Thursday, March 19, 2009
Color,Culture, The Truth
As you know I'm from the big N.O. I have recently received emails telling me that New Olreaneans do not share the same culture if they are a different color. Before I give you my opinion on it, lets review the history of my city and its cultural history. New Orleans is way older than America. It was in Spanish territory taken by the French. They established a base culture there. Due to the fact that the English settled much of the East coast as well as states like Georgia, the Carolina's, and eventually took over Mississippi, and Alabama, you can imagine that Louisiana was quite different and still is today. But, its overall culture is hardly composed of one culture. After the french had it for a while, the Spanish busted in and took it from them. They were there for generations . Spanish and french culture intertwined as french and Spanish couples got married. They created an entirely new culture, but it doesn't stop there. Because of the French's an especially the Spanish's laid back and extremely hospitable attitudes, New Orleans had a huge population of free Africans living there . Some were escaped slaves, but most were just free men, living in equality with the majority of the lighter people. So these Spanish-French peoples children took a look at those black chicks and black men and said to them selves "damn black people are sexy!" and you and I both know how the french and Spanish people are about romance and passion. So they married the African people, and they bred for generations upon generations. Their children Now had a completely new culture composed of french, Spanish, and African influences. These people were so constant and consistently had the same blood mixtures, and a really rich culture, that they were recognised as their own ethnicity. They were called Creoles. Treme (pronounced tre-may) was a large neighborhood in new Orleans at this time. It was bursting with creoles, and a few free Africans and escaped slaves. But get this, a lot of them actually had their own plantations. Take that you Anglo Saxon Brits (ha ha)!!!. Now some times a rich french person or Spanish person would "own" slaves, which, while wrong, was not a tenth as bad as being a British slave. They really didn't "own" them in practice, just on paper really. It is recorded that the very few slave owners would allow their slaves to live in little houses of their own. They, unlike the slaves of the British, were most of the time allowed to keep their original culture, cook their native food for themselves, play their native music, hold their own festivals, marry, and keep their children. The Creoles and Spanish ( who at this time own the city), were not whip crazy. This is how they kept their slaves: they were fair and hospitable to them, what idiot is going to run away from a good guy only to be caught and used by a Brit? They supplied them with food, which was not given them if they did not work. What idiot runs away from his only food source. A lot of times, they wound up freeing them. Although slavery of any kind is deeply wrong, what the slaves there had was really the equivalent of a job. They work, get their food, and go home to their own culture and way of life. But, it didn't stay their culture for long. Were they taken down by being forced to hide their culture. No. Its simply, the creole people started to think that they were sexy, and had kids with them. than it just fused into one culture. Keep in mind that New Orleans city was mostly creole people and Spanish people with some french people still left. But no matter what nationality you are, if you grow up in a culture, that's your culture. So they pretty much all shared a common way of life. So Napoleons came into power over in France, and the crazy little bastard stormed into new Orleans and took over it. After being satisfied that he was the boss, he pretty much let things run as they usually did down there. The creole people once again mixed with the pure french people, and their children's culture was a little more french influenced. The french had always been friendly with the Indians (or anybody they deem sexy for that matter), and this whole time their was Native American culture being mixed with these creoles. So now that they were more french, more mixing with the Indians! So after a long while, Napoleon sold the Louisiana territory to Jefferson. Meanwhile, the bitches, I mean British, were kicking the french Acadians out of Canada. They migrated to Louisiana, barely south and west of the New Orleans area, and settled. Escaped slaves from the other states were still going on. Those slaves ran away to New Orleans but hid in the swamp area because now that the U.S. ran the place they could be recaptured. Plus, they wanted to fish. So occasionally the sex crazy french, met the exotic Africans, and sha-bam, you know the rest. The Acadians also mixed heavily with the Native American Indians, so they created their own new culture. The highly mixed language of the Acadians offspring lead them to drop the A in Acadian, and smash the D and I together to form a J. CAJUN! SO over the years Creoles and Cajuns mixed a little, and although considered different ethnicities, they posses a lot of the same nationalities in their family tree, but the creoles still were more highly mixed than the Cajuns, who were still fairly new and therefore mostly french in bloodline. So there was bit of a culture difference. Over the years there was also a huge Caribbean influence on New Orleans culture because, yep, that's right, the creoles found them sexy too, and as a port city, New Orleans had its fair share of Caribbean islanders. So as time went by Europeans would move there. and while those recent Europeans still give off that little bit of twang from their European country, due to environment and breeding, their base culture is still that of the creoles and Cajuns. Its kind of like a doughnut. you can have different toppings but its always got that doughnut under it. The Europeans just retain enough of their culture to make different toppings on the main creole cultural doughnut. You see? same with the Africans that migrated there. So yes people in New Orleans in fact do share the same culture regardless of color. Another thing i would like to point out is that creoles came in different colors, because children are unique and inherit a unique and random set of traits from their parents. Some were caramel, some where while, bege, and some were brown, a few of them were almost dark. SO yes, we all may have different toppings to our doughnut, but our main culture their, our doughnut, is the same regardless of what color we are. No I'm not saying that all races of people have the same culture, I'm saying that in New Orleans we share a culture most of us are rooted way back to where the creoles began. Highly mixed neighborhoods are an environment where people share a way of life. I have experienced, and know for a fact, that whether your skin is brown or creamy, if you live in N.O. the majority of the time you share a culture, have the same type of upbrinigng, common mannerisms( none of this acting black/white like Ive witnessed in so many other parts of the country), and similar traditions and religious beliefs, not to mention the same types of food and social rules. To me this adds up to a culture and if you share most of these things then yes, you do share a culture. So you weird racist people who are sending me that bull, first of all I feel sorry for you that you come from a segregated culture, and secondly unless you were raised in the Big Easy you don't know what your talking about. That's all I'm gonna say.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
My Humble Amount of Experience
Just to let you know a little more about myself( Like you really wanna know right?) and to show a shred of proof that I do have some experience with fitness I decided that I would post my personal bests on my blog(that nobody visits, ha ha)
Weight: 130 lbs
Height: 5' 8"
Body type: Lean
CALISTHENICS
Pull ups
In a Row: 40 In a session:450
Sit ups
In a row:450 In a session:820
Push ups
In a row:80 In a session:1,500
Triceps dips
In a row:50 In a session:200
Back sit ups
In a row: 100 In a session: 300
RUNNING
400meter: 56 sec
1mile: 5min 30 sec
3mile:20min 52 sec
6mile: 45min 38sec
10mile: 83min 27sec
WEIGHT MAX OUTS
Weighted Triceps Dip: 135 lbs
Bench Press: 240 lbs
Bicep Dumbbell Curl: 60 lbs
Dumbbell Chest Fly: 100 lbs in each hand
Dumbbell Military Press: 70lbs in each hand
Lat Pull: 350 lbs
WILDERNESS STRENGTH TRAINING
Monkey Bar Swing: 1/2 mile
100lb body bag haul: 1 hour on my shoulder
100 lb body bag throw: 8 feet
rope climb no legs(all hands) : 25 times to top and back
Just wanna let yall know that weightlifting for me is a test of strength rather than a way to strictly train. I make a lot of my workouts up, and so can you. Its actually better that way because only you know what your day is like and your body type. Read my post about inventing your own workouts.
Inventing Your Own Workout
You know how you go to the gym and everybody does the same workout like "the bench" and "the lat-pull". You know the truth is that workouts have hardly been experimented with that could possibly yield better results than the traditional ones . People figure, " well we better stick with this, at least we know it'll put some meat on us, or help us loose fat". To me the idea of a workout plan is pathetic. Humans used to live on the land. We lived in the wilderness. We were wild, and on average a hell of a lot stronger than modern day weight trainers. The idea that the way society is set up causes us to barely move and have machines do all of our work, forcing us to actually come up with a plan to move so we can maintain a reasonable amount of strength, is pathetic. Even still we on average aren't nearly as strong as we once were. Yes it is pathetic, but it is reality. So why not make it as close to what we did in the past as possible? Its something that most of us can never control to and ideal point, much like most of us cant avoid eating synthetic, processed, chemical laden food, but we can control some of it, and the best thing is, you can invent a workout that is unique as your survival needs. What do you think people did in the past. People who farmed were in farming shape, and strong at it. People who hunted were in hunting shape, and were good at it. I'm into wilderness survival, combat, and physical labor. I simulate much harder versions of the motions that i need to be good at, and I slowly become in whatever type of shape i need t be for my unique environment. You can do this too, but there are some formulas and rules that you need to know before inventing your own exercise.
FORMULAS AND RULES
1) whatever you put into your body is what you ll get out of it-not only does this apply to food, but training. Its common knowledge. If you do curls all the time that's what you'll be good at.
2) form will shape your body and or hurt your body depending on how correct it is- this is almost the same as #1. If you slouch while you work out , or make jerky motions, or put unnecessary strain on your back or shoulders, you will degrade them too much.
3) Diet is as unique as training- know what resources your body is using up in your training program, and replace the resource(s) with more than you lost. Be detailed. This calls for you to have basic health knowledge
4)If you want to get stronger you need to intensify the training periodically, or change things up- this is a "no duh" statement. Your body works by healing the damage you put on it and growing the tissues back stronger. So workouts progressively become easier and easier and lose their affect.
5) The more intense your training becomes, the more resources you will drain in one sitting,therefore, as you progressively work spend more resource, so should you progressively increase the intake of those resources- the more advanced you become the more you should eat! Good news for our chubby friends huh?! ( just a joke if your chubby cut back first then eat more than average after you have shaved off the extra blubber!)
6) Never let yourself get bored- If your tired of doing a particular exercise, make another one up of equal intensity that targets the same area of strength. Shaking it up will also stimulate you to become stronger because your body is trying to be ready for anything.
A lot of this is just common sense I'm just trying to remind you about it. The last and final rule is try anything you can think of, you just might unlock that unique point in your body that makes your fitness levels explode. No matter how stupid it looks. Chances are the stupider it looks, the better it works, and that's personal experience talking. OK now go invent a new method of training. BYE!
FORMULAS AND RULES
1) whatever you put into your body is what you ll get out of it-not only does this apply to food, but training. Its common knowledge. If you do curls all the time that's what you'll be good at.
2) form will shape your body and or hurt your body depending on how correct it is- this is almost the same as #1. If you slouch while you work out , or make jerky motions, or put unnecessary strain on your back or shoulders, you will degrade them too much.
3) Diet is as unique as training- know what resources your body is using up in your training program, and replace the resource(s) with more than you lost. Be detailed. This calls for you to have basic health knowledge
4)If you want to get stronger you need to intensify the training periodically, or change things up- this is a "no duh" statement. Your body works by healing the damage you put on it and growing the tissues back stronger. So workouts progressively become easier and easier and lose their affect.
5) The more intense your training becomes, the more resources you will drain in one sitting,therefore, as you progressively work spend more resource, so should you progressively increase the intake of those resources- the more advanced you become the more you should eat! Good news for our chubby friends huh?! ( just a joke if your chubby cut back first then eat more than average after you have shaved off the extra blubber!)
6) Never let yourself get bored- If your tired of doing a particular exercise, make another one up of equal intensity that targets the same area of strength. Shaking it up will also stimulate you to become stronger because your body is trying to be ready for anything.
A lot of this is just common sense I'm just trying to remind you about it. The last and final rule is try anything you can think of, you just might unlock that unique point in your body that makes your fitness levels explode. No matter how stupid it looks. Chances are the stupider it looks, the better it works, and that's personal experience talking. OK now go invent a new method of training. BYE!
Strength,Length, Race, Pace, and the Hard Facts.
OK I'm not gonna be fancy here. So I'm just gonna get straight to the points, first one being strength.
STRENGTH
When talking about strength it can be a confusing topic. There are people who know all of the aspects of stregnth, they are experts. I'm would not consider myself an expert, I only write about what has worked for me, and new ideas that may work for you. Often because people don't really know whats strength is and that there are different types of strength. They believe that the guy in the gym with the biggest bench is undoubtedly the strongest. The main ones that we common people should know about are isometric strength, "isolated" stregnth ,as I call it, and functional strength. To break it down quickly, a good example of isometric strength would be like a gymnast holding himself up on the rings. It is basically the strength of your muscle in a locked unchanging position. What i like to call "isolated" strength is the type of strength you use when curling barbells or doing triceps curls. You are using one muscle group for one motion, and its usually a motion that wont be used in real life. Functional strength is real life strength, like the kind you would use to balance, fight, move heavy objects, climb, lift yourself, and throw things with. to me this is the ultimate strength. The question is though, which do you want? Let me tell you why I think that functional strength would be best for anybody. First off, alot of those big stictly -looks bodybuilders that you see on TV or not functionally strong. In fact, their functional strength is usually no better, or worse then the average person. Here's why. When they do all those retarded single motions ( usually unrealistic motions) they are training their bodies to move and function that way. So when it comes time to lets say, pick up a heavy object they , instead of doing it in one or two steps, they break it down into curls, shoulder presses, and other slow retarded, uncoordinated motions. Where as a functionally strong person can pick it up and toss it with superior speed and coordination. By separating their muscle groups, bodybuilder type people reduce there bodies ability to act as one, and that weakens there functional strength and coordination. Keep in mind I'm only talking about people who strictly train to get big bloated bodies. It is not cut and dry. There are excercizes that bodybuilders do that can enhance functional stregnth. Some bodybuilders train for both .You can do both, but one will usually dominate. So all that im sayin is if you want to get into realistic every-day type strong, do not only do curls, bench press, squats, and shoulder presses (etc).The best way to gain functional strength is to simulate the motions that you will realistically face in YOUR lifestyle, except, you must make these motions harder, using different muscle groups together. I'll show you how in my upcoming post on "TRAINING FOR WILD STRENGTH". The most beautiful thing about this kind of training is that you can make it customized to perfectly coincide with your daily work. If your a guy/girl who hauls stuff, you can make your body adapted for that kind of work. Now I also will write on how to use methods similar to body building to make you look good, but there wont be many posts on that.
Isometric strength is pretty good for toning you muscles and for tasks where you have to haul things or hold your body in a certain position, like when rolling a ceiling or hanging on to a bar or branch for a long time so that you don't fall to your death ( hey you never know what might happen). basically isometric strength is achieved by tensing you muscles in a certain desired position to achieve endurance and strength in that position, which mean it may not necessarily increse the strength of a full motion of that particular muscle group. And like with functional strength training, the beauty of it is that you can get creative! You can , by using a certain set of rules , make your own workout up. That's right, you can invent new exercises, who needs to follow the same old boring crap that works well for some but not others. In fact we should all make our own workouts up because we are all different! Thats not to say that you shouldent take advice from a fitness veteran. I do that myself sometimes. But you can still be creative and you dont have to do those boring classic movements . All it takes it knowledge of how the body recovers and adapts. Ill have a whole post on it later!
LENGTH
If you've been in a gym, you've probably heard the old excuse "your legs are shorter. Its easier for you to squat because you barely have to travel" or "its easy for you to bench that, your arms are half my length. Anybody who has ever said that , I have one thing to say to you: cut the shit, you sound like a little wimp with your invalid excuses. The truth is that if you are taller, the fact is, your supposed to have more muscle than the little guy anyway. If your arms are twice his length and just as thick as his, then your a bony skinny guy and that's why you cant lift it as easy as he can. People say " its easier for little guys to gain muscle, they have less space to fill out" I say, EXACTLY, less space, less arm, less muscle. What I'm saying is, that if they are two guys who haven't worked out ever, and ones tall and the other is short, the tall guy should have more muscle to support his longer bone. If you are tall and you are truly working as hard as the little guy, your muscles will be bigger than his because everybody's body adapts to the activities they do. If you have longer arms, and skinny muscles, no shit its gonna be hard to pick things up. Because the longer arm has to deal with increased force everyday, the muscles around it should be naturally bigger anyway. In short, if your born big, your supposed to have bigger muscle to support your body type. Little guys do not have long arms, so as a result of not dealing with the added stress of having long arms, they naturally do not have as much muscle tissue surrounding it. S in short, its all even for big and little guys. So if that little guy can bench more than you its not because your disadvantaged, its because for you HEIGHT, you are WEAK. Your SUPPOSED to have more muscle tissue than him, not the same amount. Its all about proportions. That's all i have to say on that topic
RACE
OK have you ever read anything stupid on the Internet like: "whites naturally have more upper body strength" or "blacks can punch faster, and have more coordination" or "Asians have a hard time building muscle" OK let me pull out some examples, for the first lie id like to pull out Ronnie Coleman. He is black and has immense upper body strength. For the second lie Id like to pull out Chuck Norris, and Bruce Lee. Neither were black, they could both punch fast and were extremely coordinated. For the third lie I'll bring up James Chan. He is Asian and is ripped and strong. I've asked him for fitness advice several times,and believe me he knows what he's talking about. Look him up hes got a blog( ha ha, way better than this !) and a couple books out. Now back to my point. Certainly no race is "superior" in strength or fitness. Even though different races are adapted for certain environmental necessities ( Kenyans and running, vikings and lifting) That doesn't mean that one is superior. It just means they are adapted for their environment. If your a pure blood race than you can grasp on to what stimulates your body type to excel by using what your race is adapted for. But the reason I dismiss those factors as crap is because in America, the majority of people are mixed. Almost nobody is completely black, and many white skinned people have unknown African ancestry, as well as Asian ancestry, or Asians having white ancestry or black or Indian ancestors. An interesting fact is that even if you are 98 percent Caucasian, and only 2 percent African, you might inherit a ton of stuff from your 2 percent African genes. This is because gene selection is random at reproduction and even with only 2 percent of your ancestors being African in heritage you might possibly inherit most of your physical traits from them, and not as many from your European ancestors! Now grant you, if genes are randomly selected and 98 are European and 2 are African, you'll probably inherit the European, but i was just making a point. In New Orleans, many different races have lived together in the same neighborhoods, with little to no racial tension. Through hundreds of years you had African, Caribbean, Spanish, French, Native Americans, and Italians marrying each other and having babies. This is because New Orleans is one of those places, because there is such a mix, where in no matter if your black, white ,Chinese, Spanish, Cajun, or green, you usually don't have your own separate culture based on your color. You all share New Orleans culture nobody really seperates on color because so many are mixed. Its all the same because its a very strong distinct culture that everyone shares. All races can even be found in every "hood" .Why am i saying all this? Let me finish and you'll see. When a great mix is made, lots of people are mixing lots of genetics, and you never know what traits will be inherited. Black, white , and Asian is not a race : Jamaican, Ethiopian, or French and Greek, or Chinese and Vietnamese are all distinct races in their own right with differently developed physical abilities. Shoving them all into one category because of color is unfair and disrespectful. An example is that Kenyans are known for running ability, and south Africans are not, yet both have black skin. So what I'm saying basically is that we in America are all so mixed and have inherited so many physical traits from so many races, we cant make assumptions based on skin color. Because skin color is just one trait, you have inherited many more traits than just skin color. My skin is white and some of my friends whose skin is brown can't jump nearly as high as I can or jump fences as quick, or run away as quick as I can. On the other hand, they may have more strength muscle-wise than me. One of my friends is 25% German, and 75% mix of African races. He did not inherit good jumping or running abilities, yet he is a slugger, and very strong. So don't ever think that you will or will not excel at something because of your color. Look at dogs with all of the specialized breeds. If you have a mutt as a dog he might exhibit traits that you will never know the origin of. He may track better than a blood hound,look like a lab, and be afraid to swim! Even disregarding genetics, I believe that one can excel in any sport is he/ she believes that they can, and pours their heart into it. I rest my case.
PACE
When you lift weights, you gotta know what your true desire and goal is. If you want explosive power, the best way to go is to lift the weight (without sacrificing form) as fast and explosive as you can. However if you want more solid strength that will hold up longer, you will want to lift that weight slow and even. Its the first fitness formula you need to know : what you put into your body, is what you will get out. If you train the body to throw a 100 lb body bag ( punching bag) , that's what you'll be good at . Im not telling you carelesly throw around heavy objects that are heavy, and make uncontroled jerky motions. like I said you must make sure that you use proper form ( see Inventing Your own Workout)
HARD FACTS
If you don't agree with some or any of this that's just too bad for you, but you can yell about it if you want to! What I say is just mostly common sense that we become blind to in today's society of constant distractions. We often forget those little things that everybody knows when we constantly have society telling us how to do things.
STRENGTH
When talking about strength it can be a confusing topic. There are people who know all of the aspects of stregnth, they are experts. I'm would not consider myself an expert, I only write about what has worked for me, and new ideas that may work for you. Often because people don't really know whats strength is and that there are different types of strength. They believe that the guy in the gym with the biggest bench is undoubtedly the strongest. The main ones that we common people should know about are isometric strength, "isolated" stregnth ,as I call it, and functional strength. To break it down quickly, a good example of isometric strength would be like a gymnast holding himself up on the rings. It is basically the strength of your muscle in a locked unchanging position. What i like to call "isolated" strength is the type of strength you use when curling barbells or doing triceps curls. You are using one muscle group for one motion, and its usually a motion that wont be used in real life. Functional strength is real life strength, like the kind you would use to balance, fight, move heavy objects, climb, lift yourself, and throw things with. to me this is the ultimate strength. The question is though, which do you want? Let me tell you why I think that functional strength would be best for anybody. First off, alot of those big stictly -looks bodybuilders that you see on TV or not functionally strong. In fact, their functional strength is usually no better, or worse then the average person. Here's why. When they do all those retarded single motions ( usually unrealistic motions) they are training their bodies to move and function that way. So when it comes time to lets say, pick up a heavy object they , instead of doing it in one or two steps, they break it down into curls, shoulder presses, and other slow retarded, uncoordinated motions. Where as a functionally strong person can pick it up and toss it with superior speed and coordination. By separating their muscle groups, bodybuilder type people reduce there bodies ability to act as one, and that weakens there functional strength and coordination. Keep in mind I'm only talking about people who strictly train to get big bloated bodies. It is not cut and dry. There are excercizes that bodybuilders do that can enhance functional stregnth. Some bodybuilders train for both .You can do both, but one will usually dominate. So all that im sayin is if you want to get into realistic every-day type strong, do not only do curls, bench press, squats, and shoulder presses (etc).The best way to gain functional strength is to simulate the motions that you will realistically face in YOUR lifestyle, except, you must make these motions harder, using different muscle groups together. I'll show you how in my upcoming post on "TRAINING FOR WILD STRENGTH". The most beautiful thing about this kind of training is that you can make it customized to perfectly coincide with your daily work. If your a guy/girl who hauls stuff, you can make your body adapted for that kind of work. Now I also will write on how to use methods similar to body building to make you look good, but there wont be many posts on that.
Isometric strength is pretty good for toning you muscles and for tasks where you have to haul things or hold your body in a certain position, like when rolling a ceiling or hanging on to a bar or branch for a long time so that you don't fall to your death ( hey you never know what might happen). basically isometric strength is achieved by tensing you muscles in a certain desired position to achieve endurance and strength in that position, which mean it may not necessarily increse the strength of a full motion of that particular muscle group. And like with functional strength training, the beauty of it is that you can get creative! You can , by using a certain set of rules , make your own workout up. That's right, you can invent new exercises, who needs to follow the same old boring crap that works well for some but not others. In fact we should all make our own workouts up because we are all different! Thats not to say that you shouldent take advice from a fitness veteran. I do that myself sometimes. But you can still be creative and you dont have to do those boring classic movements . All it takes it knowledge of how the body recovers and adapts. Ill have a whole post on it later!
LENGTH
If you've been in a gym, you've probably heard the old excuse "your legs are shorter. Its easier for you to squat because you barely have to travel" or "its easy for you to bench that, your arms are half my length. Anybody who has ever said that , I have one thing to say to you: cut the shit, you sound like a little wimp with your invalid excuses. The truth is that if you are taller, the fact is, your supposed to have more muscle than the little guy anyway. If your arms are twice his length and just as thick as his, then your a bony skinny guy and that's why you cant lift it as easy as he can. People say " its easier for little guys to gain muscle, they have less space to fill out" I say, EXACTLY, less space, less arm, less muscle. What I'm saying is, that if they are two guys who haven't worked out ever, and ones tall and the other is short, the tall guy should have more muscle to support his longer bone. If you are tall and you are truly working as hard as the little guy, your muscles will be bigger than his because everybody's body adapts to the activities they do. If you have longer arms, and skinny muscles, no shit its gonna be hard to pick things up. Because the longer arm has to deal with increased force everyday, the muscles around it should be naturally bigger anyway. In short, if your born big, your supposed to have bigger muscle to support your body type. Little guys do not have long arms, so as a result of not dealing with the added stress of having long arms, they naturally do not have as much muscle tissue surrounding it. S in short, its all even for big and little guys. So if that little guy can bench more than you its not because your disadvantaged, its because for you HEIGHT, you are WEAK. Your SUPPOSED to have more muscle tissue than him, not the same amount. Its all about proportions. That's all i have to say on that topic
RACE
OK have you ever read anything stupid on the Internet like: "whites naturally have more upper body strength" or "blacks can punch faster, and have more coordination" or "Asians have a hard time building muscle" OK let me pull out some examples, for the first lie id like to pull out Ronnie Coleman. He is black and has immense upper body strength. For the second lie Id like to pull out Chuck Norris, and Bruce Lee. Neither were black, they could both punch fast and were extremely coordinated. For the third lie I'll bring up James Chan. He is Asian and is ripped and strong. I've asked him for fitness advice several times,and believe me he knows what he's talking about. Look him up hes got a blog( ha ha, way better than this !) and a couple books out. Now back to my point. Certainly no race is "superior" in strength or fitness. Even though different races are adapted for certain environmental necessities ( Kenyans and running, vikings and lifting) That doesn't mean that one is superior. It just means they are adapted for their environment. If your a pure blood race than you can grasp on to what stimulates your body type to excel by using what your race is adapted for. But the reason I dismiss those factors as crap is because in America, the majority of people are mixed. Almost nobody is completely black, and many white skinned people have unknown African ancestry, as well as Asian ancestry, or Asians having white ancestry or black or Indian ancestors. An interesting fact is that even if you are 98 percent Caucasian, and only 2 percent African, you might inherit a ton of stuff from your 2 percent African genes. This is because gene selection is random at reproduction and even with only 2 percent of your ancestors being African in heritage you might possibly inherit most of your physical traits from them, and not as many from your European ancestors! Now grant you, if genes are randomly selected and 98 are European and 2 are African, you'll probably inherit the European, but i was just making a point. In New Orleans, many different races have lived together in the same neighborhoods, with little to no racial tension. Through hundreds of years you had African, Caribbean, Spanish, French, Native Americans, and Italians marrying each other and having babies. This is because New Orleans is one of those places, because there is such a mix, where in no matter if your black, white ,Chinese, Spanish, Cajun, or green, you usually don't have your own separate culture based on your color. You all share New Orleans culture nobody really seperates on color because so many are mixed. Its all the same because its a very strong distinct culture that everyone shares. All races can even be found in every "hood" .Why am i saying all this? Let me finish and you'll see. When a great mix is made, lots of people are mixing lots of genetics, and you never know what traits will be inherited. Black, white , and Asian is not a race : Jamaican, Ethiopian, or French and Greek, or Chinese and Vietnamese are all distinct races in their own right with differently developed physical abilities. Shoving them all into one category because of color is unfair and disrespectful. An example is that Kenyans are known for running ability, and south Africans are not, yet both have black skin. So what I'm saying basically is that we in America are all so mixed and have inherited so many physical traits from so many races, we cant make assumptions based on skin color. Because skin color is just one trait, you have inherited many more traits than just skin color. My skin is white and some of my friends whose skin is brown can't jump nearly as high as I can or jump fences as quick, or run away as quick as I can. On the other hand, they may have more strength muscle-wise than me. One of my friends is 25% German, and 75% mix of African races. He did not inherit good jumping or running abilities, yet he is a slugger, and very strong. So don't ever think that you will or will not excel at something because of your color. Look at dogs with all of the specialized breeds. If you have a mutt as a dog he might exhibit traits that you will never know the origin of. He may track better than a blood hound,look like a lab, and be afraid to swim! Even disregarding genetics, I believe that one can excel in any sport is he/ she believes that they can, and pours their heart into it. I rest my case.
PACE
When you lift weights, you gotta know what your true desire and goal is. If you want explosive power, the best way to go is to lift the weight (without sacrificing form) as fast and explosive as you can. However if you want more solid strength that will hold up longer, you will want to lift that weight slow and even. Its the first fitness formula you need to know : what you put into your body, is what you will get out. If you train the body to throw a 100 lb body bag ( punching bag) , that's what you'll be good at . Im not telling you carelesly throw around heavy objects that are heavy, and make uncontroled jerky motions. like I said you must make sure that you use proper form ( see Inventing Your own Workout)
HARD FACTS
If you don't agree with some or any of this that's just too bad for you, but you can yell about it if you want to! What I say is just mostly common sense that we become blind to in today's society of constant distractions. We often forget those little things that everybody knows when we constantly have society telling us how to do things.
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