Sunday, July 23, 2017

On that stability ball in his cubicle, basically bragging about how health-conscious he is. We're jealous of how other people sit.


No love for the stability-ball sitters huh? Tryna to work on their posture and core strength as they analyze the shit out of some hardcore customer data. Blastin those key demos, thrilling that high-value client, gunnin for that promotion, turbochargin that LinkedIn profile, snatching that bonus and splurging on those ankle weights like a salesforce superstar.

Bam bam bam – This go-getter gets after it! 

But every time you walk by his cubicle, you're hatin. Knee-jerk response like, "Why's that dick always showing off how fit he is? Rubbing it in all our faces like 'I'm so health-conscious. Look at me on my bouncy ball seat, sculpting my abs. You should touch them. Touch my abs. Come on. Touch 'em. Just put a knuckle in the gap.' Nagging management for a stand-up desk, standing in the elevator giving you a heads up about the bullshit bureaucracy forcing employees to submit a doctor's note stating why one needs to stand at work to benefit one's health – as if that's gonna make me relate to him." 

It's just gonna make us feel guilty for eating a bagel in our swivel chairs and never changing our homepage from MSN.com.

Oh god, we're insecure. Why do we have to take it so personally? Why is an indictment of our lifestyle and behavioral choices. I say we let brodude middle manager do his thing and move on.  

Unless he's throwing it in your face. Talking about his macros, judging your meals indirectly – you know, not straight up saying, "Your leftover mac and cheese is disgusting, you fatty fatty fat fat" but describing why he "could never eat that, oh, but you enjoy it!" – bouncing round the open floor plan on his stability ball, doing push ups on your cubicle wall, mixing up a protein shake while asking you for a sales report by EOD. 


this makes us mad. grrr.
Desk life: Damn. 
Sitting. For hours. 
Eating. At our desks.
Sitting. In our cars.
Eating. In our cars.
Sitting. On the couch.
Eating. On the couch.
Spice things up a bit with that Swiss ball.

Stability - Ranges from 1/5 to 5/5 depending on sitter's core strength. Average of 3/5

Cool Factor - 1/5 No. 

Difficulty - 3/5 No back support. Wow. 

Perilousness - 4/5 One moment of postural imbalance and your crashing into the cubicle wall behind you, destroying your neighbors' dual monitors, spilling coffee on her iPhone and and keyboard, messing up her Pandora playlist

Added bonus - 3/5 You will make your insecure coworkers secretly hate you while combating sciatica. 

Overall rating - 14/25 for that exquisite posture. We're jealous of how other people sit. 

Friday, July 14, 2017

Sit on that bench and put up those weights. Arnolds. 4 sets of 12 reps. Time to WORK. Let's get it.


Each night around 7 pm, a pack of dudes converge on your teeny family-friendly Y, swarming the dumbbell chamber, leaking into the leg press zone, reclining on unused pieces of equipment, somehow absorbing other dudes – even the seemingly quiet ones – through meathead phagocytosis (they all know each other!), their mass expanding, filling the small room with macho sloganeering and Drake songs that blare from tinny Bluetooth speakers, irrevocably altering the environment and alienating all uncertain exercisers thinking about overcoming their free-weight anxiety.

And there's always some guy lounging on the chest fly machine. Just sitting there. Sweating. You want to do some flyes, but he never leaves! Is it the same guy? A different guy? An older guy? A younger guy? You don't know. You can't tell them apart. A few piles of chopped chicken breast, unseasoned, in stringy tank tops dripping all over the vinyl cushions between their bench press sets. Do their swamp ass stains ever really evaporate? you wonder.

How did weightlifting culture get so brazen? So annoying? So hyper 'macho'?

Marketing, probably. 

Corporations branding a fucking subculture and supplying endless accessories for participating in and demonstrating that you participate in that subculture. But, bro, weightlifting is no longer a subculture. It is culture. Bodybuilding.com is the 298th most-visited website in the United States.

Until Arnold sat on a weight bench engorging his bis to achieve the orgasmic pump he talks about in Pumping Iron, bodybuilding certainly qualified as a subculture. Buncha weirdos in dungeons raising chunks of metal and tugging squeaky cables. Pumping Iron changed the game, inspiring men to inflate those pecs, to swell those tris, to load up those delts, to expand those lats, to screw the legs, to fuck the squats, to achieve that big beefy symmetrical upper body. To get that sacred sexy manly V from shoulders to waist.

Companies target insecurity and offer corrective experiences: Powder drink mixes named Xplode and Shotgun. Tapered black t-shirts with sarcastic slogans in bold white lettering. The perfect lifting shoes. New and exciting ways to consume Protein. PROTEIN. PROTEIN

Maybe you don't need all that. Maybe you just need a pair of sneakers, a cup of coffee, a water bottle, some weights and an adjustable bench for busting out:

  • Seated Arnold shoulder press (on bench with back support) 4 set of 10 reps. Rest for one minute between sets. Increase the weight for each new set. Challenge yourself. 
  • Rest two minutes
  • Drop that bench flat for dumbbell bench press. 4 sets of 12 reps. Rest for one minute between sets. Increase the weight for each new set.
  • Rest one minute.
  • Raise the bench to a 60 degree incline. Lay on the bench face first. Perform lateral flyes. We're working the delts again, bad boy. 4 sets of 12 reps. Rest for one minute between sets. Increase the weight for each new set. Fight to raise those dumbbells up around ear-level. Don't let those arms flail down by your waist you like you're The Rocketeer in flight.

Boom. There ya go. Siddon 'at bench and get to work, buddy. Ya don't need all that other shit to get ripped. OK? Work hard. Eat your meat and your eggs, your soybeans or black beans if you're a vegan. Don't be obnoxious about it. 


How to make sitting hard.

Pros: Get those Dwight Howard shoulders

Get healthy. Make your clothes fit better. 

Gain some confidence.

Cons: But maybe you're gaining too much. Mistaking boorish egotism for poise. You think a wide back and baby head deltoids mean you're all that? Naw. 

Hey twiggy legs, you're not doing any intensive training in multiple planes. You're not squatting. You're just trying to get those chest and shoulder stats up.

You don't know proper form do you?

Rotator cuffs tear every day. 




Get to the gym and do your thing. Be efficient but be respectful. Sit on your little padded seat and put those dumbbells up. Rest. Repeat. Stay hydrated. Maintain your form. Ask for a spot when you need it.  

Don't act like you own the place. The gym's a shared space. 

Stability - 3/5 That little weightlifting seat will support you. Drive your feet into the floor and keep those heels down, though.

Cool Factor - 3/5 Musculature is a valued aesthetic quality, which may give you confidence.

Difficulty - 3/5 Don't go for 80 lb dumbbells just to compete with some stranger nearby. Do you. Increase your own strength safely.

Perilousness - 3/5 Lotta little pieces in that shoulder complex just waiting to snap.

Added bonus - 3/5 Experience the satisfaction of increasing that weight and seeing those hard-earned #gains.

Overall rating - 15/25 For those striated deltoid caps.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

up on that roof dodging stray fireworks and cheap drones piloted by dumb, drunk neighbors


happy fourth of july 
from a hundred-year-old, parapet-less rooftop where we're all pretty high and hammered up here holding our flaming sticks while lighting explosives in the dark watching drunk neighbors fly remote control helicopters – henceforth known as drones – at roughly eyeball level to get a better Instagram story of the professional fireworks only slightly further away.

Seriously, your best bet is to sit down in case your dumbass cross-the-street neighbor's mortar gets knocked over and his smuggled bottle rockets end up firebombing your building. This way, the bombs will whizz right over your head rather than careen into your face and propel you to the pavement below like Wile E. Coyote all charred and splattered but, unlike Looney Tunes, actually dead. You're also less likely to stumble off the roof if you're seated. And your diminished surface area reduces your risk of getting pelted by wayward drones. 

Consider this a PSA:

Sit on the cooler. Sit on a 30-rack. Sit on a blanket. Sit on a partner's lap. Sit on a lawn chair. Sit on one of 50 ancient Satellite dishes pocking the roof. 

But please, back away from the edge of the roof, no matter how attractive you find the single person you are talking to. You don't wanna be Dead on the Fourth of July. 



Possibly dead.
OMG just use these already


























Pros: It's peligroso up there - the only night drunk people light explosives without with practical impunity; a chair, blanket, cooler, lap all mitigate the risk of a deadly rooftop fall

Sit on the cooler. Control the cooler

Get cozy with a mate.

ConsFriend standing in front of you might obstruct your view of fireworks and throw off your Ooo and Aaah rhythm


Rising from a seated position prolongs your escape to the stairwell when a package of lit M80s accidentally lands next to you.

Harder to swat drones. 

oh jeez, sister.
















Stability - 4/5 seats are stumble-proof

Cool Factor - 2/5 Certainly not as chill as reclining against an old brick chimney

Difficulty - 2/5 Depends what we're working with here. A lawn chair or blanket on a windy evening? Yeah gotta sit down before they blow away.

Perilousness - 4/5  Fourth of July rooftops are sneaky dangerous, especially when your upstairs neighbors reveal themselves as repressed pyromaniacs

Added bonus - 4/5  Beautiful for spacious skies 

Overall rating - 16/25 for a quiet harbor amid a firestorm ⚔ 🔥🔥🔥🔥