MARK RIPPETOE ON “WORK SMART:” Stress Builds Character.

MARK RIPPETOE: Strength Training For Women In The Military.

UPDATE: Sorry, this is by C.J. Gotcher. Rippetoe sent me the link, and I didn’t notice that it was by someone else.

MARK RIPPETOE ANSWERS A QUESTION FROM MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Is there a connection between low testosterone and victimhood culture?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Mark Rippetoe asks, Good Trainers vs. Bad Trainers: How Can You Tell the Difference?

MARK RIPPETOE: The First Three Questions.

VIDEOS: Conversations On Strength With Mark Rippetoe.

MARK RIPPETOE: Making Money, Getting Strong: Two Grownup Responsibilities.

COULD MARK RIPPETOE SAVE AMERICAN POLITICS? My Barbell Cure For Flabby Brains.

I am constantly reading stories about the connection between weight training and cognition. Apparently, regularly lifting weights keeps the brain in fighting trim. This affects everybody, not just seniors. If you pump iron a couple of times a week, it can help slow memory loss and improve cognitive skills and generally help you behave in a more intelligent fashion.

This got me to thinking about the deplorable cognitive skills we see in most politicians. Politicians are so busy gasbagging and kissing babies and raising money that they don’t get to exercise on a regular basis. Could this explain why they seem so dumb? Politicians regularly forget where Sri Lanka and Neptune are and have trouble remembering the capital of Slovenia or who won the Crimean War. They often say things that are just plain wrong: for example, that high taxes are good for you.

The public naturally assumes that pols are just poorly informed and even stupid, but this may not be the case. Maybe they don’t pump enough iron. If they worked out a couple of times a week and kept their brains in tiptop shape, they’d probably go back to being the thoughtful and intelligent people that they were when they first went into politics. I can’t help noticing that most of the people in Congress who seem really smart look totally ripped. . . .

Increasingly, when I have a serious matter to attend to, I seek out professionals who look like they pump iron.

Hmm.

RECOVERY VIA BARBELL TRAINING: Mark Rippetoe sends this video and writes: “This is the guy who fell off the roof, destroyed both his legs, was told he’d never walk again, and has since deadlifted 600. A very funny and emotional presentation. . . . Recorded at our coaches convention, and there was not a dry eye in the house.”

OVER AT MARK RIPPETOE’S STARTING STRENGTH SITE, Strength In Combat.

NIGHTTIME HEAVY METAL: Mark Rippetoe conducted his Bullets & Bourbon workout sessions on the helipad at Rough Creek Lodge. In order to accommodate the number of guests who wished to attend his workouts, a session was added for Friday night at 5:30 PM. The engineers at Rough Creek improvised the illumination via a generator and lights on poles, which made for some cool photographs as well, such as this one, shooting into one of the lights:

Glenn Reynolds prepares for an Insta-lift; in the right-hand side of the frame, Mark talks shop with one of our guests:

Click to pump both photos up to full size.

MARK RIPPETOE: Women In Ground Combat: A Strength Coach’s Opinion.

MARK RIPPETOE: Pajama Boy Redux: The Male in Modern Society. “The route from Beowulf to Pajama Boy has been a very long downhill slide.”

MARK RIPPETOE: Strength Training For Women. “Another obvious implication is just lying there, waiting to piss people off. The role of women in infantry combat positions in the military is controversial, and it shouldn’t be. If there is a way to quantitatively evaluate the role of strength and power in the physical demands of combat, and the preparation of soldiers for combat readiness, the differences between male and female physical potential cannot be ignored. As unpopular as this may be politically, the fact remains that the reality of human sexual dimorphism must be dealt with.”

MARK RIPPETOE: ‘Hypermasculinity’ and You: The Problem with Your Biceps.

VIDEO: MARK RIPPETOE VISITS ROUGH CREEK LODGE IN ANTICIPATION OF BULLETS & BOURBON IN DECEMBER:

Additionally, we’d like to welcome the event’s newest sponsors, Ricochet.com and Rolling Thunder Cigars.

Join Mark, Glenn, Roger L. Simon, Stephen Green, Ed Morrissey, Dana Loesch and Kevin D. Williamson December 3rd through the 6th at Rough Creek Lodge in the Dallas area for Bullets & Bourbon; details here.

(Bumped from last night.)

VIDEO: MARK RIPPETOE VISITS ROUGH CREEK LODGE IN ANTICIPATION OF BULLETS & BOURBON IN DECEMBER:

Additionally, we’d like to welcome the event’s newest sponsors, Ricochet.com and Rolling Thunder Cigars.

Join Mark, Glenn, Roger L. Simon, Stephen Green, Ed Morrissey, Dana Loesch and Kevin D. Williamson December 3rd through the 6th at Rough Creek Lodge in the Dallas area for Bullets & Bourbon; details here.

MARK RIPPETOE: Government Exercise: See the NIH’s Embarrassing Fitness Recommendations. “If ‘exercises’ less strenuous than your daily activity actually worked, you’d already be fit.”

It’s like he wrote a book on this stuff or something.

VLAD, GET OFF THOSE GIRLY-MAN WEIGHT MACHINES AND TRY READING MARK RIPPETOE INSTEAD. THEN YOU’LL LOOK LIKE A REAL MAN. Putin launches a new arms race: Action man Vlad’s latest photo stunt shows him and Russian PM Medvedev pumping iron in the gym.

Of course, when your competition looks like this, it’s easy to put on airs, so don’t get cocky, Vlad.