GET UGLY

I look around and I see far too many people preoccupied with being beautiful.  The media is dedicated to selling image in order to peddle false hope and products that fail to deliver, and people soak up the message and do their best to emulate it.  People spend vast fortunes and innumerable time striving to achieve some sort of beauty ideal that can never be reached.  But many of these people would be better served striving to be ugly.  To become completely ugly, to embrace ugliness, to instead, reach the fullest depths of ugliness possible and become a paragon of all that is ugly.

Do it for yourself before someone else does it for you

Why is this?  Because strength, in both demonstration and acquisition, is ugly, not beautiful.  Many would be poets try to convince us otherwise, that there is some sort of pure, unspoiled beauty in strength, but this is merely an attempt to employ some sort of psychological deception in order to avoid the pain inherent in the pursuit and demonstration of strength.  This is Stockholm Syndrome; we are attempting to sympathize with our captors in order to alleviate the fear inherent in the situation.  Attempting to operate under a perpetual delusion is Quixotic at best; we must instead drop the illusion and invest all efforts into achieving maximal ugliness if we hope to achieve maximal strength.

Still people argue.  They tell me that, when you watch a skilled strength athlete excel at their sport, it is a thing of beauty.  You may be correct, but when you watch excellence in performance and competition, you are not watching the acquisition of strength, but instead merely a display of strength ALREADY obtained.  You do not observe the athlete BECOMING strong; only the end result of said becoming.  In truth, when we observe the strength athlete actually acquiring strength, THAT is where we find the true ugliness.  This is where the straining occurs, the red faces, the burst blood vessels and capillaries, the vomit, the gruesome injuries, the tears, the profanity, the pools of sweat and all other ugly human things occur, and the more ugliness present, the greater the strength.

Beauty not found

But people don’t WANT to be ugly.  They want life to be beautiful, and, by extension, themselves to be beautiful at all times.  People are so pre-occupied with always being beautiful that they lose out on the opportunity to acquire strength even when that is their alleged goal!  It is especially egregious in the current era, where people are uploading every single set and meal onto Instagram in the hopes of likes and sponsorships, and in doing so they must ensure that they remain beautiful at all time, lest they offend their audience.  But even without social media, you had people who are so preoccupied with their reflection in the gym mirror that they dare not strain, lest they see a bulging neck vein or a red face.  And what of the “good form champions”, who are so terrified of the aspect of less than beautiful form while lifting that they end up never actually exerting themselves to the point of actually accomplishing something in their training.  All vanity, all for the pursuit of beauty; why not instead the pursuit of ugly?

Beautiful products are NOT the results of beautiful processes.  Far often it is the opposite.  A sculpture is beautiful; sculpting is ugly.  It is gruesome, sweaty labor that takes the ugly and MAKES it beautiful through sheer force of will.  A well presented meal is beautiful; the process is ugly.  Animals are slaughtered and rendered, vegetables are dug up from the earth, much hand washing occurs to prevent the spread of potential deadly disease, and through that labor the beauty is produced.  If all were afraid to get their hands dirty, there would be no beauty in the world.

And keep in mind, this was before Depp was a heartthrob 

Strive for maximal ugliness instead.  Train with ugly equipment, in ugly clothing, at an ugly gym with ugly technique.  Why?  Not to be “hardcore”.  Not to be some brooding jackass in an Animal Pak advertisement speaking melancholy about the war with the weights and the beast inside with perfectly manicured hands and laser removed bodyhair.  Not to pretend to be Rocky in Rocky IV.  Not for some sort of LARPING or men’s retreat, but to simply stop concerning yourself with beauty and focus more on effort.  To no longer be concerned with how you look WHILE you improve your imagine, self and otherwise.  To understand that, the uglier you are when you train, the harder you are working, and the better you grow.

Lace up your shoes, put on some music and tell yourself it’s time to get ugly.

BOOK REVIEW: POWERLIFTING BASICS TEXAS STYLE: THE ADVENTURES OF LOPE DELK

Anyone familiar with the blog has seen me mention Paul Kelso’s work “Powerlifting Basics Texas Style” about a dozen time, so I figured now was as good a time as any to review it.  Paul unfortunately passed away about a year or so but I at least got to tell him how much I enjoyed his book over facebook before his passing, and him replying and appreciating my feedback was one of the highlights of my lifting career.  You already know this is going to be a positive review based off my previous lauding of it, but let me go into a little more detail here.

QUICK SUMMARY

“Powerlifting Basics Texas Style” is a book of short parables related to sport of powerlifting, along with just weight training in general.  Much like “The Complete Keys to Progress”, Kelso makes use of a recurring cast of characters in order to tell stories to the reader that are utilized as a vehicle to explain various aspects of training for and competing in powerlifting.  Stories include hardheads who refuse to listen, gifted athletes, “mullets”, washed up meatheads, newbies, and all other walks of life, and each goes through their own growth along the path of becoming a better lifter.  You’re bound to recognize yourself in a few of the characters, and be able to take away something from their experiences.  It is worth noting that, according to Paul, the characters aren’t real, but they’re based on true stories, and all certainly very believable.

The book is composed of 14 short chapters, and covers topics from starting up your own powerlifting club, prepping for your first meet, general beginner training, improving the bench press, improving the deadlift, solo training, cycle based meet training and “Texas style” nutrition, among other topics.

PROS

Always go with the pros

This book is just plain fun to read.  It’s not a dry technical manual at all, and even when the discussion gets to sets and reps Paul sprinkles in enough storytelling to break up monotony and keep you reading through.  Additionally, it’s an opportunity to dive into lifting history and see how the old timers used to train before Starting Strength came along and saved us all.  I also feel like Paul includes one of the best sections on beginner training I’ve ever read, where it’s structured enough to prevent the whole “there is too much information out there” thing yet has enough freedom in it to allow the necessary special snowflake modifications that will inevitably happen.

I also really appreciate the section on nutrition.  It’s not at all about macros and calorie counting, but instead an exploration on some “salt of the earth” style nutrition: the stuff of farmers and ranch hands.  It’s hearty enough to help you put on weight but healthy enough compared to a lot of the crap people eat.  It’s also not some sort of dumb nutritional meme that tries to alleviate the reader of thinking, although, if the “Powerlifting Basics Texas Style” diet starting sweeping the internet, I wouldn’t be all that upset.

CONS

You get it?  Because Mariusz went to jail?  So he's a con?  ...look, pictures for book reviews are hard

This is a short book.  Slightly over 80 pages, some might even be inclined to call it a manual.  It only costs $10, and people have put out even less content for more money, but still, if you’re looking for a long, lengthy read, this won’t hold a candle to “The Complete Keys to Progress”.  It does lend itself to re-reading though, and I make it a point to read the book once a year.

You also have to decipher the book.  Paul rarely just comes out and says what he’s trying to say (although it DOES happen in the book), and instead weaves lessons in as one of the characters/narrator.  If you have no love for literature and just want someone to come out and say what they mean, you’re not going to enjoy this.

Also, the reader needs to keep in mind that raw powerlifting is a new thing, and, in turn, wasn’t even a thing when this book came out.  Paul doesn’t spend much time talking about squat suits (and I actually don’t think he ever mentions a bench shirt), but I know there are some raw zealots out there that are going to read the word “suit” and immediately burn the book.

SHOULD YOU BUY IT?

This should cover the cost

You already know I’m going to say you; I’ve been recommending this book since 2007.  But seriously, if you enjoy reading at all AND you enjoy lifting, you need to get this book.  One of its best qualities is that, over subsequent re-reads, I keep finding more stuff in there that I missed the first few times, and being so short, that’s easy to accomplish.  I’ll also discover that an idea from the book got in my head without me knowing it, until, after many training cycles implanting what I think is a brand new idea, I’ll re-read the book and find it right there.  This is your chance to connect with some lifting history and enjoy things that occurred “pre-internet”.

Thanks once again Paul for taking the time to write this and the shrug book (to be reviewed in the future). Rest in Peace dude.

MORE APHORISMS

Apologies for being a few days late on this. Life has been crazy.

-I get a lot of questions about my diet, primarily why I eat so few carbs.  The answer is simple; I eat a lot of meat, and I like fatty meat, and if I’m eating a lot of protein and fat, I have to eat few carbs.  Otherwise, I’d just be eating a lot of food, and that’s how you get fat.  Why do I eat a lot of meat?  Because I want to look like a thing that eats a lot of meat.  Think about it; don’t you want the same?  Wouldn’t you rather look like a creature that kills and eat other creatures, or do you want to look like the prey instead?

-Remember Kaz talking about calculating MRV?  Or how Paul Anderson debated if volume began with hard sets or easy ones?  Or when Arnold talked about achieving most frequent protein synthesis?  Yeah, me neither.

AND he did curls?  Didn't they have internet back then?

-People are so quick to accuse others of using steroids.  I’ve been training for 18 years and I’ve never even SEEN a steroid.  How are people just tripping over them that they automatically assume everyone else is using them?

-People with the fewest gains are the most resistant to sacrificing them.  Refusal to take days off, no conditioning because it “makes you lose muscle”, no giant sets because less weight is lifted, etc.  And this mentality, ironically enough, keeps growth limited.

-People are in such a rush to find “the best” because it absolves them of the need to think.

-I refuse to speak on things that I have no experience with.  It means I either need to experience a lot or speak less.  I advise others to do the same.

-“Skinny-fat” is a body condition that occurs from a lifetime of sedentary activity and poor diet.  This is why it’s so tricky to “fix”.  If you bulk, you now become fat.  If you cut, you become scrawny.  So what is the solution?  TIME.  You don’t fix a lifetime of bad choices in 12 weeks.

I love that I can keep finding new memes everytime I look

-People in bad shape like to point out the poor decisions of those in good shape.  “You drink energy drinks?  Those are so bad for you!” “You eat fast food?” etc.  What a lack of self awareness. That said, when I encounter it, I just tell people that nothing I do is healthy.

-People who lack accomplishments seeks “proof” that also lacks accomplishment.

-People are very willing to rest 5-7 minutes between sets and have 3 hour long lifting sessions but don’t want to “waste time” by doing conditioning or reading a book on how to properly train.

-Leanness and fatness both perpetuate.  The longer you are one or the other, the more prone you are to being it.

-I am late to the party, but mashed cauliflower is awesome.

-“You could have progressed faster”, yes, but at what other cost if not time?

-I’m at the point in my life where nothing tastes better than reaching my goals.

But these come very close

-I have zero sympathy for adults who can’t wake up early to meet their goals.

--Ok, let’s be honest; I just have zero sympathy.

-Getting in shape when you get older is easy, because you get held to a much lower standard.  Just get in decent shape in your 20s and hold onto THAT for as long as you can and you’ll be good.

-Why is it people who say “live a little” advocate for activities that, traditionally, result in living less?

-If enough big and strong people do something, I don’t really care what science has to say about it.

-The people that know the least are the most savage online.  They hope to curtail any questions by making the questioner feel stupid, less they be forced to answer the question and admit their own lack of knowledge.

-The “money” is powerlifting used to come from gear.  Meets made no money, but gear companies would sponsor them because they could cash in on competitors buying gear to compete for the meet.  But what do we do now that raw powerlifting has become popular?  Why, make raw gear of course!  Suckers.

Nah, you don't want to hear mine

-What the hell is Instagram?  Seriously.

-A fundamental issue I find on the discussion of training is people view “right” and “wrong” in a vacuum.  “Here is right about this but wrong about that.”  Unless one is being malicious or deceitful for the sake of profit, it is of no benefit for one to say things they know to be false.  Instead, right and wrong are context dependent.  What an accomplished lifter says IS right for their paradigm.  If you don’t fit that paradigm, that is on YOU, not them.  Don’t apply information that does not apply to you.

-In the past few years, I’ve noticed trainees have learned a lot of ways to get really good at squatting, benching and deadlifting.  That’s awesome.  Did we learn how to get stronger?

-I found out you CAN get a full week’s training in 33 hours.  But should you?

-I don’t understand these people who have no access to implements and no desire to compete but want to “train like a strongman”.  Isn’t that just lifting weights?