Next Monday you'll feel more confident. After the gym you'll feel more confident. After one more drink you'll feel more confident. After you get a better haircut, a better jacket, a better job.
You've been "getting ready" for two years.
She's standing ten feet away right now. She'll be gone in four minutes. No amount of preparation will manufacture the courage that only comes from moving your feet.
Walk over. Stumble through the first sentence. Let it be clumsy. Let it be imperfect. You will feel more alive in those ten seconds than you have all month.
Three seconds. That's how long it took. Your shoes. Your posture. The way you held your drink. Whether you looked at the floor or looked at her.
She already filed you away. Interesting. Boring. Safe. Bold. Before you even opened your mouth.
Everything you say after that is just her confirming what she already decided.
So stop rehearsing lines. Fix the first three seconds. Stand tall. Look up. Smile like you mean it. Walk like you belong wherever you're standing.
The words come later. The impression comes first.
I’ve tried static holds for squats. It made the weights FEEL lighter, but it didn’t make them easier to lift. It just made my spine able to load more weight but legs didn’t necessarily get stronger.
5 sets of 5 reps across isn't optimal for either maximal strength or hypertrophy. It is probably one of the best set/rep schemes for achieving both concurrently, but your focus is split between two goals. Your progression is limited by the volume and fatigue you accumulate in sets 1-4. There are several ways you can approach a workaround to where you are reaching higher intensity. Add weight until you can no longer complete 5x5, then move on to 4 sets of 5 until you stall and so on until you are ramping up to just one top set of 5. At this point, you can either start over at 5x5 with a 5-10lb increase and repeat the process or move on to 3x3. I would run the 3x3 the same way, except only run it for three weeks, regardless of wether you get all 3 sets of 3 reps in week one. Week1-3x3/Week2-2x3, week3-1x3. At this point you are peaking and learning to display strength, rather than building strength, so I wouldn't spend too much time above 85% of 1rm for your goals.
I could talk to any woman I wasn't attracted to. Charming, funny, relaxed. Then a gorgeous woman looked my way and I'd become a sweating, babbling mess.
The fix took me years to find and ten minutes to learn. Nervousness and excitement are the same physical state — pounding heart, adrenaline, flushed face. Your brain just picks the label. And you can pick a better one.
Rule 16 shows you how. You feel the nerves, relabel them as excitement, and let that energy pour out as enthusiasm. Women notice the guy radiating it. They always do.
I'm not sure how you would do a static hold for a squat. I've done them on a leg sled before...I've also done Military presses, Bench presses and Close Grip Bench presses...
I always did it once a week, 3 sets of ~120% max and holding for 45-60 seconds. It’s basically holding yourself in a quarter-squat stance, maybe slightly less. Worked me like hell but I think it fried my CNS.
I like this, good hunting, Macaframalama
I agree.