New personal record of 270 pounds on the deadlift tonight. Woooo!
Day: December 3, 2018, 6:24 PM
Deadlifting
I want to highlight something Staci said about deadlifting at Nerd Fitness.
Whenever anyone asks me where I got my shoulders/abs/etc, I answer the same: deadlifts. Why do a million crunches when I can just do deadlifts instead? Way more fun! Plus, deadlifting is actually more effective.
Yes. You can do literally a million crunches over many years or a few months of deadlifting and get exactly the same effect. Deadlfiting is the single most effective weightlifting exercise there is, bar none, not even a contest and none other is even a remotely close second, especially when safety and ease is considered. That’s why it’s my favorite; it has the most bang for the buck.
A deadlift is a system shock, in a good way: it works nearly every muscle you have, and it doesn’t take all that many reps to do it, either.
If I could only do one weightlifting exercise ever again, it’d be deadlift because I’d still meet 65%+ of my fitness goals without doing anything else.
Deadlifting two hours a week or so will be more effective than any 50 hours of other exercises you might do, so if you aren’t doing that one, you’re probably spending a lot of unnecessary time that you don’t have to spend.
Brorse
I never want to hear male gamers use Barbie Horse Adventures again as a slur against casual/female gamers, because Red Dead 2 is absolutely Barbie Horse Adventures with beards and guns.
— Caryn Vainio (@Hellchick) December 2, 2018
True.
I don’t think I’d enjoy playing Barbie Horse Adventures but that’s mainly because I don’t enjoy most games and don’t really play them. I’d enjoy Red Head Indention or whatever the fuck that other game is about the same.
Form and Function
preppin for car flippin. @trishankkarthik help me fix my flimsy form #120kg #1rm145 pic.twitter.com/ZgQAQlWr1L
— jayrt savlo (@AdaBwana) December 3, 2018
Butt a bit too low to start and shoulders too far back, and then butt too high on additional reps. Shoulders are rolled a bit for all. Too much stress on back, not enough use of legs. Would probably help to try to look up more (helps keep back straight) and keeps the upper body at the right angle. If in doubt, make your butt lower. It’s a harder lift but preserves form, which is far more important.
I’d also suggest legs somewhat (~2 inches) further apart and not have the knees go in at all, which they appear to be doing. Have to consciously resist this!
The only reason I didn’t hurt myself when I accidentally lifted quite a bit more than I intended in the dead is that I have decent form even at high weight. The deadlift is the easiest way to hurt yourself for a long time if done incorrectly, so form is very important.
Staci at Nerd Fitness has the best deadlift form I have ever seen in my life, so she’s always a good place to start for guidance.
Effed
If we ever do detect an extraterrestrial presence approaching or landing on earth, we are probably doomed if it’s not robotic.
The only conceivable reasons to traverse interstellar space would be colonization or religion. Either one would be very bad news. There are no economic reasons to do so under any easy-to-imagine energy regime in this universe.
Unhealthy
Why are Americans absolutely obsessed with driving the very largest vehicle they can buy? I cannot understand it. These vehicles are not pleasant to drive — they are impossible to park, don’t drive all that well, and put everyone else at risk.
My car is not small (was one of the largest sedans you can buy) and it’s increasingly dwarfed by the absolute behemoths on the road on all sides. I swear people would buy even larger vehicles if they knew how to drive them. Soccer moms in 18 wheelers would be terrifying.
Vespine
Can anyone in France or with insight shed light on the protests? Being reported as in response to "raising taxes" — smells fishy.
— Joe Norman (@normonics) December 3, 2018
Raising taxes is a proximate cause, but that would be sort of like saying that Occupy Wall Street was caused by letting Lehman collapse or bailing out AIG. Technically accurate in a very narrow sense, but ultimately not really correct.
What contributes to the French protests is austerity policies combined with benefits cuts and regressive taxation that make life significantly harder for the working and middle classes while having little effect on the rich. Work protections have been relaxed, pensions cut, taxes greatly increased while the well-off and rich have had to shoulder very little comparatively of this burden. Additionally, worker’s rights have been reduced and dissent has been repressed while any middle-ground parties have essentially been gutted. Meanwhile, immigrants are brought in to replace low-wage labor at even lower wages. In short, life for the middle class is getting worse in France and that trend seems only likely to continue.
What’s seen is a natural response to all of that. Protests are one of the few outlets left as neoliberalism has suppressed all other avenues of dissent while making life roundly worse.
Expect more in the future, and more turning to extreme parties as it gets worse.
Inversions
Lately, there is a tactic in the FA and anti-fitness community of talking about someone who is skinny and fit (particularly if they are a woman) as “unnatural.” This is insanity. This is harmful to everyone.
If being fit and and thin is unnatural, I’m proud to be unnatural and some human perversion (who can still climb a flight of stairs without dying). I’m also glad to be with my sublime and awesome “unnatural” partner.
And now I can finally do overhand pull-ups reliably again for the first time in 18 years and I’ll keep doing those while other people cry about my unnaturalness and huff across parking lots chasing me, throwing tater tots ineffectually.