Are you on the cesspool that is social media? Are you somewhere between your thirties and at least close to 50? If you answered “yes” to either of these, are you posting gay ass memes like this on your Instagram or Facebook?
Or maybe this?
Or perhaps even this dumb shit?
If this is you (and it probably is) then congratulations on doing the one thing you weren’t supposed to do: you became your parents! And in doing so you have officially failed at life. It’s funny that I, of all people, am talking about living. I hate living. But you fucks are just pathetic.
What happened? Settled down with someone who never knew how to live in the first place and you simply assimilated to please him or her? Never lived a healthy lifestyle (more than likely!)? Hanging around the wrong morons (also a high probability)?
You are supposed to be BETTER than your parents. You’re not better than them if you go around bragging that you’re bald, fat, achy, or that your favorite shitty high school jam was on the oldies station. It’s not funny, it sure isn’t cute. It never was. I’ve fucked women older than you who STILL have the energy and drive (especially the sex drive!) people your age are supposed to have. My psychotic, openly depressed, nearly 72 year old mother has more drive than you and she broke her ankle last year. My 66 year old dad, who has sustained MULTIPLE Powerlifting and labor related injuries is STILL strong as a bull and STILL tries to have a life when he’s not working long ass shifts at a job he’d rather not be in.
So if they can still go out there and LIVE, then I fail to see what the fuck your deal is. Is your lower back hurting? Get off your ass. Literally. Stop sitting down. Your glutes are weak and they’re pulling on your lower back. So exercise and strengthen those areas. Fuck I’ll even help you a bit and give you a few options!
Back Extensions (my go-to for a long time. Add a mini resistance band to increase force production.)
Glute Bridges (elevate your feet as much as possible)
Reverse Hyperextension (my current go-to before I do ANYTHING else)
In an unrelated note I highly recommend low back strengthening for you women with big titties. You’ve no idea how annoying you are when I hear you say “they’re hurting my back! I think I want to get a reduction!” Fuck that and you! Just get some muscle and let us enjoy those beautiful fun bags.
Does sleeping in a awkward position hurt you like in a meme I posted above? Simple solution: stop sleeping like that and learn how to properly sleep! What a concept! There is a right way and a wrong way to sleep. Referring again to the lower back: when you sleep on your back, for example, your lumbar spine is not resting on the mattress, especially if you have a big ass like I, because it’s being put into a state of involuntary flexion. Therefore, you’re spending up to eight hours adding stress to an already stressed out lower back. For the last several years I’ve been placing pillows underneath my knees when I sleep and now I feel no pain because the lumbar spine is able to relax.
Knees hurt? Unless you’ve sustained a major injury, that too can be fixed. The book Becoming A Supple Leopard offers COUNTLESS ways to fix painful knees, one of which I put to great use in late 2019. Getting fat? Developing the dad bod? Stop eating like shit and get off your ass! I have two cousins in law who were fat probably long before I ever knew them. Upon seeing them both for the first time in twelve years at my brother’s funeral in 2019 it was obvious that they were looking worse. Why? Because they don’t care. So when they go next I’m not even going to question what happened?
This may seem ignorant, one track minded and chauvinistic. It’s not. If this triggers you or pisses you off it simply tells me you’re the loser I’m targeting. All you need to do is eat right, learn how to exercise, learn how to get strong, and learn how to THINK FOR YOUR FUCKING SELVES. As negative as I usually am, guess what – there’s still hope. Guys, eat healthy, eat less, get rid of the gay ass dad bod and try to at least squat your bodyweight. Ladies and especially you moms, I’m sure getting rid of that pooch may be difficult. I’m not here for that. But you can also eat healthy, eat less, lift weights and for fucks sake get rid of that fucking retarded mom/Karen haircut and revive the sexiness I know is in you. Yes, long hair is not only youthful, it’s sexy as can be.
You still have time. Knock it off with the stupid age memes and learn how to be BETTER than your parents. Get into shape because they couldn’t or wouldn’t, and don’t just wait until you’re divorced and too scared to be alone either. It’s over for your parents (well, most of them anyway), it doesn’t have to be for you. Unless you want it to.
I’ve been talking about this for a year. My own training template for beginning lifters, an easy, basic, bullshit free style, thoughtfully put together through many sources plus my experience both as a personal trainer as well as someone who once struggled to the point that all seemed hopeless. Training, regardless of your goals, is much more of a cerebral game than most newbies would realize.
You have to learn the art of Autoregulation, listening to your body to realize what kind of stimuli it will and won’t respond to in terms of exercises and reps and sets and all that bullshit. Speaking of bullshit, be ready to have have all sorts of advice thrown your way by both the ones who actually look like they lift and especially the ones who look more like they just took some program off Bodybuilding.com without doing any real research and just began “working out” a few weeks ago. They’re hilarious! But more important than either of those, is the development of your mental toughness.
The lifts you’ll be performing will be simple, but brutal after a while. You’ll be repeating a lot of these almost every workout and you’ll get bored. You can either just give up because you can’t take the repetition, or you can suck it up, follow the program to the T and reap the rewards later. Yeah, I’m an angry asshole – and lack of patience usually comes with being angry! But I at least understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day either. But hey, what the fuck do I know? I only Deadlift more than double my bodyweight.
Training Philosophy
Why do we Lift With Hatred? What’s your daily life like? Kids? Nagging wife/girlfriend/baby mama? Nagging husband/boyfriend/baby daddy? Feeling disrespected by your boss? Colleagues? Random pieces of shit on the streets who need to be put in their place? They all have one thing in common: it all can get to your head.
Lift With Hatred isn’t “just” some fucking saying I came up with to look awesome. It’s cerebral. It’s emotion. It’s taking all the negativity that you endure throughout your day, and channeling it into something badass, like hitting a squat PR with everything you have. Let’s face it, I’d love to beat the shit out of one or two of my “colleagues” at work…as well as several “family” members; but I also know that I’m not in the mood to go to jail right now.
Lift With Hatred is a way of life. So how exactly do we Lift With Hatred? You look deep into your mind; think about one person who always does you wrong, or your significant other who cheated on you, or that random shithead on the streets you said the wrong thing. Take those feelings of wanting to beat them to the point of near death (the movie Bugsy comes to mind!), and take it out on those weights. Why? Because a powerful physique is far more beneficial than a rap sheet!
The Do’s and Don’ts Of What You’ll Need
I delved into this a little bit in an article called Lift With Hatred: Stupid Shit In The Gym. But here’s is small, ridiculously simple list of what you’ll need to start off – and it’s not much – along with what you definitely won’t need.
Need
Shoes With A Flat Sole
This is often recommended by a lot of reputable coaches and for good reason. In as simple of an explanation as possible, you want to always be able to “split the ground”, or push down against the floor, when performing any compound move. You can’t do that if your shoes don’t allow you feet to be completely on the floor. So most sneakers are out of the question. A flat sole usually provides a bit more traction and allows you to use your posterior chain more, which is crucial for most strength based routines. If you’ve been squatting for a while in sneakers, I guarantee you’ll quickly find out how strong your squat really is once you switch over. I switched over in 2010 and I couldn’t believe how weak I really was (see the Chuck Taylors above!)! There’s also the possibility of tipping over during a heavy squat or deadlift. So you can take my word for it or not. Up to you. Just don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. Recommendations include but are not limited to: Converse Chuck Taylor hi tops, Otomix or Adidas Wrestling Shoes. Don’t worry about getting Adidas Powerlifts, Do-Wins, or anything with a heel until it’s absolutely necessary.
Mini Resistance Bands
Resistance bands in short are fucking amazing. These bands were popularized by those sadistic lunatics over at Westside Barbell long ago, and now everyone and their mother uses them. Why? Constant tension. Advanced and elite level lifters use them at multiple sizes to add weighted tension to lighter percentages of their maxes, because more tension will force you to work faster. Remember, speed is one of the two components of power. But you’ll be using these as a quick warm up for your rear delts before every workout because they’re not only conveniently small enough to carry, but because not every gym has a dowel rod available for a move like Shoulder Dislocations. So for that reason, just order a mini band.
Foam Roller
I first read about foam rollers more than a decade ago in a Men’s Health workout guide that’s I’m pretty sure I still have somewhere; but I’m pretty sure it was Muscle And Fitness that called it “The Poor Man’s Massage”. And it is. It’s also a great way to open up the muscles at the beginning of your warm-up. Does your job require you to sit all day long? You’re hips, lats, pectorals and front delts are probably tighter than your fifteen year old sister, and you’ll know where those tender spots are when you find it. You’ll be yelling “hurts so good!” like the closet submissive that you are in no time!
Lacrosse Ball
Use a Lacrosse ball to massage areas that you might not be able to successfully hit with a foam roller, such as you piriformis and especially your feet.
Don’t Need
Any Kind Of Lifting Belt
Go ahead and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Done? Feel better? Great – now go suck me! Now that that’s out of the way…you’re reading this correctly. If you’re just starting ANY routine, you do NOT need a belt of any kind. The purpose of a belt is to provide you with something to push your abs into, allowing the abs to achieve an even harder contraction. But unless you’re squatting or deadlifting more than you weigh, focus on developing your “natural belt”, aka your abs. At one point you’ll need one, but for this beginner’s routine I wouldn’t worry about it.
Almost Every Supplement Out There
Here’s another thing that’ll have people telling me I know nothing. They can still go suck me. Not including protein powder, there’s no need to spend your money on any kind of preworkout, creatine monohydrate, or fat burners. I’m not saying they don’t have they’re place; but if you’re new to training and are thin, you need to eat as if you’re one of the fat slobs slowly marching toward death’s door in Supersize Me, clearly rendering fat burners useless here ((although they don’t really do much at all!). In terms of preworkout, there’s no real need for that much caffeine if you’re just starting with an empty bar. Creatine Monohydrate is arguably the single safest supplement out there, especially in it’s powdered form (which is cheaper yet way more effective than it’s pill form). It retains water in the muscles. Sodium does the same shit. But if you want to use Creatine, I’d recommend at least seeing what kind of muscular foundation you can build without it on your own first. Otherwise, you could just take a tablespoon of sea salt and mix that in a gallon of water.
Gloves
An actual depiction of what you look like when you wear gloves to the gym.
Gloves: GAY. I definitely when on a tirade regarding gloves in the article I mentioned above. But to be short: DO NOT WEAR FUCKING GLOVES. Unless you have nerve damage you don’t need them. Gloves provide a layer between your hands and the bar. Sounds like protection, and it is. But your grip strength won’t develop and it needs to in order for this or any REAL program to work. One of my clients recently bitched when he realized he was developing calluses on his hands, saying when he touched his wife he wanted smooth hands for her. Yeah? You know what your wife would appreciate more? Man hands! So do yourself a favor and ditch the gloves. Actually no…BURN THEM. Or go get a sex change and start calling yourself Sparkles while singing along to this:
The Warm-Up
Here’s a simple warm-up that should take a least ten minutes once you get the hang of everything. For this you’ll need your foam roller and your mini resistance band. Some of the moves you’ll see here I’ve taken from either books I’ve read over the years or things I’ve learned recently. Some of this is taken from the DeFranco Agile 8 (I’ll leave a link below).
Start off by foam rolling your entire body. As I mentioned earlier, some of you might have jobs that require sitting all day. So some of the key joints and limbs here might be real tight. That’s why it’s important to hit EVERYTHING, not just your shoulders, legs and hips. Foam roll your piriformis (or use a lacrosse ball), your pecs, even your biceps (they’re connected to your shoulders after all).
Dynamic Warm-up. Remember when your elementary school gym teacher made you do shit like jumping jacks and jogging in place before actually doing anything? Well they were on to something. Dynamic movements help loosen your muscles, as well as increase your heart rate. Never EVER perform static stretches before working out. Stretching a cold muscle could possibly lead to an injury. This warm-up includes body only movements along with resistance band movements for the rear delts:
Body Only
Side Planks: 20 – 30 seconds per side
Leg Swings: 10 – 15 swings per leg (make sure you feel the stretch in both your quads and your hamstrings depending on the direction)
Groiners: ten reps altogether.
With A Mini Resistance Band
Band Pull Aparts: 8 – 12 reps above the nipple line, followed by 8 – 12 reps below the nipple line (where you’d position the bar for the Bench Press); Banded Shoulder Dislocations: 8 – 12 reps; Band Face Pull With External Rotation: 8 – 12 reps. When I say external rotation, I simply mean that instead of finishing the movement with your fists facing in front of you and over your head, they instead will be facing you as if you’re flexing your biceps, or jerking off two dicks in a bukkake video, or whatever floats your boat.
I’d actually hold off on the resistance band portion of the warm-up until you’re ready to perform any upper body movements. In Part 2 of the workout I’ll be presenting to separate templates for two relatively different goals. But both workouts will be starting with a posterior chain exercise to isolate the lower back and there’s no point, really, in warming up the shoulders to work on your lower back. But that’s just my two sense. Stay tuned for part 2. Feel free to message me with any questions, complaints, death threats, sacrifices, etc.
Confessions of an Angry Metalhead 