The following is simply free writing I am dong in an effort to explain why my methods differ so greatly from the norm, and why I genuinely cannot understand why most people lift weights in the first place. It came out of two realizations- after having a bunch of old heads compare me very favorably with Benny Podda, I’ve finally accepted that I am an anthropologist writing about my kind of lifter, and that type of lifter is at their core an artist. Not to be trite, but Arnold’s characterization in Pumping Iron of the bodybuilder as a sculptor wasn’t too far off from my own experience.

I’ve no idea if any of this appeals to any of you. Should it, please comment and let me know what you think, what questions you might have, or anything else pertinent to the discussion at hand (i.e. not another fucking block of random text about the myriad supposed benefits of Marxism). If this idea has legs or is an interesting thesis for an article series or book, lemme know.

This thesis really has no beginning or end, so I’ll start in the middle. Given that this is a very newfound realization my thoughts are likely not as organized on the topic as one might guess, but I might as well start at the basis of my training- high volume with very short rests and very heavy weight. I’d always enjoyed it, but Chad Waterbury’s work regarding 10 x 3 systems for lifting appealed to me because they were more or less what I’ve always done, though without percentages and counting. Instead, I’ve always had a knack for finding weights I can move violently and consistently over long periods of time in short bursts. It’s actually how I do anything physical, from long distance running (I prefer Fartleks and other intervals to a steady pace) to pushing big stacks of totes at Amazon to lifting weights.

This sort of pacing is how I win at almost everything physical I wish to contest, because I am not naturally gifted as an athlete. I don’t have great hand-eye coordination, I’m terrifically un-agile for a short person, and although I am fast, I am not particularly quick- it’s rare that I ever beat someone off the start. What I am is tenacious and indefatigable, which goes a long way in sports and lifting. So, although I never, ever count sets (and I mean fucking NEVER), I will just use the clock to gauge if I’ve worked enough, since my body will show no indication of hard work until the next day (or in extreme cases, an hour or two later). Thus, I will train doubles, triples, and singles (usually using the same weight until a single is impossible or nearly with rests that generally don’t exceed beyond 60 seconds, and rarely if ever beyond 90.

My reasoning? I’m fucking hyped up. Unlike most people, I happily make a spectacle of myself in the gym. Not with grunting and yelling and all that, but with my utter intensity, pacing, and my endless growling along with my music, which usually isn’t terribly loud but is from what I’ve been told both terrifying and cool. I’ve never really given a shit beyond attempting to disarm the people around me with pleasantries so they don’t have me ejected from the gym by management, something I attempt to avoid by being nice to old ladies and whatnot- I don’t befriend a lot of people in the gym. I end up hearing this shit second hand through friends or my wife, and for whatever reason I continue to be surprised that I’m somewhat of a local celebrity for my gym shenanigans.

The science behind training this way is immaterial, because it obviously works. I can walk into any local strength competition and dominate the field utterly, and unless some ringer happens to show up out of the blue and outweighs me considerably, I’d end up in the finals of whatever I was contesting anyway. I require almost no rest to repeat near-maximal performances, and usually go to the effort of making shit look effortless when I know people are watching just to add to my mystique. That, in turn, adds to the level of intensity I’ve expended and to the results I reap, all from just trying to make the impossible look like the easiest thing in the world.

As to weight selection? I’ve never used a formula in my life- I find a weight I can maybe do five or six times if someone had a gun to my head (which is maybe a rep more than your generally accepted RM) and start doing doubles and triples with it. I continue either until they’re super difficult singles, or until I’ve done about a half hour of heavy shit, then either wave load it for another 15 minutes or move onto something else, related or unrelated to that. When I say there is no plan I mean that from day to day I know what I need to train and what I would like to train, then what I have time to train. I make a decision based on that.

Programming and all of that other stupid horseshit looks to me like nothing more than someone trying to break down a Rembrandt into its component parts and then sell that deconstructed painting as paint-by-numbers bullshit for people too lazy to do the work themselves. It’s the slow kids in the back of the class copying directly from the Cliff’s Notes on a term paper, the bad Chinese knockoffs of designer handbags. Rather than learning to paint and doing so oneself, most lifters today just want to be Luke Goss rather than Jason Statham- the less cool version that is good enough for the B-team and not terrifically upsetting to watch, but still not Jason Statham no matter how hard he tries.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with Luke Goss- he does a great job of filling in for Statham when the pay isn’t enough, and I frankly enjoy most of his movies. I highly doubt, however, that Luke Goss had any intention of being Jason Statham’s B-team any more than I would have intended to be Seanbaby’s B-team if he decided to start writing about strength sports history, and planning to be on the B-team is both gross and sad. Life’s about maximizing your potential, not about slumping into the finish with a half-hearted attempt you copied from some other nobody, and it’s for that reason I hate rigid with the same white hot rage that statistics show half of you reserve for wearing a mouth covering while shopping or for having to call someone “one of the First Peoples” rather than “uh Indian,” since the teaching of the word “an” seems to have ceased altogether.

The point is that Luke Goss didn’t set out to be the poor man’s Jason Statham- he was probably hoping to BE Jason Statham. When someone studies art, they study multiple mediums, experiment with different styles, and attempt to recreate the works of their favorites. Occasionally, like with Luke Goss, Greg Capullo (who’s been aping the styles of the most popular comic book artists of the day for three decades), and Dean Koontz (who remains a terrible Stephen King ripoff), they get stuck playing the role of the knockoff artist and have great success with it, but most artists develop their own style to become successful. This is what most people fail to do when they lift, and they do it to their ultimate detriment.

I realize not everyone is an artist and most people have no interest in the actual activity of lifting- that’s the part they have to get through so they can brag about the fact that they lifted online. That said, there is no reason why they have to just slap up a half-assed, tornado-bait, cheap-looking prefab home of a body rather than taking the time to experiment with some different building techniques and styles until they can build an entirely unique structure, tailored precisely to its environment and capable of prevailing in nearly any challenge.

I realize that meandered quite a bit, so I will be interested to discover if this topic is worth exploring further. If so, I might just make it a serial on the Patreon side and see if it needs to become a full-fledged book at some point.

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