My Public Opinion Baths



Every day I spend roughly an hour riding the D.C. metrobus to and from work.  My commute is sobering, to say the least.  As I look into the eyes of my fellow passengers, I realize this country is full of listless people.  Assuming there was a fire, it was extinguished long ago.  These people now "exist" in the "gray twilight" that Theodore Roosevelt reserved for those who know neither victory nor defeat.

My rides on the city bus are checkered with the usual suspects: young mothers, homeless men and women, day laborers, construction workers, and various working professionals, like myself. Two of these populations routinely catch my eye.  The young mothers, many of them still girls, not yet women, are often times lugging around two or three children under the age of five.  All are eating candy and drinking soda for breakfast.  Some of the older ones are already showing signs of Type-II Diabetes.  This breaks my heart, because these children stand virtually no chance of success.  Maybe a few will rise like phoenixes from the ashes, but the vast majority will not, and these are the ones who will continue to perpetuate the downward spiral.

The other population that draws my attention are the "blue collar" workers, the construction guys, the day laborers, etc.  These men and women inspire me day in and day out.  Though low on energy, many are justifiably exhausted from working two, or even three jobs, all while struggling to raise a family in one of the country's most expensive cities.  Who am I to complain about lifting some weights, or working a 10-plus hour day?

Even as I write this post, a pungent "aroma" of ammonia, a smell derived from human urine, and cigarette smoke is wafting through the bus, courtesy of the homeless woman sitting in front of me.

President Abraham Lincoln used to call receptions with "average" members "of our whole people" his "public opinion baths."  And although Lincoln supposedly heard a number complaints from citizens on "utterly frivolous" matters, he nonetheless concluded these receptions were critically important because, in his own words, " . . . I have but little time to read the papers, and gather public opinion that way; and though [these receptions] may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty."  With the utmost humility, I share President Lincoln's view that if one only interacts with a small handful of people their views will, as he said, become "arbitrary."  Against this backdrop, my public opinion baths give me great cause for concern, but rather than leave me depressed, they serve to reinvigorate me and challenge me to exemplify the changes I want to see in the world.

It was Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19^th century French political thinker, who wrote, “ . . . a nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to is individually weak; and that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.”

Strickland Syndrome

 

"Far better is it dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure . . . than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

 -- Theodore Roosevelt

It goes without saying that failure is part of life, but most people never experience full-fledged failure because they never committed themselves – mind  body, and spirit – to their goal in the first place.  And it is easy to understand why.  Far easier is it to stand on the sidelines and say, "Well, if I had tried as hard as him (or her), I would have done just as well or maybe even better."  That's the definition of cowardice, in my book.

I call this "Strickland Syndrome," named appropriately after my sophomore year college roommate.  Anyone who saw him, or watched him swim, could tell this guy "had the goods." Vested with all the physical skills one needs to be great in the sport of swimming – tremendous size, a beautifully efficient stroke, and good “feel” for the water – Strickland never reached his potential (and that's putting it mildly).  Part of the reason for this was Strickland suffered from an inflated view of his own "talent."  Sure, he had some skills, but not nearly enough to coast through practice every day and still win multiple All-American honors.  The other reason for Strickland's underachieving was his unwillingness to give a damn.  Apathy was the comfort blanket, which allowed him to "pack it in" when times got tough, both in training and in the biggest meets.  As a result, he had zero tolerance for pain.  Zero.

I've always been the opposite kind of person, the one willing to sacrifice or endure pain.  This approach, however, is not without fraught.  Most people can't handle my intensity or single-mindedness of focus; sometimes my wife is even taken aback, this after five-plus years of living together.  But I've come to expect this from people.  In college, some of my teammates laughed at me, called my goals "outrageous," and ridiculed me for my subtle self-motivating tactics.  Whatever.  The clock never lied, and I learned to let my performances do the talking.

More recently, I've learned that life is full of "has beens," "back in my day-ers," "just wait till your my age-ers," and "if I had your talent-ers."  Yeah, guess, what?  I don't give a shit, and I would have kicked your ass back then, too.  Go home, and tell yourself whatever you must to fall asleep.  And sleep well, for tomorrow, when you roll over, I will have already been hard at work for several hours.

I will end this post the same way I started it -- with a quote.  "Anything in life is worth over doing, moderation is for cowards."  Thank you to our Navy Frogmen, and their families, for their service.

Just Eat More Broccoli: A Rant Against Needless Complication

"I hope my wife remembered to get more toilet paper at the grocery store..."

For whatever reason, our society has shown, and continues to show, a tendency to associate "complicated" ideas with higher orders of intelligence, while at the same time dismissing "simple" ideas as the mere daydreams of amateurs.  This post will attempt to strike back against such thinking.  In other words, simple trumps complicated.

Well thought out programs focus on only a handful of concepts for the athlete: (1) training the body as "one piece," (2) minimizing their chances for injury, (3) building strength, and (4) improving mobility.  Other concepts like building aerobic base or improving balance coordination are secondary in importance, only because most athletes reap these benefits to a sufficient degree through the previous four.  You think me wrong?  Attempt a 20-rep max back squat -- if you have never given the "window maker" a run before, try it with 70-75% of your one-rep max – and check your heart rate. I would venture to bet its north of 170 beats per minute. The same basic concept applies to higher rep, combination movements, like front squats and push presses (i.e. thrusters), power cleans and push presses, power snatches and overhead squats, etc.

Athletes who require a more developed aerobic base, such as swimmers, track athletes, rowers, speed skaters, etc., should build this capacity primarily through the practice of their sport, but supplementary conditioning at different times of the year could also come in the form of burpees (shudder), KB work (snatches, clean and presses, getups, swings), or intervals on a rower or airdyne (shudder, again).  In the absence of sport specific conditioning, supplementary work could indeed prove beneficial, especially for the layman.  This conditioning would be shorter in nature, less than ten minutes in total length as a rough benchmark, but very high in intensity (expressed in terms of heart rate).  Conditioning at this high intensity level carries many benefits for the athlete and layman, alike: (1) it builds confidence, (2) provides an opportunity to simulate the "suck" of racing/competition for athletes, and (3) develops efficiency at lower heart rate levels.

Improved coordination and balance are other concepts that can be addressed through barbell strength training. Higher skill exercises like snatches, cleans, jerks, and their respective power variations will develop levels of improved coordination and balance that will carry over to other everyday tasks, like dance classes (I know this from firsthand experience).  Two good KB exercises for improving balance are the getup and the Romanian Deadlift.  Both could be incorporated at the end of a workout or on an “active rest” day.

Throwing together a random set of exercises – like half squats on a BOSU or bizarre med ball exercises – in a "secret sauce" type of “matrix” might convince a novice of your "expertise," but such complication only reveals a lack thereof to the educated.  No, sets of five in the back squat are not imaginative.  No, eating more broccoli will not land your diet on the front page of the New York Times “Lifestyle” section.  But at the end of the day you will be both stronger and healthier, and probably more so than the vegan balancing on the BOSU ball over in the corner.

 

PS - I love this post from Justin Lascek over at 70sbig.com.

 

http://70sbig.com/blog/2012/08/a-part-of-me-died/