HOW MUCH YA BENCH?

Oh boy do I love to ask that question, or any permutation of it.  “How much ya bench/squat/deadlift/press/etc”.  Why?  Because whenever I’m asking that question, it’s immediately after someone has given a LOT of advice on that movement.  And what do I get?  Silence, re-direction, insults, indepth explanations on how that doesn’t matter, poor analogies, etc.  Very rarely do I actually get a number back.  Why?  Because these people are charlatans that are all too willing to give advice but totally unwilling to provide examples of their own success in following this advice.  People are all too willing to open their mouths at any opportunity but once it comes time to put money where their mouth is, they back off and bring up the defense mechanisms.  Here’s a thought; if you are unwilling to answer this question, you should be unwilling to provide advice on the matter.

I realize I am dating myself with this reference

“But coaches aren’t always the best athletes!” Shut up: you sound stupid right now.  Know what my follow-up question is whenever I hear that defense?  “Cool story bro: how many people have you trained and what do THEY bench?”  Because the best coaches didn’t BECOME the best coaches by just reading a lot of online abstracts and then spewing out theories; they tested out their ideas on themselves and their athletes, refined the process, and produced RESULTS.  Theories are meaningless without data to back them up, and you parroting greatness doesn’t in turn make YOU great.  That’s a cheap trick used by people who are incapable of original thought or success.  If you want to play the coach defense, then be a coach.

But furthermore, let’s go on to explore more about refusing to give an answer.  What does THIS prove?  Shame.  Absolute shame in one’s own lacking accomplishment.  I’m far from the strongest dude ever, but I take pride in what I’ve done and how hard I’ve worked to get there, and if someone asks me the question of what I lift, I’ll share it.  Hell, I’ll give them a video if I have one.  I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done, and I’m willing to let my results speak for themselves.  If YOU are unwilling to do the same, ask yourself what that means about your own confidence in your advice. 

Although sometimes confidence isn't all that great

Look; not everyone deserves to give advice.  I know this is upsetting in a world where people want to cry “free speech” any time they are challenged, but the truth is, all opinions AREN’T equal, and some ARE more valuable than others.  You submitting your opinion on training is only muddying the waters and diluting the pool of good information.  Yes; even if you have good intentions.  Yes; even if you are quoting the experts.  People screw up what the experts say ALL the time.  Do you know how many times I cringe seeing people talk about “accessory” exercises in 5/3/1?  I went through and control+f’d all the books I had from Jim; he doesn’t use that word.  How about how much people jack up the Westside Method, especially considering these people never actually TRAINED at Westside?  How about people that talk about “Coach Smolov” like he ever actually existed?  How about people that took Bill Starr’s 5x5 program for football players and decided to apply it to lifelong couch potatoes?  Let me put it simply; you’re not helping.

Meanwhile, those that succeeded tend to “get it”, even if they lack the cited sources and peer reviewed studies to back it up.  They “get” what Wendler means when he says you can build maximal strength with sub-maximal weights.  They “get” the difference between straining and testing when it comes to the max effort method.  They “get” how you can still make progress even if you aren’t training a muscle group the idealized amount of times a week.  They “get” the difference between effective cheating and poor form compared to ineffective training.  There’s a certain level of understanding that simply cannot exist purely academically; it needs to be experienced and replicated in order to be understood.  Many times, these guys that are moving heavy weight “in spite of themselves” are intuitively familiar with the exact concepts you feel that they are unaware of.  They may not have read it in a study, but it’s there.

Some dudes may not have even had internet access when they got jacked

Does this mean you always have to be stronger than the person you’re giving advice to?  Not at all.  Again, we’ve seen super strong athletes coached by weaker coaches.  However, what this DOES mean is that you have to be unashamed of your own accomplishments if you’re willing to advise others.  You have to be willing to proudly produce an answer when asked “how much ya bench”, and gladly let the number stand on its own.  You have to be willing to say “this is my advice, and this is my proof that it is good advice”.  And if you can only say half of that sentence, you shouldn’t say any of it. 

Until you are willing to do that, don’t give advice; listen to the advice of those who ARE willing to give an answer.

ON WORK CAPACITY AND RECOVERY

Truthfully, this is just going to be my chance to rant at people who believe in the idea of “programs for steroid users”, but I had no idea how to title that, and this gives me a bit more of a vector.  I’ve already written previously about how work capacity, conditioning and GPP get mixed all together by people who are hoping to sound smart by using all those terms but also don’t know what they mean so they say them all at the same time every time.  To review though; for our purposes here, “work capacity” refers to one’s ability to recover between workouts, rather than the ability to recover WITHIN the workout.  Work capacity is important, because volume is a critical driver of progress, and as such, ability to recover from amount of volume accumulated in training facilitates the ability to UTILIZE enough volume to drive progress.  Without work capacity, a trainee will stall out and not be able to train hard enough to make progress without the risk of overreaching and burning out.

Or they'll just do this

So how do we acquire work capacity?  Once again, the trifecta of effort, consistency and, most importantly, time.  It simply takes time to accumulate the ability to recover from more and more volume.  You spend years and years just pounding away in training and, in turn, you train your body to be able to recover from this sort of activity.  And each time you go back to train, you push it just a little harder, and continue to stretch your work capacity greater and greater.  Sometimes you take breaks from this approach, and focus more on intensifying and peaking, but after that time is done, it’s back to improve that work capacity so you can get more volume and make more growth.

It’s worth noting as well that it doesn’t necessarily require lifting weight to build work capacity.  Sure, specificity is dandy, but fundamentally we’re talking about improving the body’s ability to recover from physical stress, and this can come from many forms.  This could be acquired from a lifetime of physical labor, or from being active in athletics from a young age, or even simply being an actively engaged human that enjoys physical pursuits with no specific direction.  There really can’t be enough positive things said about the benefit of being and remaining active.

Most trainees would love to look like that when they're 80...or now

“Get to the part about steroids!” Yeah, ok, fine.  So first, I’m going outside my wheelhouse a bit, as I have zero experience with anabolics.  Never used them, never even seen them, wouldn’t know where to buy them.  However, the reason I bring them up is that, many times, trainees will see a program posted, look at the total volume, balk at it and right away go “Psh, that program only works if you’re on steroids!”  Or they’ll see a program advocated by a particular trainee and say “It only worked for them because they were on steroids.”  Arnold’s 2 a day split program from his Encyclopedia of Modern bodybuilding is notorious for this charge, as are many other programs.

Here’s the thing; yes, chemicals can enhance the recovery process, but they cannot replicate the benefits of a decade or two spent increasing your work capacity.  Yeah, it can improve protein synthesis rates which can result in better growth and recovery, but if you spent your lifetime as a slug and then shoot up a bunch of anabolics, it’s still only going to be so effective.  Crying “steroids” whenever you see a challenging program is taking the easy way out; the reality is, you need to start crying “work capacity!” 

But how else will you become a sexual tyrannosaurs? 

These athletes and lifters tend to come from a lifetime background of training in some capacity.  The Soviet lifters engaged in play and athletics as soon as they were able to, and constantly stayed in that state while being groomed to be athletes such that, when the time came to train, they had the work capacity of a horse and could handle absurd workloads, which translated into crazy growth.  We saw the same with the Bulgarians.  Arnold shared stories of his childhood where, for insolence, his father would punish him by making him before hundreds of squats and other bodyweight exercises.  Successful bodybuilders were bit by the ironbug at a young age and spent much of their youth training in some way, Eddie Hall was a national level swimmer before transitioning to weights, Mariusz Pudzianowski’s dad was an accomplished weightlifter that taught those skills to his young son who also had an interest in karate and boxing, etc etc.

So yeah, when looking at these routines, it’s quite possible that you shouldn’t follow them, but not necessarily because you “have to be on steroids” to make them work; it’s because you need the WORK CAPACITY to be able to recover from them.  And, consequently, the notion that you can evaluate that a trainee is on steroids purely by the amount of volume they have in their program is absurd; they very well may simply have spent the necessary amount of time to develop the work capacity that grants them recovery from these sessions.  I’ve witnessed first-hand natural trainees progressing off these very “steroids only” programs, and it’s because they were simply lunatics that spent a lifetime becoming machines that fed off volume, and I’ve also witnessed lifetime coach potatoes hop on a cycle of steroids, throw all the volume they could at themselves, and end up looking like a sack of crap because one steroid cycle can’t undo 20+ years of bad living. 

No, that doesn't mean try different products

This is incentive for WHY you should continue to keep pushing yourself in your training; so that you can expand your work capacity to these levels.  People want to stay on prescriptions of the minimal effective dosage like it’s some sort of badge of honor to do as little work as possible.  Screw that; go hard as often as you can so that you have a super deep well to dig into when it comes time to push the volume.  Keep expanding your body’s ability to recover so that you can keep throwing more at it and continue to grow to a ridiculous level.  Pair this with a solid base of conditioning and you’ll come up with monstrous training programs that accumulate a ton of volume in short order that has you outgrowing everyone.           

ODE TO SUPER SQUATS

On many occasions through this blog, I have spoken to the value of the “Super Squats” program and eluded to its difficulty and insanity, but never taken the time to fully explain what it is and why I am such a fan of it.  This program represented a big turning point in my training, and is a fantastic paradigm breaker, which is why I am to this day a staunch supporter of the idea that ALL trainees, regardless of goals, should run it for 6 weeks.  No matter what reason you train, following this program will teach you some invaluable lessons that you can get purely through academics.  Without further ado…

WHAT IS SUPER SQUATS

18 of those pounds are balls

“Super Squats” the book, is a publication by Randall Strossen of Ironmind renown.  In itself it is a fantastic read that goes over some of the history of the iron game, big names, where the squat came from and, of course, the infamous “Super Squats” program and diet.  I first read the book over Christmas of 2006, purely as a curiosity, as I had heard the program and the book whispered about in lifting circles and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  Strossen is a fantastic author, because once I was done with the book I was already chomping at the bit to run my 6 week Super Squats program.  To understand the significance of that, you have to keep in mind that, at this point in time, I was totally drinking the Pavel Tsastouline kool-aid and firmly believed I only needed to ever do 5 reps to get bigger and stronger.  The sheer idea of a 20 rep set was totally anathema to everything I “believed” at that point, but this book sunk its hooks into me.

So you’ll notice I said “20 rep squats”, and yeah; that’s what this program is based around.  But right away people screw that up.  It’s not a leisurely set of 20, so all those people saying “reps that high don’t build muscle!” have to keep in mind that we’re not talking about  20 rep warm-up set.  In fact, the book suggests you start with your 10rm for the set of 20.

Don't base it off of this set

“If it’s a 10rm, how do you squat it for 20 reps you idiot?!” Hey shut up for a second.  That’s the SECOND part of the program people screw up; these aren’t squats, they’re BREATHING squats.  What’s the difference?  On a normal high rep set of squats, you’ll probably knock out the first 3/4s of the reps without stopping, and once you get to the end you’ll take a few breaths between reps to “rest”.  With Super Squats, you’re taking those breaths in from rep ONE, and these are supposed to be the deepest breaths of your life.  It’s a minimum required 3 breaths per rep, but you are free to do more if you like.

Are breathing squats an old-timey gimmick?  No; it’s primitive rest pausing!  Now sure, the old timers told you that those deep breaths would give you a deep chest, and maybe there was something to that, but even if that’s not true, what they DO manage to do is force you to take a break between reps to rest and recover.  This gives you the chance to do your 10rm for 20 reps.  HOWEVER, it also forces you to stand with your 10rm on your back for about 2-3 minutes.  Even WITHOUT the squats, that is going to suck, but throw those in and you have the recipe for a TON of tension all across the body for a LOOONG time.  Throwing in some other lifting on top of all that just becomes madness.

WHY SUPER SQUATS

Can't I just cycle for legs?

As I mentioned before, Super Squats is a major paradigm breaker in a lot of ways.  For one, if you think you train hard, once you run this program you’ll realize how run you were. And, in turn, once you’re done with this program, pretty much nothing else out there will phase you, because you can say “*Psh*, whatever, I ran Super Squats”.  I thought I was a complete Billy Badass before this, and about midway through the 6 weeks I realized I was actually dreading training because it was so awful. 

However, that dread is another reason why everyone needs to run this program; you gain a valuable lesson in obsessiveness.  I realize that word has a negative connotation and yes, being obsessed ALL the time is not a great thing, but if you ever have hopes of being competitive or even simply great at something, you’re going to need to get obsessed sometimes.  Super Squats teaches you to be obsessed about getting those 20 reps.  Each time you succeed, you are “rewarded” by adding another 5lbs to the bar for the next workout.  Whenever you fail, you will spend the next 47 hours thinking about how you absolutely COULD have gotten that last rep if only you weren’t such a wimp.  You’ll kick yourself, beat yourself up, and flat out hate yourself because you’ll be convinced that ALL the growth on the program happens on that 20^th rep and, if you don’t hit it, you wasted a training session.  When you run this program, you will live, eat and breathe 20 rep squats.  All time not spent squatting will be spent either dreading the next workout or kicking yourself for failing the previous one.  Once the 20 reps are done, you will feel exactly 1 second of relief before realizing that, next workout, you have to do it again with 5 more pounds.

Yeah pretty much this

You’ll noted I say “live, eat and breathe” 20 rep squats, because what you’ll be drinking is a ton of milk.  And yeah yeah, everyone is going to say “You don’t need to follow the diet; I know an app that TOTALLY calculates your macros and calories and there’s no reason to eat any more than what the computer tells me to eat!”, again, shut up for a second.  This is once again a lesson in obsessiveness.  So many underweight kids out there are like that because they’re adamantly CONVINCED that they totally eat a TON and they must just have a fast metabolism.  Cool story bro; tell it after you drank a gallon of milk on TOP of a diet rich in solid foods as well.  When you buy in completely to the program, to include the food intake, you suddenly learn how much you WEREN’T eating in your quest to get big previously.  And you’ll find that all those calories are necessary to keep pushing the weight up on those squats every single session.  But if you don’t want to eat that way, well…good luck.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RIB CAGE EXPANSION?!

Hey maybe it works...

Everyone gets so freaked out over this, and I don’t see it as any different than the “extreme stretching” from DoggCrapp.  Which is to say; just do it.  It’s 20 reps of pull overs; what’ the worst that could happen?  You accidentally develop a little chest muscle?  Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but you may as well run it just to completely take part in the program.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE/LESSONS LEARNED

I ran this program back in January of 2007 weighing 190 at the start, and finishing in 6 weeks at 202lbs.  Yeah, the book says “30lbs in 6 weeks”, grain of salt here fellows. At 5’9, I was pretty stocky there.  I was in my senior year of college and had access to a meal hall, so I was able to eat a lot of food that was already prepared for me and had very few demands on my time, which made it pretty awesome.  I’d say, if I had to do it all over again, I’d use a little more training volume.  I was running the super abbreviated program in the book, which boiled down to 2x12 of a press (bench or overhead), 2x15 of pulls (rows or chins), the squats and the pullovers.  There were other programs in there with more volume, along with programs in “The Complete Keys to Progress” and “Brawn” that do the same, and I think I would have been able to recover well, but I was trying to prove something by training less and still growing.

Good luck for those of you that decide to take this on.  Feel free to ask any questions you have, and please buy and read the book. 

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU

I’m just getting sick of this, so allow me to rant.  Every time I see a video of someone accomplishing some ridiculous feat of strength, I see the same dumb thing in the comments.  No, I’m not talking about the steroids accusations, I’m not talking about the bad form comments, I’m not talking about the “my back hurts just watching that” nonsense; I’m talking about the miscreants that make the video all about THEM.  And they do it in the stupidest way possible; using it as an opportunity to talk about how weak THEY are.  “Oh man, here I was happy doing only HALF of that”, “Oh wow, if I tried that I’d blow a gasket”, etc etc.  Jesus Christ; quit being so self-centered for a second and let this person have their glory.  It’s not about you!

Oh man, if I tried to get a nosebleed like that, I'd probably only get 1 nostril going!

“But I’m just pointing out how STRONG that guy is!” No you’re not; you’re trying to reinforce your toxic mediocrity by shifting attention AWAY from greatness and focusing it on weakness.  You’re trying to create a culture of under performing to justify your OWN failings rather than letting magnificence shine when it is present.  There was no doubt whatsoever that Eddie Hall was strong when he deadlifted 500kg; you pointing out that you’d be happy to deadlift 500lbs is trite and a meaningless statement that did nothing to benefit the rest of us.  Respect the lift by admiring it or by shutting up about it, but when you try to take attention away from the athlete by shifting the focus onto you, you are truly committing a crime.

And quit your compliment fishing; this isn’t a therapy session.  You don’t need someone to tell you to buck up and that everyone has to start somewhere; we all know this already.  And hey, for those of you that watch these videos and say “that’s it, I quit”; good.  Get out, because your monument to weakness is offensive and is setting us all back.  “But my self-esteem!” I HOPE your self-esteem is low, because hopefully you’ll resent yourself enough to want to make a change.  People that are content have no reason to improve; it’s the people that absolutely DETEST their very being that are going to be out there making meaningful changes.  If you want acceptance, go make a tumblr, but if you strength, quit making this about you.

You won't BELIEVE the sort of tumblrs this image shows up on...

“Hey man, I just want to establish some realistic expectations”, no, go away.  What you’re doing is the exact opposite of helpful.  Let’s abolish realistic expectations and give EVERYONE unrealistic expectations.  Let’s get bored of 1000lb deadlifts, let’s see so many 3000lb totals that it’s trite, let’s get so inundated with greatness that we expect nothing else.  When we normalize greatness, achieving it seems almost inevitable.  What you’re doing is dragging us all down with you as you do your best to turn the topic of conversation around and back to you.

Hey, know what you can do to get people to start talking about you?  GO DO SOMETHING!  Go do something that is WORTH talking about.  Don’t pride yourself on how weak you are; go into hiding and turn into some sort of horrific unstoppable juggernaut and come back decades later so that the whole collective internet hivemind sees you and says “What the F**K?!”  Go EARN the right to be spoken about.  Don’t try to steal it by attempting to turn the spotlight onto your weakness whenever given the chance; remain silent until you have something to say, and then say it so loud that no one can hear over your awesomeness.

Eddie couldn't hear over how awesome he was...and because he was bleeding out of his ears

And why CAN’T it be you?  Why spend so much time wallowing in maudlin self-pity when you could go out and BE these things you idolize?  No time?  Genetics?  Drugs?  Excuses, the whole lot of it.  Because even if you can’t reach THEIR level, you can certainly maximize your potential, and in doing so you will reach levels that few other humans in total will ever experience.  You WILL be spoken of by others, because the person that has peaked, in whatever form that takes, IS impressive among others.  You won’t have to hog the spotlight or shift attention away from others or play weird psychological games to trick people into noticing you; you’ll be noticed because you finally went and achieved something.

But until that time, it’s not about you.  Don’t make it about you.  Let the greatness that is occurring occur before you, and praise it for what it is, and reflect on it for what it means to you, and give that person what they EARNED by achieving this feat.  One day, you might be able to earn it too.