Learning Alone in the Internet Jungle

I recall several years ago when I used to post pretty regularly on Rosstraining.com's forum, I got challenged by a guy named Andy Patterson (aka:  The Fucker) to a conditioning challenge called Demolition Day.  That particular year's challenge was called the Magic 200.  It was pretty simple:  Take Ross Enemait's Magic 50 workout and multiply it by four.  Not one to back down from a challenge from a guy who sports the goofiest chrome dome that I've ever seen on all internets, I took him up on it. 

There was just one problem:  I had never done a one-armed snatch.  I didn't know how. 

A quick internet search led me to another, fellow blogger acquaintance, Sally Moss.  She had a great description of how to do this movement.  It's still there, along with a bunch of other good tutorials. 

I'll be the first to admit it:  learning movements off the internet sucks.  It's not easy to find people who know what they're doing and can show it to you it ways that you can understand.  Just try looking up how to bent press.  That's a fucking nightmare right there...and certainly don't go to the abominable Bodybuilding.com (WARNING:  dont' click that link!) to find out.  That move is the epitome of the problem we face when we isolated garage gorillas try to get back to the gold old days of strength training. 

It can be done though.  I paid close attention, practiced and completed the challenge.  Even when I had the opportunity to go to an EXTREME HARDCORE gym where my one-arm snatch was critiqued by someone who knows more than I do about it than I do, I was surprised that there was so little to clean up in the first place. 

Once again, I'm not claiming to be an expert and anyone who dares call me that will be subject to flogging upon my meeting them but I do have my guidelines that I'm about to impart on you on what has helped me learn some of the more loopy and obscure strength stuff out there when I have marginal-to-non-existent contact with the larger gym universe. 

This is the video I most credit for helping me learn how to bent press, BTW

1.  Find Good Material To Learn From
The best teachers are those who can break down movements to the fewest, important directions to get the exercise done right.  Without anyone to be there to critique what you're doing, the fewer things you have to keep in mind the better you'll learn.  Good learning material also has good, if odd, cues to get the move right.  My friend Chip gave one of the most bizarre set of cues for doing a deadlift right not too long ago:  Crush your armpit trolls and squeeze your sphincter.  Strange, but it works.  I'm not kidding...look it up!  I've also noticed that well-known, good teachers who record seminars are often training gold.  I would imagine if you're going to teach a group of people effectively and quickly, you need to be able to refine your directions down to the most basic elements. 

2.  For God's Sake, TAKE IT EASY!
I hope this one is far more obvious than the first tip.  Don't go for the biggest chunk of weight or the hardest variation on the move right from the get-go.  Take things easy.  Very easy.  Take long breaks between attempts.  Shelve the workout musice for now.  Put the movement you're trying to learn at the beginning of your work out, treat it like practice, and don't try to get some of that muscle soreness that we all crave from our work outs.  I started bent pressing with a 35 lbs kettlebell back in Summer, 2010.  I can now bent press a 111 lbs kettlebell.  Patience pays off.  It's not a coincidence that impatience alliterates with injury.  We need to accept the fact that learning alone usually takes longer.  It's the drawback to being a loner. 

3.  Pay Close Attention to Where You're failing
One thing that I try to do when move a bit past the point of practice and more towards working out is I try to pay attention to what my form is when I start and where it is when I finish.  Something's going to be worse than when I started.  Whatever that something is will tell me where I'm weak.  Figuring this out also gives me feedback as to what I need to improve with execution or what I need to strengthen.  

Certainly don't ever miss an opportunity to get "professional" help.  After all, every major book and video that you can dig up on the topic at hand will warn you ahead of time that that what you're about do something that could kill you to death if you're being an idiot so you should find someone way smarter (with lots of acronyms after their name) than you to show you how to do it.   It's still a good idea though.  So, never turn that up.  Otherwise, you're left to your own intelligence, patience and observation powers to learn how to move in strong ways.  It's entirely doable though. 

So, if you have no choice, go and do it.

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For The Love of Bent Press III: Two-Hands Anyhow my Bodyweight

 

 

 

A little over a year ago, I started expanding my Ironmaster set by picking up a second handle. The first thing I tried with two kettlebells was doing a two hands anyhow with a 65 lbs and a 55 lbs KB. It was the start of a "lift" that I fell in love with ever since and beginning on that modest incursion into two hands anyhow lifting, the goal that floated around in the back of my mind was to be able to do my bodyweight (175 lbs, or 180, depending on how much ice cream I eat) in this lift.

It's been a slow climb but I can now confidently do 176 lbs (111 lbs on one KB, 65 lbs on the other). Calling this pile of movements a lift is a misnomer since it's actually three or four lifts into one. They all have the same basic core move: bent pressing one weight heavier than the other. What kinds of weights lifted, how the first weight gets to the starting position, how the second weight is lifted, and if how the weights get put down can change. My Two Hands Anyhow looked like this:

1. Clean the 111 lbs 'bell.
2. Bent Press it, grab the second 'bell.
3. Curl it up to a racked position.
4. Press it overhead.
5. Bringing the 65 lb'er down to the ground via partial windmill.
6. Carefully lower the big guy with two hands to the ground.

While I have a natural attraction to the odd when it comes to working out, I learned a lot from this whole excursion into Two Hands Anyhow excellence.

First and foremost, the bent press got rid of any lingering doubt of dropping the first weight. Looking at the bottom of a pack of iron that weighs as much as a petite woman will either force most to get over it or get your skull stoved in. I did. It'll also make you bilk every ounce of strength you have on that side of your body.  I enjoy these kind of do-or-die challenges in my training.   

My right-hand bent press isn't as pretty in video

Second thing that I absolutely had to get better at if I was going to bent press any kettlebell over 85 lbs was cleaning and racking the KB properly. I got into the habit of having a wide stance when I was using a sandbag to bent press. That wide stance played hell with heavier KB's. I just couldn't pop that bitch up enough to get it into a good rack position with my feet so wide. My poor wrist and elbows paid the price. Good, focused practice made permanent and I got that under control.

Not the most fun part of the lift

The biggest carry-over benefit I got from this 15 month journey came from pressing the second weight overhead. When you've already got a skull-crushing quantity of metal in an overhead position, you can only press another 65 lbs one way: THE RIGHT WAY! No leaning forward, backward or to the sides. Otherwise, you risk dropping the first weight. Not fun.

I feel like Arthur Saxon already!

Most people I've seen bent press don't bother to put down the weights. They simply drop them. I opted to partially windmill the second, lighter weight. Windmilling when the bottom hand has a weight actually makes the exercise easier. So, it was good practice to getting the quantity of iron I can windmill up. When I traveling by car, I usually brought only one kettlebell. So, a common practice on those trips was to substitute a bent press/windmill for my Two Hands Anyhow work. I don't think this would have been possible had I not thrown in the windmill move into my Two Hands Anyhow.

So, there's been some practicality to doing this for so long but really, this is just a fun way to lift weights. As long as I've had the equipment, I've done this lift twice a week since pretty regularly since that first stab at the two hands anyhow back in late-January, 2011. It's easily my favorite lift and now that I've maxed out the capacity of my Ironmaster Kettlebells on the bent press, I'm looking forward to trying out bent pressing on a barbell.   

 

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Homemade Secret Weapon

For those who don't know, I'm a bit of a Grip Strength Fan!
I love training grip and enter competitions to test my strength
One of the common events in grip comps is closing grippers




Not the kind you find with plastic handles that come with skipping ropes, but the big torsion/spring loaded type (the pic here is of a Vulcan Gripper from David Horne's World of Grip and is in my opinion the Daddy of All Grippers!)

To train for grippers the best device is the gripper itself, however there is device that is also great for training hand strength and hence gripper strength and that is The Secret Weapon

To go ahead and buy a Secret Weapon would cost quite a bit of cash, however I've been coming up with a few homemade versions of this Grip Machine (which I haven't put into practice yet), but have found somebody has already made one (and very good it is too)

The principle is very simple, the device mimics the closing of the hand like when you close a gripper but allows you to microload the weights.

 

Materials Required a fairly straight forward:
Wood
Pipes
Bolts and weights

Check out the original forum post here

Very soon I will share with you an idea that is very similar to this that has escalated my hand strength and costs just pennies

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Letters to Myself

A while ago, Jim Wendler (as always) wrote a very good article for T-Nation:  A Letter To My Younger Self.   It got me thinking about what I'd love to tell myself, relative to training, when I was a teenager.  If you look down the livespill comments, someone asked him what he'd tell his future, old bastard self.  That was kind of interesting too.  So, I figured I'd follow suit, writing two letters to my former and future self...

Dear Young Justin,

First of all, you need to stop being such a procrastinator with your homework, especially the English and literature essays.  Write them on time and stop doing the all-nighter papers.  There's no reason that you need to fail this class three years in a row, GODDAMMIT!  Don't wait 15 years for it to sink in that you write pretty damn good and you might have blown some opportunities just because you were being a lazy, little shit who didn't want to do work in a class you should have fucking aced! 

How do I know this?  Well, because I'm you, 17 years later.  I'm going to tell you a few things that you should be doing to make life a bit easier, more enjoyable, and certainly more fulfilling. 

I know you're looking in a mirror, all 5'8" and 130 lbs of you wondering when you're going to get dad's massive bulk and freakish strength.  I've got some bad news for you:  it's not going to come as naturally to you as it did him.  If you want to look like you should be taken seriously and be strong enough to pound the shit out of someone when they don't, you need to take things into your own hands. 

First, start eating.  A LOT!  Eat a pile of steak, eggs, and nuts to compliment all of that milk you're drinking.  You know that protein powder you're eating instead?  Stop bothering with that.  It's all shit that would have been thrown away had someone not thought to put a steroid junkie on the cover of a container filled with it in the first place. 

In a short time, Mom and Dad are going to get a membership to that fitness club so you can go.  You're going to start doing the machines and running a lot.  Don't bother with either.  They won't help you as much as you want to be helped.  You're going to see a bunch of kids from school you don't like doing stuff with barbells and dumbbells that you're going to want to dismiss because you're such an independent-minded loner.  This time, that's a mistake.  Figure out how to do what they're doing. 

That would be a better start to working out but don't do just this.  You already goof off and do some push-ups and pull-ups.  Keep doing them.  As strong as you get and as many exercises as you try, you'll never regret any of the work you do with these two movements. 

Next, don't stop doing sports just because you got a job.  Keep doing lacrosse.  You have time to work later.  You won't have time for lacrosse when you're an adult.  Also, there's an obscure little school in Burlington teaching this martial art called Brazilian Jui Jitsu.  Start taking classes in that IMMEDIATELY!  Trust me, this will be a life-changing moment for you when you go. 

Also, stop being so awkward with girls.  You might be a skinny fuck but you're still not bad looking and there's actually a few girls that like you that you think you don't have a chance with.  Don't bother With Chandra.  She's nothing but a tease that's using you.  Besides, someday you're going to be even better looking than you could possibly imagine (if you eat big and train hard) and she's going to look like a bloated beach ball. 

I do have to give you some credit:  you don't drink, smoke or do drugs.  Bravo!  Keep it up.  you're going to thank yourself for that later.  You'll also thank yourself for not blowing your money too. 

Above all, don't forget this:  There will a girl you meet online.  Above all, DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH HER!    Yes, she's got big boobs and she's great in bed but just remember the 4 F's of dating:  find her, feel her, fuck her, and forget her. 

This is where she ends up after you're done with her...

Now, to my future self...

Dear Older Justin,

Hi!  Remember me?  I'm you at nearly 32 years old.  You know what made us so awesome?  Right around the time most of our peers were turning 30 the had expended most of their youth on pointless shit, and were bitching and moaning because they were getting old.  Well, they were getting old and they weren't doing a fucking thing about it except doing all the same, stupid shit that they did when they were young and they just accepted that they were going continue getting fat, grey, wrinkly, weak and broken down.

Well, you didn't.  Actually, you cleaned things up even more and got serious about getting more awesome as you got older.  You'd train even after the hardest work days.  You'd insist on finding healthy food no matter how much of a pain in the ass you made of yourself.   You were also curious enough and demanded to know the truth about what the right way to live clean and strong. 

What I'm most concerned with is if you kept all of this up?  Is your fire still lit?  I hope you've remained as stubborn as ever about eating healthy food.  I hope you still have the energy to train hard and effectively as often as possible.  I hope you learned from my mistakes about not getting enough good rest a few years back. 

Most of all, I hope you passed that on to Henry (and any other children you have now).  For all I know, 20 years old is considered middle age now.  Lord knows, that whole notion of 30 being old was ridiculous enough.   I hope you're not pretending you're healthy by taking god-only-knows what kind of hideous drugs they've come up with at this point.  Don't give up like everyone else did, and don't let your kids see you giving up either. 

He didn't.  Don't you either!

Best of luck to both of you,

Justin_P, 31.75 years old. 

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Below the Bar? What a Shitty Title!

If you're reading this page, I'm guessing that your thoughts about the modern industrial fitness complex are somewhat similar to mine:  they vary between nausea and pyromania.   They have a pile of bizarre ideas that don't do much in the way of getting strong or healthy.  The only thing that they do well is drain your wallet.  Just in case you forgot how stupid they can be and you needed a reminder, The New York Times just recently provided one for you:  Why Women Can't Do Pull-ups.

Somehow managed.  Great Blog, BTW!

 

We have to state the obvious:  women generally aren't as strong as men.  Men have more muscle, shorter connective tissue, and better levers for doing most things strength-related.  So, the article got that part right.  I do recall something from my couple of months of reading (and re-reading) books on anatomy (pre-baby days, when I had time to read and re-read stuff):  levers are designed to be either powerful or precise.  So, if a body doesn't have the inherent, raw power to pull itself up to the bar, then it's capable of more precise, coordinated manner to generate the force needed. 

 

In other words, if women, weak men, or tall-big men with poor leverage want to do pull-ups, they need to PRACTICE!   It's completely unknown to me what modified pull-ups, back and biceps exercises that they did in this story to produce the positively lackluster results but I'd venture to guess it wasn't nearly enough pull-up practice and progressions.  I'm certainly at a loss as to what a bunch of muscle-wasting cardio is going to help with. 

 

Genetic Freak?  Or just persistently smart  about the way she does things?  Either way, a nice and fun person!

 

Maybe that's what so many good trainers are getting at when they refer to focusing on movements and not muscles.  While most of us think about how great the pull-up is for the lats and the biceps, the fact is that's involving a whole lot more than just two types of human meat to successfully pull off the movement.  Were we to try to construct a routine based on strengthening every muscle doing some work to get over the bar we'd be left with an unwieldy-long workout that wouldn't produce the same results if we had just stuck to doing pull-up progressions. 

 

I could keep going on and on about how bad this article sucks, provoking ourselves to the point of projectile vomiting and firebombing but let's leave it at this:  it is entirely possible for all us, men and women alike, to do pull-ups with some proficiency.  We just have to stop treating this movement like a muscle-specific strengthener and spend some more time getting to know it better.  We're all going to vary on how fast we accomplish that goal but it's still doable.    

 





On the other hand, 6'3", 275 lbs with long arms=disadvantage??

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Some Shit Deserves to be Extinct, Martin

Despite the piles of crap that have a tendency to accumulate there, I still like reading articles on T-Nation.  The only ones that I truly value to any degree are usually written by Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, and Dan John.  In other words, if they have to post an abbreviation-ridden description of who they are, chances are pretty good that I don't find a whole lot noteworthy in what they're saying.

That rule still held solid when some guy named Martin Rooney posted an article that popped up on my Facebook wall telling me how to train like a man... for the 7th time.  Apparently, training like a man involved using a shitload of furniture and machinery that was only good for one or two lifts and, of course, these are going extinct because of ellipticals, kettlebells, ropes, and spinning classes.

Okay, I like the Roman Chair.  That one should stay put in every gym, as far as I (a blogger who pollutes the  whole gym scene) am concerned.  The rest of the real estate-wasting stuff, well, why is anyone surprised that some machine that was the latest fitness trend 40 years ago got moved out in favor of yet another trendy pile of shiny new junk?

Call me crazy but anything designed to be used for only one or two exercises isn't going to last very long.  Exercises do come and go.  Too many people are going to follow what the latest strength hero who bursts onto the scene does to get his strength.  When someone engineers a gym toy around today's muscle idol, don't be surprised when it fades away with that lunk.  It's a never ending cycle.

Something that can be used for lots of different exercises justifiably both has a better chance and deserves to survive.  Call my crazy but that's the stuff worth populating a gym space with.  Were I to spend my money, my time and my effort on equipment I'd much rather have ropes, kettlebells and suspension straps in my place of muscle and mind.  It worked so well for building big, strong bodies many years before we were convinced that powerful bodies were built like cheap cars with machinery. 

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My Thoughts on Lance Armstrong

It must be both rewarding and annoying at the same time that after so many years, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) finally skewered Lance Armstrong for doping in his Tour De France.  After rising above all of the dirty athletes to become the most dominant dirty athlete the TDF has ever known, they still couldn't seem to produce the magical positive test to prove that he was a drug users all along.  Still, they can use their odd power to say that he was.  It seems to me like such a hollow victory. 

Yes, I firmly believe that Lance Armstrong used drugs to produce his record seven straight Tour De France victories.  I have less evidence than the USADA has but since I'm just a puke with a computer and a blog address, I'm not burdened with any particular requirements to prove what I think.  I just have the ability to connect the dots.  Ironically, this isn't too far away from what the USADA has. 

We can all agree that the Tour is a bike race, the most prestigious bike race in the world.  There are other titles it has.  One might be the most obvious example of a doped-to-the-gills sports events there is.  Another title could also be a voluntary foray into a chronic wasting disease without dying...unless you used performance enhancing drugs.  The simple truth about the TDF is that the speed of which the competitors race over such a distance and for the period of time they do it in would kill even the best non-chemically enhanced endurance athletes from muscle destruction alone.  These competitors couldn't possibly do it without drugs.  Their bodies would give out like a cancer or HIV patient.  So, a seven-time winner would have to be doing something to rise above and take the title. 

Another oddity about Lance Armstrong is his height and weight.  When we read that he was 5'9 and 160 lbs at his peak, we don't think anything of it because it's so extra-average for an American Man.  By professional cylists' standards, he might as well be Lou Ferrigno.  Most of these guys on bikes are mighty midgets, most being 5'3"-5'5" and barely over 130 lbs.  The extra size should put him at a disadvantage since most smaller people with less muscle mass to deliver oxygen to should render him in the bottom of the pack rather than a record-breaking run as king.  Something odd was going on...

Going back to alternative titles to give to the Tour, a third title would be the longest-running, doped-up sporting event ever.  Indeed, people have been cheating by taking things to win this race almost as long as the race has existed.  To my knowledge, the earliest use of arsenic as a performance enhancer in sports was used in the Tour back in the early 1900's.  Apparently, before it kills you, it gives your much-beloved, muscle-moving ATP quite a kick into overdrive.

So, taken into account that Lance Armstrong produced unheard of dominance in a race ridden with PED's for nearly as long as the race has existed, it's hard not to reason that he wasn't dirty as the rest of them were.  Perhaps the flagrancy of his dominance and the fact that he couldn't be caught after all of the blood n' piss samples were in after the race was just too much for the powers-that-be to tolerate.   Something had to be done. 

What we can take away from this is that in the world of professional sports, there are few clean miracles left out there.  We shouldn't burden ourselves with dreams of being just like these people unless we're ready to scour the Earth for the best in muscle-enhancing drugs to do get there.  This is just another reminder that these people take bodies that most of us don't done have and fill them with substances we probably (and hopefully) don't want to take.  That's not a path worth going down. 

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