MAY YOU GET THE RESULTS YOU DESERVE

One of my favorite ancient curses is “may you live in interesting times”, as it reads like a fortune cookie from someone that was really mailing it in at work, but is, in reality, probably one of the most damning things you could ever wish upon someone.  As those of us who HAVE been living through some interesting times these past few decades (9/11, SARS, Swine Flu, COVID-19, Murder Hornets, Ukraine Incursion, recent US presidential situations, and I’ve seen the Exorcist about 167 times…and it keeps getting funnier, every single time I see it!) will attest: interesting times are awful!  It’s so much easier when times are boring!  Boring means no one is shooting at you.  Boring is WHY the 90s created Grunge: we stopped having the existential threat that was the USSR and potential nuclear disaster and we absolute schwacked the 4th largest military in the world in the span of 72 hours and saw fit to call it “The Gulf War” simply because EVERY generation was “supposed” to have a war: we were so BORED with everything that our music and clothing reflected an era of apathy, sarcasm and ennui.  And here I am being nostalgic about it all, when really my intent was to say that, my own curse that I wish upon all those undergoing the process of physical transformation is “may you get the results you deserve”.

I remember watching this when it was a new episode

I genuinely smile whenever I say this, because honestly, to say it’s a curse IS a bit dramatic.  For many folks, this is honestly a blessing: some folks are out there EARNING results through their actions and intentions, and sometimes the cruelty of genetics and circumstances robs them of that which they deserve.  But for the vast, VAST majority of folks out there, “may you get the results that you deserve” is one of the evilest curses I could possible inflict upon a populace.  It’s downright villainous of me to even UTTER this ancient incantation: pulled straight from the Necronomicon itself, whispered about in secret amongst only the most depraved and vile of sorcerers and warlocks.  This is primarily because so many of those claiming to be seeking physical transformation are in no way putting INTO the process what is necessary to get what they desire OUT of the process.  For these individuals, “may you get the results that you deserve” is a longwinded way of expressing profanity and vulgarity at them.  For these people, it’s how people in the south say “bless your heart” as a means of politely saying “f--k you”

 

What results DO these trainees deserve?   The results one achieves from laziness, because these trainees ARE lazy, by self-proclamation.  “I’m too lazy to cook, so I just order out”, I’m too lazy to read a book on training, so I just rely on an app”, “I’m too lazy to learn about nutrition, so I just let an app determine my nutrition goals”, etc etc.  Folks, I ask you: when is the last time you marveled at the results of laziness?  When is the last time you saw an outstanding physical specimen and thought to yourself “I wonder how LAZY that person was to get there?”  When did you see someone of immense wealth, power, prestige, capability, capacity, knowledge, etc and think to yourself “I bet you that person is INCREDIBLY lazy?”  Unless this was spiteful or wishful thinking, your lizard brain did NOT come to these conclusions upon these observations.  We are wired to ADMIRE an admirable physique BECAUSE to us it is the sheer physical manifestation of hard work and intense effort applied over a long period of time: traits that our species finds desirable when it comes to securing our futures.

This communicated SO much in just one image

 

Don’t get me wrong: laziness is absolutely a boon when it comes to creativity.  Quite often, leaders are told to recruit from the intelligent and LAZY vs the intelligent and motivated, for the latter will go to great lengths to make sure the job gets done, but the FORMER will go to great lengths to figure out the EASIEST way to get the job done, and through that we discover more efficient processes and methods.  Yes: that’s absolutely cool when the goal is to become more efficient…but how incredibly awful is it when we realize that the process of physical transformation is a process of being INEFFICIENT?  It goes against everything we prize and value, but it’s absolutely the case that, when seeking to transform ourselves, we “gotta do I the HARD way”, BECAUSE the efficient and easy way, by definition, is the way that does NOT require us to invest the necessary degree of toil to signal to our body a NEED to transform in order to develop a means to overcome our present state of adversity.

 

Think about what resistance training is: it’s in the name.  We must RESIST, not “go with the flow”.  It’s the process of intentionally finding a means to inefficiently locomote a physical object over a distance in order to force our muscles to come into play and develop.  We could absolutely develop an easier way to move the weights in our gym, but it would defeat the purpose of doing so.  Think about how INEFFICIENT 10x10 squats are in Deep Water, or those 3 DEEP breaths you’re taking between each rep on Super Squats, or hitting those complexes before a FIFTY rep squat set in Mass Made Simple, or when you rest pause to get MORE reps on DoggCrapp, or getting that 200th dip in “Building the Monolith”.  Surely there’s a lazier way?

The ultimate comedy of this is when you realized that 8 minutes is a LONG time to spend on an ab workout

 

And nutrition is REALLY fascinating in this regard.  When you wanna talk efficient energy delivery, nothing is gonna beat pure sugar…and unless you’re a hummingbird, good luck with THAT diet.  To say nothing of the unholy trinity in junkfood of sugar (High Fructose Corn Syrup) fat (refined seed oils) and salt: caloric bombs you just can’t stop eating.  And then companies will further process these foods so that they’re EASIER to eat, much like how J.M. Blakely pointed out that you can put a McDonald’s cheeseburger in your mouth, NOT chew it, and it will eventually just dissolve and be swallowed.  Meanwhile, when we throw down with some steak and eggs and set ourselves to the task of actually CHEWING and swallowing our food, we employ an inefficient means of energy delivery AND actually get in some quality nutrition.  And geez, do you realize how many trainees DON’T want an efficient metabolism?  We call that a SLOW metabolism: it’s great at squeezing out EVERY last nutrient possible from every calorie we eat.  Our body does that in times of starvation.  Instead, you’ve got folks like John Berardi out there advocating “G-Flux”, where we INTENTIONALLY go out of our way to get our body burning through energy SO that we can feed it even MORE food so that we can get more nutrients into the body.  We go from mopeds to space shuttles: just BURNING through fuel and putting more and more in the furnace.  And you’ve got dudes like Justin Harris and Robert Sikes who intentionally go out of their way to build UP the metabolism of their clients during periods of gaining SO THAT, when it comes time to lose weight, we have enough “caloric runway” that we can drop weight while still eating moderately high calories, so that we don’t back ourselves into a corner, eating 800 calories a day to try to lose, living off of “lettuce, water and marijuana”, to retell a story of Dan John’s roommate that entered a bodybuilding competition.  Does any of this SOUND like the work of the lazy?

 

No, when you outsource your effort, you outsource your results.  When you have “nutrition goals” that were given to you by an app and you don’t even know WHY you’re following them, you don’t have goals: you have orders.  And the Nuremberg Defense doesn’t work: just because you were “just following orders” doesn’t mean you don’t get held accountable in the end.  When you’re running your 18th consecutive month of Starting Strength because you don’t want to learn anything other than 3x5 for 3 movements, you will get exactly what you deserve for your intellectual laziness.  When you refuse to put a bar on your back and toil, swearing that the leg press and leg extensions are “just as good for leg hypertrophy according to MUCH independent research”, your attempt at intellectual rigor to REPLACE physical exertion will yield exactly what it should.

Ogre has something to say on the matter

 

May you get the results that you deserve.  Hopefully, you will do your best to reverse that curse and turn it into a blessing.