Archives for July 2016

 

Okay, okay I know I sound like a broken record regarding the impact that pull-ups and dips can have on your physique and functional strength, but I can’t stress enough what these movements can do for you.

I guess I am getting to that age where it may be somewhat acceptable to repeat myself. 😀

 

Speaking of dips, this morning I performed what I call “Zen Sets”—– a series of heavy work relative and progressive to your one-rep max (this low-rep, high sets approach results in true mind-muscle connection and strength gain), followed by some volume work of in this case the same movement, but with much less load. (When calculating your 1RM, don’t forget to include your body weight.)

Then I went out into an absolute blanket of heat & humidity (91*) and did a quick 2 miler.

All in all a productive day physically.

Apply concentrated effort to dips or a variation of the movement and you will soon break a few records of your own! 😉

 

John

 

 

 

 

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You leap and clutch the bar far overhead.

Forearms engaged, you begin pulling your entire body weight upward.

Your lats start to contract as you continue, feeling virtually every pulling, ancillary and stabilizing muscle become enlisted.

Fighting gravity, you ascend and arrive at the apex of contraction, chin and neck above the bar. You have arrived!

With gravity becoming even more antagonistic you then descend slowly towards the floor.

Congratulations!

That’s one rep. 😀

 

Pull-ups & Chin-up variations are some of the very best result-producing movements that you can add to your individualized training regimen.

I dabbled with pull-ups & chin-ups for most of my early training years, but found them incredibly difficult and often became discouraged with them.

After researching various back workouts and training, I realized pull-ups seemed to be a common denominator for great development in all of these programs.

 

I was never very good at them, but was now inspired to improve for all the obvious benefits that they deliver, so I figured maybe the best path was to engage in a “crash course.”

I have always noticed and believed in the idea that frequent, focused, dedicated intention can deliver results fast so I decided to inject this into my new obsession, mastering these pull-ups.

 

My approach was simple.

I would do these pull-ups every day and attempt to increase my mind/muscle connection and motor-skills much like my methods mentioned in this post.

At this point I probably had the ability to do maybe 12 body weight pull-ups which is solid, but I wanted more.

 

My simple/basic approach

Day 1, I simply went to my basement and performed one solid full range of motion pull-up.

Day 2, I did two.

Day 3, I performed three.

And so on…..

 

Eventually, I arrived at day 17 (just a little over two weeks after starting this very unassuming program) and banged out seventeen solid reps.

Day 18 arrived and I regressed to sixteen reps, but I found a new echelon adding about five reps to my previous max.

I then decided to return to a more standard training format increasing resistance (adding additional weight to a lifting belt) and this spurred even more progress.

 

In a near future posting, I will discuss some recent experimentation on this subject and some very interesting discoveries.

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, possibly all we may have is our character.

 

Back in the mid-nineties, I was in my late twenties and had been training for nearly a decade.  I went to a small local gym that probably had somewhere between forty to sixty members at any given time give or take.

I would often train in the early afternoon and it was generally the same crowd most days.

This was right about the time period when I halted my perpetual bulking cycle and started to realize the importance of diet and nutrition.

If you spend any amount of time in the commercial gym setting, you meet all sorts of colorful and interesting characters.

 

One that I will never forget was an obviously “accentuated” individual we will call “Stewart.”

 

Stewart was an  anabolically-enhanced forty-something.

Huge, very strong,  but in my opinion kind of had an odd physique that to me seemed almost frog-like (his voice was a bit froggy too.)

 

When he arrived at our gym (this was one of probably 5 or 6 that he was a member of), it was somewhat of an event.

The gym had double glass doors and windows that you could see directly out to the parking lot and I would often wince if I saw Stewart pulling in.

 

Stewart always made an entrance.

The parking lot was maybe twenty feet from the door, but it seemed like it would take him a half hour to get from his car to the entrance.

He would walk in, toss his gym bag down, gaze around the perimeter, exchange a few pleasantries, walk to the gym office and talk to whoever was there and eventually make his way to the training area.

 

He would then perform a very extensive warm-up, with a heavy emphasis on the rotator-cuffs, having recovered from several shoulder surgeries.

 

Inevitably, often there would be a couple younger guys training and I would often hear them discussing Stewart.

“Wow! That dude is huge!”

Stewart seemed to notice those that noticed him the most and he would often approach them and ask “what are you working today?”

Usually they were honored that a guy on Stewart’s level would want to train with them, so they jumped at the chance.

 

He would then put them through the session of a lifetime.

Heavy weights, all sorts of volume and an infinity of forced reps.

These guys were beginners or at best intermediates, but Stewart trained them like they were ultra-advanced.

 

After a short while, you could see these guys were fading fast.

Slumped over, breathing heavy, looking like they were going to be sick.

Some of them I never saw again at the gym.

 

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Stewart, not that at all, over the period of time we shared at the gym we had quite a few laughs and interesting conversations, but looking back I think it was one of my first experiences with the absurd side of this lifestyle/business.

 

Stewart like so many that choose to take the short-cut of anabolics, had an almost “hypertensive” look to him.

Flushed skin, especially around the neck area, acne, very odd symmetry that was not aesthetic by any standard and a a wide tortoise-shell like mid-section.

 

Internally, these chemicals place tremendous stress upon the heart and liver and other organs.

 

Psychologically, nearly every person that I have encountered that I suspected was using seemed to have a lot of up & down mood-swings and a propensity for paranoia.

 

Personally, I don’t see any benefit.

 

In closing this out, I would like to say for all his obvious demons and issues, at the very least Stewart was forthcoming about what he took and never denied it.

 

That is way more than I can say for a whole bunch that always seem to avoid the big pink elephant in the room.

 

People that enjoy this fitness lifestyle are becoming more and more educated and the whole “I work harder and have great genetics” facade is becoming laughable, if not insulting to the masses that are natural and often work harder and diet more intelligently than their counterparts.

 

In the end, possibly all we may have is our character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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