Marion Park
This summer has been really outstanding thus far, partly because I was able to travel back to Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula for a long 4th of July holiday weekend. It had been nearly two and a half years since I had been back to visit my family. My 2020 trip got canceled because of COVID and Zeus getting sick and having to be put down the weekend I was supposed to be in Michigan. It was amazing getting to spend time with family and relax around some people that I truly trust. There is something to be said about people who don’t expect me to be anything but myself. As an added bonus, I got to catch up with some childhood friends that I, sadly, don’t get to see nearly often enough. The great thing about that group of guys is that we immediately fall back into our old friendships. It’s like we haven’t seen each other in five minutes even though it’s really been five years and life has dramatically changed for all of us.
I’ve been slowly building a collection of kettlebells back home, and I now have two 24s and a newly added 32. On my first morning home, I loaded my bells into my rental car and headed out to Marion Park, a large recreational area that includes baseball fields, tennis courts, pavilions, playgrounds, and a set of pull-up bars that is just tall enough for me to use. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I was able to comfortably train in nothing but a pair of gym shorts. The actual workout can be found in my training log, so I won’t re-hash it again, but I want to elaborate on Marion Park and the huge role it played in my life. When I really sat down and thought about it, I realized that so many childhood memories took place at that park.
Some of my earliest memories are playing tee ball and what we called minor league baseball out at Marion Park. One time in tee ball, I took a huge swing, missed the stationary ball, and swung all the way around and accidentally let go of my bat, throwing it at my coach. I still remember the guy’s name, and I would still argue that he should be considered for sainthood. In minor league, we had this really old school coach who would berate any kid who made a mistake. “What’s the matter?! You got a hole in your glove?!” was a classic mantra if anyone missed a grounder. He was brutal but hilarious. My sister Stacy could hit the shit out of the ball, and our team, the Cubs, actually won the championship that year. I was so excited as it was the first trophy I ever won. It’s probably still at my parents’ house somewhere.
A few years later, my friends and I all played Little League baseball at Marion Park, representing various small town civic organizations like Kiwanis, Moose, the Lions Club, and the VFW. For many of us, this was our first time playing a legit organized sport with a designated season, intense coaches, uniforms, daily practices, and games a few nights per week. I’d love to know how many hundreds of hours I spent on that baseball field, playing my heart out and trying to make my coaches proud. Wins, losses, and life lessons happened on those fields. I made friends, got yelled at, felt like I made my parents proud, laughed, cried, fought, and grew up a bit.
When I was in elementary and middle school, we would take field trips to Marion Park in the spring. This was always an amazing time where my friends and I would fool around, make up games, accidentally hit line drives directly into my friend Jenny’s face from about 10 feet away, and die laughing when Mr. Vivio gave his culinary opinion on grilled hot dogs by stating, “I hope they burn those fuckers.”
In seventh and eighth grade, we used the outfield of one of the baseball fields for Pop Warner football practice in the fall. For my friends and me, this was our first time getting to play full contact football. Our practices were definitely old school with lots of hitting and doing drills that are now banned. We didn’t care. We loved our coaches and being out there with our friends, sweating, sometimes freezing, and working towards a common goal. This field now has a new scoreboard that is dedicated to Mike Maule, a man who will definitely get his own post in the future. Mike wasn’t a teacher at the school, but he gave an incredible amount to the community by coaching Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and middle school basketball. Mike passed away a few years ago, and seeing his name up on that scoreboard choked me up big time. He was an amazing man who spent a ton of time helping me develop and improve in life.
My buddy Hammer’s dad Mike hosted a classic car and bike show out at Marion Park that was just amazing. There were so many people there with beautiful old school muscle cars and badass Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It felt like a big event in our small town and I give Mike a ton of credit for making the effort to organize it. Because he’s a great guy, Mike let my buddy Hammer and me help out with the judging for the best car in the show. We were young kids and I certainly didn’t know shit about cars, but Hammer and I tried to do our best. There were two clear favorites in the running, a classic black 1968 Camaro and what I think was a late-50’s Bel Air that was all red and white with a Coca-Cola theme. I could be way wrong on the make and model of the Coke car, but it was something like that. The Camaro owner was this real cocky guy who had pictures of his car with all the car show trophies he had won over the years while the Coke car owner was this nice quiet guy who just seemed happy to be there hanging out and enjoying the atmosphere. Hammer and I gave the trophy to the Camaro, but later that day, out of nowhere, Hammer said, “We should’ve given it to the Coke guy.” You were right, Buddy. You were right.
There are too many other Marion Park memories to count including meetings girls out there at night when my friends and I first discovered that girls were awesome could hold a spell over us, random tennis outings, and summer adult league soccer during our college years. Marion Park has changed a little bit over the years, but it has also stayed remarkably the same. I think the same could be said about my old hometown and the people who live there, and that’s just fine.
Sparky’s Yard
From 2007-2010, I taught high school math and physics out in Buckeye, Arizona, a far western suburb of Phoenix. One morning the science department head at my high school forwarded us an e-mail about a summer masters degree program at Arizona State University. The program was specifically designed for teachers and could be completed over the course of three summers. This all sounded well and good to me so I started navigating my way through the application process and trying to figure out how I would pay for these classes on my meager first-year teacher salary.
As the summer of 2008 approached, I began thinking of how long and miserable the commute would be from where I lived in Goodyear to ASU’s main campus in Tempe. I really didn’t want to make that drive all summer long. Fortunately, for those of us entering the program, this saintly woman from ASU named Jane Jackson had arranged a block of cheap apartments for us to rent just for the summer months. I think I paid $800 for the eight weeks I lived in Tempe, and it was worth every penny. The apartments that first summer were right on University Avenue, about a mile from the physical science building where I would be spending my days.
Obviously one of my top concerns for the summer was where I was going to train, but it all worked out better than I could have ever hoped. These summers at ASU ended up being an incredible time for my training. ASU had a massive student gym complex with everything I needed to lift, run, and play racquetball, my primary fitness activities back then. The inside of the gym was well-kept and always had the air conditioning cranked, but it was this other section of the gym that I really fell in love with. I have no idea if it’s still there anymore, but there was this fenced-in outdoor section that they called, “Sparky’s Yard.” Sparky is the sun-devil mascot of ASU and yard is, I guess, the prison term for an outdoor recreation area. There was a translucent green tarp roof in the very unlikely event that it rained. The gym opened at 6:00 AM and class started at 8:00 AM, so I had plenty of time to get to the gym when they opened and get after it in the morning. Sparky’s Yard had a big heavy squat rack with plate storage and a pull-up bar, a deadlift platform, benches, dumbbells, a leg press, and a cable jungle gym tower station. I basically had Sparky’s Yard to myself every morning. It was heaven. Imagine getting to start your day surrounded by a pile of weights outside in the 95 F dry desert heat with the sun making its way up high in the sky.
I really wish I had some pictures of Sparky’s Yard, but I didn’t even have a smartphone in 2008. I had some flip phone that took really crappy pictures. In retrospect, I trained way too much back then, but I was 24 years old and had boundless energy. Some days I would start and end my morning lifting session with a 5k, so I would run a 10k and lift before going to class at 8:00 AM. Other days I would just lift in the morning and then go for a run during our class lunch break. Memories of the heat during these lunchtime runs are still with me. It was often 110+ F as I made laps around the red clay multipurpose field track that sat right outside the student gym. Yes, it’s a dry heat, but 110 is 110. I loved putting my headphones in, getting into that zone, and just feeling that incredible heat. One time I was running across the street and almost got hit by a car because I was listening to “Gold Digger” by Kanye West and I was just so in the moment I had quit paying attention to my surroundings.
I remember coming out of my apartment early one morning and thinking that it felt cool outside because it was only 90 F at 5:45 AM. Funny how your perspective changes. On that particular morning, I ran over to and up A Mountain by the football stadium. I still remember what a beautiful moment it was when I got to the top, looking down to the football stadium and out on the Salt River. That evening I went out for some beers with my roommate Al and his dad who was in town visiting from Chicago. I mentioned my morning run and his dad said, “That’s some Walter Payton shit.” While I’m certainly not Walter Payton, it was still a cool way of describing how I felt when I got to the top. I still feel that excitement, elation, and hunger for life when I’m at the end of a hard training session. The day may come when I’m too old and broken down to get into that zone. I will yearn for this hard training, for a time when my mind and soul could push my body to tackle a challenge and give all I had on that day. This life is going by way too fast, but I’m still in the fight. Still pushing hard. Onward and upward.
ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium with A Mountain in the background.
The Seniors
As I’ve mentioned before, I was first allowed to venture into my high school’s weight room during the spring of my eighth grade year. This was a huge moment for me, and I remember being super nervous and excited. I was always beanpole skinny, and by the end of eighth grade I was probably 6’1” and maybe 150 pounds. Sure I had been playing sports my whole life, but lifting weights and barbell training was very new to me and my baseline strength was minimal.
There are huge differences between a 13 year old kid and a 17-18 year old senior in high school. All of the seniors seemed so big, strong, and jacked and there names were on all the weight room boards showing that they had squatted 400, benched 300, cleaned 250, etc. It seemed like they were all squatting three or four plates and benching and power cleaning at least 275. These were the guys we watched play varsity football on Saturday afternoons in the fall. They were like gods to us.
One day my freshman year I walked into the weight room and saw one of the senior guys doing pull-ups on the bar at the top of one of the squat racks. He was alternating reps between getting his chin over the bar to the front with pulling himself up to the back of his neck, and he was making his 10 rep set look damn easy. Two of the outstanding female athletes at the school were in another rack squatting 225 for reps. I knew that, in more ways than one, I did not look that good squatting 225. The school’s star running back was against the wall stretching out, getting ready for a squat session that would include multiple sets of 405 and above. An amazingly stout and rugged middle linebacker was doing power cleans with 275, snapping the weight up to his chest like it was an empty barbell. A pair of brothers who were both savage wrestlers were blasting an arm workout using an “I go, you go,” format. I distinctly remember thinking that one of them looked exactly like a caveman except he was lifting dumbbells instead of huge rocks or freshly killed mastodon carcasses. Another senior guy, a linebacker and wrestler who was known as a bit of a loose cannon, was benching on the other side of the weight room. This guy was known for screaming obscenities when executing a heavy lift. You’d be in the middle of a set or spotting your training partner and you’d hear this guy scream, “MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!” Of course everyone would laugh and a coach might yell at us for the foul language, but nobody really cared.
Mr. Madigan was, fittingly, the ringleader of all this chaos. He would walk around the weight room wearing an old leather weight belt and nodding his head to AC/DC’s “The Jack" and screaming at people to get after it. When someone was attempting a personal record or going for a lift to get their name on one of the boards, Mr. Madigan would yell, “New recorrrrrrrrrrd!” and everyone would gather around to watch the lifter. This was a gut check for a young lifter like myself because I certainly didn’t want to screw up, miss a lift, or look stupid in front of the senior guys and girls. Mr. Madigan deserves his own blog post on here, but I may have to wait a little bit until he retires from teaching. For now, I’ll just say he was crazy, but he also motivated the hell out of me, got me started in learning physics, and played a huge role in getting me to where I am today. His “one for Iron Mountain” mantra still rings in my ears when I’m at the end of a tough set trying to eek out one more rep. It’s worth noting that AC/DC Live was the only CD in the corner radio boombox for about five years until my buddy Poike made a mixed CD featuring Bon Jovi, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath, and, of course, AC/DC.
No matter how old I get or how many different lifters or gyms I come across, those seniors from my high school will always seem Herculean in stature and cooler than Fonzi. They are frozen in time in what for many was surely their peak jacked-ness. Their lifting and attitudes inspired my friends and me to push ourselves and get better. The best part is that in some ways, they still inspire me to keep improving so that one day I might be as big, strong, jacked, and cool as they were back in the late ‘90s.
You Keep F!@#ing Up
Why do you keep doing this? You’re fucking up and you know it. Like everything else, this comes down to discipline. No one has a gun to your head. You make the decision to succeed or fail. You are accountable for your actions. How can you be so disciplined in some areas of your life and so shitty in others? What’s up with that?
It doesn’t add value to your life.
It’s never an improvement but always a detriment.
It never adds but always subtracts.
It never makes you happy but always sad.
You waste time on this but can’t make time for things that are actually important.
Nobody can do it for you. It’s all on you.
You try and fail. Try and fail. But are you really trying? Really?! You try at a lot of other stuff and succeed. Why is this different?
You succeed at things that are important to you. This shouldn’t be any different.
Buckle down.
Get tough.
Make a decision.
Man the fuck up.
Quit being a soft-ass.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
Quit feeling sorry for yourself.
FIX YOURSELF.
A New Challenge
At the end of January 2021, a few months shy of my 37th birthday, I went to my first ever Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) class. Walking into the gym at 0515 on a Wednesday morning, I was super nervous and had no idea what to expect. Sure, I had done some research on my own and talked to a couple BJJ practitioners beforehand, but there is still that initial anxiety about being the new guy, fitting in, and obviously being the least skilled/knowledgeable person in the room. Since I have no martial arts or even wrestling background, this was a brand new activity for me, a daunting endeavor that would undoubtedly challenge me both physically and mentally.
When I was in high school, I always wanted to give wrestling a shot. The sport just looked very physical and raw, and part of me was in awe of the guys who wrestled in my school. I think part of me just wanted to know if I could survive with that crew. But alas, wrestling was not in the cards for me. Being 6’6” at a small school where an athletic body couldn’t be wasted on the mere whims of a kid, my destiny was to play basketball during the long months of an Upper Peninsula winter. Most of the wrestlers at my school were obvious physical beasts, and some (most) you might say had a couple screws loose. Since basketball and wrestling were both winter sports that practiced right after school, we all shared a locker room. No one had to tell me to keep my mouth shut around the wrestlers or the wrestling coach Mr. Madigan. After surviving a typical brutal practice, the wrestlers didn’t seem to be in a joking around, jocular, ball-busting kind of mood. They looked like they had gotten run over by a bus after a two-hour long barroom brawl. If one of the wrestlers decided to maul one of us basketball players, there wouldn’t have been much we could do about it. Sure, we could tell Mr. Madigan after the fact, but he’d probably laugh and put you in a headlock of his own. The wrestlers all walked the halls of the high school with that swagger that comes from knowing that they could kick the ass of anyone dumb enough to step up and challenge them. A group of them wore t-shirts that read:
“Basketball: A game played by boys and girls.
Wrestling: A war between two men.”
Imagine some dude walking into school with that shirt in 2021. He’d probably be expelled and charged with a hate crime. Back then, around 2000, those guys were tough and they knew it and they didn’t give one shit about someone’s feelings or safe space.
My first day of BJJ was a lot of fun even though my lack of skills and experience were painfully obvious. At one point I had a guy on top of me pulling on my arm and smashing my head into the mat as I struggled with all my might to get up and out of the hold (I was unsuccessful). Reflecting on this new experience after class, I couldn’t help but thinking how much I enjoyed and appreciated the struggle. In that moment, my brain was not distracted by all the BS of everyday life. I wasn’t worried about making spreadsheets or my next work travel trip or taking my truck in for maintenance. All I could think about was surviving. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is something beautiful in that. For many, this world and this life have gotten way too easy. There are no real hardships and the aim of everything in our daily lives is to make things gentler, softer, and more comfortable. I know plenty of folks do still have legitimate struggles, but many of us do not.
It’s so important to find activities that will test, challenge, and make us face the reality that maybe we aren’t the best at everything. It’s okay to not know how to do something, and things like jiu jitsu and other competitive activities can bring a person face-to-face with their shortcomings. As I’ve gotten older, I have realized that I did not lose enough as a kid. There were some harsh realities of competition in the world that just did not occur to me in my little youthful bubble. It took me a while to learn this fact, and even longer to face it in a way where I was risking getting beat. There is value, honor, and lessons to be learned in facing a challenge head on, even, or maybe especially, if there is a good chance you will lose. That opponent, person, challenge, task, whatever, might just be better than you. Face it. Own it. Enjoy it. Get better.
I’m Not Very Tough
As a nuclear power plant inspector, I do a lot of traveling to various facilities, and refueling outages are usually good times to observe lots of different activities and work that is outside of the normal routine. When a plant is shutdown for an outage, it gives me the opportunity to go into lots of different parts of the plant and observe activities to ensure that everything is safe and proper procedures are being followed. It’s kind of a weird position because everyone on site is, for the most part, nice and professional to me, even though they probably can’t stand the sight of me because of the job I have to do and the authority inspectors have to raise hell when we see violations. My approach is to always be polite, build rapport, and, most of all, don’t be a dick. It turns out this approach pretty much serves me well in all areas of my life.
Last week was kind of a long week on the road with lots of time spent dressed in protective clothing (PCs) and crawling around containment and other normally off-limit areas of the plant. My coworker Harry was the senior inspector, and he and I ventured into the low pressure condenser on Wednesday afternoon. Once we both climbed a ladder and then crawled on our stomachs to get under some scaffolding, pipes, and structural barriers, we were officially inside the condenser. Harry summarized it perfectly by saying, “Well, welcome to Dante’s Inferno.” This place was nuts. Cramped, loud, metal pipes everywhere, and open spots on the floor that invited a person to fall a very long way into darkness. Harry and I did lots of crawling around on our knees and stomachs while also wearing fall protection harnesses, staying clipped onto something at all times to make sure we didn’t plummet to our death. We were in the condenser for about an hour, and it only took me a few minutes to realize that I’m not very tough. Do you know who is tough? The men and women who were in their welding, grinding, and sweating their asses off for a full eight or twelve hour shift. Those people are tough. They worked circles around me that day, and they had already been doing it for two weeks straight. Not only are their jobs very physically demanding and in an extremely unforgiving environment, but they also require great skill and craftsmanship.
I have a ton of respect for anyone who works hard and earns an honest living. Too much of my work time is spent in front of a computer and not out in the world doing things. It’s a breeding ground for softness that I’m trying to combat by maintaining perspective, training hard, and taking on new challenges like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. More on this later…
A Weak Nobody’s Conjugate Training Method
As my training log indicates, I did some Conjugate (sometimes referred to as Westside) training the past few months. Conjugate training is a ton of fun and forces me to get out of my comfort zone on a variety of lifts and focus on weak points (although most days I feel everything on me is pretty weak). I’m not an expert on Conjugate and I’ve never stepped foot in Westside Barbell. I have read just about all of Louie Simmons’s books and have tried to watch and learn from his videos and DVDs. Certainly this is no substitute for training at Westside, but I came to grips with the fact that I’m not Chuck Vogelpohl a long time ago.
Nothing that I write here is new, groundbreaking, or hasn’t been said before. This is just an attempt to lay out how I run the program in plain terms. Hopefully someone will find it useful. The best resource that I’ve personally come across on Conjugate training is, “The Vault” e-book from Dave Tate at EliteFTS. Dave trained at Westside for a decade and has dedicated his life to giving back to the world of powerlifting. “The Vault” does a masterful job of detailing Conjugate training and years of hard-earned wisdom from Dave Tate. Let’s get started on my take.
Methods
Max Effort
The goal here is simple: Handle some relatively heavy weight and strain. There is just no substitute for loading up a heavy bar, getting under it, or getting it in your hands, and fighting to lift it. Conjugate training allows you to perform max effort work every single week with a different week which keeps training fresh, interesting, challenging, and fun.
Pick one major lift work up to a 1, 3, or 5 rep max. Every week I change the exercise, rotating through a variation of good mornings, squats, and deadlifts. The exercise can also be modified by using a different bar and adding bands and/or chains which offers a ton of variety.
Dynamic Effort
The goal here is to move a relatively lighter weight as fast as possible, putting maximum force into the bar with each rep. Make no mistake, the weights may be lighter but this is not a “light day.” Dynamic effort days, sometimes called, “speed days,” progress through a three-week wave, with goal weights on each respective week being 50%, 55%, 60% plus 25% of band tension added. We’re talking percentages of a one rep max in whatever movement you’re doing that day. In my experience, these percentages are a ballpark estimate and can vary a bit from person to person. I’ve seen some articles related to Conjugate training that give lower (40-50%) and higher (60-70%) for the three weeks. More importantly than the exact percentage is the speed at which you can move the bar. These sets should be fast and explosive, basically the complete opposite of a slow grind like on max effort days. Bands are ideal here because they provide an overspeed eccentric, pulling you down faster than just gravity working on the weight. They also allow you to push throughout the entire range of motion without naturally slowing down at the top to prevent the bar from going airborne. When I’m at the bottom of a lift using bands, I always think to myself that I need to, “out-run,” the bands, meaning that I need to come out of the bottom as hard and fast as possible. I need to get into the bands quickly, because I know that if I go too slow, they’ll win and I’ll get stapled.
Repetition
The repetition piece of this is just a fancy way to think about typical bro/bodybuilding movements. After your main lift is done for the day, either your max effort or dynamic effort work, pick a few isolation exercises and hit some higher rep sets. If I’m being honest, this is where I slack the most. My training always focuses more on movements rather than muscle groups, so repetition sets don’t really seem to do much for me. I’d rather hit a variation of one of the main movements for sets of five to eight reps or get in some kettlebell work to finish off the workout. Sometimes I’ll throw in some curls or triceps extensions at the end for the hell of it, but I could take it or leave it.
Days of the Week
Monday - Max Effort Lower Body - Remember, the goal here is to handle some relatively heavy weight and strain. Some examples include:
Good Mornings with cambered bar or safety squat bar - Out of the rack or from the bottom up. These can be done with a straight bar too, but it can really feel like shit on the shoulders. I typically don’t do a max single with good mornings, instead opting for a 3 or 5 rep max.
Squats or Box Squats with cambered bar, safety squat bar or straight bar.
Deadlifts - Sumo, deficit, block pulls, snatch grip, trap bar.
Wednesday - Max Effort Upper Body - Same rules and rationale as Monday. Sample lifts include:
Bench or incline bench press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.
Pin press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.
Floor press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.
Overhead press or push press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle
Friday - Dynamic Effort Lower Body - Remember, this is a fast/explosive day, not a light day. Sample lifts and sets x reps schemes are below. Hitting 15-25 total reps is a good goal.
Box squats with safety squat bar, cambered bar, or straight bar with bands and/or chains. Bands tend to work best here. After each three-week wave, feel free to switch bars, box height, band tension, weight, sets x reps scheme, rest periods, or whatever feels best. Rest periods are kept to 45-90 seconds between sets, so this goes fast and should get your heart rate up. For sets x reps, I like to work with 12 x 2, 8 x 3, and 5 x 5. You can change these as you progress through each wave and the weight gets heavier. For example:
Week 1: 12 x 2
Week 2: 10 x 2
Week 3: 8 x 2
or
Week 1: 8 x 3
Week 2: 6 x 3
Week 3: 5 x 3
or
Week 1: 5 x 5
Week 2: 4 x 5
Week 3: 3 x 5
Deadlifts - Sumo or conventional with bands and/or chains. For these I like to do 15 - 25 singles with 20 - 30 seconds of rest, but there’s nothing wrong with doing some doubles or triples. I often do either deadlifts or kettlebells in addition to dynamic effort box squats.
Kettlebell Work - Kettlebells are a perfect complement to dynamic effort day. Swings, cleans, snatches, you can’t go wrong. Have fun with it.
Sunday - Dynamic Effort Upper Body - Same rules and rationale as Friday.
Bench with straight bar or neutral grip bar with bands and/or chains. Play around with the sets and reps just like on Friday.
This is my practical approach to Conjugate training four days per week. Obviously adding in other stuff will have an effect on recovery, but I also do a ton of walking, hiking, and other light cardio throughout the week. Don’t be afraid to jump right into Conjugate training. It may take some time and effort to figure out what works best for you, but that’s part of the fun.
2020 Book List
Reading has always been a passion of mine, and I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read for the past few years. In 2020, I really got on a mission and completed 46 books. Despite all the crappiness of 2020, I am grateful to have been able to work at home and not have to worry about a morning and afternoon commute. This extra time normally spent commuting paired with a determination to not waste time on things that rot my brain (read: social media) provided me with lots of extra time to get lost in books. The events of this past year provided lots of motivation to want to escape reality, and the amount of fiction that I read in 2020 reflects that.
My 2020 book list also conveys my obsession with westerns and the history of the American west. Some of these books are from a list of, “21 Western Novels Every Man Should Read,” provided by The Art of Manliness. These will be denoted with a, “AoM,” throughout the list. I plan on finishing the rest of the AoM books in 2021.
It should also be noted that I typically have a book on my Kindle and an actual physical book going at the same time. My Kindle is primarily used when I am reading in bed at night before falling asleep. It’s a great tool that allows me to read without having other lights on and disturbing Cali. The downside is that I always seem to get more out of a book when it is an actual physical copy. There is something about the touch of the pages and the ease with which I can go back and look something up that makes it a better experience and allows me to retain more of a connection to the book. On the list below, I’ll denote which books were on my Kindle and may be a bit underrated as a result.
I realize that telling everyone how many books I read can come across as super douchey. That’s not my intention at all. I simply want to share these titles and a sentence or two about each one in the hope that maybe others will check out these books and get pleasure from them as well.
Okay, here we go.
“The Barbell Prescription” by Jonathan M. Sullivan and Andy Baker - Great book about the importance of strength training for everyone, especially those over 50 years of age. It’s literally a matter of life and death.
“The Deer Camp” by Dean Kuipers - Very enjoyable book about a Michigan family’s hunting camp and how the outdoors can bring people together. Parts of it hit home for me because I don’t see my family nearly enough these days and we own a beautiful hunting camp in the north woods.
“Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford - Kindle - Great book that I’ll need to revisit at some point. The historical traditions, values, and war-making of these people were incredible.
“Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance - Excellent book about hardship, poverty, overcoming odds, and eventual triumph. It made me grateful for the stable home in which I was raised.
“The Complete Keys to Progress” by John McCallum - This is a collection of essays by an old school lifting writer. There are some gems in here, but many were repetitive and impractical.
“Easy Strength” by Dan John - Like all of Dan John’s books, this was part training, part life coaching, part sage wisdom that applies to everyone. Highly recommend anything by Dan John.
“Attempts: Essays on Fitness, Health, Longevity, and Easy Strength” by Dan John - This was probably my least favorite Dan John book, but it was still worth my time. It was mostly a collection of essays from past works, so not much was new to me.
“PT-109” by William Doyle - Kindle - Now this book was an eye opener. I always thought of JFK as this kind of rich pretty boy who was just born into privilege and wasn’t much of a real man. “PT-109” outlines JFK’s role in World War II and the trials and tribulations he faced. Turns out he was a true badass who I would want next to me when the going got tough.
“Your Brain on Porn” - Kindle - This is a very important book that should be required reading for every young man. The book gives an excellent description of how porn affects the brain and the negativity that comes with it.
“Deadwood” by Pete Dexter - Kindle - I loved this book, and I think any fan of the HBO series of the same name would also. I will read this one again.
“At Night She Cries While He Rides His Steed” by Ross Patterson - Wildly satirical book about a rowdy cowboy in the old west. Absolutely hilarious and non-PC.
“Blood and Thunder” by Hampton Sides - Perhaps the best non-fiction book I have ever read. If you’re into the history of the American west, check this out.
“The Informant” by Kurt Eichenwald - Kindle - This was a real page-turner that held my attention. It was a long book, but it didn’t feel that way.
“The Last Book on the Left” by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski - This is a book about serial killers done by the guys from my favorite serial killer podcast, The Last Podcast on the Left. It’s hard to imagine a book about serial killers being hilarious, but the guys pulled it off.
“Robbers’ Roost” by Zane Grey - Kindle - Classic western. Easy read and a great mental escape. My one issue is that Zane Grey sometimes spends so much time describing a setting that it gets very boring.
“Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest” by Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. - This was a good book, but some parts were hard to get through. The details of the battles and what regiment was coming from where had me almost falling asleep at times. Good portrait of a Confederate general though.
“When Darkness Falls, He Doesn’t Catch It” by Ross Patterson - The hilarious sequel to #11. More raunchiness and inappropriateness. Good times.
“The Summer I Died” by Ryan C. Thomas - Kindle - This was a work of fiction, but the plot was plausible and pretty terrifying. Lots of gore if you’re into that sort of thing. It kept me interested.
“Born to Bleed” by Ryan C. Thomas - Kindle - I started reading #18 not realizing it was book 1/3 in a trilogy. “Born to Bleed” was okay, but the plot got a little ridiculous and the author included some weird things that just didn’t fit. For example, it was specifically mentioned that the perpetrators in the book were politically right-wing. It had nothing to do with the plot but I guess somehow made them naturally more scary??? I don’t really know. I actually started the third book in the series but it was awful and I didn’t finish it.
“American Desperado” by Jon Roberts - Super interesting and entertaining book. I highly recommend it if for no other reason than the hilarious story about O.J. Simpson being too much of a party animal even for international cocaine/drug kingpins.
“Wild Bill” by Tom Clavin - Tom Clavin is my boy. He writes lots of non-fiction books about the west. This one did not disappoint.
“Under the Black Hat” by Jim Ross - Kindle - This is Good Ol’ J.R.’s second book. If you were ever a fan of pro wrestling, you should enjoy “Slobberknocker” and this one.
“Shane” by Jack Schaefer - AoM - Kindle - Excellent, easy read. An old teacher of mine, Mr. Lynch, once told us, “My brother says that, ‘Shane,’ is the greatest western movie of all time.”
“The Ox-Bow Incident” by William Van Tilburg Clark - AoM - Kindle - Kind of slow, but gets into the psyche of vigilantism on the frontier. I enjoyed it well enough.
“1776” by David McCullough - Awesome book about the Revolutionary War and our country’s early history.
“Little Big Man” by Thomas Berger - AoM - Kindle - The awesomeness of this book surprised me. It’s kind of like a satirical Forrest Gump journey of a guy making his way through major historical moments in the American west. There is also a lot of history and education about Native American customs and culture. I will read this one again.
“Runnin’ with the Devil” by Noel Monk - Classic stories about a wild rock and roll band. Very entertaining.
“Van Halen Rising” by Greg Renoff - See #27 above. I borrowed both of these books about Van Halen from a neighbor.
“The Eighth Wonder of the World” by Bertrand Hebert and Pat Laprade - This book about Andre the Giant was okay, but I’ll admit that some parts were super boring and I wanted to stop reading.
“Butcher’s Crossing” by John Williams - AoM - Kindle - Good book that shows some of the real hardships of frontier life.
“Valley Forge” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin - I frequently go hiking at Valley Forge so reading some of the history behind the park was great. It’s a miracle our country ever won independence from England.
“Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky - I remember one of my Navy buddies reading this several years ago and I thought it was silly as hell. It turned out to be a really good book with plenty of interesting world history. The author is a food writer so some of the recipe stuff that he included got old, but it was easy enough to breeze past those parts.
“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown - Kindle - This book is about the countless ways the U.S. government screwed over the Native Americans. It’s absolutely tragic. I need to revisit this again in the future.
“Skeleton Crew” by Stephen King - I always go on a Stephen King kick around Halloween and this year was no different. Good collection of short stories.
“Blackout” by Candace Owens - Excellent book with some uncomfortable facts and truths. Personally, I think Candace is a brilliant political commentator. I’ll leave it at that.
“Thinner” by Stephen King - I remember watching this movie at a friend’s house like 20 years ago. The movie was spooky and the book was even better. I really enjoyed this one.
“I’ve Got My Eyes On You” by Mary Higgins Clark - Kindle - I wanted a scary book by someone other than Stephen King. This book was fine. Very easy read.
“Gray Mountain” by John Grisham - Kindle - One of the best Grisham books I’ve read. This book really paints a picture of the struggles of poor rural folks in coal country and Appalachia.
“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote - Kindle - Awesome true crime book. Highly recommend.
“The Tommyknockers” by Stephen King - You know how these random monoliths keep popping up in out of the way places? That’s kind of the plot of this book with the addition of the shit hitting the fan. I enjoyed it.
“Yeah Buddy!” by Ronnie Coleman - Kindle - This book was about what I expected. You might enjoy this if you’re into pro bodybuilding. If not, you might be left wondering why no one proofread this book before it went to publication.
“Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry - There are not enough superlatives in existence to describe how I feel about this book. I’ve watched the miniseries countless times and I still loved every page.
“A Glimpse in the Rearview” by Dave Draper - Kindle - Meh, this was okay but nothing great. Some interesting west coast early bodybuilding stories.
“Centennial” by James A. Michener - If you’re looking for a 1,000+ page historical fiction book based around Colorado, look no further. I really enjoyed this book, although the chapter about all the geological stuff kind of put me to sleep. Once I got past that though, it was a real page turner.
“About Three Bricks Shy of a Load” by Roy Blount Jr. - Kindle - This book is about the 1973 Pittsburgh Steelers. It had some funny stories, but wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.
“Hondo” by Louis L’Amour - AoM - Classic western with a bit of a love story. It was worth my time.
Get Tough
When I was in eighth grade, 1996-1997, we had enough kids go out for the basketball team that the school decided to split us into two teams so that more kids could participate and practice their skills. No, this wasn’t about giving out participation trophies or anything like that. The goal was to have a bigger, more experienced pool of players to draw from when we started high school the following year.
I was placed on the Blue team, which meant my coaches were Mike Maule and Dante Mendina. Mike was a local businessman who had coached Little League baseball and other youth sports for years while Dante was the dad of my best buddy, Tony. Mike and Dante were both incredibly good to us kids, and I always wanted to play hard and make them proud.
There were some good victories and hilarious moments during that season, but one of the funniest things happened at the Pizza Hut party Mike and Dante had for us after we got knocked out of the playoffs. When we were ordering pizza, our teammate Jim let it slip that he wanted a plain cheese pizza. Well, this idea was appalling to a rugged guy like Mike, who half-jokingly exclaimed loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, “Get tough! Order sausage!” My teammates and I all burst into laughter and knew that we had a quote that we would use on each other for years to come. Here we are at the end of 2020, and I could still text that line to my friends and it would elicit a laugh and probably a few other good Mike quotes from that season.
In today’s world, some may call this toxic masculinity, but I am grateful that I had some really strong male role models in my life during my formidable adolescent years. Now, I’m not saying that I’m some sort of tough guy or that a good measure of one’s manhood or worth is whether or not you order sausage pizza. I’m saying that it was good for me to be surrounded by friends and coaches who always drove me to be a little bit tougher. Being a part of a group or team meant I had other people counting on me, and sometimes I had to do things I didn’t necessarily feel like doing at the time. It didn’t matter if I felt a little sick or didn’t feel like practicing or didn’t want to brave the cold during football season. I had to answer the bell, be there for my teammates and coaches, and, in short, get tough.
Perhaps this is why I’m so fascinated with the history of the American West frontier. You know what I’m talking about…cowboys, Native Americans, mountain men, horses, buffalo, cattle, boom towns, gold rushes, saloons, whiskey, whores, Manifest Destiny, and the list goes on. One of the reasons I’m so captivated by this bit of history is the toughness of the people. Hardship was the norm, and there were no expectations for comfort, safety, or easy living.
People thought nothing of traveling long distances on foot or horseback.
Got shot? Guess I’ll get a limb amputated and carry on.
Spouse took off on some adventure into the unknown? Hope he or she isn’t dead and makes it back here at some point.
Even with the craziness of 2020, for many, myself included, life is way too easy. People don’t expect to ever have to endure any kind of pain or discomfort. There is a pill for everything and plenty of excuses for our own failings and shortcomings. This does not result in tough people.
Often times, pain, within reason, indicates growth and betterment, and the hard path is the one that will produce the most rewarding and lasting results. Rather than shying away from the discomfort of growth and improvement, we must embrace the feelings of uncertainty and savor the process of healing, learning, and/or expanding our talents. It may be something you’ve been putting off like starting to eat healthy or exercise more frequently. These can certainly be daunting tasks that yank you out of your comfort zone, but the long term effects will change you for the better. There will be times where you feel hungry or wake up sore or have to push through a mental barrier. It’s okay to not look forward to these times and be uncomfortable when you’re faced with the decision to press on toward your goal. Every time you choose the right path you will be getting better, stronger, and tougher.
I Worry…
I come from a long line of worriers, and it’s a habit I adopted very early on in life. As a kid, I worried about anything and everything: falling sick with some kind of terminal disease, losing a family member, getting kidnapped, our family’s house burning down, screwing up and causing my high school teams to lose a seemingly all-important football or basketball game, failing in school, getting poisoned by the cleaning agents my mom used around the house, pesticides on food. You name it, I worried about it, all while keeping my thoughts and anxiety to myself and subconsciously picking my fingernails until they were nothing more than little stubs. Of course now, many of these worries seem so silly, the machinations of the mind of an imaginative kid, but they were constantly on my mind, eating away at me and eroding my energy.
But here’s the problem.
I still worry. It’s just that as an adult, my list of worries has changed, and I don’t know how to turn it off. Below is a frequent interaction between Cali and me while we are relaxing on the couch in the evening:
Me: (thinking about something and subconsciously picking my nails)
Cali: Why are you picking?
Me: Oh, I was just thinking about something.
Cali often knows me better than I know myself, and she can always tell when something is on my mind or bothering me.
This past year has been wrought with anxiety for many people worldwide. Government lockdowns, COVID, elections, racial tensions, unemployment, riots, the future of our country, and the constant, in your face nature of social media have made our country a hypersensitive and incredibly divided powder keg. Our country has two major political parties, and so many people feel like they’re on one side or the other. Two people could agree on 99 things, but if there is one nuanced disagreement on the subtle gray area of one inconsequential topic, it’s, “Well you’re on that side and I’m on this side so I hate you now.” It’s heartbreaking to see so much disagreement and strife among people.
I don’t like this at all, and I worry about all of it. Over the past year, this constant worrying and anxiety has crept in and caused me to forget about the importance of enjoying life. Living in fear is not living at all, and that’s where I’ve been stuck for some time now. Part of it is the COVID lockdowns and working at home nearly 100% of the time. Whenever I do get a chance to get out of the house and travel for work, it’s actually very refreshing. Interacting with people out in the world is a good reminder that what’s portrayed on the news is far different than the very normal and respectful human interactions that take place every day all over the country.
It’s time to take ownership of my anxiety and focus all of the mental energy I expend worrying about things I cannot control towards something productive. Years ago I read some great books on these topics, including Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***,” Jocko Willink’s “Extreme Ownership,” and Don Miguel Ruiz’s “The Four Agreements.” Perhaps it’s time to brush up on the themes in these books and start living a life of action rather than a life of worry. There are countless things that are out of my control, but how I feel about them is completely up to me. Like jealousy, anger, bitterness, and resentment, worrying actually works the opposite of how we want it to work. Worrying does not help the situation, and it only negatively affects the person doing the worrying. Nothing useful, beneficial, or productive comes from the act of worrying.
Being positive is a choice, and it’s time for me to choose the right path every single day. Going forward, I am going to stay positive, love my fellow man, and focus my attention on what is in front of me and what I can control.
Find a Way to Train
The first weekend in March 2020, I flew to Wichita Falls, Texas, for a Starting Strength seminar. As I sat at the Dallas airport waiting for my flight back to Philadelphia, I quietly laughed to myself at how ridiculous it was that people were wearing masks at the airport. There had been some rumblings in the news about COVID, but most of the population didn’t seem too concerned about things just yet. Little did I know that about ten days later, the Pennsylvania governor would order a pseudo-lockdown, make masks required in most public places, and force the closure of gyms and other businesses that the almighty government decided were, “non-essential.”
Life is tough for a lot of folks right now. People have lost their livelihoods, had their businesses closed, been forced to move, missed meals and housing payments, lost friends and loved ones, and just had what feels like one kick after another during the past seven months. It’s not hard to understand that for many, training is way down the priority list. For those of you that find yourselves in a very difficult and stressful life situation, training might be the one thing that you can control. You can decide to relieve some of that stress through hard training and activities. You can choose to stay sharp and not let situational uncertainties sap you of all of your mental and physical well-being. You can maintain a high fitness standard and not let yourself stray from the path.
But my gym is closed.
Sounds like the perfect time to get primal with your training. Forget about the clean and climate-controlled fitness center full of fancy equipment and shiny weights. It’s time to change things up and find a way to get it done. Don’t let what you deem to be perfect be the enemy of good.
Do you have an old duffel bag in the house? Good, 50-lb bags of play sand cost less than five bucks at Home Depot. Fill up your duffel bag and carry, drag, press, and shoulder it until your lungs are on fire and your body is trembling.
Many people have some kind of weights lying around collecting dust. Dig them out of the basement and get to work.
That AirDyne you bought in 1995 that has been acting as a clothes hanger for the last decade? It’s time to crank it up.
Get out of the house and walk or hike. You might be pleasantly surprised at how many people you meet in your neighborhood by simply going for regular walks.
Find a big rock or log in the woods that you can take home and lift like Rocky training for Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
Go for a jog or run some sprints. Is there a hill near your house? Even better.
Go to a local park and do some pull-ups on the monkey bars. You could also find a suitable tree branch or drape a towel over something sturdy and do pull-ups while also building a vice-like grip.
I get that equipment is hard to find and people are price-gouging right now, but I’ve heard a lot of people with $1,000+ dollar iPhones declare that they won’t spend $50 on some weights that could transform their life.
People always seem to find a way to afford the things that they deem valuable, and training is no exception.
What’s the Alternative?
People know I’m into fitness, lifting, and healthy eating, and that means I have a lot of conversations about these topics. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I listen to a lot of people explain to me why they can’t workout, lift weights, eat right, or really do anything that’s positive for their health. A common theme in most of these conversations is the person explaining to me that their knees prevent them from performing exercise of any kind.
“I used to run three our four miles but since I turned 35 my knees just hurt too much.”
“Squatting is bad for you knees, and my knees are already bad so I can’t squat.”
“You should feel lucky you still have young knees.”
“Doesn’t that hurt your knees?”
“Once you turn 30 you won’t be squatting anymore. Too hard on the knees.”
“My hips and knees ain’t what they used to be.” (This was said to me by a guy who is 28 years old and works a desk job).
The theme among many of these excuses is that seemingly everyone in the world apparently has bad knees, but you could substitute hips, back, shoulder, or any other body part in place of knees and it would still hold true for many people. Everyone has their ailments, aches, and pains. I understand that some people are born with genetic defects or terrible diseases that cause constant and/or excruciating pain, but the question remains the same though.
What’s the alternative?
So your knee/hip/back/whatever hurts. Are you just done? That’s it. Call it a life. Your physical ability to feel strong and healthy is just gone forever. It cannot be recovered. Better spend most of your day sitting in a chair and never lift anything greater than 10 pounds. Maybe pick up an opioid addiction to really numb out the pain. Let your body deteriorate and muscles atrophy to the point where you are not physically prepared to do anything other than sleep, get ready for work, sit in the car on the way to work, sit at work for eight hours straight, sit in the car on the way home from work, and then sit in front of the television before going back to sleep.
No way. Forget all that. Your body wants to move. Your body wants to be strong. The best way to fight pain is with physical strength. Donnie Thompson is a world record powerlifter and the first man to ever total 3,000 pounds in a powerlifting meet. He’s also very much into prehab, rehab, mobility, and recovery. One time I saw an interview of Donnie where he was talking about someone at his gym who had a bad back as a result of a car accident. Donnie told the guy, “Look, you can be weak and in pain, or you can be strong and in less pain.” I know which one I would choose. That’s a no-brainer.
When most people are in pain, they don’t want to do anything but lay around on their ass not moving. I realize there may be a time and place for this behavior, like shortly after a surgery or other catastrophic event, but those times are rare.
I realize that it’s scary and counterintuitive to have someone say that if you’re in pain, you need to be training, but it’s also true. And I’m not talking about training through pain at all costs or trying to prove how tough you are by ego lifting. I’m talking about just getting moving and being willing to endure a little bit of pain and discomfort for long term results and quality of life.
If your knees hurt, you might just find that squatting and getting stronger fixes them.
If your back hurts, you might just find that deadlifting and getting stronger fixes it.
If your shoulders hurt, you might just find that overhead pressing and getting stronger fixes them.
Now I’m not telling you that if you have a serious injury or are completely untrained, you should load a barbell up and go crazy. Squatting for you might start with getting in and out of a chair. Your deadlifts might be picking up a light kettlebell or dumbbell off the floor. As my high school football coach Brad Grayvold used to say, “It’s not where you start. It’s where you finish.”
The point of starting is that, well, you’re starting. Just get moving. Make some progress. Begin to load exercises a little bit at a time. If one specific exercise hurts, find something else that works the same muscles but doesn’t hurt. All of it will improve your physical, mental, and emotional strength. Your confidence and quality of life will be enhanced in ways you cannot imagine.
After all…What’s the alternative?
New Beginnings
After Zeus passed on August 8, I needed a mental break from everything. The house was so quiet and empty and cold. It felt like a part of my soul was missing. Dinnertime was the hardest, because I used to get Zeus his pre-dinner jerky, prepare his food, and hand him his dessert Milkbone. Throughout his three course meal, Zeus would come in and out of the back door a dozen times while I tended the grill and intermittently threw the ball for him. This was an amazing part of my day, and, suddenly, it was just gone.
Cali and I got out of town for a few days, traveling to Ann Arbor, MI, to visit her brother Broc and his fiancee Lauren. It was great to make a nice long drive, spend time with family, and just decompress away from home, work, and the fresh wounds from losing our doggy a couple weeks prior. We also did a light beer blind taste test bracket that was exactly as big of a shitshow as one might suspect. Miller Lite took the light beer category while Labatt Blue won the impromptu “International” bracket. This was a blast, and we’re already planning a fall/Thanksgiving rendition of the event.
The light beer bracket.
The International bracket.
Even among the pain of losing Zeus, Cali and I still had plenty of things for which to be thankful. Friday August 28 was our 10 year anniversary, marking the passing of a decade that went by in the blink of an eye. We have had so much fun, laughter, adventures, and memories over the past 10 years that it makes me excited to see what the next 10 years holds in store for us. We celebrated the weekend with a nice Friday morning hike, some hard training, good food, friends, and drinks. In summary, it was perfect.
A beautiful morning at Green Lane Park. August 28, 2020
I knew Cali and I would eventually get another dog, but I wasn’t sure how long we would wait. In my heart, I trusted that the time would just feel right.
That or, like most decisions around here, Cali would just tell me.
It turns out the time started to feel right after spending a weekend with Broc and Lauren’s awesome dog, Jagger. He pretty much snuggled Cali all weekend and I slid him lots of chicken and duck jerky treats on the side.
Fun car ride with Jagger on the way to Pinckney Recreation Area to do some hiking. August 16, 2020, Pinckney, MI.
Cali found a Bernedoodle (Bernese mountain dog and poodle mix) online, and I knew he was meant for our house. A few weeks later, Arvid was in our living room.
Arvid and Cali. September 2, 2020
So far, Arvid seems very sweet, and he already won’t let Cali out of his sight. This warms my heart because Zeus was the same way. Zeus was always okay as long as he knew Cali was okay, and the same could be said about me.
Here we go again.
Farewell to Zeus
This past Saturday, August 8, 2020, we had to have our beloved Zeus, the namesake of this website, put down. Zeus had essentially stopped eating and drinking. He lost 15 pounds and was shrinking before our very eyes as his energy dwindled and his ability to do the things he loved like chase the ball and go for walks disappeared. Zeus’s whole day had become transitioning from lying at the bottom of the stairs to lying at the entrance to our kitchen. Sure there were flashes of his former self, like when he would break out into a smile or come over for some butt scritches, but it was clear something was taking a severe physical toll on Zeus.
Over the last couple weeks, Cali and I had the vet run all kinds of tests on Zeus to try to figure out what was wrong. Multiple blood tests, x-rays, and an ultrasound revealed that Zeus had fluid in his belly, signs of internal bleeding, and probably had something more serious happening internally. In order to get a more definitive answer, bone marrow, liver, and spleen biopsies were required. It was an incredibly difficult decision, but Cali and I didn’t want to put our boy through all of those procedures, only to confirm that there was something more serious going on and harsh treatment like chemo would be necessary just to keep Zeus alive with a greatly reduced quality of life.
As always I try to keep things in perspective, and I don’t mean to be overly dramatic with this post. I know there are people out there who go through severe hardships, so I don’t want this to sound like I’m having a pity party for myself. Some people have to watch family members die of horrible diseases right before their eyes. Others have loved ones get murdered, killed at war, or die in car accidents and other senseless ways. It speaks to the fact that I have had a very easy and relatively carefree life, but I can honestly say that making the decision and following through with having Zeus put down was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Zeus was my best friend and constant companion. He showed me unconditional love every day of my his life. Cali and I have been married for 10 years, and Zeus was almost nine. Our marriage was barely just beginning when we got him as a six year old puppy. How could I decide to not have him around anymore? Zeus was our first dog, so we had never been through the process or had to make a decision like that before. It was heartbreaking.
After Zeus was gone, being in the house was brutal. It seemed so quiet, empty, and cold. Cali and I would both randomly break down and sob while performing everyday tasks. You see, Zeus was my little shadow, and it feels incredibly strange doing things like taking out the trash or going out on the back deck to fire up the grill without hearing his little paws tick-tacking behind me on the floor. So much of my day revolved around taking him out back, going for walks, getting his food, getting him up to bed, and any other task one does for a pet. I feel lost, like part of my soul is missing.
Fortunately, Cali and I have made some amazing friends and coworkers here in Pennsylvania, and we had amazing support and love from them this past week. Our friends Eric and Katlyn came over Friday night with their dog Dorian. As always, they had plenty of treats and loving to share with Zeus on his last night.
On Saturday night, I went over to our neighbor’s house to have some drinks and socialize on their back deck. It was a very peaceful night with Chase and Christine, and playing with their dog, Kasey, really warmed my heart and helped my attitude about the situation. Immediately after Zeus passed, I was convinced that I would never be able to get another dog again. No dog could ever compare to Zeus, and it almost felt like I would be cheating on him if I shared my love with another dog. Kasey quickly made me realize this was not the case at all. I was throwing the ball for her and giving her pets, and her sheer joy and happiness made me realize everything was going to be okay. Kasey was just so into the moment and content with what was happening right in front of her that it made me forget about my crappy morning for a while. It was very surprising and awesome at the same time. A few days later, Christine brought over a very sweet card and Christmas tree ornament. The touching gesture brought Cali and I to tears.
On Sunday morning, I met two friends for an early morning bike ride. My buddy Peter and his girlfriend Liz, both coworkers of mine, got Cali a nice blanket and me a bottle of Knob Creek, one of my all-time favorite bourbons. This sweet gesture really meant a lot to us, and it made me think about how Cali and I have built a life and established a good network of people in this area.
Eric and Katlyn came over again on Sunday and treated Cali and me to hoagies from Primo’s. They also brought a very nice card and a framed collage of pictures of us with Zeus and Dorian from this past Friday night. It was so touching that it made Cali and I break out in tears, but it’s something we will no doubt keep and cherish forever. Getting to see Dorian and give her some loving also lifted my spirit and put a smile on my face.
On Thursday morning, our neighbors Catherine and Nick dropped off a touching and heartfelt card and heart-shaped dish that brought tears to the eyes of Cali and me. They had a dog pass away last year, and, at the time, I don’t think I really understood how tough it could be to go through something like that. Catherine told me about their dog’s passing when I was working out outside early one morning shortly after it happened, and it took me a moment to register what she had said. I followed up with her later that week, apologizing if I came across as dismissive or uncaring at the time. She was very sweet about it, but I definitely wish I would have done more to extend support for their family during that time.
Cali and I also both had very nice support and messages from other friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Even the vet made the euthanasia as delicate and gentle as possible on Saturday morning. Cali actually just left the house to bring them a card and some donuts as a token of our appreciation. All those little things really made getting through this past weekend easier and we are very appreciative. Often, when I know others are going through a tough time, I am reluctant to say or do anything. I always think that I don’t want to be another reminder about the situation or that I don’t know exactly what to say, so maybe it’s best to just not say anything. This experience has been a good reminder that little gestures and words of understanding can mean a lot to someone who is struggling, and I don’t need to be so hesitant about expressing condolences or reaching out to others in the future.
This card from my best buddy Igor really meant a lot to Cali and me.
I always wanted a dog when I was a kid, but my parents never let me get one. It turns out that I had to wait until I was almost 28 to finally get a dog, but when I did, I somehow managed to get the very best one. Zeus was never anything but a sweet and gentle soul, and he never expressed any bit of aggressiveness or meanness towards another living creature. He was attacked by other dogs in our neighborhood, and even though he was physically imposing, he never retaliated or bit back, although there were a few times where I wish he would have stood up for himself. Sometimes we would walk by other dogs and they would be barking and going crazy like they wanted to get at him, but he would just smile and keep trotting on by like he didn’t have a care in the world. When Zeus was first interacting with a new dog, he would go down onto his belly to try to get low in an effort to show that he wasn’t going to be mean or hurt the other dog. Our neighborhood has tons of kids, and, often times, a few would ask if they could pet Zeus when we were out walking. Zeus was not the biggest fan of pets, but he would oblige the kids, even hunkering down for smaller children so they could pet him without being scared. It was really incredible to watch how he instinctually knew when to be extra gentle and soft around these small children. Zeus loved sitting out back of our house on the leash and looking out into the neighborhood. Occasionally, I would look out and see that some of the neighborhood kids had been cutting through the backyard and stopped to pet Zeus. We never had to worry about him biting or hurting anyone, even if they were cutting through his turf. Zeus had earned our trust.
Cali and I regularly took Zeus out without any kind of leash or restraint, and not once did he take off on us or run away. It wasn’t even something that ever occurred to us a possibility. Zeus was always so worried about our whereabouts, particularly Cali’s, that we knew he wouldn’t let us out of his sight.
My sister Kristin’s father-in-law, Tim Rice, painted this picture of Zeus. When I unwrapped the package, I immediately broke down into tears. It perfectly captures Zeus’s sweet eyes, gentle smile, and love for playing with his frisbee.
I miss Zeus dearly and will for the rest of my life. I know that time will heal and life will carry on. I’ll have other dogs who will be special in their own way, but the memories of Zeus and the good times we had will remain. I have a million pictures of Zeus, but the one below sums him up pretty well. Outside, off the leash, wild, free, smiling, panting with satisfaction, and waiting until the time is right to chase his ball Orangey again.
Best. Dog. Ever.
Load Your Skeleton
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you hear or read an idea, belief, or theory, you end up encountering that same theory in a bunch of different places in a short period of time? That happens to me quite frequently since I am constantly reading books and articles and listening to podcasts about training. Lately, I’ve been bombarded with this idea of the importance of skeletal loading and how important it is for maintaining strength, bone density, balance, and coordination. I’m not citing any sources here for any of these claims, but you can Google it and find all kinds of information. Better yet, try it yourself for a period of six months to a year and see how your body changes and how much better and stronger you feel doing just about everything in life.
I guess I should clarify that by skeletal loading, what I really mean, in short, is lifting weights, and therefore forcing your skeleton and other body structures to support and move a load.
Most of my lifting these days, twenty or so years after I first started, consists of very basic human movements that allow me to safely and efficiently build my body. Squats, bench presses, overhead presses, deadlifts, chins, kettlebell swings, kettlebell snatches, loaded carries (sandbags and kettlebells of all sizes and variations), and sled work like rows, drags, and pushes give me everything I need to load my skeleton and stay strong. You may notice that my lifting does not really include the use of any machines. There is nothing wrong with using machines, especially if the alternative is doing nothing, but machines that effectively load your skeleton and require full body tension and balance throughout the movement are few and far between. They are also very expensive, a pain in the ass to move, and take up a ton of space. None of this is ideal for a home gym warrior like myself.
Below are a couple questions or ideas that I always see thrown out there when people are told they should lift weights. Reading my brief answers pales in comparison to what would be learned by giving lifting a chance and seeing how it improves your overall health.
Why not just do bodyweight exercises?
This is a good question, and there are certainly a number of very fit individuals who only use bodyweight exercises. I love movements such as bodyweight chins, push-ups, and dips, but doing them only using one’s bodyweight without ever adding weight is a much different stimulus than squatting, pressing, or carrying a heavy weight that can be incrementally increased over time. The effect of heavy skeletal loading simply cannot be replaced without actually loading your skeleton.
I run/bike/do some other form of cardio so I should be good, right?
When many people think of working out, they think of doing long and slow sustained cardio for an extended period of time. Don’t get me wrong, I love cardio and have logged a lot of miles on my bicycle this summer, but while these activities do have their benefits, they are not replacements for all the aforementioned positives one gets from skeletal loading. It all comes down to force production and the way one’s body interacts with its environment. Steady state cardio, unfortunately, does not do much in terms of increasing the ability to produce force against an external object. Look at an old person who cannot maintain his/her balance while walking or standing up. This condition is undoubtedly a strength issue, and a better cardio base will not fix the problem.
Load your skeleton. You won’t be sorry.
Playing with a 40 kg kettlebell while looking out onto Lake Ontario at Breitbeck Park in Oswego, NY.
Finish the Drill
“Anyone can start the drill. Show me the guy who can finish the drill.”
-Coach Brad Grayvold
Coach Grayvold, or Coach G as we called him, was my varsity football coach way back during the fall of 2000 and 2001, my junior and senior years of high school respectively. He was an awesome guy who always watched out for his players. When we were sweating our asses off and showing fatigue during a tough practice, Coach G would holler out the above mantra. It always managed to get inside my head, allowing me to push myself just a little bit further.
I recently finished an eight-week kettlebell program that was based around one-handed swings and snatches with a five minute snatch test scheduled for the final day of training (the goal for a typical snatch test for a man of my size is 100 reps in five minutes with a 24 kg/53 lb kettlbell). Admittedly, when I saw the program template and thought about the end goal of completing a snatch test, I was very skeptical. None of the snatch days even had 100 total reps, much less 100 reps in five minutes. How was this going to prepare me for the end goal?
See, I’m like most people who buy a training program or find one online. Even if the program comes from very reputable sources and coaches with years, and sometimes decades, of experience training themselves and athletes, my first thought when I see the exercises used or the program outline is that I should change or modify things to supposedly make them better. Surely I know what’s best or how all of this is going to fit together over the next several weeks and months even though I’ve never done the program myself. Never mind the fact that the coach or trainer who wrote the program likely put a ton of time, effort, experience, and experimentation into making sure the program was designed in a very specific way using carefully selected movements that will lead to achieving an end goal.
Over the years, I have begun to see the value in doing a program exactly as written at least one time through. This requires putting my ego aside and acknowledging that I have much to learn about strength training. When I take this leap of faith, it usually turns out that I learn a lot, have fun, and begin to understand why the coach wrote the program a certain way. I also find that the program went so well that I want to make further progress by going through the program again. Looking back over old training logs, I realize that my former modifications of various programs typically meant adding in tons of extra and unnecessary volume that completely destroyed my ability to maximize all of the benefits of a program like volume, intensity, and recovery. I was very well-versed at starting the drill, but very rarely could I finish the drill.
I completed my final snatch test pretty comfortably, hitting 105 reps in five minutes. I didn’t suffer all that much and definitely still had more in the tank.
Take that leap of faith. Put your ego aside. Do the program as written and learn.
Beautiful Moments - Part 3
Yesterday’s training session brought me a beautiful moment. I’ve been working at home since mid-March because of COVID-19, and most days I get my training in during my lunch break. Training mid-day helps me get away from my computer, blow off some steam, and enjoy the beautiful summer weather.
This past Saturday, my new 200-lb sandbag from Rogue showed up. Cali helped me fill it up with four 50-lb bags of play sand, but I didn’t actually train with it until the following Monday (yesterday). The temps were in the mid-80s yesterday with abundant sunshine. Growing up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I didn’t really know what it was like to train in any kind of heat. Cold? Oh yeah, I’ve definitely done plenty of training in the cold. I can think of a number of football games and even track meets where snow was actively coming down during the event. It wasn’t until I moved to Arizona in 2007 that I really got to train in the real blast furnace kind of heat. It turns out that once I got adapted, I absolutely loved it. When I was taking grad classes at Arizona State in Tempe in the summer, I would go at lunch time and run the track that went around the multipurpose field outside of the student gym. It would legit be 110 F or so. Yes, it’s a dry heat, but 110 is still 110. When I moved to South Carolina in 2010, I got to experience training in the high humidity swamp-like conditions. I loved all that too because it took no effort to break and keep a sweat.
Anyways, back to Monday’s training. After my kettlebell snatches, it was time to finally get out the new sandbag and give it a whirl. I carried the sandbag over to this flat grassy patch that’s in the middle of my cul-de-sac. My goal was to do ten total of what I just call, “Shoulders,” which is basically just bringing the bag from the ground up to one shoulder, showing control by taking the off-hand off the bag while standing upright, pausing, and then dropping it back down. I had zero inclination as to how this was going to go, but my plan was to do one rep every 90 seconds.
On the first rep, I got the bag up to my chest, but lost control of it and dropped it before getting it to my shoulder. Okay, rough start. During the second rep, I figured out just how aggressively I needed to be when standing up out of the squatting position with the sandbag in my lap. This rep went much better, and I knew I could complete the set.
By about the fifth rep, sweat was pouring into my eyes and the sun was baking down on me. I was wearing nothing but some underwear and a pair of gym shorts, so I really felt the heat from the afternoon sun all over. I was huffing and puffing, covered in chalk, dirt, and grass with my chest turning red from the sandbag rubbing against me on the way up and my bare feet getting acquainted with the grass. A neighbor came out to get in his car to go somewhere and looked at me kind of odd, probably wondering if I was right in the head.
This whole scene was a beautiful moment. Any day where I can go out in the heat, feel the sunshine on my skin, train hard, and feel strong and alive is a great day. Sweating profusely and breathing heavy make me feel like I’m in a fight for my life. The effort makes me focus on the task at hand, and I can forget about all of the negativity and bullshit in the world and just do that one hard thing the right way and for the right reason.
200-lb of fun
The Long Walk
“The Long Walk” by Slavomir Rawicz is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s about these six guys who escape from a Soviet prison camp and walk to freedom by crossing Siberia, the Gobi Desert, the Himalayas, and other nearly impossible terrain. The human spirit is on full display and it is hard to feel sorry for yourself after reading this tale.
In my small hometown of Norway, Michigan, there were a number of people who were known for walking around town as a form of exercise and healthy living. There was one lady who always walked her beautiful golden retriever, and a few other couples, husband and wife, who seemed to always be out on the sidewalks, walking together, chatting, and enjoying the day. As a young boy, I used to think this was kind of silly. I mean, I could understand riding a bike to get somewhere quickly or going for a run because running could be a good workout, but walking? Come on, that’s not a workout. My younger self proudly proclaimed that if I ever got to the point where I considered walking to be a workout, someone might as well put me out of my misery because I must be old and/or in terrible shape. Basically, I had the same mindset Jim Wendler describes in his original “5/3/1” book:
“Walking?
I remember thinking to myself that if I ever reached a point in my life where I had to walk to get exercise, it might be time to clean out my ears with a gun.”
Fast forward to today. I’m now 36 years old (that happened fast), which is certainly not old, but my perspective on walking, and many other things, has changed in the last 20 years. My wife and I, with Zeus of course, are now “the walkers” in the neighborhood. Our walks have led to us getting to know many of the neighbors, and people recognize us as friendly faces on the block. Some days, it’s a little warm for Zeus’s big black fur coat or he just needs some rest, and inevitably someone will ask why our trusty companion is absent from our excursion. We have relationships and friends simply because of the time we spend traversing the loops that make up our community.
In my opinion, walking regularly is one of the best things a person can do for overall health. Walking gets you off the couch and moving around outside. It gives you time to think, relax, breathe, and listen to music, podcasts, or audio books. If you have a partner, walking lets you spend more time together talking, sharing ideas, and learning about each other. A person can easily turn walking into a workout by going for a hike, wearing a weight vest, carrying weights, or just walking a long way like Cali and I did a few weeks ago.
The day may come where I am incapable of casually leaving the house and going for a walk, but it’s not today, so I’m going to savor every step.
Bikin’
Like most people in the world right now, I had my 2020 all mapped out and then COVID came through and wrecked most of my plans. I’m hopeful that I may still be able to ride in the Iceman Cometh Challenge in Michigan this November. It’s a 30-mile mountain bike race in a state that can have some very harsh and unpredictable weather that time of year. These past few weeks, I’ve been back on my Specialized RockHopper getting some miles in and building a base for training throughout the summer and fall. I’d rather take my time preparing and feel comfortable on November 7th instead of “cramming for the test” shortly before the race.
Getting back on the bike has been a really fun addition to my training. It’s definitely a different challenge than trying to squat heavy weight for sets of five. It’s also forced me to explore some new places around the area, which is half the fun anyway. So far, I’ve just been riding the Schuylkill River and Perkiomen Trails. These are beautiful, well-maintained trails, but to call what I’ve been doing “mountain biking” would be a stretch. The trails are paved in some parts and don’t really offer much variety or challenging terrain, but that’s okay. There are a few other places around here that will hopefully offer more of what I look for when I’m mountain biking.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would ride our bicycles everywhere. To ride 15 miles on a summer day was nothing. That was just general tooling around town, meeting up with friends, and exploring some of our favorite haunts. And once we discovered girls, forget about it. This one girl, Erica, lived six or seven miles from town, and my friends and I would ride our bikes down the shoulder of US-2 without a care in the world to go hang out with Erica and her friends. It was great.
It wasn’t until after I moved away from my small hometown in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that I realized how special the place was and how many awesome and easily accessible outdoor spots we had at our fingertips. I would ride my bike to Fumee Lake or Piers Gorge and spend hours riding the trails and seeing how far I could push myself. Those were special days that I will always remember.
In tenth grade, I got an awesome green Trek SingleTrack 930 with Rock Shox on the front, and I used some of the money I earned bagging groceries to buy these carbon fiber Spin wheels from a kid who was a few years older than me. I LOVED that bike. If it were up to me, I’d still have that same bike, because there was nothing about it I would have changed. But it was not meant to be. In the summer of 2009, I was living in Tempe, Arizona, and working on a master’s degree at Arizona State. I would ride my bike to the science building each morning and lock it up on the bike rack next to all the others. One day, I came out at 4 PM and discovered my bike had been stolen. I know this is a first-world problem, but I was heartbroken. It felt like a part of my youth had been taken from me. Laying awake in bed that night, I thought about how I would never get to take my old Trek flying down the backside of the Fumee Lake North Ridge Trail or out behind the Norway Spring to torture myself on the big hill. It bummed me out then and it still bums me out when I think about it over a decade later. Part of what hurt me was knowing that the person who stole the bike would have no appreciation for what that bike meant to me or how hard I worked at my menial high school job to get it in the first place. For all I know, they just rode it around for a few minutes and trashed it. One of the things I hate most in the world is wastefulness, and my bike being stolen was a complete waste.
A Half a Head of Lettuce
I spent four and a half years as an instructor at the Navy Nuclear Power School in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and I told the following story to just about every group of students I had the privilege of teaching during that time. This story was usually told when I could sense that my students’ attention spans were on their last breath, when the pace, pressure, schedule, rigidity, monotony, and repetitive nature of the school was crushing them with each passing day. Okay, so here goes…
Me: (sensing a roomful of students about to die from boredom) Do you want to hear a story about the smartest thing I did during my entire high school career?
Class: Yes! Definitely!
Me: Okay. Now, this happened the summer before my freshmen year of high school, so once you hear this story, think about the fact that this was my peak and it was all pretty much downhill from there.
Class: (gentle laughter)
Me: What kind of grocery stores do they have in small towns?
Class: Piggly Wiggly! Buccees! Publix! IGA!
Me: Yes! Nailed it! IGA! You know you’re in a small town when there’s an IGA grocery store. And a Dairy Queen, but that’s besides the point. When I was in high school, I worked at Ebeling’s IGA, right on Main Street in downtown Norway, Michigan. The store was owned by my buddy Grant’s family, the Ebelings. It was started by his grandfather decades ago and was passed down through the generations. Real small town stuff, you know? Uncle Craig was the store manager who worked a million hours a week on everything. Uncle Mark cut meat, Aunt Rose worked the bakery, and Grant’s dad Dave ran the produce section and did the employee schedule. I’m sure they all did a bunch of other stuff that I’m not aware of, but this structure was how I interpreted things in my teenage years.
Ebeling’s IGA in Norway, MI
Ebeling's employed hundreds of high school students over the years, and I was so excited when I got hired to work as a stock/bag boy. It almost felt like a rite of passage in a way, and there was always plenty of fun to be had. There were a bunch of other high school kids working there, including my buddy Hammer, and some cute girls working as cashiers. I started working there making minimum wage, $5.15/hour. After about a year, Dave called me to his little backroom area and said, “You’ve been doing a great job. I’m going to bump you up to $5.40/hour.” Well, I was just elated at being rewarded for my hard work. Clearly, I was God’s gift to stocking shelves and bagging groceries. Several weeks later, I found out $5.40 was the new mandatory minimum wage in the state of Michigan. So…yeah.
The place was one of those small town establishments that was a hub of news and gossip. Working the 8-1 shift on a Saturday or Sunday morning after a big football or basketball win was great. Everyone wanted to talk about the game and offer congratulations. It was fantastic for my ego. Conversely, after a loss, everyone felt the need to tell you how you had screwed up or what you should have done differently the night before. Small towns like Norway always have lots of local legends. The statement, “The older I get, the better I was,” comes to mind.
Anyways, I was working the 8-1 shift one fine Saturday morning. On the morning shift, you always wanted to make sure all of the basics like milk, bread, eggs, and beer were stocked up. Beer is included on that list because, well, we are in Michigan here after all.
Two cases of Coors Light are definitely essential.
In the eggs aisle, we always kept an old milk crate on top of the coolers so that when we were stocking eggs, we could grab the crate, turn it upside down, and sit on it. The eggs were on the bottom shelf and you had to rotate the inventory by first pulling all of the older eggs out and putting the newer ones in the back. Sometimes this would take a while, so sitting on the milk crate was better than kneeling on the floor. On this particular morning, I was sitting on the milk crate doing eggs, all folded over with my head stuffed into this cooler as I dug around in the back, which is why I didn’t know the old man was standing over me until he kicked my milk crate.
“Sittin’ down on the job. Goddamn kids don’t know what they’re made of these days.”
I could immediately tell this was going to be a very pleasant conversation. Dutifully, I stood up and asked the man if I could help him with anything.
“Yeah. You can help me with something,” he said while putting his right index finger into my chest. “There’s a crate over there in the produce that says it’s a buck fifty for a head of lettuce, but I don’t need a whole head of lettuce. I only need half a head of lettuce, and I ain’t paying for a whole head, so figure it out.”
Somehow suppressing my urge to do the biggest eye roll of my life, I say, “Let me go check with my boss.”
Now, “my boss,” meant Craig. I HATED having to go to Craig to ask questions because I always felt like a total dumbass. It wasn’t anything Craig did or said to make me feel that way. He was an awesome guy who was always very good to me. It’s just that Craig knew every single detail about everything in the store and I knew, well, basically nothing.
So I walk down the eggs aisle towards these saloon-style doors that separated the actual store from the back area. I’m shuffling along, annoyed at the situation and not realizing that this old man is following behind me. I swing the saloon doors open and Craig is standing right in front of me.
“Hey Craig,” I begin, using my thumb to point over my shoulder towards the eggs aisle. “Some jackass out there is griping at me because he wants to buy a half a head of lettuce.”
I thought Craig was staring at me, but as his eyes begin to grow to the size of dinner plates, I realize he was actually staring over my shoulder at the old man who is standing there and growing irate over hearing my description of his request. I sense something is amiss, so I slowly turn around and finally notice the old man. Quick thinking, I respectfully gesture towards the old man and say, “And this gentleman here would like to buy the other half.”
(At this point in telling the story to the class, I would pause for effect and tap the side of my head like I was a genius.)
Class: (laughing) Then what happened?!
Me: Oh, the old man stormed out. Yeah, we never saw him again. Craig just walked away too. That was the thing with Craig. He never had to tell you that you messed up. He just gave you a look and you knew you messed up. Good times.
Truth Be Told
To be honest, this story is not my own. It was first told to me by Mr. Angeli, my seventh grade civics teacher and the high school basketball coach at my school during my middle school years. Mr. Angeli was a memorable and animated showman. He told us this story during a basketball camp one time and I never forgot it. Of course, I took the liberty of adapting it to my own experiences so I could tell it in the first person, adding in my own little details and twists that made it more fun to share. Parts of the story are absolutely true, like me working at a grocery store and an old man intentionally kicking my makeshift milk crate stool and growling at me one fine Saturday morning. My boss, Craig, was also very real and very intimidating to my 15 year old self.
I have many other stories from my time at the IGA. I’ll be sure to share some of them as we go along here.