I recommend you to get the audiobook because in addition to reading the book the author and Goggins have some chats in between.
keep going until failure, change positioning and rotation of hands (diamond push ups are good)
Keep performing them 3x per week. I used a lot of eccentric training to get my reps up when I plateaued. You’ll get to 20 in a month or so if you stay on it with persistence, focusing greatly on your diet and rest. It’s when you reach the late 20s like 27, 28, 29, and then reach 30+ when it gets really tough to climb in numbers, assuming you’re truly using optimal form with each rep. Just a lot of grinding, patience, and persistence from there. Sometimes I had to perform 45 minute chest workouts several times before I was able to bench more or knock out 1-2 more pushups than my previous max
So I took your suggestion due to having an Earthbound avatar (obviously a person of good taste), and these didn't fall out at all during my run. Controls for them are a bit clunky, but I don't really use them much, and for $30, I'm not complaining.ZippyTheOtter
JLab GO Air True Wireless Earbuds
GO Air True Wireless Earbuds provide everyday true wireless and even named best budget earbuds. At $30, they offer a long 24+ hour battery life with charging case included and you will never need to reach for your earpods charger. Come in a variety of colors if you are looking for red headphones...www.jlabaudio.com
Solid quality and decent sound for around $30. Fit comfortably and include different sized earbud tips. Never have to worry about them falling out during workouts.
So glad I have a rubber mat to prevent that.
VlaudTheImpaler
is he still alive? Haven’t seen his username in a while. Hope he’s doing alright
DunDunDunpachi
and
Tesseract
for the chats when I really needed it. I'm eternally in your debt.
VlaudTheImpaler
, sounds like you've went through very traumatic experiences but now your progress in life and in health will be stronger than ever now that you've overcome them all. Would like to share that I too have been dealing with health issues as well, since January 8th, and haven't lifted a single weight since. All I have been doing is walking, and moving around. I've been taking my health very seriously and have adjusted much. Lost 10-11 lbs over that last 29 days through lifestyle changes. Better habits that equate to better health. Switched my diet up drastically; I no longer go all out with the bodybuilding mentality and lifestyle but instead aim to take care of my body and try to only make beneficial decisions that lead up to a better quality of life filled with vitality. Here are some of the things that have changed for me recently, I'm acutely aware now more than ever about what needs to be done health-wise and I'm seeing the bigger picture a bit more
VlaudTheImpaler
I'm glad you're back in action. Your story seems like an affirmation that the strength-building techniques were sound. I'm eager to hear even more of your progress as time goes on.
Cutty Flam
. I always enjoy reading your info dumps. You're like a mad scientist in the lab, reporting meticulous details to the community, adjusting hypothesis and double-checking your beaker mixtures. Keep up the solid work (and solid info-keeping)
it took me about a month, i started jogging around grassy landscapes and jump roping on concrete
Bro. I can't even look at a honey jar without some amount of anxiety. I'll prob never touch it again.
Wise decision. That’s a hole I hope nobody has to ever go down, opiates are one of the craziest drugs on the planet. I stay away from everything outside of caffeine, the stories alone are frightening enough to have completely obliterated any curiosity of trying anything. Even with caffeine though, I’ve found myself to be slightly paranoid of even the little bit found in cacao powder now when I use it in some yogurt, or some hemp milk, teas, etc.
Tesseract
‘s) is hardcore enough to be written about in some Shonen manga. I assumed supplements were worth it no matter what if they aided in ATP, recovery, etc. But I would find out that limited supps, better yet is none at all, is the correct and safest path to go about when training and recovering; real food reigns supreme. You know what you’re getting with that, in everything you select from the markets and such, grocery stores. A supplement company is probably cutting corners and who knows what fillers are being used to save $$$ and maximize profits. Maybe even with the companies most of us praise. It’s a business without much transparency and that can potentially cause us much harm. You never know if they are putting ingredients in their products without informing the customer, just so it gives them an edge and keeps said customers coming back for the results that their product helped them to achieve. For instance, perhaps a product I was taking had some yohimbe in it without my knowing, because that stuff does work, it’s powerful from my time using it in the past, I know this, but it also nearly gave me a heart attack even in my best health 190lbs walking around athletic as hell. Until I ruled it out and never used it again, that’s when the chest tightness subsided. Possibly, that [yohimbe] was in one of the supplements I was taking. I can suspect it, but never know as a customer, and that’s the danger of supplements...Sorry for the rant, I feel like there is need to be telling others about all this and teaching this to others if possible, because that knowledge and guidance is largely absent in the bodybuilding or even overall fitness world. Supplements can potentially cause a lot of damage I feel, doesn’t matter if you’re young and healthy. The correct course is whole foods packed with nutrition, food items that come from nature that cannot mislead you, unlike supplements
Vegetables and fruits aren't FDA regulated either, and I'm glad they're not. There are many drugs that are FDA approved that are very dangerous as well. The FDA approves dangerous and even deadly substances on a regular basis. They wouldn't even do anything about the whole talcum powder/asbestos issue and J&J eventually pulled it from the market here because of large consumer lawsuits. They're a corrupt regulatory agency and their approval/disapproval doesn't mean much. Third party certification, like organic, non-gmo project, etc. are more important imo.Wise decision. That’s a hole I hope nobody has to ever go down, opiates are one of the craziest drugs on the planet. I stay away from everything outside of caffeine, the stories alone are frightening enough to have completely obliterated any curiosity of trying anything. Even with caffeine though, I’ve found myself to be slightly paranoid of even the little bit found in cacao powder now when I use it in some yogurt, or some hemp milk, teas, etc.
I know these are not drugs, but I honestly do not trust any supplements anymore either. And I used to be all in. I probably have the most extensive stack ITT but now it all seems purely useless to me. Potentially detrimental, possibly even lethal. No FDA regulation. I don’t know how I could have been so naive up to my current age in w/ the copious amounts I was making use of
There were a few times Vlaud, when I had read that you basically only have a protein shake after a rigorous wrestling practice. I had always thought that was kind of unusual, because your training (as well as
Last I checked at practice I was at 165 Ibs. People say I grip way above my weight.
I am alive.
So... I got some splainin to do.
Unfortunately I had some health issues that came out of the blue which resulted in some mental health issues that where totally unexpected. So I took a step back from the forum for a while. I wanted to wait till we where pretty certain what they where before I said anything.
So what happened... Was one or all of the following. Around the end of November all of these things happened around the same time and due to Covid and insurance crap I wasn't able to get help for the majority of it for months...
1. As all of you know, I've been training for arm wrestling pretty hard core. I have a pretty high pain tolerance so it's hard for me to gauge sometimes how much is too much because I only really feel that I messed up one or two days later. Well, I had started lifting even more and tweaked my back a bit. We started seeing a new Chiropractor who is a friend of ours from school whom just opened their own clinic in our town. They took xrays and everything... Well, I got some bad news that hit me pretty hard emotionally. I have some disks which are close to degenerating and fusing in my lower back. I suspect this was from slipping a disk when I was younger and dealing with all the nerve pain... as well as discovering...
2. I... Overdosed on cannabis. It was pretty much the worst experience I've ever had and that's saying a LOT if you know me. Long story short, I was trying to find something for my back and general soreness in general during my flare ups that wasn't prescription medication. However, even though my wife is an herbalist and health care specialist she doesn't really know anything about psychotropic substances. It was infused in honey and I had been taking small drops every night on some bread to begin with and it didn't seem to be doing much. So on the day it happened I had just gotten done with arm wrestling practice (CNS overload) and was exhausted, getting around to relax after eating a giant ruby red grapefruit that night when she came in with around half a tablespoon full and stuffed it in my mouth... After a couple minutes I started to laugh uncontrollably. I really mean totally out of my control. The muscles on my neck where sticking out like crazy and I was all red. I remember thinking "How long has it been? I can't do this much longer..." Then I realized it had only been a couple minutes and the lady that made it said her trip lasted her 8 hours... That's when I began to panic. I lost control of my emotions and couldn't summon a single positive thought. All I felt was terror. And then it got worse. I started calling friends and family for advice. The first person I could get ahold of was my sister, who partakes all the time and she suggested trying to distract my mind with some hot sauce... That only made it worse. I felt the warmness inside my chest and it made me feel like my heart or some other organ was exploding and like blood was coming out of my mouth... Then suggested a warm shower... I almost passed out in it. At this point I was apologizing to my wife for making this huge mistake and reassuring her that none of this was her fault as if I was about to die. She dragged me to the bed because my vitals had dropped for the first time. (She was monitoring me the whole time with a blood pressure cuff and a pulse ox, she also had my mother on the phone who is a NP who runs her own clinic, both of them are used to dealing with patients who are having panic attacks, thank the Lord for that) I laid in bed, unable to move and time slowed down like every minute was a year and I was reliving every bad thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't even in this dimension. Like I was seeing through the eyes of someone else and feeling their feelings and THEY where seeing through the eyes of someone else... Even sounds stretched out as I came back to the present. My wife would put her hand on my shoulder and rub it so I knew that she was there, but sometimes it sounded like she was rubbing on a shell that I was inside of and it creeped me out. Sometimes when I looked at her face, her eyes where huge and her voice didn't sound like her... This whole thing lasted for 38 hours. No joke. At one point, around 24 hours in, I snapped back to normal and sat up for a couple minutes, thinking it was over. Then I turned to my wife and the first thing I said was, "Now I know." "Now you know what?" She said. Then I asked her, "When you read fantasy, what is always an immortal persons worst fear?" She thought this was really odd and she said she didn't know. "That they would become trapped/encased in something and left to be inside their own head for ages or eternity. And then I went right back into another panic attack, a mild one this time, for the rest of the 38 hours. When I came to I was nervous and super distraught. I thought I'd maybe fried my brain but I felt ok. But then around a week later I started to have a heavy feeling in my chest and coldness in my neck and top of my head. Every time I felt the coldness on my neck, top of head and my butt would start to sweat, nearly every time I ate anything, I'd have an acute panic attack. My life changed totally. Usually I'm able to be a comfortable introvert and I love being self sufficient and able to handle things on my own. During this I just couldn't be alone. I'd freak out totally if I didn't have my wife or a friend nearby. This was a huge problem because my wife needed to work nights and my only close friend I trust who could stay couldn't always stay when I needed. It was hell. Talking with people on the phone helped a lot as well as online sessions in multiplayer games surprisingly. My wife thinks this was a dorsal vagal nerve response. Basically your body goes past fight or flight because it can't do either and goes into a freeze state where it kind of shuts down. I was kind of stuck in that. I got a zoom appointment with my GP and he prescribed Buspar to help with the acute attacks. I'm now on a very low dose of Gabipenton which is helping WAY better than the Buspar and I feel excellent and back to normal.
3. I was eating a chicken nugget one day and broke a chunk off my molar on something hard. It looked really black underneath. Well, I went to a dentists and found out that I had had a botched root canal at some point on that tooth... I didn't even remember this so we found out that it was a LONG time ago, 12 years, around the time I was in a car accident (Which is how I paid for it and my braces). Turns out it was totally botched and the old dentist didn't do it correctly which means that I've been dealing with infections this whole time. They said it was infected all the way up into my sinuses. This explains so much, like why my sense of smell kept going out on me and my constant stuffy nose where at least one side was ALWAYS clogged. (This is actually abating now and I can also smell SO much more). Several months later I was FINALLY able to get an appointment to get it taken out. They didn't put me under and they didn't even give me gas... It was the only appointment I could get that wasn't even more months out. He had a really tough time getting it out. I remember him putting the pliers on my tooth and yanking my head back and forth. I ended up having to hold my head still as hard as I could to help him. He was like, "Well, it sort of moved..." Then he pulled out this saw thing and went to town. It vibrated my entire head. I thought I was gonna break the arms on the chair. It didn't hurt, but it was really disconcerting. Then he stuck some reverse pliers in there and split it in half. Got his pliers again and grabbed one half and started pulling my head around again. Eventually it gave. Man, the way he sounded when he pulled it out... "Dude! What's up with your molar man?!" He put it in front of my face... It was so flipping long. It looked around an inch and a third long and it was shaped like a serpentine blade... The other half ended up shattering and they had to dig it out. Man... As I walked back out to the car afterwards I noticed that the weight that had been on my chest this whole time had completely gone away and the pressure that was on my head had started to dissipate. It was amazing. It must have been impinging a nerve or something. So, right now we really think the tooth was the majority of the issue.
4. I started to have really bad gut issues. Every time I'd eat it would seem like I'd start to have the mood swings and I'd almost get instant diarrhea. My stomach and intestines would churn like crazy. I don't know if this is due to the anxiety or if the anxiety stuff was due to this but we started a really strict diet (the GAPS diet, it freaking sucks but it's worth it) starting with only broths and then slowly adding foods over weeks and I feel WAY better now. No more gut issues.
I feel really good right now. I'm even more flexible than I've felt in ages. I used to have to sit on very specific surfaces or my back would go wild. Well, we got a love seat for the first time since we've been married from my Wife's departed grandmother and I've been contorting myself snuggling, sleeping and chilling on that thing like I was a teenager and I feel amazing. In fact, I've noticed that I've been able to activate more muscle than ever before. I can actually feel my entire bicep now when I contract it. I think my CNS has been overloaded for ages and it was effecting my ability to activate certain things to my full potential. In fact...
I finally did it!
(This is immediately after I ripped it. Please disregard my hair, the wife didn't tell me how fluffy it was even after she watered it down. I didn't want to let go of the cards to do it myself lol)
I finally ripped through a whole deck! It was amazing. I just decided to pick up a deck and see since my hands felt really good. Haven't tried, or worked out for that matter, for months since this all started happening and I'd lost a lot of weight, nearly 15 pounds due to the diet. I got a good grip on it and twisted as hard as I could and I heard a loud pop as the box broke and it ripped half way through in that first burst of torque. My eyes went wide and I looked at my wife and squeaked, "Love look!" She was like, "Well don't stop! Keep going!" Took a couple seconds and I ripped all the way through. Oh my Lord was I so happy. I was bouncing up and down haha. Really goes to show that the type of training that we're doing, building our tendons and endurance before our bulky muscle, really does build a strong foundation in strength that lasts.
Anyway. Sucks that I missed so much around the holidays but I plan on sticking around as my health stays with me. Never stop, brothers.
Also. Thanks
EDIT: And thanks to all of you who where concerned. I can't describe how much it means to be missed or even thought of and prayed for. It helped so much.
I thought you were on that pelican curl game? I've kept at em. Dunno if they build my biceps slower or faster than traditional bicep curls, but two big payoffs for me have been the shoulder / ribcage mobility plus the strengthening of my false grip. I would imagine that exercising your biceps in this way would tie them into the overall range-of-motion/muscle chain more effectively than if you were doing isolated bicep curls. I'm gonna stick with em for the next year to see where it leads.
This is intense! You obviously can handle it.
I believe they're all pretty close or close enough unless you're really being competitive and need to be super accurate. You can find some for pretty cheap on Amazon, around 20 bucks. Would love to see where all ya'll are at and if any of my hand exercises help, like the rice bucket and such.
True. But just didn’t want anyone casually reading this thread to think it’s necessary to work out everyday (depending on goals of course). Average folks looking to lose a few pounds could burn out pretty quickly if they are working out every day.
VlaudTheImpaler
you inspired me to try ripping a deck of cards tonight. This is as far as I got. I couldn't finish it. Not gonna lie, this was more painful than I expected.
