MARK RIPPETOE: The Logical Analysis for Starting Strength.
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These are the Crazy Years. And our ruling class has taken to heart Rhett Butler’s dictum that there’s as much money to be made in tearing down a civilization as in building one up.
MARK RIPPETOE ON BODYBUILDING MYTHOLOGY.. “Such low bodyfat levels are abnormal for human physiology, and are almost completely dependent on a genetic predisposition for thin skin and poor adipose storage capacity. The pictures you see of The Greats that are burned into your mind are snapshots: a very narrow glimpse into a very-temporary (maybe only hours-long) condition of dehydration, glycogen-full muscle bellies, low bodyfat, oil and tan, and good lighting directors. This is where the media boys have done their jobs.”
BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Mark Rippetoe’s Mean Ol’ Mr. Gravity.
MARK RIPPETOE: Physical Strength is the Most Important Thing in Life.
A VIDEO WITH A TRANSCRIPT, WHICH IS NICE: Mark Rippetoe: Testosterone Optimization Therapy with Jay Campbell.
UPDATE: Compare the guys in the above video with the guys in this one: Related: Buzzfeed Crew Shocked To Learn They Have Low Testosterone Levels.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Mark Rippetoe Teaches You How to Make Chicken Fried Steak.
MARK RIPPETOE: The Price of Panic with William Briggs.
MARK RIPPETOE: When Petty Tyrants Attack.
MARK RIPPETOE ON DEALING WITH STRESS.
MARK RIPPETOE ON GETTING BACK IN THE GYM AFTER 2 OR 3 MONTHS OFF. I should’ve stopped at 225 my first time, as he suggests, instead of 275. As he warns, I was sore as hell.
MARK RIPPETOE IS NOT HAPPY: Will the Fitness Industry Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic? Some Important Things to Consider. “As far as the fitness industry is concerned, we’re all in trouble. Places like mine, which are paid for and debt-free, can hunker down for a while. Bigger commercial gyms, with a lot of floor and a lot of rent, and an equipment note and a big payroll, have a lot harder time. Gold’s has already permanently closed some locations, 24 Hour Fitness is looking at a reorganization, and all the other big chains are being forced to reevaluate their very existence under the threat of periodic closure by the mayor. They can compete with each other, but they can’t compete against the police.”
Huh. Gold’s is still deducting my membership every month.
But I doubt the lesson from this is that we’ll be closing constantly. In fact, the more likely consequence is that we’ll be slower to close next time, because of the memories of this closure.
MARK RIPPETOE: In These Trying Times.
MARK RIPPETOE: The Minimum Effective Dose of Training.
MARK RIPPETOE ON The Texas Method.
MARK RIPPETOE: Strength And Its Derivatives.
MARK RIPPETOE: Apprenticeship: Regaining Its Rightful Position as the Best Pathway to a Rewarding Career.
First, every kid who gets a job working for a plumber, an electrician, a stonemason, a carpenter, a house framer, a heavy equipment operator, or any other master tradesmen has a great opportunity to learn the skills necessary to become a successful businessman in a trade that’s not going away as long as people are living and working in structures built by somebody else. Some of these apprenticeships are formalized (the electricians have done it this way for decades) and some of them are informal relationships between older professionals and younger kids who have enough sense to know a good opportunity when they see one.
Second, colleges and universities have really dropped the ball here. Historically, universities insisted that they were not vocational schools, but rather Institutions of Higher Education, concerned with preparing the human mind. It’s difficult to understand how an accounting or engineering degree is other than vocational, but the haughty attitude was dragged out when it was useful – like when we asked about jobs in a depressed market.
But our Geology degree was not Philosophy. We were there to learn a trade, and markets change. But we got a hard science education – with chemistry, physics, calculus, and labs – and hard science is more useful than soft arts. If you have to have calculus to graduate, your job prospects are pretty good because, as it turns out, employers are always looking for people who can complete difficult tasks.
But don’t fall into the Barack Obama trap of dissing Art History, which is a substantive field with, as Virginia Postrel pointed out, a lot of practical applications.
But even Obama was right to acknowledge the importance of the skilled trades.
MARK RIPPETOE: A Lie Agreed Upon – Trans Women in Women’s Sports.
MARK RIPPETOE ON THE FUTURE OF WOMEN’S SPORTS: “It’s actually more profound than pubertal considerations: the majority of the neuromuscular effects of testosterone occur in utero. The system is ‘primed’ for puberty in the pre-natal portion of human development, just as the changes to the sexual morphology of the developing human are so profoundly influenced by testosterone at the same time. The sexual infrastructure and the neuromuscular infrastructure develop at the same time, under the same in utero environmental influences of testosterone. The people yelling about the supposed fact that there are no differences between men and women that hormone therapy can’t fix right up are studiously ignoring this. They are quite wrong, everybody actually knows this, and politics are going to lose this round.”