Hardcore Training Lore

To be the best you have to live it. Training at optimum times, full intensity, with precision breaks, eating perfectly to macro level and never quit regardless of how you feel.
Nothing must come between you and perfection. It is every man's dream to look in the mirror and think three things, 'I look like God,' 'Why don't I have a girlfriend?' 'Why are my forearms uneven?'
Of course women can be just as sad, but the forearm joke doesn’t work as well on them.

Apologies to any looking for inspiration and serious workout guidance. This is not wholly serious.

I have spent time focussed solely on my training, achieved unparalleled results and been happy with my accomplishments. I generally didn't have girlfriends at these times, but my training was so tiring I would have been unable to please them or myself anyway, sorry, no funny forearms.

The description hardcore still gets applied to my training now, amusing to one who knows how hardcore truly feels and how far I am from it. People watching me do insane things in the gym or realising my warm up was running or cycling there considered this ultimate intensity, it isn't.

Training has stepped a few rungs down the priority ladder, below family and unfortunately work, I really want to retire. I struggle for time and energy as many do, but still stupidly use energy I should probably reserve for other things.

If you dedicate your life to training and recovery, eat perfectly every day and are committed (check the definition) to a level where nothing else matters, you will achieve the barely possible. You will also become one of the most boring people on the face of the planet to all except the similarly insane. When your friends, colleagues or partners if you're that lucky, glaze over, it's not lack of caring, you’re just dull.
In the gym people may care about your bench press breakdowns from 400kg and how your arms have grown half an inch to achieved perfect proportion with your calves and neck. Those outside it think you lift an amount they can't imagine and are so in love with your body you don't need a partner. So be dedicated by all means, also be aware of reality, and find equally sad friends.
I will envy you during my sessions, or sometimes at work, and would love to dedicate more time and effort to my training, but what I have traded it for is more than worth it.

Fitness fanatics are much maligned and the butt of many jokes, with just cause. We often do things with little or no real world application in the name of perceived beauty or personal ambition. I am of course no exception. I wanted to be a set weight and worked for years to achieve it. I then decided this additional muscle had to pay its way so went 'functional,' though I have never performed an overhead lift on an upside down dome outside the gym. I have noticed myself gaining weight and decided to see how big I can get and still run, there is no justification for this apart from obsession and need for new challenges.

Heavy drinkers boast about hangovers as an indicator of how much they drank the night before. Heavy trainers do the same about aching and most gyms have people stating how badly their butt aches from yesterday's squats, only here will a group of straight men will stare intently at each other’s buttocks without fear or ridicule. We never grow out of this, I still have days where I look as if I have been sodomised with a telegraph pole and strangely feel this is a good thing.

The most dedicated and committed have the following in common. They are all intimately aware of how insanely they are behaving, none of them care and they all love it. Most have a laugh about it, when it's two way.

If you are sad and fortunate enough to be a hardcore trainer, please boast here, if you are a has been like me, tell us why, and of course feel free to comment or insult this post or me as you always can.