AMERICAN PARTISAN WORKOUT FUNDAMENTALS, PART 6

Welcome back to my series on Workout Fundamentals, American Partisans! Sorry for the delay – pesky old real life stuff kept me tied up, but I’m back!

This will be the concluding post of my Workout Fundamentals series. My next posts after this one will provide some actual workouts to give examples of how the theory contained in the American Partisan Workout Fundamentals is to be applied to a workout. Again, the entire purpose of this (by now) very lengthy series is to provide American Partisans with the knowledge tools they need to create their own way forward in physical fitness; we want to move past the need for someone else to provide workout ideas for us, and to instead have independence in fitness programming that suits our unique American Partisan Operator (APO) physical fitness needs.

For reference, here is a list of American Partisan Workout Fundamentals we’ve already covered:


Today’s installment will conclude the Workout Fundamentals series by addressing the remaining intangible, yet critical elements of a good workout. As such, American Partisan Workout Fundamentals, Concept #9 will cover several interrelated intangibles:

  • The need for workout aggression and determination
  • The importance of expanding your pain tolerance threshold
  • The vital role of workout motivation/inspiration.

These three workout intangibles are intimately related to each other to form a single Fundamental Concept, and cannot really be separated, as I will detail in the sections below.

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AMERICAN PARTISAN WORKOUT FUNDAMENTALS, CONCEPT #9:

**** AGGRESSION/DETERMINATION; PAIN TOLERANCE; AND INSPIRATION ****

Workout Aggression and Determination – VICTORY OR DEATH!

The American Partisan Operator must never forget: true physical fitness is not forged by timidity. PT time is blood n’ guts time!

Generally speaking, other than the Warm-Up phase of a workout and a select few other fitness activities (covered below), exercises done in the name of making yourself ready for battle must be done with all-out intensity (note: “intensity”, as used here, is not meant to be a reference to heavy loading of weights). Of course, the APO must use good exercise form as well; being “aggressive” does not mean that attention to detail on exercise form should be thrown out the window. Workout aggression, in the truest sense, is really a mindset with which the APO performs any exercise – by bringing his best fight to the effort, and then having the determination to work through the difficulty of the exercise by adopting a “not taking ‘no’ for an answer” attitude. 

Note the use of the word “determination” above. Aggression without determination is nearly useless; you have to start out with aggression, and then follow through with it. Aggression is easy to furnish up front before the going of the exercise set gets tough, but I’ve seen many an aggressive start to a lifter’s working set in the gym totally fizzle once the REAL duress of the effort takes hold. Therefore, workout (and really, any type of physical engagement) aggression is only as good as it can be sustained, and that requires determination as a starting point. Not surprisingly, determination is a “cousin” of good ol’ discipline, which we discussed at length in my previous post. You have to have determination to have discipline – you have to want it real bad, and be ready to OVERCOME! Only in this way can the APO grit his way through a tough workout aggressively from the first minute to the last, through set after set of demanding, painful exercise.

The way in which the APO employs workout aggression and determination depends on the individual. I’ve seen respectable lifters grunt and growl aggressively before and during a tough working set, and then go on to deliver the goods with a successful lift or working set; I’ve also seen other respectable lifters do great work quietly but effectively – not audibly or visibly aggressive, but 100% heart, for sure. Me personally, I do a good deal of growling and grunting, swaying, scowling, and fist-clenching before my exercise sets, but I am quiet during the set itself in order to maintain my focus. I may just occasionally grunt or groan out of discomfort, but I find personal mid-set displays of aggression to be detrimental to my success; that’s just me. 

Your display of aggression can be whatever you want it to be, or whatever works for you. Determination, on the other hand, is a quiet virtue that is shown by perseverance through grueling physical efforts – carrying on with rep after rep in a seemingly impossible way… yet you pull it off; or, attempting a tough-as-can-be repetition with a heavy load – again, seemingly impossible, but you decide that THIS is your day, and so you agonizingly struggle through a stall or sticking point and get that barbell back up. Your heart is about to pop… your breathing is heavy… your chance of success is not guaranteed… but, fuck it! Victory or death! THAT is aggression and determination combined: not taking “no” for an answer, and pressing on with all the ferocity you can muster, despite all involved body systems begging for you to stop.

It is important to note, though, that there are some particular areas of physical fitness that will pretty obviously not benefit from the application of aggression, and will instead require the application of finesse rather than aggression; get to know when aggression and determination are relevant, and when they’re not. For example, Balance Exercise work and Stretching should not be performed aggressively, but rather, with a finer, more mindful approach that rightfully respects the delicate nature of these physical efforts. And again, the Warm-Up phase of your workout should be done with an eye for slow, precise execution in order to get the body into the proper state of readiness for the tough work to come. Finally, Mobilizations (as described in a previous post) – performed to prime the selected joint(s) for action, are by their nature not an aggressive affair either.