Group Think

There is nothing else in the world that has more potential to be badass then a big group of people all working towards the same goal. This applies to all things in life, especially getting fucking strong. If a weak dude just lifts in his basement, he has no one to call him a pussy. He can just fail his 275 pound squats and quit forever. If that happens in a good gym, everyone in the room will be calling him a weak bitch who has to get his shit together.

Notably, we have powerlifter Tom Norchez, from Israel (a fact he considers so important he answers only to it.) Formerly, a wannabe monk, joined a group of people who all wanted to get strong and then he got strong. Fucking strong

Tommy Norchez making shit look good

Although, we probably should not go off of Tim because, frankly, he's out of his fucking mind for lifting heavy shit. Although... I've seen a lot of his training videos, and notably he always has a bunch of dudes there to call him a pussy when he fails. The entire group has their minds all laser focused on one thing, to get strong. And when you're with a group like that, it rubs off on you. I would know. When i train at home, I feel like shit. And when I don't, I feel good. This is the way science is done.

But what is happening in these gyms is that a bunch of people all decided to do one thing at once. It's weird when it's something like Vandalism or gang rape, but it's entirely different when it comes to getting strong.

Another thing that can happen is that when a group of people all turn against one dude they hate. Due to the fact that I am entirely uneducated, a convicted felon, and barely literate, I have become employed at a fast food establishment known as McDonald's. You may have heard of it.

The point is that everyone on the crew is cool with each other, then this fucking jerk off named ram rod gets hired. In addition to being a cock, he also picked fights, stole food, threw away good food, burned several people with grease, and just generally ruined everything. With the team work of everyone involved, we managed to make him cry basically every shift. It turned into a game later on. I only regret not making him cry more.

The point is, if you have trouble training, find a group of people. Your lifts will go up 40% if there is someone there to call you a little bitch, plus benching is a lot easier.

Go to a black iron gym. They're fucking badass.

All Hail the King

Alright you dudes(The three readers), it's time I introduced you to the greatest guy who ever fucking lived. Genghis Khan.

This fat bastard is the one who brought Asian and Europe to their knees.

Genghis Khan is the greatest American and human being to ever walk the earth. He kicked ass, fucked ass, then owned some ass because Lincoln wasn't looking. He fucking had it all.

I have not been to school in a while, but if my PHD in molecular biology is worth the wood it's painted on, then I should know this.

Genghis started out in Mongolia, living in New York. He eventually united the Sharks and the Jets by killing that bitch that made them hate each other, then bought both gangs making them his starters' horde, comprised of only 32 thugs, 2 horses and a donkey affectionately referred to as Poncho.

Eventually, Genghis decided that he need about a million guys if he was going to do jack shit, but first he would have to prove himself in the weightroom. By deciphering ancient Mongolian poems written by his grandson, Kublai Khan, I found a general idea of his programming.

Monday: Squat 700 lbs 1x10, 800 1x7, 900 1x5, 1000 1x1.

This went on every single day for every powerlift, except the bench, since it wouldn't be invented until 23 years later when Eugen Sandow came along. Historical evidence points to Genghis favoring the bent press

Proving his strength to the Mongolian dudes, he earned their respect. Except for the respect of some fucking dickhead who took a bite out of him then started rolling like an alligator. Eventually Genghis fucking killed him and fucking guess what, the dude had the deed to Mongolia on him.

So then every one in the room called him Khan because Mongolians are weird. Then at that moment, everyone of them decided to head in every direction for conquest, rape, and wholesale manslaughter.

Genghis Khan was basically king of rape. He fucked every broad with sight and could reportedly impregnate women by masturbating while thinking about them. He fucked so many women that a Y gene mutation is present in a large region of Asia, with about 8% of the total population having it. That's 0.5% of the world, counting just the men with the Y gene mutation.

To have all these fuckers running around just cause you fucked like a madman is crazy. Also, I'm like 90% sure I'm a direct descendant to Genghis Khan so in addition to being a fucking badass, that's another reason to have him on this blog.

Screwing around

"A-are you Eric L-lilliebridge?" I said as I approached from the darkness

"I'm THE Lilliebridge." He replied, being polite enough to ignore my creepy demeanor and off putting smell."Now, who are you, my man?"

"I'm some douche on the internet." I said. He believed me. He stuck out his hand. My eyes widen. I wasn't prepared for this. My mind cannot comprehend this, this is definitely shaped like a hand, but it belongs to Eric Lilliebridge, and it's reaching toward mine. How is this possible? Didn't he notice my smell?

I stick my hand out, fingers twitching, and attempt to grip his hand. He wraps his fingers around mine, then brings his left hand in to finish the job in what can only be called the Kennedy hand cave.

Note the two hands tag teaming the other dude's

I stood there. Slowly, I wheezed out the words he was looking for. "Nice to meetcha!" I said. To my horror, small flecks of spit landed on him. He pauses, eyes closed. I feel a slight increase in the grip pressure. He releases my hand and I walk away as quickly as possible.

Upon closer examination, I realized he wiped a bunch of spray tan shit all over my hand. I assume this is the source of his great strength

In less impressive news, I blew fucking chunks at the meet, not PRing anything at all. In fact, on a better day I probably could have gotten these pretty easily.

But this wasn't a better day. I was still sick from Wednesday, and I weighed in at 187 while wearing jeans, sweatshirt and hiking boots. So my weight was more like around 178. I could have made the 181s pretty easily and I should have.

Got 474 on the squat, 220 on the bench, and 374 on the deadlift. Missed everything but my openers on the squat and bench, but then my handler changed the deadlift opener and I actually got my second attempt on it.

Since I'm too tall to be a decent 198, I'm going to pack on some pounds. Gonna go to at least the 220s. Maybe more. If I like being a big fatty maybe I'll just keep going, which will be cool to watch. Maybe take a selfie once a week and see how it goes.

Heading to Iowa tomorrow

Entered UPA nationals and going to Iowa tomorrow. Was feeling real good and pumped, but yesterday I woke up and started puking this yellow bile. Didn't eat anything for most of that day. Today I wake up and all I can think about is how fucking hungry I am.

To recover lost calories and shit I'm gonna be chugging a quart of my favorite brand of chocolate milk, eating some other shit, then heading out. Guaranteed to have taken 300 pounds off my total. I guess I'll never total more than 600...

But for realz, it's fairly likely I'll still do pretty good. Not best lifter good. More like best dude in my weight class, maybe setting a record or two because there aren't any other fucking records.

Will be competing on Sunday and will probably write some updates from the leisure of my hotel suite. These posts will be dictated but not read by me.

Reddit should be hurled into the sun.

For those of you who can afford to live under rocks, Reddit is the world's biggest content aggregation site at the moment. It touts itself as the "Front page of the internet" while providing a home for the good folks over in /r/ incest and /r/ picsofdeadkids. Yeah, this shit exists.

But that's for later. What I'm talking about right now is the stinky brown log that is /r/ fitness, floating in the toilet that is Reddit.

What amazes me is how they manage to turn something as normally indivualistic as "fitness" and turn it towards the Reddit hivemind, taking what is currently popular and telling everyone to do it. What currently is popular is Starting Strength with about 4 too many modifications that make no fucking sense.

I can answer these questions for ya. 1. It doesn't fucking matter. 2. No one cares about your weird cock. And 3. You can try giving a shit about lifting, that always helps.

And the questions they get there are just baffling. I wish gyms were more like an underground terrorist ring so these retards couldn't find them, and also I want to blow up the pentagon.

All except one are just asking for approval.

Stupid fucking questions like "Should I stop bashing on crossfit and try it out" are always there. The people there never actually do anything without asking for approval first. And the ones they choose to nitpick over are so fucking stupid. Yeah, sure, try Crossfit if you fucking want. It doesn't matter to me or anyone else on the internet except for people who like crossfit.

Look, Crossfit sucks but at least they introduce people to barbells. All /r/ fitness does is introduce people to the hivemind that god forbid someone do something without their approval. Fuck people like that because they're pussies who need other people to tell them what to do. It's nearly as bad as Crossfit in that respect.

Powerlifting is dead and I'm okay with that

Powerlifting is a dying sport. It had it's chance to be mainstream a long time ago and they blew it. Every powerlifter has an opinion on why the sport isn't more popular and here's mine: The fact that powerlifters are argumentative bitches, and the fact that it seems to be a sport for weirdos such as myself.

 The case for my claim of powerlifter being arguments is the constant agruments about what is and isn't raw. Most people will say that raw is just a belt, maybe knee sleeves, and nothing else. But wait, no one has defined that as raw until after powerlifting stopped mattering as a sport.

Other people such as me and the good people of the UPA and other like minded federations will say that raw is belt and knee wraps. This is how it was in the beginning and only for a brief period in the 70s was this considered gear back in the day. To think otherwise of this noble friendship of the belt, the wraps, and the squatter is to spit in the face of an entire era.

But the thing that pisses me off about this argument is the innate insistence on being retarded. How far back do these raw purists want to take this? Do they want to take away belts? They add about the same amount of weight as wraps. Why not take away shoes? Hell, even bars aren't really raw. How do you know it's really you lifting it? The bar is the one holding it. How far back do you really want to take it?

Ed Cone, shown here having the time of his life

Wraps make lifting more fun because you're lifting more weight. They help keep older lifters in the game and by extension help keep the sport alive. The insistence on redefining raw is what killed powerlifting in the first place. Those bastards that wanted wraps out of the game are murderers and I'm going to shout at them until my throat is bloody and raw.

Another point of confusion is the use of gear. In the years of yonder, everyone used gear. Nearly every powerlifter that mattered used gear, which, back then was shitty. Adding about as much weight as a pair of wraps would. Not much at all.

Some people seem to forget about this, or pave over the fact that Ed Cone, Kirk "The Jerk" Karloski, and even Doug Furnace and Connie Goldman used gear.

The point here is that all these guys set the best records and won the best pageants using gear that is no longer considered raw for reasons that are stupid. I can understand calling straight up geared lifting with squat suits and such not raw, but to say wraps aren't raw is absolutely retarded.

And what pisses me off more is when people vilify geared lifting in general. Yes, I get it they don't compete the way you do, they're pussies who don't lift weight. Maybe when you squat 405 I'll give a shit. No wait, I still won't.

I've actually talked with geared lifters and of all the souls I've come across in my journeys, their souls are the most... human...

With the advent of the hatred of geared lifting and the constant redefining of raw, powerlifting is dying and since everyone is too much of an argumentative bitch to do anything against this, it will not be saved.

RIP Powerlifting.

If Quitting Is So Easy, Just Do the Big Quit

The human race is the world's most successful group of pussies. I'm sick and tired of dealing with pussies who can't be bothered to have any sort of commitment to lifting. It makes me sick to have to deal with them.

I used to lift with a guy that was actually getting decently strong. He was closing in on a 2 plate bench and was in the mid 400s for the deadlift. He only did these two lifts, but he was doing them well.

He fucking quit because he got tired of having to drive to my house to lift in the basement. When you can't even be bothered to show up, which is the exact bare minimum, you shouldn't even waste anyone's time.

This same guy has the current goals of "slimming" down, getting to a medium shirt size. The word medium comes from mediocre. When he says he want to wear a medium shirt, he is literally giving the concept of being large and in charge the bird and I hate him for it.

And for the past several months, he's been talking about starting lifting again "next semester."

Don't even fucking bother. If you couldn't stick with it before, waiting until a certain date isn't gonna do jack shit. All it does is set yourself up for the failure that is inevitable.

If you do shit like this, don't waste anyone's time because you can't be bothered to do anything that is not immediately satisfying. When I bought my first weight set, a shitty bench that I somehow used as a squat rack, I didn't think lifting that shit was fun but I did it anyway for reasons I can't remember.

And for the people that act like not feeling good is an excuse:

Steve Pulcinella is tired of your shit and so am I.