The Rule Of Five, Part 2 (More NSFW Than Usual)

It has recently come to my attention that people feel very strongly about 5x5 programs.  Comically so, in fact.  As such, I received a fantastic array of hate mail regarding my first installment of this series, due entirely to the fact that people are apparently incapable of differentiating between my opinion and a statement of fact.  This is tragic.  The following is a sampling of some of the email I received:

"I usually love your blog, but ur last post was total horse shit.  Who are you to say that 5x5 sucks?  It's worked for millions of lifters for years and years. ur way off base on that shit, brah."

-- I couldn't really find any evidence that came close to supporting any part of this claim, which I consider to be wholly spurious.  Glen Pendlay promotes 5x5, and he's a bad motherfucker.  He managed to scrape up three names of marginally famous lifters who use 5x5 in an article.  While I don't discount his advice, that's hardly incontrovertible evidence of its efficacy.  And by the way, anyone who uses the word "brah" should be dragged into the street and summarily executed with a bleach and battery acid enema.

"5x5 fuckin rules, juicer."

-- Well put.

"If it weren't for the 5x5 programs you claim don't work, I wouldn't be competing in powerlifting today.  Your full of shit, and you're blog is full of shit."

-- Anyone who is incapable of using the correct your/you're for a given situation should preheat their oven on broil, wait 20 minutes, and insert their head into the aforementioned oven.  They should not, however, give anyone an opinion on anything.  Ever.  They've demonstrated as adults that they'd fail third grade, which means that my dog is smarter than they are.  While Griz is awesome, he's really not that smart.

Grizzly can correctly use both "your" and "you're" correctly in a sentence, even while eating his own shit in the yard.

Clearly, there are some highly educated people whom I've gravely offended with my alleged assertions that 5x5 doesn't work.  Well, except for the fact that they display the intellectual bearing of chimps and have likely read fewer than a single book in the last year... and the fact that I never suggested any such thing- I stated that it doesn't work for me, which would indicate that it's hardly the magical system people claim it to be, as there were neither unicorns with giant boners nor elfin fairy shit involved in its creation.

Conventional wisdom is that 5x5 is the bast basic program a person could follow in the gym.  That's fanfuckingtastic.  Conventional wisdom (52% of Americans believe this) is also that the sun orbits the Earth.(Strupp, 63)  As such, you should probably shoot anyone giving you advice in the face with rocksalt and run screaming in the other direction unless they make a fairly compelling argument about anything at all.  Even if they did, however, half of Americans are too fucking stupid to understand the simplest of concepts, so maybe you should just do some research and try shit for yourself.


Very much in line with my last recommendation, I found myself in a position to try something new after I found myself mentally exhausted from a couple of months of two a days, during which time I did a hell of a lot of singles at near max on one exercise per workout.  Doing that got me to kick the fuck out of everyone at the comp, but I paid the price in mental burnout, some weird muscle knotting, and a general malaise.  Frankly, I'll attribute this blog to part of that, as I find that spending as much time as I do blogging about training and nutrition reduces my overall enthusiasm for those two subjects. 

Enthusiasm renewed.

To combat this, I intentionally gave myself exercise ADD.  This is how I developed my version of 5x5, which ended up being 5x5x5 and for a while was 5x5x5x5.  Confused?  You should be.  Allow me to explain.


I initially started running what was a fairly typical 5x5 program, alternating through three loading protocols on MWF and filling the other two days with bodyweight shit and random nonsense, just to be in the gym.  I soon found that the MWF workouts were short unto ridiculousness and fairly boring, so I decided to start doing 5 exercises like that, making it 5x5x5.  Pretty soon, I found that since the 5x5 wasn't all that hard to begin with, I started doing it 5 days a week, making it 5x5x5x5.  What I found, however, is that I fucking hate doing 5 reps.  I like to test myself in the gym, and 5 reps is more of a test of patience than of strength, generally.  I can hear my max dropping as I cut out the top end lifts, and as my strength drops, so does my enthusiasm for lifting.  Thus, what started as an effort to jump-start my interest in lifting ended up bending that interest over the table and raping it, as if 5 reps was George Bush, and my enthusiasm was our nation's economic ass, with a spiked bat.  I did find, however, that doing 5 exercises in the gym 5 days a week forced me to do supplementary lifts I'd abandoned in my quest for a higher total, like neck, forearms, calves, etc... making that my version of 5x5.

But that's not 5x5!  SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!

Yeah, I don't fucking care.  I do what works for me.  The failure to determine what suits one's personality, goals, and interests in the gym is likely the downfall of 90% of the useful motherfuckers who ever set in the gym.  Instead, they grab hold of whatever programs in vogue and ride that motherfucker straight to hell.  I intend to blog more about this soon, but to sum it up in short, 5x5 would seem to me to only suit those people with personalities that tend toward conformity or very normative and convergent values. (Young, 28-31, 33, 55) I, on the other hand, do very poorly in rigidly defined systems, as I'm (violently) inclined towards individualism and self-determination.  That's not to say that there's anything wrong with people who are methodical or inclined to go with the flow- 5x5 would likely work pretty well for them.  As I fucking hate that shit, however, my style of 5x5 allows me the freedom to do my own thing and prevents me from becoming so overly focussed on my immediate goal that I ignore shit that could prevent eventual systemic breakdown by balancing my workouts. 

Probably big fans of the traditional 5x5.

Do I live and die by my newfound 5x5 program?  Hell no.  That'd defeat the purpose of designing a program that suits my personality.  It does give me a good guideline to follow, however, and I ensure that I hit a wide array of exercises every week.  I still have a day or two a week wherein I hit nothing but one or two exercises, but for the most part I've stuck to the idea that 5 days a week I'm going to hit 5 exercises a day, and it's definitely allayed a lot of the general disinterest I had previously had in hitting the gym without getting me involved in too much shit I detest (like doing 5 sets of 5 reps).


For those of you, however, who feel a desire to try a 5x5 style workout, I highly recommend the book Powerlifting Basics, Texas-Style.  It's pretty much packed with 5x5-esque workouts designed by a guy who knows that about which he's writing (Paul Kelso) and written in a highly engaging, anecdotal style.  For those of you like me, it's worth a read anyway, as he outlines the utility of his bench shrugs and explains how half of the shit you see in use in powerlifting gyms these days came to exist.


By the way, I'm apparently not along in my dislike for 5x5.  According to Lyle McDonald, the "usual criticism is that 5X5 doesn’t provide enough heavy first reps to prepare someone for powerlifting.  A routine based around triples, doubles and singles are often preferred since this not only lets you go heavier but you get more properly done first reps which is a key to optimal powerlifting performance.  And there is much to this idea."  (McDonald)  
He does go on, however, to outline the ways in which that methodology is good for beginners and a variety of other people, so check the article out if you're interested in programming with 5x5.


Clear as mud, right?  You should probably focus more on lifting, then, and less on random bullshit that doesn't really matter... like who said what on the internet.

 

There's no reason whatsoever for this pic other than the fact that I like it.  Mya Nicole has the best ass in porn, by the way.  And she squirts like the fountains at the Bellagio.

Sources:
Kelso, Paul.  Powerlifting Basics, Texas-Style.  Ironmind: 1996.
McDonald, Lyle.  The 5x5 Program.  http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/the-5x5-program.html
Strupp, Peter.  Fat, Dumb, and Ugly: The Decline of the Average American.   New York:  Simon & Schuster,  2004.
Young, Peter.  Understanding NLP:  Principles and Practice.  Norwalk:  Crown House Publishing, 2004.

Just Because You Have a Vagina… The Second

In the first installment of this series, I outlined the various groups of women in history who in no way sucked.  In fact, they were downright fucking hardasses, and would've spat upon Snooki right before cutting her throat and belittling and beating to death the coiffed "men" standing around her.  Frankly, the women of the ancient Sarmatians or Spartans (and possibly Picts or Etruscans) would have been the manliest thing standing in most football stadiums during an NFL game- they were badasses the likes of which modern men only dream of being, and of which most modern women couldn't even conceive.  The "fairer sex" should fear not, however, as there's hope for you yet.

Apparently, society is fully backing you guys up on throwing on some pants and showing the "men" around you how shit gets done.  Recent articles in nearly every rag on Earth have heralded the death of machismo and manliness, likening maleness to a vestigial organ like the appendix.  As such, women are stepping in to fill the shoes of their weakened, libidoless, eunuchs of husbands at home and in the workplace.  Not surprisingly, they're aspiring to have more "boyish" physiques as well- according to a recent study comparing the desires of women in the 1950s against those today, "1950s women aspired to ideal hips measuring just over 35 inches, while modern women wanted hips of less than 31 inches but larger waists than the 1950s women."  (Gartland)  Amusingly, men in the same study wanted to have much smaller bodies than their 1950s counterparts, which seems to fall in line with the whole women-taking-over trend that feminists and testosterone-deficient men have been yammering on about for 20 years.

There's nothing like a hot chick with blue paint on her face engaging in wanton slaughter.

I guess, then, that there's never been a better time for chicks to hike up their skirts and bust their asses in the gym.  Oddly, I'm still hearing from the guys who run my gym that most women are terrified of gyms wherein they see people actually lifting weights, and they've encouraged me to invite chicks to the gym.  Given that I live in a city filled with obese chicks who are obsessed with consumer products and television, you can imagine that I've not been even marginally successful in helping them out.  Nevertheless, I think that most chicks would be a hell of a lot happier, healthier, and generally awesome if they dragged their asses off the recumbant bike and started deadlifting, since it seems to work wonders for those who do.

Take, for instance, Hilary Swank.  We all saw her in The Next Karate Kid  (a fucking travesty if there ever was one... until the "Karate" Kid was set in China with the fucking idiot kid learning kungfu from Jackie Chan)  where she was some skinny and exceptionally annoying chick trying in vain to learn how to kick some ass.  A brutal weight training regime and strict diet later, she's gained 20 lbs of rip and looks like a legitimate badass onscreen in MIllion Dollar Baby.  To get there, she didn't lift light weights and mince about the gym on some bullshit cardio machines- she lifted reasonably heavy and busted her ass in the gym... and got an awesome physique to show for it.  In a further departure from what most chicks would consider doing to get ripped, Swank frequently ended her workouts by pushing her trainer's SUV around the parking lot, strongman-style, and ate a 4,000 calorie diet that consisted of little more than meat and protein shakes, keeping her carbs under 50g a day.(LA Times)

Though I've no idea if the trend-bucking Swank spent much time on the scale, her similarly built acting compatriot, the insanely hot Jessica Biel, does not.  Biel, who caused any person of any gender to dry-hump their hand with the desperation of a death-row inmate in Blade Trinity, works out 6 days a week, eats an organic diet that's your basic "healthy" low-calorie diet, is content to bust her ass in the gym 6 days a week and diet like a motherfucker, but goes by the mirror rather than the scale to gauge her progress... a habit of which I think most chicks would do well to take note.

Buff chicks have been in the movies for some time now.  I'd imagine for most of us, the buffest chick we'd ever seen growing up was Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.  For that flick, Hamilton trained 3 hours a day, 6 days a week, doing a combination of lifting, cardio, fighting, and training with Israeli specops.  She fully adopted the take-no-shit-from-anyone persona she carried through the film and became a legitimate badass, true to the model that the feminists purport to be that which is taking over in modern society.

Lest you people worry, it's probably not necessary to give over your entire life in the pursuit of becoming a modern day amazon if you don't want to.  Though I've got no hard facts on how often she works out, the 2009 World's Fittest Female, Tanya Wager, is a PE teacher by day and Crossfitter by night, and has a sick body to show for it.  Additionally, she strict presses 100 lbs and deads over double bodyweight, which is impressive for someone who isn't a traditional strength athlete.

Crossfit appears to be nothing but a collection of hot girls and shirtless guys in board shorts, but it seems to work.  Who the fuck knows how they get anything done, but I guess orgies burn a shitload of calories. 

In summation, no chick's going to throw off the heavy shackles of the massive, veiny, bulbous, purple-headed phallocracy by fucking about on the treadmill and lifting the pink neoprene "dumbbells".  Instead, it's going to take some ass-busting under some heavy weights, but it'll be worth it when you can slap around your estrogen drenched man and get him to grab you a beer while you watch whatever nonsense happens to be on Lifetime.  

To the men reading this article, find a way to get your fucking test levels up, already, and for fuck's sake, don't be Japanese- "The latest biennial survey found that 36.1 percent of Japanese males between the ages of 16-19 said they had no interest or even despised sex, a jump from 17.5 percent in the 2008 study."  Additionally, "40.8 percent of married people [in Japan] said they had not had sex in the past month, up from 36.5 percent in the 2008 survey and 31.9 percent in the 2004 survey."(AFP)  

Sources:
Gartland, Fiona.  Women Now Aspire To a More Boyish Frame.  
Los Angeles Times.  How three actresses buffed up.  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002193697_healthactresses-side02.html
"Young Japanese losing sex drive: govt." AFP.  http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hwMXvVlRWmqmFLrrDVIK4s5Ch51Q?docId=CNG.ae397daff87cc1e47b63c5af72d5b9ae.71

The Rule of Five, Part 1

If you haven't had at least limited exposure to the much ballyhooed 5x5 programming methodology, you likely cannot read, which means you simply check out this blog for the pics.  For those of you who do so, allow me to oblige:

Natasha Talonz.  Hotter than a scotch bonnet pepper enema, and awesomely naked in Black Devil Doll.

Moving right along to 5x5, it was allegedly popularized by Reg Park, a British badass who is purported to have utilized what I consider to be a paean ode to mediocrity into one of the most brutal physiques ever.  Park's program was pretty fucking simple to follow... mostly because it's the barest essence of simplicity, but also because he broke it down into three phases.  They look like this:

Phase One
45-degree back extension 3x10
Back squat 5x5
Bench press 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
(Rest 3-5 minutes between the last 3 sets of each exercise)

Train three days per week for three months.

Phase Two for Bodybuilders*

45-degree back extension 3-4x10
Front squat 5x5
Back squat 5x5
Bench press 5x5
Standing barbell shoulder press 5x5
High pull 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
Standing barbell calf raise 5x25
(Rest 2 minutes between sets)

Train three days per week for three months.

* After the basic Phase One, Park had a different set of recommended exercises for aspiring Olympic weightlifters. It used a few different sets and reps, and included lunges and power cleans.

Phase Three for Bodybuilders

45-degree back extension 4x10
Front squat 5x5
Back squat 5x5
Standing barbell shoulder press 5x5
Bench press 5x5
Bent-over barbell row 5x5
Deadlift 5x3
Behind-the-neck press or one-arm dumbbell press 5x5
Barbell curl 5x5
Lying triceps extension 5x8
Standing barbell calf raise 5x25
(Rest 2 minutes between sets)

Train three days per week for three months.

According to this source, 5x5 includes two progressively heavier warm-up sets and three sets at the same weight.(Source)

Clearly, once you get into the more advanced stages, this program appears to resemble something a person would use if they wanted to do more than fuck about in the gym for a half hour a couple of times a week.  Reg Park ended up getting pretty fucking strong using this style of lifting, and definitely had a physique that was the ultimate definition of herculean... which is probably why he was cast as Hercules in a bunch of godawful Italian sword and sandal epics back in the day.  Nowadays, however, you're more likely to see a bunch of pantywaist bullshit with 5x5, which pretty much ranges from low volume to housecleaning volume, and churn out some astonishingly average lifters and physiques.  I'm talking about the innumerable permutations of this shit ranging from Stronglifts to Madcows that essentially amount to 3 exercises for 25 reps with the same weight, 3 times a week.  They all have their individual variations in loading protocols (heavy, medium, light, for instance, as if you'd need a light day if you're only training 3 times a week) and their special little spin on it, but it amounts to not a whole hell of a lot of lifting the vast majority of the time.  Additionally, those programs are by and large incredibly boring, as it's the same couple of exercises with the same fucking weights repeated over and over until you finally quit the gym out of boredom, and the fact that it's barely even part of your daily routine.

Precious Cox likely has a different style of 5x5... one that'd be a hell of a lot more fun than Madcows.

"Oh, but holy shit!  So and so weak assed douche online said that Madcows was the best thing ever and then he tried to blow Wendler for creating 5/3/1 but threw out his neck doing so and said it was from overtraining because Rippetoe told him so while he was lubing up his asshole for a nice hard pounding!"  Guess what?  I don't give a fuck.  Every fucking time I read a defense of one of these 5x5 programs, it begins and ends with a pack of bullshit about steroids and "natty" lifters and about how "natty" guys are flaming pussies who can't handle more than 30 seconds in the gym ever 24 hours or they'll spontaneously combust into sterile sperm and tiny limp penises, and that anyone who isn't transmogrified into mini phalluses is on every kind of performance enhancing drug ever invented, and some that never have.  This, of course, is nothing but an excuse to cover up their own failings, of which there are almost certainly legion.  As such, you should disregard them as the pseudo-scientific nonsense that they are and carry on living your life.  

Want to know why I hate 5x5?  

Because every time I've tried it, and I've tried many different permutations, my bench goes down.  Not just down like when your zipper's partway down but no one can really tell unless you pop wood and it pushes the two sides apart and people can then see your neon-green banana hammock, replete with precum stains- I'm talking "I just followed what my Garmin told me to do and drove off the highest point of the Grand Canyon to my fiery but Darwin ordained death" down.  Nevertheless, with all of the hype for those programs among the young whippersnappers these days, I decided to give that shit another try.  After a month, and seeing my bench, I figured I'd hang in and maybe see a rebound.  Want to know what I found?  My bench dropped 20 lbs in two months.  Yay for fucking me, right?  So, I wondered, I know everyone's a little different, but this shit is ridiculous.  How could my bench invariably drop on this program and Reg Park damn near grew a fucking cape and flew with it- I mean, how did he  hit a 500 lb bench with this bullshit?

BECAUSE HE DIDN'T FUCKING DO IT.

In Park's words: " I didn't have a favorite workout routine.  I have done every routine and every exercise in the book, but like most advanced trainers, I have found what exercises and what routines give me the best results.  What is good for one man isn't necessarily good for somebody else.  My bodyweight fluctuated between 230 and 245 during those years." (Kiiha)

His personal bests, as a bodybuilder and occasional Olympic weightlifter, were:

- Behind the Neck Press - 300 Lbs. For one rep.

- Behind the Neck Press - 260 Lbs. For four reps.

- Behind the Neck Press - 240 Lbs. For eight reps.

- One Arm Dumbbell Press - 165 Lbs. For two reps.

- Front Squat - 405 for a single.

- Lying Triceps Extension - 300 Lbs. For three reps.  This was done at Muscle Beach in 1957.

- Standing Dumbbell Press - Two 120 Lb. Dumbbells for five reps.

- Standing Dumbbell Press - Two 140 Lb. Dumbbells for one rep.

- Dumbbell Bench Press - Two 185 Lb. Dumbbells for five reps.

- Squat - 605 for two reps at Buster McShane and Ivan Dunbar's Gym in Belfast.

- Strict Barbell Curl - 200 Lbs. For one rep.

- Incline Dumbbell Press - Two 185 Lb. Dumbbells for five reps.

Reg Park's Favorite Program

Deltoids and Upper Back

- Press Behind Neck 4-10 Sets, 5 Reps.

- Heavy Bent arm Lateral Raises 5-10 Sets, 10 Reps

Chest

- Bench Press 5-10 Sets, 2 Reps (That's Right 2 Reps!)

Thighs

- Squat 5 Sets, 5 Reps (of all exercises, this one was my favorite.)

- Hack Lift 5 Sets, 5 Reps

Biceps

- Barbell Curl 5 Sets, 5-8 Reps

- Incline Dumbbell Curls 5 Sets, 5-8 Reps

Triceps

- French Press - I did these standing and lying on the bench.

Calves

- Calf Machine 25 Reps, Many Sets.

- Donkey Calf Raises 25 Reps, Many Sets

Back

- High Pullups 5-8 Sets, 3 Reps.

- Power Clean 5-8 Sets, 3 Reps.

- Chins Behind Neck 5-8 Sets, 5-8 Reps (weights tied to waist.)

Waist and Trunk Area

- Leg Raises and Side Bends 100 or more Reps.

(Kiiha)

Coming soon to this muthafuckin' blog, you'll discover something useful I learned from my adventure in 5x5... and it has nothing whatsoever to do with doing 5 sets of 5 reps in a beige gym with beige people listening to bland music and then eating tasteless fucking food.

 

Appropos of nothing- see this fucking movie, stat.  At the very least, it's better than doing 5x5 for bench.

Source:

Kiiha, Osmo. Reg Park - A Hercules for Our Time.  http://beyondstrong.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/rip-reg-park.html

You Can Never Have Too Much Testosterone, Seriously

Have you ever been at a county fair, minding your own business, earing one of those 5 lb turkey legs and debating on whether the freakshow would be worth the $10 admission, when all of the sudden you're accosted by a drunken Irishman screaming "Black's the white of my eye!  Who here will tell me that it's fucking not?"  Did you notice a massive all-in brawl thereafter, with a bunch of people kicking the fuck out of one another simply for the sake of a good round of fustigation?

No?  


That's likely because modern testosterone levels are depressingly low.  Though that shit used to occur with some regularity in places like Ireland in the 19th Century, good natured fisticuffs have sadly gone the way of the cocaine-infused soft drink and personal freedom in general.  In fact, "Researchers in the US are finding testosterone levels to be substantially lower -- by about 15 to 20% -- than they were fifteen years ago. Scandinavian studies show similar declines, and in younger men too; a man born in 1970, for example, had about 20 percent less testosterone at 35 than a man of his father's generation at the same age."  (Newswire)  Though people might wonder why this is occurring, it's pretty easy to see that the shift to eunuchs from actual males is a bit of social engineering by the state- the combination of environmental toxins, government subsidized estrogen supplements in the form of soy, criminalization of manly pastimes, and the criminalization of nearly any exogenous substance clinically proven to raise test levels (while estrogenic substances like weed are being decriminalized) would put this ball of shit squarely in the government's court.  Sweden actually took it a step further, mandating that couples would lose two months of maternity leave unless the father was the one who took it.  This, of course, in spite of the fact that men can't fucking breastfeed, can they?  Oh wait, they can.  A spate of articles written in the last ten years attest to this fact.


To recap:  We're fucked.


In spite of the multitudinous articles written of late demonizing testosterone as the root of all evil, and a carefully constructed international psychosis regarding the use of testosterone enhancing substances, testosterone is actually a tremendously good thing.  It improves, among other things (Pennebaker and McKay):

• vocabulary (most notably words with more than 6 letters)
• sex drive
• aggression
• physical strength
• longevity
• competitive spirit
• metabolism
• energy

... all the while reducing the levels of bullshit in your life like (Pennebaker):

• depression
• anxiety
• preoccupation with money
• thoughts of death 

In other words, testosterone is all that is good in the world.  I've detailed a wide array of methods for increasing your testosterone in previous blogs and I've got a few new additions to the mix listed below:

If Sarah B's your sister, you're probably getting your arm ripped off and then getting beaten to death with it.

• Win, and root for winners.  Testosterone increases in winners, helping them to push harder for greater advantage, while reducing in losers to protect them from further losses.  (Bates)  Rooting for losers also results in a marked reduction in test levels, so maybe it's time to burn your Lions jersey and pick a team that might win a Super Bowl sometime in the next fucking century.  Does this revelation mean you should armwestle your sister?  Fuck yeah!  Actually, ripping your little sibling's arm out of the socket is a fucking stupid idea.  Make a habit of winning and rooting for winners, though, or you might find yourself coming home to watch someone bang your wife in front of you in the future.  Incidentally, that would make you a cuckold.  In Italy, throwing the goat at someone is an illegal hand signal indicating that the recipient is a cuckold, so if you're at a metal show there, throw up the claw instead or you'll find your ass in jail.
• Take longer rest periods in between sets.  One study showed that taking rest periods of two minutes raised test levels, while rest periods of one minute raised GH levels.  (Rahimi et al)  Frankly, this seems fucking silly to me, as other studies have shown that test and GH levels are positively correlated.  For the slow kids, that means if you raise one, you raise the other. (Faigin 11)
• Be fucking aggressive.  Doing aggressive shit makes you more aggressive, and testosterone is positively correlated with aggression.  As such, you can literally become a perpetual motion machine of awesomeness if you structure your life right- playing Manhunt while listening to death metal and punching a heavy bag might make your balls double in size in one hour.  Actually, that's hyperbole, but that would be fucking awesome if it was true.  (Patterson and Anderson)

On a side note, ‘black's the white of my eye’, is a defunct sailor's term, that indicates that you want to fucking fight anybody nearby.  According to Encyclopedia.com, it's "an indignant rebuttal of a charge of misdemeanor and that all he has just said is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."  That's a genius fucking way of starting a fight, as it clearly makes the fight completely impersonal and invitational, which is the best way for a good-natured fight to occur.

More ideas, from past blogs:

• Handle a gun.  This makes you more aggressive, presumably because you're holding the sum total of violent intent form every pre-gunpowder generation in your bare hands.  
• Colors like red and black can boost your test levels, as they're awesome.  Frankly, anything associated with the A-Team should make any red-blooded American's cock hard.

• Being alone in a room with a woman (even those you don't find attractive), causes mens' test levels to rise. I'd venture to guess this doesn't work with women whom you'd find so completely unfuckable as to cause you to consider them fodder for a trip to the camps, but apparently average looking women will do.

Teagan Pressley also raises test levels in gay men, straight women, corpses, lawnmowers, and allegedly even in Tipper Gore.

• Enjoyable music increases dopamine levels, and dopamine levels are positively correllated with testosterone levels, so music you like (i.e. metal) will probably increase your test levels.

Additional random facts I've recently learned about testosterone:

• The tears of women lower test levels in men.  (This is ironic, given that Genghis Khan fucked more than any other human being on Earth, and he claimed "The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."  He had, presumably, more than enough test to overcome the dropoff found recently in scientific research.  Interestingly, the scent of tears made men think "fuck that bitch" rather than "I want to fuck that bitch" or "awwwwww".  Additionally, I found it odd that the mere sight of a crying women was found to be sexually unappealing and created a drop in test, given that I've not seen a decent deepthroat scene in my life that didn't involve some tears.  And slapping.  And vomiting.

I'm pretty sure this makes me a bad person.  Luckily, my test levels are high enough that I don't care.

• Changing gears, competition has been shown in studies to increase test levels in women. That may or may not have something to do with the aforementioned oddity, but I'll leave that for you people to decide.  Prior to competition, womens' test levels raise far more than do their male counterparts, an average of 49% increase as opposed to a 15% increase in men.  As such, it might behoove those women still inexplicably reading this blog to start competing more, as you'll find yourselves leaner and stronger as a result.

On that note, fuckers, I'm out.  Go do something awesome.


Sources:
Anderson CA, Gentile PA, Buckly KE. Violent video game effects on children and adolescents.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 2007.
Bates, Karl.  Election Results Change Testosterone Levels.  http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2009/10/testresult.html
Faigin, Rob.  Natural Hormone Enhancement.
Freeman, DW. Women's Tears Turn Men Off: Testosterone Study Explains Why.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20027749-10391704.html
McKay, Brett and Kate.  30 Days to a Better Man-Day 4: Increase Your Testosterone.  http://artofmanliness.com/2009/06/03/30-days-to-a-better-man-day-4-increase-your-testosterone/#ixzz1AmHdXPy6
Newswire.  Testosterone Levels Declining in Men at Younger Ages: ZRT Laboratory Hormone Tests Reflect Global Trend.  28 August 2007. http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1048357/testosterone_levels_declining_in_men_at_younger_ages_zrt_laboratory/index.html
Patterson, AH.  Hostility Catharsis: A Naturalistic Experiment.  Paper presented at Annual APA convention.
Pennebaker JW, Groom CJ, Loew D, Dabbs JM.  Testosterone as a Social Inhibitor: Two Case Studies of the Effect of Testosterone Treatment on Language.  J Ab Psych (2004), 113, 172-175.  http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/pennebaker/reprints/testosterone.pdf
Rahimi R, Quaderi M, Faraji H, Bourojerdi SS.  Effects of very short rest periods on hormonal responses to resistance exercise in men.  J Str Condit Res (2010) 7, 1851-1859.

The Chaos and Pain Commandments

Given that I'm violently opposed to joining any social networking sites, I don't get the same thrill some people do in googling myself.  I've never posted an update on Facebox about what color my latest shit was, how long it took me to do my laundry, or any of the other inane bullshit people seem to think others might care about.  I do, however, find it amusing that people will often claim that I've espoused training principles that I haven't or that I've made stark, sweeping suggestions that are found nowhere in this blog.

Dear Facebox- I just shit a squirrel.  Literally.  And the hell of it is, I don't know what to name it.

As I've apparently been about as clear as pig shit, so I'll take this time to rectify that and set down my commandments.  You should bear in mind when you read them that I'm not recommending that anyone necessarily follow them, but rather that my research and personal experience have shown to be true.  Debate them all you fucking want... in the end I'll produce voluminous evidence proving I'm right and you're wrong, and then I'll destroy something to celebrate my victory.

1. Lift heavy, motherfucker.  Obviously, heavy is a relative term.  As such, "heavy" means with weights greater than 85% of your one rep max, and you should do this for more than 75% of your workouts.  
2. Variation is the spice of life, and anyone who doesn't like spicy sucks.  As such, try new exercises, do different shit, and keep it interesting.  The chaotic part of my training style makes shit fun, and if you attack the fucking weights and go heavy the vast majority of the time, your body cannot help but get stronger.
3. Stop worrying about your form, already.  Brute strength will get you pretty fucking far.  The more weight you lift, the more strength you'll gain, and the bigger you'll get.  Frankly, lifting with biomechanically disadvantageous form will likely force you to stimulate more muscle fibers due to the fact that it's not the most efficacious manner in which to lift.  You can perfect your form later- the majority of you should just shoot for good.    
4. You can lift more often, and heavier than you think, fuckface.  Stop listening to conventional wisdom, because it's conventional and hardly wisdom.  Conventional thought and action will bring naught but average results. None of the greats in anything thought conventionally, and neither should you.  Be better than everyone else- fuck populist sentiment and fuck anyone who says you can't do something.  Spite's an awesome motivator.
5. For fuck's sake, train in a way you enjoy.  If you hate training, you're not going to do it.  As such, if you don't feel like training 12 times a week with near-maximal weights, don't.  No one gives a fuck what you do anyway, no matter what ten people on the internet might say.  Just don't feed people a line of bullshit about how it's unrealistic or you'd die or that's for juicers or any of the other excuses people use to justify not doing things.  Just shut up, structure your workouts how you like, and break your ass at them.
6. Your genetics are not your greatest limitation- your mind is.  Somatotyping is bullshit, and there's not a one of you who can honestly say has been bred from a long line of scrawny pussies incapable of gaining physical strength.  Humanity's not fallen that far, and I'd posit that the vast majority of physical and mental degeneration and devolution has occurred within the last two centuries.  As such, you only really have those to overcome.  What you do have to overcome is two centuries of liberal claptrap about equality and retarded gender wars that claim that men and women are alternately weak and useless as fuck. Ignore that shit and aim high.
7. Get off at least three times a day.  I saw some idiot mention this on some message board or another as completely impossible without the use of exogenous testosterone, which made me laugh in horror.  If you can't manage to get off three times a day, check your fucking pulse, because you might be dead.  There are innumerable health benefits to hypersexuality, and you should grab that bull by the horns and fuck its mouth.
8. For the love of all that's unholy, eat as much protein as you can.  Fuck Joe Weider and his high carb nonsense- if you eat like a caveman, you'll look like one.  Feel free to post all of the links you want about how Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals apparently ate grains- they ate MINUTE amounts of grains at best, and they sure as shit weren't eating the nonsense most people are stuffing down their throats.  Make half of your calories protein, and then keep your carbs and fats inversely proportional and you'll stay lean.
9. Fight the fucking power and embody the Hellenic concept of kalokagathia.  No one wants to be around a mouth-breathing retard who looks good on the beach.  Well, no one who doesn't live in Jersey or Cali.  The Greeks believed that one should strive for a mind-body ideal where you'd develop both to achieve excellence.  Though they might have abandoned that shit entirely and embarked upon societal self-destruction the likes of which the world will probably never see again, it's time to resurrect that shit- they fought hard, lifted hard, fucked hard, and read hard.  That's what life's all about.  Nowadays, society doesn't want you doing any of that, because they don't want you to be pants-shittingly awesome.  Fuck all that- get awesome.

There you have it.  The workout templates I've posted are mere suggestions.  They're not gospel, they're not what I do on a daily basis, and they're not necessarily what I recommend.  Anyone I've given recommendations to can attest to the fact that I base program design (insofar as I do it) on one's goals, one's exercise favorites, and one's time constraints.  Even the dumbest motherfucker on Earth can list those three things and figure out a plan that will work for them, especially if they're spending all of their free time reading and eating meat.  

This isn't rocket surgery, people.