Author Archives: Krisjcook Kc

Fighting Uphill

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But
Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too
concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither
sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain,
in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”

– Albert Camus

we have so many reasons to stop. modern life allows us endless comforts and distractions. the mind numbing insanity of tiktok, the dopamine dumpster fire that is Instagram, and all the really petty and inane things that we say prevent us from doing any real self work. we try to hide away from that image in the mirror and no I’m not just talking about physical appearance. our mental health and clarity, our social health and our spiritual health. we tell ourselves that these little distractions are fine because the everybody else is doing it and worse we can find subgroups in these places, most notably that trash heap Tiktok, that re-enforce our little comfort bubble and stop us from achieving any meaningful change. here’s a little true tale. I recently broke my foot, it has come at a time though when I needed to take a break, from work and everything else, yet my mind and body is restless, I need that exertion that comes from discomfort that I cant seek now cause I need to heal (although I’m still getting my ass into the gym, I still got one working foot and an upper body) anyway at dinner I over hear two young people, a girl and a boy, both early twenties. the girl is drawing some impressive anomie style faces on a piece of paper, the boy says to her “wow you are really great at that” to which the girl replies “yeah, i wanted to do it for a job or something but I never took the time to get better at drawing the bodies, and I would get disheartened when I messed it up so I didn’t practice” the boy says “yeah sometimes its better to not try” then the girl smiles and laughs a shy little laugh “yeah I agree, its easier not to”. I nearly fell of my chair and broke my other foot. imagine living life in the margin, no reaching up into anything to try and make yourself better, to walk into the same job day in and day out, eat the same food, talk to the same people, your not living, you are in fucking jail. now people will tell me “I have commitments, I need the money, I need the security” I’m wont be gentle here, YOU WILL DIE DISAPOINTED. burn your bridges and learn to swim, learn a new skill and push against the odds. hard times make strong people that learn the ability to overcome and adapt, adopt the warriors attitude regardless of your situation and fight on. you will attract some like minded people trust me, they will help you.

we are living in the generation of the apathetic, climate change and global instability is hurting everyone, but if we strive harder and search for a deeper meaning we can astound ourselves. together we can find a way to the light but first you need to look up from the mess you have allowed to build around you, thrash, rage against your circumstances and be the person you want to be. you don’t need god, or a self help book, you need to get off your ass and fight uphill.

this list will get you started

everyday do

50 push ups.

50 squats

pick up something heavy and go for a 20 minuet walk

learn something new, about anything

meet someone new, just introduce yourself to them on the street.

its that easy, don’t complain just do it. you will thank me later.

Remember the basics

there are secrets now? did you know?

all these instagram and other social media types (in a way this is going to pang of hypocrasy) telling you to do this and not do that. telling you they have the secrets and what not.

there are no secrets. what works for one person (that is preforming the exercise with good lighting, full make up and and a pump) probably isn’t going to work for everyone. there is though the mainstays.

all these squat pulses, leg raises, plate presses, arnie presses, and a myriad of others are rickety houses. they offer minimal shelter and can yes make you feel something but that doesn’t always indicate that you are getting benefit. the foundation that these houses are built on on though are strong as the mountains that their builders aimed to climb. i am speaking of course of the mainstays, the squat, the vertical and horizontal press (bench press, shoulder press) . it maybe sound like a massive generalisation but it is pretty correct, the main lifts will work and benefit for everyone. the reason is simple, they mimic natural human movements. doing these weird cable and alternate exercises may give you a 20% muscle increase for your time but for real bang for your buck stick with the tried and tested lifts, if you want to really up the ante pick up something heavy and walk with it for a while, watch your durability go up.

they are not fancy, they don’t always look good on camera. but they are a stable foundation to build your strong house of physical fitness, one that will outlast your rickety neighbours and give you shelter whilst you train in front of your own mountains that you will one day conquer

If you like this let me know with a comment, and share with your friends. lets get stronger together

What you can do when you can do nothing

So. You are injured. Or you have no time. Or you are somewhere that stops you from training physically in some way.

What do you do?

Get mad, frustrated, these are the things I used to do when I couldn’t get my physical training sessions in. It took me a long time to realise that what I was doing was hiding behind the physical distraction of training to make somthing better in my life (relationships, work stress, mental health issues) this isn’t to say that I didn’t love training because it’s one of the pillars that hold my life up. But it was the only pillar back then.

This is when I found I could plumb the depths of my mind, I started small by asking myself why I missed training so much, why did it mean so much, what would I do if I could never train again.

This not only got my mind working but also introduced me to my first concepts of philosophy. I was having a Socratic dialogue with myself. I didn’t appreciate this moment for a long while but it laid the path for me to philosophy which in turn laid the way to art and creation and building multipul pillars to hold my life up.

So what can you do?

Start a Socratic dialogue yourself, with yourself. Be terrifying with it. Don’t hide from questions, ask deeply and truly even when it hurts. Pull back what feels safe and what you know people see you as, why are you doing xyz? Our old friend Socrates didn’t do these things to others (most notably his friends in Plato’s discourses) to hurt or humiliate or seem like he knew better because he didn’t, he just wanted to get to the raw truth that he knew would help. He saw on the battlefield (not many know but he was a extremely competent warrior) that truth in one’s morals and ability will always bring saftey. It’s why he questiond the state that lauded praise on him initially then sentenced him to death by suicide which he gladly did to prove that he would never give in to another’s false ethics.

So start questioning.

Start today

Right now

See where it gets you.

Burn Your Program

“Ships are safe in harbour….but that is not what Ships are for” – some guy I met in a Pakistani tea house 2014

How many of you haven’t changed or updated your program in 4 weeks? 6 weeks? 10 weeks? Ever?

Consistency is key in training but there is a time when Consistency turns to ground hog day. We can get comfortable in our standard excersises and we get great at them but we need to understand that if we are to grow, if indeed we are to sail to new lands we must leave the saftey of the harbour. Search out someone that can teach you a new movment, learn pilaties, pick up a heavy kettle bell and go for a 1 mile walk.

Comfort is for the weak. Competencey can sometimes mean stagnation. Grow. Fight . Pick up something new, suck at it, get good at it, find something else.

BE STRONGER

Less is more

How much time do you have in your day? With work, school, family and everything else maybe we don’t have time to make every gym session and when we do maybe not have the time to hit everything in our program.

So let’s think critically about our excersise selection. If we are doing a split type program that means we have shoulders seperate from chest in the week when both those muscle groups compliment eachother extremely well. Maybe we merge them?. A push day can encompass both chest and shoulders with a major movment for both groups (military press/bench press) and some secondary movments to hit the muscles on a difrent plane, think flies and such. Add in some accessory work with triceps and then burn out with some dips or push ups and you have hit two muscle groups in one session with probably 4-5 excersises and you can get it done in an hour. Remember time spent in the gym dosnt always equal results but solid recover time after a solid session always will.

Our lives are quick, fleeting. We want to spend them having fun, being in love amd experiencing other people in a positive way, so get in the gym, be quick but purposeful and get the fuck out. Enjoy your life

Why do you stop!?

HARK! You young!, you that is burdend by youth and the outlook of many years.

Why are you not moving? Not viewing? Not enjoying?

You see others with their supposed gifts and their baubles and trinkets and you wish to be shoulder to shoulder with these people that are no more then images!

Do you not see? Perhaps not

You, yes YOU! , you are a God, a being that wanders the earth with the power to create and evolve, to dream and determine, to gaze deep within and understand yourself and by that method you understand the stars themselves!

Look not to others! Look not to another’s achievements or goals or dreams or wishes.

Take your life seriously, grip the reins of your own universe created muscle and bone and sprint toward your own vison of yourself! Create what you wish!

Only you know when you have stepped on to the right path, only you can understand what is truly success to you!

Drive your curiosity within! Meditate deep on yourself, your mind, your body, your bones, you fibers, and when you emerge from the depths of the churning ocean that is you, you will hold the book that will detail the next move for yourself

Fight on

Finding Motivation

“I love the valiant, but it is not enough to wield the broadsword, one must also know against whom” – Friedrich Nietzsche

In an era of Instagram posts warning us of lions and tigers stalking gyms and rising and grinding at stupid o’clock and various podcast hosts/personalities telling us to harden up not too mention shoes that tell us to “just do it”. It can be hard to find a lasting motivation and its a simple reason why, those reasons are not yours.

Lets think of motivation as a bucket. when we start training or thinking about a healthier lifestyle that bucket is full to the brim, regardless of if we want to look better, squat more or drastically loose weight. And over time this bucket will drain, slow for some and faster for others, how many people do you know have bought a gym membership and some flash new sporting gear and given up after a few weeks or less?. Hypothetically, lets say you have two people, one says “Summer is near I need to shed some weight for beach season” the other says, “my kids are now running around and I cant keep up, I need to get fitter if I want to be able to play with them”. The later reason is supreme in that it is very personal and also it is never complete, beach season comes and goes and so does the motivation, the bucket is drained. The kids continue to grow and develop and the parent must also grow and stay active to keep up lest the fall by the wayside, the bucket is consistently filled by the original and evolving reason.

when we sub-contract our reasons to train or get healthier to someone else and try to adopt their methodology we are shrinking the probability that we will actually stay focused on our goal and therefore our motivation. We must internalise our goal so that our motivation will always stay with us and never become stagnant. Delve into yourself and question what lifting that weight means to you, what losing that extra chub will bring you, and more importantly what will you do after you get there?

This brings me to the quote up the top and how we can dissect it in terms of motivation. We know we have to look after our bodies and minds, we know we have to go to the gym or do something physical. But are we asking ourselves why? the motivation or goal is the broadsword and once you wield it you must find the whom to wield it against, that is the Key. speaking personally for myself, my whom was an umbrella that covered my other whom(so many enemies) they consisted of small goals like sports or work or other personal challenges, but my overarching nemesis has never change, the whom is time, in 50 years I do not want my body to be frail or weak or have someone push me in my wheelchair to use the toilet. This big whom has kept me training for two decades and rarely missing a training day.

to finish, find your true motivation, don’t rely on words by the people you have never met or a season or even dress sizes, internalise that motivation and make it stick inside you forever.

Lift and smile.

DUTY

A great evil lurked deep within fenrir that was yet to manifest itself to the Asiŕ. The gods were largely ignorant, all except Odin, the all father knew that in time this great beast would destroy the world and through a vain attempt at subverting prophecy he had the world eater bound 3 times in great chains under the pretence of a game, knowing full well the wolf would break free. On the fourth time odin had the dwarves work their magic on golden chains and he and the other gods all presented them to Fenrir.

“Oh great Fenrir, how strong you have become, how large you are now that your den is too small” – jested odin – ” I have one more test for you, if you are game, let me bind you in my personal chains, that is if you are not afraid “

Fenrir eyed the chains suspiciously before agreeing on the stipulation that one of the Gods place their sword hand in his mouth as insurance that they would let him out. The gods became nervous, they all knew that fenrir would be held captive by these magic chains. It was though , with a great sigh, that Tyr , the God of war and honour and the one who raised Fenrir placed his hand in the beasts mouth. Fenrir struggled and strained yet the chains would not budge, finally he gave in, realising the gods plan and that he had been tricked. Tyr looked to the great wolf that gave him a flash of betrayal, and with a nod of acknowledgement Fenrir tore the hand from Tyrs wrist.

We all have duties that manifest in different ways, some small others enormous. We should strive like Tyr, even though the outcome will perhaps be unpleasant. We have a duty to our allies, our friends, ourselves…. and we cannot fail