POWERLIFTERSvs. BODYBUILDERS – CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Bodybuilders are the low hanging fruit of the weightlifting world. So visible, so easily parodied…And the sport is so incredibly weird, at least in it’s current form. To win a bodybuilding competition you must look completely unnatural on the stage – roll-on tan, dangerously dehydrated, the works. Let’s acknowledge the elephant the room, i.e. the […]

Dumb Luck

The other day a thought occurred to me as I drove down the road. It hit me just how many times in my life I’ve avoided literal serious injury or death by sheer, dumb luck. These were instances in which no common sense was yet available or, if it was, was studiously ignored. Broadly speaking, […]

Things can always get worse, but they can always get better, too.

I recently read a CNN article that explained that studies have shown that childhood trauma has been shown to later affect the grown adult’s relationship to money and finances. Basically, the instability and stress of living in a financially precarious household often causes extremes in people as they reach adulthood. Many become extremely conservative with […]

Bench prescient

Yesterday I did 6×5 @150kg in bench-press. I was training at the club and nobody else was there. Now, granted, I used a heavy competition bench with really sturdy safety arms, but heavy benching is always a scary proposition. Nothing will make you besmirch your undies faster than that feeling that you’re going to miss […]

Redemption Song

Recently, for a number of reasons, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about redemption. To be clear, what I mean is the restoration of one’s reputation and credibility as a person in general or even in a specific circumstance such as work or with a particular loved one. Reputation, as they say, takes a […]

The key to happiness is daring to suck, and suck badly…or the mystery of motivation.

The inspiration for this stems from a something I posted recently regarding regrets and a subsequent post I read on Stuart Danker’s excellent blog. If you think about it, our biggest regrets are those times when we simply “gave up” or chose the easiest solution, the path of least resistance. Conversely, one of life’s enduring […]

Regrets, I’ve had a few…

This post will be little different, but in a good way. The purpose of this post is to acknowledge regrets, learn from them and maybe have a little fun along the way. Dwelling on your regrets is morose. I’d hope that maybe, just maybe, a reader might possibly learn from my mistakes but if I’ve […]

We all need a party-trick – or the fun of cultivating obscure, semi-useless natural talents

Talent is the natural aptitude or skill one has in any given action. If one is really fortunate, one is able to combine their given talent with their livelihood. If you have a calling, as the saying goes, you will never “work” a day in your life. What I’m talking about is something that comes […]

Training after the Covid-19 Lockdown – First, the good news…

Depending on where you live in the world, things are either opening back up slowly or they are going to Hell in a handbasket because things never really “shut-down” in the first place. If you’re lucky enough to live amongst a majority of people who don’t think that every possible issue is proof of a […]

The evolution of a Powerlifter.

I happened upon strength training almost by accident. I had been going to the gym for a number of years, nay, decades, more or less consistently. So I went to the gym regularly, but aimlessly, without clear goals. I’d do whatever I felt like doing once I arrived at the gym and the exercise choice […]