RATTLING AROUND IN MY HEAD

-Try to reconcile “you can’t outtrain a bad diet” and “there is no overtraining: only undereating.”  Does this mean you can outdiet bad training?  Boy I hope so.

-I observed a comment that now, with the advent and inclusion of tacky shirts, receive gloves, tacky sleeves, etc, the Stone of Steel is no different from a concrete atlas stone.  Talk about progress!

-I seemed to have finally cracked the code on daily training: VERY sub-max work.  I stop well before I strain.  Right now, its dips and chins only, but I’m still getting in daily volume that way.

-I’ve added half an avocado to my daily diet for weight gain.  They work, and they don’t even have to be Dominican! …props if you get that reference.

-I remember when Titan was a powerlifting gear manufacturer.  Was anyone else confused when they “came back” and were making strongman logs?

As a DnD nerd, the lack of creativity in choosing mythical beasts for names is upsetting.  I'll be the first to purchase from "Ettercap Enterprises"

-Most people talking about how they have to “eat dirty to get in enough calories” need to get real.  It is fine to be lazy and to enjoy fast food, but embrace it.  You are the “bicep curls for prehab” of the nutrition world.

-Getting a little further into my 30s, I observe that I am in more constant pain, but otherwise, recovery and ability to perform is fine.  I wonder if people have been interpreting “pain free” to mean recovered, when they talk about how much harder it is to recover as you get older.

-I got into MMA, MMA got popular, there were many dumb people, so I left.  I got into powerlifting, powerlifting got popular, there were many dumb people, so I left.  I am observing this with strongman now.  Is it me?  Or, more likely, am I just a dumb early adopter.

-Competing up a weight class makes you strong.  But it can also hurt you.  Which can also make you strong.

-Ever since I heard Kaz say “If you are strong at stones, you will be strong everywhere”, I have cared a whole lot more.

-Why do raw powerlifters care so much about what equipped lifters do, but not the other way around?

I'm sorry, did this photo of an athlete competing in a different sport than you do trigger you?

-But I suppose, on the above, I’m also as guilty, because why the hell do I care about powerlifting?

-I wonder if all the people trying to “fix” weight cutting realize that they are just going to get beat by people that were originally in the weight class below them?

-I find that it is primarily people who are out of shape that proclaim that giant sets are ineffective for getting stronger.

-I wrote a blog entry rallying against microloading and MANY readers interpreted it as an attack on 2.5lb plates.  Goes on to reflect the sad state of gyms there days where those plates are rarely seen.

-I’ve stolen the squats from Jon Andersen’s “Deep Water” training program because I can never stick with 1 approach to squats.  10x10 squats with a focus on reduced rest times.  It’s as awful as you expect.

-I used to think I was jealous of people who had to eat all the time to put on weight, until I found myself needing to do that.  It’s awful.  It’s cute for the first day or 2, but then your whole life revolves around cooking, cleaning and eating.  With a family, it’s just not sustainable.  A slow metabolism is a blessing.

-Yeah yeah, I know “science says slow metabolisms aren’t a thing!”  Look, I don’t know what to tell you.

-I plan to flesh this out into a full post one day, but people naturally get drawn to the style of training/athlete that fits their own mentality.  I have found plenty of fellow lunatics out there with a very low-science based approach, like Kroc, Steve Pulcinella, Jon Andersen, Jamie Lewis, etc.  But there are also very detail oriented and intellectual lifters out there, like Mike Tuchscherer, Dave Tate (seriously, read what he writes, LOTS of details, very much against the hardcore meathead approach), Brian Shaw, and whoever else people like to quote at me.  And ALL of these lifters were successful.  I feel like the only real bad move is to try to take an approach that doesn’t suit you and make it work.

-For those that are curious, my Titan 12” log is still holding up after being used twice a week since December.  My elbows, however, aren’t too happy, since I’m too afraid to really drop the damn thing so I lower it down a little too slow on the eccentric from the chest.

-Has anyone else noticed that these days “aesthetics” just means lateral deltoids?

I feel like this is the bodybuilding equivalent of my bosu ball squat photo, so here you go

-All I have to offer is experience, but isn’t it crazy how many people talk that don’t even have that?  And even crazier the people who listen.

-Most problems can be solved with more volume or a prowler.

-Wonder how long it’ll take Westside to sue Titan for the reverse hyper they released?

-People who allegedly live, breath, eat and die lifting will pirate books from established lifters.  Either you support it or you don’t: don’t try to go halfway here.

-The sheer notion of “injury prevention” is mind blowing to me.  How can you tell if it worked?

-My time spent with the circus dumbbell re-affirmed that I have zero love for weightlifting.  Props to the guys that enjoy it, but it’s so completely against how I operate.

-The fact some people can’t tell the difference between pain and soreness blows my mind.

-Isn’t it funny to think that, in the 40s and 50s, we had a reverse obesity epidemic, where men were so skinny that Charles Atlas had to have ads to save them?  How times change.

These days, this would turn into an ad about anti-bullying with a hotline to call

-Social media has given people the false impression that they actually know how others live.  Claims like “so and so eats pizza EVERY day and is JACKED” or “Mr. Wonderful sets a PR everytime they hit the gym!” get paraded around, because people believe that what is shared is, in effect, the ONLY thing that happens.  They don’t realize how much is NOT shared: all the mundane training days and regular meals and time spent grinding away.  To say nothing of how much is fabricated or manipulated.