What’s Behind The Obsession Of “Getting Huge”?

Quite a few guys I have known that had what I considered a spectacular physique ruined it, in my opinion, because of an obsession with size.
One friend, who weighed 145 lbs. when I first met him, became obsessed with weighing 250 lbs. I asked what was that all about, that “magic number” of 250. He couldn’t explain it, but he was totally jazzed as the scale went up. As a smaller bodybuilder eventually weighing 175 lbs., he was enviably cut, hard, healthy-looking and proportionate and all agreed he looked great. However as he neared his goal of 250 lbs. he was puffy, smooth and ungainly-looking. A good portion of his gains was comprised of fat weight in contrast to his previous lean muscle weight. He also decided he needed a few thousand dollars’ worth of really bad tattoos to enhance the ugliness, but that’s another discussion altogether. He ruined his once-beautiful body. I saw his obsession as being not much different from people addicted to plastic surgery; they were never satisfied.
I pointed out, in an attept to point out how pointless his magic number of 250 was, that if he was using the metric system as 95% of the world does, that he would not be aiming for the 250 lb. number, but rather some other number. "250 lbs. equals 114 kilos," I said. “There’s no way you’d be all excited about an ideal goal weight of 114 kilos; instead your goal would be rounded off, most likely to 100 kilos, which is 220 lbs.” This argument went over his head. He thought he looked great at 250 lbs. He was blind to his water retention, bloat and complete lack of definition, but to each his own as they say. He seemed to think he looked like the guys in the film 300 and in fact used that film as his inspiration for his workouts despite his transforming into someone bearing no resemblance to the actors.
One of my former workout partners laughingly referred to this phenomenon as Magic Mirror Syndrome.

Sugar, Sugar, Everywhere

I do love my sweet stuff, but have always been choosey about which sweet I eat. For example I don’t eat bargain pastries, cookies, ice cream or the like, but I will eat quality versions of these foods. The key here is that I “choose” rather than allow others to choose for me.
What I don’t choose is all the hidden sugar in just about everything commercially produced and sold in supermarkets. Bread is a great example of a food that has no need for sugar. Historically, for thousands of years, bread never contained sugar, but reading labels now will reveal that the vast majority of breads sold in supermarkets do contain sugar. Keep in mind that other ingredients such as corn syrup, raisin syrup, fructose, molasses, etc. are also sugars.
Other foods have, through the years, been alternately labeled as good for us or bad for us, such as coffee, eggs and the like, and these wax and wane with the season, seemingly. But sugar has always been marked as a villain, and keeping sugar intake low is universally believed to be a good and healthful goal. Sickeningly sweet breakfast cereals like Cap'n Crunch or Lucky Charms shouldn't be on anyone's menu, especially children's. The entire reliance on cereal as a now-traditional breakfast meal is an amazingly successful marketing ploy by that industry when you think about it. "Traditional" means "I do it this way because others tell me I should and I don't have a free will to make my own decisions."
Save your sugar intake for foods that would not be what they are without it, such as desserts. Reject foods containing sugar that would not suffer from the lack of it, such as commercially produced pasta sauces, frozen skillet meals, bread, crackers and a whole host of other foods that make you ask questions like, why does a salty cracker need sugar?

Richard Sullivan at age 52

Bodybuilding = Bone Building.

In 2012 my doctor recommended I join a state study that as a bonus included lots of medical tests not covered by any medical insurance, tests which, had I been obliged to pay for them, would cost a small fortune. I jumped at the chance. Among these was a full body scan whose purpose among other things was to measure overall bone density. At first after viewing the results the staff thought there had been a mistake. The scan showed that in my 60s I had the bone density of a male in his early 20s.
They could observe that I was externally in exceptional physical shape, not just ‘for my age’ as the classic back-handed compliment goes, but for any age. There’s nothing like a medical professional who’s in terrible shape him/herself qualifying your physical condition despite your being in better shape than 95% of the general population. But I digress.
The scan revealed that years of strength training had had a profound impact on my skeletal frame.
In my early 30s I suffered from back ache and weakness in the back that made walking more than five blocks tiring and painful. I knew intuitively that I needed to strengthen my back muscles and that my then-current exercise routine was lacking. That gave me the impetus to approach a competitive bodybuilder at my gym and convince him I’d make a very good workout partner. Luckily for me he was also a great instructor/trainer. I made phenomenal progress quickly because I was motivated by fear of what lay ahead for me in the not-too distant future, my being too young at the time to be rightfully suffering from such an “old person’s” problem.
Younger people might begin strength training purely for vanity’s sake, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. But if they make strength training a life-long endeavor, the payoff will be a rich one as they remain strong, flexible, active and attractive at a time when most of their peers will be experiencing the opposite.

When Life Gets In The Way, It's Best To Just Go With It.

On August 7, 2014 Hawaii’s Big Island braced for the arrival of Hurricane Iselle. For those of us living on the island’s eastern shore, we were especially worried, as we would take the first hit. Checking the NOAA website to see the eye of Iselle was aimed directly at my area of Puna, I finished up criss-crossing all the windows with duct tape and moving as many objects to higher shelves and rafters as would fit. I packed the car for escape in case that need arose. I felt protected somewhat by the cliff at my yard’s end that put my house about 25 feet above the ocean’s surface, that is until the first 25-foot-plus wave came right over it and hit the house. It was 4 hours before Iselle was ready to land, but the ocean had breached the cliffs already. I jumped in the car and headed for a friend’s house 7 miles up the mountain.

The next morning a normally 15 minute drive took more than an hour, with hundreds of trees, snapped power poles and wires blocking roads. When I did get home, thousands of rocks and enormous boulders covered my lawn, right up to my house. The cliff had collapsed and the debris thrown through the air, somehow miraculously sparing my windows. My neighbors were not so lucky.

The weeks following, with electricity, phone and internet down, it was a trial of clean up and hunting down people in person — no one was available by phone — who could fix things that I could not. Fitness took a back seat, physically exhausting as it was to try and get things back to “normal.” Deciding to go for a run a week into it, I didn’t get far as wires were still down and lots of debris waited to trip up pedestrians.

Friends actually agonized over the interruption in their fitness routine, irrationally believing their muscles were going to atrophy if they didn’t get back to the gym. This stress only added to their hurricane clean-up problems, and knowing my own limits, I refused to worry about it. I’d get back to fitness when the long days and physically challenging work of clean up were behind me. Sometimes life gets in the way, so having a rational, balanced attitude about your fitness regimen is important to your mental state. During this time I also comfort-ate, something new for me. It felt good to dig into the ice cream, chips, and whatever else I wanted for the two weeks it took to repair and clean. But once things were caught up and I wasn’t so stressed, I stopped running to the supermarket for my fix.

Running After Radar

Only those who have lost their best canine or feline companion can know the profound sadness and emptiness accompanying that.

Rather than being a substitute for humans in our life, pets in fact are an appurtenance, an enhancement. In many ways they epitomize traits humans are barely capable of. We as people build walls and boundaries. We have ulterior motives. We have a hard time letting go of the past. We put ourselves first. We’re insecure about expressing love, reticent about showing affection.

Pets are cursed with none of these failings.

Having had dogs throughout my life, each of whom excelled in his/her own unique way, I can truly say that 5-year old Radar stood head and shoulders above the rest. Perfectly behaved by some fortuity of nature, never a-wandering, ever watchful over me, enthusiastically and unswervingly kind toward humans and other canines, yet protective of his home and people, joyful in the face of his adversity, his months of decline due to osteosarcoma and his ultimate loss were heart crushing.

The house is now empty, yet every morning like clockwork I still awaken at first light to take him for his walk. The first few days I felt adrift, but recognizing I needed a diversion, a new routine, I began running at this hour.

I live in a rural area and loved the morning walks taken with Radar — the quiet, the lack of cars and people, the cool breeze sliding down from the mountain tops. I could mentally organize my day while attending to his needs. I missed that. And so on day four of my grieving, as I got out of bed, the horizon just beginning to lighten up a golden pink, I, instead of shuffling morosely in the general direction of the coffee maker and the computer, put on my running shoes.

I’ve always hated running, but it has newly provided a way to work out my feelings through physical exertion, and allows me to celebrate my canine kid by tromping along the same route we followed during his way-too-short lifetime.

As much as I traditionally have shunned running, at this meaningful hour of the day it’s the right thing to do. It lightens, just a little bit, the burden of Radar’s loss, not just while I’m running, but throughout the day.

Mental Illness and Eating Disorders

People utilizing food to express their dysfunctional mental state is not a modern phenomenon, but with the expansiveness of media in modern times has come a more acute awareness of this issue. A friend of mine has long argued that even non-disturbing eating regimens such as veganism are the outward expression of inner turmoil and unresolved damage expressed through one’s control of food. Those in denial of the problems that have overtaken them who engage in self-destructive behaviors like bulimia, anorexia, binge eating and drinking, who explain away their aberrant practices as if they were some minor quirk, are creepy enough, but their supporters and defenders are just as emotionally unfit. After all, we are who we defend.
Going to the gym or practicing daily some physical activity like running, swimming, parcours, etc. allows for the shedding of — or at least a reprieve from — whatever mental or emotional problems we are carrying around. But choosing the opposite tact, turning the rage inward and damaging one’s self through an eating disorder, to use just one example, broadcasts to the entire world how fucked up we truly are.
Most of our damage has been accumulated in very early childhood, when we were voiceless and at the mercy of the adults around us — parents, neighbors, clergy, caregivers, teachers — and either could not or were not allowed to express our suffering. Those who grow up having an aversion to therapists must create some other way to articulate and disburden themselves from the pent-up rage they feel. The healthier way is through physical activity. The corrupting way, the dark way which turns the rage inward upon one’s self, can be a disturbingly public manifestation such as an eating disorder.
An eating disorder is a mortifying symptom under which lies other more sinister behaviors, such as living a hateful life and expressing ongoing tirades of rage towards others, as do many so-called media “pundits” who puke out their inner misery on any and all who irritate them in any way. These sick and malignant individuals are provided a voice by a corrupt and irresponsible media, with like-minded damaged people signing on as their “fans”, forming a club of sorts wherein, instead of collectively striving for a happier, healthier life, they pursue the exact opposite.
Physical exercise doesn’t cure mental illness, but it does provide a healthy constructive outlet for one’s personal suffering. Those who seek out the spotlight to broadcast their inner turmoil, who in fact celebrate and promote their destructive ways need to be recognized as the malignant individuals they are.
Shut off the TV and the computer and go for a run.

This Is What 84 Is Supposed To Look Like:

Bob Delmonteque's Los Angeles Times feature appeared ten years ago at age 84, reintroducing the Legend to a new generation. A lifelong fitness buff with an extraordinary physique, he was known and respected throughout the fitness world internationally. The feature he was proudest of was not his abs, but his hair. He said "I've been called an ab man. But really my best asset today is my hair. Not a day goes by without someone coming up to me and saying, "My God, you have nice hair."

Read the article here.

 

Eugen Sandow, circa 1890s

Curious about how a man back in the 1800s built a physique this awesome? Free download of Eugen Sandow's book here:
http://dandmlifting.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/2/5/5125250/sandow_physical_training.pdf

How Do I Make Myself WANT To Do It?

The most common thing people ask about a fitness routine of any sort is, “How do I MAKE myself WANT to do it?”

It helps to choose a routine that you actually like, such as swimming, or something you can do anywhere, like jogging, both of which we can do “mindlessly.” That means that you don’t have to concentrate too hard on the task at hand. When I swim lengths in a pool, or jog around the neighborhood, I am pretty much on auto pilot and I think of other things as I proceed.

Strength Training is a different matter, as it requires close attention to detail during the short but INTENSE bursts of activity, and in between sets of exercises it helps to keep your mind on the workout rather than drifting off somewhere.

Some things that help us want to or look forward to our chosen workout is to surround ourselves with stimuli. Among these might be watching videos of those we admire who have succeeded in that particular fitness endeavor, taping photos of our heroes to our refrigerator or photos showing before and after shots of those who have already accomplished their goals, and visiting websites that are loaded with stimuli and role models such as bodybuilding.com and perhaps engaging in some of the forums.

Scheduling a workout for the days of the week or times of the day when it is most convenient helps also. My favorite gym time is sometime in between 1 pm and 4 pm when most gyms are sparsely frequented. At times my work schedule has made it necessary to switch to a 6 am workout, or a 9:30 pm workout.

Little is more conducive to your looking forward to and enjoying your workout than RESULTS. 

If you can buckle down and stick to a with a no-excuses 30-day dedication to your fitness routine in conjunction with healthy eating regimen you will see vivid results and be empowered by them. Nothing is more motivating to continuing your new fitness routine than seeing a brand-new new you emerging every time you look in the mirror.

The Negative is Actually Quite Positive.

Every exercise has two components or movements: the positive and the negative.

The exertion half of the exercise, such as raising the dumbbell while doing biceps curls, or raising the barbell when performing the bench press, is called the positive.

Returning to the starting position is called the negative.

Most people put all their effort and attention into the positive movement but ignore and thus discard the enormous benefits provided by attentively performing the negative movement.

The negative is just as essential to shaping the muscle and building the muscle as is the positive.
You can amplify and accelerate your growth by paying as close attention to the negative as to the positive, but it will require increased effort and further depletion of your stores of energy.

The negative is all about keeping the target muscle flexed, rather than relaxing the muscle as we return it to the starting position, and maintaining control over the weight while doing so.

Most people concentrate on a number — the number written on the side of the weight — and once we achieve a larger number, graduating from a 25 lb. dumbbell to a 30 lb. dumbbell for example, it is anathema to consider going back to the 25. But since utilizing the negative takes far more energy than allowing the weight to just drop without resistance, backing off on the weight will be necessary.

Remember that this is just a NUMBER, and that the added component of the well-performed negative will MORE than make up for the lessened weight.

It is as much the intensity of the exercise as the weight of the dumbbell or barbell that provides us the results we seek.