Well, during the holy month of Ramadan, you cannot eat or drink during daylight hours. So most of the local Muslims train at night, which means the gyms will stay open till 3 or 4 in the morning so they can train. Ramadan is no joke. If you get caught eating in public during the day, you could get arrested.
These colors dont run- the world!
Interesting article on Middle East Bodybuilders...
zzzz **Kachin-kuh** zzzz **Kachin-kuh** zzzz **Kachin-kuh wurrrrrrrrrrrrrr** Today a chain saw* woke me up. Why anyone in a condo needs a chain saw is beyond me. Why they need to use it at 8am is also beyond me. Since my extended stay back home in Monterey, my sleep schedule has been FUBAR'd- but I guess nothing was gonna let me fail today as God gave me the proper wake up call.
What I do know is that today is the day I join the throngs of Americans getting back into the gym. My time off was programmed. Heavy weights can't be lifted without periods of break, to give the nervous system, joints, and associated parts their recovery. Let's see what the resolutioners can bring today!
On Deck: Incline db press, standing military press, v-bar pushdown, 1 arm db rows, and deadlifts. But boy am I ever itchin to get back at it! Got a few good good meals in me now it's time to get at it!
*ok it wasn't a chain saw, but a high powered washer being used right outside my window. Chain saw sounds cooler though doesnt it?
The shadow, 6X olympia king, Dorian yates trains in his Temple gym, aka the dungeon in England. His training partner is the kind that elicits the level of intensity necessary for that next level physique.
Reg Park, the original Hercules, and the man Arnold credits for getting him into bodybuilding, has had his training regimen featured on T-Nation. He did it back before the days of creatine and muscletech and all those other health and fitness break throughs. We tend to overanalyze and over-complicate this here iron game. They take it back to the old school. HERE:
being so without apparent change or remedy; chronic
This is what minding my own business in my cube looks like, if you needed a visual.
So I'm sitting in my cube on Friday, minding my own business and having another light hearted chat with John. It's my last day of training before I take some time off. It's also my final date with deadlifting 405 (that's 4 plates per side,) which laughed at me last time and hardly moved.
"I've made a decision" says John. "Oh ya, what's that?" "I'm gonna come lift with you, need to help you get that 405 up," He responds.
One thing about John is that the guy is a driver. He drives to and from LA like it's nothing. The bay area is practically his second home.
I thought that John would come through, bring some clothes and some protein, and stay a while. But trip is something different: no pleasure, all business.
"So you're going to stay a while?" "Nope, just here to lift," then back on that 101 to 152 to 1.
Our training program relies heavily on intensity- the guy drove 2 hours to lift with me so I really had to bring it, and as a result beat all of my lifts in reps and/or weight.
405 (see pruriently explicit) escaped me, but I did set a personal record at 385. Can't be mad at that, and another epic battle with the iron went down in the record books.
John Cristobal- -adjective unswervingly committed, uncompromising, and dedicated!
Every now and again I travel back to my hometown of Seaside CA. I'll go back to my old gym, and all too often I see the same guys doing the same exercises, using the same weight, and looking the same as they did when I left 7 years ago. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result in training is one of the cardinal sins of building mass and increasing strength. They see me and they say hey, you been hanging out with Barry Bonds (balco) or hey man, what super supplements are you taking? They all infer that I've used chemical enhancement to achieve an improved physique. As a natural, that is probably the best compliment you can get- but I wish it were that easy as popping a pill or sticking a needle in my ass.
One reason that these guys aren't making progress is the unwillingness to train legs. As the squatting for big arms article put it, you cant be big without squatting. The reason people dont want to train legs? It's uncomfortable, it can feel unnatural, and it just plain hurts.
Being half Japanese I've been blessed with big legs and calves. After years of plyometrics (my first love being Hoop) and aspirations of dunking the basketball, I have above average leg development, but nothing could prepare me for what I'd encounter as a bodybuilder.
In bodybuilding Pain is your training partner. If Pain doesnt show up sometime during your session, you're not doing it right. You must learn to train with Pain as your greatest ally.
There is no exercise more feared than the squat. I can't think of any exercise where the threat of immense weight crushing you down on you accordion style is more great.
For me, Monday is squat day. On the Friday before squat day I'll put the final weight back on the rack and I immediately become tense/nervous, like I have an upcoming test or job interview- an event where I must perform big and there's a lot riding on it. In fact I'll spend all weekend thinking about Monday.
Every Monday is a test.
On Saturday I begin to envision How I'll get under that bar, and how the plates will rattle and rumble as I pull them off the rack. I always marvel as my body seems to forget exactly how heavy that damn weight feels- It's an amnesia that I must induce or I will not return the next week. Each time I get the 300+ lbs onto my shoulders, the immediate challenge is not me vs. the weights, but me vs. my own brain, the brain that says "Ryan, what in God's name are you doing to me?" Squatting is not natural. It goes against every fiber of my collective being.
Like all other sports- bodybuilding is 90% mental.
The brain is the source of pain, if you can turn off your brain, you can turn off the pain.
So for 2 minutes, no thought passes through my mind. I transform my body into a machine. The words ache, searing pain, wobble, fall, burn, tired, cry, fail, quit, stop- all fall away.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.- They are the words that reign supreme. As the brain and survival instincts slowly creep back i am told that I am done, my legs wobble and my back begins to give. That's when I know it's time for 3 or 4 more.
Winners do what losers dont want to do. Winners squat-hard. Plain and simple.
This is arnold and my friend Ed Corney putting it down during the Golden Age of Bodybuilding. Observe the intensity at which they complete this test. You see Ed fall at the end- You may think- "he must have failed." His collapse is a clear indication that he indeed has passed.
These colors dont run- the world!
