Commonsense and Adapting: Tools of the Trade
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It’s the weekend and the taillights of Laree’s 4-runner just flickered out of sight as she rounded the bend of our driveway. “Get out and don’t come back,” I yelled with fists shaking in the air. Well, not exactly. She’s on her way to visit her mom north of San Francisco for a few days; I don’t know what to do. Like, who’ll feed me, change the channels, count my sets and reps, answer the phone, the door... my every wish. I’ll adapt. What’s the number for Pizza Hut again?
Gonna be a long road... a steep climb... a lonely crossing.
We’re in the middle of a heat wave along the central coast of California, which means temperatures around 100 degrees. I’m heading to the gym shortly for a minor blast of all bodyparts. Bang, boom, zoom. Minor blasts are fun, worthy, suitable for hot weather and can be performed more frequently than my more common major blasts. If the gym was closer to home (say, the basement or in the garage, near the pool, amid the gardens or aside the tennis court), I’d apply the more frequent, less intense methodology to my musclebuilding scheme.
This is Bill Pearl’s wisdom and training style, but what does he know? He’s 11 years my senior, won Mr. Universe a zillion times and doesn’t have a scratch on his powerful body. American Indians are made of flesh and bone, iron and flint. They also have great commonsense.
Bill trains an hour a day, six days a week. Somehow he’s learned how (practice, I’m guessing) to temper his workouts and blend his musclebuilding movements into a sensible and effective swath covering the six-day regimen. He’s capable of entering the gym without beating himself over the head with the dumbbells or diving from atop the squat rack headfirst into a pile of 45s. And he refuses to bounce a loaded Olympic bar off his torso as if his chest were a trampoline.
Yet, he moves small mountains at 5 AM daily except Sunday.
Your best bodybuilders from the past had commonsense. I suspect today there is less of that characteristic existing, as it has gone into disuse. Who but the real musclehead needed to gather milk crates and boards and wash-line pulleys to create a gym of benches, inclines and cables? Today there are scores of gym equipment companies offering the slickest gear and some of the most absurd musclebuilding contraptions you could imagine.
“What is it, how do you get in, how do you get out, what’s it for and does it hurt?”
When commonsense is called upon, when inventing and improvising are engaged, one is getting to the heart of things. Need has called out; urgency, desire and pursuit are heard echoing in the background. Two chairs back to back for a dipping station, a pipe across overhead beams for a chinning bar, a four-foot 4x10 on two milk crates to make a bench. I hope we don’t have to mix cement and pour it into paint cans to make our barbells.
Most of us would if we had too... I’m talking about stranded on an island in the South Pacific... with a hardware store under the palms.
As it is -- no poolside gym -- I make the trafficky plod to the gym thrice weekly. I notice I’m also affected by the price of petroleum (since gas has gone up to four dollars a gallon, I call it petroleum). My gym membership is free, but fuel to and fro costs me 50 bucks a month. That’s $600 a year.
I’m nauseous. I shouldn’t have made the calculations and written them down. I can’t afford to go to the gym. I’ll stay home and save up for kettlebells. I’ll swipe a few crates from the Safeway, throw a pipe over the beams downstairs, and paint cans... let me think... paint cans... I have some cruddy, near-empty gallon-size buckets under the house.
Truth is I must train in a gym, even if it’s silent, dark and unoccupied (come to think of it, better if it’s silent, dark and unoccupied). I must be devoid of any distractions of home and the real world. Amid the mounds of equipment and tons of iron is the mind-set. There the structure, engine and gauges run best. The rigid atmosphere contains energy and spirit and promise. Everything is at-the-ready, everything is set to go.
Training at home, I feel reluctant to start, uninspired to push and anxious to finish. I feel lonely and defeated. Oddly, I spend a lot of time alone, and enjoyably.
I’d adapt in a week, and no doubt crave the style in a month. But for now, till petroleum goes to five, I’ll make straight tracks through the ‘jungle out there.’
Adapting is a handy built-in tool we creatures possess. We apply this survival methodology daily and lately I’ve been honing mine with particular preparatory attention. I don’t want to forfeit the vital process to mere human chance. I want it to be a ready skill.
I practice adapting at the gym while I can, while I can afford to and while I am able. Gee, that sounds depressing. Let me rephrase that: My adapting shall be of a superior nature resulting from my extraordinary gift for building, developing and advancing all things, seen and unseen. That’s a little over the top, but more like it. Shucks, I left out focus and perseverance.
Determining what and how much exercise is enough appears to be a no-brainer. Too much is too much, too little is too little and just right is just right. The question is, after 50 years of weight training, who has a brain? I am a no-brainer.
Every day is different (fact) and should be treated thus. Good advice for seasoned guys and gals, but not good for the beginner and intermediate lifters. During the early years of muscle development I encourage disciplined and scheduled training, both for the body’s certain response and for the advancing of the mind and character. Law and order, rules and regs work. Loose-style workouts produce, but not as effectively in student bodybuilding and not as generously in iron-based self-growth.
Take advantage of the two-for-one offer while it’s fresh and available. Invest in smart, routine training early. Only in time, with ample training understanding, can you successfully and joyfully soar into the wild blue yonder.
Personality and purpose often shape the workouts ahead. Desire, or heart, I’ve concluded, is a tight interweaving of want and need, joy and guts. You’ve gotta have heart, bombers.
A solid hour three times a week means an hour of keen pursuit. No time for anything but pushing, pulling and hoisting, blended naturally with deep breathing, focus and desire. A solid hour usually means, also, an extra 15 minutes cuz you miscalculated the time or were interrupted by a natural disaster or had to go to the john between sets (bummer). This character finds joy in tough musclebuilding.
An hour five or six times a week means a more casual, less intense relationship with the iron, and the lifters lifting it. “Hi, how are ya? You using the cable crossovers? That’s okay. I’ll wait.” These good folks enjoy a strong and healthy hobby, and each other.
Me? I’ll climb into any craft that flies and take it to the heavens above. Join me?
Godspeed... DD
DAN THE MAN
The IronOnline forum, a discussion group whose numbers and level of friendship and depth of perception, knowledge and understanding are growing like a California suburb, is in its ninth year of development. There are hundreds of active participants and thousands of grateful lurkers, those I like to call stealth bombers. The info and enthusiasm is generous.
Busy digging with my paws for something to say to you muscleheads each week and answering stray email, I lurk through the eyes of Laree, its chief moderator.
Pretty much jerk-free, the forum has attracted some really intelligent and highly respected characters from the athletic and fitness world. Dropping in from time to time we’ve seen Dr. Ken Leistner, chiropractor, writer and HIT technique strongman; Scott Sonnon of the clubbell and martial arts world; Steve Wedan, muscle artist and writer; Jerry Branum, nutrition writer, John Izzo, who specializes in corrective exercise training, and back in the early email days, Tom Incledon lent a guiding hand. Anyone who takes a step past training mediocrity knows these guys by name and reputation.
Recently joining the crew of valuable and worthy contributors is powerful Dan John, American record-holder in the Masters Weight Pentathlon, and a highly skilled strength and track and field coach in the state of Utah. His intelligence and innovation match his athletic skills, and they are witnessed in his new Q&A section of the IOL forum.
Dan has a popular set of personally demonstrated instruction DVDs packaged three-in-one, which more clearly reveals his understanding the rigors the muscles and structure endure during training and sport, how to prepare mentally and physically for hard work and how get things from the ground to overhead. He gets right to the point; his new DVD set, Everything's Over My head, is available on our website, and we’re real pleased to have him answering questions in the forum.
Dan’s the man.
Thanks, Dan. Buddy Dave.
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