Daddy could always open the pickle jar, I just made it look good. But, that is bodybuilding. Make it look good. Then I became a daddy and I had to open the pickle jar. I then decided to stop training for a "LOOK". I had be into bodybuilding for about ten years when my first born came home. I wanted to be big and strong. Powerful looking. Big chest and ripped up abs. Thick thighs and shoulders, flaring lats. Mountain peak biceps and horseshoe triceps. Diamond shape calves. The next Mr. O in the making. And then hit hit me like a brick. For what? Get the girls. Was it to improve self esteem? What did all that time in the gym get me? A look. I looked good. But a look cannot help you when you are getting mugged. A look cannot help you move a washing machine. A look cannot help you defend yourself. You can not help your friend move furiture. Change a flat tire without a jack? Remember Paul Anderson? You are not going to flex your way out of a robbery.
So you go to the gym on Monday. Chest day. The glorious chest day. You start with a couple of light sets of cable crossovers. Then to the bench press, the holy grail of exercises. Light warm up sets, maybe two or three with 135. You strech out the chest and the shoulders, put on your wrist wraps, and strap on your belt., now you are ready. You pyramid your sets up to the heaviest and perform a couple of sets. Now to the incline bench press. Flat flyes. Cable crossovers, pec dec, and some dips for good measure. If you had a friend ask you to come over and help him move would you do all of that? Warm up with a couple of exercises and suit up? You would look like a idoit if you did. Showing up with your power suit, knee wraps, belt, and wrist straps.
So I made some changes to the way I worked out. The first thing I did was get rid of all the support gear I was using. No belt, knee wraps, wrist wraps, wrist straps, power suits, squat suits, power shirts, and the like. That way the grip was getting worked out when performing my pulls, the tendons in the knees got worked when I did squats. My core muscles, the lower back, abs, and the obliques were getting their fair share of the workload. Remeber you are only has strong as your weakest link. The next thing I did was stop wasting my time spending so much time warming up. Think about that for a minute. Use the example above. First thing you did was perform four sets of warm ups on the cable crossover and the bench press, then you used a pyramid scheme to get to the top end weight and then did your work sets. Two things about warming up like that. First look at all the time you killed just warming up. Second is would you do that if you had a car falling on you while changing the oil in it. so i stopped spending so much time warming up.
Next, I stopped using traditional exercises. No more bench press with a barbell, barbell squats, preacher curls, cable crossovers, etc. all th exercises now are MOVEMENTS. I have been using these MOVEMENTS with objects. They first are MOVEMENTS to me now, not exercises. And I do not use the traditional 45 pound power bar. I now do overhead squats with a dumbbell in one hand. I lay on the floor and do a bench press with a keg or a log. I push a barrel over my add with water in it. Start thinking MOVEMENTS and not exercises. Start using objects with uneven weight, not weights on a even bar. Start thinking real world application. The three sets of warm ups on the bench , then the work sets alon with the flyes, cables, dips, pullovers are not going to help you when getting mugged. Or changing the tire on your car. Of course you can always keep doing what you have always done. Then you will look good getting mugged.