SilentMachinery writes:

When Justin wrote that post about antagonistic motivation, I thought of how much I hate you Brent.

It’s funny that you’d say that because when he wrote that post I thought of how much I fucking hated myself, too.

When I first moved to Plano I was training at a globo gym called Express Fitness. It would have been a decent place to train if the bars weren’t 31-32mm in diameter. It was like 17.99 a month which I think was pretty good. I stopped training there because I was doing oly stuff at CF Dallas Central for a little bit and thought LA Fitness was a better globo for the PL-oriented stuff. On a related tangent, the Gold’s here is also not a bad globo, lots of room around the squat racks so you can dead and power clean + press, the bench racks are not terribly well made and the top rack is 1-2 inches too tall to bench out of. For me at least, I’m 5’5″, normal sized humans might fit it better. Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind catching a pump there doing things not needing a good bench.

Anyways when I first signed up at the Express Fitness the head trainer was this jock kines major dude who was fairly jacked and shredded. Real stereotypical dude with one of those stock jacked guy accents. He was pretty nice to me, wasn’t a dickhead about stuff, asked me about my goals and what I trained for, if I was interested in a trainer.

“Nah,” I said, sitting there weighing a chubby 178lbs with 15″ arms and a 34″ waist, “I kinda compete in powerlifting, I handle my own programming.” Whenever people ask me if I compete, I never say Olympic weightlifting, because I’m fucking tired of having to explain the fucking difference, and I’m fucking tired of having to demonstrate what the snatch and clean-and-jerk are. I just don’t fucking care anymore. I just want to get done with all that shit so I can do my curls and db lat delt raises. Sometimes I even omit that I’m competing, because I’m sick of people saying it doesn’t look like I lift, or that I’m not that big. I’m just fucking done with it. All right, whatever, I don’t look like I fucking lift, the only reason you can tell is because all of my t-shirts are related to lifting or mobbing (or suicide), I get it, go fuck yourself.

“Cool brah,” he said – that is to say, I’m not surprised that this chubby fucking Asian dude thinks he is hot shit because he benches 225lbs for reps. High school called, they want you to know it’s OK to be a late bloomer.

Anyways, at the end of me signing up, he did the typical selling memberships thing – “So hey man, you got any friends around here? You get one to sign up, you get ten dollars off your monthly dues, pay 7.99 a month. You know anybody?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t have any friends around here right now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah uh I mean I just moved here and I don’t really go out much.”

He makes a face. “Well all right man whatever. Anyways yeah, you make a friend or something, make him your workout buddy, bring him here, save some money off your dues.”

“All right.” Then I proceeded to not make any friends for the next six or seven months I trained there. In fact, I fucking made enemies. I asked this older dude grumpy looking dude – who was probably just pissed that he wasn’t on HRT – for a spot, and he proceeded to give me the most begrudging spot in the history of spotted benching. The guy acted like I pissed in his fucking corn flakes. Not only was he pissed at me for asking for a spot, he went on to critique my form on the bench – “Most of the reps were good, but you bounced the last one off your chest a little.” Hey man thanks, I’ll run that by R&D and see what they can do with it.

[spoiler show=”I could have written less.”]On Friday I pulled 440lbs for three singles and they weren’t that hard. I haven’t pulled 440lbs this easily since, like, more than two years ago. I could have pulled it for like a double maybe. Hook-grip held on fine. Best deadlift ever is 440lbs x 3 with a mixed grip at 180lbs bw.

Saul had me try the poor man GHRs that you do off a lat pulldown … essentially a bodyweight hamstring curl. Some pretty gnarly, peak hamstring contraction. The regular GHR at the gym is not built that great and I haven’t figured out how to set my hips and feet correctly (the foot pads are adjusted in an arc, as opposed to being able to move them separately in two planes) so the GHRs off the lat pulldown are honestly better as far as the hamstring curl element. I’ve done them two or three times so far. Is it unfeasible that these helped hit my distal hamstrings and made my pulls feel a substantial bit easier off the floor?

If it wasn’t the GHRs and subsequent development of the distal hams, then it was me hitting the piriformis and tack-and-stretching my high hamstrings and glutes with hip flexion as opposed to knee articulation. I def think the GHRs have helped.

I sucked at benching though. Took my last warm-up at 275lbs and thought I could put away 290lbs for a single and ended up getting stapled by it twice. Good.

If you guys are in the market for another catch phrase to use, start saying “Good.” Say it whenever something the opposite of good happens, or to voice approval for things that you don’t approve of.

On Sunday I did a bunch of shit that mostly sucked, I pressed 175lbs for 3, 2, 3, 1, 1, power cleaned + hang cleaned up to 245lbs, cleaned 265lbs, front squat 355lbs for two singles (back may have been tired from deads?), and did some barbell rowing, curls, and lat delt db raises.

enlightenedsnipe writes:

Hey Brent, at least you aren’t pressing jelly weight for mediocre PRs, then missing bench singles at 225 three times in one week. It’s fine…
I’ll just go back to mobbing my scaps, traps, and tris. At least the pain there means something is getting better.

The pain is the only thing that’s real.

Hey man – I am definitely pressing jelly-dicked weight for mediocre PRs. Trust me. I do it every press workout.

Welp, see ya later! writes:

Justin, thanks for the link. I guess a big part of my question is what is the potential of this mobbing stuff to remedy real chronic stuff like what I’m dealing with that has been present for literally years? I mean I know it’s good for me, and it helps me move better in the here and now, and it can prevent more damage…but is there other stuff I need to do to make the longstanding damage that has already been done go away? Because it’s pretty well-established now, you know? These are just general thinking-out-loud questions, so don’t feel compelled to respond.

Pretty high potential. PT is meant for this kind of shit. A lot of people are under the assumption that “mobility” is just about ROM and flexibility – but when we talk about mobility we’re also talking about starting positions, bottom positions, we’re talking about efficient joint articulation (i.e. do I have enough glenohumeral internal rotation to snap the bar overhead in the snatch while keeping my shoulders back? Do I have the capacity to keep the knees out with my toes forward? Am I silk over steel springs, or do I have soft-tissue or postural limitations that are causing me to leak force out of my movement?), we’re talking about moving in a way that protects our tissues. One of the biggest reasons we got chronically inflamed tissue is because of poor movement. Mobility is about restoring the ability to move correctly and with good mechanics in addition to treating soft tissue or joint articulation problems.

So stop being a fucking dickhead and holding yourself back.

karibot writes:

Okay, I’m super feminist, but that shit is cray cray. The friendzone knows no gender. The friendzone does not discriminate. The friendzone is equally cruel to all.
brb, scrolling through texts and listening to this:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfJsrJ-lKGc]
immediately followed by this:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0cC-7J_wi8]

BRB knowthatfeelbro.jpg too much.

Chris writes:

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/35o2pi/ I accomplished this. Haven’t talked to her since September 24, 2010. http://i41.tinypic.com/3313jh0.jpg

The meme really does inspire being an adult about your feelings. That and this flowchart have been my emotional guide for the past few months. They help a lot.

Mark writes:

How many blogs are you reading? All I read is this, 70′s big Mainsite, then Stroup’s, Vale’s Tyspkin’s, etc, one or twice a week.

I read all my friend’s blogs because I like reading what they think about. I don’t read any fitness or strength blogs other than Justin’s. I can’t handle most other blogs because most of the people writing about lifting fucking blow at writing. Glenn Pendlay’s is all right, he has a personality and has good stories to tell because he trains legit athletes.

Josh writes:

Im at work right now. sitting in a room with a guy who unsuccessfully tried to blow his head off, (im a nurse) is it wierd that it reminded me of you, except that I thought that you would be much more successful. I was thinking about how unhappy this guy was and how much more shitty his life is going to be now that half of his face is missing and he is still alive. IMO we could all learn alot from this guy. GUN TO THE TEMPLE NOT UNDER THE CHIN! BTW you should go after white chicks. They have much lower standards than asian chicks.

If I were going to kill myself I’d park my car in a garage and close the door behind me and leave the engine running. Then I’d play this song:

and wait to die when Thom sings

I’ll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,
with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
Silent silence.[/spoiler]