Author Topic: Dave Draper Blog  (Read 9383 times)

TK

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Dave Draper Blog
« on: January 12, 2011, 10:35:27 PM »
Dave has his own blog - very cool.

Here is the latest entry - Wednesday, January 12, 2011

1 - Draper here... Like I Said Five Years Ago, We Press On

It was Monday morning and I was slouched at my desk poking with my
fork at an open can of sardine filets. Been a long time since these
little guys splashed around in the ocean, I thought. I gave myself a D
for posture, sat up and arched my back into a tight contraction. Feels
good to straighten, stretch and contract. Sardines are good for you,
did you know that? Omega-3 oil, high in protein, no carbs, smelly and
not too appetizing. I like the crunchy little bones. Oops! Slouching
again, another D. What time is it, anyway?

Time for another cup of coffee. I wonder if coffee and sardines are a
bad mix. I know they're not a good mix, like tuna and water, but are
they bad? You know, like, do they produce enzyme malfunctions or
corrupt hormonal activity when they're combined? Is the protein
neutralized by the caffeine or do the omega-3s turn rancid and become
triglycerides? Coffee and Danish pastry go well together. I love
Danish pastry. I haven't had a piece of Danish since I was a kid
living at home... sixteen, maybe. I wonder if it tastes the same. Huh,
45 years and no Danish.

Still raining. Going on three weeks. It's been raining for so long
that I'm getting into it. The world gets small. The darkness and the
haze limit the distance you can see and the blue sky is gone, cloaked
in grey and brooding clouds. You go out only when you must, to run
errands, go to work, the gym, church... wherever... and you mostly
look down, or from the underside of an umbrella if you're with your
wife or girlfriend. Guys don't use umbrellas, unless they're business
guys, which I am not. No wingtips and knee-high socks, though I do
have a couple of ties and a jacket somewhere.

The indoors is where it's at. The crackling, flickering hearth is the
center of attraction with Laree and me alternately feeding the fire
according to its appetite. It's warm, comfortable, alluring, hopeful
and alive. Homemade soups and stews nourish the body, heal the wounds
and soothe the spirit. Shelter takes on new meaning and you're
grateful to be living, breathing, working and protected.

The gym, always a refuge, becomes a special place away from your digs.
It's good to mingle, hear your voice among other voices and bear the
struggle of unkind and peculiar weather with like creatures—friends,
indeed. Between sets I go to the gym's open back door to peer at the
rain and inhale the fresh wet air. Very nice. I don't gaze too long
'cuz I don't want to lose my rhythm or body warmth or pump or
concentration or favorite bench. The rain's nice, but not that nice.

Fewer people make it to the gym when the wet weather moves in. Traffic
slows down, wet clothing, hair and feet are uncomfortable, and, like I
said, the world becomes small. And inconvenient. The gym seems far
away; into a hooded slicker, out the front door, beyond the gloom,
through the downpour, puddles and mud and across the flooded
intersections. Cars are slipping and sliding, and who can see out the
windshield in weather like this? It's confusing and messy. Wipers and
heaters and defrosters work overtime. The carwash is empty. So are the
swings, barbeque pits, street corners, park benches and jogging paths.
A little lonely, you can feel it. Just you and yourself.

Ah! A good group: serious, dedicated, appreciative; industrious,
willing and able. They're getting their money's worth, investing in
their health, wasting no time and increasing their personal wealth.
They're working out. This is entertainment at its best—beneficial,
exclusive and confidential. Nothing like a little active privacy and
treasure hunting on a rainy day, that's what I always say. It may or
may not cross their minds, but somewhere in their consciousness they
know they are where they belong, safe and sound and dry and pumped,
and it's teeming outside. The black afternoon sky is emptying itself
and they're doing chins and bentover rows. Ha. I mean, the power could
go out, lightning could strike or the forceful wind could blow off the
roof, yet here we are, the intrepid few. I'd hang onto a 50-pound
dumbbell if I were you.

I'm into my workout. How much I lift isn't as important as the very
fact that I'm lifting in the powerful and secure confines of the
darn-near-sacred gym. I move the iron with a different effort that
arises from a palette of multiple strengths, desires and needs. Desire
is the predominant factor affecting the shape and outcome of the
action before me.

The music and clang and shuffling bodies don't compete with the hush
that prevails. The symptoms of the weather have become almost
endearing and penetrate the edges of our minds and souls. We need the
rain, the water that gives life. I hate droughts. You won't see me
moving to the moon any time soon.

I find a corner of the gym and practice side-arm lateral raises. This
once-favorite shoulder movement had been relegated to the exercise
junkyard after a dumb accident disconnected my right infraspinatus, an
important rotator cuff support mechanism. Since that fateful day 30
years ago, the shoulders, the poor mutts, have had to eat scraps and
work hard for their run on the beach. Today, prompted by a calm
thoughtfulness and nostalgia resulting from the confinement of
inclement weather, I decide to revisit the long-lost friend. I'm in
the mood for discovery, or re-discovery, as the case may be.

Just to assume the starting position—slightly crouched with the
dumbbells held fixed and ready before me—and exert the outward and
upward action with that particular shoulder contraction at the peak
would be enough, no matter how light the resistance. I start with five
pounds and exact the movement. 30 years later and I feel a chill of
rebirth. I know that groove, like an old song when I was happy and
growing up with my buds. How does it go again? I go to the 10s, brace
my body and retrace the groove. At 10 reps I'm burning and pumping and
singing in the rain. Draper's smiling.

I grab the 15-pounders like they were my third and final attempt at
setting a new world record: tense, deliberate, prepared for the high
risk, yet confident with hope and faith and need. I can do it. With
extraordinary focus, rep upon rep I fight my way to another stunning
10 reps. The muscle activity is real, the pump and burn are not
imaginary and I devour the encouragement.

The telltale twang on the last reps didn't scare me, but gave me kind
warning. Be smart, bomber known for making crash landings in dangerous
territory. Go slowly. Build up and support the area surrounding the
absent spinatus muscle to permit further action, heavier weight,
tighter contraction, greater overload and enable the delts to assume
the proportions and consistency of watermelons... um... make that
cantaloupes. Grapefruits?  Two more sets with the 15s and we'll sneak
up on the reluctant exercise over the next months. I'll need to
fashion a new groove.

I'm singing and dancing in the rain.

There are four of us standing at the back door, none of us fighting to
get out first. The rain is inviting, but wet nonetheless. We agree the
miserable weather conditions are good for the dry landscape and our
spoiled-rotten nature. We're done here today, thank God, and better
prepared for tomorrow. Not one is taller than the other, race and
gender don't matter and any one of us would carry the other if he or
she asked. We're in this together.

See ya later... stay dry... don't slip on the stairs. The days are
getting longer, ya know... less than three months to spring...
Godspeed... Dave



http://davedraper.com/url/column.php




funk51

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2011, 11:28:54 AM »
this has been going on for years, don't know where he gets the inspiration. the blonde bombers been thru some tough times in the last couple of years but always bounces back. great guy order one of his books and it will come autographed for same price.
F

TK

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Dave Draper's Blog 07-05-11
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2011, 06:20:13 PM »
Draper here...  Freedom, Liberty, Independence


Rather than set off a few dinky firecrackers to celebrate the 4th, I went to the Weight Room to blast it. The sun was blazing and all the traffic was headed for the beach as I maneuvered the last mile to the
gym. The temperature gauge read 90, the clock said 9 and I thought, "I'm free."

I'm crazy.

Everyone this side of the Atlantic and Pacific, Mexico and Canada are barbequing in their backyards with friends and family, swimming and splashing wherever there's water or cruising the purple mountain
majesty above the fruited plain and I'm draped (how appropriate) over an unyielding bench under an unmovable barbell in the inescapable confines of an impenetrable concrete structure tucked in the
inaccessible corner of an insensible industrial park. Cheers!

Here's to a happy 4th, Independence Day. I'm free. Where's the dang chalk?

As I pull into the rear parking lot, the same parking lot invariably empty this time of day, I encounter 20 vehicles crammed into the space. "What's this?" I gasp, expecting solitude and tranquility, "Is there a concert, a presidential campaign, a cockfight, an overturned beer truck?"

I parked where I could, grabbed my gear and ascended the aging staircase to the open backdoor. Just as I suspected. A secret mob.

It's every ironhead this side of crazy who cannot go a day without his fix. There they are, strung out before the dumbbell racks, hooked on the cables and getting loaded at the squat cage. They're high on chins and down on deadlifts. They're cool on a very hot and celebrated day, a summer day of American liberty and freedom.

I joined them in the free-for-all. We are family, after all. All for one, and one for all. Rich and poor, young and old, short and tall. Masters of our own imprisonment, we go where we want, when we want and how we want. The truth is, we go where we must.

You can take my worldly possessions, the clothes off my back, my Timex, the black and white Motorola, the sardines from the cupboard, but don't take my gym.
 
A man without his gym is a man denied the captivating fight for fulfillment and exhilaration, self-expression and personal knowledge. And make no mistake, bombers; it is the same for a woman. He and she -- they -- minus a gym have nothing, nowhere, nil.

 ~ No safe haven to hide...
 ~ No refuge to lick their wounds...
 ~ No shelter from the storm...
 ~ No sanctuary from which to call out...
 ~ No platform from which to speak freely and deeply...
 ~ No emergency ward for a crisis...
 ~ No asylum to untangle the twisted mind (not Laree's favorite imagery, btw)...               
 ~ No altar to aright the heart and soul...
 ~ No workshop to construct and develop...
 ~ No studio to shape and form...
 ~ No forum for instruction and teaching...
 ~ No classroom to learn and grow...
 ~ No hall to study and analyze...
 ~ No laboratory to research and experiment...
 ~ No matted floor to fall and pick themselves up...
 ~ No vehicle to take them where they need to go...
 ~ No incinerator to the burn garbage...
 ~ No boat to stay afloat...
 ~ No place to fret and pace...
 ~ No space to forget and erase...
 ~ No room to zoom...
 ~ No juice bar where they can get a Bomber Blend Smoothie to restore their hope... 
 ~ No, I don't have anything better to do...   

I estimated 30 lifters weaved their way around each other while I supersetted Smith presses with pulldowns. I'm a bit out of practice, finding it really weird to train with more than three people on the
gym floor. I knew half the trainees and the other half knew me. I tried my best to look big, tall and rugged, but at one point I stumbled into a wall and later my sweatpants slid down to my ankles while doing good-mornings with a broomstick, trashing any chance to highlight my sterling bomber image.

Just joking. I don't do good-mornings with a broomstick.

I finished up with a dazzling, newly formulated and seldom witnessed superset of dumbbell incline presses and stiff-arm pullovers to assure me and any speculating spectators I was still conscious and twitching.
I was the last to leave the building and felt like a million (in Santa Cruz, that's a handful of spare change).

Gee, I just reviewed the long list above and in many ways it reminds me of the attributes of God Almighty. Alas, the gym is but a pile of stone, steel, wood and plastic; it is not a thing to be worshipped. Yet, that doesn't mean God isn't there when you know He is.

Lift smart, eat right, be strong, be free... The Bomb

funk51

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Re: Dave Draper's Blog 07-05-11
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2011, 09:33:49 AM »
amen
F

POB

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2012, 02:48:28 PM »
Good stuff

Danjo

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2012, 05:11:16 PM »
Inspiring guy..I know he's had problems,(although don't we all?)but I've always been a fan of the Blonde Bomber..
H

magikusar

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2012, 07:02:27 AM »
super boring stream of consiousness crap

is he high?

good physicque tho

funk51

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2012, 12:57:06 PM »
 :D
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oldgolds

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2012, 01:59:44 PM »
Strange sport and people...consumed by health and fitness and appearance, yet at the same time injecting and ingesting poisons into the body in order to look better...

magikusar

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2012, 04:32:52 PM »
draper seems to be high in his writings, doesnt fuck around in gym tho


godeep

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Re: Dave Draper Blog
« Reply #10 on: December 10, 2012, 05:39:33 PM »
Inspiring given how long he has been at it.

Also, I'm a big fan because of his top squat bar allowed me to do squats again after fucking up both of my shoulders. Use it every thursday on legs day.

http://www.davedraper.com/fitness_products/product/TTS.html
l