Clip, Clipping and Clipped
Sports Illustrated, July 6, 1970
George Frenn, December 26, 1941-June 26, 2006
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I know what you’re thinking: Only 166 days till Christmas. Ah, the crisp clear skies of December, the merry hubbub of shoppers, and warm mugs of tipsy cider beside the crackling fireside -- what could be fairer? You’ve got to be kidding! I know! Hot summer days at the beach, shorts and tank tops and tans, and ice cold brew with you-know-who (that would be fresh-brewed ice tea with Laree).
I am freely exclaiming at the top of my lungs it is summer; we are in the middle of it and you are not to miss it. Don’t come to me in the fall and complain that it went by too quickly and is there anything we can do about it, because there isn’t and I don’t want to hear about it.
Instead, gear your workouts around this grateful and outrageous time of year so they complement the days, extend the weeks and give reason for the season. You did your best to trim down and shape up during the past months; enjoy yourself and let your training fly. This is in itself a serious training technique used by undercover bombers: The Cut Loose Instinctive Principal, or CLIP.
There is method in this madness, but we won’t let that interfere with its possibilities. It requires courage, confidence in your knowledge of the basics, more discipline than you suspect and demands looseness in thought and body. Furthermore, this methodology is supported by well-versed clichés, spirited philosophies and popular lifestyles: You only live once, born free, live and learn, let 'r rip, comin’ thru, experience can’t be taught, jump before you look, look out below and just do it, to name a few.
You see, to make your training imperative in the summer is like saying to a kid you must eat chocolate ice cream every day. Soon he loses his appetite for chocolate ice cream and this can be very dangerous. It melts and drips down the side of the cone, over his hands and onto on the ground. What a mess. He wipes his hands on his pants and t-shirt and everything’s sticky and nobody wants to play with him anymore. Put yourself in his shoes, Bomber.
I like to use analogies when explaining and untangling complex training issues 'cuz they facilitate understanding. They also demonstrate that I’m a heavy thinker.
CLIP involves training that reflects and supports your summertime life-is-here-and-now nature, the one you dare not encourage as it is unconventional, unpredictable, risky and unknown. Don’t you see? That’s the beauty of it. It is that undetermined training composition, that training freedom, which draws you to the gym consistently when the sun is shining or the nights are warm and beckoning. Apply CLIP and you’ll never miss a fair weather workout again.
You’re too smart internally -- subconsciously, where your instincts roam -- to train like a dope externally. You know muscle balance is important. You know you must be responsible to whole-body development. You know when you’re favoring one area of the body and neglecting another and that it’s wrong. You know what exercises, sets and reps work and what doesn’t work. You know at least 24 fundamental movements, how they complement and contradict each other, and you know your body from a lamppost.
You’ve only been training a year... so what? We’re not launching a rocket to Mars, not this year anyway.
Let go. Cut loose. It’s summer. Throughout the winter and spring you were regulated and rigid, disciplined and persistent. Very commendable. Severe training is necessary for development and allows -- paves the way for -- future experimentation and discovery. Depend on your instincts the rest of the month; give them a chance, let them practice, exercise, stretch and grow. Intuition is exceedingly clever and will develop a suitable framework and order of its own. You, to your delight, apply the form, the focus and the intensity.
Nervous? This style of training is not accomplished without your awareness, attention... your mental presence. You are still in the captain’s seat feeding valuable information to the computer: which joints hurt, what muscles need work, what exercises are most fulfilling, what bodypart is overtrained, what area was worked yesterday and when do I train again. As you proceed you determine what equipment is available and how it is arranged to accommodate multi-set training. You monitor pain, burn, pump and other muscle responses. Energy and endurance, oxygen and blood sugar are gauged by your intelligent senses.
CLIP does not suggest random training, tossing exercises together like leftover ingredients in a hobo’s stew. That’s the hobo stew training method, or HSTM, which I do not endorse. Gives me heartburn, indigestion and occasional diarrhea.
Cut loose training, or clipping as it is affectionately called, is casual in exercise choice, yet intense in exercise application. Exercises are chosen spontaneously, yet they are cooperative in function and practice. The weights involved are moderate-to-light and seldom heavy, as pace is an important component of clipping. You want to move along at a good clip, while not hurrying.
Note: Hurrying is forbidden in all training methodologies, as it leads to urgency and frustration. Duel assassins, they drain joy and performance from working out, stifle advancement and frustrate -- annihilate -- the stressed weightlifter.
Clipping depends on supersetting and multi-setting and your instincts make the choices in exercise and sets and reps. We all make poor choices and they are evident in performance and feel. It’s not unusual in the early stages of instinctive training to complete a series of sets that initially appealed to your gut feelings and discover they were not cooperative, satisfying or productive. Move on. No harm is done and learning becomes the valuable byproduct.
A good working combination of two, three or four exercises should be repeated for three sets, sometimes four, to make the most of it... of course, that is, if your intuition agrees. You may see that combo again by choice or coincidence or serendipity. Live, learn and grow.
Who’s up for the challenge? It’s like climbing the ladder to the high dive platform -- takes work, guts, trust, daring, curiosity, need, a little talent and a lot of spirit. That is, if you’re seeking perfection or a triple somersault with a full twist (nuts to that). One rung, one step at a time, Bomber. Get up there and jump. Hold your nose if you must.
I recorded one of my clipper workouts executed one day this past week. (I have a good memory for exercise recollection after all these nutty years. Just don’t ask me names, places, dates and things.) It went something like this:
I walked to the center of the gym floor and my body suddenly went limp as I fell into a deep trance. Just kidding. I was uninspired. The body was cold, stiff and felt unstable in the core. I needed to be set in motion with high rhythmic reps, warmed up and stretched, and coaxed into robust torso work. I did a set of rope tucks followed by hanging leg raises and hyperextensions. The series unlocked the body and provided satisfying engagement of the hand, arm, lat, abdominal, intercostal and lower back muscles. My training appetite was stirred. I repeated the threesome two more times till the cup was full.
I was agreeably tight all over, warm and encouraged. I could go in any direction and hit my mark, but my sense of power was deficient. The thought of heavy muscle work made my chest and shoulders feel hollow. I grabbed a pair of light-to-moderate weight dumbbells and did a set of seated alternate curls in the 8 and 10 range, stood and completed six reps of thumbs up curls with my remaining strength. Mounting the triceps dipping apparatus, I nailed 15 reps with varying body positions -- leaning forward and back, arched and humped back -- for various muscle accentuation (chest, back, shoulder and tris). Moving to the pulley system I did lean-away triceps extensions with the short, thick handle for 12 to 15 reps and spun around to knock out 4 to 6 more reps before letting the bar go. We have arms buzzing with a nice mix of related muscles enjoying their contribution (lats, serratus, midsection). There’s a lot more muscle engagement than we realize when hard at work pushing and pulling and thrusting. Sensing I was to go in other directions and as I was impelled to work all-out, I did the circuit again and, then, again. Hot and getting reckless.
Suddenly pressing seemed appealing and applicable. I was rolling, invested and power no longer interested me. How much was not the point, but muscle involvement and exercise execution were. I chose dumbbell incline presses, with stiffarm pullovers and seated lat rows. The three exercises fell in place like tic tac toe (code for entire upper body, including core torso muscles) and the reps remained low, six, and the total tri-sets were three.
I stood, gathered my wraps and water bottle and belt from the four corners of the gym and headed for my trusty gym bag in the corner. But wait... there’s more. My pants felt empty. I grabbed a pair of 90s and found myself clipping down the length of the gym. Three sets of Farmer Walks capped my first formfitting CLIP routine. I, the clipper, was clipped.
Ha. Nothing to it, I can do it in my sleep. In fact, I do it in my sleep and wake up a wreck. Someone’s got my bench or my dumbbells or my straps. I can’t find my belt. Hey, girly, I’m using that rack! Whatta ya mean you’re closing in 60 seconds?
Faithful Bombers never say die.
They spread their wings and reach for the sky.
They soar with eagles, choosing or chosen or bound to fly high.
D. D., Poet Laureate or Ralph Waldo Draper or Edgar Alan Draper
A WORD OR TWO
Just found out the track and field and powerlifting world lost a heavyweight champion from my era, the '60s and early '70s. George Frenn tossed the hammer and weight in the '72 Olympics and held records in those events. He was the first set 800-pound squat records in the '70s alongside Pat Casey with his 600-pound-plus benchpress. The two brutes were the originals to squeeze the reps out of weights that no one dared to crawl under a long time ago. Pat was my friend and he died last year. George was a buddy and he died only two weeks ago. Both were fun-loving respectable rascals with heavy tales to tell, who broke the molds as well as the early unbreakable and unapproachable records. They broke records like they were gags or ridiculous events...like dunking the Mayor in a tank at the fair for 25 cents if you tossed a ball and it hit the target.
Where have all the heroes gone?…..
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
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Join the feel-good phenomenon; support the remarkable upsurge in global spirits and wellbeing. Send for your P/D DVD today, along with your order of Bomber Blend and Super Spectrim vitamins, and keep the material in which they are wrapped free of charge.
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