ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Here’s some good old-fashioned ranting.  Despite writing this blog for over a decade, despite being online for 22 years (god how did I get so old), despite lifting weights for 24 years, despite wanting to be big and strong being one of my earliest cognizant thoughts, I STILL find myself baffled by some of the things I see trainee concern themselves with.  I apologize for writing such a ridiculously long sentence and ending it with a preposition: it appears all my time spent writing did not actually make me a better writer.  By grammatical self-callout aside: seriously…are you serious?!  Are you genuinely concerned about these things?  Do you really have such little self-awareness that you don’t see the patent absurdity in your concern?  To what do I refer?

This movie needs to happen

 

“Are deadlifts safe?”  You’re really, genuinely wondering that?  Think about WHERE you are coming from when you ask that question.  You’ve been plastered to a couch eating cheesepuffs for a few decades, decided that you’re going to “make a change”, pirated a copy of Starting Strength (and honestly, these days, I’d be proud of you for at least READING A BOOK on training, but most likely you just watched a Tik Tok), saw a photo of a deadlift and immediately freaked out and went online trying to find some way to save yourself from this demonlift.  There’s no WAY a deadlift could be safe, right?  It’s got “dead” in the name for goodness sake!  You’re not supposed to lift with your back: everyone knows that!

 

Wanna know what’s more dangerous than deadlifting?  Sitting on a couch eating cheesepuffs!  We are a society that is DYING from obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.  You were LANGUISHING while you “exercised” the luxury of bingewatching an entire television series a night for weeks on end.  That these are referred to as “marathon” sessions is true irony.  This was an OBJECTIVELY dangerous activity you engaged in, and you did it with such regularity and never ONCE asked “is this safe?”  But now, NOW that we are in pursuit of physical transformation, in pursuit of improvement, in pursuit of change, NOW is when you start to ask “is this safe?”  Deadlifting is OBJECTIVELY safer than NOT deadlifting, because when you NOT deadlift, what you do instead is glue yourself to the couch and accelerate your morbidity.

Yup: Jimmy and Timmy are playing it MUCH safer here

And, of course, I extend this to all the ridiculous questions about safety.  Failing a squat?  “But I saw someone die from that!”  How many people have you seen die from a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits?  Yet, again: no one is asking “is that safe?!”  No one bats an eye when someone comes into work on Monday and reports “I watched the entire ‘Game of Thrones’ series from Friday through Sunday”, or “I spent 18 hours playing Call of Duty” (you can tell by the age of my references that I’m completely unaware of what’s actually popular these days).  Hell, often these “feats” are celebrated!  But that same dude coming in and pulling up a video of them getting after it on some deadlifts will have all manner of tongue clucking saying “My back hurt just watching that!” “Be careful!” “Lower the weight and focus on form!” “THAT’S NOT SAFE!”  Is the good morning safe?  Bruce Lee broke his back doing that!  Are you serious?!  Any trainee who is concerned about accidentally replicating the feats of Bruce Lee after a lifetime of being sedentary is living a world of fabulous delusions of grandeur.

 

“Is it safe to eat 6 eggs a day?”  Are you serious?!  You ask THIS question NOW?  Did you ask if it was safe to eat brightly colored corn powder pellets that came out of a cardboard box with a cartoon character on it that has a shelflife that can be measured in halfyear intervals?  Did you ask if it was safe when you were drinking a carbonated and caffeinated beverage that came in colors that flat out do not exist on this Earth?  Did you ask it if was safe when you ate a Poptart, Zebracake, Twinkie, donut, cupcake, etc?  When you ate the “death by chocolate” cake?  It’s literally called “death by chocolate!”  But now, NOW you’re going to ask me if AN EGG is safe to eat?  If this food that has been around BEFORE humans have, this food that has nourished countless other species, this food that is one ingredient vs a chemistry thesis, this food that is vitamin and nutrient rich…you’re going to wonder if THIS is the food that’s going to kill you?  Are you serious?!  And again: this is just about eggs.  We see this question about eating “too much” red meat.  Hey, wanna guess how much Captain Crunch is “too much?”  It’s less than 1 serving.  Find me someone that has only ever eaten eggs and red meat and never touched a bowl of kid’s breakfast cereal and I assure you that you’ll find a MUCH healthier human than any random “normal” person walking around out there, living a “safe” existence.

I was legit looking for parody cereals but discovered this real one which SHOULD be a joke...

 

You’ve become so conditioned to accept REAL danger as “normal” that when you experience true safety you immediately point and scream “danger!” simply because it’s DIFFERENT.  And what a sad state of decline you experience in your existence wherein being physically active and eating a natural diet is what’s seen as “alien” while slumping onto a couch, having a streaming serving overload your senses with lights, colors, sounds and images while you mindlessly shovel processed non-food into your face is “safe”.  Prior to the moment you decided to pursue physical transformation, you NEVER concerned yourself with the safety of your decisions: why choose NOW to ONLY engage in 100% safe approaches to anything?  Whatever risk you put yourself in by deadlifting, squatting, doing loaded carries, swinging a kettlebell, doing cleans, eating eggs, steak, bacon, butter, fasting, etc etc, is STILL significantly improving your overall safety compared to assuming a sedentary lifestyle with the current standard approach to eating that everyone else is engaged in.  You will so positively improve your safety FROM taking these “risks” that your rate of all-cause morbidity will precipitously decline, simply because you made A change away from one of the most dangerous lifestyles there is: the average one. 

 

Are you serious?!  If you’re serious about BEING serious, then, seriously…take the risk.