Make It Fucking Stop! The Skinny Bitches Are Back

First, given the inevitable bitching that has probably already commenced, allow me to proffer the reasoning behind this post. I was standing in line at Bed, Bath and Beyond, waiting to return an air mattress, blithely unaware that the Skinny Bitch phenomenon had continued past their 15 minutes of initial fame. There, I overheard two portly housewives discuss the relative merits of a drink mixer called SkinnyGirl (which is apparently in no way related to the Skinny Bitch books, but is the product of some reality tv whore's vanity). This turned into a discussion about how they'd both stopped eating meat due to the Skinny Bitch books, and how everyone (wink wink nod nod) who still eats meat is flirting with an imminent and grisly death. At that point I interjected, as I'm unwilling to stand idly by while anyone talks shit, especially in the South where I hate everyone, and these Type 2 diabetes cows weren't going to titter over their Mint Juleps about how they got over on me. I started dropping actual scientific facts, which they rebutted by claiming that the Skinny Bitches disagreed, and assured me I should read their book for men. I was struck dumb by the fact that I had used historical references and scientific fact to rebut their claims and had been rebuffed with such bullshit, but I resolved to read this fucking book to see what lies were contained therein.


Though I disagree with most of what spews forth from his filthy Communist mouth, I agree with Zach de la Rocha when he says, "Know your enemy."

Inside Out was a hell of a lot better than RATM.

Here is what I found-
1) The publisher Running Press has neither fact-checkers, nor editors with any background in biology or chemistry, and apparently everyone in their organization is bereft of conscience and soul.

2) The Skinny Bitches are apparently filled with discontent at the fact that they've merely spewed their insipid bile at one half of our species, and have thus returned in an attempt to finish what they started- namely, to destroy the human race. While that goal seems to have merit on its face, they're not doing it in a cool way at all- nowhere are there zombies, robots, zombie-robot cyborg hybrids, hemorrhagic plagues, internecine strife, or even a good ol' nuke. Instead, they are trying to bring about humanity's downfall in the least cool way possible- by rendering us so impotent and weak that we simply die out of self-loathing and the sort of malaise that can only come when one realizes that they'd lose a fight to a poodle. Essentially, they want the apocalypse to be humanity's transformation into the Eloi without any of the mechanisms necessary to support their bullshit society.

Feast your eyes on it folks- the guide to the coming apocalypse... Skinny Bastard. Clocking in at a touch over two hundred pages, it provides comprehensive coverage of some of the most impressive stupidity and willful ignorance ever committed to the printed page. In support of their outlandish nutritional theories, the Bitches have offered some of the most astonishing non- and pseudoscience that Skinny Bastard is truly breathtaking in its defiance of logic, scientific fact, research, and hatred for intelligent discourse and humanity in general.

Apparently they used to model... paper bags?

For those of you who are too horrified to continue reading, here's the short version: two whores with no business writing a book about anything compiled a bunch of factoids gleaned from vegan websites and pseudoscientific nutrition texts into a handbook on manning up, repeatedly enjoining their readers to stop being pussies... while not eating meat. Amidst their incessant rejoinders about what it takes to be a real man, a phenomenon about which women should probably refrain from giving advice anyway, they recommend that men drink red wine and herbal teas while abstaining from meat and doing some brisk cardio as their roadmap to manliness. That just happened. Yup- while making the authors of the ill-conceived Alpha Male Challenge (see the blog about this pile of horseshit here) look like paradigms of manliness, the Skinny Bitches managed to outdo their previous effort throughout the book. Additionally, the SBs seem to think that the liberal use of the word "fuck" validates their ridiculous foray into male diet advice, casually tossing the word about in spite of the fact that they appeared terrified of using the word "dick" in their hilarious treatment on erectile function, instead using the nomenclature of small children to make their point, a la "stick" or "cockadoodledoo". I am not making that up. This book literally left me speechless.

"Yeah, I absolutely called him a faggot, but he ordered Chardonnay. What was I supposed to do?"

The long version: It's hard to know where to start with a book that I've got to pick apart page by page, so I'll just start at the beginning, and I'll hit the high points as bullets for ease of reading. Before you get too far into it, you might want to check out this blog on pH, since the Bitches blather on about it incessantly.

Maybe the idea is that they need something alkaline injected into their abdomens... Did you know ejaculate averages a pH of 7.2-7.8? (Haugen) The More You Know!*

"Alcohol raises the level of hydrochloric acid in your stomach, wreaking havoc on your digestive system."(11) One hardly knows where to begin with gems such as these. Someone might want to inform the Bitches that hydrochloric acid is always present in one's stomach- it helps break down food in the stomach. One thing hydrochloric acid doesn't do, however, is have anything whatsoever to do with the absorption of alcohol, which is done through the stomach lining and the intestines. We actually produce an enzyme to reduce the amount of alcohol our body absorbs, but HCL's got exactly fuckall to do with either. Then, in stark defiance of logic and chemistry, they assert that men should "try organic wine produced without sulfites", which will not fill their bodies with acid, though it must be sulfite-free, or the drinker will contract asthma and allergies. Amazing. The nonsense about sulfites aside (they don't cause allergies, by the way, although in some people they do cause what appear to be allergic reactions, especially IN PEOPLE WHO ALREADY HAVE ASTHMA), beer and hard alcohol might actually be good for you... and in more than a "they get me laid" kind of way. Japanese researchers tested varying doses of isohumulones (the bitter component of beer) on pre-diabetic rats in three different doses and found that 2 of the doses led to reduced fasting blood glucose levels, and a third led to reduced bodyfat and weight.(Obara) Happily, I hate both beer and wine, both of which one study showed raised estrogen and SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) (Gavaler), but am a big fan of liquor. Liquor has been shown in a couple of studies to give you a short term testosterone boost in low to moderate dosages, and to increase the efficacy of pro-hormones consumed at the same time.(Arnold) In short, science has proven definitively that drinking wine does in fact make you a bitch... in more ways than one, and that drinking liquor makes you more manly. As such, the Bitches are again the ducks who fly North for the winter and try to get their idiot friends to follow them. Unfortunately, they've all thus far refused to die.

Shit almost made me consider getting an RKC certification. Almost.

"Citrus fruits are alkalizing because they're high in potassium and calcium and alkaline salts." (33) If you're not already amused because potassium and calcium are alkaline salts, you should be. Prepare, however, to become more amused- citrus fruits aren't even ranked among top calcium or potassium rich foods... but various meats are. Given that one major problem they have with meat is the fact that it acidifies one's system, wouldn't their shitbox logic hold in re the alkalizing effects of potassium and calcium? Ah well... the Silly Whores haven't let fact get in the way of their fiction before, so there's no sense in starting now, I suppose.

"Coffee is for pussies." (13-14) Yep- the Bitches hate coffee because it contains caffeine, which they assert will cause you problems ranging from headaches to diarrhea to cortisol spikes, and a wide array of bullshit in between, while simultaneously allowing you to trumpet to the world that you're a big bitch because you "need" stimulants to get you out of bed. Additionally, the SB's contend, willfully ignorant of any and all studies ever conducted on coffee, that coffee will make you fat due to the fact that your body will form a protective layer of fat around your organs to fend off the evil acid in the coffee. Frankly, I'm at a loss to even scratch the surface of what they might be on about here- do they think coffee's simply dumped into your system on top of your organs? That our internal systems are setup like an ancient Roman sewer? Have they heard of the circulatory system? Simply astonishing. Instead, manly men should drink "caffeine free herbal tea, because "if women see you drinking tea, they'll think you're smart and sensitive." Sweet! I can miss out on all of the fat-loss benefits of a proven performance enhancer while getting fat, publicly emasculating myself, and drinking something that tastes like stewed cow shit.

In case you're unaware, allow me to drop a little knowledge about the actual health benefits of coffee, for the sake of education, sanity, and to take a break from the wild-eyed idiocy proffered by the Silly Bitches. Coffee drinkers are:

• 
  
• less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and dementia (Osterweil)
• have fewer cases of certain cancers, heart rhythm problems, and strokes (Ibid)
• lower the risk of prostate cancer (Wilson et al)

Caffeine also has myriad benefits, which I've elucidated in the past, but they range from performance enhancement to alertness to mental acuity. In short, stimulants fucking rule.

Artificial sweeteners are the fucking devil (but no mention is made of HFCS).(12-13, and an entire chapter later in the book) According to the Silly Bitches, just about every evil perpetrated in the world in the last 50 years was committed at the hands of Searle for the purpose of promoting their Nutrasweet products, and in collusion with the US government. This is patently ridiculous for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that the US government is far more complicit in supporting Big Agriculture than Big Pharma. In retrospect, given that Searle was purchased by Monsanto when Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO, they might have a case to make, but no mention was made of that, and most of their beef with Searle predates Rummy's tenure. They contend that due to the US government's support of and evil doings with major US pharmaceutical companies (of which there's hardly any doubt, in my mind, but they're off base here) that Searle was able to push Nutrasweet/aspartame through testing and get it approved by all of the national agencies in charge of food additives. Just about all of the claims made about Nutrasweet are bullshit, however, and have been proven to be so over and over. If you don't believe me, go here and read the sources cited, and if you're too lazy to do that, just check out the study wherein MIT debunked the Nutrasweet bullshit. In addition to failing to conduct even a simple search of unbiased sources (which I'd imagine at this point would causes those idiots to seize, crack, and bleed out), they failed to recognize that the US government would back corn farmers and sugar farmers LONG before they'd back a pharma company in this fight- pharma companies don't get farm subsidies. As such, these broads have again proven themselves to be fucking retarded, as they're focusing on the gnat in their ear instead of the guy pounding their ass like they were Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction.

I've recognized a ring gag pic deficit and am attempting to rectify that problem.

"Most Americans eat twice as much protein as necessary"(36), citing a guy named Lesley McPhatter who in turn cited old research and a sports nutrition text of which I've never heard. They go on recommend a protein level of Body Weight x .36, which provides a "large margin of safety". Safety from what, you might ask? Their support of this statement was all over the map, ranging from the old wives' tale about protein and renal failure, to a supposition that low carb diets have been linked with low testosterone levels, base on an uncited study. I found the study, however, and they and their soft-headed vegan compatriots all seem to have read the fucking thing incorrectly... likely because a diet the consists of naught but gruel is hardly conducive to deep analytical thinking. Instead of showing that a high protein diet led to low testosterone levels, the study showed that a diet high in ployunsaturated fat led to low testosterone levels. Rob Faigin was nice enough to point that little nugget out in Natural Hormone Enhancement, and I thought I'd reiterate it for you guys. (Faigin, 329-30)

Q: How do you make a hormone?

A: Don't pay her.

Onto that old bullshit about high protein diets and renal failure... again, the Bitches' research skills don't extend beyond ancient and patently ridiculous sources. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of that argument, it goes that high protein (and ketogenic diets in particular) cause renal failure. This is completely unsubstantiated by science, and flies in the face of anecdotal evidence about the Inuit (whose diet consists of nothing but meat), and a year-long study of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who ate nothing but meat. In 1929 he
participated in a year long study in which he lived at a hospital and was subjected to a battery of tests, mostly directed at predicting what doctors considered to be his imminent death, and was found to be healthy as shit thereafter. Putting aside that, because the Silly Bitches enjoy their anecdotes but hate science, let's see what science has to say, shall we?

He has urine dribbling down his leg in this pic.

The Bitches are more wrong than R. Kelly pissing in the mouth of a 14 year old. Kideney function adapts to increased protein consumption and in some cases functions better than on low-protein diets. (Skov et al, Poortmans et al, Brändle et al, Eades 138) In spite of all that... you know, science, and the fact that an entire robust and virile people have thrived for centuries on that diet, the Silly Bitches will continue to assert that a high protein diet will kill you outright and forthwith, and you'll dissolve in a muddle of acidic muck . They'll do this because they're whores... they forgot because they're stupid.

Oh, there's more... much, much more, but I figure you guys have waited long enough for a blog. Coming up, another Ask the Asshole, more rebuttals of this nonsense you can use to browbeat idiots at the bar, and a couple of other goodies I've got half-baked. Also, in the next two weeks expect an article an video on an exercise that's both awesome and nearly catastrophically stupid to perform without a spotter, which I will of course explain in detail since I do it all the time.

Sources:

Arnold, Patrick. A Steroid for Flu Prevention. Muscular Development. 2/10/10, p 276.
Brändle E, Sieberth HG, Hautmann RE. Effect of chronic dietary protein intake on the renal function in healthy subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1996 Nov;50(11):734-40.
Eades, Michael. Protein Power.
Faigin, Rob. Natural Hormone Enhancement.
Gavaler, JS. Alcoholic Beverages as a Source of Estrogens. Alcohol Health and Research World. 1998;22(3):220-228. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh22-3/220.pdf
Haugen T. B., Grotmol T. pH of Human Semen. Int J of Andro. 1998: 21(2) 105-108.
McPhatter, Lesley L. Too Much of a Good Thing: Limiting Protein Intake in Chronic Kidney Disease.
http://www.aakp.org/newsletters/KB-The-Magazine/Diet-Tips-&-Bits/Limiting-Protein-Intake/
Obara K, Mizutani M, Hitomi Y, Yajima H, Kondo K. Isohumulones, the bitter component of beer, improve hyperglycemia and decrease body fat in Japanese subjects with prediabetes. Clin Nut 2009: 28; 278–284.
http://www.herbalintegrity.com/content/products/Benefits-of-isohumulones-for-prediabetics.pdf
Osterweil, Neil. Coffee and Your Health. WebMD. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/coffee-new-health-food
Poortmans JR, Dellalieux O. Do regular high protein diets have potential health risks on kidney function in athletes? Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2000 Mar;10(1):28-38.
Skov AR, Toubro S, Bülow J, Krabbe K, Parving H, Astrup A. Changes in renal function during weight loss induced by high vs low-protein low-fat diets in overweight subjects. International Journal of Obesity. 1999;23:1170-1177.
Wilson KM, Kasperzyk JL, Rider JR, Kenfield S, van Dam RM, Stampfer MJ, Giovannucci E, Mucci LA. Coffee Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk and Progression in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011 May 17. [Epub ahead of print]

Find A Way Forward 2

In the previous installment of this series, I elucidated the ways in which one might find one's self mired in a virtual bog like they're a modern day brontosaur with bad directional sense.  The shit happens to the best of us, and the worst of us never recover.  Many of the useful are somehow lured down various well-traveled paths in the gym to bask in the glow of mediocrity that only cookie-cutter programs can bring, while others experiment until the find shit that works.

Better 1... or better 2?

Having a scientific backing to your theory is certainly helpful, but not necessarily essential- Western science is pretty slow on the uptake with sports science and physiology.  The average gym goer's "common sense" approach is even further behind- I still overhear baseball players babbling on about not wanting to become "muscle bound" and incapable of playing well.  I guess they've never heard of Canseco, Bonds, or McGuire.  In any event, it's easy to get fucked up, as the gym is at the best of times an intellectual minefield... though most gyms simply settle for being an intellectual wasteland.

Nary an IQ above room temperature will be found here.

When I find myself mired in the aforementioned metaphorical bog, I generally crack open my lifting books and see what I can dig up.  It's at this point that I'll generally give old school lifts like Zercher Squats or  unilateral Olympic lifts a shot, or I'll try a different programming technique.  Having looked at both Siff and Zatsiorsky, I noticed that both authors recommended doing dynamic/strength lifts prior to static or semi-static/power lifts.  This suggestion was echoed in a recent US study as well, so I decided to give this theory a shot for squats.  As the only dynamic permutation of this of which I could think was jump squats, I started doing those prior to either front or back squat partials.  I saved the Zercher squats for a separate day or days, and am now back to 4 days of squatting a week, alternating the two microprograms.  Thus, a typical leg workout in which I'd do jump squats and partials looked something like this:

Jump Squats
1-3 x 3-5 x 135
1-3 x 3-5 x 225
1 x 3 x 275
1 x 1 x 365, 375, 385, 395... and now 405.  I'd keep doing my top end weight for a couple of singles.

Partial Squats/Front Squats
3 or so progressively heavier sets to my top end weight, which I generally did for 3-6 sets of 4-6 reps.  I varied the height of the pins between bottom-ed parallel reps and quarter squats.

** A thoroughly renowned strength coach recently mentioned to me that a nice alternative to the weighted jump squat is the back squat to overhead press (like a behind the neck thruster).  I love that exercise, as it's the exercise that got me into full-body programming, and recommend you give that a shot on days wherein you don't want to go all that heavy.

Apparently, Google thinks that this is a representation of thrusters.  I'd posit that this is simply a preface to a hell of a lot of thrusting, but I suppose Google and I will have to agree to disagree.

One thing you'll notice during these days is that the knurling is going to rip the skin off your traps.  Wearing a sleeved shirt's generally a good idea on these days... and wearing 2 of them is an even better idea.  Another thing you'll notice is that you're not going to get much air as you get heavier.  That's not the point- the point is to generate enough power to leave the ground.  This is due to the fact that maximal force and maximal velocity are generally inversely related- as Zatsiorsky writes "gravity is a motherfucker."(Science and Practice, 21) I generally focus much more on getting height on my early warmups, and on occasion won't even go heavy, but will just focus on exploding off the ground with 225 and getting way into the hole.  Like everything I do, this shit's very touch-and-go.

For those of you who are curious, I've no fucking clue what this has done for my back squat.  In fact, I don't intend to even do a maximal effort back squat until I get on the platform again, which I think will be a fairly decent test.  Until then, here's a better visual representation of what my jump squat workout looks like.

Is this the holy grail of squatting programs?  I highly doubt it.  It's worth a fucking shot, however, and at the very least it's something to throw in the mix.  Of note- the attempt at 405 in that vid was my first, and it was really just a matter of sacking the fuck up and doing it.  I guarantee that the lot of you can jump off the ground with a hell of a lot more weight than you think.

Give it hell.

Some Nonsense Happened With Blogger- UPDATED

Thanks to the guys who sent me the text and pics from my Captain Kirk Post.

As a token of my appreciation, more tits.

Incidentally, Nuts Magazine fucking rules.  

Baddest Motherfuckers Ever #22- Captain Kirk Karwoski

It's rare that anyone finds themselves up on a pedestal with the alien-fucking, karate chopping, stilted delivery having awesomeness of the man with the hardest cock to ever hit the big screen, Mr. James T. Kirk.  One powerlifter, however, rolled insanely fucking hard through every meet and happened to rock the same first name as that esteemed space-faring Captain, and thus had a moniker befitting his exalted status bestowed upon him- Captain Kirk Karwoski.

Karwoski dominated the squatting scene in the 1990s the way that Ron Jeremy dominated porn in the 1980s- big, mean and ugly, only way fucking leaner, bereft of 1970s throwback porn mustache, and with a hell of a lot more yelling.  As such, I suppose he doesn't share all that much in common with Ron Jeremy.  Nevertheless, Karwoski likely banged a bunch of broads due to his massive success in the wildly popular mainstream sport of powerlifting, and thus shares that in common with Jeremy.

Bullshitting aside, Karwoski was the real fucking deal.  He squatted so far ahead of his time in the 1990s that his record of 1003 lbs int the 275lb weightclass stood for over 20 years.  Over his career, Karwoski pulled down 3 teenage and 3 junior world titles in addition to 7 national and 6 straight world championships.  (Parillo)  After all of that, Karwoski reentered competition for shits and giggles in 2005, ten years after he'd left the podium previously with the world record, and got himself ranked 19th All Time amongst unequipped squatters with an 826lb squat at 240 lbs.(Powerliftingwatch)  Best part of the whole bit?  He did it while lean as shit.

Right after rolling out of bed the day of the meet.

According to Marty Gallagher, Karwoski was one of the only lifters of his era who caused the "flee phenomenon", in which other lifters bail out of a particular class to avoid going to to toe with the dominant lifter in that class.  At his peak, Karwoski totalled 2306, which stood for over 10 years as the number to beat, even though rapid advancements in gear started allowing people to damn near double their bench presses.  Gear whores, relax- you can use a fucking pallet lift for all I fucking care.  You just have to respect the bench pressers of bygone eras if for no other reason than the fact that they, unlike you, would not live through a T-Rex attack if wearing their old school bench shirts, which lacked the denim, kevlar, chain mail, elfin magic, hydraulics, and whatever else Inzer's managed to wedge into their wacky constructs lately.

This picture of physical health is safe from gunshot wounds and t-rexes... but probably not mirrors.

... and how did this bad motherfucker get so ungodly good at squatting?  By being batshit insane and breaking his ass in the fucking gym, of course.  For instance, if he found someone in his rack on Monday night at 5:30, he 'd throw the guy's shit on the ground in front of the rack, look at the guy, and yell "Five minutes!" at the top of his lungs.  If the guy was still there in five minutes, Karwoski would strip the weights, throw them on the floor, grab the guy's shit and throw it across the room, and scream at the dude that he "better never see that motherfucker in the gym again on a Monday night.  Ever."  Though dickish, it's hilarious, and it shows how deadly serious Karwoski was about his squat workouts- no one and nothing were going to keep him from squatting on Monday nights.

"Most power lifters share some common defects, as a whole for whatever reason, LOVE to punish, beat and torture ourselves beyond the limits of mind and body. It is our spirit that prevails. This defect of intelligence and sensibility pushes us onto the next level, makes us better and stronger. We all have lifted sick and badly hurt,, When this subject comes up with normal people and other meatheads, we all have the prideful smile when we talk about lifting with a 100 degree temperature or a torn groin. Thank God that therapy doesn't work on us." - Captain Kirk

I have two versions of Karwoski's typical training week.  The first comes from a Parrillo mag dating to 2005, and the second (pre-competition routine) comes from Marty Gallagher's Purposeful Primitive.  They have the same structure, but different execution.

Monday- Squats and Legs.

Squat: 135x8 (reps) 255x5, 455x5, 655x3, 735x1, 825x1, 905x5 (with gear)
Leg press: work up to 1,500 for reps
Leg extensions: whole stack+
Calf raise: three sets to failure, whole stack plus 100’s
Lying leg curls: three sets with whole stack+

Contest:
Squat- 7-10 x 2-8 (his last set would be a balls out, beltless, 80% 1RM 8 rep set.
Leg curl- 2-3 x 5
Leg extensions 2-3 x 5

Tuesday- Close Grip Bench and Arms.  Later in his career, Karwoski eschewed small, single-joint, high-risk exercises like skull crushers for bigger, lower-risk movements like the close grip bench.  He credited this decision with his avoidance of most common joint injuries as he got older career.  When younger, however, he did the following:
Biceps: E-Z curls, dumbbell curls (can do strict set of 8 with 100’s)

Triceps: Nose breakers, Pushdowns

Contest:
Close grip bench, touch & go- 7-10 x 2-8
Dumbbell curls- 2-3 x 5
Triceps pushdowns- 2-3 x 5

Thursday- Deadlift and Back.  Thursday's workout was interesting because Karwoski did an exercise he invented called grip shrugs, which he used to get his deadlift up to 800 in the gym.  The exercise, “grip shrugs,” was a hybrid upright row/shrug done with a thumbless grip and paused at the navel, and was designed to help Karwoski develop a grip that would enable him to pull big poundages. Unfortunately, he expended so much energy on the squat in competition that he was never able to pull 800+ in competition, but it improved his grip strength considerably.(Steel)

Deadlift: 255x8, 465x3, 665x1, 755x1, 790x3
Barbell rows: 405 for reps
Lat pulldowns: entire stack+
Dumbbell shrugs: two sets to failure
Seated press: 225x8, 275x8, 315x5

Contest:
Deadlift- 7-10 x 2-8
Grip shrugs- 3 x 5
T-bar row- 3 x 5-8
Pulldowns- 2-3 x 5

Saturday- Bench, Chest and Shoulders.

Flat bench press: 135x12, 255x5, 345x3, 435x1, 495x1, 535x5 all paused
Wide-grip bench: work up to 485 for reps
Narrow grip bench press: work up to 455 for reps
Incline barbell press: 225x8, 315x3, 405x5
Lateral raises: 3-4 sets, 60s

Contest:
Bench Press (Competition grip)- 7-10 x 2-8
Wide Grip Bench with pause- 3 x 5
Incline Bench- 3 x 5
Front Raises- 2-3 x 5
Side Raises- 2-3 x 5

According to Karwoski, he usually did a primary movement and four assistance exercises each workout, a couple of which were mainstays. (Critical Bench)  He, like his fellow superhuman Ed Coan, felt that sets of 5 on everything were the best way to get brutally fucking strong, so they focussed most of their effort within that rep range.  (Gallagher)  As such, Karwoski eventually built up to a 900 x 5 rep set in the squat, along with fellow mutants Ed Coan and Doug Furnas.

The key, then, to Karwoski's undying and face-crushingly brutal success seems not to have stemmed from massive training innovation or wild-eyed, train-til-you-bleed-from-your-pores training frequency, but rather from two things- animal intensity and consistency.  Even in the ten years during which he didn't compete, Karwoski was in the gym every training day busting ass, and it clearly paid off.  He was so wedded to the idea of consistency, in fact, that he might as well have brought a fucking accountant into the gym to record his workouts- according to Marty Gallagher, that motherfucker never missed a single predetermined rep in a 12 week training cycle prior to a major meet, after having planned out every workout 3 months in advance. (Purposeful, 89) Sounds completely fucking ridiculous to me, but that apparently happened.

Will screaming at random gym-goers and doing double-entry bookkeeping in the gym bestow upon you a 1003 squat?  Probably not... but it might be worth a try.

Sources:
Gallagher, Marty.  "Kirk Karwoski".  Parrillo Performance Press.  March 2007.
Gallagher, Marty.  Purposeful Primitive. 2008.
Video Interview.  Power Unlimited.
Powerliftingwatch All Time Rankings.  http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/files/Rankings-04-24-11.pdf
Steel, Jim.  My Experiences In The Iron Game.  Starting Strength.  http://startingstrength.com/articles/experiences_steel.pdf

Cycling Makes You Into A Eunuch- My First Lawsuit Threat (From This Site, That Is)

Many of you have asked, in emails and blog comments, when I will be offering the PR or ER shirts for sale again.

I won't.

This is not due to any personal preference, but rather due to the fact that I conceived those shirts long before I actually had the capital to make them, publicly, and at work.  My coworker and I spent countless hours pontificating about different shirt ideas, the favorite of which was the "PR or ER" idea.  Thus, we hung out in Vitamin Shoppe in Columbia, SC, talking about the shirts and repeating the slogan (as I frequently had minor gym catastrophes about which we'd laugh) and discussing blog post ideas.  This was, incidentally, from February 2009 - December 2009.  Being neither jewish nor a lawyer, I saw no need to trademark or copyright "PR or ER", since my friends and I said the phrase often and it never occurred to me that anyone else would copyright it.

How wrong I was.  In September of that year, someone did.  His location?  Lexington, SC.  Coincidence?  Let's consult Google Maps.

A mere 15 miles away from the birthplace of my genius t-shirt idea.

Amusingly, the coworker with whom I discussed this idea trained at some 24 hour gym in Lexington, making the cycling douche who threatened to sue me seem all that much more suspicious in his actions.  Oh yeah- did I mention he's a cyclist?

Thus, I had my t-shirt idea stolen and copyrighted before I could get the scratch together to print the fucking shirts, and have subsequently been threatened with death by unkosher foods (or something along those lines) if I continue to sell them.  Luckily, I ran out of shirts about a month and a half prior to getting his email, so his "cease and desist" really became more of a "don't do it again" email.

Before I share our slightly amusing email exchange, allow me to preface them by explaining exactly how this blog came to be.  In 2007, friends of mine started asking me to compile the random exercise physiology and nutrition esoterica about which I constantly told them into some sort of a readable format.  Given that I am constantly researching and had no simple means of transcribing what I knew, I figured that a blog would be a good way to pass along that knowledge, and would provide a decent starting place for a book.  This book, by the way, was to have a self-published run of no more than 20 copies- I wasn't, and am still not, doing any of this for money- I simply do it because I enjoy it.  In any event, I finally decided to start it in Feb of 2009, after doing a considerable amount of further research.  Shortly thereafter, I got a job at Vitamin Shoppe and started blogging in real earnest, since I lived in Columbia, SC and had virtually nothing to do with myself by work and lift.  Having gotten my MBA and been relegated to the economic shitheap that GWB created, I started speculating about different ways to make money, most of which revolved around t-shirt designs and a protein powder based on the amino acid profile of human flesh to be called Cannibal Fuel.  Lest that thieving motherfucker wish to steal another idea I've had, it's now recorded for posterity, in public, so he can suck my fucking cock.  I had an entire marketing campaign dreamed up for the protein, the first three flavors of which would be White Meat, Dark Meat, and Mulatto (Vanilla, Chocolate, and Cookies and Cream), but at that point my cash reserves were completely tapped from supporting myself on virtually no money for a year, so that idea never achieved fruition.  With luck, however, it will one day see the light of day.  Anyway, at some point in my verbal daydreams, this skinny motherfucker must've come into the store looking for some idiot carb supplement (THIS JUST IN:  GATORADE AND PROTEIN MIXED IS FAR CHEAPER), heard my musings, and run home to trademark them.  Frankly, I'm not even sure I came up with the phrase PR or ER, but I am damned sure I did not pick it up from a cyclist- had I done so, I would have bathed in bleach to wash the douche off me after donning the shirt.

In any event, our emails:

If you're shocked by his utter lack of defense, don't be.  He has no more business trademarking that phrase than The Donald had copyrighting "You're fired!", but frankly, I'm litigious and apathetic to anything involving lawyers.  Were dueling legal, I'd challenge him on principle, but as it's not, you can buy the shirts off him.

In case you're shocked by his lack of retort, don't be: cyclists have astonishingly low test levels, and are often impotent.  (Lucia, Colpi, Schwarzer)  As such, neither the threat of lawsuit nor failure to defend himself seems surprising.

Just because you are a hard-on doesn't mean you can get one.

Finally, new shirts are in the works with an entirely different design.  I'm working on a new logo with more of a death metal theme, and the pic below is a rough sketch of the bulk of the front of the t-shirt design, though it'll be ringed with skulls on the top half, read "Chaos and Pain" above that, and have a banner that reads (and feel free to correct me- my latin is an atrocity) "Per furor vis", "Per odium vi", or "Ira est donum" ("through anger, strength", "through hate, strength" or "anger is a gift") underneath.  The back will read "Failure is not an option."  This has been held up by a disappearing graphic artist and my continual mind-changing, but it's coming.

The pic looks better in pencil- I copied it into paint and then tried to clean it up in paint.  

Addendum:
The following hilarity was brought to my attention.  This is an actual screenshot of the guy's site.

Sources:

Colpi, Gm, Contalbi, G, Ciociola, E, Mihalca, R. "Erectile dysfunction and amatorial cycling." Arch Ital Urol Androl. 80 (2008) 123-6.

Lucia, A, Diaz, B, Hoyos, J, et al. "Hormone levels of world class cyclists during the Tour of Spain stage race." Br J Sports Med 35 (2001) 424-30.

Schwarzer. U, Sommer, F, Klotz, T, et al. "Cycling and penile oxygen pressure: the type of saddle matters." European Urol. 41 (2002) 139-42.