They say to write what you know or whatever, right? Or maybe write what you’re passionate about? I’m not sure, but that’s close enough.
Anyway, because this is a Substack with zero readers and no motivation to become any type of a hit, I think I can just switch up the typical format into a completely new one. This thing is for me, an anonymous dude with thoughts in his head, to dump his thoughts out onto a page in written form rather than terrorizing my wife and friends with rantings on whatever I happen to be obsessing over at the moment.
Ever since February 24th, 2022, I was obsessing over the war between Russia and Ukraine as well as Russian domestic politics and geopolitics broadly. Instead of telling everyone around me about the latest scandal, news event, or movement of the frontlines, I simply took to Twitter or here to dump those thoughts out of my head. It’s not like I don’t care about the subject anymore, but it certainly no longer occupies the real estate it used to. At this point, the front lines are not moving, and they are unlikely to move in the near or long-term future. The western media has moved on to Israel and Gaza, or moved on entirely to apolitical topics. We’re essentially waiting on a resolution to the conflict; either a peace agreement a la Minsk or some variation of an eternally frozen conflict. Sad, but true.
What I have been obsessing over for almost an entire year at this point is hypertrophy training. That’s right, your boy is a bodybuilder now. Wassup? I caught myself ranting to my wife about the concept of progressive overload and realized that what I am constantly thinking about needs to be written down, so that’s the plan.
I’ve always been a relatively fit dude, certainly compared to the majority of the population. I’ve been into weight lifting, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, calisthenics, Orange Theory Fitness, Peloton, and now I’m back around to weight lifting again, except I’m taking it seriously this time (unlike what I did in college, which was a joke).
See, I go through phases of obsession with stuff. Like, I was obsessed with succulents for a while and I still have a big collection of succulents, but they’re no longer interesting to be and I only keep them alive now because I feel bad getting rid of them. I go through phases where I crave nicotine, so I buy some pipe tobacco or cigarillos and I smoke daily for a couple weeks straight before getting bored, quitting, and not touching tobacco again for many months. Outside of legitimate commitments to something like ultimate frisbee, jiu-jitsu, or Orange Theory, I typically had the same experience with working out; I always worked out at home for a couple of weeks before losing steam and not doing anything until months later.
What’s different about this time is that I’ve stuck to weightlifting on a regular basis for many months all by myself. No gym membership, no one watching me, do social or monetary commitment. Just me in my basement. While it started with a typical urge to work out, what was different about it this time was that I accidentally stumbled upon the concept of training for hypertrophy on reddit. I had never seen this word before even though, as explained above, I have a lot of experience with physical activity. As a dude who’s super smart and stuff and knows big words, I started researching what this meant and dove headfirst into the world of the online bodybuilding community.
This world is massive, absolutely huge, and I have probably consumed hundreds of hours watching all sorts of YouTube videos from a solid dozen channels all telling me about the basics and complexities of hypertrophy training. The more I learned, the more I implemented what I learned into my own training, and the obsession became pretty serious over time. I am not going to claim to be an expert, but the thing is that the basics of hypertrophy training account for 90% of the progress a person makes and the basics are extremely simple.
Once you understand the basics, further complexities are entirely optional. You can get incredible results from implementing very simple concepts, and I would like to write those concepts down in my own words so that I stop thinking about them while I drive my son to daycare.
My goal is to write a couple pieces on some specific topics that cover the majority of what I’ve learned. I won’t send out email notifications when I post because they’re annoying. This blog is free and it will stay free, so if you’re interested, subscribe.