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grey and red is an abominable color combination.

haha i'd agree that maurice clarrett might not be the best example to turn to. and i'm a little perplexed by your pointing out that i'm attaching an especially negative connotation to "lazy" -- of course i am! it's a negative word!

here's my point: you're arguing a counterfactual that's intuitively appealing but unprovable. i'm saying that in the face of that, tread with caution. could shaq have played longer or scored more points or grabbed more rebounds if he'd kept his weight down, or practiced free throws more so he was better at them so he got beat up less during games? maybe. but i don't know! and neither do you!

let's follow the bolt example: bolt is faster than any person that we know about, ever. to say that he is not maximizing his potential is ludicrous on its face: human beings AS A WHOLE have not yet demonstrated that we have the potential to go faster than he does. one day we probably will, but we haven't yet. by being the fastest person ever, he is maximizing the 100m sprint potential of the human race to date. all i'm saying that, especially in the absence of any special knowledge about usain bolt's training regimen, i have a hard time believing that if he took a different approach, he would be faster. and i have a really hard time calling him lazy.

i think my objection is that calling a super-elite/dominant athlete "lazy" is a judgment cast down without any thought for the person as a whole. i made this point already, but without knowing someone who is dominant at their craft intimately, you can't say that whatever approach they took to become dominant is a sub-optimal approach. maybe being relaxed and getting fat in the offseason is what shaq needed to average 26-30 points and 11-14 rebounds for ten years, be a 15-time all-star, 3-time finals MVP, and have his number retired by the lakers. you and i just don't know.

usain bolt has been training to be a sprinter since he was a kid. he might not be the hardest working sprinter out there, and he's clearly a freak among freaks, but calling him lazy robs the word of any meaning.

calling athletes like that lazy just smacks too much of easy armchair quarterbacking. "god damn brady, why didn't he see welker open in the flat? if he'd hit him that's 15 yards easy, first down, run out the clock, game ovah! instead he throws to god damn double-covered gronk and gets picked off. what kinda bullshit quarterbacking is that?" those two things are in the same category to me.

see the "shaq was lazy" argument drives me insane. shaq is a top-5 all-time center and was THE MOST DOMINANT PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE. how can you say he was lazy? i can just as easily say, if he'd worked harder he'd have burned out and stopped getting joy from the game and retired early.

it's like the idiots who talk about how lazy randy moss was. randy moss is the second-greatest receiver in nfl history. he played exactly the way he needed to play to be better than EVERYONE ELSE AT HIS POSITION EVER EXCEPT JERRY RICE.

^^^ +4,000,000

 

WEIGHT: 172
SORENESS: traps
ACHES/INJURIES: none
MENTAL STATE: normal

- warm up

- squat 260 x 8,5,3(exp),3(exp)
(exp)=explosive, popping the bar off my shoulders.

- bench 175 x 5,5

- DB row 80 x 8,8

- GHR ISO hold x 3; strict reps x 2,2
strict reps are haaaard.

- tuck windshield wiper x 10,10,10

- calf raise 415 x 10,10
more weight next time

- stretch

now gonna eat and then do my mobility workout. i refuse to call it a WOD, as useful a term as that may be.

the downside of the starrett book is that i'm thinking too hard now during squats. i need to relax and trust my form, which is still solid, and not overthink mid-set. also i think my legs were tired from yesterday. might be time to move away from straight sets of 4x8 and switch back to 3x3 + 3x8 once a week and MSEM once or twice a week.