Leg Day Observer: 26.2 miles and runnin'
on marathons and their relationship to strength training
New Leg Day Observer column on Inverse.com about marathoning, and lifting:
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/powerlifting-gear-do-you-need-it
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/powerlifting-gear-do-you-need-it
which is more specifically about the relationship between gear — things — to results. I was looking, when I was writing the column, for this quote by maybe RL Burnside, about how he could play any guitar and it would sound good; that he didn’t need a Gibson…. I can’t find the quote. There’s a similar line in The Departed (2006), where Jack Nicholson’s character quotes John Lennon who was saying the same thing. I couldn’t fit that one into the story. I’m not sure this disdain for equipment relates to distance running, where the best equipment can be revelatory.
The answer seems to be that gear helps but isn’t everything. It’s different in lifting than with running. I touch on it in the story but don’t dwell… gyms here are missing a lot of good, important equipment. That assertion that it doesn’t bear dwelling over…. no gym is pleasant to go to… none has been… even the best gyms are busy and therefore unpleasant. The specifically worst thing about most gyms is many if not all are missing the following pieces of equipment:
and this one:
and, to a lesser extent, this one:
The reverse hyper, belt squat and glute-ham raise. The first two were reportedly invented by Louie Simmons… who is a powerlifting coach with an outsized reputation and a facility for interjection and who is in all three videos. His gym Westside’s results in powerlifting are middling (last time I checked) and his philosophy of lift compartmentalization, which he took from Russian weightlifting, has become outmoded at the elite level of powerlifting, and doesn’t seem to work for raw powerlifting (which is without compression suits, which help the lifter) like it used to in equipped (compression suits).
However…. I think people are wrong about him. He’s a visionary, and is better judged as an athletic tinkerer, or inventor… or thinker… whatever… than he is as a powerlifting coach. (He’s still a very, very good coach.) Simmons has gussied up his lifters’ strength routines in weird ways and in the process invented strength training equipment that is both restorative AND strengthening. Simmons read a lot of Russian strength training manuals back then (rev. hyper is IIRC a 70s machine) and thought of them… the belt squat is a non-spinal loading squat…. the hyper works out the entire posterior chain…. and GHR mostly does that too…
I don’t know how he’s regarded in the powerlifting community but his inventions stand apart from him. They are revolutionary and help people. His machines have progressed past him. They are best for people who have issues with their posterior chain (these are the muscles on the back of your body (back, hamstrings, glutes, etc)). This comprises everyone who sits down for most of the day. If you sit down you could or should assault your body with exercises on these machines… but so few gyms have these. Strength and Science barbell in Brooklyn has some. Crossfit gyms have them. You have to call a gym to find out if they’re there. These should be at every $20 gym in America. That’s all.
Back to running. Marathons are wild. There’s an old saying that to be a man you have to: plant a tree, have a son, and write a book. I don’t know about all that; it seems gendered and restrictive. I would decouple man from gender and have it be “the man.” … I think of the Zen Buddhist koan, “fuck the man, I’m the man,” which was a T-shirt as well…. and add marathon to the list. I would also add the following things:
see Bulldoze live
eat an entire pack of gum at once (not on a plane)
go fishing alone
paint a fence against your will
be kicked out of a bar
go to a restaurant and have your order, or at least a Diet Coke, waiting for you by the time you sit down
make spaghetti so al dente that only your one houseguest who either is from or lived in Rome appreciates it, and everyone else shows up with a neck brace on as a gag the next time it’s your turn to make dinner
ski a double-black diamond hill (either successfully or with multiple wipeouts)
play a musical instrument
do your nails yourself
go fishing alone, twice
squat double bodyweight
shave your head with no extension
ignore all suggestions for gendered living
read War and Peace
I don’t know. It’s an endless list. Running a marathon is up there with fishing for sure. The worst thing about squatting is all the eating. Who has time?
Thanks for reading.
Snake
Other work: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-JLRt0Ec6gZBm50hATYCYmLctnF9GhVijoEbam50JSw/edit