Money’s for the Birds
Where are you going on your vacation this year? I have a friend -- you guessed it, from the gym -- who’s painting his house during his precious two-week holiday from work. Go, Joe. Great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Just imagine all the money you’ll save: 2,500 on the paint and painter plus 2,500 on a superfluous vacation equals 5,000 bucks. This is not spare change, although some people drop that much at a table in Vegas and don’t skip a beat.
I’ll never figure it out. Time and money are like muscle and might; there’s never enough of either. You work hard for them, try to save them and they slip through your hands like grains of sand... or is it river rocks... small boulders, maybe. Depends on your weight, body composition and metabolism... hand size, gripping strength.
Joe. What will you say 10 years from now when your children ask what you did in the summer of 2005, "I painted my house... off-white with lavender trim."? Awesome, Pa! I say pay the guy to paint your house (he needs the dough) and save your aching back and sore shoulders. You’ll only mess up the job and miss a great time jet skiing from the houseboat on Lake Shasta or crossing the great USA in the RV or basking on the sunny, tranquil shores of St. Lucia.
Money’s for the birds.
I spark the subject cuz every vacation Laree and I take lately is roughly interwoven with work and responsibility: seminars, establishing sites for a bash, designing equipment, visiting business acquaintances and making connections. They’re fun, but diluted and distracted. We want to cut loose; we want to be free, throw our cares to the wind and glide on the tantalizing currents of whim.
But, then, there’s training. That would be the workouts... the weights and eating regimen... what about them? Do we forget about them? We can’t forget about them. That’s like forgetting about taxes or your mother-in-law or changing the oil. You neglect your training and it will come back to haunt you. It’s irresponsible and neglectful. Last thing you want to do is abandon your workouts and eat like an ordinary dumpling.
So much for cutting loose and being free. I might as well stay home, work out in the early morning after my Bomber Blend, paint the house after a lunch of chicken thighs and a fresh salad, break at three for tuna and cottage cheese, continue painting till dusk, clean up and have a dinner of steak and eggs. Don’t forget the supplements. I can count my stack of money and fall asleep without trouble, guilt or fear.
Did you know house painting is a very efficient fat burner?
Solution: the Bomber Bash on July 8th and 9th. Be There. We’ll paint my house in the morning and train in the afternoon... We throw a barbecue after Bill Pearl and I give a seminar. We’ll talk about muscles and the good old days and the bright sides of today and tomorrow. Bring your spouse, your dog or both. We’re cool.
Summers are for Muscleheads
I am not letting the summer go by without clinging to it like a long-lost friend. Is that a sure sign of age or is it just advanced appreciation? Neither, I think; I felt the same when I was a kid, the same last year and the year before. Summers are made of gold by God. Summers are the season of muscle and might.
I intend to corral it in the morning and tie it down at night. During the day I’ll follow it wherever it goes. Summer will not elude me, go unnoticed, pass me by or depart without having been examined, stroked, stretched, wiggled and experienced or otherwise known.
Look at the colors summer displays: delicious shades of cool water, blue and warm, sunshine-yellows and moist leafy greens. They inspire creation and expansion inside and out. If you’re alive, really alive, you’ll want to use your body and care for its goodness; you’ll wish to express your physical self and experience its functions and capabilities. You’ll seek to reach its limits and grow deep and wide and long and high in the process. You’ll need to run and jump, push and pull: faster, higher and stronger.
The warm breezes, the long days, the cool nights, the sunshine and the moonshine, they nurture our efforts to live fully. Fresh fruits and wholesome vegetables, pure air and clear water add volumes of life to our lives. Milk and eggs and meat make us robust; there is no mistake.
Lifting metal from the ground to the air has much to do with who we are. Extreme exertion for no discernible purpose makes us feel good -- special… spectacular. Raising and lowering tons of metal daily over and over again without reason or pay is... umm... exhilarating, stirring.
Contemplate such statements as fact and we, at first, want to reassess our life -- an apparently paltry life at that. Am I that shallow? Have I no foundations, substance and aspirations? You mean lifting weights defines me? How obtuse! I’ll change. I’ll make more of myself. I’ll become someone. I’ll do something important.
I’ll study, get an education and become a doctor or lawyer. I’ll develop character, strength of mind, insight, practical wisdom, positive thinking and confidence. I’ll learn and grow. I’ll show the world. They’ll see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
I know a doctor who’s also a lawyer. He came to the gym where you and I lift iron from the ground, move it about racks and shift it from place to place. He said he was feeling poorly: "I’m overweight, diabetic, have trouble breathing and I can’t climb the stairs to my office. My wife and kids go hiking and waterskiing and I watch them over the top of my laptop computer and engraved letterhead. Can you help me? I’ve failed miserably to care for myself; I’m a wreck and I’m depressed. I want to be alive... to run and jump and push and pull."
"No problem, my friend. It’s simple. This is what I would do if I were you. (I told him the truth. It is simple. I didn’t say it was easy.)
"Give up the cigars, no more alcohol, no junk foods, no sugars, yada yada yada, smaller meals more frequently, high protein, EFAs and supplements, lots of water and so on. Got that? Good.
"We’ll see you here three days a week. You’ll be exercising regularly with barbells and dumbbells and the infamous spin bike. You’ll come to love pressing and curling and especially supersetting.
"You’ll lose weight, get strong inside and out, gain a sturdy appearance and understand yourself like never before. You can move to the penthouse, if you wish, and forget the elevator. The view’s great. Take the family to Kilimanjaro for an outing. They’ll love it.
"Am I sure, you ask? Of course I’m sure! You told me so."
Weights are for Kids of all Ages
I remember growing up in New Jersey. Gosh, it took a long time. There was something about the post-war era or that pocket of Garden State meadow in the shadow of the New York skyline, or the immigrant population that settled down to work hard with what they had and what they knew. Time was locked tight like a rusty gate, yet couldn’t keep the days from passing by. And having no money did little to oil the hinges. So what? Who knew? You woke up in the morning, made it through the day and went to bed at dark. Night, Ma... Dad. God bless you, Son.
No TV, not till I was 10. No news to threaten an innocent life. No sitcoms to make a kid laugh on cue. No cop shows to teach crime and sex and drugs. No game shows to teach greed and false gain and no video games to freak young minds. The phone rang once or twice a day and the door had no lock, no key and the smudge-faced coalman came at the end of every month. No fast food, though we had Chinese take-out on special occasions…noodles. Cars were too bulky to speed and gas was 19.9 cents a gallon. I liked hot dogs, then, with mustard and sauerkraut.
Sounds lonely when I look back, but there’s one thing I forgot to mention -- I had a set of weights. They weren’t much, but they sure were heavy. They came with a wrench and collars, one bar and plenty of plates to bust my knuckles and build my biceps. Since I played with the ungainly heap of iron long and hard, I didn’t need anyone to teach me the rules, which was good, as there was no one in a nine-year-old’s country mile who had a clue.
Something about the little mess interested me. That it was my little mess bought with my own hard-earned five dollars had a lot to do with the attraction. I didn’t own much, but I owned those noisy weights. Furthermore, nobody -- my father, mother or brothers -- was the least bit interested in my prized possessions as they lay stubbornly on the sidewalk outside our house. I took their silence as a good sign, encouragement and a compliment. Somehow I knew I wanted to be different than everyone else. Probably because I was.
I dragged the rebellious, clanging rascals into the house and set them by my bedside. This was an amazing event in my life. Being the youngest in the nest, I was granted few rights, yet not one family member displayed disagreement, irritation or chagrin. It was like I had come of age at nine. I was baptized by iron. To this day I cannot recall anyone -- family, friend, stranger or foe -- discouraging me, mocking me or playing me the fool. Ma smiled.
The way was clear to do what I had to do. And best of all, nobody tried to tell me what to do and how to do it -- not once, not ever. They just let me plug along like a hound dog looking for a missing child, hoping he’d find it sooner or later. Been following my nose ever since.
So much for cruising, bombers. We’ve got weights to lift and muscles to build. Take 'er up and let 'er rip... The Captain
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Other extreme Muscle Beach measures are hidden like gemstones in Dave’s workouts. Our friend Henrik (you remember him, The House, from Denmark) transcribed a section of Dave’s workout log sheet from the early ‘60s. Here’s what he discovered in all that hen scratching.
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