on gyming it up 6

I never did finish this did I? The saga continues...

Our culture has created certain ideals for each of us to live up to. There exists for men a certain ideal image not in some metaphysical realm but in the world of the social. Call it a Social Form, if you will. Now unlike Plato’s forms these particular ideals are subject to change over time, much like language. The antecedents of the ideal Social Form for men were given voice during the Enlightenment period. Human well being (health) and incredibly optimistic views about our abilities to manipulate nature (power, some might say hubris) have lead to the culturally conditioned Social Form that visually confirms to us whether or not a given man is in possession of these attributes. A toned (fatless) body with generous muscle definition denotes manliness evoking a sense of power, vitality and well being; this is the Enlightenment reified.

Our culture is saturated with signs which give birth to the Social Form. As this composite model of what is desirable becomes ingrained in the value system of a society, we can decide whether or not to conform to the form presented. That is, we may attempt to simulate the image. The images are everywhere we see them on bill boards, and advertisements showing us what the epitome of manliness looks like. The cultural theorist Baudrillard applies an interesting interpretation to the concept of simulation. At its most advanced level simulations no longer duplicate reality they replace it. Early civilizations attempted to reproduce scenes from nature, as technology advanced more elaborate signs and artifacts became possible. The ideal male body seen in this light is a simulacra, when one attempts to simulate its Social Form a piece of reality is not being reproduced but a new object that is created replaces the former figment of reality. We now have entered the hyper-real, the real that is more real than real, the manly that is more manly than manly.

This is me re-enforcing the stereotype:

 (except I can't remember what I've done at the gym these past few weeks so the following is an approximate)

bench 87.5/2*8,4

chins, dead hang (me)/3*8

seated row 65/3*10 

front squat 90/3*5

I have found that training in-season is exceptionally more difficult than the off-season. It hurts. It really does.

what if...

I woke up everyday and felt like getting out of bed? This is what I dream about when I'm sleeping. This is theoretically attainable in a no-fuss type of way. Here's what to do, limit myself to only one weakness: chocolate and ice cream; which I will only eat ever again on Sundays, and only if I've been good and not ingested any other naughty things throughout the week. This sounds only partially as ridiculous as I intended. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything. I will get no less than 8.5 hours of lying in bed at night, most of which I hope to spend sleeping. I will also  make mental notes of each time that I blog about making sweeping lifestyle changes that will once and for all redeem me from a misspent life, so that I can make encouraging gestures at myself in the mirror as a facade to cover what I fear may be the underlying truth. Proverbs teaches us that smiling makes us happier. Most importantly, no matter how devastated by the ravages of tiredness, I will continue to go to the gym:

bench 85kgs/3*8

chins, n-grip me/3*8

high row, rope 45/3*8

hu-rrah!

random connectedness

I chomp into, then slurp down a sample to make sure my 2 minute noodles are al dente. I go to the loo and am greeted by a cartoonishly large cockroach. Did Gregor Samsa accidentally slip into and drown in my toilet bowl? Has my flatmate taken to gourmet servings of super sized insects and passed one, without the customary digestive functions of the bowel taking affect? Only time will tell. I play rugby league and we win on a last second try. Are all these events somehow connected? I don't know, but I'm living them.

I step into the gym and things make sense...

bp 75/2*8

inc bench 70/2*8

sit row, v bar 70/4*8

rear delt fly 2(5)/3*8 (pause on each rep)

process

There are at least an infinite amount of ways to do anything, should I put on my socks first, or my t-shirt? When I put on my pants one leg at a time just like everyone else, should I start with my left or right foot? Writing is no different, there are an innumerable number of paths that lead to the mountain top and thankfully just as many guides. I have been reading Murakami. I have been becoming obsessed with Murakami. I believe I have found my guide.

Broadly speaking writers fall into two main camps: There are organic writers and there are planners. I must admit that I have a genetic predisposition toward anal retentiveness. I manage to temper this undesirable trait by being super lazy. When it came to the thought, but not necessarily the act of writing in the past, my baser instincts would kick in and I'd get all obsessive compulsive, I've got to plan out every detail or I'll go insane, blah, blah, blah (present blog and all its contents excluded for reasons that I can't quite identify). Surely knowing the course you'll take before you set off, is a wise way to travel and many accomplished authors have formulated their novels in this way. Murakami is a fan of jazz and his method for writing reflects this interest. He often begins with a vague premise, rarely knowing where it will take him and then just improvises as he goes.

Stephen King prefers to write his stories in a similar manner. He's fond of the advice that "the book is the boss." For King, writing is an art of excavation and each story is a fossil that he has delicately uncovered from some imaginary realm. Sometimes I think writers are utterly ridiculous with their "my abilities are a mysterious gift from the muses" type of carry on, but as I experiment and delve into their world I get the feeling that maybe, they might be right. I'm going to just relax and let my stories unfold naturally from a dark scary place deep within.

workout time:

pull ups me/3*8

OHP db 2(22.5)*8,2(25)*5,2(20)*8

being and becoming

I am sitting down finally. The haze of sheer exhaustion from this week has been washed away momentarily by the torrential down pour during footy training today. There's no real reason why rugby league should be called footy. The ball for 90 percent of a game is kept in hand. It's one of those things that has always puzzled me. Before the weight of my specially cultivated malignant tiredness resumes, I sit and reflect. I'm human. All too human. This is a trait I'll never overcome. I sit and imagine things different, as they could possibly be if I were not the person who was fantasizing about alternate realities.

I feel like I learned something today. It's one of those lessons that you already know, but only on an intellectual level. I don't say this dismissively, I'm all for cold calculating irrefutable logic, but there are certain phases that an idea needs to pass through before it attains apotheosis. It's not quite out of the chrysalis for me yet; still digesting, to mix a metaphor. I'm reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, a literary savant from Japan. It's a memoir of sorts about running and the writing life. The lesson was simply this: when he does something he puts everything into it. This guy runs marathons for fun. It's crazy, there really are no secrets to success.

what I talk about when I talk about working out...

(A1) bp 80kgs/3*8

(A2) chin, n-grip me/2*8;6

(A3) row, seated, v-grip 55,60,65*8

the end of an era

Yes it's true, I'm afraid to say. I'm too busy to maintain heaps and heaps of blogs, so with great sadness I bid a fond farewell to iLoren. You we're always there for me you little ripper. On to bigger and better things then eh. Everything that would have been posted there will now be here yada yada yada. I will still document the unlikely tale of my journey from ignoble slumdog wretch to impossibly fantastic geriatric league guy, until I change my mind and decide to do something else again.

guess what's back? The ever-lovable work out log, for your reading pleasure:

we're in season, it's maintenance time
front squat 100*5
a2g back squat 120*3,2
hang clean 60*5
clean 60*7,70*2 trickier than it looks, and it looks pretty dang tricky

Bonus league update
I curse the heavens. I didn't score again. In other news we won 38-10 against Burleigh. Hurrah.

Are you all-NBA too?

I couldn't help but noticing that recently I've neglected the ridiculous concoction of my imagination known as that story which originally constituted the entirety of this blog's content. Fret not zero readers (in truth according to a nifty little tool known as google analytics there are in all probability 3 unique visitors to this blog on average everyday and I'm one of them. Wow, that must be like some kind of record.) it's a new year, and new ideas flow through my veins like heady little anti bodies ready to destroy all unwanted intruders (does this explain my overwhelming readership numbers, zero readers? Allusions to destructive forces with tenuous connections to the original statement made. Perhaps it's my over analysis of my own thought process or my ability to change tack on a dime.) Today I went to the gym. Yesterday I read an article on t-nation by Charles Poliquin, he says among many, many other things that a key indicator of athletic ability is how much you can pull when power snatching. I'm all NBA as I've said in the past: a Natural Born Athlete. Today I power snatched, it looked something like this:

The results weren't as big as I'd hoped, but reasonable overall. Tomorrow I'll start up some more blogs. There's no intelligible reason for this. Just for fun though, check out http://goproat30.blogspot.com/, which will document my little journey to Australia to play Rugby League or How I Got Published which didn't actually happen unless you count e-publishing, but if you're itching for the story that's where it will once again be on display (it'll still be here too, bonus!).

***UPDATE***

I'm not doing "How I Got Published" now. It's a dead link. I've recently discovered that there are services that can automatically agregate all your internet content. So instead of cutting and pasting everything I post here, SliModSoc will continue as it was without theme or reason and the other two blogs will run independantly and one day I'll start up a storytlr account.

workout>>

sumo deadlift 130*6,170*5,200*4,220*3

home snatch 40*5,60*5,70*3,75, 80 (missed on first, hit on second attempt)

the evolution of the squat

It used to be that "squat rack" was a misnomer. Most gym rats used them for curls, it was quite annoying. What's more annoying now is that we've got a new generation on the rise and they have the most ridiculous squats I've ever seen. Ridiculous as in far heavier than mine. What is this world coming to? People squating in squat racks, people squating more than me. I met an 18 year old kid the other day and he was squating 180 kgs for reps and he was even braking parallel, no one used to do that either except maybe overweight power lifters, time to up my game or put on some weight or something.

workout>>
squat: 100/3*10
power C&J 60,70,80,90,100,105,110 missed last jerk

volume: 3615kgs

call to arms

I'm between jobs at the moment and it's groundhog day in a goodway. I wake up and just about the only thing on the agenda is writing and the gym. I'm headed to Aussie in a week just in time for the middle of summer. Can you say beach fit? That's what I plan to be, hence I've hit the gym just about everyday this week. I'm rocking a six-pack, unlicenced guns and an ego that's about three times the size of planet earth, somebody stop me please.

workout>>
whole bunch of bicep stuff
whole bunch of tricep stuff

volume: heaps

The Dark Knight Returns

Where have I been? All over the place. He returns in strange ways quantifiable only in diminutive increments immeasurable by common means. Loren walks in the door and the gym stops mainly because it never moves. According to relativity there are no objects at rest. NZ is not the wondrous place I thought it was. Not in Hamilton. Among like minded people, he likes to think different. We all do. That way we're always alone together. The best of all possible worlds is inaccessible only when you don't DYI. So, if you want a job done right there's only one option, alternatively you could outsource; I really can't be bothered living off the land. He moon walks to the bench, Michael Jackson never had it this good. Neverland never really happened, but I did. Home at last.

workout>>

front squat 60*30
OHP 60 /3*3;40*10
seated row 84/3*10
lat pulldown 54*9,68*9,61*9
hang snatch 40/3*5

volume: 7507kgs

on gyming it up 5

Plato posited that two worlds exist: the world of being and the world of becoming.[1] The world of being is a place where everything exists in its perfect form. Take a horse for instance, somewhere out there in a place quite unlike this one there is the perfect form of a horse, an undefiled template from which all ‘horseness’ and all instances of horses originate. The world of becoming is our world; here, imperfect instances of Plato’s forms occur. Plato’s was a teleological world-view where the becoming parts were tagged as such because given the right type of conditions an imperfect form could move towards becoming like the perfect form. It turns out that Plato was probably wrong, however, I mention his work here because it helps to illustrate the type of thing that is occurring both in gyms and in the male psyche. There is an ideal form that exists and men now attempt to emulate this ideal.

back squat 60*8,100*5,120*5,130*5,140/3*3
chins 95/3*8

volume: 5770kgs (or 12,694lbs!)


[1] Strathern: The Essential Plato, pp 31-32.

a christmas workout

After finishing work for good Friday last week, I used my new found free time to do some crazy things like waking up at 5 in the morning to play basketball for 2-3 hours at a time. This takes some getting used to. My legs are totally drained, yet I still feel compelled to squat like I'm fighting to hold onto an abandoned house. Sometimes it feels like a loosing battle. Next time you're completely pasted try doing as many front squats as you can (full depth) with 60kgs/132lbs. It doesn't seem like much weight, but it wears you down fast when you're used to low rep ranges. I was disappointed to find I could only do 26 before wussing out.

bench 50*38,16,21
front squat 60*26,10,10

the time is nigh at hand

My younger years included little in the way of physical activity (or any other type of activity for that matter). I was born under a small bridge in the south of Auckland and my parents tell me that I'm at least half troll. Do you have any idea what kind of impact that type of lineage has on a youngster? For a significant portion of my life I was forced into hiding as to conceal my monstrous awesomeness from the rest of humanity. Moving around during the day proved difficult as direct sunlight had the unfortunate of effect of transforming me into stone. Damn that hole in the ozone layer. During the day if I needed to venture out of the house in order to procure appropriate sized morsels of sustenance, I was forced to wear a long coat and hat similar to that of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of the early nineties, except that I was a child and the only thing retailers stocked in my size were those shiny yellow plastic raincoats (with hat). Looking back it was a regrettable fashion choice, but these items helped protect my delicate skin from the suns harmful rays. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I could go on, but suffice it to say that my mobility was limited (troll anatomy takes a lot of getting used to), my will blase, and my surroundings unhelpful for my over all physical development.

As it was I eventually grew up. My aversion or more correctly my extreme allergic reaction to sunlight faded. My night prowls for the dead carcasses of creatures, which shall remain unnamed here, payed off in the form of extreme physical prowess, a recently developed habit of lifting large metal objects could have also been a contributing factor. So, I decided it was time to unleash the beast for good, but not here in New Zealand, a troll is never accepted in his own country, except by unscrupulous means. I'll conduct an experiment in Australia with myself as the test subject: playing rugby league in the number one rugby league nation on the planet (NZ's world cup victory notwithstanding). The most difficult thing will be that I may have to start up another blog (again) to cover it. I'm not so sure how successful a blog that covers randomly assorted topics (as this one is presently constituted) can be numbers wise. Going niche seems to be the way of the world now days. People who are interested in writing are probably uninterested in my sporting pursuits. Then again this is my blog and the content is up to me. People may not care what I did for my last workout, but here it is anyway (hey, I warned you I was half-troll):

OHP 50/3*8
Chins me/3*8
Power snatch 60/10*1
front squat 60/2*10

2 for 1 thanks to the crusty-old-naked-guy

Beware the men’s changing room. There must an immutable law written somewhere that there will always and forever be a crusty-old-naked-guy standing guard at every single one of these places. I walk in and I see more than I'm inclined to tell and I weep for humanity. I know it's a changing room and nakedness is bound to ensue at some point, but must you continuously offend my sensitive eyeballs with your painstakingly developed beer gut, your saggy man boobs, and other saggy things. I swear it's the same damn guy every time. Every gym has one. Here's an idea: try putting on some clothes and going home for once. I'm sure you'll start feeling better about yourself immediately or at least I will. Yesterday I slipped up and stepped in to relieve myself, what was my horror when I was met by that ever-present sentinel of manly nakedness. I was so traumatized that I almost forgot I worked out. So here's that session and today's in all their glory. I believe I've learned my lesson. Beware the men’s changing room.

17/12/08
bench 100/3*5,4
chins me(98kgs)/2*10;5

volume: 4350kgs

18/12/08
bent press 20*3 l & r
one arm snatch 40*1 l & r
sumo DL 80*10,120*10,140*8,160*5,180*5,200*5
power C&J 80/2*4,100,105,110 (did split jerk today)

volume: 6975kgs

On the Shoulders of Giants: Arthur Saxon

where we celebrate the burly strongmen of yesteryear.

Arthur Saxon was an absolute freak of nature. He never saw a weight that he couldn't heft and later laugh at derisively. This 5'10, 200 pound, iron wrecking machine is a legend of the lifting game. Hallowed be his name. Perhaps his greatest feat was the two hands anyhow lift (which as the name suggests involves lifting any weight implement over head, anyway, anyhow, both hands allowed). He bent pressed 335 pounds with his right hand, while lifting and pressing a 110 pound kettlebell at the same time with his left. 445 pounds: fricken ridiculous. Today I had to settle for:

bench 50*30,23,13

pull ups 10,8,6,3

on gyming it up 3

here's part 2

Health, the converse of the above afflictions which are commonly incumbent on the human condition, is therefore a worthy pursuit and a natural consequence of the tenets espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Unfortunately doctors, the high priests of modernity[1], have not been wholly successful in actualizing this Enlightenment ideal. Great strides have been taken in the elimination of many diseases to be sure, but the terrifying spectre of death still remains. Short of confronting this fact head on as Camus suggests[2], many men have been content to make the most of what time they have by pursuing this concept of health at gyms as a form of recreation. We certainly have other apparatus’ at our disposal to deal with the stark reality of our mortality (drugs come to mind), but they are more or less distractions, whereas, gym going is one particular activity that continues the spirit of the Enlightenment as far as taming nature is concerned. It may be of small consolation, but a healthy life style is the next best thing that we have to a cure for death. The enlightenment ideal is still alive then, but now modified; men, generally speaking, seek to live for as long as possible in the most ideal way possible. “If you haven’t got your health you haven’t got anything[3].”

What's this, a work out?
front squat 20*10,40*30,20,10
power C&J 60*3,100
power snatch 60*3, 70


[1] Cook: Medicine in Advanced Modernity, p 10
[2] Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus, p 3
[3] Reiner: The Princess Bride

body for life + 1 month - dieting =

For the before pic click here. Sometimes I even amaze myself. Damn I'm one stunningly white, white boy.

Deadlift 140*5; 180/3*5 (cycled through 3 different grips)

power snatch 60*5,70*5 (last 3 reps: extremly ugly)

volume: 4050 kgs

something to think about next time you go to the gym

On Gyming It Up part 2 (here's part one)


Certain sensibilities have crept to the surface of our collective conscious over the past few decades. Somewhere close to the top of this heap of human conceptions is the desire to promote a healthy lifestyle. This desire to transcend the natural deterioration of organic matter is probably an offshoot of the oft-lamented Enlightenment project[1]. Among the many parts which gave shape to the body of this intellectual movement (along with the promotion of rationality, equality and subsequently the dispersion of superstitions, holy blood-lines and the like) was the establishment of the human being as the new centre of the universe. Nature was a chaotic malaise that would soon bend to our unreasonably impressive reasonableness[2]. It is implied then that humans possess an immense power, the power to control reality through reason. As we harnessed the combined powers of our considerable intellects we would conquer nature and leave some of her less than desirable aspects like (but not limited to) ageing, sickness and death bruised and beaten into submission...

and bada bing bada boom a work out
bench 60*8, 95/4*5
chins 95/4*5
seated row 94/4*5
OHP 2(22.5)*8,5


[1] For the purposes of this essay, the idea that the Enlightenment was a phallocentric phenomenon will be treated as axiomatic.
[2] Nisbet: The Sociological Tradition, pp 21-44

leauge world champs, how sweet it is

I'm still recovering from the best day of my life.

Last night the New Zealand Kiwi's defeated the Australian Kangaroo's in the final of the rugby league world cup, 34-20. This isn't an alternate reality or some elaborate fantasy that I just concocted, this actually happened. The Aussie's have had a strangle hold on the cup since time immemorial it feels like (really since 1975, longer than I've been alive!). No one except the players themselves and their family members gave our boys a chance of winning, the monotonous march of Australian dominance looked set to continue, but the dynasty came crashing down on the back of uncharacteristic errors by the roo's (cheers Billy), some controversial calls from the ref and a rare display of heart from the Kiwi's. I never thought I'd see this in my life time. If you look at the match up and the expectations going in this was the biggest sporting upset of all time. Yeah Boy!

Oh, I worked out too

box squat (32cm) 60*5,100*5,140*2,130*5,130/3*3

power C&J 90*3,95*3,100*3

volume: 3755kgs

"push through the pain barriers"

Sometimes doing something half-arsed seems better than doing nothing at all. I wouldn't recommend adopting that as a life principle, but when you start to feel the flakes of flakiness fall on your head, don't be fooled, that's not dandruff, that's the world pitifully trying to hold you down. At times like those it's probably best to er on the side of action. So I dusted off me head and mailed in another work out, snail mailed, it got banged up during delivery, but it got there in the end...

bench 20*40;40*40;60*14,12;
bench (p-grip) 60*6
dead hang chins 98(me)*8,6
power clean: 100 missed it, 100 got it