Lifting & Winning

Do you feel it?  Do you even know what it is?

A strong and barely controllable emotion.

If you don’t feel it coursing through you, it is time to figure out the problem.

 

I’m not talking about your passion for just a job or a hobby.  I’m talking about THE passion.

The passion for fighting for the best life you can get for yourself and everyone you love.

 

Have you gone numb?  Has your spirit been tamed?

Everything that is holding back THE passion has to be conquered and eliminated.

It starts in the mind.

 

If you’ve lost it, what will you do to find it?

What will you change?  What will you sacrifice?  What lengths will you go to?  What information will you search for?  What will you say yes or no to?  What challenges will you confront?  What action will you take?

 

Do you still believe it exists?

 

If you were on the verge of death right now, would you beg for your life?

That’s THE passion.

This is the day the Lord has made.

Do you have the passion?

 

When your path goes uphill, do you have the passion?

When the setbacks arrive, do you have the passion?

Were you born to surrender or to fight?

 

Do you have the passion?

The ultimate physiques have it all; strength, power, flexibility and stamina, and it shows in dense lean muscle, developed proportionally over the entire body.

Bodybuilding, calisthenics, olympic lifting, powerlifting, strongman, performance training…

Each method on the menu leaves something to be desired for those seeking full spectrum dominance.

How do we combine the best elements of them all to unleash the ultimate physique?

 

There is an elegant solution and here is the basic programming template…

Four primary training days, completed in 6-10 calendar days depending on recovery needs, with dedicated conditioning and recovery work integrated between these four primary days:

1. Upper body weighted
2. Lower body weighted
3. Upper body bodyweight
4. Lower body bodyweight (with a sprinting emphasis)

If you want help with exercise, volume, and intensity selections to plug into this template and you’re game for a serious challenge, purchase and execute my program.  It’s called UNLEASHED and you can get it here on Amazon:

UNLEASHED carries a 5 star rating because it straight up works for any drug free athlete or physical culturist willing to put in hard work.  Run it as close to the letter as you can and you will reach savage level fitness!

To maintain impeccable order and hygiene of your body and environment, one must live in a disciplined, upright and self-respecting manner.  Much like being divine…

 

Perfect cleanliness is unattainable.  Phobias shall not be fostered and even a fool knows any degree of cleanliness will not make you an actual god.

Optimal cleanliness is attainable, shall be pursued, and elevates us towards godliness in both our labors for it and by the fruits that it bears.

 

When you attain optimal cleanliness, you and your environment take on a glow.

The glow of cleanliness creates certain energies, results, and reactions…

 

A clean and orderly environment begets peace, productivity, and pride.

A clean and orderly appearance begets respect, confidence, and health.

 

How do we achieve optimal cleanliness, and how do we sustain it to become next to godly?

Mastery of cleanliness requires systematic standards of minimalism and hygiene.

Behold the simple and immutable laws of cleanliness:

 

Laws of Environmental Cleanliness:

1)  ALWAYS CLEAN AS YOU GO.

2)  THOU SHALT BE ORGANIZED WITH A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING, AND EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE.

3)  HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED, YET NOTHING YOU DON’T.

>Be extremely deliberate about what ye choose to acquire by asking:

• Is it truly needed, or can ye do without it? Sleep on it if necessary.
• Will it simplify and enrich thou life, or ultimately complicate and dilute it?
• Is it cheap, quality, or luxury? Quality delivers the most value and prevents waste.

>Be extremely deliberate about what ye choose to keep:

• If ye haven’t used it in 6 month and don’t have specific definitive plans to use it, get rid of it.
• Do ye harbor too many spoons, pots and pans, pens and pencils, socks, clothes, books,  souvenirs, old receipts and papers, electronics and gadgets, anything and everything in excess of necessity… GET. IT. GONE!

 

Laws of Physical Cleanliness:

1)  KEEP A CLEAN AND SOBER BRAIN.

>Adherence to all other cleanliness laws begins to slip when one is numbed or in a stupor.

2)  MAINTAIN THE FOLLOWING AT ALL TIMES:

>Fresh haircut

>Orderly beard

>Trimmed bodily hair

>Flossed and brushed teeth

>Trimmed finger and toe nails that show no whites

3)  CLOTHING SHALT BE SIMPLE, QUALITY, FASHIONABLE IN FITMENT, AND APPROPRIATE FOR THE OCCASION.

 

Clean up your act and you will look, feel, perform and attract- SUPERNATURAL.

Reason #1)  Pure joy

As much as I love lifting weights, training on the Thai bag is right there neck and neck.  I throw a good music playlist on along with a round timer and just absolutely go to war on the thing.  For me, “going light” on the bag seems to be impossible despite vowing on many occasions prior to a bag workout that I was just going to go easy because I probably should’ve been resting that day.  You can unleash violently but it’s also fun to drill new strikes, footwork, and other techniques and I even like to move and strike in rhythm with the music at times, like a cobra dancing and biting.  If you love the feeling of putting in some pure and simple, steady hard work when you train and the feeling of accomplishment at the end of that kind of workout, you’ll love the Thai bag.

Reason #2)  Develops neglected aspects of fitness

Flexibility, core strength, coordination, body hardening, conditioning and explosiveness; the Thai bag will bring them all up dramatically.  Furthermore, with consistent long term practice incorporating good technique, you can definitely become very capable in a self-defense situation and being “hard to kill” is part of fitness.  Yes, I get it- the bag doesn’t hit back, but it’s a staple in training for every type of professional fighting for a reason and it is something far better than nothing in this regard.  Find a sparring partner if you want to get some live action, but the bag is always there day or night.

Getting started:

1)  Get a Thai bag.  This is the one I currently use and it’s been great (Click to view on Amazon):

2)  Get a mount.  This company makes the best I’ve found:

PROmountings products on Amazon with different styles available to suit your needs

3)  Get long hand wraps and quality gloves:

Click here for 180 inch 4 star and up wraps on Amazon

Click here for 4 star and up gloves on Amazon

4)  Get a round timer.  This is the app I currently use:

http://www.intervaltimer.com/

5)  A good goal to work up to is (5) five minute rounds with 1 minute rest between rounds.  Start how you need to, which could be as simple as 5 one minute rounds with 1 minute rest if your conditioning is beginner level.

6)  Treat the bag like a live opponent!  You should always be either moving your feet, moving your body and head, throwing strikes and combinations, keeping up defense or any of these in combination simultaneously.  Don’t just stand there flat footed throwing one-off power punches.

7)  Consistently train all your weapons; fists, elbows, knees, shins, and feet.  Throw them all!

The following is the personal opinion of a renegade and is not medical advice, consult your physician, blah blah blah…

1)  Convenience

Crack them.  Slam them.  Done.

If you’re busy or don’t typically enjoy the tedium of cooking early in the morning, raw eggs offer an incredibly easy way to kick your day off right with premium caliber nutrition.  Breakfast is done in a flash and you’ll find the raw nutrition sustains you far into the day.  I usually take down ten every morning.  With the organic, cage and soy free eggs I opt for, breakfast amounts to about $3.75 and takes all of two minutes including preparation, consumption, and cleanup.

2)  Nutrition

You may experience a rush of clean and steady energy when you drink raw eggs.  That’s the flood of perfect nutrition hitting your blood!  Fat, protein, cholesterol, vitamins and minerals- the egg has it all.

The heat of cooking generally denatures nutrients, so obtaining raw animal nutrition is smart.  Some studies claim greater protein absorption from cooked eggs.  Even if true, I believe the difference is marginal and the absorption of fats and vitamins is still greater when raw.  Furthermore I also eat plenty of cooked eggs and get protein in abundance from other sources.

What about contamination?

There are potential pitfalls with respect to contamination, but a careful examination of the facts and statistics will reveal you are highly unlikely to contract anything from raw eggs.  An egg is hermetically sealed by its own shell, so the primary risk of contamination is from the exterior of the shell.  If you’re really concerned about it, you can wash the eggs.  I personally don’t, and I drink the occasional shell shard without a care.  Do your research and draw your own conclusions.

What about the texture and taste?

You get used to it.

The following is the personal opinion of a renegade and is not medical advice, consult your physician, blah blah blah…

You might’ve heard one or two, but you might not have heard them all or enacted all simultaneously, so behold the holy trinity; the trifecta of vitality; the trio of living tremendously!

Straight to it, with no bull, the three keys:

1:  Eat a carnivore or keto diet or a hybrid of the two

The crux of this key is to base your diet on fat and protein, ideally from healthy animals, while driving carbohydrate consumption down to a minimum.

2:  Exercise and sauna

The crux of this key is to strengthen every system of the body, manage stress, and to evacuate accumulated toxins.

3:  Drink only distilled water (aka: pure water)

The crux of this key is to drink truly pure water, whether via classic steam distillation or a filtration system that delivers equal purity, aiming for under 10 parts per million of  contaminants.  Pure water is critical to optimize the function of the body.

Quick hints to sort out the myths and lies surrounding distilled water:

Inorganic minerals = damaging to the body, not found in distilled water, flushed from the body via distilled water, found in bottled and tap water

Organic minerals = good for the body, not stripped away by distilled water, found in food

Two options to get you started with distilled/pure water  (images are links):

1:

2:

If you need more background to understand these keys, the internet abounds.

Go forth in good health and spread the knowledge!

It’s the right thing to do and if you need an incentive, it will pay dividends in the way people treat you in return.

People want to be respected.  Therefore if you treat people with respect, they will treat you with respect in appreciation.

Manners create a mutually beneficial cycle of goodwill.  You should be constantly uttering the following and similar:

-Please

-Thank you

-Sir/Ms/Ma’am

-May I

-Throw in a smile and express your appreciation

This extremely basic measure towards cultivating positive interactions has fallen by the wayside and cannot really be called common sense anymore.

When visiting my local burrito establishment, I’ve observed time and again people mumbling and grunting their orders.  Lo and behold, the wait staff proceed to fulfill their orders with minimal interest and perhaps even some disdain.  This is then detected by the rude pigs with no manners who then take a hostile tone and the cycle of a poor interaction is further amplified.  This can cause delays in the line that then affect those waiting patiently to eat.  Classic vicious cycle.

I place my order using completely basic manners and am regularly rewarded with friendly service and free meals.

If you’ve fallen out of practice with your manners, get back on the horse and in no time it will become second nature.

Even when good manners are not reciprocated, we win by conducting ourselves with class.

Honor is an ancient Latin word that represents a deep concept, defined in varying ways.  For the purposes of this declaration, honor is the degree to which a man displays respect for himself and others, and thereby preserves high integrity, dignity, and status, particularly with himself in his own conscience.

Having the strength to preserve your honor when dishonorable behavior would be a quick way of exerting power over a situation is a quality to be sought after.  Truthfully, we will all fall short, but as in training, our threshold increases and our capacity to be honorable grows.

Why must we have honor?  Because the feeling of being honorable inspires us to preserve our honor by living a clean and productive life, free from undue defilement, the type of life that brings true happiness and freedom.  We need to remember our honor before being too quick to defend our pride, but defend our honor valiantly when it is righteous.

The call to honor is never easy to heed, but you can start by listening.  Keep your cool, straighten up, speak up, step up, see to it, get it done, keep your word, take what’s yours, fight back, protect… whatever genuine honor shouts to you next in the game of life, march furiously on its orders, and you will win victory.

Patience and Ambition:  Opposite, yet mutually integral to winning.

Patience- promotes calculation, timing, discipline and recuperation

 

Ambition- promotes action, supreme confidence, aggressive tactics, and defiance of the odds

 

There are many men with ambition but no patience who quit an endeavor shortly after they start.  There are many men with patience but no ambition who settle for mediocrity and don’t take risks.

In lifting, the overly ambitious skip warmups, lift too heavy too often, or lack consistency.  The overly patient never break plateaus, train too infrequently, and shy from heavy weights.

On the battlefield of life, patience is what tells you when to prepare a fortification, pivot your forces, pull back, hide, wait for the right moment to strike and to live to fight another day.  Ambition is what tells you when to march upon your enemy faster than seemed possible, ambition is when one man’s courage can inspire an entire army otherwise ready to retreat, and ambition is slamming your sword into your enemy’s neck with such ferocious authority that he never even lifts his sword in an attempt to defy his fate.

The man who balances his ambition with patience, wins.