Training - "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life..."

2/22 - bench, db press, db row, curls, speed bag, stretch
2/20 - shadowbox

Q/A – Advice for an Older Lifter - JimWendler.com: "Question: I know there are a lot of variables to this question but do you find that older lifters (over 55) respond better to full body training 2 days a week or focusing on one main lift a day 4 days a week? 
 Answer: It doesn’t matter at all – for any lifter. People get so caught up in this stuff, and I totally understand why, but it doesn’t matter at all. Just like where you put the bar when you squat, what kind of grip you take on chins/pull-ups, casein vs. whey…  Just a lot of bickering and ridiculousness. Anyway, with an older lifter there are a couple things that need to be addressed/looked at.

First is recovery – that is BY FAR the most important issue. I’ve written numerous things about recovery, its importance and what to do – in fact we have a whole guidelines for what to do for the 5/3/1 program. But regardless of what program you use, you must follow the basic guidelines of recovery. (and no, none of them cost any money or require you to tell a therapist your bad dreams while submerged in cold water). Stress is stress and you have to be able to recover from it regardless of if you do full body, etc. Within the scope of recovery is sleep, diet, mobility/flexibility and aerobic work. The second thing is injuries – usually prior injuries that restrict the lifter. You have to be able to program around and through them. Third is hypertrophy or HYPERtrophy (depending on the accent emphasis) – we lose muscle mass at an alarming rate when we get older. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a bodybuilder or anything remotely close. This gets covered even when doing a “low rep” program or whatever it’s called but this ties into the final point…. Fourth is understanding the role of assistance work. For an older lifter, assistance is very important as it can allow him/her to work more without a ton of stress to the body. This can be accomplished a variety of ways but needs to be addressed. Assistance work for an older lifter doesn’t have to be “normal” exercises, rather movements: agility ladder, jumping rope, cone drills – stuff that gets your body to do shit you normally wouldn’t do. The more you train like an “athlete” (balance, not just lifting) the better, stronger and healthier you will be. 

Your body is like your brain; you need to challenge it in different ways or you will become physically stupid.  Training should be functional (squat, deadlift, press) and also include unfunctional movements – these are things you normally don’t do in training or even life that can help you stay healthier (agility, mobility).  The latter is done to make the former easier.  You don’t need to spend more than 10 minutes/day on the unfunctional stuff to reap the benefits. So do whatever program you want – I HIGHLY encourage people to change things up while keeping the same principles. Have some fun. If the effort and principles remain the same, you will thrive. "

Hardcore Training - JimWendler.com: "...hardcore is a term made up by people who aren’t hardcore. It’s used by pretenders. It’s used to motivate those that need some rah-rah bullshit to get them up before a lift. And therein lies the rub. Those who have trained, consistently, year in, year out, no matter the weather, day or circumstances don’t need motivation. They have discipline. And that’s why you train when it’s the last thing you want to do."

The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt's Mixed Martial Arts | FIGHTLAND: "“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph,” Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, declared in his 1899 speech “The Strenuous Life.”  

“We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past.”"

Anonymous Submission This month (February) marks...: "This month (February) marks the one year point on my weight loss journey. With a lot of hard work and sacrifice I was able to lose just shy of 60lbs. I never thought of myself as fat but one day realized I was no longer in the shape I was in my 20’s. Life has a way of getting busy and priorities become disordered. 

With my 40th birthday fast approaching I knew it was time to get in shape.  I now feel amazing, sleep great, and can chase after the kids all day. As in most/all things that I do, I’m not quite happy with where I’m at yet. I know that there’s lots more hard work ahead, with many meals and social gatherings that I’ll abstain from, but I’ve proven to myself that those sacrifices pay off in the end."