There is a very obvious image of lifelessness that Bukowski points out here. It sets the scene of this poem, which is tragic in a very over dramatic way, customary of Buk’s poems.

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

The jester archetype is one of the fundamental, archaic “personality types” that derive from the collective unconscious, i.e. the knowledge and understanding passed down from ancient generations. According to Carl Jung, these archetypes are the psychic counterparts of instinct; his idea of the jester was better known as “the trickster”. Whatever you call him, the jester is defined by his incongruity and playful outlook on life. He is able to ingratiate himself to others without affecting the status quo and without having to tap into the often volatile power of cultural taboos.

In art, literature and music, apparent absurdity or incongruity is often used to conceal deeper levels of meaning that are accessible only to those who care to look beyond the surface. Other times, absurdity is simply used to lighten the mood.

Shakespeare gave us 5 basic types of comedy, and may have been best recognized for his “theater of the absurd”, though it may be more aptly called the “tragicomedy” in his case. Some of his best examples remain The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

However, this genre truly found its way with in the middle of the 20th century, during Bukowski’s time, with playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet. The guiding principle of this movement is to look at the world without any assumption of purpose.

Characteristics:

• Uncomfortable, uneasy, unsure of whether there is any order, sense, or meaning in existence.
• “Theatrical” rather than realistic.
• Serious but often satirical.

Basic themes include:

• Human loneliness in a world without God
• The inability to communicate
• Dehumanization and impotence of individuals in a bourgeois society
• The meaninglessness of life

This thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.

For anyone familiar with Bukowski’s work, he often evokes the spirit of absurd comedy, whether intentional or not, and his poetry and novels are rife with themes mentioned above.

The RM continuum refers to the range of reps and their relationship with certain training goals, like:

• Strength
• Hypertrophy
• Endurance
• Power

Of course, before you can use estimate the reps based on % 1RM-load, or vice versa, you obviously need to find out what your max is.

The most accurate way to do this is simply to test it directly. For the most part, this should have been done during the assessment phase. Read more about the logistics of those sorts of tests here.

Of course, it simply isn’t practical to perform serious 1 RM tests on every lift in your program. In this case, you could test it indirectly by doing a multiple-RM and using a slightly modified load/rep-relationship chart.

Finally, instead of getting caught up with 1 RM and funky charts, you could just do a goal-repetition max, i.e. if your training calls for 6 reps, test your 6 RM and use that weight as your training load.

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Considering the relationship between load and repetitions, load is often used in terms of % of 1-repetition maximum. In other words, the ratio between the amount of weight being used, and the maximum amount of weight you could otherwise lift for 1 repetition.

The relationship between the % of 1-RM and potential repetition range is so consistent across populations that there is actually a fairly accurate chart to help you figure out your reps or weight:

NOTE: this works great as a guideline, rather than any concrete assessment. There is still a bit of variance depending on the individual’s training experience, equipment used, current mood, etc.

The number of times an exercise can be performed, i.e. the repetitions, is inversely related to the load lifted;
the heavier the load, the lower the number of repetitions
that can be performed. These variables are inextricably tied together, and are often dictated by your training goals.

For example, this guy is probably not training for endurance..

In general physics or biomechanics, work = force x distance. So basically the real amount of work you do during a workout session is characterized by how much force you produce, i.e. the total units of weight lifted, multiplied by the total distance these weights are moved, which is essentially the range of motion x repetitions x sets. For clarity:

• You perform 3 sets of 10 reps (30 reps total) on the bench press, using 300 lbs.
• Lets say the distance between the bottom phase of a rep and the top phase of a rep is 2 feet (or ~ arms length).
• So the amount of physical work you did for that exercise would be 300 lbs x 2 feet x 30 reps = 18,000 units

Load is not = work, for the simple fact that it doesn’t include the distance variable. However, it is proportional to work, and since the distance, i.e. range of motion, of a specific lift tends to remain relatively stable across different populations, they are sometimes used interchangeably.

These patterns of exercise involve performing to distinct exercises with little or no rest in between.

• Superset – This occurs when you perform two or more exercises in a row, each targeting opposing muscle groups. Essentially, this is just a “push/pull” order, but with no rest in between.
• Compound Sets – In this instance, you are performing two or more exercises in a row, but they target the same muscle group. For example, you perform a set of barbell bicep curls, straight to dumbbell curls, straight to hammer curls.

Both of these are time-savers, but they are also more demanding than traditional workout orders, so they are not really appropriate for beginners.

There is no “right” way to order your workout, necessarily, but there are some basic principles to think about:

1. Ensuring maximal recovery of a particular muscle group in between sets.
2. Performing the desired amount of work in the allotted time.

For the most part, the following orders are simply the easiest ways to structure a workout. Each has its positive and negative aspects.