*Be Like Water – Plague of Strength

Bruce Lee trained the way I would train if I were a 140 lb Chinese speed freak with a penchant for beating up random passers by on the street. That is, he trained constantly, praising function over form, and all the while obsessing constantly about his level of bodyfat, haha. Though we hardly share similar training regimes, we do share one key opinion- people should be like water.Obtuse, you say? Fuck no. Simply poetic, bitches. Lee applied the idea of being like water to switching betwen styles, wherein he’d “flow” easily through styles, using what worked and abandoning what didn’t, so that he could maim motherfuckers and be home to bang his wife and do some situps. I, on the other hand, apply it to my lifting program, since people rarely want to fight me, and I have no wife to bang. As such, when I hit a roadblock in my training, I adapt the fucking program to reality, rather than blindly following a program and doing a workout because Sheiko/Rippetoe/whomever is the flavor of the week said to do so. Thus, if you’re following the program I outlined last week, bear this in mind:CHAOS AND PAIN IS ABOUT DOING WHAT YOU WANT.And what I wanted to do on this day was hold a kettlebell and flex for a pic. Sue me.It’s the ultimate libertarian ideal of a program, and is not to be followed dogmatically. You can change out exercises or drop them altogether if you dislike them, or if you find yourself simply incapable of performing them one day. This will happen. Don’t worry about it. This is why I don’t recommend a moderate program of moderate volume with intricately designed poundage incremental progression. That shit is boring, and it’s never once worked for me. Moreover, I’m not a goddamned robot, and if I’m having a day wherein I’m on fucking fire, I’m gonna up my poundages 10 lbs rather than 1.25 per side and have the fuck at it. Who wants to bother with 1.25 lb plates anyway? Seriously.When, then, will it happen, my fuckers? Well, I’ll tell you. During a squat routine. Most likely, after two weeks of squatting an insanely high volume of high poundages, you’re gonna start cramping up, feel like your legs are tearing themselves to pieces, and want to generally bleed out of your eyes and die. Don’t. Just cut back on the volume, or skip a leg session. No harm, no foul. This is how ChAoS and PAIN works. You’re not a fucking robot, so don’t train like one. PS- Wall-E sucks, and if you like that movie, you do too.