9 I realized that I had lost my insatiable drive to be better in the gym and in life. I was just going through the motions, during the day and during my workouts. I have long moved on from the body builder mentality of moving the muscle, instead of moving the weight. You see these roided out dudes in the Mr Olympia and they look so ridiculously huge, but then when you see their workouts, they are not using a lot of weight. They are merely trying to stimulate hypertrophy. I started doing some of this again, going through the motions on my deadlifts, benches, and squats, then doing stupid exercises to develop smaller muscle groups, or grow them period. This doesn’t work for me, and I don’t think it will work for a lot of you. It may help you get to what your genetic makeup, subconscious, and central nervous system, collectively think is your natural potential. If I did that, I would have stopped back down in the 225lb to 230lb range.
Now this type of lifting works for roided out freaks, because they are assaulting their systems with synthetic hormones. For the rest of us, this isn’t going to work. What we need to do is what works for us, for me that’s moving the weight and forcing the muscles grow, so that moving it becomes easier. On the same token, I have to get back to relying on fundamentals, sentiment, and correlations. I was trying to trade technicals to get more readers, but it just wasn’t working for me. That’s not how my brain works, and hats off to those of you who can do it successfully. Lately my best trades have come from my original style, ISRG, SWHC, ELLI, HON, and WHR, just to name a few. I thought that I was all mopey and unmotivated because tomorrow is going to be the tenth anniversary of a young 18 year old Rhino– fresh out of basic training and Airborne School –heading off to Kuwait, eventually to invade Iraq, (it’s a PTSD thing).
I may have been “syking [sic]” myself out about the anniversary, with subconscious undertones that I would never do anything that “hardcore” ever again. I came to the realization lately, that the fight is there, everyday, it’s right in front of me. Whether it’s making a great trade, dropping some great content on here, or crushing a personal record in the gym. This is where the fight is now, as my brother said “that was a war that doesn’t exist, and a unit that no longer exists.” It’s true, we are no longer in Iraq, it has been a lot of time since there was kinetic warfare there, and even though the unit is under a new designation, I don’t know anyone there anymore.
So here I am: trading, writing, thinking, recollecting, smashing iron, sprinting, and trying to be better at all.
Tomorrow I will look to buy RGR either on a dip, or on some serious momentum. If I cannot get either, I will wait for one or the other, or just buy the name into earnings.
Tonight’s workout, (includes warm up sets, and all but the deadlifts were done with serious “body language”).
Rack-pull deadlifts off of the second pin: 135×15, 225×15, 315×10, 405×8, 495×3, 585×1, 635×1.
Overhand barbell bent-over rows: 225×12, 275×8, 315×5
Incline dumbbell pull-overs: 70×15, 70×16, 80×12
Preacher power curls: 75×15, 95×8, 115×3, 85×10
Close grip cable rows: 230(over half the stack)x 16, 270×12, 300(full stack)x 8
Overhand wide-grip pulldowns/ supersetted with straight arm pulldowns: 230×12/40×20, 260×8/50×15, 300(full stack)x5/60×12
Behind the head wide-grip overhand pulldowns/ supersetted with straight arm pulldowns: 150×12/60×12, 130x18x70x6
That is it folks. I look forward to getting back to what I do best.
9 Responses to “Getting Back to My Roots”
redman59
A tough reality in reading about the unit, its hard not to grasp that you probably don’t know anyone there anymore…just tough as the faces are still there in your mind. Another good post Rhino that hits home…that is all.
Rhino
Let us raise one to all of them.
Sandhog
Wow you got me. Lets ride!
Sandhog
Road work.. 100 miles/ week (bicycle) walk 5 miles on off days. Gym 3 days less weights more reps. Still drinking double Martinis trying to cut back there.. Got beer down to ne before bed. Right now going heavy grpn. Cvrr UAN on any dips. And euro money center banks which everyone hates..San and bbva. Mjna and hemp are cheap moon shots.
Rhino
That they are. I too have been cutting back, on the IPAs, in my case. I like the Euro trade too.
JakeGint
Love IPA’s but have cut back to almost zero.
Funny, I have started to take an interest in dry martinis… and I’ve never been a gin guy, but someone had me try one recently and “bang!” I was hooked.
Must be about getting to that Don Draper age.
Mostly red vino, however. That’s my “bread.”
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Sandhog
It’s 3 in the morn and I woke up. I get out of bed take a piss then a long cool,swig,of cold tea, I don’t fight any more. An hour,on the couch reading and I am ready to drift ,back to bed
JakeGint
BTW — thank you all for your service. I have heard from many friends that one of the worst things about combat experience is not that one is “traumatized” so to speak, but that one’s civilian life, upon return, lacks that same “colour” (sic) that the adrenaline-fueled awareness of danger adds to one’s life.
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Honolulu Trader
“Tonight’s workout”
Wimp!
I’m doing 12oz curls for a solid 6 hours tonight. Ha!