DUALITY PART II

Sometimes I write one of these and, upon thinking about it, realize that I completely forgot to write the things I WANTED to write about.  And this originally started out as just being bonus content to the original piece, and then eventually grew to the length of a full post, and I could honestly STILL just keep writing about it, but I feel I’m just repeating things already expressed.  This duality just keeps going on, and one of the aspects there is the ability to hold these two opposing forces in your head in harmony.  For my own case in point, I bring up how I am simultaneously a fan of Jim Wendler AND Jon Andersen.   Jim is all about sub-maximal training, NOT pushing to the absolute limits, staying fresh, training to perform, not slaughtering yourself in the weightroom, etc.  Jon is much the opposite: training is about pushing to the limit and beyond, reaching “Deep Water”, finding your portals, etc.  The training itself is a spiritual experience in overcoming, an idea also expressed by Derek Poundstone, who I’m also a fan of.  And again: these two ideas work.  Not only do they work: they work TOGETHER.  Case in point: my 26 week gaining protocol that spends the first half with 5/3/1 and the second with Deep Water, wherein I’ve annotated just how INCREDIBLY well 5/3/1 sets you up for Deep Water success.  

Colossus being the jelly to Juggernaut's peanut butter right here

The first time I ran Deep Water, I was “unbalanced” my focus was on strongman performance, and I was lacking in so many other areas that the program absolutely floored me.  Literally.  I spent half the workout on the floor.  My conditioning was garbage, my GPP shot, I was only good at one thing: being a strongman.  I’m currently halfway through my third run of Deep Water (having finished Beginner and starting Intermediate on Friday) and I’m absolutely slaughtering the workouts, and in both of these runs I led off with 5/3/1.  It gave me a chance to get my conditioning and GPP where they needed to be AND get comfortable with my rep and heavy work so that the program was far more manageable.  I came into this “balanced”.

And in a similar discussion, I am a huge fan of Dan John, who, himself, IS duality.  First, Dan perfectly captures this idea with his “park bench/bus bench workout” idea, which you might think of as Dave Tate’s “Blast/Dust” idea or Dante Trudell’s “Blast/Cruise” (holy cow MORE DUALITY).  And if all of THOSE references are over your head: it just means that, sometimes, we have workouts where we just punch the clock and get on with our lives, and sometimes the stars align and we just pour it all out there.  We can’t ALWAYS be on, but we can’t always punch the clock either: we need balance.

There is a reason barbarians are fatigued after raging

But Dan also just plain IS duality.  Look at what Dan has gifted us.  For yin, we have Easy Strength, we have 1 lift a day, we have “minimalist training”.  For Yang, we have Litvinov (just 3 rounds of 8x405 front squats followed immediately by a 75 second 400m sprint), we have “The Eagle”, we have Tabata Front Squats.  Listening to a podcast with Dan John is a trip, because he has so seamlessly mastered duality that he effortlessly flows between yin and yang while advising someone that, if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss it.  He’ll advise someone to train 2 sets of 5 5 days a week of the same 5 movements and then throw in “if you wanna get big, do a 5 ladders of 2-3-5-10 with double kettlebell front squats”, and then you break out your fingers and toes and realize Dan just tricked you into doing 100 reps.  Dan came up with “Mass Made Simple”, which is like the Taoist gaining program, with one single set of massively high rep squats contrasting and complimenting directly with a barbell complex performed immediately beforehand.  Oh my goodness: the nutrition hinges heavily on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Peanut butter and jelly: can we GET more duality?  Fats and carbs?!

Dan IS duality because he’s lived it, in much the same way many of us have.  I was a big fan of abbreviated training when I first discovered it.  Why?  Because it worked!  WHY?!  Because prior to that point, I was just training like an animal and throwing everything into my training, which will work…until it doesn’t (hey, another Dan John lesson: everything works for 6 weeks).  After drowning myself in variety and volume, I laser focused with abbreviated training, and it worked!  …until it didn’t.  I was imbalanced, got balanced, got imbalanced again.  Duality!  Periodization!  But, in turn, we have to EARN that minimalism, and then, we have to EARN that extremism too.  So many trainee pick minimalism without any sort of actual base to draw from, and they just ride it so far into the ground that they end up doing themselves harm.  And, of course, you have the trainees that just “go for the burn” forever that they never actually lift anything heavy enough to actually matter!'

Some dudes manage both

And this is why we read and appreciate from the so many different perspectives: they are all part of balance.  For every Stuart McRobert, a John Broz.  For every Derek Poundstone, a Mike Tuchscherer.  A Sheiko for a Simmons (RIP) .  Duality of thinking and duality of methods.  Single sets vs 10x10s.  Training everyday vs 3 days every 2 weeks.  Compounds only vs machines galore.  And nutrition too: fasting vs eating every 2-3 hours.  Carnivore and vegan (they both work somehow).  And best of all: read all this stuff, be super studious and the FORGET IT ALL and just throw stuff against a wall and see what works.  It’s duality, its periodization, it’s balanced!