Jason Peacock

Some good excerpts from T-Nation:

Is my workout awesome?

I live by two mottos: One is, if in doubt, squat and run hills. So you walk into the gym and don’t know what to do? Then squat and run hills. Have a shitty day at work and want to break someone’s neck but aren’t sure who’s? Then squat and run hills.

The other motto is: Is what I’m doing awesome? If I ask myself that and the answer is no, then I don’t do it.

So with conditioning, when faced with something like jogging on the treadmill, ask yourself first: is this awesome? When you see someone in the gym on a treadmill, do you go, “My God, that is so awesome!” No, you go, look at that poor dumb bastard, he probably just had a triple bypass or something. But hill sprinting? To me, that’s awesome.

Of course, geeks like to bust my chops with questions like, “How do I even know if something is awesome or not?” My answer is, if you’re so freaking unsure that you have to ask someone else for his or her opinion then the answer is it’s probably not the least bit awesome.

Date Tate on How to Gain Weight (link)

There was a time at the Old Westside gym where I couldn’t gain weight to save my fucking life.

There was this dude who trained there who could just put on weight like fucking magic. He’d go from 198 to 308 and then to 275 and back down to 198. And he was never fat. It was amazing.

I finally asked him one day how he did it.

“You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight? Come outside and I’ll fill you in.”

Now remember, we’re at Westside Barbell. And this guy wants to go outside to talk so no one else can hear. Think about that for a minute. What the hell is he going to tell me? This must be some serious shit if we have to go outside, I thought.

So we get outside and he starts talking.

“For breakfast you need to eat four of those breakfast sandwiches from McDonalds. I don’t care which ones you get, but make sure to get four. Order four hash browns, too. Now grab two packs of mayonnaise and put them on the hash browns and then slip them into the sandwiches. Squish that shit down and eat. That’s your breakfast.”

At this point I’m thinking this guy is nuts. But he’s completely serious.

“For lunch you’re gonna eat Chinese food. Now I don’t want you eating that crappy stuff. You wanna get the stuff with MSG. None of that non-MSG bullshit. I don’t care what you eat but you have to sit down and eat for at least 45 minutes straight. You can’t let go of the fork. Eat until your eyes swell up and become slits and you start to look like the woman behind the counter.”

“For dinner you’re gonna order an extra-large pizza with everything on it. Literally everything. If you don’t like sardines, don’t put ‘em on, but anything else that you like you have to load it on there. After you pay the delivery guy, I want you to take the pie to your coffee table, open that fucker up, and grab a bottle of oil. It can be olive oil, canola oil, whatever. Anything but motor oil. And I want you to pour that shit over the pie until half of the bottle is gone. Just soak the shit out of it.”

“Now before you lay into it, I want you to sit on your couch and just stare at that fucker. I want you to understand that that pizza right there is keeping you from your goals.

This guy is in a zen-like state when he’s talking about this.

“Now you’re on the clock,” he continues. “After 20 minutes your brain is going to tell you you’re full. Don’t listen to that shit. You have to try and eat as much of the pizza as you can before that 20-minute mark. Double up pieces if you have to. I’m telling you now, you’re going to get three or four pieces in and you’re gonna want to quit. You fucking can’t quit. You have to sit on that couch until every piece is done.

And if you can’t finish it, don’t you ever come back to me and tell me you can’t gain weight. ‘Cause I’m gonna tell you that you don’t give a fuck about getting bigger and you don’t care how much you lift!”

Did I do it? Hell yeah. Started the next day and did it for two months. Went from 260 pounds to 297 pounds. And I didn’t get much fatter. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, though.

I’ve been asked this a lot recently, I’m going to get all serious and philosophical to explain it

The short version – I have found that as you develop new skills and knowledge, your perception of the world around you changes and improves. And that’s what I’m striving for – an increased perception of the world around me – I want to see more and better, I don’t want to be blind.

The long version…

As a software engineer, when I use an application I can infer how it was built and how it works, what limits the designers and engineers had to work around, and the influence from other applications. I can appreciate the work that went into good applications, or the lack of work that went into bad. If I didn’t know how applications were created then I wouldn’t have such insight – I’d just know whether I liked it or not. But it’s not limited to just appreciation, but also the skill to be able to do it yourself…to know how you would start, how you would finish, and how to get from the start to the finish.

This same increased perception applies to everything – sports, dance, music, art, literature, engineering, etc. For me, I’ve always been interested in technical subjects, and I’ve tried my hand at many sports. I’ve read many books (but I’ve yet to write one), and I’ve tried playing an instrument. But my last attempts at art were a very long time ago, and I wanted to have that experience again as an adult. Figure drawing is just the start…other classes offered include portrait drawing, still life, and abstract drawing (capturing the essence of the subject).

That’s why I’m taking art classes – I want to learn to see how an artist sees. To be able to look at something and know how to capture the tones and shapes and life of the subject on paper, as well as understand the works of others.

This also means eventually I’ll have to tackle my lack of musical and dance abilities…but that’s for another time!

From Rands in Repose, the classic article The Nerd Handbook says:

Your nerd’s insatiable quest for information and The High has tweaked his brain in an interesting way. For any given piece of incoming information, your nerd is making a lightning fast assessment: relevant or not relevant? Relevance means that the incoming information fits into the system of things your nerd currently cares about.

I find myself doing this a lot. The distinction between nerds and normals can be striking, and to me this is the most painful difference in communication. Normals will include so much irrelevant information in their conversation it becomes mind-numbing. I know that they think they’re including relevant information, and to them these are important details, but when reduced to actionable items and related facts it is just static.

I’ve found this challenge goes in both directions too – when asked “How was your day?” or “Did you have a good at work?” they expect a detailed, blow-by-blow replay of everything that happened that day. Maybe I’m missing some gene, or my brain is wired differently, or I just don’t care that much, but do I really need to replay my daily life to you as a soap opera?

How do you compromise? Is there a polite way to say “get to the point” in a conversation? Is there a minimum response to “How was your day?” that’s more than saying “just another day at the office”? Perhaps there’s a way of explaining I just want the facts, please, and it’s not you but it’s me that’s different.

I’ve been doing Crossfit for a year now, and though I don’t proselytize I do share when people ask. Recently there was an email thread at the office where I had the opportunity to share.

The discussion started with someone’s quick & dirty response to the question “What is Crossfit”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfit#Criticism

But that isn’t really helpful, I can say the same criticisms about any other activity or sport. Heck, programmers get injured (RSI) and all they do is sit indoors & type!

Another comment was:

You could also have gotten good improvements with many different
exercise programs and likely at lower expense. Chi running, total
immersion swimming, or in this case crossfit don’t have a monopoly on
the basic ideas of exercise physiology.

OK, now I had to do some educating. I’ve done all three programs (Chi Running, Total Immersion Swimming, Crossfit) and they’ve helped me out a lot.

Without further ado, here is my Crossfit testimonial

Some of us are stupid and need to be taught how to do things correctly

I needed Total Immersion to teach me how to swim better. I could have gotten the same results from a master’s swim class, but the book was a lot cheaper. My running form was crap, I had no clue that there was actually “running technique” until I started reading about Chi/POSE (again, the book was pretty cheap). I went from no running for >5yrs to completing a marathon & racing a 21min 5k in 4 months (and I lost 40lbs!). My previous attempts at running all resulted in debilitating shin pain.

I had been doing weight machines and using the elliptical at the gym and making OK progress. Now with Crossfit, at $10 per class, I’m tons stronger & fitter than I ever was at the gym. I’m undisciplined, and won’t do hard workouts on my own. Spinning class was awesome at the gym, but that’s more expensive than crossfit. The personal trainers at the gym are all a joke, and they’re more expensive than crossfit. I like crossfit b/c someone else takes care of the programming for me – I just show up & do what they tell me for an hour. They make sure my technique is safe & correct and the group env insures that I don’t quit or slack off.

I also wanted to learn how to lift barbells (Olympic Lifting). I could have followed the articles in Muscle and Fitness (bad idea!). I could have bought Starting Strength (I did, great book!), instead I’m being coached every day for $10/hour. That sounds like an awesome deal to me, and my coach’s certifications are:

• CrossFit Coach
• National Strength and Conditioning Association – Certified Personal Trainer (NSCA-CPT)
• USAW certified Olympic weightlifting coach
• Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) Certified
• Navy SEAL veteran
• Over 20 years of coaching experience

You can even do Crossfit on your own (all the workouts & demo videos & forums are online and free!).

No, those trademarked businesses don’t have a monopoly, and with enough research and experience you can achieve the same on your own. There are many free resources for marathon training online (I used them), there are free forums for strength training, and just about every other activity. But I’m lazy, and I don’t want to get a second degree in physiology, so I try different programs and do what works.

I’m not saying that you or everyone needs to do Total Immersion/Chi/POSE/Crossfit, but they are great programs (solutions?) for some of us, and shouldn’t be dismissed b/c someone may be profiting from them.