Muscle and Strength for all Reasons and Seasons
Mugsy, our cat, drinks Bomber Blend and loves it. Yup! He purrs like a Harley when I get out the canister and scoop. You’d think he was training for mass, power and cuts. I join him for a shot in the mid-afternoon, keeps us going as the day drags on, neither of us as young as we used to be. Up to the lips, across the teeth and down the hatch, that’s what I say as the black fur ball slurps greedily from his saucer. Yup! He’s 17 years old and looks and acts like a kitten.
I have begun to construct a wall around my house to keep passing time from entering. Laree thinks I’m crazy -- a moat infested with crocodiles is her preference -- but she’s joined me in mixing cement and laying blocks. The higher you go, the better, they say.
Time and its persistence. Rats! I wonder what advice and encouragement I will offer 10 years from now, wall or no wall. Furthermore, will Laree and I by 2016 have added a moat to surround our towering wall? Will I insist on squatting, deadlifting and blasting it? How about the diet; will I ingest only Bomber Blend, the world’s perfect food, or will I be on my 10th meat-searing Foreman Grill? Will I be writing to you or writing to a wall towering outside my creaking tarnished door?
These are the things I wonder about on two-pillow days. Two-pillow days are those days when nothing insightful comes to my mind as I sit dull-eyed before the computer screen, keyboard, and newsletter deadline. After an hour of leaning and staring, my elbows, already tender from lying triceps extensions and close-grip bench presses, start to throb. I counter the pulsating pressure by resting my arms on pillows; hence, two-pillow days.
My life is a crisis.
An hour ago I had lunch with my friend and World Gym partner, John, who just returned from a 12-month tour of duty in Iraq. John survived his tour a taller, broader and deeper man. He was taught well by the army during his 25 years with the Guard and lifts iron and eats right without doubt or delay. He is whole and healthy and strong, thank God. He and his command pulled damaged, yet salvageable military vehicles from roadways, ditches and fields -- often under fire from unfriendly local villagers -- and dragged them to relative safety for repair.
John, whose eyes are wide open, saw everything. To leave the suffering yet grasping region would be the immediate ruin of a people and place oppressed since the dawn of man, and the eventual ruin of the free world less willing and less able to deal with mounting threats at a later date. Now or never, do or die, mother, father, sister and brother.
John and the troops ate well, protein was no problem. The gym facility was not a bent barbell and some mismatched clanging dumbbells heaped in a shed as I suspected. Cybex and Lifestride and Ivanco dominated a 4,000-square-foot-workout area with a trembling AC in the corner (he remembers recording 148 degrees outside its doors during July and August). Workouts were a daily routine for a lot of the soldiers, unless emergency duty called. During those imperiled times the young heroes put their workouts into action.
One day John stood beneath a bar and three plates, when a bomb went off closer than he would like. He looked at his reflection in a salvaged chard of mirror and wondered which battle to fight, the one on his back or the one in his heart. He got his six reps plus one, dumped the load in the rack and retrieved his rifle from its safe place.
Periodically, his band of warriors would deliver diesel fuel and gifts from American charities to orphanages outside Baghdad. The kids were plentiful and cared for in clean, yet bullet-scarred, facilities. They were... well... happy. It was the convoy’s 90-mile journey that was grim. IEDs and bands of terrorists greeted them along the way. Welcome! Littering Prohibited.
The wheels of accelerated social evolution turn. One day some will look back without pause and say the past is what happened and therefore it was right and necessary to bring us to this day. Some will not agree. Some will never look back. Thanks, John, for doing your duty (without complaint, doubt or lack of faith) for a remarkable country and the lovely planet upon which it sits.
Earth is a lovely planet, and the only one we have, by God. Though she floats in space seemingly with ease does not mean there are no strings attached. We owe her respect and responsibility, and that, my friends, begins with you and me.
On a more serious note, tomorrow is my battle with leg bombing. Oh, boy! I used to greet the workout with challenge and confidence (last year), and now I say to myself, “What, am I nuts?” I’m hoping the doubt or fear or lack of fire is temporary and I will dig deep once again real soon, but... my thighs are acting funny. They’re as muscular as I’ve ever seen them, but they sting, burn and ache when walking their walk. The weight I handle is in the dumpster, down by 100 pounds, and I’m wobbly in the hips. Not sure if the curious reaction is muscle- or nerve-based... hmmm. I tell you this not to center attention on me, poor fellow, but because I am the specimen I study most closely to determine and relate to you information regarding aging, injury and musclebuilding.
I shall continue my squatting, with leg presses and leg curls and leg extensions to warm up and augment my constrained attempts. Don’t you hate it when the human being in us rears his ugly head? I’ll keep you posted as I follow my nose in search of a resolution to the current thigh thing.
It’s fascinating that I still have an interest in this iron madness after all these years and trials and errors. The changes presented by time contribute to the fascination, and the challenge to endure. Now that I’ve confessed the issue of my squatting and their recent limitations, I look forward to tomorrow’s training session with renewed vigor. Just 100 words ago I conveyed discouragement. After a minor review with you, I’m charged.
Hey, Buster, I’m using that rack.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of focus, attention to form -- not proper, generic form, necessarily, but the form that provides the muscle engagement that works for you -- and an intense, yet de-stressed mind. This state-of-mind is one that develops continually over time, and the degrees of expansion are unending. As muscle and structural constraints confound me, the more I discover about disarming them through concentrated effort, shuffling around pain and unveiling a path to maximum muscle exertion -- maximum muscle extension and contraction.
Exercising is fun until it no longer is. We put it in a box and close the lid. We look for results before we fully apply ourselves and argue convincingly that they’re not happening. It’s been a month, after all. We listen to the iPod -- bebopalula -- talk about the Series and the weather and check the clock for rapidly moving hands. We missed it, the whole ball of wax. We go from place to place and ignore the spectacular scenery along the way. Having relinquished the wheel, we sit in the back seat like a passenger in a cab. Follow that car!
Well, not everyone. There are those attending these weekly bull sessions who are earnestly seeking something extra from their training, convinced there’s more and who refuse to let it reside in an airless box with a light-proof lid. As long as exercise and eating right are integral to a good and independent and long life (with strong, attractive muscles), let’s enjoy the trip and embrace the journey.
I’m still working on it, finding joy in those sets and reps and burning and yearning sensations. The grand thing is there is fulfillment within the involvement of the set and the completion of a productive workout, and the results from the accumulation of workouts performed over ample time. Each has a reward of its own, and these cannot be duplicated. They range from exhilaration to fitness, leanness, strength and health; from expansion of character to enlargement of power and development of confidence.
Time to pause, bombers. If you stand tall and look westward, you can see the ocean in its vastness. Let’s spread our wings, soar above the rugged, frothy coastline and watch the sun balance on the flaming horizon... tranquillizing after a long day shuffling iron and shifting steel.
Go, I’ll follow... God’s might... DD
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