THE LOGIC IN SUFFERING

I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently that, in the receiving of them, has me scratching my head.  They’re questions that seem to me both obvious AND unanswerable at the same time: how very Taoist of the question asker.  These questions revolve around my current training, and primarily focus on “why” and “how”, both of which, again, appear to me as obvious and not something I can answer, and I believe, fundamentally, what is lacking is an understanding of the logic that is inherent within suffering.  Suffering itself provides the answer, and attempting to explain beyond that is like attempting to explain the color purple to someone born blind: we’re attempting to provide an experience through words to someone with zero frame of reference.  Ultimately, this must be experienced in order to be understood, and ONCE experienced, the understanding is so profound that to question it becomes an affront.

"He has a point you know"

The two current aspects of my training generating the most buzz for these questions are my weekly “Monument to Non-Existence II” workout and my daily 5 minutes of Dan John’s “Armor Building Complexes” done with 24kg kettlebells.

The Monument, in its current state, consists of me taking 225lbs and doing as many front squats as possible, then racking the bar and immediately taking it out for a matching set of squats, dumping the bar and going into an immediate set of matching SSB squats, then turning around and finishing up with a matching set of deadlifts.  My current best is 18 reps at the start, per the video posted.

People have watched that video and asked “why 18 reps”…as though it is not apparent that 18 was ALL I could do.  You can see me fall into the rack as the bar slides down on that front squat.  I was DONE.  But folks who do not know the logic in suffering simply see the rep total and have it give them cognitive dissonance because it does not gel with their base 10 system.  10 squats?  Fine.  15?  Acceptable.  20?  The standard.  But 18?  What a bizarre number!  Folks: it’s how many I could do!  

Context is king

Then comes the next question: “what do you do next time?”  And it comes with so many helpful suggestions too: go for 20!  Add lunges!  Do more weight!  Folks: what’s next is more suffering!  This isn’t about progression: I’m not doing this to build muscle, get stronger, improve conditioning, refine technique, etc etc.  All I am doing is suffering.  I am pushing max misery and overcoming it.  Why?  Because overcoming IN AND OF ITSELF is worth doing when one is pursuing physical excellence and transformation.  Frequent overcoming is the process necessary in order to become something greater than.  In turn, if there is ANYTHING I am focusing on in that workout, it’s reducing the amount of time between movements, because THAT is where our true self is demonstrated.  Taking breaks between the movements is hiding from the suffering: we must dive head on into it.

The daily 5 minutes of ABCs are of a similar nature.  It’s simply 5 intense minutes of physical activity, wherein I’m able to get in cleans, presses and front squats.  It’s a full body assault done at least once a day.  And my numbers keep improving on it, my first attempt at it resulting in 18 in 5 minutes and now my current best being 26 in that time.  And when Dan John original threw down the gauntlet, it was for 30 in 5 minutes with 24kg kettlebells.  And now people tell me how CLOSE I am to 30.  But folks: 30 ISN’T the goal.  Suffering is the goal!  How fortunate I am that I have the power to determine WHEN the worst 5 minutes of my day are going to happen.  And again, I get asked “what’s the plan?”  There is no plan.  Chaos is the plan!  And beyond that, this is simply suffering administered in a controlled dose.  The “PRs” happen simply by nature of my improved ability to sustain suffering.  I’ve actually been DROPPING bodyweight while my ability goes up on these, because improvement has not been the goal: suffering has been the goal.

I may have the market cornered

And again: how do I explain that?  People look at exercise and want understandable results.  “Ah, you’re doing front squats, then squats, then SSB squats: this is a leg building exercise?”  No: I picked those movements because they really suck to do, and this way I could make 225lbs go a LONG way.  “Ah, daily ABCs so you get better at them?”  No: because they’re awful.  I was doing Tabata KB front squats before this, and legitimately had to stop because I was developing some pretty awful anxiety about doing them.  It’s amazing how I’ll suffering for 1 extra minute if it means I get to do some cleaning and pressing vs just front squats.  “Is this a conditioning workout?”  No: it simply IS.  It doesn’t need a reason: it is it’s own reason.  The suffering has it’s own logic: it doesn’t need to abide by yours or anyone elses’  There is an inherent, brutal, ugly logic behind it all, and attempting to explain it simply cheapens the experience.  It cannot be put into words: it must be experienced, and as soon as it is, it’s understood…and then it’s value in unquestionable.

Sometimes, “unnecessary suffering” is explicitly necessary, as it is through the experience of the suffering that we grow better.  In the Nietzschian sense of “that which does not kill me”, rather than trying to apply progressive overload, periodization, schemes, mechanizations, plans, and thought, sometimes it may simply be necessary to experience suffering so that one appreciates the logic in suffering and grows through the very overcoming of it.  Pick some workouts where the goal is simply to suffer as much as possible.  Push your heart rate deep into the redline NOT because you’re trying to improve your cardio, burn more fat, become better conditioned, but simply to experience that very sensation and understand it.  Be able to navigate the suffering, know how to find the ways to dig even deeper into that well of pain and find more available anguish.  Regularly subject yourself such that you become SKILLED AT SUFFERING.  Be able to appreciate the logic in suffering, such that you never need to ask “how” or “why”, but simply “when”.

ON "COUNTER-INTUITIVE"

People that have been following my writing for a while now know that one of the things that drives me nuts is being called a masochist.  It genuinely upsets me when it happens, because it cheapens everything that I am and everything that I do.  To call me a masochist is to say that I am “blessed” because I have a natural inclination toward pain, and, therefore, I naturally gravitate toward doing the things that will make me physically transformed.  In turn, I equally go crazy when I’m accused of “intuitive eating”, simply because I don’t count calories or macros.  The way I eat is completely NOT intuitive.  I ate intuitively as a kid: it resulted in becoming a fat kid.  And through this, I came to realize something: the idea of “intuitive training” or “intuitive eating” is bunk.  At least, as far as being successful goes.  If one wants success in the pursuit of physical transformation, one must engage in COUNTER-intuitive training and eating.

I KNOW this is giving you anxiety

What is getting lean?  Getting lean is the process of NOT eating when you are hungry.  And seriously: that’s ALL getting lean is.  Ok, sure: prioritize protein so you can spare muscle, and if you’re REALLY hardcore into it you can try to time your carbs around training so you have energy for your workouts while in a depleted state, but really: getting lean is simply the process of NOT eating when you are hungry.  “What do I do when I feel hungry?!”  You don’t eat: that’s what you do.  You eat COUNTER intuitively.

What is getting big?  It’s eating WHEN YOU AREN’T HUNGRY.  Note: I wrote “getting big”, not “getting bigGER".  Yeah, sure: you can put on some size just eating a little more than normal, but the dudes that are actually big?  They’re force feeding.  They are eating when they’re not hungry.  Eating is their job, and it’s a MISERABLE job.  The training is “the fun part” (more on that soon): eating is the work.  Watch Brian Shaw describe a day in his life, listen to Jay Cutler talk about how his favorite cheat meal is “nothing”, see the incredibly damaged relationship so many of these dudes have with food.  They are living a counter-intuitive life.

This is NOT the look of enjoying a cheat meal

And let’s talk about WHAT we eat in the pursuit of physical transformation, because believe me: it’s not intuitive.  What foods do you crave?  Most people are gonna answer with junk.  And honestly, junk food is typically some combination of carbs and fats put together.  Ice cream, nachos, pizza, etc.  And don’t get me wrong: carbs and fats CAN be crucial to the process of physical transformation, but we all understand that muscle is built with protein…and protein, pure protein…is not appetizing.  Stop kidding yourself: a plain chicken breast tastes like wet sawdust.  Egg whites taste like rubber.  Tuna tastes like tuna. Yeah, you CAN dress them up, but that’s the point: fruit on it’s own is delicious, macadamia nuts are a delicacy, honey is amazing, but lean protein, protein without some sort of fat to dress it up, is NOT something we want to eat…which means we not only must eat counter-intuitively as far as habits go but ALSO as far as nutritional CHOICES go.

 And that’s just discussing eating for gaining muscle: what about health?  COMPLEELY counter-intuitive.  Now, here, your intuition DOES make sense: just not for your environment.  Your big dumb dumb brain STILL thinks we’re in a scarce environment, so it prioritizes the most calorically dense foods and the pursuit of putting on as much fatty tissue as possible so we can survive “lean times”.  Problem is: those lean times AIN’T coming.  The majority of us exist in a state of constant ABUNDANCE, which means we to STOP eating if we want to be healthy.  There is TOO much food, and of that food that’s available, SO much of it is garbage that will kill us…and is engineered to appeal to our lizard brains and make us eat more.  You wanna be healthy?  You gotta eat the foods you DON’T want to eat in the amounts that you don’t want to eat them in.  You’re gonna be eating kale and lean protein and seasonal fruits and raw tubers, and you WON’T be eating until you’re full either…how counter-intuitive!

The opposite of this

Training in all capacities is counter-intuitive.  Our intuition has us SEEK comfort.  We hide from pain, from discomfort, from anguish and agony, because, once again, it’s helpful from a survival standpoint to do those things.  But as far as THRIVING goes?  As far as adapting and overcoming goes?  As far as physical transformation goes?  We have to SEEK discomfort.  We have to lean INTO the pain.  Getting stronger is all about pushing the body far enough that it becomes stressed to the point that it adds muscle as a necessary adaptation.  We break ourselves down and rebuild stronger.  Conditioning is all about experiencing the horrible sensation of your lungs being on fire and your heart beating out of your chest…by your own volition!  You INFLICT that feeling upon yourself.  And this isn’t just about physical transformation: the best fighters have to overcome their intuition to move FORWARD against an aggressor, the best distance runners have to learn how to pace, the best athletes have to learn the mechanics of the game which go AGAINST intuition.  Training, at least for those wishing to succeed, is counter-intuitive.

Can we talk periodization for a second?  How counter-intuitive!  What is periodization?  It’s doing things we’re BAD at so that we get BETTER at those things.  Why?  Because when we make our weaknesses strong, we get strong all over!  “Only as strong as it’s weakest link” and all that.  Left to our own devices, we’d ONLY do the things we’re good at.  The naturally fat, short, stocky dudes would just mash the big 3 for heavy singles, the long and lean folks would run distances, etc etc, BUT, instead, if we wish to reach our MAX potential, if we wish to achieve a significant physical transformation, we train those things we are bad at.   THAT is periodization: some phases accumulating, some intensifying, some focused on conditioning, some on max weight, some on volume, etc.  Inevitably, you’ll be bad at ONE of those things…but when you play to your intuition and neglect it, you just STAY bad.  In order to succeed, we must buck intuition.

You only WISH you could be this

And let’s say, in the pursuit of this physical transformation, we get injured.  Wanna heal up?  Don’t listen to your intuition: it wants you to REST.  That’s a fancy way of saying “die”.  I’ve seen so many dudes that tweak or hurt something and spend months babying it…just to STILL be hurt.  Why?  Because the muscle/joint/whatever ISN’T being used, so it has no REASON to heal.  When we want to heal, we KEEP USING the hurt thing.  We get blood flowing to it to help it recover and restore, and we impose demands on it so that the body knows that atrophy and death are NOT viable options.  Back hurts?  We hit up the reverse hyper and some band good mornings.  Sore biceps?  Poundstone curls.  Hell, even just basic soreness is treated with MOVEMENT, NOT rest!  Our intuition has failed us yet again.

And what’s telling of all of this is that, day to day, we SEE the results of intuitive living…and it’s awful!  I’m not here to judge people for living how they want to live, because that’s exactly what I am doing: I’m just saying I can’t understand WHY one would want to live this way.  I see the men my age with spare tire guts that GREATLY overlap their waistline and flop on top of non-existent glutes that are straining to counter-balance the gut on the front end, forcing them to walk with a backwards tilt.  I HEAR these people LABORING to breathe after getting up off the toilet in the men’s room, lumbering to the sink to wash their hands, wheezing from the effort.  I see them co-opting a shopping cart as a walker at the grocery store, leaning their weight onto the handles to get relief.  I observe them always taking the elevator and never the stairs, always parking as close as physically possible, always refusing an opportunity to engage in the physical.  THIS is the product of “living intuitively”.  Meanwhile, we, as a species, ADMIRE the counter-intuitive.  Their efforts are OUTWARDLY reflected.  A strong, solid, lean physique is the byproduct of CONSTANTLY defying one’s intuition.  It is waking when sleeping is preferable, to go train when rest is the call of intuition, to then go feed on the foods that intuition tells us to avoid in the quantities that does not satisfy our intuition.

This looks otherworldly because it defies nature

Be not a masochist and engage not in intuitive eating.  Do all things against intuition, so you can be something greater than what your intuition compels you to be.   

 

EFFICIENCY IS FOR MOPEDS: I’M GOING TO OUTER F**KING SPACE

  

I will never understand the pre-occupation that so many trainees have with maximizing efficiency.  These dudes are always in a quest to find THE most efficient way to train, such that they get the absolute most bang for their buck, rep to growth wise.  These folks will NEVER employ “junk volume”, or cross into the threshold of diminished returns, or do a single rep more than the absolute “minimum effective dose”.  They’re the same dudes that will choke down dry chicken breasts, refusing to put an ounce of sauce OR effort in food preparation, because that would be an inefficient use of their time and resources.  In the world of efficiency, you wanna know what of the most fuel efficient vehicles out there?  The moped: getting around 130 miles per gallon.  Wanna know a terribly INefficient vehicle?  The space shuttle, which, uses 11,000 pounds of fuel PER SECOND, averaging around 8-9 miles per gallon.  …and guess which vehicle is WAY more awesome?

Even on an awesome show, they can't make a moped awesome

 

Sorry folks: efficiency is for nerds, plain and simple.  And yeah yeah: you have to be a sharp cookie to be able to fly on the Space Shuttle: let’s not miss the point here.  Any yahoo can go rent a moped and feel the shame of…riding a moped.  Efficiency is so widely available that any consumer can go out and get it.  We have fuel efficient vehicles, time efficient cooking devices (hello Instant Pot), environmentally efficient means of production, etc etc.  A RARE site is one that is produced from INefficiency.  Getting into outer space?  SUPER inefficient.  It takes SO much fuel, time, energy, effort, etc etc, all for what?  TO GO INTO OUTER SPACE, that’s what!  Do you know how inefficient it is to get a gold medal in the Olympics?  Even those countries that have tried to boil it down to a science, hand-selecting trainees at young ages and raising them in state-sponsored training facilities have to take GREAT time, energy and effort in order to achieve those goals…especially compared to the far more efficient method of just making your own.  Hell, even WITH cheating, these countries struggle.

 

But it’s these inefficient things that are SO much cooler to observe, let alone participate in or achieve.  Is efficiency beneficial?  Absolutely.  It greatly benefits the average person, and makes our lives, on average, ultimately better.  But inefficiency is NOT average, and, in turn, part of the process necessary to BE something other than average.  In order to achieve something greater than average, some inefficiency needs to come into play, because ultimately efficiency IS about maximizing output PER input.  It is NOT about maximizing output period dot!  And the gulf between efficiently maximized output and maximized output is a WIDE gulf.  It’s the difference between a journeyman boxer with a record of 100-100-50 and Mike Tyson.  It’s the difference between high school all state champion wrestler and Aleksander Karelin.  It’s the difference between the moped and the space shuttle.  Sure, we CAN admire both…but of the two, which do we really, truly admire?

Pretty sure he ALSO put a fair amount of dudes into space...

 

Cast away the negativity associated with inefficiency: that is the call of the average trying to drag you to their level.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with being inefficient, so long as we understand WHY we are being that way.  Yes: it’s stupid to attempt to put fuel in your vehicle with a bucket when the gas pump is available, but it’s NOT foolish to spend a little extra time, energy and effort applying seasoning and cooking techniques to your food to make eating it an enjoyable experience vs some monk-like existence of eating cold beans and tuna out of the can.  The latter appreciates the tradeoff and reward inherent in exercising inefficiency.  Is it inefficient?  Yes.  Is inefficiently INHERENTLY bad?  No: it simply is.

 

In the pursuit of physical greatness, inefficiency is NECESSARY.  Because, again, this is a discussion of GREATNESS: not most averageness.  The MAJORITY of people that engage in physical activity do so under the auspice of maximized efficiency.  “What activity can I do that will get me the most results with the least effort?”  This is why 8 minute abs was a thing.  It’s why fitness informercials in general are a thing.  It’s why HIIT was so popular when it was first introduced (a full cardio workout in 4 minutes, sign me up!...yeah…about that).  It’s why people will shell out tons of cash for meal prep services that deliver near inedible products (great for fat loss: you won’t eat the food you have and you’re too broke to buy more).  And when you go to any training facility, you get to personally observe the results of these efficient approaches: mediocrity.  People that are ultimately fighting the (losing) battle against time.  They are slowing down their inevitable decline, but in no way are they surviving, let alone THRIVING.

Time is being used efficiency here: we're getting in a bad workout AND poor quality reading

 

Those who choose inefficiency?  THEY are the ones making it happen.  Are they in the gym longer than everyone else?  But of course.  Are they doing too many reps, too many sets, training too often with too heavy weight?  Out of principle, they must!  Do they eat more than is necessary?  Most certainly.  10 sets of 10 when 5 would suffice?  Absolutely.  Because everyone else in the gym is riding around on mopeds, and these dudes are going to outer f**king space.

 

Go be inefficient.  Start adding extra training on top of your training.  Start doing 2 a days, 3 a days, sets every hour on the hour.   Do your conditioning first thing upon waking AND before sleep.  Find new and interesting ways to prepare food.  Shop at 3 different grocery stores to get all sorts of interesting goodies.  Read MORE than just the sets and reps of a program and learn MORE than is necessary to accomplish your goals.  Be efficient in the parts of your life where greatness is NOT the goal.  Be an efficient toothbrusher, efficient dresser, efficient television watcher, have an efficient haircut, but where you WANT to be something greater than average, go be inefficient, and enjoy your time in space.    

“GO EXCEL AT SOMETHING”

I owe this post to u/notKRIEEEG who, in turn, was commenting on one of my other posts over on reddit, so there’s a return on investment for you.  “Go excel at something” was a quote he shared as a guiding principle that I loved so much upon seeing it that I had to write my own thoughts on it.  Much like my “go pick the thing up and put it over your head” post and my love for books like “Purposeful Primitive” “Scrawny to Brawny” and “Powerlifting Basics Texas Style”, these “Swiss army knives” of training are just too awesome, and when you can use just 4 words to set someone up for success, you’re onto something.  So let’s go explore this.

More great, pithy advice

“Go excel at something” sums up periodization of training, and oh my god thank you for that, because I have to explain it ALL the time.  The comedy of the total lack of patience and attention span amongst trainees is that, in their unwillingness to be patient, they make things take MUCH longer than if they were willing to exercise a little patience.  Already I’m talking in circles, so let me clarify, because the whole point of this post was about taking complex ideas and making them simple.  All periodization IS is “go excel at something”.  We pick from qualities such as maximal strength, speed/power, hypertrophy or GPP, and we “go excel at it”.  And let’s steal another great quote, this one from Dan John “everything works…for 6 weeks”.  So we go excel at something for 6 weeks (or longer, sure, but ‘don’t focus on the wrong part of the story brother’), and then, once we’ve exceled there, we go excel at something else.

And WHY do we do that?  Because we make SO much more progress when we go excel at something for a chunk of time vs when we try to do everything all at once because we refuse to ever let anything fall to the wayside.  5/3/1 BBB Beefcake is a fantastic program for building mass all over the body.  It is a great physical challenge, it forces you to grow and it forces you to eat.  Do you know how many times I have to field questions about “what about direct arm work?” “can I throw in lateral raises?” “I don’t like 5s pro, why can’t I do PR sets for main work?”  GO EXCEL AT SOMETHING!  Quit trying to do everything all at once, because let me steal ANOTHER quote from Hank Hill regarding Christian rock music: “Can't you see you're not making Christianity better? You're just making rock and roll worse!”  A short, intense burst of focus on making the whole body bigger makes it such that, when you decide to specialize on arms, shoulders, etc, you have mass TO SPECIALIZE.  And, god forbid, if you decide to put that mass to use in something athletic, spending that time focusing on mass building will give you a solid foundation to work with when it comes time to specialize in whatever skills are necessary to reach your goals, vs trying to get better AND bigger while in season.  Ask any REAL athlete how well THAT tends to go.  It’s why we have an off-season.

And on that topic, with nutrition: “go excel at something”.  When it’s time to gain, GO EXCEL AT GAINING!  Quit trying to “lean gain”, “lean bulk”, “maingain”, “gaintain”, etc etc.  For DECADES, dudes that wanted to get big and strong knew, understood and embraced the idea that the process of growing bigger meant EATING, and eating enough that some necessary degree of fluff accumulated.  John McCallum referred to this notion as “softening up” and expressed how it was NECESSARY in order to reach great physical size.  Even with the introduction of steroids, trainees STILL understood the necessity of this process, and you can still find photos of Arnold and Dave Draper having let their abs go while they grew in the off season.  It’s only this recent pre-occupation of always being “photoshoot ready” due to the 365 day access of social media that people think there is some sort of need to have year round leanness.  Year round leanness is a recipe for lifelong smallness.  If your goal is to grow: go excel at something!  Go grow.

In case you didn't believe me

And when it’s time to lose: go excel at something!  What are we exceling at when we lose weight?  BEING HUNGRY!  Oh my god PLEASE quit trying to hack this.  The process of physical transformation is an inherently uncomfortable process, and it’s uncomfortable at all ends.  When we’re gaining, we’re eating when we’re not hungry, and when we’re losing weight we’re NOT eating when we ARE hungry.  That’s what getting lean “feels” like: it feels like NOT eating when you’re hungry.  I’d call that dietary discipline, but honestly: how hard is it to NOT do something?  If you can’t excel at INaction, you’re going to have a rough go.  

Can you imagine the kind of being you could be if you were CONSTANTLY exceling at something?  Someone in a perpetual state of excellence?  Envision what that means to you, compared to someone in a perpetual state of lukewarm.  Someone in a perpetual state of “ok at things”.  One is in a process of growing towards something supremely excellent, the other is stagnant or, at best, working TOWARD mediocrity.  Who do you want on YOUR kickball team for Ragnarok?    When the chips are down, wouldn’t you rather have something excellent you can fall back on?  

Right about now, it's pretty good to be awesome at sumo

And again, the irony here is that we are learning to be excellent from a quote that IS a general quote ABOUT excellence, but that’s the beauty of it: it’s such a simple concept.  Instead of over-complicating it, instead of trying to find the extra most best optimal way to balance all demands against each other, we just single-mindedly dedicate ourselves toward A goal and go excel at it, conquer it, then move on to the next one.  Constantly leapfrogging from one bit of excellence to the next, achieving it, and striving to higher and higher platforms.  That’s WHY periodization works: we get to build off a platform of excellence to reach higher and higher levels.  It’s why “bulking and cutting” works: we are constantly achieving better and better states to build onto the next platform.  It’s what makes competition so effective: we excel at one level and move on to the next to go excel there.  

Go excel at something.  Go excel at excelling.