THE ETHICS OF IGNORANCE AND THE SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO

This becomes an interesting topic to write on, as I’m an advocate for the practice of ignorance and in general champion the benefits of ignorance for the purpose of training, but I find myself struggling in regards to the ethical dilemma of possessing ignorance as it relates to the signal to noise ratio.  For those unfamiliar with the concept of signal to noise ratio, a google search will benefit more than my ham-fisted explanation, but essentially it refers to the notion of the ratio of good information to bad information as it relates to a dialogue on a topic.  In an ideal situation, there is more good information than bad, in most cases, the reality is far more upsetting.  Why is there so much bad information out there?  Because there is very little limiting people from expressing bad information, and, when combined with few people that actually have good information to share, the ratio is incredibly poor.

I don't care that this picture is huge: this comic was awesome back in the day

So where do ethics factor into this?  It relates to the fact that YOU, as a member of society, have an ethical imperative to contribute and better this signal to noise ratio.  True, at least, if you do in fact love the community that you purport to love.  How many “powerlifting or death” die hards out there spend the majority of their day spewing nonsense online?  Sharing stupid memes?  Posting stuff purely for the sake of getting a reaction?  Telling the same stupid punchlines over and over again?  Basically USING the community rather than contributing to it?  These people supposedly love their sport, live their sport, breathe their sport…and are doing everything in their power to make it worse.  In their act of selfishness, they in turn spite their OWN self-interest, for their pursuit of alleviating boredom kills their sport and its community.

And this is simply those who pursue (and fail at) comedy.  What of those that actually “contribute” to legitimate discussion…and do so with zero actual ability to do so?  Those who talk about how competitors should compete, despite having never competed themselves.  Those who share their opinions on science, despite having no actual education and only ever reading the abstracts?  Those who opine on getting more muscular who are skinny?  Those who comment on getting stronger who are weak?  The unqualified advising the qualified?  Can you all PLEASE kindly shut the Hell up?  Just for a second?  Someone important is talking, and I’m trying to hear them, and I can’t over the sound of you screaming about sumo being cheating.

I relate way too well to this

“But my free speech!”  Hey kids, here’s a hot tip: if the only reason you are doing something is because it’s not illegal, what you’re doing is a bad thing.  It’s not illegal for me to wear a gallon of cologne out in public or to microwave fish in an office, but it sure makes me an a-hole.  The KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church are well within their rights to demonstrate, and they are objectively awful people and organizations.  The law does not determine ethical imperatives, and many people violate laws in the pursuit of the ethical right, while many others are fully within the law and ethically evil.  If the only reason you speak is because no one is preventing you from doing it, what you have to say is not worthwhile.

“It’s just my opinion!”  Hey, guess what: your opinion doesn’t matter, so stop sharing it.  If you think you have a right to share it, refer to the above paragraph.  You sharing your opinion is NOT harmless; it’s making us all worse as a society.  You have actively made it MORE difficult for people to get good information on a topic, because now your awful, stupid opinion has polluted the dialogue.  Now, someone else has to hear your opinion, weigh, measure and evaluate it against the millions of OTHER awful opinions out there before finally getting to the good stuff.  And, if that lone traveler through your society is as equally uninformed as you, they may accidentally think that what you say IS right…because it’s what they keep hearing.  Mainly because the signal to noise ratio is so incredibly poor that it’s impossible to get to the good information…mainly because of you and people like you.

A better ratio woulda made sure something like this NEVER happens...

Be ignorant: I implore you to do so.  Ignorance is strength.  Ignorance keeps you from getting distracted.  It puts on the blinders, and keeps that signal to noise ratio from getting to you.  By not trying to learn, you won’t accidentally learn wrong.  HOWEVER, if you choose to be ignorant, be ignorant in SILENCE.  Stay in your lane.  Why do you think it is that, in over 6 years of writing, 300+ posts, all around 1000 words, I keep saying essentially the same things?  Because this is what I know.  I can talk about this with confidence, knowing that what I’m contributing is of value to the dialogue.  I do not discuss science, because I an inept there.  I do not evaluate programs I have not run, because that would be making the dialogue on the topic worse, not better.  I do not contribute my opinion when it would be a meaningless opinion, despite the fact that I am within my right to do so, because it is not the RIGHT thing to do.  I leave these areas of expertise to the actual experts, and when they speak, I do not interrupt. 

And if I DO want to contribute to the dialogue, I earn the ability to do so.  I’ve been training for 19 years: there are a FEW things I can talk to as a result.  And if you are junior to me in that regard, that just means you have the potential to earn the ability to speak to SO many topics…if you are so inclined.  You can become experienced or legitimately educated, but in either capacity, you can become someone whose opinion DOES matter, and your contribution will be an ethical one.  It’s up to you to ask yourself that question though: before you open your mouth, before you write a post, before you comment on facebook, or write something on Instagram, or in any way voice your opinion on a topic, is what you’re about to say going to benefit the people who hear it?

DEEP WATER ADVANCED PROGRAM REVIEW

I have completed the Deep Water Advanced program, in doing so finishing 18 weeks of the most hellacious training I’ve ever engaged in.  I got bigger, stronger, and experienced a lot of growth physically and psychologically.  In this program, I made some significant deviations, but I feel the intent was still met and the goals were realized.

THE PROGRAM

Alternative title

Once again, this comes out of the Deep Water book, which you can get for free of Jon Andersen’s Instagram account or for $10 off Amazon, so I’m not going to write up the whole thing here.  For a summary though, it’s still 4 days a week of lifting and 1 day of active recovery.  The training is not quite as predictable as the previous two programs though.  You typically will have 2 Deep Water days and 2 non-Deep Water Days.  The latter have you work up to a topset of 10 in 5 sets on a variety of movements (press, cleans, rows, etc) or have the same bench press workout that were in the first two workouts, along with some assistance work.  The former have you work up to a topset of 5 within 5 sets, then take that weight and multiply it by .65 and do as many reps as possible with that amount.  You then rest 5-8 minutes and do it again with a weight that is half the amount of your topset of 5.  This is done with a wide variety of movements, to include squats, deadlifts, push press, clean and press (clean each rep from the floor), cleans, front squat press, etc.  Some Deep Water days have additional assistance work, some don’t.

This program is really just less predictable than the previous 2, so it’s a bit hard to sum up what a week will look like.  Usually a week will start with a Deep Water workout, but after that it’s something of a wildcard.  You go a bit longer between bench workouts as a result, and you find yourself doing a LOT of cleans, so hopefully you kept practicing hard during the beginner/intermediate program.

For those AMRAP sets, you NEED to dig deep if you want to get the most out of them.  The first 2 weeks of the program sorta work like a break-in, similar to the other 2 programs, but after that you need to make sure you’re leaving it all in the gym.  Without doing that, you’re not going to get much from the program.

NUTRITION

That's about right

No changes here as far as foods good; primarily meat and veggies.  However, I found the volume to be a little less on this program, so not as much need for huge portions.

DEVIATIONS AND X-FACTORS

...christ I'm a nerd

Unlike the previous 2 programs, I ended up having some more extension deviations here, and I feel they are worth detailing for the sake of full disclosure.

-I ran this program “inverted” as it were.  Basically, my final lower body workout for Deep Water Intermediate was a deadlift workout, so I wanted to squat the following week.  However, Deep Water Advanced started with deadlifts, so I went to week 2 and started there to get in the squat workout.  That meant that, after finishing week 2, I ran week 1.  After week 1, I then ran week 4, so that I’d do another squat workout, then did week 3, then week 6, and finished with week 5.  Ultimately, I don’t think this impacted the results much, as I got the whole workout done in the time slotted, but just something to note.

-I screwed up the assistance work on a few workouts.  Just minor things.  Skipped box jumps one day, made them up on another, etc.  This wasn’t’ because I felt it was the better way to do it, it was just blatant non-compliance due to not looking up the program before I trained.  Thought I had the right idea, turned out I didn’t.

-Somewhere along the line, I did a deadlift workout that I didn’t need to do.  I honestly don’t know how I worked it into the program, but I ended up setting a solid program PR on it, so it was a win.

-Biggest complete deviation came in the final 2 weeks of the program.  One of the Deep Water days required full cleans.  I simply don’t have that skillset, and unlike power cleans, which I had been building up to through the beginner and intermediate program, there was no break-in here.  I weighed my options and decided log cleans would fit closest to the requirements here.  It was still a floor to chest exercise that requires me to hold the implement in a squatting position.  Not quite right, but close enough.  Another Deep Water workout required thrusters (or front squat press, as it was called in the program) and, again, just not a skillset I have.  I opted to make these into log viper presses for a similar argument.  Final Deep Water workout required clean and push press, each rep from the floor.  I originally wanted to make this an axle continental and press, since I’m better at that than cleaning, but I think the decision to do the log vipers was a poor strategy, because my forearms were fried and I seemed to just have zero explosiveness for the workout.  I pretty much had nothing left, and walked away from that workout disappointed.

-Most significant factor was nutrition, and this was due to illness.  I came down with a bad stomach bug right around the second week of the program.  Vomited 8 times in the span of 4 hours and lost about 5lbs in a day.  The second order effect though was that my appetite was shot for about 2 weeks after that.  I force fed as much as I could in that time, but I was struggling to get in the amount of food needed.  Pair that with the fact that volume is significantly scaled down on this program compared to beginner and intermediate, and the catalyst for big food intake simply wasn’t there.  It ended up meaning that I would eventually regain the lost weight, but not much else on the program.

RESULTS

Whereas Beginner and Intermediate were about setting up for some big PRs, this was the time to start realizing them.  I added 30lbs to my SSB squat 5rm in 5 weeks on the program.  I added 10lbs to my deadlift 5rm in 3 weeks.  My press 10rm went up 15lbs through the program, set under greater states of fatigue.  Axle Bench went from 3x7 at 291 to 2x10 and 1x7 at the same weight.  Power cleans increased as well.

Once again though, for the most part, the changes are far more mental than anything else.  Having the AMRAP backoff sets in the program really gave me an opportunity to dig deep, and I got to find out what I was made of.  The first 2 weeks, I was disappointed in the effort I produced, but by the end of the program, I knew I was leaving it all out there.  I had gashed my hand early in the Deep Water power clean workout, and ended up just putting some chalk in it to hit a 30 and 40 rep set.  I’d also lost my fear of heavy max work, and was able to just set up and execute.  I got to see the manifestation of improved willpower during that vomiting spell I had as well, as typically vomiting takes a LOT out of me, but this time I’d roll up to the toilet, puke, go chug a Gatorade to get back some fluids and get ready to do it all again in a half hour.  It sucked, I didn’t feel great, but I didn’t let it debilitate me.  In turn, I was able to be active and train the next day, a little weakened, but not significantly so.

As previously noted, that vomiting did not help with weight gain, and my bodyweight basically stayed the same for this program.  That I was able to regain the 5 lost pounds may mean that I’d have experienced some growth absent that illness.

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND MOVING FORWARD

-Understanding this from the framework of 5/3/1, the Beginner and Intermediate programs are leaders, and the Advanced program is an anchor.  When I first read the book, I thought it was “If you’re a beginner, you do the beginner program.  Intermediate does intermediate, etc.”  However, it’s more like “When you’re a beginner to the METHOD, you do beginner.  That preps you for the intermediate program for the method, and then you’re ready for the advanced.”  And it really IS a question about getting prepped for it.  I’ve been training for 19 years, but if I just jumped into the advanced program, I wouldn’t have gotten NEARLY as much out of it.  I’d not pushed as hard on the Deep Water sets, as I just wouldn’t have that all built into me.  After 12 weeks of absolutely killing myself, I knew how to unleash.

-The volume is lower on this program, which is obvious on looking at it, but in turn that’s going to mean less nutrition required and less weight gained.  Like an anchor program, you’re looking to express strength here, not build.  Always eat to support training.

-For my active recovery work, I ended up picking up the boxing gloves after about 7 years off and hitting the heavy bag.  I think this coincides with the fact that, after all this time on the program, it seemed like my hormones kicked into overdrive.  Libido was crazy, aggression was high, and I had the need to fight again.  That’s been welling up in me for a while, but I usually battle it back, thinking I’m done with combat sports.  I usually scoff at the whole “squats release hormones” stuff, but maybe there is some truth to it when you spend 18 weeks doing 100 reps of them.

-Moving forward from here is tough.  I’m getting corrective vision surgery at the end of the month, which I’ll treat as a 1 week deload after 18 weeks without one (which is another interesting point for the program, as I was very much accustomed to a deload every 6 weeks of training but never got run into the ground enough to need it).  After that, I’ll hear what the doc says about recovery, and I’ll look to see if a strongman competition is happening in April, and if it looks any good.  If so, I’ll train for that.  If not, I may just run this all over again depending on how much weight I lose with my time off.  There are changes I’ll make, now that I’ve run it in earnest.  I’ll swap out buffalo bar squats with SSB, and probably trade out deadlift bar deadlifts with an axle.  That will make the squats a little easier and the deadlifts a little harder, which will be a solid balance.  Thinking I’d eliminate the ab circuit and bring back the ab wheels, just because they take less time.  Might try to get in a little more running and boxing as well, as I keep seeing myself as getting to be a little bit better at those things.  I’ve contemplated also running 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake as a means of easing myself back into Deep Water, and I think that’d be a solid approach for anyone interested in the program.  ANOTHER option I have in mind is to buy the “Deep Water Badass” program and see what that is all about.  Ultimately, it’ll depend on a few variables outside of my control.

TRAINING VIDEOS

For those that are curious what these workouts were like, I wanted to upload some of the videos from the training cycle.

Axle push pressing: 5x251, 21x166, 22x126

SSB squats week 3: 5x425, 21x275, 24x215

Log cleans: 5x210, 20x135, 21x105

Deadlifts: 5x555, 24x360, 26x280

SSB Squats Week 5: 5x435, 20x285, 26x220

Log viper press: 5x205, 22x135, 30x105

FORCE OF NATURE

This is going to be another one of those free form word association posts ala “blunt force instrument”, so stick with me.  Going with full disclosure again, my unabashed nerdiness comes through on this one, and my very first encounter with the term “Force of Nature” originates from Magic the Gathering, but, in fairness to the respect of the content of this blog, that Force of Nature was pretty jacked, and incredibly powerful

Some Jon Andersen style traps there

But what is an actual force of nature?  The literal definition applies to those natural forces beyond the control of humans that tend to have cataclysmic effects, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, etc.  When applied figuratively to people, it implies that those people have qualities and personalities similar to these natural disasters; existing beyond the control of outside forces.  In turn, those with these qualities tend to exhibit qualities of being unstoppable insofar as it comes to the expression and execution of these qualities.  One tends to not be a force of nature in regards to all qualities, but instead possesses a quality, of which they are a force of nature for that quality.   

Where have you observed forces of nature?  In fiction, my two favorite go-tos are Jason Vorhees of Friday the 13th fame and Frank Castle, aka The Punisher.  Jason starts out as more the figurative Force of Nature, as his original appearance is that of a human driven purely by a murderous drive for revenge against those that were responsible for the death of his mother.  However, as his story progresses, he transforms into an almost literal interruption as a re-animated corpse that seems driven for murder against teenagers and authority figures.  The original driving purpose was lost, and Jason now murders simply because that is what Jason does.  And, as a Force of Nature, he is almost entirely unstoppable in his pursuit.  He lumbers after his victims, smashes through walls, and lets nothing stop him on his quest.

F**k your boombox

Anyone familiar with me is well aware of my obsession with The Punisher, so it should be no surprise that he’s my other reference for what a Force of Nature is.  But it’s worth analyzing, as it’s easy to get caught up in the initial motivation of Frank Castle and miss out for what it is he becomes.  Yes, Frank’s original motivation was to avenge the deaths of his family, and there are many that would argue that is perhaps noble and respectable.  But then, it becomes a quest to far a war on crime, which becomes a bit morally complex depending on your views on vigilantism, but some could argue this was just an extension of the avenging of one’s family.  But eventually, 30 years have passed, Frank can’t even remember what his family looked like, the original purpose is long since expired, anyone that was in anyway related to the death of his family is dead, and Frank fights the war simply because that is what Frank does.  He is a Force of Nature for punishment.  He is under no delusion that what he does is somehow better than the acts of those he punishes: he just knows that what he does in this world, his sole purpose, is simply to punish. 

So this was a lot of rambling, nerdiness and pop culture.  Why talk about it?  Because the Force of Nature helps obviate the dread of existentialism in an otherwise absurd world.  And, of course, that sentence is yet more nerdiness, but what does it mean for you?  The Force of Nature is self-justifying.  It requires no explanation, justification, reasoning, or logic, for it simply IS.  The Force of Nature does what it does because that is what it is, and to be anything else is simply outside of its nature.  And, consequently, this means that nothing else will make it anything other than what it is, as it is immune to the effects of outside influences.

Although maybe sometimes you should still listen to outside influences..

When you make yourself a force of nature, you grant yourself the freedom of no longer needing reason to do what it is that you do.  How often have you observed the meltdown of a trainee when they hit the existential dread of training?  When it dawns on them that they’ve bit off on a lifetime of training and nutrition in order to continue achieving what it is they want to achieve?  How many early mornings do that need to have?  How many missed nights out drinking must they endure?  How many possible injuries, annoyances, missed meals, etc etc, are they in for?  But these aren’t concerns for a Force of Nature, for they simply do what they do because it is what they are.  They get up early or train late, they eat the same thing everyday, they abide by the program, stay on the diet, endure, adapt, overcome, get hurt, come back, etc etc because they are a Force of Nature, and that is what they do.

And when the question of “why” gets asked, the answer is simply “because I am”.  I long ago lost the reason of WHY I want to be big and strong.  All I know is that it’s my earliest memory.  It’s simply what I am.  I no longer carry the burden of needing a reason, and it frees me to spend my energy thinking of HOW I will pursue my ends rather than why.  Give yourself the same gift.  Lose your purpose and simply be.  In doing so, you are beholden to no one’s standards but your own.  You will overcome injuries because they do not stop a Force of Nature, you will overcome adversity, lack of opportunity, limitations, etc etc.  You will overcome your OWN internal monologue, questioning why it is you do what you do, for what purpose, for what end.  There is no reason, there is no purpose, everything is absurd, your life will end, the sun will explode, we will all perish…

…but none of that matters anyway.    

ON YOUNG TRAINEES

Since this is my blog, I get to be self-indulgent, and this is one of those times.  I’m at the ripe old age of 33, but I’m going to use this as an opportunity to get on my old man rage and talk about “back in my day.”  Why?  Because I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet, to the point that I now observe trainees that were the same age when I started training, and through these observations I’ve noted some bizarre trends that are completely hamstringing young trainees.  No matter how much information we make readily available, problems always exist with all levels of trainees, and more information just results in new problems.  In fact, I feel it’s to the point that new trainees need to quit learning so damn much and just do like we did before all this information was out there; experiment, fail, learn and grow.

This used to be where to get the "latest and greatest information"

One of the primary issues I observe with new trainees is a massive pre-occupation with the programming of their training.  They get it in their head that programming is the most critical aspect of programming, and the key to their success.  They believe that any sort of miscalculation will result in years of failure and regression, that they have a finite amount of “newbie gains” that can be exhausted on poor programming and result in stagnation and terminal “skinny fatness”, they believe the only way worth training is the most optimal way to train, etc etc.  What’s the issue with worrying about programming?  This preoccupation with programming typically comes at the expense of NOT being preoccupied with knowing HOW to move.

I’ve observed a trainee ask approximately 1000 questions on 5/3/1 for Beginners.  For those of you that are not “in the know”, 5/3/1 is marketed as the simplest training program for gaining raw strength and size.  The “for Beginners” variation of that would be the even SIMPLER version of the simplest training program for gaining raw strength and size.  It is spelled out set for set, rep for rep, exercise for exercise, you are told what day to train per week, what to do on that day, etc.  That ANY question can be asked about the program blows my mind, let alone the amount of questions I observe about the program on a daily basis.  One fateful day, among the myriad of questions this trainee asked, he asked about substituting deadlifts out of the program.  Through his trails and tribulations, he had deduced that the deadlift was simply “not for him”, and he needed a new movement for the program.  When prompted to post a form check, he uploaded a video of him deadlifting that looked like a cat dry-humping a barbell.  He literally could NOT hinge at the hips, all movement stemmed from his lower back, he couldn’t even bend down to reach the bar without significant rounding, etc.  Hours spent researching programming, not a second spent learning how to move.

"Hey guys, my deadlift has stalled at 135: should I run deadlift Smolov or Coan/Philippi?"

And this preoccupation with programming stems from a problem that IS as old as time when it comes to new trainees: emulating the more experienced trainees.  Before, the issue was that new trainees would just directly copy the training programs of experienced trainees and burn out because they lacked the work capacity, but now new trainees simply ape the mentality and mannerisms of experienced trainees, and with that comes another new bizarre trend in young trainees: pre-mature aging.  What do I mean here?  There are 15 year old trainees that, if you hear them talk, you’d swear they were 80 years old and worked in a coal mine their whole lives.  They talk about how they have bad knees and can only front squat, bad shoulders so they can only use a swiss bar and safety squat bar, lower back problems so they only belt squat and do romainian deadlifts, etc.  Jesus Christ, what did you do in 15 years of living to do this?  I’ve trained for 19 years and I’m not that broken.  I have a right shoulder with a torn labrum after 6 dislocations and a dozen subluxations, and I have the shoulder mobility to low-bar squat and press with a straight bar.  I blew out my knee so bad that they could not FIND my ACL in my MRI and I can still squat.  How did you get so old?

The internet, of course, makes this behavior self-validating, because these ancient teenagers get online and find others just like them and keep agreeing with each other.  They’ll all lament about how they can’t run certain programs because they can’t do the movements in them, they’ll help each other come up with replacement movements, they’ll find someone even YOUNGER than them and caution them with their years of wisdom to “not do like they did”, etc etc.  Why is all of this?  Because these trainees observe guys like Dave Tate, Ronnie Coleman, Steve Pulcinella, Ed Coan, etc, being broken and assume it’s some sort of badge of honor that comes with getting big and strong.  They’re in such a rush to be just like the big boys that they can’t WAIT to be crippled and lame.

This should do the trick

Once again, this stems from a lack of patience in what really matters for young trainees: learning how to actually MOVE.  So much of these aches and pains are due to poor execution of a movement pattern, NOT the inherent danger contained within these movements.  This gets to be my old man rant again, but a lack of patience among young trainees stems primarily FROM their youth, specifically as it relates to their perception of time.   A young trainee decides that they have to give up on a movement because they “tried figuring it out” and it just didn’t work.  When you ask them how long they spent trying to figure it out, they say 3 months.  It’s easy to scoff, but when you’ve only been training for 9 months, that seems like FOREVER.  And when you start out training not knowing how to move your body in general, 3 months spent “learning” a movement is really just 3 months spent screwing up a movement.  So what ends up happening?  These young trainees amass a HUGE list of “off-limits” movements for training at an incredibly young age and completely hamstring themselves from any growth, and their brokenness becomes self-perpetuating. They lock themselves into bizarre movement patterns and habits and lose out a significant degree of basic mobility (but don’t worry: that can be fixed with a mobility routine!  Another rant, for another time).

Wrapping up the old man rant, what we’re observing is the ramifications of a lack of athletics and genuine “play” among adolescents.  These basic movement patterns used to be reinforced by going outside and playing, climbing trees and playground equipment, running around, and playing a variety of sports.  Instead, trainees spent a significant degree of their youth sedentary, then reach an “oh crap” moment where they realize their youth is escaping and they look and perform like junk, and try to reverse it.  They’re sold a pack of nonsense that they’re running off “natural steroids” as a teenager, and that they MUST maximize this by weight training as hard as possible, run into all these issues because they don’t know how to move, and thus the above happens.  Instead of trying to find the most perfect program, instead of accumulating a list of fake injuries, instead of ruling out 90% of training movements, these trainees need to go become athletes.  They need to move through space, resist another human attempting to score points, move laterally, etc etc.  THIS is the beginner foundation, THESE are the “beginner gains”, and with this they’ll actually be set up for success.  They’ll also learn what a real injury looks and feels like, and the difference between pain and strain.  And, of course, they’ll hate this advice, because they want to train like all the big names in lifting…but hey, guess what THEY did?   

BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE TO

One of my favorite bits of media regarding training was the interview series Elitefts put on where Wendler did a Q&A session with Kroc.  And in that series, my favorite moment comes right away in part II, where Wendler asks “Why don’t you wear knee wraps” and Kroc offers an impish smile before responding “because I don’t have to.”  You can watch it here

Let me set up some context for you, for those that aren’t totally versed in the Kroc lore.  At the time of this interview, Kroc had already out-totaled the person interviewing him, and did it at 2-3 weight classes lighter.  He had placed/won in the WPO at the Arnold, which, at the time, was the biggest powerlifting competition in the world.  Raw (or RAW, for those of you with simple minds) wasn’t even a thing, the IPF was single ply, and the top strongest dudes in the world who wanted to compete against the others did it in multi-ply at the WPO.  There was NO restriction on gear; wraps were certainly allowed.  After this interview, Kroc would go on to set the all time record total, and did that ALSO without wraps, even though they were allowed.  Every single person Kroc competed against used wraps, and used them to their advantages.  By all reasonable measures, using wraps made sense.

Kroc, seen here, not making sense

To this day, it remains the best possible answer I’ve ever seen to any question of “why don’t you do X.”  There’s no refuting it: all Jim can do is chuckle, because really, what else can you say to that?  And the response came so quickly.  Kroc didn’t have to sit and think, weigh the pros and cons of wrap use, justify his practice with facts, figures, studies (Russian and otherwise), historical precedents, words of gurus, etc etc: the answer was rapidly ready and justified itself.  This interview happened well over a decade ago, yet its wisdom has sadly been lost or never even realized among the training population in the first place.  Last year, I gave you all the mantra of “brute force and ignorance”, so how about for 2019 we embrace “because I don’t have to.”

“Because I don’t have to” is about understanding what is of real value in your training and your life.  So many trainees cram their training with all sorts of meaningless drivel simply because it’s THERE. Without any need for it, they engage in half hour warm ups with 400 mobility drills and foam rolling, they throw in every single gimmicky piece of training gear they can into their workout, they calculate MRV and compare outputs on their tendo units, etc etc.  They do all these things despite the fact that they were progressing BEFORE they started implementing them, or they implement them before they even try training without them.  And suddenly, they’re trapped in a routine of a million different movements that takes 4 hours to complete and they have no idea how else to train, they burn out, don’t have any time to train anymore, and ultimately still look like they’ve never actually set foot in a weight room before.

Clearly, at some point, someone should have asked "Do I have to do this?!"

Everything has a place, but everything also has a TIME, and you need to recognize when that time is.  If you try to do everything all the time, all you end up being is bad at a lot of stuff at once.  This is very very basic periodization, and trainees HATE the idea, because all they ever look at is a finished product.  Its super cool to look at Arnold or Mariusz or Kaz and go “why can’t I be big, strong, and a total freak just like them?” but the individual needs to realize that they’re looking at a finished product of work that stems from MANY decades of training, and in turn they’re observing them at their peak in THAT moment.  Even mighty Arnold lost his abs in the off season, and Mariusz had to learn how to fight when he got into MMA, and he got smaller through that process.  These guys did what they had to do WHEN they had to do it.

And on the converse of that, there’s no shame in NOT doing something you don’t have to do, even if everyone says you have to.  Ok, that previous sentence was a triple negative, so let me explain.  I am notorious for doing zero mobility work, never warming up in competition, barely warming up in training, and having “bad form” as far as the internet is concerned.  I never hit depth on squats in training, I don’t push my head through on overhead presses, my back rounds frequently, etc.  And why is that?  Because I learned a while ago “I don’t have to”.  These are things I simply don’t have to do if I want to succeed and meet my goals.  And it GREATLY upsets vocal members of the internet, because it causes them cognitive dissonance to see someone succeed NOT doing what they do.  And they will get violently upset about it, and call me all sorts of horrible names and insult my intelligence and legitimately wish harm upon me…because I train differently than they do.  I like to think of myself as crazy, but these people are certifiable. 

How I view these exchanges

Look; I’ve not ruled any of this stuff out.  I’m sure it has a place: I just don’t have to do it.  Not right now.  “Yeah, but you’ll WISH you did it later”.  Dude, it’s been 19 years; I’m not sure how much longer I can train the “wrong” way before I start suffering from it.  I have too many things I HAVE to do right now to start wasting any of my training time and effort on things I don’t have to do.  And what I have to do is going to be different from what you have to do, or what other trainees have to do: we have our own weaknesses to bring up, and our own strengths to fall back on.  Your job is to be able to sort out the signal to noise out there and know what is what YOU have to do.  Every year, something becomes the new “thing”, and everyone starts doing it, and everyone who doesn’t do it is an idiot living in the past…and then another year passes, that thing falls to the junk pile, and a new thing takes its place.  Don’t fall for these traps; learn what YOU have to do, and do that.

Give yourself your own interview this year, and see how many questions you can respond with “because I don’t have to.”  For those that you don’t have that response, you now recognize your weaknesses and what you need to improve on.  If you ask yourself “Why don’t I do more conditioning work” and your response is “Because I don’t have the time/I’m lazy/it sucks/I don’t like it” etc etc, you’ve hit step 1 of the 12 step program and identified you have a problem.  But, if you ask yourself a question, look at you current trajectory and find yourself satisfied with your course, you can fire back with “because I don’t have to.”