Soup's On
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I’m here to crank up the heat and stir the pot. While I’m at it, I’ll add some fresh meat, vegetables and spicy herbs. We dare not allow our robust stew become an insipid soup, a mild consommé, a tasteless lukewarm broth. It’s good to let the concoction simmer for a few days, but left unattended, the bottom seers, a crust forms along the edge and a thin film gathers on the surface.
I think of the IOL newsletter more as a conduit for encouragement and connection and identification than a source of information. When writing I'm considering the broad spectrum of readers, men and women, young and older, knowing most of the folks are 35- to 55-year-old guys. Thus, I present the basics that apply to all of us. I mostly generalize. Train hard, eat right, be consistent, be gutsy and listen to yourself till you hear your voice.
Someone will say, “I have these goals and do these exercises, what should I do?” In training someone specifically, one needs to know much more about the athlete than the exercises he or she performs. We're all so different: gender and age, body chemistry, structure, diet, attitude, lifestyle, rest and recuperation, overall training routine and approach and intensity. I cannot go there ‘cuz I don't personally train anyone... too personal.
We do the right thing in seeking help, observing and challenging our training. This is how we zero in what works best for us. It's the seeking, pressing on, undertaking different exercise combos and styles and set-and-rep schemes, experiencing supersets, studying the investment and duration of various methodologies, evaluating layoffs and overtraining and the worth of training muscle groups once a week vs. twice or three times a week.
This requires time and observation, thoughtfulness and understanding. And who has sufficient amounts of these ingredients, and is most in tune with the lifter than the lifter himself? I offer gender-free routines like a high protein buffet. Be creative. Eat as much as you want and add some fresh vegetables, fruits and other healthy dishes as you please. Chew, don’t gulp. Drink plenty of water, rest sufficiently and be positive. And do not attempt to hurry the digestive process; it only causes indigestion, sometimes constipation.
Tina Tuna, the 28-year-old gal weight training for three years, wants more info for female musclebuilders. Training is training, I suggest, with a few modifications ‘cuz of different goals and the hormonal component. The routines I offer are not tagged male or female, they are simply marked “bomber.” Each individual is to adapt the routine by abilities, time, needs and desires, and this according to a developing self-scrutiny and thus-wise determination. Isn’t it great when you’re included in the decision making?
This lady happens to be tough and will apply herself intensely. She does fewer -- like, none -- kick thingies to the sides and rear for svelte hips and cutesy curves, blasting the dumbbell inclines and deadlifts instead. Muscle is her goal -- muscle and might -- and the curves will follow.
Her girlfriend, Wendy Water, is lighter in testosterone and works at the end of the dumbbell rack where few men dare to go. She does dumbbell incline presses, curls and rows as instructed, yet employs the adorable chrome weights with higher reps. Strain and pain are tentatively visited like nutsy relatives in the psych ward, and she does not hang out for very long. See ya! The treadmill works wonders for this doll.
Tuna and Water are cute together, a swell combination, working hard for the same objective: getting in shape -- strong, trim and hard.
And then along comes Bugs Louie who can’t lose fat and gain muscle, though he trains hard and eats right, and has for years. What to do? Sound like anyone you know? How do you answer that one without a month of research, compiling a volume of raw data and finally guessing at the answer? Will the real Bugs Louie please stand? Try this, the swiftest, most accurate solution: consistent hard work and lots of protein, hope and prayer. Ready, get set and go.
Of course, there’s an endless variety of routines, depending on the number of training days per week, exercise combinations, set-and-rep schemes and goals sought. Some will work better than others for one athlete or the other. And I really, really think it’s the will and determination and developing instinct and savvy of the athlete that uncovers the right formula, or, more correctly, formulas. There’s more than one formula that works and they change regularly, as the athlete changes inside and out. You see, you’re the man. Or, to put it another way, you’re the woman.
It takes a long time before a lifter realizes it’s his job to step from routine to routine, like footholds, logs and rocks in a rushing stream, to reach the other side -- his intended goal. Mis-stepping and getting wet are part of the challenge. A little water never hurt anyone. It can be both refreshing and thirst-quenching, if you don’t gulp and flounder. Don’t panic, learn to swim.
I’ve been encountering training impasses lately, and alterations have been necessary -- and welcome, once I’ve accepted them. You’ve heard this story before and have experienced it yourself. Sameness, injury or fatigue prompts us to change course mid-stream, searching for the next natural stepping stone. Aha, there’s one; a bit of a stretch and it looks slippery, but I have no other choices. I’ll take my chances.
That’s the spirit, bombers. Encounter, confront, search, stretch, take your chances and go. Splash, glub glub.
I notice I have the same assortment of exercises to choose from as do you, my co-lifting buds, minus those I can no longer perform because of limitations. The exercise combinations are about as creative as ever, though thick bars are a great advantage and offer more room to maneuver. And, we share the same set-and-rep choices -- high, low and whatever. The most personal options I have are the groove variations I apply to each exercise and the internal might I can affect, both determined by acquired ability and loss of ability. These we develop separately.
It gets a bit complicated when deciding how many days a week to train, for how long and how hard -- how much effort does one apply in each exercise, each set, each rep? Intense training or overtraining, maintenance training or goal-setting, rest and recuperation, heart and desire and commonsense play heavily in the evaluation; these, too, are ours personally. Who can identify the herbs and spices and ingredients in the pot, but the maker of the stew?
No one can make the choices for us. At least, no one should. That would be lazy, dependent and weak, all the things we don’t want to be, having chosen the aggressive weightlifting sport in the first place. The most an authentic lifter can hope for is sound encouragement and friendly suggestions, reminders and feedback from our buds. Such enrichment takes us upstream and to the other side.
Absent solutions from others we are forced to evaluate our training gridlock and invent and engage in methods to overcome it. We are bent backwards, pressed inward and reach forward, as we strain for purchase. Now there’s a word a true lifter recognizes -- strain -- and we embrace the manner it implies. Strain plus pain equals gain.
That’s it! Pain plus strain minus gain is a drain. I think we’ve got it! The pain of strain is insane.
I think I’m being followed. Don’t look now, but there’s a guy by the squat rack. Ahha... over there... another one... on the bench press. Both are dressed in training gear -- sweats and sneakers -- the oldest trick in the book. Look, number one is squatting... can’t fool me... number two is bench pressing. What did I tell ya? I’m outta here.
Seek cloud cover, engage stealth procedures, glide silently into the night -- gone... DD
TESTING ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
We’re advised by the AMA and other health care organizations to have various testing done as we approach middle age to determine our physical condition and vulnerability. A physical and basic blood tests top the list, followed by a stress test, electrocardiogram, mammogram -- if you meet the requirements -- bone density scan, a colonoscopy and so on.
These sound expensive, time consuming, possibly painful and probably involve a doctor, a nurse, a treatment center and an appointment. “That’s a lot just to find out I might be sick,” is the common attitude, and we go on our merry mystified way. Me? Middle age came and went while I was wrapping my wrists and elbows and knees before blasting it at the gym. I fit snuggly in the dumb category.
Laree, on the other hand, is too smart and brave to be dumb. She chose all the tests one by one like they were gumballs in a shiny dispenser at the mall and she had a pocket full of quarters.
The biggest gumball, as it turned out, was the colonoscopy gumball. The procedure started with dreaded anticipation a week before her appointment, was peaked by two days of fasting, culminated in the friendly sterile clinic, and continued afterward for a week of discomfort and recovery from the removal of internal hemorrhoid tissue, a so-called fringe benefit accompanying the polyp scoping. Her test results were negative. I’m banking on similar test results, minus the colonoscopy.
I was a supportive companion throughout the ordeal, arranging for her taxi service to the clinic and back home again. I served In N Out burgers on lettuce every evening, while astutely controlling the remote. I didn’t complain once. I think Laree, perky as a new penny, has a word or two about her experience.…..
Well, yes, I do have something to add -- a link out to send you on your middle-aged way to our new colonoscopy page in the database. Other than that, I have nothing whatsoever to say. In fact, about fanny scoping I think I've been more than accommodating up to this point, which you're completely welcome to review in the forum. Over and out!
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BELIEVE IT OR NOT
Ever since the Pearl-Draper seminar dvd hit the market, stocks have gone up considerably around the world. Gym memberships have grown, and those with existing memberships have crowded the doors. Health food businesses are flourishing and people across the nations are eating more conscientiously. Obesity and associated diseases are on the decline. Families are participating in energetic sports and recreational activities, drug use among teens has diminished and crime is down.
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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