The Experiment’s BodyBlog

At the beginning of the cut, this was to be the ultimate cut.

For almost four years now (and off and on for almost eight), I’ve been lifting very seriously.  I went from obese (275 lb) to pretty cut but almost without muscle (160 lb).  After that, I’ve been slowly adding on muscle.  It was nice having to go from 18.5" fatceps to 13" and now up to 16 1/4" lean and flexed.  It has been somewhat hard work.  I enjoyed lifting but the hard part was the sacrifices that I made.  While my roommates were eating pizza, I was eating a chicken breast.  While other people were downing Jungle Juice, I was downing water.  In the end though, its those sacrifices that make my gains that much more impressive.
Back to the topic at hand, this was going to be the ultimate cut.  My plans were that by the end, I would finally looked ripped enough to look like I’ve been doing this for years.  In the end though, it wound up being a success and a failure.

The success came from the fact that I was able to see a lot more definition than before.  I’ve also continued to make serious strides in certain bodyparts.  In the past, I used to let my abs lag.  This time, instead of doing more than just weighted decline crunches, I added in cable crunches, weighted leg lifts, and twists.  The changes were definitely noticeable.  Here I am, still making newbie gains.  The same goes for my back and biceps, which were often neglected, since the day I usually do them for the last bulk cycle was during my busiest class day.

The failure came in with circumstances.  My lifting partner, who almost never missed a day for the two years he has been my partner, started showing up sporadically.  The passion for lifting and most things were now gone.  He now spent most of his days watching TV (MTV to be exact) and browsing around on the internet.  Whenever I asked him to go lift, he always had an excuse.  Then he would go to the gym at 10 pm, 30 minutes before its closing, to get in a set or two.  The fact that he was gone screwed my lifting up.  He knew how to spot me for everything.  I would ask for help for spotting but the mental edge was gone.  I no longer felt as pumped as I used to.  My lifts started dropping, namely the squats, which went from 465 x 3 at its height, down to 395 x 3.

To reflect on this cut, I was disappointed in it.  My ultimate cutting plan was dead in the water and one of my weaker ones.  The upside is that with a new lifting partner and all my passion intact, the new bulk cycle I’m doing is going to be a great one.

Keep you all posted.

The argument of individualism versus the collective has been debated for the past century.  Our social conscience tells us that the collective is ideal.  The utopian idea of three meals a day for all, never a strained or stressed life for anyone, and the idea that war and aggression are barbaric and should be eliminated.  Yet after decades of trying to shift to a collective mentality, we find that individualism is as strong as ever.  How can this be?

The biggest fallacy of socialism is that everything is a social construct and therefore, can be altered or manipulated as they see fit.  How, from birth, a child can be raised by teaching them the socialist ideal, and hope that they will grow up continuing the socialist/collectivist ideal.  In many socialist societies, this has been done for generations and every instance, it has failed.  Many of them tend to move towards more coercive/totalitarian methods to force people to believe in this ideal, which almost guarantees a general failure of this idea.

The reason why is because it is ingrained in us to be individualistic.  Only through a mass populace of individualism can an indirect collectivism take place.  By this I mean that the competition is strong enough to where everyone’s lifestyle improves manyfold while collectivist societies spin their tires or often times, go backwards.  How does individualism work to improve the lives of others?  It is very simple:

"A," tired of farming with a hoe, decides to make a machine to make it easier.  He gets money, either from savings or by credit, and assembles a machine.  He finds a market and sells it for a profit.  "B," seeing the newfound wealth A is receiving, decides to make his own machine.  He sells it and makes money himself.  "C," sees the money but thinks that the product can be improved by using alternative materials.  C uses new material and a new design that sells better than the others.  A and B change and compete to deliver the best product for the lowest price.

A, B, and C were being individualistic.  They were offering a service.  The story behind it is that getting the parts and raw materials for assembly required a mining crew to get the material, workers to assemble it into parts, and salespeople (if not A, B, or C themselves) to sell the product.  The people behind the scenes get work and get money from it that they wouldn’t otherwise.  The buyers of these products benefit because now they have an easier time farming.  That means better harvests and more free time to pursue other things.  Everyone has won and this comes from the idea of competitive capitalism.

With socialism, there is no A, B, or C.  There is the state.  They are motivated by almost nothing, other than to provide at least subsistence.  They have no need to design better products because the original model works fine, therefore, no more effort is needed.  These models can be backwards and inefficiently produced because all levels of workers see few benefits in putting in the extra labor.  They eat, have free services offered to them regardless of how they do.  The drive and motivation now becomes simply just doing the bare minimum.  Few people win with this arrangement but that is the reality of socialist societies.  People need their upside, their reason for labor.  If they are given everything, they will be less likely to work harder.  It is given to them and is supposed to be there no matter what.

It is not a surprise that many socialist societies created famines that have yet to be touched by any other government structure or type.  The idea of the collective discouraged the very people that it was supposed to help: the peasantry.  Why?  People like the idea of ownership.  They will work harder if the land is theirs.

The Soviet Union proved this example when 1% of agricultural land was moved to private ownership.  Eventually, this 1% of land provided 33% of the food needed for survival!  This was after roughly two generations of socialist "new men" who were raised to be socialists.  How could this be?  Biology cannot overcome utopian ideals that require coercion.  Its how societies flourished when they moved away from mercantilism and towards capitalism.  As the individualistic ideals become strengthened, the better off everyone becomes from the very poor to the very rich.

Today, we might think of the collective as the ideal but it will never happen.  The main reason is that people might like the collective but they like the individualism more.  Due to this, we will never achieve a collectivist system unless by harsh, brute force, which will cause rebellion, not compliance.

It is the 27th of December.  Unless something significant were to happen, its safe to say that 2006 has ended for me.  I suppose like a new year’s resolution, its important to look back and reflect at what happened in 2006.Â
 Â Specifically, what happened and what I can do to improve the situation for 2007.

Regarding my lifting, I’ve made considerable strides in everything.  This is the first year where I barely needed the aid of supplements.  Besides, the given multivitamins, protein, and fish oil, I rarely used supplements.  Creatine, occasional uses of ALRI Venom and Designer’s Melting Point for cutting.  I made tremendous gains, especially for squat, and I believe it has more to do with other things than supplementation.  This was the first year where I carefully monitored my eating since when I was cutting back in 2004.  I no longer assumed that I was eating 4000 calories when I might have been eating 3500.  I made sure I got at least eight hours of sleep a night.  Sometimes it was less but I always made up for it.

My mentality of lifting changed.  This was the first year where I set goals.  I would do DB Bench.  I would do a set of 90 lbs on each hand.  I would see the 125 lb dumbbells.  I looked at it and decided that by the end of the year, I could do five reps of those.  I had the goal in mind, I was able to visualize the goal, and every time I did the DB Bench, I would always see the 125 lb DBs.  I was not able to get to them this year but trust me, I should by the end of 2007.  This was how I did things for all my lifts.  I made a good goal and then I visualized myself doing it with no effort.  I would then see that as I’m moving up, I get closer and closer.  It could be tougher but who knows and who cares.  I want that goal and I will bust ass until I am doing the goal weight.  No excuses, no cowering.

Regarding academics, I did very well this year.  Spring 2006, I received a 3.78 and Fall 2006, a 3.92.  For Fall 2005, I was able to get a 3.6.  How I did that was basically study constantly.  I posessed all the bad h
abits of procrastination and not using my time well.  Finding that sleeping 4-5 hours a night was not fun, I altered my strategy.  I did homework the day it was assigned and would go to office hours.  Not only did my GPA improve, I found myself having more spare time.  I was able to work 22 hours a week, have time for girlfriends, a social life, and some spare time to use.  I was able to make the most of my time.  For the fall of 2006 semester, I went even further.  At this time, I discovered a website, http://www.stevepavlina.com/, a guy who received a double major in three semesters, graduating wiht a 3.9 overall.  The advice of time management was important.  I read up on it and began implementing it right away.  I found even more spare time and was able to remember even more.  I recommend that site to anyone who wants to do extremely well in school but still have a lot of spare time for interests.

The one that should be reflected on the most was my personal life.  This was probably the biggest changes that ever happened to me.  The biggest one was how I used that spare time.  I found myself getting unhappier as time went on.  I felt like I was always living to please or impress someone else.  I would always spend my spare time either here on the forums or dating women.  Its fun, don’t get me wrong, but I started to feel a little hollow.  Was this my life?  I then stopped what I was doing with my social life and reassessed everything.  I decided to think for #1.  I began reading and renewing interests in my old hobbies and rekindling the ambitions I set aside.  I found myself happier, more confident, and better off than ever before.  Probably the biggest change of 2006 was not my measurements or my grade point average, it was my personal life.

I look forward to 2007 and to see what is in store.

It has become obvious that in recent years, we are beginning to see significant shifts of the economy.  With rapid growth, characterized by record Dow Jones numbers, we see that we have not only overcome the 2000 and 2001 recessions but we are better off than ever.  Yet according to numerous people polled taken on many studies spanning all political spectrums, people rate the economy as "fair" at the very best.  With Dow numbers pushed well over 12,000 points, people should be excited at this unbridled growth.  They are not.  Why is this?

We have also witnessed several reports of corruption, missing money (to the amount of over $9 billion USD), and fraudulent businesses.  There has been an increasing lack of responsibility among many businesses.  Almost entire industries in the US are at the end of their rope.  It has become frequent to hear of how the automotive and airline travel industries are almost going bankrupt.  Throughout the world, international automotive and airline firms are doing very strong.  Why is this?

It comes down to two things: capitalism and corporatism.

We as Americans perceive the nation to be based entirely on capitalism.  If this were to be true, the two firms in danger would have two choices: restructure or fail.  Despite years of poor returns, the government has been pumping millions of dollars (into the billions actually) to help keep these industries afloat.  The fact that the government is always there to put a few figures of tax breaks and subsidies to keep these firms running is what is causing these very problems.  Firms that depend entirely on these breaks realize that they do not need to run well or efficiently.  They know that the government will be there to give them money.

Corporatism as a definition tends to be industries supported by government or through government funding.  These businesses do not have to depend on the breakneck speed and force of a competitive market.  The majority of their money comes from government funding.  They are safe.  This automatically eradicates the competitive but beneficial aspect of capitalism.  The aspect is the competition.  A corporation should stay on their toes to deliver quality products at acceptable prices that benefit both corporation and consumer.  If not, they will ultimately fail because there are numerous firms nipping at their heels, wanting to be the strongest.  Darwinism at its finest, a business requires this.  Competition and individual growth not only benefit themselves but everyone around.

Corporatism in design eliminates competition.  The government will tend to support a handful of firms through generous funding.  Not only this but legislation will pass that support these firms and undercut others.  This making it tough or impossible for competitive firms to even get a chance to get started.  It discourages competition and growth.

How firms get picked in the corporatist government tends to be through reasons other than merit.  It might be close friends, lobby groups, and campaign financing.  The best and brightest example of this was Enron.  A business that was handed billions of dollars of subsidies in the 1980s and 1990s but happened to be the most poorly run business of all time, collapsing spectacularly when a year ago, it had record highs in the stock market.  How did this business even get acknowledged was through friendly connections.  In a capitalist society, if there were subsidies, it would be given to a firm who can deliver an acceptable service at the best possible prices.  Firms would compete, fiercely in fact, for these contracts in a capitalistic government.  In a corporatist government, there is no competition.  Your friends
 will hand you contracts at padded pricing.

The flaws of a corporatist government is relating to the government as a central source of power.  It no longer serves its constituents or even a common good.  It service is to lift up friends through cronyist directives.  This harms every facet of society: constituent, business, and government.  The government now posesses immense power that it can wield as often as it would like to support friends and discourage others.  There has never been a society that has flourished under an anti-competitive economic society and there most likely never will.  The government grows in power and continues to unleash its power for everything.  It is not a surprise that since 1980, the government has grown to mammoth size, spending as much money as possible that benefits as few people as possible.

In essence, a corporatist government becomes an authoritarian government.  It now has the power to destroy businesses with shady legislation and can allow corrupted businesses to chug along, or if there is a scandal, to get off the hook with little or no punitive damages.  Does capitalism and constituents benefit from these friendly deals?  They do not under any circumstances.  This is why the health of many firms is very unsteady.  The reason is that these firms got their revenues not because they provided the best services.  It is no different than promoting a third string sports player as a starter.  The third stringer may hold their own briefly but eventually, they will collapse.  We have already witnessed this with several firms and we can expect more of them to follow suit.  Many of these businesses were most likely buttressed with generous government payments.

So what should we do?  The most important step is to be aware.  We as taxpayers have an obligation to know what our elected representatives are doing.  If they are doing secret moves, it most likely will harm us overall, rather than help.  It is our duty to keep tabs on them, to ensure that we benefit as well.  The elected representatives are here to serve us, not a lobbying group.  Secondly, we should try to support businesses that have a capitalistic rather than corporatist approach.  We should reward firms that believe in the success that comes from competition without begging the government for a billion dollars a year to prop up lagging sectors of their firm.  Thirdly, we must promote the idea of competitive success instead of the idea of a handout.  It has become myth that the biggest leachers are welfare recipients but they pale in comparison to poorly run businesses with their hands out, despite the total salaries of their Board of Directors being higher than $150 million a year.

One method will lead to success not just for businesses but for all people.  One method will lead to overspending, corruption, and inconsistent quality.  It is obvious what the best choice is.  Now we should make sure other people know it too.

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