There is some explicit language… you have been warned.
Roughly four months ago I severely injured my sacroiliac (SI) joint. It had been a long time coming after a year or two of lumbar discomfort and not addressing the issue. At the time of the injury I was deadlifting and pulling two-hundred and fifty five pounds for a work-set. This was pretty light for me since I was in the process of getting my deadlift back to where it was before I took a two month layoff. Everything felt great, pulls felt easy, the weight was light. And then I had finished the fourth rep in the set of five…
I began to pull the last rep and my whole back gave out, my entire lower body went completely numb, and it took everything I had to stay standing and not collapse.
Right after this occurred I instantly assumed a disc had been herniated, never in my life had I experienced such sudden numbness and weakness in my lower body. I finally laid down trying to get my bearings. Needless to say I was absolutely hysterical about the whole thing. For the entirety of the past couple years I had been pushing so hard to achieve the largest goals I had ever set for myself and now that I was finally closing in on some of them I was lying on the ground like a cripple.
In that moment I thought I was fucked and would never lift again. Which now seems absolutely ridiculous and overly dramatic, but it has become clear to me that serious injuries hurt your mind as much as your body. It didn’t help that the very next day there was a final in one of my classes. Because of this I had to rush through the test filling in bubbles on the scantron trying to get out of the class asap because the discomfort was unbearable. The following week I was a total mess, completely distraught and probably not all that far from being suicidal.
Now my intentions behind telling this embarrassing story are not to gain sympathy or anything in that regard. I was an idiot, the whole injury could have been avoided, and it was absolutely my fault. I tell this story only to illustrate that injuries and set backs are never as serious as they seem at the onset.
I would say the injury process is very similar to that of the grieving process. Generally people will go through shock and disbelief, to depression and despair, then anger, into some sort of acceptance. Everyone is different and may experience these various emotions at different times and in different orders.
Many people in this world are physically active and strong in spite of their injuries and conditions. People lift without menisci in their knee, others have come back to be strong after breaking their neck, spine, and basically every other bone in their body. And people who are even missing limbs have managed to perform many impressive feats.
The take home is, you will live to lift another day. Maybe you have to take a couple of months off to let your body heal, but you will be able to start again. It will hurt your ego, and you’ll wish it had never happened. But I’ll tell you that after two months of letting my SI joint heal, I had never been so thrilled to squat a forty five pound bar.
If you happen to get hurt again don’t freak out like I did, though some freaking out is natural. Instead focus your energy on talking to people that can help you with your injury and do what you can to rehab it yourself. My friend Dave’s recommendation to see his chiropractor was invaluable in speeding up and developing a plan for my recovery.
So stay healthy, but if you do get hurt make sure to keep your cool, find people you trust to help you recover, and do whatever it takes to keep yourself in the game mentally. And always remember that it is only on the precipice of destruction that we truly evolve.
Most people if asked, when buying a product will tell you they want the best that they can get for their money, the most bang for their buck so to speak. In their mind they actually think that what they may be purchasing is the best item available, if only that were the case…
The best real life example of what I am talking about is the growing popularity of apple products. If you are to take the newest iPhone, like the 4s from apple, and compare it to an android phone that came out in a similar time frame with an equal or lesser then price, you would never buy the iphone in terms of specifications and performance. Apple even knows their phones are inferior in that sense so you can’t even find that information on their website, because most people buying apple products don’t care. The people that purchase them don’t want the fastest and most capable phone, they want an iPhone. Because Apple has impressively made it a brand people like being associated with. This holds true with all of their products, the iPads and the Macbooks and desktops.
What does this have to do with strength training and fitness? Ok, the point is that the best program and diet in the world might not be best suited for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t care if they are on the best training and diet program ever, they just want to lose their tummy fat and have the experience be fun and entertaining. For example the strange “fitness” dance class Zumba is a kind of a piece of garbage, but if it gets women fired up about getting in shape and encourages them to watch their diet and move their bodies more, then go nuts ! Knock yourself out, something is better than nothing. And as I and many before me have said, the best program is the one you are going to do.
I cannot stress how significant this idea is. For anyone that is a dedicated strength trainee or has a legitimate concern for their physical capabilities, you need to let go of your stigmas. Crossfitters are notorious for this, hating on “the commercial gym” scene is one of a lot of crossfitter’s favorite past times, and a lot of the time it’s all in good fun. But there comes a point when a lot of them actually start to believe their own bullshit, I should know, I was that guy a few years ago.
Coming back to Apple example, millions of people are happy with their “inferior” mac products, just as millions of people are happy with their “inferior” training programs. It is all perception. To be clear before I get dozens of angry emails from mac users, I know apple has better apps and I don’t care that you’ve owned one android phone that sucked. The reality is I have owned or extensively used every mac product, in addition to android and have come to my own conclusions. Specifications and experience don’t lie. If you don’t trust me then go compare them for yourselves, don’t just draw broad based conclusions off of one product or experience.
The reality is that no program is decisively better then another, it entirely depends on the individuals wants, needs, and goals. And you are no better than anyone because of what training program you are on, most people don’t even care. In the end do what you love and always try to ensure that the you of yesterday is inferior to the you of today.
Photo: Warner Bros.
How many times in your life have you said “Why did this happen to me?” or “I have the worst luck”, better yet “I just can’t catch a break”? Probably too many to count, all three aforementioned statements have an underlying motif in common. You think of yourself as a victim. If something bad happens at work, with a lover, or at any other time in life, without failure it becomes the other persons/societies fault. After all you are perfect, right? If you get sick it was that asshole at work that got you sick. If you get mugged it is the police’s fault or societies for manifesting such individuals that would do such a thing. Poor you right?
The reality is that everything is your fault. If you’re sick it’s your fault, if you lose a fight or a girlfriend it’s your fault, if you hate your job or you fail to do anything noteworthy and allow everyone to force you to live a benign, uneventful and generally terrible existence it is also your fault. You bring all of these things about with either your thought patterns or actions.
Letting go of being a victim is one of the most important things you can do for yourself if you want to start leading an enjoyable and memorable life. This is because it allows you to actually start living and gain control of your destiny. If you don’t like something and want to change it or want to improve yourself; create a burning desire within to settle for nothing less than completion of your task.
One easy to implement step that you can take right now is to limit the amount of victim hood memes you are exposed to by not watching the news. The news is one of the most worthless and depressing vehicles of information there is. And the information offered is of little to no significance. If something really important happens your friends will tell you about it, I promise. The media is one of the largest proponents of being a victim, don’t fall for it.
If you think your safety is a concern, take steps to protect yourself. If your health is a concern, then fix it! If your mentality is holding you back, start taking steps now to progress and improve yourself. If you don’t know how to do anything that you want to do, THEN ASK SOMEONE WHO HAS OR IS DOING IT. It is easier than ever before in the entire history of the world to get a hold of someone and get their advice or expertise. Stop making excuses.
The people that get all the breaks, and that have all the luck, are the people that break things and create their own luck. Don’t allow yourself to be cornered by all of the negativity and defeatist ideas thrown at us on daily basis, instead choose to fight back and be free to enjoy all of the beautiful things this life has to offer. Don’t be a victim.
Ok, so you have made the decision to better yourself and become the physical and mental embodiment of everything that is good in this world. Now what do you do?
I am going to give some very basic guidelines for what you should be looking to do in the gym. Programming is an art that needs to be specific to the individual’s goals, but I am going to give you some ideas that will work basically 99% of the time. If you are brand new and just getting started, they will work wonders.
For the most part when you are in the gym you want to focus on big movements, the ones that will give us the most “bang for our buck” so to say. Examples of these movements would be any form of squatting, pressing, or deadlifting.
I am not going to explicitly say you must back squat, bench/shoulder press, and deadlift because without a knowledgeable coach to teach you, you will more than likely just injure yourself. That being said, if you feel capable of teaching yourself, there are many resources available for the self teaching of the lifts. The book Starting Strength although a very dry read, offers an extremely detailed overview of how to perform the lifts and many things associated with training and would be a good place to start. Do yourself a favor and do not drink the milk as recommended in the book, just eat more protein.
Let’s say you don’t feel like reading a textbook on training though. Take whatever movements you know yourself to be proficient in, and try to get a squat, press, and pulling movement in each workout. This can be a front squat, dumbbell shoulder press, and barbell rows, or the traditional back squat, bench press, deadlift. I honestly don’t care what movements you choose if you are brand new to this whole thing particularly if you have no desire to do a lot of homework on the topic. Pick big movements, get a squat, press and pull every workout.
For gods sake warm up, this is a topic in and of itself, but I am a huge proponent of mobility work (a future article will be done on this). Google “Kelly Starrett” or “Mobility WOD” and use those to create a nice warm-up for yourself, all the while improving your mobility. When starting to do your lifts on a barbell or dumbbells, do a few warm up sets of the movement, for instance if you were looking to squat 225 for your 3×5, then you might warm-up with, 45# (the empty bar), 95#, 135#, 185# all for sets of five, maybe only 3 reps on the set of 185, you can also do more reps on the first set if you would like. Play this by ear and don’t be stupid.
In terms of sets and rep schemes three sets of five (3×5) is a generally good rep scheme for any movement you are looking to get stronger in and you should default to this if you aren’t sure how many sets and reps you should do. That being said, if you would like to include some hypertrophy focused exercises such as curls (all of the crossfitters just winced), three sets of ten can be used (3×10) to a better effect. Use the same weight for all 3×5 or 3×10 (also called sets across).
When determining how to add weight, you need to make consistent and small gains, and over the long term it all adds up. So if you are doing big barbell movements; five pounds a week or workout, depending on how difficult you found the previous training session (in terms of maintaining good mechanics), would be a good amount of weight to add.
Limit yourself to three to four training days maximum and two days as a minimum. Make sure to not do the same lifts day after day, perhaps instead of bench pressing every day, switch between bench pressing and shoulder pressing, the same goes for your squatting and pulling movements.
Along the path to physical enlightenment, you will eventually run into obstacles, namely injuries and plateaus. Injuries are such a large topic it will need to be saved for a future article. In terms of “plateaus” though. There is a very simple approach I would like you to use. If you find you cannot hit your required reps for the day, maybe only getting three or four reps on the last set. Take the current weight you are using and cut ten-percent off of it and start again. Do it only as you stall on a specific lift.
One last thing, with all of this strength training, we must make sure not to neglect our conditioning. Make sure to do some sort of metabolic conditioning work at least once a week, ideally two times a week. This can be as basic as going out to your local track and running 4-8 100-400m sprints. Avoid doing long slow distance forms of “cardio” and stick to high intensity, short (less than ten minutes), interval work. If you are looking to shed some extra poundage, doing a fasted walk for 30-45 minutes a few times a week in the morning will also help.
So there you have a basic approach if you are a total virgin to being in the gym. This is just the training portion; diet will be covered in a future post. This is not scripture and should not be taken as the “ideal”, it is just a good starting point. I encourage you to develop a passion for taking care of yourself, make it an obsession, and you will force yourself to learn the necessities of how to lift and how to treat your programming.
If you have any questions feel free to ask on twitter @thedanimal1991 or on the facebook page.
Maybe you have spent the last six months to a year spending a lot of time at strip clubs and drinking and have lost motivation to take care of your body. Perhaps you’ve spent most of your time on the couch eating potato chips covered in rice as the main staple of your diet and smoking a lot of weed, why would you start to work out and eat right?
First I would encourage you to do a mental exercise. No matter what your situation is, extrapolate your current habits over the course of 10-30 years. If you think they may potentially result in you being a drug addict, obese, poor, or dead as the result of a heart attack, shit needs to change.
Start with the blatantly obvious, dial back your recreational drug use, honestly you should just eliminate this entirely, but do it over time so it isn’t so difficult.
Then I would like you think about something that you would like to improve about yourself. Maybe you’re a little thick around the midsection. What would make you happier, pounding all those big macs and beer or having a divinely inspired physique? Wouldn’t it be worth it alone to be comfortable in your own skin so you aren’t embarrassed to take off your shirt off or to make it so you can leave the lights on when you are with your lady friend?
When I was younger and just beginning to train and exercise one of my first goals was to be able to take off my shirt when running and not be self conscious about it. So after a few months of lifting running and eating a decent diet, I no longer mentally had these concerns. I cannot begin to explain how liberating it is to achieve these types of goals that do so much in terms of improving your confidence and mentality.
This applies to everyone as well, women, men, skinny, fat, think about all the things you should be doing to take care of yourself. They may seem boring or too hard, but once you realize the potential impact it can have on you mentally and physically, it becomes very easy to eat right and get to the gym.
It is important when thinking about diet and training to not think of it in temporary terms, almost everyone I know that fails to take care of their body will start to be “healthy” and do the right things for 1-3 months, and then it all falls apart because of one excuse or another. Looking good and being able to perform well at life is not something you should want temporarily.
So as Johnny Pain would say, make a decision to improve yourself. Because when you make a decision you divorce all possibility of an alternative outcome. Stop praying, wishing, and hoping, and start deciding.
