Drip, Drop, Droop, Drape
Logo from Gray Cook's book Movement
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Drum Roll...
Your attention, please:, a quick word before we get into the serious material I have prepared for you this week.
It is here. The masterpiece has arrived. Gray Cook’s magnificent book, Movement, is in our hands, on our shelves and being prepared for shipment as I write this exciting bulletin.
For the past six months I have observed Laree, AKA Tower Power, as she’s enthusiastically applied her exquisite publishing aptitude, enviable computer savvy, artistic formatting skills, matchless editing and compilation talents, deep knowledge of the written word, animated fascination of the text’s specific study material, incredible patience and diplomacy and generosity of spirit to piece together the extraordinary raw materials of a spectacular team of five human performance elites, the inspiration and creative force of whom is Gray Cook.
Contrary to what people say and think, I still run things at whatshisname.com. I’m the B-68 Bomber.
Drip, Drop, Droop, Drape
We settled in for the evening after a long and tedious day at the controls -- Laree in the lofty Tower and I in the strategic storeroom beneath the basement stairs. As I adjusted the foil-wrapped rabbit ears on the trusty Motorola black and white, my multitasking companion guided my fine-tuning while simultaneously erecting a pair of TV tables and ejecting steamy TV dinners from their microwave-ready packets.
Jeopardy was on in less than a minute. The excitement was palpable.
The TV is our primary contact with the outside world and serves handily to entertain and inform us. Nothing eludes this ambitious, well-fed, daring, wide-eyed duo.
Long Live Tivo!
Our nightly conversations include politics (how much can the Big O lift without a spot), economics (how much will it cost us), the weather (should tanning at a salon for a state contest be subject to federal taxation), crime (Congressional corruption drops to record low as legislators lift iron to record highs), and sociology, sports and religion (is it politically correct for a priest with cannonball deltoids to superset in synagogues and mosques). Not a subject is ignored.
By 10 Laree is out like a light. At last, peace and quiet, I can surf the channels, watch Sponge Bob or just sit in the mesmerizing glow of the tube devising new and unusual, never-before-considered training schemes.
What a drip!
The possibilities are absolutely endless when you include curls and presses, benches and racks, and bars, plates and dumbbells. A less vigorous and exciting person might very well be confused, overwhelmed or suffer anxiety. But I’m inspired.
Allow me, bombers, to introduce you to ‘inspired.’ You might want to pull up a bench and sit down. I call it Drippy Draper’s Droop Droppers (DDDD), or D4. Admit it, you got a chill up your leg.
The droops, as we all know, are nasty. They are insidious, they are pervasive and they are contagious. They cannot be tolerated. They must be eliminated, annihilated, obliterated and eradicated, and anywise nipped in the bud, kicked in the butt, cut off at the pass, they must not last.
Droops are as deadly as slumps and more enduring. Slumps can be busted in a single workout, whereas droops necessitate a multilevel, systemic onslaught.
D4 is more than a thorough and coherent list of exercises to be performed with diligence and might. It is a penetrating core concept, a complete and comprehensive construct, an evolving attitude from inception to application to full production, a resonant lifestyle within a lifestyle. It’s the hyper-energetic, all-inclusive and redeeming pursuit and realization of a critical incontrovertible force.
Editor’s note: I have no idea what he’s talking about, but there are no typos.
It commences with a deep and quick self-evaluation, confirming we cannot survive the daily day-to-day without the iron. Once that inalienable fact of life is underscored, we recall our goals (massive, dense, thick, gargantuan, ripped, powerful, scary, bigger, stronger, faster, lovely, cute, adorable … hey, baby). Without pause, we refresh our spirits, revive our wills and re-pledge our disciplines.
Rebooting feels good. Kinda tickles.
Begin: You walk into the gym and find your space. I don’t mean a locker or a bench or a rack; I mean your inner space, your sense of your surroundings and the intimate aura about you. This may help, my personal approach:
I take three steps onto the floor, drop my gym bag at my side, throw my shoulders back and flex the lats and triceps in unison as I assertively adjust my waist band and cock my head. My legs are apart and staggered and my left heel rises and falls to the tick of a clock. My hands are steady, ready to reach, to grasp, to hoist.
The stare is critical. My eyes are slits, the pupils within scanning like lasers seeking a target. Intensity is conveyed in the deafening silence. Awe and domination drip like cold beer from a mug, whiskey from a shot glass… Bomber Blend from a shaker. I use two scoops, one raw egg, a banana and ice with 12 ounces of reduced-fat milk.
At this point I heartily hail everyone in the gym, if there is anyone, but, oddly, 30 minutes after closing -- the only time I practice the DDDD methodology -- there is no one, which is good because people make me nervous.
I shrug my shoulders, release my gut (plop), let out a sigh, shove my bag into the corner with my foot and follow it like a hound dog. Time to drop the droops, Drapes, ya drip.
In honor of the beloved Ray Smith of the everlasting Smith Machine, who left us most recently, I pulled up a steep incline bench and commenced to do five sets of Smith presses with my usual set-rep-weight configuration (5 sets x 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 reps with appropriately increasing weight of the light variety).
Thanks, Ray, for everything and God rest your beautiful soul. We owe you.
Sitting there like a dang fool between sets is boring and wasteful and intolerable, so I fill in the gap with widegrip pulldowns. I call these and similar exercise combinations, supersets, and so can you. I call them supersets cuz they build super muscle and might super fast, and because Leroy Colbert called them supersets 45 years ago when we trained arms together in Weider’s warehouse between stacks of cardboard-boxed 110-pound weight sets ready for shipment.
Leroy and I still talk by phone a couple times a month. He has a health food store, Total Nutrition, on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, California, and if you stop in at the right time, Don Howorth is there stacking up on supplies. Secret haunt for enduring muscleheads.
So much for the droops. The front and side shoulders are working hard, the upper chest is in support, and the triceps are forming horse shoes with each focused rep. Lifters particularly appreciate the Smith machine when injuries and their limitations try to shut us down. The guided bar enables.
The pulldowns are a relief. I love the lighter sets -- the free hanging for long seconds as I stretch and breathe and locate and enjoy the feel-good pain and ease into a few abbreviated, warm-up reps to establish my groove and action and finally recruit the ready and willing muscles totally and thoroughly. Sometimes the biceps give out before the lats, while the minor pecs endure just enough strain, pain and gain.
The pre-exhaustion created by the pushing and pulling inspires a three-pronged arm routine, a triset including wrist curls, seated dumbbell alternates and pulley triceps extensions. I like four sets of everything today.
Oh, my… look at the time… Gunsmoke is on in ten… more on this routine next week when we dig into the Too Pooped to Pop Principle and my Squid and Gatorade diet for summer cuts.
Laree… it’s on… boom boom… DD
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Scoop the blend into a glass, stir and drink with pleasure and satisfaction, when you need to, want to or should. All the time.
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