How are your clothes fitting my dudes? We are at 2:2:2 which means we have been at this for 4.5 weeks. While the changes won’t have been drastic, you should be noticing something. By the end of phase 3, the end of our 9th week, I want you guys to really see something special.
I do really hope that you guys are keeping consistent. This isn’t one of those things where 80% of the effort will yield 80% of the results. You need to really put your back into this. You have all come here saying you want something truly special from yourselves. If you really want that and you really have made the commitment to chase it, then you need to be pushing at 100% in every way and at all times. Your diet needs to be on point. Your workouts need to be on point. Your mindset needs to be on point. Are you taking your weekly pictures? Are you writing down your weight and measurements? If you aren’t, then you are NOT giving 100%.
People always think that what we do in the gym is difficult. Fuck that. It is what we do outside of the gym that is hard. That is where the real work is put in. Come July when it is 85 and
You guys all made this commitment. Do it or don’t do it, but I can only promise results to those who give everything. Remember, this isn’t the FOE. No coddling here.
sunny on a Sunday and you are inside making enough chicken and pork to last you the whole week in your meal prep, then you will know difficult. When you want to sleep in, but you are waking up to make sure you crush your cardio. Then you will know. When you have a cold and you are in the gym lifting anyway, when you want to go out but you are sitting home measuring your thighs, when you are video taping your self flexing so you can get screen shots of different poses, when you are staring in a mirror trying to focus solely on your flaws, when you ignore the fun lifts you are good at and focus on the shit you suck at and look like a dumb ass in the gym — these are the times you are fucking earning it.
I am going to give you all a little tough love here….it is still early. We are in phase two, week two, day two. If your diet is not 100%, if you are not recording your measurements or only doing it sporadically, if you are not getting your 2
That look you make when you catch yourself in the mirror and realize that all the hard work is paying off.
gallons of water (and I will fucking bet most of you aren’t), if you are skipping lifts or cheating on your cardio….stop that shit now. Take an hour to yourself. Get a pen and a note pad. Make a list of what you aren’t doing. Schedule it out how you are going to do it and when. Make a series of check lists and do the fucking work.
Now that that is out of the way, let’s get to talking about
It isn’t easy, but it is worth it.
today’s topic: The Pump. What exactly is the pump? People joke all the time about us meathead turds in the gym getting “the pump” but what is it we are talking about? Put simply, the pump is when the muscles swell during the workout. This is caused by excessive amounts of blood rushing into the muscle. The muscle fills up like a water balloon with the blood and all the nutrients and cells that are carried thought it. The actual technical term for the pump is “Hyperemia”
The pump let’s you know you are growing. It is a strange feeling. There are times when a muscle feels like it might even explode. You have, over the course of hundreds of reps, taken a muscle to absolute failure over and over again and now it is pumped, swollen and the skin feels tight around.
Remember, our goal is to grow strong, lean, dense muscle here. The first is myofibrillar growth
Arnold knew how to push to the absolute max and encourage that pump
which is direct growth of muscle fibers. This is the growth everyone is familiar with. As we break down our muscle fibers with micro tears they heal and grow back larger and stronger. The other type is sarcoplasmic growth. This is the growth that is a result of the pump. This is a growth from an increase in the uptake of fluids and nutrients into the muscles making them appear larger. Yes, this is only a transient hypertrophy and as such we do not primarily chase the pump, but it is one club in the bag.
In the documentary Pumping Iron (which every single member of Team WBF should not just have seen, but have seen enough times to quote by memory) Arnold famously talks about the pump and relates it to cumming. No one says it better than Arn himself, so here he is:
In the end, as I mentioned before, the pump is not and should not be the be all end all for us.
I feel that getting a pump every day leads to a slow growth the same way that doing anything every day increases your ability to do it. Other’s say that you get your pump and it is gone an hour later. Which is true? Well, I know what I believe. But regardless of which is true, being at prime pump just makes it more fun to be in the gym and when you are having fun in the gym your workout is better which, in turn, adds to your gainz.
But other than adding to our overall total package of muscle growth and development, grabbing a pump is just plain fun. You look great. Your muscles get incredibly well defined and your vascularity is on point. Even if for no other reason than making you love being in the gym, this is a great thing.
So guys, it is mid way through the second of ten phases. Get your shit together and lets make sure we are fucking beasts this year. I can only give you the map, I can’t drive the car. You need to put in this work. Come on and take this insane ride with me. I promise, I won’t be any harder on you than I am on myself….are you ready to have me treat you the way I treat me????
Let’s fucking kill it….. Time to get to the point where we start noticing the mirin’
Grind On!
(PS: Last year we discussed, but never came through, with doing a lifting marathon on memorial day to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Foundation. Would anyone seriously consider doing it this year? Would anyone be willing to help with the set up and contact with WW to make it happen? Would love to get WBF out there…..it is almost time to start waging war)