Listening & Laborer Lifting

Damn man you know what’s nice? Not logging onto Facebook every day. I’ve been a shit ton more productive, less time staring at a screen and more time doing real life stuff. But I digress, I encourage you to always take a step back from social media, it's truly an addiction. So in bigger news you guys have really pulled through with the Stranglehold donations. We are up to about 200 USD which is more than I expected. I'll be handing my professors two crisp 100’s and the money I’ve set aside for them, so thank you for all your support. I’ll be collecting this till November (when the lease is up) then I’ll be donating any further purchases to local high school wrestling programs. Oddly enough, wrestling isn't that big down here in the Deep South and their programs are often left on the backburner for bigger sports like football (the american kind) and baseball. Alright on to the meat of this post.

Shit I’ve been listening to

I've been listening to The Process of Giving Up and The Scars of Wargasm by Degrader a hell of a lot. I am, in fact, listening to it right now as I type this out. If you like Transilvanian Hunger era Darkthrone or Advent Sorrow, you will love these dudes. I unwittingly discovered one of their band members is a friend of a friend (who is now a friend of mine) and I have been harassing him nonstop to make shirts from the Process of Giving Up’s album art. Their recording is really good but somehow they really capture that black metal “recorded deep in a Finnish forest at night” vibe. Here’s a link to their bandcamp, give them a listen.

https://trve-degrader.bandcamp.com/

Lifting for Laborers

The other topic I wanted to cover was lifting after a long ass day doing manual labor. Does it suck having to lift after throwing hay, building a fence, or laying brick? Yeah it does. Do you need to murder yourself in the gym to make gains after that? No, not at all. Programming doesn't need to be complex or insanely difficult, and I’ll prove it to you. Below is a program I ran when I was doing land clearing back in the summer of 2016. I didn't lose a load of strength, and I’m almost positive I pulled a deadlift PR after splitting up some big oaks earlier that day. It's a simple 3-4 day program using my favorite split: Upper/PChain. You'll hit chest/shoulders/arms one day, and the other you’ll hit legs/back. You should be in and out of the gym in about 60 minutes if you take your time.

Day A

•Bench Press: 2 working sets

•Seated Press: 2 working sets

•Arm Superset: 3 sets per

Day B

•Back Squat: 2 working sets

•Bent Over Row: 2 working sets

•Chin Up: 20-50 working reps

Day C

•Overhead Press: 2 working sets

•Weighted Dip: 20-50 working reps

•Arm Superset: 3 sets per

Day D

•Deadlift: 1 working set

•Pull Up: 20-50 working reps

•One Arm Row: 2 working sets

Look, it's this simple. For working sets I like to work up to a heavy 1-8 reps, then take like 10-20% off and do a higher rep back off set, then move on to the next exercise. You get volume from your warm up sets. As for the calisthenics stuff, do em weighted or don’t, it's up to you. With arm work just pick a tricep and bicep isolation move and do 3 sets of each back to back; get a pump. Lower body volume is minimal because nothing sucks worse than kneeling/bending/moving all damn day long with sore legs. This is a low volume high intensity style routine that can work well if you work hard. It is what it is, no excuses.

Next week I’m gonna do a write up on a few big dudes who are inspirational to me: Terrible Ted and Jeep. So I’ll leave you with a badass image of Jeep and a tiger.