Silliness in Strength and Fitness

 When I have time to scope out what’s going on in the strength and fitness world on the internet or am sent posts by friends who are more up on what everybody else is doing, I find out some pretty silly things. Sometimes someone is even talking about me, but today we’re going to talk about memes in regards to training.

Everyone has seen the gym memes on Facebook and around the web. Little, what they call, motivational or sometimes de-motivational posters with sayings on them. I recently saw an article on the six most irresponsible motivational meme posters made about fitness and what they were about. It was a rather in-depth article on these six posters and what they attempted to say, but the truth of what they were actually promoting.

For instance everyone has seen now the “Strong is the new skinny,” memes that invariably feature a muscular yet really skinny girl and thereby defeat their own purpose. What they’re saying is you need to not only be muscular, but you need to be ridiculously skinny and then you’re okay. The reality is you’re okay however you are whether you’re thin, thick, muscular or not – It doesn’t make a difference. Now, being at a healthy level of bodyfat, being more muscular, being strong, having more endurance and being more powerful makes your life better and should add confidence to your life and your body, but they do not define you.

It is in my opinion a bad thing. In fact it’s incredibly wrong to promote that to women. To say that it’s okay to be strong is wonderful, but to promote it in that way with those pictures does still promote the “you must be thin or skinny” stereotype. The reality is all the girls used in those memes do not look like that 24 hours a day. They are dehydrated, retouched, downloaded photos of professional models who are thin to begin with and then do an excessive diet as well as dehydration to get contest shape looking. The number of people who walk around with contest level abs showing all the time is next to none. It is wrong to give that stereotype to women that any program you find is going to give you that. More than that it’s wrong to say now we want you to train, but we still want you to be skinny. Accept people for who they are. Women are particularly susceptible to being trashed for how they look.

Don’t think it’s just women, as people still do it to me. They say, “Oh you’re strong, but you’re still too fat,” and that’s even after losing 100lbs. You know what? I don’t care. You should be what you want to be, be who you are, live in a way that makes you happy. That’s what I do. Am I the thinnest, most ab showin’est guy to ever walk the planet? Absolutely not, but I get to eat real food, I get to do amazing feats of strength, I get to tour the country talking to kids, I get to hang out and have a good time without being overly stressed and insane about eating dry chicken and lettuce to get there. Am I healthy? Absolutely. Am I fit? Absolutely. Am I strong? More than absolutely – In fact, more strong than 99% of the people who give me grief about it or have any right to judge.

In continuing this thought there are some wonderful motivational memes out there that have some great thoughts expressed in them. Anything that keeps you moving and going is a move in the right direction. However being careful about what’s actually being said in those things and the stereotypes portrayed is a smart thing.

In the rest of the article the author condemned one of the memes for saying you should train really, exceptionally hard. In my opinion, you must have a balance. There has to be a balance in what’s useable and real and what you can sustain for a long time, at the same time you at some point do have to train and have to actually train hard if you want to get to the top end level of what you’re trying to achieve.

What he said in the article was that by constantly asking your body to over reach, what you are doing is constantly over training. That’s just not true. Now at some point you must ask your body to do things it has never done before or it simply won’t ever be able to do them. It doesn’t need to happen every day, not every training session has to be a death race or anything like that, however the real reason most people don’t ever get to be where they could be in training is that they never train hard enough to understand what they’re capable of to begin with. I watch many people right now post videos of what they believe to be their max squat. In fact it bothered me so much I actually have another post about this where I shot a short video we’ll release soon detailing the example and then the corrected form. Understand – I’m glad people are getting new max squats, but invariably they make a bunch of mistakes that says to me or anyone with an advanced eye, that this isn’t a true max and they don’t know how to get to their true max.

They stand up with the weight then walk away from the squat rack almost six steps, and squat without a spotter, struggle a little and then come back up. Ladies and gentlemen I’m glad you can get a no-no-no max (no belt, no spotter, no wraps), and that you’re doing good and that you’re getting some awesome training and all of that – but the reality is, that set up is not a true max squat. If you can walk out ten feet from the rack, squat it comfortably in the middle of the floor without a spotter and then walk it back – you’re not working hard enough and this is not a true max squat. You obviously don’t know how to work hard enough to understand what your true maximum is and someone has taught you incorrectly. Be sure you find the right instruction when you want to get strong to begin with, because improper form not only curtails your actual maximum achievement, but it can and will land you with an injury.

Strength is work. Does every training session have to be blood, sweat and tears to do it, absolutely not. There are times when you should push as hard as humanly possible, harder than you thought possible and it’s not overtraining or over reaching to do that. Yet there are times when you need to cycle back down, train responsibly, and train in a way that isn’t terribly stressful, but both need to be worked.

The reality is that most people don’t understand how to do the work. Be careful what you read and understand what it takes to get to the top end of your strength. I understand that some people just want to be healthy without stressing anything, but the reality is most people need to train hard enough to effect a change in their body to actually create health. That’s harder than most people want to work or think.

After redefining your ideas on effort and making it so you can be amazing – If you’re going to put the work in anyway – why not be the absolute best you can be? Learn the best techniques for training as well as how to really work hard and take your body somewhere phenomenal. Be the guy everyone remembers, because he could do amazing things.

You may have noticed this summer I have been heavily concentrating on push ups. If you’ve been watching the entirety of my training you will find patterns that make you very strong. Not because they’re brilliant to me, though I hope they are, but because they are the patterns of human strength and they simply make you very strong. They are tried and true, but the mix however is what I would like to take credit for, if anyone can take credit for anything as an innovation in strength.

You’ll see I always do some kind of squat, press, pull and row. Always some kind of strongman work. Some kind of extensive muscular and endurance based work and usually keep some kind of bodyweight work in the mix. I do these in rotating patterns and even though I may concentrate on a particular set of exercises for an extended period of time I’m always working that particular physical capacity. It may be a different type of squat or press, but I’m always working those strength exercises. It might be a different endurance move. For a long time I concentrated on the swing. Check out I Will Be Iron to learn about that. However this past summer I concentrated on different kinds of work still using this same pattern. So I worked through sledge hammer swings, dumbbell and kettlebell snatches, but also heavy work, walking with a weighted vest – some very grueling work as well as easier to cover every cardiovascular base.

One of the things I really worked on was push-ups. This is what I want to talk about today. I saw one of the most ludicrous posts about push ups recently. The big thing about bodyweight exercise is they are almost always, with the exception of if you’re doing a bodyweight exercise that is hard enough to load most of your body onto a single limb or put you in a relatively disadvantageous joint position, they’re basically easy on the body, but bodyweight people have become elitist snobs and they talk about everybody else in this post. It’s illustrative of what’s wrong with the fitness world. They talked about the natural movement of the body how push ups are wonderful, etc. They are – they give you keen aesthetic awareness, they give you incredible strength, great endurance, develop a ton of muscle, especially when you get to the harder variations. You can do amazing things and work for a lifetime on push ups. This is why I’m working on them right now and cycling because I have some specific goals such as one arm and handstand push ups as well as high rep and loaded push ups because I want to have both the physical efficiency and muscle strength and the things push ups give you. For the most part they’re all very easy on the joints, great for the muscles, you can do them anywhere. It’s an extremely wonderful exercise.

The post said this, “One arm push ups are okay for demonstrating strength, but they don’t actually build muscle or strength in the way that you want them to.”

This is ludicrous. They continued, “They have also come to a place where the traditional style of one arm push up displayed what most people have seen in the Rocky movies with Sylvester Stallone, isn’t a very good one arm push up. You have to do the very hard variations of feet together, or the other styles of one arm push up to make it a legitimate feat or exercise.” Listen that’s all wrong!

One of the big things people talked about of single reps and all the other strongman training is, “Oh that’s only demonstrating strength, it’s not building it!” Listen I don’t care if you’re lifting a weight or your bodyweight for one rep or twenty or 100. That is always both demonstrating and building strength in what you do. They say that low reps or that kind of thing or particular exercise isn’t a strength builder then it’s not something you would be doing period, because everything is either flowing into your strength or demonstrating one way or the other. It might be demonstrating or building a particular type of strength in a certain groove and they have a particular point of saying it’s only helpful in one area, but they’re completely wrong about that with the one arm push up.

A one arm pushup on a hammer. Why? Why not! Much tougher than you might imagine.

Most people are going to have to start in the “Rocky,” style or wide leg, foot shifted style of one arm push up to be able to get any appreciable movement and reps. Then you can cycle through and build up to a set of repetitions with a higher level to the much more difficult variations. Why are those difficult variations? What you’re doing is changing the angles and levers to progress their resistance. You’re doing the same thing a guy who presses overhead does by adding a 5 or 10 pound plate or continually working a heavier weight – you’re simply doing it by changing the angles to make the exercise harder, thereby always lifting a higher percentage of your bodyweight as load. Same as adding weight to a lift. It is exactly the same training. Anyone who says any different is not paying attention.

If you don’t think it builds muscle or strength that’s just elitist and ridiculous thinking. It absolutely does and people have done them for hundreds and thousands of years doing those kinds of exercises and working to different ones. It is not simply a demonstration only exercise. It is a muscle and strength builder and will work for anyone. It will give you an incredible variety of exercises. Over the course of this summer I have experimented with over 20 different variation of the one arm push up and have been able to do some amazing ones that I never thought would be possible for a guy my size by training many reps with the basic wide leg variation and then using progressions to either raise or lower the hand, raise or lower the feet, widen or narrow the stance to create different loads to go stronger or heavier as well as add weighted vest to get stronger at the exercise. You can do amazing things. Any push up you do, I don’t care what it is is both a strength builder and demonstrator. Every exercise is. It definitely builds muscle. You can crack off 20 one arm push ups in the Rocky style, or five of the military, close foot style, you’re still a relatively strong human!

It’s simply ludicrous to say otherwise. It’s simply picking it out with the idea of “our version of the push up is better.” No one’s version is better or worse. Whatever gets you off the couch and allows you to build up isn’t cheating it’s a progression of the exercise.

Look for much more push up info soon. We have a totally reshot series of push up DVDs from our old push up series showing more than 100 different exercises, a complete matrix of working the push up through a 360 degree range of motion as well as every possible hand position and width to give you strength in the upper body from every possible direction and range and specialist new DVDs on the handstand push up and one-arm push up. Including stuff you probably have never seen anyone do and ways to train for doing things that people will think is possible for a 280lb guy.

So what about regular people? Why wouldn’t you be able to do this? You can! Anyone can learn to do these. Don’t be an elitist about it. Learn to do everything and work up from where ever you need to start.

This is one that’s been gnawing at me for a while and I’ve been meaning to write this blog. Here’s the deal – I keep seeing all these wonderful motivational pictures of this guy who has balances of muscle, but not much more and is pretty ripped. Generally an attractive guy who is hocking a particular implement or exercise style trying to convince you, you will build massive muscle and strength by using his particular brand of exercises.

Here’s the deal – they’re almost always a way out variation of the basics. Now pay attention because I’m going to both balance things out, give you my side and give you the real deal on how to build actual muscle. I love to do wild exercises. I’m kind of known for it. We have a brand new series coming out shortly called, “3D Strength,” which is about strength in different styles of training, exercises and strength in planes that most people never think about. Most people are going to say its esoteric and wild and crazy and that’s wonderful. You’ve seen some of our Monster Conditioning series you’ve seen me do some incredibly weird exercises with dumbbells and barbells that most people don’t do. However they’re wonderful for filling in gaps and creating strength in places you don’t normally touch. They’re terrific for creating muscle and conditioning, but they are not the super basics.

The barbell warrior pose. An outside the box exercise, not a basic, covered along with many others in Monster Conditioning: Barbells

To tell people by doing a sandbag, front squat, rear reverse lunge with a light bag and that you’re going to build massive legs is wasting everyone’s time and lying to them by telling them your implement is better than the rest of the world’s. No one’s implement is better or worse, it’s how you do the training. If you want to build muscle the basics work. The basics work. The basics work. Read it again. I said it three times. Keep reading it again and again until you get it in your head.

I do a million exercises. In fact in our catalog of exercises we’re almost at over 1,000 different variations of exercises of push ups, bodyweight squats, dumbbell and barbell lifts, etc. I do on a regular basis, some variation of those things. Everyone of those things is working a basic body movement, but when I want to build massive muscle and truly get the job done I mix them with basic style of squat, press, deadlift or row or pulling motion, chin up, whatever. Those couple of exercises and it doesn’t’ so much matter what variation, but a barbell squat, a barbell deadlift, overhead press with either a barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell, a row, chin up or dips – those are the big muscle builders.

I like specific variations but they’re so close to the basic exercise that it doesn’t make a difference. If you’re doing low rack pulls versus deadlifts off the floor, it’s essentially the same exercise. If you’re doing bottom position rack start squats versus regular locked out power style squats, it’s still the same basic exercise with some modifications. If you’re doing one arm presses heavy with a dumbbell along with a super heavy kettlebell or if you’re doing one arm rows with a dumbbell or one arm rows with a barbell, chin ups or dips, there are basic exercises that you can massively load. Not something with a little fru-fru movement and wasting everyone’s time by telling them that’s going to get them results.

Do you get a ton of results by using wild exercises? Absolutely, but you have to do them in the right context and don’t think that the guy who is doing boring old basic squats isn’t going to outstrip you in regular strength when you don’t have it. The real key here is to take the max basic strength and then add the esoteric to it, because then that way you move to an entirely different level. It’s a way to get to the top end of strength.

I want to have the greatest possible strength and I want YOU to have the greatest possible strength. In fact I want to have world-class levels of muscle and strength together, therefore I do the things that world class muscle and strength requires which are heavy, heavy basic lifts. However I also want to have an entirely advanced series of muscles that are coordinated that work through unusual patterns and have strength in unusual places that are leaner and conditioned – entirely different things than most people do. That’s why I’m almost 300 pounds, but don’t walk like Frankenstein and I can do an athletic and coordinated thing as well as lift heavy together. If you don’t work the basics with it you miss out. Simply doing all these exercises that can only be loaded lightly is just selling you something and wasting your time. It’s silly.

Make sure you check out the big basics and add the top, wild, crazy, esoteric stuff on top of it. The combination together is the real secret!

This has been driving me nuts. Now I’m advanced enough to not really be irritated by things in the fitness world with the exception of people being lied to and this is a lie being told all the time. These things pop up on my Facebook feed even though I have a professional set page and its purely for business, but constantly I see these ridiculous ads that say things such as, “The one unusual diet secret that will cause you no stress, but rip your belly fat off and give you six pack abs!” or “Top secrets to building strength and muscle you’ve never heard of,” or “The one super herb that will make you super human,” or “The one secret that will give you super human strength with no effort!”

Listen you should be smarter than being sucked in by these ads, but they’re always followed by a guy with a picture who looks incredible. He has the most defined abs you’ve ever seen which are either airbrushed or he’s dehydrated into looking that way. Or a massive guy who looks like he’s developed this huge muscle. Or a faked before and after picture – in fact there’s one floating around right now where they guy changes races! You can see the before and after changes from a Hispanic looking guy to an African American guy. How STUPID do marketers think we are?

I’m not against anyone making a buck on their product, but let’s be straight and honest with people when talking about their health. I will tell you things that will deliver what I think are secrets, because most people just don’t know, but I’m not going to lie to you and say I found some ancient secret, or there’s some mystical no-effort thing. Everything requires effort. There is no easy way to massive muscle, strength or six pack abs, or whatever it is you think you need to get in the fitness world. It just takes work. Don’t click these things, or patronize these people. Anyone who tell you it’s no work, is lying.

Even the guys who are hugely into high repetition don’t ever work to failure, but they still work hard. The hard work is what you have to do to get muscle, to get endurance, to get strength. There is no way around that. It’s also the way to health. There’s no way to get around eating decent food. I don’t care what they sell or tell you. The fact is that anyone who’s bought that stuff before finds out, what everyone finds out – it just never works. There’s no truth to any of that. It’s all flat lies. It’s silly and it makes the rest of the fitness world, anyone who’s trying to do a legitimate job of teaching people how to be strong, fit or healthy – makes the rest of us look like idiots, because the world is filled with this kind of marketing.

I know people want that – they want to be told that there is no effort. They want to be told that they’ll look like a carved in stone Greek god in 30 days, but it’s just a lie. It doesn’t happen to anyone. Anyone that appears to have had it happen is using more drugs or fake photography than you can possibly imagine. Don’t listen to them! Pay attention – listen to smart people who will really tell you it’s work! You have to get out, do the job and sweat.

I had a teacher who helped a troubled school turn around. He was a football coach when I was in high school, but is now principal of a school that was considered one of the worst ones in our district. I asked him, “What was the secret to taking this school and cleaning it up from a gang infested kid prison, into a real legitimate school that teaches people?”

He answered, “Sweat equity. I’m here all the time and do the work.”

Sweat equity is the deal. The more you sweat the better you’re gonna get. It’s just the truth. Don’t fall for these ads and their ridiculousness. Anyone who tells you it isn’t work is lying. That’s why when you see the DVDs of me, I’m sweating so much it looks like someone threw a bucket of water on me. I’m actually working. I’m doing the job. I lead from the front. Anything I tell you, I’ve actually tested and done. I’m not going to tell you anything ever that I haven’t actually done myself. That’s why I’m not going to sell you six pack abs, because I haven’t got ‘em.

I will tell you how to drop your bodyweight successfully. I did that. I’ll tell you how to drop your bodyweight and maintain your strength. I did that. I’ll tell you how to get superhumanly strong. I did that. I’ll tell you how to get super enduring. I did that. I’ll tell you how to get super vitality. I did that. I don’t say that to brag or blow myself up. I say that to say don’t listen to anyone in the strength world who hasn’t actually done the thing that they’re selling you.

A friend of mine who is a coach told me he got a call from another relatively well known coach in the strength world and they were discussing training and he said, “You know I figured out the deadlift.” My friend asked, “Oh really what did you do?” The guy said, “Well I just thought it through and figured it out.” My friend said, “How much more are you deadlifting now?” The guy said, “Oh I’m not deadlifting at all, I just came up with the secret.”

That’s not going to work. If the guy isn’t putting his hands on the bar enough that he sweats buckets and occasionally bleeds from it – he hasn’t figured out the deadlift. He’s not ready to coach you or any exercise period. If it isn’t the guy who’s actually done the thing you’re looking for – don’t listen.

It’s silly and you’re smarter and better than that. You can do amazing things if you get the right coaching. Check this out!

How much fun are you having in training?

I’m leaving to tour again and I’ve had a great time training this summer, why?  Because I’ve explored exercises I haven’t done in a while and done some things I have never done before.  I’m constantly thinking about new things to do.  That’s one of the secrets to fun in your training.  Do the basics all the time in different ways.

This summer I concentrated on several very specific basics.  The one arm press, the one arm row, and the rack squat, but also several other types of things were pulled into play – Swings, snatches, different types of deadlifts especially with a thick bar, and other unique lifts.  I actually concentrated on a new series we’re coming out with soon called “3D Strength,” which are some totally unique variations of combination exercises that are going to make you really strong and especially in ways you never thought of but focusing on basics, basics, basics.

Listen anyone who isn’t telling you to do the basics all the time is lying to you about what’s going on.  Even the guys who sell nothing but bodyweight exercises tell you to always do the basics of squats, push ups, bridges, burpees or sprawls, abdominal work.  Those the basics in everything there is to do.

Above and beyond that, even in doing the basics, there are ways to have fun in training – Games and competing against each other.  Sometimes Noah and I will be out training together and just see if we can invent a new thing to do with an implement we’re already playing with.  For instance a week or so ago we were out and I had an idea.  Noah actually took that idea and helped me perfect it and we did so in just playing in training.

I wanted to see if I could lift one of my 200lb rocks completely up to the chest with one arm.  Now it’s a flat rectangular rock, obviously a round rock would be nearly impossible as there would be nothing to grab with one arm.   So I was messing with it and at first it stumped me a bit, because I had the rock turned wrong.  Noah used his jiu jitsu thought process on leverage, twisted his leg another way and popped it right up on his leg.  We kept playing with it, having fun and laughing.  We were getting good muscular strength work while we enjoyed what we were doing until I finally figured out how to hold the rock, grab it and flip it up and turn it again and get it exactly where I wanted it, all the way lifted to the chest with one hand.

It’s a unique exercise just for fun and something we did after doing the basics.  I had already done heavy barbell presses and decided to do that, finished playing around with the rock and then just for giggles we decided to lift the back end of a car a few times.

Each one of those is actually a variation of real basics.  It’s a non-basic style but it’s still stone lifting which is a basic strength.  Lifting the back end of a car is a type of deadlift strength and I’d already done barbell work and presses.  Keep that fun element in your training.  Play games.

One of the games we played last summer was to do isometrics and then jump up and do knife fights amongst each other to practice two things – the skill of knife fighting and to do it under fatigue and to make training tougher, harder and more fun.  It’s hilarious to watch a guy who’s completely fatigued fight one or more attackers when he can barely stand, but it prepares you for the real world and we had a ton of fun doing it.

Inventing games and unique ways to do the basic things to keep yourself from being bored, to keep yourself interested is a great thing to do.  If you’re not enjoying the particular style of the lift you’re doing, change it to something else.  I do the lifts that enjoy, but they’re also within the context of the things I need to do.  That is the balance to seek in training, to keep you training.  I love to stone lift, but this one handed thing is something I wanted to do, but it’s still stone lifting, it’s still a basic.  I experimented with numerous types of different hand stands, one arm presses, and one arm push ups this summer because they are basics and I enjoy doing them and it allowed me to explore an area I’ve never ventured to before.

Get out and explore new things.  Try things that keep you interested.  Have fun.  Find games to play with your training partners or anyone else who is there.  Compete.  Do anything you can to keep your training more interesting and make it a lifetime thing that’s always getting stronger, faster, more enduring, gaining more muscle, getting leaner and overall better.  It makes you better to keep training to do what you need to do.