Saturday, June 29, 2013

Don't Blame the Victim?

I've noticed something lately...one of the unfortunate side-effects of becoming "educated." This is something that comes up on the wholesome topics of rape and violence against women (especially when terms like "patriarchy" and "rape culture" are floating about). What have I noticed? I've noticed people getting on their soap box (much like I'm doing right now -- what, you've never seen a hypocrite before?) and declaring that when we tell girls/women that if they don't want to get raped don't put themselves into a situation that makes it easy for rapists to rape them, that we're saying that it's a girl/woman's fault if she is sexually assaulted/abused. This is often taken to the extent of not just saying that we blame the victim, but that we don't blame the villain.


This is bad reasoning.

Firstly, recognising responsibility does not necessitate pointing the finger of blame. I believe that so long as a woman lives in this world, she has a responsibility to herself to understand that the world is not all rainbows and unicorns, and that the world isn't going to treat her with honour and respect as an innate default position, therefore she has a responsibility to herself to use that understanding wisely. By saying this, I am not for a second saying that if a woman is mistreated that I blame her for being mistreated. No, the blame goes entirely to the person who has mistreated her. That does not take the onus off of her to do what she can to reduce the risk of that happening.

Secondly, saying that someone should protect themselves is not dismissing other peoples' ability or willingness to mistreat someone. When I say that a woman should take reasonable precautions to avoid personal harm, I am not saying that the person who would harm her is any less guilty. In fact, a rapist may successfully rape someone who takes all reasonable precautions -- people set on violating others will find a way. Without getting into the issue of impulsiveness and how that skews things, I'll make the generalisation that the villain is in control of their actions: they are responsible for what they do, and if they can't help themselves in the moment, they are responsible for keeping themselves out of a situation that would cause people harm -- if they are unwilling to take up that responsibility to keep themselves from harming others, I think I heard of these institutions once that facilitate keeping them out of such situations in broader society...I think they're called prisons (where real rape culture exists). And that's just it: we implore the potential victim to be mindful and protect herself; we lock up the villain. That's about as far from blaming the victim as can be.

What really bothers me, though, is not how logical/illogical this sentiment is. What deeply disturbs me is what it would look like to teach girls/women that they do not have a responsibility to themselves to avoid risky situations...and I've actually witnessed that practical advice being given. It's reckless, it's dangerous, it's not in the least bit loving to raise your daughter not to protect herself from the harm that's in the world. Let's assume for a moment that "rape culture" is legitimate: that society is okay with rape (an accusation that certainly doesn't fit society's general attitude that rape is one of the worst things you can do to a person, right up there amongst torture and murder). This doesn't for a moment suggest that the wise way to behave in society is as though rape culture isn't the norm, in fact it's all the more reason to protect yourself. Of course, if we don't live in a rape culture and rape is considered a highly offensive, immoral, despicable, disgusting, outrageous, antisocial crime committed by the fringes, the knowledge that there are still people out there who revel in society's standard of evil, who take pleasure in violating society's morals, is still reason for a woman to apply wisdom and protect herself from harm. I'm not talking about being paranoid and wrapping yourself up in bubble-wrap (fun though it is), I'm talking about being aware that the world is not perfect and approaching that fact of life sensibly. Yes, I am handing you the gauntlet of personal responsibility -- if feminism wants you to be anything other than an irresponsible child, it should be doing the same. No, I am not blaming you for when things go wrong.

This whole way through, I've been addressing gendered crime, because that's the context in which this whole issue arises. However, this applies regardless of gender. Both men and women can be victims, and both men and women can be villains. Both men and women have a personal responsibility to recognise that there are threats in the world, and to use their wisdom to reduce the risks to themselves. We also have a responsibility to our loved ones: to protect them, and to enable them to protect themselves if at all possible. The issue is much bigger than rape and gender-related crime. When I encourage you to use the stuff between your ears to consider what you can do to protect yourself, I am not blaming you if someone commits a crime against you.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Training -- Fri 28/06/2013

The flexors of my thumbs have been giving me grief since Tuesday, and they're still at it, so I wasn't expecting much from this session. Turns out I did pretty good.

Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
3x5x135kg -- PB and no missed reps :D

Bench Press/GHR

10x20kg/7xGreen
5x40kg/7xGreen
3x10x60kg/7xGreen -- Didn't add weight because of my thumbs; turned out I could have. Didn't encounter any issues until the last couple reps of the last set of BP, during which my right hand started twitching. We were discussing early in the session how the only numbers that exist are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20. That being the case, clearly I was faking it on GHR.

Pull Ups/Calf Raise

3x8xBW/10x360lb

Barbell Row

2x12x50kg

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Training -- Wed 26/06/2013

OHP/F.Squat/Cable Row

10xBW
10x20kg/10x20kg/10x47.5kg
3x35kg/5x35kg/10x47.5kg
5x48kg/3x48kg/10x47.5kg
2x4x48kg/5x48kg/10x47.5kg

Push Press/F.Squat/Cable Row

5x50kg/5x50kg/10x47.5kg
4x50kg/5x50kg/10x57.5kg
1x70kg S.Fsquat

Deadlift

10x70kg
5x100kg
2x130kg
2x3x157.5kg -- Not using the best bar in the world, and I had been chopping wood last night.
2x2x157.5kg
10x107.5kg

Lunge Pass Through

10x5kg

Monday, June 24, 2013

Training -- Mon 24/06/2013

Bench Press/Pull Ups

10x20kg/12xBW
5x40kg/10xBW
3x60kg/10xBW
1x70kg
5x80kg
4x80kg -- 5th rep attempted, needed spot.
3x80kg -- Hands were not evenly placed, messed up the set. Couldn't be stuffed doing another set.

CGBP/Pull Ups

10x55kg
10x55kg/10xBW

Pause Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x82.5kg
2x5x105kg

RDL

3x10x72.5kg

Fat Gripz Row/Calf Raise

10x50kg/11x360lb
10x50kg/10x360lb

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Training -- Sat 22/06/2013

Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
5x132.5kg -- First rep felt easy; bar didn't feel heavy.
3x132.5kg -- First rep felt like a 4th rep; bar felt like it weighted a tonne.
4x132.5kg -- Very psyched up, but not enough to make the set start out easy.
3x132.5kg -- Making up for lost reps; felt about as ungood as the second set.

Bench Press/GHR

10x20kg/6xGreen
5x40kg/6xGreen
3x10x60kg/6xGreen -- Didn't progress weight from last week, because last week was a grinder.

Barbell Row

5x10x50kg

Skipping

00:01:30 -- Or thereabouts. Epic cardio.



Yay. Blogger's recognising my youtube account again.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

How to Leave Ryan Disappointed and Offended

I was recently made aware of this: 10 Reasons Why Heavy Lifting is Terrible for Women

Knowing where the article was coming from, I knew it was going to be a joke article, and that the whole thing was going to be riddled with sarcasm. As someone who speaks sarcasm as his first language (English as second language), I had some high expectations when I went clicking. Ultimately, half the article disappointed me, being significantly less funny than any author over the age of 12 has an excuse for, and the other half was either offensive or stupid (or both). I'm now going to dissect the article (although I won't post my ideas about every single point in it), and break down why I was so unimpressed with it. In other words, I'm going to critique someone's comedy work, ergo treating this like serious business, because humour is no laughing matter.

Let's start with some of the disappointments.

"Pants won't fit because your butt has gotten so big. Imagine actually filling out a pair of pants, the horror!!"

Rookie error. The most cliched thing for any female to ever worry about is "Does my bum look big in this?" (as a sensitive new age guy or whatever the nut I am when I'm not scratching my crutch and belching, I'm pretty sure real women actually worry about other things like the $300,000 debt on the home and the poop in the baby's nappy and the unresolved issues from last night's argument with the mister and how guests are due in under two hours and the house is a mess; but what would I know?). There was so much opportunity to play on stereotypical insecurities here, like how a squat booty is bigger than a never-been-to-the-gym-in-my-life booty, therefore your bum must look big in that dress that always looked so good on you, therefore your boyfriend/fiance/husband/that-guy-you're-trying-to-attract-who-seems-nice-but-you-really-need-to-get-to-know-him-a-bit-better-before-making-a-decision-so-you're-just-seeing-how-things-go-for-a-bit is going to be so disappointed and underwhelmed when he sees you and all your romantic efforts are going to be in vain and everything's going to be ruined and you just want to know that he likes you but your bum looks so big he couldn't possibly...!!! Yeah, there wasn't any of that, there was just the horrible, horrible fear of making your pants fit. Come on, guys, you can do better than that.

"You can each a much larger amount of delicious food and not gain a pound. Disgusting! Pass the tofu and skim milk please."

Okay, using the word "disgusting" doesn't present something as disgusting. The whole point of sarcasm is that you say the opposite of what you mean, rather than say exactly what you mean, and then throw in a negative assertion about it. Granted, a sarcastic cutaway can work, but when the whole article is meant to be sarcastic, again, you've missed a great opportunity. The big error here was starting with a positive, and presenting it exactly like a positive for the entire first sentence. Instead, the author could have gone to great lengths to tell us about how you need to eat so much food just to maintain weight. Does eating a lot of food sound good? Think again, ladies. Food is expensive, and once your metabolic rate increases from strength training, you're gong to have to force feed yourself just to keep up. Eating is nice when you're hungry, but force-feeding? You'll grow to hate food so quickly while your bank account suffers at the same time. The costs just aren't worth it. See what I did there? I actually made it sound like this is a bad thing: Instead of having the freedom to enjoy more food, you've lost your freedom to make choices with food or to enjoy it -- now it's just a difficult chore that will make you hate what you once loved. When there's just a moment of sarcasm, it can work well to have blatant sarcasm, but when the whole article is sarcasm, subtlety is key: I shouldn't be entirely sure that I'm reading a joke until I'm partway through.

"Heavy lifting can be as diverse as you want to make it. Your time would be much better spent on a treadmill every day watching CNN."

Cool story, but you forgot to funny. Like the point about being able to eat more, they failed to present this as a negative. Diversity is a THREAT, m'kay? You go to the gym, you see the cardio theatre, and it's simple, easy and clear. You've got a row of treadmills, recumbent bikes, ellipticals, stationary bikes, rowers, stair masters and climbers (assuming a thoroughly-stocked gym; most gyms I've been in actually only have about 4 of the above). You get on them, you start moving, you sweat, you breathe heavy, and you just keep on doing that for 20 minutes before moving onto the next cardio machine (only 20 minutes, because it's gym etiquette to let other ladies have their turn). But then you look at the weights area. There's a hundred different machines, plus all the free weights. This is overwhelming! There's far too many things to do. The cluttered mess that is your gym is a confusing place, and trying to make sense of the weight room means you have to go through the stress of planning, making decisions, and taking the big risk that they're the wrong decisions. This isn't just overwhelming, this is needlessly scary. When you step out of your comfort zone, you expose yourself to all sorts of hazards. What if you choose the wrong exercises? What if you do them wrong? What if this exercise is dangerous? What if that exercise doesn't work? Why waste your time doing difficult, dangerous exercises that don't work when you could just follow a simple routine of walking on the treadmill at the same intensity for the same duration at the same time every day while watching the news (on a more serious note, there's really nothing wrong with moving your body lightly and getting some highlights of information about what's going in the world at the same time -- if the news were on while I was in the gym, I'd probably be a much smarter man in terms of awareness of what's going on around me)?

Now for some points that ranged from stupid to offensive.

"Your children might see that a woman can be something more than a frail object meant to please a man. Challenging the status quo is never a good thing."

If lifting weights is the first sign that you have something more to offer the world than "pleas[ing] a man," then it's probably the only sign. I don't recall Queen Elizabeth I being influential for picking things up and putting them down again. I don't recall Portia saving the day in The Merchant of Venice by squeezing out two more reps. I don't recall the women's rights activists changing the dynamic of western culture in the 20th Century through deadlifts, or demanding to be recognised on the basis of how much they lift. When you reverse engineer this quote from the original article, it's effectively saying that women who don't lift have no purpose other than to appease a man. As a man who has had more female bosses than male bosses; who has learned from more female teachers than male teachers; who knows that his mother did a hell of a lot more for him than conceive him; who has intimately cared for a woman who is intelligent, considerate, joyful and has endured all kinds of adversity; who knows that he wouldn't be where he is now (for better or worse) without the influence of the women who have been in his life, I flat out reject this author's understanding of the status quo and feel it entirely reasonable to be offended. This author has basically dismissed the importance of women in society by suggesting that without lifting they are just "frail object[s] meant to please a man."

"You will find less and less that you are asked to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich. What will you do with all that free time?!?"

This is just moronic. If someone's going to ask you to make a sandwich, they're going to do it whether you lift or not. In any healthy relationship, I'm 99% confident that there's no correlation between how much a woman lifts and how often she's asked to make sandwiches by her boyfriend/husband, and her kids are going to ask for sandwiches at the same rate regardless. The only reason (that has any correlation to strength training) why someone who was comfortable asking for sandwiches will no longer ask is because you became a nazi and started spreading whey and creatine on all sandwiches instead of butter, in which case they're right not to ask you to make sandwiches, because now your sandwiches suck. While I think the inclusion of this...joke?... was stupid, if we're going to run with it anyway, from a sarcasm fail point of view, it would have been more effective to make a big deal about unproductive, wasteful "down time" rather than "free time."

"You will be shunned from old friends that want you to go clubbing every night. Those are the kinds of friends you just don't want to lose."

This doesn't even merit commentary due to how unrelated lifting and clubbing are. Last night I spent a fair amount of time trying to articulate how pointless of a statement this is. I made the same mistake just now. There is no point explaining how stupid this statement is. It's just an attack on youth and night club culture, a culture which -- by the way -- has plenty of people in it (both male and female) who lift. In fact, when I was doing my Diploma of Fitness, I was one of the few people that I'm aware of who wasn't super-keen on going clubbing, and most of the girls in my classes lifted. Lifting was not an aversion towards anyone going clubbing every night, and if not for classes the next day and a general lack of money (being students), there are plenty who would have gone clubbing as often as possible.

Okay, that's enough ranting now. Bye.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Training -- Wed 19/06/2013

OHP/F. Squat/Cable Row

10xBW
10x20kg/3x20kg
3x35kg/3x35kg/10x45kg
3x5x47kg/3x47kg/10x45kg

Push Press/Cable Row

5x52.5kg/10x45kg
3x52.5kg/10x45kg

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x100kg
2x130kg
3x5x155kg -- Last rep not pretty.
10x105kg

Decline Sit Up

2x10

Monday, June 17, 2013

Training -- Mon 17/06/2013

Pause Squats

10xBW
10x20kg -- I noticed that the bar was slipping around a bit on my shirt, so I got my shoulders chalked up. The offer was also there to chalk up my glutes, but I declined.
5x60kg
5x82.5kg
2x4x105kg
8x105kg -- Unpaused.

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
3x5x77.5kg

Pull Ups/CGBP -- Not exactly super sets. If you can't tell by the numbers which is which, I think you need more time in the gym.

10xBW
9x55kg
10xBW
9x55kg
10xBW

RDL

3x10x70kg

Barbell Row/Calf Raise/Suitcase Walk/Plank

2x20x40kg/15x260lb/50mx17.5kg/0:60

Friday, June 14, 2013

Semester 1 Complete

I finished this semester of uni yesterday afternoon with a test on Shakespeare. While I won't know what results I've earned until later, I performed better on the test than I anticipated. I intend to use my time off to do more writing (not necessarily more blogging; I want to get my creative juices flowing for a fantasy story that I've been mulling over for the last 9 months, so maybe I'll give birth to something there), and of course to train, taking advantage of a lack of stress. There's some social stuff I'll be doing over the holidays as well, and a cross-campus uni Christian group camp in the last week before returning to study.

An interesting piece of advice I received in a writing workshop once upon a time is that sometimes it's the descriptions that you don't give that are most effective. Using that idea, here's a paragraph I wrote last night:

Pulling himself away, he continued to climb the stairs. Six more steps and he tripped, his path obstructed by pieces of his people. His shin opened up on the stair as he fell, but as he looked back to the bits of a fallen man he’d slipped on, he no longer felt his own wounds. His shoulder was nothing, his shin nothing, his bruises nothing. Quickly, Rez looked away, and didn’t even feel the vomit evacuating his system.

Training -- Fri 14/06/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
1x115kg
3x5x130kg -- Volume PB, and much smoother than the last time I did 5x130kg.
5x110kg -- There's no excuses for this. I was wearing my belt, I was pausing, I was just lazy.

GHR

3x6xGreen

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x10x60kg -- This was harder than it should have been.

Pull Ups

8xBW
3x6x10kg

Incline Bench Press

10x20kg
2x10x50kg

Fat Gripz Row/Calf Raise

2x15x40kg/10x320lb

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Training -- Wed 12/06/2013

OHP/Front Squat/Cable Row

10xBW squats
10x20kg/10x20kg/12x40kg
3x35kg/3x35kg/12x40kg
3x5x46kg/3x46kg/12x40kg -- During one of these sets, my grip slipped out on front squats, so I switched to the cross-grip, only to find that the bar I was using (with the softest, smoothest knurling of any bar I've ever encountered) was too smooth to stay on my shoulders in that position, so let's just say that the funky front squat-to-zercher squat maneouvre I pulled was totally intentional and not a painful accident at all.

Push Press/Front Squat/Cable Row

5x50kg/3x50kg/12x40kg
5x50kg/6x50kg/12x40kg

Deadlift

10x70kg -- Grip was slipping, and I noticed my hands all covered in rust afterwards, so I decided to get a wire brush and give the bar a clean. I was amazed at how much rust had accumulated on there, and there was a brown pile on the deadlift platform afterwards. Could've made a little sandcastle out of that. I got quite the workout from cleaning it, too.
6x100kg
4x120kg
2x140kg
3x5x152.5kg -- Grip was an issue on the first two sets (the ones without straps). Not sure how much of that was the bar and how much of it was me.
10x102.5kg

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Monday, June 10, 2013

Training -- Mon 10/06/2013

Pause Squats -- Got to the gym intending on doing bench press first; both benches were thoroughly in use, so I decided to squat first, instead.

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
2x5x102.5kg
8x5x102.5kg -- No pause.

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
3x5x75kg

CGBP

2x5x60kg

Pull Ups

10xBW
6xBW
5xBW -- Well that didn't go how I would have liked it.

RDL

3x10x60kg -- The tremors in my wrist confirmed that my grip strength is not so great as of late.

Cable Row

2x10x50kg

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Why I'm Not Charmed by all the Fish in the Sea

We’ve all heard the saying that “there’s plenty of fish in the sea.” Be that as it may, it’s not entirely helpful wisdom. Or, at least, it doesn’t have a lot of positive value to me. Many fish are poisonous, volatile and threaten me with nightmares.



But even the most pleasant, pretty, desirable fish are still cold-blooded and possess similar mindfulness to that of a potato.


I’m much more interested in dolphins.



Dolphins are fun, playful, friendly, warm, loyal, and very, very smart.




There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but fish are not for me.
I much prefer dolphins, yes sir, dolphins please.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Training -- Sat 08/03/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
1x115kg -- Most I've ever squatted without a belt. Warm up PB, I guess.
3x5x127.5kg -- Third set was probably the best, because I was squeezing the bar tighter, which just tightens everything up.
5x100kg -- No belt.

Bench Press/Pull Ups

10x20kg
5x40kg
10x55kg/5xBW
2x10x55kg/5x10kg

Incline Bench Press/Pull Ups

10x20kg
10x45kg/5x10kg
10x45kg

Fat Gripz Row/Calf Raise/Suitcase Walk/Decline Sit Up

2x15x40kg/18x220lb/50mx25kg/5x5kg

GHR

3xGreen
2x5xGreen -- Thanks to having forgotten about these earlier in the session (would have been much better to do them with bench press), I only realised that I still had these to go right as I was packing up to leave. They got their revenge. Note to self: Don't do GHR's cold. I've experienced GHR's before that hurt so good. These, on the other hand, were just unpleasant, and a tiny bit rapey.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Training -- Wed 05/06/2013

OHP/BB Row

10x20kg
1x35kg/10x35kg
3x5x45kg/10x45kg -- Each set initiated with a clean.

Push Press/BB Row

5x50kg/10x50kg
3x50kg/10x50kg  -- Each set initiated with a clean.

Front Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
1x35kg
3x1x45kg
2x1x50kg -- Worked my warm ups in with OHP and rows.
3x50kg
3x3x70kg

Deadlift

10x70kg
4x100kg
2x130kg
3x5x150kg -- Milestone :) 1x5 right under left over, 1x5 right over left under, 1x5-6 with straps (somewhere in there I counted "4," and immediately wasn't sure if I was telling myself that I'd just completed 4 reps or if I was up to my 4th rep, so I did 2 more to be safe).
10x100kg -- No straps. 5 reps right under left over, 5 reps right over left under.

And then, when I got home 5min ago...

2x6x4kg Pass-through Lunge (like this, except performed statically) with 1min prone hold between sets.


Monday, June 3, 2013

Training -- Mon 03/06/2013

I've decided to go back to fullbody training for a while. This is either a brilliant or a terrible idea.

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
4x78kg
5x75kg
4x75kg -- This was all underwhelming. Maybe I should have eaten more recently than 3 hours earlier, and eaten more than just a bowl of cereal.

CGBP

2x8x55kg

Pull Ups

4x10xBW

Pause Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
2x5x100kg -- Decided not to wear a belt today. Core training complete.
8x100kg -- Not pausing, still no belt.

RDL

3x5x80kg -- I'm now thinking that my recent time spent doing RDLs with straps wasn't such a great idea.

Seated Row/Calf Raise

2x10x50kg/10x340lb

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Training -- Sat 01/06/2013

First session of winter.

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
3x5x125kg
5+3x110kg

RDL

3x8x100kg

Suitcase Walk/Calf Raise/Decline Sit Ups

2x100mx20kg/18x240lb/8x2.5kg
100mx20kg

Also did some thrusters and pull ups in there. Made me so elite.