Chaos and Pain

Sadly, Zubaz pants seem to have fallen victim to the death of a fad.

Having been involved in lifting for two decades, I've been highly amused to see what training methods, exercises, and nomenclature come in and out of vogue. When I first started training, body part regimens were all the rage, and that's basically all we did for years. Certain exercises faded in and out of popularity at that time, driven mostly by the degree to which the bodybuilding magazines pushed them. There was the early push to abandon barbells "because they cause muscular imbalances" and adopt dumbbell-only programs, super slow training, the mystifying obsession with bosu and Swiss balls that accompanied the loathsome "core training" nonsense, and then the gradual decline into total idiocy wherein everyone decided to stop thinking for themselves and do cookie cutter programs to avoid "wasting their time" in the gym. Given my recent penchant for harping upon the most modern of these trends, I thought exercise faddism throughout the ages might bear some investigation. Avoiding the aphorisms of George Santayana would likely benefit us all, so we'll just go with the idea that only the retarded and the deliberately ignorant ignore the lessons of the past.

I'm afraid "Jesus told me to kill the bitch" is not a sound legal argument.

Given that exercise faddism has an history longer than Tori Spelling's face, this series is going to get split into exercises/implements and training programs. Mashing the two together would likely just make this entire enterprise a bigger mess than Tim Lambesis's legal defense. To preface the treatment on exercises, it's of note for all of the anti-bicep curl wunderkind out there that the bicep curl only fell out of favor when male testosterone levels decided to drop more precipitously than a 20 something's frequency of erections after switching to a vegan diet. That's right- curls for the girls has been a thing as long as there have been things to curl to catch chicks' attention. This, I suppose, accounts for the rise of the anti-fap movement in concert with the anti-curling movement. If you're never going to get in the game anyway, what the fuck is the point of practicing?

The Minoans liked their women with huge forearms and huger tits, and jumped over stampeding bulls in their free time. Brb- building time machine to go to ancient Crete.

Unfortunately, we don't know a hell of a lot about the anomalous ancient civilizations (like those of Turkey that predate the Neolithic). Frankly, we don't know much other than they were likely massively strong because they constructed cyclopean stone structures we'd have trouble recreating today. Though we know more about the civilizations, we're in the same Vin Diesel style Pitch Black dark about strength training with the Mesopotamians, Chinese, and Egyptians, all of whom were holding regular athletic competitions as far back as 3,000 BC. The Egyptians, insofar as we know, tested their strength with stone lifting, but that's as far as our knowledge goes. Likewise, we're in the dark about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, both of whom appear to have been jacked from their art, but about whom we know little more than what we can glean from their artifacts.

Not surprisingly, this picture was accompanied by a statement on Reddit to the effect that halteres were not used as dumbbells.

Anal Sex Wasn't the Greeks' Only Form of Exercise- The Halteres
The earliest instance of systematic weight training we can find, then, comes from the Greeks. As can be seen from any Grecian art, the Greeks placed more value on physical perfection than do the guidos down the Jersey Shore, so it would stand to reason that they'd have a system for obtaining those beach ready bodies. Their tool in the war on weakness were the halteres, the earliest version of the modern dumbbell, which was developed by the Greeks for use in the broad jump (athletes were able to extend the distance of their jump significantly by swinging the halteres and allowing the lead weights to carry them forward). By the 5th Century BC, the halteres seem to have become weight training implements, as depictions of their use included something akin to a lateral raise. By the second century AD, an entire system of weight training with the halteres had been developed, with the physician Galen outlining their use in strengthening the body. This style of weight training, known as "halter throwing" consisted of three main movements:

Bicep curl. Nothing surprising there. Curls for the girls was a thing long before Jersey Shore and tanning beds.
Walking lunges. The Greeks had an interesting take on these. They focused heavily on fighting, so strong shoulders were even more important than strong legs. As such, they held halteres at arms length in front of them as they did the lunges, not unlike the arm position for pistols.
Suitcase deadlifts. The lifter would take two heavy halteres and place them six feet apart, with himself in the middle. He'd then reach out and deadlift up the left hand halter with his left hand, then the right hand halter with his left, then replace them and repeat (Gardinier 153).

Clearly, the model who posed for this statue was not skipping arm day.

Halteres were basically used as conditioning for sports, it seemed, as the Greeks lacked a system for measuring weights (outside of currency). Thus, the halteres they used were likely pretty unevenly matched and could not have provided a true measure of strength. Real heavy lifting was done with stone blocks, which would have comprised the bulk of the the "strong man" workout. Unfortunately for us, though, no one really wrote about the manner in which the stones were lifted or what the competitions involving stones looked like. Instead, we simply have a couple of inscriptions showing us that they definitely competed in two stone lifting events and used heavy sheets of rock or lead (tabula plumb) in training.

Competitive Lifts

Stone throwing. One 315 lb block of badass sandstone remains inscribed with a statement about a lifter, Bybon, who picked it up and threw it one-handed over his head.
Stone lifting. Another block of red sandstone bears the inscription that some badass named Eumastas lifted it from the ground (Gardinier)

Note the strong creeper element in 16th Century gyms.

The Development of the Dumbbell
While the Romans certainly carried forward these traditions, they left us all too little in the way of documentation about their training techniques. After the fall of Rome and the coming of the Dark Ages, it seems strength training took a backseat to not contracting the gangrene and swollen lymph nodes that came with the onset of the Bubonic Plague. Thus, we have to skip forward to 1569, when Girolamo Mucurialis published what became basically a mix of the Atkins Diet-P90x-Physicians' Desk Reference of the Middle ages- De Arte Gymnastica. Though De Arta Gymnastica was published some thirteen centuries after Galen penned his 500 treatises on health and medicine, De Arta was little more than a synopsis of the salient points contained in Galens' and others' work, but it served as a call to arms to the men of the Middle Ages, particularly knights, to get their asses in shape.

I highlighted the dumbbell and plate so you wouldn't have to treat that pic like you're trying to find bitch-ass, sneaky, untrustworthy, possibly-of-gypsy-origin Waldo.

It was also that this time that the dumbbell truly began to take shape. If you check out the 16th Century gym pic, you'll notice what where formerly curved hand weights are now two cones joined at the point, much more like modern dumbbells. Dumbbell work continued to flourish after the publication of De Arte Gymnastica, which went through five reprints over the subsequent hundred years and remained Europe's training manual of choice (Milo 4-6). As others continued to write about the benefits of heavy lifting, drawing heavily on Mercurialis's work, the use of dumbbells continued to spread. Over the 200 years following the publication of De Arte, strength training became reasonably popular among the average person, and traveling strength shows began springing up in Europe and travelling to the US. Benjamin Franklin was one of the first American public figures to pick up on the use of the dumbbell, which he used primarily for swings, and he claimed that he was still lifting when he was at the ripe old age of eighty. Likewise, General Custer of the ill fated Little Big Horn battle was an avid lifter at Fort Hays to combat the intense boredom brought on by living in Kansas.

And here, I thought group fitness classes had always been about staring at chicks in booty shorts.

Amusingly, this was also the time when group fitness classes started springing up, all revolving around the use of the dumbbell. About as unlike modern group fitness classes as the wondrous t-back thong is unlike broads' undies in that period, group ex classes in the 19th century were primarily for men, all of whom appeared to be dressed for the theater (If you're curious, and you should be, about how these classes were conducted, check out Watson's Handbook of Calisthenics and Gymnastics here). These lifting classes were, like most modern classes, conducted with ridiculously light (3-12.5 lb) dumbbells, but the movements they used would not be foreign to the modern BodyPump enthusiast or recreational lifter- they were curling, doing lateral raises and upright rows, lunges, and even a dumbbell squat.

Ladies were pimps, too.

Plenty of other books were written on the subject of training with dumbbells, all of which had slight variations of the same theme. By and large, however, dumbbell work was kept pretty light except in places where strongmen trained, as people still held tightly to Galen's belief that training for health was not heavy strength training, but rather more like the Crossfit conception of lighter weights for time.

"In the blessings of the mind athletes have no share. Beneath their mass of flesh and blood, their souls are stifled in a sea of mud... Neglecting the old rule of health that prescribes moderation in all things they spend their lives in over-exercising, in overeating and oversleeping like pigs.... They have not health nor have they beauty. Even those who are naturally well proportioned become fat and bloated.... Even their vaunted strength is useless. They can dig and plow but they cannot fight"(Thomas).

Galen said it, but it could literally be the words of any Crossfitter remarking on powerlifting. Because of this sentiment, strongmen really weren't all that prevalent or popular in the early 19th Century, so most training was done relatively lightly and for high repetitions, but all of that was about to change.

Someone's looking forward to the next installment...

Sources:
CTCWeb Editors. The Ancient Olympics. Classics Technology Center. Web. 7 Jan 2014. http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/ancientolympics2.html

Gardinier, E. Norman. Athletics in the Ancient World. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.

Kansas Historical Society. Cool Things - Custer's Dumbbell. Kansopedia. Nov 2006. Web. 8 Jan 2014.

Sinclair, John. The Code of Health and Longevity. Edinburgh: Arch. Constable & Co, 1807.

Thomas, Edward. Martial arts: the Western connection. Tae Kwon Do Times. Jan 1997: 58-59. Print. Available online: http://www.ihpra.org/Western%20Connection.pdf.

Todd, Jan. The classical ideal and its impact on the search for suitable exercise: 1774-1830. Iron Game History Nov 1992: 6-16 Print.

Todd, Jan. From Milo to Milo: A history of barbells, dumbells, and Indian clubs. Iron Game History. Apr 1995: 4-16.

Watson, J. Madison. Handbook of Calisthenics and Gymnastics. New York: Schermerhorn, Bancroft, and Co., 1864.

Before I get cracking on the next installment of what I should hope is proving to be a thoroughly elucidative series on the cyclical nature of training fads, there is an issue with the previous installment's accuracy. While I am well-known for possessing Shakyamuni Buddha-esqe omniscience, I do occasionally fall prey to the myriad myths and mistruths about certain subjects. One such folly was my belief in the myths regarding the Middle Ages as a shitfest rivaling modern Sudan in its suicide-inspiring suckitude, which as it turns out is pretty much entirely untrue. Medieval peasants got more time off than the average American wage slave, people fucked plenty (and possibly more than most of us), knights were not the hyper-noble bronies we generally think of them as having been, but were rather homicidal fucktards who would be much more drawn to reddit/r/horseclop than My Little Pony, Europeans were more obsessed with bathing than gay men in San Frascisco, and the diets of most people in Europe were not as bereft of meat as one might be led to believe (Kolenberg).

For allegedly half-starved backwoods tribesmen, these Scots are pretty fucking swole.

Given these facts, it should come as no surprise that the medieval era boasted some thoroughly jacked dudes. The Vikings, who apparently all filed their teeth to look more fearsome (Lovgren), ate a diet incredibly heavy in meats. Even their slaves ate an incredibly protein-rich diet, though their consisted mostly of fish (Kildahl). Between those facts and the fact that the Vikings were, according to archaeologists, "unusually large... [and] an examination of the muscle-attachment areas of their bones revealed extremely robust physiques", the idea that the people of the Medieval era were sickly, weak, and scrawny can probably be laid to rest. As the picture above shows, the Scots regularly competed in the hammer throw and were renown for their brute strength as well, so it's unlikely that the depictions in Mercurialis's book were mere fantasy- dudes in the Middle Ages may well have been in better shape than your average gym rat, and they almost certainly fucked more and had more time off work (try eight weeks of vacation a year on for size).

Sand Bag Training- A Hell of a Lot Older than You'd Think
Prior to perhaps 2002, I was unaware that sandbag training was even a thing that people outside of war-torn nations or military bases did. It was, to me, the way poor people would lift if they happened to see a yellowed newspaper article with Arnold in it- the way Oliver Twist would have lifted if Dickens decided to actually write a Death Wish-style revenge novel rather than the wordy dogshit he churned out as a matter of course. Having learned of it from the book Dinosaur Training, however, I proceeded to purchase a duffel bag and fill it with sand. I messed around with it for a couple of months and lost interest when it seemed that cleaning up the mess of playing with the sandbag outweighed its benefits. I've periodically returned to sandbag training over the years for a change of pace, but never realize the incredible pedigree of the implement. Had I, I might have kept it as a regular accessory lift rather than relegating it to the "fuck it, I'm bored as shit, don't feel like training, and might want to wear a one piece jumpsuit with a stereotypical Mexican first name on it for half of the day while I clean up the disaster that sandbag training seems to create" pantheon of implements and exercises.

As it happens, sandbag training might in fact be the oldest implement utilized in codified training programs, as the ancient Egyptians performed most weight lifting training with sand bags (Booth 147). The utility of this training could not be understated for martial combatants, as it requires the use of an incredible amount of stabilizing muscles, allows for rotational training, and does not allow one to develop a "groove" for a given lift (Henkin "Sandbags"). Basically, it's a must have implement for anyone who plans on filming hardcore porn on a small boat in a storm tossed sea. According to avowed sandbag expert Josh Henkin, the "use of heavy sandbags and their large circumference forces the lifter to do his lifting with a round back instead of the traditional straight back lifting with a barbell. It is this type of lifting that truly develops a strong back. It develops the back and side muscles in movements that are identical to the lifting and pulling movements of wrestling”(Henkin "Rise").

It seems, according to the literature, that sandbag training fell out of favor for some time, replaced by the use of either dumbbells or metal or stone tablets, but it pops back into the public eye again in the late 18th century. Interestingly, this seems to be the case with most of the implements and exercises- they enjoy a brief moment in the sun, and then are discarded for the exercise du jour... not unlike what we've seen in current training with the back squat and the bench press.

Sandbags sprang back into public view in the late 18th century when schoolmaster Johann Jacob Du Toit had his young students at the German secondary school the Philanthropinium hold sandbags out to the sides of their bodies while he walked among them and counted the time as their arms fell (presumably while they cursed his existence and prayed for death). While it didn't remain in vogue, that is seen as one of the seminal movements in strength training due to the fact that it brought back an implement that had faded in and out of favor back into the mainstream and kept it there for the 5 or so years Du Toit was in charge of the school's phys ed.

Later, turn of the century strongman Arthur Saxon and his strongman troupe would crush all comers lifting a flour sack of varying weights (and often loaded with a couple of blocks of iron to make the sack even harder to lift). This was one of their main show feats, and a lift they practiced religiously in the gym. According to Saxon's rivals, his success in the lift relied on the Andre the Giant size hands he boasted, in addition to the fact that Saxon's grip strength was apparently unparalleled. According to Kurt Saxon, here is how the lift went down:

"We had a standing challenge and offered four hundred dollars reward to anyone who could lift our sack of flour the way we did, as illustrated by my brother’s drawings. The first step is to grab hold of the sack as shown and bring it to the knees. The second stage finds the sack at shoulder height, and from there it was turned and supported on one shoulder. The heaviest sack with which we performed this feat was loaded to 424 lbs. and was packed as tight as stone, with nothing to grip, no slack sacking or corner ears, really more like an unwieldy ponderous ball. No one ever succeeded in hoisting it the way we did. One of us lifted it to the shoulder in just 4 seconds! When performing this feat as part of the act we always finished by carrying it off stage. All three of us succeeded in mastering this lift. It was often comical to see the expressions on the faces of large powerful men who failed with our huge sack after seeing Hermann and myself perform the lift, because both of us were small by comparison in size, and we often looked like boys alongside these enormous men.

Hermann, Kurt, and Arthur Saxon. OG Harder Than You Crew.

Never as part of our show, but merely as exercise, we used to jerk the sack overhead after moving it from one shoulder to a position across the back of the neck. However, none of us ever succeeded in doing this with the full 424 lbs. in the sack. Jerking such a sack was one of our favorite exercises. At times we would do as many as 30 repetitions with a heavy sack just to keep in form and to improve our lifting ability with it" (Saxon).

Sandbag lifting again fell out of favor until the modern era, where it's been revived mostly by Dragon Door's writers and coach Zach Evan Esh. While it will never enjoy the ultimate status sandbag lifting had under the watchful eye of the Egyptian gods, it's unlikely that sandbag lifting will ever be dropped entirely from the mind of the lifting public again.

Weaver Stick
One of the oddest implements that enjoyed a lengthy period of popularity but is likely currently never used outside of a Diesel Crew training facility or a USAWA meet is the Weaver Stick. Various mentions of it are salted throughout treatises on 19th Century weight lifting, which I find fairly curious because the only time I'd seen anything like it was in the movie The 36 Chambers of Shaolin, wherein one of the tests Gordon Liu had to pass was to ring a bell all day long with a weight attached to a long pole. It looked hard as shit in the movie and briefly inspired me to train grip, but grip training is boring as all hell and I quickly abandoned it for anything else at all.

The Weaver Stick, however, seems to be a slightly different animal, and while I doubt it will ever enjoy a true resurgence in popularity, it probably should. Though it predated the person for whom it was named by at the very least 100 years, the Weaver stick, as it came to be called, is nothing more than a long stick with a bit of twine hung from its end with a weight attached. According to the USAWA, it's specifically a wooden broomstick with a handle 5 ½ inches in length, a 1/2 inch marking designating the end of the handle, and another 36 inches of nice hard shaft to make a tumescent pole 42" glorious inches in length. At the end, a cord of any length may be attached, to which weights are then attached. To do the actual lift, the lifter must, with a completely straight arm held tightly to the side, lift the pole off the platform and hold it parallel to the ground, motionless. This lift can be done from the front of the back, and the records in the lift are as follows:

Forward Lift, right hand– Paul Von Boeckmann, 10¾ lbs.
Forward Lift, left hand– John Grimek, 10 pounds.
Backward Lift, right hand– John Protasel, 12½ lbs.
Backward Lift, left hand– John Grimek, 11 ½lbs. (Weaver)

If you think this lift is completely preposterous, consider the following- using a similar pole, Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, grew to match the size and weight of his heavenly staff (dat hypertrophy), then used to to beat the brakes off everything the other gods in heaven could throw at him, eventually kicking the fuck out of the entire pantheon of Chinese gods single handedly. If a Chinese stone monkey born from an egg can pack on fucking mass lifting a stick, it stands to reason you could too.

This lift, though it lacked a real name, actually became popular in the same school system that repopularized sandbag training, the Philanthropic schools. One of them had its physical training program run for over 50 years by Johann Friedrich GutsMuths (1759-1839), who came to his position in 1786. By 1794, Gutsmuths had kids doing the sort of awesome recreational activities that will be allowed in modern school right about the time they allow kids to carry loaded pistols in school and drink liquor in class- "rope climbing, throwing the discus or quoits, climbing poles, jumping over a rope, and 'lifting a weight hung on a rod and moved toward or from the hands according to the strength of the individual'”(Todd).

“We are weak because it does not occur to us that we could be strong if we would.”

- Johann Friedrich GutsMuths

From institutionalized implementation of the lift, strongmen in Europe began experimenting with similar movements, noting that it was damn near impossible for the strongest of them to move a comparatively tiny weight. When John Grimek's only hitting 11 lbs on a lift, you know the majority of us are looking at 3-5 lbs at best. Strangely, Weaver himself noted that neither wrist strength nor overall strength appeared to be a good indicator of who would be good at the lift. According to Weaver,

"Steve Gob, who can lift extraordinary weights in the flat-footed squat, was unable to lift 5 lbs. on the Weaver Stick. More remarkable yet, Warren Lincoln Travis, who was not only exceptional in Back Lifting with a platform but who also possessed great ability in feats of grip strength, was unable to lift more than 4½ lbs. on the Weaver Stick. Lou Leonard, wrestling instructor at Bothner’s Gymnasium, could not budge 3 lbs. One fascinating thing about this lift is that you never can tell in advance whether any particular person is going to be wonderful at it or very poor. Testing people is full of surprises. Tony Sansone, for instance, lifted more with his right hand than did the mighty Henry Steinborn, famous weight-lifting champion of the Alan Calvert era"(Weaver).

Looking for all the world like the least masculine physique competitor in history, Tony Sansone would make you his punk bitch at the Weaver Stick.

Nevertheless, this became the sort of "The Aristocrats" of strongman, whereby turn of the century strongmen would test their strength against one another informally by lifting a broom by the handle horizontally from the floor with a light weight placed on the straw of the broom. Later, the dude who still holds the record above, Paul Von Boeckman, decided a better test of comparative strength would be to standardize the lift to the format the USAWA is still using today. Will it become an overnight sensation again? Highly doubtful, unless a lot of us get very, very bored. Nevertheless, it's one more example of old shit becoming new again.

Up next- Indian Club Bells, Kettlebells, and the mighty progenitor of the deadlift, which was hilariously referred to as the "health lift" (my left bicep calls bullshit).

Sources:
Booth, Charlotte. The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2007.

Henkin, Josh. The rise of sandbag training. Mahler's Aggressive Strength. Web. 10 Jan 2013. http://www.mikemahler.com/online-library/articles/sandbag-training/rise-of-sandbag-training.html

Henkin, Josh. Sandbags: an expert's opinion. Altrincham Martial Arts Club. 3 Jan 2012. Web. 10 Jan 2014. http://altrinchamclub.blogspot.com/2012/01/sandbags-experts-opinion-by-josh-henkin.html

Keys, David. A viking mystery. Smithsonian. Oct 2010. Web. 13 Jan 2014. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-viking-mystery-59648019/#ixzz2qMhAKPAX

Kildahl, Mari. Isotope analysis reveals diet of beheaded Viking slaves. Archaeology News Network. 5 Dec 2013. Web. 13 Jan 2014. http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2013/12/isotope-analysis-reveals-diet-of.html#.UtUFlvRDuSo

Kolenberg, Steve. 6 Ridiculous Myths About the Middle Ages Everyone Believes. Cracked. 13 Jan 2013. Web. 13 Jan 2014. http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes_p2.html#ixzz2qMXcHDo8

Lovgren, Stefan. Vikings Filed Their Teeth, Skeleton Study Shows. National Geographic News. 3 Feb 2006. Web. 14 Jan 2014. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0203_060203_viking_teeth.html

Saxon, Kurt. Saxon remembers. The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 18 Nov 2008. Web. 13 Jan 2013. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/11/saxon-remembers-kurt-saxon.html

Todd, Jan. The classical ideal and its mpact on the search for suitable exercise: 1774-1830. Iron Game History. Nov 1992. Web. 14 Jan 2014. https://www.academia.edu/3009398/The_Classical_Ideal_and_Its_Impact_on_the_Search_for_Suitable_Exercise_1774-1830

Weaver, George, R. The weaver stick. The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 9 Aug 2009. Web. 14 Jan 2014. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/08/weaver-stick-george-r-weaver.html

As some of you probably know, the CnP supplements dropped on Friday, which is slowing my output here a bit. In spite of certain idiot Brits' completely unfounded (and given the amount of free entertainment I provide, insolent) assertions to the contrary, I really don't use the blog to pimp my wares. Nevertheless, I know not all of you are Facebook fans, so I thought I'd give those of you a heads up. To the butthurt- since none of you bitches have offered to step up and keep your rep up, might as well close your mealy, ignoble proverbial mouths and wait a couple of days for the next exercise fads article. For the rest of you, here's what's up:

Cannibal Ferox

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I pine for the halcyon days of training and supplementation- that late 1990's/early 2000s period where gyms were filled with lunatics, and those lunatics were filled with Ultimate Orange. There were no rules against chalk in real gyms, or cursing, or yelling, or slamming weights, or lifting shirtless. Fuck, in those days, anything went. Every real gym owner was a total psychopath, and was unseen until some hapless fuck broke some byzantine rule about which they could not have known if they were a regular (in the case of Worlds in Tucson it was leaning plates against machines or racks), and that broke rule was often met with a foaming-at-the-mouth insanity-fueled tirade, a beating, and the aforementioned hapless fuck broken and bleeding in the parking lot. Water fountains were ripped out of walls and thrown at members. Fistfights would break out as a matter of course. Bodybuilders would attend powerlifting meets and vice-versa, and everyone would get good an hammered afterwards, eat a shitload of pizza, and fuck with each other good-naturedly about their respective sports. We're talking about places where 125 lb girls would get under 185 to squat it, then cross one foot over the opposite like a man sitting with his legs crossed and squat it to depth. Competitions to see who could throw 315 into the air the highest. The good old days.

Those days are deader than disco and most men's libidos. Gyms are sterile, quiet places filled with uninteresting people performing banal workouts before they return to their trite, bland home lives. This sickens me, and I decided to do something about it. That's why I designed Cannibal Ferox- it might not be Ultimate Orange, but it might also be a damn sight fucking better. Ephedra's gone the way of the dodo, but so fucking what? Instead of ephedra or DMAA, I found the next best things, jammed them together at the highest dosages the FDA would allow, added in nootropics to focus your jitters, and put it in the best-looking fucking container you've ever seen. This is how Cannibal Ferox came to be- it's a stackable, focus-oriented, transparently-labelled preworkout that addresses my beloved and oft-ignored “stimulant junkie” demographic. Though Wayne (my partner in the business) prevented me from beating our old manufacturer to death with a claw hammer over their myriad fuckups, we learned from the experience and busted this one out using one of the original manufacturers for C4, so it's fucking tasty, and brought you Watermelon Warmachine and Luminous Lemon Ice.

Some highlights:

No “proprietary blends.” With Cannibal Ferox, you know every wonderfully insane ingredient and their dosage within the bottle. No more guessing, and no more hoping- what you see is exactly what you get.
Contains stimulant newcomers higenamine and hordenine to replace the hard edge of our fallen comrades ephedra and DMAA (1,2).
Jammed full of mood enhancers and nootropics to ensure that workouts fueled by Cannibal Ferox will make you smash weights, rip water coolers out of walls, slap your lifting partner, and fuck your significant other into a coma when you get home... did I mention the blend causes steel hardons and euphoria? No? Well, it does.

Cannibal Genius

Ever thought to yourself "I'm smart enough- I don't need to be any smarter"? If so, fuck off and die, as your idiocy might be contagious. For the rest of us, I decided that the fuckers popping Adderall like Tic Tacs shouldn't be getting one up on us just because they claim to have a disease invented by pharma companies to sell amphetamines to children. Additionally, there are plenty of compounds out there that have actually been definitively proven to raise IQ, cognition, and memory. thus, fuck those frat boys- it's time we show them what happens when you load up on stimulants and racetams and tear through entire libraries in a weekend. That's why I made Cannibal Genius- there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and I intend to straddle it like a porn star on a Sybian.

I will have a Sybian fund contribution with every sale of Genius.

Some highlights:

As with all of our products, there are no bullshit proprietary blends.
Contains the racetam Noopept, a Russian pharmaceutical-grade supplement clinically proven to reverse the signs of aging and alcoholism on the brain, improve short term memory, and improve cognition (3).
Includes acacia rigidula, a naturally occurring shrub that contains over 40 different amines, providing anyone who consumes it with an exceptionally broad spectrum of stimulants, including small amounts of a couple of different kinds of amphetamines, nicotine, and lots of other fun shit (4).

Cannibal Swole

I've made no secret in the past of the fact that I am not a fan of pump products. They generally cripple me, as my lower back gets too pumped to move, and that generally puts me in a stabbing kind of mood. I know, however, that I do not have the sole opinion of supplements on the planet, so i set out to make a pump product that actually serves a real purpose, rather tan simply serving to make 155 lb assholes in small Under Armour shirts look like 155 lb assholes. As such, I jammed together a few of the pump ingredients that have been definitively shown to increase strength and endurance to make Cannibal Swole, a product that can also be stacked with Ferox to get the best of both worlds (and happily, agmatine also serves as a nootropic).

Ideal for competitive athletes in tested competitions- 100% free of banned substances.
No proprietary blends.
Contains L-Citrulline and Agmatine, both of which are essential for the cell volumization that change increased strength and endurance and improved recovery from strength and endurance training from a dream into reality (5,6).
Increases glucose uptake and regulation, so you get leaner as you get stronger (7).

Cannibal Inferno

This was, of course, the fist thing that hit the market, and was the outgrowth of about 7 years of tinkering in my kitchen to make myself the best fat burner I could. I bought ingredients in bulk, weighed and measured and capped everything myself, then gave it to myself and my friends for experimentation. What resulted from that experimentation was Cannibal Inferno, a transparently-labelled thermogenic targeted toward people looking for a viable replacement for the gap left in the fat burner market after the withdrawal of DMAA. You guys know I love research, and I've researched the balls off Inferno-everything in it has been clinically proven to improve fat metabolism, increase the absorption of nutrients, or serve as an appetite suppressant, mood enhancer, or cognitive/memory enhancer. Though I have no idea why other supplement companies have never read Dan Duchaine's shit, they haven't, so I'm the only one to include naringinen (grapefruit fruit extract) to increase and enhance the stimulatory effects of caffeine, hordenine, synephrine, and yohimbe. It'll have you sweating balls and climbing the walls while the fat melts off.

So, that's what we've got rocking over at www.chaosandpain.com, in case you're screaming for another article and wondering what I could be possibly doing with my time other than entertaining you. After the next Fads article, I've got a fourth lined up, an article mocking the fact that 99% of paleo dieters are doing it wrong, the hormone blog, and a couple of other partially begun articles. They'll be coming fast and furious, so if there's something you want in particular, let me know.

SOURCES:
1. Kimura I, et al. Positive chronotropic and inotropic effects of higenamine and its enhancing action on the aconitine- induced tachyarrhythmia in isolated murine atria. Jpn J Pharmacol. (1994)
2. Frank M, et al. Hordenine: pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and behavioural effects in the horse. Equine Vet J. (1990)
3. Ostrovskaia RU, Gudasheva TA, Voronina TA, Seredenin SB. The original novel nootropic and neuroprotective agent noopept. Eksp Klin Farmakol. (2002)
4. Pawar RS, Grundel E, Fardin-Kia AR, Rader JI. Determination of selected biogenic amines in Acacia rigidula plant materials and dietary supplements using LC-MS/MS methods. J Pharm Biomed Anal. (2014)
5. Pérez-Guisado J, Jakeman PM. Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness. J Strength Cond Res. (2010)
6. Elam RP, Hardin DH, Sutton RA, Hagen L. Effects of arginine and ornithine on strength, lean body mass and urinary hydroxyproline in adult males. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. (1989)
7. McConell GK, Huynh NN, Lee-Young RS, Canny BJ, Wadley GD. L-Arginine infusion increases glucose clearance during prolonged exercise in humans. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. (2006)

8. Frank M, et al. Hordenine: pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and behavioural effects in the horse. Equine Vet J. (1990)
9. Pase MP, et al. Cocoa polyphenols enhance positive mood states but not cognitive performance: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. J Psychopharmacol. (2013)
10. Desideri G, et al. Benefits in cognitive function, blood pressure, and insulin resistance through cocoa flavanol consumption in elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment: the Cocoa, Cognition, and Aging (CoCoA) study. Hypertension. (2012)

I get a ton of requests for protein recommendations, and as such decided to throw out a quick post to let you know what I'm using and hit you up with a badass spreadsheet I made with a broad who'd like to see me on fire and down a well for no reason I could possibly ascertain (well, that's not true- I'd imagine most broad would like to see me on fire and down a well). In any event, I mention her involvement just so she doesn't send me anthrax for not giving her anonymous credit.

Not this brand of Anthrax, unfortunately. Wouldn't mind being caught in a mosh right about now.

Onto the business at hand- protein. Everyone has their own preferences on protein, but to me it breaks down to price, protein source, and flavor. Given that I'm basically living in a van down by the river, I am currently living on Vitamin Shoppe's Whey Tech Pro 24, as it's low carb, tastes decent, and is cheap as fuck. Were I to choose a protein purely based on taste, with no regard whatsoever for my wallet, I'd likely choose Species or 1stPhorm's proteins, both of which are whey. I know I've bagged on whey in the past, but blended proteins usually taste like shit and I'm tired of gagging protein back up when I'm hammered and trying to get in a bedtime meal. Additionally, I've been adding two tablespoons of heavy cream to my shakes on keto days to slow the absorption of the whey, and I eat every 2-3 hours anyway, so it's really not necessary for me to use a blended protein.

As you'll see when you check out the spreadsheet, my old suggestions of Elite XT (which I cannot stomach because I despise soy) and Matrix top the list for affordability and lack of bullshit, which is less life-affirming for me than you'd think but nevertheless nice to know. One thing for which you guys really need to look, and I cannot stress this enough, is protein spiking. I've got a column in the spreadsheet indicating where there's been foul play, but I thought I'd give you a quick intro into protein spiking so you'd know what was going on.

Fruit Loop flavored protein? Might be worth the $55.

Download my spreadsheet on MEGA.

If you’ve been living under the impression that all proteins contain what the labels say they do, you’re sorely mistaken. Protein manufacturers are, by and large, less trustworthy than toothless Russians selling handguns in Moscovite back alleys. The problem for them is that there is less margin in protein than there is in gasoline, so they either have to cut corners and sell a shitty product or they have to sell an incredible amount of volume. Only large companies with deep pockets can afford to go the volume route, which is why companies like Optimum Nutrition can make (generally) affordable proteins that meet their labels claims. Too often, however, smaller, less-known companies try to compete on price point and have to lie on their labels to make a profit. This became even more of an issue when Pepsi bought the rights to sell a shitty knockoff of Muscle Milk in vending machines (check dem labels, bro), and then the Chinese decided a couple of years later to buy up the majority of the world's extant protein supply in some bizarre scheme that is ostensibly intended simply to deny Americans the protein that is rightfully ours as masters of the planet.

It's certainly not going into Wen Jiabao's personal reserve.

Frankly, I could give a fuck what killed the margins on protein. I have a very deep and personal vendetta against a couple of companies for fucking me by spiking their proteins, and I will happily stuff my fist down Rich Gaspari’s throat for robbing me blind for years if I ever get the opportunity to meet him face to face. If you’re unaware of the practice of adding nitrogenated amino acids to raise the listed protein content of your favorite protein powder, here’s the deal- there are a couple of amino acids, namely glycine and taurine, that are used to “spike” protein. According to Scott Welch of Muscle Insider,

“Protein spiking is where a protein manufacturer adds amino acids that are cheaper than the base protein powder it’s actually selling in order to increase the product’s nitrogen content. When this is done, the company is able to lower the cost of goods. A basic test for total nitrogen is often used to quantify the amount of protein per serving, and this test can be cheated by using cheap amino acids to spike the nitrogen content. The problem is that the inclusion of odd amino acids usually has nothing to do with increasing the performance of the whole protein itself, and it usually makes key ratios such as BCAA content go down, which is a total rip-off. If a protein powder (usually whey isolate) is so cheap as to seem too good to be true, check to see if certain aminos such as taurine and glycine are sky-high. If they are, you could be using a protein that’s been spiked. Also look for white specks in the protein powder (easy to see in chocolate). These specks are usually the amino acids that were added to the protein to offset the cost and raise the perceived protein content"(Welch).

Cheap, thieving shitbag or simply catastrophically stupid dickbag? You make the call.

After news of this sheisty practice broke on the web, one Redditor took it upon himself to use his access to a lab to independently assay proteins to determine how much of their label claims were being met. The results were rather unpleasant, and are available here. Thereafter, a company called Labdoor conducted similar analyses and showed pretty conclusively that there is no direct correlation between quality and price. Shitty, right? One would think that guys who supported lifting would actually provide products that would do so, but I guess I'm just weird in that I would rather fellate a hot motocycle exhaust pipe with syphilitic blood while letting the rider do a burnout on my cock than have my name associated with a shitty product. Apparently, Rich Gaspari doesn't share my opinion, because he's comfortable with being a thieving piece of shit. In any event, here's Labdoor's assay of popular proteins:

Now, you have a but more knowledge in your supplement spank bank with which to make your purchases. A good rule of thumb is that if your shaker doesn't smell like a rotting corpse stuffed with dogshit and rotten eggs if you leave it unwashed at room temperature for a day, the "protein" you're using isn't protein at all.

Go fort and fill thyselves with the protonz.

Milk. It does a body good.

Source:
Welch, Scott. Protein Spiking. Muscle Insider. Web. 9 Jul 2013. http://muscle-insider.com/content/protein-spiking

Alpha gnoll is sick of eating the same shit, day in and day out, too.

Anyone else sick of eating the same fucking things over and over again? After eating nothing but beef ribs, taco meat, Salisbury steak, and chicken wings for three years, I sure as fuck am. Having run out of acceptable dry rubs, and after literally shitting myself a couple of times because some mysterious additive to dry rubs apparently causes fecal incontinence if eaten in large amounts, I decided to branch out.

It occurred to me halfway through writing this that 1) it's amazing I don't have pussy falling out of my pockets, and 2) a lot of you have the opportunity here to impress the living shit out of broads and close ass like you're Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. You're welcome.

While I realize pants-shitting would probably have ended most peoples' experiments into the Apex Predator Diet, I was rather unperturbed. I did, however, come to the realization that without Animal Pak, I'd be missing out on a whole lot of nutrition, that I was often starving due to the moderate fat and low carbs I'd end up accidentally eating out of habit, and my taste buds are frankly exhausted by eating the same flavors day in and day out. This became even more apparent when I discovered that paleolithic people ate upwards of 300 different foods a week, which lay in stark contrast to my own extraordinarily unvaried diet- how could I be Captain Caveman strong if I was eating with all of the culinary ingenuity of a seventeen year old? Then, it dawned upon me that viewing my carb up day as the only day on which I really ate was telling me something, and lunch on those days could actually provide me with a clue as to how I could actually make the APD livable again.

I'm not sure I have ever missed a woman as much as I miss dürüm döner.

Since leaving Europe, I've pined daily for schawarma and döner, both of which are ubiquitous street foods in Europe, but difficult to find, as is street food in general, in the states. When you can find it, it is usually boasts one or more of the following features:

It's hideously expensive. In Vienna, one of the most expensive cities on earth, a half kilo turkey döner was 2 or 3 Euros. Here, it's at least $7. Same goes for schawarma.
It sucks. I actually berated some asshole for serving me the worst schawarma I've had in my life last Friday, and made him throw it away after a single bite. Fucking yogurt in my zhug? Not on your life. That's disgusting.
It's not keto. If I were running shit, there would be yakitori or satay for sale on every fucking street corner in America, but apparently eating chargrilled meat on a stick sits poorly with skinny jean-clad, coiffed, plucked eyebrow-boasting, reality television-loving American males. Thus, it's sandwiches or nothing on the street.

Thanks to government regulations, Ugandans eat better than Americans. Much appreciated, fuckers!

With that in mind, I resolved to incorporate my favorite flavors into my diet before I abandoned the fucking thing altogether. The result was fucking awesome. In the first iteration of this series, I've tried chimichurri, an Argentine parsley and garlic condiment and marinade; pebre, a Chilean condiment similar to chimichurri but with more of a pico de gallo edge; zhug, a Yemenite hot sauce used all over Asia Minor; tahini sauce, another Asia Minor specialty; and am working on a red pepper paste devised with the help of Nuprin (coming in a future blog, as this one got really, really long), the jacked, lunatic Asian broad who contributed to the hormones series and was a sounding board for these recipes, in addition to being one of a handful of women on the planet who doesn't want to rub broken glass into my eyes while screaming Gloria Gaynor song lyrics in my ear.

Some constants you will likely notice in these condiments is that they're

overwhelmingly garlicky
keto as fuck
paleo as fuck (olive consumption and use dates back to 17,000 BC, and wild garlic is still used in cooking)
oil-based
usually spicy as all hell (with the exception of chimichurri, though I even heat that up)

You'll notice these recipes are bereft of the standbys you generally see associated with ketogenic dieting- notably mayonnaise and butter. The former might be the most disgusting thing humans have ever consumed as "food", and the latter is boring and not nearly as healthy as olive oil. Additionally, butter-based sauces congeal, which doesn't leave you with a large window for use. Dieters seem to eat one of two kinds of food- boring or fucking vile. Fuck all of that- we're Chaos and Pain, and we intend to bring it, which is why the following seasoning recipes are all my own and not reproductions of other peoples'.

There is method to my madness, obviously. Garlic is damn near regarded as magical by anyone who knows anything about the stuff, and has been throughout recorded human history. It's got anti-cancer, anti-arthritis, anti-illness (reduced duration and frequency of the common cold), antibiotic, heart healthy, liver protective, blood pressure moderating properties, and it tastes fucking amazing (Garlic). On top of that, they're all jam-fucking packed with inflammation-fighting, heart healthy, carbohydrate fucking, blood pressure lowering, shitting on depression, bone health and digestion-improving, liver detoxifying olive oil (Wilson, MNT). Not superfood enough for you? How about the effect of capsaicin (the shit that makes peppers spicy) on the body? It treats allergies like Porches treat Paul Walker, fat like Stalin treated the Ukrainians, and delivers mild pain relief, not unlike ice cream apparently does for people who have vaginas instead of penises.

Zhug, Tahini Sauce, and Schawarma
I fell in love with chicken schawarma, an Israeli spit-roasted loaf of seasonings and pressed chicken parts, while I was in Vienna. Since I left, I've not found its like in the US, though I will occasionally find something similar. Even better than the meat itself is the hot sauce that comes with Yemeni, Israeli, and other Mediterranean foods, called zhug. Zhug is, without question, the best tasting hot sauce I've ever had, sriracha included, and comes in two mouth watering variants, the mild red, Vampire-slaughteringly garlicky kind, and the asshole inflaming, tear-jerking, slobberingly delicious, super-hot green version. Either one is incredibly tasty and one of the single greatest things you will ever taste, not matter what the fuck you put it on. If you're the type who likes blue cheese with your ghost chili-infused wings, you might like the Israeli equivalent for schawarma- tahini sauce. The best part about all of them? Close enough to zero carb that it's not worth posting the nutrition info.

Green Zhug
8 serrano peppers
8 cloves of garlic
1 habenero pepper with some of the seeds removed
1 small sweet red pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup cilantro (chopped)
4 tbsp Zhug spice blend. If you don't have zhug spice blend, use the following:

1 teaspoon freshly ground caraway seeds
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground green cardamom
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup packed parsley leaves
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Splash of lemon juice
Juice of one lime

Preparation:
Pile all of that shit into a blender or food processor and pulse until it's your desired consistency. I hate chunky salsa, so I puree the fuck out of this stuff. Play with the pepper content to get your desired heat. I adjusted to the blend above pretty much immediately and am now sad I didn't use spicier peppers. You can use the red zhug to cut the heat, so you can feel free to go fucking nuts. If you're incapable of googling (and I am consistently amazed at the shit research skills I'm seeing of late), here's a Scoville chart to aid you in your chili shopping.

Red Zhug
Red zhug is a much milder condiment than green zhug, though you can tinker with it to make it spicier if you so choose. Making the two of them definitely gives you a nice array of flavors, and allows the less adventurous people you feed to have a condiment that won't kill them.

Ingredients:
8-10 small sweet red peppers
8-10 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup cilantro (chopped)
4 tbsp Zhug spice blend. If you don't have zhug spice blend, use the following:

1 teaspoon freshly ground caraway seeds
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground green cardamom
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup packed parsley leaves
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Splash of lemon juice
Juice of one lime

Preparation:
Same as green zhug- pile all of that shit into a blender or food processor and pulse until it's your desired consistency.

Döner Kebap Sauce
If the above seems a bit much for you, or you just want something less garlicky and a little less keto for your schawarma, you can use döner kebap sauce. Frankly, döner and schwarama are the same thing, but the following sauce seems to have been adapted for the Brits and Germans, both of whom seem to regard black pepper as the rest of us would naga viper chilies. I still like adding garlic to this recipe, but it's unneeded. my rule of thumb is one clove of garlic per chili, if you decide to add it.

Ingredients:
6 whole chilies (you can use sweet red peppers or try a red pepper that's somewhat hotter if you want)
1 small white onion, roughly chopped
1 can of tomatoes
Pinch of salt

Preparation:
This stuff really couldn't be easier.
Step 1. Dump olive oil in pan and preheat to medium, Soften chilies for 5 minutes in olive oil.
Step 2. Strain tomatoes.
Step 3. Remove chilies from heat and dump everything in blender and pulse until desired consistency.
Step 4. Increase heat on pan to medium-high, dump everything back in pan and allow to reduce until it's no longer thin.

Tahini Sauce
I can't say I am a fan of tahini sauce or its disgusting Greek cousin, tzatziki (which you can also use), but it's a standard thin topping used in pita/flatbread sandwiches, marinades, and dips. You guys might like it, and it's damn good for you, so I figured I'd give you the lowdown.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
3 gloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon parsley, finely chopped (optional)

Preparation:
Step 1. Using a blender or food processor, combine garlic, tahini and salt.
Step 2. Dump the mixture into a bowl and add olive oil and lemon juice. If it's too thick (it should be kind of thin and runny), add teaspoon of warm water or lemon juice until desired consistency, then mix in parsley.
Step 3. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Chicken Schawarma
For those of you who have never had the pants-droppingly, puclic masturbatingly, mouth-wateringly awesomeness that is schawarma or döner, you might think that this recipe is a little overly laborious. trust me when I say that it's not- there's really no way to get the meat flavored and juicy enough without the pan-fry finish employed in this recipe unless you have a vertical rotisserie (in which case fuck you, you lucky bastard). I've been experimenting with the amount of juice/oil in the finishing process and have yet to decide upon a favorite yet, but I've done everything from simmer to sear the chicken and have loved it all. Play with the amount and type of liquid in the pan when you finish this to determine what you like best.

Ingredients:
2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (2 large breasts)
2 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs (4 large thighs)
12 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp raz el hanout (Moroccan spice blend you can actually use all by itself if you want) or garam masala (Indian seasoning that is almost identical)
2 tbsp schawarma seasoning (again, if you find a good one, you can just cheat and use this if you want) plus the following, or double the following if no schwarama seasoning:

2 tsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Liberal dusting of cayenne
Salt and black pepper

Preparation:
Step 1. Trim the excess fat off all of the chicken parts and butterfly them
Step 2. Pound the everloving shit out of the chicken parts. Since you're not going to be slow roasting it on a spit, it needs extra tenderizing.
Step 3. Cut chicken parts into four or five pieces each.
Step 4. Put in a couple of large ziplock bags or a big marinading bowl (covered with saran wrap).
Step 5. Allow the meat to marinade for at least two hours, though I prefer to marinade stuff overnight. I turn the meat periodically to ensure complete coverage in the marinade.
Step 6. Preheat oven to 400. Roast chicken 15 minutes, turning once at about 7 or 8 minutes.
Step 7. After the meat cools slightly, chop it into small pieces.
Step 8. Pour all of the juice from the pan into a large skillet. Add a splash of olive oil and a splash of lemon juice. Saute chicken on medium for 3-4 minutes, or until the smallest pieces turn brown and crisp.

Typically, this is served in a pita or flatbread with the addition of salad, whatever sauces you like, and pickles. For ketogenic purposes, I just combine the chicken with both flavors of zhug and chow the fuck down. On carb days, warm up the flatbread or pita and stuff that bitch full of meaty goodness and hot sauce for a nomzy as fuck sandwich.

My personal favorite, if you're feeling super enthusiastic, for flatbread is the Indian flatbread chapati. I discovered this stuff from one of my exes, and it's fucking amazing. I honestly don't recall the exact recipe, and as I doubt she'd be willing to provide it, here's a chepati recipe that's similar. Chapatis are easy as hell to make, fucking delicious, and actually a pretty badass snack if you just feel like eating some slightly salty carbs (it's also amazing with zhug spread on it, fyi).

Chapati
These things, as I said, are fucking awesome, and in spite of what appears to be a lengthy process, it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to make a batch of these bad boys, from opening the cupboard for the flour to eating.

Ingredients:
2 cups white or whole wheat flour (or one of each if you have both)
3/4 cup water or milk
1 tsp salt (I usually taste the dough to see if it needs more)
2 tbsps olive oil

Preparation:
Step 1. Stir together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and salt in a big bowl.
Step 2. Use a wooden spoon to stir in the olive oil and enough water to make a soft dough that is elastic but not sticky. Try not to eat too much of it (always a problem for me for some reason- I love uncooked dough).
Step 3. Flour whatever surface on which you plan on kneading this (if you guys have never baked, just use a clean countertop, dust it with flour, and get your hands floury. Then, knead the dough on that surface. I knead the fuck out of the dough so I get soft chapatis, as they're easier to roll into a "burrito". If you don't spend much time kneading, you may end up with stiffer chapatis, which isn't a big issue, but they might slit and dump your food in your lap.
Step 4. Divide into 6-10 parts, depending on the size of your pan and desired chapati size. Roll them into balls and let them rest for 5-10 minutes while you get in a round of Call of Duty or a blowjob for being the cooking virtuoso your girl never thought you could be.
Step 5. Heat a skillet over medium heat until hot, and pop a little olive oil into it to keep the chapati from sticking.
Step 6. On the same lightly floured surface, use a floured rolling pin to roll out the balls of dough until very thin like a tortilla.
Step 7. As soon as the pan starts smoking, put a chapati on it. Cook until the underside has brown spots, about 30 seconds, then flip and cook on the other side. Easy peasy Japanesy.

Green chimichurri, pebre, and red chimichurri

Chimichurri and Pebre
Two weeks ago Amazon made more episodes of Anthony Bourdain's awesome show No Reservations available on Amazon Prime, and I happily sat down to watch an episode last Thursday while drinking a protein shake so I could fantasize about eating like a human being. About halfway through the Rio episode I made two key decisions: 1) I am moving to Rio as soon as humanly possible, because booty and meat, and 2) Argentine steak sandwiches make everything I have ever eaten seem like dogshit in comparison.

I am not a sauce guy, but I somehow knew I would love the shit out of chimichurri, and so when I popped in to Pittsburgh's renown Gaucho for a steak sandwich, I was still surprised by my love for the green, oily deliciousness of chimichurri, but I didn't die of shock. Thereafter, I immediately went home and set to determining how chimichurri is made, because if I know one thing, it's that it would taste like Brazilian booties look on just about anything I decided to top with it. Pretty much any meat is fair game, and I've used chimichurri on ribs, steak, and chicken to good effect.

Green Chimichurri
Green chimichurri is the condiment and marinade typically used, though like zhug, each color provides it's own unique flavor. Thus, you might as well make both, because they're both fucking amazing and you'll just sit wondering why you didn't if you make one and not the other.

Ingredients:
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
10 cloves garlic, chopped super finely
1/2-3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (I use a half cup because I prefer my chimichurri thicker. Try both.)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Juice from half a lemon
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup fresh oregano leaves
1/4-2 tsp red pepper flakes (I prefer everything spicy, but the red pepper is completely optional)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation:
Step 1. Pulse parsley in processor to chop.
Step 2. Add remaining ingredients and blend. You can pulse it as much or as little as you like to achieve your desired consistency though- they key here isn't so much to make it 100% authentic as it is to make it perfect for you.
Step 3. Separate sauce into equal parts.
Step 4. Use half for basting or marinade.
Step 5. Use other half as a condiment at the table.

Red Chimichurri
I've not yet tried this one, but it's on the schedule for this weekend. I took Bobby Flay's recipe and modified it slightly to match what I learned making the other sauces. This does not typically get used as a marinade, it seems, but I think it'd likely be a pretty badass marinade for roasted chicken, and it's supposed to be an incredible condiment on chorizo.

Ingredients:
1 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon pureed chipotle in adobo
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flat-leaf parsley leaves, for garnish

Preparation:
Same as above.

Pebre
Pebre's what you would get if chimichurri and salsa flew off on a weekend getaway to the Virgin Islands and fucked like drug-crazed bunnies for the weekend. It has the onions and spice of the salsa with the delicious, savory smoothness of the chimichurri. Whereas chimichurri is Argentine, pebre is chimichurri's Chilean cousin. As I stated above, I despise chunky salsa, so I actually just roughly chop everything and pop it in the blender to give it a consistency like chimichurri. As to the red chili sauce or paste, the authentic version uses a pepper that's difficult to obtain in the US- the aji amarillo. About twice as hot as serranno peppers, for reference's sake, they're supposed to be badass if you feel like ordering them on Amazon. Given that they're lightly smoky and roughly the same on the Scoville scale as chipotle peppers, you might want to go with chipotle peppers for this recipe. I was a bit lazy on this recipe and went with sriracha, but intend to make another batch with my own chili paste (recipe's below).

Ingredients:
6 scallions, finely chopped
1 large tomato, finely chopped
1 small bunch cilantro, stems finely chopped
3 to 4 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons spicy red chili sauce, like sriracha
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon crushed red chili pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
plus additional to taste water or lemon juice

Preparation:
Step 1. Mix everything, except the water, together in a medium sized bowl.
Step 2. Add enough cold water to barely cover the contents of bowl.
Step 3. Mix everything together, cover, and place in the refrigerator for a few hours to let all of the flavors blend. It's best eaten the day it is made, but if you keep it in a sealed container it's good for a 3-5 days, like chimichurri and zhug.

Bone In Ribeye with Chimichurri
Argentines cook everything over a smoky wood fire, so it's pretty difficult to replicate their techniques without an awesome grill. I simply use a grill plate from Ikea on the stove, which produces adequate, if not good, results. Putting aside the method of cooking, which you can look up if you're some kind of grill master and aren't currently snowed inside, here's a good way to prepare and season your steak. The corn starch and salt mixture, followed by the par-freezing will get your meat to brown nicely and quickly on the outside, which means your steaks will be super juicy when they come off the grill.

This prep method works fucking wonders for steak sandwiches as well, if you happen to be eating carbs. Just slice the steak against the grain, top with chimichurri, onions, and tomatoes, and pop that shit onto a crusty baguette and you're in business.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons kosher salt
4 boneless strip steaks, 1 1/2 inches thick (about 1 pound each)
Ground black pepper

Preparation:
Step 1. Combine cornstarch and salt in small bowl.
Step 2. Pat steaks dry with paper towels, then rub steaks in their entirety with corn starch/salt mixture. Pop those bad boys onto wire racks and toss the whole shitteree, uncovered, in freezer for about 30 minutes.
Step 3. Remove steaks from freezer and season with pepper.
Step 4. Grill those bad boys If you don't know how to grill shit, look it up. This isn't cooking kindergarten.
Step 5. After you let the meat rest, top with as much chimichurri as you want.

We're not done, not by a long shot. I intend to whip up my own chili paste using Tien Tsin chilies this weekend, and try out a few new things, including a paleo meat paste used in lahmacun, which is sort of like a Turkish pizza, in addition to a couple of different Chinese and Japanese meatball recipes, and Chilean roast chicken. Not to worry- you fuckers won't starve to death on my watch.

For the idiots who can't find their own porn for some sad reason, rub one out to this. You're welcome.

Sources:
Hirst, K. Kris. Olive history. About.com. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://archaeology.about.com/od/oterms/qt/Olive-History.htm

Levine, Beth. Health benefits of Capsaicin. best of New Orleans. 4 Jun 2013. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/hot-shots/Content?oid=2208277

MNT. What are the benefits of garlic? Medical News Today. 9 Sep 2013. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265853.php

MNT. What are the health benefits of olive oil? Medical News Today. 20 Sep 2013. Web. 22 Jan 2014. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266258.php

Wilson, Jacque. 5 things you may not know about olive oil. CNN. 26 Feb 2013. Web. 22 Jan 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/health/five-things-olive-oil/

If only Harry Potter was 1/10 this cool.

One of my main problems with Harry Potter is that it is completely beyond belief that anyone would regard a 130 lb male adult holding a twig while wearing his high school graduation uniform with anything resembling fear, and even less believable is the idea that such a person might be capable of inflicting harm beyond a hangnail upon a hated opponent. Call it a function of my rapidly advancing age, my will to power, or simply the belief that a heavily muscled man bearing a broad axe is a far more formidable opponent than a slightly built man with a rapier, all other things equal. Men ought to wield manly weapons, not twigs. Perhaps that last installment should have done more to disabuse me of that notion, but it hasn't seemed to- I still stand in utter disbelief that some spindly, albino, elfin poofter with an overgrown steak knife stands a fucking chance against a dwarf with a two handed axe designed to cleave man from limb.

In any event, people back in the day were apparently unconcerned with looking manly, because when they weren't fiddling about with Weaver sticks, they were busy with Indian club bells, perhaps the only training implement ever invented that could make the Weaver stick look like the training method of choice for a paragon of manly virtue.

Indian Club Training, or How the British Took a Marginally Cool Thing and Fucked It in the Ear

As the name would indicate, the Indian club was invented in India and used primarily in India and Iran as a strength training tool for wrestlers. Though they're known as the Indian club, the implement was actually invented in ancient Mesopotamia and was used by Egyptians, Persians, and various Middle Easterners. Later, the Mughals took the implement to India, where it was carried forward into modernity. the Indian club really comes in two forms- the far heavier Persian variant (meels) that the Iron Sheik brought to the West when chumping the Ultimate Warrior at a test of strength in the 1980s, and the far, far lighter Indian version.

The manlier version, meels come in a variety of sizes and weights based on purpose. Light meels, which are more like Indian clubs, act as basically weighted cardio- the medieval version of the 1970s shameful foray into weighted cardio, Heavyhands. The light meels, weigihing between 10 and 15 lbs., were used in sets of 100, which sounds like it would be about s much fun as getting a blowjob from a half-starved piranha. Heavy meels, on the other hand, clocked in at 25 to 60 lbs. apiece, and to make them even more wrist-breakingly unweildy, were up to 4.5 feet in length (Varzesh). Indian clubs, on the other hand, can range in weight and get middlingly heavy, they're typically only two lbs- especially wherein the British were concerned.

I suppose one could say the Brits were suckling at India's teet.

Weirdly, the Indian club really caught on with the British after they extended their empire into the Subcontinent, where English soldiers picked up the implement from the Indians. Given their blatant and wild-eyed contempt for the Indians, it's rather odd they'd adopt Indian training methods, but no one has ever accused the denizens of the British Isles of logical action- we can assume copious amounts of heavily salted boiled meats and whiskey were likely involved.

Richard Pennell- first American strongman, first man to overhead press 200 with one hand, and credited with a 102 lb one hand curl (at 5'10", 190lbs). Also, horribly "musclebound" and "slow" according to Victorians.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that the myth of being "musclebound" began being propagated in the 19th Century. Guys like Louis Cyr, Richard Pennell, and others, were held aloft as examples of men who were too musclebound to be athletes. Instead, smaller, leaner, less capable men were held aloft as the physical ideal, as they were the racehorses to the strongmen's draft horses (Kraemer). Oddly, it was at this time that inner city dwellers in Britain were being identified as "soft as shite", as the Brits are wont to say, and resistance exercise began to be heavily encouraged, particularly for the sedentary.

Some strength training couldn't have hurt- I've seen children with better builds.

The thinking at the time was that the British must be prepared for the inevitability of another European war, and anemic and weak city dwellers would probably put up all of the resistance of a 20th century Parisian when accosted by a twelve-year-old German girl holding a marginally sharp stick and bearing a somewhat menacing glare. Who am I kidding? They'd surrender to a four-year-old Belgian holding a lollipop while shitting her pants. Nevertheless, light resistance exercise began to be touted as the best method of achieving "fitness", as the implements used would be portable, and therefore convenient, and would allow the user to avoid the horrible specter of "muscle boundedness" or somesuch other nonsense. Frankly, everyone was distracted by their teeth and had a hard time understanding what the Brits at the time were carrying on about. Nevertheless, it was likely for this reason (war) that Englishmen put aside their pride and picked up clubbells on the regular to get "jacked".

Goya's depiction of how most Indian club classes ended.

The truly interesting thing about the adoption of the Indian club by the British was the execution- the British primarily utilized the clubbell as a part of a group fitness class. If the idea of a bunch of drunken Britishers swinging light weapons hither and yon in a tight space seems like a skit out of Monty Python, you're not the only one. British soldiers in India, however, adopted the implement as an alternative to calisthenics, however, so when they returned to the British Isles, club swinging morphed from its original, solitary nature into what can only be described as a proto-Body Pump class, complete with songs sung in cadence and occasionally set to music. No, I am not making that up:

"In order to awaken a lively and abiding interest in calisthenic and gymnastic exercises, and to secure an enthusiasm and a fascination that shall convert indolence and sluggishness into cheerful and vigorous activity, it will be found absolutely necessary to employ instrumental music. the best music for this purpose is furnished by a brass band" (Watson 124-125).

Thus, Victoria-era Britian was filled with drunken, anemic limeys violently swinging 2 lb. bowling pins in circles while listening to oompapa music and screeching lyrics to military cadences at the top of their lungs... and this was considered to be a good thing.

According to esteemed physical culturist and author J. Madison Watson,

"Indian clubs, or scepters, as they are sometimes called, are deservedly held in the highest esteem by all gymnasts, affording, as they do, one of the very best and most extended series of exercises for developing the muscular power of the whole body. Nothing can be better calculated to invigorate the respiratory system, expand the chest, call into action the muscles of locomotion and the principal structures around the joints, and enlarge and strengthen the muscles of the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulder, as well as the abdominal and spinal muscles"(Watson 257).

Meanwhile, in America, clubbell training caught on with a bit more of the original intent in mind. The seminal American work on the subject was published in 1866 by Sim Kehoe, which decried the British use of the short, light Indian club as suited only for "invalids or children"(29). Apparently the populace of the British Isles were considered to be about as physically imposing as six-year-olds with cerebal palsy in mid-19th Century America, so Kehoe recommended the more robust colonialists utilize the long club, which ranged from 24 to 28' in length and weighed between four and twenty pounds apiece. Kehoe described the most effective utilization of the club to consist of eight main strength training movements, based on those popular in India:

Inner Front Circle
Outer Front Circle
Inner Back Circle
Outer Back Circle
Inner Side Circle
Outer Site Circle
Inner Moulinet
Outer Moulinet

Suuuuuuuure. I'll get right on that.

For detailed descriptions of the moments, check out Kehoe's book here, but sufficed to say it involves a lot of spinning bowling pins in circles for extended periods of time. Clubbells remained in vogue throughout the 19th to the early 20th century, peaking with the inclusion of two nebulous and insofar as I can tell undefined Indian club competitions as part of gymnastics in the 1904 and 1932 Olympic Summer Games. Thereafter, the smaller, lighter, more agile implements were abandoned in favor of far heavier objects. They briefly enjoyed a resurgence through Dragon Door Publications, who dragged them out of obscurity, but they at best remain a curiosity best left alone for most- without a bit of instruction, best case scenario you wrench a wrist and worst case you smack yourself in the face with them. I have managed to do both on more than one occasion.

Kettlebells... One More Thing the Russians Didn't Invent
Just as most people think the sandwich is a British noblemans invention in spite of the fact that it was invented in 11th Century China, most people think the Russians invented the kettlebell in the 19th Century because they were too weak to lift real weights, but in fact the kettlebell is far, far older. the kettlebell, known in Russia as the girya, is a adaptation of a weight typically used in Russian markets to check the weight of a purchase of bulk goods. The giri used by the Russians take their name for the Persian adjective “gerani”, which means “difficult” and was originally invented by the Greeks as an implement for strength competitions at the Olympic Games. The stones were then adapted for strength training by the Slavs to build strength for war, and have been a part of Russian strength training techniques since the Eastern Slavs** conquered Western Russia. Additionally, implements similar to the kettlebell are ubiquitous in Asia, having been used for thousands of years in China and likely nearly as long in Japan and Korea in the form of the stone padlock.

Never go full retard.

In the 19th Century, kettlebell training and competitions became immensely popular. While I can find no evidence to support this, it would seem likely to me that Tsar Alexander had his army utilize them to ensure they were physically fit and strong, and may have played a part in Napoleon's defeat. Thereafter, they continued to grow in popularity as the soldiers took the implements back to their hometown for local strength training and competitions. Whether or not that's accurate, I have no idea- given the vast volumes available on vodka and the sparse information on giri, one can assume that Russians felt drinking was a far better use of their time that writing about something as simple and ultimately unimportant as a strength training implement. Nevertheless, the strongest of the of the Russians ended up touring Europe with circuses as strongman acts, and disseminated information on the use of the kettlebell as they went, like drunken, mustachioed versions of David Carradine in Kung Fu, though with less cross dressing and autoerotic asphyxiation.

Apparently a depiction of Soviet era Hungarian strongman and kettlebell enthusiast Imre Nagath.

With the rise of the Soviet nightmare came an emphasis on physical strength in the populace and public displays of strength on an international scale, ostensibly to show the West that only the people in the Ukraine were starving to death, and that was because Uncle Stalin liked the smell of dead people. Collective farms held strength competitions and then sent their best lifters to holiday festivals in Moscow, where papa Stalin presided over the events and likely had the shitty lifters liquidated. According to one source, having Stalin's soulless gaze upon you scared you into winning- "one girya-lifter is believed to have said: 'I was in no mood to continue the competition, but when I saw Comrade Stalin looking at me I immediately snatched the record'" (Dmitriev).

I've heard Vladimir Putin jerks off to this picture at least twice a week.

Competitions in girya lifting seem not to focus so much on pure strength as they do strength endurance:

The First Nationwide Festival of Strongmen, held in 1948, boasted 20,000 competitors, though there is no record of how many were compelled to participate through threats of liquidation or internment. The winner of the event was a sailor named Alexei Protopopov, who snatched a 32-kilo girya 1,002 times with short breaks, ostensibly in the hopes he would be fed and allowed to sleep indoors.
A contemporary of Protopopov, Aleksandr Bolshakov, clean and jerked a two 32-kilo for 19 repetitions, which seems light until you consider the fact he likely did so without having eaten for a couple of days.
A decade later, some lunatic named Ivan Nemtsev crushed the competition for eleven straight years, capping his utter domination of an entire country by snatching a 32 kg girya 370 times in a row.

Although kettlebells typically come in 4 kg, 8 kg, 16 kg, 32kg, 36 kg , 40 kg, 48 kg and 56 kg sizes and are used for a variety of exercises ranging from the utterly useless Turkish Get up to the marginally useful high rep Olympic clean and jerk and snatch, kettlebell competitions only utilize the 16, 24 and 32 kg giri and simply consist of the snatch and the clean and jerk. After the formation of the International Federation of Girya Sports in 1993, international competitions began being held in those two events, though they really only featured Eastern Europeans and a smattering of German, Greek, and American oddballs who had likely only just recently stopped dressing in traditional Chinese garb and yammering on about the what everyone else knew to be the extremely questionable utility of traditional martial arts in streetfighting.

Likely due to its popularity in Soviet Russia, it wasn't until they were popularized by Russian strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline that anyone in the West gave two shits about kettlebells. Tsatsouline, a marketing genius, managed to build an entire industry out of nothing, convincing people that lifting a relatively light but ungainly implement hundreds of times was the secret to true strength, in spite of the fact that he himself, while fit, was not terrifically strong. In spite of his best efforts and masterful propaganda, kettlebell training has basically remained on the fringes of actual strength training, but is generally considered great for insanely hot chicks with too much money, the infirm, children, and people who have difficulty lifting real weights.

The Partial Deadlift and Partial Squat Rear Their Beautifully Ugly Twin Heads
Clearly, picking up extraordinarily heavy things wasn't an overwhelming concern in the Nineteenth Century. Strongmen hadn't really become tremendously popular, though by the early 1800s a few European strongman troupes had made it to American shores. Heavy lifting, however, was not a popular activity- it was basically little more than the basis for the occasional freak show performance put on by giant men dressed like Roman gladiators for the entertainment of a paying crowd. All of that changed, however, when I couple of 19th Century Americans stumbled upon a treatise penned by early 18th Century philosopher John Theophilus Desaguliers. Desaguliers, in the midst of a lengthy work on mechanical action called A Course in Experimental Philosophy, analyzed the muscular action in strength performances by 18th Century strongman Thomas Topham. Topham, a carpenter by trade built almost identically to Arthur Saxon at 5'10" and 200 lbs, was one of the first recorded professional strongman and served as a bodyguard to the aforementioned philosopher. Desaguliers, then, has a front row seat to Topham's many performances, which included:

bending a large iron poker to almost ninety degrees by smashing it across his bare left arm.
carrying a sleeping watchman in his box a considerable distance and then dumping the occupant and his box over a waist-high wall.
holding horse and cart back for fun while the driver whipped his horse in an effort to get the animal to pull away.
lying extended between two chairs with a glass of wine in his right hand and five dudes standing on his stomach.
rolling up a seven pound pewter dish "as a man rolls up a sheet of paper".
twisting a kitchen spit around the neck of shit-talking hostler.
lifting a fat man off the ground with one hand while lying extended between two chairs with four blokes on his stomach (Wikipedia).
lifting a six foot long table off the ground and holding it horizontally, with a 50 lb weight hanging off the opposite end... holding it with his teeth.
bending an iron poker in half around his neck and straightening it again.

The feats that really blew Desagulier's socks off, however, were partial lifts. One, in fact, was a lift so ridiculous in the effort it took to display that it is difficult to understand how it was actually conceived- a lift of 1,838 pounds a couple of inches off the ground. As you can see from the illustration above, this lift required that a large platform be erected at least fifteen feet high, upon which Topham stood with a rope and tackle draped over his shoulders. Using this, Topham lifted three hogsheads of water a few inches off the ground. This feat of strength may seem about as puzzling to you as the need for a sequel to Adam Sandler's shitfest of an ensemble comedy Grown Ups, as it should- there is absolutely no reason whatsoever so much effort should have been expended for so little reward. The next, and the one that perhaps can be solely credited with being the impetus behind the entire American heavy weight lifting movement, was Topham's partial deadlift of a stone roller weighing 800 lbs by wrapping it with a chain and holding either end (Desaguliers 290).

"I have seen him lift a rolling stone of about 800 lb with his hands only, standing in a frame above it, and taking hold of a chain that was fastened to it. By this, I reckon he may be almost as stron again as those who are generally reckon'd the strongest men, they generally lifting no more than 400 lb in that manner. The weakest men, who are in health and not too fat, lift about 125 lb having about half the strength of the strongest. N.B. This sort of comparison is chiefly in relation to the muscles of the loins; because in doing this one must stoop forwards a little. We must also add the weight of the body to the weight lifted. So that if the weakest man's body weighs 150 lb that added to 125 lb makes the whole weight lifted by him to be 275 lb. Then if the stronger man's body weighs also 150 lb the whole weight lifted by him will be 500 lb that is 400 lb and the 150 lb which his body weighs. Topham weighs about 200 lb which added to the 800 lb that he lifts, makes 1000 lb. But he ought to lift 900 lb besides the weight of his body, to be strong again as the man of 150 lb who can lift 400 lb"(Ibid).

The feats of Johannes von Eckenberg (1684-1718), “Herkules Eckenberg.” As you can see above, von Eckenberg was famous for the same sorts of shenanigans Topham was in the following century. Apparently, the Renaissance was filled with a lot of carpenters with a lot of time on their hands.

Desaguliers, in an effort to scientifically compare the strength of dudes who apparently had a trampling fetish, developed several strength testing machines. One of them mimicked hip and harness lifting of the type that 17th and 18th Century strongmen William Joy, John von Eckenberg, and Thomas Topham made famous. Realizing that a harness lift only tested the strength of a man’s hips, back, and thighs, however, Desaguliers also invented machines to measure arm strength and overall lifting power. Using these, Desaguliers went on to calculate the force placed upon the body with lifts conducted at a variety of angles, rep ranges, and movements, and concluded that extremely heavy partials placed a greater systemic load on the body than lighter full range movements.

They miss neither church, nor meals.

If you're having trouble believing that a philosopher's physics textbook inspired a group of people who later went on to decide that the Earth was 6,000 years old, subsist on a diet of Ho-Ho's and Ring Dings, and consider a 10 minute walk to be "exercise", you're not alone- this would seem far fetched to anyone with a spinal column that ended in something resembling a human brain. If modern Americans can be trusted to do anything, it's to be as intellectually lazy as they are physically. Americans of the 19th Century, apparently, were an entirely different breed. Perhaps because they acknowledged the fact that the Bible was a work of historical fiction, 19th Century American not only read Desaguliers' book, but they built strength testing machines modeled on Desaguliers’ designs and littered the country with them, placing them on street corners, circus sideshows, and local fairs. There, Americans pitted themselves against each other in tests of "'main strength'—the strength of his back, hips,legs and hands—by moving a large weight a very short distance and thus see how he stood in comparison to his neighbors" (Todd 5).

Looks more like a hypnotist than a lifter to me.

After becoming "the strongest man at Harvard", medical student and aspiring actor George Barker Windship tested his strength on one of these machines, pulling 420 but utterly failing in his attempt to get laid in the effort, as no one on Earth would likely be impressed by a 420 lb partial deadlift, unless it was performed by a sub 100 lb woman, invalid, or small child. Thereafter, Windship gave up on the body weight exercises and gymnastics that had earned him his reputation for strength at Harvard and adopted a program of heavy weightlifting centered around extremely heavy partials in 1854. Dragging his wounded psyche (and likely insanely sore carcass) home to Boston, Windship built a lifting machine based on Desaguliers' designs in his backyard "by sinking a hogshead in the ground and placing inside it a barrel, filled with rocks and sand, to which he attached a rope and handle. Then, standing on a platform he constructed above the barrel, he mimicked the partial movements of the lifting machine he had tried in Rochester" (Todd 6).

5 Realz: Isabel Ice is officially marriage material.

Hammering himself like he was some random jacked dude trying to pound Isabel Ice into a coma, Windship built his strength up quickly. From his 420 pull in 1854, he managed a 700 pull in 1856, 840 in 1857, and a massive 1208 lbs in 1860, all performed without straps. Having topped out on what his tiny little rat claws could handle, Windship built a wooden yoke attached to chains and continued to train squat partials. “With this contrivance," Windship stated "my lifting-power has advanced with mathematical certainty, slowly but surely, to two thousand and seven pounds, up to this third day of November, 1861” (Todd 6). Clearly, what people seem to like to call "Anderson squats" would far more accurately, impressively, and Dennis Miller-style obscure reference-ly be referred to as "Windship squats."

Though that ended up being his best lift, Windship kept pounding the iron like a 1950's meth fueled American housewife with a husband who gets a little punchy if his shirts are slightly wrinkled. After going nuts working with lead shot-fulled globe barbells and heavy dumb bells, Windship invented the first adjustable dumbbell, built a standing chest press machine, trained with 180 lbs dumbbell at a weight of only 150, and even built an Indian club that weighed in at an utterly insane, impossible to conceive, and difficult-to-understand-exactly-what-the-fuck-he-did-with-it 137 lbs. Though I have no evidence to support this theory either, it may have been that Windship was a doctor at the Boston Lunatic Hospital and he had to defend himself daily against the attacks of the nutters contained within, but George Barker Windship eventually built himself into what could only be described as one of the strongest human beings at 150 lbs to ever live.

If it wasn't for this thing, you'd likely not even be reading this blog right now, because none of the shit taht inspired me to start lifting would have existed. No Stallone, no Bruce Lee (he lifted on a Marcy trainer, which was a descendant of Windship's machine), no Ahnold... what a sad world it would be.

Capitalizing on his hard work, Windship hosted the first ever American professional strength competition, and although he ended up losing when his yoke snapped, Windship's reputation grew after he explained the mechanical action behind his opponent's lift to jounalists. Thereafter, he began performing exhibitions of strength and delivering lectures on the myriad benefits of extremely heavy strength training. Calling the hand and thigh lifts and partial Hack lift he performed on his machine "health lifts", Windship gained a massive fan base, disabused the American public of the notion that being "musclebound" was unhealthy, spawned an entire industry of copycat lifting machines like Mann's Reactionary Lifter (a sort of trap bar deadlifting machine designed for women so they wouldn't have to change clothes to use it) and the Butler Health Lift machine. With that, heavy lifting spread to both men and women, and the American populace began, for the first time, to lift heavy, often, and enthusiastically... as everyone fucking should.

That ran incredibly fucking long, but hopefully it proved interesting. In the last two articles in this series, I'll cover the Olympic lifts and the power lifts, and then probably carry on with my life writing about other shit. I've also go more keto recipes coming, an article being co-written with J. Stanton of Gnolls.org about how badly people fuck up the simplest diet in history (the Paleo Diet), a new BME, and a books/music/movies article. I've got a lot of irons in the fire, obviously. Til then, go do some heavy partials, or I'll send Windship's ghost after you to mock you when you take your clothes off.

** Footnote:The people generally referred to as "Eastern Slavs" were actually mostly Finno-Ugric tribes, not true Slavs, which explains how they managed to conquer the bloodthirsty, mounted deathmachines of the former lands of the Scythians and Sarmatians. I realize no one gives a shit but I had trouble understanding how the fuck that could have happened and decided to do some investigating. Genetic analysis shows that most Ukrainians are more closely related to ancient Turks than modern Belarussians, who are actually of Slavic decent. Additionally, the majority of basic Russian words are of a non-Slavic origin. There, you learned more useless shit because I forced you to do so.

Sources:
Desaugliers, John Theophilus. A Course of Experimental Philosophy, Volume 1. W. Innys, 1744.

Dougherty, J.H. Indian Clubs and Dumbbells. New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1901.

Dmitriev, Oleg. Of Russian origin: Girya. Russiapedia. Web. 10 Jan 2014. http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/girya/

Kehoe, Sim D. The Indian Club Exercise. New York: 1866.

Kraemer, William J.; Keijo Häkkinen. Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science, Strength Training for Sport. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Roussin, Eric. Champion Armwrestlers of Yore. Armwrestlers Only. 15 Sep 2013. Web. 27 Jan 2014. http://armwrestlersonly.blogspot.com/2013/09/champion-armwrestlers-of-yore.html

Todd, Jan. "Strength is health”:George Barker Windship and the first American weight training boom. Iron Game History. Sep 1993. Web. 29 Jan 2014. https://www.academia.edu/3009405/Strength_is_Health_George_Barker_Windship_and_the_First_American_Weight_Training_Boom

Traditional Iranian Martial Arts (Varzesh-e Pahlavani). Pahlavani.com. Web. 27 Jan 2014. http://www.pahlavani.com/ish/html/ph/new/meel.htm

Watson, J. Madison. Handbook of Calisthenics and Gymnastics. New York: Schermerhorn, Bancroft, and Co., 1864.

Wikipedia. Thomas Topham. Web. 29 Jan 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Topham

I've had numerous requests from a variety of people who know I occasionally dabble in fiction to post some. As such, I figured I might as well. I'll be serializing a story that's still in progress but tops out at over 15 pages. If you don't want to read it, don't- I could give two sweet fucks. If you feel like reading it, have at it. If you bitch, you'll only make yourselves look like assholes, because once more you're whining to a person who doesn't know or give two fucks about you in a public forum filled with people who likely hate the whiners even more than I. That said, here's part one of my Lovecraftian splatterpunk short- The Tunnel.

THE TUNNEL, PART 1

God has abandoned me.

Th-Thump.

My heartbeat is my only companion.

Th-Thump.

That, and the mass of roiling, armor-plated eel-like insects I’m pretty sure are eating my guts right now. I can feel them move, occasionally, but there’s no pain. The pain, which was so intense it felt like I’d been raped with a Roto-rooter going full blast, stopped a few minutes ago. Now the slight clicking sounds of their jaws in my guts and the feeling as their chitinous bodies scrape past my ribs or spine or pelvis are my only companions. That, and my heartbeat.

Th-Thump.

Given the fact that I’m sitting in a pool of blood that’s larger than my torso and seems to have bits of me floating on its surface, I don’t imagine my heart will be my sole source of comfort for long. I wonder how many pints are in the pool of blood I’m sitting in and if the demonic pincer-faced creatures that seem intent on exiting my abdomen through my bellybutton drink blood or just eat guts.

“Which organ tasted the best?”, I wondered idly. “Did those fucking things even have tongues?” I assumed I would find out eventually, but for now the things inside me are too disgusting to contemplate. I don’t want to throw up again.

The last time I puked, I got none of what you’d expect- I produced a gout of blood, some yellowish-clear liquid that appeared to be pus, and then started choking as the thing I tried to puke up fought its evil way back into my stomach.

Th-Thump.

Christ, I wish I’d just die already.

Th-Thump.

I guess God’s domain doesn't extend this far underground. This must be the old stomping grounds of Lovecraft’s Old Ones, or Behemoth and Leviathan from the Bible, or maybe the land Beast in Revelations. Whatever this is, it sucks.

Th-Thump.

I didn't get here by being curious. Lovecraft couldn't have imagined the inanity that led to my arrival in this ancient underground city, and I’m an unlikely candidate for unleashing the Apocalypse. I’m a regular American guy, a guy who loves sports and naked chicks, and getting shitfaced on the weekends. I work a boring nine to five job in a boring office with boring people. I return home every night to an empty house, throw my shit on the floor, change into shorts, and do whatever the fuck I want. The consummate bachelor. Living the dream, as it were. At least until these fucking things got into my guts and a huge monster that would have made the worst shit in HR Geiger’s paintings look like characters in the opening credits to the Care Bears cartoon practically ripped me in half.

Th-Thump.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about this entire experience is the fact that I have a raging hardon right now. The moment the pain went away, I got hard. Viagra hard. The kind of hardon where your dick goes kind of numb and cumming’s almost impossible, and after an hour you’re considering slamming your cock in the nightstand drawer to settle it down, but you don’t because you’ll break your fucking nightstand. It’s totally nonsensical, but having priapism as I am slowly devoured from within is about par for the course today.

Th-Thump.

Like all little boys, I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I’d spend every afternoon looking through books about dinos, absorbing everything, memorizing their names, and imagining living with them. The one era I hated, though, was the Cambrian. The animals in the Cambrian were too weird even for me, and I loved weird shit. It was in that epoch that I discovered an animal that made me close the book on the Cambrian and eventually dinosaurs in general. It was disgusting- segmented like a millipede, only with these weird fins covering claw-tipped legs running all down its body. Its head was ringed by five eyes, which was creepy enough for me, because asymmetricality is something you don’t often see in nature, but it got worse- the head ended in a snake-like trunk, like a lowercase letter “e”. A lump of eyes perched atop a skull, but instead of a mouth on the underside of the skull, there was a long sinuous neck ending with a with a mouth that looked like a to-scale version of the monster plant in Little Shop of Horrors, crowded impossibly with thousands of needle-like teeth. This is the kind of animal that proves that Mother Nature makes the sickest humans look like Dr. Seuss- even H.R. Geiger’s sickest works looked like a Saturday morning cartoon when faced with the weird shit at the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s what rattled after me, filling the tunnel with a clacking sound like a roomful of crazed typists, faster than any snake I've ever seen, and bored their way into my stomach.

I caught a couple of them before they got in me, and stomped them into a grey green mush.

One of them bit off my left pinkie and swallowed it whole as it sailed through the air. When I stomped it, it exploded, and I saw my severed pinkie pop out of its pulped body and arc through the air in slow motion as the quicker ones burrowed right into my belly button. I can see my pinkie now. I couldn't get it at first, because it hurt so badly, with those things inside me, eating. It doesn't hurt so much anymore, except for the occasional stitch in my side, but I’m scared to move. It might start hurting again. I want to jerk off, too, to get rid of this hardon. One last orgasm’s not too much for me to ask for, it is? Maybe it is- I’m too scared of what will come out of my dick if I do. What if one of those things slithered out of my cock head? What if I shot nothing but blood? I think I’ll just lay here with my hardon.

Th-Thump.

Opabinia. That’s what they were called. But they only lived in the ocean. And they’re extinct. Supposed to be extinct, anyway.

Jesus, my dick is hard.

Th-Thump.

This is all Bret’s fault. Fucking guy was on me for weeks to try this new trail in the Appalachians. I had bought a mountain bike the previous summer, and had been reasonably diligent about taking it out, mostly just to get away from work and the city. He always wants to try the next new thing, the more dangerous thing, and I, of course, couldn't back down when he called me out.

“Quit being a fucking pussy, dude. Just grab your fucking bike and let’s go. This trail is supposed to be brutal, and you haven’t had a decent wreck yet.” Bret would break Jackie Chan’s balls about being a pussy after jumping off the roof of a three story building if there was a five story building next to it off of which Chan could have leaped. “While we’re at it, we can grab a drink in some hilljack bar, maybe bang some random farmer’s daughter, and be back in time for church on Sunday.”

Yet another ball-busting tactic. Bret knew that I never go to church. Shit, Bret knew I’d avoid church at all costs. That did not, however, stop him from making out like I was a card-carrying member of the LDS if I told him I wanted to get some sleep on the weekend, rather than hitting every titty bar in the tri-state area. Knowing the futility of fighting him when he was just going to wear me down in the end with constant impugnations of my manhood, I conceded.

“Alright man. I give. Let’s go.” Pausing to consider that I’d once more caved to Bret’s heavy-handed verbal tactics, I decided to add a “fucker,” for good measure. Never hurts to have the last word.

Th-Thump.

We loaded our bikes into the back of his mud-drenched XTerra (he bought into the “extreme sports” billing Nissan gave it, only to find he overpaid for an underpowered SUV) and tore out of my driveway, headed to whatever destination he had in mind. About ten minutes into the drive I fell asleep, not knowing where we were headed, and not really interested. I awoke as the drive turned bumpy, to find us trundling along some backwoods dirt road in the middle of the mountains.

“Dude, is this West Virginia? Where in the hell are we?” As I asked the question, I looked around at our surroundings- there was no sign of human habitation anywhere. No power lines, no houses, no signs, no empty beer cans heaved out of the back of beat-up local pickups… nothing.

“Yeah, bro. We’re on an old logging road. I heard about this trail from some friends at the rock gym. It’s gonna be brutal! This fucking thing isn't’t even on the map!”

While he spoke, I noticed the utter straightness of the road, in spite of natural obstacles like steep hills. Bret clearly didn't notice, as he was having the time of his life, roaring off hillocks and plunging through the occasional creek. I didn't mention it at the time, because holding onto the dashboard and not putting my face through the windshield was first amongst my priorities.

Th-Thump.

They’re moving in me. I can actually see them under my skin when I lift up my shirt. The bleeding seems to have stopped, which is good, and it looks like I've got three of them in me, judging by the scabbed-over spots where they burrowed into my sides. They weren't very big, only a couple of inches long, but they were fast. I barely had time to react before the first ones were on me, my natural instinct being to basically dance in place, trying to stomp them before they could get to me. There were so many, though. I couldn't get them all, especially when I was missing a finger, shit-scared, and completely disgusted. As much as I wanted to defend myself, I didn't want to touch their long, hard-shelled bodies and couldn't help but flinch from the sight of their godawful snake heads.

No, I'll not be addressing porn here. What's there to say about porn? It's fucking awesome. Instead, this is the porn edition because people keep bitching "there's no porn!" "WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Apparently these fucking crybabies lack the ability to use Bing to find porn (the only reason to use Bing, and in all ways superior to Google for porn searches). Thus, to shut them up, I've filled this ATA with lots and lots of delicious porn. Additionally, since I'm about to call out one of the least interesting people on the planet, I thought it prudent to layer this post with as much porn as possible to sear the real world into the eyes of the useless tits Percel calls his fans. Without further adieu, let the games begin!

Not pictured: A good time.

What do you think about the Kevin Ogar/Crossfit controversy?

Frankly, before this was brought to my attention, I didn't really know there was much controversy. A dude hung onto a snatch he shouldn't have and severed his spine- this was bad luck, a shitty occurrence, and little more. Anyone who's watch the last couple Olympics has seen a snatch go bad that could have ended much the same way, and Matthias Steiner is perhaps the best example of this. The snatch is a very high risk movement, and anyone who does it with an appreciable amount of weight has got to know the risks. Frankly, I would not have thought that 220 lbs could have severed someone's spine, especially when that someone was built as stoutly as Kevin Ogar.

The only "controversy" here lies with two groups of people- Crossfit haters and bitch-made lifters. Were we to make a Venn Diagram of these two groups, it'd likely be near enough to a single circle as it's not really worth doing- pussies hate Crossfit. That's not to say you're a pussy if you hate Crossfit, but if you're a bitch made lifter, you definitely hate Crossfit. You hate Crossfit because you consider yourself a strength athlete and are routinely outlifted on everything by Crossfitters. You hate Crossfit because you're a fattie and a saddie and Crossfitters fuck more in a post workout beer-and-steak barbecue's afternoon than you do in a year. You hate Crossfit because Crossfitters have balls and you have none. Take your pick, or pick all three, but the bitch made certainly have a lot to say about Crossfit.

They probably don't have much to say about this, though, because they're fucking eunuchs.

Take, for example, the link provided by my gentle reader- the author, Jonathan Percel, lives in fear of "bro science" and "bro lifts", which have arguably produced more results than Shieko ever would, and has produced physiques that have gotten far more people laid than 5/3/1 ever will. In the fantasy land in which this dickless anti-intellectual lives, Crossfit is more dangerous than handguns that fire ebola-coated bullets in the hands of six year old African child soldiers and injuries can certainly be prevented if you just lift like a total bitch. Oh, and if you live in fucking Candyland:

"When a Olympic Lifter competes, they perform six lifts, three snatches and three clean and jerks, resting plenty between each set" (emphasis mine).

I remember when I had my first beer. It didn't hit me as hard as the balls-crazy statement above, because... NO. Not in the world in which dinosaurs roamed the Earth for millions of years and Amazing Ty has a fuckable peehole. In that world, the best Olympic lifters often have to follow themselves and are strictly timed on getting back to the bar. According to IWF rules,"One minute (60 seconds) is allowed to each competitor between the calling of his or her name and the beginning of the attempt. After 30 seconds, a warning signal sounds. When a competitor attempts two lifts in succession, he or she is allowed two minutes (120 seconds) for the succeeding attempt"(5.5.7). Sure, they can change the weight by a kilo to buy them another minute, but they can only do that twice. This means that elite lifters could have to complete three attempts in 6 minutes in the clean and jerk, if their competition is sufficiently shitty (i.e. if the mentally challenged Aussie from the "Deadlift Dungeon" happens to show up at the competition with his buddies). Which he wouldn't, because they don't hold lifting competitions in Candyland- someone might get hurt! Wah!

Yeah, a dildo in her peehole. Respect.

"Combining [the snatch, clean and jerk, and back squat] with a heavy load, the Snatch was being performed at a 3 Rep Max, will not build, or test, strength as the name of the WOD would imply, instead testing muscular endurance and sheer will power and mental fortitude"(emphasis mine).

Congratulations, you've just described THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT OF CROSSFIT- to test muscular endurance, sheer will power, and mental fortitude. Why does this asshole think it's the favorite training method of spec ops the world around? Why does he think it's so much fun to watch? Why don't heavy complexes exist with him in Candyland? Has he really never heard of the Bear? Has he really never tried it for a single? If not, why not? Oh wait, because he's a bitch made pussy, that's why.

Oh, and this just in: STRENGTH COMPETITIONS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BUILD STRENGTH, and a three rep max in fact, by its very nature, TESTS YOUR FUCKING STRENGTH. No one on Earth is more repetition-averse than myself, and I hardly consider three reps to be a test of my muscular endurance.

I imagine Percel looks somewhat like this.

"To test strength, one would have to allow the muscle to completely repair itself between lifts, ala Olympic or Power lifting."

We've already established this to be a fallacy, but I would like to point out that even in powerlifting, fourth attempts get 3 minutes max of rest time. I know, because I've taken them. I took 2 fourth attempts in a meet, in the squat and deadlift, and took both under the normal clock, in spite of the fact I was offered and extra minute. I feel as though my strength was tested... and I got both attempts. Did I mention they were both beltless, and they're both "hip dominant movements"? THE HORROR! It's a fucking miracle my spine wasn't severed.

Elite athletes hate fucking sluts. It's science.

In the Candyland down under, elite athletes don't drink, which I've definitely proven to be false (but just in case you've forgotten, check out this link), mediocrity rules, and civility, in all of its boring niceties, appears to reign except wherein actual lifters are involved. If I've not made myself clear, Jonathan Percel is mildly retarded, wholly uninformed, banal, trite, mealy-mouthed, unjustifiably pompous, spineless, indolent, and irresolute, and although my dog is apparently so stupid she cannot feel cold weather, I'd feel more comfortable querying her for an opinion on Crossfit than I would Percel. Moreover, the entire argument is moot- given the opportunity to express himself on the matter, I am sure that Ogar would blame himself and bad luck for his paralysis, not the organizers of the OC Throwdown, just as I blame myself for my torn bicep.

In short- shit happens. Get the fuck over it.

She's over it.

I'm in full-blown competition prep mode and various muscles are twitching constantly. What's the deal?

This one, frankly, had me more than a little stumped. The obvious answer, of course, would be potassium/sodium imbalance or a lack of electrolytes. As a general rule, cramping and twitching can be resolved by chugging water and popping potassium pills. The lifter in question had tried this, and taken Nuun, to no avail. For those of you who are unaware, Nuun is an awesome effervescent electrolyte blend that is great for recomposition after cutting water to make weight. In any event, either was working. Looking a little deeper, I discovered the lifter had been pounding water all day long and was running to the bathroom every thirty minutes. This indicated, to me, that whatever was causing the twitching was being flushed out of their system by the inordinate amount of water they were drinking. Thus, I started researching and discovered that the culprit was not the usual suspects, but rather magnesium.

My preferred method of rehydration, and a way to get about half of your USRDA of magnesium in one delicious drink (Nelson).

Magnesium plays a role in the contraction and relaxation of the muscles, as well as the production and trasport of energy. Thus, if you're snapping at everyone and even more aggravated because your eye/bicep/shoulder/pec/whatever is twitching uncontrollably, you might want to think about upping your magnesium intake. If you want to do it with food, you can simply eat the following:

Dark chocolate
Dark leafy greens like spinach or chard
Mackerel or tuna
Pumpkin seeds
Beans (pretty much any of them)
Quinoa
Avacados

Pretty simple, and that and adequate hydration should square you away.

In honor of Scott, I was going to porn some gay bear porn, but figured this would be even better.

Recently, Brian Scott made a video telling everyone to be nice to new gym members and help them. Thoughts?
That's all super sweet and all, but utterly fucking pointless for a couple of reasons:

This isn't a fucking religion, and there's no need to proselytize like it is.
They're going to fucking quit anyway.
There is absolutely no upside to doing so.

Before I launch into my latest rant, let me say I've no fucking clue who Brian Scott is, other than he's apparently associated with Brandon Lilly and is a beardo, neither of which endears him to me (and no, I've no interest in chiming in on the guy who "doesn't cut even when he's cutting"- I'll leave that to you guys in the comments). That said, I have no problem Scott personally beyond the fact that he's a hideously misguided weightlifting missionary of some sort. He looks old enough to know better than to spout this nonsensecial, touchy feely, kumbahyah bullshit. Before you run to his defense, what follows isn't opinion, my borderline sociopathy showing through, or my general disdain for the average person, whom I have recently begun referring to as "meat". Nope- it's statistics and psychology. Did you know the following about gym members?

Average amount of times a gym membership owner will go to the gym every week: 2
Average amount of gym membership money that goes to waste from under utilization: $39
Percent of people with gym memberships that never use them: 67%

More of this might help recidivism.

According to Brian Scott, people quit because they're "not seeing results." He challenges everyone who has "gotten some results" to grab one of these people and proselytize the weight lifting lifestyle to them. He could not be more incorrect- two thirds of the new people will quit going to the gym altogether within a couple of months of signing up for the gym because they're lazy motherfuckers. If you really want to be nice, you can call it "hyperbolic discounting", but at the end of the day, people quit lifting because they are lazy shitbags- not because regular gymgoers are mean, unwelcoming, or have somehow failed in what Scott believes to be our civic duty to help them (Thompson).

It was my civic duty to post this.

Even if it were were our civic duty to help them, it's really no reason to act any differently than we do now because the only way new gym members will go is if if they're paid (DellaVigna). Thus, if you really want to help out a newbie at the gym, give him five bucks every time you see him lifting.

Don't have a spare $15 a week for a stranger? Neither do I.

Finally, the message in this video ultimately ridiculous is the fact that Scott admits he lifts in his garage, so he's asking everyone to take time out of their day to pointlessly spread the "gospel of the iron" to an unwilling audience when he himself will not be doing so. If that's not bizarre as shit, I don't know what is. What I do know, however, is that commercial gyms are specifically designed to entice those lazy shitbags to join gyms, and to dissuade real lifters from doing so (Thompson). As more and more big box gyms push little, hole-in-the-wall gyms out of existence, other local gyms are having to water down their product and raise prices to remain competitive and retain members. This makes the gym going experience of real lifters even shittier, and trust me when i say that the gym going experience of 2013 is a fucking atrocity compared to that of 2000, and even less cool than it likely was in 1990. The reason for this? Gyms don't want real lifters- they specifically court the lazy sons of bitches Scott wants us to "help."

In short- fuck the newbies. If they stick with it, good on them. If they don't, it should neither come as a surprise or reflect on the rest of us in any way- it is simply a function of their weakness of character.

What should I do? My bitch be trippin'.

Ditch the bitch. There are others where she came from. That, or let her domme you, I guess. No sense in arguing a bunch though. Why waste a bunch of time arguing with some asshole road when you could be reading, or lifting, or playing Xbox, or doing literally anything other than listening to her utilize circular logic to try to convince you her shitty behavior is your fault? And if she's pissed because you're being a dick, either stop being a dick or ditch her because you clearly don't like her enough to be a decent human being.

I have no idea why anyone would approach me for relationship advice, but for some reason a lot of you do. I basically treat life like I'm a modern day Peter Pan and practically live in a yurt, most chicks like me marginally more than full blown AIDS, and I have all of the sensitivity of someone with low grade autism- I could not possibly provide less insight into how you could pull chicks, keep chicks, or repair damaged relationships. You should pretty much approach EVERYONE for relationship advice before you approach me. You want advice on how to give chicks multiple orgasms and make them drunk dial you in the middle of the night for years after breaking up with you, begging for your cock? That I can do. Relationship advice, however, is not my forte.

This might be hard to walk away from.

I AM THE KING OF ALL ASSHOLES.

Sources:

DellaVigna, Stefano and Ulrike Malmendier. Paying Not to Go to the Gym. 15 Apr 2005. Web. 1 Feb 2014. http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/gymemp05-04-20.pdf

Gym Membership Statistics. Statistic Brain. 18 Apr 2012. Web. 20 Jan 2014. http://www.statisticbrain.com/gym-membership-statistics/

Nelson CF, Burns WE. The calcium and magnesium content of normal urine. J. Biol. Chem. 1916, 28:237-240.

Thompson, Derek. This Is Why You Don't Go to the Gym. 13 Jan 2012. Web. 30 Jan 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/this-is-why-you-dont-go-to-the-gym/251332/

If there's anything I hate about serials, it's the waiting. Since I got such insane traffic and positive feedback from the first installment, I suppose there's no sense in making you wait for the second. If nothing else, it will give people something to bitch about until I finish the next stregnth training and or nutrition article. I'll be getting one more out this week, probably on Weds night or Thursday morning, before I travel to Florida for Raw Unity. Thus, here's part 2 of the Tunnel (which is easily ten times as fucked up as anything I bet you've ever read) to tide you over until that's done.

Incidentally, when I wrote this bit, I don't think I had ever heard of tentacle rape- I just came up with the most fucked up thing of which I could think and was fucking a chick who loved pegging at the time.

Th-Thump.

A flash of myself completely restrained. Something soft, warm, and wet, moist with something thick and viscous like mucous wrapped around my wrists and ankles, holding me immobile, off the ground. My clothes ripped from my body by an unseen force, and the sensation of unbelievable strength in whatever is holding me aloft and helpless. I open my eyes and see rippling, pink-hued yet greenish tentacles wrapped around my wrists and ankles, dusted their length with tiny sucking mouths overflowing with crystalline, teeth as long and thin as hypodermic needles gripping my flesh. The skin on the tentacles is glossy, and looks and feels like smoked ham dripping with the kind of mucus you blow from your nose when you’ve got a touch of the flu- clear, with a hint of yellow, and a bit frothy.

I am fascinated by the manner of my restraint, as it defies logic. The room I’m in is pitch black, filled with air as oily and redolent with smoke as a Tibetan monastery, though rather than buttery, it smells more like cow shit mixed with diesel. Could I touch anything, I'd imagine everything in the room would be slightly greasy from the smoke, but instead I hang suspended, marveling at the horror of my situation. Though I see no candles, spotlights, or any other light source, for that matter, I am bathed in an intensely bright light from above, a light so intense it feels as though it's burning my skin. As I try to look upwards to discern the source of heat and light, the tip of a tentacle, perhaps the one holding my forehead and causing me to blink away blood, snakes across my lips as a warning. I know this to be the case, as I can hear a thousand whispered voices in my head, telling me to

submit

relax

relent.

A tentacle that might branch off from the others, or might just be an independent appendage altogether, snakes up my leg, wrapping itself around my thigh and settling on my rock hard dick, stroking it. Loving it with hundreds of tiny mouths. I feel another creeping up my other leg, and begin to gently part my ass cheeks…

I awake with a start.

Th-Thump.

The ride started out as Bret had described- fucking brutal. There were at least three trails intertwined with each other, small cliffs to jump, and nice solid ground. I had a nice sweat going, cheat heaving as I pumped hard on the pedals to pick up speed before a jump. With my iPod cranked, blasting a mix of death metal and punk into my ears, the feeling of the wind in my face, the smell of the forest around me, and the amazing timing I seemed to have today, I was totally in the zone and shredding the trail like never before. Making me look like a rank amateur, however, was Bret, who was jumping hillocks and pulling tricks like he was in the finals of a Moto X competition. We’d been riding downhill for at least 10 minutes when, in spite of the growling and shrieking of the vocalist on my iPod, I heard one of Bret’s ridiculous imitation rebel yells cutoff mid-scream, and saw him catch a tree branch hard in the face.

I slowed and started picking my way through the trees towards him, calling out his name as I went. Because Bret steadfastly refused to wear a helmet, I grew irritated as I closed on what seemed to have been his last position, as I had no interest in carrying his shattered and unconscious body all the way back up the hill to the truck. As I neared the sound of his moaning, my irascible reverie was cut short by a rustle and a crack. Looking around, I couldn’t figure out what had made that noise, especially so close to me, so I stopped and took off my headphones to listen more closely- I had no interest in becoming some brown bear's afternoon snack.

That’s when the Earth swallowed me.

Th-Thump.

I don’t remember falling. I don’t remember hitting the ground, either, but a quick glance at my left elbow told me that it did- it was purple and swollen like a softball when I awoke. A quick check told me that since I could bend it without collapsing to the ground in agonizing pain, it likely wasn't broken, and while nothing else seemed to be either, I was going to go through a bottle of Advil before breakfast on Monday if I wanted to get to the office and get any kind of work done.

That is, assuming I made it out of this hole to get to work. It looked like I’d fallen down some kind of abandoned mine shaft- a really, really old one, by the looks of it. I’d only fallen about 20 feet, and from the looks of my bike, landed entirely on the front wheel and pitched over the handlebars, whereupon I placed all of my trust and goodwill into my left arm and used it to break my fall. The front wheel was fucked, bent into a half circle, but the frame of the bike appeared to be remarkably unharmed, in spite of the fact that it'd absorbed the weight of that fall. That, however, was the least of my worries, as the walls leading up to the landing site were more or less smooth. Were I a world-class climber, fresh and uninjured, I might have been able to scale that wall… but I’m not. Not even close. Thus, I looked around and noticed that the tunnel led downhill, towards some faint glow of light.

Hardly an intrepid explorer, but cognizant of the fact that I had no real prospect of rescue otherwise, I started my trek down the gentle slope into the bowels of the Earth as the most unwilling and unenthusiastic spelunker in human history. The walls seemed to have a faint blue glow to them, and were damp rock, rough hewn and set without mortar. Initially, I thought perhaps I was headed toward some sort of power generation station, and had fallen into an old access tunnel or mine shaft. As I continued downward, however, I started to wonder if my initial impression was correct.

Th-Thump.

I thought I heard someone calling my name a while ago. I was struggling with the snake-worm-Cambrian nightmares at the time, rolling on the ground, probing the holes in my sides and trying to grab hold of a tail, maybe. There was still a lot of pain at the time, and I wasn't thinking clearly, but I swore I heard Bret calling me.

Th-Thump.

When I saw the first “bug”, I knew I was in deep shit. It was the same size as my neighbors’ Chihuahua. Maybe 4 pounds of black chitin, fangs dripping blood, bits of flesh, and slime, hissing like one of those cockroaches Joe Rogan used to feed to hot broads in bikinis on the television game show Fear Factor. I practically tripped over the thing, cautiously moving toward the clacking sound it made as it ate whatever poor animal happened to fall beneath its jaws. I admit I screamed like a woman when I saw it- it was huge, it was disgusting, and it was obviously carnivorous. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I jumped up and started stomping like I was a Japanese teenager playing the final round on Dance Dance Revolution, doing my damnedest to grind that disgusting nightmare into the ground. My first few stomps took care of its jaws and a couple legs, but I couldn't seem to destroy its body. It was like trying to crush a rock with my foot. I finally gave up, letting it drag its mangled body away while I took off running back the way I came. It might have been a pitiful sight, had it not just attempted to kill me, using its mandibles and two legs to drag itself into the darkness, leaving streaks of purple and green behind it as it oozed its fluids. Had it been an injured puppy or a mangled kitten, I might have felt some remorse, but instead it was a skin-crawlingly disgusting giant insect, and I felt nothing but pride and hate as I sprinted away from its mashed body.

Bada-thump.

My cock is still rock hard. I haven’t had wood like this since I took Viagra that weekend in Vegas. Insane.

Th-Thump.

Fucking Bret. I should have known that something was up when I noticed how straight the road was. No man would bother to make a road so straight, especially not in this neck of the woods. Do you think random, toothless, unwashed hilljacks are carving absolutely straight, meticulously maintained dirt roads out of the hilly backwoods of West Virginia? I sure as shit don’t. Only Bret could manage to ignore that kind of weirdness… and only Bret could manage to land me in a situation this fucked up.

Once, in a New Age period of my life, I spent a couple of months studying ley lines. They’re a pretty cool idea, and their existence makes a lot of sense. They’re basically a giant electro-magnetic grid that surrounds the Earth, and it’s thought that the nexuses between the lines are places of great power. The pyramids are on one such nexus, as are Stonehenge, most of the super-old churches, some Roman roads, and a variety of other places hippies run off at the mouth about. Apparently, dudes who cleared shit like telegraph lines and logging roads intuitively followed ley lines, and they sometimes found some weird shit along the way. Ancient people seemed to have an instinctive ability to follow these lines and place structures of importance at the vortexes where ley lines cross, and always had wildly straight roads leading to and from these places. No matter what the obstacles in the way, the roads maintained their straightness, drawing the people on them inexorably toward their destination. As I recall, some of the roads had a negative power, though, leading those on them toward heaven- they were called death roads. That’s what led Bret and I here, I guess.

A fucking death road.

Th-Th-Thump.

I cannot see whatever it is controlling the tentacles violating my body. My ass is now full of its gentle power, and I’ve cum more times than I can count, bloody cum dripping off the tentacle simultaneously masturbating me and eating my cock. I can see the tendons and veins of my cock exposed to the open air as the mouths consume them, yet there is no disgust. No pain. Only indescribable pleasure, and satisfaction as I watch the slow destruction of my genitalia. My cock, once so dear to me, is being slowly eroded under the caress of the tentacle’s teeth, and I relish its diminishment, savoring the exquisite sensation of loss that can only come with the sexual removal of one’s dearest possession. The occasional spurt of blood from my groin is almost like an orgasm, and the torrents of blood pouring down my legs are a sacrament to the internal massage I am receiving, my prostate fully stimulated and my sphincter as relaxed as it could possibly be. I am in heaven.

Thudda-Thump.

Bathed in sweat, I sit bolt upright and check frantically my groin and ass- nothing is violating me, and the puddle of my blood in which I sit is undisturbed, though I can hardly say the same for myself after that bizarre daydream.

Th-Thump.

About ten minutes after running across that bug, I began to calm down again. I stayed vigilant, since that bug definitely looked to be carnivorous, but I stopped spazzing. I didn’t feel too badly about my panic after seeing that thing though, since even Chuck Bronson would be unsettled in my situation. The slight luminosity of the tunnel allowed me to take stock of my surroundings, and examine exactly what the fuck was around me. I had run back the way I originally came, and nothing seemed to be out of place- nothing new, no massive bugs crawling out of the walls. Nor was there a sign of whatever that bug might have been eating, but judging by the size of the carcass, it looked to be at least deer-sized. Anyway, heading back that way was stupid, as I still couldn’t climb out of the hole, and I needed to get out of there before dark, or I’d never find the truck. Thus, I turned around, manned up, and started walking downhill again, toward the massive bug, its prey, and the source of the soft vibration I was feeling and hearing.

It occurred to me that in my haste to get out the longest thing I'd yet written for the site that I had overlooked one extremely popular, yet almost completely ignored historical implements- the strand. Known to most of us by the 20th Century name "chest expander", it’s likely that few of you have ever seen a chest expander outside of the brief and ridiculous bit in Pumping Iron in which Arnold used one while one of those where-the-fuck-did-those-bodies-go 1970's hot bikini-clad broad sat atop his shoulders, likely so fucking wet they had to velcro her vag to the back of Arnold's neck for the shoot.. The strand/band/chest expander, however, dates back to early antiquity and has been used by nearly every one of the epic, bloodthirsty badasses that predated the firearm, likely every person deemed a strongman since the late Paleolithic, in addition to sundry other random people throughout the ages to build strength on the go, without the necessity of bulky training implements, and without the need for a specialized locale like a gym for training.

Strand pulling, in fact, may be as old as archery itself. Archers have long been known for the strength of their grip, shoulders, arms, and back, and may well have used bows strung with higher tension to build up their strength for the use of their regular bows. It's not inconceivable, were that to in fact be the case, that strength competitions in military encampments may well have centered on drawing these bows, and that such competitions were far more commonplace than even stone lifting in certain areas (particularly the steppes of Central Asia).

If you've not yet sussed out the meaning of the term "strand pulling", allow me to elucidate- strand pulling, also known as chest expansion or currently as "band work", is any exercise that's done using rubber tubing, flat rubber bands, steel springs, or bowstrings with the intent of building or proving one's strength. Obviously, one can moderate the resistance in this method of exercise in two ways- one by the altering the thickness/resistance provided by the implement at the outset, and then by increasing of decreasing the the distance over which the implement is stretched. Though most of us in the modern era think of bands as simply being a warmup, prehab/rehab implement, a method of adding resistance to a lift, or (as much as it pains me to mention something as retarded as reverse band work, here goes) reducing resistance, it was actually a means to an end unto itself in bygone eras. Strand pulling enjoyed as much or more popularity than did actual weightlifting in different places at different times, and has steadfastly remained a part of resistance training since the concept of organized resistance training was formulated.

To give you an idea of exactly why this activity might have been popular, one really needs only to look at the draw weights of various bows throughout history and physical descriptions of the archers who used those bows. In ancient China and Greece, archers were some of the most feared warriors, and were often just as vicious in close combat as they were from a distance due to the incredible strength of their left arms. Guys like the Greek face-wrecker Hippolytus, bloodthirsty Chinese enforcer Taishi Ci, and Korean death-dealer King Dongmyeong were all described as freakishly strong, and all of the nomadic equestrian archers of the Central Asian steppes, from the gigantic and heavily muscled Scythians to the shorter, Neaderthal-esque Huns were all described as incredibly muscular and strong. It should come as no surprise that they were so heavily muscled, as they were basically lifting constantly- the draw weights on their bows were massive, and they were incessantly firing arrows. To give you an idea of the volume they were getting in, modern speed archers can fire an arrow every 1.7 seconds or so, which means that in battle or on a hunt, they could get in 80 reps (the number of arrows carried by Mongol archers) in less than three minutes if need be. That’s a hell of a lot of weight moved, given the draw weight on a Mongol bow was 166 lbs. In less than three minutes, then, a Mongol could move 13,280 lbs- that’s two tons a minute, for those of you keeping track. For the sake of comparison, here are a few examples of draw weights on the bows of someone of history’s most feared archers, and a bit of insight into why modern Olympic archers look like they just stumbled out of the Mukden prisoner of war camp in 1945:

English longbow= avg. 70-80 lbs. (though reported up to 200 lbs.)
Scythian bow= avg. 120 lbs.
Old Mongol bow= avg. 166 lbs.
Roman warbow= avg. 110 lbs.
Modern Olympic bow= 48 lbs. (men); 38 lbs. (women)

Fred Rollon might not have been strong, but the dude looked damn good being weak.

While there's not really much in the way of a historiographical account of strand pulling between antiquity and modernity, it's highly unlikely that strand pulling fell entirely out of the social consciousness only to return more popular than songs about getting hammered and "going crazy up in da club" appear to be now amongst vapid, scantily clad, gold-digging purveyors of blue balls are now. Yeah, strand pulling in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century was more popular than penicillin cocktails in Vegas brothels. Guys of whom you've probably heard- bizarrely ripped yet not strong Golden Age bodybuilder Fred Rollon, epic strongman bodybuilders Eugen Sandow, Monohar Aich, Reg Park, and Edward Aston, Golden Age strength coach and guru Professor Atilla, pint-sized Super Jew strongman The Mighty Atom, vaunted promoter and accomplished strongman Tromp Von Diggeln, legendary strongman Thomas Inch, and Baddest Motherfuckers John Grimek, Hermann Goerner, and Steve Stanko all regularly used strand pulling in their training routines, and Sandow espoused them so strongly that he caused strand pulling to eclipse Indian club use in the country for which the clubs are eponymous (Anderson; Chapman 160).

Porn stache not included.

Though there's no clear indication of when the modern "chest expander" was invented, we do know that it was already considered a scourge in Ireland in 1857, as the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science claimed the modern chest expander was invented and patented by Henry Cost, but does not provide the year it was invented (188). Hilariously, the drunken Irishmen involved in the publication of that "medical journal" insisted that the chest expander heralded a return to the physical culture attitudes of the Greeks and Romans that would bring about the resurgence of the "debauchery and depravity which ended in the overthrow of their States"(187). As no one in history has ever taken an Irishman's advice on anything, the world carried on using the chest expander without permission from people whose principal preoccupations lie more in whiskey and wife beating. The chest expander, meanwhile, had been used at least since 1851 as a medical device for rehabilitation, and was used in schools like the Philanthopium for physical education in Germany. By the end of the 19th century, strand pulling was commonly employed in gyms and homes for strength training by laypersons and lifters alike, especially after the rubber version was released in 1857.

In the 1990's, Dolph Lundgren's motto was "Yo, bro- do you even Bowflex?"

Another use of band/strands/chest expanders built upon Watson's Health Lift idea, and utilized bands rather than wands in a sort of proto-Bowflex apparatus. Like the Bowflex, the bands were adjustable and could be utilized for either strength endurance, hypertrophy, or strength building. The Mid-19th Century version of the Bowflex, Barnett's Health Lift, was likely capable of providing far more resistance over a much smaller range of motion than the modern Bowflex, proving once again that 20th Century Americans are lazy piles of shit who've stolen any number of great ideas from bygone times and fucked them up beyond all recognition (Todd).

It's likely that most of you are still thinking to yourselves, "that's a lovely history of something about which I give exactly zero fucks and will use on the seventh of never." I can understand that sort of skepticism, because when I began writing this, I thought the same thing. Then I stopped and realized that I've used band pushdowns religiously over the last couple of years, regularly use band curls and overhead presses at home as a volume supplement to my program (usually while watching Crank, Crank 2, or The Raid: Redemption), and love the tits off crazybell bench presses. Arm wrestlers routinely employ band work to build tendon and ligament strength for competition, mixed martial artists like Sean Sherk use them to increase punching power and the strength of their shots, and chest expanders have even been used by strongmen to prove their strength. Thomas Inch, for instance, had a special chest expander created for use in strength exhibitions- he'd pull a 40 strand chest expander after six people from the audience had tested it, and while hanging a 56 lb. kettlebell from each pinky finger (Gentle).

If this dude said it works, it probably fucking does.

Perhaps the greatest endorsement strand pulling could get, however, is that of Arnold Schwarzennegger's idol, Reg Park. Park penned an entire treatise on the value of strand pulling, which was being called "cable training" at the time, and which Park considered nearly invaluable for bringing "your biceps, deltoids, trapezius, pectorials and latissimus into the size and shape that you want them to be"(Park). According to Park, cables were part of the golden trifecta of training implements, which along with dumbbells and barbells would produce the "finest and strongest physique that a bodybuilder can wish for", citing six early-to-mid-20th Century lifters as proof of this unassailable fact. Park's depictions of the exercises are only marginally better than Alabama's ghetto hood rat artist's depiction of a leprechaun that allegedly plagued the "fine people" of Mobile's shittiest ghettos for a month, but shed some light on those exercises Park valued most and why. What follows is a mere sampling of the over 30 exercises one can do for upper body, but are those which Park found most valuable for building the idea physique.

Front Band Pull-aparts- great for strengthening the upper back and traps, in addition to giving one's physique a wider appearance.
Overhead Band Pull-aparts- strengthen the lats and help one's v-taper.
Overhead to Front Pull-aparts- pulling the bands apart overhead until the bands were positioned in front of the lifter's chest work both the lats, rear delts, and rhomboids.
Front Band Pull-aparts- Same as the overhead movement, but with your arms extended to the front, parallel to the ground.
Behind-the-back Band Push-aparts- With the bands behind your back, start with your hands at your shoulders and push straight out, with your hands parallel to the floor for back and shoulder development.
Unilateral Tricep Extensions- Your typical french press/single arm overhead tricep extension. Hold one end of the band with your arm straight at your waist, and then extend your other hand straight overhead in a typical tricep extension.
Unilateral Overhead Press- With one arm held straight by your side and hand at your waist, press the other arm out overhead from the shoulder for a "broad as a barn appearance."
Archer's Draw- This movement exactly replicated the motion of drawing a bow, and thus is great for building the shoulders, traps, lats, and biceps on the pulling arm and the tricep and shoulder on the extended arm.
Lateral Raise- This should be pretty self-explanatory. If you can't figure out how to do a lateral raise with a band, you might want to consider suicide as your best option.
Bicep Curl- Holding one end of the band underfoot, bust out some curls for the girls.
Reverse Curl- Same deal, but with your grip flipped for forearm and brachialis work.
Front Cable Row- Interestingly, one would think that this movement would be for the back, but it's actually to hit the tricep on your extended arm. Holding your left arm parallel to the ground and fully extended in front of you, pull the other end of the band as far back as possible with your right arm.

Still unconvinced? Allow me to give you a few more reasons why strand/band pulling is worth incorporating into your training. First, it's possible to do either straight strength work or muscular endurance work with bands, and either can lead to hypertrophy when combined with enough meat. Though we usually think of it in terms of its utility for rehab and physical therapy work, it's actually pretty useful in general strength training, if for no other reason than it promotes joint health and strengthens and thickens your ligaments and tendons, but the altered force curve of bands also provides a completely different feel to the weights. Furthermore, the fact that you're not fighting gravity means you have to use far more stabilizers to control the weight (as bands can pull in a variety of directions at once), and you have far more options in terms of angles of resistance, which means you can work weak points and completely ignored angles of resistance that could mean the difference between a PR and a plateau, or an injury and serious strength. Sticking points change and disappear when using bands, and you can drastically increase your force production with the inclusion of band tension to any movement.

All that shit, while great, ignores probably the best feature of bands- they're completely portable. When traveling, nothing can beat bands, as they're lightweight, compact, and you can use them while sitting on the shitter on an airplane if you really wanted. Combine that portability and ease of access with the fact that you can use bands to do just about anything, including squats, and you've got a pretty strong reasoning for never missing a workout, because the fact that you can't drag your ass to the gym while it's open doesn't mean you can't bust out some bands and get your curls on while watching late night TV for fifteen minutes before bed. Basically, bands are an anti-excuse for skipping workouts, and a pretty fucking good reason why we should all be far more ripped than we are.

Johnny skipped his workout and got hammered instead.

There has got to be a reason why bands have remained in the lifting zeitgeist since the dawn of resistance training, and the reason I just outlined probably don't do bands/strands/chest expanders justice. If you think you're too good, too strong, or too advanced for bands, you're a fucking idiot, and if you think you're too much of a novice to handle training with overgrown rubber bands, you should just grab a tack hammer and smash yourself in your stupid, craplousy face with it. There is literally NO reason why you should avoid bands, and dozens of reason why you might as well pick some up and keep them in your gym bag for that rainy/snowy day you just can't muster up the willpower to hit the gym but know there's going to be a Rocky marathon on USA that day.

Did I mention Reg Park probably looked better at 60 than you do now? Yeah, get your ass some bands.

Go get some bands, a bullworker, a Bowflex, or something strand pulling related and make that shit work, or I'll send Reg Park's ghost to your house to fuck your girlfriend because you're a dickless bitch.

Sources:
Anderson, Gordon. Tromp Von Diggeln. Maxalding. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.maxalding.co.uk/Tromp/tromp-biog.htm

Chapman, David. Sandow the Magnificent. Champaign: UI Press, 1994.

De Laspee, Henry. Calisthenics; or the elements of bodily culture. Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science. Vol. XXIII. Feb and May 1857. Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1857.

Gentle, David. Thomas Inch a Pioneer in the Muscle Game. David Gentle. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.davidgentle.com/articles/legends/inch.htm

Karpowicz, Adam and Stephen Selby. Scythian bow from Xinjiang. 2010. Web. 7 Feb 2014. http://www.atarn.org/chinese/Yanghai/Scythian_bow_ATARN.pdf

Kumar, Vinya. Monohar Aich : Mr. Universe 1952. Sandowplus. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/India/Monohar/meeting/meeting.htm

Oestmoen, Per Inge. The Mongolian Bow. Cold Siberia. 27 Dec 2002. Web. 7 Feb 2014. http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm

Park, Reg. The Reg Park system of cable training. Sandowplus. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Park/Cable/park-cable.htm

Todd, Jan. Strength is health: George Barker Windship and the first American weight training boom. Iron Game History. Sep 1993. Web. 29 Jan 2014. https://www.academia.edu/3009405/Strength_is_Health_George_Barker_Windship_and_the_First_American_Weight_Training_Boom

It's that time again! If you guys haven't yet caught on, I don't necessarily mention the best of the best in these blogs (although it often ends up being that way), but rather try to turn your attention to stuff that might have flown under your radar and of which it's possible you'd never know if I didn't bring it up. Think of these posts as the anti-Top 40 list for your everyday misanthrope,sociopath, or anti-hero. Given that my social circle shrinks by the day and I've been through just about every book and movie on which I can lay hands, I figure it's high time I give you guys a head's up on that tripe you should ignore only if you've no interest in clinging desperately to the last vestiges of goodwill towards man you might harbor.

What? She's probably someone's girlfriend.

Movies Your Girlfriend Will Probably Hate More Than Republicans Hate Justin Bieber
Frankly, I can't come up with a reason to like Justin Bieber- the kid's white trash and acts like white trash that hit the lottery. The little bitch will be dead of an overdose in a year or two, so everyone keep your fucking panties on and wait it out. I don't think I've ever heard one of his songs, but I assume saccharine ballads written by some soulless, faceless corporate drone and sung in a falsetto that'd make the dad from Growing Pains' kid sound like his testicles had descended. In any event, what follows are the Larry Correia to film's Dean Koontz.

Ninja 2
If you're not a fan of Scott Adkins, it's likely you also hate pizza, steak, metal, Bruce Lee, and blowjobs. Scott Adkins detractors are all certainly vegetarians, drive Priuses, and wear scarves in the summer- their existence is proof that there is no higher power, that humanity is doomed, and that masculinity is in fact dead and buried. If you're unaware of the dude's existence, he was Jean Claude Van Damme's jacked, badass henchman in Expendables 2, post-surgery Deadpool in X-Men:Origins, and the ultimate successor to Ivan Drago in the Undisputed films.

Ivan who?

Lest you worry, you needn't see Ninja 1 to be up to speed in Ninja 2. The first Ninja, while ok, wasn't great, and was totally overshadowed by Ninja Assassin, which as I recall was released the same year. In any event, Ninja 2 follows the (hilariously and stereotypically white) ninjitsu practitioner Casey Bowman as he basically kills everyone in Southeast Asia to avenge the death of his pregnant wife/girlfriend. If you're watching martial arts films for the romantic subplot, you probably aren't going to be a fan of the blog, so let's not pretend we give a fuck what she is. Just pop some popcorn, slather that shit with deliciously anabolic butter, suspend your disbelief over the persistence of the myth of ninjas, and watch Scott Adkins fuck people up good and proper like. This is not your typical ninja film- one scene has Adkins drunkenly depopulate a small town in Thailand after someone spills a beer on Adkins and talks a bit of shit. Ninja 2 is basically what would happen if Michael Dudikoff had actually known martial arts, spent a hell of a lot of time lifting and eating nothing but steak, and then was given a plotline that literally consisted of:

EVERYBODY DIES (Dialogue optional).

Bounty Killer
Of late, it seems I gamble and lose invariably on books and movies. Then I double down on something that looks too insane to suck (I'm looking at you, Matthew Hughes and your goddamned Hell and Back series... nevermind Andy Remic, who's reason alone to black glass the British Isles for his ability to craft amazingly enticing plots and then writing the most dogshit novels of all time) and want to fucking shoot myself for blowing my hard-earned and scanty cash on books that make me prefer blindness to finishing them. The same has gone for movies, from the nearly unspeakably bad (though I finished the thing out of stubbornness and overhangedness) Uwe Boll zombie atrocity Zombie Massacre to the Japanese schoolgirl filled zombie tragedy Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead to the almost-awesome-if-for-no-other-reason-than-the-film's-slut-is-too-hot-Jade-Regier Danno Trejo-filled Zombie Hunter.

With that pile of Philip Seymore Hoffman-sized sadness in my recent history, you might be inclined to disregard by next recommendation, but I will caution you that doing so will cause you to pass up on the low budget post-apocalyptic triumph that Six String Samurai was supposed to have been. Bounty Killer follows two bountry hunters famed for their skills battling to fulfill the same contract in a post-apocalyptic world so iron-fistedly controlled by corporations that all white collar crimes are capital crimes, the execution of which is carried out by celebrity "bounty killers." Want reasons you should see this?

Mega cunty, head explodingly hot former Terminator Kristanna Loken.
National Lampoon's husky-voiced tittymonster Beverly D'Angelo (who I'd still slap my mom to fuck).
GARY MOTHERFUCKING BUSEY.
Christian Pitre, who is so hot you cannot actually look directly at her, or you'll be reduced to ash.
Libertarian cannibal biker gangs.
GORE. LOTS AND LOTS OF GORE.

Seriously, you're doing yourself a disservice by passing on this gem. If nothing else, you'll be able to say to your friends "yeah, that shit was tight, ten years ago" when they finally discover it in 2020. Come for the bragging rights and stay for the hot chicks in thigh highs beating the brakes off white collar criminals and decapitating their henchmen.

V/H/S 2

It should come as no surprise that I love anthology films nearly as much as I love short story anthology novels. The V/H/S series is, along with Movie 43, without question the best of the lot, and the V/H/S films have far more rewatchability than any horror films I've seen outside of the Devil's Rejects. All of the short films in both of the V/H/S movies are great, but my opinion of the best of the lot might be colored by my love of The Raid: Redemption, as I think Gareth Evans' film is ridiculously cool. If you've got two hours to spare, check this film out. It is certainly one of the best two hour spans you'll have staring at the moving picture box.

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

For those of you who don't have a degree in East Asian Studies, you might not know much about Taiwan. Frankly, I have a degree in EAS and only happened to know that Taiwan was a staging point for invasions of China, a base for piracy the likes of which would make the Caribbean look like the most law abiding place outside of a Singaporean police station parking lot. What I did not know is that Taiwan was filled with bloodthirsty, awesome headhunters who look for all the world like Iroquois and speak a bizarre Austronesian language no one should ever have to bother learning.

Who cares, right? Well, this movie gives you a reason to care. It follows the youths of the Seediq tribe as the evil Japanese take over the island of Formosa during WW2 and "civilize" the natives. Basically, the degenerate capitalist imperialist dogs subvert and pervert an honorable native culture to the point where the natives finally revolt in amazing, bloody fashion. More heads are lopped off in this film than were actually removed in the French Revolution, and in awesome, manly fashion. If this movie doesn't make you want to stab a sorority girl and burn down your local mall, nothing will. Plus, John Woo directed it, so you know that doves will fly through arterial sprays and you can wax poetic about the artistic nature of the cinematography while simultaneously tucking your murder boner into your waistband.

Music That Raises Pulses As Much As Test And Will Get You Ejected From The Gym Because Insanity

Warhound- Freedom
Warhound was intitially a band I ally wanted to like, but just couldn't. to me, they were a combination of all of the best parts of Bulldoze and Merauder combined with the most dogshit, sing-songy, half assed, bloody vomit-inducing choruses of hardcore's greatest mistake, Fury of Five. Warhound's first LP was like having a lunch date with Meghan Fox- you really want to enjoy it, because she's stunning and you'll likely never sit that close to a woman that hot again, but every time she opens her mouth you want to grab the back of her head and smash her face into the table until she stops moving, then drown her in her martini for good measure.

Luckily, Warhound seems to have come to the same conclusion, because their most recent stuff is fucking insane. Chuggy, downtuned riffs, endless breakdowns, and all overlaid with the the most insanely angry, gut-wrenching vocals. Their vocalists are not men who are simply trying to sound pissed- the tone of the vocals in Warhound conveys what can only be thinly restrained violence. Like World of Pain, Warhound's lyrics trip back and forth between typical toughguy fare and surprisingly intelligent politically-themed stuff, which makes you feel a little better about gleefully screaming along with the shit in the gym. Let me just clue you in- if you have your hood up and start screaming along with Next Level Demonstration in a commercial gym, you will definitely be asked to leave after several terrified chicks scramble to the front and report that the gym has a dangerous psychotic in its midst.For fans of: MS13, cutting off people's heads, hate, buxom Satanic Latinas, World of Pain, old Warriors, and beatdown hardcore in general.

Attila- About That Life
Those of you, and you are legion, who take yourselves far too seriously will scoff at my inclusion of what is doubtless the most ignorant nonsense deathcore this side of Brokencyde. I'll agree- Attila's early shit was fucking retarded, but it was fun and retarded. Unlike most party bands, who invariably become victims of their own success and get progressively lamer until they're totally unlistenable, Attila's actually gotten both more skilled and more ignorant, culminating their their fifth album "About That Life, which is an album you will love to hate in public and rock incessantly when no one's around. Slam wigger deathcore about fucking chicks (live ones, even), blowing lines, banging back shots, and driving cool cars- this shit is everything Lil John would be if he had a modicum of musical talent. If you don't like this shit, I am certain I don't like you, and I can guarantee that partying with you would probably consist of wine, cheese, sweater vests, and eventual suicide.

... and if that wasn't ignorant enough, how about a song about beating someone down with a brick and then setting them on fire, in a lyric video filled with titties and strippers? Seriously, if you don't love this shit, you're dead inside. For fans of: getting hammered and breaking shit, Dr. Acula, Carnifex, Andrew WK, Suicide Silence, and playing metal at parties with porn showing on the big screen in the background.

Vow of Hatred / Steel City Firm- Urban Decay
I've mentioned Vow of Hatred before, and this split just brings to brighter light how fucking brutal both of these Pittsburgh beatdown bands are. Nonstop breakdowns, tough guy lyrics, and brutality prevail. Awesome incarnate, for fans of: old Hatebreed, old Throwdown, Bulldoze, and kicking homeless people in the face.

.45 Stainless- OGBD
Finland is one of the richest nations on Earth, in which everyone is literate, drunk, and awesome deadlifters, but still rocks one of the highest suicide rates in history. Why is a matter of debate, but at least one group of Finns is channeling their hate outward- .45 Stainless. Beatdown the way it's intended to be- mean, ignorant, and filled to the brim with breakdowns. For fans of: utter brutality and beating the shit out of everyone.

Books Your Mind Requires
Unfortunately, the books I'm going to recommend are a little light, because most of what I've read of late was rubbish- Lucifer's Lottery by Edward Lee could not hold my attention, Sam Pink's Rontel ended up in the trash when I realized there was quite literally no point to its existence, Evolution RX was only useful for someone with no background in paleo (though in retrospect it's actually a decent book on evolutionary medicine and diet), Charles Stross's Rule 34 dragged (though I really only bought it for its cover art anyway)

Strykers
Strykers is an almost impossible blend of my favorite things- dystopic, post-apocalyptic, pulpy, and violent. Set in a world ravaged by nuclear war and controlled entirely by a few corporations, the Strykers are psionics who utilize their mutant superpowers to enforce the law and cavaid liquidation. Opposing them are the Warhounds, psyonics in the employ of the most powerful cabal of private corporations. Caught in the middle are a group of revolutionaries led by the son of the most powerful man in the world, disavowed Strykers, and unregistered humans attempting to overthrow the existing order to save the entire human race. Yeah, it's fucking awesome. Read it.

We Live Inside You
I have recommended this author's stuff before, in his badass Angeldust Apocalypse. This might be better, though it's hard to gauge an author's awesome short stories against another awesome set of short stories. This book resonated with me due to a story about straightedge kids who turned to lifting to prove that they were in fact superior to their peer, then engage in a Project Mayhem of violence to assert their dominance. The entirety of this book is stellar, and I cannot imagine a person not enjoying at least some of these stories. To say that it's worth the $15 would be an understatement.

Coming up, another Faddism article, an interview with Trevor Kashey, and an addition to the Keto Condiments series. Bringing it old school flavor!

For those of you who don't know, Vienna, Austria is pretty much the nicest place a person could ever live. The public transportation system can easily and quickly get you anywhere inside the city, and it's simple and cheap to travel to the rest of Europe from downtown. There's sausage everywhere, kebaps when you tire of sausage, cheap drinks, hot Germanic women, badass architecture, and absolutely no evangelical Christians. Additionally, the city is incredibly pedestrian friendly, so it's very easy to get into the habit of shopping daily for groceries. Since moving back to the states I've continued the habit of shopping daily for groceries, no matter how ridiculous or inconvenient it might be to fight the teeming, unwashed hordes and their massive shopping carts overflowing with heavily processed, high-fructose syrup-filled foods.

Do we care? Neeeeeeeeiiiiigh, I tell you. Neigh.

Interestingly, those people seem to be extremely preoccupied with other peoples' weights, as the only thing I've ever seen an obese person reading is a magazine of some sort, and the magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store are entirely preoccupied with who is too skinny, too fat, or who got skinny or fat quickly. The Kardashians, for some reason, get a free pass either way. I assume there is some sort of underground centaur fetish population in charge of People, The National Enquirer, Star, and other gossip rags, because I can't think of any other reason to have those horse-faced, pampered, useless, vapid, twats on the cover of a magazine unless the powers that be have a real hardon for people who look like human-horse hybrids.

Winner of BL season 1, fatter than he was when he first got onto the show. Success!

This brings us, then, to a show that captivates obese people in dozens of countries around the world, The Biggest Loser. According to the show's producers, the aim of the show is to help "contestants achieve healthy weight loss and live healthier lifestyles" and to inspire "viewers to do the same" (Gomez). This is, of course, utter nonsense- the point of the show, insofar as i can tell, is to give fatties and saddies more sob stories to reaffirm their pathetic physiques, excuses for why they cannot do the same, and it gives people who decided to hit the bar after the gym another opportunity to enjoy the comedy inherent in fat people running. In a better world, that show's only soundtrack would be the ridiculous theme song to What's Happenin'? and would feature the commentators from Wipeout as they mocked the fatties through eat workout. Instead, we're forces to view these allegedly human grotesqueries every time we jam past some born again Christian's wheezing, sweaty bulk to get out T-Bone steaks to the checkout counter.

BL finally produced a hot contestant and they're treating her like a fucking leper. Way to pander to the saddies and fatties, guys!

Imagine my surprise, then, when the cover of every fucking magazine this week declared that the most recent winner of The Biggest Loser went too far in her weight loss pursuits. Yes, on a show when two American Olympic athletes failed dismally to win what essentially amounts to a sporting competition, no one made mention of their lack of heart, the fact that their only real option at this point is suicide, and the laughable state of American mental toughness on the cover of a magazine- instead, they lambaste a former fattie with the most cliche'd sob story on the planet for being too skinny. I don't think I'm alone in saying that a television show based around peoples' agonized decision between regaining human form or sliding into the ocean like the rest of the cetaceans did millions of years ago might be the worst idea since Paris Hilton's singing career, but if there's one thing worse than the show itself, it's the hand-wringing about the feasibility of the contestants' fat loss, their propensity for rebounding, and the fact that at least one of the contestants took the shit too seriously.

National embarrassment and stalling world champion Rulon Gardner two years after getting kicked off of BL for cheating. Olympic gold medalist returns to former glory!

We'll put aside the fact that I think that the show's hosts for The Biggest Loser and Hoarders should carry an elephant gun and a flamethrower rather than a mike, and that the only "help" the people on those shows should receive ought to come from the barrels of those aforementioned weapons. Instead, let's address the criticisms of the show, spurious as they are.

Unrealistic Expectations
If there is one thing on Earth certainly designed to consign oneself to mediocrity, it's "realistic expectations." Realistic, in this context, is a euphemism for "average" and also serves as a pretty good benchmark for determining which people should be chained together at the leg digging fucking ditches in which they'll bury the reproductive organs forcibly removed from them. As an exercise in proving my point, I googled the following: "'reasonable expectations' and 'average person'", and behold, the first search result was written by a woman who should be sent to the camps:

"Chris Powell from ABC’s Extreme Makeover was asked “For the average person, what’s a realistic expectation for weight loss?” His answer was “Take your body weight and divide it by 100. That’s the number of pounds that you can roughly expect to lose each week.” This is interesting to me because it shows that as you lose weight I cannot expect to see 2lbs each week. In fact, I should really be losing about 1.3 to 1.5 lbs a week" (Weightwatchers).

To this useless sack of doughy DNA, information about reasonable expectations jammed the idea into this woman's sad, formless, pathetic bit of grey matter that weight loss of two pounds a week was simply impossible, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT SHE ASKED A PERSON WHO HOSTS A SHOW THAT PROVES THE OBVERSE IS TRUE. Simply amazing. The only thing that is unrealistic, then, for a person who attempts to set realistic expectations is the idea that they will ever drag their troglodytic, gormless, honorless, meek selves out of subhumanity and into the light of actually being human.

The Rebound
Obese people will invariably blame their genetics for their fatness. Just as stupid people blame nonexistent diseases like ADD for their failure to learn, fat people like to conjure up their DNA as the bogeyman that sneaks into their room at night and stuffs Mega Stuff Oreos down their throat as they sleep. Their rationale for this is often the same as the rationale behind The Biggest Loser's primary criticism- no matter how aggressive or awesome a fattie's weight loss, the weight almost invariably comes back.

Fatties would probably still eat it though.

It might not surprise you to discover that they are, like the "sufferers" of the dreaded ephemeral malady ADD, full of shit. Obesity is not hardwired into one's DNA- for one, it's not a disease, and for another, there are very few diseases that are actually heritable. Certainly, all of humanity is genetically coded to store body fat, as it's necessary to survive famines. Despite that fact, obesity is hardly a natural state. And before the fatties start in about their thyroids, shut the fuck up- according to statistics, only 4.6 percent of the U.S. population age 12 and older has hypothyroidism. On the other side of the coin, about 1 percent of the U.S. population has hyperthyroidism, and you don't see 25% as many people who bitch about their evil thyroids bitching about how their thyroids are killing their gainz. The thyroid/genetic issue, then, is a non-starter.

Probably more of a genetic than epigenetic mutation.

So why, then, are fatties gonna fat? If you're dying to blame the genetic bogeyman, you can start by blaming fatties' parents, who very well might have epigenetically caused their children to have a predisposition to obesity. It is possible to cause heritable changes that are not the result of changes in the DNA sequence. Thus, it is possible to create a predisposition to fatness, like pregnancy during famine, or perhaps even by maintaining a significant level of obesity in successive generations of the same family line [the aforementioned epigenetic suggestion] (Lukaszewski). That stated, however, predisposition does not in any way equal predestination, no matter how vehemently some land beast might argue, wattles jiggling furiously as Cheetos dusts wafts off their orange-stained, wildly gesticulating sausage-like fingers.

I would have fucked a fat Anna Nicole Smith until my cock fell off.

This brings us, then, to the crux of it- fat people claim they can't help being fat because the couple of times they try to look like a human being, their weight almost invariably rebounds. Somewhere between 66% and 80% of all land beasts re-fat themselves within two years, which is a pretty staggering success rate for people whose central preoccupation seems to be eating themselves to death (Voss). The culprit here, however, is not a "fat gene" or their thyroid- it's homeostasis. All living organisms have their internal systems regulated by homeostasis, which is essentially a complex process by which your body determines what is "normal" and strives to maintain normality. The human body, it seems, takes homestasis incredibly seriously- an individual's weight tends to be fairly stable over time under most conditions, and lean muscle mass and body fat are similarly stable. Even across the entire population of adult white males, the average weight of a sixty year old is only a few pounds heavier than a thirty year old (Stark). Homeostasis, then, is the process that drives your body fat set point.

Feel free to hate me because I'm beautiful.

For those of you who've never heard of the term, a body fat set point is really nothing more than the percentage of total body mass in fat that your body considers normal. Establishment of this fat set point happens over fairly long periods of time, is an extremely important factor in weight maintenance, and is governed by a complex mechanism science does not fully understand (Harris). As a former chubby kid, I found it pretty difficult to get and stay lean, initially. What I found, though, is that the longer I stayed at a given body fat, the more dietary lenience I could have and maintain my physique. From my perspective, bod fat set points are fucking awesome, because having maintained single digit body fat for the last 7 years means that I can eat pizza, chicken fingers, cheesecake, and Baked Ruffles all day for weeks at a time and not notice an appreciable difference in my abdominal vascularity, which is more important to me than the lives of 99% of the people currently populating the Earth. Having reduced my body fat set point to 6-8%, my body is basically little more than an anabolic dynamo devoted to converting all available calories to power my big, gorgeous brain and build more muscle.

Le groce.

The fatties, however, suffer from exactly the opposite metabolic shift- over time, their sloth, shitty eating habits, hangdog expressions, and chinlessness has caused their bodies to become little more than a KFC bowl- they're just failure piles in bowls of sadness. Unlike my set point, which is my best friend, confidant, consigliere, and all-around good guy, the set points of fatties are pretty much mustachioed cartoon bad guys in overcoats, only they're so evil they're cutting off chick's heads and face-raping their corpses and diddling small children with their victims' severed toes rather than tying broads to train tracks. According to Richard Keesey, who's pretty much devoted his life to the study of body fat set points, fat people who've been fat a while are fucked for a variety of reasons:

"The diet-induced increases in fat cell number were apparently irreversible"(Keesey). That sucks hard, because while you can shrink the fat cells, you can't get rid of them altogether without surgery. Fat cells shrink and grow due to a variety of factors, and once they hit critical mass the body creates new cells to hold more fat. Weirdly, those new fat cells are hungry, and researchers have noted it's much harder for people with more fat cells than average to lose fat and remain lean than it is for people who simply have big fat cells.
"Obese individuals... display metabolic adjustments to caloric restriction that act both to limit the loss of weight and to favor its recovery" (Keesey)- their bodies actually turn into the fat factories I jokingly described above.
Formerly fat people have to work much harder to lose fat than real human beings. Call it karma if you want (I do), but the former land beasts have drastically lower resting metabolic rates after losing weight, so they have to eat less and work out more to maintain their weight or continue weight loss (Keesey).

Sucks for them, right? It actually gets worse- by maintaining their fatness over time, fatties actually train their brains to keep them wrapped tightly in a cocoon of cellulite-

"long-term [diet induced obesity] creates a higher body weight set-point and that weight loss induced by [caloric restriction]... provokes the brain to protect the new higher set-point. This adaptation to weight loss likely contributes to rebound weight gain by increasing peripheral ghrelin concentrations and restoring the function of ghrelin-responsive neuronal populations in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus" (Briggs).

Not exactly a machine built for war, the Trabant.

So, by getting and staying fat, fat people take a body that could have been a nuclear munitions factory in the midst of all-out war and turn it into a fucking Trabant production facility. Then, they try to pilot their shitty little plastic and sawdust Soviet vehicle through a battlefield to take out packs of M-1 Abrams by shooting fucking paperclips out of their driver's side window. They sowed the seeds of their own destruction and seem to think it's the fault of black magic, bad luck, and shitty genetics.

One Contestant Goes "Too Far"

Given this information, it should come as no shock that the contestants on Biggest Loser fail to keep the weight off- their brain, their endocrine systems, homeostasis, their shitty life habits and long track records of failure at life and statistics are against them. Apparently one contestant realized this- Rachel Frederickson. Frederickson managed to lose 110 pounds on the show itself, going from 260 to 150 at a height of 5'4". In the succeeding three months, Frederickson appears to have spent a lot of time surfing pro-ana sites, because she carved off another 40 lbs and showed up at the reunion looking like a reanimated skeleton wrapped in tan cellophane. That sparked a hell of a lot of controversy in the tabloids, it seems, because it's all they seem capable of discussing when they're not carrying on about the somehow-still-relevant aforementioned family of equine hybrids Because they're dickless idiots with no conception of what these fatties are up against, people to think it's the fault of the show itself- a People survey of its vapid, housewive-filled readership revealed the four things needed to fix the show are:

Set limits on how much contestants can lose.
Slow down the weight loss.
Scale down the intensity of the workouts.
Provide long-term support to former contestants.

Obviously, if any of that shit was implemented, that show would be off the air before the first episode of the revamped BL finished. Those suggestions are obviously the produce of the minds of gibbering idiots, because that shit would make the show even more awful than it already is, and would do nothing to address the real issue- to lower quickly their body fat setpoint, land beasts have to take drastic measures. The only useful suggestion science has yet had is to pump former fatties full of fenfluramine, a much maligned and now hard-to-find amphetamine that seems to lower your set point by drastically raising seratonin levels (Hunsinger). Given that I've met more than one person who got and stayed lean by taking Ecstasy on a regular basis, seratonin management may well play a role. I'm not a doctor and don't really give a fuck about fat people anyway. What I do know, however, is that the entire concept that a Biggest Loser contestant could "go too far" is ludicrous. Even if they killed themselves, the world would still be down a fattie, so it's a net gain for the rest of us. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and from what science says, maintaining one's obesity could only be construed as a drastic time.

The Conclusion
This brings us, then, to the rub- don't be fat. It's pretty much that simple. If you are fat, stop being fat. The bad news is it's going to suck trying to regain human form, but the good news is that once you do and maintain human form for long enough, your body will reward you by helping. I know, that was a hell of a throwaway conclusion after such a ridiculously lengthy and well researched article, but I don't give two shits about fat people.

Anorexic porn is apparently a thing.

Sources:
Briggs D, Lockie SH, Wu Q, Lemus MB, Stark R, Andrews ZB. Calorie-restricted weight loss reverses high-fat diet-induced ghrelin resistance, which contributes to rebound weight gain in a ghrelin-dependent manner. Endocrinology. 2013 Feb;154(2):709-17.

Forum Post. Women’s Running Mag. Weight Watchers. 18 Nov 2011. Web. 25 Feb 2014. http://community.weightwatchers.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?threadID=1524539

Gomez, Patrick. Biggest Loser Winner Rachel Frederickson: Did She Go Too Far? People. 5 Feb 2014. Web. 26 Feb 2014. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20783820,00.html

Harris RB. Role of set-point theory in regulation of body weight. FASEB J. 1990 Dec;4(15):3310-8.

Hunsinger RN, Wilson MC. Anorectics and the set point theory for regulation of body weight. Int J Obes. 1986;10(3):205-10.

Hyperthyroidism. National Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases Information Service (NEMDIS). 26 Feb 2014. Web. 26 Feb 2014. http://www.endocrine.niddk.nih.gov/pubs/hyperthyroidism/index.aspx

Hypothyroidism. National Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases Information Service (NEMDIS). 26 Feb 2014. Web. 26 Feb 2014. http://www.endocrine.niddk.nih.gov/pubs/hypothyroidism/

Keesey RE, Hirvonen MD. Body weight set-points: determination and adjustment. J Nutr. 1997 Sep;127(9):1875S-1883S.

Lukaszewski MA, Eberlé D, Vieau D, Breton C. Nutritional manipulations in the perinatal period program adipose tissue in offspring. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Nov 15;305(10):E1195-207.

Stark, Todd. The concept of a body fat set point. Academia.edu. 1998. Web. 27 Feb 2014. https://www.academia.edu/497061/The_Concept_of_a_Body_Fat_SetPoint

Tauber, Michele. The Biggest Loser: Four Ways to Fix the Show. 10 Feb 2014. Web. 27 Feb 2014. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20785180,00.html

Voss, Gretch. When you lose weight and gain it all back. NBC News. 6 Jun 2010. Web. 27 Feb 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36716808/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/when-you-lose-weight-gain-it-all-back/#.Uw-UuvRDuSo

This week I was asked more stupid fucking questions than ever in my life, and so many in one day I actually had an eye twitch by the end of it. If you can easily google something, WHY WASTE MY TIME ASKING FOR THE ANSWER? If you suck at googling, kill yourself. Moreover, if you ask my opinion on something, don't argue my fucking answer. Don't claim you're a special snowflake, assert your unique situation, or deny the fact that you have no interest in actually being a useful human being. That's not to say I won't field stupid questions. I will. I'll just beat you half to death with the answer. To wit, here was the most annoying question I received, in summary form from the hour of my time this asshole wasted on a day so annoying my eye was actually twitching by the end:

Not the asshole time waster, but similarly fat.

"Yesterday morning 101.3kg [222.86 lbs] at 190cm [6'2"] tall. Its around 99-101kg [~220lbs] usually and the scale weight says 23% fat but I don't trust it cos it once said 19.5%, then I lost 10kg and it said 19%." Yadda yadda yadda I don't actually want to cut and would love to waste an hour of your time but blah blah want 15% bodyfat for my set point and OH YEAH DID I MENTION I AM TERRIFIED OF LOSING ALL OF MY "STRENGTH" BUT HAVE A 400kg [880 lbs] TOTAL AND WILL FIGHT YOU AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY IF YOU SUGGEST THAT I AM A SAD SACK OF FAT SHIT WHO SHOULD CUT WEIGHT AND HAVE NO STRENGTH TO LOSE?

Before I realize what a shitbird, timewasting, dickless, worthless, cocksucking asshole this kid was, I was actually pretty nice to him. I caluclated his lean body mass, which at 23% bodyfat (which is horrifyingly, inexcusably high for a male) was 171 lbs. I then multiplied that by 1.1 to figure out what he'd be with the same amount of lean mass and 10% bodyfat, and suggested that he cut to 198 lbs/90 kg, stay at that weight for six months, and then start lean bulking. The purpose of this exercise would be to overshoot his goal bodyfat set point to lower it further than need be and give him some metabolic wiggle room while he bulked.

He, however, insisted he could not cut that much weight because his "gains" would "stall". If you're an adult male totaling under 1000, you have no gains to stall or lose. Though I tried to impress this upon him, he fought me tooth and nail, insisting that his lack of gains was more special to him than other peoples'. He then told me that he had insufficient funds to actually diet, and continued to assert that he should not have to drop weight in an effort to change his body fat set point.

Google "danish men" and all of the pictures basically look like this. I could conquer that country single-handedly, hungover on a Sunday afternoon, armed with nothing but two drink coasters and a ham sandwich.

I cannot assert enough how stupid this line of thinking is. In fact, my sense of humor fails me when thinking about it to the point that I briefly considered buying a plane ticket to Denmark to beat this asshole into a coma for wasting multiple hours of my time (this was not the first time he did this, and even once had the audacity to literally demand that I respond to his bizarre request to Skype with me). Were I to do so, I might become the only person in history to commit mass murder using a corpse as a weapon, because I would quite like to beat the entire population of that apparently useless country to death with this kids corpse, so greatly has he annoyed me. Just grab him by the ankles and smash other people to a pulp with his bloody, lifeless body. It'd certainly be GPP, at the very least.

Back to the point, however- there is absolutely no reason why an adult male should be over 15% body fat. If your body fat is over 15%, it's because you want to be. There's no utility for the excess weight, no excuse for its existence, and whatever arguments you might proffer to the contrary are as feeble and twisted as an old woman. This genius told me that he had wide hips, so low levels of bodyfat would make him look weird. Uh huh. He also failed to kill himself when I informed him that there were multiple American women under 130 lbs who could out total him, and that he would not even be competitive against women unless he cut to the 165 lb class, so neither pride nor common sense seemed to hold much value to him.

Duckface, fauxhawk, AND nipple piercings. I pulled a hat trick of douchbaggery in a single pic... but was front squatting 200kg while weighing 77 kg or so, without even the benefit of ephedrine.

In summary, weakness may be a crime, but so is fatness. Being both should be a capital fucking crime. In my opinion, getting lean first makes the most sense, because strength gains will not come quickly enough to overshadow the fact that a person is fat. Moreoever, it is possible to gain muscle and strength while losing fat. I've done it. And before the puppet show in the comment chimes in with allegations of steroid use, the first time I ever got significantly stronger while cutting was in Europe, and I didn't have access to any of the supplements, legal or otherwise, one might suggest are the only way to make that happen. I just ate a ton of chicken breast and lifted like a fucking lunatic twice a day, six days a week. Therefore, he could attain human form AND get stronger simultaneously by eating correctly (which I swear I have written about extensively) and lifting his fucking ass off. It's not as though he could get any weaker, so there's no reason not to cut. Given that cutting weight is apparently out of the question, he should probably head over to my newest guilty masturbation reddit for some tips on how to cut effectively, because bleeding to death is pretty much the only way this kid could drain enough shame from his body to avoid creating some sort of singularity of suck in the grand old Kingdom of Denmark... hilariously, the former land of the Vikings and now simply home to Cheetos-eating saddies.

Booty cleanse.

Though one day last week was so filled with insipid, lazy questions, not all of the questions I get asked give e the beginnings of a cluster headache and force me to bed at 5 PM so I can train early and then drink myself into sweet oblivion. Instead, most of them are generally interesting, and might benefit people who have the number of chromosomes a healthy individual should. Here are a couple of those.

How would you best structure workouts to progess in the pullup? I fucking suck at them.

Pullups and dips have been a bit of an obsession of mine since high school. One of the school records was in "The Circuit" which was dips, pullups, and pushups done in rounds. As soon as a round could not be completed, you were credited with the last completed round. In each round, you would do reps for that round number in each exercise with no more than 30 seconds between each exercise. Thus, round 1 was 1 rep of each, round 2 was 2 reps of each, and so on. Before I became obsessed with it, the record was 15 or 16. At graduation, I had it up to 21, and a couple of years later I pulled off an ugly and exhausting 27. I've not really bothered with it since, but I've gotten so good at pullups that even after bicep surgery and abject terror of retearing my bicep kept me from doing pullups for 10 weeks, I was still able to do multiple sets of 15 with no problem.

Rather than being some sort of Spider-Man, I developed a lot of different ways to get good at pullups, and they all seem to work universally. Pullups are, as it happens, one of those things you can't not be good at if you do them enough. As such, if you want to be good at them, doing some daily is not a terrible idea- pullups actually make for a pretty awesome upper body warmup, so doing them at the beginning of every workout can benefit you greatly.

The method I have found for getting good at pullups quickly is to set a goal total for reps and then hitting that goal any way you can. For a number of years my rep goal for pullups and dips was 100 and 300, respectively, but that got very easy, very quickly, so I bumped it to 200 and 600 and then basically quit doing them regularly because it was too time intensive and generally boring. Doing dips and pullups together lets you actively rest in between sets of each, though I'd really on rest long enough to get a drink of water every fourth or fifth set. Thus, you can condense a lot of work into a short period of time.

Structuring your rep scheme seems tricky for some people. My buddy, the guy who asked the question, can hit maybe ten on a single set of pullups but is then basically trashed, and but can do sets of 5 with no problem. That made it easy for me- I always stop about 2 or 3 reps before real fatigue starts setting in for multiple sets. I don't have a ton of repetition strength, so I can do maybe 3 sets of 20 before my reps are reduced to 8, and then 6. Sets of 15 I can do for a bit longer, so I generally do sets of 12, which I can do endlessly. For my buddy, I recommended he set a rep goal of 50 and do as many sets of 5 as he could, but keep going until he hit his goal. Once he was able to get all of his reps in sets of 5, he could do a workout with no goal reps, but just do sets of 5 until he couldn't, and that would be his new goal. Then, he could do sets of 7. That method's worked great for me over the years, and has worked for all of my training consultation clients as well.

If that strikes you as too mathematical, there's a simpler way- get a doorframe pullup bar and put it into a room into which you go regularly. Then, every time you enter or exit that room, do some pullups. If you can't do a single pullup, jump to the top and lower yourself slowly for five negatives. The negatives trick is one I picked up from an NFL trainer, and it's how they get 300 lb linemen who've never done a pullup to be able to do multiples in a couple of weeks. Every girlfriend I've ever had who sucked at pullups used it to get good at pullups, as well. Pullups, as it happens, are easier for most people to get good at than they would apparently think.

What is your grocery bill like per week/month/however you shop? The reason I ask is two fold. 1) we're both the same height, 2) how much food does it take to sustain a 200+ lb, 5.5 foot guy? I'm 150lb's and feel like I couldn't down the calories it would take to get close to the 175lb range much less into the 200lb range.

I generally shop daily, because I kind of enjoy grocery shopping and it's become an unbreakable habit. I'm assuming that this question is regarding my eating habits on the Apex Predator Diet, which everyone seems to think is a recipe for financial ruin. In spite of my degrees, I've never had a particularly well-paying job (at least insofar as what I was taught to expect after obtaining an MBA), and I've still managed to use this diet since around 2007.

My diet on the APD varies a bit, so I will use a variety of foods to give you a weekly bill.
9 lbs pork ribs: $36
9 lbs beef ribs: $22.5
1.5 lbs Bone in Ribeye: $10
5 lbs Vitamin Shoppe Whey: $50
Large Pizza: $12
Lunch at Chipotle: $10
Bag of Baked Lays: $3
20 piece McNuggets: $5
Movie popcorn: $6
Total: $154.5/week, so $618 a month, including my "entertainment" meal.

That's a rough estimate because I rotate my foods somewhat, but I would say that it is between $15 and $30 a day. As for you bodyweight and caloric needs, it really doesn't take that much in the way of calories to get to 175. I went from 150 to 175 in a few years eating chicken, rice, and broccoli three times a day, or Chipotle bowls of double chicken and rice, plus a couple of protein shakes. That probably wasn't too much over 2000 calories a day, and I steadily gained weight from 135 to 175 over the course of a few years. Then I played with macros until I leaned out and got bigger at the same weight, then kept leaning out and getting bigger.

Oh Chipotle, how I love thee.

Though it doesn't really pertain to the question above, which was apparently just an effort to get an idea of what he needed to budget for food, I continue to find it fascinating the degree to which the new breed of lifter endlessly compares themselves to their peers. We're talking everything from height to arm length to weight to the amount of sleep they get, all with the dubious goal of excusing poor performance. I'm not going to trot out the old adage about excuses- instead, I will say without equivocation that if you're doing this you are definitely an asshole, and not of the awesome Jamie Lewis variety, and that if you're that preoccupied with proffering to nameless strangers on the internets a list of reasons why you suck compared to your peers, just fucking kill yourself. You're not shit, never going to amount to shit, and you'd definitely be better off underneath the ground than above it.

Want to know how much muscular weight you can reasonably expect to gain in a week? HOW ABOUT YOU EAT A SHITLOAD OF FOOD AND TRAIN YOUR FUCKING ASS OFF IN AN EFFORT TO DISCOVER THE ANSWER FOR YOURSELF? Jesus tittyfucking christ I hate people. Motherfuckers are so busy putting arbitrary limits on themselves they never actually test their limits, then use their lack of progress stemming from a lack of effort to justify their pathetic mindset and spread it to everyone else. Fuck that shit. Push it to the fucking limit and then brag about your baddassery, not the other way around.

What are your five all time favorite Hardcore/Metalcore albums, and what bands/songs do you generally have in your lifting playlist?

Five All Time Favorite Hardcore/Metalcore Albums
Killwhitneydead- Inhaling the Breath of a Bullet
Hatebreed- Satisfaction is the Death of Desire
Hoods- Pray for Death
Throwdown- Haymaker
Candiria- Beyond Reasonable Doubt

I'd say those are unquestionably the albums to which I've listened the most over the years. Early on, it was pretty much just Earth Crisis, Snapcase, Strife, Converge, and Hatebreed, but I dropped most of those bands over the years and moved onto other shit. I love the fuck out of a lot of the newer bands, but it's hard to say if they'll remain in rotation once the shiny wears off. I'd imagine Infant Annihilator will make it into a top ten at some point, but most of that is filled out by KWD's second and third album- I don't think I've listened to a single band more than KWD, frankly, and continue to do so in spite of the Homerian tragedy unfolding with their power metal shitshow of a new album. For those of you who like power metal: Fuck you and your crew.

Ten Most Commonly Found Bands on My Lifting Playlist

25 ta Life: Entire Friendship, Loyalty Commitment Ep and most of Strength Through Unity
Hatebreed: all of Satisfaction, Doomsayer, A Call For Blood, Under the Knife
Hoods: most of Pray for Death, most of King is Dead, Ghettoblaster, Pit Beast
World of Pain: entire s/t
Throwdown: most of Haymaker, Vendetta, This is Where it Ends, most of Beyond Repair
Annotations of an Autopsy: Stagebreaker, Buried in a Bad Rap, Bone Crown, Born Dead, In Snakes I Bathe
Jerome: entire Ep
Nasty: Generation Fuck, Look at Me and Fuck You, My Brain Went Terribly Wrong, Slaves To The Rich
Shattered Realm: All Will Suffer, Showdown, This World is Mine, Kings Cannot Fall
Built Upon Frustration: Immaculate Rejection, Rest of the World, Personal Game for Personal Gain, Nothing, Resurrecting, Turn My Back

Honorable Mention: Sworn Vengeance, Sworn Enemy, Full Blown Chaos, TRC, Recognize, and How It Ends are all bands I've had on my mp3 since mp3 players became a thing, and all of whom have been making it onto my lifting mix cds since the late 90s.

This was, frankly, harder to compile than I expected it to be, mostly because I've got a couple of random songs, like "Posi Holocaust" by No Zodiac that never come off my mp3 player, yet most of the rest of their stuff sucks. Another couple of songs that never get removed are "Where Will You Go?" by unknown, yet awesome Tucson band Gatrot, "Battle Lines" by E-Town Concrete, "Suckerpunch" by Get The Ammo, "Boom Snap Clap" by Irish Front, "Dreaming in Dog Years" by the Red Chord (whose singer has curiously become a cop), and "Not Dead Yet" by Hed PE. The only reason I mention those is that I'm constantly asked to suggest obscure shit, and to most of you I think it'd be considered, while hardcore kids from my generation are probably going "fuck yes" and smirking to themselves with that list.

As you might notice, all of my carefully laid plans on ordering the release of blogs fell apart once more, because my writing is driven entirely by my interest in a given subject. Thus, the exercise fads series is being delayed because the research that goes into it is frankly exhausting, I'm continuing my procrastination on my Raw Unity writeup prep/injury rehab writeup because that topic bores me beyond belief, and the Hormone and paleotard blogs were just plain forgotten about. All of those are in various stages of completion, and will come out whenever they interest me again. What does interest me is training for the apocalypse, since sports-specific training questions annoy me and it's a kind of ridiculous premise that will shed some light on how to train specifically for a given sport without making me want to suicide, so that will be the next blog, out later this week. The apocalypses I plan to cover are robopacalypse, slow apocalypse, nuclear apocalypse, and of course, zombie apocalypse, and I assure you it will be fucking epic. Until then, tits.

One question often asked of strength coaches, and answered in some of the most bizarre ways, is that in which one seeks to know how best to train for a given sport. My answer is invariably that I have never done so, and barely even bother to train with much specificity for powerlifting. Instead, I train my body to ensure that I am essentially encased in the most brutally strong suit of muscular armor I can produce, leaving few to no weak points. This has always worked well for me, but for some reason people are hell bent on training specifically for sports.

I've never been, and never will be, in the business of hand feeding the Chaos and Pain community, and I would assume sport specific conversation is boring an easy enough for anyone with more intellect than your average Bachelor contestant to figure out, so I'm definitely never going to write about it- I have far better ways to waste my time. Instead, I am going to drag you proverbial horses to the water, force your fucking heads into the river, and make you chug a bellyful of delicious, watery knowledge before you can come up for air. Put another way, I'll bury my cock of wisdom down your throats and make you choke on it until I fire a couple of loads of genius directly into your stomach brain. However it helps you to understand what's about to happen, I don't care- just pick your poison.

When determining if and how your training is going to change for a given activity, be it participating in a 300 person gangbang, playing Australian Rules Football, or switching from powerlifting to strongman, it helps to make two lists- one for the the skills you will need in that activity, and another for your personal strength and fitness oriented weaknesses. For the latter, we're looking at movements, planes of movement, strength endurance requirements, and cardio requirements that you can add into a program built around brutal strength. That's right- brutal, single effort, catastrophic, soul-wrenching, face-smashing strength will always be the crux of a strength program, because it's a fucking strength program. Anyone who tells you they don't need to be brutally strong for the sport is 1) not an athlete, 2) certainly never going to be strong, and 3) a fucking retard.

Slow Apocalypse
This may not be considered one of the most exciting apocalyptic scenarios, but it's certainly the most likely. Also described as post-peak oil, this sort of an apocalypse generally involves the destruction of the world's remaining oil supply, the gradual decline of the West's standard of living and concomitant fall of the federal government, and the struggles of the survivors to pick up the pieces. In this scenario, travel is extremely limited, electrical power is often unreliable and difficult to come by, and edible resources are either difficult to reach or in short supply. For more on this, see: Ready Player One, The Postmortal, Mad Max, Patriots, Slow Apocalypse, The Wind Up Girl.

Clearly, the variety of scenarios here can make training for the coming apocalypse a bit daunting- this apocalypse could come in any number of varieties, from battling punk-rock biker gangs clad head to toe in body armor constructed from car tires and athletic equipment to holing up in a farmhouse and battling the UN when they try to conscript you into some sort of global army for the purpose of putting the entire world under a single "benevolent" socialist regime. No matter how it happens, however, you're going to need the following:

A reasonable degree of cardiovascular capacity. You'll likely not need to run long distances, but you'll definitely need to be able to hike long distances.
Crushing grip strength and endless grip endurance. In a slow apocalypse, there will be little to no electricity, which means you will be carrying and hauling things by hand. You'll also engage in your fair share of hand to hand combat, in which grip strength is always a boon.
Incredible back strength and endurance. Again, you'll be hauling and carrying a lot of shit. Back strength will be more necessary in the apocalypse than a handful of condoms in a Ugandan whorehouse.
Above average hand to hand combat skills. Between the roving gangs, starving thieves coming to loot your headquarters, UN storm troopers trying to manhandle you, and those pesky cannibals who always have a tendency to get a bit rapey, being able to defend yourself will be key.
Combined arm and shoulder strength and endurance. All of your daily activities will rely heavily on the strength and endurance of your arms and shoulders- you'll be erecting fences, digging ditches, mending all sorts of broken shit, and battling ne'er-do-wells constantly.Weak arms will mean that you'll likely end up in a gimp suit with a constant flow of semen leaking from your ass.

You don't have to be jacked to thrive in the apocalypse, apparently.

Using myself as the trainee, I know my weaknesses associated with the foregoing are:

Cardio. I have the cardiovascular capacity, at the moment, of an emphysematic who barely survived a mustard gassing 50 years ago and only has one lung. I literally have gotten tunnel vision while masturbating in the last week. It's possible someone on an iron lung could outpace me in a three mile race. As such, I will need to up my game.
Flexibility. Though I didn't mention it above, I am so inflexible I have trouble putting on shoes and socks, and my lat cramps horribly when I wipe my ass. That might prove to be a problem if I have to actually use my massive strength for a real world purpose.
Grip Strength. My grip strength is more than adequate, but having worked white collar jobs my entire life, it's hardly what it would need to be to support constant manual labor.

I would prefer to do partner assisted cardio with this broad.

The Mad Max Says Fuck Yo' Couch Program

Because I always train 6 days a week, we will stick with that. I'll assume that the coming collapse is imminent and that I have a rough idea of when the bottom will drop out. Thus, for the next 16 weeks I will do the following:

Day 1

15 Minutes sledgehammer slams on tire (for cardio and grip)

300 pullups, 600 dips

High Pulls- 6x3

Snatch Grip Behind the Neck Strict Press- 10x10

Various arm work

Day 2

Krav Maga or MMA

Front Squat- 6x3

Stone Loading

Calves and Abs

Day 3

Same as Day 1

Bench Press- 6x3, 5x1, 2 death sets with 60% 1RM

Push Press- 4x3, 4x1

Various arm work

Day 4

Same as Day 2

Shrugs- 8x8

Pendlay Rows- 6x3

Hamstrings- high rep

Calves- high rep

Forearms- high rep

Day 5

Steady state cardio- weighted vest walking or something similar

Speed Squats or Jump Squats- 6x3 (for explosive strength)

Close grip Bench Press- 5x3

Pull-Throughs- 6x3

Weighted Pullups- 5x5

Day 6

Strongman Implements- Mix and Match (to build raw, real-world strength handling ungainly objects)

The program above would be easily modifiable, would meet all of the goals set forth, and would build a serious foundation of strength on which you could call in any situation. The interesting thing, here, is that this program doesn't really differ appreciably from what I already do, save for the cardio, mma, and strongman. As I stated at the outset, just about any non-retarded strength program should give you a great base of strength from which you could survive an apocalypse. the problem with the programs most people pick, however, is that they're so light on accessory training for fear of "overtraining" that they build into your body gaping holes in smaller muscle groups that play supporting roles. For real world applications, it's these muscles that actually need the most attention and conditioning. Despite what the internet gurus might tell you, neglecting your accessory work is retarded, and if you find yourself puking blood or turning into a bright green fairy or whatever the fuck is supposed to happen when the overtraining boogeyman visits your butthole in the middle of the night, you probably have AIDS and should head to the hospital. It's not possible for a healthy person to be that weak.

Zombie Apocalypse
Ah, the zombie apocalypse. Who among us hasn't thought long and hard about the zombie apocalypse, and what our course of action might be during one? Well, I have news for you- although you might think you have the perfect plan for the zombie apocalypse, mine beats the dogshit out of yours for a variety of reasons: 1) you've not taken into account the fact that proper attire in a zombie apocalypse is critical, and 2) your method of combat for such an event pales in comparison to my own.

Looking stupid is far less a concern to me than surviving, obviously.

We will start at the beginning- news reports around the country start popping up with accounts of vicious bouts of cannibalism. States of emergency are declared. What's my first step? I head to my local mall for a couple of sets of motorcycle racing leathers, steel toed boots, motorcycle helmet, and a couple of sets of goggles. Then I hit up my local army navy surplus for a combat tomahawk, a Camelbak, and a couple of combat knives after filling my car with all of the non-perishable food (mostly chili, for the protein) and water I can fit in there. My logic- no human bite could make it through motorcycle leathers, and the extra padding in the racing leathers will give me extra protection. Motorcycle racing gloves are basically armor plated, so I won't be that asshole in every zombie film that dies after getting nipped on the hand doing something stupid. I can always add 4 sets of soccer shin guards- one pair to act as greaves, one pair to shield my forearms, and the extra pairs can be cut up with tin snips and sewn into the leathers as extra protection from bites. In that full regalia, I would be all but impervious to short-lived attacks by up to five or six zombies.

I don't know if she looks trustworthy, but I would claim she was even as she was stealing my kidneys on the off chance I could lick that retarded panda tattoo.

After weathering the initial culling, people are going to start venturing out looking for other survivors. Once I've got a crew of about ten or so trustworthy people, we make quick forays into places where we knew the police tried to "hold the line". Those places ought to be littered with discarded riot shields, which we will collect and store. Having done so, we will find a solid brick building with few windows (or barred windows) and a very good line of sight in all directions, obtain heavy chain link fencing, and set up a perimeter with that chain link. Having done so, we will then send out teams to obtain brick and mortar for the purposes of building a ten foot wall inside the initial perimeter with firing ports set into the brick at regular intervals at varying heights.

Once the wall is erected, we begin training with the riot shields and homemade spears in group combat tactics using a phalanx. That's right- we would use the ancient phalanx against zombies, which would work perfectly and should result in zero cases of infection when used in concert with my motorcycle leather-based armor, and would draw no attention from other humans or distant zombies because this style of combat would be relatively quiet. As we picked up more survivors, we could incorporate skirmishers to draw in zombies for slaughter and to attack zombie hordes from the rear, and employ small groups with firearms to deal with brigands and raiders.

Lest you worry that I'm simply buying in to the myths of the ancient Greeks and Spartans, consider this- even in a situation wherein you're facing both 28 Days Later style sprinter zombies and the slower, less active Romero-esque shambler zombies, a phalanx would work well. A ten man team could form two lines of five in picked ground to fight in choke points into which zombies could be forces, as the Spartans did at Thermopylae, and larger groups of twenty could easily hold their ground in open ground with the first line going for head shots and the second line backing them up with more spears and the use of their "pig-sticker" butt spikes to ensure the job is finished as the line surged forward. These Phalanxes would have no need of the insanely long Macedonian spear, which would make close quarters combat impractical, but would rather use seven foot double-tipped spears and cudgels. Just as the Greeks gave rise to Western civilization in the past, their military tactics would again allow Western civilization to rise from the ashes of a zombie apocalypse, all because I'm a fucking genius. For more information on zombie apocalypses, I recommend: The Rising, Doghouse, The Horde, The Stink of Flesh.

Strengths This Would Require:

Incredibly strong shoulders with preternatural strength endurance. Fending off the zombie hordes with one arm will be brutal, but continually thrusting your spear overhand will be even moreso. Lacking shoulder strength or endurance here means you not only turn yourself into a zombie char siu bao, but you turn your whole crew into a veritable George Romero-approved pu pu platter.
Legendary arm strength and endurance. Same deal- unless you feel like getting nibbled on, time to do some curls for the girls.
Static pec strength more long lasting than Nick Manning in a porn shoot filled with ugly broads and a cock shot full of Novocaine. What do you think all of that forward push strength is going to flow through in a phalanx? How about your left pec. Bench bros of the world, unite!
Tree trunk legs that are unstoppable over a short range of motion. No need to squat ATG here, USAPL apologists- you've just got to be able to flex and extend, with a hell of a lot of force and support strength, over a few inches of ROM. Phalanxes might surge, but you're still not taking huge steps or leaping out of a third world squat- the key here is to be able to hold your position against a great weight.
Grip strength that would put Diesel Crew to shame. Just holding a fucking spear, nevermind stabbing rotting corpses in the face with it, for long periods of time would require massive grip strength and endurance.

Using myself as the trainee, I know my weaknesses associated with the foregoing are:

Grip Strength. As I stated above, my grip strength is more than adequate, but having worked white collar jobs my entire life, it's hardly what it would need to be to support constant manual labor or battling zombie with a spear. Since I don't think strapping up on the spear is feasible, I might want to work that grip.

Since cardio isn't an overriding factor in this situation, I would happily use this broad to help me repopulate the world, provided one of our work-camp slaves would raise the kids and I never had to see them.

The Fearless Zombie Slaughtering Phalanx Program

Day 1

Sled push for a half hour (this would work on cardio a bit and prepare me for second-line pushing in a phalanx)

300 pullups, 600 dips (dat arm endurance, bro)

Squat lockouts- 10x2
Snatch Grip Behind the Neck Strict Press- 5x10

High Pulls- 6x3 (because your traps can never be too big or too strong)
Various arm work

Day 2

15 Minutes sledgehammer slams on tire (for cardio and grip)

Bench Press Lockouts (1/4 reps off pins with a ten second hold)- 10x2
Bench Press- 4x6
Grip, Calves, Abs

Day 3

Light stone load for time- 165 lb stone onto platform as may times as possible in 30 mins (back conditioning and cardio)

Shrugs- 8x8

Pendlay Rows- 6x3

Hamstrings- high rep

Calves- high rep

Forearms- high rep

Day 4

Same as Day 1

Squat Lockouts (top half, ten second holds)- 6x3
Push Press- 6x3
Weighted Pullups-5x5
Weighted Dips- 5x5

Day 5

Thirty minute festival of nonstop light, high rep bicep and tricep work

Close grip Bench Press- 5x3

Reverse Grip Barbell Curls- 10x10
Pull-Throughs- 6x3

Calves, Abs, Forearms

Day 6

Strongman Implements- Mix and Match (to build raw, real-world strength handling ungainly objects- focus heavily on yoke and farmer's carry)

It might prep you for skating away from rapists in prison...

As you can see- the two don't differ wildly, and there is no need for wobble boards, slide boards, agility ladders, or any of the other "sport specific" bullshit you see brazenly spewing from the mouths of strength coaches who are neither strong nor formerly successful athletes. Instead, you take a proven method and alter it slightly to match whatever specific needs you might find in a sport or apocalypse and sally the fuck forth.

Our Facebook page is this awesome.

Those of you who follow the Chaos and Pain Facebook page, which you should probably go ahead and like to get in on the fun, know I held a contest to see who had the best answer to the question of how to train for a zombie apocalypse. The winner of the competition (who's getting a month's supply of free CNP supplements) had a wildly different take than my own, mostly because he's not obsessed with the idea of using phalanx warfare against the zombie hordes. I'm assuming he's current of former military, as his answer was very heavy on rucking and hiking, and his name is John Scanaliato. While I may have taken an entirely different tack on how to train for the same apocalypse, our reasoning for training the way we are is what's important- he sees an entirely different skill set as necessary for this apocalyptic scenario. In any event, here's his take:

So we’ve got shamblers and sprinters. I’m starting with a few assumptions. First, no matter where I try to hide they will find me. I’m also going to assume that my selection of weaponry is going to be limited and my best friend for the immediate future will be a reasonable heavy blunt object. I’m also going to assume that we’re talking about physical and mental training. Survival training is a whole ‘nother can of worms and, frankly, out of the scope of C&P. Let’s focus on sport specific training.

I think that survival is going to come down to three main factors.

Are you mentally strong enough to push through pain and possible injury to continue fighting and surviving?
Do you have the legs and lungs required to move over and up long distances and unpredictable terrain?
Are you strong enough to kill efficiently and effectively?

Out of these three factors I think number one is not only the most important, but also the hardest to train. Brute strength won’t mean jack shit when your ex-neighbors are chowing down on your carotid artery and turning your skin into a cloak. You need to be willing to fight and move when you’ve lost everything. We’ll touch more on training number one shortly.

I think that legs and lungs are going to be more important than brute strength. Anyone, trained or untrained, can swing an aluminum pipe or bat laterally into someone’s knee hard enough to cause irrecoverable damage. That needs to be the goal here – reduce sprinters to shamblers and keep moving.

I’m assuming that we’ll be carrying supplies in backpack. I think that the bread and butter of my training would be weighted step-ups and hiking. I’m talking about putting 40# - 60# in a pack and hiking or climbing until I’m absolutely smoked. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Look at the issues that US troops first had upon engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan- we were plenty strong enough in the gym, but they were better adapted to fighting in mountainous environments. You’re going to be moving up and down stairs and up and down hills, as the high ground is the strong ground. I’d also be sure to include sprint, sled and hill sprint training, preferably with a pack or body armor (to add weight). You will need to be conditioned to moving for long periods and at high speed carrying weight. I also think that all long distance training should be done carrying a 10# iron pole. You need to be comfortable carrying your weapon. It’s foolish to think that you’re going to be able to find a samurai sword or a reliable machete. Pipes and bats however, will be plentiful.

Strength training will need to be focused on legs, static and dynamic core strength, and shoulders. You’re not going to punch these zombies to death and, if you try, you’re not going to live long enough to realize your mistake. Once again, all of my training would be done with either a weight vest or body armor on- you NEED to train with that extra weight above your center of gravity. Lifts I would focus on would be squat variations (high bar, pause, jump), deadlift variations (deficit, rack pulls, standard), core work (planks, rotational work, sledge swings, bat swings), explosive shoulder work (push presses, BTN push presses, jerks) and pullups/dips (you need to be able to move your body weight). Outside of the gym I’d start bouldering 2 – 3 times per week and maybe pick up weakass yoga once a week to teach me relaxation techniques. You’re going to need to be able to calm yourself down.

Ranger Up literally has zombie apocalypse gear, in case you're in the market.

In terms of a training program we’re looking at something like this

Mon
AM
Weighted hike/stepups. Start and work your way up to 2-3 hours.

PM
Pick a squat variation, a deadlift variation, a press variation and put together a pullup/dip/core circuit. Limit the rest periods and do everything with body armour/weight vest. Aim for 5x5 and add weight weekly

Tues
AM
Rest

PM
Bouldering and sprint training (sprints are done with a vest), “fight” training i.e. swings, heavy bag

Weds
AM
Long slow distance run – work up to 1 hour at least, preferably 1.5 hours

PM
Same as Monday, take 75% of the weight and do a 3x3, also do your core/pullups/dips

Thurs
AM
Rest

PM
Bouldering/hill sprints/sled drags (sprints and sled are done with weight vest/armour) and “fight” training

Fri
AM
Yoga [Editor's note: My dick goes to yoga / yo' dick... fruit roll up]

PM
Same as Monday, except work up to some heavy doubles.

Sat
AM
Weighted hike/stepups. Go long, ideally being able to hike for 3 hours with a pretty heft weighted pack

PM
Rest

Sun
AM
Long slow recovery run. 30 – 45 minutes., easy fight training afterwards, focus on swinging a variety of objects and weapons.

PM
Rest

I think that doing everything with a weight vest or armor will slowly but surely help to build the psychological resilience that is going to be needed in order to survive. I think that a plan similar to this one will build legs, lungs and the fighting core that will allow you to move, fight and then keep moving. You wont be over-encumbered by carrying weight in a backpack and you’ll have the strength and skills necessary to climb, run, sprint, pull yourself up, and move efficiently and effectively.

Not pictured- magic.

Since I am enjoying this and doubtless about to field 43,000 thousand questions from rugby athletes, all of whom seem to think that I am some sort of weightlifting wizard with a magical potion I can infuse into their systems via repeated and deep colonics that will magically make them into Jonah Lomu, I will continue this in a second installment covering programming for a robopocalypse and a nuclear holocaust. maybe, just maybe, some of you will catch on. All except the rugby players, of course. Please stand by in the comments for barely comprehensible defensive statements by rugby players.

Craig Fraser, a lunatic Odinist from the British Isles who's fond of running out into the English countryside shirtless but rocking camo pants and a baklava, whacked out of his head on psychadelic mushrooms, and performing random feats of strength with rocks and trees, hit me with a pretty interesting set of interview questions a while back. As he's finally gotten around to posting the interview, check it out while I finish up the new Fads article on the Olympic lifts: http://sigurd-strong.com/men/chaosandpain.

Having covered most of the older training methods and implements, it's time to head into the "modern" era. In terms of weight training, I would classify the modern era of weight training as the era in which the plate loaded barbell and dumbbell came into wide use, which means that the modern era would begin in the late 1880s. Though many of the exercises currently in use were invented prior this period, it wasn't until the modern era that training implements came to really resemble those in use today, and was when the exercises currently in use came to be standardized. While the standardization of the performance of weight training exercises was useful in determining the winner of strength competitions and made naming conventions easier, this was perhaps the most annoying contribution of the modern period. If you're confused as to why it's annoying, it's because the "standardization" of non-competition exercises leads to a lot of idiotic discussion and quibbling between people too weak to be doing anything other than lifting and eating.

No one is clear on why Triat dressed like a cavalier to teach proto-Bodypump.

Let's move past my hatred of mouthy neophyte lifters, however, and get to the topic at hand- the modern era of lifting. Though dumbbells, as I've covered in previous installments, had been in use in varying forms since the ancient Greeks, the barbell did not come into wide use until the middle of the 19th Century. Though he is not necessarily credited with their invention, the man with whom the wide popularity of the barbell is associated is Parisian gym owner and proto-bodybuilder Hippolyte Triat. In 1849, Triat opened a massive, 9500 square foot gym in downtown Paris with two rows of balconies for spectators, and illustrations of his gym depict the walls filled with racks of fixed-weight barbells. In his advertising brochures, Triat boasted of having dumbbells weighing over 200 pounds in his gym, though no one is certain whether he was referring to single hand or double handed dumbbells, as the term "barbell" wasn't yet in use (Todd).

Bizarrely unchanged, except that the classes are now taught by prostitutes.

Prior to Triat, the closest thing to the modern fixed weight dumbbell was the "iron wand" which was very similar to the goofy weighted rubber coated bars you see in group fitness classes- they usually weighed two to six kilos and were used, like the modern version, for group fitness. Triat seems to have drawn upon that idea and created heavier iron wands affixed with weighted globes on either end for increased weight. This shape then influenced the wands that had been Triat's inspiration, and from then on iron and wooden wands shared the same shape- a fixed bar with globes at either end. This was from then on referred to as the "French dumbbell" on the continent, though the term "bar-bell" came into use in England in 1870 (Todd).

Though one might have thought that the barbell would have caught on like wildfire after its invention, no one thought to use on in a strength exposition until Austrian strongman Karl Rappo worked onto into his routine late 1870s. According to a number of his contemporaries, heavy barbells had been in use in the mid-19th Century in Germany, though there's no solid evidence of this- just hearsay. According to the Germans, they had used solid iron globe barbells until the 1870s, then switched to solid iron bars and hollow bells filled with sand or lead to make their weight adjustable. Then, in what is perhaps the greatest example of Germanic superiority one might proffer, a German corporation called Heyden began manufacturing plate-loaded barbells in the 1880s. Well, at least until you consider the fact that George Barker Winship, who I mentioned in a previous entry, patented the plate-loaded dumbbell in 1865.

This thing would have been a bit of a pain in the ass to move.

What we have then, is a mess. No one is quite sure when and where the plate loaded barbell arose, or exactly when. What we can be sure of, however, is that modern weight training could not exist without the plate loaded barbell- globe barbells take up far too much room, and they don't afford trainees the ability to easily progress from one weight to the next. Furthermore, they would have made strength competitions immensely costly and difficult to hold, simply because of the man-hours and work involved in moving massive numbers of heavy barbells. Finally, without the invention of the modern free-rotating, plate loaded barbell, continued progress in training weights would be severely hamstrung by the stress on and strength requirements of the forearms and hands.

He might have been a fat fucker, but he saved the day on barbells. Fat people, then, can occasionally be useful to society.

Though heavy lifting in the US all but died out with the death of Winship, it was resurrected in 1902 by Alan Calvert and Calvert's equipment company, Milo, and by Thomas Inch, Calvert's rival and vocal proponent of plate-loaded barbells. Like the rivalry between Hoffman and Weider that would follow in 40 years, Calvert and Inch argued vociferously in the press about whose products were the better of the two. Both men offered a plate loaded option, but Calvert offered adjustable-weight globe bells as well, affording trainees to increase training weights by an ounce at a time if they so wished. Across the ocean, numerous German companies vied for dominance in the weightlifting equipment industry, all producing barbell sets of different sizes in an apparent effort to out-Apple Apple in terms of producing proprietary bullshit useless to people who are unconcerned with brand-whoring.

This brings us, finally, to the Olympic lifts. In the early days of strongman competitions, there was no set program of lifts. Instead, competitors agreed upon a few lifts and went at it, mano-e-mano. There was no standard for the lifts, either- you moved the weight from point A to point B however the fuck you could get it there. On a deadlift, if you weren't hitching, you weren't trying. You could muscle out snatches, and you could invent new form on the spot if you'd not before tried a certain lift. Everyone was there to see weight get moved, and none of the quibbling, insipid, tragically weak bitches of the modern era existed at the time to call bullshit on lifts done by people of whom they were terrified and with weights they could scarcely comprehend.

Perikles Kakousis lifting a massive 246lb for Olympic gold in 1904.

Due to the lack of event standardization, however, no one could agree on a bar. Thus, the first Olympics saw something akin to a one hand snatch and a double-hand clean and jerk being contested, with permutations of these events or just no weightlifting at all occurring until the 1928 Olympics. By 1928, however, the Olympic committee decided on three lifts- the press, the clean and jerk, and he snatch. That same year the first modern Olympic barbell was released by the Berg company specifically for use in the Olympics. That design was then copied by the York Barbell Company, and modern lifting was truly and officially born.

Well, sort of- there was still the matter of how the barbell should get off the floor and to the shoulder. Despite the fact that pretentious, know-it-all shitheads of the internet might contend that the clean is the only "legitimate" method of getting a weight to one's shoulders, the clean began as one of two methods to shoulder a weight for jerking or pressing. At the outset, this lift was referred to as the "to the shoulder anyhow" and there was a stark geographical division in the performance of the lift. Arising out of a long tradition of beer garden lifting and public strength competitions in Germany came the "continental." According to Arthur Saxon, the "we give zero fucks about your bitch-ass rules and are here to fucking move weight" Germans believed

"it does not matter much how a man gets his weight to his shoulder provided he 'puts it away all right[sic]' afterwards. The Continental weight-lifter has, of course, to shoulder his bell by the exercise of his own unaided strength, but he may lift it shoulder high with both hands, or by levering it up his body, according to the lift in question"(Saxon 19).

Quite frankly, since the to the shoulder anyhow was really a barbell adaptation of ancient stone lifting competitions, this method would have made the mot sense. then, instead of throwing the stone, as the ancient Greeks were wont to do, they simply put the weight overhead and held it there, as throwing an expensive custom-made iron implement would have been dangerous and costly.

In case you're curious as to how the lift was performed, here's Saxon's description:

"The first of these pulls the bell up on to the abdomen in a clean lift with an over and an under grip, as shown in the illustration. The bell is then lodged on the waist-belt (worn large for the purpose), while the left hand grip is changed to an over-hand one; then with a dip and a jerk it is hoisted up on to the chest, and with another to the chin, preparatory to the final jerk which sends it aloft. Some even prolong this agony still further, making four, and sometimes five, jerks before they finally reach the chin"(Saxon 52).

That might sound horrifying to the modern form Nazi, but it was brutally effective, and when you look at what the Germans were doing in comparison to their British counterparts, it becomes all that much more obvious- the Olympic gold in the clean and jerk in 1928 for heavyweights was 313.5lbs (set, amusingly, by a German and not a Brit), whereas Austrian Joseph Steinbach continentalled and jerked 380.25 for a double over 20 years earlier.

Steinback obviously derived all of his power from the size of his traps.

As I mentioned, the British focused heavily on "clean lifting", which they judged to be prettier and a better test of skill, rather than brute strength. Clean lifting was the backbone of British amateur competitions, and formed one of the four British championship lifts. Because the Brits focused so heavily on those lifts, however, they lacked the requisite strength to compete with the Germans in the "to the shoulder anyhow"(Saxon 20), and it was likely this reason that the Olympic Committee, which had British but no German members at its inception, chose the clean. Though this method resulted in considerably less weight lifted, it made the event "fair" for British lifters, because if the Olympics had included the continental instead of the clean, no Brit would have even had a a snowball's chance in hell to medal in weightlifting. Performance of the clean differed from the continental considerably, as it had to be "gripped palms downwards, and brought to the shoulders in a distinct movement while either splitting or bending of the legs"(Eric's Gym). According to Saxon, most of the early 20th Century lifters used a split, rather than a squat clean, which Saxon found to be stupid, but seemed to find "clean" lifting stupid rather on the whole.

They still barely have a chance at medalling- David Mercer holds one of a whopping seven British medals in Olympic Weightlifting.

Interestingly, the same logic was applied to the overhead portion of the lift. According to Saxon, Continental lifters were all pressers, whereas the British were fans of the jerk (Saxon 34). Given the strength advantage held by the Germans over the Brits because of their immense strict pressing strength, both events were included, ostensibly in the interest of fairness. The difference between the two methods was essentially that the press relied entirely on the strength of one's shoulders and arms, whereas the jerk took the strength of one's arms and shoulders almost entirely out of the equation. The Germans obviously viewed the jerk with a measure of contempt, but competed in it anyway because their immense pressing strength just made their jerk better.

Serge Redding got shit done on the press.

The press was intended to be conducted in an extremely strict manner, but even from the outset there was dispute as to exactly how it should be performed, and that dispute continued until the event was eventually dropped from the Games in 1972. Saxon sums up the two methods nicely in The Textbook of Weightlifting:

"[Steinbach], it will be seen, leans right back from the waist and pushes forward with his shoulders (as well as arms) in a diagonally upward motion. [Saxon], on the contrary, push with arm strength only from an erect position, with hells close together. Steinbach holds the record, but [Saxon couldn't] recommend his style"(Saxon 54).

Rusev appears concerned he just shit himself.

The jerk, on the other hand, was to be performed just as it is now- continuous, fast movement of the bar from one's shoulders overhead, without pressing the weight out. In Saxon's time, they primarily squat jerked, which is curious given their split form on the clean. This may have been due to the fact that the aforementioned Alan Calvert alleged that "splitting in the Jerk was ‘all lost motion.’ He said that the correct thing to do was to drop the body straight down by sitting one the heels – the style used by Milo Steinborn, who did 347¾ lbs"(Webster). In any event, the rules were never really in dispute and have remained the same to the present day.

Pocket Hercules, proving you can indeed chain-smoke your way to victory.

Like the jerk, the snatch had been performed basically as long as there had been dumbbells heavy enough to make it a worthwhile competitive lift. Snatching began as a dumbbell event, and then became immensely popular as a unilateral barbell lift, just as the clean and jerk had. This may be due in large part to difficulty in pressing out a barbell overhead with one hand, especially given the fact that early barbells lacked knurling. In any event, inclusion of this lift in the Olympic was basically a no-brainer, as it was an old standby in strength competitions in both German beer gardens and effete British gymnasiums.

If Stacie Tovar's not hot enough to save something, it likely doesn't deserve to be saved.

And there you have the development of Olympic weightlifting. As powerlifting has grown in fame, and given the "brute strength" over trickery and "technique" aspect of the lifts in powerlifting as compared to those of Olympic weightlifting, interest in weightlifting steadily waned over the last 75 years. That decrease in interest was also no doubt spurred by the dominance of the Eastern Bloc over the West in that sport, which made competing in it even less appealing to Westerners, as being the best Western Olympic weightlifter often means you don't even get to participate in the Olympics. Crossfit has recently spurred something of a revival in Olympic weightlifting, but given the internet's ability to promote the most insipid arguments and dickless complaints to the forefront of the zeitgeist, even the mighty knee sock juggernaut might not be enough to buoy interest in weightlifting for long (especially if more Crossfitters get paralyzed in freak accidents). Frankly, hot chicks in booty shorts should be able to save just about anything, so I doubt weightlifting will ever fade from the public view the way other strength training methods have, but it will likely never regain the prominence it enjoyed until the early 1970s.

Sources:
Saxon, Arthur. The Textbook of Weightlifting. London: Health & Strength, 1910.

Todd, Jan. From Milo to Milo: A history of barbells, dumbbells, and Indian clubs. Iron Game History. Apr 1995. Web. 19 Mar 2014. http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0306/IGH0306c.pdf

Webster, David. The Development of the Clean & Jerk, Part One. Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 7 Nov 2011. Web. 19 Mar 2014. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2011/11/development-of-clean-jerk-part-one.html

I will confess this is not a new idea- some dude used to do this on T-Nation periodically. He did not however, view bodybuilding/training rags as I do- as a Cliff's Notes for training and nutrition journals. Instead, he just skimmed the mags and provided a bird's eye view into what was doing in those mags. Despite the invalid criticisms that are sure to pour forth in the comments on this article, I know for a fact there is value in bodybuilding magazines and intend to cram it down your fucking throats in a super-concise synopsis of useful information. Yeah, they might just be a means by which advertisers can sell you shit you don't need and a bunch of pictures of sloots wearing too many clothes and dudes generally wearing shit that would only be appropriate in a gay pride parade, but there are kernels of wisdom inside.

You know what? If you guys don't think you can learn something from guys like Sergio Oliva, just ring your call button and Tommy will come back there and hit you on the head with a tack hammer because you're a retard.

Thus, I read The Box, Flex, Muscle & Fitness, Musclemag, Planet Muscle, and Muscular Development to bring you the best the fitness and bodybuilding worlds have to offer without any of the nonsense. In addition, because I now that in spite of the fact that I am simply recounting what I discovered in these magazines, the intellectually lazy, shit-sipping frittatas of the internet will likely skim the fuck out of this and accuse me of promoting broscience or somesuch ridiculousness because they're too lazy and stupid to use the google machine to find the studies. As such, I did so for you, because the one thing internet fame has taught me is that the only thing more common than pussies talking shit on the internet is lazy, stupid pussies accusing people far better educated and stronger than they are of "broscience", because it's one of the few words they can spell correctly.

[Edit: This thing ran incredibly long, and you will note the two really fucked up photos in the Musclemag section when I was running out of steam and went a little off the deep end. Just read the fucking thing anyway, because there's good shit in here. I chopped it into two parts and the fucker's still long, so this is The Box, Muscle & Fitness, Musclemag, and Planet Muscle, and part 2 will be Muscular Development and Flex.]

The Box Mar/Apr 2014
Crossfit’s premier magazine, the Box purports to be “Evidence that CrossFitters do it better.” In reality, it's a pretty shitty magazine with very little in the way of training advice, a couple of paleo hacks, and a lot of articles about why CrossFit is cooler than sex with your favorite porn star atop the back of a unicorn that is fucking a unicorn in a field of lotus flowers while hopped up on Viagra and molly. I've seen less braggadocio out of an Italian after Rocky 5 in downtown Philly, and I'll assure that the guido's braggadocio was likely more warranted. Nevertheless, here's the useful shit from The Box:

Yoga is better for active recovery than just about anything, save for possibly sex with another CrossFitter.
“Researchers at the University of Oslo, Norway, drew blood from 10 yoga practitioners before and after a session. They found that yoga caused 111 genes to wake up, while walking and music-driven relaxation only turned on 38. Because some of the same genes were affected, scientists hypothesize that yoga, exercise, and relaxation affect some of the same processes but that yoga’s impact on the body is more widespread.”

Qu S, Olafsrud SM, Meza-Zepeda LA, Saatcioglu F. Rapid gene expression changes in peripheral blood lymphocytes upon practice of a comprehensive yoga program. PLoS One. 2013 Apr 17;8(4):e61910.

FACT: Star Wars fans consume more creatine than Star Trek fans.

Creatine can make you smarter.
Here’s one I didn’t know- researchers have found that suboptimal levels of creatine negatively impact cognitive performance, and that creatine supplementation can improve cognition.

This isn't the study they were citing, as I couldn't find a recent one about this topic, but here's one on the subject: Ling J, Kritikos M, Tiplady B. Cognitive effects of creatine ethyl ester supplementation. Behav Pharmacol. 2009 Dec;20(8):673-9.

Even paleo chicks go batshit if you tell them they can't have muffins.

Finally! Someone proposes paleo flour alternatives that are not completely retarded.
This is usually a massive point of contention for me, because flour and paleo don’t belong in the same conversation. Most baked “paleo” recipes are bullshit, as they use arrowroot flour, which is entirely comprised of carbohydrates and in no way compares to a Paleolithic tuber. Surprisingly, The Box points this out and recommends:

coconut flour, which has 1 gram of protein and 2 grams of fiber for every three grams of carbohydrates
almond flour
tapioca flour, though it mentions that tapioca is similar to arrowroot in its un-paleo nature.

Keep calling CrossFitters pussies, guys. You'll keep looking like a pack of jealous fucking retards.

CrossFit isn't going to injure the fuck out of you any more than high school soccer would.
Only one small study has been conducted on CrossFit injury rates, and it showed a rate of 3.1 injuries per 1,000 training hours, which is similar to those reported for Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting.

rhabdo is the participant’s fault, not the sport’s. “Rhabdomyolosis is the result of inappropriately applied intensity. It’s simple: Someone did not gauge and manage intensity correctly; the athlete did not slow down or stop when he she should have.”

Also, there was a full page article detailing all of the reasons CrossFitters are better lays than everyone else on Earth. It was, as you can imagine, pompous and generally retarded.

Muscle and Fitness Apr 2014
Interestingly, Muscle and Fitness, one of the mainstays of the bodybuilding magazine industry, has pretty much thrown in the towel on bodybuilding and strength training. Instead, they’re switching to a more “fitness” oriented magazine that caters to the CrossFit/reddit's r/fitness/Men's Fitness crowd and turning their back on their former core demographic. Additionally, what used to be my one monthly magazine purchase (when I was in high school, before you maniacs get overexcited) basically just shills for supplement companies and has no substance now. While I find this appalling, I highly doubt anyone else gives two shits, so here's what they included in this month's "new" M&F:

John Cena is a sweetiepie.

Cena's apparently the nicest person in the world- He is the only celebrity to break the 400 wish mark for the Make a Wish Foundation.
Cena currently benches 481 and is on the cusp of 500, in spite of the fact he tore his tricep completely in August. When asked what his secret was, he said that max effort overhead presses are the best bench accessory.
Wears Adidas Powerlift 2.0 shoes, which I know is a rally important anecdote for the internet gym warriors.
Is not a terribly good squatter- he's only hitting 5x5x495.
Eats clean 6 days a week and faces doughnuts all day the 7th.

Bruce Lee loved the fuck out of circuit training too, but he still went heavy from time to time... someone might want to alert the editors at the Weider headquarters.

M&F loves circuit training.
And I mean they love it. Every fucking program in this issue was a circuit, save for Cena's program.

Planet Muscle Feb 2014
I'm sure many of you have never heard of this magazine or seen it on a newsstand. I have periodically loved and hated this mag throughout the last ten years, and while it's not quite as jammed with info as other magazines, it's interesting in that it's owned by a small West Coast supplement company that has made the same great but hideously expensive products for the last 50 years and is somehow still in business. Additionally, PM's article layout is interesting in that it's thoughtful- they usually use the articles early in the magazine to build a knowledge base for understanding later articles. As such, it's a pretty good primer from lifting and nutrition neophytes. There are also no shortage of scantily clad sloots in the back of every issue, so you have some nice wank material if you have the ability to orgasm to soft core porn.

Someone finally brought Star Wars into lifting- introducing Yoda 3 Training (Y3T).
Here's a training program of which I'd never heard, which is fairly unsurprising because I don't really give a rat's ass about programming. Nevertheless, this training method is the brainchild of a Brit named Neil Hill, who's the trainer of guys like Zach Khan (650 squat and 600lb bench press)and 212 lb Mr. Olympia Flex Lewis (who seems reasonably strong in spite of vehement protests against his form on Bodybuilding.com, which is apparently populated by a lot of people far more jacked than Flex Lewis but curiously bereft of evidence of this fact). The program is apparently intended to utilize the concept of macro and microcycles for bodybuilding purposes by rotating though three 1 week cycles that rotate rep numbers, exercises, and explosiveness to selectively target Type 1, Type 2a, and Type 2b muscle fibers. Week 1 is heavy compound movements (8-10 reps), Week 2 is a combination of isolation movements (12-16 reps), and week 3 is something called “total muscle annihilation” that involves a bunch of intensity multipliers like giant sets, drop sets, forced reps, and the like. For more info, check it out here. Before you claim such a method is useless for your purposes, nebulous as they probably are, I would suggest you check it out, as this could have some interesting applications for strength training if it’s modified somewhat.

Talk your shit guys, but like the dude who took 2nd at the Physique Olympia, Tim Liggins pulls far more bitches than you do and probably outlifts you. Food for thought.

“As a bodybuilder, you use and not lift weights”- Tim Liggins.
I found this quote to be the most interesting bit of Tim Liggins' interview. Liggins seems fairly cerebral about his training and while the 5'8", 200 lb bodybuilder isn't fantastically strong, he definitely appears considerably stronger than your average "powerlifter." He utilizes the aforementioned Y3T system, so the vids I saw consisted of a lot of high rep drop sets and the like, but the dude definitely did a very easy set of 18 reps on his third drop with 80lb dumbbells, which isn't something to sneeze at, given the fact that he'd already done 36 reps with heavier weights. In any event, I thought the quote above was interesting because it provides some valuable insight into the disparity between the bodybuilding and powerlifting mindset, and if you think about it sheds some light on the reason just about every gym's powerlifters are outbenched by the bodybuilders.

The riot bomber, Zabo. Longshoreman by day, then hit the gym for a couple of hours each night, and was shredded before a word to describe his condition existed. At 170, Zabo squat snatched 220, barefoot and without a warmup, then added 50 lbs and cleaned and military pressed it to impress some judges at random (Hise). Still think bodybuilders are pussies?

Riot Bombing.
The training method with the awesome moniker "riot bombing" was invented by a guy I profiled in Issuance of Insanity 2, Zabo Koszewski, a 1960s bodybuilder who was insanely shredded before being shredded was cool. Riot bombing is essentially what I do for arms, and it’s definitely brought them up over the last couple of years. The concept behind it is to essentially drop a massive number of training bombs on your body to force growth in opposing muscle groups simultaneously. To do so, you utilize supersets with crazy volume to bend your body to your will, pairing exercises that utilize opposing muscle groups to ensure that your muscles get a bit of recovery before you pound them. This phenomenon, of which you are all likely unfamiliar because it's cool to think bodybuilding is bitch made, is called reciprocal inhibition, and is a neurological reflex that causes one muscle to relax when its opposing muscle is contracted.

Riot bombing should feel something like this.

If you feel like trying it, the execution is like a Balkan war criminal- as brutal as it is simple. Do 15-20 sets of of two exercises that target opposing muscle groups, like cheat curls and push downs, and add weight on the 6th and 10th sets so that you’re starting at about 10-15 reps and ending in the 4-8 rep range. Rest no more than 15-30 seconds in between supersets to maximize pump and shredz and you'll be looking like Zabo in no time.

I would punch my mom in the throat to hold Jenny Poussin’s hand. She's one of the aforementioned PM sloots.

Sloots.
Planet Muscle has oodles.

Musclemag March 2014
If I'm honest, I've never much cared for Musclemag and could not tell you why beyond their sponsorship by the least reputable major supplement manufacturer on Earth, Muscletech. Muscletech has never met their label claims, so I would guess my subconscience believes the same to be true about Musclemag. In spite of that fact, I cracked one open and discovered some useful shit inside, so it's not quite the soulless corporate shill I'd once believed it to be. It also seems to be trying to shed its meathead image by heading in the direction of promoting "attainable" physiques, so there is a lot more emphasis, at least in this issue, on the 212 Olympians than the big guys. I couldn't really give a shit less either way, but for those of you who might care, there is that. For the rest of you, here's the goods from Musclemag:

I know precisely fuckall about pro wrestling, but this chick is a WWE Diva and squats like a motherfucker according to her interviews... and her legs.

For those of you still leg pressing- stop.
A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning pitted the leg press against the squat. At 6x10 reps 80% 1RM, the squat elicited higher testosterone and growth hormone releases, but the GH release was the truly badass one- 200% higher immediately after training and still 100% higher an hour later.

Shaner AA, Vingren JL, Hatfield DL, Budnar RG, Duplanty AA, Hill DW. The acute hormonal response to free weight and machine weight resistance exercise. Published online in advance of print. http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/publishahead/The_acute_hormonal_response_to_free_weight_and.97568.aspx

So unfunny you'd think he was the love child of Billy Crystal and Margaret Cho.

For those of you who like to drag out your training sessions like Steven Wright dragged out jokes, start swilling intra-workout carbs.
A recent study showed that 6% of your daily carb intake mixed with BCAAs prevented upper respiratory infection in trainees. Musclemag recommends 20 grams of dextrose or table sugar with BCAAS intraworkout.

I couldn’t find the study on this, but the logic is sound.

Don’t forget your MP3 player on days you're lifting heavy.
The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences found that music is not simply a distraction, but it reduces the amount of effort necessary to do the work. In other words, music “would relieve the severely stressed from self-awareness of one’s own body” and allows trainees to push themselves much harder than trainees who trained without music.

Fritz TH, Hardikar S, Demoucron M, Niessen M, Demey M, Giot O, Li Y, Haynes JD, Villringer A, Leman M. Musical agency reduces perceived exertion during strenuous physical performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013. http://www.mpg.de/7573048/music-physical-exertion

I call this picture "Anti L-Citrulline."

L-Citrulline makes your dick hard.
A new study showed 50% of men with mild erectile dysfunction cured it with supplementary Citrulline. Musclemag recommends1.5 to 3 grams of citrulline before lifting or fucking, or after looking at the above picture. I just got you motherfuckers so good.

Cormio L, De Siati M, Lorusso F, Selvaggio O, Mirabella L, Sanguedolce F, Carrieri G. Oral L-citrulline supplementation improves erection hardness in men with mild erectile dysfunction. Urology. 2011 Jan;77(1):119-22.

There is such a thing as self-harm porn. I know, because I've masturbated to it.

Depressed chicks get horny in the gym.
For those of you who are not into self-harm porn and do not find the above picture appealing, take note- chicks on anti-depressants found the libido dulling effects of the anti-depressants were eliminated after a 30 minute workout.

Lorenz TA, Meston CM. Acute Exercise Improves Physical Sexual Arousal in Women Taking Antidepressants. Ann Behav Med. Jun 2012; 43(3): 352–361.

Note Larissa's sexy ass knees.

Scientists somehow found a new ligament in the knee.
The anterolateral ligament, ALL, seems to be the culprit behind ACL tears. A weak ALL leads to ACL injuries, it seems. No one has any fucking clue how doctors missed this ligament up until now.

Stuffing needles into your ears could help get dat sixpack, bro beans.
Auricular acupuncture could be the answer to getting that last bit of fat off your stomach. Korean scientists conducted a study in which volunteers had 8 weeks of poking in the ears with needles followed by a week of keeping a needle taped into part of their ear and found that weight, body fat, and waist circumference were reduced.

Yeo S, Kim KS, Lim S. Randomized clinical trial of five ear acupuncture points for the treatment of overweight people. Acupuncture in Medicine, 2013.

SOY IS THE DEVIL.
Vindication never tasted so sweet! Soy protein reduces testosterone post workout. A recent study showed that soy protein has a direct negative effect on test levels and that it was far worse than whey at blunting post-workout cortisol spikes.

Kraemer WJ1, Solomon-Hill G, Volk BM, Kupchak BR, Looney DP, Dunn-Lewis C, Comstock BA, Szivak TK, Hooper DR, Flanagan SD, Maresh CM, Volek JS. The effects of soy and whey protein supplementation on acute hormonal responses to resistance exercise in men. J Am Coll Nutr. 2013;32(1):66-74.

The Rhino- WR holder in the squat and total at 275 and ripped to fucking bits.

Powerbuilding is a thing again?
Pretty much a staple training method up until the internet ruined powerlifting in the early oughts, powerbuilding is making a comeback as crossover athletes keep popping up. Guys like Stan Efferding, Johnny Jackson, and Ronnie Coleman are getting bodybuilders to trend more toward strength training as jacked as fuck raw powerlifters eliminate the fat fuck mentality promoted by the thankfully fading multiply set. Musclemag mentioned the following icons of powerbuilding for you fuckers to check out (and whose lifting routines would not be a bad idea to emulate): Joe Ladnier (who is the powerlifter who convinced me powerlifting wasn't code for "fat men in bulletproof outfits barely moving and calling themselves lifters while narrowly avoiding strokes"), Matt Kroc, Ken Patera, Franco Columbo, Bill Kazmaier, Tom Platz, and Dorian Yates.

Tomorrow or the next day I'll hit you with Flex Magazine and Muscular Development, and then we'll move on to whatever else happens to strike my fancy. And don't hate, fuckers- you know you just had knowledge dropped on your faces like a ten ton hammer.

Sources:
The magazines and studies are all cited in place.

Hise, Bob. The fabulous Zabo Koszewski. Strength & Health. Aug 1967. Web. 24 Mar 2014. http://www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?sh670820

Finishing up this month's installment of "CNP Reads Shit So You Don't Have To", we have Muscular Development and Flex. I didn't bother to review Power because that magazine rarely has anything of interest unless you want to reread tired shit about the Cube Method or Intermittent Fasting, so I passed on it. I might replace The Box with Power next month and drop Muscle and Fitness altogether, but we'll see where my scatterbrain takes me in the magazine section- you people might end up with MD, Flex, and Fangoria. In any event, here's the goods from MD and Flex.

Muscular Development Jan 2014
MD is by far and away my favorite bodybuilding rag, and the only magazine outside of Mental Floss and Wired to which I've ever subscribed. Unfortunately, the Barnes and Noble in which I was reading magazines tossed or sold both their March and April MDs, leaving me only May, which i was hoping to save for next month. Thus, I dug out January from my personal pile to review for you guys. Before you get out your powdered wigs and gavels to judge me, bear in mind this magazine is literally jammed to the gills with study synopses they actually fucking cite, and thus keeps me from having to subscribe to a shitload of expensive academic journals. If you're going to get a magazine subscription to something meatheadish, skip Power and grab MD- it's a far better resource.

Applying a tourniquet to your limbs might cause your opponents on the platform to fatally injure themselves.
A new technique in bodybuilding and strength training of which you may not have heard is called occlusion training, which essentially consists of training with a loose tourniquet tied around the insertion point of the limbs being trained. I've tried it for squats and it fatigued me like nothing I've ever done in my life. Studies have recently shown that occlusion training allows trainees to gain more strength and mass with drastically reduced loads- one study with rugby players showed a marked increase in bench press, squat, sprinting, leg power, and testosterone when trainees trained with a thigh occlusion cuff using 70% of their 1RM for 5x5 on bench, squat, and pullups. Ace bandages in training might be your secret weapon to crushing the opposition on the platform.

Cook CJ, Kilduff LP, Beaven CM. Improving strength and power in trained athletes with 3 weeks of occlusion training. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2014 Jan;9(1):166-72.

BREAKING NEWS: Jogging before squatting kills your gainz.
In a study that should be surprising to absolutely no one on Earth, science has discovered that doing 45 minutes of aerobic exercise at 75% effort trashes your performance in squatting, but not bench press, if you lift right after doing cardio. Thus, if you're going to practice running away from evangelical Christians/people/bears/boogeymen/whatever it is people practice running away from, do it after your squat workout rather than before.

Cantrell GS, Schilling BK, Paquette MR, Murlasits Z. Maximal strength, power, and aerobic endurance adaptations to concurrent strength and sprint interval training. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2014 Apr;114(4):763-71

This would not inspire me to sleep, but I'd get horizontal, at least.

Get moar sleep to get less fat.

No matter how much I tell people sleep is fucking critical, they make all sorts of excuses for not getting it, most of which revolve around children. This is what soundproof closets with stout locks are for, people. If you're not getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night, you're pretty much guaranteed to have larger waist circumference, total body fat, abdominal fat, and surface fat, in addition to less testosterone than people like myself, who put babies in dumpsters, where they belong.

Yi S, Nakagawa T, Yamamoto S, Mizoue T, Takahashi Y, Noda M, Matsushita Y. Short sleep duration in association with CT-scanned abdominal fat areas: the Hitachi Health Study. Int J Obes (Lond). 2013 Jan;37(1):129-34.

Schmid SM, Hallschmid M, Jauch-Chara K, Lehnert H, Schultes B.
Sleep timing may modulate the effect of sleep loss on testosterone. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2012 Nov;77(5):749-54.

If you want to be BR00TAL, listen to BR00TAL music.

It's always nice when science catches up to broscience, and I can't count the number of times I've had pseudointellectuals spout nonsense at me about how I train to the wrong kind of music according to science. As far as I was concerned, science can get fucked- there's a reason why teenage males listen to metal- they have insanely high test levels. As such, it stands to reason that such music would have a positive effect on aggression and test levels, which science has finally decided it does. Aggressive music like metal, rap, and dubstep increase sympathetic nervous system activity and testosterone levels. Once again, the 130lb bitches screaming and crying about the evils of "broscience" can eat a bag of dicks.

Yamasaki A, Booker A, Kapur V, Tilt A, Niess H, Lillemoe KD, Warshaw AL, Conrad C. The impact of music on metabolism. Nutrition. 2012 Nov-Dec;28(11-12):1075-80.

MORE PROTONZ = MOAR GAINZ

There is no practical upper limit to the anabolic response to protein or amino acid intake- the more protein you eat, the more anabolic the meal is. The old adage of no more than 30 grams of protein per meal continues to get the fuck kicked out of it, but for whatever reason, the 130lbers of the internet trot that fucker out like it's the first sentence of the fucking Bible. Pass me that brontosaurus leg, because I'm about to bring on the gainz. Let the naysaying pussies eat less- it just means more steak for us.

Deutz NE, Wolfe RR. Is there a maximal anabolic response to protein intake with a meal? Clin Nutr. 2013 Apr;32(2):309-13.

Stop asking if coffee is good for you, already. Of course it fucking is- it raises testosterone and suppresses estrogen.
The eggheads at Harvard come through again, showing definitively that coffee intake results in increased total and free testosterone levels and decreased estradiol. Fuck eating beans- drink more coffee at every meal.

Wedick NM, Mantzoros CS, Ding EL, Brennan AM, Rosner B, Rimm EB, Hu FB, van Dam RM. The effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee on sex hormone-binding globulin and endogenous sex hormone levels: a randomized controlled trial. Nutr J. 2012 Oct 19;11:86.

Flex April 2014
Flex has been an old standby in the meathead magazine genre- not too high-brow, yet not too lowbrow, and more hardcore than Muscle and Fitness. They lack the aggression and the intellect of Muscular Development at Flex, but I suppose they make up for that in a bit of refinement, which in my opinion has little place in bodybuilding. In any event, it's not a half-bad mag, but it's hardly the best of the bunch.

Cutting your lifts short means cutting your gainz short.
Trainees who use a longer range of motion experience less strength and muscle loss during a layoff, and have greater strength and hypertrophy gains while training, in addition to more fat loss. Might be time to start mixing in more deficit work, people.

McMahon GE, Morse CI, Burden A, Winwood K, Onambélé GL. Impact of range of motion during ecologically valid resistance training protocols on muscle size, subcutaneous fat, and strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2014 Jan;28(1):245-55.

I think if the pump I currently have persists for more than four hours, I am supposed to seek medical attention.

Dat pump, bro.
Want to look swole at the club? Apparently, there's no need to bring dumbbells in your trunk and pump up in the parking lot every hour- apparently if you break your ass hard enough in the gym, you'll stay pumped for two days. According to a new study by Brett Contreras and his trusty German sidekick, strenuous resistance exercise can result in an acute increase in muscle water content for up to 52 hours.

Schoenfeld, BJ, Contreras B. The Muscle Pump: Potential Mechanisms and Applications for Enhancing Hypertrophic Adaptations. J Str Con. Article published ahead of print. 23 Dec 2013. Web. 26 Mar 2014. http://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Abstract/publishahead/The_Muscle_Pump___Potential_Mechanisms_and.99586.aspx

Posing for selfies makes you stronger.
One study revealed contractions of biceps and triceps by simultaneously contracting both muscle groups at 90° of the elbow joint, followed by 4-s muscle relaxation (10 repetitions/set, 5 sets/day) for 12 weeks resulted in a 4% increase in muscular size and a significant increase in agonist EMG activities- ~30% at 4 weeks and 40%+ at 12 weeks. Bros got bigger and stronger by doing a front double biceps in front of a mirror for a few minutes a day. Fuck do you even lift- do you even selfie, bro?

Maeo S, Yoshitake Y, Takai Y, Fukunaga T, Kanehisa H. Neuromuscular adaptations following 12-week maximal voluntary co-contraction training. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2014 Apr;114(4):663-73.

Sprinkle some leucine on your steak.
Time to add some leucine to your steak and rib rubs! Stupid science bitches couldn't make my friends more smarter, but apparently some stupid science bitches could make steak more steaker. According to a new study, five grams of leucine taken with protein maximizes muscle protein synthesis rates. For those of you starting your cut for the beach, you might want to take note- maximizing your protein synthesis can be especially important on a calorically restricted diet.

Churchward-Venne TA, Breen L, Di Donato DM, Hector AJ, Mitchell CJ, Moore DR, Stellingwerff T, Breuille D, Offord EA, Baker SK, Phillips SM. Leucine supplementation of a low-protein mixed macronutrient beverage enhances myofibrillar protein synthesis in young men: a double-blind, randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014 Feb;99(2):276-86.

ATTENTION: SINCE NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE, LET ME BE CLEAR- I AM NOT SUGGESTING ANYONE STOP LIFTING. I AM SIMPLY SUGGESTING THE THEY NOT "COMPETE" IF THEY SUCK

There is a disturbing trend pervading the mentality of powerlifting at the moment, and it bears discussing before it gets much more out of hand- the idea of "participation". From Reddit to bodybuilding.com to Outlaws to Facebook to the fucking platform, there is a constant hum of the weak and the mealy-mouthed, cooing platitudes about the "joys" of "sharing the platform with such great lifters", going to meets to "get some numbers", and other assorted anticompetitive happy-go-lucky bullshit.

For those of you who are unaware, sports can basically be divided into two models- "pleasure and participation" or "power and performance." As I have no real interest in reinventing the wheel or retyping shit I could copypasta, and am frankly too pissed off at the very idea that I need to explain this in the first fucking place, please review the following:

While the source should be common fucking sense, I obtained those tables here.

One would think, if people actually did so, that the very moniker "powerlifting" would provide valuable insight into the sports model being employed in the sport, but apparently the Millennials have decided that this is not so. Instead, the idea that we should encourage greater participation in the sport of powerlifting and embrace the spirit of inclusion is far more valuable than preserving the most basic tenet of the sport- namely, to determine who the strongest motherfuckers on the planet are.

Millennials, I don't know what it is about your faces, but I just wanna deliver one of these right in your suck hole.

At the risk of triggering whatever pussies who might be triggered by reading something that can be labeled with the neo-fascist non-word "ageist", this phenomenon can be placed squarely at the only generation who has more self-loathing than they have knowledge, work ethic, or common sense- the Millennials. Bizarrely, even the Millennials know they're useless, though instead of using this information to grab their balls and do something about it, they're choosing instead to ruin every semi-competitive or competitive sport in which they can enter, turning Power and Performance sports into Participation Sports with all of the grace and purposeful action of a plague of locusts (Jagel).

Think I'm off base? I'm not. A recent series of articles outlining the myriad failings of what author Kevin Helliker refers to as "Generation Slow" detailed at length the abject lack of competitiveness among the Millennial Generation, and pointed to such statistics as the fact that "median U.S. marathon finishes for men rose 44 minutes from 1980 through 2011," citing the fact that "many new runners come from a mind-set where everyone gets a medal and it's good enough just to finish" (Helliker Slowest) as the reason behind this phenomenon. Lambasting the Millennials for their communistic, anti-competitive mindset proved exactly how useless the generation actually was, as the critical response to Helliker's article was just as feeble and limp-wristed as the competitive performance he outlined in his article. Instead of citing recent upticks in elite performance (if there are indeed any to cite), most responses railed against Helliker for being mean, utilizing social justice non-words like "ageist" to defend their indefensible attitudes.

Not a lot of running happens in this race, apparently.

The most popular endurance events in the country, the Tough Mudder and the Color Race, don't even post results- according to the race coordinators, it's not about how you perform but about how you feel. Well, they should feel like they fucking suck, because I would rather eat a bullet than run a mile and guarantee I could finish three miles in fewer than 30 minutes powered by nothing but contempt for the egalitarianism and effeminacy of the mindset of the other competitors.

Chairman Mao would have been pro-"Fun Run"

Lest you worry that they lack even the energy to muster up excuses, making excuses for shitty performance is about the only thing about which Millennials appear motivated. One respondent provided the following laundry list of reasons why she sucks, while others had more general reasons for their uselessness:

"'Between being president of my honor society, volunteering at the local elementary school, job hunting, staying on top of my course load, being secretary of my sorority and trying to start a personal financial literacy seminar for women, running has become my detox time,' wrote Natasha Mighell, a University of Virginia student. 'It is MY time, and is not a competitive activity.'

Some young people said that baby boomers had wrecked the economy, creating so competitive a market for today's college graduates that few had time for endurance training. 'Everybody I know is just struggling to get a job, much less train for a marathon,' said Tyson Hartnett, a 27-year-old entrepreneur, writer and sales professional" (Helliker Strikes Back)

That's all well and good, you might argue, but it's got precisely fuckall to do with powerlifting. This is not so, however- the same mentality so pervasive in modern endurance athletics has now become part and parcel of strength sports. Reddit's r/weightroom is positively littered with comments regarding the dangerousness of cutting weight and the concept that doing so is unfair, despite the fact that such practices are not expressly prohibited by the rules, and the fact that according to the Power and Performance model "Participants should not be concerned with injury." Likewise, high standards for participation are unwanted, as the general consensus seems to be that greater participation should be encouraged, rather than less, which echoes the Pleasure and Participation model's sentiment that "the opponent is needed and valued." This, in spite of the fact that the opponent in strength sports is the weight, not the other participant.

Ricky Dale Crain- just as elite in 1976 as he is now, because powerlifting is the only sport in which people have gotten worse since the mid-70s.

To illustrate just how out of hand this phenomenon has gotten, consider the following- the AAU classification for an elite powerlifter at 181 lbs, set in 1973 when powerlifting's rules had only just been codified, was 1605. Since then, the AAU has dropped this classification to 1396, and only Raw Unity has raised the standard a paltry 4 pounds in the intervening 40 years. Thus, in spite of much more widespread knowledge of the sport and a concomitant rise in popularity, the best of the best are in actuality no better than they were a generation ago, and for all of the weight classes over 181, they're actually worse (Sutphin 18). That doesn't happen in sports- athletes are supposed to get better with time, not worse. It's not as though the AAU set their elite classification standards in 1974 with the intent that virtually no one would make the cut- they set them so they'd have a classification for the upper echelon on lifters. As it stands, their classification indicates a fraction of a percent of total lifters, which is insane. Even supercars represent a larger fraction of the sports car industry. Thus, we're left with a strength sport that's barely progressed at all in the last 40 years in spite of vast improvements in the availability of training equipment and availability of sports nutrition, yet the record mile time has dropped almost ten fucking seconds.

Here you have the AAU's elite cutoff from what was basically the inception of powerlifting, Raw Unity's current elite classification, and the total number of people on Powerliftingwatch's all-time list who meet the AAU's original standards from 2007-2014. Fucking pathetic.

Just as in endurance athletics, a bloated body of participants has actually managed to dilute the talent pool to the point where it appears that the best lifters in the world have no interest in competing. Either that, or the utter lack of competitiveness among the modern powerlifting participant is so overwhelming that they've dragged the strength levels of even the elite powerlifters into the toilet with their own. Whatever the reason, the low level of strength at the "championship" level of powerlifting recently resulted in a California State Championship in which a staggering 29 competitors lifted in the 181lb weightclass, yet the 4th place finisher would not even qualify as elite at 148. That's not a championship- that's a fucking travesty.

Now, I realize this is going to result in a lot of hurt butts, but frankly, I don't really give a fuck. The mentality of the casual powerlifter is fucking retarded. Either you're competing, or you should get the fuck out of the way- this is not a fucking "fun run". Just showing up and paying $100 to say you did a meet is as stupid as it is disrespectful to the people who actually go to meets to compete against one another. The Houston Texans might have blown dogshit in 2013, but I didn't see Ben Tate smiling as he walked off the field after Peyton Manning delivered 400 yards of airborn rape to his team and interrupt the post game press conference to tell the world how glad he was to share the field with such an amazing athlete. Tahiti's soccer team doesn't wander the field like a bunch of fucking cattle when playing Uruguay and just let them score at will, and they're fucking soccer players from Tahiti. Even they can muster up enough competitive spirit to fucking compete, in spite of the fact that Donald Trump likely loses more than Tahiti's GDP every month in the laundry.

In short- stop sucking. Stop accepting that sucking is the norm. Stop going to fucking meets and "competing" if you know you suck. And for the love of fuck, either stop "participating" in sports or stop "participating" in life- I don't care how you do it, so long as you're dead to me.

Sources:
Helliker, Kevin. The Slowest Generation. Wall Street Journal. 19 Sep 2013. Web. 31 Mar2014. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324807704579085084130007974

Helliker, Kevin. The Slowest Generation Strikes Back. Wall Street Journal. 9 Oct 2013. Web. 31 Mar 2014. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304171804579123661553124776

Jagel, Katie. Millennials: Generation lazy? Yougov. 17 Jan 2014. Web. 1 Apr 2014. https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/01/17/millennials-generation-lazy/

Sutphin, Paul. Powerlifting: The Total Package. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2014.