Gym Review: Muscle Beach

Having been lucky enough to get to sample a workout at Muscle Beach last week, I thought it was only fair that I share the experience with my fellow readers. It almost seems like sacrilege to review what’s perhaps the most famous gym in the world, but here at the Biomatrix we believe in treating everyone, and every gym, equally. No one get’s special treatment, and so I put this beacon of fitness to the test like any other and asked the ultimate question: is it better than Stokewood Road?
Well actually, while Stokewood road is just my old quaint little gym down the road, in many ways Muscle Beach isn’t actually any better. Okay so it has slightly more pieces of equipment, but then Stokewood road is really lacking in that department (I defend it more out of loyalty than anything). The point is that compared to most decent gyms you’ll go to these days, Muscle Beach doesn’t really have much at all. To summarise they have one of every piece of equipment – so just like any other gym you can expect to queue for the bench press. Half of the stuff they did have while I was there was also wrapped in cellophane – i.e. they hadn’t bothered to unwrap it. And that includes the bench press – it’s wrapped in cellophane in the most boiling heat in the world. They also don’t have any CV machines at all.

But then I kind of like that. This is for bodybuilders after all – not overweight middle aged guys. This is for people who are serious about working out and who don’t care that they’re doing it with minimal equipment. Hell, we could get a workout out of a pile of scrap (in Stallone’s case literally). This is bodybuilding as it should be – down and dirty and covered in sweat.

So Muscle Beach is not a health club, it’s dungeon. Except it’s also for people who are very vain, because unlike most dungeons this one isn’t underground; in fact it’s in the middle of the road with no walls and no ceilings meaning that everyone who guys by gets to stare at you while you do your workout. And in Venice Beach lots of people will go past no matter what time of day it is (and most of them will be very very weird). I was on Holiday in LA and yet tourists were taking photos of me (and Goof) doing a workout as though we were one of the attractions. For lots of people that would be a big turn off, but for proud ‘top off men’ like ourselves this was a good moment. Likewise it will be a good moment for anyone else who is genuinely a bodybuilder, where the idea of the sport is after all pretty much to look good. Again then, this is a place for the hardcore, and if you currently feel a little intimidated by the free weights room in your gym then you just won’t cut the mustard here.
One downside of the open-top policy however was the sun, and after a few sets and reps Goof and I found ourselves close to passing out. Locals I’m sure will be used to this, but even then it’s taxing. But again it’s hardcore, and at the same time it’ll sweat the fat off of you. Our workout then was slightly slowed, marred by the sun, lack of available bench press and Goof’s bad wrist. Still though it was an event and it was certainly inspiring working out by the beach in front of onlookers. More inspiring still were the photos on the wall, the names of bodybuilding legends such as ‘Joe Weider’ and ‘Frank Zane’ immortalised around the outside, and images in my mind of Arnie training there (from Pumping Iron I believe). I feel that if I had regular access to this place then it would have a positive effect on my training and I’d be pushed to train harder. In other words then, this is a gym that subscribes to the ‘less is more’ attitude. It’s a real gym. If you go there expecting that, then you’ll have a great time.

Furthermore it was only $10 for a day pass, which leads me to guess that a year’s pass would be somewhere in the region of $150-$200 (about £90-£130), so it’s definitely affordable. You do away with the swimming pool and Pilates classes and suddenly a gym doesn’t need to break the bank. It was also fairly quiet, though I imagine at weekends that might change.
The best part of the experience possibly for me though was the free bodyweight gym just opposite. This place had ropes dangling from bars, rings for the Iron Cross, stations for dips and everything else you could want. I believe strongly in bodyweight stuff and it’s a lot more impressive to show off with than pumping iron. This facility was still on the beach meanwhile and actually had more stuff than Muscle Beach itself. This leads me to think that perhaps if I lived there I would go to that bit instead for a free and more impressive workout, but that wouldn’t be the case for most people who aren’t so hot on the bodyweight stuff.

The final part of my Muscle Beach experience was trying out the new café they have ‘Muscle Beach Café’ (a clever name). The place it great and gets my special recommendation after they gave Goof and myself the honour of being the first ever customers! Hopefully it’ll be famous some day and we can be smug. We bought Coke.

So that’s that – Muscle Beach = an amazing hardcore gym that despite its fame has not ‘sold out’. However there is an even cooler free gym right next door and I’m pretty sure that that ‘counts’ as Muscle Beach. For other things to do while in LA why not follow in my footsteps and stalk Stallone. I had a nice conversation with his Maid who told me to go away. Oh well…

24 Hours of Productivity

Okay so I realised that the BioBlog hadn't seen much love lately (I've been moving house - sorry!) and thought it was time for something new - preferably one of the awesome Bodylab experiments where I try something ridiculous such as living on just supplements or working out for 12 hours straight. So I thought long and hard about how to punish my body in new ways until I realised that I actually already had only a few days prior when I attempted to work for 24 hours and maintain a constantly high output of work.

Here's what I do for a living other than running the website - I write articles. Hundreds of articles for websites - usually 7,500-10,000 words' worth in a day - and then get paid for those via PayPal on receipt. I have lots of clients and so in other words the more I write, the more I earn. If I need £10 I work for 30-40 mins and I get it. This then makes it pretty tempting to just always work so that's what I tried to do in order to become rich so I could blow it on geeky Iron Man figurines. At the same time I need the money in order to fund my holidays, because if you think about it being paid for productivity means I don't get paid on holiday or sick leave...

So for 24 hours I attempted to work solidly - typing constantly only taking work and food breaks. I've been trying to find different ways to increase my productivity lately, including having the very helpful Guarana stimulant along with my usual caffeine and writing my own 'exo cortex' programme to help make working more streamlined and in some ways fun (I added Megadrive sound effects to the typing...).

Did I make it? In a word no. What I did find out during this duration is that with a little training you can massively increase what you're capable of outputting. Today I've written about 15,000 words and I have brain energy to spare. At the same time you can really affect you ability to work like this in little ways. For example getting more sleep the night before massively improves your ability, and having just a single can of beer will drastically cause you to be able to write less. Other things that help surprisingly are light and carbs. Interestingly since working on such a high output level I've actually lost weight (in the good way don't worry). Here my training is actually paying off and by increasing focus and thinking speed and building a very transhuman-esque programme I've made myself into a 'word machine' (like War Machine but less cool) and made myself to do a job no one else could really do.

But when you try and do 24 hours it's a different ball game. My mind began to drift so badly that I actually couldn't even form coherent sentences in my own head. As in, instead of saying 'I want to go to bed' I'd think 'I want to... what? Go? I want... bed!'. It was weird and quite creapy and I felt like an animal. I continued writing but at this point I was having to write the first half of a sentence and then come back to it and I was a lot slower than normal.

It was at this point I had to give up because my quality of writing was beginning to be affected to the point where I could no longer really sell it. But I did manage 26,000 words in about 15 hours which is probably not all bad. More to the point though I realised that my brain adapated to this ordeal and could now write much more quickly as a result. Like a marathon you simply have to train for it. Maybe next time I try I will manage 40,000.

So what if corporations stopped pouring money into more and more staff, and they stopped looking into new software and programmes to do the job for them and instead started training themselves and the staff they already have to be able to do there job 40 times faster and more efficiently? They'd massively save on their over heads and they'd have a higher quality of work. Meanwhile software they do purchase should be like my exo cortex (or 'Cortez' as I call him) and designed to work with the individual worker to drastically increase their capabilities and automate the 'boring' formulaic parts of their job. Me? I'm more interested in becoming a one-man corporate machine.

Homeopathy - What it is and Why it Sucks

I'm the kind of guy who gets a bee in my bonnet. I get really worked up by things and then I'm like a dog with a bone. Homeopathy is one of those things and as I'm constantly asked to write about it for my job it's been grating on me more and more. I have a lifestyle section of the Biomatrix now, and I'm not sure people know enough about how crap it actually is. So I get to rant and Biomatrix readers get to learn not to buy shit. Everyone wins except homeopaths. Who are EVIL.

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine. It's not a drug but a whole school of alternative (read as fake) medicine with homeopathic remedies (again remedies tend to actually mean fake) existing for every ailment under the sun. Already alarm bells should be ringing. But when you read that there's 'no evidence to support homeopathy' that's actually the biggest understatement of the year. What these warnings should actually read is that 'there is no possible way that homeopathy is real'. Though even the detractors tend to be too generous to say that so blatantly. The good and high-class sources of information tend to say they're uncertain about the qualities of homeopathy. This is in order to remain 'object'. However, fortunately there is nothing high-class about the Biomatrix (apart from its readers of course); so I can safely say that claiming that homeopathy is bullshit is about as subjective as saying the sky is blue (sorry to offend sky-denialists).

Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hannemhan - a grade a douche bag. This guy discovered that the medicine used to cure malaria at the time would cause the symptoms of malaria if taken by a healthy patient. He then made the obvious and scientific deduction that this meant that of course all medicine should cause the same effects as the disease it aims to cure. So for example a curry should cure a runny nose because it causes a runny nose. Here's one slight problem with that hypothesis - it would mean that to cure cellulitis you should just rub more of the staphyloccocus virus on your skin (the virus that often causes cellulitis). Here's another problem with that hypothesis - it's bull shit and mental. (It's also worth noting that being a highly trained scientific genius, Samuel (he's not worhty of being referred to by his sirname) decided to not use any ill patients in his studies - possibly because that would be too easy (or because it would instantly disprove his theories)).

Obviously good old Sam (he's not worthy of being referred to by his full first name) realised this to an extent and did to his credit note that most of his proposed medicines would probably kill the patients. So he came up with a great solution - take them out of the medicine. So get this - in homeopathy they add the active agent (the ingredient that does the magic) then literally just take it out again. That's literally what happens. This they call diluting but in actual fact, most of their 'dilutions' are so diluted as to be able to guarantee that not one single particle exists in the final concoction.

They call their dilution 'potency' whereby the highest dilution is the most potent (so the more definite you can be that the thing doesn't work the more likely it is to work). In the highest 'potency' (200c), the claim is that the solution is 10 to the power of −400. What's interesting here is that there aren't even enough atoms in the universe for this to be possible. Dicks.

These cures then are actually just water. But it's okay because they have the 'vital force' of the initial ingredient. This is maybe due to 'water memory' or 'magic' depending on who you ask. Obviously neither is possible - water is simply a combination of hydrogen and oxygen particles so there's no space for memory. Literally it's not possible. Unless... no, no it's not possible.

In fact to prove this theory recently large groups of people decided to 'overdose' publicly on homeopathic remedies eating tonnes of the stuff. Predictably nothing happened. That was probably magic too. Or 'water friendliness'.

So you're just buying water or sugar (or sometimes alcohol) and happily eating it after parting with a lot of money. What's really sick though is that these homeopathic remedies are sold in Boots and other pharmacies along with the other stuff with no warning. Worse is that doctors actually suggest these things. I happily went out and bought some anti-swelling 'medication' recently for my beaten up face on doctor's orders like a good little lab-rat only to find that they were homeopathic. I felt BETRAYED and angry. That doctor is now in a coma...

Worse still though is when homeopaths tell you not to use conventional medicine. Because this 'drives the illness into your internal organs'. This would be fine if they only said that about colds, but no they actually also advise you against listening to conventional medicine for cancer, AIDS, diabetes and every other serious illness under the sun. They actually would have you basically kill yourself so that they can make £30 off of you before you do. Obviously though you believe them because everything is a conspiracy - science and doctors are inately evil while homeopaths are our friends because their drugs aren't free. But such missinformation actually costs lives.

Like all cults, and that's essentially what it is - a widespread cult, homeopathy clings onto completely obsolete facts and preaches over us that we're wrong for listening to reason. Countless studies have gone into the research demonstrating the effects of modern medicine (and the lack of effictiveness of homeopathy) but somehow this very very old nonsense counts as more honest and worthwhile. If anything scientists are too objective and too fair to rant like this. Science literally means 'objectivity' - it has no motive and it's not a 'group'. Old doesn't always mean good man, years of study and tireless research means good. Why would you choose to trust a random hippy over raw data? And if you can't trust that then carry out the tests yourself! Don't affiliate yourself to any group, just research things yourself.

My point is - homeopathy is shit - but also that it is still sneaking into our lives. Honestly you might be wasting money on crap right now. Turn your medicine around and read the back. Look to see if the active agent is near the top and what the percentage is. Look to see if it says '200C' or '100C' etc on it anywhere. If it does throw it out, you're wasting your time. Read the back of everything you take, no matter who recommended it (especially if I recommended it) and research yourself what those ingredients do.

Sorry, sometimes I can be a bit opinionated...

The PocketMod: Quick Productivity Aid

Want to quickly boost your productivity with just a single bit of paper? Here's how you can have a great, fully functional PDA that weighs under a gram and costs under a pound... By folding a piece of paper very cleverly! Here's the link: http://www.pocketmod.com/v2/ but of course the concept opens up a whole host of ideas. Let us know what you come up with!

A bit of stuff - ooh and traps!

The site is Bigger, Better and More BLUE and BLACK than ever before! It has all these boxes on it that look like a high tech computer that are like whizzing around… you have to see it. It’s brilliant. The only downside about the new site is that it looks very, very bad on Internet Explorer... I'm not around at the moment but I'll get on it as soon as I'm back. In the meantime - get Firefox you doosh!

As though that wasn’t enough though, there are also new articles on pretty much everything (well not *everything*) and whole new sections on bodybuilding, martial arts, transhumanism, parkour, lifestyle, health and fitness, psychological warfare and productivity. Everything you need to become even more awesome!

Oh yeah, and we’re looking for help from people too. Anything you can contribute articles wise, forum wise etc will be really appreciated! The site has about 500 visitors a day now so if you contribute you’ll be heard (that’s 7,000 dudes a week who’ll read your stuff).

Also please post links on other sites, facebook, twitter etc – it’ll really help out and help the site to grow (this is my job!).

Ooh and add me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/NotQuiteReality

Thank a lot guys, I really appreciate it. If you have any questions about your training etc get in touch, I do actually answer! E-mail me with your articles and questions on mousemack@googlemail.com We’re all in this together y’know? (remember that when deciding to post my links on Reddit…)

Keep punching guys!

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Quick Tip:

How to Get Massive Traps:

The traps are the muscles across the main bit of your back at the top, and the ones that poke out either side of your neck. They’re what makes Hugh Jackman look so ripped in Wolverine and what make the guy who isn’t Edward so buff in New Moon (both wolf related… interesting. Traps are the muscles of WOLVES!). They’ll also help improve your bench press and various other moves.

Unfortunately they are largely neglected by the gym-going mainstream. Fools!

The great (splendid!) news is that these muscles tend to respond very well to training, and they grow very quickly. So it only takes a little extra sweat to get them bursting with size and AWESOME POWER.

Chest press, pull overs and a host of other non specific exercises work the traps so you don’t need to do an extra day of training. Instead do an extra morning. That’s right, first thing in the morning on two days a week simply start your day with five sets of shrugs to failure with two dumbbells that are insanely heavy. Follow this up with three sets of upward rows OR shoulder presses. Do this every morning. Drink protein shake. Give it two months. Then pretend you have claws and run around going ‘graaaargh!’. Enjoy, it’s great fun.

A Distraction

Right so The Biomatrix has been a bit quiet lately. Apologies for that but there's a good reason. The reason being that THE BIOMATRIX 4.1 IS ON THE WAY! Yes soon a site even more awesome will replace the Biomatrix as you know it and be far too awesome for words, and with more awesome extras than you can shake a stick at. But to keep you appeased until then we present a little discourse on 'The Sissy Squat: Squat of Champions'.

The Sissy Squat: Squat of Champions

The sissy squat is a serious misnomer, possibly being a purposeful ironic name in the same sense as you might call a really small guy 'Big Geoff'. The reason for this is that there's really nothing sissy about the sissy squat at all, which is in fact one of the most difficult exercises you're likely to attempt any time soon. Fortunately it also happens to be one of the most effective and one of the most practical to perform without equipment or much space.

The sissy squat is much like the ordinary squat and trains the legs, but the position of it makes the movement so difficult that you won't need any additional weight (though some crazy people still opt to add dumbbells to it). For the sissy squat you see, rather than having your feet placed flat on the ground as you would in an ordinary squat, you are instead on your tip toes with your knees point forwards and your back leaning backwards. The best way to describe it is that you'll look a bit like Neo dodging bullets in the matrix, or as though you're trying to touch your toes. From here you then bend at the knees keeping your back straight as though you were doing the limbo and should feel an intense burning in your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves. One of the things that makes this so difficult (other than how much muscle power required), is that it can be very hard to balance while performing this move. If you struggle then, support yourself by placing one hand on a surface. Eventually with practice it should become easier - at which point you can introduce dumbbells by holding them in your hands and having them dangle directly down by your sides.

The Experimental 12 Hour Workout

I originally created this blog with the intention of making it a place where I would describe my various dabblings in supplements, new gym routines, workouts, transhuman techologies, underground training regimes and other bodily experiments. I very nearly called it 'The Bodylab' (cool huh?) but thankfully didn't as I've mostly ended up rambling about nonsense here.
But the time is nigh where I talk about something actual relevant - an experimental 12 hour workout that my current steel-minded gym companion and I attempted. If you're a regular visitor to the site you may have read about Peary Rader's 'One Day Arm Blast'. Here he recommended working on muscle group (the biceps in the case of the article) with a single set at the end of every hour for 12 hours. We decided (fool hardedly), that this was a workout for pussies, and so we amped it up a little - by giving that muscle group (in our case pecs) a full and intense (albeit brief) workout on every hour. For us that full workout was performed on the chest press and consisted of 1 set to failure, then assisted reps - then a 10 second pause - then another set to failure, then more assisted reps... before dropping the weight and repeating. We had the added rule that if you must do 3 assisted reps, but if you managed to do one of those unassisted you then had to continue with the first set before doing the assisted reps again later. In total we dropped the weight twice meaning we did this three times overall - going past failure a minimum of 6 times in a session which took about 15 minutes in total. A great fast way to get your pecs burning on its own.
Then, just as in Peary Weider's arm blast, we would have a source of protein - either usually chicken or protein shake and then massage our titties until the next round. The theory here is sound - by continuously triggering an anabolic state followed by rest and protein we've created a micocosm of a full day's workout for that muscle group. Hyperthetically then the hope was that this would have the same benefit of 12 sessions - 12 or 6 weeks worth of training for most people - and add around half an inch over night.
What we didn't account for was quite how much it would hurt, or how constipated we would become. Nor how we would dread the top of each hour. More than anything this was a psychological challenge and we worried that we were doing more harm than good to our bodies. As we'd work out for nearly half an hour in total between us, then have to mix the shake on top of that, there was rarely time to do anything other than wait terrified like a POW for the next session. Our optimistic hopes of getting a jamming session (we're also a progressive rock band - Samsung calls Wednesdays 'Gym Jams'). Yet, being idiots, we ploughed on towards the final hour (which thanks to some bad organising was at 1am).
When it finished we were exhausted and I personally felt like I'd run the marathon. Obviously it was the next day we were worried about though (and I in particular was worried about my dump the next day after Simon had told me there was sometimes blood in it following too much protein). Surprisingly though, there was not really any severe pain in our pecs the following day (good thing too seeing as I had plans to drive to Southampton and go clubbing all night) and if anything it was my legs that ached. A bit like the bit at the start of Rocky 5 where Rocky says he feels as though something important has broken inside of him then curls up shaking in the shower. Another night's sleep though and we felt fine - and despite not pooing for around 66 hours (a record for me) there was no blood in my stool.
Stupidly we didn't think to measure ourselves before or after the workout, but I definitely at least feel bigger than I was previously and photographs seem to attest to this fact. It may be psychological, but I'd wager there's been at least a quarter of an inch of growth - which is still very impressive.
So was it a success? Maybe. Sort of. But it's really not worth and you'd be an idiot if you thought otherwise. An idiot that I respect.

This is how hard you should be working: