Saturday, July 16, 2011

Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

I have fallen behind on my "thoughts..." posts because the week was shortened with me taking a few days off after the meet.

I had planned on taking the whole week off from lifting to completely rest but I feeling more like I need to do a little something this week to get moving again.  I won't be going heavy for a few weeks more than likely, if I go "heavy" at all for a while.

An Epiphany I had at the meet was that my vastus strained under the load, but my adductors held up just fine.  Previously it was always my adductors that always went.  I think I may have an underlying issue there but what is going to change in my training is that I am going to limit my big work a bit, and pay more attention to the little muscles for a while.  For my adductors I lived on that good girl machine for the last 3+ months and got my adductors strong as shit.  Now I think more than ever, doing prehab work like that may be one of the biggest keys to progress, because without consistency no progress can be made.  The worst part about this is that you don't always know what you need to strengthen because you haven't pulled something yet.

Some people will chalk this up to "weak point training" but it's not.  "How can you say that Paul?"  Because this isn't about strengthening a particular point in the range of motion of a movement.  You use the movement to get stronger in the movement, you train the little muscles to keep them from being strained while the big guys do the work.  So if you wanted to call it "weak point training" you could, but the usual definition of that term (where you do board presses because you think your lockout is weak) is not being applied here.  This is more like prehab work.

I've been talking about the shake diet however in the meantime I am just going to concentrate on eating "good".  No junk, no sweets, lots of while grains, lean proteins, fruit, veggies, etc.  Simple shit.  Just eating this way will take care of most of your adipose, granted that you are doing some cardio.  I started cardio back this week as well, and I am already dropping weight.  Down from the high 260's into the high 250's in the first week.  Honestly, it's mostly water because I was pretty bloated for the meet, but it still feels good to tighten up a bit.

You know you live in a boring ass town, when there is a line at 6 a.m. from the front of a store to the street to await the grand opening, and they don't open until 9.  It was a Trader Joe's too.  Honestly I can't think of any store worth waiting in line to get into unless they were giving away cloned Jessica Biel's.

I don't know what it's been like in the rest of the country, but in Kansas/Missouri the summer thus far has already been brutal.  I mean 105 type days with 90% humidity.  Then mix in some microbursts that cause limbs flying all around with 60MPH wins and there you go.  We were without electricity for 18 hours because of one of those badboys this past week.

And let me touch on that for a minute.....

How the fuck am I without electricity for 18 hours because of a 45 minutes storm?  Before someone gives an answer, I need to point out that we lose power every year for an extended period for some reason.  I mean weather wise as the reason.  It shouldn't happen that often.  We are originally from Louisiana and we would only go without power for a couple of days after Hurricanes!  We were without power once here for 7 fucking days because of an ice storm.  Another time, right after Christmas day, we were without power for 3 days for what appeared like no reason at all.  No one could ever give us a reason.

And let me touch on that for a minute....

The electric companies have too much power.  End of story.  How the hell is it I don't have electric company options?  This seems like anti-trust in some way, shape, or form to me.  There is always supposed to be competition.  But is there a choice for who you get to pick for your electric company?  Nope.  And they can cut your shit off at a moments notice, and I'll be damned if you can get some bitch on the line to explain to you why that is.  Or have someone tell you why you were without power for 4 days when it's beautiful outside.  The electric companies have as much power as oil, but just in smaller segments.  Everything you do inside your home or in an office building, for the most part, requires electricity.  But there is no one for the electric companies to answer to.  They certainly don't answer to their customers.

Sinkholes are scary.  A girl got killed this week up in Utah when a sinkhole opened up out of nowhere.  Think about how f'n scary that is.  You're driving down the road, then BAM! the whole Earth opens up and you're falling into it.  Call me Captain Obvious, but that's scary shit.

I'm in a total movie slump and I apologize.  Every week leading up to the meet I felt like I had less and less time because of work and getting shit done to prepare to leave.  I will start catching up this week.

Hot babe of the week..........Marzia Prince



I have no idea why women are in such a rush to get married when all around them lay the ruins and remains of slain marriages.  Fact is this society has made it too easy to get married and get divorced, so why respect it?  Getting married was the best thing I ever did.  But that doesn't mean it's for everyone.  I think they should stop letting you get married after three divorces.  Why the fuck not?  Three felonies and you go to prison for a million years, three divorces and no more marriage for you.  Seems ok to me.  It would make some people think a little harder about that third one.

But back to my original point there...

I know a girl who got engaged to a guy less than 6 weeks after meeting him.  Seriously.  What the fuck?  The odds of this shit working long term, are jack and shit, and jack left town.  Yeah of course, they have a small chance but it's small.  Any guy that pops the question that fast has control issues, and any woman that says yes that fast has insecurity issues.  I know that women are wired to find a man/keep a man, but at any expense is going full retard.  If you're a chic, find a man WORTH marrying, and if you're a dude find a chic WORTH asking.  Someone told me a few weeks ago that a particular friend asked a girl to marry him more than 4 times over the course of 7 years and she said no every time.  This is full retard as well.  If I asked once, and she said no I would ask what I would have to do to make it happen if I really cared about her.  If she had some legit complaints I'd do my best to fix em.  On the second one if she said no, and I had made real efforts to meet her needs I would say "see ya".  I understand being with someone and committing to them (obviously) however it has to be reciprocated.  If it's not, find someone better for you.

I got to part of last weekend with Eric Lilliebridge and one of his friends who told me what a player he is (he's 21).  I told him "if you've ever checked your cell phone waiting on some chic to text you, you're no player."  He got silent and Eric busted out laughing.  It's true.  Women own 95% of guys, but 95% of guys think they are players.

Speaking of pre-hab training (I did earlier), I hate it when some "guru" lists some unorthodox exercise to fix something.  A pretty well known guy in the industry told me using the good girl machine to fix my adductor strains was a waste of time.  Well I went from being able to use like 80 pounds for 10 to using the whole stack for 10 (140) and I didn't have an adductor strain for over 3 months.  Wow, you mean some simple shit worked?  People get such hard ons for railing against machines and preaching some fucking unorthodox training method or movements that they lose sight of how simple this shit is.  I already had someone tell me the leg extension machine would be worthless for strengthening my VMO.  What-the-fuck-ever.  Myths get spread like this and it's never corrected.  First off, the leg extension will in fact strengthen the VMO.  What the fuck do you think is happening when you do them?  Yeah, the VMO works the hardest, esp on the last 20 degrees of the ROM.  I don't need to do some kind of step up with my big toe pointing towards the north star on Wednesday with a band wrapped around my ass.  The normal shit we've been doing for 50 years will build all the little muscle groups for pre-hab.  I don't need bands or blocks or the need to sacrifice a chicken to the VMO gods in order to make shit happen.

I hope everyone has a good weekend and kicks ass.

14 comments:

  1. Adductor machine. Where you sit and close your legs together.

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  2. thats what i thought. i just never heard it called that. been using it for a couple weeks now. already, ive felt my mobility getting better.

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  3. People get such hard ons for railing against machines and preaching some fucking unorthodox training method or movements that they lose sight of how simple this shit is. I already had someone tell me the leg extension machine would be worthless for strengthening my VMO. What-the-fuck-ever. Myths get spread like this and it's never corrected. this is so true. you see this shit all over the place on the net. thats why i find people who prove what they preach and learn from them. you can never go wrong in doing this.

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  4. Another tip to reduce muscle tears might be quitting the NSAIDs. They block prostaglandins necessary for day to day growth and repair.
    http://www.caringmedical.com/sports_injury/nsaids.asp

    And as far as a "good" and clean diet it might be worth checking out if the Paleo camp has any merit and exchange the whole grains with starchy tubers, while avoiding legumes & dairy. If it works it's possible to reduce inflammation due to diet.

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  5. Paul,

    Gotta piggy back on what bruiser is saying about keeping things simple. Lift, Run, Eat Healthy and keep a food log. Most people would get strong and muscular and be happy with their results if they did this.

    Best advice I ever got from my old ball coach about losing weight "eat less." I then asked him how to get bigger, his response "eat more." Simple and effective. When someone isn't trying to sell you something you realize how simple things in life actually are.

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  6. Great post as usual people are so keen to start adding instability and shit to prehab work that they forget about actually getting the muscle strong and firing correctly. I mean you could potentially have done something like sumo pulls with a band around your knees or some other dumb shit for your adductors, and you would have spent a month or more trying to learn the movement, or you can use a machine that targets the proper muscles and only those and get stronger straight away. Theres only one smart option there. I liked your distinction between prefab and weak point training too. B

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  7. There a less crappy version of a walmart type store that opened here this week and the news said there was people camping out in their cars the night before it opened. The sad part is it was a chain up here so there was another location at most 10 miles away. I guess they gave away some free stuff for the first people in line at the new store.

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  8. Just one of those mega stores that have everything, grocery/clothing/furniture/garden/etc for reasonable prices, local only in my state I think.

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  9. This post reminds me of when I read Bill Starr's book and realized 99% of the latest 'revolutionary' workouts and methods have all been done before. Like way before. Great post.

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  10. Wow, this is going to sound completely stalker-ish, but I think we might actually live within 30 minutes of each other. A couple of my coworkers lost power for a few days at that time, too. Small world.

    - Jess

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  11. I'm in the overland park, kansas area Jess.

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  12. I live out in Lee's Summit, MO. Used to work in Overland Park, though. Maybe I'll see you around.

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