Just Settle The Fuck Down And Bodybuild, Bro- Probably The Last "Ask The Asshole", Ever

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but no matter what time that clock says, Jeff Dunham is never fucking funny.  Jeff Dunham's effect on a comedy show is very much like an ebola outbreak's effect on Central Africa tourism- you only head toward it if your goal is to stamp out the infection and cart away dead bodies.

In the past I would publish articles in a series called "Ask The Asshole" but as the questions began to resemble each other more and more, and my answers became basically rote repetitions of one another, I abandoned the series.  You might think that I would enjoy posting my hilarious repartee with people who should never publicly utter these questions, but frankly I've grown so weary of answering stupid questions that most days I've got less funny in me than a dialogue between Howie Mandel and Jeff Foxworthy scripted by that hideously uncomedic fucktard with the puppets.  Until now, that is, because if I can't laugh in the face of a coming apocalypse fueled by gun-toting, unfuckable autists, idiotic partisan politics, hyper-emotional responses to trivial events, and the fact that "e-sports" are likely going to be in the next Winter Olympics, I might as well just eat a fucking frisbee and get it over with.

"Gurrrrl, I gotta wear a belt in the grocery store because I look hot in it, right?  Right?!?!  Bro, why's she laughing?  Quick!  Someone post a pic of me on Insta so I can get validationnnnn..."

That's not to say I don't like helping people out- I give out more free training advice than all of the dudes in Rogue gear scamming on hot chicks at the gym combined, only the advice I give is actually sought out and appreciated.  It's frustrating, however, when the answer is so often the same.  As such, I'm just going to post this in hopes that people will actually read it and take it to heart.

If you look like this, you're not a powerlifter or any other kind of strength athlete.  Stick to convincing idiotic Midwesterners to stab each other and leave the weightroom to people who belong there.

Let's start with competing- most people probably shouldn't bother.  If you're an adult male over 170 lbs and you're not in the 300-400-500 (bench-squat-deadlift) club, DON'T EVEN FUCKING THINK ABOUT COMPETING IN POWERLIFTING.  I don't know what the equivalent is in oly, but I'm sure such a standard is available online.  There are too many of you goofballs running around with truly mediocre lifts asking for advice like "should I cut to 181?  I'm SIX FUCKING FEET TALL and bench well under 300."  I'm not going to use the word manlet, but if you're over 5'6", you should be in the 198s or higher.  And you should be far stronger than you are before you compete, anyway- the definition of the word compete is to "strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same," so if your lifts such, you're not competing.  Instead, you're putting your weakness on public display for no apparent reason.   

If your diet doesn't involve decent amounts of barbecue, you're probably weaker than an anemic kitten and have the physique of a prepubescent girl.

That brings us to my next point- I highly doubt any of you are eating enough.  Before you start protesting about how you get fat if you eat too much, you're eating too little and training too little.  I've written pretty much endlessly on weight gain diets, and yet I still get absurd questions about cutting when people are tall and skinny.  Or short and skinny.  Either way, it's fucking stupid- if you want to be strong, eat to get strong.  Leaning out is the easy part.  Getting obscenely strong and jacked is by far and away the hard part- if it wasn't, you would see far more guys in the gym benching over 500 with guts, rather than a bunch of pussies in spandex struggling with 225.

With eight weeks of starvation and maybe four lackluster days a week a Planet Fitness, you too could have this body!  InB4 Redditors start whining about gear.

I'll repeat that one more time- if getting lean was the hard part and getting strong and huge was the easy part, there'd be a lot less Zyzz and a lot more Eddie Hall in every gym in the country.  Any pussy who loves the stairmill and hates rare steak can get a six-pack.  Hell, asceticism of every stupid fucking variety is in vogue now with the alt-right, bitch-made neo-stoics, and whatever other variety of pussy who cannot control the extent of his or her indulgences is running around.  Not doing shit is easy- it's the lazy fucker's way of attempting to be interesting.

Asceticism is for pussies, not feral executioners stalking the Iron Abattoir.

"A contemporary physique star, Bobby Pandour (1876-1914), was an athlete in several senses of the term.  A fellow strongman remembered visiting Pandour one morning at his friend's Parisian hotel room.  There he found the strongman lounging in his pajamas and surrounded by a large, animated crowd of ladies clad only in their diaphanous negligees.  The strongman was apparently none the worse for wear despite a performance that must have been every bit as exhausting as the one he did on stage" (Chapman 75).

Name a single awesome lifter or generally bad motherfucker who was an ascetic.  You can't.  Big personalities have big appetites and do great things.  Case in point: the first man to bench press 600 lbs, squat 800 lbs, and total 2000 lbs in a powerlifting meet was Pat Casey.  Pat Casey trained more in a day than most people train in a week, and he ate enough food to feed a sub-Saharan African family for a month.  Think you eat enough?  Pat Casey ate gargantuan amounts of food and then chugged 4-6 quarts of whole milk every day just to round out his calories.  That's 2400 to 3600 calories and 128 to 196 grams of protein a day just from his milk, and it was nothing for bodybuilders of the day to eat 6000 to 9000 calories a day to pack on mass (Roach).  Are any of us consuming a full day's worth of calories as an afterthought, on top of massive meals?  I highly doubt it, because if we were, there'd be far more XXL shirt in our gyms rather than mediums.

"Casey’s early ambition was simple: hoist ever heavier poundage, grow larger and ever more muscular. His continual training and his copious consumption of calories had an incredible effect on his physique. The more he ate, the larger he grew; the larger he grew, the stronger he became; the stronger he became, the hotter his young male metabolism raged. Pat drank six quarts of whole milk each day in addition to eating everything he could lay his hands on. It was reported in Muscle Builder magazine that Casey used to stop and eat a packed lunch (“meatloaf sandwiches smothered in mayonnaise”) during his day-long iron sessions.'"

"He mimicked what he saw [the gym rats] perform: lots of exercises, lots of sets, marathon training sessions, training the same muscles three times a week. Those endurance weight training sessions beat the chubby Irish boy into shape. Pat thought nothing of spending all day in the gym, doing whatever suited his fancy, taking as long as he needed between sets to rest and fully recover" (Gallagher). 

After Casey hit a 615 bench in competition with a two-second pause, broke the 800 lb squat barrier and the 2000 total barrier in the same meet, he retired from competition.  Know what he did then?  He cut bodyweight and was a non-competitive bodybuilder for the remainder of his life.  Training just two days a week he was able to maintain most of his muscle and rock a physique most lifters would sell their sister into sexual slavery for because he'd already put in the hard work of getting huge.  See where I'm going with this?  Get big as fuck- leaning out is the easy part, and you and your bullshit about how hard it is to shed weight can go fuck yourself because he only person who believes that bullshit is your bitch ass.

How I generally feel when answering a question and am told I don't understand something about the special snowflake asking my opinion.  You're not special.  This does not require any mathematics or chemistry.  It is all much, much more simple than you would like to think.  You just dislike the answer because it's not 10 fucking minute abs.

This brings us to my final point, to which there are absolutely no exceptions- if you are a strength athlete and are stalled out, burned out, frustrated, injured, coming off a meet, or coming back off a layoff, you should give some strong consideration to doing some bodybuilding for a while.  I cannot count the number of times someone has asked me a question about what to do, all in a fucking panic about what will happen to this lift or that lift because of whatever the fuck mundane shit they're freaking the fuck out about has happened, and my response is always the same- settle the fuck down, bro, and just bodybuild.  That's it.

Step 1.  

SETTLE THE FUCK DOWN.  It ain't that deep, as they say.  If you're not that big or strong anyway, who fucking cares if a lift slides a bit?  And if you are really big and strong, the shit will come back in short order.

Step 2.  

Leave your house and go to one of those old-fashioned book stores.  You know, the ones so old timey that everything in them wasn't written by some know-nothing anonymous douchelord on the internet.  Buy a couple Flex mags, or some Muscular Developments.  Then take them home and read them at your leisure, while you're scarfing hamburgers because you need the calories and protein to grow.  From those magazines you can get at least one, if not more, interesting workouts that are certainly different from what you've been doing.  For a month, do that shit.  No conjugate fuckery, no goddamned RPEs, just lift weights, and try new shit.  Find out what tiny muscle groups you can engage with machines and cables and train them.  Fix your muscular imbalances.  And most of all, discover the great, wide, wonderful world that lays before you when actually give yourself options and explore them.

If you really want to melt your mind, do some research about the way Bob Cicherillo trained.  The man did absolutely no compound movements of any kind and was a fucking mountain.  Try the super slow (10/10) method Ken Hutchins invented that was crazy popular in the 60s to bust plateaus.  Read up on Peary Rader's old shit.  Download some shit off Sandow Plus and use that, or jump on The Tight Tan Slacks Of Dezso Ban and try some of the shit you read there.  During that time, don't pay any fucking attention to anything anyone says about anything training or diet related on the internet (including me).  Just research and do your own thing and stop getting caught up in the great big bag of bullshit the internet age has turned lifting into, because lifting weights and getting jacked actually used to be fucking fun.  Seriously- it really was.

May your next gym experience be this awesome.

You're only as smart as your dumbest idea, but if you don't think at all, you're just fucking retarded.  Think about how you're going to slaughter the weights before you enter the killing ground.

Sources:

Chapman, David.  Sandow The Magnificent.  Chicago: University of Illinois, 2006.

Roach, Randy.  Splendid specimens: The history of nutrition in bodybuilding.  Westin A. Price Foundation.  14 Dec 2004.  Web.  27 Feb 2018.  https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/splendid-specimens-the-history-of-nutrition-in-bodybuilding/

Wilhem, Bruce.  Pat Casey- Part One.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  24 Apr 2008.  Web.  27 Feb 2018.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/04/pat-casey-part-one-bruce-wilhelm.html

Wilhem, Bruce.  Pat Casey- Part Two.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  28 Apr 2008.  Web.  27 Feb 2018.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/04/may-1968-september-2o-1969-police.html

Chaos And Pain Hatecast Episode 1- Talkin' Bout Some Gear

Andrea Munzer took so much gear that just looking at a pic of him means you're no longer natty.

The first official episode of Chaos and Pain's Hatecast is up on Youtube and ready for your listening pleasure.  Still working on the Stitcher and iTunes uploads, but they're coming soon.  In this episode we talk about my gear use, PCT, Andreas Munzer's ridiculous stack (here's an interview with Nasser El Sonbaty about Munzer that's worth a read), why you're not actually going to shit out your liver on Superdrol, and much more.

Check out the podcast here.

Chaos and Pain Hatecast- The Pilot Episode

Due to my obvious ideological differences with Paul Carter, we won't be doing Chaos and Bang anymore.  What we will be doing is the Hatecast, which will feature myself, Brice Allen, and a rotating cast of guests (which tentatively includes Peter Baker of TNation / www.peterdbaker.com / BioLayne, a British wrestler on the indie circuit who will be guesting in NXT named Danny Burch (I'll just use his wrestling name so we don't break kayfabe, I guess), and an internet steroid guru who runs #TeamFakeGear for BAB Supplements named Ed Dorrence.  We'll be covering topics like steroids (I'll finally discuss them), the conjugate method, programming, body armor built from car tires, and whatever else happens to come up.

Here's a pilot we recorded just to test out the production software.  I was working on a Chromebook because my laptop took a shit on me earlier in the day, so the high-quality mic I'd bought couldn't be employed.  This weekend we will have the first official episode, hopefully with mics and an intro (to be recorded by the new singer of Germany's Impact36, who just just broke a bunch of records in Germany and posted a 1504 total raw at 181 after only 9 months of heavy strength training) and all of that happy horseshit... or it'll be our second pilot because we intend to make this shit as professional as humanly possible.  In any event, we'll be posting these weekly on Chaos and Pain TV on Youtube at first and then adding Soundcloud and iTunes and the like as soon as we can.

So while I work on the next article, here's a pilot episode of the Chaos and Pain Hatecast- No Fap?  No life.  The levels aren't perfect and I have no pop filter on my mic, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we were getting with Chaos and Bang.

Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted: The Evolution Of Chaos And Pain

"We don't want to be popular.  

We want to be infamous.  

I wake up in the morning and say, "How could I be more despicable?"

-Jon Basso

Doing it right, guys.  We're doing it right.  Nofappers, SUCK MY MOTHERFUCKIN' DICK.

Having received a shitload of requests to detail my current training routine and the evolution of my methodology, I thought it was high time to drop an update on what I'm doing.  I'll reassert that I generally detest detailing my own training, as most of what I do is provide the information I've used to arrive at my own training methods.  I like to lead a drunk to a vodka factory rather than pour him a shot, as it were.  Additionally, it seems rather pompous for me to detail my own training methods, as I've continually reasserted that my training methodology is not so much innovative as it is successful because of my hyper-aggressiveness.  So what you're about to get is blasted in the face bukkake-style with my current training methods, my current diet, and the occult shit I've alluded to, but never outright detailed, that formed the philosophical basis of Chaos and Pain.

This isn't the fucking Dark Carnival, people.  The Jewish corpse god doesn't live here.  You're about to get whacked with a shitload of chaos magick, Luciferianism, and demonology, because that's the ideological foundation for my training and diet methodologies.  Once you've read this, you might feel like going back through parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of my Get Your Fucking Head Right Series and you'll see that although I explained it utilizing what is called the "Cybernetic" model, I generally use a combination of the spirit model and the cybernetic model in my own life.  I realize that many of you are probably already mentally checking out, in large part because you're conditioned to be small-minded dipshits, I'll give you a TLDR so you don't get lost:

• the Cybernetic model of Chaos magick is essentially the use of minute neurological changes to cause changes in the universe at large.  When you see Chaos magick associated with quantum physics, the author is using the cybernetic model... and even quantum physicists will admit there's something to chaos magick.
• the Spirit model of Chaos magick is exactly what it sounds like- it's the belief that otherworldly creatures do exist, and that they and powers from their plane of existence can be called upon for aid in our own

Preferable to and more helpful than asking strangers on the internet about a proposed course of dieting or lifting action.

In short, all of the science I have bandied about in past blogs wasn't bullshit- it was backfilled.  I have never in my life read a study and used it to formulate a plan for success going forward.  Instead, I harness energies and utilize them in the gym to great success, then find studies and science that justifies my success after the fact.  It's a bit like that old adage that it is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, except for the fact that I'm not begging for a fucking thing and I would sooner ask a person to spray me with acid than to give me their opinion on a plan for training or dieting.  My successes and failures are entirely my own... as should be yours.

The reason why I am opening with this explanation rather than just getting to what you people have been asking for is that I think the most important thing to ask a person when critiquing a program is to ask them why they are doing what they are doing.  If they have no justification for any of it, or it's superficial, just dip and roll out- they're going to fail because they are not intellectually and emotionally invested enough in the process or the outcome.  I'm also going to great lengths to explain myself because I invariably run into the "BUT THAT'S NOT CHAOS AND PAIN!" exclamations when I tell people my current training methods, which I have to say is more aggravating than trying to pull a candiru out of your pisshole.

GAMEBOOKS TURNED ME INTO A SATANIST IN MY YOUTH.  The fact that some Christian somewhere is thinking that makes me want to burn a fucking church.

Chaos and Pain, obviously, is whatever the fuck I want it to be.  Or whatever the fuck you want it to be if you feel like you're carrying the CnP banner- it's the only 18+ Choose Your Own Adventure, filled with dogs and sex and gore and metal.   This is where the occult shines a bright light on the whole Chaos and Pain methodology, because Luciferian gnosis is "freedom as it removes need for inner justification" and is "the point where mind and intuition compliment rather than negotiate" (Ford 39).  As such, you are free to, and encouraged to, allow your intuition to guide you rather than blindly follow the dogma of a system with hard rules.  You're practicing "mindfulness" in the same way samurai did, being fully present in the entire process of preparing for and engaging in training, rather than acting like a fucking schmoe, jerking your dick on the sidelines while oily female wrestlers flex and submit each other... which is of course an allegory for you sitting idly by and accepting at face value a program written by a person you've never met and not in any way an excuse for me insert muscle porn into this article.

 ... maybe it was after all.

With all of that freedom in mind, let's get down to my training and dieting of late.  From late May of last year through November, it'd be pretty accurate to say I trained sporadically.  Most of what I was doing was continually restarting the training process in a variety of ways and learning what worked and what didn't when coming back off a layoff.  The machine-based program I outlined in Like a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes is what I've found to be by far and away the most useful method for coming back off a layoff, and I would highly recommend you heed my advice and build some baseline strength with machine work prior to embarrassing and or hurting yourself with an assault on free weights with the wild-eyed enthusiasm that's second nature to us and generally only reserved for suicide by cop outside the gym.

My general attitude when entering the gym, captured perfectly by Jacen Burrows.

Assaulting machines with that kind of glassy-eyed bath salt induced enthusiasm right out of the gate is just fine, and should be encouraged.  You might get a little fucking sore, but dunk your ass in a hot bath with Epsom salts, eat a bunch of steak and tater tots, and chug water.  You'll be fine, buttercup.  The evil rhabdo monster is not hiding under your bed and the only things that ever died from overwork on machines are fatness and laziness.

"Be mindful that the Deconditioning Process is not merely an intellectual experience. It is relatively easy to ‘intellectually accept’ some experience or belief which you have previously rejected or dismissed. It takes more resilience to take action from your new position, and risk the emotional upheaval that may result afterwards" (Hine 44).

If the IMs and emails I get are any indication, there seems to be quite a lot of emotional upheaval and consternation at my contradiction of past articles like "Friends Don't Let Friends Do Leg Extensions."  At various times I've lampooned, lambasted, and libeled such exercises as lateral raises, Hercules curls, leg extensions, and a wide variety of other exercises, and I've managed to decondition myself to these standpoints in a lot of instances.  I still maintain that Hercules curls are about as useful as a plastic pussy at a gay male orgy, but I've come to see that there is a lot of utility in lateral raises (for both strengthening the shoulder girdle and improving range of motion for some people) and in leg extensions in particular.  These I began doing a couple of years ago when I was training while drunk, and heavy drunken squatting rivals nude bareknuckles bear fighting in stupidity and lethality.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, the manner in which I was conducting my leg extensions is precisely the style in which the Chinese Olympic weightlifting team does them- namely, explosive concentric movement with a static hold at full extension.

The Chinese Oly team seems to know a thing or two about building their quads.

In spite of the fact that tr00 powerlifting bros on the internet eschew such menial exercises as leg extensions, the Chinese team and the Egyptian weightlifter Mohamed Ehab swear by isometric holds on that exercise.  For my part, I can attest to the fact that they do seem to bring up leg strength, definition, and size quickly- my earlier reticence to do them was in opposition to a growing trend in bodybuilding to discard squats altogether in favor of easier exercises.  Ehab apparently didn't need to arrive at the conclusion it was alright to do extensions as a supplement to squats in a middle-aged epiphany, and does them for three sets of 20 second holds with 90kg, which is a not insubstantial weight for a 77kg lifter.  I tend to do them with ten second holds for reps, doing more sets and less weight.  I will sit up in my seat to reduce the shearing stress on my knees at the starting point, then explode to full extension, hold for ten seconds, and lower the weight in about four seconds.  I follow a similar pattern with my leg curls as well, as hamstring strength plays a major role in both pulling and low bar squatting.

Anyone else feel like they're living in a fucking cartoon lately?  

A soon-to-be post-apocalyptic cartoon.

Like the leg extension/squat issue I had early in my writing, I had a very strong opinion about laterals- they were pretty much pointless.  I had good reason for making this assertion, as prior to my adoption of a three day a week overhead pressing habit, I had dogshit shoulders.  My overhead pressing strength rivaled Donald Trump's leadership skills in terms of awesome, and they looked like flattened heads of wilted lettuce glued to my torso.  As such, I decided that laterals, which had previously been the mainstay of my shoulder workouts, were utterly useless.  Over the years I noticed that pretty much every person with massive shoulders in the history of mankind has done some kind of lateral raise, and thought perhaps it would be a good idea to revisit them.  I still don't do them as a majority of any workout, no matter how light, but they're a frequently utilized movement in the ever-increasingly weird world of Chaos and Pain.

"A key to magical success is veracity of belief. If you want to try something out, and can come up with a plausible explanation as to how/why it should work, then it most likely will. Pseudoscience or Qabbalistic gibber (or both) - it matters not so long as the rationale you devise buffers the strength of your belief in the idea working. I find that this happens a lot when I try and push the limits of how I try to do some magical action that I haven’t tried before. Once I come up with a plausible explanation of how it could work in theory, then of course, I am much more confident about doing, and can often transmit this confidence to others. If I’m 110% certain that this rituals going to ‘bloody well work’ then its all the more likely that it will" (Hine 36).

So, we're finally at my current training routine, at which I arrived with a combination of demonic tarot readings and a healthy dose of "if I'm gonna make a comeback, I had better train as epically as I want to perform.  Thus, I've ditched the 45-60 minute rule to which I had clung so assiduously for so long- in rereading Zatsiorsky, I should be training 3-4 hours a day anyway, so my hour to an hour and a half a day bullshit was insufficient.  At present, I'm training 10-15 hours a week and gradually increasing the volume and insanity to see how crazy I can get with training.  Given that my rest periods are between 60 second and 150 seconds as a general rule, you could rate the density of my workouts as "motherfucking black hole-esque." 

Interestingly, the first card I blindly pulled from my Daemon Tarot deck is that of my patron, Buer.  Either a bizarre coincidence or something non-scientific that could still be explained with quantum entanglement, pretty cool.  I'll occasionally use a two card draw in the deck to determine how my training should go on a given day.  For instance, when i drew Dantalion and Belphagor, I determined that I needed to be more creative in that workout's approach.  Rather than using the system I'd been employing, I looked through old articles I'd made notes on and used Steve Justa's isometrics suggestions for a day of overhead pressing.  Rather than doing military or klokov pressing, I spent what proved to be an agonizing ninety minutes doing overhead lockout static holds with a shitload of weight until I nearly blacked out on each attempt.  I was sore for the next three days from my pelvic bone to my fingertips... which i assume is a good thing.

Although what follows is an example of what I have been doing, nothing whatsoever is set in stone- not the exercise pairings, frequency I train a bodypart or lifts, or rep ranges.  The only constant is that I will do a compound movement first and keep the reps between one and three on that lift, and I will perform the lift for roughly an hour with rests no shorter than a minute and no longer than about three minutes.  As before, I don't bullshit around in the gym- I rarely speak to anyone, I don't answer phone calls or spend 20 minutes making duck faces in the mirror and trying to get the best lighting. 

[If you're an IG superstar, go fuck yourself- I truly hope you die in a fiery car accident filming one of your idiotic opinion pieces about whatever inane topic happened to strike you as worthy of our attention.  In any other era your needy ass would have been dragged behind a shed and beaten with hoses for presuming to be anything other than an annoyance and a detriment to society as a whole.]  

I seem to have the shoulders situation pretty well figured out.

So, finally, here is a sample week of what's put about 25 lbs on me in the last three months.  These are all approximations to give you an idea.  Each workout lasts between 90 minutes and three hours.

Day 1:
Military Press- 1x3x135;185;205, 1x1x225, 5x1x235; 3x1x245 (form gets a little loose here), 3x1x235, 3xMAXx205
Hammer Strength Press- 5x10, 3x8, 3x6
Machine Lateral Raise- 5x10
Machine Real Lateral- 5x10
Strict Bicep Curl- 4 rounds of max reps with 75lbs in 30 seconds (there's an event at the Philly Fit Expo my gf and I might do that's 60 seconds with 65 lbs at my weight)
Whatever abs I feel like

Day 2:
Front Squat- 1x3x135;185;225;315, 1x1x365, 1x1x405;415;425;435;445, 5x1x405, 5x3-5x365
Seated Leg Curl- 10x6 (5-10 second holds at peak contraction)
Leg Extension- 6x10 (5 second holds at the peak contraction)
Calf Raises- 5x25
Abs and forearms and whatever else

Day 3:
1.5 to 2 hours of cable and machine rows.  Reps range from 6 to 25.  Every conceivable handle and angle.
(I partially tore my lat a month and a half/two months ago doing super explosive rows off the floor and am trying not to aggravate the injury as it heals, so these are pretty controlled and focused on squeezing my shoulderblades together and getting a pump)
Bicep Curl same as Day 1

Day 4:
Close Grip Bench Press- As many sets of 2-5 reps as I can get in an hour with 325.
Machine Incline Bench Press- As many sets of 4-10 reps as I can get in a half hour
Pec Deck- 6x12
Rope Pushdowns- 6x10

Day 5:
Shrugs: 1x10x495;585, 5xMAXx675, 5xMAXx765
Half hour of cable rows
Face pulls- 6x20
Abs

Day 6:
Miscellaneous bis, tris, forearms, and abs for 90 mins

Day 7:
Fuck around on extensions and curls or take off, depending on how I feel.

When confronted with a choice between being rich or jacked, Dan Bilzarian ripped a line of coke in the shape of Bolivia, roared "BRING ME WHORES AND GOATS!", washed down a handful of Viagra with a handle of Jack, and proceeded to be both.

In other words, I have far less of a system than I had before.  There is no structure beyond basing a workout on an ultra-heavy compound movement and then backfilling the workout with volume on machines.  I might do shoulders four times in a given week and skip squatting because my knee is stiff or I just don't fucking feel like it.  I might train 21 days in a row.  I might only train 5 days in a week.  For the first time in my training career, nothing is true, and everything is permitted.  I have more freedom than a Dan Bilzerian in international waters and I utilize that freedom to force progress in every fucking direction, at all times.

Pro Tip: I am not the only person I know who does this either- I surf Tumblr porn between sets during most workouts.  Contrary to what you might have heard on some Ted Talks of very dubious scientific footing or from the mouths of a pack of psychotics with ED who claim porn is to blame, porn raises your testosterone levels the instant you view it.  According to some sources, pornographers pointedly attempt to elicit the "maximum drug/hormone release by mixing sexual images with male dominance, aggression and violent images intended to shock and stimulate simultaneously", which stimulates the production of much higher baseline levels of hormones essential to getting strong and lean, "especially testosterone, but also adrenaline, epinephrine, and others."  
Not only does it create an awesome biofeedback loop, particularly in men, but watching porn causes an immediate release of "enormous amounts of additional testosterone, which further increase male narrowing, loss of reason, feelings of aggression, and sexual drive and arousal."  In other words, porn is to your endocrine system what nofappers are to weird anti-semitic conspiracy theories (Kastleman).  But what about furry porn / shit porn / tentacle rape / throatfucking or whatever dark secret-style porn you have lurking on your computer?  Great news, ladies and gentleman- that shit simply makes you more awesome.  Paraphilias are triggered by, and cause the release of, massive amounts of testosterone.  That shit is so potent, in fact, that psychiatrists use massive doses of anti-androgenic drugs like methylprogesterone to control these "deviant" predilections.  As such, you should probably just go ahead and watch www.hogtied.com between sets if you're looking to hit a PR that day (Prescription).

So there you have it- my current treasure trove of secrets has been laid bare.  Comingsoon in this series, I'll provide a bit more of the hazy logic defining my insanity, the current diet that fuels this insanity, how you might apply this bizarre shit to your own training, and my gauzy conception for how this will be tailored to fit powerlifting and honed to a fine edge as I get closer to my return to the platform.  And before you guys call bullshit on these workouts, know that I've no fucking reason to make this up- I stand to make no money off this and know most of you are looking at this and thinking I'm directly out of my mind.  I am.  Sanity is for the unimaginative and the uninteresting.  

Go be interesting and do something fucking epic.

Sources:
Ford, Michael.  The Bible of the Adversary.  Houston: Succubus Productions, 2007.

Hine, Phil.  Condensed Chaos.  Las Vegas: New Falcon Publications, 1995.

Kastleman, Mark.  How internet pornographers market to men vs. women.  Netnanny.  Web.  15 Feb 2018.  https://www.netnanny.com/learn-center/article/117/

New prescription for paraphilia Psychiatric Times.  1998 Apr;15(4).  http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/new-prescription-paraphilia  

Baddest Motherfuckers Ever- Mac Batchelor

How many people do you think you've met with measurements even close to 6’ 1½ ", 300-330 lbs, 20" neck, 19¼" arms, 52½” chest, and a 19" calf?  I'll tell you how many- maybe one.  Offhand, the only person of whom I can think who had these cold measurements was legendary strongman, Olympic weightlifter, strongman, and stand-in for Godzilla otherwise known as Mark Henry.   Having met him a couple of times, I can tell you that shaking hands with Mark Henry is like shaking hands with a Transformer wearing a double-size Predator mask and boasting hands so big they make a catcher's mitt look like a small child's mitten.  You know, he is the sort of man who has the physical presence of a literal mountain- the dude left more of an impression on me than the Grand Canyon had a few years earlier.  So, the fact that Mac Batchelor was similarly sized to our version of a modern day Colossus in an era that food rationing was in effect is nearly unbelievably, but that's hardly the most insane thing Batchelor pulled off in his life.

This level of finger strength is completely unthinkable to me. 

If you've never heard of the guy, and I know I hadn't, that's a motherfucking shame.  No athlete of which I know this side of the legendary Greek wrestler and bovine-lover Milo had a career like Batchelor, who never lost an arm wrestling match in 25 years (1931-1956).  He never turned down a match, whether he was so drunk he was pissing down his own leg, had just lifted for four hours, was at a funeral, or was in the middle of banging some sloot- Mac Batchelor fucked up all comers for 25 years like he was Mike Tyson with a fistful of Viagra backstage at the Ms. America pageant.  That's right- unlike almost any other athlete of whom you've ever heard, save for champion jogger and alleged boxer Floyd Mayweather and a couple of other boxers, "Ian “Mac” Batchelor, who retired at the age of fifty after having taken on all comers night after night and decade after decade at his bar, playing right hand or left seated or standing, open hand or thumblock, sick or well, tired or fresh, drunk or sober, [straightened] the arm of every man he met" and was generally the type of man-monster about whom you only hear in myths and legends about superhumans from the mists of history (Todd).

As a bartender, Mac Batchelor had a hell of a lot of time to apply product to his mustache and to practice mangling beer bottle caps... and not the new-school aluminum twist off types, but old school, manlier-than-shirtless-Reg-Park-wrestling-a-drunken-Russian-bear-for-a-steak steel bottlecaps.  To say he was a monster4 in the grip department is like saying I'd kind like to punch that stupid bitch Sia out of her shoes for thinking she's clever for walking around in public with a paper bag on her head.  Mac could pinch grip 80 lb plates with no lip in each hand and walk 30 feet, and could pinch grip a 165 lb plate with one hand.  As if that wasn't enough, he could simultaneously crush 3 bottlecaps simultaneously, one in between each finger on his right hand.  He could also crush a bottlecap between his thumb and forefinger with his fingers held straight.


Seriously, the shit this man could do with his hands makes the stories about Paul Bunyan seem plausible.

"Mac could bend every standard spike into a “U” shape – 60, 80, 100 and 120. He could muscle out a 12 pound sledge hammer, 30 inch long handle, by grasping the end of the handle. He could hook his middle finger into the hole of an 80 pound barbell plate and do a one-arm curl. 

Dude drank two cases of beer a day and an unspecified but not inconsiderable number of shots of whiskey.

While weighing 300 pounds Mac could hang on to a vertical climbing rope with one hand, WITH HIS THUMB UNLOCKED. He could grasp a large 2 or 2½ foot high wine bottle at the tip or neck and then work the bottle upward by working the fingers downward. THE BOTTLE WAS FILLED WITH LEAD SHOT. He could pinch grip a beer bottle with both thumb holding the lip of the bottle so that it was parallel to the bar" (Boff).

Who fucking cares about that shit, right?  No one's ever heard of a grip specialist dominating a "real" strength sport... except for the fact that Big Mac wasn't just a grip specialist- he was just all-round fucking strong.  Beast mode when he entered the gym was for light days- most days he seemed to have been stuck on Godzilla mode, smashing everything around him and causing all of the little people around him to run away screaming in terror.  On a few occasions, Mac did a backlift of 3,000 lbs at a bodyweight of 275, just for shits and giggles.  In true Viking-style form, Mac once shouldered a 40 foot long telephone pole weighing seven to eight hundred pounds and walked over 300 feet with it- it might be half the weight of the ship's mast that killed the legendary Viking Orm Storulfsson, but it was longer and Mac practically went for a jog with the fucking thing.  Later that year, Mac picked up a horse on a movie set and carried it on his back for 20 feet before climbing the world's sturdiest 16 foot ladder with it on it's back.  Why anyone would attempt to carry a 700 lb live animal 16 feet into the air is a mystery we may never solve, but it seems clear that the number of fucks Mac gave about gravity was inversely proportional to the amount of awesome in his mustache.

Big Mac's training was an interesting mix of bartending, powerlifting, and Diesel Crew shit.  All day long at his bar, he'd be casually bending beer and whiskey bottle caps while smiling like a lunatic, twisting his mustache like a cartoon evildoer, and slamming shots and beers.  Afterward, he'd hit his badass little home gym that looked to be equal parts medieval torture devices and old timey powerlifting apparatus.  Two days a week, he'd do straight powerlifting work.  Given that all of the training at that time was more volume heavy than a chick's conditioner commercial, it stands to reason that a guy who would bend bottlecaps for eight hours a day would be all about some crazy intense, longer-than-a-well-hung-midget's-dick workouts involving a fuckton of compound movements with low reps and not much else.

 

Round backed and stiff legged double overhand 651lb deadlift at age 36 after beating the breaks off everyone in the meet at the three Olympic lifts.  Yeah, you are not training hard enough.

To give you some idea of how Batchelor might have trained at this time, here is a synopsis of how a beast of a 181lb proto-powerlifter trained in that era- Bob Peoples.  The first 181lber to deadlift over 600lbs, Peoples utilized what was then standard for powerlifting training.

1.) Warm up with light or medium weight to warm muscles and joints.
2,) Dead Lift
3.) Deep Knee Bend
4.) Press
5.) Snatch
6.) Clean and Jerk
All for 3 to 5 repetitions.

"I kept strict records and when five repetitions were reached, I added weight and started again, making as much progress as possible on each of the individual lifts. Along with this, I used some heavy lockouts or half and quarter squats. I always did situps with weight and some leg raises along with the above routine. At times, I would mix other exercises in with my regular routine. Some of these were chin-ups, neck work, curls, toe raises and others.

I usually used one set of low repetitions for strength building. I used the most weight possible and went for as many repetitions as I possibly could, going the limit every day. 

About every two weeks or less, according to the way I felt, I would try a personal record on the deal lift, deep knee bends and the three Olympic lifts" (Peoples).

Mac likely followed a similar method, only his warmup was vastly different- he'd bang out a single set of 20 speed squats, cold, beltless, and without wraps, with 350 lbs.  If that doesn't clue you into Mac's utterly fearless, zero-fucks-given, damn the torpedoes style of training (which was very likely done drunk, because according to a number of sources he was rarely seen sober), nothing will.  The man trained like nothing you have ever fucking seen, and likely never will.  Check out his method (and absurd weight for a modified concentration curl)- ridiculous.

"Here is an exercise favorite of mine. Sit on a chair, place a 100 lb. dumbbell on the floor between feet, collars almost touching opposite ankles, palm of hand gripping bar facing body start, disengaged hand resting on corresponding knee, body bent over. Then spin the dumbbell on floor by supinating hand until palm is forward (curl position). At this instant, curl to shoulder as you sit up and press strongly with disengaged hand on corresponding knee. The original momentum from the spin on the floor brings the bell easily to the shoulder at the completion as you sit upright" (Batchelor Curling).

Profap, motherfuckers.  Nofappers can go ahead and kick bricks.  I'm sure there's a nice Creationism website or a Flat Earth pamphlet you could peruse instead of polluting my site with your presence.

Grip training for Mac Batchelor was like Tumblr porn is for me- absolutely indispensable and a cornerstone of my life.  Whereas I hit up Tumblr betwixt sets in the gym to boost my test levels, Big Mac was banging back whiskey and snapping corks between his thumb and forefinger.  When that kind of a maniac is at the wheel, you know every workout is going straight to the fucking nuthouse in terms of inventiveness and intensity.  There isn't much in the way of definitive workout routines from this mustachioed maniac, but here are two of his favorite grip exercises, in his own words:

"Finger Gripping Barbell Plates -- Here's another good exercise to toughen and strengthen your grip and forearms: grip a 25-pound of heavier plate (depending on your present strength) by the rim, using only your thumb and fingers -- don't let it touch the palm. Lift it to shoulder height in slow motion for 10 to 15 reps. Increase the reps as you become stronger to build your endurance for wrist wrestling.

A favorite of the old-time wrist wrestlers was gripping a smooth, flat, heavy plate between thumb and forefinger, then transferring it, without losing their grip, to a position between their thumb and middle finger -- and so on down the line until they were holding the plate in the most difficult way possible -- between thumb and smallest finger. They would then reverse the process, never once putting down the plate or losing a grip on it.

Before doing exercise it's best to first warm up your hand muscles with some other exercise. Start with light plates then go on to heavier ones. Consider yourself a good man if you can do this exercise with a 25-pound smooth plate.

Crushing Beer Cans -- One of my favorite exercises, when working in my bar during occasional quiet afternoons, was to crush beer cans between my fingers. I trained my grip at every opportunity to fortify my wrist wrestling arm against the constant competition I had for my title of World's Champion Wrist Wrestler. Crushing beer cans was a good way to obtain that needed conditioning. With the innovation of beer cans, which vary from soft metal to those that seem to be made of iron, arm wrestlers everywhere had a new and convenient type of training medium.

For developing finger strength try this: pinch the middle of the lighter cans together with thumb and forefinger only. With those of heavier metal, grip each end with both hands and bend back and forth until a break starts in the center. Now, while maintaining the same grip, twist with both hands back and forth a few times until the can is torn in half. Be careful not to cut yourself -- those edges are like knives. Practice of this exercise will help give you the twisting power of grip that is vital to being a successful arm grappler. When practicing stunts or exercises, put resin on your hands to avoid slipping. You should do this particularly when you're handling barbells and dumbbells" (Batchelor Unique).

In summary, a badass mustache, rampant drunkenness, and training non-stop led Mac Batchelor to a 25 year undefeated streak in armwrestling.  It wasn't the perfect program, the perfect gym, any coaching whatsoever, or certain supplements that led to his ridiculous unbeaten streak- it was balls, brains, guts, and utter fucking fearlessness. 

Think less.  Do more.  Go fucking nuts. 
Anything less is fucking civilized, and "civilized" people are good for nothing other than work camps and wage slavery.

Sources:
Batchelor, Mac.  Curling Heavy Weights.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 18 Sep 2008.  Web.  30 May 2017.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/09/curling-heavy-weights-mac-batchelor.html

Batchelor, Mac.  Unique ways to build arm wrestling power.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  11 Feb 2012.  Web.  30 May 2017.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2012/02/unique-ways-to-build-arm-wrestiling.html

Boff, Vic.  Epitaph for a strongman- Mac Batchelor.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  5 Oct 2010.  Web.  11 Oct 2016.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2010/10/epitaph-for-strongman-mac-batchelor-by.html

Grimek, John.  Ian "Mac" Batchelor.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  29 Aug 2008.  Web.  8 Feb 2018.  https://web.archive.org/web/20150702223355/ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/08/mac-batchelor-john-grimek.html

Peoples, Bob.  The training methods of Bob Peoples.  Reprinted from April/May 1952 Iron Man magazine.  12 May 2011.  Web.  9 Feb 2018.  https://www.myosynthesis.com/training-methods-bob-peoples

Todd, T.  Mac and Jan.  Iron Game History.  1995 Apr;3(6):17-19.