In the first installment of this series, published ages ago in a land far, far away, we examined the manner in which one should train for two apocalyptic scenarios- a slow apocalypse and a zombie apocalypse. The reasoning behind this was fairly simple, in that such an exercise illustrates the manner in which one would go about structuring their own training based on the event for which they are preparing and their current level of preparedness. The application, then, is to learn how to figure out how best to train for a given sport, couched in the kind of awesome insanity that leads wild-eyed psychopaths to dig bunkers in their backyard filled with rations, guns and Bibles, and others to slightly more rationally store combat hatchet and knife-laden bug-out bags in their basements (yeah, I fall into the latter category). What you’ll find is that there is a fairly wide gap between people who think that training should necessarily be sport specific and those who think that general strength is sufficient to improve performance. Personally, I have never trained with my specificity for anything, be it football, wrestling, mma, powerlifting, or odd lifting/strongman, and I have not suffered for it in the slightest. Strength is strength- there is no such fucking animal as “functional strength” because all strength is necessarily functional.
Determining how to a train for a given activity is pretty fucking simple- you determine what will lend itself best to the activity by examining the activity in detail, then identify training methods or movements that aid in the development of those physical attributes. When doing this, however, you need to examine your own strengths and weaknesses as well, so that you construct the program to reinforce your strength while bringing up your weaknesses. If you have to do it Madden-style and just rate yourself out of 100, by all means go for it and be sure to share with the Internet, because if there is anything more in vogue than Excel spreadsheets these days, it’s offering the world reasons why you cannot do something before you attempt it to forestall the shame of failure.
When determining if and how your training is going to change for a given activity, be it participating an extremely abusive (yet consensual) gangbang, trying out for the USA Rugby Sevens team, or switching from Crossfit to strongman, it helps to consider both the the strengths you must display for that activity, and also your personal strength- and fitness-oriented weaknesses. For the latter, we’re looking at movements, planes of movement, strength endurance requirements, and cardio requirements that you can add into a program built around raw, violent strength. That’s right- barbarous, all-in, cataclysmic, soul-crushing, face-smashing strength will always be the crux of a strength program, because it’s a fucking strength program. Anyone who tells you they don’t need to be brutally strong for any sport is 1) not an athlete, 2) certainly never going to be strong, and 3) a fucking retard.
Nuclear Apocalypse
The specter of nuclear annihilation and irradiated wastelands filled with pustulent mutants driven mad with hunger and cancer since HG Wells first wrote about atomic weapons in The World Set Free. While the roaming bands of cancer-covered mutants dripping noisome ichor likely will never be the plague they are in the nuclear apocalypse flicks of the 1980s, a post apocalyptic wasteland is still a looming threat as Russia unveils new nukes and we are overrun with idiotic flag-waving chickenhawks in the American government. As such, we’ve got to examine what we need to do to be prepared when one of the gibbering retards in charge of a nuclear button finally pushes the fucking thing because YOLO, and maybe they can get a post-apocalyptic reality show out of it.
For more on nuclear apocalypse scenarios, see: The War After Armageddon, Metro 2033, Damnation Alley, 2000 AD, Six String Samurai.
With the nuclear apocalypse looming, here are the things I think we need to focus on to ensure Chaos and Pain dominates the atom-blasted, radioactive wasteland we currently face:
- Imposing Physique. If post apocalyptic films have taught me anything, it’s that being physically imposing is a primary survival trait in the apocalypse. Whether it’s Mean Machine Angel in Judge Dredd, Rictus Erectus in Fury Road, The Humongous in The Road Warrior, Blaster in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Roddy Piper in Hell Comes to Frogtown, or Fred Williamson in The New Barbarians, being jacked is always to your advantage. As the Luciferian adage goes, “the strong rule the weak and the clever rule the strong,” so by extension people those of us who are clever and strong are going to rule the apocalypse with an iron fist. An imposing physique will deter raiders and inspire confidence in anyone you’re trying to lead or order around, so it’s important you look like a bad motherfucker.
- Strength. Like an imposing physique, immense physical strength will cow people who are weak and fearful, and you can easily enslave them to do your bidding. Additionally, that strength will pay dividends in personal security and in the rebuilding process. Being the strongest person in a community will likely make you both one of the most feared and one of the most valuable, which adheres to Machiavelli’s suggestion in The Prince, “From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
- Muscular Endurance. Muscular endurance is certainly a useful trait in any apocalypse, but frankly it is more a trait of a conquered laborer than the warlord of a dawning post-nuclear polity. Initially, however, muscular endurance will be useful for scrapping and scavenging, and for fighting, but its development is definitely a secondary consideration to maximal strength.
The Donald Trump Contingency Program
Because the man in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world is a halfwit who’s confused threats of nuclear war with fake punching your kid brother in the backseat of the car, the threat of nuclear war is more real than it’s been since the USSR was run by similarly pompous, old, impotent, retarded men. As such, it might soon become necessary to fight off mutants, plague carriers, whatever government agency Trump sends to put us in internment camps for our own safekeeping, and the omnipresent threat of assault by countless illegal immigrants flooding across our borders (settle down there, southerners- your nonexistent plight of “invasion” by starving Central Americans must be just terrifying). With these threats looming, it’d behoove us all to train at least six times a week if you can drag yourself away from Facebook to stop crying about who said what mean thing to whom first and just get ready to unfuck your situation when our government decides it’s high time to just finish off the destruction they’ve already begun.
Too political? Eat shit. Onto the program.
Day 1
AM
{Reverse Grip Pushdowns– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Pushdowns– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
{Reverse Grip Cable Curls– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Cable Curls– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
PM
Partial Front Squats (off the pins)- 10×2 with a ten second hold at the top of each rep [2-3 min rest between sets]
Unilateral Calf Raise– 10×10 (for quick bursts of speed, the ability to get up an incline quickly, jumping, etc) [1 min rest]
Klokov Press– 8×5 [2 min rest]
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP
Day 2
AM
Stone Loading– AMRAP ~185lb stone in 30 minutes (high rep)
PM
Pendlay Row (very explosively)- 10×3 [2-3 min rest between sets]
Hammer Strength/Machine Row– 6×4 [2 min rest]
Cable Row– 5×6-20 using a variety of handles [2 min rest]
Wrist Roller/Forearm Work– 10 sets [1 min rest]
Day 3
AM
{Reverse Grip Pushdowns– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Pushdowns– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
{Reverse Grip Cable Curls– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Cable Curls– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
PM
Bench Press– 10×3 [3 min rest]
Hammer Strength/Machine Chest Press-5×10 [90 sec rest]
Military Press– Work up to a max single, then 10×2 90%1RM [2 min rest]
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP [1 min rest]
Day 4
AM
Stone Loading– AMRAP ~185lb stone in 30 minutes (high rep)
PM
Stiff Leg High Pull– 12×2 [3 min rest]
Hammer Strength/Machine Row– 6×4 [2 min rest]
Weighted Pullups– 6×3 [2 min rest]
Wrist Roller/Forearm Work– 10 sets [1 min rest]
Day 5
AM
Rest
PM
Skullcrushers– 6×4-10 (working up to a very heavy set of four, bouncing the bar off the bench above your head rather than touching to your forehead) [2 min rest]
{Reverse Grip Pushdowns– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Pushdowns– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
Hammer Curls– 6×4-10 (working up to a very heavy set of four) [2 min rest]
{Reverse Grip Cable Curls– 10×10-20 supersetted with
{Cable Curls– 10×10-20 [1 min rest between supersets]
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP [1 min rest]
Day 6
AM
Rest
PM
Partial Back Squats/Partial Front Squats/Yoke/Conan’s Wheel
Log Continental and Press/Axle Continental and Press
Close Grip Bench Press/Close Grip Axle Press/Axle Floor Press
Day 7
Off
For progression: when you are able to get all of the reps with a given work weight, add 5-10lbs and use that weight until you can complete every rep.
Robopocalypse
It’s entirely possible you don’t think that autonomous robots will never attempt to murder us. The reason you think that is because you’re an idiot. Nevertheless, I have actually thought this issue through, at great length, because pontificating upon fantastical end-of-days scenarios is one of my favorite things to do. And a robopocalypse is not difficult to imagine when Google and Amazon are developing advanced AIs, the ATLAS robot developed by Boston Dynamics can fucking trail run, and DARPA has developed a robot hilariously named EATR that can refuel itself on plant and animal matter. Put those three things together and we’re mere days away from getting hunted to the ends of the earth by sentient, robotic corpse-gobbling traceurs.
This broad has enough bolt-on parts she might just be a robot, and I had a request for bimbos with bolt-on tits. I am a man of the people, after all. Hit me up on FB if you wanna request a porn genre.
For more on this, see: Magnus: Robot Fighter, Robopocalypse, Gog, the Terminator franchise, Chopping Mall, Hardware, Class of 1999, and for fist-fighting robots, Richard Matheson’s short story Steel (which was the source for a badass Twilight Zone episode and was then turned into a shit heap children’s movie starring Hugh Jackman).
As the specter of the robopocalypse looms, it stands to reason we might want to be prepared. Having read tons of Magnus: Robot Fighter back issues I found at a flea market as a kid, I feel as though I am now an authority on battling our future robot overlords. Here’s what i think our focus needs to be:
- Shaolin Iron Body Training / Muay Thai Body Conditioning / Filipino Body Conditioning / Systema– Call me a lunatic (you’d be correct), but the very first thing I think anyone should do with the overthrow of humanity by machines on the horizon is prepare their body to receive a beating. Shaolin monks have a method they’ve developed that allows them to take beatings generally reserved for cervices and retarded women in Louisiana without any damage at all. That would allow us to attack robots with nothing but a solid set of tactical gloves on if need be and possibly survive. Similarly, Thai and Filipino body conditioning enable fighters in those disciplines to strike hard targets with little pain, which is going to be essential for your battles with Google death bots and the like.
- Iron Fist Training– Even with tactical gloves on, punching a fucking robot is gonna suck. Better that we harden the shit out of our hands with Iron Fist training or something similar to strengthen and fuse the bones in our hands than get one solid robot kill and then die because we’re trying to fight with shattered hands.
- Punching Power/Kicking Power– Frankly, I fucking hate losing fights, so if I am going to be fighting metal monsters, I intend to hit hard enough to hurt them. This means insanely intense, explosive super strength. Fuck doing reps- explosive strength between one and three reps is the kind of strength that will develop truly cataclysmic striking force.
PM
Viking Press– 6×3, 5×2, 5×1 [2-3 min rest]
Klokov Press– 4×2 [2 min rest]
Speed Bench– 10×3 (75% 1RM- 3 sets close grip, 3 medium grip, 3 wide) [30 second rests]
Skullcrusher– 8×3 (bouncing the bar off the bench above your head rather than touching to your forehead) [2 min rest]
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP
Day 2
AM
PM
Partial Front Squats (off the pins)- 10×2 with a ten second hold at the top of each rep [2-3 min rest between sets]
Unilateral Calf Raise– 10×10 (for quick bursts of speed, the ability to get up an incline quickly, jumping, etc) [1 min rest]
Pendlay Row (very explosively)- 10×3 [2-3 min rest between sets]
Hammer Strength/Machine Row– 4×3 [2 min rest]
Hammer Curl– 10×3 [2 min rest]
Wrist Roller/Forearm Work– 10 sets [1 min rest]
Day 3
AM
PM
Bench Press– 10×3 [3 min rest]
Viking Press– 10×1 [3 min rest]
Hammer Strength/Machine Chest Press-5×5 [90 sec rest]
Circus Dumbbell Press/ One Arm DB Press– 6×2 [2 min rest]
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP [1 min rest]
AM
PM
Stiff Leg High Pull– 12×2 [3 min rest]
Zercher Squats (off the pins)- 6×2 with a ten second hold at the top of each rep [2-3 min rest between sets]
Unilateral Calf Raise– 5×5 [1 min rest]
Wrist Roller/Forearm Work– 10 sets [1 min rest]
Day 5
AM
PM
Close Grip Bench Press- 12×2 [3 min rest]
Strict Military Press– 5×3, 3×2, 3×1 [3 min rest]
Skullcrushers– 5 sets of 21s
Ab Wheel– 5xAMRAP [1 min rest]
Day 6
AM
PM
Rack Pulls (knee height)- 12×2 [3 min rest]
Shrugs (off high pins)- 6×3 (you should barely be moving the fucking bar on the third one, or using a crazy amount of body English) [3 min rest]
Reverse Grip Curls (straight bar)- 5×5 [2 min rest]
Wrist Roller/Forearm Work– 10 sets [1 min rest]
Day 7
Off
For progression: when you are able to get all of the reps with a given work weight, add 5-10lbs and use that weight until you can complete every rep.
And there you have it- two training systems unique to the situation for which you’re preparing, based upon the unique needs each situation has. In spite of their uniqueness, however, there is no need for “sport specific” bullshit, because the movements associated with that shit are just window dressing trainers use to entice people to adopt their training program. Even for strength sports (other than Olympic lifting, which is a skill sport), as I showed when I broke the all-time WR in powerlifting, there is not much need for specificity- simply being massively strong is enough. Directing your training to maximize the strength you’ll need across planes of movement is generally enough to dominate your opposition, be they radioactive mutant scorpions, incestuous, cannibalistic mountain men, killer robots, zombies, or just some pussy who’s on his fifth iteration of Sheiko Jr.
Love the slow apocalypse workout from part 1. Any reason why there's so much calf work?
It occurred to me after a couple of days of doing some heavy work in and outside of he house how detrained most people's calves are. I train mine hard once a week, but that is not going to have you ready for walking everywhere and doing a lot of hard manual labor.
Also, strong calves allow you to jump farther and higher, punch harder, and stabilize you when carrying heavy loads.
Yeap That's why we train them all the time in boxing. Calves are the first thing we do in class by Hoping around the room side to side and you see big sluggish muscle heads who can't keep up cause their calves are so untrained.
Ah! Cool, I'd not thought of that at all. When I give the program a go I think I'll throw some neck work in too, as I reckon that'll be useful for anyone anticipating hand to hand combat.
There should definitely be some running involved for both scenerios.
Eh- how would you outrun a robot? What do you think the running program should be?
Fear of death
Run and you'll only die tired, especially against servos and hydraulics.
There is a reason that every military unit runs as part of their training regime. If you can't see the benefits then I'm not going to waste my time explaining.
You don't have to waste your time explaining it – I gladly will. Most (not every) military units run as form of group PT and because they're trying to hit "basic physical readiness" tests. As such it's sorta like standardized testing in schools where children are taught how to pass exams but have not actual clue on how it should be applied in real world scenarios. Running is not going to do shit when the average battle load is 60+ lbs and then an additional 70-100 lbs of load bearing is thrown on top. The typical infantryman weighs only 170 btw. But by all means if you can run with around 150+lbs on your frame and get to the action without being completely winded then go for it. Rather heavy loaded carries, weighted walking and conditioning hikes would serve you much better. Or doing as Jamie suggests and performing heavy partials and stone loading will have a smilair effect and way more carry over when you actually need to kill someone/something. Let's not forget that wearing a uniform doesn't make you a super hero. There's more out of shape weak fatbodies than true killers and the majority of MOSs are non combat roles anyway so yeah they're not prepping you do do hood rat shit they're simply making sure you get a passing score and can pack mule shit all over country. We shouldn't look at the average when we seek to be the exception. Most SF high speed kewl kids go in light, fast and then get the fuck out. They're not running a 14k to an active battlefield.
Niceeee tldr
There is a 1 minute video of Werner Gunther (former WR in shot put) doing a plyometric workout that includes a calf-only jump series. Also when he jumps up a whole flight of bleachers in like three bursts I realized that throwers don't fuck around. (BME: RICKY BRUCH)
Oh yeah- I remember that. Fucking bananas. In the 70s a couple throwers and weightlifters raced the sprinters and hung in against them in spite of outweighing them by 100lbs and never sprinting.
For looking good and being on telly, lifting is fine, for the 99.9999999% of us who have to contend with capitalist reality on the proletarian sharp end, being able to endure long distance/work hours/shit conditions is paramount. I suggest that like Arthur Saxon says, you have to have endurance. Many ways round it, but if you cannot run for an hour, cover a mile in 9 minutes or so, swim an hour, you are a Lamborghini on the outside and a mini cooper inside, and that is not good for surviving the coming capitalist meldown which is taking its time but will be on your back soon enough, never mind Trump and the WWF…. Also I suggest getting a punchbag at home. those free standing ones are good, put it outside if necessary, second hand they are cheap enough to replace every so often if it comes to it. Be an outdoors person. I mean, there is something about being outdoors that is right, I am not going to explain it, but who gives a fuck about robotic gym stuff really, moving outdoors, that is feel good and cheap as the cowshit you will encounter.
The body conditioning stuff is a lot of bag work for the robopocalypse.
So this is how youd create a routine for yourself. Instead of follow I ng a split or fullbody you find out why the fuck youre even training then go from there. Ive struggled with this because I mainly lift because I want to get bigger and stronger but dont have any desire to do powerlifting or strongman, at the moment anyways.
Yep- exactly. there's no reason to follow someone else's prescription when you have a brain in your head, your own goals and pet lifts, and your own personal shit you despise. i fucking loathe deadlifts- I refuse to do them. And there is no reason to do them if you can high pull heavy shit and shrug heavy- if I need to pick up something heavy I can do it without a thought, or a retardedly overdramatic stupid fucking 30 second setup.
"Great, deadlifts today" said no human being who wasn't lying. I am mulling over the idea that the only time deads are any good is in the early stages of your lifting journey when you are eating enough to feed a continent and your weights arent all that anyway. Even squats I feel are to be relegated to a small part of the overall picture or abandoned altogether during any periods where calories are not being consumed in abundance. Now this might be a matter of subjective opinion, but it seems to me that they are only really good for packing on mass when gaining weight.
Believe it or not, hard times are coming my friends, hard times. I pulled this off a new communist group in North Carolina… In the present day, humanity still continues its march towards certain extinction. Ten years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which plunged millions into poverty and inaugurated a series of bourgeois revolutions, ethnic conflicts and civil wars in the unstable regions of the world, and following an upsurge in the class struggle worldwide, with riots, protests and mass strikes in both the developed and developing nations, the necessity for communist fractions to form and participate in the struggles of the working class cannot be understated, especially in a state with such a rich and lively history of militant class struggle. Despite its incredibly reactionary labor laws, or perhaps because of them, North Carolina has been the location of some of the most militant class struggles in the US. Now, after decades of minimal class struggle, brought upon by the neoliberal era, the recent teacher strikes have demonstrated that the beast has awoken from its slumber. There can be no more illusions — now more than ever must an alternative vision be put forward, against the inadequate visions of social-democracy and “democratic-socialism”.
As such we have taken it upon ourselves to form Internationalist Communists (NC), a communist fraction based in North Carolina. We call on all genuine internationalist communists in North Carolina to establish ties with our fraction and if in agreement with our programme and principles to consider joining us, and we call on all genuine internationalist communists everywhere to group together into fractions and establish dialogues with each other. All the preparations must be made for the future reemergence of the world party, and of the revolutionary class struggle. There is no time to waste. When the inevitable time comes for the regrouping of the world party, these fractions must be as immersed and as connected with the working class as the material conditions can possibly allow to maximize the chances of success of any future revolution. We conclude our declaration with the final lines of the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. [Workers] of All Countries, Unite!
Have you ever gone so far as to want go do look more like?
The most annoying and disturbing things about the robocalypse will be weaponised drones. So you better up your baseball game a little.
that is really very annoying