Live ’N Learn, a Tough Combination
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Each of us is apportioned a serving of life, a lumpy mix of bliss, boredom and brutality. Free and unbidden, it is ours to embrace, to endure and to share. Nothing about life is easy; it doesn’t just happen and it’s far too complicated to define. Often the mix becomes a tangle and what once was a delight may very well transform into something quite the opposite.
Documented proof: A month ago I confessed my reestablishment of my long-interrupted association with the hotdog. How can we forget that poignant, almost sacred, moment in our relationship, bombers? Laree, you’ll recall, while hanging out at the butcher shop, discovered, in plain sight, wholesome and superior handmade wieners, meaty and crapfree.
Unadulterated joy, delicious and nutritious pleasure. In the four weeks that followed, I, with a beaming grin and ferocious slobbering, downed the juicy critters in place of canned tuna. Life was good.
Well, yesterday, while exiting the shower I involuntarily glanced in the mirror and beheld to my horror this tubby geezer looking back at me. I quickly diverted my eyes and maintained my composure, while -- I swear, so help me, Oscar Mayer -- the awkward intruder captured in my reflection gasped and flinched. Sorry, Bub. Neither of us has been the same since.
Swiftly, I settled the confusion and untangled the misery, revealed the illusion and resolved the mystery. I had just witnessed a colossal, catastrophic coincidence, the perfect combination of the awkward position of my body, the flat lighting, the distortion of a cheap, warped mirror, the distended mass of an undigested meal -- 3rd of the day -- temporary water retention, a deep inhalation of air and the relaxing of the gut at precisely the same instant.
Imagery trickery.
Not exactery.
It was the non-stop, month-long ingestion of buffalo, grass-fed beef and chicken and turkey dogs... absent nitrates, rat poison, floor scraps and pocket lint. I blew it, bombers -- the bulging bugle of life, the tubby-tummy trombone, the hog horn.
“Goodbye, hotdogs,” I declared boldly and without hesitation, “but for holidays, vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, bar mitzvahs and weekends.” Back to reality -- tuna and water.
I committed one final act of grace to prevent future disruptions in my training enthusiasm, in case you’re taking notes: I removed the flawed mirror from the steamy shower wall and smashed it into a million pieces.
A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, men. He’s a brute, compelled to express his ferocity and sensitivity, his passion and inner strength. Girls just don’t get it.
It’s Saturday, I’m headed to the Weight Room, despite discouragement, chubbiness and heartburn. My gym bag’s packed, I’m psyched, I’m hydrated and I’m dashingly clad in my flex-o-fit t-shirt; I’m fueled with Bomber Blend is streaming through my veins.
Get to the gym and wrap your hands around the iron. Once you’ve got it by the throat you can’t let go and it can’t get away... not until the fat lady sings.
This is what I did, and I did it with care, knowing, particular concentration and perfectly modified form to adapt to my sensitive physical and mental and spiritual state of being. The gym was empty at 1 pm and ‘Exclusive Bruce Springsteen’ was on XM Radio. I was a warrior musclebuilder in close contact with the iron and steel. I had a mission to accomplish and valor was my companion.
My engagement with the metal was spontaneous, yet its execution was logically precise. I applied a flow of instinctive freedom and intuitive release. Enter gym, sense your presence, ignore thought, confront the ironbound adversary, have no pity.
Beware, troops. Distraction, doubt and hesitation, like intellectual explosive devices (IEDs), dot the field before you.
I proceeded with the engagement of the overhead pulley system, thick rope in hand and kneeling on the floor, a foot forward of the pulley, and slowly performed 35 reps of long-range-of-motion torso contractions, or rope tucks, in clusters of five reps to the front, left side and right side, and a forward plunging variation, and quickly and smoothly shifted positions from kneeling to sitting two feet further back, whereupon I commenced to pull the rope from a full-forward position to a tight back-leaning contraction -- a hybrid lat pull from the floor.
One set of four, supersetted with 12 reps of slow-but-sure machine dips to pick off any upper body muscles unattended by the wrath of its predecessor... I was alive and on target.
I was pumping and burning, and I was taking no prisoners. Note to the pacifists out there: I couldn’t kill a fly. This is sorta like a video game, only there’s no computer... just me and the bloody iron and the vicious steel. Keep your eyes open and your heads down... search and seize and control.
Have you any idea how many muscles and how much extension and contraction and the amount of force are involved in this uninspired combination of exercises? Honorable mention: bis and tris and grip -- abs, obliques, intercostals and serratus -- entire back, shoulders and pecs -- burning and pumping, reaching and screeching.
I’m greedy, I’m a glutton, I hoard.
By the way, bomber, inspiration comes from you.
I take my time, there is no rush. My heart is a rebellious rascal, insisting I direct my attention to exercise performance, muscle engagement and the intensity of exertion, the achievement of a significant workload and the avoidance of -- gasp -- heart ’n lung overload.
Persistence and steadiness trumps swiftness. Haste makes waste. Speed kills.
The second superset consists of thumbs-up curls and pulley pushdowns -- simple, clean and effective. I add a cunning thrust, or surge of power, which amplifies the action of the exercises, thus supercharging the typically isolated biceps and triceps movements. Isolation is like sniper fire. I prefer bombing it.
The 16 sets took me 45 minutes. You laugh. I survived to talk about it
More’s not better, heavy’s not the answer. Maximum-muscle-exertion rules.
I did four sets of wrist curls before I walked out the door. I never looked back.
Go... Godspeed... The Bomber
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Scoop the blend into a glass, stir and drink with pleasure and satisfaction, when you need to, want to or should. All the time.
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