According to archaeologists, skeletal remains show that paleolithic humans developed muscularity similar to today's superior athletes (3)- in the paleolithic era, humanity resembled professional athletes, fit and sleek and muscular as one could imagine, and capable of such impressive feats as killing megafauna with nothing more than a sharp stick. They were hardly the stooped, sickly, grubby motherfuckers that archaeologists of yore would like to have you think they were. Instead, they were heavily muscled, heavily tatted, meat eating motherfuckers who were bigger, on average THAN MODERN MAN. Yep. Bigger.(4) Additionally, archaeologists believe that the fact that the average paleolithic person only lived to be 35 was due to "the combination of stresses of nomadism, climate, and warfare. The latter is especially clear in the Jebel Sahaba population, where projectile wounds affecting bone are very common and 'almost half the population probably died violently." Over the subsequent few thousand years, the average lifespan only increased about 5 years, until the advent of modern medicine, when it then doubled. (5)
Not all of the softness and shittyness of the modern human can be attributed to diet and religion, however, as it is fairly obvious at this point that the mere sloth of the modern human is not to be underestimated. We've all heard our grandpas tell us how much tougher people were back in the day- I remember having my college roommate's insane, one eyed grandpa relate to me the following tale:
"I lived on a FARM. You DO know what a farm is, eh boy?! Well, it was the Depression, and we had a bunch of lazy fucking layabouts hanging around the place- sleeping in the fields and PUSHING DOWN THE CORN. PUSHING DOWN THE CORN! WHY WOULD A PERSON SLEEP ON TOP OF CORN STALKS?" [At this point, I was edging away from the man, as he was practically foaming at the mouth, and he was screaming at me from a distance of about 4 inches, nose to nose with me.] So this one guy, a real hardass, tells me to go fuck my mother when I told him to get off the property. I got out of the truck and whooped his ass for him. I was 19 or 20, and I wasn't about to let some bum talk like that about my mother. So, I beat his ass, and he was laying there, whining and weeping in the dirt, so as I picked him up to throw him in the bed of my truck, he rolled over and STABBED ME IN THE FUCKING EYE WITH A CORKSCREW. [He emphasized this point my pointing at the pirate patch over his left eye. Dumbstruck, I asked what he did next.] WHAT DO YOU THINK I DONE, BOY? I STABBED THAT BASTARD IN THE THROAT WITH THE CORKSCREW. Then I drove myself to the hospital, where they gave me a patch, an aspirin, and some sulfa. that's how we did it in the OLD DAYS. You boys are soft!"To summarize, the man pulled out his own eye and stabbed a man to death, whom I later found out they buried in the fields, with the corkscrew that had just been embedded in his face. I don't give a fuck who you are, THAT is the essence of brutality.
Other impressive past feats:
- In 1834, a Norwegian sailor named Menson Ernst ran from Paris to Moscow, a distance of about 1550 miles, in 14 days, 18 hours. We're talking unpaved, muddy country roads in the middle of one of the shittiest areas in history, and the fucker SWAM 13 RIVERS on the way. Two years later, he worked as a courier to the East India Company and traveled 5625 miles from Calcutta to Constantinople in 59 days- crossing almost nothing but desert and mountains, and passing through India, Tibet, Afghanistan, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Turkey. (6)
- Milo Steinborn STEINBORN SQUATTED 553 pounds.
- Greek fishermen regularly carried on their backs loads ranging from 400 to 800 lbs circa 1927.(7)
- The usual load carried by porters in Izmi, Turkey was 560 lbs in the early part of this century, and frequently carried 840 lbs.(7)
- Turkish porters in Constantinople used to carry regular load of 600 lbs, sometimes at a trot, and some of the strongest porters carried 800 lbs.(7)
So, what does this tell us? We're a civilization softer than any in mankind's history, and we've not even regained the stature of our prehistoric ancestors. The word "pathetic" hardly even describes our collective physical state in comparison to our predecessors, and there's no excuse for it.
"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. " -Chuck PalahniukOur revolution, our purpose, should be to undo the millenia of bullshit and nonsense that has gone on in the human race. We should resolve to be stronger, faster, and leaner than any group of people in history. We shall return to the age wherein men looked like men, acted like men, and did manly shit. Gone is the time wherein you should feel comfortable bitching about physical shit- just do it. Your lower back hurts because you've done a few sets of deadlifts, and you want to stop? You're a fucking pussy. If a Turkish porter could do it a hundred years ago, I'll be a fucking Chinese jet pilot if you can't muster up the balls to lift it now. Arthur Saxon drank lager beer mixed with gin and eggs and then proceeded to outlift EVERYONE, in an era before testosterone had been isolated, and was lean as fuck while doing it. Want to eat more food but not be a fatass? THEN LIFT MORE. Want to get stronger and bigger? LIFT MORE. If people could do it in an era wherein they had no idea where their next meal was coming from, you sure as shit can do it now.
If the guys above managed to somehow live through what any slack-jawed pussy on Bodyspace would swear is overtraining, and thrive, if the pyramids do indeed exist, if the Vikings managed to do what they did, and if TURKISH PORTERS ROUTINELY LIFTED MORE IN A DAY THAN YOU EVER HAVE IN A WEEK, overtraining can suck it. The "take it easy" crowd can suck it. The "10 minute abs" people can suck it. The next time you hear some Under Armor clad asshole in the gym tell you that if you train chest twice in a week you're overtraining, grab him by the throat and pound his fucking face until you see bone and brain. He shouldn't be allowed to procreate.
No one ever got manlier by doing less, and training smarter rather than harder makes you a corner cutting pussy, not a weightlifting virtuoso.
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Now playing: Evile - Bathe in Blood
via FoxyTunes
· 2. “Exposure of newborns was widely practiced in ancient Greece. In Greece the decision to expose a child was typically the father's, although in Sparta the decision was made by a group of elders. Exposure was the preferred method of disposal, as that act in itself was not murder; moreover, the exposed child technically had a chance of being rescued by the gods or any passersby.” Wikipedia
3. “The laws of the Twelve Tables required the pater familias to ensure that "obviously deformed" infants were put to death.” Wikipedia
4. Eaton, SB, and Eaton SB III, 2003. "An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Physical Activity: Implications for Health." Comp Biochem Physiol A 136, 153-159. Ungar, Peter S., Ed. Evolution of the Human Diet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
·5. Longevity and Health In Ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic Peoples. http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml (I've added the page to the end of this blog for your edification.)
·6. Ibid.
7 Willoughby, David P. The Super Athletes. New York: AS Barnes and Company, 1970. pp. 459.
·8. Ibid. pp. 181.
·9. "Tell Us Now the Saga of the Self-Styled Viking", H. Carter. http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/0798/9807vik.html
·10. "Viking Voyage Revisited, Minus the Pillaging." http://www.active.com/sailing/Articles/Viking_Voyage_Revisited__Minus_the_Pillaging.htm
Touché on the lower back pain, haha. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI win at everything.
ReplyDeleteTyler,
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to add that the first rule of C&P is that you DO NOT TALK ABOUT C&P.
He is definitely not Tyler - Jamie can't STOP talking about it ... which is a good thing!
ReplyDeleteThe above manifesto is Tyler-esque
ReplyDeleteHaha yes, except being unable to talk about it! Lol
ReplyDeleteThe first rule of C&P is that you make your own fucking rules.
ReplyDeleteTyler Durden would love this shit. Incidentally, they lifted weights in the book, unlike the movie, and it was all functional strength training.
Incidentally, stop being pussies and make some profiles already. I'll have an actual website as of the first of next year, and there will be boards.
ReplyDeleteThey wrote a book about the movie?
ReplyDeleteYou're a fucking moron.
ReplyDeleteThat is uncalled for. Now I'm not going to tell you the one true secret for getting stronger and leaner.
ReplyDeleteDear Friend-
ReplyDeleteWhile traveling in the deepest, darkest jungles of the Amazon, I recently discovered the true secret for getting stronger and leaner...
but I'm not telling.
Love,
Matt Furey
Your hot chick looks like she has a dick. Is that normal? Also...it looks like a tiny dick. Isn't that common with steroids?
ReplyDeleteHey that has almost inspired me to become a fucking monster. Now the true secret is lifting 300 50 times. Start out with 85 pounds 50 times a set. Your strength will be legendary. So seriously how many times can you lift 135?
ReplyDeleteOr 225?
Oh yea when I get to 300 50 times guess how many times I will be able to lift 800 mua mua hahahahaahahha
ReplyDeleteMinor critique, since it's off topic: You said,
ReplyDelete"Our revolution, our purpose, could be, as a generation, to undo the millenia of bullshit and nonsense that has gone on in the human race. We can resolve to be stronger, faster, and leaner than any group of people in history. "
I'd ask you add two more objectives to that admirable list: Knowledgeable and Wise.
Everything else is great. I've started at the beginning and I'm working my way through your blog. Too bad I'm a friggin IT geek during the day, I miss the 6 day a week / 4 hours a day workout routine.
I fucking agree with you on this. Training smarter makes you a pussy. Some REST is ok, if you're not eating enough, which makes you a pussy.
ReplyDelete19 yrs, IT geek, but with a 450 squat (IPF rules) after half a year o trainin.
So far the 'lift hard, eat clean, fuck what everyone says' method works for me.
So true. This post is a must read for every man in the universe.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, as an archeaelogist and state record lifter, I just wanted to say THANKS! There is one minor correction, though, I have to make - pre-agrarian man was stronger and more awesome than today's man, BUT early agrarian people would beat the crap out of the other two on any given day. Look at your newest article - http://chaosandpain.blogspot.de/2012/10/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html - about stone lifting. Most of those feats of strength were performed by the working forces of "simple" agrarian societies where people had to work hard as shit if they wanted to survive. Neither ancient nor modern hunters and gatherers were as badass as ancient Indians or Greek or Persians (look up Zurkhaneh or Pahlavani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varzesh-e_Bastani ) or Bavarians or VIKINGS. Hell, take porters, fishers and even farmers from the last couple of centuries. They had to be strong as fuck.
ReplyDeleteThe point about size.... For hunters, a higher stature was an evolutionary bonus - longer strides made for, on average, better endurance hunting, which was basically a form of hunting consisting of running some beast to death and outmanning it until it died of exhaustion. Or you did.
With the agrarian lifestyle, speed (mostly running, some throwing or impaling for fishing) and long-distance endurance stopped being the main selective criteria. Strength and strength endurance became the main demand. Suddenly, you had to work hard and lift stuff and build stuff. That's why people became somewhat stockier - better leverages made better farmers. Basically, they had to be built like (low weight class) powerlifters. Look at those old badass grannies from Siberia who had to work hard all their lives, being the product of generations of other grannies who either managed to do so, or died. They are small, stocky, strong and more manly than the average couch American.
For pre-agrarian endurance hunting, you had to be like
http://www.planetseed.com/files/uploadedimages/Science/Features/Health_and_Safety/For_Your_Health_--__Running/Related_Articles/gudigwa_hunt.jpg
and http://www.everything-suxx.com/wp-content/Haile-Gebrselassie.jpg and maybe Usain Bolt (by the way, those Caribbean guys are supposed to be so good at sprinting and have such high testosterone levels due to being forced to work farm labor for generations. That's cruel and unhuman, but now they have awesome genetics. so yeah.)
In an agrarian society, a desirable physique was more along the likes of strongmen and powerlifters. Carry heavy stuff, use a sledgehammer to drive something into the ground, work like a mule etc.
Awesome post. If you don't go lift some heavy shit directly after reading this, you shall be put to death to prevent any further deevolution.
ReplyDeletein this post, the linked words turned blue. I like it.
ReplyDelete