Finishing Off The Skinny Bitches

If you repeat a lie enough times, someone will eventually believe it- it's human nature.  This is how random bullshit over time has come to be "common knowledge", and thus fact, in spite of the fact that it's undeniably and incontrovertibly untrue.  The idea that people once believed the Earth was flat, for instance, and that it wasn't until the Renaissance that the world finally accepted the fact that the Earth is round is total bullshit.  People has known for centuries that the world was round- Eratosthenes even gave its exact size and axial tilt in the third century BC.  It wasn't until the modern era that the myth of the flat Earth theory was propagated, and apparently arose out of the argument over evolution.  The Protestants, in an effort to make the Catholics look like assholes, spread the myth that Catholics thought the world was flat until recently.  They were apparently bored with bombing the shit out of each other in Ireland, so they fell back on a bit of academic libel.  Somehow (*cough* because people are fucking stupid) this theory spread and became "fact", in spite of the fact that no educated Westerner since the 3rd Century BCE ever supported the Flat Earth theory.

In much the same way, the Skinny Bitches propagate vegetarian and vegan myths, touting them as fact, due to the fact that they apparently don't own library cards, couldn't find Wikipedia with a friend and a roadmap, and are without question, horrifically and hilariously stupid.  To wit:

"Scientific evidence suggests... we descended from vegetarian ancestors."  They cite Caldwell B. Esselstyn for this gem.  In his excretory release Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, this alleged doctor of medicine claims that there is "irrefutable evidence" that humans thrive on a plant-based, oil-free diet.  (www.heartattackproof.com)  Piling another log atop their Mt. Everest-sized pile of horshit, the Silly Bitches allege, as they did in their previous opus that even if our hominid predecessors did eat a meat-based diet, it doesn't matter because they "looked like friggin' apes and had massive heads, strong jaws, and brute strength.  Man was a different animal then."  (40)

If your mind isn't fucking blown by this, allow me to explain why it should be.  First, the two points, made on the same page, directly contravene one another- on the one hand, we're evolved to eat the same diet rabbits and other vegan rodents enjoy, and on the other, it doesn't matter if we may have evolved from meat eaters, as our hominid ancestors were brutish savages.

Maybe they're on to something- rabbits eat their own shit, don't they?

This, my friends, is exactly what Tucker Max likes to call prototypical "whore logic" (and what those of us who don't want to be stabbed in our sleep refer to as "girl logic").  In the same way that a woman will simultaneously whine about being hungry for three hours and refuse to eat anything you offer her to shut her up, the Silly Bitches make a point and then directly contradict that point with a lack of understanding of human evolution that defies common sense, simple logic, and Google.  Were they to utilize the latter of the three, the first two being well beyond their intellectual capacity, they'd have known that the Robust hominids (like Paranthropus Robustus and Australopiticus Bosei) had big heads, sagittal crests, and strong jaws to facilitate the mastication of fiber-dense vegetation.  In other words, they had the giant jaws because they were vegetarians.  They were not, however, physically imposing specimens, and they are extremely distant human ancestors.  The most recent ancestors to homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans) are homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) and homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon Man).  According to every recent archaeological source I could find, the two hominids had extremely similar diets, and both were about as close to pure carnivores as any primate has ever been.("Bones", "New study")  Thus, the Bitches were about as wrong as humanly possible, which is sort of their forte.

On a side note, long-time readers of this blog have by now gathered that I have little use for the government, and trust them about as much as I'd trust John Wayne Gacy in a home for runaway homosexual teenagers.  Though I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, and am generally wary of Truthers, followers of Alex Jones, or anyone who thinks that David Icke is even marginally sane, it's interesting to note that vegan advocate Caldwell B. Esselstyn is a member of Skull and Bones, the secret society that pretty much every crackpot on Earth links with the New World Order.  I mentioned in this blog that I think that the US government advocates low-protein diets to make us more docile, and vegan diets (notoriously low in protein) mirror those used by cults to aid in "thought reform."(Brainwashing, Born-Again Brainwashing)  Coincidence?  Probably, but it's an amusing anecdote.

Carrying on with their evolution logic, they used the same tired biology arguments used by other vegans, like the "fact" that carnivores have saliva with ten times more hydrochloric acid and much shorter intestines than do humans.

I hope that anyone with the ability to form a cogent thought immediately sees through the wild-eyed ignorance of biology that these sorts of statements require.  I know of no academic on Earth who will assert, for instance, that humans are pure carnivores.  The only land mammal of which I can think offhand that is a pure carnivore is a feline, and even they end up eating grains when people keep them as pets (though it fucks them up all to be damned).  This is an important point, because this sort of an argument is little more than a vegetarian strawman- it leaves out omnivores like pigs.  Pigs, for those of you who don't know, eat just about anything, including people.

"You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a  pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig"."  (Brick Top)

Professor Brick Top.

The reason why kids in high school dissect pigs is due to the remarkable similarity between the digestive tract of pigs and that of humans.  Neither pigs nor humans have the ability to digest plant cellulose (which herbivores do through fermentation), and this is an excellent sign that they're not pure herbivores.  I'll go on, but the subject frankly bores the living shit out of me- I'd rather argue physics with a 10 year old kid with Down's Syndrome than bother trying to explain comparative anatomy to a vegetarian.  Everything they know comes from websites, and every one of those websites cites (well, reprint, because they're apparently too exhausted from malnutrition to bother with academic citations) the exact same retarded source (Fit Food For Men, by AD Andrews).  It looks like this:

Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws

Meat-eaters: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue
Herbivores: perspire through skin pores
Humans: perspire through skin pores

Meat-eaters: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding
Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding (This is simply stunning, and is too long to bother with typing.  Google canine dentition (they have molars) and polar bear molars- Polar bears are considered pure carnivores, and have molars.)

Meat-eaters: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly
Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.
Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length. (the human intestine is 6-7m long, making it roughly three times as long as the human body.) (Length)

Meat-eaters: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat
Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater
Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater.  (Actually, human gastric acid has a pH of 3.8, and is strong enough to dissolve human teeth.)  (Matsou)

Meat-eaters: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits.
Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits
Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits

Meat-eaters: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains (there is little difference between the pH of mammalian saliva between species.  These idiots apparently think that Alien blood drips from the mouths of housecats)

Meat eater.  

Fantastic, isn't it?  They managed to construct an entire argument rebutting a claim no thinking person has ever made (that humans are carnivores) while asserting something even more preposterous.  Additionally, I find the salivary glands bit amusing, as I've never had a dog that didn't slobber like a motherfucker.  Apparently, they've all just wanted me to ram a fucking baguette down their throats and send them on their merry way.  Oh, and the book cited in that chart?  It doesn't exist.  Nor does the author. The publisher renamed itself the National Health Association, and boasts eight members, none of whom is A.D. Andrews... because that motherfucker doesn't exist.  Well played, vegans!

Ridgele Abele, alleged champion of karate.

Lastly, the Silly Bitches embarrass themselves with a list of "tough-ass motherfuckers" who are vegetarians or vegans.  This list includes a bunch of endurance athletes, Stan Price ("world record holder" in the bench press), Ridgely Abele (8x national karate champ), Sushil Kumar (bronze medalist wrestler), Make Danzig and Jake Shields, Tony Gonzalez and Desmond Howard, and Bill Pearl and Andreas Cahling.  Unsurprisingly, this list is jam fucking packed with bullshit.  My bullshit-o-meter peaked with Stan Price, who unsurprisingly doesn't exist, much less hold a record in powerlifting.  Moving on,  Bill Pearl and Andreas Cahling ate a fucking boatload of animal protein at every meal. They might not have been sitting down to a steak that'd choke John Candy's fat ass to death, but Pearl ate a couple of dozen eggs a day and drank fucking GALLONS of milk a day, while Cahling ate nothing but open faced goat cheese sandwiches. (Dynamic Bodies)  Ridgely Abele was an old man who won the USKA World Championships in 1983, and I couldn't find shit on his diet.  Given that it's a karate association bereft of a single Japanese name in their hall of fame, I'm betting they aren't terribly competitive.  Shields eats milk products and protein, and recently got his ass kicked in by a meat eater.  Sushil Kumar, like most Hindus, drinks an absolutely absurd amount of milk and eats cans of ghee when training.(Sushil)  For those of you who are unaware, ghee is pretty much unholy- you make it my cooking off butter until all of the water is boiled off and nothing but fat and protein remains.  For any of you who've roomed with a Hindu, you know that it smells godawful and tastes about as good as it smells.  Back to the list- Tony Gonzalez recommends in his own book, the All-Pro Diet,  that people should eat grass-fed beef and chicken, which is decidedly un-vegetarian.  Desmond Howard, in his own words "eat[s] a lot of chicken and fish" in addition to ground turkey.  (Celebrity)  The only person the Bitches mentioned who is a verifiable vegan "badass" is Mac Danzig, and he's an admittedly recent convert to the diet as a result of working at a factory farm.(Peta)

In short, the Silly Bitches are entirely full of shit, and simply repeat the same tired bullshit they've heard out of other idiot vegans to serve a purpose I cannot possibly ascertain.  Quite frankly, I doubt they could articulate their reasoning either.  Should you want information on being a "healthy" vegan, check out Mike Mahler, who outlines Mac Danzig's diet here and has an array of kettlebell videos shot in his backyard.  His dog looks pretty cool, which is at least a good start for being a believable authority on anything whatsoever.  As for the Bitches, I'm pretty sure they're the reason why Muslims stone broads.

Someone call Al-Quaida... I see a "target of opportunity".

Sources:
Dynamic Bodies.  Vegetarian Diet.  http://www.dynamicbodies.com/vegetari.htm
Elert, Glenn.  Length of a Human Intestine (citing five separate sources and averaging the results).  http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/AnneMarieThomasino.shtml
The Family.org Brainwashing and Cultural Diffusion, citing Argentine Judgment of Dec. 13, 1993, Cimara Federal de Apelaciones [Federal Court of Appeals], slip op. 63-64 (Arg.) (official translation).  http://www.thefamily.org/dossier/books/book3/chapter4.htm#footnote73
Fitz K.  Celebrity Fitzness Report: Heisman Trophy Winner & Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard.  http://www.thatsfit.com/2008/05/29/celebrity-fitzness-report-heisman-trophy-winner-and-super-bowl-mv/
Ins.  Sushil puts Boprala on wrestling map of the world.  http://www.sify.com/sports/sushil-puts-boprala-on-wrestling-map-of-the-world-news-olympics-jehbpTjgabc.html
Matsou E, Vouroutzis N, Kontonasaki E, Paraskevopoulos KM, Koidis P.  Investigation of the influence of gastric acid on the surface roughness of ceramic materials of metal-ceramic restorations. An in vitro study.  Int J Prosthodont. 2011 Jan-Feb;24(1):26-9.
PETA.  King of the Cage Champ Mac Danzig.  http://www.peta2.com/outthere/o-macdanzig.asp
Science Daily.  (1/19/06) "New study reveals Neanderthals were as good at hunting as early modern humans."
Sutphen, Dick.  The Battle For Your Mind: Persuasion and Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On the Public Today.  http://educate-yourself.org/cn/fundamentalistbrainwashing06jun05.shtml
University of Washington (9/23/03) "Bones from Frend cave show Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon hunted same prey." Science Daily.

Basque Stone Lifting, or The Shit That Inspired My Zercher Fetish

In direct contrast to Jim Wendler's stated hatred of Zerchers, I was inspired to start doing them after reading Of Stones and Strength, particularly the bit about stone lifting.  Given that I have no ready access to stones and don't really feel like going on a real-life WoW quest for some, I decided that Zerchers would be a ready substitute, and started doing the shit out them, which I chronicled here and here.  What I didn't really mention, however, is why I found that shit so inspiring.  As such, allow me to drop some knowledge.

Hates Zerchers, and possibly freedom.

For those of you who are unaware, and I'd venture it's the vast majority of you, the Basques are some of the most interesting motherfuckers on Earth.  Their history extends beyond the written word in Europe, and they speak one of only a few language isolates still extant in the modern era.  Though their origins are lost to us, their recent history isn't, and it's fucking fascinating.  They've existed throughout recorded history in the same area- southern France and northern Spain, and have always stood apart from other people in the region for being insane badasses clinging to a wildly isolated and alien culture.  In spite of the fact that their ancestral lands are divided by two distinct ruling cultures, the Basques have remained singularly focused on maintaining their heritage, and as such have some of the coolest cultural attributes in the developed world.

Beret-wearing notwithstanding, of course.  Oh, and that's a 187.5 kg stone, by the way.

Though you might think I'm out of my mind (and I very well might be), I've always been fascinated by the Basques simply because of their language.  Obviously, they live in an area that's been conquered and reconquired by every man-jack to pick up a sword and roll through continental Europe, and yet the Basques still live in an area that's shown archaeological consistency since the Upper Paleolithic.
That's fucking insane, especially when compared with places like Turkey, in which you can see very distinct archeological eras wherein one group of distinct assholes smote another pack of assholes, razed all of their shit, and built something new on top.  Instead, the Basques have had a unique and consistent culture and language for at least the last 5000 years, and possibly for the last 30,000 (that's not a misprint).  Forget the culture- the fact that they've been speaking more or less the same language, which has been compared to every other language on Earth without finding a single one similar enough to make a grouping, since the Stone age is fucking crazy.

Forgetting that craziness and moving on to the era of recorded history, the Basques set lofty goals for badassery and kept outdoing themselves without even fucking trying.  After resisting the shit out of Romanization and earning near-complete autonomy from the Romans, they fought for their stand-offish sometime masters with distinction, especially at Hadrian's Wall.  Given that they were not compelled to  enter Roman service, it stands to reason that the Basques just wanted to go elsewhere and speak their crazy alien-inspired language while fucking shit up.  Later, the Visigoths were given control of the Basque territories, though they were never able to exert even a modicum of control over the Basques.  Instead, the band of Germanic barbarians who sacked Rome in 410 and beat the shit out of the Roman legions had their asses handed to them repeatedly by the Basques for about 80 years, until the Franks displaced the Visigoths from the area and put the Basque lands under the control of two distinct warring barbarian tribes.  In case you're unaware, the Franks were the guys who were such fucking hardcases with battleaxes (their weapon of choice) that they stopped the Huns dead in their tracks and sent them packing to Hungary.   You read that right- our small group of wacky linguistic misfits found themselves as the meat of a shit sandwich, squashed in between two warring tribes, one of which stopped a roving menace that had laid waste to half of the known world, and the other of which had sacked the capital of the West’s greatest empire.

Much tougher than they look.  Not all that hard to do, really.

 Squashed  in between these two groups of ravening barbarian hordes, the Basques decided to do what Wolverine would do if he found himself caught in the middle of a brawl between the Hulk and Superman- they beat the living fuck out of both of them.  At the same time.  Twice.  (507 and 518)  For the next 400 years, the Basques fought off the Franks, the Moors, the Visigoths, and the Vikings, in addition to Islam and Christianity (many scholars maintain that the Basques remained pagan until the 13th Century).  While doing so, they founded a Basque kingdom called the Kingdom of Pamplona, the independence of which was maintained until the last Spanish king was dethroned in the 19th Century.  During that time, they were recognized as such unmanageable badasses that they operated their own courts, laws, and system of taxation.  In fact, it wasn't until the epic cock-holster of a fucktard Franco established complete control over Spain that the Basques, tiny, oddball bunch of people that they are, lost their autonomy and were forced to act as if they were part of either the degenerate Spanish or French.

Superman's fucking DEAD when we see him.

In spite of the fact that they were, after thousands of years of awesome, forced to abandon their amazing ways and wacky language for either French or Spanish sensibilities, they maintained their badass local customs.  Chief amongst these are the Basque rural sports (Hirri Kirolak), which are celebrated at various times throughout the year in areas all around Basque country and celebrate all of the shit that makes Basques fucking awesome- physical strength, outfits that would put them at ease in either the Thunderdome or the company of the bad guys in Superman II, and the willingness to do insane shit to prove that they're not to be fucked with.

If he lives, he's not to be fucked with.

In 2006, the Basque government named 18 traditional rural sports, all based on rural activities and competitions practiced by farmers and fisherman over the years, as the official "Hirri Kirolak".  All of them are manly as shit, and in no way resemble the pathetic "sporting" events popular in modern America... like golf.  Instead, these sports, in which both men and women of all ages compete, imbue their participants with more testosterone in a single day than most people will feel flowing through their veins in a lifetime- that goes for their women as well.  These anti-golf sports are:

• wood chopping
• dragging games
• stone lifting
• hole drilling
• anvil lifting
• bale lifting
• bale tossing
• cob gathering
• churn carrying
• cart game
• scything
• tug-of-war
• sawing
• weight carrying
• sack carrying

... and unafraid to whip out their metal cocks in public, apparently.

Most of those, I'm sure, seem fairly familiar.  Assuming you have a television and testicles, you have likely seen wood chopping and sawing competitions on ESPN, and they're as odd and hilarious as they are badass.  Half of the rest are common strongman events, and the remainder are just plain fucking odd.  Given the fact that their language is about as strange as they come, this should hardly come as a surprise.  The Basques are weird motherfuckers.

Allegedly a woman.

By far and away the coolest events at which the Basques compete, and at which they are probably undefeatable in the world, is stone lifting.  The shit these guys pull off as a matter of course is beyond amazing- it's practically inhuman.  The two top lifts for men in the stones are 322 and 329 KILOS, or 708.4 and 708.4 lbs for the metrically and mathematically handicapped.  They didn’t just lift them off the ground, either- they shouldered the motherfucking things, while weighing around 130kg (286 lbs).  Women also get in on the action, as the Basques have always been far more progressive than their machismo-laden neighbors and have been rocking a remarkably egalitarian society for the entirety of their history.  Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t find records information for the broads, as all discussion of Harrijasotzaileak revolves around two guys- Miel Saralegi for lifting the heaviest stone to date, weighing 329 kg, and Iñaki Perurena, who’s lifted the 322 kg stone.

Not Basque, but hot as hell, so appreciate the eye wash.

As this thing’s dragged on long enough, I’ll stop here and pick this up with the next installment, then whack you motherfuckers in the face with the second half of the Skinny Bastard series.

Sources:
A shitload of Wikipedia.

Don't Do This Exercise At Home

... and for the sake of liability, you might not want to do this exercise, period.  The following exercise recommendation is for people who know what they're fucking doing in the gym, brass balls that's make bathyspheres look tiny by comparison in both mass and volume, and people with consider themselves to be immortal.  Conversely, that means beginners, people who consider themselves advanced but really have just lifted in a Nautilus gym for years like they're a modern day Arthur Jones, the easily injured and the timid should probably avoid this exercise like an Armenian should avoid a pack of rabid, sword-yielding Turks.

Yes, yes.  The Turks are absolutely terrifying.

What I have for you today, people, is none other than the Unassisted Reverse Grip Incline Bench Press.  By unassisted, I mean that there's no spotter within shouting distance... and the rest is hopefully self-explanatory.  I actually started doing these out of boredom one day in the gym, and found that I both love them, and that they seem to carry over nicely into my behind the neck push press and onto my reverse grip flat bench.  After I discovered these for myself, I determined that this exercise (albeit spotted) was a favorite of the Barbarian Brothers, who did all sorts of reverse grip exercises religiously.  This is one instance where my research didn't predate my execution, however, and I started doing these simply for something novel to do.

Who wouldn't emulate these guys?

I realize that most of you are at this point incredulous, as anyone who's ever tried reverse grips knows you need a spotter for handoffs, and that doing incline anything without a spotter is ill-advised no matter what grip you take.  I'll counter, however, that I actually think that this is better for your shoulders than regular grip, and provided that you're amongst the types of people I listed at the outset as capable of doing these, you should have no problem.

If you have a pic like this of yourself anywhere on the net, go ask your mom to help you find a spotter.

The key is in the setup:  to do these without a spotter, you will need to start from a standing position, leaning against the bench.  Take an even grip (I put the webbing of my thump in line with the break in the knurling on the bar, unrack the weight and place it on your upper chest.  Then, slide to the seat, reset, and commence the pressing.


An example:

I typically stick in the 1-3 rep range, as I am generally wont to do on everything.  I find that anything over that leaves me  fatigued and increases the risk of dropping the weight in my mouth.  As I'm hardly a pretty man, fucking up my face doesn't really both me, but keeping my teeth in my head does.  I've no intention of remaining in the South much longer, but should I be forced to do so, I would at least like people to recognize my Northern origins from the number of teeth that remain in my head- all of them.  Thus, any time the bar starts to go squirrelly on me, I either rack it on the low pegs or roll it to my lap and stand up.


Though I realize the massive amount of criticism I'll likely draw for making this suggestion, I don't give a fuck. If you're reading this, you're an adult who can make their own decisions.  If you cannot see the danger inherent in this, it's best if you die as quickly as possible, which means you should do this.  Irrespective, this lift is fucking awesome for the following reasons:

1. It's pretty fucking extreme, which will add a little excitement into what is doubtless a fairly drab existence for those of you who aren't smokejumpers, trapeze artists, or professional Russian roulette players.
2. It's far easier on your rotator cuffs than incline bench presses.
3. It has added massively to my overhead pressing and locking power.
4. For those of you who are image conscious, it is a hell of an upper chest builder.(cite)

Frankly, I could give a rat's ass about my upper chest, but I love this exercise.  Provided you don't suck, you're not litigious, and you want to try something new, you probably will as well.

A chest about which I care.

Bring the motherfucking ruckus.

Ask the Asshole #10- There's Nothing Fun About Fun Runs

You guys definitely outdid yourselves on the weird questions this time, which ranged from more questions about running (aka my favorite thing ever) to misinterpretations of shit I've written, to utter gibberish.  Shit kept me in the library though, so I enjoyed it.  Keep 'em coming.


Q: On to my actual question:  I am doing the Tough Mudder event here in Virginia in October, which if you don't know is an endurance event including an approximately 12 kilometer run interspersed with obstacles such as greased monkey bars, log carries up a ski slope, etc.  Do you have a recommendation on how to continue CnP while preparing or even use CnP to prepare.  I'm currently running intervals (jog, run, sprint) on a horse trail near my house.  I'm also doing high rep bodyweight shit like pull-ups, dips, hand-stand push-ups.  I've been doing quick Clean&Press with 135 for 10x3.  I'm having trouble with deciding how much heavy squatting/lifting as a whole I should be doing simultaneously with this.  Is there anything you can suggest?  The web site suggests doing nothing but high rep body weight stuff with distance running.  Most of the posts on message boards say that they didn't run enough in prep.  So, I guess I'll keep up the running...but I can't imagine just doing walking lunges and push-ups until October.

www.toughmudder.com


A:  Not to put too fine a point on it, but their advice is downright rucking retarded.  Even triathletes train with weights, and they all look like fucking Auschwitz interns. From my cursory examination of a couple of triathlete magazines, and the Triathlete magazine training book, the advice given on the Tough Mudder website is worse that fucking useless.  

For starters, the race is one of intervals.  As such, you should be training for intervals.  I've covered interval training rather extensively in the past, so I won't get too deep into it.  Go here for my blog on intervals and here for info on endurance training.  That should not, however, constitute your entire training routine for a couple of reasons:  
1) there's no reason to derail all of your training progress for what amounts to a glorified fun run.  
2)  Weight training will definitely help get you through an obstacle course.  The stronger you are, the less an obstacle will appear as such.  If you've got a longshoreman's grip that allows you to crush unopened beer cans, greased monkey bars are fucking child's play.  If you can do heavy jump squats, vaulting logs or the lazy assbag who's collapsed in front of you is a joke.  Thus, you should be lifting hard and heavy, on the regular.  


One thing I will recommend, however, is circuit training.  Not all of your workouts need to be circuits, but it'd definitely behoove you to mix them into the rotation.  I'm not sure what your program looks like right now, but I'll go ahead and guess that you, like most people, train four or five times a week.  As such,I'd make two of those workouts into circuits.  Randy Couture recommends them throughout the training routines in Xtreme Training, and given that he's widely acknowledged to be one of the best-conditioned athletes in the sport, I'd say that bears considering.  I occasionally throw circuits into my training to change shit up, but you've got to ensure that you're basically in the gym by yourself, because you're going to use a lot of barbells at once.  Obviously, using dumbbells will reduce the amount of gym-hogging you'll do, but if you're doing overhead press or benching, I'd advise against using dumbbells.  While I've got about as much interest in gym safety as high school kids seem to have regard for correct form and usage of the English language, I see no reason to do something in the gym that's almost certain to end in catastrophic injury, which is what you're doing if you're putting two dumbbells over your head or face while exhausted.  

Obviously, the Crossfitters are already in the house.

Another thing I'd recommend is combining your running and lifting.  Take a page out of Crossfitters' books and starting incorporating anything from a half mile to a mile "sprint" into your training, so that you're doing your lifting and running in a fatigued state.  If you occasionally picked a day and did nothing but 10 rep sets on deadlift supersetted with a run, you'd definitely not be doing yourself a disservice.  I'd initially thought of suggesting 200 yd to 800 yd sprints, but given that the course is 10 miles long, you'll need to kick it up a notch.


That fucking thing looks like a bitch, by the way.

Somehow, I don't think tubby finished.

Q:  Thanks for the reference to the "B in beginner doesn't stand for bitch" blog.  It help and I modified my workout accordingly.  However,  I have never been this sore in my life.  I know that you oppose off days and consider them the scum of existence, but should I take them If I am sore?  I think I read somewhere on CnP that if you're sore, you can do body weight exercises until you get back on the saddle.  True or not?


A: I'm not sure that I ever characterized off days as the "scum of existence"- it's not as though I want to round them all up, feed them a massive feast, and then nail the door shut and set it on fire while they're eating.  I'm, unfortunately, no Vlad the Impaler.  There've definitely been forthnights during which I've not taken an off day, but that's the exception rather than  the rule.  I generally take a day off every week.  My problem with the concept of off days and weeks stems more from a hatred of how weak we've become as a species, in addition to the fact that most people simply repeat bullshit that they've read in numerous places as if it's gospel, never knowing why the authors made the recommendations they made.  In the case of off days, authors have made those recommendations because they're dogmatic idiots with no idea whatSiff 443, quoting Selye) 

I realize that this makes the entire concept of overtraining seem somewhat obtuse, but strap on your thinking cap, because it's about to get downright labrinthine. Excessive training comes in two forms- acute and chronic.  Acute overtrainging is just overreaching, and that's how you progress as a human in anything.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, motherfucker.  Chronic overtraining is usually the purview of idiots who train light and at great length, like the college chicks you'll occasionally see pass right the fuck out on the treadmill.  As there's little on Earth funnier than watching a sorostitute blast her ultrawhite teeth on the control panel of her hamster wheel, we shouldn't really try to prevent chronic overtraining.  If you've managed to train with ulta-high weights so frequently that your PRs have dropped by 25%, started weeping at the end of American Wedding, and you've got mysterious sores for which you cannot account, you've either got the AIDS or you're somehow managed to overcome your body's efforts to keep itself in working order.  That type of overtraining, by the way, is called B-overtraining (Basedowic), and is marked by exhaustion, fever blisters and headaches, high blood pressure, and an increased resting heart rate.  The other type of of overtraining is A-overtraining (Addisonic), and is usually just marked by diminished performance.  (Siff 442-3)  Either way, taking time off from the gym isn't your only option- your options are basically limited only by your budget and imagination.  Massage, extra sleep, therapy, yoga, baths... the list is pretty much endless.  


Here's what I used when I was training 10-12 times a week:  

• hot baths in Epsom salts
• long walks
• self-massage with a Theracane

Remember: training while sore isn't a problem- training while crippled is.  Make sure you drink a ton of water, and the bodyweight exercises on off days will help work out the kinks.  For beginners, I'd recommend 3-4 days of weightlifting and 1-2 days of bodyweight stuff for a total of 5 days a week, until you're accustomed to that volume of training.  For more on determining ideal exercise frequency, go here, here, here, and here.

Stretching helps, too.

Q: Re the ABCDE diet [which I blogged about here]- If you overeat all the time and skip the undereating phase entirely, will that net you muscle still or will it be mostly fat? 


A: That's not the ABCDE diet at all.  That's called the see-food diet, and it's way most powerlifters eat.  You'll get fatter and gain muscle simultaneously.

Q: I'm wondering if you could help me out a bit more than your entire blog seems to be able to do.  I've read the entire thing, put it into practice as far as training and eating and have made considerable strength gains in the past 6 months.  So, for that I am thankful.  One area I am having a problem in is getting leaner.  I have followed a low-carb/keto diet for the past six months and my body fat has not dropped below 13-14% according to this accu-measure caliper I bought.  My weight has not moved a bit either.  I've been at 180 pounds for months.  


This is all a bit confusing to me as I have increased my training frequency to twice per day Monday - Friday and include intervals on Saturdays.  I track all of my food intake and only break on Saturdays for a carb day.  


A: As for leaning out, I've found that what works best for anyone at any given time is not always the thing that's going to work best at another.  Dieting really seems to be more of an art than a science, in my experience, especially if you're trying to get leaner and stronger at the same time.  One thing I've been doing is fluctuating my caloric intake widely- I'll have a day or two of low cal, low carb, low-to medium fat, high protein, and then higher fat, then low, etc, until two days of high carbs with one cheat meal.  That seems to be working well.  Going strict keto (low fat and carb) 5 days a week for a while seems to work nicely.

No idea what her diet is like, but it's working.

Q: What brand of lifting straps do you like? Or does it matter? 


A: I use Spud straps.  I got them at Nutrition Warehouse.  I linked it for ease of finding the straps- they're made from tow straps, and they're badass.  They're a bit of a bitch to break in, though, so I'll blog about doing that soon.  I've had more straps break while shrugging than I can count, which while hilarious to see sucks, I always punch myself in the mouth, and it's a shitty way to end a good shrug workout.  Thus, it matters.

Q: Hey man, have been reading your blog for merely 2 months, but I think you are great. I'm blithe to hear that there will be a new ASK THE ASSHOLE. Well
-How to increase pullups without tendinitis?
-Is it really necessary to train 5 days a week to become strong? Why? I train with sandbags and bodyweight 3 days a weak and give it all in the 30 minutes. However I don't feel like progressing a lot.


A:  The pullup question is interesting, as I have no earthly idea where you've got tendinitis?  I'm guessing it's not your cock, but outside of that, I've got no idea.  The best way to get good at pullups, though, is to do them often.  If you cannot do a pullup initially, start by only doing the eccentric portion of the lift- the negative.  Jump to the top and lower yourself as slowly as you can.  Do a few sets of as many as you can every day.  You'll be doing pullups in no time.  As for the tendinitis, take a combination of ibuprofen and aspirin in a 3:1 ratio.  I take 6 ibuprofen and 2 aspirin 3 times a day when I've had tendinitis.

As for the second part of your question, I've no fucking idea what you mean again.  Is it necessary?  Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine?  No, but it's sterile, and I like the taste.  Workout frequency should be dictated by personal preference, time constraints, level of interest, and your ability to recover.  I train 5 or 6 days a week because I enjoy it.  There are plenty of people who are plenty strong who don't lift at all, so "necessary" doesn't really enter into the equation.  If you want to read more about training frequency, I linked those blogs in a previous question.


Kudos on your weird and archaic usage of "blithe", but you used the wrong "week", which fucked you up a bit.  Fucking homonyms.

This thing ran long and I ran short of funny, so I'll make up for it in tits.

Sources:

Couture, Randy.  Xtreme Training.

Siff, Mel.  Supertraining.