What are You Good At?

Everybody is good at something, aren't they? What are you good at? What particular talent or skill are you known for among your little network of "friends" and acquaintences?

Have you ever noticed that very successful people tend to be at least moderately attractive? That's probably part of the reason they're successful. It goes way back to their childhood, most likely. Rather than being shut down or ignored, they were encouraged to develop their talents because everyone was happy to see them as it was and wanted them to see them succeed.

If you ever had some talent or skill but never developed it to the point of it being something you're at least well known for, go and take a look at yourself in the mirror. You probably look like a can of smashed assholes with a head like a sun-fucked onion.

Thanks for reading, you ugly fuck.

Boxing Practice Tonight

Normally Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights are for the little kids but with last night being Boxing Day the gym was closed. So the little kids trained tonight with us.

Wow. I've never seen so much boundless energy wasted. That's a bit harsh. Some of these kids are absolute machines. One little guy with an afro was running laps around everybody and didn't seem to get tired at all. Thing is, even with all that energy they sure do whine and groan a lot.

"Oh, more pushups? Ohhhh!"

If only these kids had any idea what it's like to not have that energy anymore and have to really work at it. It makes me wish I'd gotten into this sport a lot earlier. I dabbled in wrestling in the sixth grade but unfortunately none of the schools I went to after that had a wrestling team so I never got the chance to get really serious about that sport. That's too bad because I really do believe I would have been good at that one. In high school I competed in taekwondo and did a tournament every two months. Sometimes every month. I also played a ridiculous amount of ball hockey but being Canadian that almost doesn't even count. We all play ball hockey. Then of course there was strongman which I did for about 10 years. But nothing I've done so far compares to boxing. Especially for what it costs. My gym is only $25 cash per month. No contracts or anything and you get exactly what you put into it.

York Dumbbell Courses

York Course Five, Heavy Dumbbells

1. Hammer Curls, two dumbbells
2. Two Dumbbell Press
3. Two Dumbbell Swing
4. Bent Arm Pullover with two dumbbells
5. Side Bend with one dumbbell
6. Deep Knee Bend and Press with two dumbbells
7. Bent Over Row with one dumbbell
8. Bench or Floor Press
9. Calf Raise holding one dumbbell
10. Clean & Press
11. Sit Up on Bench holding one dumbbell
12. Overhead Squat holding two dumbbells



York Course Eight, One Heavy Dumbbell

1. Windmill Exercise (if bell is overhead in right hand, touch right foot with left hand)
2. Reverse Concentration Curl
3. Normal Concentration Curl
4. One Arm Clean & Press
5. One Arm Swing
6. Upright Row
7. One Hand Military Press (heels together)
8. One Hand Swing with Split
9. One Hand Snatch
10. Side Press
11. Bent Over Row
12. Side Bend

 

 

Wondering how many sets and reps you should do? Guess what, numbnuts, I don't give a shit how many sets and reps you do. Just do it.

Something that helped my workouts more than 10 years ago

Most people who work out keep a training log of some sort. Recording exercises, sets, reps, etc.
eg. Squats, 135x10; 225x5; 315x4; 405x8; 315x18
or something along those lines.

While I was in college, I started writing things down differently. Instead of adding up the weight on the bar, I would just count the plates instead. So something like 405 would have been written as 4P. Something like 275 would have been written as 2P,25. Something like 530 would have been written as 5P,10,5,2½.
So the same squat workout as above would have been written as:
Squats, Px10; 2Px5; 3Px4; 4Px8; 3Px18

It may seem unnecessarlily complicated but what this allowed me to do was ignore the actual poundage and not get caught up in the "numbers." I just concentrated on adding more and more plates to every lift. It also eliminated having to do any math when all I wanted to think about was lifting. Maybe this won't help anyone else but it helped me get into a mindset of constantly getting stronger.

Use it or don't use it. Makes no difference to me.

Some tough sparring.

ROUND ONE

ROUND TWO

This is the most solid hand wrapping method I've found.

It doesn't end up looking as pretty as some other styles but it feels great. Everything packed just right. Why wouldn't Alfredo Cuevas know how to wrap hands?

When you don't feel like getting off the couch just think that somewhere there might be a bum who can kick your ass.

Why do so many of the Atheists I know not have any kids?

Since you have no faith you obviously see yourself as just another mammal in which the only purpose of your existence is to survive and reproduce. In that case, shouldn't you knock off the "I'm so enlightened and modern" attitude and make a big pile of kids? You should be making one a year at the very least since when you die and become the worthless fertilizer you believe you're destined to become, no one outside of your immediate family is ever going to miss you. Shut the fuck up and FUCK! You apparently have no soul so after your last breath you're done. Might as well leave some kind of legacy.

I suppose it's not really fair to say that Atheists have no faith. They believe in science, don't they? Believeing that it's proof against the existence of God. They believe it because it's been chronicled in books and taught to them by appointed authority figures who they believe to be much more knowledgeable than themselves. Their own experience doesn't have to have anything to do with this belief. They just accept it because they've been told to and that's good enough for them. That's a form of faith, is it not?

I like it when Atheists claim not to believe in God because they've never seen any proof of His existence with their own eyes or some other such bullshit. There were, what, 50-something prophets in the bible? That's not that many and each of them served a unique purpose and none of them did it for the fun. If there are any prophets in existence right now it's probably safe to say that you're not one of them. Nobody gets to see or hear God, dumbass. Especially not just so He can prove himself, I'm pretty sure he's got more important things to do.

As much as I thought Hulk Hogan was a shitty wrestler, you could do worse for workout advice.

This asshole used to come out with this big theatrical entrance and, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I liked the character of Hulk Hogan but as a wrestler he was bullshit. He'd win for the first few minutes and then he would get his ass handed to him for like half an hour. Then of course out of nowhere he'd block a few punches, flex a few times and then send buddy into the ropes so he could lift up his leg in a half-assed, lazy, blown up fashion so the other guy could run face first into it. Then he lifts it up again and just falls on him. Wow, what a repertoire! I hated all his matches and hoped he would lose every time.

Still, he was huge back in the '80s and '90s and has forgotten more about lifting weights than you will ever know. And I don't give a shit that he was on steroids either. You could take a bath in steroids and never be that big. Fuck off.

Some of the characters you meet in a boxing gym are hilarious.

Boxing clubs attract a lot of different types. First and foremost you've got the fitness crowd who just enjoy a tough workout. Nothing wrong with them. Next you've got the actual boxers and aspiring boxers. Nothing wrong with them either and it makes perfect sense for them to be there. But then you get into the weirdos...

Self-Defense goobers. These guys are ridiculous. When they shadowbox they throw all these half-assed elbows and shit (along with other illegal nonsense; eye gouges, etc.) and their footwork is retarded. They're not interested in boxing so much as for preparing themselves for "the street." They tend to look like they come from neighbourhoods a lot nicer than mine so I don't know what they're so afraid of but apparently any of these guys could be attacked at any given time and need to be vigilant and ready to defend themselves with a whole lot of dirty tricks because, you know, proper punches are never enough, are they? Every punch these guys throw is meant to take someone's head off and they tend to get tired faster than anyone else. They never get in the ring because all the rules in there would hinder them in all their seriousness. If any of these clowns ever do get into a fight outside of the club, be it in a bar, parking lot, water cooler or just over the hedge with one of their fellow middle-class, corporate cocksucker neighbours, the first punch to the face they take is going to have them frozen with fear. All that streetfighting preparation is bullshit and it's all in their imaginations. It's funny to watch them anyway.

Then you've got the MMA wannabe retards. Tap Out T-shirts and tribal tattoos. They can also be identified by their overly expensive and always brand new training gear. Nothing but the best for these guys. I like listening to them bullshit each other during warmups.
"Who would you rather fight? Mike Tyson in his prime or Brock Lesnar?"
"Oh, Brock Lesnar for sure, bro! All you gotta do is take him down!"
And you can substitute any two names up there. The answer will always the same. All you've got to do is take them down, apparently. They tend not to get in the ring either but love to talk about what they did earlier in the day or week at any of the other gyms they go to. They hit the bag with all kinds of fancy fucktardedness that looks almost like they just tripped over something and are trying to use the bag to keep from falling down.

I don't know what the people from either of these groups are actually looking for but it can't be boxing. Maybe they just train where they do because it's cheap and what they'd rather be doing is too expensive. Or maybe they just like the air of superiority they think they're feeling when surrounded by a bunch of mere boxers from the ghetto. I do know that these guys are clowns and if they made use of the training that they have right there at their fingertips it would do them a lot more good than what they're pretending to do. They're kind of like Happy Gilmore in that they deny the sport that they're in so they can entertain fantasies about being something they're not.

He's not a golfer. He's a hockey player!

I love suplexes.

"Speed ain't shit if you don't know how to use it."

Mitt work is one of the most important parts of boxing training. It's way more important than hitting the heavy bag which is all most aspiring boxers want to do. As a matter of fact a lot of advanced boxers and pros rarely even hit the heavy bag unless they're trainning specifically for a fight. That's because the bag will eat up your hands and wrists. Don't get me wrong, I love hitting the bag too (I'm pretty far from an advanced boxer, mind you) but the bag is dead. It just hangs there and takes punishment. One thing when hitting the heavy bag to remember is to move yourself around the bag. Use your footwork to move with the bag rather than reaching out between combinations to move the bag to where you want it. Try that with an opponent and you'll be eating a fist. Proper mitt work develops speed, timing and endurance and it's a more live training experience. If you can't get anyone in the gym to hold the mitts for you then buy some good ones of your own and have one of your kids or your wife or girlfriend hold them for you.

Groucho Marx and I share the same religious and political view

Whatever it is, I'm against it.

Keg Power Presses build explosive forward pushing strength from the standing position

You should be doing them. It will be pretty rare when you're ever pushing something or someone away from you while you're lying on your back. Power needs to be transfered through your feet. With an exercise like this you're also constantly engaging your grip which is also important for developing strength you can control. Pushing and pulling ability becomes more balanced as well.
You can read more about Keg Power Presses in Keg Conditioning by Dave Lemanczyk which is a book I highly recommend.

Warrior Dash in Barrie this weekend

Is anybody else going to this? Should be fun. I'm racing in the 11:00 wave.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

The Wipey Awards!

Make sure you look for me on Wipeout Canada again this Sunday. TVtropolis at 8:00 pm. I've got a really good chance at winning the Wipey Award for "Best Raging Psychopath."

If I was a Sikh my name would be Ballsdeep.

Yep, that's me. Ballsdeep.

More attached to them than he is, huh?

I'm more attached to "them" than he is? I doubt that very much.

This ad was clearly written by a woman.

14th Annual Mudcat Festival Strongman Contest

Dunnville, Ontario

June 11, 2011

I weighed in at 178 which put me in the lightweight class. That made it a pretty easy victory for me but that's okay. First place is first place and that trophy will look good on my shelf with all the rest of them. Nothing is easy, really. Not when you consider that no matter how heavy or light something is you still have to lift it more times than anybody else or move it faster than anybody else. I've done almost nothing but what the Internet considers endurance work all year so I think I did fairly well.
I've been way more focused on the Warrior Dash than I was on this contest anyway. Mostly because I've already paid for my spot in the Warrior Dash and it's non-refundable and more expensive but also because it's not like anything else I've ever trained for.

Why is it every time you run somewhere some turd has to shout "Run, Forest, run!"?

First of all, "Run, Forest, run" shows a complete lack of creativity. That was a popular movie and everybody's seen it so the joke is pretty played out.

Second, who's fault is it that any of these dummies can't use their legs for anything other than waddling from one seat to another? There's nobody forcing any of them to stay out of shape. If, after high school, you decided "I'm going to sit on my ass and smoke weed for the next two decades," you've got no one to blame for yourself. Have fun with your video games and keep your lame criticisms of anyone who goes outside for anything other than a cigarette break to yourselves.

Also, the online subculture of "athletes" who don't actually play any sports and are afraid to even so much as run for a bus because it will hinder their precious strength gains. Wow, you guys are pussies.

Man, it's so funny because it was in a movie. Pop culture is hilarious because it makes me feel smart!

The new Snickers commercial with Joe Pesci in it is funny.

Anyone who doesn't think Joe Pesci is hilarious is obviously mentally unstable and should be slapped into conformity. You might be tempted to disagree... Well, fucking slap yourself, retard!

"What do you model, gloves?"
Awesome.

Manny Pacquaio in his prime could beat up Bruce Lee in his prime.

This video is just of him training. Never mind that he's gotten rich knocking people out.

Knocking a man out > knocking a man backwards so that he trips over a chair.

Another Reality TV Show Idea

My wife and my son sometimes watch this TV show called Man vs Food where a pudgy goober travels around taking eating challenges at various restaurants. From the few episodes I've seen, it seems like this guy loses more challenges than he wins. This leads me to believe I could do the exact same thing fairly easily. Problem is I don't have that big an appetite for food that I want to eat myself sick every week. I might be able to drink myself sick for money though.
Behold! The next great reality TV phenomenon!

MAN VS BOOZE!

How hard can it be? I'll start pitching it to networks very soon.

I have come to the conclusion that Muay Thai is awesome.

The more matches I watch, the more I love it. It's too bad it's so expensive to learn in Canada. Especially considering how cheap it is in Thailand. People who can't afford their children literally give them away to be raised by trainers in muay Thai gyms. Many of them are run almost like orphanages. And yet over here it can be more than $100 a month in some cases. Pathetic.

Problem Areas

I looked at the rosstraining forum a while ago to see if there were any reviews on there for Rival Boxing's RB1 bag gloves. There is almost nothing left of my old Genesport bag gloves so I need some new ones.

In the past I've always bought Genesport boxing equipment because they were the only Canadian company I'd heard of but the fact is a lot of their stuff (in my experience) is low quality and doesn't last long. That being said, there is a  Genesport 90-lb heavy bag hanging in my mom's backyard that's been there for 13 years. Their focus mitts are total shit though and their bag gloves started to wear out almost right away. I kept them a lot longer than I should have.

There was no review that I could find for the Rival RB1 bag gloves on rosstraining but I ordered some anyway. Rival is another Canadian company and I want to support Canadian companies and the RB1 bag gloves are made out of the same material as goalie pads, which is just cool.

I took a quick look at the strength and conditioning page and somebody was complaining that he couldn't make his traps any bigger. I didn't read through the thread as most of those threads read pretty much the same way anyhow but my guess is that he's been working with the same (light) weight for way too long and/or not putting any real effort into his sets.

There's a 19-year-old kid I work with who is also into working out but he's more of a prettyboy than a strength athlete so I try not to get involved in training discussions with him. He's asked me a few times though how to make his chest bigger. I've told him to do a lot of pushups and he said he does do a lot of pushups. Fine. Whatever. I've told him to increase his bench press and he wanted a little bit more information than that. So I flat out said to him that if you want any visible results from bench pressing, ie. pecs that people can actually see without you having to wear a ridiculously tight shirt, you need to be working with at least 315 lbs.
"How do you get that high?" he asks me, with a tone of shock and disbelief in his voice.
Fuck. Just keep adding more and more weight until you get there. Why does it have to be complicated? When I asked him how much he was working with now he told me "155... for reps!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He said it with such pride too. He must belong to one of those really goofy gyms where everybody's got nothing but health club muscle and if you bench more than 225 you're a "powerlifter" who must be on steroids.
It's so blatantly obvious just from looking at him that he doesn't do squats so I didn't even bother bringing them up.
He goes to one of those 24-hour Goodlife Fitness clubs. I know this because he took a picture of himself there and posted it on his facebook page.

"Hey, everybody! I work out. Really, I do!"

Seems to be working for him one way or another though.

Who am I to judge?

Anyway, getting back to the point (somewhat), there are certain standards that you simply have to reach if you want muscles that anybody but you looking in the mirror is going to be able to see.

Bench press has to be at least 315

Squat has to be minimum 405

Deadlift has to be minimum 495

Curls have to be minimum 135

These are just a few of the more obvious ones and while there are rare exceptions (read: so rare that you are not one of them) they represent how strong you need to be if you expect to look like you work out without resorting to wearing wife beaters all year long and finding any excuse whatsoever to take off your shirt. If you're that disappointed, find a new hobby. Though some of you might take comfort in the fact that, as evidenced by the photos above, standards have gotten much lower in the past 20 years as to what constitutes "ripped."

So this guy's response to all that was that bench pressing is not his "strength." Biceps and triceps apparently are and he would rather use the pec deck since he's not good at bench pressing. I didn't even give him an answer to that one since it's so pathetic that it's not even worth my time or effort. When I asked him what he does for his triceps (and I already knew what the answer was going to be) he made a motion in the air of doing cable pressdowns. Yeah, it's safe to say this kid isn't going to set any strength records any time soon. At least his little girlfriends there are impressed. If I ever meet them I'll find an excuse to take my shirt off so they can forget who he even is. My pants too. I'll just chill in my underwear and flex every once in a while.

What the fuck was I talking about? If you've got a problem area, in goober's case above it's his chest and for the kid on rosstraining it's his traps, the first thing you should look at is how strong you are and how much potential for more strength you've been wasting. For example, if you're proud to be bench pressing your bodyweight you've probably been working with that piddly shit weight for way too long and need to get a shitload stronger. Set a certain rep range for yourself to hit and use 160 next time. If you got how many reps you wanted, use 165 the time after that. So on and so forth for the next few years. Seems easy but the only easy part is reading about it.

The next thing you need to do is take an honest look at how much effort you're putting into these sets and reps. Train half-assed and you'll have a half-assed physique to show for it. If you don't even sweat when you train you're a fucking geek and shouldn't even tell people you work out because your (lack of) results is embarassing. Not just to you either, you're an embarrassment to the entire iron game. Fuck off already.

If you can honestly say that you've pretty much maxed out your strength and just aren't getting any bigger no matter how much more weight you can add to the bar, then you need to find a way to put more effort into your sets. You should be doing as many reps as you can on your main sets in the first place. Newbs can get away with terminating a set when their form breaks down but as you get more experienced that starts to become an excuse for stopping sets early because you're a chickenshit wimp who is afraid of the pain that comes from result-producing effort. An experienced lifter knows the difference between the loosening of form that happens towards the end of a set and when it crosses the line into becoming dangerous to themselves and anyone around them. If you're experienced enough to understand that difference you might want to try what I've learned to do for problem areas.

The first thing I started doing was to start pushing sets all the way to a minimum of 50 reps. I've used this with several exercises but on the Internet I'm most known for doing it with wrist curls. If you're fairly strong in the first place you can end up using a lot of weight for 50 reps and you'll be so pushed to the edge by it that your muscles will grow. I've also used this with barbell curls and behind the neck presses. While legs have never been a problem for me, I also used this method for squats and leg presses for a while and the result was that my jeans stopped fitting over my thighs within a few months so I had to stop because I can't be bothered having to buy new pants just to lift a little bit more weight. If I was a pro and got paid to work out it would be differnet but I'm not.

Now, what got me started on this rant in the first place. Goof face over on rosstraining there and his traps. Traps were a bit of a problem area for me as well. When my shrugs were at their strongest and I was doing 20+ reps with more than 200 lbs per hand (on farmer's walk handles) my traps still only looked like this:

Not bad, but not great either.

Leading up to being on Wipeout, I started doing shrugs on a very regular basis. Sometimes I'd do 50 reps at a time and sometimes I'd make a rule for myself that the set doesn't end until five minutes have passed. If you've never done a five-minute set of shrugs, the first time you try it it's brutal. The dumbbells I used that first time felt like sponges in my hand by the end because I was sweating so much it was literally dripping through my fingers.

Not much bigger but bigger nonetheless and considering they were the same size for about two years before that and I only did the five minutes and 50 rep shrugs for a few months before those pictures were taken, I'm happy with the result.
I haven't done much shrugging at all in the last few months because most of my shrugs were done at work during breaks using large clamps or different sized stainless steel rings and I just haven't had the spare time to do them. It doesn't matter. I've learned on myself that when I want bigger traps I just need to spend a year or so doing shrugs regularly in this fashion.

If it works on me it will work on anybody. Shut up and start putting some effort into your workouts. Anything less than 100% is for goofs.

R.I.P.

This is terrible news. I usually don't care when celebrities die but I miss the Crocodile Hunter and I'm going to miss the Macho Man.

Funny Song my Grandpa used to Sing

"I had a hat when I came in

I hung it on the rack

And I'll have a hat when I go out

Or I'll break somebody's back"

That's some quality shit right there.

Embarrassment

Embarrassment is such a waste of emotion. It's just another form of fear and it's the most pathetic kind if you ask me because there is no legitimate physical danger involved. Life on this planet is roughly 70-80 years on average and that's if you've done almost everything right. If you've got time to waste worrying about what everybody else' approval rating of you is when the reality is they've all got much bigger problems of their own, especially in this modern age of faceless, voiceless communication and interaction, you're probably so fucking uninteresting that you were never worth knowing anyhow.

My wife says Drunkard Hasselhoff works for Britain's Got Talent now.

How the fuck does that work? He gets fired and replaced from one show only to go and get hired on another version of the exact same show? I guess by UK standards he's not really an alcoholic. More of a casual drinker. Fair enough, I guess. It only backs up my argument that I should be a judge on one of these shows.

He must have been totally shitfaced when he took this picture. The glove compartment of that car was probably full of those tiny liquor bottles that you steal from airplanes.

My worthless piece of shit dog just bit me.

He stole a piece of Mother's Day cake right off my daughter's plate, snapped at my wife when she tried to put him outside for it, just barely missing her and then bit me when I grabbed him. I tossed him in the backyard and he'll be lucky if I let him back in. He's been pulling shit like this more and more often lately. We're probably going to have to get rid of him soon.

BANZAI!!!

Why do they hire drunk judges for these music shows?

Christina Aguilera?! How the fuck can she judge anything? She can't even walk in a straight line. It took them long enough to fire David Hasselhoffgoof from that other show (only to replace him with Howie retard Mandel, mind you) and now on the next new show they go and hire another lush.
Hell, I like to drink. I should be a judge on one of these fucking shows.

A friend of mine from high school who moved to another Province when we were in our 20s just sent me this message.

"I was telling someone out here while watching UFC last night about you on wipeout and how I used to train with you and shit. He asked if your act was all "a show" I said yes but glen is kind of like that in real life too (just not as exaggerated) ... Then I mentioned how you used to put people in WWE wreslting holds against their wills while they actually tried to fight back and shit. It looked like he didn't beleive me. Like I was making it up. lol"

That made me laugh. Fun memories...

If you give change to a bum and make him give you a receipt, can you claim it on your taxes?