I meet the rack at dawn the way Bonaparte met a map: with hunger and a pencil.
Steel is my Europe, plates my provinces, chalk my winter. I am not an emperor, just a stubborn animal with a calendar—but conquest scales down surprisingly well.
Corsica to the Warm-Up Area
Napoleon started as an outsider with a chip on his shoulder and a library on his back.
I start as a beginner every morning: a broomstick for the shoulders, ankle rocks, hip hinges, breath like a drum. The warm-up is my Corsica—small, necessary, unglamorous. Get this wrong and you never leave the island.
He learned artillery; I learn levers.
He placed guns where they’d decide the field; I place my feet so the bar tracks straight. The first victory is angle.
Crossing the Alps (Or: Monday Squats)
You don’t “feel” like crossing the Alps. You put your head down and cross.
Sets greet me like switchbacks: 5, then 5, then 5. The air thins. The quads argue. A familiar mutiny climbs my spine—parliament of excuses. But the pass only opens for the stubborn, and discipline is a mule that lives on little and climbs forever.
People romanticize motivation because it photographs well. Logistics is ugly and wins wars.
Bonaparte knew this: bread, boots, bridges.
I know this: sleep, protein, a plan. Miss any one of those and your grand strategy—PRs, aesthetics, whatever flag you pretend to fight under—dies in the snow.
Marshals of the Empire (aka, My Big Lifts)
Every emperor needs marshals. Mine wear iron.
- Squat is Masséna—reliable, relentless, carries the center.
- Deadlift is Ney—the bravest, savage on bad days, honest about weak links.
- Bench is Lannes—compact fury, chest-up artillery.
- Pull-ups are Murat—fast cavalry, sweeping the flanks, cleaning posture from the rear.
They argue for attention. I don’t crown favorites; I rotate campaigns. A body built by coups d’état collapses. A body built by coalitions holds.
The Continental System (Against Distraction)
Napoleon tried to blockade the British. I blockade my vices.
- Phone: embargoed until the final set.
- Ego: sanctioned every time form degrades.
- Random programs: contraband—confiscated at the door.
The market of my attention is closed to shiny nonsense. Trade only in what drives adaptation: progressive overload, technique, recovery. Everything else is smugglers peddling sugar.
Wagram, Austerlitz, and the Sweet Days
Some days the sun hits the plates just right and the gym hums at a volt you can’t bottle.
Sets feel like cavalry charges on dry ground. The spine is a standard, the breath a drumline, and failure is something that happens to other people. Those are Austerlitz days: brilliant, balanced, textbook. Write them down. They pay for the rest.
Moscow (The Overreach)
I’ve marched too far more than once—chased numbers into winter.
Volume rose like smoke; calories fell like ash. Sleep cramped. Knees muttered. I didn’t deload; I rationalized. Moscow looked close on the map: a three-plate squat, a bodyfat number, a date on the calendar. Then the season turned, and I learned what every lifter eventually learns: the body is Russia—vast, patient, merciless to invaders who believe in shortcuts.
The retreat wasn’t dramatic. It was humble: fewer sets, longer walks, tendon-friendly tempo, and the nerve to leave weight on the bar. Pride freezes quickest. Let it fall from the sleigh.
The Hundred Days (Return, Smarter)
There is a particular electricity to coming back clean.
I rebuilt the empire of habits: Sunday food prep, lights-out alarms, simple programming with boring names that always work. I traded fireworks for factories. The PRs returned like veterans—scarred, circumspect, stronger.
St. Helena (Plateaus and Journals)
Exile is where you learn to think. Plateaus are St. Helena—lonely but instructive.
When the graph flattens, I don’t bargain; I observe.
- If bar speed slows, I lower load and add sets.
- If joints complain, I switch implements: safety bar, trap bar, dumbbells.
- If motivation sours, I change the story: chase rep PRs, density, or a cleaner eccentric.
- If life explodes, I reduce frequency and protect the “one thing” that keeps me sane.
The journal saves me from superstition. Data is a small navy that still gets letters home in the storm.
Why Bonaparte Matters to Me
Because ambition without logistics is cosplay.
Because confidence without iteration is theater.
Because the body keeps a ledger and the interest compounds.
We both want the same thing: to expand a small domain into a larger one, to turn a narrow corridor of possibility into a hall you can run through. He had cannons; I have connective tissue. The outcomes differ; the laws rhyme.
Field Orders for the Iron Campaign
// Campaign doctrine — practical, not romantic
function campaign({ sleep, calories, plan }) {
const readiness = Math.min(sleep / 8, calories / plan.caloriesNeeded);
const ego = Math.random(); // the saboteur
for (let day = 1; day <= 365; day++) {
if (ego > readiness) {
// Retreat in good order
plan.deload();
plan.walk(30); // rebuild supply lines
continue;
}
plan.trainCompound();
plan.addTinyProgress(); // 1–2% is empire-building speed
plan.eatColorsAndProtein();
plan.writeOneLine(); // logistics, not vibes
}
}