Hail to the Dinosaurs!
This morning's post will cover another
question from a reader. This one comes
from Michael Houghton:
"I have a question for you. How often
do you skip a workout due to activities
that are very strenuous? I am building
a new garden and was removing roots with
an 8 pound ax on Monday and then a large
stump grinder last night. My back,
shoulders and arms were aching this
morning (Wed.) so I skipped my deadlifts.
I'll get back to them probably Friday."
Michael -- thanks for your excellent
question!
Let me begin by saying GOOD JOB on building
the garden. As I've said repeatedly,
gardening is good exercise -- and what in
the world could be more fun and more
functional for an in-between heavy iron
training session than building a garden
that grows plenty of fresh, healthy,
100% natural and organic veggies for the
family table?
As for your question, of course I miss
workouts from time to time due to that
big old meanie called LIFE!
I mean, seriously -- if you work for living
(and some of you work two or even three jobs),
if you're married, if you have kids, if you
have crazy bad weather emergencies, if you
go to school and you're studying for finals
or cramming for a big test or doing a big
paper, or whatever -- sometimes you end up
missing a workout.
It's unavoidable unless you live at Muscle
Beach (and someone else supports you) and all
you do is train all day and lie around in the
sun when you're not training.
But forget about Muscle Beach.Let's talk about
the real world.
From time to time EVERYONE misses a workout.
If it happens, you just hit it the next day or
the day after that. And don't worry about losing
all your strength and muscle if you miss a workout.
It's not going to happen. In fact, the extra day
of rest may allow you to come back stronger than
ever.
And in the real world, sometimes you do things
like building a garden, and you're sore and stiff
and tired as heck the next day.
If that happens, and it's a day when you're going
to do something like squats or deadlifts or heavy
Olympic lifting, you might very well want to take
a day off and come back when you're at 100%. There's
no sense having a bad workout because you're stiff
and sore.
And remember Dizzy Dean.
Dizzy Dean was a flame-throwing fast-ball pitcher
who burst into the major leagues out of nowhere
and became the fastest and most-feared pitcher in
baseball.
One day, a batter actually got some wood on the
ball and hit a low line drive that hit Dean in the
foot.
It broke or sprained his toe, I forget which.
The injury caused him to alter his throwing
pattern in a very minor, very subtle way.
And that made him throw out his arm.
He crashed and burned, and just like that, his
career was over.
And that's what can happen if LIFE steps up and
hits a hard line drive that bounces off your foot --
or if you spend all day in the garden and then try
a heavy deadlift workout the next day. Or a heavy
whatever workout.
And yes, all of the above goes double for lifters
over the age of 40, and triple for lifters over
the age of 50.
Remember, you're in this for the long haul. Your
entire life. So train with your brain, not your ego.
As always, thanks for reading and have a great day.
I'm hitting the iron at about 6:00 or 6:30 today --
if you train today, we can train together and have
a terrific workout. If you train tomorrow, you can
have a great workout with Michael as he hits those
heavy deadlifts.
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. Real world training advice. No nonsense stuff.
Truth instead of fiction. Stuff that works. You can
find it right here at Dinosaur Training Headquarters:
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
P.S. The new Dinosaur Training muscle shirts are
flying out the door -- take a look and see:
http://www.brookskubik.com/muscle_shirts.html
