Meaning and direction are hard to come by. Auckland kids are giving up on education and sport; single people have abandoned love, and couples have given up on each other.
Worst of all, we are giving up on ourselves. Not me. I have decided to pound my glutes every day until freedom. I'm going to spring out of this punishing situation with the backside of an elite athlete.
Shane Bond is playing in the Black Clash in Tauranga early next year. I can't wait to see him bowl again. He's a great New Zealander with a great arse. His historical ability to fire the ball down at 150km/h comes from the buttock. The man has mighty arms, shoulders, core, legs, and a sharp cricket mind, but it's his arse that does the work. Lockie Ferguson is the same. With a great butt comes great power. It's true across most sports: rugby, hockey, golf, running, lifting, tennis, cycling.
Baseball scouts in the US travel the country looking for butts. A flat buttock means a player is unlikely to fill out their frame. On the other hand, a big butt suggests they'll get stronger. It signals they're in an excellent position to develop the posterior chain needed for home runs and velocity pitching. Your posterior chain is the group of muscles in the rear of the body that is essential for explosive movement and athletic performance.
Unfortunately, like many New Zealand males, I have no arse at all. My back extends from my waist straight into my thighs. Couple a lack of butt with a bit of a gut, and we have a recipe for low-riding pants and athletic failure.
The average Kiwi arse shares little with an elite athlete. Check out the backsides on the New Zealand rowing eight who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics: 16 glorious cheeks. I guarantee your arse is nothing on theirs. Mine sure isn't.
In 2019, experts from the University of Loughborough studied the muscle anatomy of 100-metre track sprinters to understand whether the size of leg muscles differed between average men and first-class athletes. They concluded the size of an athlete's butt was the key to his speed. Professor Jonathan Folland, who conducted the study, put it this way: "The biggest differences between the elite sprinters and non-elite sprinters was the size of the gluteus maximus muscle".
Power bottoms rule the animal kingdom. How good is a horse's arse? As a human, you want the hindquarters of Phar Lap, Bonecrusher, and Rough Habit. Closer to us evolutionarily, the great apes are packing round back. The Eastern Lowlands gorillas of the Congo have excellent arses. As do bonobos and orangatangs.
While all ape butts are powerful, some aren't as aesthetically pleasing. You do not want a baboon's arse. You should also stay away from the Brazilian butt lift - a surgical procedure in which fat is removed from your tummy and injected into your buttocks. Not only is it statistically the most dangerous cosmetic surgery in the world, but it's also pointless as it provides no additional athletic power.
Inspired by the University of Loughborough study and the return of Shane Bond's butt, I am focusing 100 per cent on my arse. It's all about squats.
Stand up straight, feet shoulder-width apart, toes forward, arms crossed. Keep your head up, back straight, and squat down until your thighs are almost parallel with the floor, like sitting on a chair. Don't let your knees extend over your toes. Slowly raise, concentrating on your bum. Do your squats as soon as you get out of bed, and you'll rapidly gain arse size and power. I'm doing 30, along with intense butt concentration while powering up the two flights of stairs at my house.
Butt growth is my lockdown project; it will keep me sane; I've been doing it for two days now. I feel more elite already. The Arse Man cometh.
