AM I NEEDY?

"You don't need to load creatine."

"You need to lift 3 days a week."

"You don't need to deload."

"You need to eat 2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight."

We all know these statements.  The internet and the gym are rife with them.  Everyone is looking out for your best interest and letting you know what you need and what you don't.  It's all bunk.

Unless you are talking to your coach, no one knows what you need, nor do they care about you.  They are expressing to you what "you" need so that they in turn can justify their own decisions.  Coincidentally enough, what you "need" happens to be exactly the same things that they do.  If some guru never loaded creatine, then clearly no one needs to do it.  If someone never squats, then no one needs to.  Etc, etc.

Seriously, avoid gurus whenever possible (Sorry Mike)

I grew up on Pavel Tsastouline.  From him I learned Pavel's 3-5 and deloading.  Whenever I deloaded, I would grow sustainably stronger.  But then, I learned that I didn't need to deload, and that the time I spent deloading was a waste.  I took this new found knowledge and rushed headlong into 3 years of stalling.  Once I started deloading again with Jim Wendler's 5/3/1, I started to progress again.  Funny isn't it?

Know what I've never needed to do?  Mobility.  No matter how much the world tells me that I need to do mobility drills or else my knees will explode, I seem to continue to get stronger and stronger.  Meanwhile, many will continue to train mobility while forgetting the entire reason why they are doing it: to get stronger.

Just need a little more mobility and THEN I'll be ready to squat

The reality is, needs are going to be entirely user dependent.  Dan John probably gave us the best basic idea of what movements one needs to do

1. Push
2. Pull
3. Hinge
4. Squat
5. Loaded Carry

And from here it's a whole world of possibilities and quirks that are altered due to the circumstances of the user.

This means you will sadly be required to enter the terrifying realm that is self discovery via trial and error, but those who are brave enough to undergo that journey are those who in turn are able to prosper.  If all you ever do is listen to the talking heads of the world, you will remain average and unaccomplished, because the reality is, the people who talk the most are the ones who train the least.  Those that are out there busting their asses are too busy breaking records to be able to engage in a 4000 post long flamewar on the net or a debate at the gym.  And honestly  who would have the balls to argue with someone like Derek Poundstone or Matt Kroczaleski on what it takes to get bigger and stronger?  Only those that are protected from their own inadequacies via the anonymity of the internet.

*Artist's depiction of event

Once you've taken the bold step of finding out what works, it becomes vital to shut out those little voices that are going to tell you that what you're doing isn't actually working.  If you are getting bigger and stronger from Xbox, don't change a damn thing, because it's working.  If something just plain does not work for you, quit trying to put the square peg in the round hole and just move on to what works.  If it was all so easy and obvious, we'd all be doing the same routine.  Find out what YOU need and do it.

COMMERCIAL GYM HELL

As I previously noted, I am in the middle of a move at the moment.  I said my goodbyes to my Texas Deadlift Bar as I packed away my home gym in a storage unit.  Given that I still have to train, I have been forced to utilize public gyms.  We have all heard the horror stories: guys curling in the squat rack, people training with gas masks on, guys in extra medium tank tops showing off their tribal tats, etc.

It keeps getting funnier every time I see it

My question is: why does this matter?

Why are people so fixated on what everyone else at the gym is doing?  How is that going to make YOU a better lifter?  Why waste any energy focusing on people being silly when you could instead be thinking about what went right and what went wrong in your last set, what your gameplan is for your next set, what meal you're going to make next, or pretty much ANYTHING that will actually make you better at lifting?

The reality is, there is a lot of unearned elitism being expressed among the ranks of internet lifters.  People that read through a forum post on Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strength", discovered compound lifts, and decided they were God's gift to the weightroom.  They sneer at everyone else following their "terrible routines" while they stick to a steady diet of all of the movements with none of the intensity.  When the people they mock grow while they continue to stagnate, they blame genetics, drugs, diet, sleep, etc, when the reality is that they bought their own hype.  Like zealots, they clung to their "one true faith" at the cost of actual enlightenment.

In retrospect, the Koolaid flavored pre-workout supplement was in poor taste

Am I saying that the majority of the masses in a public gym are educated in lifting?  Of course not.  As my blog has mentioned many times, the world of lifting is full of dogma, mysticism, folklore and nonsense, and most people won't explore past what is readily available through word of mouth.  However, what many lack in knowledge, they make up for in intensity and dedication, which are skills that a new lifter can't learn from reading alone.

But lets say that the people at your gym are without redemption   They lack both intensity and ability.  Why let them concern you at all?  Because they tie up equipment?  Ask to work in.  What was once a regular part of gym culture is now taboo due to the increasingly passive aggressive nature of our culture paired with our rapidly diminishing interpersonal communication skills.  Rather than talk with someone who is on a piece of equipment we want, we stare daggers at them willing them to die so that they will get off our equipment so we can do our workout in peace.  Honestly, who is the dick here?

My policy when I train in a public gym is that I am a guest in someone else's house, so I am on my best behavior.  As a powerlifter, there is a ton of negative stereotypes about me, and it is my job to be an ambassador for my sport.  That means I smile at people rather than scowl, offer to work in with people whenever I see them longing after the equipment I am on, and offer to share my straps or other goodies in my gym bag.  So many people are upset with how gyms have policies designed to discourage powerlifters that they act exactly like how people expect them to, completely validating the rules set by the gym in the first place.  Don't be the dick that people expect you to be, catch them off guard and kill them with kindness.  You may make a friend, and if nothing else, you might be able to work in a set.

And if you really can't stand it, build a home gym.

605LB TOUCH AND GO DEADLIFT, 4 REPS

I'm in the middle of a move at the moment, so this week's entry is going to be video from my training.  More evidence of my success with ROM progression and touch and go deads, two posts I have previously made here.

ENDURING MISERY

       I have written about the value of hard work when it comes to physical development, but that is honestly only half the equation.  The reality is that hard work without direction is, as is said in the piloting world, "all thrust and no vector".  It is valuable, yes, but without the vector of misery, it can be misguided and improperly utilized.  It is not simply the willingness and capacity to endure misery that is valuable here, but instead the regular and consistent engaging with misery that one must strive for to be successful.

Jack Lalanne summed up this concept adequately with the quote "if it tastes good, spit it out". 

Still the man.

Your mind and body strive for the path of least resistance as a means of evolutionary survival.  It seeks minimal exercise and an enjoyable cuisine because this ensures that one is fat and happy.  Being an impressive physical specimen is unnatural, it is freakish, it is an affront.  This means that to achieve the unnatural, one must act unnaturally and eschew that which in turn comes naturally.  He who in turn endures the most dissonance and misery will be the most awesome specimen.


How so we apply this principle to training?  Do you have a favorite movement?  One you love?  One that makes you feel great, and that you look forward to training each week?  Stop training it.

Did I guess right?

This movement is clearly a strength for you, and playing to your strengths is not making you better.  Pick the movement that you loathe, that is the bane of your existence  that you dread doing, and hammer it until it is your strength.  Endure the misery of this movement session after session while you beat your mind and body into submission with your sheer willpower.  You will find that in the end, by bringing up your weak points, you have made your strengths stronger while turning yourself bulletproof, whereas those who invested this same amount of time avoiding misery have remained stagnant.


Diet becomes a question of misery via spurning convenience and convention.  It goes without saying that you will need to endure the misery of not gorging yourself on delicious food, but this is just the basics, and only doing this will simply make you average and "not fat".  The more regimented and consistent you are in your diet, the better the results will be.  When your will wavers, so will your waistline.  When you forego the convenience  of sandwiches, fast food, and packaged convenience store cuisine, for the toil of actually cooking and preparing for yourself, you excel.  Nothing about diet is complicated, its about eating as a means of performing rather than satiating your desires and Id.

As a personal anecdote, I regularly engage in what I dub "life sucks training".  This is training which, though it may have some positive impact to my strength as a whole, the major intended benefit is to simply generate misery and force myself to endure it as much as possible.  Sometime, nature lends a hand, like when I have to train in my garage at -30 in the winter or 110 in the summer.  Sometimes, it's up to me to be crazy, and do things like ultra high rep squats, neverending drop sets, or whatever else comes in my mind.  By doing these things, I know that I am better than my competition, and that nothing will stop me.  Many times, when life has thrown me such toils as career, relationship, or academic stress, I take solace in the fact knowing that I ran 20 rep squats for 6 weeks, and thus I can do anything.

"I got this."

I've even employed the concept while training my wife to help her with her long distance running, forcing her to use a safety squat bar instead of a barbell for her squats so that, along with training her posterior chain, she has to learn how to deal with the agony that is that devil device.  Her upperback crushes into her lungs and makes it impossible to breathe, and she remembers this experience.  When she is on a run and her upperback starts to fatigue and her breathing gets weary, she is able to recall her training and know that she is too tough to let this defeat her.

Is this to say that you are doomed to a life of misery?  Absolutely not.  It is simply the reality that those who succeed the most must in turn endure the most misery.  To be above average, you will endure more than the average amount of misery.  If you are satisfied with being average, you will go to the gym and do the things you like and eat how you want.  The choice, as always, is yours.

15 MINUTE KB SWING-DIP-CHIN CONDITIONING WORKOUT

Just something I did in some recent training

YOU'RE SO LUCKY

If you ever have experienced any degree of success in your life, you've most likely heard the phrase "you're so lucky".  It takes on many forms.

"You're so lucky!  You can eat whatever you want and not get fat."
"You're so lucky!  You can easily put on weight."
"You're so lucky!  You have access to a safety squat bar."
"You're so lucky!  You're getting trained by a highly regarded expert."

The madness needs to stop.  This is simply a passive aggressive means of making excuses while denying someone else's hard work and dedication.

My educational background exists in primarily in western political theory, so lets talk a little bit about Nicolo Machiavelli.  In "The Prince", Machiavelli addressed the notion of luck, or "fortune" as it applied to a new leader.  To summarize, Machiavelli said that fortune was a fickle mistress that only favored those that were able to adapt to its changing tides.  Those who remained stagnant would eventually be destroyed by their inability to adapt, while those that were flexible and capable to utilize any tactics necessary to meet with what the situation dictated would in turn flourish.  Machiavelli also extended the metaphor of fortune being a mistress to mean that, like a woman, it needed to be beat into submission.

You're on your own on this one Nick.

The point here being this: luck is a skill.  I realize the insanity of the words I am writing when I put them together in that order, but stick with me here.  Luck isn't just about random chance, it's about putting yourself in the best situation to be able to take advantage of that chance.  As an example, I want to win the lottery.  I think that would be just dandy.  However, I don't buy any tickets ever, and thus I am putting myself in a poor position to be lucky.

Seems simple right?  Well lets extrapolate it.  What's a good way to be lucky enough to have access to a safety squat bar?  Go out and buy one.  There are a ton of sites that sell them, from independent welders to high end dealers, to even sales on craigslist.  If you just stay at home at night and wish for your gym to buy one, your odds of being lucky are very slim, but if you force fortune to bend to your will by affecting the change you wish to see in your environment  you will become very lucky and have a safety squat bar.  If you can't afford one, make the small changes necessary to your budget to be able to eventually afford one (reduce money spent on drinking/coffee/fast food/other luxuries).  This strategy holds true with just about any piece of equipment.

Want to be lucky enough to have access to a highly regarded specialist?  Seek them out.  These days, many of these individuals can be accessed online, so it's even easier than ever.  Prior to that, in order to be so "lucky", you had to move to where these guys were in order to be able to be trained by them on a regular basis.  And those "lucky" individuals that were dedicated enough to take fortune into their own hands made this sacrifice in order to become the best, much like how you can seek out the aid of those greater than you and get their expert advice.

Want to be lucky enough to gain/lose weight at will?  Do the work in the kitchen.  Yes, some people were blessed genetically to be able to eat garbage all day and maintain a six pack, and some people can put on muscle by looking at a steak.  If you aren't these people, it's time to make your own luck.

"I don't understand why I can't lose weight.  I only eat one meal a day."

Know that once you spend enough time making your own luck, your ability to bend fortune to your will is going to appear so effortless that you will incur the envy of others that presuppose that you do not endure the same struggles that they do.  They will claim that you have superior genetics, that they wished they were lucky enough to have access to world class training, they would be big and strong too if they had enough time in the day to cook and eat, etc.  All this means is that you have succeeded, so congrats, you can't succeed without attracting haters.  Just know that if you catch yourself accusing others of luck, it may be time to step back, look inward, and wonder what it is you could be doing to make yourself more lucky.

EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION

Was watching this a little while ago

Definitely watch it if you get a chance.  Great video.

In it, Matt Kroczaleski says that training is "evolution, not revolution".  The idea being that you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater with your training, and instead of constantly changing everything, you use what works and throw out what doesn't.

This is a great philosophy, and one I am employing at present, but I would also expand to say that evolution cannot exist in the absence of revolution.  By this I mean that, if you are not afforded the luxury of excellent coaching and instruction from day 1, the road to getting bigger and stronger will instead be one paved with constant failure and half baked ideas.  The only way to know what works is to spend a lot of time finding out what doesn't work, and the only way to appreciate something working is to abandon it, spend time doing something that doesn't work, and then come back to it.

Your mileage may vary on potential retries

Without revolution, we're all doing 3 sets of 10 on some machine circuit.  Without revolution, we're all doing high reps for cutting, low reps for bulking.  Without revolution, we're all eating less fat to gain less fat.  The revolution doesn't just exist against conventional wisdom and dogma though, as there are many concepts that work for everyone, have tons of scientific backing and anecdotal evidence, and still just plain will not work for you.  You have to stop banging your head against the wall with this stuff and just revolt.

Like many revolutions, not everyone can be a leader.  Some must be followers.  Additionally, like many revolutions, some leaders are genuine, and some are crackpots.  If you have no knowledge or experience, you may find yourself following the latter, but having someone doing the thinking for you at least absolves you of your sins and gives you some manner of structure to utilize, which also makes it easier for you to discover principles that work and principles that don't.  You may also be fortunate and accidentally follow someone that knows what they are talking about, and be able to make some great gains along the way.

This guy seems legit

The crux of this revolution is that you have to not be afraid to fail.  Many trainees are so absolutely paralyzed by fear of doing something wrong that they simply stagnate for years and make no progress.  Tell me, is this not, in and of itself, total failure?  When nothing is working, what harm is there in going completely off the reservation and trying something that "doesn't work"?  In all honestly, failure is liberating, as it means you are no longer confined to any paradigm.  When everything is broken, you owe loyalty to no program or protocol, and can start experimenting, learning and growing.  When something is working, you owe it to yourself to stick with it until it stops, as altering a working program is just silliness.

All this having been said, once an idea has been milled from the process of revolution, it becomes necessary to utilize this in the process of evolution.  We may all start as blank slates, just stumbling around in the dark with no guidance, but eventually we discover principles, ideas and concepts.  Eventually, one is able to assemble these ideas into some semblance of a training protocol, and it is from here that we exist in the realm of evolution.  We do not change everything all at once, but instead continue trucking along with what works and making minor adjustments as we go along.  You may consider these adjustments to perhaps be "mini-revolutions" within your evolutionary process, but you must keep in mind that it's all part of a bigger plan.  This is about keeping things in perspective, as in realizing that assistance work is there to assist the primary movements, and as long as the primary movements continue improving, what you are doing IS working.

When all else fails, try anything.  When everything works, change nothing.