BODY BY DENIAL

Hey folks, my write-up for 5/3/1 for Hardgainers will happen at some point, as I just finished the final workout today, but I tend to put a lot into those, so in the interim, I’ve been thinking…

You know where this is going

I wrote recently about the “Body By Chaos”, and I realize that leads into a bit of a deeper concept at work here: the body by denial.  Specifically, any sort of impressive physical specimen, either in terms of capability of physique, is going to be a product of constant, frequent, and last denial.  It is through denial that greatness is achieved, and the absence of said denial results in…well, what you see every day.  The average person is a reflection of what is achieved WITHOUT denial, whereas those that achieve greatness are those that engage regularly in denial.

We’ll start with the very obvious: body composition is absolutely a product of denial.  How do we lose fat? We deny ourselves food despite being hungry. We do this for a consistency, for long durations, such that they body must choose to utilize store fat as an energy source.  Without this denial, we have indulgences and binging and, in turn, the “modern physique”.  Through denial, we achieve otherworldliness.  But this also works in the process of gaining muscle, as anyone who has ever seriously dedicated themselves to doing so KNOWS it’s going to include frequent periods of eating when you don’t want to.  You deny yourself the luxury of being comfortable, and, instead, voluntarily choose to live in discomfort, with bloat, fullness, and simply denying our basic instincts, which tell us to eat when we are hungry and to not eat when we are not.  Whenever you see someone that has achieved an impressive amount of muscle mass or an impressive degree of leanness, that person has done with through denial.

Like no carbs, for instance

But when we talk training, that’s when it gets REAL interesting.  Through some introspection, I discovered that, when I want to gain, I have to train in the manner that I am BAD at.  In reference to my “allow me to explain myself” post: I am NOT a squatter.  I am absolutely not built for it.  In turn, all of my most successful gaining programs are HEAVILY squat oriented.  Super Squats, Deep Water, Building the Monolith, etc: the squat drives the bus.  If I focus on deadlifting, I don’t grow, I don’t progress, I don’t change, but in denying myself what I am good at, I grow, evolve and transform.  How often is it we discover that the “answer” in training is to do those things we’re BAD at?  Examining it further; my bad squat got BETTER when I did more front squats, which is the squat variant I am MOST bad at, primarily because it improved my very lagging quad strength and allowed me to tap into reserves of built up hamstring/lower back strength.  This is why so many people hire coaches: they MAKE you do those things that you are bad at.  They enforce denial, and in doing so, we achieve the “body by denial”.

In interesting observation as well, I whenever it’s time for me to lose mass, THAT is when I STOP engaging in denial in my training.  To engage in self-denial requires a necessary degree of fuel to recover from the process.  In the absence of that fuel, self-denial can rapidly turn to self-destruction.  When I am gaining, I am squatting, and I am doing it for multiple hard sets with a moderate weight.  When I lose, I tend to stick with single sets and stupid high reps, because that’s what I’m good at…which, as we’re observing, is NOT good for making me grow.  So my reward for a long period of self-denial is to engage in the comfort that comes with eating normally and training the way I am good at…which, in turn, I tend to refer to as a break.

Some do diet breaks differently than others

And what is conditioning, if not simply denial in practice, achieved consistently and frequently?  Conditioning is the enforced denial of comfort: it is enforced chaos.  Conditioning is throwing the proverbial match into the powder keg of the body and watching what happens.  When we wish to improve our conditioning, we understand that this means undertaking a task of feeling VERY uncomfortable, because it’s that frequent denial of peace and introduction of the disruption of homeostasis that FORCES adaptation and growth.

Because the body WANTS to be at rest.  The body WANTS pattern, routine, comfort…and what does it reward US with when we give it what it wants?  What do we win?  Look around and you’ll see the consequence of the ABSENCE of denial…which is why we seek the body by denial.

We have gameshows where people try to get back to "normal" through denial...

And that’s how we observe the “body by chaos” come into play.  That body is a living embodiment of a body by denial, because we deny the body the ability to adapt by denying it predictability.  But we now understand that it cannot be through chaos alone that this is achieved.  Could we not also be chaotic by introducing new and various forms of sloth and gluttony?   Is that not, in fact, the type of chaos that others tend to engage in when they break from routine?  A binge or a bender of debauchery, throwing the body into a chaotic state of recovery from the various poisons it’s been exposed to?  Instead, we embody chaos AND denial, in frequently denying the body predictability AND comfort.  We introduce into it the chaos that comes from rapidly changing conditioning, which is only guided by the principle of “make this suck more than last time”.  We deny it full recovery in training, forcing it to develop a means to compensate.  The only thing we don’t deny the body IS chaos…and it’s certainly not asking for that.

If in doubt: build a body with denial.  Take your instincts and run them in reverse.  “I’m hungry, what should I do?”  Lean into it: that’s the feeling of fat being lost.  “I’m not hungry”.  Good: eat.  That’s how muscles are made.  You’re sore?  Train more: get blood flowing to the area and have it recover.  Not built for deadlifts?  Deadlift more (I swear to God I am going to chuck a 45lb plate at the next person that asks me if they can substitute RDLs or trap bar pulls for deadlifts).  Good at singles?  10x10.  Endurance monster?  Build your super total.  Deny, deny, deny, and in doing so, grow grow grow.