Thoughts on Fasting, Training, Self-Sacrifice, and the Intersection of Religious Practice and Lifting I am an Orthodox Christian. I was baptized and chrismated in a “Slavic” Orthodox Church before Easter 2011. I write that at the outset so that you will understand the next part, which is the fact that usually the date of Pascha (Easter) in the Christian East—Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, along with, I suppose, whatever remnants of Nestorian Christianity still remain—and Easter in the Christian West (Catholicism and Protestantism) fall on different dates. (This is not the place to discuss why they are on different dates, but if you want to read more, here is an article last year from The Greek Reporter: “ Why Orthodox and Catholic Easterare on Different Dates .”) But this year they fall on the same date later this month (April 20 th ), which means that all Christians worldwide are in the middle of Lent as I write these words. ...
Minimalist Training for Maximum Gains I made the mistake today of reading one of the popular bodybuilding websites. Occasionally I do this, but almost always regret it shortly after. Today was no different. I write that it was a “mistake” only because reading these online “rags”—I suppose that’s the best term, though perhaps “zine” might be more apropos—almost always makes me want to beat my head into the wall of my dungeonous garage gym until I black out and (hopefully) forget everything I just read. I always make my way to one of these websites in the hope, faint though it may be, that I might actually stumble upon an article or two with good training advice. But, alas, to no avail. I suppose you could argue that I’m being a bit too curmudgeonly. Heck, you might be right. Well, partially right. Because, if I’m honest, there are some decent traini...