Ask the Asshole #8- Parkour, Cute Chicks, and Stress

If you guys haven't noticed, I haven't been around this week, as I've been on vacation. As such, any questions you've asked this week will likely get answered next. In the meantime, here's some questions you've already asked, most of which got answered in emails. Because I love you guys so very much, I wrote these blogs well in advance so you didn't feel neglected for a week while I was gone.


Q: What's your opinion on joint mobility exercises? For instance, if some guy was doing a push/pull/legs split, and in between each day he would do joint mobility exercises on swiss balls, and fucking bosu balls and shit to work on balance and stabilizing. What do you think?


A: Do it if you want. I'm pretty fucking stable as it is - once your squat's well over 500 lbs, you pretty much become an immovable object.


There are few objects in the gym that I find less useful than bosu balls or swiss balls. Paul Chek and I couldn't agree less on the subject of stability training. When the fuck would need need the ability to squat on an unstable surface? When squatting during an earthquake? Why the fuck would you do that anyway? if the Earth starts shaking, you're better off dumping the weight than trying to squat through it, whether or not you've gotten on a bosu ball. Not even I, in all of my glory, could outsquat an earthquake. Well, maybe a little one, but I doubt I'd ever try. Actually, I should probably just never test that out, because it's highly likely that my curiosity and ego would trump sensible thought and action in that sort of scenario.


You want mobility? Start doing Parkour when you're not in the gym- just stay the fuck away from the bosu balls.

Q: Today I was doing DB rows, and on my 5th set I went for a PR...so of course, my form was going to be a little sloppy, but I kept my core tight and my leg on the bench. [I had the link, but apparently it's a bad one- she was doing 90 lb one arm db rows at a bodyweight of 110, with a tiny bit of body swing] So far, all I've been getting is feedback such as: "Your form sucks." "Nice weight, but your lifting is sloppy as hell." "Once you cheat that much on a row, it's no longer a row...it's a body swing." What do you think of all that? Am I really cheating "too much"? I mean, my rows have been increasing by 5 lbs. EVERY week, and my deadlift keeps inching up, so I must be doing something right, no? And I don't think people really take into account the fact that it's almost my bodyweight with one arm, lol. A: Oh holy shit! You're totally fucked! There's no way that you'll win the one arm dumbbell row event in the Olympics with form like that! Form Nazis consist of one type of person- jealous pussies who latch onto a justification for their weakness so that they don't have to spend much time thinking about how much they suck. The reason you'll read so much about the importance of form is because lawyers decided what the best form for a given exercise to minimize injury is for ACE personal training certification. It's not because that form is efficacious for anything, and as I've mentioned, each person is so wildly different that there's no way to predict what form a given person would need in order to maximize strength gain crossover and/or hypertrophy. Thus, tell those pasty-faced, weak bitch internet form gurus to fuck off and die- they're merely apply a public salve to their wounded psyches due to the fact that you're stronger than they are. They're likely going to cry themselves to sleep tonight in their parents' basement after a hearty meal of a KFC failure pile in a sadness bowl while masturbating weakly to some shitty Lord of the Rings themed porn. We can also arrange it on a plate like you're an adult with self-respect and dignity . Additionally, I've shamed every guy with whom I've ever lifted into using more weight on one arm rows with the following- my 130 lb ex used to row the 155s for 5 reps with no fucking straps. Was her form strict? Nope, but her back was fucking ripped, and she was stronger than any chick I've ever met. At one point, a guy cut me off hard in a parking lot, and I narrowly missed clipping another car to avoid hitting him. Her one arm dumbbell row was probably the thing that enabled her to pull him out of his car one handed, through his window, and beat the living fuck out of him while I laughed my ass off. Incidentally, it's recently come to my attention that you guys all seem to think that I'm of the opinion that chicks should stay the fuck out of the gym and generally suck. That's not the case, at all. Yeah, I am of the opinion that perhaps 95% of the chicks on Earth are useless, vapid golddiggers who don't like to fuck and have never read a book in it's entirety, and yeah, they could all die tomorrow and the only regret I'd have is that the world would stink of rotting flesh. The other 5%, though, is generally badass Why anyone would criticize a good looking chick for lifting heavy is beyond me, no matter the form. Even if she's doing kettlebell swings, I think we can all find something to appreciate. Q: Do think in your mid 40's you'll start feeling the side effects of savage lifting on your joints? A: Nope. Everyone said I'd feel it at 30, but the the only joint pain I have is my elbow, and that's from wrestling. Q: Do you think your a rare exception to the joint pain maybe? A: Nope. I have tiny joints and shit genetics for lifting. The things I have on my side are good diet, excellent supplementation, and consistency. If there's anything that I think really contributes to a lack of joint pain, it's consistency in the gym. If you look at any of the guys who've had longevity in strength sports, like Karl Norberg, or John Grimek, or even Bill Pearl, they were universally known for their consistency bordering on obsession in the gym. They didn't suffer from joint pain because they were always in the gym- there were no long periods of layoffs, or in which their tendons had time to weaken or loosen. In my opinion, that's where the problem lies. Unfortunately, there's no study I can cite to support this theory, but there also exists no study to contradict it. Draper's 63- it doesn't look like joint pain's really holding him back. He's benched 440 with no spot. Q: How heavy is too heavy? I've been blasting away singles and triples with the heaviest weight I can manage. Many times it not to explosive, it stalls midway, and I have to think really hard about shit that pisses me off to get it to lockout, but I basically always pull it off. The only thing that worries me is this guy glen said lift heavy weight explosively in this thread http://www.chaosandpain.com/content/dude-got-jacked-movie-routine-srs and my shit is not explosive half the time. A: Explosive lifting doesn't correspond with certain lifts at certain weights. The powerlifts, for instance, are grinding, rather than explosive movements. The only weight that's too heavy is one that you can't lift. Additionally, going extremely heavy (90%+ of your 1RM), has benefits for your CNS that transcend mere a mere mind-muscle connection. Instead, it's been shown in a Norwegian study of soldiers learning to parachute, that the more they jumped out of planes, the better their stress response. When they began, their cortisol levels were elevated for a considerable period of time both before and after the jump. After a number of jumps, their bodies began releasing stress hormones only at the time of the jump- which is exactly the time your body needs to release the hormones to elicit a positive reaction to the stressor. Applied to training, working with high percentages of your 1RM will train your body to react positively to high loading protocols, and allow you to utilize your body's natural reaction to the stress of being in an ostensibly life-threatening situation positively. There's a reason why he looks bored, rather than terrified. Keep asking, and I'll keep answering. Til' then, keep breakin' fools while their bitches drool.