POSTURE: The Unending Fight Against Gravity

Nothing will ruin all your good work at the gym faster than bad posture. There are quite a few guys and girls at my gym who are impressively muscled yet have really poor posture, and since mirrors are everywhere, how can they not see this? 

I work on posture throughout the day. Immediately after getting out of bed at 5 a.m. When I walk the dog, wash dishes, carry heavy things. But most markedly I make a great effort at the gym as I work out to stand straight and tall, stomach in, shoulders back, chest out as I do curls, delts and all the rest. But in between sets is the hardest, as I am depleted physically, trying to recover for the next set, and maintaining good posture while struggling for breath isn’t easy or pleasant.

Good posture while performing your exercises is a necessity in the pursuit of proper form. Proper form = optimum results.

We’re Stronger On The Negative Than On The Positive.

We’re stronger on the negative portion of our workout exercises than we are on the positive portion, so why do so many people throw the negative away entirely rather than utilize it to get bigger and stronger faster? That’s tantamount to going to KFC and nibbling off just the crispy bits and then throwing the breast meat in the garbage. 

If you’re throwing away the negative portion of your workout exercises, you’re throwing away up to 60% of your potential muscle growth. Most people give no thought to this, much less apply effort. We see people at the gym whipping through their set as if they can’t wait to get it over with, demon speeding like they’re on some ride at Disneyland. One reason for this is ego—using a weight that’s too heavy for them to properly handle in that particular situation, and thus feeling the the urgency to get the set over and done with, rather than reveling in it.

To best utilize the negative we have to learn to embrace the discomfort (not to be confused with actual pain) in the target muscle as we methodically flow through the arc of each rep. 

Instead of chasing a predetermined number, such as 10 reps, I chase the pump. Six excellent reps, methodically performed so that at every degree in the arc my mind is totally focused on the target muscle and the goal of engorging it with blood, are far more effective than ten sloppy reps.

The negative (concentric) portion of the exercise is even MORE important to growth of both size and strength than the positive (eccentric) portion. The negative properly done will build muscle and get you where you want to go faster and with better results than just the positive alone, as so many presently perform it. 

If you do biceps curls with dumbbells presently, try using cables or resistance bands next time. Resisting on the negative with cables is “easier” and more fluid than with the dead weight of a dumbbell or barbell.

Even more challenging than fighting gravity on the negative portion is actually applying increased resistance on the negative as compared to the positive. This will take you even further, sooner.

Watch Jeff Cavaliere graphically demonstrate this in the video above.

"Body Positivity" and Other Bullshit

Click to see the Huffington Post feature

Right at this moment all of us inhabit the exact body we have intentionally created. Yeah, I hear the “well—what about?” crowd screaming loudly now. What about people who were in accidents, or contracted an illness? Obviously we’re not talking about these people but rather the vast majority who have intentionally created and promoted their own physical decline. The whatabouts are made up of the exception-to-the-rule crowd, those types always looking for an out, ignoring the core 99% of the issue so as to promote their self-serving 1% example.

Nobody likes to be criticized, much less shamed. Yet there is no more obvious outward display of one’s overall self esteem than our bodies, how we've made them look and perform. Look around: people pretending they have no control or interest over what they eat or how much beneficial physical activity they engage in are, sadly, the majority. One’s taking responsibility has never been a strong human trait. “Trying to get away with it” on the other hand, has.

It’s all well and good that people want to eat whatever they want whenever they want in any quantity they want, or that they don’t want to exert themselves physically. But demanding accommodation from others to support the inevitable negative results of their choice is grotesque, and that’s where preposterous campaigns like “Body Positivity” come in. “Body Positivity” apparently means not only accepting the negative results of one’s poor choices, but actually celebrating them.

This “accept and celebrate your failure to lead a healthful life” campaign is no different than a loud, media-supported, emotionally-charged campaign to accept, celebrate and flaunt how deeply in debt you’ve gotten yourself. It’s no different than accepting and celebrating termites eating away at your house, or the bald tires on the car you chauffeur your kids around in. In truth most people with termites or tire or debt problems would go out of their way to responsibly fix these things before they caused inextricably serious consequences, yet many of the same people pay no attention to their deteriorating body and decreased mobility, and thus, their core health. There is no separating the two despite the Body Positivity crowd's ludicrous campaign against facts.

Human nature is such that we first create the problem then not until that problem becomes intolerable do we seek a fix or cure or solution, often when it's too late. Prevention is far easier, cheaper and more accessible than a cure.

“Body Positivity” is bullshit. In this link to the air-headed Huffington Post feature, it is egregious that the fashion crowd have lumped together people who choose to eat too much with others in wheelchairs or with skin conditions, as if they are one and the same. The message they promote is vile. It’s an insult to those who truly have conditions as a direct result of circumstance to equate them with overeaters who choose and are in complete control of their so-called “condition.”

Gym Etiquette Is Of No Interest To Jerks

Circus stunts have no place in the gym.

On a regular basis I see articles online about gym etiquette. Those entitled jerks who lack gym etiquette have no interest in such articles or the practice of basic good manners, because, well…they’re jerks.

The definition of the entitled is that society’s norms do not apply to them because they are special, so it’s really a hopeless battle. The cell phone addicts are addicts like any other. They will sit on a machine and spend many long minutes swiping, texting, playing games. Somehow they’ve convinced themselves that their actual “workout,” such as it is, is producing hoped-for results. It ain’t. The list of infractions committed by entitled gym-goers is long and boring. So how best to deal when you are locked into to a schedule and these people show up at the gym the same time that you do every time?

Ignoring people is a test of strength in itself. When I find myself focusing on one or more of these people, I have to make a concentrated effort to channel the disdain into building muscle. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that their co-opting of a desirable machine didn’t force me to use another — which turned out to be a pretty good move, actually. It’s not easy I know, and it’s harder to do at some times more than others, but unless you’re going to waste energy acting as Gym Police, it’s the wise and productive thing to do something else. We all have had neighbors, coworkers and family members we can’t get away from who get under out skin. The only way to handle these mundane gym people is by developing a thicker skin along with our muscles. 

Think of it this way: by allowing them to irk or rattle you, they are winning. They are controlling you, and little feels worse than falling under the control of a jerk or idiot. It’s in our best interest to refuse them power over us and over our workout. There’s nothing wrong with approaching the worst offenders to request they stop, but the majority are just thoughtless nincompoops wasting your time—and their own.

For solace, watch a few “gym fail” videos on youtube for some outrageous examples of clueless gym idiots and count yourself lucky these examples don’t go to YOUR gym.

Resistance Can Build Muscle, And Resistance Can Prevent Building Muscle.

We’re talking two different kinds of resistance in this case. The weight provides resistance as applied against a muscle, resulting in the muscle building and growing. But the resistance many men (and women) have at the gym to training advice keep most frustrated by their lack of progress in achieving the kind of body they’d like.

This stubbornness is a human trait found in many, the know-it-alls convinced that they know better  than anyone how to go about their workout routine despite having not studied or trained or been the student of a personal trainer or even sampling workout videos, because, you know, those people know what they’re doing. As discussed in other posts, it is fascinating that with all the mirrors at the gym, and all the gym fail videos on youtube, that these people persist in their unproductive, awkward. embarrassing and downright dangerous methods.

In the comments section of Gym Fail videos online, commenters try and shame the makers of the videos for not instead rescuing the ignorant from themselves, for not taking time out of their own workout to “help” them, to show them how to do the exercises correctly, as if on the same channel there weren’t already a thousand videos that provide exactly that guidance. It’s no secret to most veteran gym-goers that trying to advise someone who is doing it wrong brings about their wrath and anger and scorn, because, you know, they believe they’re doing it correctly, and thus it usually only takes one such incident to school the rest of us about this odd phenomenon of the gym know-it-all who is going nowhere fast.

Age 52

Richard Sullivan at age 52.