Only Real Men Work Out In Jeans

When it comes to fitness, I applaud everyone for doing whatever they choose to do to try to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Maybe it’s not my cup of tea, but I will always applaud the effort. I will also secretly judge everyone I come across, because inside, I’m a judgmental prick, and I simply can’t change that.

 

One of the ways that I judge people is when I see people working out without gym attire. I have seen it in the gym with guys wearing jeans and working out, and recently I saw a dude running in long ass cargo shorts; I couldn’t help but judge. 

 

But then I got to thinking. Maybe this isn’t a they problem, maybe this is a me problem. I mean, I’m a dainty little flower when it comes to my workout gear. I am very particular about what gym shorts are worthy as they have to be short and of very specific materials as to be both light, airy, and comfortable. I can’t have a baggy shirt on, because it just makes me feel off. I am not a tough man.

 

Meanwhile, these guys don’t give a shit. I’ve seen dudes doing squats in jeans and work boots, and you know why that is so awesome? Because I bet it just never occurred to him that he would need a change of clothes to go work out. He does his regular work in these clothes, so why wouldn’t he do his workouts as well? That is manly as shit.

 

And that guy running in cargo shorts? Do you think he had running shoes? Hell no. Dude had high-tops on. And do you think he wasn’t utilizing the cargo shorts? Come on, you know if you’re wearing cargo shorts, you’ve got keys, wallet, cell phone, checkbook, utility knife, flint, bottle of water, lighter, matches, umbrella, and a spare pair of underwear. He’s got all that rattling against his legs, and he’s just plowing forward like none of it is actually there. That’s a damn man right there. 

 

There are people I still judge though. That is people who wear polos while working out. Not only does everyone own a damn t-shirt, but there is a 100% chance that guy also came to the gym with way too much cologne on. That guy sucks.

Get Swoll During Social Distancing

Covid-19 has really brought out the extremes in people. You have people showing extreme caution and others being extremely stupid and helping the spread of the disease. You have people who are losing their minds while working from home and others who who are thriving in that situation. And you have people who are just laying around eating crappy food and getting fat because there’s nothing to do, and you have the people who are more active than ever, again, because there’s nothing to do.

I’m trying to increase my activity as I had recently found myself in a lull when it came to fitness. I haven’t been to a gym in years as I mostly do body weight exercises and just stay active any way I can, with help from the dog and toddler. But as my baby boy gets older, he’s probably going to tell other kids that his Dad can beat up their Dad, so I decided I needed to be as strong as possible to give the other Dad just enough doubt to not get into the fight before he ends up kicking my ass.

Initially, all I wanted was a pullup bar because pullups are manly and awesome. But decent pullup bars were like $50-$80, and that seemed a tad excessive to me. But then, something caught my eyes. Yes, it was about twice as expensive, but there was at least five times the exercises I could do with it. I had to have one (as long as my wife approved).

Luckily she did, and I had myself a POWER TOWER.

I also added some hand grips so the whole thing cost me about $125. I have a garage that I can throw the thing into, but if you don’t, it could easily take the spot of a living room chair, and you could have the meat(head) seat for anyone who wanted to blast through some reps while blasting through Tiger King episodes.

There are no weights with it, but you have all the weight you need with the magic of the human body. It’s got a pullup bar, pushup handles, dip handles, and you can do leg raises to crunch those abs. I added the handles so I could do inverted rows. There’s nothing special for shoulders, but all you need is a wall and you can do some handstand pushups. Just like that, your entire upper body can be shredded.

Everybody knows that you can’t make a muscle omelette without scrambling some legs. Legs ain’t complicated though. This machine has a spot for calf raises, and just do squats and lunges and your legs will be fine. This stuff isn’t complicated.

Slightly more complicated is putting the thing together. I would consider myself a novice handyman. If I have instructions, I can get it done, and I can consult my good friends at Youtube.com if I run into any issues. I definitely ran into issues. I put the thing together fairly easily, and it advised to let the nuts be loose until you get everything in place. I did that and most were easy to then tighten, but for some reason, the nuts at the bottom wouldn’t tighten because the screw just kept turning with it. I then had to put the fully built Power Tower on it’s back so I could get to those screws. But then I realized that they put rounded screws down at the bottom and my wrench was not going to hold onto that consistently despite my super manly grip strength. So I brought in some vise-grip pliers to help me with the job, and that definitely did the trick. I figured I should probably build this thing correctly if I planned on being in compromising positions with my entire body weight depending on it.

As I have told anyone who will listen when they ask what the best exercise is, it’s the one you enjoy doing, because that’s the only exercise that you will actually stick with. Now that I have a power tower, I can mix it up just enough in body weight exercises that I’ll be entertained for the foreseeable future.

Although COvid is what led me to this training, once I get jacked, I’ll be ready for Xvid.
There’s just one small perfectly average-sized problem that not even a Power Tower can fix.

CrossFit Defense Is For Stupid People Who Want To Get Their Asses Kicked

The other day my brother sent me a link to CrossFit Defense; he knew a fighting system this stupid would anger me, and sure enough, I was seething just looking at the link. Then, despite knowing it would be bad for me, I clicked on that link, went deeper into the page, clicked some more, watched an eight-minute video, all the while getting angrier and angrier the entire time. There was only thing I could do as the legitimate tough guy that I am: Beat this system down with a brutal blog.

So let me just say that there is a lot of hatred towards CrossFit online, and I'm not here for that. I think that if you have an exercise system that you enjoy and does not injure you, you should go for it. CrossFit fails on that second part quite a bit, but hey, if people keep coming back for more, I'm not going to stand in their way.

But CrossFit Defense is a bunch of bullshit. CrossFit isn't going to help you fight. It'll help you keep in shape (if you don't injure yourself), but you should only use that health to run away in a fighting situation. That should be the beginning and end of CrossFit Defense.

Unfortunately, it is not. Let's go to the website description to see what is CrossFit Defense:

CrossFitters train for the unknown and unknowable, but elite fitness does not guarantee personal safety. If CrossFit is the study of human movement, CrossFit Defense is the study of human movement as it relates to violence, fear and aggression. Athletes are taught close quarter skills and combines fun, dynamic, and effective drills that are extremely effective for anyone of any age who may have to defend themselves.

Could someone please explain to me how CrossFitters training for the unknown and unknowable? Like, is the unknown discovering what is the shittiest pullup imaginable. I also enjoy that they train "effective drills that are extremely effective." I want to give them a damn participation award for that phrasing.

On top of this, they have this image on their website:

Nobody fears fear. I'm not afraid of being afraid. I'm afraid of snakes, Greg Davis offenses, and being buried alive. Those are things that you can fear. I'm not afraid of one day discovering that I am afraid of something. Let's go to the video to take a deep dive into this ocean of shit.

This first gif appears to be some moron named Traver (what a CrossFit name) talking about something dumb, but the important part is going on in the background, because there's some amazing self-defense going on.

Little dude in the black shirt is practicing some top-notch self-defense. For what situation? Well, uh, I guess it's like if somebody tries to attack you by ballroom dancing with you without your permission, this is a way to keep distance. This self-defense technique is most commonly used by girls in high school at Proms where guys have boners, and the girls don't want them rubbing it on them during slow dances.

Now it's time to address one of the big problems that came up in their video, over and over again: Palm strikes. This system apparently only uses palm strikes, and that is an excellent sign that it is bullshit. Will a palm strike hurt? Yes, but you know what hurts more than a palm strike? A fucking fist. It's not that complicated. There's a reason you don't see guys in the UFC choosing to hit guys with their palms. So why doesn't Crossfit Defense use the far better fist method? Because you can't throw a fist at a medicine ball without hurting your hand, and if you had to wear gloves or wrap your hands, and at that point, you wouldn't be able to market it as a Crossfit class.

But at least they're showing good technique to generate power with those palm strikes? Well, yeah, as long as you keep your hips as stiff as possible and try to lunge into your strikes.

Also, any striking system that doesn't teach you to put your hands back to defend after striking is probably not going to be great for you. You can keep one hand out for distance, but when you keep out two, you're probably going to get your jaw jacked. Silver lining: When somebody uppercuts you off your feet, you can just say that you were setting your new record in highest box jump.

They then spoke about how fights are unpredictable so you need to train as if you are in a natural fighting stance. They then show getting in their natural stance.

Yep, totally natural.

Clearly CrossFit Defense has it all. It combines asinine technique with along with giving people enough confidence that they may be dumb enough to actually use it. Here's basically all of CrossFit Defense in one gif.

1. Don't strike to the chest in a fight.

2. Um, I don't know what he's trying to show in that choking clip except the choker has no idea how chokes work, so I guess if you're going to get attacked, hope that they try to do something they've never done before?

3. For some reason, half of this video shows how to defend against somebody who wraps their arms around your neck from the front. This never happens in a real fight, because there is no logic that would lead a person to attack that way. But it does lead to the most "Oh shit" moment of the video as, in, oh shit, a worthy technique. He's going after the dude's eyes. That is a really good strategy. But then of course he switches to a a weird forearm crossface instead which is not nearly as effective.  (Note: If you know nothing about fighting, just look up the mixed martial arts rules. If you do everything that is banned in MMA, you'll probably do alright, because the shit that is banned in MMA is dangerous and/or super effective).

So do not believe in CrossFit Defense. It will not help you. There's a good chance you get injured from CrossFit, and a 100% chance that it will not help you if you need to defend yourself. Would you like to find a good workout where you can learn how to defend yourself? They actually have that. It's called mixed martial arts. Here is the perfect tagline for CrossFit Defense: Run for your life; your shitty pullups won't save you.