There will come a time in every one of you motherfuckers’ lives when you just don’t have it in you to hit the gym. You’re bored, you’ve stagnated on your lifts, you’re hurting, your fucking dog died… who knows why you don’t feel like lifting. The point is, you just don’t. I know, you must think that I’ve never hit the wall in my life, but my fuckers, nothing could be further from the truth. I vacillate between periods of gangbusters, balls-out, ridiculously brutal and frequent lifts, and times when it’s all I can do to drag my sorry ass into the gym.
Ah, well, everyone on the planet says that’s the perfect time to take time off from the gym. Paint a picture, Mike Mentzer says! Spend time with your family, says Stuart McRobert! Re-charge your batteries, says Joe Weider! Well, fuck all that, says I. Every single successful lifter in history of whom I read credits unflinching, robotic, nearly psychotic, stringent adherence to a workout routine, and a complete abnegation of the practice of skipping workouts that leads to greatness. Read about Chuck Sipes- he never skipped a workout, according to various writers. Arnold skipped his dad’s funeral to prep for the Olympia. DeFendis obliterated every facet of his life outside of training to achieve greatness. While I don’t advocate the abandonment of life outside of the gym in the incredibly vain and self-absorbed pursuit of a brutal squat and a ripped midsection, I will point out that there is a lesson to be learned from these lunatics- skipping the gym is bullshit, and will lead to bullshit lifts and a bullshit physique.
If you’re a hooligan, you eschew bullshit and all of its unpleasant trappings, and you grab life by its throat and fuck it into submission.
That stated, there’s still going to come a time when you just don’t feel like going to the fucking gym, and this is a post to address that time. I’ve posted in the past about various shit to pump you up, and I’ll rehash it a bit here.
So, what to do when you hit the wall? Here’s what I do.
1) Find some new music. Generally, I like shit filled with breakdowns, with brutal lyrics that I can growl in betwixt sets. To find it, I’ll usually enter a band I like into www.last.fm’s search engine and create a station, then download shit I like therefrom. That’s worked wonders recently.
2) Watch part of a movie that pumps me the fuck up before the gym. No, I’m not talking about fucking Pumping Iron- that shit is for the Under Armor-clad douchebags on Bodyspace. Shit like Fight Club, Snatch, the fight scene in Alpha Dog… whatever gets your fucking blood pumping. I don’t give a fuck if it’s gay porn- just find something that gets your blood up.
3) Here’s the most important one. Take this shit to heart, because it works.
Dispense with the bullshit you generally do in the gym. Cut out all of the extraneous shit you usually get into. To do this, CAREFULLY time your arrival at the gym. Give yourself NO MORE than 45 minutes before the gym closes, or you have to get the fuck out to go elsewhere. I’ll generally shoot for anywhere between 30 and 45 mins. On the way to the gym, you should formulate a general plan of attack- shit you want to do while you’re in the gym. This part is critical- make them high-percentage exercises. Shit that fucks up your whole body. Deads, clean and press, ultra-heavy BTNs, squats, etc. Then, BLAST THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF THAT EXERCISE FOR A HALF HOUR OR WHATEVER. It doesn’t matter how many sets and reps you do- just make the most of your limited time in the gym. No chatting. No bullshitting. No meandering. No vacillation about what exercise you’re going to do. Just pick something and murder the fuck out of it. Fuck it up like OJ did Nicole.
Do this at least 5 times a week. You might like the results. Once you’ve got your vim and vigor back, start rocking some two a days to capitalize. I just got back in the groove, and here’s the type of thing I’m doing:
AM:
10 mins jumping rope, with as little rest as I can manage.
20 mins of as many sets of 3-5 reps with 115 on the bear as I can manage. Yeah, it’s light- that’s the point. I’m not out to set records- I’m out to increase my total workload without killing my heavy lifts later in the day.
PM:
Heavy as FUCK. The exercises vary, but I’ve been hitting a lot of Day 1: push/pull, Day 2: Squat, alternated 6 days a week, with arms thrown in on occasion.
To have the highs, you have to have the lows… the key is making those lows your punk bitch.
Time to go fuck life into submission, because if this chick is life’s avatar, it’s ready and waiting.
Well done! Glad you are back.
nice work, well said. i am a firm believer that on the days you don't want to train are the days that do you the most good, both mentally and physically. Harden the fuck up! . Get in get it done, intensity is the key.
Badass post. And wtf do you weigh now? You look fucking huge in that pic.
geeez: great pic, Jamie. (I meant the pic of you, but the other one is great, also)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y&feature=related
when you say "the beast" are you referring to the bear or super bear?
this is, so far, the best song ever to get pumped the hell up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpp1BRzxhFc
I meant the bear. My bad.
As for my weight, in my frees and cargos yesterday, post workout, I was 200.6. I now frighten small children and grown adults alike
I'm going to fuck life right in it's filthy asshole. Then life is gonna go down on me right after, even with the poop on my weiner. I will then refuse to kiss life for the rest of the time we are dating. When life get's all moody and emotional, I will secretly go have unprotected sex with a hooker, and unknowingly contract HPV. I will nevertheless continue my sexual relationship with life until things become unworkable. At this point, I'm hoping life has no outward signs of the HPV I have given her. I'm also hoping that no symptoms show up until after that dirty whore fucks someone else. Life will then call me, and I will be all like "Bitch, I don't know what the fuck you are talking about, maybe if you weren't such a goddamn whore you wouldn't have an std." Then, a few months later, I will drunkenly apologize to life at 2am via text message, and invite her to brunch coffee. To my surprise, life will respond warmly to this invitation. At brunch, we will decide to give it another try, and go back to her place for early afternoon sexual congress. Because I will be severely hungover, I will get one of those bad headaches after I ejaculate in her vagina.
You should get yourself some help, dude.
"JFC" by The Acacia Strain.
Most enlightening post thus far, in my opinion.
I like the a.m./p.m. split you posted.
…I can't wait 'till my dog dies now.
I AM THE END OF THE WORLD.
I love that song- it's on my lifting mix, fo' sho'.
To anon- you got HPV from some whore, so tell that bitch it's the circle of life.
Dude, you are huge! If I planned to do heavy deadlifts on one of the push/pull days, would it be a bad idea to do heavy squats on the days before or after that day? And when do you judge to go light on squats? Just how your legs feel?
Entirely by how my legs feel. I pretty much train them to the point that they're almost constantly cramping, so I train them whenever they're not completely knotted up.
did you find you had to work up to doing light "bears" 5x a week?
Nope. I just did them. They're so light, there's no real need to work up to them. It was my wind that had to catch up, haha.
Hey Jamie. I'm just going through your blog and in this post you are writing that Arnold skipped his dad's funeral. Just for the record it was a big fat lie to make Pumping Iron more interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXQ2HELtIoY at 6:12.
Arnold claims that it was just a story he heard from another bodybuilder and he just used it for the plot.
I was going to skip working out tonight, but then I had to go and read this.
Fuck it, no pain no gain.
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