Weightlifting Quotes

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.

Thinking is like exercise, it requires consistency and rigor. Like barbells in a weightlifting room, the classics force us to either put them down or exert our minds. They require us to think.

Get off the treadmill of consumption, replication, and mediocrity. Begin lifting the weights of creativity, originality, and success.

It was the most brilliant exhibition of conversational weightlifting that Irene had ever seen.

Some are born strong and others are made strong.

The way to have good ideas is to get close to killing yourself. It’s like weightlifting. When you lift slightly more than you can handle, you get stronger. In life, when the gun is to your head, you either figure it out, or you die.

The barbells and dumbbells you hold in your hands and the way you use them have stories to tell.

What's not to like about weightlifting?

We are going to change the way young people think about fitness.

Do not fear what you cannot lift, fear that which can lift you.

People always ask me, "What kind of people make it through Hell Week?" I don't really have an answer to that. I do know-- generally-- who won't make it through Hell Week. The weightlifting meatheads who think the size of their biceps indicates their strength: they usually fail. The kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are: they usually fail. The preening leaders who don't want to be dirty: they usually fail. The "me first, look at me, I'm the best" former athletes who've always been told they're stars: they usually fail. The blowhards who have a thousand stories about what they're going to do but a thin record of what they've actually done: they usually fail. The whiners, the "this is not fair" guys: they usually fail.

Reading is weightlifting for the brain

Just keeping yourself interested and motivated to train over a long period of time is often the biggest hurdle and one of the biggest factors for success in building sustainable muscle.

You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong - you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts. The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism. The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be.

I may seem smaller than I look, but what people don't know about me is that I once weight-lifted my own weight when I was in high school, ran more miles than anyone else in Physical Education in my class in high school, and was trained by a Shaolin Kung Fu monk while being the only girl in class. I am also trained in archery and firearms. So when it comes to being physically small or petite and even looking like a girly girl; it doesn't matter. I am strong. I am awared and disciplined. And I can leverage the playing field because I am trained. - Kailin Gow in Strong by Kailin Gow

The key to fighting germs and parasites seems to be sex. At one level, this may bring you down. All the lipstick, high heels, hair products, salary seeking, sports cars, and weightlifting seem to be a result of germs. But then, so are art, and music, and good cooking. By having sex, organisms like dandelions, sea jellies, perch, parakeets, and termites can stay ahead in the game of life just enough to have offspring that succeed in producing more offspring in a subsequent season.

~Have NO fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with YOU, therefore NO harm can befall YOU; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence~

Incremental theory’ people are different. Because they think of abilities as emerging through tackling challenges, the experience of failure has a completely different meaning for them: it’s evidence that they are stretching themselves to their current limit. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t fail. The relevant analogy here is with weight training; muscles grow by being pushed to the limits of their current capacity, where fibres tear and reheal. Among weightlifters, ‘training to failure’ isn’t an admission of defeat – it’s a strategy.

I took my bottle and went to my bedroom. I undressed down to my shorts and went to bed. Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. I took my choice. I raised the fifth of vodka and drank it straight. The Russians knew something.

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

Julian’s not at the house in Bel Air, but there’s a note on the door saying that he might be at some house on King’s Road. Julian’s not at the house on King’s Road either, but some guy with braces and short platinum-blond hair and a bathing suit on lifting weights is in the backyard. He puts one of the weights down and lights a cigarette and asks me if I want a Quaalude. I ask him where Julian is. There’s a girl lying by the pool on a chaise longue, blond, drunk, and she says in a really tired voice, ‘Oh, Julian could be anywhere. Does he owe you money?’ The girl has brought a television outside and is watching some movie about cavemen. ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘Well, that’s good. He promised to pay for a gram of coke I got him.’ She shakes her head. ‘Nope. He never did.’ She shakes her head again, slowly, her voice thick, a bottle of gin, half-empty, by her side. The weightlifter with the braces on asks me if I want to buy a Temple of Doom bootleg cassette. I tell him no and then ask him to tell Julian that I stopped by. The weight-lifter nods his head like he doesn’t understand and the girl asks him if he got the backstage passes to the Missing Persons concert. He says, ‘Yeah, baby,’ and she jumps in the pool. Some caveman gets thrown off a cliff and I split.

It's often a razor's edge you'll walk between coaxing adaptation while avoiding exhaustion (or injury). Master this, and you'll unlock the key to continual progress.

Training records become a barometer of accomplishment and a roadmap for further progress.

Periodization isn't magic--you can't out-periodize your genetics, drug users, or stupidity.

After the first American gymnasium was opened in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1824, weightlifting became increasingly common in the United States.

The greatest weightlifters move weights with their minds.

I once procrastinated and kept delaying a spinal cord operation as a response to a back injury—and was completely cured of the back problem after a hiking vacation in the Alps, followed by weight-lifting sessions. These psychologists and economists want me to kill my naturalistic instinct (the inner b****t detector) that allowed me to delay the elective operation and minimize the risks—an insult to the antifragility of our bodies.

According to the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy, Socrates never wore shoes, could bench twice his weight, and was impervious to the effects of alcohol and cold. He did not care for fashion and his gait was that of one who truly did not give a shit.

Saul had gained his six-foot frame at sixteen, but his muscles didn’t arrive until his early twenties. Between those lost years, he was a gangly, uncoordinated klutz. He was told that he could improve his dancing by watching himself in the mirror. He tried. What he saw was so repulsive that he resolved never to inflict himself on a dance partner. These days, Saul hid those memories behind weight lifting and jogging. His new athletic physique hid his aimless decade as an outsider, an odd and lonely kid--as he remembered it.

Some people would fall in or out of love with you if you lose or gain a few kilos.

I get better everyday, everyday I get better.

...full range of motion, multi-joint exercises are not supposed to isolate any one muscle. We use them precisely because they don't. We want them to work lots of muscles through a long range of motion. We like it when some muscles are called into function as other muscles drop out of function, and when muscles change function during the exercise. This is because we are training for strength. We are concerned with improving the functional motion around a joint. We are not just concerned about our "favorite muscles." We do not have favorite muscles.

Many young athletes joined the gangs instead of aspiring to gold medals in the Olympics. You could easily discern the kind of sport they did by their body shape and injuries. Well-built with a broken nose - a boxer. Broad shoulders with torn ears - a wrestler. Enormous muscles with little to no brain - a bodybuilder. Short with broad shoulders and a quadratic head - a weightlifter.

~In motivating people, YOU've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example - and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved~

All the athletic exercises in the world are no power to the individual unless he compel those bars and dumbbells to yield to him and strengthen muscle; the power for which he himself pays in effort.

Vodka at night. Pickle juice in the morning (the best thing for a hangover). Throwing some kettlebells around between this hangover and the next one. A Russian’s day well spent. The ‘kettlebell’ or girya is a cast iron weight which looks like a basketball with a suitcase handle. It is an old Russian toy. As the 1986 Soviet Weightlifting Yearbook put it, “It is hard to find a sport that has deeper roots in the

The catcalls from the cars make me feel strong at first. Isn't beauty strong? I'd always thought beauty was strength, and so I wanted to be beautiful. Those cheers on the street are like a weightlifter's bench-press record. The blond hair is like a flag, and all around me in the night are teams. But with each shout, I am more aware of the edge, how the excitement could turn into violence, blood, bruises, death.

Buddhism is not a religion in the Western sense but rather a practical set of ideas and approaches toward understanding the workings of life. To be more precise, it’s a system of practices and philosophical tenets designed to help people overcome their sufferings. It is to the soul what weightlifting is for muscles—it strengthens the self to the extent that a person’s spirit, through devoted practice, becomes impervious to external influences. And it’s open and available to everyone.

The body responds daily to the activity it experiences whether we exercise it or not. For example, my body responds not only to the weight-lifting I do on Monday but also to my sitting at my desk, in airports, in the car, and in front of the computer and television on Tuesday through Thursday.

I needed a story. Something local, but juicy. And more than just newsworthy. I was holding out for gasp-worthy. And I found it. Or rather, it found me. Yup, your humble J-school grad was pretty much handed a tale that had it all: sex and drugs (not the regular kinds), multiple deaths (untimely, natch), rich folks and rituals and loads o' lawsuits- even a celebrity cherry on top. My newbie journo peers might be settling for three inches of coyotes in the subway, some spry centenarian's weightlifting regime or a bucket of campylobacter in the church supper salad, but I was planning to debut large and with oomph. The story was mine. I just had to figure out how to tell it.

Brainless wasn't bad. Today, brainless was right up her alley. This world of grunts and clanking iron, the same tasks repeated mindlessly until failure, Mitzi loved it the moment she'd stepped through the door of the weight room. The Sisyphean repetition of lifting and lowering. Nothing represented life better than this endless losing battle against gravity. The grunts and cries that conveyed so much more than words ever could.

I hesitate to give advice because every major single piece of advice I was given turned out to be wrong and I am glad I didn’t follow them. I was told to focus and I never did. I was told to never procrastinate and I waited 20 years for The Black Swan and it sold 3 million copies. I was told to avoid putting fictional characters in my books and I did put in Nero Tulip and Fat Tony because I got bored otherwise. I was told to not insult the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; the more I insulted them the nicer they were to me and the more they solicited Op-Eds. I was told to avoid lifting weights for a back pain and became a weightlifter: never had a back problem since. If I had to relive my life I would be even more stubborn and uncompromising than I have been. One should never do anything without skin in the game. If you give advice, you need to be exposed to losses from it.

IS CARDIO BEST BEFORE OR AFTER LIFTING? NEITHER! Doing cardio right before or after lifting can seriously hinder muscle and strength gains. Why? Researchers from RMIT University worked with well–trained athletes in 2009 and found that “combining resistance exercise and cardio in the same session may disrupt genes for anabolism.” In laymen’s terms, they found that combining endurance and resistance training sends “mixed signals” to the muscles37. Cardio before the resistance training suppressed anabolic hormones such as IGF–1 and MGF, and cardio after resistance training increased muscle tissue breakdown. Several other studies, such as those conducted by Children’s National Medical Center38, the Waikato Institute of Technology39, and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland)40 , came to same conclusions: training for both endurance and strength simultaneously impairs your gains on both fronts. Training purely for strength or purely for endurance in a workout is far superior. Cardio before weightlifting also saps your energy and makes it much harder to train heavy, which in turn inhibits your muscle growth. So, how do you do it right?

I had been trying to find some sort of exercise program that wasn’t overly bourgeois, but I was having a problem. Weight-lifting was too obviously fascist in nature. Horseback riding was too imperialistic. I gave a lot of thought to starting a co-ed softball league, but that turns out to be closely tied to beer consumption, and I didn’t need the carbohydrates. I had to do something to improve my health that didn’t compromise my revolutionary ethics. (I went so far as to ask my mother for advice on the subject, and she sent me a link to a Chinese tour company that specialized in re-enactments of the Long March, which sounded fascinating but would take me away from Washington at a pivotal time in history, so I didn’t sign up.)

Exercise stimulates growth plates, by putting pressure on bone cells, forcing them to specialize and create new cells. Too much pressure, however, damages the growth plates, which are soft and fragile...The rule of thumb is that lifting one's own body weight (in push-ups,pull-ups, etc) is fine at any age, and kids over fifteen can lift weights.

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. I took my choice. I raised the fifth of vodka and drank it straight. The Russians knew something.

Corporations go through cycles of growth and retrenching, what I call corporate yo-yo dieting. Companies that expand continually are companies that grow fat. Then they’re forced to diet, or downsize in “corp” speak, until they can grow again and reengineer (a new body in ninety days!), merge and acquire other companies (weightlifting and muscle training) until the cycle starts anew, and they’re forced to reduce again (lose twenty pounds in six weeks!).

I felt inspired by Karl and determined to lift greater pound-ages myself, to work on the one lift I was already fairly good at—the squat. Training intensively, even obsessively, at a small gym in San Rafael, I worked up to doing five sets of five reps with 555 pounds every fifth day. The symmetry of this pleased me but caused amusement at the gym—“Sacks and his fives.” I didn’t realize how exceptional this was until another lifter encouraged me to have a go at the California squat record. I did so, diffidently, and to my delight was able to set a new record, a squat with a 600-pound bar on my shoulders. This was to serve as my introduction to the power-lifting world; a weight-lifting record

Fozzetto was sheathed in an ebony jumpsuit with a weightlifter cut in the front. Bands of holographic foil twined around his thighs and wound down to the tops of his silver space boots. He teetered on at least six inches of platform heel; maybe Kiss had had a garage sale.

Dear Jethro: I’ve spent the last few days in the Scottish Highlands with my newfound weight-lifting comrades, and we’ve been tossing cabers, putting stones and throwing hammers. My training has consisted of lifting a cow every day since it was a calf, and I hope to soon lift a full-grown bull over my head. I am enjoying this newfound freedom with my jacked friends, and though I miss Hitch with all my heart, I have no plans to return soon. Vera-Lee

Researchers also found that working in the 4- to 6-rep range (80 percent of one-rep max, or 1RM) is most effective for those who train regularly. The conclusion of this research is simple: the best way to build muscle and strength is to focus on heavy weightlifting and increase the weight lifted over time. Well,

I can't dignify all of these ideas about me with reply, but I will say that in this digital world of widespread fraud, in which elderly women from rural Michigan claim to be steroid-enhanced weightlifting experts and the like, it is useful, on occasion, to advance the cause of belief simply for the sake of belief, because if not belief in this world, then what do we have? If not the action of belief, we have only the grinding disappointments. You could go on finding weaknesses in the pattern of my online reviews when really what you should be doing, KoWojahk283 and TigerBooty! and RedDawn301, is going out into the yard and staring up at the night sky, or meeting people and looking for the good in them. And while you are doing that, I will talk about the emergency-escape plan at the Willows Motel, which advises that you should first feel the door to see if it's hot and also that if there is a fire in the room, you should leave the room immediately. The escape plan for the main floor, and there is only a main floor here, is simply to exit into the parking lot. How often this is the case! How often our only exit is into the parking lot! And how often the parking lot empties onto the county road, where there are only package stores and full-service gas stations. If KoWojahk283 were right about me, would I be here? Feeling the door, making sure it's not hot, and then exiting into the parking lot? ★★

I was so incensed that I was oblivious to all as I ran over broken glass, holding a five-foot weightlifting bar. The glass tore the soles of my feet as I chased the gang’s car up the street. I remember breathing heavily as I cursed failing to catch my enemies.

Halotestin (fluoxymesteron, an oral testosterone derivative) became the anabolic steroid of choice. These days, Halotestin is one of the most commonly abused oral anabolic steroids, especially favored by power lifters. It has nineteen times the muscular effects of testosterone. The doses used by the president (about 10 mg/day) were lower than those used by weightlifters long-term, but athletes take similar doses just before performances to make themselves more “aggressive.

Applying math to practical problems was another business altogether; it meant a deep understanding of the problem before writing the equations. But if you muster the strength to weight-lift a car to save a child, above your current abilities, the strength gained will stay after things calm down. So, unlike the drug addict who loses his resourcefulness, what you learn from the intensity and the focus you had when under the influence of risk stays with you. You may lose the sharpness, but nobody can take away what you’ve learned. This is the principal reason I am now fighting the conventional educational system, made by dweebs for dweebs. Many kids would learn to love mathematics if they had some investment in it, and, more crucially, they would build an instinct to spot its misapplications.

The Aventador is insane. This is the Aventador’s lean mean weightlifting uncle. At $4,500,000 you wouldn’t expect anything less than amazing. This is jaw dropping. Lamborghini built only five examples. 2 for itself and 3 for customers. The first with red

Everyone is better than you at something. This is a fact of life. Someone is better than you at making eye contact. Someone is better than you at quantum physics. Someone is better informed than you on geopolitics. Someone is better than you are at speaking kindly to someone they dislike. There are better gift-givers, name-rememberers, weight-lifters, temper-controllers, confidence-carriers, and friendship-makers. There is no one person who is the best at all these things, who doesn’t have room to improve in one or more of them. So if you can find the humility to accept this about yourself, what you will realize is that the world is one giant classroom. Go about your day with an openness and a joy about this fact. Look at every interaction as an opportunity to learn from and of the people you meet. You will be amazed at how quickly you grow, how much better you get. ------------------------------------------------------------- "Always choose the right person. It does not matter you are choosing it for the wrong thing or the right thing.

If we are most susceptible to a breakdown when stricken by the intense emotions that accompany a way of life under siege, then the first step to ward of a psychological breakdown, is to heed the advice of Henry David Thoreau and “When in doubt, slow down.” If we feel that our emotions are reaching a fever pitch, or spinning us around in circles of dread and despair, we need to somehow interrupt the process before reaching the state of acute panic. The worst way to go about this is to try reason or argue with the emotions, while the best way to deal with this situation is to use some form of activity to relax and to re-centre us. Many people find mindful meditation works well for this purpose, but this is but one of countless activities we can use. Carl Jung, who endured a personal crisis so intense that he flirted with psychosis would draw and paint mandalas to calm his racing mind. Others may find reprieve in weight-lifting, walking, some form of craft or hobby, or a conversation with a calming friend. What is essential is that we have in our arsenal some activities that we can use to re-centre us when our emotions are knocking us too far off kilter. If we really feel overwhelmed one of the best tactics is what Nietzsche called “Russian fatalism”, which is not to do anything at all but just to let go and relax as completely as possible.

There was no getting around the fact that whoever this man was, he was a big guy, with a neck like a hydrant. He wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans, and something about his build reminded me of one of those performers in the circus who bend metal bars around their necks as a show of their strength. He wasn’t muscular like a weight-lifter or a professional athlete, just tremendously solid. He was a giant to my gargoyle, blacksmith to my scarecrow. I didn’t have to think hard to figure out what kind

A person's mental capacity can enable him or her to become a vigorous human being because he or she will be persistent to tolerate a lot of physical or mental weight that are loaded upon him or her.

Protein from meat is particularly helpful when you’re weightlifting, as research has demonstrated that eating meat increases testosterone levels and is more effective for building muscle than vegetarian sources. •

If we are still suffering, how can we teach other to be free? Ajahn Chah replied, ‘First of all, be very honest. Don’t pretend that you are wise in ways you are not. Tell people how you are yourself. And then take the measure of things. In weightlifting, if you’re strong, you know that through practice you can lift a really big weight. Maybe you’ve seen someone lift a weight bigger than you can. You can tell your students, ‘If you practice, you can lift that big weight, but don’t try it yet. I can’t even do it, but I’ve seen people do it.’ Be willing to express what is possible without trying to fool someone that you’ve done it.

His eyes were still on me, but they no longer perceived. I stepped back, out of their sightless ambit, and paused to observe the scene. It looked like what it almost was: a weightlifting addict, alone and late at night, tries to handle more than he can, gets caught under the bar, suffocates and dies there. A bizarre accident.

I uploaded a message to Tatsu telling him I was going to check the place out and would let him know what I found. I told him I needed him to backstop Arai Katsuhiko, the identity I’d been using at the weightlifter’s club. Arai-san would have to be from the provinces, thus explaining his lack of local contacts. Some prison time in said provinces for, say, assault, would be a plus. Employment records with a local company—something menial, but not directly under mob control—would be ideal. Anyone who decided to check me out, and I was confident that, if things went as I hoped, someone would, would find the simple story of a man looking to leave behind a failed past, someone who had come to the big city to escape painful memories, perhaps to try for a fresh start.

Papa actually looked somewhat cool. He wore a leather jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, and an expensive cotton dress shirt untucked over jeans. Behind him was the palest non-albino human being I had ever seen. A shock of orangey blond stuck straight up from his ovoid head like a toy troll. His head was cocked upward; his smile seemed like a plastic snap-on attachment, and his features were flattened as if pressed back by an invisible stocking. Though he claimed online to be an avid weight-lifter, his body and face were doughy. Technically, he was a small person. He just had a certain genetic softness. This

A blind man enters a Ladies bar by mistake. He finds his way to a barstool and orders a drink. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender: "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?" The bar immediately falls absolutely quiet. In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says: "Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is just fair - giving that you are blind - that you should know five things:  1. The bartender is a blonde girl.  2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.  3. I'm a 6 feet tall, 160 LB. blonde woman with a black belt in Karate.  4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and is a proffesional weightlifter.  5. The lady to your right is a blonde and is a proffesional wretler. Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?" The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head and declares: "Nah, not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times".

Instead, you’re going to do what most popular mainstream weightlifting programs never prescribe: you’re going to focus on heavy, compound weightlifting, and you’re going to do just enough sets and reps in your workouts to maximize muscle overload and stimulation without going so far as overtraining.

The author of this groundbreaking book was Bill Starr; and years before he penned The Strongest Shall Survive, Starr was your quintessential 7-stone weakling.  And Starr would watch in wonder as this training system took a bodybuilding wrecking ball to world records in all sports, knocking them over like skittles: In the world of swimming, Indiana University students began smashing national and world records almost at will. In track and field, Jim Beatty broke the world record in the indoor mile. In competitive weightlifting, Bill March won everything in sight. At the 1963 Philadelphia Open, almost predictably, a world record followed. Yet as remarkable as these results undoubtedly sound, they become almost unbelievable when I tell you something that will likely halt you in your tracks...  It’s this: These results were achieved with lifts that took just 6 seconds. No. That is not a misprint.  Each of these lifts took a mere 6 seconds to build Superhuman strength.  And the really exciting part?  These lifts are guaranteed to work for you too. Train Like Bruce Lee During the course of Ninja Strength Secrets, you’ll learn how to train

There is no reason to be alive if you can't do deadlift.

Baumeister and John Tierney called Willpower. One piece of advice they offer is that one should be careful not to use up one’s willpower on unnecessary tasks. You wouldn’t tire out a muscle before a weight-lifting competition, would you?

Who becomes more fit? The man who fills his days reading books on weightlifting and diet, or the man who reads no such books, but never misses a morning round of pushups, pull-ups and squats? Learning about fitness is not fitness. Learning about dance is not dancing. Learning about success is not success. Unless you are a teacher or author, learning is only as useful as it turns into action.

The Official Soviet Weightlifting Textbook Girevoy Sport Competition Training Guidelines (Falameyev, 1986) Train three times a week on non-consecutive days, preferably at the same time of the day. In the beginning limit your sessions to 30 min and your load to 3 sets per exercise in two arm exercises and 3 sets per arm in one arm drills. Select a weight that enables you to do 5-16 repetitions in a given exercise. Perform your exercises through the full range of motion. Breathe deep and smooth without excessive straining and breath holding. Rest for 2 min between sets. Calmly walk around. Train the one arm snatches, presses, and C&Js in 3-5 sets. Complete all the sets for the weaker arm first. Once a week work both arms back to back without setting the kettlebell down on the platform. Perform 2-3 such competition style sets. Do extra snatches with the weaker arm. Pay a lot of attention to the development of your wrist strength. Before tackling the competition-level, two arm/two kettlebell C&Js, master one arm/one KB C&Js, with a special emphasis on the weaker arm. Train the two arm/two kettlebell C&J in 6-8 sets. Include two different kettlebell exercises in a training session and follow them up with 2-3 barbell exercises. As the competition approaches, the number of barbell exercises in a session is decreased, so is their volume.

Called girya in Russian, this cannonball with a handle has been making better men and women for over 300 years. In imperial Russia, “kettlebell” was synonymous with “strength.” A strongman or weightlifter was called a girevik or a “kettlebell man.” Strong ladies were girevichkas or “kettlebell women.

There was a weightlifting room that occupied a space next to the garage and

Ten minutes of WBV training will give you the benefits of one hour of conventional weightlifting, including increased muscle strength, bone density, flexibility, coordination, balance, and weight loss.

Don't train to GET a better body, train to BE a better body.

My workout is part of my day. I don’t change clothes, wear special shoes, drive anywhere, pay a membership or even get sweaty. It’s simple: I don’t want to bulk up or enter any weightlifting competition — I just want to improve overall health and fitness by making my entire body stronger.

Psychologists and economists who study “irrationality” do not realize that humans may have an instinct to procrastinate only when no life is in danger. I do not procrastinate when I see a lion entering my bedroom or fire in my neighbor’s library. I do not procrastinate after a severe injury. I do so with unnatural duties and procedures. I once procrastinated and kept delaying a spinal cord operation as a response to a back injury—and was completely cured of the back problem after a hiking vacation in the Alps, followed by weight-lifting sessions. These psychologists and economists want me to kill my naturalistic instinct (the inner b****t detector) that allowed me to delay the elective operation and minimize the risks—an insult to the antifragility of our bodies. Since procrastination is a message from our natural willpower via low motivation, the cure is changing the environment, or one’s profession, by selecting one in which one does not have to fight one’s impulses. Few can grasp the logical consequence that, instead, one should lead a life in which procrastination is good, as a naturalistic-risk-based form of decision making.

This is true not because God does not exist to be experienced, but because we in Western culture have a very reduced experience of God. God is present to us, but we are no longer present to God because we are no longer contemplative. Our contemplative faculty - like a limb that has been immobilized in a cast and is now healed and healthy but unable to function without rehabilitation - needs exercise and therapy. Or, like a weightlifter who has overdeveloped certain muscles to the detriment of others and has distorted his natural body, we have overfocused on one part of our consciousness and neglected another to the point where our natural consciousness is distorted. We are living the unexamined life, and its price is a practical atheism. Fortunately, it can be overcome by contemplative awareness. God will be seen in ordinary experience when ordinary experience is fully open to him.

In Russia kettlebells are a matter of national pride and a symbol of strength. In the olden days, any strongman or weightlifter was referred to as a girevik, or “kettlebell man.” Steeled by their kettlebells, generation after generation of Russian boys has turned to men.

Heavy kettlebells are traditionally called “bulldogs. “Heavy” is in the eye of the beholder; we usually dump the bells heavier than 32 kilograms in that category. 48 kilograms is as heavy as traditional kettlebells go, but it does not stop Russia’s strongest from going heavier. Weightlifting legend Yuri Vlasov was heartbroken when someone stole his custom-made 56-kilogram kettlebells.

Here’s the idea: If you generate a lot of lactic acid during your weight-lifting sets, your body will then produce more growth hormone. Growth hormone helps your body release fatty acids from your fat cells, which you then use for energy. Result: You get muscle from lifting weights, and you lose fat.

Giryas give the ‘working class’ answer to elitist weightlifting. You do not need expensive weights—an Ivanko barbell can cost as much as a motorcycle—platforms, and expert coaching. Just a ‘people’s’ kettlebell, this book, and a few square feet of space.

For example, moderate, predictable, and controllable activation of our stress-response systems leads to a more flexible, stronger stress-response capability that lets a person demonstrate resilience in the face of extreme stressors. It’s kind of like weight-lifting for our stress-response systems; we exercise the system to make it stronger. The more we face moderate challenges and succeed, the more capable we are of facing bigger challenges. This is something we see in sports, performing arts, clinical practice, fire-fighting, teaching-almost any human endeavor; experience can improve performance. This is why stress is not something to be afraid of or avoided. It is the uncontrollability, pattern, and intensity of stress that can cause problems. Unfortunately, for many people, the pattern of stress activation is unpredictable, uncontrollable, prolonged, or extreme.

Fenugreek appears to significantly improve muscle strength and weight-lifting power output, allowing men in training, for example, to leg press an extra eighty pounds compared to those ingesting a placebo.37 Fenugreek may also possess “potent anticancer properties” in vitro.38 I don’t like the taste of the powder, so I just throw in fenugreek seeds with my broccoli seeds when I’m sprouting.

Many people assume they are bad at writing because it is hard. This is like assuming you are bad at weightlifting because the weight is heavy. Writing is useful because it is hard. It's the effort that goes into writing a clear sentence that leads to better thinking

Get a friend. Practice weightlifting tables. If people complain, weightlift them.

Thus, as the Bigger Leaner Stronger program is intended for men who have yet to gain their first 20-to-30 pounds of muscle, it entails 9-to-12 hard sets per major muscle group per week—the appropriate amount of volume for that goal. Eventually, however, that’s not enough volume to keep progressing, which is why in the sequel to this book, Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger, intended for intermediate and advanced weightlifters, the volume increases to around 15 hard sets per major muscle group per week.

Donald Disbro is a man with a wide range of interests. He grew up in Mission Viejo, California, playing baseball in high school and college. Donald Disbro earned his MBA at Chapman University in 2003. He is a family man, going on his 9th year of marriage to Suzanne Disbro. Donald Disbro is the father of two great sons who are college and high school athletes. He loves music, particularly live music, weightlifting, and wine tasting.

Another little trick for cheating while staying really lean is to burn up some glycogen before the feast. You best accomplish this by weightlifting or by performing HIIT cardio (shoot for 20 to 30 minutes).173

There is a damn good reason why you should proceed slowly and methodically through any training program. The reason has to do with generating training momentum. Basically put, this means that if you build a head of steam by moving forwards more slowly, you’ll actually reach your goals much faster than if you proceeded with haste. This sounds like a paradox, but it’s true. The old-timers of the iron game understood this principle only too well. They used to talk in terms of “milking” a program, and “putting strength in the bank.” One of the old sayings wise weightlifting coaches used to force down the throats of eager young trainees was the phrase: the heavy weight isn’t going anywhere.

Don't fight your biology. Get out of your own way and make all your activity align with the same goal. Once you've achieved that goal - then you can pivot and work toward something else.

For any coach, the success of the athletes must be the top priority by a significant margin—any interest on the coach’s part in public recognition, appreciation or fame is misplaced energy and focus that diminishes his or her ability to manage the lifter. Coaches who consistently produces exemplary weightlifters will receive their due credit and recognition eventually without actively seeking it.

If The Black Swan is about epistemic limitations, then, from this definition, we can see that it is not about some objectively defined phenomenon, like rain or a car crash—it is simply something that was not expected by a particular observer. So I was wondering why so many otherwise intelligent people have casually questioned whether certain events, say the Great War, or the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, were Black Swans, on the grounds that some predicted them. Of course the September 11 attack was a Black Swan to those victims who died in it; otherwise, they would not have exposed themselves to the risk. But it was certainly not a Black Swan to the terrorists who planned and carried out the attack. I have spent considerable time away from the weight-lifting room repeating that a Black Swan for the turkey is not a Black Swan for the butcher.

From the time boys are young, they enter contests, either alone or with their brothers, and their fathers – to see how strong they are. Wrestling, weightlifting, arm-wrestling, “bloody knuckles,” Chinese hot-hands, even thumb wrestling. This wild behavior may seem reminiscent of goats butting their heads against each other, or bears mawing at each other’s necks…. But it’s a part of who we are. We don’t necessarily outgrow it. And that rough and tumble tug-of-war helps shape us, helps bond us together, and helps remind us who we want on our side if there is a time to fight. The call of the wild pushes men to success. It drives men to be refreshed in nature. As long as we wrap it up in silk and lace and soap, it will still be there.

We pay our gym membership for the permission to exercise in the gym, not for the owner(s) of the gym to exercise for us.

with the defined upper body of a weightlifter and the scowl of an angry Norse God.