Tag Archive for 'discipline'

The Buff Zone 7: The Academy of Meso-Massachusetts

Published
by
Kym Huynh
on May 2, 2008
in The Buff Zone
. 0 Comments

I have a friend, let’s call him Casanova, who seems to have the uncanny ability to generate muscle-tissue en masse whenever he thinks of any sporting-related activity. For example, we took a couple of surfboards down to the surf for the weekend recently during a time when the waves rejoiced and decided that 12-foot was all the rage. After hours and hours of paddling, swimming and frolicking in the salty friendlessness of sea water, I rejoiced for the appearance of abdominal muscles, but looked curiously at Casanova’s sudden appearance of increased general musculature; in fact I could have sworn that said Casanova was growing right in front of my eyes. I should state that while rationale told me that epic growth is not only improbable sans the use of state-of-the-art steroids-that-have-instant-impact and that this was 99.9% more likely to be the universally adored pump, a phenomenon that occurs when blood rushes through your muscles and makes you appear larger, there is no denying that Casanova’s genetic makeup place him in the mesomorph category; the lucky people who are able to gain muscle and lose fat very quickly and have a physicality generally disposed towards looking like a soldier boy; which also happens to be the artist of my favourite song “Crank That”.

It was with joyous chagrin (after all, jealous is too heavy a word to use and I fear that the admission will be something akin to penis envy; which we must all avoid; after all we are in university now and hence mature) that I realized Casanova could spend two weeks in the gym and achieve what would take me months to achieve; the annoyance even more so by Casanova’s continual references to me as “Little Bitch” as a poke at my less-than-meso-tastic genes, but there was one saving grace that stopped me from encouraging Casanova to take the next mini-tsunami that was bound to come up sooner or later and then laugh at his eventual nosedive, Casanova broke his wrist a few weeks prior, 10 minutes into the year’s first surfing session, so this gave me some time to get ahead of Casanova in the gym department while his hand healed. A little ruthless? Perhaps, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and I reason that my less-than-meso-riffic genes would give me an edge on Casanova namely in the discipline, constancy and drive department whilst we battle it out in our arena of choice, the gym.

I must admit, I’ve been unscrupulous in my little competition with Casanova. I recently gave him a game called Call of Duty 4, an award-winning first-person shooter that has all the critics and gaming audience raving due to its beautiful graphics and plots, in the hopes that he would get skinny-challenged playing it. To date, the plan has ensured that Casanova has invested in over 2 days worth of game-play, earning him the title of the highly esteemed Commander, but there are still no signs of Casanova getting fat.

So is this tactic a little bit dirty? Probably a little yes, but don’t forget, when your masculinity is at stake and your competitor calls you a “Little Bitch”, you pull out the cannonball shooters and aim a little bit more below the belt. If you want to take away any pearls of wisdom in this column, know that all is fair in the battle of the biceps, triceps and lithe hip flexors.

It is with this thought that I pondered today why I was comparing myself to Casanova. I’m absolutely positive that comparison has no bounds; comparison occurs with nearly every other person out there and while we’re here let’s not forget the St Patrick’s College Club girls, who ranked themselves according to prettiness, weight and their popularity with boys and walked around their school with numbers on their wrists awarded depending how poppin’ they were; Hollywood would be proud. Would I feel better knowing that I had a better physique? Would a better physique equate to a happier me or is this comparison just a way for me to self-assess myself and motivate myself to performing static holds for extended periods of time? (It buuuurrnns. It Burrrnsss!)

Let’s face facts here; the comparisons are not just refined to the bodybuilding world. Sometimes, there is penis envy (there I said it!). Sometimes, there is academic performance envy and sometimes, there’s just that random envy where you wonder why someone else is so hot and with the right makeup, clothes, attitude and posture, you too could be just as hot if not more.

I believe that we compare ourselves, as a way of understanding our place in the world and in the bodybuilding world, the comparison is something that is undertaken meticulously. I have a theory that if bodybuilders refocused their efforts into the field of nanosurgery, we’d have some hot looking doctors and nurses out there and we would live in a world of multiple McSteamys and McDreamys and that their offspring would herald the coming of world peace.

In terms of physique however, comparison is a great way to measure our own progress, see what we are still capable of achieving, and some friendly competition along the way couldn’t hurt unless we are hyper-sensitive to the chants of “Little Bitch! Little Bitch!” It is with the greatest hope that one day mankind will be mature enough to develop thick skins to such comments, and rather than wilt away on the verbal onslaught, have the insight and wisdom to instead give the offender a highly addictive video game so they can become weight-scale challenged.

It is within the freedomistic confines of the creative Farrago office, looking out the window to my left at the autumn yellow leaves of the trees, and to Simon’s words of “Hailing times are happy times,” that I contemplated the possibility of life without comparison; but also remembered I needed to make a quick trip down to the plant nursery and purchase for two of my friends ficus plants to celebrate their new jobs. Life would be so much simpler, not only would we not need to constantly worry bout how we look and act, our productivity would shoot through the roof; just think about how much time we would save not worrying about the mundane things about life. Earthdom and life would be infinitely easier and less of a mental trauma without considering the following: Who has whiter teeth? Did they wash their hair and condition it? Is that lip gloss on that snaggle tooth and why does that person smell like a watermelon?

I must admit, seeing how easy it is for Casanova to grow provides me with many fist-shaking moments to the tune of 50 Cent’s “The Realest Niggas”. While I have been receiving comments lately about my changing physique and perceiving gains every time I look into the mirror and ask, “Mirror mirror on the wall,” the joy in seeing the metamorphosis is displaced by incredulity when I see twice the result obtained without so much as an afterthought by another. Damn that Casanova! Damn those meso-credible genes and damn my need to buy new jeans as the current ones I have are too big as I factored in the possibility that they might shrink in the machine dryer and thus purchased two sizes larger but alas they did not and now I have a really large pair of jeans.

I won’t lie, there is a bit of meso-envy here. Why is it that I cannot be as meso as Casanova? Why can’t I be meso-tastic, meso-riffic, meso-credible and anything else meso that can be attached to such a meso-nificant word? While I may be very proud of my progress to date and what I have personally achieved, one cannot help but wonder where they would be if they had that little extra help? Where would they be if they decided to eat that vanilla-flavoured ice-cream instead of the death by chocolate? What if they had been born with the inability to perform left turns like Derek Zoolander in “Zoolander” or were instead one half of a Tibetan Siamese twin separated at birth? And just what happened to my morning breakfasts anyway? It should go without saying that a life without comparison would be as crazy as the incredible weather conditions that rage around the Farrago office as I speak and almost as crazy as the Farrago editors’ mad dash around the office to inform everyone that winds from the Wizard of Oz and hail from the Himalaya mountains have arrived and brings with it the second coming of Jesus all done to some of the most funky dance moves I have witnessed to date.

When all is said and done however, Casanova constantly reminds me to eat; something I frequently forget to do and I realize is bad considering my desire to put on weight. I guess at the end of the day when all is said and done, there is really something there to the idea that we compare ourselves to others; for if we don’t, how else can we benchmark ourselves and see how we’re progressing overall?

So yes, Casanova may have meso-licios genes, but I will march on in the journey to godliness, for I will be the tortoise in Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” and my consistency will win in the end so that one day, a fairy tale will be written about me, and it will begin like this: Once upon a time in a land far, far, away, there is a beautiful yet brilliant beast with biceps bigger than a billionaire’s seventh holiday home in Majorca, triceps thrice the size of a red triple-decker bus from London that it tempts all the senses, gluteals so gallant and ginormous that giants shiver in fear, and laterals so luscious that if the salmonella virus was a muscle, it would be that.

Although my genetics aren’t as freakish as Casanova’s, I will rejoice in the quote a good friend, Nat, said to me the other day, “I work out harder than you but I don’t look like I work out. You look like you work out. Do you know how much that hurts me?”

The Buff Zone 4: We Can be Heroes

Published
by
Kym Huynh
on May 23, 2007
in The Buff Zone
. 0 Comments

Sitting alone in bed at night with my trusted sidekick Big Ted, a name I shamelessly ripped of Play School when I was only 30cm tall, I question again runs HITTingly through my mind; why do we submit ourselves to “torture” (pleasure to some) to sculpting the perfect body? More specifically, I wonder whether bodybuilding is our vice, our poison, as a means to provide meaning in a world that continues to demonstrate no stability. Are we turning to bodybuilding as a means to provide some form of control in our lives to make us more secure, to make us feel like we’re in the driver’s seat, and to make us feel that despite being manipulated by a little string in the grand scheme of an unavoidable destiny, we steadfastly refuse to conform to the status quo, stubbornly raising our heads in defiance with a logic that defies all reason?

After all, if our goal in life is to reproduce, what is the point of working out long after we snare our women (or men) and start making devilishly cute children with the combined genes of our perfect partner? Is there another reason, despite the logical health benefits, that come from working out? After all, any sane person would suggest that subjecting ourselves to pain over and over again is not a pleasurable way to spend our limited leisure time in a society that increasingly demands more and more quality production from a decreasingly available time allotment.

Sure, we can suggest that those who work out are long term thinkers, visionary philosophers, who understand that the short time pain will pay exponential dividends later on, but like most people in this world, we expect short term benefits along the way to assure us that we are on the right track as evidenced by my undeniable urges to seek validation that my column musings are improving the lives of people everywhere.

Or could it be that we do so, for the prevention of the “what-if” scenario? What if one day, we found ourselves in the position that the only way to survive a maniacal bank robber shooting was to hurdle over 10 queue barriers Olympic style to tackle would-be robber while simultaneously saving an old lady’s cat from an oak tree while dialling 911 on the telephone to alert the local police department of current events; a feat that can only be performed by those who consider themselves Sparta?

While females are generally regarded to as the fairer sex, the classic male, discounting the relatively modern phenomena of the SNAG (sensitive new age guy) and metrosexual (someone who has sex on trains), is stoic. He is strong and he is the protector of the herd and he doesn’t take an insult to his damsel in distress lying down. He would sooner bleed to protect her honour than utter mumblings of apology and believes that pain is simply weakness leaving the body. He is, in other words, Sparta; the epitome of male alphaness who reeks of manliness so much that the world trembles in his presence. He also doesn’t believe in deodorant.

My theory is that as males, even in ancient civilizations and contemporary society, we grow up exposed to what the ideal male should be. Magazines, television shows and movies all portray men with the 6-pack abs and more recently, a natural 12-pack sported by Gerard Butler who played the role of King Leonidas in the movie “300”, a movie about Spartan King Leonidas who lead his army of 300 soldiers against the invading Persian army during the Battle of Thermopylae. If we grow up believing that the ideal male sports pectoral muscles that subliminally communicate to the opposite sex, “Here, let me hold that large TV set for you,” and arms that promise the ability to sweep a woman off her feet, our emotional development can only be severely lacking due to the constant messages of bigger pectorals, lower body fat percentages and heavier squats, bench presses and deadlifts, compound exercises that every bodybuilder should be well versed with.

In a world that demands our continual development, is our focus on the physicality merely because our emotional selves are severely retarded and thusly too hard to develop when easier gains can be made with our measuring tapes? Or do we believe that if we can control our body, we are grounded and sure of ourselves that it instils in us acknowledge that if we can change our own bodies, we can effect change in the wider community and then the world?

I like to think we fall somewhere in this medium, for if we, a race notorious for its procrastination, can discipline ourselves three times a week on a constant ritual homage to the Gods of discipline, this dedication and steadfast resolve to never miss a workout can be transferred to everything else we do in our lives; the dishes for mum, becoming top executives, and finally, saving the world. Yes gentlemen and ladies, we too, can be heroes.