Brent Getting His Yoke On

That was SSG’s Salvatore Guinta’s recollection of how Bravo team fought out of an ambush. “We’re gonna throw grenades we’re gonna shoot we’re gonna run. We’re gonna throw grenades we’re gonna shoot we’re gonna run.” Seen Restrepo?

I admire problem-solving like that. Taking PKM fire from multiple directions at close range it’s fine. Disrupt enemy fire and reorganize. Secure the wounded, kill the fuck faces who might be trying to take off with one of your own.

Saw one of the prettiest girls at Starbucks I’ve ever met. Big brown eyes and full lips, Cupid’s bow. So pretty she hurt to look at. Didn’t talk to her. She stood near the drive-through window, with it open, so I could have talked to her if I wanted to. She was discussing tickets to some show with a friend and if they had secured other tickets. I could have asked her, “So do you like Taylor Swift?” Instead I quietly shoveled buckets of shit in my car listening to Radiohead. As she handed me the cold, perspiring glass, our fingers touched. I say to myself, We’re gonna throw grenades we’re gonna shoot we’re gonna run. I say, to her this time, thank you, and drive the fuck away.

Woke up late for training on Tuesday and Wednesday, ideally I would have done the oly lifts and at least some pulling. On Wednesday it would have been nice to front squat. Had 30 minutes to train so just did the oly lifts, snatched off of boxes, bar starting below the knee, worked up to 205lbs. C+jed 265lbs. Could have taken it or left it. I can see utility in snatching from the boxes and have done them before, though not with the bar starting from below the knee. Helps you think about waiting to shift the knees around the bar and hitting the pocket before extending. Pulls felt pretty straight off the box. Also, extending immediately into the second pull from a dead-stop, with the bar above the knees, and pulling the bar with less momentum from the first pull, with the bar below the knees, feels like it would be pretty good for training the pull violently.

There is a real pretty Vietnamese girl at this boba tea shoppe I go to. I have no idea how old she is. She could be 17 she could be 28, I just don’t fucking know. More than likely she’s in college since she’s working at this place in the AM/early afternoon. I see her a lot, she probably recognizes me, probably thinks I’m a fucking piece of shit because of the gay fucking t-shirts I wear and the soffes and tank and all the other bullshit I’m doing with my fucking life. She tolerates me. I briefly consider talking to her every time I go and immediately dismiss the idea once she makes eye contact with me. She hands me the cold, perspiring glass and our fingers touch. I nearly drop the tea. She hands me the straw and it takes me two grasping motions to actually secure it in my hand. We are losing control of the operation. She appears indifferent. I am perspiring heavier than the glass is. I puncture the sealed top of the drink and suck. Nearly choke on a tapioca pearl. Leave the boba tea shoppe coughing.

That didn’t really happen it’s fine.

Mark writes:

We should gchat about the fitness model chick this evening.

Don’t really want to talk about her.

Chris and oldman write:

Brent, I would advise that you skip the dinner Saturday and play SC2 instead, or watch the Pacquiao/Marquez fight with some dudes.

also there are UFC fights as well. How are you not invited to hang out with other bro’s to watch boxing or mma?

lol, “hey Brent, you don’t like going out, why don’t you go to a fucking BAR to eat shitty food and watch shit that you don’t care about surrounded by drunk assholes who are going to be making a big fucking deal out of it so you can’t even really hear what’s going on.” Hey guys, that sounds like a LOT of fun. Let me put that on my bucket list, right under “fall in love with a girl best friend, actually kiss her this time, then get dumped and spend the next five years of my life struggling to pull myself out of devastating depression.”

No but really – I don’t have any friends in DFW who are into that. The last time I went to a bar it was with Saul and Becky to watch the livestream of MLG, and when we got there they were playing recorded games just because Day[9] was commentating for them.

I’ve hung out with these chicks before, I enjoy myself. Also the food at this place we are going to is pretty legit.

Becky writes:

hey friend! i miss you. i was talking about you today with my classmates. so here’s how it started…

let me know if you could handle this and i’ll set it up.

We’re gonna throw grenades we’re gonna shoot we’re gonna run.

Becky and I discussed this, we’ll go hang out, I’m sure it’ll be fun. If it’s disastrous it’ll still be a good blog post. Guess I’ll pepper my angus. I’m not comfortable with being advertised as “funny” and “jacked” but I suppose I can just do a bunch of chin ups in my room before leaving to hang out so it’ll look like I’m wearing a swolo as opposed to a polo. I don’t know what I’m going to do about pretending to be a funny guy though.

I guess what I’m asking is, should I show up to this thing carb-depleted and dehydrated or what?

Over the past couple days I’ve

– snatched 215lbs from the hang <– I think this is a PR
– snatched 225lbs
– cleaned 290lbs <– matches lifetime PR
– high-bar back squat 405lbs x 3
– pressed 180lbs x 3 <– lifetime PR
– +65lbs x 4 weighted ring dips

brian writes:

this easily shits on frank yang’s xanga

:3

hamburgerfan writes:

Brent: the other day an attractive coworker told me that I seemed really innocent. Has that ever happened to you? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? Should I fucking kill myself?

Definitely sounds like she was saying you seemed like you’ve never gotten your dick wet. Looking like a virgin isn’t something to kill yourself over but maybe work on having a less dopey smile and maybe act like you have the capacity to get an erection every once in a while. Also, if you really wanted to know what she meant, this would have been a perfect opportunity to shoot back “What the FUCK’S that supposed to mean?” You would have gotten an answer. And if you didn’t like it, you could have flexed in her face.

criedthefox writes:

this may be somewhere in your blog already, but where do you get your grass fed beef AND is it cheaper per pound compared to dick-fed beef bought at the local grocery?

I go to a grass-fed farm with Saul. Slanker’s Grass-Fed Meats. It may be a bit cheaper per lbs at this point? It’s been a while since I last checked at a grocery store but it seemed like ground beef was getting pretty close to $5.00 per lbs, at least at Tom Thumb which is where I typically get my stuff. (Tom Thumb is a chain of supermarkets in DFW). Either way I’m not going back to grain-fed meat. I shit better and grass-fed meat tastes significantly better than grain-fed. Also I love going on road trips with my BFF Saul to the farm.

I just published this post before I was done with it but it’s fine.

The super hot fitness model chick was at the gym while I was there with Saul and Becky one evening last week. She approached the three of us to ask Saul if he was still using a part of the Rogue rig for pull ups. I experienced acute adrenal fatigue from the almost-lethal exposure to her. If my lifts go down in the next couple days it’s from the spike in cortisol levels and subsequent depressed testosterone. Saul and Becky did not have much trouble interacting with her. I felt my heart rate jack up to about 180bpm any time she got too close and had to go take a lift. They suggested I ask her to go to Elevation Burger with us to have grass-fed hamburgers but it was pretty ezpz for me to think of about seven pretty good reasons to not ask her and instead shovel a lot of shit. Special Forces may not be in my future but I’ll be goddamned if I don’t get pinned with the Expert Shoveler’s Badge at some point in my life.

In another story of my fucking life, I’ve been invited out to a Saturday dinner at which I will be the only male. Everyone else will be female. I can’t say I’m surprised about this. The girl who invited me went so far as to say,

“Usually if there’s only one guy with a bunch of girls, it turns out he’s the gay one.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

So yeah, if you need me on Saturday night, call me – I’ll be the guy twiddling my fucking thumbs while the six girls I am sitting with are talking about their favorite articles of lingerie, sex, and why they would like to bone guys who AREN’T me. It’s actually not that bad. I have fun. I guess this is not helping the fact that they all think I suck a lot of fucking dick. <– this won't help the search engine terms that come to my site, which already mainly consist of "fat jiggly tits.gif" because of the post I did a while back on fat vs. big boobs.

Imagine who I am without movement. I am particulate mass rotting away, dying like senescent plant matter. What does it mean to move?

Quantum mechanics states that all particles exhibit both particle and wave properties. I am rays. This is what I feel with knee flexion and full plantar flexion. I am bands. Find the ones that hurt the most. What does it mean to hurt? Test, re-test. What is a few degrees of knee flexion worth to me?

When she was gone, I felt nothing. I am ice.

What should pain mean to an organism?

She walks away and I watch. This is what I will remember of her; watching her leave. I picture walking by her side. Even in my head I can only see the silhouette of her not looking at me. I try not to think about this. Is this pain?

Decide you want to do something. Pour yourself into the act of doing it. Come up short. Do this again and again. Become familiar with failure. I am not strong enough, I am not skillful enough, I am not who I want to be. Is this pain?

She loves me. I believe her. It isn’t enough. She would give more if she could. She can’t. I am water, wave-like particles seeping out of a broken vessel. She grasps at me and I weave through her fingers. Is this pain?

Find what hurts. Pin point it. Bear down on it. Does it feel like a knife? Move under pressure. I am rays. I am bands. I am muscle fibers contracting and releasing, with an unyielding ball lodged between my scapula and thoracic spine. Where are my scars? What will it take to free them? Scar tissue doesn’t change. Hurt something inside you, and it is never the same. Have you tested your limits? One day we all become broken.

Breathe. Move. I am muscle fibers contracting and releasing. Pain is a construct of the mind.

Test, retest. Am I different? Am I better? Measure this in degrees.

“Have you changed?” she asks. For a moment, I believe in something I can’t prove.

Shrug. This is a function of scapular elevation. How much of that is influenced by soft-tissue adhesions?

And then she is gone. I feel nothing. I am ice. Scar tissue does not contract. It is non-functional tissue in the context of movement.

Externally rotate the hip. Descend into hip flexion. Does it feel like tearing? Breathe. Move farther. Close the hip angle. Without movement, I am rotting particulate mass. Repeat this mantra. I am rays, I am bands. Test, retest. Have I felt this before?

Tissue only adapts to the stressors imposed upon it. I forget what it is to see her face.

I sprained knee ligaments a few years ago. The knee won’t forget that; it is why a few degrees of knee flexion matter to me. It was hurt and changed forever. Tissues scarred over and there are pieces in the bands and rays of that leg that don’t contribute to movement.

I think of her. Pain is a construct of the mind. Stretch farther. Bear down harder. Damaged tissue can’t be changed but I can still recover lost function. Measure this in degrees. How much less does it bother me that I can’t go back?

On Monday I pressed 162.5lbs for 5, 5, 4, 3, and 2. Last two sets could have been harder. I could have gotten more reps on them. I could have bigger anterior delts.

Front squat 340lbs for two triples and a single. This might be a minor volume PR for front squats in the sense that I’ve never done 340lbs for multiple triples. I’m also approaching all-time PR territory, I think I’ve only done 350lbs x 3 and I should be surpassing that in a couple weeks, hopefully for more than one set. 350lbs x 3 was with a belt and I haven’t put a belt on in probably three weeks.

Did some pretty negligible oly lifting after that … my shoulders may have been smoked after pressing but I just wasn’t doing very well.

Finished up with weighted ring dips and worked up to +60lbs x 5.

Saul’s got a few new assistance exercises involving the use of chains … not for Westside BB DE-type activity but just as weight for bodyweight exercises since they change center-of-mass from where it would be if one were to use a pull-up/dip weight belt.

See if you guys can’t make a meme or a .gif out of a screen cap of my facial expression from 1:02 to 1:05.

Also, check out Saul’s response to the Branch Warren reference in this one:

Chris writes:

Who has a better diet, you or Justin? We’ve seen Justin’s meal vlog, but you rarely mention your nutrition. You don’t strike me as someone who monitors his protein, carb, and fat intake all that closely, but you probably do.

First of all, “you don’t strike me as someone who monitors his protein, carb, and fat intake all that closely” what the FUCK is that supposed to mean?

(sidenote: one time a girl told me “you look like someone who gets along with everybody” and my response was “what the fuck’s that supposed to mean” she laughed shortly after this she watched my dance video and more or less stopped talking to me it’s fine)

But honestly? Honestly? Honestly? Probably Justin. I eat rice, boba tea, and Starbucks on a pretty regular basis so … but grass-fed beef is also a staple in my diet, in the sense that I consume about 2.5lbs-3lbs a day of it. I used to carb cycle but now that my bf% has improved I don’t really worry about macros as much. A typical day for me consists of essentially grass-fed meat and rice with the occasional fruit/vegetable. I like oranges right now. On occasion I’ll make chili with baby carrots and celery and Rotel and make corn bread with that. I bought a few roasts in my most recent order of beef and I might be using russet potatoes as a starch which is pretty not fucking Paleo.

Jake writes:

Brent, I was just reflecting on your YouTube username, “brentlovesulol”, and I realized it was very apt. Brent tries to confess his feelings to a pretty girl (perhaps Asian, b-cups, dimples), but is unable to come right out with it, hence the dissembling by referring to himself in the third person and ending with “lol”, to take the edge of of his confession.

I loled that you specified cup size. This is pretty accurate though. BRB, if you need me I’ll be the guy crushed at the bottom of a cliff inside the mangled remains of his car.

Mobility-wise, I have not felt better in a long fucking time. My fucking internal rotation? I’m like – this feels like fucking 100% to me. I muscle snatched 110lbs/50k for a triple, and it was like, legit muscled – I lost momentum at about neck height and there was quite a bit of muscling involved to turn the bar overhead. And it didn’t hurt and my shoulders weren’t fucked. I also benched before this, and also snatched and c+jed after, and my shoulders aren’t fucking inflamed. My bottom position squats feel pretty solid, I held some decent stuff overhead (as well as two days ago). I have legit improved my movement options. I’ve been doing mob work for … I dunno. Maybe a little under a year. I started probably sometime last year around October or November. I feel like a completely different athlete.

I benched up to 265lbs for a paused double on Friday, backed off to 245lbs for a paused triple. This has been an interesting week for pressing. For starters I’ve pressed 3x this week with 48 hours rest between sessions and I haven’t felt too bad. It’s been relatively low-volume.

Power snatched + snatch from the hang up to 195lbs, then squat snatched + snatched from the hang 205lbs, then squat snatched 215lbs (and missed a snatch from the hang).

Clean-and-jerked up to 275lbs, cleaned 285lbs twice and missed the jerk both times. My jerks felt surprisingly good, and I thought today would be the day I’d fucking PR on this shit but I have a few loose ends to tie together here. My split’s a lot better (from couch stretching and attacking quad/suprapatellar soft tissue) so I’m able to fucking support the shit I get overhead. However, I probably need to think about starting from a tight, organized position so that I finish in a tight, organized position, thinking about something to cue external rotation in the front rack.

For a while, the discrepancy in my knee flexion was affecting my snatch and clean bottom position quite a bit. Especially in the snatch, I’d always twist towards the side that was deficient in knee flexion. That’s definitely a lot better now and in addition to that I feel a lot more organized receiving cleans.

Finished up this workout with some weighted ring dips and worked up to +60lbs x 4.

Overall this was a pretty good workout, if for no other reason than I felt like a reasonably supple leopard.

* * *

Power snatched 205lbs today (Saturday), then power cleaned 260lbs + front squat + jerk for a power clean PR. Also c+jed up to 285lbs for a 10lbs c+j PR.

High-bar squat 365lbs x 5 and 385lbs x 3 afterwards, went home, ate, rested, came back to train with Saul and Becky and high-bar back squat 385lbs x 5.

Push pressed 195lbs for a single and a double.

Snatch-grip dead 352lbs for two sets of 4.

Weighted pull ups, curls, rounded-back extensions, I was fucking done after the first set of snatch-grip deads.

So let me link this one more time – starting from a stable, organized position to finish in a stable, organized position. Thinking about externally rotating the shoulders + pulling them back (not completely, but not having them forward and deliberately squeezing the scaps back) did a fucking legit number for my jerk. I felt real solid overhead, the jerks I hit today are the best jerks I’ve hit in a real long fucking time.

Went to a breakfast place pre-workout in the late AM today, saw a real cute hostess with a pretty smile, didn’t talk to her. Supposedly she was looking in our direction as we walked out the door but she was either into my roommate’s guns since he was wearing a sleeveless shirt or my buddy’s emo haircut and glasses.

Jake writes:

Have you watched many movies from the 70′s? Do you realize that ALL of them end in the most depressing fucking way possible. Usually it involves the main character dying. Fuck, just check out Get Carter.
So in honor of those horrible movie endings, you should start a 70′s Depressed seminar. I’d go and I have a fucking girlfriend. Fuck.

I’m very rarely in a depressed mood so I wouldn’t know anything about giving a seminar on being depressed.

melody writes:

I go to the same gym as you, but at a different time. Now when I read your blog IT makes me feel like a total stalker. Even though I read it before. Way to make things weird.

You may as well have just asked me “so uh … what are you wearing?” with a comment like that.

Best writes:

This was a deload week, so no PR’s but I did find a wallet with about 350 cash in it. I went to the chicks house cuz she lived near me and she gave a hundred bucks for returning it. She was ugly so I didn’t bang her but I clearly could have. My girlfriend had a pumpkin carving party with her friends, I went to that and got drunk then went to sleep; it couldn’t have gone better.
Life is good in SoCal, where do you live again?
Oh, and thanks for inspiring me to help out at a suicide hotline; since you don’t update frequently enough for my misery fix, I supplement with phone calls of other self loathers. I hope this doesn’t make you jealous.

Pumpkin carving party doesn’t sound that fun, if you’ll lettuce beans real tea for a moment. I’d rather be couch stretching or rolling my glutes/high hamstrings out with a ball. Or playing StarCraft 2. Watching the Day[9] Daily. Getting drunk just sounds fucking terrible. Since I’m Korean, any experience with imbibing alcohol typically blows since I just get a headache, inflamed, and go to sleep after very minimal intake (i.e. less than two beers). I’ve never enjoyed the sensations I got from drinking alcohol. Some people feel sorry for me because of that but it’s hard for me to see a downside to not drinking. I think the first time I went to sleep after drinking two beers, the people I was hanging out with took turns dry humping me. I don’t remember it happening.

I am off Oct 31st but don’t have any plans to go to Halloween/costume parties. Nor have I been invited to any. I intend to be at the gym for the majority of the early evening, doing some volume pressing, and probably eating a lot of grass-fed meat afterwards. There’s a lot of people on my facebook feed posting pictures of their costume parties. I’m pretty indifferent.

Ask me how foreveralone.jpg I feel. Seriously. Just ask me. Ask me.

I clean-and-pressed 175lbs for a pretty smoked triple on Wednesday for a legit life-time all reps dead-stopped press PR. Thom Vale had this to say about it:

Tom: that’s decent
i don’t care what you press
because it’s never going to be 230
so grats on prssing
Tom: 55lbs less
than the required amount?
Tom: hi 5 for not reaching the goal?
Tom: congratulations, you made it to everest base camp, but not the summit?

So I filed this away in my folder labeled “Motivation.” where I compile all the things that have been said and done to me that make me want to train (these are the same things that haunt me that will drive me to start a never-ending cycle of 500mg test IM a day). Among other things, this is the same record where I’ve written the one time that a girl – who I WASN’T hitting on – told me, “You’ll find a nice girl one day.” That is to say, “You’ll find a nice girl one day, but it sure as FUCK isn’t going to be me. I am just saying this pre-emptively just so we are on the same page. Good luck with your being single goals of 2011.”

Yeah that folder doesn’t really exist. I mean it does but I don’t have a written record.

For those of you aren’t aware: a current side quest in my overall mission statement is to press 230lbs while at a bw < 175lbs before the end of 2012. Thom Vale doesn't think I can do it before then. I intend to press 230lbs from a clean, with a dead-stop, for a double, since I am 2x the man Thom Vale doesn't think I am. Every time I do something pressing related I think of Thom Vale telling me I am shit, I am nothing, I don't belong here. NEGATIVE SERGEANT I AM SPECIAL FORCES MATERIAL.

I also snatched 225lbs, c+jed 275lbs (after three or four attempts, meaning I cleaned it 4x and missed the jerk 3x), and high-bar back squat 390lbs x 3 without a belt. I haven’t been stretching my glutes/hip external rotators as frequently as I have, but I’ve been hitting them pretty regularly again and my shit is normalizing back into something that makes for decent squat mechanics.

This is a guy who does commentating for SC2. If you think SC2 is lame, get fucked please. Anyways I wanna train with Day[9]. Him and Tasteless actually, two coolest guys in the world, I’d def do some benching with them in a globo. If I could choose between training with some hardcore national team in like Cuba or Russia or even the OTC vs. benching with 30mm bars at a fucking globo with Day[9] and/or Tasteless – well I’d pick the former if I have to be 100% honest. But honestly? Honestly? Day[9] legit seems like a cool guy and it’d be sweet to bang out some dips with him or something.

This is what I’m reduced to. Watching clips of a guy’s fucking YouTube vlog wishing I could be friends with him.

Ryan asks:

Brent, how do you feel about the McRib?

It looks like a pile of dog shit.

Captain Ronn writes:

The Choctaw Nation has a wellness center in Hugo. It’s for shit. I live in Oklahoma City now but we could definitely meet up in Hugo. We could buy a 30 pack of Keystone Light and get rejected by toothless meth heads. And then fucking kill ourselves. Please respond.

Oklahoma City?????? Jesus. Fuck that. I’m not gonna have both of us drive 2 hours to meet in a fucking podunk city to train at a shitty gym, eat shitty food, and have one person drink shitty beer (since I do not drink). We should figure something out though. Maybe we can meet up for a meet if you do PL or OL.

I’d be interested in having a 70s Big/I’m Just An Asshole Who Reads Your Blog meet-up sometime as well. Would make for at least a few good facebook pics and a decent blog post I imagine.

Matt writes:

If you need to meet a nice Korean girl come to Gwinnett Co. GA. You pick pick tons of them out at the Assi Supermarket or Super H Mart. Or you can check out one of the 10,000!! Fucking Korean church’s that are EVERWHERE in Duluth. If you can’t find the soy for your sauce here you are out of luck chop stick.

One of the best comments ever posted to this site, well done.

No it didn’t really make much of a difference in my online activity.

I was supposed to do an intensity press this past Monday but I forgot when I got to the gym and tried to do another volume press. I ended up pressing 162.5lbs for 5, 4, 2, and 1 and did a back-off set at 150lbs x 5. The strikingly decreased performance after the second set probably came from the fact that I was super-setting my presses with front squats, and hit 335lbs for 3, 3, and 2, which is pretty close to a kind of volume PR.

This workout would have been better if I pressed 172.5lbs for a triple, or 175lbs for a double. I will prob be attempting that tomorrow and doing a lot of weighted ring dips for accessory/bodybuilding. Unless my warm-up presses feel like shit, then I’ll just do push presses and a bunch of ring dips, then continue with regularly-scheduled programming.

My aunt from Hawaii is in Dallas this week. I’ve been hanging out over at my other aunt’s place where some of the family has gotten together. My grandma asked me why I didn’t have a girlfriend. I said I don’t know. She asked me how old I was. I said twenty-five. She said I needed to hurry and get married, but not to a Korean immigrant. She recommended finding a good American-born Korean girl. Or a white girl. They were OK, too. I said ooh KAY.

I also had another unreal conversation with my dad a few days ago:

Dad: Hi, Brent.
Me: Hi.
Dad: What are you doing?
Me: I’m at work.
Dad: When are you off this week?
Me: I’m off Wednesday.
Dad: Eh?
Me: I’m off Wednesday.
Dad: Monday?
Me: Wednesday.
Dad: You’re off MONDAY?
Me: No, I’m off Wednesday.
Dad (frustrated now): Brent, are you off Monday or Wednesday?
Me: Wednesday.
Dad: MONDAY!?!?
Me: Can you hear me?
Dad: What?
Me: Can you hear me?
Dad: Yes.
Me: I’m off Wednesday.
Dad: Oh, Wednesday. OK, Brent. Don’t work too hard. Talk to you later.

Just so fucking unreal. This is my reality. There are no lettuce or beans in it.

I realized today that my so-called “happy place,” or my go-to thought for a mental break from work or a stressful situation, is to think of myself squeezing belly-tight into an externally-rotated start position for the snatch by first tightening the back, then loading the hip. That is what I think of when I’ve been working a busy shift, or when the girl with the pretty smile at work doesn’t pay much attention to me.

Ryan writes:

I am from Hugo, OK which is about 15 miles north of Powderly. It’s probably the smallest town in Texas.

What’s the gym scene like in Hugo, OK? Also – you wanna hang out sometime? Like train together and have a post-workout meal. Come at me if you’re interested. At the very least I can bring my 40lbs dumbbell and meet up somewhere, we could do a bunch of sets of db curls to failure and then eat at fucking McDonald’s. That last sentence was pretty serious except for the part about eating at McDonald’s.

Best writes:

Had a great week of lifting last week, each day was better than the last and I’ve never felt so far from suicide. I’ve decided to give up reading anything written by anyone positive and instead focus my attention on the miserable and use that to feel really good about my sunshine life.
Thanks Brent.

Hey man that’s cool keep me updated. I’ll be here. Waiting. With the muzzle of an M1911 in my fucking mouth.

I called VPVG when we were both working Saturday. She didn’t seem terribly excited to talk to me.

VPVG: Hello?
Me: Hi, VPVG.
VPVG: Hi, Brent.
Me: What are you doing.
VPVG: I’m wor-
Me: Please respond.
VPVG: What?

No, but how funny would it be if I did say that. She was asking about the girls working at the front desk at my clinic and I said

“Why, are you afraid I’m going to cheat on you?”

to which she replied, “Oh no, you would never!” Be still my heart. We spoke on the phone for about five minutes and then I had to get back to work. Then she didn’t respond to a text I sent her. Please respond. Take care.

If it sounds like I’m depressed, I’m not. This is me having a good day.

I’m shirtless on Thom’s webcam and he is at uni. People are walking past him in the background – we’ve done this before and people have seen what’s on his screen (because he full-screened my cam) and started loling and pointing. Thom doesn’t care.

Training hasn’t been ideal this week because as Justin has mentioned many times I don’t sleep like a fucking human. I was wanting to bench on Wednesday, but slept in, then wanted to do it Thursday, but slept in instead again (and had to go to work both days). So I did a fucking lot tonight (Friday) and ended up doing the following:

high-bar squat 405lbs x 1, 385lbs x 3
power snatched 185lbs x 2
power cleaned 245lbs x 1 + 1 squat clean
benched 245lbs x 2, 4, 3, 4
RDLed 330lbs x 9, 6
rounded-back back extensions
curls

This was after about 5 hours of driving with Saul and it really could have been better. I probably would have benefited from some mobbing after the drive. It’s fine. The RDL x 9 was a PR and hurt a lot to do. So Cristina:

Brent,
When I do over 14 deadlifts, my legs get tired and I stop. How do I improve?
I guess I could use an ergometer.

I’ve never done more than 10 deadlifts – and I’d probably fucking kill myself if I did. Cristina pulls 220lbs x 14 @ like 137-140lbs lol lol lol.

Benching could have been better and might have gone better if I didn’t take my last warm-up at 215lbs and go directly to 245 – it felt heavy when I took it out of the rack for the first set but on subsequent sets felt much more manageable.

I warmed up with muscle snatches and worked up to 105lbs x 3, so Brian:

95lbs for a muscle snatch is a fucking jelly dick weight

Oh I’m Brian, I’m gonna make fun of a guy WHO JUST FUCKING OBTAINED THE GLENO-HUMERAL INTERNAL ROTATION TO EVEN DO A FUCKING MUSCLE SNATCH for doing jelly-dicked weight, hey man thanks for the fucking constructive criticism, let me implement what I learned from that into my training. Call me if you want to talk about it – I’ll be the guy foaming at the mouth on his bedroom floor after swallowing a cyanide capsule.

Justin writes:

It’s like me travelling all the way to Libya, using HUMINT and SIGINT to find relatives of Gaddafi, traveling to their home, knocking on the door, introducing myself, then saying, “Hey, I just wanted you to know that I don’t care that Gaddafi was killed. Or that he cried like a bitch before it happened even though he pissed thousands of people off to the point that they wanted to go to war with him.”

lol lol lol

Best writes:

I have been training for a little under two years, in this time I went from 26 yrs old 165 to 28 yrs old 210 at 5’9. My whole life before lifting weights was getting shit faced, skating, and playing pool. I recently squatted 440, Deadlifted 510,PC 125 KG, and benched 320.
My girlfriend is hot and she trains now too. I live in SoCal and have a great relationship with my family and friends. I still drink and smoke heavily regularly and my bodfat is around 10%.
I guess what I’m saying is thanks.

Tell me more.

Saul and I drove to Powderly, Texas again to get more grass-fed beef which took about an hour longer than it should have because I took or missed about 3 turns. I should note that this didn’t happen the first time we drove since I brought directions. We drove past a lot of cows and Saul made it a point to make sure I knew that the cows basically never stopped eating, as they are an herbivore that must eat 3% of it’s bodyweight a day in fucking grass which would fucking blow. We talked for at least a cumulative total of roughly an hour about cows eating grass and various extensions of that subject ranging from metabolic processes, to hypothetical situations i.e. bulls are pretty jacked, could humans get jacked as well eating grass?, to talking about how relaxing and enjoyable it can be to simply watch cows eat.

There is a dog at the farm we go to for our meet who demands attention. It will walk pretty lazily over to our car whenever we come and then forcefully nuzzle our hands so that we pet her. It made me feel needed, and her neediness made me like the dog. I was more or less emotionally fulfilled for about ten minutes today while this dog insisted that I gave her attention, then I left the farm and felt a familiar void of emptiness.

This weekend was a landmark in mobility – I did some pretty legit muscle snatches and didn’t end up with a SLAP tear.

Just been real consistent with hitting my goats, internal rotation for the shoulders, overhead mobility, suprapatellar pouch. I need to put some time aside for my meat sticks, though, forearms + calves and I’ve never really done tack-and-stretch for the hamstrings which I think I should try. That and some high hammy flossing.

On Saturday I muscle snatched 95lbs for a few triples, did some weighted chins that amounted to +55lbs for two sets of 5, +75lbs for a triple, and +90lbs for a single. Did some barbell rows and curling after that and finished up, did some mobility throughout this workout as well.

Sunday I pressed 162.5lbs for 5, 4, 4, 3, and 3, then front squat for 330lbs x 3, 2, 2, then weighted ring dips with chains around my neck for +20lbs x 8. Did quite a bit of mobility after this including super couch, behind-the-back adduction for the shoulders, and joint approximation with the wall squat.

There was a vid on mwod.com that talked about the difference between couch stretch with plantar flexion and super couch with band distraction – apparently you can focus on knee flexion vs. hip extension between the two, and often a limiting factor in couch stretch with plantar flexion is quad soft-tissue tightness – I’ve been hitting my suprapatellar pouch pretty regularly, as well as whatever tight spots I find higher up the quad (esp on the left side), and all of a sudden couch stretch + plantar flexion is a lot fucking easier. There’s always been a discrepancy in knee flexion between my left and right knees, and I was never sure what the FUCK that was about but I think I may be doing the right approach to address it. Tack-and-stretch the suprapatellar pouch, attack quad soft-tissue, and couch stretch + plantar flexion.

Also been hitting glute/high hammies for some soft-tissue work, felt a pretty significant fucking difference squatting tonight, like more musculature was involved.

The changes I’m seeing from mwod legitimately help my deep-seated depression by giving me the illusion of reward in empty progress, the same way that an MMORPG addict is kept hooked into the game by grinding out item hunts/experience.

So yeah – despite the fact that NO ONE gave me any advice or guidance on doing front raises in that thread, YES I will be doing front raises tomorrow after benching. Lateral raises too, hopefully – this is all depending on how fucking early I actually get up to train. If you need me, call me – I’ll be the guy getting a REAL SERIOUS FUCKING PUMP IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR DOING DUMBBELL FRONT RAISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lone ranger writes:

lol brent ur a real funny guy…but im kind of getting tired of seeing u getting friend zoned by hot chicks. lol im a bit curious who the father of the half hispanic half pakistani girl’s kids are…i bet ur more jacked than him though…anyways im still waiting for the day u make a move on the pretty powerlifting chick and live happily ever after.

Dude, I am real glad you get something out of the shit hole of emotion that this blog is a vessel for, but if you LEGITIMATELY THINK that I am going to even LOOK in that girl’s direction for more than like half a second I’m afraid you’re gonna be real fucking disappointed. I can’t. I just. Fucking. Can’t.

Phil B writes:

I like this youtube meme. I could take or leave hearing about your training and foreveralone.jpg status though. This blog could have more gaming content.
How does this video make you feel?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxX7SRuU0ho&t=1m55s]

I think that I’d like to fucking play co-op with that guy??????

Becky writes:

you spent more time naked with saul than i did. so sad. so on a scale of 1-10, 1 being uff da ugly and 10 being sizzling hot, how would you rate saul?

He’s about a 9. Like Justin, he is a source of inspiration for my aesthetic goals. No homo.

Interesting mob issue – my shit feels like it’s fucking sucked since my volume squat the day before hitting 1rms three days apart for Chris’s study and just hasn’t gotten better. Squatting in particular has fucking blown, though I’ve felt pretty shitty snatching and cleaning as well. I feel weak coming out of the hole, and my pull and receiving position in both the snatch and clean has not been that great – it started with just sucking at the bottom position as far as hip/hamstring tension, and then later on I kept dumping lifts that should have been made forward so my overhead position has been blowing a while too. After squatting last night I felt like I wasn’t utilizing as much musculature as I should have been, i.e. external rotation of the knees was not happening very well. So after yesterday’s workout I did three things: banded the elbows together and went overhead with externally-rotated grip (supinated) and neutral spine, then at home I tacked-and-stretched my suprapatellar pouch, and rolled on my glutes and high hamstrings with a lacrosse ball.

Today’s workout went a little better, I felt better pulling my snatches and cleans and I was receiving everything overhead a lot crisper and didn’t have to chase everything like I’ve had to for the past two weeks. I think what made me do the tack-and-stretch was the shitty squat workout last night combined with lateral knee pain with the left leg that has required some warming up in the past few workouts to go away; there was an mwod vid that talked about how having tightened suprapatellar pouch tissue could effect the bottom position of the squat because you’re having to compensate with shitty mechanics to get the last few degrees of knee flexion. I found some pretty grody bits on distal vastus lateralis on both legs that I collected some time tacking-and-stretching with, and suddenly squatting felt a lot fucking better. Might need to do it one or two more times and collect 3-5mins each leg. The first couple times I tacked-and-stretched my suprapatellar pouch, it was my VMO that fucking sucked to deal with, I went to 9/10 pain scale real fucking fast with those. I’ve been back squatting almost exclusively recently though – maybe causing vastus lateralis to get tightened up disproportionately compared to VMO for some reason?

I’m not saying that my force production has been reduced, and all of a sudden it’s back to normal after mobbing – I probably won’t be making PR squats and a lot of that is prob just needing to recover and come back up – but positionally I feel much better and it’s that improved positioning that’s actually had legit, immediate effects on my oly lifting and I suspect it’ll make my squats feel more manageable, i.e. I will be able to start utilizing external rotation of the knees a little easier.

So yesterday I benched up to 260lbs for a double, squat 335lbs for a few sets of 5 and 365lbs x 4, power snatched 175lbs for a triple and missed a lot of power snatches after that, and finished up with some ring dips weighted by +40lbs of chain around my neck. This workout was pretty shitty, esp. re: squatting, and I should have benched 260lbs for at least a triple, and I should be power snatching quite a bit more than 175lbs x 3, but I think I can attribute this to coming back from illness. Have lost some bw, which helps with my bf%, but isn’t really helping me get much more jacked.

Today I felt much stronger despite being the lightest I have been in a real fucking long time, and snatched up to 220lbs without chasing the bar, attempted to c+j 285lbs twice but missed the jerk both times, snatch pulled 255lbs for three triples, and snatch-grip deadlifted 352.5lbs x 5. Felt pretty solid and crisp overhead, and received my snatches and cleans with a pretty good, stable, externally-rotated bottom position.

I met a half-Pakistani, half-hispanic girl at work a few days ago, she’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever met and has the ROUNDEST ASS I have ever seen, and I don’t even really give a fucking shit about asses but the ROUNDNESS of her buttocks simply couldn’t be ignored (she was really fucking juicy) – I thought she was flirting with me at first because she showed me a picture of her Halloween costume from last year which was a slutty school girl outfit, but I found out later that she’s married and is a mother of two. Not only is she a mother of two, she’s like a NINETEEN YEAR OLD mother of two; she had a fucking kid when she was 15. I thought she was fucking my age?????? I suppose this is fucking irrelevant since she thought I was funny and seemed to enjoy making conversation with me – I was probably friend-zoned before we even said hello. She said to herself, “I’m gonna friend-zone the next guy I see,” and *poof* there I was. She spoke Spanish to me a few times, i.e. “gracias,” and something something or other “par favor” and the way she spoke made my loins quiver. I guess it’s better this way.

Super hot fitness/powerlifting chick was at the gym this evening today, luckily Brad was lifting as well so I had someone to talk to rather than just twiddle my thumbs and pretend she didn’t exist. Quite frankly I’m surprised I even trained today after I saw her, my tolerance for any interaction with real hot girls has been been more than exceeded by the half-Pakistani chick. I think I’m gonna fucking kill myself.

Look guys – I’m just a regular guy who wants to lift, get jacked, flex in the mirror after showering, and get more mobile. I try not to let my emotions get in the way of that happening. I just do the best I can OK???? Sometimes the best I can is still pretty shitty – but it’s all I’ve fucking got.

criedthefox writes:

Brent, I am curious if you care to comment on this youtube channel? [http://www.youtube.com/user/SpottyDog#p/u/0/ZXvlRqK6Ffs]

I’m not gonna go there man. If she’s training, that is great. Good. Solid. Thick. Best of luck with her YouTube flexing goals in 2011. I’m not delving beyond that.

melvin writes:

thoughts on this video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD1Dcm0CquI&feature=related]

It’s real real REAL important to me that I lift more than him. Not in that fucking gay shrug exercise but like, I want to bench a lot fucking more than that 90s guido piece of shit.

Jake writes:

Hamworld might be mildly retarded: [http://www.youtube.com/user/hamworld05#p/u/0/myeGT8qDmk4]
Googling his screen name I also found that he’s on some forum called “Personal Development for Smart People Forums”
http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/members/hamworld05.html
Here he is in all his glory:
http://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss47/hamworld05/Picture0401.jpg

I guess he’s like legit in fucking high school????? I’m not touching this one either. I’m washing my hands of it.