*The Issue Of Motivation

Jamie Chaos

November 10, 2009

There comes a time in every man’s life when he will lose his motivation. It might be due to personal issues, or the exigencies of life, sickness, injuries, or other assorted bullshit. This is not a time to sit back and reassess and hem and haw and wring your hands. This is a time when you have to fucking dig deep, figure your shit out, and forge the fuck ahead.

Right now, I’ve got a problem. Though I didn’t manage to get it on film, a fact for which I am tremendously apologetic, as it would have been hilarious. I was doing BTN presses in a power rack that sandwiched me between the rack and a massive, hulking, retarded fucking vertical leg press that is a waste of fucking metal and currently holds the title of being the bane of my existence. In any event, I was probably on my tenth or twelfth single with 315, feeling the flow, working my magic, powering through the piss-poor performance of my injured left tricep, when I missed a rep, blasted myself in the back of the head on the decent of the rep. I caught the weight low, and then dropped my head and tried to dump the weight forward, so as to not rip my arms out of the sockets. As I shoved it forward, I shoved myself backward, slamming my weak link HARD into that dumbass vertical leg press. Since that incident two weeks ago, I’ve been mocked regularly for my retarded antics, in addition to the fact that I’ve refused to stop lifting, haha.

I think I am in need of medical assistance.

So, since that incident, my elbow has been nearly constantly swollen and pained, and it’s left me pretty much incapable of doing pressing movements of any utility. As such, I’ve been hitting legs and deadlifts pretty fucking hard, which has resulted in my upper back cramping pretty much constantly.

Know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take time off. That seems to be working well for the entire country, fat motherfuckers that they are.

I lie. I’m going to keep lifting, essentially the same way that I’ve been doing it, with an effort to increase my loading in other spots to compensate for the lack of loading on my pressing movements. Why would I do this? Because this is what men have done since time immemorial, and I’m damn sure not going to let down the people who managed to spread their genetic material through random acts of manliness and brutality by acting like a total pussy.

More than exercise selection, however, I’ve had to deal with the issue of maintaining my motivation in the face of a stack of injuries. The injuries themselves are frustrating enough, and exercise selection is a huge pain in the ass, but my issue really lies in the fact that I’m frustrated as hell with the fact that my efforts to circumvent my injuries with other exercises have led to constant cramping in my back and legs. So, what to do?

I’m going to man the fuck up. I’m eating more, sleeping more, and still hitting the gym six times a day. Furthermore, I’m reading a book that is filling me with a desire to man the fuck up, and I highly recommend it, especially if you liked my deevolution blog.
Postscript:

Apparently, I pumped myself the fuck up with the creation of this entry, because today’s workout consisted of 48kg kettlebell hammer curls supersetted with close grip bench press, for an hour and a half, and my elbow feels fucking fantastic right now (literally, not sarcastically).
Close Grip BP
1x10x135
1x1x225
5x1x275
10x1x315
4x2x315
1x3x315
1x5x315
1x1x335
1x1x345
1x1x355
1x1x365
1x1x375 fail

Nearly every set was supersetted with kettlebell hammer curls with the 24, 36, and 48 kg bells.

Jeeeeeeezus. Rock the bells!

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Jamie Chaos

I am a former all-time, all federation world record holder in raw powerlifting at 181lbs, a record I broke just to say fuck you to the internet’s “lifting” community and the powerlifting community at large. Over the last ten years I’ve written over 500 articles on strength training, nutrition, and supplementation, and continue to do so simply to fight the tide of weakness and sadness that currently pervades the scene I’ve called home for the better part of three decades. I’ve got personal trainin certs, BodyPump and BodyCombat certs, a BA in History and East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona, and MBAs from the Vienna University and University of South Carolina on my side, in addition to some sick lifts and a hell of a lot of rage. What the fuck have you got?

11 responses to “*The Issue Of Motivation”

Anonymous

November 19, 2009

Hate for just about every bag of human crap on this planet motivates me in just about everything I do.
Saudade

November 19, 2009

I feel you pain because I hit hard my left knee, making squats impossible.

I focused then in upper body work waiting for the knee to heal, but, I don't know how, I injured my right shoulder bench pressing. I cannot push or pull.

What is left… abs? forearms? 🙁
Jamie Lewis

November 20, 2009

Pullups? shrugs? Neck? calves? Squat Lockouts? Deadlift lockouts?
Anonymous

November 20, 2009

Concentrating harder on the lifts that you are still able to do is the perfect strategy.
When you get injured doing those lifts, everything will hurt about equally, and you can go back to doing all lifts.
Anonymous

November 20, 2009

I really loathe that phrase "rock the bells" – and people that think kettlebells replace everything. (Obviously this excludes you …)
Mark Cheng

November 20, 2009

You fools are completely unqualified to discuss kettlebells. I suggest you attend an RKC and find out what HARDSTYLE is all about!
Anonymous

November 21, 2009

Okay, Mark Cheng. I did your mom HARDSTYLE in the ass and rocked her bells. Douche.
Jamie Lewis

November 21, 2009

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. I love you guys.

1) Run DMC fucking rules.
2) Kettlebells are an amusing diversion from real weightlifting. They're also useful for doing 2 Hands Anyhow lifts.
3) I looked up hardstyle kettlebells and came across someone named Sandy Sommers in MD who owns a kettlebell studio. He can "now grind out a 36 kg bell overhead), after using kbs for 5 years. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Weaker than an AIDS-riddled kitten and he owns a kettlebell HARDSTYLE studio. Hi-larious.
BodyByGamma

November 22, 2009

When there is a will there is a way to train hard. The injuries may slow us down, but never stop us.
Jamie Lewis

November 28, 2009

Indeed. Unless, of course, you're a HARDSTYLE teacher in MD, in which case your gains are so agonizingly, epoch-spanningly slow that any reduction in progress would make your progress appear to have halted.
Mark Duin

June 10, 2013

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

Thanks
Mark Duin

Motivational Speaker