So by now you should be aware of me leaving the Hookah bar. I've switched to a new bar and have been rushed into my position as a bartender. This new job is great: pays more, customers tip more, and I am required to speak Chinese during my shift! As far as bar-tending jobs in the US go, this is one of the best options for me. But it is expensive, I'm working seven hour shifts now starting at 4:30 pm, which is one of the reasons why I have been less than responsive to most emails and calls lately.
Before I left the hookah bar I made sure I got the chance to draw on their white-board one last time (as well as edit a picture I drew there a short while before). Have a look!
(of course the selfie was mandatory)
Just an update: the sign hasn't
been touched since I left.
That last day was a particularly busy Thursday, but nothing I wasn't used to. It's been odd being away from that bar, but my lungs already feel better and so do I.
Oh I almost forgot to upload the picture I drew on the board a few weeks before I left! I'm quite proud of this one, if you like I'll make a post of all of the drawings I did on the whiteboards over the year I spent working there.
Annd que segway into the actual topic
I'm going to admit something. I'm addicted to drugs. Heavy drugs. I do these drugs every day and they've more-or-less taken over my life. And no I'm not talking about heroin or coke. I'm not talking about tobacco either.
I'm talking about taking a specific drug so much that it hurts, so much that once it's no longer fun, once all you want to do is stop, you find that you can't stop, and with a huge crazy smile on your face, eyes bulging with insanity, you push it to the next level, you take even more of the drug.
What is it? Here's some more hints:
Disclaimer: You may be surprised by the amount
of Star Wars references in this post...
I once watched a fantastic youtube video on drugs, one that completely changed my view on how we perceive drugs in society. The premise is that drugs are essentially tools of escape, that they are nothing more than a substance that changes our perceived reality, by calming our mind, or altering our body composition, etc.
A simple drug, one that I know dad uses, and that I used often in my earlier stages of depression is going for long walks. A long walk clears your head, takes you to places you may never have gone before, can change your perspective on your place in the world, and is actually quite healthy for your heart- parts. Drugs in this category include exercise, music, long drives on Sunday afternoons meditation, reading, gardening, etc.
I think he's reading an autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Nice
But there are other drugs, like alcohol, which is a complex molecule that acts as a depressant, seriously impairing multiple areas of the body, particularly your brain and liver. It makes angry people more angry, sad people more sad, and happy people more happy. It's a drug we all use, as it is ancient, and is considered the common language of all people on the planet (yes, even you, religious fundamentalists). Drugs like tobacco, coke, marijuana, television, and of course alcohol all fall into this category of drugs.
As always, being in a cantina this is
one of the greatest scenes in star wars.
I no longer take the walking drug. It always seemed to add to my depression. And alcohol, if ever, is limited to an absolute minimum, as it ruins the effects of the daily drugs like to I take. But I still have my vices. In this part of my two part post, I'm going to discuss a very specific one of my many daily drugs. Do you need more hints or should I keep going?
This shirt= one of the best gifts ever
(I'm somewhere in between M and L just sayin)
For me weightlifting is one of the greatest drugs I've ever been exposed to. It has completely changed my life. And I simply can't get enough of it. It's boosted my energy levels, it's allowed me sufficient time to make strange faces at myself in the mirror, it has made me more confident in my appearance, it has made me proud of my failures, and proud of who I've become.
Coincidentally I would also like this shirt,
I mean this would make a great gift for your son,
I mean for the person you know that likes Teddy and gettin' swole
Yeah, that last one.
And now I'm going every day and so much has changed.
This wasn't my first time going actually. Nor was it my first time making this plan. About a semester earlier I went to the gym and got into a routine, and then began to realize that what I was doing wasn't working.
Why?
Cause I was monkey-ing around
(*v*) get it?
heheh...
All I was doing was paying $295 a year for exercises I could do at home, without sweating. In other words I was going to the weight room and not actually lifting weights. I was doing ten pullups a set, almost 300 pushups a day, and getting nowhere.
I then stopped after the semester ended, started working at the hookah bar, and began running five miles at midnight, every night. I don't know why I did this, it just felt like the right thing to do at the time, smoking will do that to your head I guess.
However it wasn't until a bodybuilder that bounced at my old job pointed out to me that, if all I was doing was pullups my arms would be huge by now that I realized what I was doing wasn't working at all. This guy's arms are the size of my head so... I took his words to heart.
I started thinking, I was doing these bodyweight exercises and they really weren't giving me what I was looking for. Yes I could do more pullups (I had no idea I was doing them wrong by the way) and I could always crank out a hundred variations on pushups, and hell the monkeybars are always fun. But there was no gain in weight, in fact I was losing weight!
How?
Like it or not, a pushup IS an endurance cardio workout. So you may build up the useless ability of bearing with repeatedly pushing yourself off of a floor, but you're also actually increasing your heart rate by doing it. I suspect people who can do over 50 bodyweight pullups have a similar impression of them.
So,
I got up the next day and felt different. I don't know what it was, but I went to the gym and reopened my membership.
It was a rocky start, I had nothing but a gym membership and the internet, and I spent countless hours scouring it just trying to figure out how to even work out (a process I still continue), and I decided I'd have to make a schedule and figure everything out.
So the reason I decided to address this one to you, mum, is because I remember in highschool and in my old college at least five separate occasions coming to you with a detailed, hand written, daily schedule that would never last a week. You were always a great support in this regard but what was lacking was any self-motivation, a huge fault of mine that haunted me for so long that even now I can hear it in the distance.
So like always I turned to the internet to find out just how to fix this.
The internet is a treasure trove of information (and misinformation). So long as you have a keyboard and can type words into the google search bar you have the entire wealth of human knowledge at your fingertips.
But for me, youtube was the place to go. That year, I would spend hours watching TED talks and had always found something satisfying, so I figured that it wouldn't hurt to use a familiar platform for information.
Unsurprisingly, on youtube I started figuring out how to make a schedule that is actually usable.
I have always been a fan of using modern technology for its intended purpose, and so stumbled upon this. Which is essentially just a video on weekly planning using a computerized calendar. And is one of the most important videos I've ever watched.
I then looked up the workout schedule of a man who's body I had always thought was the look I would like to have:
Seriously, I have almost always admired
The Rock's physique.
And after looking at The Rock's workout schedule I started simple, I would do arms one day, chest another day, shoulders, back, and legs.
So a five day split. I made a lot of mistakes with this that I am still to this day fixing, more on that later.
My body was "big" to begin with. I started at about 73 kilos and at 186cm with an entire highschool career of leg workouts and cardio during PE classes, a fast metabolism and surprisingly little atrophy despite my thyroid disorder and time spent doing literally nothing while at Alfred..
Needless to say my body was not about to waste time doing easy exercises. And I quickly found myself working out more and more and becoming obsessed. I was watching so many workout videos that my spare time was spent between lifting and youtube.
I started taking protein shakes, and I started joking with that bodybuilding bouncer that my goal was to be as big as him before he quit (He actually ended up quitting in January so he could prep for a competition so I never did reach that goal). I asked him so many questions, went ahead and followed everyone he followed on social media, I figured I needed some human guidance in this, and if he could do it so could I.
I eventually started to get the hang of it, and gained some weight, up to 75 kilos. I made a goal of 90 kilos by the end of 2016, and started going to the gym every day.
Now, earlier I mentioned I made a few mistakes, well one of them was not immediately seeking out a partner. I would have probably met that 90 kilos goal by 2017 if I had a partner.
Another was cutting out cardio and making it only a warm-up exercise for a five minute run on a treadmill, this caused me to actually burn fewer calories and thus actually be less hungry! I also made little effort to research proper nutrition and ate pretty much whatever I wanted.
But after the fall semester ended and the spring one began, I got my head in the zone and changed everything all over again.
Since at the time I was also preparing for the Chinese Bridge Competition I ended up doing some crazy things too. I had an insane schedule:
I was getting up at 4:00 every morning except weekends, cooking breakfast and lunch before going to school. Around this time I had discovered Anki and so would spend hours in the library at school working on flashcards and then doing homework while eating breakfast (which was a three hour long meal that I packed in before class) and then after going to class eating before practicing and FINALLY going to the gym for two whole hours of "to failure" sets with a whole new workout routine.
That routine was a bodypart seven day split, where I chose one muscle group a month that I would work out twice a week and then rotate that as I went through. So a typical week during the tricep month would be Triceps, biceps, shoulders, triceps, Back, chest, legs, repeat. I'd then go home and be in bed by 9:00.
I started this after somehow becoming obsessed with this guy:
But I don't get why he stuck with that awful
hair style for so long.
Arnie and his roommate would get up ridiculously early every day and cook and clean their apartment before going out and lifting until they made this face:
And THAT is when their workouts began.
Anyway the point is that they had a schedule that was meticulous and to the point. They searched for an inward focus that kept them from all of the distractions and drugs that would hinder their progress.
Now I'm not going to lie, last semester was the LEAST stressful semester of my life, and I was the most busy I had ever been up to that point. Sure I missed a few days here and there, and sure I got bogged down and even took whole weeks off from doing anything at all, but it was probably one of my most successful semesters ever.
And I blame that entirely on my devotion to this schedule.
Now I'm not Arnold, and my focus is actually not Bodybuilding nor is it a field I see myself making money in. I have always been a polymath and though I would love to be able to work out all the time, I have other vested interests. But this drug has been a gateway to those interests for me.
My focus on improving my body has kept me from literally every other bad drug out there. Even binge watching netflix (or more recently crunchyroll) and internet addiction. All of them were nearly completely eradicated by this drug called weight lifting.
Here's a list of just some of the side effects I've experienced from this awful gateway drug:
Increased metabolism
Increased appetite
Complete loss of depression
Disinterest in going to night clubs
Formation of the habit of a daily schedule
Regularly waking up feeling awake and well rested
increased grades at school
increased motivation to go to classes
confidence
10 kilos of weight! (5 shy of the original goal, which has now become 100 kilos)
something interesting to say when people ask me what my hobbies are
and so much more!
With every drug, though, there are always negatives.
Most notable: Injury.
Anyone who weightlifts CAN get injured. Injury is, contrary to popular belief due to improper form while doing an exercise and not an inevitability of weightlifting. Proper form is easy to learn and is widely available to research via simple google searches and maybe a few hundred thousand youtube videos. Just look up a search under the workout name followed by 'proper form' and you'll find what you need.
This is where one of my other mistakes comes in. ALWAYS have a friend to work out with for potentially dangerous workouts to know if your form is off. If you're alone, don't hesitate to ask the staff the proper form for a workout, they aren't just paid to watch you lift, they're paid to help you too.
Storytime:
I have a pinched nerve in my back as a result of my working out in the gym. Right now, being one of the rare moments that I actually would sit down, I have a sharp pain in my right quadriceps and an awful ache in my back.
What happened? Improper form on a lightweight exercise:
Back Extensions
There is a reason many people hate this exercise. And I am high on the list of those people, because I was doing this very exercise when I pinched my nerve.
Look at that image above one more time. The motion begins at a roughly -45 degree angle and ends at a zero degree angle. Doing this exercise correctly and with a neutral back is an almost entirely risk-free exercise.
So what was I doing? Over extending by roughly up to 30 degrees at the lift, and down to -90 degrees at the start, with only 20lbs held to my chest. You see, this exercise is deceptively dangerous in that you know you can over extend, you feel like you're doing nothing wrong when you over extend, and then you get a sharp numbness where your sciatic nerve begins and you think, "That is not good".
And so I never did back extensions again. Literally won't ever try it and won't ever suggest that anyone do them.
About a month later I began to have pain in my lower back, and four weeks later here I am waiting on x-ray results.
Two months..
Here is where a real issue comes in, and that is the public, non-lifter's impression of lifting: "It leads to injury". Factually this is null, lifting weights has been shown to be extremely safe and healthy for the body and is recommended for anyone over the age of 12. Yes, even little old ladies should be doing some sort of lifting.
The reality is, even though your joints may weaken as you get older, having a stronger muscular and skeletal frame actually prevents joint related injury. That said if you're an idiot like me and don't use proper form you might have a bad day, or 30 of them.
So what happened when I went to the doctor? Well they were a little more than a bit condescending. In fact I got the impression that the overweight nurse believed wholeheartedly that her sedentary lifestyle was actually significantly healthier than me "lifting" 180 lbs on a tricep cable pushdown.
She was even openly aggravated and scoffing at me when asking me how much weight do I lift, making a "you deserve it" expression.
I was thinking:
I wasn't being sarcastic when I said "a lot, like over 150lbs", and I certainly was not joking when I said "every day", how else am I going to gain weight, I'm genuinely smiling while talking to you, why are you being so mean?
This unfortunately is common when weightlifters and bodybuilders seek medical attention for their mistakes. It's not an everyman's hobby and most people think of it as something only narcissists and D-bags do when they aren't looking in the mirror or killing kegs.
Oh and when did my daily back pain actually start? "Coincidentally" while lifting a keg at my old job with a non-neutral back.
Seriously would have been fine if I had learned how to do deadlifts before lifting that damned keg.
Either way I went from this:
To this:
Surprisingly quickly. This drug may have injured my back but there is no doubt that it has drastically changed my life. Even my eating habits are different, cooking my own meals has led me to finding that healthy foods taste better and even make me feel more energetic after eating them, and sure they may not be as convenient as a hot pocket but my god do they taste better than one.
All I can really say is that we shouldn't be saying no to drugs, we should be finding the drugs that actually give us the satisfaction synthetic drugs advertise. What do you think? Do you think I'm just bastardizing the definition of drug to explain why I exercise?
Let me know,
Love,
-Alexander
P.S. Dad, Happy father's day! I know you spent the day packing and getting ready for a flight, but I hope you had a good one! I'm proud to call you my father, always have been, always will be.
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