The key to putting on muscle is finding your Growth Apex. To do this you need a way to determine when your body stops growing after a workout and begins to atrophy. For a cool and FREE way to do this incline bench press yourself inside.

THE TRIANGLE OF GROWTH

After a workout your body is pumped. You look in the mirror and it looks amazing. You run out and buy all the nitric oxide products so you can to sustain it. Then some days later you look like your old self again. In order to build expansive muscle you need to workout on the day your body begins to atrophy. A quick and easy way to do this is by taking pictures of your self pre-workout, post workout and for about a week after. For the first run-through you will need to deviate from your normal routine. Consider this the “lab” phase. You need to determine how your unique Growth Triangle works. Okay, let’s get down to business.

STEP 1: THE LAB
First you will need something to take pictures with. Each day you snap your pics upload them into your computer and name them sequentially. For instance the first picture you take should be titled “1″ or “Day 1″ the next “2″ or “Day 2.” Once you get a nice little collection of pictures download this awesome bit of software. It will allow you to import all of your images and then you will be able to frame-forward to watch your body’s expansion. You can even export the image sequence as a movie if you want. Here’s the simple path for importing:

FILE > IMPORT VIDEO > Select the folder where your images are stored then click on the first image and the software will automatically load the others.

Once that is complete simply use the buttons at the bottom of the window to frame through your images. If you are not interested in making a time-lapse video out of your images you can perform this same feat by using the ‘Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.’ Just right-click your first pic and select ‘Open With’ and then select the ‘Picture and Fax Viewer’ option. Okay, now to the fun stuff.

STEP 2: THE HYPOTHESIS
The first pic of yourself will be the relative guide. The second pic will show you your muscles at their most dense, but not their most expansive. As you frame forward you will notice your body expand. A a certain point it will begin to atrophy. Remember, this is just an experiment to help you improve your workout schedule. You must workout once and then allow yourself some substantial off-time.

The point where you begin to atrophy will be your ‘second workout’ day in the future. to clarify, if you notice your body atrophying ten days later then when you go back to the gym after the experiment you will wait ten days before working on that muscle group. If you want to get really crazy you can overlap the experiments for all of your muscle groups. You may find that your legs recover faster than your arms. What this will show you is how arbitrary the “i workout three times a week” business is. Your muscles do not adhere to rigidly set times, they only perceive space or distance. I know that sounds a little quantum physics-y, but let me try to explain. If you work your chest today and then again ten days later that means there is a “space” of ten days between workouts. Time is an interpretation of space thus increments of time represent relative distances in space. If your chest recovers faster, say five days then the distance shrinks. Day one and day five represent destinations in space. I know, it still sounds confusing. If you have the time run over to Tricky Relativity for a more thorough breakdown. Now back to getting JACKED!!!

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON
What you will witness if you continue the process even after you determine your ‘second workout’ date is your body’s gradual sustained expansion. If you try this for a few months or so and then export the video you will see your body grow for a period, shrink for a fraction, then grow larger than before. It will be an undulating or throbbing process like a beating heart that expands larger and larger with each contraction.

TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL
You can narrow down your atrophy point to the very second if you so desire. Just take more pictures per day. For instance you can take one every half-hour if possible. That way you can pinpoint the day and time of your ‘second workout.’ Also log your eating habits (good for those who just want to lose weight, I’ll put together a follow-up about that shortly), your mood, the mood of those around you, and whatever else you can think of. This may seem like it’s all about working out, but some things other than the point your pecs start to shrink may be revealed to. Happy trails guys. Have fun. Don’t be afraid to leave comments detailing your success or failure with this concept or links to videos of your expanding body. That is if you so choose to give it a run.

You can write a book about the unintentional homoeroticism in sports, but I’m not going to do that here. You can also write a book about heterosexual white men and their fascination with the myth of black male sexuality and how it applies to sports. This myth that their ancestors created to dehumanize black men is the same one they now harbor an envious contempt for.

“So what they have large penises and sleep with white women, they’re stupid and all they can do is dunk a basketball! Not to mention most of them are thugs anyway.”

It’s that infamous Black Buck stereotype that has straight white men almost salivating over Dwight Howard’s physique while they wonder what lies beneath. It starts out lovingly, but the minute Dwight does something untoward the hatred comes flying out. Like I said, you could write a book, but I won’t. I’ll just try to get it done with a few hundred words. Oh, and don’t let this race stuff bother you. Of course not all white guys think like this and not surprisingly some black men do. They too have fallen for the myth and may wonder why they do not possess what the universe is supposed to endow all black men with. Why do you think many young black men overcompensate? They have to add that layer of swagger to obscure matters. Yeah, I’m exposing this. What are you gonna do? Chop me up and feed me to the poor! Sorry, just watched The Departed. All right, enough meandering, just come inside already.

HOT MAN ON MAN ACTION

Before the retirement debacles sports fans and sports media alike could not and would not stop gushing over Mr. Favre. But when he started to behave like millions of other humans do they turned their backs. Why do heterosexual men act like jilted lovers when it comes to their sports heroes? It’s kind of gay.

It seems that in the surreal world of professional sports it’s okay for a man to ogle another as long as he does so in a manner that is not overtly sexual. But what’s not overtly sexual about this:

Those who critique these athletes may be talking about how their physiques will help him play the game, but I wonder what’s going through their heads when they reference the different parts of their bodies and how well they move. Probably a little of that sexual envy I spoke of earlier. Look, I’m not trying to “gay up” the game guys. It’s already there. I’m just exposing the hypocrisy at work. Also, the dynamic at work here evolved from this:

Not comparing the two outright, one is like fire, the other water, but just like everything else dynamics evolve too. It also explains why the SEC and dominates college football.

THAT NAME’S GOT MY DADDY’S BLOOD ON IT!

Now this one is fascinating. A surname means everything to a man. So much pride, blood, sweat and tears drip from every last letter. It is what they are reduced to when they join armed services or play sports. Their unique first names are thrown out the window in favor of their more common last names that they share with relatives and non-relatives alike.

When a man gets married his wife takes on his last name, they have a few kids and it is his name you see on the doormat and mailbox. Now if this name means so much to them why are they so quick to celebrate another man’s name? And it’s not just the jersey on their back, they go to games to see this man and root him on just like cheerleaders sans pom poms and short skirts of course. They even defend him against detractors with great passion. Just listen to sports talk radio. It’s the heterosexual male equivalent to gossip rags. Now I am not judging these guys for this. Frankly, I find it wonderful. I just wish your average fan was more aware of the earth-shattering irony present when they make ridiculous homophobic remarks.

ONE LAST BIT

Won’t give it away, but the final scene in the film Bruno by the postmodern comedy superstar Sacha Baron Cohen exposes the thin line between masculine brutality and homosexual sensuality. Great stuff. I just wish the spectators got the joke. It was actually a lesson.

Semenya was recently placed on suicide watch after her test results were made public. Such a tragic story that didn’t have to be. Let me tackle this real quick.

First off, gender is tenuous at best. Secondly, the spotlight doesn’t erase emotional fragility, but yet we think it’s okay to just tear into people who choose to work under it. Many of us fear such scrutiny and as a result we lash out against those who subject themselves to it in order to justify our own fears. In pop-culture such people are called “haters.” Rather apropos when you think about it.

We are bored out of our minds most of the time so it is no wonder why we are drawn to stories like this. We all chime in with our two cents hypocritically acting like we’ve never had similar outbursts and not realizing that all of this self-righteuous weighing-in does nothing to explain why such events occur in the first place. Up until this point Serena had done nothing of the sort. Why can’t we just say tsk tsk, levy a fine, maybe a punishment and move the hell on?

The media loves this stuff because they think we love this stuff. Do we? It’s really a matter of what came first—the chicken (aberrant behavior) or the egg (sensationalizing such behavior). If I go fifty years without harming a soul and then on a random Tuesday I murder someone I may get locked up for the rest of my life. Why? Come on inside for more. Sorry to deviate from sports, but really it all fits under the same umbrella.

REHAB?

Okay, so they lock me up and throw away the key. Now I’m left to fester in a tiny dank cell for the rest of my years. All the while thinking about the atrocity I committed. Thing is, moments after I committed it I may have regretted it. I was consumed by rage and passion and lashed out at the person. I didn’t think, I just reacted. But why does a sudden reaction warrant a prolonged imprisonment?

That’s real easy jackass. You took someone’s life. You must sacrifice yours for theirs. You should be lucky you only got a life sentence. If it were up to me you would get the death penalty.

Okay, calm down, this is just a role play. I get you though. The person I killed no longer gets to experience the joys of life and their family and friends no longer get to experience the joy of having them in theirs. But what if I could be rehabilitated? Let’s say after a year I am allowed to venture out of the prison and speak to people about the consequences of acting on impulses. I won’t harp too much on the horrors of prison, but the horrors of having to live with what I did.

That’s the real prison.

And while I’m locked away that fact will be constantly drilled into my head. I will be forced to watch videos of the person’s family and friends talking about how much they love and miss the person I took from them. I’ll also have to read letters and look at picture albums. Over time I will acquire a deep understanding of the person I killed and those whose lives they touched. This will more than likely cause a great pain inside of me. A pain that trumps anything the prison can dish out because this pain is psychological. Now once I feel this pain, which is no more than remorse, then it will be time to heal it. And I do this by sharing my story. I was one person who took one life and as a result many were affected. Now I am one man who speaks to many in hopes that they will think before they react. Hey, this may be idealistic, but something tells me this may be a better preventative measure than lethal injections and gas chambers.

Need some tissue to clean up that bleeding heart?

Real original. And no, I don’t. Just run this through your cranium: what does the winner of a war get?

Honor. Glory. Pride.

No, just the opportunity to fight more wars. Wars do not bring peace. Even if we “win” we still lose because just around the corner is another fight. We justify war because it is killing a relatively small number of people to hopefully bring about a period of peace that affects a relatively larger number of people. But if we just keep on going from one fight to the next then the peace becomes irrelevant as the numbers of those who suffered and died over relative time jives with those who experienced peace. Also, we cannot forget the veterans and civilians still living who endured the violence. They will be forever shaken by their experiences and this trauma will undoubtedly trickle down to those who were spared. This is what typically inspires the next fight. As a result the relative peacetime becomes shorter than the period of war because the only true peace is peace of mind.

And what does this have to do with Serena Williams shoving tennis balls down peoples’ throats?

Everything. Serena felt she was wronged and lashed out violently. What did the judges do in response? For one, they didn’t respond in kind. They disqualified her and sent her to the dressing rooms. They peacefully resisted and that is so much tougher to do than swing a fist. Look, if we bombed no one after 9/11 what would be different today?

We would all be dead.

Not really. There’s that little thing called intelligence. That quiet, sneaky bit where cats infiltrate groups who wish us harm and bring them down internally without pulling a trigger. I think that bit is way more effective than killing twenty innocent men, women and children to get to one bad guy. What do you think all of that arbitrary death does to a people? Oh, I forgot, we already know. That’s the reason we dropped the bombs. We responded to destructive aberrant behavior with destructive frequent behavior. Look, anger burns hot, but fades over time. It’s been eight years since that horrific day. How many of us are just as angry as we were then? I would venture to say not many. Time is doing that healing thing it always does. But not overseas. Bombs are still going off. What if we gave them time to process what occurred on that day? What if we didn’t just react? I wonder how our relationship would be today? I’m not saying we would be the best of friends. But violence only begets more violence. Someone has to be brave along the way and take the blow and not return it. Yeah, I know it’s tough. If you punch me in the face my knee-jerk reaction is to hit you back, but it takes more balls to sit there and do nothing. Now you can keep hitting me, and I’ll just keep taking it. Eventually you’ll wonder why in the hell I am not fighting back. Of course you want me to fight back because by fighting back I justify the fight. But if I refuse you lose.

When Michael Jordan retired the sports cognoscenti clamored to find his replacement. Kobe Bryant quickly rose to the top. Then a few years later came Dwyane Wade and LeBron James.

THE NEXT OF KIN

Everything Jordan had you will find in these three young men. The beauty, the explosiveness, the dominance, the swagger and most importantly an unabashed love for the game. But without Jordan these guys do not exist. He was the cell that divided into them. You see this phenomenon everywhere—in music, film, art, business, etc. There’s always a postmodern trend-setter who breaks onto the scene and shocks the establishment. Initially the establishment bucks this affront to the status quo, but over time they begin to appreciate the diversity the maverick adds to the homogeneity. Michael Jordan was the NBA’s postmodern maverick. But where did he come from? Well, Jordan was the product of this:

And this:

Jordan was the fusion of these two disparate entities. The NBA merged with the ABA in 1976 to add some sexiness to their stodgy league. Although some of the ABA stars, most notably Julius “Dr. J” Erving, had success in the NBA, it wasn’t until Jordan stepped onto the scene that the goal of the merger was really solidified.

He had the fundamentals, but he added a relatively diverse layer on top that made him memorable. Without that “sizzle” he would be Tim Duncan. No offense to Mr. Duncan. Great player in his own right. I just don’t think we’ll be gathering around the TV to watch Tim Duncan’s top ten highlights in the near future.

THE EINSTEIN OF….SORRY CAN’T THINK OF ANY BASKETBALL THEMED ALLITERATIONS AT THE MOMENT
Jordan’s style was light years ahead of everyone he played with, then in the late 90s came Mamba and then in the early part of the new millennium came Bron and D-Wade whose styles are also light years ahead of everyone they play with. And they are influencing a new generation of players whose respective games will be—well, you get the point. We’re in for a helluva thing. Don’t believe me, check out the vids below:

Football season starts tonight so I developed this little logic game for all of you aspiring coaches out there:

Let’s say you’re up 3 points and on you’re on your opponent’s 25 yard line with a couple minutes left. It is first down. The ball is hiked. It is pitched to the running back who rumbles down the field for 11 yards. It is now 1st and 10 on the 14. But wait, there was a defensive off-sides penalty. If you accept it you go back to the 20 yard line with 5 yards to go for the first. Why don’t many coaches take that over the 1st and 10 on the 14? Think about it, then come inside.

BE A MAVERICK
More time would be wasted if the offense accepts the penalty and controls the possession. You could run the ball on the 1st and 5 and realistically get 3 to 4 yards. The next play brings up a 2nd and 1 or 2. You would now have 2 chances to gain only a few yards. Of course time ticks while you do this. Also, if you fail to make it you are still in range for a relatively easy field goal. But you must not lose anymore yards. You’ve already made the initial sacrifice of 6.

TO RUN OR TO PASS. THAT IS THE QUESTION.
We typically go with the 1st and 10 out of fear. What we don’t realize is that if we don’t fear the loss it actually leads to our gain. And get this, it’s not that difficult. The offense never has to throw the ball into the air which gives the defense more chances to get to it. Running the ball is more secure because the triangulated grip the player has on the ball makes it tough for defenders to knock it lose. It stays in the center of the triangle with three diverse forces keeping it in place. The forearm, the bicep and the obliques. Three muscle groups coming together to secure the ball. The best way to knock it loose is to assault all three forces with a greater singular force.

Passing the ball is a bit more risky because we need relative diversity to judge speed. Ever been out for a walk and notice how you cannot accurately judge the speed of oncoming people or vehicles until the person or vehicle passes you? If you are walking along a bike trail and you see someone jogging and someone riding a bike in the distance the further away they are the more they seem to be moving at relatively the same speed. Once they begin to get loser you will see the biker pull away. You know he must be going faster than you, but you just cannot tell how fast. Then he buzzes by you and you can tell in a split second just how fast he was going. The jogger runs by and she takes just a bit more time to pass you. When the ball is in the air the receiver has a hard time judging how fast the ball is moving because the backdrop is constant.

A good receiver does not have good hands. Our hands are relativity the same. A good receiver just understands ball physics. He knows the football’s shape sends it rocketing into the air where it glides along the top of the arc and then descends as fast as it was launched back down to earth. The faster the lift-off, the faster the descent. This also affects the speed it moves along the arc. A talented receiver understands that all of these motions are relative, that is why if he spots the quarterback throwing the ball he will know from the launch how to judge the flight and descent. Good cornerbacks know this as well. So stop dismissing receiving talent with that soft hands jive. All these guys wear gloves anyway. A good receiver’s hands have very little to do with it. He has to know angles. That’s how he gets open. A good quarterback can send the ball along these angles by adjusting the angle of his arm as he throws. The angle of the arm, wrist and hand help to create the ball’s spiral which creates the arc. A football is a peculiar boomerang missile of sorts that has to be thrown a particular way to move from point A to point B. It has to boomerang to do this. Go outside, throw your best long bomb. Let it hit the ground. Now if the pass was perfect the nose of the ball will hit the ground at the same angle it’s counter-nose was pointed before the throw. Even if the pass is what they call a frozen rope it will eventually arc. The receiver catching it or the ground prevent us from seeing where it will eventually nosedive. There’s always a nosedive.

The video just goes to show you that best way to get from point A to point B is not always a straight line. Drew hits bulls-eye after bulls-eye because of the imperfect wobble. Everything in the universe wobbles a bit.

There’s nothing dumb about football. It is a complex game of speed, force, time, relativity and emotion. Sports use the laws of the universe (physics) to expose its dirty little secrets. Religious texts often contain stories that betray the laws of physics. By doing that they show you what you’re capable of when you stop being so fearful and come together for a common good. It’s no mystery why our teams are named after ferocious beasts or universal concepts like heat or magic. Sports are a big hint as to where we can go on this planet. We take them just as seriously as we take our wars. The big difference is that the young people playing them do not lose their lives and the innocent civilians find entertainment in the spectacle. But death is creeping in a little bit, just as it always has. But folks need to chill out a little bit. These guys feel like they are super humans who can get away with anything because you pretty much tell them just that. They are not that different than you. Throw out the relative diversity of the money and the ability and they are just humans. They behave the way they do for you. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but would any of these guys have all of the fame and fortune if you didn’t love them? Now that this can is open, let’s sample some of its contents:

SUPER “STARS”
We reward our most persuasive with love and money. These are your athletes, actors and recording artists. We reward them so heavily, because unlike the salesman, we welcome their persuasion. Think about it, how do we justify a baseball player making a hundred million dollars over a few years to play the sport he loves to play. If he likes doing it so much shouldn’t he do it for free? Why? A capitalist already figured out that you will pay to watch the baseball player play the sport he loves to play. The capitalist has also determined that these players or entertainers are the best sales pitches out there. You love them because they are capable of doing things you can only dream of. These are the relatively rare of the relatively rare. The capitalist exploits this, that is why he is always searching for “rarer” entertainers. This is why Nike threw gobs of dough at LeBron James before he even set foot on a professional basketball court. They had to get to him before someone else did. They knew he was a relatively rare entertainer. An entertainer so “dense” you will spend your hard-earned money to purchase whatever he endorses. His shoes cost $200, no worries, the price encourages exclusivity because the talent is exclusive. This is how you subconsciously justify these purchases. It’s why when Oprah tells you to buy something you buy it. Celebrities are some of the “densest” stars out there (no pun intended, although it should have been). They fulfill our need to worship something we perceive to be superior to us. But our love is fickle. For decades we will shower them with love and money, but if they do something we find objectionable we are quick to take it all away. This is us exerting our power. Why do we only do this when we are afraid? If you flip on MTV and see “Pop Singer X” giving you a tour through her garage that is bigger than your entire apartment building maybe you will think twice before plopping down whatever inflated fee they charge for their records. If you like their music, why not just download it for free. They don’t need “another” Rolls or Bentley, but you need some “more” music? Just think about that for a bit.

TIME TRAVEL IN SPORTS

Time in sports is relative because the clock stops and starts often. As a result men can deceptively appease their wives by saying, “But babe, there’s only three minutes left in the game.” He knows that those three minutes can elapse in three minutes (at the very least) or much much longer. In soccer they call this stoppage time. But the game isn’t cheating, they actually only play three actual minutes. They are going slowly back in time while playing for only shorts bursts (the average play is only a few seconds in football). Let’s go back to the scenario I mentioned at the top of this post. If you want to watch the ten o’clock news and it’s 9:40 with three minutes left in the game and the coach accepts the penalty (love the sacrificial undertone there) then you will probably be able to grab a sandwich in-between the end of the game and the start of the news. If the coach declines the penalty you might have to use that relativity destroyer Tivo. Just goes to show you that three minutes isn’t always three minutes.

The above number is Kobe Bryant’s career regular season scoring average. Every single point Kobe has ever scored in his twelve year career is represented here. That is 948 games parsed down to one number. Every game winning shot, free throw and monster dunk is there.

Just think about that for a moment when you look in the mirror. That widow’s peak you blame on your father—not his fault. It’s not even his father’s fault or even his father’s father’s fault. As I’ve already established over at Tricky Relativity, it’s this tricky cat‘s fault. To put it simply: you are the average of infinity.

If a Nordic man can bench press a Volkswagen and an African man can jump over that Volkswagen then what would happen if you mixed these two together? Wouldn’t they create athletic monsters? Yeah. They do. They’re Dwight Howard, LeBron James and Brian Urlacher. It’s America the Beautiful folks.

These men only seem to be of one race. But you will only find humans built or capable of such physiques in relatively rare melting pots like the USA. Their skin color may be dark or light, but that’s only because you have to see the dark to even notice the light. Look at Dwight Howard’s broad shoulders and impressive upper body. Now imagine what kind of ungodly strength is required to propel a man that massive into the air so high. Also, notice the rhythm in the way he contorts his body to throw down a sick dunk. We all love these guys. Remember, most black people cannot jump like he does and most white people do not possess strong upper bodies like he does. These are some fascinating cats and the NBA is starting to get incredibly exciting because of this smashing together of distinctly European and distinctly African and a little bit of everything else for good measure (like a fine stew). Because the explosion was so big (slavery) you get varying shades that radiate away from the epicenter. Every once and a while though a smashing density gets through and allows a man to touch the top of a backboard and then come down to dunk a ball. Speaking of Dwight again, don’t know how many Dwight Howards you will find in Africa. I would guess not many. Add ones who speak English as their native language and grew up a Christian and also have the ability to propel a 6’10” 265lbs body above a 10’ foot rim. I’ll wait. We call this cat Superman. The crazy thing is without slavery this does not happen. Michael Phelps does not happen either. This cat is into hip-hop, smokes a little pot, eats a bunch of food, kind of awkward and just goes out there and dusts cats. He may appear white just as LeBron appears black, but come on America, we really know what’s up. Just the human form of a dense nuclear reaction. When we start to really realize this and we all get together we will smash the Olympics. We will have cats named Joel Goldstein winning marathons against the Kenyans or what about a farm boy from Montana dominating sprinting. Or how about something crazy like this—two sisters from the rough streets of Los Angeles dominating female tennis? No, that’s too crazy.

This is all a reminder of what we can do when we merge. It’s scary to us though. That’s why Barack has to dodge allegations of leering and his country of birth it seems before we can start really asking him the tough questions. At this point I don’t care if he was born on Mars and a really crappy part of Mars, like the slums. Like that Martian city in Total Recall. I don’t care if he was born in that place. He’s got the job now. Let’s stop with the silly stuff and drill this cat on the big stuff. And give him a chance when he flirts with stepping outside of the box a bit, it might lead us to some of that crazy stuff like steam engines and electricity. All that crazy nonsense that never works. Okay, go!

(If you want to dig a little deeper, check out this post.)