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It’s time for me to apologize, people. I’ve been a jackass, and I need to make it right.

A few weeks ago, I wrote some posts on this blog where I made controversial comments about cardio and nutrition. Many of you read them, and apparently I’ve done some damage with the things I said. After being informed by some people that the information I wrote was incorrect and, in some cases, potentially destructive, I’ve decided I need to write something to set the record straight. And I need to do it now, before my irresponsible words send the entire weightlifting world into the crapper.

I can’t live with the idea that I’ve said something that might bother somebody, you see. And because I know I bothered some people with my ideas about nutrition and cardio, I need to apologize. Actually, I don’t think apologizing is enough. If I really want to repent, I have to come forward with a completely new philosophy. So I hope you all read this, because it’s important for you to know that I’ve changed. I’m a good person now, I promise.

First, I want to share my new belief about weightlifting training and cardio. In a nutshell, my new opinion is that there is absolutely no incorrect way to train if you want to be a successful Olympic weightlifter. You can train by focusing mainly on the snatch and clean and jerk, sure. That’s one option. But you can also increase your competition total by making large amounts of cardio the foundation of your program. Apparently, I was wrong about the top lifters in Europe and Asia. As it turns out, most of them jog for miles and miles between those brutal lifting workouts where they’re squatting and snatching with maximum weights (they also play basketball between their heavy clean and jerk attempts). Knowing this, I think it’s safe to assume that you can use almost any method to become a world weightlifting champion. Snatching, clean and jerking, squatting, spin class, hiking, break dancing, lighting farts, fly fishing or virtually any other kind of activity. None of these methods are wrong, and they will all make you a successful weightlifter.

Even if you don’t use cardio training to make you a better lifter, you should still jog four miles a day. If you don’t, you will get diabetes…next year.

If you want to be a stronger squatter, you can do it by squatting. However, you can also do it by not squatting. You can jog in circles around a big room and have somebody bang on a tambourine and call out the name of an animal, like “SQUIRREL” for example. If you can move your body into the shape of a squirrel when you hear that command, your 1RM back squat will increase. Deadlifting too. You can become a better deadlifter by deadlifting…or not. You could go to the grocery store, pick up bags of potatoes, and just walk around the store for an hour or so and your deadlift will go up. The people who work at the store probably won’t even catch on that you’re using their potatoes to train your deadlift. If they give you a hard time about it, just scream at them, “Hey! I’m just looking for the rest of my groceries while I carry these potatoes, okay?! Leave me alone, you freaking racist!!”

NOTE: That last part will be a lot less effective if you’re white, but you can still give it a shot.

As for nutrition, I’ve turned around on this too. I now believe that if you eat gluten, you will die. And your death will be horrible, just so you know. You won’t get off with a nice easy heart attack while you’re having sex or anything like that. No…your internal organs will spontaneously detonate when that gluten hits them, and they’ll start trickling out of an orifice that doesn’t make you happy.

NOTE: I still have no idea what gluten actually is. I just know it’s from the devil.

If you eat a candy bar, you’ll obviously die as we mentioned. However, you also need to know that you will add mounds of cottage cheese to your ass if you even LOOK at a candy bar. When you go to the store, you better stay out of the candy aisle altogether. If you walk through it and you don’t close your eyes the whole way, you’ll have folds of new bodyfat flapping everywhere by the time you get to the end of it.

I think you get the point. I thought I knew some stuff about weightlifting because of how long I’ve been doing it, but I was wrong…very wrong. I hope this information has smoothed things out with the people I tainted through those old posts on cardio and nutrition. And if any of you disagree with the stuff I wrote here, it’s okay. You’re not wrong. Nobody is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Everything you feel like doing is right, so just go ahead and do it. At the end of the day, we’ll all get Olympic gold medals regardless of how we chose to prepare.

If my new philosophy appeals to you, I’m glad. In fact, you should get in touch with me on Facebook or something so we can talk more about it. I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you anyway, so we can go over all the details while we chat about training.

I love you.