Give Me the Iron or Give Me a Pine Box
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I did what husbands do best. I circled Laree’s 4-Runner, inspecting the tires, wipers and bumpers, as she packed it with kettlebells of all sizes, training balls large and small, bands, cords and foam rollers and other assorted gear from bodywidgets-r-us.com. She could not see out the rearview mirror.
“Tires are looking a little low,” I remarked, as I kissed her goodbye. (Generous fellow.) Bighearted guy that I am I asked if she was sure she didn’t want me to tag along to supervise, coach and generally run things. Apparently she was sure; she floored it, almost taking out a 90-foot redwood and the UPS truck in her path.
The brave and bold athlete-adventurer was headed two hours northeast to a park in Oakland to meet with like-minded health and strength enthusiasts, four to be exact, same gender, same age range. There the dream team pooled their equipment on a grassy knoll and rambunctiously commenced to blast it. The blasting consisted mostly of sharing muscle- and structure-balancing techniques currently penetrating the bodybuilding and athletic world... and the world of everyday, hurting bodies.
It seems the less-aggressive, more passive, yet very painful and tiresome flippy-floppy training methodologies of personal trainers and pro coaches invading the bodybuilding scene 20 years ago are advancing and proving themselves genuinely valuable. Well, I’ll be a duck in a birdcage, a rat in a mouse trap, a cop in orange coveralls. Call me a cynic, a doubter, an old-fashioned, hardcore muscle-bound protestor whose motto, “Give me the iron or give me a pine box,” thumps in my ear and falls off my lips like a sacrificial requiem.
Bye, Sweetie. Don’t forget me... your ever-faithful Bomber. What’s the use? I can’t stop her. I tried. The girl’s got a mind of her own. The fact of the matter is Laree, our webmaster and forum moderator and editor–in-chief, my wife, has redefined her exercise goals to correct muscle-body balance, mobility and flexibility. She’s out-of-whack. It’s pervasive, she assures me, and the origin of constant pain and debilitating malfunction. Who needs that? I’ll fix it!
Fact is we’re all outta whack (nothin’ personal), none of us need it and we can most likely fix it if we try.
Weightlifters and bodybuilders seek muscle mass, density, strength, shape and definition, prominent veins, thin skin and sufficient symmetry. Huge and ripped and powerful work. Correct muscle function, balance and flexibility are compromised in the earnest quest of muscle and might. By the time we develop any muscle at all we’re on our way to the garage, the repair shop or the junkyard: the pharmacist, the chiropractor or the neurosurgeon.
It’s never too late to begin the corrective process and the sooner the better. We need to and ought to include in our training schemes certain movements and stretches to counter our imperfect structure, those structures we inherit at birth, develop as we work, play and grow, incur from job-related activities and daily living, or from bombing and blasting as we amass muscle and power.
My attitude (a tough one to change) has long been, "who has the time and patience, awareness, knowledge and desire to do it all -- to lift like an animal, be as protective as a mother and right as a saint? Give me a pound of muscle and two portions of strength, hold the foam roller and skip the medicine ball. Hurry, I don’t have all day. Umm...thanks.”
I'm still working on the attitude as my hands cannot touch my toes or my nose.
Take five minutes, hobbled, swollen and stiff-bodied bombers. Tune into Laree and the real experts on the forum and the blog and join the worthy mission to aright your lopsided bodies and move on safely and painlessly (ha) in the rough and demanding world of man against metal. You'll love their ideas, long in gaining credibility, and easily and sensibly applicable to the training regimens of hard-nosed, bombastic ironheads like me... and you. Great stuff!
You might just discover (you certainly will, if you try) an exercise or stretch or trigger point to engage during your spare evening TV-time, thus adding relief and healing, goodness and hope to your daily treasure. Skeptical? Don’t be, there’s gold in them thar links below.
Well, you can hang around here and talk all day, but I’m heading for the gym to cause havoc and mayhem. Shoulders need a whooping, front, side and rear, and the chest can use a thumping in the pec major and pec minor regions. And I’m gonna pound the back, Jack, left, right, top, bottom. I’m bad. Coming along?
All my workouts are tough, but the chest, shoulder, back combination is the biggest, widest and most demanding.
Arms (forearms, bis and tris) burn and scream, but the areas are relatively small and don’t cause ugly oxygen debt, not very nice for -- what shall I say? -- heart-challenged weightlifters. Gasping sucks. Legs are big muscles and blood flow is huge, but I give them plenty of time and wide margins of forgiveness (that is, heavy weight and last reps are not mandatory... or allowed... or possible). Every set and rep is closely attended and appreciated, and completing the workout is a victory -- a conquest. Gee, Ma, I miss squats.
But those abused and compromised, sliced and diced shoulders give me grief. My pressing is limited in range, power and painfreeness. Thus, I struggle like a mouse in a bear trap. Thank my lucky-ducky stars, grip and pulling are just dandy, allowing me to hoist the weights like a crane... a small crane... more like a scoop... an ice-cream scoop. I scoop ice cream... but I don’t eat it. Laree eats it. Just jokin’. Where were we?
Ah, yes, we were heading for the gym to start a fight. Remember when we could meet our training partner at the local dungeon and he would be on time and we’d do heavy benches followed by heavy incline dumbbell presses followed by heavy pullovers followed by heavy flys and finish with weighted dips? Now we arrive when we are able and either one of us is late; one can bench press, barely, while the other cannot at all. Nether lifter can clean the dumbbells to do incline presses, flys are limited to the 20-pounders, and both of us are too proud to use that end of the rack in public (presenting numerous training problems). Dips can only be preformed with the girly-man assist machine and we silently refuse to do those in front of each other. What would Pat Casey think? Heavy pullovers could possibly cause cardiac arrest. Light pullovers will only cause a shoulder separation. We pass on both.
Oh, but we’ve grown wise. We’ve learned to improvise. We sustain, we maintain, we retain, and at the right moment we strain and gain and regain. Despite the snags and drags, we bag bold workouts. Possibilities are broad, energy is high, endurance is long and focus is deep. What a pump, whatta burn... solid sets, forceful reps... feelin’ mean n’ lean n’ tight. Just right!
Didn’t take much to turn the day around. And these days, they take some turnin’... ya need a crowbar, a monkey wrench and a sledge hammer... barrel of grease... stick of dynamite.
Wanna go gliding? Let’s glide.
God’s speed, heavens high... Dave
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Go... Godspeed... Dave
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