Saturday Morning

Saturday, 10 AM, Bucks Bar and Grill

I got up early today, lifted weights, worked with the dog a little and then I came here. I woke up pissed off and I thought that lifting weights would get it out of me like it usually does, but not this time. 

I'm sure that you have been there before, when everything from the coffee maker taking too long to brew, to the lawnmower not starting, to the refrigerator dinging when you left it open too long gets on your very last nerve. You think about punching the refrigerator, but decide against it. You have done stupid stuff like that before. You are older now, wiser.

I decide to go to Buck's instead.

I put a few songs on the jukebox, some Haggard, Chris Knight, and of course, Hank. I take a stool way back in the corner. Just felt the need to sit in a dark, cool bar, to have a beer and watch some games for a few hours. I don't give a shit if anyone thinks it's too early to drink or not. 

In fact, I only give a fuck about a few things in this world, and what people think ain’t one of them. I stare at the the neon Budweiser sign behind the bar as it blinks and begins to fizzle out. 

Something wrong with your sign there, I say

Snake the bartender says, Yup, been that way for awhile.

Ever thought of fixing it?

No, I reckon I haven't. I nod my head.

And that was that. And I thought to myself, why did I just have a conversation about a beer sign? Seems like some wasted words that I can't get back.

In walks Johnny Twiz. I don't know his real last name . He ate a bunch of Twizzlers all the time when he was in high school so that became his nickname. So he walks into the bar. I guess that Johnny is around six foot two and two fifty. Has some fat on him, but a big dude. Big bully in high school and 20 years later, still a bully. He always wanted to fight me for some reason, at least that's what I heard. Kick my ass and make a name for himself. Always telling people how I am not so tough. Just noises coming out of a hole in his big dumb head.

I avoid shit like that all the time, just not worth the trouble with the law and all. But this morning I was not in the mood. He walks over to me, sits down, orders some pussy craft beer. I have never liked the guy.

How are you doing, Superstar?

Good, just trying to drink my beer.

So you want to be left alone?

Yep, that'd be great. Leave me alone.

Damn, ain't you uppity.

Not uppity, just sitting here by myself. I emphasized the by myself part. 

No reason to be a dick.

Well if you would leave me alone, I wouldn't be a dick to you, now would I?

I think you need your ass kicked.

Now I knew that this guy was half crazy, but I had been stuffing my crazy side way down inside of me for a long time and I could feel it bubbling to the surface.

I’d leave me alone if I were you

Then he stood up and pushed me. And my Budweiser spilled on the barroom counter.

Hee hee you spilled your beer.

I guess I did.

He was standing there with a dumbass smile on his face, pointing at me and laughing at me as Snake began to clean the beer off of the bar. I stood up and punched him with a straight right hand as hard as I could, right on the chin. Motherfucker dropped to his knees. Best punch that I have thrown. I couldn't help myself. I lifted up his chin and hit him again. This time he fell flat on his back and was out cold. 

I looked back at the bartender and he said

He's an asshole. I didn't see nothin.

Thanks, Snake

Better get going, Slim. 

I am , buddy. 

Don't worry about the tab, I got it. What a punch!

Thanks, brother, and I appreciate it.

I put a 20 on the bar as a tip for Snake.

On the way out, I nodded to a few of the regulars. I felt better now.

Today

After I dropped my son off at school this morning, I began to make my way to my friend Steve's farm to take my dog, Rebel, swimming. It's a 25-minute drive from my son's school to the farm. It's worth it. Rebel has been limping around lately and swimming seems to help his joints. Plus, I need to wear him out a little, he has tons of energy and if he doesn't do something to get a little tired, he drives me crazy all day.

I have to stay on Route 40 for a few miles before I get off onto Road 279 which takes me into the country towards the farm. 

I pass by stores and cheap food places and old motels on Route 40, some that have signs that warn of drug activity on the premises and that the area is under observation by the police department. I drive by one motel, one of those where you can stay for a night or a week or longer. I see a little boy standing in the parking lot of the motel in his school clothes. 

I figure he is around 8 years old, give or take. He's got his book bag on, he's dressed neatly, with shorts on and a collared shirt, and his hair is combed and parted on the side.  He looks like he is waiting on the bus to pick him up in the motel parking lot. A woman is there with him, holding a baby on her chest. I assume she is his mother. I feel so sorry for the boy standing in this dirty motel parking lot; my heart just breaks for him. 

My assumption is that the mother is on drugs and that they are almost homeless and then I say to myself, you don't have any idea what they have gone through or are going through in life. Maybe she works very hard and can't make it right now with the economy getting worse every day.

Or maybe she can't afford a house to rent and the motel is cheap and that's the best she can do for now. Maybe the father of the kids left them high and dry and left that little boy and that baby and the mother to fend for themselves. And I feel guilty about just driving by and then down the road a bit I feel like I should turn around and give them the 20 dollars that's in my pocket. But I don't. I reckon it's better to not get involved. I think to myself that everyone is so crazy today that it's best to keep driving by. And then I think what a shame that is, that you have to hesitate to help someone these days. I just get really sad about everything. I start thinking about that little boy's life and what he has to look forward to everyday, he goes to school and then the kids make fun of him because he lives in a motel and when he finishes the school day and takes the bus back to the parking lot with the old broken down looking El Camino sitting in it and his mother meets him and the boy is hungry but there is no going to the store for groceries, its McDonald's again, a cheeseburger combo meal just like yesterday. And the baby cries and cries for more food and the boy sits there with his combo meal and watches TV and he makes the best of it. After all, maybe this motel life is all that he knows.

I turn onto Route 279 and I am into the country. It's like time has stopped here. I drive with Rebel sticking his head out the window, on the twisting roads, past farms with cows and freshly planted crops. There are some houses on the road, a group of 3 or 4 every few miles. The houses sit off of the main road by 20 yards or so. Some have kids with their mothers siting in cars at the end of their driveways, waiting on the school bus. One mother has on pajamas and slippers and sits in an old Toyota Camry, looking at here phone. Her daughter sits at an old fruit stand bench, one of those fruit stands where the fruit sits out there and you leave money and take what you paid for.

Every few minutes, I see a picture in my mind of that boy in the parking lot. I can't seem to shake it.

As I drive, I see old barns half way caved in and old cinder block buildings with no roof. An Amish horse and buggy pass me going the other way, driven by two teenage boys. And then another Amish buggy drives by. This area has plenty of Amish folks. There is an Amish schoolhouse that I see all of the time, with a place for horses to be tied up outside of it. I see the children playing, always happy, always running and having fun. The schoolhouse is not far from where I hunt geese and sometimes, if the wind is right, I can hear the children screaming and laughing as they play outside while I am hunting. The other day on the same road, I saw an Amish man with a horse and plow tilling the field. He was struggling mightily with the plow, trying to keep it straight. 

I turn onto the road where the farm is and Rebel is jumping around in the back seat of my truck, excited to swim. After 30 minutes of retrieving in the water, I tell Rebel to jump onto the bed of the truck. I towel him off and put a solution in his ears that staves off ear infections.  He doesn't like it, but he tolerates it. Maybe he knows that it's all part of the process, because we do the same thing every time that he goes swimming. 

Rebel loads up in the truck and we head down the road. I stop at High's Dairy Store to get gas for the truck, a cup of coffee for me and a dog bone for Rebel. There are two girls in their twenties in there, both in pajamas. There is also a middle-aged woman buying crab pretzels and an old man wearing denim overalls, buying a can of snuff. 

I'm thinking that tomorrow I will bring my fishing rod to the pond. Rebel doesn't deserve to have all the fun. 

I wonder if I will see that little boy again?

Dreams

 I'm constantly seeking to be away from others and out in the country. Not all together away from others, but pretty far.  Far enough where I have to make a concerted effort to be around other people. I drive 30 minutes to the gym because I like the people there. And I like the parents on my son's baseball team and I see my old friends from where I used to work once every 6 months or so. But all of that could still be done if I lived further out in the country than I do. Everybody thinks that New Jersey is nothing but smokestacks and the Sopranos but South Jersey, near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, is a lot of farms and woods. I live about 2 minutes from a road that goes through nothing but farms and woods. I drive that way multiple times a day and I see deer and turkey and geese and foxes and eagles.  And Rebel sticks his head out the window and he's sniffing the country air. I have a nice setup where I live: A creek in my backyard where I can hunt and fish on 5 acres. But I want 1,000 acres.  I want a 500-yard-long driveway,  I want to be so far out there and have so much land that you can have a cabin along with the main house. And along a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, with tons of fish ducks, and geese. I'll lease out the fields to some local farmers to plant corn and soybean or whatever, but I want a sunflower field so I can dove hunt it. And I'll grow huge deer and only kill the older deer and live off the deer meat. I'll chop down trees and split the wood and heat my cabin and house with the wood  (My family is around somewhere in this but let's not ruin it). And I'll live in the cabin during hunting season and in the main house with the pond for swimming and fishing in front of it in the summer . I'll have a big fence with one of those huge gates with some cool name like "Whack and Stack 'em Ranch" or something similar.  Something with Steel in it may be better. I'll have a big jacked-up Tundra or F-150 or any full-size truck and me and Rebel will ride around in the evenings to look at the property and see the wildlife. Now, that's what I want, that's perfect.

Stuff

You know what I hate? I hate "jargon". Or maybe it isn't jargon, it's all the abbreviations and stuff like that, or maybe it is all the colloquialisms which Wikipedia defines as "the form of language that speakers typically use when they are relaxed and not especially self-conscious. Other examples of colloquial usage in English include contractions or profanity." 

That's it. Maybe all of them combined. I hate when companies shorten their names to make them more catchy, "Nat Geo" for example. "IHOP" "Dunkin' " there are tons more. "KFC", for example.  People shorten the name themselves like "Mickey D's"

Ugh. I hate 24/7 365, expressions like, "No worries" and "chillin' " 

Shit, it's not just that stuff. I hate a bunch of stuff. Straws, visors, jewelry on men, cats, little dogs except for those cool terrier dogs that kill stuff, little league coaches who think they are MLB coaches,  any type of cheering whatsoever, the expression "Let's Go! "2 wheel drive trucks, all politicians except one, people who change for a spouse, commercials, gun control, corruption, rap country, double standards, mean grocery clerks, Emu and Ostriches, Willy Wonka (the little people freaked me out as a kid. I was crying so hard that we had to leave the theater. And that's why I didn't watch Game of Thrones), waitresses/bartenders who take forever to get a beer, strength coaches who don't lift weights, football coaches who never played football, whiners, complainers (what I'm doing now), fake laughs, any type of celebrations except a pat on the ass, tripods in the gym, 

Can't stand when football coaches say "Good job two-seven" instead of saying, "Good job, twenty-seven." Say the number. It's not shorter to do it that way, just dumber.

I watched some of the UFL, and it was pretty good. I liked it. I didn't see a lot of dancing. I watched about a quarter. The NFL is becoming really weird, man. Right? I mean, Dick Butkus is rolling over in his grave right now with all of the woke bullshit, and for what? What's the endgame here for the NFL? Don't they get that their players are all this close to killing someone? The powers that be want that stuff but they really don't want them to hit that hard or stay inbounds like Walter Payton did.

I wonder if there is something to the lack of hitting in football practice these days and the preponderance of injuries. Is there a "hardening" factor that occurs from being hit more often, similar to a Muay Thai fighter's shins hardening? Interesting, right? I know that you have to balance hitting with head injuries, but it does give one pause to think about it. If the coaches won't hit in practice, I'd say that the players need to do some Muay Thai to harden up their bodies. They don't need to spar but have their Thai pad holder hit them with the pads during rounds. Sounds crazy, but I bet it would help.

I can't figure out why any football player or any athlete for that matter does not take Muay Thai lessons to improve their athleticism. It's a no-brainer. Hand-eye coordination,  balance, tracking a target, reflexes, conditioning, and a whole lot more.

You know what else? Duck Dynasty is the best family show, and probably the only family show on TV. No toilet humor, no sexual innuendos . I'm no prude at all, but you get tired of that shit after a while.

Cocaine?

Some time ago, maybe 10 years ago, I heard that a movie about Southern Rock/Metal was premiering in Philadelphia,  including a live concert with a Southern Rock/Metal band. I think it was Buzzoven? I really can't remember. I'm a huge fan of that genre, so I got in touch with one of my personal training clients, Pat, and he was a big fan too, so he agreed to meet me there. It was in a really sketchy part of Philly, but Philly really wasn't that bad back then, crime-wise. Or maybe I was naive. But I made it to the place, a hipster bar that only served craft beers. I didn't know, so I, of course, asked for a Budweiser and the girl with the bandana tied up in her hair was like, "We don't sell Budweiser." Obvious disdain in her voice. So I asked for something that tasted like Budweiser. It was good. I felt like an outsider in hipster land.

Then Pat came in and we had some beers and then went upstairs to the Theatre/Live music area. So the movie hadn't started yet and the band was out drinking at the bar. Well, I had just read a story in a metal magazine about the drummer being this badass drinker of Jack Daniels like he's always messed up because he's never without his Jack. So I see him sitting at the bar and I go over to him and I order us shots of Jack. I crush it and he does okay but nothing great. I ordered 2 more. I crush it again. He's slowly finishing his. I order 2 more and he says, "Whoa, whoa, I gotta play tonight. Like he holds up his hands saying he is done, and I'm crazy. What a pussy.  

So then we watched the movie and it was great and then the band came on. I'm on the front row.  During the show, Dixie Dave, the bassist, is motioning to the crowd that he needs a drink really bad. Everybody is ignoring him but me. I know from reading about Dixie Dave that he drinks Jim Beam like a madman. I run to the bar and get him a shot of Beam. He thanked me gratefully in gesture and then after the concert, he came up to me and said to me, "You saved me, brother." I was happy to help. A part of me felt guilty for helping him continue with his obvious alcoholism, but I told myself that it was rock and roll, so screw it. 

Then, the funniest thing happened. The lead singer came over to me and sat down at the bar and was like, "Thanks for the support, man." And I bought him a drink and we talked some. He was a little fidgety. Now, at the time, I had to be like 245 pounds, pretty thick. And he looks over at me and in a straight face, asks me if I knew where he could get some cocaine. Me? I look like a cop, first off, and I didn't fit the profile of a typical coke head. I had more of a beer and beef preference and looked it. So I said, "Do I look like I do cocaine, brother?" He was like "Oh, sorry, man." It was no big deal. I was flattered that he thought I could get a hookup- like I was a cool guy who knew people. Maybe he thought I was in like the redneck mafia or something, because I was in camo at the time, of course. I had a grand time. I made it back to the truck without being mugged and headed home. 

Movies for Real Men

I love watching old movies. The ones made before all this bullshit came upon us. You know what I am talking about. The ones made before everyone became so sensitive about everything and all butt hurt and all. I think the first one that made me say, "What the hell?" was when Demi Moore kicked a Navy Seal's ass. That was in 1997. Demi Moore couldn't kick anyone's ass, ever, man or woman, let alone one of the baddest men on the planet. That was the beginning, and then it was all downhill from there. But forget about all that. Let us focus on some killer movies. The Outlaw Josey Wales, for one. 

What a movie! I watch it whenever I can, which is usually once a week. Josey is a simple Missouri farmer during the end of the Civil War, just out plowing the field one day with his son and along came some Kansas Red legs and burn his house down and kill his family including his little boy. Josey is knocked unconscious and wakes up to find everything he knew or loved gone forever. He digs his pistol out of the rubble of his burned down house and begins practicing shooting and at first can't hit shit and then, after much practice, becomes a great shot. Then he teams up with Bloody Bill Anderson and goes to war. He becomes one of the last hold outs of the Missouri Guerrillas and has to take off so he isn't captured. He teams up with a Native American man when he is hiding out in the Indian Nations, and then rescues a Native American woman from some dastardly guys and she and her "mangy red blood hound" join Josey and the man from the Indian Nations for a grand adventure. He has to kill some bad guys a long the way and makes his way eventually to Texas. I won't spoil the ending for you folks that haven't seen it. 

There are some things I would change about the movie. I wouldn't have him spit tobacco juice on the dog, and I definitely wouldn't let him have a damn love interest in the movie. There's only one scene where he's all romantic, but it makes me feel nauseous watching it. In real life, the woman, Sondra Locke , was Clint's girlfriend at the time, so I guess he had to put her in there for some damn reason. She, to my tastes, is a little homely, but Clint had different tastes, I reckon. I just forward through these parts and pretend that they aren't in there.

Other than those few things, the movie is flawless. Here is how I judge a movie: If it makes you feel a certain way after watching it, like you want to be that character , then it is a great movie. The first time I watched it, I wanted to get on a horse, grab some chewing tobacco and a pistol and ride out west. Same thing with Rocky. I was just a little kid, but after watching it, I put on some gray sweats and a cross necklace and went for a jog, throwing punches the whole time. That's what movies should do, inspire you, make you fired up and make you want to be the main character. I do remember buying some Beech Nut Chewing Tobacco and practicing spitting after I saw Josey do it. You could buy it back in the old days as a kid if you found the right store. I didn't die from it, by the way.  Anyway, Josey was great because he barely said anything but the few words he did speak were awesome. I know the movie by heart, by the way. If you are a man, you should know every line. If you don't, get to memorizing. 

The only modern movie that is worth a damn is Hell or High Water, directed by the Yellowstone guy. I can't watch Yellowstone because Costner is a gun hating pinko. Bet you didn't know that. True Grit (the remake) is pretty good too. 

The only love story any good was 1993's True Romance, But there's a bunch of killing and a Rottweiler in it and the girl is sexy and tough, so it's okay.

Rocky I and III are classics. Rocky II was a little too cheesy and Rocky IV was great only for the training scenes. Rocky V doesn't count. The 70's and 80's were great for movies and movie stars. Clint, Stallone, Burt Reynolds were my favorites. And you didn't know every damn thing about them, like what they had for breakfast and there wasn't TMZ with the feminine guy host who drinks out of a cup with a straw. No self respecting man uses a straw. Come the freak on with that shit. Do men even know that rule anymore? If you were never taught that, consider yourself taught now. When the waitress brings you a glass with a straw, take it out and slam it on the table. She should know better. Maybe I should make a post about what a man should and should not do to maintain Man Card status. The first thing on the list is to watch The Outlaw Josey Wales. That will get your testosterone up and you won't want to use a straw, it'll just be naturally in you to refuse it.

I almost forgot about Charles Bronson's 1975 movie, Hard Times. He's a bareknuckle boxer who fights all comers. Fights on the docks and shit. There is a love interest in it, but as far as I can remember, there isn't any kissing or any of that crap. Just lots of fighting and Bronson being a the strong and silent type.

I'm sorry to say that the days of badass movies are gone forever. Now, it's all shaky cameras and sensitive leading men, wearing pink and talking too much. 

Disgusting

I had a friend die the other day from cancer. I have 3 other friends that have cancer right now. Only one of them is over 60 years old.They all work out, all weight train, and watch their diets relatively close. Better than 90% of the population, I reckon. It makes you wonder , right? Makes you wonder just what the hell is going on. The fucking water supply, pesticides. I had a farmer tell my son how they spray pesticides all over their farm. What choice does he have? No crops, no pay, no food. And the government doesn't see the need to ban this stuff.  They are too busy insider trading to worry about us little folks.What always makes me wonder is how these corporations who make this stuff and the government who allows this stuff , don't see that it affects them too. They have kids, too. Grandkids, wives, husbands. It's in your bloodstream, it's in everyone's blood. These evil assholes are all living here and eating the same shit and breathing the same air as all of us. You can't escape it , no matter how powerful you are or how much money that you have. I talked to a guy the other day who used to work for the water commission. or whatever they call it, in Philadelphia years ago. The guys in charge of the drinking water in the city. He said, "Dude, you wouldn't believe what's in that water, rats, bugs, all kinds of shit." We try to eat organic and then I read about the organic farms next to a pesticide farm, how it bleeds over into the organic field. 

I see it when I go hunting. Plastics everywhere, I mean all over the place. I hunt the Susquehanna River in Maryland sometimes and washed up on the shore is so much plastic that  it is disgusting. Plastics are a huge problem. Our local supermarket leaves crates of bottled water outside the store in the summer. Nah, none of that leaches into the water. Too much money to be made, too much power to be had, too much corruption every damn where, allowing all of this stuff.  

I live on a good sized creek. You can't eat the fish out of there, no way. It's too polluted. Hell, you can't eat the freshwater fish anywhere in the state of New Jersey. And maybe you shouldn't eat the saltwater fish , either. 

All of it is a big toilet and plastic poison heaven. 

What are we leaving for the next generation(s)? A plastic planet, a pesticide planet, a planet that kills you and your family. And now, it is all too far gone to fix. We just keep taking it from these jerks. Do we even have a voice? Does anyone care?

Arnold

I just watched Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jocko's podcast. I still can't forgive the "screw your freedom" post that he made and never will, but I have always been a huge fan of Arnold's as well as Mentzer and Platz. Arnold started it all and brought bodybuilding and lifting weights into the minds of millions. I dare say that without Arnold, there would not be all of the gyms and emphasis on resistance training that there is now. No "normal' people lifted weights back in the 70's. There were some college football teams lifting weights, but not many regular folks were training with weights. I swear , people used to think that it would make one dumb if they lifted weights, or muscle bound or would enlarge their hearts and make them explode. Crazy talk, but not back then. 

Hell, Alan Alda was how women liked their men back then. He was about 137 pounds soaking wet, and had 12 inch arms maximum. He was sensitive and smart but couldn't lift a newspaper without breaking a sweat. spindly with a capital "S". I am always so glad that I grew up when I did, because I was around to see the genesis of pumping iron in the world, basically.  And Arnold started it all. And I'm glad that I was around when Arnold and Stallone were all ripped up and they were on the Muscle and Fitness covers and Clint was lifting weights too. Men were men's men back in that time. There was no toxic masculinity, there was just bad ass dudes that made movies, guys that we all wanted to look like. Hell, I watch movies today and I never think, "I want to look like that guy." As soon as Arnold or Stallone made an appearance with their arms showing or their shirts off on the big screen, my friends and I were like, "Arms are looking good" or "Shit, Stallone looks much more ripped up than he did in Rocky 2."  But we all wanted to look like them, and I would have loved to look like Arnold the most. These guys were like superheroes without wearing costumes. There were thousands and thousands of kids all over the world that were inspired to train by Arnold and Stallone.

It was a cool time to be alive and to be a teenager. I read muscle magazines from cover to cover and when Arnold was on the cover I got extra excited. Inside there were the same old articles regarding their training but the pics were what was really cool. I'd scan through the old Muscle Builder Power mags (the forerunner of Muscle and Fitness) and those black and white Artie Zeller pictures from the old Gold's were so inspiring.  The guys were training hard or cutting up with each other. It looked like they were having a blast.

It seemed like a dream,  California back then. The sunshine and the beach and Gold's. I thought about that all the time, going out there and training when Arnold was in the gym, squatting with Platz, hanging out with the Barbarian Brothers.  C'mon man! That stuff was so cool. That Gold's picture where everyone is standing out front? They were all in that picture, all the big guys of the day.

We all waited in line whenever his movies came out. I can remember somebody talking shit about Arnold one time and I got pissed. Funny, huh? But Arnold was ours, we knew the Pumping Iron Arnold and we were overjoyed by his success as he rose in the ranks to become the number 1 actor in the world. I read Education of a Bodybuilder over and over and stared at the pictures for hours. 

He still loves bodybuilding and talking about training, you could hear it in his voice when he was talking about it with Jocko. Except for a few hiccups here and there, Arnold has done our world right. Hell, he started our world.

Common Sense

Coaches, you have a great responsibility to do no harm to your athletes. You must study, you must have a plan, you must know what the hell you are doing.

Oh my.  I just had a conversation with a 12 year old (my kid) who told me that it really bothers his arm when he does rotator cuff exercises before he throws. Well, duh. Why would anyone ever  perform exercises that fatigue your shoulder and arm before you throw full speed? Isn't that common sense not to do that? 

Common sense.

So I told my son to not do the exercises, and if the "coach" has a problem to give me a call. He won't. But I would welcome the opportunity to teach him about the proper way to do things. But most folks have so much ego that there is no way that they would listen.

The baseball warmup shit is way out of touch.  Here is an idea: Just throw easy before you throw hard. Too simple, I know. It must be exotic, this whole band/rotator cuff thing. Do them AFTER you throw, and do them perfectly. Baseball always has crazy ideas. I had a "pro" strength coach that actually asked out loud about a major league pitcher, "Why would he ever need to do a squat?" Coaches are always trying to reinvent the wheel. Why?  There are so many myths in all the sports, but baseball takes the cake. Maybe because weight training is relatively new to the sport? Bunch of "functional" training. That's a good one. The hell does that even mean? Light, silly shit? Yep.

I've pulled my kids off of all kind of teams. When the football coach of my son's 10 year old team years ago wouldn't allow the kids to take their helmets off and have water to drink while on turf with the temperature 110 degrees, I took my son off of team. What should have happened is that the coach should have swapped places with the kids and see how he felt on that turf. What a dumbass.

That's almost as stupid as running laps on any team except for a team of marathon runners. 

It isn't enough to just do what every body else does. Study, man. Just because the "top guy" in your region does it, don't make it right. Damn.

This is a problem, not just in this case, but all freaking over. 

Also, the obsession with abdominal work is out of control.

Should you perform ab work before you squat? No. Why? Think about it. What is holding you upright in the squat? Your abs. Should they be tired when a weight is on your back? Nope. 

Squats, deadlifts weights, cleans are all great ab exercises. You wanna do abs? Do some planks if you must. But the kids with the best squat and deadlift will be able to do them all day long. 

It is all so frustrating and silly and it makes me wanna throw up when I see the bullshit out there. The problem is, it never changes. Just be the guy who doesn't follow the trends, who follows a common sense approach,  a safe approach and a learned approach. It's not that hard to do.