be stronger than me, I ignore them.  If they are stronger than me or a successful coach, I shut up and listen.

-This is a rapid influx of lifters with decent numbers on the big 3 who don’t look like they lift weights.  Whatever could be the cause?

-No strong person has ever seriously used the phrase “snap city”.

 
Unless they were screaming it at the camera to mock the whole idea

-Raw powerlifting is getting silly.  They’re making knee sleeves now that supposedly add 20-40lbs to your squat.  Keep in mind, raw lifters demanded the switch to sleeves since wraps weren’t considered “raw enough”.  So I’m not allowed to wear compression underwear, but I can wear a woman’s size XS knee sleeve that required a team of handlers to put on?  It’s the history of powerlifting repeating itself all over again.

-People who demand more restrictive rules do so because they lack the ability to capitalize on advantages.  Guys with zero ability to get leg drive want strict presses only.  People with no pain tolerance hate weight cuts.  It’s never about making competition more “pure”; it’s about making rules THEY can win with.

-People decry weight cutting because of the “unrealistic expectations” it creats among “normal people”.  Really?  Does your average 165er have better odds of squatting 600lbs vs 700 because one was set by someone closer to their “real weight”?  These are world class numbers regardless.  If in doubt, just check 1-2 weight classes below your walk around weight to get an idea of what the top guys in your weight class can do.

-I appreciate the lack of records in strongman, as it means people are more focused on winning instead of setting records on Instagram.  Especially when you consider the reality that, in powerlifting, due to the millions of subdivisions, EVERYONE is a world record holder.

-When I was seriously considering swapping my post workout pop tart with kids breakfast cereal “for my health”, I realized I had deviated from my principles.