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Popular Posts
- Tell Me What YOU Want
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- What it Takes to Train at Renegade Gym
- The Main Ingredient
- Life Wasted
- Eliminate The Useless Crap
- Goodbye, My Friend
- Training Related Stupidity
- Death of the Back Squat?!
- Training Songs
- Burning Fat While Gaining Strength
- How to Build Muscle- Olympic Style
- 12 Simple Muscle Building Tips
- How to Improve on Chin Ups
- The High Protein Myth- Exposed Again
You Already Knew That
December 28, 2009
It just wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t get at least a dozen random fitness related questions per week from strangers, family members or long lost pals at holiday parties. Kinda like the exchange I had with my old friend Kevin last week…
“Hey Jay, good to see you, buddy. Glad you’re here, I have a couple questions for you.”
“I probably don’t have the answers, but fire away.”
“My shoulder’s been killing recently right here, when I bench press. Here, feel this clicking thing it’s doing,” he says as he places my hand on his shoulder.
Another holiday party; another guy placing my hands on his body. For once I’d like to meet a lingerie model with a supraspinatus tear. Or a pulled pec.
“Feel that? What do you think I should do?”
“How bad does it hurt?”
“Pretty bad.”
“I’m gonna go with stop bench pressing, then.”
“Oh man… I was hoping for another answer. I love benching.”
“But obviously it’s screwing up your shoulder. You can probably go back to it eventually but for now you have to eliminate whatever is causing you pain. That would be the first logical step. See how it feels when you drop the bench and we’ll take it from there.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Kevin already knew the answer but he needed to hear it from me.
At another recent holiday soiree I was approached by a young guy named Rick who I hadn’t seen in a year. At the 2008 version of this bash he asked me how he could get bigger. He said he’d been training for the last six months but with little to no progress. I inquired about his current training program and he said he had been following some of my stuff online and in the magazines.
“Well, that’s a start. What exactly are you doing?”
“I do bench, curls and pushdowns three days per week. For legs I run on the treadmill when I’m done.”
I sat with a puzzled look on my face, trying to recall when exactly I had written such an inefficient training program. Finally, I concluded that I hadn’t and it was he who was mistaken… at least I hoped.
I told him to drop the pushdowns and add in chins, dips, military presses and cleans or rows for upper body work. I allowed him to keep the curls because I’m nice like that. He was done with the treadmill and was going to learn how to squat and deadlift, I insisted.
“Train three days per week with an upper body pull, an upper body push and squat or deadlift variation. Finish up each workout with a few sets of curls or shrugs and you’re done. Eat an ample amount of healthy food three to five times per day and report back to me in a year.”
Had he done what I said he would have gained an absolute bare minimum of twenty pounds. Yet, here he was standing before me, the exact same size as last year.
“So what’s been going on with the training?” I asked.
“Uh… it’s good.”
“Have you been doing squats and deads?” I obviously knew the answer.
“Well, I tried them, like you said. But they were just so hard, ya know? I like to look forward to going to the gym and getting a good pump. I wasn’t really getting a great pump from them. And I felt them in my back a lot. So, ya know, I didn’t want to get hurt.”
“Yup… I know.”
“I mean, I trust you and all, and I’m sure I would have gotten much better results if I did what you said, but… ya know.”
“I do… I do.”
Later that night a guy named Chris approached me and asked me how he could get ripped for a trip he had planned to Hawaii in March. His training was pretty good. He was actually running sprints instead of jogging. The only problem, I concluded, was his diet. When probed, he admitted that there were tons of starchy carbs being stuffed down his pie hole on a daily basis. I very simply told him to cut those out and he’d lose the fat.
“So you really think it’s the diet, huh?”
“Yes, it is. You can’t out train a bad diet. And you’re proving it to yourself right now. Change the diet and your body will transform.”
“Yeah, you’re right; I know that.”
You see, most people know more than they think. They have at least half of the answers. They just need me to confirm it for them.
Don’t believe me?
Try this 10 question pop quiz and prove it to yourself…
What’s the best thing to drink all day?
A) Water
B) Soda
C) Coffee
D) Irish car bombs
Which foods help you get leaner?
A) Green vegetables
B) White rice
C) Bread
D) Chocolate mousse
What’s the best exercise for your triceps?
A) Dips
B) Pushdowns
C) Extensions
D) Kickbacks with soup cans
Which exercise helps you get leaner, faster?
A) Sprinting
B) Jogging
C) Walking
D) Knitting
Which exercise helps you build muscle faster?
A) Deadlifts
B) Concentration curls
C) Leg extensions
D) Ankle inversion/eversion with stretch bands
What’s the optimal amount of sleep you should get each night?
A) 8-9 hours
B) 5-6 hours
C) 3-4 hours
D) Who needs sleep
Which exercise will help you get faster most efficiently?
A) Sprints
B) Speed ladder drills
C) Over speed training
D) Watching Carl Lewis sing the national anthem on YouTube
Which exercise will have the greatest transference to the playing field?
A) Power cleans
B) Smith machine presses
C) Donkey calf raises
D) Double biceps curl thingy while standing in the middle of the power rack and holding a cable in each hand and holding each rep for a three second peak contraction
Which food helps you build muscle fastest?
A) Eggs
B) Oreo’s
C) Twizzlers
D) Butter
What would help you make faster progress in the weight room?
A) Adding more weight to the bar
B) Going from training four days per week to seven
C) Doing tri sets and giant sets
D) Doing drop sets and running the rack all the way down to the 5’s on every exercise you do
If you answered A on the majority of questions you are on your way. You know what you need to do and what it takes to get great results.
Deadlifts
Squats
Sprints
Chin ups
Water
Lean protein
Vegetables
Sleep
Lots of the above will lead to tons of muscle and strength being built and fat being lost.
But you don’t need me to tell you.
Because you already knew that.
Now you just have to do it.
Please leave your comments below.
The Main Ingredient
November 16, 2009
“Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.”
– Sun Tzu
Did you know that you can get down to single digit bodyfat and look like an elite level pro athlete in just three easy, twenty minute workouts per week? And you can do it while eating whatever you want? It’s true…cuz I heard it on the radio… and read it on the internet.
Eight minute abs. That’s right folks, in just eight minutes a day you can get the abs of Cheik Congo (pictured). All it takes is a quick crunch workout. No need to worry about your diet or doing any exercises that actually jack up your metabolism and burn fat.
Six minute muscle. Jay Cutler look out. Because some lazy schmuck is gonna embarrass you right off the stage next year by training no more than 18 minutes per week.
Four minutes to super strength. Wait til Chuck Vogelpohl and Louie Simmons find out that they wasted all those years and could have gotten so much stronger with significantly less time and effort.
Two minute conditioning. Poor Tito Ortiz. All those wasted trips to Big Bear in the high altitude. If only he had known that hard work was out of style and that he could have been in even better shape if he cut his training time down to two minutes per day.
That’s what people want. Because not only do they not have the time to train, but they just don’t wanna work that hard. I mean who wants to push the Prowler 25 times straight? Who wants to do high rep squats? Or heavy deadlifts? In the same workout? That sounds really hard…
A marketing guy once sent me an unsolicited email offering me his services. He told me that if I wanted to double my business I had to stop being honest. I had to make it seem like my workouts were easy, that getting in shape didn’t require much work and that the whole process would be painless and effortless.
To his point I put very little time and effort into my reply…
Fuck.
Off.
Getting in shape is brutally hard work. I don’t give a shit what all the scam artists and marketing scumbags tell you. If you can’t handle the truth then you’re destined to be soft and weak forever.
If you’re twenty percent body fat right now and desperately want a six pack you had better be prepared to diet your face off and work harder than you ever have in your entire life. When everyone is drinking beer at the football tailgate party on Sunday you’re drinking a gallon of water. And when the hot dogs go on the grill, you’re gonna have to pull out a steamed chicken breast and broccoli, which you prepared that morning, just like you do with all your meals for the day, every morning of every day. And you’re going to do that EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR SIXTEEN WEEKS STRAIGHT.
Don’t have time to do hill sprints after work? Then you gotta set your alarm clock a half hour earlier and get up while it’s still dark out. And when your strength training workout ends at night, the fun is just beginning for you. Because now you have to do a conditioning circuit of kettlebell swings, jump rope, mountain climbers, squat thrusts and sled dragging.
And let me tell you something else… NOBODY gets ripped in three workouts per week. If you want to see really significant fat loss you need to be putting in a minimum of five sessions per week . For some of you 8-10 would be even better. That could be three weight training workouts, three brutal conditioning sessions and two or three easier cardio/conditioning workouts.
Sucks, I know. But you said you wanted to get ripped. Be careful what you wish for. Because now you gotta earn it, or be looked at as a failure in the eyes of everyone you told.
I’ve seen fat fucks get on a bodybuilding stage in 20 weeks. But they didn’t say they “wanted” to do it. They said they were “going” to do it. And they did all that was necessary to achieve that goal. Which means, in the eyes of most people, their lives were pretty miserable for five months. It means no unplanned cheat meals and undying, round the clock dedication. But these people had the drive that most people don’t and were actually willing to work for something.
Wanting and doing are two completely different things. We all want a lot of things. But how many of us actually achieve our goals? How many are willing to put in the hard work necessary to reach the top?
“Twenty weeks?! That’s a lot of dieting and hard work. I can commit to twelve weeks but not twenty.”
Then go fucking play PlayStation and watch another episode of CSI. What do I give a fuck?
No matter what anyone tells you there is no replacement for hard work. No training system, no diet, no machine, no gimmick and no supplement.
But most people fear hard work more than they fear death. They simply don’t have it in them.
How many times have you gone to a public gym and seen someone squat or deadlift? About as often as you see hot chicks during day light hours I bet.
Better yet, when was the last time you saw someone do a good morning? Now that’s a hard, uncomfortable exercise. Who wants to subject themselves to that? Bent over rows? They hurt your back. Standing military presses?! Who wants to stand? You need to be comfortably seated with lumbar support while “working out.”
Plus, all these exercises take too long to perfect and the learning process can be very frustrating. Much easier to just jump on a machine, right? I mean, you’re at the gym to burn some calories, not learn a new skill, after all. Power cleans? Only a genius with the mental acuity of Albert Einstein could possibly learn to do those properly. Who has the time for that?
What “hardgainers” are actually willing to turn off The Real World and go to sleep an hour earlier to accelerate the muscle building process? Or have what it takes to force feed themselves at the most inconvenient times of day and sneak protein shakes in between classes?
Very few.
Unlike getting shredded, building muscle doesn’t require 6-10 workouts per week. Most hardgainers can get great results in three workouts and everyone else will do great with four sessions per week. But it’s still a 24 hour a day job that requires a monumental effort.
We are all brainwashed to believe that you can get bigger and stronger and leaner in a very short time, with very little effort and even less dedication.
But nothing could be further from the truth, my friends.
The only way to achieve physical greatness is through brutally hard fucking work.
End of story.
No go earn it.
Please leave your comments below.
Life Wasted
July 27, 2009
“You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong.”
– Life Wasted by Pearl Jam
Another summer weekend just came and went and now here we are yet again, on a Monday morning…
With yet another opportunity to change things for the better; to make the dramatic improvements that you have been planning to make for so long.
Maybe you thought about it over the weekend when you drank too many beers or ate too many hot dogs at your neighbors’ barbeque.
Or maybe you were ashamed to take your shirt off at the beach or your friends pool party and you promised yourself that life would be different come Monday morning. That you would finally step up and make the changes you have thought about for so long.
While some of you were nursing your hangover with coffee and a greasy, fried sausage biscuit yesterday morning, the dedicated were doing fasted cardio before sitting down to a healthy breakfast of green tea, organic eggs and fruit. Others slept off the booze lying around on the couch all day while the driven were running hill sprints in the hot sun.
Just like every Monday, you have a choice today. You can realize that weakness is a sin and you must now repent for a life wasted. Or you can continue on the path of mediocrity and continue to let others pass you by.
“I have faced it… a life wasted…
I’m never going back again.”
Sure it sounds good. Who wouldn’t want to be strong , jacked, fit and healthy?
But the question is do you have what it takes to commit to one goal and see it through to the end? Because most people don’t. Those people are the 95%. The disciplined make up the 5%.
Only 5% of all the people on the entire planet have what it takes to achieve greatness in any realm of life.
Be it in their job, their personal lives or a physical endeavor of any sort. Think that’s an exaggeration? Take a look around you. Go to Major League ballpark tonight. Tell me I’m lying. The 5% are on the field (and are represented in the pictures in this post) while the others are sitting in the stands stuffing their faces. After observing closely you may even think I’m giving more people more credit than they deserve. Maybe it’s one percent.
Where do you fall?
Each and every Monday morning represents a new beginning and a chance to turn things around and finally join the 5%.
We all know that only the strong survive. We know that to get bigger or leaner or to become a better athlete or stave off illness and disease we need to get stronger. But what steps are you taking to get stronger every day? What are you doing to escape your life wasted?
“I escaped it…a life wasted…
I’m never going back again.”
Did you get enough sleep last night? Or is late night TV more important than high testosterone levels, improved insulin sensitivity and enhanced overall health?
Did you avoid inflammatory foods this weekend? Or is the taste of sugar, wheat, soy, corn, dairy and saturated fat worth a life of pain, disease and incredibly slow recovery?
Did you order a foam roller or at least use the one at your gym religiously several times last week? Did you get a massage recently? Ah, what’s a little scar tissue, right? Let it keep building up. Moving freely and without pain is overrated anyway.
Did you throw out your posture destroying, injury causing Nike Shox and get a pair of Free’s or better yet, Vibram Five Fingers? Did you trash your fancy Italian loafers and replace them with something like a Sanuk? Or maybe your knees, hips and spine just aren’t that important.
Have you been taking 6-12 grams of high quality, pharmaceutical grade fish oil every day? Or maybe it’s too expensive. Besides you need money for beer on Friday nights.
Did you eat fruits and/or vegetables with every meal this week?
Have you been doing mobility work every morning? It’s probably the most important factor in musculoskeletal health and you’ll miss it when it’s gone; replaced by arthritis medicine and a walker.
What about cardio/conditioning? How many times did you push the prowler or run sprints this week? Being big and strong is great but not if your cardiovascular health has to suffer.
Did you order a jump rope to use at home on your off days?
What about a band or strap to help you stretch with at home? Stretching is boring and tedious and nobody likes to do it. But without it many of you will never get out of pain or even be able to perform a single rep of squats or deadlifts properly. Who needs those lifts anyway, right? Let me know how those leg extensions and leg curls work out for you.
Have you been eating by the clock, force feeding yourself when you’re not hungry? Choking down tablespoons of olive oil at the end of every meal to get more healthy calories? Counting protein grams and total calories? Drinking a gallon of water per day religiously? Cutting carbs at night and on off days?
Have you been taking advantage of the nice weather and walking several mornings per week while everyone else is still asleep? And if you have what will you do in a few months when the winter rolls around? Put your fitness on hold until the spring or put on a few layers and brave the cold weather while everyone else gets an extra half hour of sleep?
Did you throw out all the junk food in your house yet?
Have you started meditating on a regular basis?
The 23 hours per day that you spend outside of the gym are just as important, if not more so, than the hour you spend in the gym. Dedication is a 24 hour a day commitment. There are 168 hours in a week. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever gotten even remotely decent results from being dedicated for only three to four hours per week.
But those three to four hours are crucially important. You need to make sure you are keeping a training journal and tracking your progress; always trying to beat your previous best. Every workout is a battle; you against your log book and you must do all you can to emerge victorious and lift more weight or do more reps than you did last time. If you train with partners your job is to crush them and be the top dog at each and every workout. Competition is a healthy part of life and without it you are an organism that is not truly living, but slowly dying.
Do you have what it takes to get under a bar loaded with so many plates that it actually scares you? A weight that could crush you with one wrong move? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to move that weight and make it your bitch? And add five pounds to the bar next week?
Do you have what it takes to really fully commit to that goal? To stop questioning what you’re doing and wondering if there’s a faster, easier way? To realize that brutally hard fucking work is the only way to achieve greatness?
Because if you don’t you will never be among the 5% and you will be the one who has to live with your regrets. I know I have mine, and they eat away at me. I have made many mistakes over the years and know I could be a lot further along in my training then I am. I could have made better strength gains than I have but I slipped up and made mistakes along the way. But I take full responsibility for that. And I know I have to accept those mistakes, move on and promise myself that I will never make the same mistakes again.
It’s up to you to do the same. Don’t wait til tomorrow because it will be too late.
“Having tasted… a life wasted…
I’m never going back again.”
Please leave your comments below.
How to Build Muscle & Lose Fat for the Summer
May 27, 2009
Since Memorial Day Weekend, which is the unofficial start of summer, just passed, I have a question for you…
Did you meet all of your goals that you had set? Did you live up to those New Year’s resolutions? Did you gain all the size and strength that you vowed you would? Were you as lean as you hoped?
If the answer is no then you need to ask yourself why. And you need to step it up a notch. Where I’m from the beach season doesn’t really get into full swing for another month. Make it your goal to make dramatic improvements between now and the Fourth of July.
Write it down and be specific.
Post it on your refrigerator.
I don’t care what your goal is. To get bigger, stronger, leaner, faster… whatever. Just pick one or any combination of those and get after it with a vengeance.
Only you can decide what goal is worth pursuing. For me, I am still trying to gain back the weight and strength I lost from having shoulder surgery and that is far more important to me than getting ripped right now.
You may have the same goal, and if so you should be force feeding yourself by the clock.
Then again you may be trying to get down to single digit bodyfat. And if that’s the case your diet should be absolutely perfect.
Throw out the junk food and go to the super market today and stock your kitchen with fresh fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods. Fruit is in season so take advantage and load up on it.
And whether you are trying to get bigger or trying to get leaner doesn’t matter. Junk food isn’t part of the equation.
Some really skinny hardgainers with lightening fast metabolisms will need to eat some junk food once in a while to gain a lot of weight but it shouldn’t be a staple in your diet. Try to get used to eating as much clean food as you can and add in the junk for extra calories when you need it. But first add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to every meal before you reach for the cookies.
Summer is here, my friends, and it’s time to really step it up. The weather is beautiful and there is no excuse for you to not be outside running hill sprints, pushing the Prowler or your car, swimming, surfing, playing beach volleyball, riding your bike, hiking or rock climbing. All of these activities will make you healthier and leaner.
And don’t worry about overtraining and losing size and strength from playing too many recreational sports over the summer. It hasn’t hurt the thousands and thousands of jacked up college and professional athletes that we’ve all watched on TV every year for the last several decades and you won’t be the exception. Just be sure to eat and sleep enough to maximize your recovery ability.
Some of you may want to ditch your stuffy, corporate gym memberships and train outside for the entire summer. This is something I often do and highly recommend. The increased sun time will jack up your Vitamin D levels and you will feel great.
Get a pair of TRX Straps and you have your entire gym right in the palm of your hand. A great workout in the park could be as simple as a few sets of rows and pushups on the TRX Straps and a bunch of sprints. Another day you could do dips, chin ups and pistol squats. If you get a sled or Prowler or have access to a good hill you have even more options.
Summer will come and go before you know it and you will be kicking yourself that you either weren’t in the shape that you wanted to be in or didn’t take advantage of the great weather.
No regrets.
Train hard, play harder.
Jason Ferruggia
PS. To build muscle as fast as possible click HERE now.
If Warp Speed Fat Loss is your goal and you want to get ripped in 28 days, click HERE now.
Pick a goal and let nothing hold you back.
Please leave your comments below.
Wednesday’s Workout & Playlist
April 29, 2009
Got a little too fired up to train way too long before tonight’s workout. Approximately two and half hours prior to training I was listening to some old Rollins Band stuff and working myself into a frenzy. I want my old size and strength back yesterday. Not three months from now, not a week from now, not tomorrow. But yesterday. And I want to triple my previous bests in the worst way possible.
Since I have gotten worked up like this a million times in the past only to burn myself out come workout time, I tried my best to keep calm. I did some work and talked to people who have a calming effect on me. But no matter how hard I tried to suppress it I couldn’t hide the fact that I just wanted to get my hands on some heavy iron and rip the bar in half.
One of my training partners arrived at the gym early and said, “Wow, you’re already reeeeally pissed off, huh?”
“I wanna rip your fucking face off right now.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear. This is gonna be fun.”
After over two hours of visibly shaking in anticipation I finally started mellowing out and crashing about five minutes before the workout. Luckily I got the rage back and went on to have a great workout that consisted of a bunch of chins, military presses, pushups on the TRX Straps and neck work.
I only started being able to press overhead with kettlebells or dumbbells about a month or so ago. Started with a bar about a week or two ago. Tonight I did 135 for 10, which I was happy with. I have to take these slow and be careful not to reinjure myself. But I have my sights set on 225 for the summer. We’ll see how the shoulder holds up. But it’s feeling pretty good so far. The band dislocations definitely make a big difference and are highly recommended.
The training mix, listed below, which was blasting on the stereo definitely helped me reignite the intensity that I nearly lost and kept it high throughout the workout.
Prelude: NWA
Son of a Bush- Public Enemy
Take the Power Back- Rage Against the Machine
Just Another Victim- Helmet & House of Pain
Metal Storm/ Face the Slayer- Slayer
I Fuckin Hate You- Korn
Mob Scene- Marilyn Manson
Psycho- System of a Down
Step Up- Drowning Pool
Bastards of Bodom- Children of Bodom
Street Fighting Man- Rage
Gone Inside the Zero- Rollins Band
Zero- Smashing Pumpkins
I’m With Stupid- Static X
The Way I Am- Eminem ft/ Marilyn Manson
The Nigga Ya Love to Hate- Ice Cube
Night of the Living Baseheads- Public Enemy
I’m slightly stronger than my mom.
So don’t fuck with me.
Please leave your comments, questions and music recommendations below.
Last Night’s Training Mix
April 21, 2009
- Rebel Without A Pause- Public Enemy
- We’re Back- Bobby Creekwater, Cashis, Eminem, Obie Trice & Stat Quo
- Renegade- Hed PE
- Bleed it Out- Linkin Park
- PscyhoSocial- Slipknot
- War Within a Breath- Rage Against The Machine
- Fish Out of Water- Mudvayne
- Davidian- Machinehead
- Zero- Smashing Pumpkins
- Survival of the Streets- Cro Mags
- 99 Problems/ One Step Closer- Jay Z & Linkin Park
- Freedom (live)- Rage Against The Machine
- Butcher Knife Bloodbath- Jedi Mind Tricks
- What a Day- Nonpoint
- You Don’t Know- 50 Cent, Cashis, Eminem, Lloyd Banks
- Undead- Hollwood Undead
- Prophets of Rage- Public Enemy
You Either “Get It,” or You Don’t
April 17, 2009
After what seems like a hundred years of training a million people I can unequivocally state that your results in the gym are directly proportional to your IQ. You either “get it,” or you don’t. The first time someone walks in the gym I usually have a pretty good idea of what their long term progress will be within thirty seconds of meeting them. If not, I know for sure by the end of their first workout. Their attitude, work ethic, and usually most importantly, intelligence are the telltale signs of where they will be in twelve weeks. Some may question why I put smarts before work ethic, but the fact is smart people always work hard. That’s why we call them smart.
If I demonstrate an exercise and someone can’t do it fairly well, no matter how complex the movement, within five minutes of me teaching it, they are probably never going to be a good athlete nor will they ever be one of the big dogs in the gym. That’s just how it is. This has never been proven untrue during the 15 years that I have been training people.
If they don’t have incredibly high levels of kinesthetic awareness and really understand what we are doing and why we are doing it and how the body functions their results will always be less than optimal. The successful ones know how to arch their backs, brace their abs, tighten their glutes, drive with the hips. The tell tale sign of someone who will never get anywhere in the gym is when they can’t arch their back properly. If they can not get into the correct position for a bent over row or a Romanian deadlift the first time we attempt that drill, I know that there is very little hope for that person in the long term. That may sound harsh, but it’s a stone cold fact. If they can’t understand the difference between flexing at the hip and flexing at the spine within five seconds, I immediately know we are looking at someone who will always get subpar results. More and more high school kids come in with the flexibility of a conference table. I didn’t tell you to sit around on the couch and play Nintendo for all those years while allowing your hamstrings to become tighter than shoe leather. And now you want to earn a scholarship? Good luck.
For 15 years, the smartest guys I have trained have almost always gotten to be the biggest, fastest and strongest. They are highly attentive when I explain something for the first time. They don’t miss a word of it. They intently study what I am doing. They are inquisitive and they ask the right questions. Unlike what your first grade teacher might have taught you, there are stupid questions. Lots of them. The successful athletes and lifters never seem to ask them, though. These are the guys who watch every other person in their group perform every single rep of every single exercise that they do. They never miss a beat and try to learn from and help each and every other lifter in the gym, because they understand that you learn from both teaching and being taught. They are always looking for ways to improve their own technique, trying to figure out what the stronger guys are doing that they are not. They are quiet and introspective. The only conversation they engage in during the workout has to do with improving their strength or technique or helping someone else. They are thinking not about the girl they met this weekend or what happened at work today but rather exactly when to open up their knees at the bottom of their squat. Small talk and trivial conversation is something they don’t engage in. They realize that all of that can be turned off for an hour and they are working toward a bigger goal here; one that requires the utmost attention to detail. In fact that is one of the great joys of training; taking an hour to shut off the outside world and go to battle with yourself, your training partners and the iron. All the problems will still be there for you to dwell on and make yourself miserable with an hour later.
When I see a guy wandering around the gym, wishing I allowed him to check his cell phone or that a really hot girl would walk by the window I know his progress will always come at a snails pace. If I see someone not watching his partners do their sets and trying to either help them or pick up a tip to improve his own performance I know that I am looking at someone who just doesn’t get it. A year from now they will only have made slight improvements; or at best, something far from what they could have been capable of.
Usually after addressing a problem I would end an article with the solution. Unfortunately I don’t really have one here. You either get it or you don’t…
Renegade Gym- Watchung, New Jersey
March 31, 2009
Iron and the Soul
February 28, 2009
By Henry Rollins
I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like you parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. Completely.
When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.
I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.
Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.
Then came Mr. Pepperman, my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.
Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.
Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.
In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.
Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say **** to me.
It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.
I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.
I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.
Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.
I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.
Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
The Physical Follows the Mental
December 31, 2008
Let’s face it. Everyone wants to look better. I don’t know too many people that don’t want to gain more muscle or lose bodyfat. It’s human nature. You want to appeal to the opposite sex and command respect from you peers. I am obsessed with human performance and train for strength and function first and foremost, but even I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to look better. We all do.
But wanting and doing are two entirely different things. Everyone wants to dramatically transform their physiques, but how many people actually do? Very few. And do you know why? Because they don’t have the right mindset. Change your mindset and you will change your body.
Guys who have made incredible transformations accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to be easy and they were willing to work for it and do whatever it took. That’s not to say that it takes an inordinate amount of time. You don’t have to live in the gym. You can make great progress in just a few hours per week. But if you don’t have the right mindset and the determination to do whatever it takes during those three or four hours each week you will never get anywhere.
We all have time commitments that prevent us from training as much as we would like to. But lack of time never was and never will be an acceptable excuse. If you search hard enough and eliminate the wasted TV time and other nonsense, you will see that we all have two or three hours per week to dedicate to training. After all, what is more important than physical activity and exercise? Very little if you ask me.
Guys like Arnold, Bill Pearl, George Hackenshmidt and Ed Coan all had the never-say-die, take-no-prisoners attitude that is a prerequisite of dramatic physical transformation. Bill Pearl found that he was so busy that he had to wake up at 4am just to get his workouts in. But that’s what it took so he did it.
It doesn’t take the fanciest training system in the world, it doesn’t take a lot of time each week, it doesn’t take any expensive supplements; but it does take dedication and hard work. If you think you are going to loaf through your workouts and make a mind blowing change to your physique you are lying to yourself. Everything worth having in life requires hard work.
Will be this be the year when you finally make the mindset change necessary to achieve greatness or will you just make another useless New Years Resolution only to throw in the towel by February 1st?
Train hard and make 2009 your best year ever.
For a simple to follow, step by step plan to get you in the best shape of your life, in less than three hours per week, check out http://www.MuscleGainingSecrets.com/ now.
Happy New Year,
JF
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