I’m back! I get annoyed with this whole blogging thing from time to time. I’ve had thousands of views on the site, but sometimes the daily traffic gets slow and I get discouraged. But then my boredom (and a dose of pre wo) overcomes my discouragement and I can’t help but blab about shit. So here I am.
Plus, I’d like to get a nice flow of daily traffic and start making money on ads and selling merch. Who doesn’t want that? It’s like the new measure of entrepreneurship. I’m picturing OldAFFitness t-shirts and thongs (no idea why but it was the second clothing item that came to mind) flying off the shelves . . .
I digress. Back to the grind.
Let’s do a little pullin’! How do we start? YES! Pre-wo and stretch. When you’re good and warm and stretched and tingling, then we hit it.
I like to go with a deadlift on the first exercise. I alternate between the Olympic bar and Hex bar. I literally just looked at my Hex bar and counted the sides to make sure it was six. Something wrong with me.
Before deadlifting, I would recommend watching Eddie Strongman on Netflix. Eddie Hall held the World record for deadlift at 1,102.31 pounds (500 KG), which Hafthor Bjornsson (you may know him as the Mountain from Game of Thrones) just recently beat at 1,104.52 pounds. Hall was 6′ 4′ 400 pounds when he set the record and Mountain is 6′ 9″ 425.
To lift that much weight, obviously you have to be huge, but you also have to have great form. Eddie Hall’s form is dead on (little pun – dead on, deadlift – see that?). Watch the show and, in particular, Eddie’s deadlift form.
Start light and do a lot of warm up sets. I like to grip the bar around shoulder width, but some people like to grip in close and do more of a sumo deadlift. I’d recommend keeping it shoulder width, only because it’s the classic style. When you become incredible at it, try out some sumo.
I don’t use straps. They slip over your hands and tighten on your wrists as you wrap them around the bar. They help you hold onto the bar, but I feel as though if you can’t lift it naked, then you shouldn’t lift it. I don’t use a belt either. It’s called “raw.” If you wanna gear up, by all means knock yourself out. If you prefer raw and naked, well . . .
Get your feet comfortable. Probably around shoulder width, as well. Then you get your ass low and bring the weight up to rest on your thighs by standing up straight. Sounds easy, no? But there’s a lot of intricacy to it, believe it or not.
It’s one fluid move, but it really kind of has two sub-moves. The first is bringing the weight up off the floor. I believe the more quad you can get into this part the better. That means low ass. Then, once the weight is off the ground a bit, it is a hinge at the waist as your hamstrings, butt and low back bring your body up to straight.
Keep the weight close to your body at all times through the move. This is really important. If you’re doing it right, you’ll scrape up your shins. It’s an incredible exercise. Uses tons of muscle. Fries calories and is exhausting.
Oh – and don’t be scared you will get huge like Eddie or Hafthor. They are naturally huge people, who also eat 10,000 calories per day and take special medicines to enhance their hugeness and performance even more. You won’t get even close to them. Promise. Unless you jack up your calories in a huge way and engage in some extracurricular medications.
As with most big moves I do three to five sets of these and try to stay in the five to eight rep range. I won’t lie, I get carried away with these sometimes, though, and will bust out an ego set of two or three reps now and then, when I’m feelin’ it.
Second let’s do a one arm dumbbell row. I don’t mean just use one arm, I mean use one arm at a time and alternate them. Take the dumbbell in one hand. Bend at the waist and put your other hand on something to support yourself. Lower the dumbbell slowly in a controlled fashion to full extension of your arm. Slowly bring it back up (your elbow will bend and go behind you) until you get the weight up to your lower chest, upper abdomen. Vary your movement a few times and find what works best to make that lat crunch up. I find if I pull my elbow back and in towards my body while raising the weight, I get the best contraction. But you do you. Three sets of eight to twelve.
So we did two thickening moves, deadlift and dumbbell row, and now we’ll do some widening. I alternate between pull-ups and lat pull-downs. On the pull-ups, grip as wide as you can on the bar. Start at a full hang and then pull yourself up as high as you can. Keep the bar in front of your face – no need to do behind the neck. Lower yourself back down and repeat. Do three sets to failure – that means as many as you can per set.
The alternative is the lat pull-down. There are machines dedicated to this with a seat, but I prefer to do them kneeling on the floor. Activates more core and doesn’t allow you to cheat by pulling against the knee pads. If you go this route, three sets of ten to fifteen reps.
Next we’re curling. There are a ton of varieties of curl, but we want to start with something that we can get some weight on. Let’s go with the EZ bar curl – it’s shorter than the Olympic Bar and not straight – I sometimes call it the curly bar. Simple enough move – don’t swing too much (with the movement, your personal life is up to you – no judgment here), keep the back pretty straight, let the weight hang down fully extending your arms, then curl it back up bending at the elbows until the weight is beneath your chin. Rinse, repeat. Three sets of eight to twelve reps.
Next we can burn the biceps out with two sets of dumbbell preacher curls. The preacher is a platform that you rest your elbow on while curling. Some have a seat on them, some are for standing. For this exercise, find a preacher, grab a light dumbbell, and rest your elbow on the preacher. Start with the dumbbell up near your chin (my C4 is setting in and my ears are getting all hot) and then slowly lower it down to a comfortable extension. I try to get as fully extended as possible, but my elbows don’t love going past a certain point on these, and that’s fine. Bring the weight back up slowly and ssssqqqqquuuueeeeezzzzzeeeee at the top. Repeat. Two sets of 12-20. Burn those bis, baby!
It’s a long wo. Hang in there. Focus and effort until the last rep! I like to do a shoulder superset for the last moves here. I usually mix a lateral raise with a Cuban rotation or face pull. Lateral raise – start with a light dumbbell in each hand at your sides. With elbows slightly bent, and holding the dumbbells as if they were pitchers of liquid that you are pouring in front of you, raise the dumbbells up to shoulder height or higher if you can.
The only thing moving should be your shoulders. Lower it back down and repeat. Do a set of 12-15 reps of this followed by a set of Cuban rotation (also 12-15 reps), which I will discuss in a minute, then another of lateral raise and then a final set of Cuban rotation. Take a minute or so in between the two sets. But follow the lateral raise immediately with the Cuban rotation. Lateral, Cuban, rest, lateral, Cuban, done. Got it?
Cuban rotation is pictured below. I do the two arm variety. It’s also called scarecrow because it’s kind of a scarecrow move. As with the lateral raise, you should only be moving at the shoulder.
Cocktail of the day is the Paloma. I dig me some grapefruit, and these hit the spot in the Summer. Trade out the tequila for mezcal for a little smoky treat.
Exercise song of the day is Walk by the FooFighters. One of those songs that you can’t help but sing to and raise your arms up in the air like you just don’t care. Plus, I’m kind of a Thor fan. You could call me a Thork. It was in a Thor movie.
Until next time – enjoy!