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The Locust

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Onderstaand essay, "The Iron" van Henry Rollins, zullen de fans wel kennen, of gelezen hebben elders op het internet. Het is ook helemaal niet nieuw. Op het net vind je echter enkel verkorte versies of uittreksels. Ik heb zopas van hem een boek genaamd "The Portable Henry Rollins" gekocht met daarin o.a. de full version. Daarom, voor diegenen die het nog nooit gelezen zouden hebben... ...een klein meesterwerkje met meer rake one-liners als er hier ledensignatures zijn.

Lean back and enjoy...


The Iron

by Henry Rollins

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

When I was young, I had no sense of myself. I was a product of all the taunts and threats at school combined with the fear and humiliation I dealt with on a regular basis. At school I was told that I would never amount to anything. One instructor took to calling me “the garbage can” in front of the other students. I could never talk back to an instructor, so I had to sit still and take it. I started to believe them after a while. I was skinny and spastic. When others would tease me, I didn’t run home crying and wondering why. I knew very well why they antagonized me. I was that which was there to be antagonized. In sports, I was laughed at and never chosen to be on a team. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with a strange fury. The others thought I was crazy. I was not respected, just observed to see what I would do next.

I hated myself. As stupid as it seems now, I wanted to be like my fellow students in every way. I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease that one does when he knows he’s not going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. When I looked in the mirror and saw my sallow face staring back, I wanted nothing more than to be transformed into one of them, just for a night, to see what it would be like to have some of their seemingly well-adjusted happiness.

Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I would only talk to a certain few of the boys in my grade who were losers like me. To this day, some of those guys are some of the coolest people I’ve ever known. You hang out with a guy who’s gotten his head pushed into a toilet a few times and you treat him like you want to be treated, you’ll have a good friend there. Some of these guys were so funny. They saw things that the better-looking, more well-groomed members of our school would never see, knew things they would never know. I believe that they were the better for it. They certainly had the best jokes.

I had an instructor in history. His name was mr. Pepperman. I am forever in his debt. Mr. Peperman commanded intense respect and fear all over the school. He was an absolutely no-bullshit, powerfully built Viet veteran who barely spoke outside of class. No one talked out of turn in his class except once that I can remember. It was the class president. Mr. Pepperman lifted the boy off the ground by the lapels of his jacket and pinned him to the blackboard. That was it, as far as talking out of turn in class, or being late either.

One day in October, Mr Pepperman asked me if I had ever worked with weights. Actually he said something like “You’re a skinny little faggot. This weekend, have your mommy take you to Sears and buy one of those one-hundred-pound sand-filled weight sets and drag it home. I’ll show you how to use it.”

This was encouraging. He was not the nicest person I had ever met in my life, but at least he cared enough to tell me that much. Since it was Mr Pepperman telling me to do this, I did it. I figured he would throw me across the room if I didn’t. I got the weights into the basement somehow and left them on the floor. I was looking forward to Monday with a strange anticipation I had never felt before in my short life. He had told me to buy the weights, and I had done it. Something was sure to happen.

Monday came. I was called into his room after school. He asked if I had bought the weights. I told him that I had. What he told me next is something I’ll never forget. He said that he was going to show me proper ways to lift weights. He was going to put me on a program, and he was going to start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch, then I would know that I was getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror to see signs of change, nor was I to tell anyone at school what I was doing. I promised. I was going to make a list of all the reps and the weights I was lifting so I could monitor my progress, if I managed to make any. I was to turn in the chart at Christmas break. Never had anyone given me so much encouragement. He told me that it was going to be hard but I would like it if I gave it my all.

I went home that night and started right in on the exercises he had taught me. It was hard finding what weight was right for each lift, but I soon fell into step. I never missed a single workout. Sometimes I would do the workout twice. I noticed that my appetite grew incredibly. I was eating at least twice what I usually did. I felt like I could not get enough food in me. Weeks passed, and every once in while Mr.Pepperman would give me a shot in the hallway, sending my books all over the place. The other students didn’t know what to think. All the while I had this great secret I wasn’t telling anyone. I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror. I did everything he told me to do down on the letter. As the weeks went by, I steadily added more weight to the bar. I could feel the power inside my body grow.

Exams came right before Christmas break. I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept walking. That afternoon Mr Pepperman told me to bring in the chart the next day. I was still not allowed to look at myself or tell anyone of my secret work. I brought in the chart, and he asked if I had really come that far. I told him yes and I was proud of myself and I had never felt like this in my life. He said that I could go home and look at myself now.

I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled my shirt off. I could not recognize myself at first. My body had a shape. It was a body, not just the thing that housed a stomach and a heart. I could see the difference big-time. It was the first thing that I remember ever giving me a sense of accomplishment. I felt and looked strong. I had done something. Nobody could ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons learned from the Iron. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that I had given myself a great gift. I had learned to apply myself and that nothing good came without work and a certain amount of pain. You can kick ass in anything you want to do when you apply yourself completely. To this day, all the lessons I learned when I was fifteen are still with me.

I used to think that the Iron was my enemy and I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. My triumph was making the iron do what I wanted it to do – move. I seen now that I was wrong. When the iron doesn’t want to come off the hooks, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. It’s trying to help you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, then it wouldn’t be doing you any good. It’s not resisting you in the least. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. My triumph is to work with the Iron. The material you work with is that which you will come to ressemble. That which you work against will always work against you, including yourself.

I used to fight the pain through the workout. My triumph was to take it and bear it all the way through. Hating the pain and the way it made me feel. Recently the lesson was made clear to me. The pain that fills my body when I hit the Iron is not my enemy. It is the call to greatness. It’s my body trying to pull me higher.

People usuallly only go so far. Pain keeps them back. There is pain on many different levels. To change is painful. To go after something that’s out of reach is painful. Pain doesn’t have to be a deterrent. Pain can inspire you to reach past yourself. When dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to correctly interpret the pain. You must seek proper instruction so you don’t injure yourself. Most injuries involved with the Iron come from ego. Try to lift what you’re not ready for, and the Iron will teach you a lesson in restraint and self-control. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that I was not ready for and spent a few months of not picking up anything heavier than a fork. It was my ego that made me try to lift weigth that was still several months and workouts away.

Through the years, I’ve combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strenght. Only when the body is strong can the mind think strong thoughts. It’s up to an individual’s character what he does with his strenth. The difference between a big bouncer who get’s off strong-arming people and leaving them in pain, and Mr. Pepperman and his gift of strenght.

The strength I have attained through the combined efforts of what I described earlier is a One relationship. The mind and body develop strenght and grow as a single thing. Go out and see for yourself. The strongest number is One. Aspire to the One and understand strenght and balance. I cannot believe a weak person who says he has true self-respect. I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have it. I think that a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off for self-respect.

I have found that the Iron is a great cure for loneliness. Loneliness is a desire for what is not there with you. You can be lonely for an infinite number of things, people, feelings – whatever creates a void in your life with its absence. Sometimes your loneliness has nothing to attach itself to. You’re just lonely, flat out. The Iron can pull you through when all else fails. You’ll find that it was you that got you through. Loneliness is energy. Powerful as hell. People kill themselves sick on loneliness. They drink themselves into the floorboards. They do all kinds of damaging things to themselves to combat their loneliness. The loneliness is real. The energy is real. I can’t see what good it does to damage yourself trying to feel better. If one can apply all this real energy to damaging oneself, then isn’t it possible to harness all this energy into something positive to combat loneliness ?

Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind and body degenerate. I turn on myself and wallow in thick depression that makes me unable to function. The body shuts my mind down. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. No better way to fight weakness than with strenght. Fight degeneration with generation. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, there is, in many ways, no way to turn back. You might not remember when you started working out, but you’ll sure as hell remember when you stopped, and you won’t look back at it with much joy because you know you’re depriving yourself of yourself.

The iron will always kick you the real deal. You work out correctly and patiently and maintain a good diet, and you will become stronger. You don’t work out for a while, and muscle will go away. You get what you put into it. You learn the process of becoming.

Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. I see them move from their offices to their cars and to their homes. They stress out constantly. They lose sleep. Their egos run wild. They become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. You never have to lose it. You really don’t. There’s no excuse for freaking out at the workplace, school, anywhere. No need for a midlife crisis. You need the Iron Mind.

The Iron is always there for you. Your friends will come and go. In the time it takes to blink your eye someone you thought you knew might turn into someone you can no longer stand to be around. Fads come and go, almost everything comes and goes. However, the Iron is the Iron. Two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs, never lies.

Henry Rollins.

[Afbeelding niet meer beschikbaar]
 
Kende hem natuurlijk al, maar blijft mooi stukje. Vooral ook mooi contrast met de patsers die naar gym gaan om in het weekend met de armpjes over mekaar in de disco te staan.
 
Gaaf stuk ja, keep 'em coming!
 
Het blijft me een raadsel hoe die man er in slaagde om met zo'n geschift tourschema toch deftig te trainen ; hij leeft al 20 jaar on the road. Heb ergens gelezen dat hij 165 benchte en 225kg squatte. Niet slecht voor een 'rockster'. Ik heb ook gelezen dat hij ooit tegelijk gym memberships had in Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne en Tokyo.

Quote "I like to train powerlifting style. Heavy weights, low reps. Like lifting the weight for three times ; the last two reps are just attitude."

Maar laatst toen ik hem zag op een spoken work optreden viel me wel op dat hij niet meer zo breed is als vroeger. "I lowered the weight and upped the reps. Saw a little back injury coming along the way".

Tja hij wordt een jaartje ouder zeker... Blijft niettemin de max om hem bezig te zien.
 
Volledig doorgelezen, dit is echt het beste artikel die ik in tijden gelezen heb wat betreft motivatie! Alles is zo ver weg maar toch zo herkenbaar, denk dat velen hier wel de losers van de klas waren voor ze begonnen met trainen. Ik in ieder geval wel! Nu kan het me in feite niets meer schelen, ik weet dat wat ik doe en voel veel belangrijker is dan wat ik aanheb van fancy kleren of hoe ik praat, en wat anderen van me denken. Kan me niets meer schelen, ik train voor mezelf, en dit uit ik dan ook in men uiterlijk (big, fat, bald, ... en kledij niet veel beter: baggy broeken met combat boots eronder, ;))

Dit stukje is gewoon niet te verwoorden, het heeft me in bepaalde zin wel geraakt :thumb:
 
Henry heeft een tijdje op het hardgainers of the round table forum gepost (what's in a name hehe) toen zei ie dat ie 475-275-500 doet. Dus squat 215 bench 125 en deadlift 225.. Echt goed voor iemand die zo'n leven leidt en bijna niets eet, maar die kerel is gewoon intens.
 
hmmm... who really knows... hangt er misschien vanaf over wanneer we spreken... zal ook wel mythevorming zijn... check this :

"A few minutes after taking my seat in the sound booth, Rollins walks on-stage, wearing a black sweater and more than a few layers of excess muscle tissue. One of the lighting people in the sound booth comments on how Rollins is known to bench-press over 370 pounds in his daily workout. From the looks of the man, I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Henry Rollins is larger than the average bus, and most likely consumes more gasoline"

en dan deze :

"Regular workouts here - he began lifting at the age of 14, at the behest of a teacher - provide Rollins with the bulk that makes him famous. "My best bench press is 285, 290," he says, surveying the equipment with obvious pride. "Usually I go at it very hard, very studiously. But I haven't had time to do the workouts I want, so it leaves me handicapped. And when I'm not given the chance to work out the way I like to, I feel really...furious."

Gazing at the machine the way other men might look upon a loved one's bed, Rollins tells me that lifting weights means more to him than simply keeping fit. "It's a total metaphor for life. If you hit it hard, it gives back to you. You give it 100 percent and you're built like a brick sh*thouse; you cheat and you break your back. Three hundred pounds does not care if it crushes your head or if you put it back in the hooks. I don't think you get a better deal in life. Women leave you, money gets stolen, 300 pounds just sits on that bar saying, 'Lift me or don't'".

Anyway, zoals hij er nu uitziet is hij zeker 15kg lichter dan toen ik hem de eerste keer zag...
 
Denk dat dat eerste stukje bullshit is, tweede zal wel kloppen.

Nog een article over z'n training:


Pop/Rock Feature - September 2001


Punking Iron with Henry Rollins



Punk icon/spoken word shaman/fitness guru Henry Rollins shows you the abs and downs of his workout drill.

by Albert Mudrian

When not fronting the Rollins Band, authoring books, doing spoken word performances, hosting the new Fox Television show "Night Visions" or a few hundred other things, Henry Rollins likes to work out. "The beauty of weight lifting is all about you," he says. "If you feel strong that day and brave, you're gonna do the brave workout. When you're feeling wimpy, you're not gonna do that last set. You can measure, mentally, how you're doing and the best part of the whole workout thing for me is the mental strength I get out of it. Physical fitness is great, but the biggest benefit for me is always the confidence that came from willfully going up against that pain. It's given me a lot of confidence because I was not really raised into having that much self-confidence." As a motivational service, Henry takes us step by grueling step through his regimen and shows us just how weak we really are.


Shoulders

Overhead Press
(3 sets, 5 to 10 reps, heavy weight)

Barbell Rows
(2 sets, 5 to 10 reps, heavy weight)

Shoulder Shrugs
(2 sets, 20 reps, heavy weight)

Power Clean Lifts
(2 sets, 10 reps, heavy weight)


Henry says:

Not many people do overhead stuff anymore, you never see it in gyms. And if you really wanna get strong default to the old school stuff. I learned from pre-historic caveman lifters who don't use supplements, who do not bench press, who don't use lifting belts or wraps. Some of these guys' workouts are picking up duffle bags of sand in their front yard for an hour and wrestling half-filled barrels of water where the thing is literally throwing itself out of your arms. Anyway, I start with overhead presses--some days I do sets of five with heavy weights and recently, knowing I'm going into a lot of hot weather shows, I'm going for sets of ten. So I'm going for a leaner harder work out, rather than what I do in the wintertime, which are sets of five. Then I go to bent-over barbell rows where your back is parallel to the ground and you're taking the bar off the ground to your hips. I will use a weight belt with that because I don't want a back problem. From there I go to shrugs, which I pull off the ground, usually in a dead lift grip. From there, if I'm feeling brave and I'm not feeling like I'm gonna throw up, I'll do some power cleans.

Legs

Squats
(1 set, 10-20 reps, medium weight)

Leg Press
(3 sets, 5 to 10 reps, heavy weight)


Henry says:

People always ask me, "What do you bench?" And that's, to me, someone who doesn't work out. No one who works out would ever ask you what you bench. What you squat, to me, is the measure of a man. Leg day is the day I dread. That's the day where you throw up, you pass out, hopefully without the bar on your back. Leg day at home depends on how brave I'm feeling and what time of the year it is. Sometimes I do the death set of 20, that's something you can do about 10 of. So around 10 you're done, the next ten is like the worst 70 seconds of your life. I turn the music off because if I have loud music on after a set of 20, it will make me throw up. So I'll turn the music off and get psyched up so I can get the first ten done and concentrate on the second ten and that is all the squatting I'll do that day. That's where you get this interesting thing, at least for my body, where you don't get much muscle gain, as far as actual size, but you get really strong to where you're lifting 315 below parallel, no belt, no wraps. Then I'll do some inclined leg press because it helps me keep my form, heavy sets, and if I have enough stamina I'll do some calf work. This takes about an hour.


Arms

Triceps Extensions (2 to 3 sets, 10-20 reps, medium weight)

Standing Barbell Curls (2 to 3 sets 10-20 reps, heavy weight)


Henry says:

You want strong arms to stabilize your lifts. It's good to have good triceps when you're trying to get out of a heavy bench or when you're trying to get the bar to move when you're doing overhead stuff. Arm day is very intense and very brief. It's usually barbell curls and triceps extensions. Two arms, I use a curl bar. Also on chest day, the last thing I'll do is reverse grip bench press, which is pretty much all triceps; it's pretty effective. It kinda takes you a while to get used to the bar sitting in your hands that way. Some people who have had shoulder problems can only bench press that way because it's not hard on the shoulders.


Chest

Bench Press (2 to 3 sets, 10-20 reps, medium weight)


Henry says:

Chest day is bench. Right now, I'm doing four sets of ten of whatever I can do. Then I'll do the same workout the next week but do four sets of 11 and then I'll go back to four sets of 10 but I'll up the weight 5 pounds. I'll be doing that until I leave for the Warped tour. In the winter time I do sets of five, and I usually go like really heavy; my bench press isn't all that good so I'm doing sets of five with, like, 260 pounds. Now I'm doing way less but I'm just doing way more reps, basically just going for longer range muscle. Then bench is not that important to me--it's a great way to blow your shoulders apart. And to me, anyone's bench is never that impressive.



Back

Dead Lift (1 set, 10 reps to "as many as you can get," medium weight)


Henry says:

The back is dead lift, primarily. What I try and do is take a medium weight and you just rep out--you know, something you can do ten of and then you try for ten as your minimum and you just go for as many as you can get; it really makes you strong. It really works. Medium weight is around 365. In the wintertime when I'm about 15 to 20 pounds heavier than I am now, I'll rep out in the 400s with sets of 12 and 13. Then I'm around 195 pounds--right now, I'm around 180.

Abdominals

Abdominal Crunches (1 set, "as many as you can get")


Henry says:

Just do ab crunches. I just do sets until the pain makes me stop. I try not to count. I just try to go until I can't get my legs off the floor. Dead lifting is good for the abs as well and, of course, band practice.


Note: This is an advanced workout. Please consult a physician before beginning any exercise program.




Henry's Road Workout
Do you bring free weights with you or do you hit gyms when on tour?


"I go to gyms. Well, in every major city-- I've worked out in Tokyo, in Rio de Janeiro --there's usually a gym. Some parts of Europe are a little hard to find gyms in, but you just have to look around. You try and get five workouts in a week and if you're lucky you get in three. So I usually have a different workout for the road than I do when I'm home. When I'm at home I have all of my weights in the garage, so I just turn on the boom box and I go to work. On tour, you have like 45 minutes and then you have to be back at the venue. So what I'll do is just your basic prison workout. Just heavier weights, lower reps and more muscle groups and just basically do one-and-a-half, two workouts at once."


How much running and cardio training do you usually do?


"I do some running; I've been getting back into running as of late and the first couple of nights I thought I was gonna have a heart attack, it really hurt. I almost barfed a couple of times. I'm good for a few six or seven minute miles at a time, then my right knee which I had surgery on, starts acting up."


How much does your diet change when you're on the road?


"I tend to eat less on the road, just because it's less convenient, so what I try to do is circumvent feeding difficulties, which is bad in the long term if you're gonna tour like we do. You're gonna start losing weight and you are gonna start losing energy, so I employ MET-Rx. That to me has been the most significant nutritional corner I've turned in the last six years. I use all of it; bars, shakes, the Creatine I like a lot pre-show and sometimes post-show for recovery. MET-Rx sponsors the band and myself; I've been a spokesperson since 1995. I think that's quite the good cure. I can recommend it to anybody."
 
deze had ik nog niet gelezen ! THANX !
 
Ok. Henry Rollins is vanaf nu een van mijn helden! Ik zag al eens een clip van HR-band toen ik nog niks van hem afwist en toen dacht ik al 'wtf is dit voor powerlifter'. Even wat meer over die gozer lezen!
 
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