If you hit any PR’s this week, tell us about them in the comments. Otherwise, you can update everyone on your training and ask questions. There’s good football on this weekend, so enjoy it.
Here’s a picture of Nate and his buddy — they find a way to train hard while in Iraq. Nate recently hit a 380×5 squat set, pressed 185 for 5 singles, and deadlifted 460×5 at 185 pounds. He’s on his way. Nice job, Nate.
Picture from JSS McHenry, Iraq
The need for strong, red-blooded men and women isn’t a new idea: Thanks to Shana W. for the pic.
1.Here is an interesting article that will be useful for a very small percentage of you. I’ll explain why in a later post, but it’s an interesting read.
2. I’ve explained this in a comment, but not everyone reads all of the comments.
I’m not hurting for writing ideas. When I write something for the site, I’ll write out my draft, then go back through it at least once and edit it to make it more concise and vigorous. The process of writing a simple post takes, at the minimum, 30 minutes for a useful and entertaining article (the average time would be over an hour). There are times when I a) don’t want to spend my night writing a post, b) don’t have time to spend my night writing a post, and c) am not in the mood to be moderately entertaining in the post. Hardly any of you care when I write about something in a dry manner (although its application is very useful for you — example). The two posts with the highest page views and individual visitors are this and this. The first post is me in a speedo and the second is Rachel in a sports bra. That’s totally fine with me (I’m amused by the former), but the reality is that hardly any of you will give a hoot unless I’m thoroughly entertaining.
If one of the above reasons occurs and I’m not planning on writing a proper article, then I’ll usually post a video, picture, or story as a filler. I’ll remind you that this website has posted five days a week for over a year, and I don’t have much compensation aside from the fact that I’m helping a lot of people. I’m not asking for anything, I’m just pointing out that it’s a variable in deciding whether or not I’m going to spend an hour or two out of my day providing daily content.
Luckily you can do something about this. You can send me videos, pictures, stories, questions, testimonials, and the like that have anything to do with 70’s Big (literal or allegorical), strength training, food, conditioning, fitness, women who train, etc. This will give me “filler” content in between posts where I actually do write out an original article/post.
I was at a fitness facility a few weeks ago and (aside from people half squatting, which drives me insane), there was a guy making lots of noise. He was in his forties, and every single movement (whether he was picking something up off the ground or completing a rep) was accompanied by “Eeeeeeeeeeeeh, sahhhhhhhhh!”. When you say the “Eeeeh!” part, make it come from the depths of your throat without the guttural addition — kinda like when an umpire calls a strike (“Streeeeeeeeeh!”). The second part, the “sahhhhh”, is comparable to the noise you might make after taking a sip of delicious beer (mmm, beer). However, you add on the sharp “s” noise at the beginning which is comparable to the beginning of the word “sayonara” (the Japanese word that has become slang for “see you later, mother trucker”). Both of the sounds were done at a decibel level equal to that of an exuberant third-strike-umpire, and it was audible across the facility.
Only people with three arms are allowed to do front raises
I would consider this unacceptable even if he was doing a heavy set of squats, but the guy was doing…front dumbbell raises. This irrelevant exercise doesn’t garner enough energy to emit strange sounds, much less warranting the noise of an intense Karate fight. Making excessive noise in a fitness facility, “gym”, or gym is lame because it means you want attention. If you were wanting attention, you could roll your sleeves up and wear shirts with jewels, crosses, and skulls on them like everybody else.
Non-excessive noise is acceptable if and only if you are experiencing high intensity. This would require a high percentage of your max or lots of reps (i.e. > 10) with a significant percentage of your max. I’ve grunted when lifting before, but I think the only time I’ve ever screamed was when I hurt my back at the bottom of a rep and squatted it up so I didn’t kill Chris and the other spotter. If you’re in a public facility, yelling unnecessarily is annoying and stupid. If you’re in your own facility then yelling is not only acceptable, but encouraged. Excessive yelling should be accompanied by loud Led Zeppelin, round house kicks, and big weights. If you are yelling about a light day, then you are saying, “Look at me! I have a teeny peeny!”
Image from Little Britain, a British comedy show that is better than whatever you watch on TV.
