Lift With Hatred: Stupid Shit In The Gym

Posted on September 25, 2018December 13, 2018 by Mike

In the last few years I’ve seen some real STOOPID shit while in the gym. I won’t lie, I did some unnecessary shit in my early twenties; but I NEVER did half of what I’m about to talk about here. Fitness, and getting in shape, or whatever the fuck your personal goals are should be fucking simple as shit. There shouldn’t be any weird dancing with weights, or balls, or misuse of equipment. And fuck, the way some of you misuse equipment meant to act as a REINFORCEMENT is fucking ANNOYING to see. So here before you is a short list of shit I want to stop in the gym – ANY gym. Yeah, even my own gym isn’t safe from some of this shit.

1.Wearing Gloves, Wraps, and Belts Unnecessarily

This is something I saw someone in my current gym do months ago while trying to regain my own squat strength post wrist injury.

Gloves

First rule of ANY kind of real lifting: DO NOT FUCKING WEAR GLOVES YOU LITTLE BITCH! If you’re stupid enough to do so, I can only assume grip strength isn’t important to you. Aw, are you afraid of getting callouses? Have fun never getting strong! But more so than that, if you “need” to wear gloves for an exercise in which the bar is to be ON YOUR BACK, then you’re not doing it right. In fact, your wrists are NOT supposed to have ANY pressure on them.

The Cheap Ass, Flimsy, Harbinger Bitch Belts

I forgive you if you’re brand spanking new to weightlifting. You’ve yet to be privy to the importance of true quality materials involved in making real belts. You may not yet even understand that it’s better to learn how to work on strengthening your abs, using that as a “natural belt”. For the rest of you, I honestly hope those fucking Harbinger belts either dig into your ribs while you’re squatting, or they “fail” you because you probably don’t know how to brace.

I honestly feel like all lifters, regardless of whether or not they are bodybuilders or powerlifters or whatever, need to have a belt that is just one length all the way around, and made of leather. I, for example, have an Inzer 10mm Forever Belt. But there a few other brands you can by quality belts from, such as Pioneer Fit. You can either take this advice or just look like a jerkoff…up to you.

Quarter Squatting With Knee Wraps???

If you’re reading this I’d like to think this is self explanatory. But if not: if you’re using fucking KNEE WRAPS to squat 225, your squat probably sucks ASS. Especially if you’re not at least breaking parallel! Just imagine you’re shitting in the forest, or even do what I did and actually ASK for help. Some people like to do box squats as a reinforcement – remember that word? I personally don’t care for them because I feel like it allows the hamstrings to relax and lose tension, but that’s just me. But this actually leads to my next example of gym stupidty!

2.Real Men Don’t Squat With Bosu Or Medicine Balls!!

I actually saw some tool do this in NYSC in Clifton, NJ two years ago. He was front squatting with sneakers onto a medicine ball. First off, if you’re front squatting with sneakers, you better hope I’m not there when you tip over because I’m just going to laugh. A lot. Find someone else to help you. Also, if you’re a man squatting onto a medicine or BOSU ball, do yourself a favor: return your man card right away and make an appointment yesterday for that sex change operation you’ve secret wanted since you got out of high school and entered college, the time where most jackasses finally feel free to wave their jackass flags high! Fuck, even another woman told me “…I thought only chicks squatted onto BOSU balls…”. See guys, don’t be that douche with the surfer boy haircut squatting onto a BOSU ball. Find a box or a small stool or even a bench like a real man. You are a real man, right?

Arnold didn’t have bitch ass medicine balls in 19 whatever the fuck year this was taken in. And he didn’t need them either, and neither do you unless you’ve begun hormone treatments to grow your tits.

3. Weighted Ballet

This goes out to all you certified personal trainers out there…or at least those of you that only based your knowledge on your ACE or NASM textbooks. Yeah, I’m a newly certified trainer – but at least I know that the only way to get someone to do a squat is to keep him or her STABLE and not moving around like an asshole. Or on a BOSU ball. Or anything that’s not a SOLID surface.

“What the fuck is he doing??”

That’s exactly what I thought when I saw I personal trainer at my last gym (the subject of my inaugural Lift With Hatred article) “teach” his middle aged client this absolutely retarded squat “variation”. He gave his client two 10lb dumbbells to hold up at shoulder length. From there, he made him do a squat, then turn 180 degrees to do another squat, and repeat the process. Fuck, at that point this poor fuck wasn’t learning how to get in shape. He was learning weighted fucking ballet! That shit would get me nauseous!

I don’t give a shit about your certification. I could give two fucks about your knowledge of Golgi Tendon Organs. If you have any kind of intelligence or even just a little common sense, you’d know that “functional training” is simply performing exercises that mimic everyday life. That includes the squat and deadlift. So if I’m picking up a box in a warehouse, am I going to spin around with it like some faggot on Dancing With The Stars, or am I going to load it up on the 18 wheeler like a normal person? If you said spin around like a jerkoff, then you deserve to get shot in the head. Twice. You want to have your clients do a dumbbell squat? Simple. Have them do a Goblet Squat: dumbbell to the chest and squat for reps. It’s easy and effective.

Look at that shit – so easy your dead great grandmother can do it!

4. Wearing Shirts With Trendy Mottos

Due to the success of certain YouTube fitness channels, the owners of those channels began selling shirts with their dopey slogans on them. Of course they sold. Of course most of these people are absolute toolbags comprising of either bro lifters or fuckheads who only got into Powerlifting because it somehow became trendy. I want to talk about Barbell Brigade first because I’m going to be less brutal on them than I am with Beastmode. Barbell Brigade, honestly, looks like an awesome gym that I’d love to train in if I’m ever in that part of California. But “Dominate Humbly”?? Who the fuck ever dominated ANYTHING with humility? That’s like a dude starting to brag to his friends about the girl he just boned the other night but the surprise twist was that SHE asked HIM who his daddy was and he liked it as she pounded HIM into submission! He also probably wore a man bun. He’s also probably about to go get a sex change.

Beast Mode Bro!

I honestly have no clue who started this #beastmode shit years ago. I just know that it sucks ass. Like your mother. I also know that it’s not only a silly way of saying you’re going hard at the gym, or even at life, or “grinding” (don’t get me started with this stupid term), but it’s another excuse to record yourself on your phone to get YouTube views or Instagram likes.

But what’s hilarious about Beast Mode is…what the fuck are most of you doing that’s so impressive that it justifies a stupid hashtag. Between videos of bros lifting and pictures of dudes with their shirts off, showing off their upper bodies, you’ve all missed the point. From the time I started training to now neither I nor my friends ever yelled out “yeah man lets go fuckin’ beast mode today bro!”. We just went in there, did our shit and when home. No bragging, all work. You’ll never go on Dan Green or Shawn Roden’s Instagram pages and find #beastmode on their posts. Why? Because they don’t need to put that for everyone to know how hard they worked to get to where they both are now.

Chances are, a good chunk of you probably, are lying through your fucking teeth about exactly how hard you actually work. I bet that, instead of “grinding” you probabky spent most of your time on your phones. You probably are clueless when it comes to programming your training for consistent, long term progress. Your body can be forced to be in “Beast Mode” for only so long before it’s had enough and you either stagnate (the nicest thing that can happen to you) or you get hurt from overtraining because you didn’t schedule a lighter or medium/light week. Or even a deload week!

The saddest thing about “Beast Mode” is that some older guys have drank the Kool Aid. Earlier this year I saw a guido looking dude at my gym, looking older than even I, with a gold chain on…and a Beast Mode tank top. If you’re a man looking close to 40, and you’re wearing a tank top that says “Beast Mode” on it, you most likely haven’t experienced the love a woman in a really long time. After this you have two choices. You can either A) throw yourself in front of an incoming train, or B) go make an appointment for a sex change with the guy squatting on a medicine ball.

5. Invisible Dicks

I’ll never forget this night for as long as I live. February 16th, 2016. New York Sports Club, Clifton NJ. I was hyped up, as I was was preparing to finally Deadlift 315 for the first time (I did so for four reps, by the way). The problem? The deadlift platform was being used by a middle aged man. I asked him how many sets he had left and he explained to me that, as per his Crossfit routine (that should already be a warning!), he was set to perform 12 sets of clean and jerks followed immediately by jump rope.

One problem. I didn’t see a jump rope. So what this guy started doing after his clean and jerks was probably THE single weirdest form of Bukkake I’ve EVER seen in my life. He began jumping up and down while “simulating” jumping rope. All he really looked like all he was doing was jerking off two invisible dicks, but he decided to jack them on his waist because he thought he was too pretty to get it all on his face. Should’ve known, this apparently was a Crossfit routine, after all.

Sarah Palin at least got it right. Why can’t you?

I also saw someone do this shit in my previous gym last summer. I had no clue Bukkake had become a fitness trend! But guys (since I’ve yet to see any chicks do this), either get it right like Sarah Palin or don’t do it at all. Stop fucking jerking off invisible dicks and get a real fucking jump rope you faggots!

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Lift With Hatred

Posted on July 4, 2018July 8, 2018 by Mike

Powerlifting is an external view of how pissed off at the world I really am. – Kirk Karwoski

The title of this article…if you follow me on Instagram you see this hashtag attached to all my training related videos. But let it be known now: I didn’t come up with it just for the sake of having a hashtag or to have several thousand followers. I have nowhere near that. It’s a literal way of life for me. I’m not Kirk Karwoski; but much like him, Powerlifting is definitely an extension of how pissed off I really am.

This guy was just a psycho. In his prime, if he came to the gym and someone was at his squat rack, he’d give them a five minute warning. If the unlucky fuck wasn’t done yet, Kirk would take their shit and throw it to the side and force them out!

At 34 years old, at a time where most people begin to soften with age, I’ve just become colder. Friends? I have so few of them, especially now. Honestly, fuck ’em, don’t need ’em. Playing in bands? More like sixteen years of my life I can never get back. Family? Oh, lets not go there. Work? Let’s REALLY not go there! The ONLY thing I want to do is lift heavy shit. That’s my only relief from the day.

Fuck Your Commercial Gym

The Deadlift. THE single most macho lift anyone can do in their gym…if their gym doesn’t give them shit for it. In fifteen years I’ve trained in just six gyms. One was my college weight room, three of them were commercial and the other two including my current gym are badass gyms with the type of vibe you can only get in a smaller, more intimate setting. Up until last year, no commercial gym ever gave me shit for the way I trained – or even for the clothes I wore to the gym!

Then came this boy scout manager, who claimed he understood me since he himself was a pretty big guy and even complimented my Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym t-shirt. While being given the tour of the place, the much nicer manager who was showing him around asked me to be “kinder” to her floors. Little did she understand that the plates were rubber coated so they’d never break her floors. And before anyone asks: no, I wasn’t slamming the weights.

Regardless, that clearly left an impression on him. He came up to me a week later, looking like he was dry humping his imaginary girlfriend while I was deadlifting before belittling me, lecturing me on proper form like I was some fucking idiot. We almost went to blows right away. I realize instantaneously that he planned on using me to make a name for himself and I wasn’t going to let that shit happen. It was his first official day on the job. A week later, I decided to train wearing jeans and boots, something I’ve done from time to time ever since I’ve been training. This dumb son of a bitch asked me if I had any other clothes and, when I said I didn’t, told me hesitantly that I then had to leave. Why? Because the rivets – the ones I didn’t have on these jeans – would rip up the pleather on the already shitty Hammer Strength benches. I asked him to just let me go with a warning and I’d never do it again, as I had just gotten into my warmup.

Two minutes later, I found myself angrily sitting in my car, knowing for sure that my days at this “gym” were numbered. No one had EVER kicked me out for wearing jeans and boots before, or even given me a warning. Luckily for me, I already knew exactly where I wanted to hang my hat next. The problem was I was low on cash, meaning I’d have to wait a while. I endured two more months of walking on eggshells and even coming close to a confrontation with a trainer there, who I really liked and still do, over my “slamming the weights”.

So what the fuck am I driving at? If you’re like me the gym has to feel like a home, not some fucking social club. It’s okay to make friends. Fuck, I’ve met amazing people in EVERY gym I’ve ever trained in. But if you’re like me, you’re dedicated to acheiving shit that most peole could never dream of. That means you put on those earbuds if you really have to, and you tune out the rest of the world. That means all your focus is going to be on that set, your rep goal, whatever. You’re going to make sure you give it all you got, with all the intensity you can. Is it so heavy you might scream a bit? Go ahead, fucking do it! If anyone is dumb enough to say shit, it’s most likely because they’re too chicken shit to try it.

Make sure your gym is not only welcoming of all kinds of lifters, but TOLERANT. That usually means get the fuck out of your commercial chain gym that can have all the equipment you can ever need, but mostly relies on cardio bunnies for their revenue. Does that one guy that can pull four plates do the robot in between his sets? You need to get the fuck out of there now! That means being in a gym with all lifters – male and female – who know that THE way to get in shape is to not just eat right, but to focus on the three greatest lifts you can do: the squat, the bench and the deadlift. I’ve gotten more muscle mass doing those than I ever did doing just shrugs or leg presses (even though leg presses are part of my current routine).

To me, the gym is the one place where I can express myself. Where I am now, I can lift the way I want, how I want, when I want, with as much intensity as I want and I’ll never be given a hard time for it. Lifting is the one time in my day where I can get out all of that negative energy – and believe me, there’s so much of it! – without anyone else getting hurt. I lift with hatred because that’s my one source of strength. I lift with hatred because that’s all I know. This is not a game. I don’t do this for “fun”; I do it because I need to.

I’m leaving you with my one of my spotify Gym playlists:

Maybe one of these tracks will give YOUR workout a swift kick in the ass.

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Doug Young: The Hardcore King Of Powerlifting

Posted on August 11, 2017July 14, 2018 by Mike

See that beast in the main picture? That motherfucker right there is THE reason I became a fan of Powerlifting to begin with. This is the story of Doug Young, more than a man’s man, but an absolute GOD in the early era of the sport.

I had already gained some interest into what Powerlifting was the day I started surfing YouTube videos thanks to the growing popularity of Starting Strength, a beginner’s strength routine. I found an old video of a televised Powerlifting event on NBC Sports with commentary from former Powerlifter and coach Terry Todd and a very young Bryant Gumbel. It turned out to be the 1977 IPF World Championships, held in Perth Australia. After watching a Squat World Record cat fight between Paul Jordan and Larry Pacifico, which resulted in Paul hurting himself in three places because he went for heavier weight than he could handle like a retard, as well as Vince Anello winning first place in the Mid Heavyweight division for Team USA, it was the Heavyweights’ turn.

Around the minute mark of this particular video Doug Young appeared as he was getting ready to Squat 699lbs. The intensity in his eyes could burn a hole right through anyone. Then, as he began to set himself up, you heard that fucking growl. This wasn’t no ordinary growl, it truly sounded like a bear was coming out. It was Doug’s inner rage, having to squat that much weight after dropping thirty pounds in just one week in order to make the 242lbs weight class for Team USA. Oh he made the squat alright, but in doing so he also broke three ribs.

It clearly was pretty unlikely that he’s continue. But he did, managing to Bench Press 535lbs, Deadlift 710lbs, and even win first place, all while fainting twice in the process. “Holy fucking shit this guy is hardcore!” was my initial reaction. I doubt that Larry Pacifico, who Doug even called out before his 710lb Deadlift attempt, would have balls that big as to compete with three broken ribs after dropping thirty pounds in seven days. I’m not claiming to be the toughest son of a bitch alive but I doubt highly that even modern day guys like Dan Green or Eric Lillibridge would be brave enough to do that. Well…maybe Eric would be.

Power Bodybuilding

In between lifters and attempts interviews were shown with the lifters. But when they showed Doug’s interview he said something interesting. He revealed that when he wasn’t training specifically for Powerlifting he’d train “for physique”, claiming that everyone should train to be equally as “pretty” as they do to be strong. This is called Power Bodybuilding today and, as shown in those interview clips, it’s a lot higher in volume than most people would think, as these training clips shown him performing Bodybuilding type moves, such as dumbbell flyes, dumbbell curls and Skull Crushers.

Doug at his best had a 56 inch chest with a tapered waist. So not only did he have muscle but also didn’t have much fat on him. It seemed, for a while, that lifters, regardless of their goals, lost the point but I think it’s coming back now, especially with programs like Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1, which I’ve been using for almost two years now, and Chad Wesley Smith’s Juggernaut system. It’s that equal balance of stimulating the muscles for both growth and strength, while conditioning yourself too. Doug Young was the early forefather for what it is to truly be in shape. Oh and by the way, a year he broke his rib Doug was the first man under 300lbs to Bench Press 612lbs. With just a t-shirt on.

Doug Young, he was to fore bearer of what it is to truly be in shape and be the total package, and one day in his lifting career was more hardcore than your entire life.

Final Thoughts

Unrelated to Doug Young, I just found out that Kai Green has signed up with Super League and, while it appears he’s not leaving the IFBB, it looks like he’s done competing for them. That’s a fucking shame! I don’t follow Bodybuilding like I used to but Kai was my boy. He may have not won 1st place but he has a legacy so much stronger than his win-loss record. I looked up Super League and realized that I did actually hear about it maybe a week ago. Looks promising…but on the flipside, is Kai really that insecure about never beating Phil Heath?

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Confessions of an Angry Metalhead

Tag: Power Bodybuilding

Lift With Hatred

Doug Young: The Hardcore King Of Powerlifting