Objectively: What was awesome about the old school...and what kind of sucked!

Chances are pretty good that if you're reading this blog then you're just like me that you have a greater appreciation for the way that people strength trained 70+ years ago far more than the way that they trained now.  You're still in good company here since I agree that strength training of yesteryear was far more fun in its crude, rusty glory than today's highly sterilized, over-chromed class heavy health clubs.  There's just no comparison in my book.   It's important to keep in mind that while you will get no disagreement from me that things were better then than they are now, it wasn't perfect by any stretch of anyone's imagination.  There were some serious issues that we need to keep in mind when we look backwards to look at what direction we should move forwards.  Meanwhile, while we all generally in the latent superiority of the old days, it's odd how few people can articulate why they like those old days so much. 

I hope to shed some light on what made the Old School so good...and what should have been corrected, based on my observations. 

The BAD... Dude, where's my squat? 
One thing that leaps out at anyone who goes from "new" school to "old" school is how the now-ubiquitous squat was so often M.I.A from so many strength training literature.  It doesn't pop up much until the late 1920's and early 1930's.  The most notable mention of the squat I heard before was from Bert Asirati and Henry Steinborn in the 1920's.  Despite it's overwhelming acceptance as a necessary strength training movement now, it's still got a few detractors that consider it a knee-wrecker.  How did this whole thing happen? 

I've seen some pictures in various training sources that may shed some light on what was wrong then and how it still haunts the ignorant about the squat now.  One involved an old picture demonstrating how to Hack Squat.  I'm sure that my readers are well-aware of the fact that Hack Squats started out as a barbell movement which the iron game history credits the great George Hackenschmidt with developing...NOT A MACHINE-BASED MOVEMENT!  

Slap yourself if you didn't know that.  Then you can continue reading...

Back then, the squat was also known as the deep knee bend.    Nowadays we're advised to think of squatting less like a knee movement and more along the lines of a, "hips back, chest proud", movement.  Any nomenclature calling a squat a knee bend was probably a bad name but it describes pretty well what people 100 years ago were doing.   I wouldn't make a habit of doing too many of these.  I'm not surprised that so few did either.

 

I was surprised to learn that the squat that we know of now was more of a European phenomenon that this source credits the Immortal Henry "Milo" Steinborn with popularizing:  heels down, more of a butt-back than knees-forward movement.

 Things were getting better.  I didn't have the heart to crop the old leg press picture.  I wouldn't do that but it's still pretty nifty!

Perhaps people started amalgamating the hip lifting with the deep knee bend and eventually we got to the basic squat that we have now.  It seems that by the 1930's, everyone noteworthy was on board with the general awesomeness of the squat.  By doing so, this corrected a gaping hole in much of the strength training world. 

Antique TRX?
One thing that they did get horribly right back when the old-timers were getting the squat horribly wrong was the ample use of rope and rings in the gyms for upper body strength.  This made a lot of sense since weights were still ridiculously expensive and a lot of the strongmen came from gymnastic or acrobat backgrounds.   Regardless of whether it was an issue of frugality or familiarity, it was still a great choice because it's entirely possible to make a superbly-powerful upper body with such simple implements. 

 

Around the time we got things straightened out with the squat was also the time that the cost of weights began coming a bit more down to earth and the ropes and rings slowly came off the rafters at hardcore gyms.  It's been a long road to get them back into serious gyms these days.  Too often the reincarnations have been the ridiculously-overpriced TRX and the ropes get flailed on the ground rather than hung from ceilings in a dignified manner.  Still, they have their place and they're still solid strength training tools. 

 



See Anything Else Missing Above? 
Are kettlebells really, "old school", and "functional" because they're old and they mimic all sorts of real life work and sport situations?  Or, are they more practical than a lot of other training tools because they're kind of awkward and they are almost always lifted off the ground?   I still insist on replacing the term, "functional," with, "practical." If you want to make your strength training practical and far more relevant to real life endeavors of life, then start out with nearly everything on the ground and if you want it off the ground, lift it up off yourself.  

Very few things in life are as nicely balanced as a barbell and it's rarely put on a nice rack for you to access it better by one movement.  No, chances are it's below your knees, weird shaped, and requires two or three different movements to get it to where you want it to go.  While you do loose some bragging rights with the poundages you lift by conveniently putting the weight at a spot where you can lift it in a rack or cage, you also gain the ability to lift in manners that will help in real life. 

Conveniently, these three points about the old days nicely encapsulate what my pre-sprained knee training was all about:  Heavy emphasis on BW-based upper body movements combined with weight-based squatting, with every weight-based movement starting off with the weight the ground.  It's crude but it works as well now as it did back then. 


Read More

Iron Addiction

For a lot, I daresay a majority, of strength trainers, the amount of the iron is then end and the means. The more iron thrown around, the better the movement is. Without a doubt, that's the number one measure of progression; the only measure of progression that counts. Look how most of refer to geting strong or working out...

You wanna get strong? Lift big, heavy shit!

I pick heavy things up, and I put them down.

Excuse me, I'm off to pump some iron now...

Meanwhile, I read and hear things like, "can you really get strong on BW- only? How much strength can you get with BW-only? No matter how much geek, know-nothings like me preach, we always come back to that same default iron addiction. The iron will make us strong.

Let's play a game. Let's say that you made your way over to my blog and found a post where I claimed to do, say, 15 push-ups with 87 lbs of weight on my back. What would you think? Maybe impressed? If I came across that, I'd think it was impressive too. Then again, let's say my hands were elevated with two boxes. 

Is it still as impressive? No need to feel like an asshole by saying, "No". The fact is that the exericse has been set up to be easier. By doing hands-elevated push-ups, the push-up is easier, even with the weight tossed on board. nitpicking form isn't the point, however. I'm just drawing a point that popped into my mind the other day.

Most of us agree that weight that you throw, or can throw, onto an exericse isn't the sole measure of how good it is. That's a cornerstone to BW-strength training. Since the weight can't be increased easily, the progression comes from manipulation of the form of the basic BW exercises. I talked about this with a friend a while back. If weight alone made an exercise easier or harder, then there would be no doubt that weight-based training was completely and uttlerly superior to BW by every possible measure.

Not everyone agrees.

Here's the thought that I had: If a lot of weight can be used for the exercise, doen't that mean that the movement itself is actually easy? After all, if it was hard, there wouldn't be a need to throw a lot of extra weight into it to make it hard in the first place. If you think about the "big lifts", the lifts where people throw iron into the triple digit territory, have movements that really aren't that hard. Most of the time, the weight is kept close to the body, uses more of the biggest and most powerful muscles to move the weight, or require bracing the body against an immovable object while the body pushes or pulls the weight. Apply any of this and watch the poundage capable of being lifted in the movement soar!

That's not to say that there's anything necessarily wrong with these exercises. I'm just going out of my way to demonstrate how the weight moved isn't the test of an exercise's worth. A recurring theme of this blog is doing more with less. I don't always have the luxury of a well-equipped gym. Still, I get strong and I do it by making the most of what I have. Besides, the more accustomed you are to working with less, the more likely you are to get challenged more consistently.

Let's go to the other end of the heavy iron pile and take the kitten weights. Even I think that 8 lbs dumbbells are kind of a joke. How could they make for a brutal exercise?

Pinch one between your feet while doing an L-sit.  That's how!

If you're out there, in the trenches of the real world, isolated from the robo-globo-gyms, thinking that you're screwed because you can't find 600 lbs of iron and a squat cage to work, you need get your head working. Strength doesn't come from a materialistic-like craze for more and more iron. You can get it from modifications in an exercise, or a new exercise all-together. Strength doesn't only come from, and isn't proven by, lifting prowess in one movement any more than it comes from the weight you push while doing it either.

Read More

Why Work Out

Henry and I at the Highland Games in Tampa... Or what I've been doing instead of blogging lately

 

"I already have a hot body.  I don't need to work out." 

 

"I know you work out to relieve stress but..."

 

"Man, you can seriously fucking move!"

It's intriguing to me to listen to others in my life ruminate over why I am so serious and diligent about making sure that a day doesn't pass by without some sort of physical training.  Particularly interesting are the people who show marginal interest in working out offer the theories that I find most amusing.  I've heard those three lines from three different people and by far, the third one was the most satisfying and conclusive answer as to why train in the first place.

While a good strength training session can be cathartic and I don't mind looking good in a tight fitting shirt, both explanations are just outside of the ten-ring as to why I enjoy working out so much.  The mini-me in the sunglasses provides the best answer:  because movement is fun!   Modern adults hopelessly miss the mark when they think that comfort and not-moving is the way to be happy.  This trend must have started up a century ago when we started looking for ways to eradicate manual labor from our lives.  It made sense back then since we had spent the last couple of Milena literally working ourselves to death.  Viewed from that fact, taking to desk jobs must have seemed like a form of salvation. 

Our kids tell us a different story.   Confine a child to a chair and watch how pissy they become. They can't stand sitting.  It must be why I use sitting in a corner as punishment with kids for over a decade with remarkable results.   Note how they effortlessly squat as though they had been taught by _____ (insert your favorite fitness guru).   Did they learn that from someone?  Or, is it instinct that we suppressed through years of sitting down way too much?    They're happier squatting ass-to-grass. 

They don't do this just to relieve stress; they do it just because they're happier moving.   Their fresh, new bodies aren't yet degenerated by institutionalised laziness and they don't look at lots of movement as excessive or try to avoid it.  They need it.  Little do we realize that so do we as adults. 

Movement isn't simply cathartic.  It can also be sexy.  People far smarter with me with larger budgets of other people's money to waste figured out that most men are attracted to a certain ratio of hips-to-waist-to-shoulder measurements in women.  What they couldn't understand was why the ratio was exaggerate past perfect why men found it more attractive.  It should have been too much to have such a small waist with big hips... until they realized it wasn't how they looked.  It was how they looked when they moved that turned on men so much. 



You knew something like this was coming...

On a much simpler note, too many of us guys have bedded that seriously hot woman only to find out that they figured that since they were so damn smoking, they didn't have to do anything other than lay there and get screwed.  Or, think about the stripper with no dance moves.   On the less raunchy side of things, I've seen ugly ass men down in South America pick up hot women simply because they could dance so well.  It isn't simply enough to be good looking.  Humans are attracted to how a body moves.


Of course it happened at Bodytribe...This is a seriously cool (and hot) move!

So, we need to be move to be happy and life is happier overall when we move better.  It still doesn't explain why and where some sort of regimen of strength training ties into this need.  That's an easy answer though:  it helps us move better, especially as we get older... or at least it should.  That institutionalized laziness that pervades too much of Western Civilization renders many human bodies a complete wreck by the time age 30 rolls around (maybe that's why, without my knowledge, 30 became old by the time I hit that age).   There's no excuse for it either.  The fact that I move better now at 32 than I did at 27 might be a small accomplishment but still one that I hold some good regard.  I attribute this to the fact that know more about getting strong now than I did 5 years ago as well as being better at doing it.  That's why I find that third statement so satisfying

Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, we judge a lot of our being regarding our ability to move.  Ultimately, the better we move, the better our lives are.  Anything that accentuates that is good and worth pursuing. 

Read More

Because I can't always use gun fire at what irritates me: Shooting My Mouth Off III

So, the kid's asleep, the wife went shopping, and I've decided to end my month-long blog drought by crawiling out from underneath the rock that I've been hiding underneath...and do another of my bitch-and moan entries...

-Stop with the biceps pics!  For over 40 years we've been subjected to zombie-like hoards of meatheads trying desperately trying to get Arnold's biceps and documenting every step of the way with pics. The trend has only gotten worse with the advent of cell phones with cameras. Now, every bathroom with a mirror has turned into a posing stage for men desperately trying to out-douchebag the ultimate douchebag  . Didn't we used to use bathooms to take a shit?

So true...

-ESPN 99 must have run clean out re-runs of World's Strongest Man, World Series of Poker and dogdeball tournaments. So, they Show the Crossfit Games. My exposure to Crossfit was marginal up until I saw it at a bar in Massachusetts and now I think I get it. Crossfit is what you when you do a lot of really good exercises with extremely shitty form as fast as possible... and pay too much money per month to someone to "teach" you how to do this.


There really isn't much to farmers walking to screw up and yet CF finds a way...
 

-Can we replace "functional" with practical?

-Which exercise releases growth hormone naturally? Please don't bombard me with answers. I won't believe them anyway, even if you have a scientific study from the University of Bangledesh that says you're right. If HGH is something that helps you recover from intense exercise, keeps you young, and repairs your cells, then I'd bet HUGE money that the answer is actually... SLEEP!

-If you think women with muscle definition look like men, then you probably don't look much like a man yourself.

-This shit's getting out of hand! If you're posting pics of yourself working out, wear a pair of pants that don't show off your package! 

-Why is it so incomprehensibly hard for some fools to pick out workout music?   Why do you need to ask for suggestions from everyone else?  This is about as difficult as masturbation material on the internet:  find something that arouses you and get to work!   It doesn't matter if it's death metal, classical music, movie soundtracks or gay nightclub fare.  It it accentuates your desire to move with intensity, then it's good workout music!

Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, I'll get back to writing something memorable.  In the meantime, feel free to spout off about the things in our sub-culture that really annoy you too!

This guy never gets old!

Read More

Homemade Gada (Macebell) Mace

Great looking and simple homemade Gada, which is great for fitness and core strength training




Similar construction to my homemade gada from 2009

You can also find some macebell exercises in My Free Ebook - Subscribe here

Read More

DIY Neck Harness

Good idea for a Homemade Neck Harness from TheHomemadeStrength on Youtube
The neck area is certainly overlooked by many athletes and one that can easily be injured.

I have done quite a bit of training with a neck harness and would recommend you take it slowly to start with and gradually build resistance. Also, try to fit it in after a workout when you're well warmed up



Enjoy

Read More

60 Is the Magic Number

If I were running one of those dating services, I'd make a fortune hooking up weight training men with those numerology-obsessed women.  We're all keenly aware of how obsessed our fellow Iron Mongers are with percentages of max lift number,  sets ,reps, percent activation, minutes and hours spent training, number of seconds of rest...do I need to go on still?  They might live happily ever after with a cat-hoarding harpy who looks at living the good life as a specific set of numbers away from perfection. 

I can't speak for my readers but when I see a pile of numbers associated with lifting on my computer screen, seemingly popping out at me in 3D they're so numerous,  my mind goes blank almost as fast as it becomes uninterested.  It's the pinncale of paralysis by analysis.

While I have a general tendancy to shun specific sets, reps, rest periods, % of max, I have found a number in my training that has succeeded in standing out after all of these years that I've grabbed onto a rigid, overhead object for reasons related to pulling up:  60...or more. 

I've found through my own pile of sweat and pain that doing 60 pull-ups per day is a one way ticket to being more awesome in life.  I came across this wonderous discovery well over 12 years ago when I was working a night shift, 6 pm to 6 am.  Back then I could just barely manage to do 15 pull-up in a row.  So, I'd do a set every hour, just to keep myself awake on an unusually strong bathroom stall to keep myself awake.  Of course, being a 147 lbs puke, I'd barely be able to do even a few by the 9th hour but over the course of those dreadful evenings that I was onto something. 

That something is the simple fact that has been hammered home on my latest job of brooming, shoveling, sweeping and lugging around heavy and harsh sucton hoses that the upper back muscles can take a brutal amount of labor and not yeild in agonizing cramps and soreness.  The Lattisimus Dorsi muscle is a glorious piece of meat that begs for work.  No matter how much you try to beat it up, it just keeps taking it and getting more awesome in the process. 

Over the years, when I decided to train with pull-ups, a workout doesn't seem complete without at least 60 pull-ups, regardless of sets.  Do 4 sets of 15 or 10 set of 6.  Ladders or pyramids, it doesn't matter.  Just get to, or over, this number.  It's really that simple. 

Do more if you can.  Get exotic if you'd like.  Fat bars, weighted, on suspension rigs, L-sits, gripping towels.  Whatever.  Don't get wrapped up in too many details.  Just make sure that you throw lots of volume at your Lats.  They'll thank you for it and it won't take you too long to appreciate what they're doing for you. 

Read More