SERIOUSLY: YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES

 

Dan John was the first to shame me this way (not directly of course, he’s too classy for that), and now it’s my turn.  When Dan did so, it was with the Tabata protocol.  Already the nerds with the pocket protectors (NOT the super cool “Dungeons and Dragons” nerds) are up in arms because Tabata can ONLY be done on an exercise bike and can ONLY be done if your heart rate reaches and exact specific threshold and even THEN you’re not DOING IT RIGHT…but for the rest of us living here on Earth, we appreciate what Dan meant when he wrote about it.  And for those of you living under a rock, let me give you the wave tops: 8 rounds of interval training: 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, meaning a total of 4 minutes of exercise.

For many of you, I've exceeded your math quotient for the day

 

When done correctly, they are the longest 4 minutes of your life. I have had anxiety attacks THINKIN about these 4 minute workouts.  I have spent 10 minutes convincing myself to do 4 minutes of work.  I have planned whole days around 4 minutes.

 

…but, ultimately, it’s 4 minutes of work.  Everyone has 4 minutes a day.  If you somehow don’t, try this trick: set your alarm clock for 2 minutes earlier in the morning, and go to bed 2 minutes earlier in the evening.  Instant 4 minutes.

We miss you George

 

Also, if I’m ever feeling lonely, I start one of these workouts.  Inevitably, someone will call my phone at the 5th round and I’ll have stop, recompose myself enough to answer the phone, field the phone call…and then start the whole thing over again, which REALLY sucks.

 

But, of course, now I have to address the elephant in the room: the blog post title says FIVE minutes: not four.  Why?  Because I’ve taken it upon myself to tackle Dan John’s standard of 30 Armor Building Complexes (ABCs) with the 24kg bells in 5 minutes.  For those unfamiliar with it, the ABC is 2 cleans, 1 press and 3 front squats. 

 

 

Dan makes reference to this with such cavalier disregard that it seems like a triviality to accomplish, but so far my best is 26, and it’s a soulbreaker.  But, for the past 6ish months now, I’ve been doing 5 minutes of Armor Building Complexes every day, watching the numbers slowly tick up.  And before that, I was doing Tabata double kettlebell front squats every day for a similar length of time.  Both of which, by the way, are ideas that Dan considers to be pretty silly, with the expectations being that these workouts will floor you and require very much in the form of recovery.

 

Which is honestly part of why I started doing these things in the first place: because good, sensible people thought it was a bad idea to do so, so or COURSE I had to do it.  Because ultimately I’m trying to “be that which does”, and in this case I’m also trying to be something that should not be.  I’m hoping my very existence can disprove reality and force us to reconsider reality itself.  But until that happens, I’ve noticed nothing but positives from this.  My conditioning is just absolutely bonkers, I keep incredibly lean during my gaining phases, I’m getting in so much extra volume in such a small chunk, and, fundamentally, I’m building a great degree of discipline.  Just like making your bed in the morning, or doing the dishes, making sure you get in your 5 minutes of ABCs every day no matter what instills in you a degree of personal ownership and responsibility. 

And because seriously: I have 5 minutes.

Though sometimes I wish I didn't

 

So I’m making this a call-to-action for my readers: take up the mantle and start including one daily 5 minute workout into your life.  I imagine you already engage in regular resistance training, so this will be done IN ADDITION to that.  And it’s done on “off days”, because it’s ONLY 5 minutes of work and won’t interfere with recovery.  If you want to cheat, you can include it with your conditioning work, but hopefully you do more than just 5 minutes of conditioning.  On the weekends, this is the FIRST thing I do in the morning, so that it’s out of the way and done with, and typically from there I use it as a springboard into a slightly longer morning conditioning workout.  Something like: 5 minutes of ABCs into 5 minutes of burpee chins into 5 minutes of KB swings into 3 minutes of burpee chins into 2 minutes of swings for 20 minutes of work.  Or, the other day, I came home from a night shift and immediately did 5 minutes of ABCs, threw on the 80lb vest and walked for 30 minutes, came home and went for as many ABCs as I could do unbroken (got through 10). 

 

Suddenly, you will find yourself looking for little 5 minute chunks in the day when you can slot in your workout, and, in turn, you will become VERY grateful whenever you can find 5 WHOLE minutes in your day.  Here’s my chance to get my workout done!  And then, you learn just how MUCH you can get done with 5 minutes.  Soon, along with 5 minute workouts, you’ll have 5 minute dishwasher emptying, 5 minute laundry folding, 5 minute meal prep, etc etc.  Because, seriously: you have 5 minutes.

Fairly good chance you've used 5 minutes to make a few bad choices too...or you used 3:15 and burned the ever loving F**K out of your mouth

 

I get that not everyone has a set of kettlebells ready to go, but the idea should be clear by now: just do SOMETHING that sucks and get your heart rate up and doesn’t feel great for 5 minutes a day, every day.  And if 5 minutes is a big ask, you can do Tabata instead.  Never let it be said I am not without grace.

 

Some great go to bodyweight movements would be burpees, prisoner squats, mountain climbers and lunges.  The theme there is obvious: move your largest muscles a lot.  Burpees are particularly awesome because they include a level change (going from standing to the floor), which Dan John has pointed out is pretty instrumental to getting the heart rate up.  Just getting up and down from the push up position can be a significant workout, which is why Brian Alsruhe has a challenge where you do 1 push up, stand up, do 2, stand up, etc up to 10, then back to 1.  That standing up is evil.  Hell: do 5 minutes of just getting to the floor and getting back up off it somehow and you’ll feel pretty smoked.

Those of you that grew up in the 90s know that this is the only appropriate song for this situation

 

Have dumbbells?  The world is your oyster.  You CAN do ABCs with them (I did it when I was staying at a hotel, to keep up my streak): they’ll just be a little awkward.  Otherwise, Devil Presses are a fantastic dumbbell movement, especially with hex bells.  Snatches, especially double DB snatches, are a fantastic full body floor to overhead movement, which ALSO ranks up there with “level changes” as something significant to look for when trying to come up with short, burst fire conditioning.  If you get something from the floor over your head, you’re doing reat.  You can do burpess with DBs in hands, dumbbell cleans, thrusters, clusters (a clean into a thruster), swings, clean and press (strict or push), bear crawls with DB in hand, front squats, lunges, etc.

 

Much of the same can be said with kettlebells.  They have the bonus of tending to be a bit more “user friendly” with most of these moves, although Devil Presses work MUCH better with hex bells in my experience.

Plus, they make for great black and white photos

 

Got a barbell set up?  Dan’s original RX with the Tabata work was front squats with 95lbs total (so 25s on the bar).  Give that a go!  Or take it from floor to overhead in some manner.  Or deadlift it. Or power cleans.  There’s really SO much you can do.

 

Either way, you get the point: you’ve got 5 minutes.  You really REALLY do.  So start using it for something worthwhile.

 

 

NOT DELOADING: EDGE KEEPING

Let me start by saying that, despite being a fan of Vikings, medieval warfare, and Dungeons and Dragons, I have zero actual awareness of how to maintain the edge of an edged weapon, so this metaphor has gotten away from me before I’ve even introduced it, but grand me the principle of charity here and appreciate my enthusiasm in the face of my incompetence.  “Deloading” is a much maligned concept in the world of training, either completely misunderstood or viewed with disdain by those who simply ALWAYS want to push to the limits and don’t understand WHY they can’t.  And keep in mind: that’s coming from me!  But, in turn, that’s why I want to discuss it: there IS a way that one can deload while STILL pushing to the limit and, in turn, I find it helpful to re-frame how one thinks about deloading.  This isn’t “deloading”: this is “edge keeping”.

The alternative is viable at times as well

First, let me say that, when I was a late teen/in my early 20s, I had scheduled deloads.  Why?  Because I had so much free time that I COULD.  These days, in my 30s, working full time, as a father, LIFE provides me deloads, so I wait for them to happen.    Hell, as I am writing this, I actually subluxed my left shoulder this morning in the middle of a deadlift workout and ended up calling an audible and doing 10x10 Safety Squat Bar good mornings.  There could not be a better example of a life provided deload and, in turn, an exercise in edge keeping.  Yeah: I didn’t do my scheduled deadlift workout, but there’s no question regarding if I put in the work to keep strong.  Deloads, as the name infers, are an opportunity for us to reduce the load on our body, but that doesn’t mean we dull our edge.  We heal AND we grow strong during that time.

Edge keeping is creativity paired with intensity.  We impose an artificial limitation upon ourselves: we AREN’T going to do what we usually do.  For me, operating off a 5/3/1 based paradigm, when I engage in edge keeping, it means I am going to spend a week NOT doing the barbell squat, deadlift, bench and press.  And no, I don’t get cute and swap to trap bar deads, safety squat bar squats, etc: the point is to spend time AWAY from these lifts.  BUT, I am NOT in the business of training any less INTENSE (understood meaning banging your skull against a wall, NOT “percentage of 1rm”, for you nerds out there): I’m simply no longer beating my body up with the same movement patterns.  It gets a chance to rest and heal BY doing new stuff.

Sometimes new things DON'T quite have that healing effect...

And the “new stuff” is crucial here.  Any week you spend edge keeping is a GOLDEN opportunity to try out new stuff and LEARN from the process.  If all you do is the exact same movements you normally do but with less volume, that’s a squandered week.  But if you head over to wodwell and roll a die and pick 7 workouts for the week, you’re BOUND to pick up something from the process.  Just this last time I ended up edge keeping, I was limited to 2 20kg kettlebells and a hill, and I came up with ALL sorts of insanity and developed a nasty kettlebell complex of a half snatch caught into a thruster.  I also discovered Dan John’s double kettlebell front squat challenge of 1 clean-1 front squat, 2 cleans-2 front squats, up to 10, down to 10.

One of the other rules was to not put the KBs down...I failed

A good amount of my “bad ideas” have come about during periods of edge keeping.  And once that period is done, I can carry those lessons learned into my regular training and get even better.  Because what could be the possible consequence of making a mistake during this 1 week period away from regular training?  We recover TOO much?  Now is the time to keep our edge THROUGH variety, experimentation and intensity.  We’ve seen what happens to those that settle into ruts and refuse to experience new experiences: latency, decline, and death.  Be alive!  Keep sharp and try new things.

Early in my training, I was so much the opposite: whenever I had time away, I did EVERYTHING in my power to try to simulate what I was doing previously to the maximal extent possible.  I’ve done deadlifts in a smith machine (you can imagine the disaster THAT was), I’d use stupidly light dumbbells to try to simulate machine movements, I’ve pulled deadlifts with a standard barbell (ouch), etc etc.  I was focused entirely on the wrong thing: I thought it was the PROGRAMMING and movements that mattered.  What was the result?  I’d come back from my downtime fatter, smaller and weaker, because I had spent so much time trying to replicate what I had been doing previously that I never had any time to actually get good at any of those weird movements and put in the necessary effort to grow from them. 

Maybe I could just put more weight on the bar instead...

Now, I come into my edge keeping time knowing that nothing is going to be like it was, and that’s by design.  All I have to guide me is effort.  I’m going to do some stupid WODs or self-inflicted insanity and go until I can’t.  And each time I do this, I come back better, stronger, fitter and ready to tackle the “real” training.  I jumped STRAIGHT into the hardest workout of BBB Beefcake when I got back from edge keeping, doing my final edge keeping workout on Thursday and hitting BBB Friday morning.  I was a little more sore than usual afterwards, but just as strong, ready and able DURING the workout.

There’s no reason for a period of deloading to mean a period of getting WORSE.  Make the most of these downtimes and focus on keeping your edge.  Do things that are new, weird, different, out of your comfort zone and experimental and let effort be your sole consistent link between how you normally train and how you’re training.  Upon your return, you will be fresh, healed, strong and, ultimately better.  

He always comes back like that...

Or should I say: sharper.

YOUR BODY WANTS TO CHANGE

  

This thought hit me on my way walking into work after lunch, as I was contemplating the fact that I just ate my 4th identical lunch of the week (combination of chicken tenderloins and thighs in a sugar free teriyaki marinade with cauliflower rice and broccoli, eaten with chopsticks, because I am California yuppie scum) recovering from a morning workout that included 350 dips and 50+ reps of benching with a planned 5 minute run of my daily kettlebell Armor Building Complexes, contributing to a total amount of pressing reps somewhere in the bajillions.  THAT is one hell of an opening sentence: let me take a moment to be proud of that.  But anyway, I’ve already digressed: the above mentioned diet AND training program are absolute loony tunes bonkers and conform to pretty much no “ideal” approach out there.  But I woke up like this this morning

 

 

And I am the product of SOOOOO many bad decisions and ideas as far as eating, living and training go.  I am doing everything wrong, yet achieving results that have gotten me multiple accusations of both superior genetics AND drug usage.  The past 2 weeks I’ve been accosted by 3 strangers who wanted to inform me that I have large arms (thank goodness: I hadn’t noticed!), despite the fact I do 1 set of curls once a week.  I train the whole body everyday, I perform ludicrous challenges like this one weekly

 

 

And here I stand: a living testament to this one fact: your body WANTS to change.

 

And writing this is so weird, because I’ve written on many occasions about how much the body DOESN’T like change.  How it will fight VERY hard to maintain the status quo.  How you have to beat it into submission in order to FORCE it to grow.  But that’s the thing: that’s ALL you have to do to get it to grow.  You have to bend and shape it to your will…but it’s all TOO willing TO be beaten, bent and shaped.  It is modular, flexible, shapeable and transformable.  The body CRAVES change: it’s up to YOU to be the one to do what it takes to give it what it wants.

 

Don't leave it up to others

 

And the implication of this (man, I’m starting a lot of paragraphs here with ‘and’: my 1st grade teacher would kill me) is that it REALLY doesn’t matter HOW you attempt to force the body to change: it wants to change so bad that it will accept just about ANY stimulus whatsoever…as long as it remains CONSISTENT.  THIS is where the body not liking change comes into play.  The body tends to respond to consistent, repeated patterns.  It’s why I constantly say “it’s hard to lift weights wrong”: it REALLY is.  You just need to send the effort and consistency and the change will happen.  But if you’re little Johnny Program-Hopper and you’re constantly changing your approach, the body has no idea what the Hell the demand is, and never realizes an opportunity to change.  It wants that change SO badly, but because of your constant self-doubt and desire to optimize before you’ve even figured out how to achieve “good enough”, you’ve squandered that opportunity and denied the body it’s one real desire: to change.

 

Your body wants to change because it’s unsatisfied with what it is…and who can blame it?  It has SO much more potential just WAITING to be unlocked…and YOU hold the key…and it’s REALLY pissed at you for not opening it up!  All it wants is a chance: an opportunity.  It is champing at the bit here: give it what it wants!

Dan here doing his damndest to try to give it everything all at once

 

It’s why every single diet on the planet works.  Why?  Because a diet is simply a codified approach to eating.  It’s a consistent, repeatable approach based on SOME sort of principle, and that will ALWAYS achieve AN outcome when compared to the chaos that most people subject their body too nutritionally.  So many people live off the “wait until I’m hungry and eat whatever is around until I’m full/it’s gone” diet, and their physique and health are a reflection of this depressing approach.   How negligent: to subject your body to such mistreatment when ANY other approach would be better.  People who take control of their diets start by doing the most important thing first: they exercise MINDFULLNESS of what/how they eat.  Vegans and Carnivores BOTH experience improved health markers, because they went from someone who NEVER thought about what they were eating to someone that took time to think, even for a minute, about what they were putting into their bodies.  They provided their body what it needed in order to change: a mind willing to steer it.

 

“But isn’t chaos the plan?”  Oh my goodness yes!  BECAUSE chaos is the plan, my body has adapted into an outstanding avatar of chaos.  My body is an “on demand” body.  THAT is why I can roll up to a strongman competition having trained multiple times a day leading up to it INCLUDING that morning and still take first in 2 events.  It’s why I can accidentally drop to my leanest level of bodyfat ever when I’m living off fast food for a week.  It’s why I can “break all the rules”: because chaos IS the consistent variable I keep slamming my body with.  It’s not “chaos Monday through Friday, structure on weekends”.  It ONLY knows chaos, and, in turn, it is consistently changing to adapt TO chaos.  Consistency in chaos: how chaotic!

Yeah that checks

 

I realize how much I’ve tooted my own horn here, but the world will beat you down enough that it’s worth overcompensating on your own end in order to achieve some semblance of balance (future blogpost: be on the lookout).  I do so because, again, I am a living example.  With awful genetics, no drugs, substandard nutrition (ask the internet: you need carbs to grow!), and a ridiculous training plan, I’ve still succeeded.  It’s because your body really REALLY wants to change.  It’s so tired of looking like a melted candle, it’s so tired of feeling like it’s got pasta sauce for blood, it’s so tired of BEING so goddamn tired.  It was to move, fight, strain, grow, overcome and achieve: give it what it wants!

POST STRONGMAN COMPETITION WORK TRIP BULLET POINTS

  

The day after my most recent strongman competition, I flew out on a work trip, and spent a lot of time in meetings with significant downtime…so here are some bullet points I came up with.

 

 

* I saw a 16 year old kid at my competition and had so much envy over how much access he had at that age.  But I wonder if it creates too much press to “do right” vs just go hard.  That was the only guidance I had…and it worked.

I suppose I also had "say your prayers" and "take your vitamins" too

 

* You don’t need sugary junk to perform maximally.  I mean YOU, specifically.  I am sure SOMEONE does, and they don’t read blogs on lifting.

 

* Been getting a lot of comments on my arms since including a daily 5 minute workout of kettle bell Armor Building Complexes.  Dan John says they’re a great arm builder, and I have to agree.  But Dan John ALSO days not to do them everyday…

 

* “Monument of Non-existence II” answers a lot of questions.  Need conditioning, extra barbell work, mental toughness and a challenge?  There it is.

Still no answer to the question of "what is wrong with me" though

 

* I’ve had 2 deload weeks now where circumstances gave me limited equipment.  I had only kettlbells for one, and dumbbells for the other.  I am thinking that might be a good intentional approach.  Take stuff away and force yourself to recover and get creative.

 

* Speaking of getting creative: the benefits of cycling NUTRITIONAL approaches is that it forces food prep creativity, and you can carry those lessons forward.  Fat loss taught me that I was really undervaluing egg whites while overeating yogurt products for quick protein.  Also learned the value of frozen avocados vs fresh.  Meanwhile, gaining teaches you all the little tricky ways to sneak calories INTO the diet that you can, in turn, sneak back out when it’s time to lose.

 

* Nutrition only gets “complicated” when you try to chase multiple goals: specifically health AND performance.  Just one of those?  Too easy.  But, again, the “secret” is patience.

 

* In turn, quit getting hoodwinked by supplements that primes results in just one domain.  You can save money and just eat food.

The OG weightgainer

 

* I have shifted a lot of my focus on multi-move conditioning to reducing the time between movements.  Too easy to meander during that time.  I’ve got one workout that is clean and push press into burpee chins, and I make it a goal to come right out of the burpees into grabbing the axle and getting it overhead.  It’s a BIG difference.  “Monument to Non-existence II” is absolutely invaluable for practicing that.

 

* I had an excellent training day of 12 rounds of EMOM deficit deadlifts/safety squat bar squats straight into a 2 mile weighted vest walk straight into 5 minutes of Armor Building Complexes.  Give yourself a training day like that.  Multiple modalities all at once.  Jack up the heart rate to start, ride it out for a long time, come back and blow it out.

 

* I’ve bought 2 people a copy of “Super Squats” as long as they promised to log their training and diet through the process.  I’ve made that offer to several other trainees.  …still waiting on those logs.  I’m really just a sucker for a transformation story.

 

* “How much of the gains were fat?” How to tell when someone is not ready for success.

Someone who didn't care about getting fat

 

* Growing up a fat kid gave me an advantage that way: I never had abs to lose in the first place!

 

* Its interesting how, when we start, we admire everything that is size and strength and typically just call it all “bodybuilding”.  Bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongman, just plain old big and strong dudes: bodybuilding.  Then we “evolve” and get all weird and tribal.  Then we grow up and learn to think like a child again.

 

* Every time one of those “pick only 3 movements” lists comes along, ever notice how pretty much NO ONE picks a non-static movement?  Where are the carries, pushes and drags?  The REAL transformers.

 

* Build a monster in 3 steps: breathing squats, Gallon of Milk a day OR Building the Monolith diet, prowler.

 

* I finally get “why squats”.  Specifically on the whole “if you could pick ONE movement to building the most muscle”.  It’s not about squats triggering whole body growth.  It’s not about hormone release.  It’s because squats are THE lift where you can push SO far beyond your limits.  Rest-group-rep.  Super Squats, DoggCrapp, Monument to Non-Existence, Mass Made Simple, it all makes sense.  When I’m in a pinch and only have a VERY short amount of time to train, it’s just gonna be an all out set of squats.

Just like that really

 

* More conditioning benefits: you get better FASTER.  Being in shape means less fatigue IN a set, which means grooving BETTER reps MORE.  Perfect practice makes perfect: garbage reps self-perpetuate.

 

*  Do you get more joy from that second bite, or just the same amount o fjoy repeated a second time?  Or, possibly even LESS joy?

 

* I think adults need fewer snacks and more meals.  Snack sized meal?  Fine.  But the mental shift between a snack and a meal is significant.  I also appreciate Jon Andersen’s “feedings” idea.

 

* It will always be funny watching someone drinking olive oil and peanut butter shakes turn their nose up at canned veggies because they “aren’t as healthy as fresh”.

Tell this guy not to eat canned veggies

 

* “How does it taste?” For f**k’s sake: try it and find out!

 

* Money or time: you gotta spend at least one.  And often, the less willing you are to spend one, the more you’ll need to spend the other.

 

* Having to explain the benefits of being in shape to someone pursuing physical transformation is always weird to me.

 

* I am baffled at the folks that can’t do the math required to run 5/3/1.

 

* Stop doing dumbbell farmers walks.  Just carry the dumbbells in your arms like a sandbag.  That’s called a front carry.  It’s SO much better.

POST COMPETITION WRITE-UP: FUTURE TRAINING PLAN

 You lucky readers EVEN get a part III, since competition write-ups aren't quite what the blog is about

I'd say this is close

---

Alright, I’ve had some downtime on this work trip I'm on (look for future bullet points!) and it gave me a chance to plot out my return to training with BBB Beefcake to kick off.

Can't beat a classic

* Some things I’m stealing from my previous training phase: I’m going to lean off the week with squats, then do press, then BENCH, then deadlift to finish out the week.  I do this for my intensification block and it just makes so much more sense to me.  Lot of space between the squat and the dead that way, and I have the weekend to recover from the deadlift.  

* Between press and bench, I intend to do a prowler workout.  Having found a space for the prowler has been a game changer, and it’s just the ultimate conditioning tool.  When weather shows up, I can run “Snakehandler mass” instead, or some equivalent terrible WOD.

* The day after deadlifts, I want to keep up with “Monument to Non-existence”  It’s only 10 minutes, it absolutely floors me, and it gets in volume on movements that I deem to be valuable, ESPECIALLY in a gaining phase.  

* The day after that (typically a Sunday), I’d endeavor to get in some manner of weighted vest walk.  Since that day and the day before would be my weekends, I’d kickstart the day with some manner of fasted conditioning as well, but that’s more ad hoc based on when I wake up and what the schedule is for the day.

* I intentionally let daily work slide while I was in the diet break/fat loss, but it’ll come back in full form while gaining.  50 chins, 50 dips, 40 Reverse Hypers, 30 GHRs, 20 standing ab wheels, 50 pull aparts, 50 pushdowns and neck work.  In addition, I will keep up the 5 minutes of ABCs daily until something shiny comes along, but I think 4-5 minutes of some sort of daily quick conditioning burnout is a fantastic bad idea.

As for the workouts themselves…

**SQUAT DAY**

One of the OG beefcakes

* On my squat day, main work will be a giant set of 5s pro squats, jumps and meadows rows.  Rows are going to be a big feature in this plan, as they get de-prioritized later.  

* BBB work will be the usual.  My goal would be to finish the second cycle doing 5x10 with 405.  That just sounds fantastic.

* Going to bring belt squats back in for a finisher.  Having the landmine already set up for meadows makes this easy.

* Reverse hyper and heavy abs to conclude

* Conditioning could be a sandbag EMOM, swings and burpee chins, Tabearta, or whatever else fits the bill

**PRESS DAY**

How imPRESSive...

* Main work will be 5s pro and rotate between 3 approaches.  On 3s week, I’ll use an axle and clean the first few reps of the set (1-5).  On the 5s week, I’ll do log vipers.  On the 1s week, clean once and press away.  I may throw a superset of chins into this as well.

* Supplemental work will be BBB.  Thinking clean each rep on the 3s week, log vipers on the 5s, clean once and press away on the 1s.  On the 1s week, I’ll superset rows when I’m done, whereas for the other weeks I’ll count the clean as the rowl.

* Assistance will include shrugs against bands and Poundstone curls

* Conditioning could be Grace, my Clean and Press/burpee chin workout, Cluster Bomb, Tabearta, or whatever else fits the bill.

**BENCH DAY**

Don't mess with success

* Main work is 5s pro.  3s week, pause the first few reps.  5s week, pause every rep.  1s week, touch and go.  Same approach with the BBB work.

* BBB work will superset w/t-bar rows.

* Assistance will feature my lat raise stripset and possibly a DB incline stripset.

* Conditioning will be the same choices as press day.

**DEADLIFT DAY**

The look you get to have when you STILL hold a deadlift record 20 years later...

* Main work is 5s pro.  3s week is a power bar, 5s week an axle, 1s week a Texas deadlift bar.

* BBB work may alternate w/weighted dips for the 3s and 5s week.  1s week gets to be special.

* Kroc rows and reverse hyper/heavy abs for assistance.

* I’d like to include that Stone of Steel to shoulder/front squat workout I’ve been doing with this, either as more supplemental work or as a conditioning workout.  Other conditioning choices would be some sort of swing/burpee chin combo or whatever else needs doing.

---

I’m liking how this looks for now.  Only TM I know for sure would be setting squats to 520 so I can get my 405 BBB squat at the end of the second cycle.  On that note, I’m thinking of going from 5s pro to 3s pro or bare minimum reps for the second cycle.  That worked well last time.

COMPETITION WRITE-UP: 2022 Testify Strength and Conditioning Summer Strongman Showdown MLW (185) PART 2

 **PART II: THE WRITE-UP FOR THE ACTUAL COMP**

The whole week, I had been consistently weighing in at about 187lbs first thing in the morning, before any bathroom functions, training, etc.  By the time I’d use the bathroom, eat a light breakfast, train and shower, I would clock in at 181-183.  For some reason, 2 days before the comp I gained 3lbs and it wasn’t going away.  I woke up the morning of the comp post bathroom at 185.5, so I wasn’t in a bad spot.  I put on my winter gear (thermal base layers, sweats and a beanie), did 23 of Dan John’s “Armor Building Complexes” with 24kg kettlebells in 5 minutes and then paced in the garage for 30 minutes to get down to 184.5.  I pre-made breakfast, drove to the comp site and weighed in at exactly 185.0 with clothes on.  I have legit made weight at the exact ounce for the majority of my competitions: It’s become a talent.

On the subject of pre-making breakfast, this competition marked a while departure from my previous nutritional approaches and, ultimately, a sign I’ve grown up.  I cooked up 2 whole eggs, 1 egg white, 2oz of lean meat (combination of chicken and pork), some sauteed peppers and onions and 50g of avocado on a low carb tortilla wrap with some fat free cheese and sour cream into a baller breakfast burrito that I eat pretty much every morning, sticking with the whole “don’t eat differently on comp day compared to normal days” approach.  I also had a slice of keto bread with some sunflower butter on it…and, of course, an energy drink, because you can’t take that out of me.  Back in the day, this would have been pop-tarts or mini-donuts or some other sugary junk.  Through out the competition, I was eating celery with Nuts n More or sunflower butter on it, occasional bites of just plain Sunflower butter, and I made my way through 1 Biotest Finibar, eaten bits and pieces at a time.  I HAD junk food packed: a whole box of girlscout peanut butter patties and a 2-pack of cherry pop-tarts, but just never felt the need to eat them.  I used to eat an entire box of Pop-tarts at a competition: 2 in between each event.  I though I “needed” it.  The things we tell ourselves. I DID drink like a gallon of sugar free Gatorade, so there’s that.

**WARM UP**

To warm-up for the competition, I did 3 reps of an unloaded axle for clean and press, then 1 rep with 95lbs before the first event, and then, before the deadlift event at the end, I did 1 rep of 225lbs.

**EVENT 1: Axle clean and press away (205lbs for Lightweight men)**

How I felt in my mind

This was one of several events I was cautious about.  At the start of my 7 week intensification block that led into this comp, I brought up my 250+lb Ironmind sandbag to practice some loading.  I hadn’t touched this thing in about a year, and of course I just gripped and ripped it and borked something in my elbow tendon.  I kept doing that weekly and the elbow kept not getting better, until one day when I’m fairly certain I tore something inside of it.  That was about a month before the competition.  At that point, I dealt with pain outside of the sandbag, and continentaling and pressing the axle really drove it crazy.  The last few training days saw the elbow getting better and better each time, but I also knew that a bad day was possible.

Whistle blew and I gingerly got the axle into place. Wasted a fair bit of energy in doing so, but my elbow felt good, and that’s what mattered.  Went double overhand because I still refuse to use mixed grip on a continental.  After that, I pressed out 6 of the ugliest reps I’d ever done in my life.  Watching the video, these weren’t even close to push presses.  It’s not too shocking: Push pressing was making my elbow hurt, because I was effectively “catching” the weight on my tricep, so a slower/smoother press suited me better.  The dude I beat in the other lane (who would eventually be the dude to chase the whole comp) was hitting some beautiful split-snatches, which made for an entertaining “style vs style” head to head: the brute vs the technician.  He managed 4.  I thought he got 5, so I got the 6th to seal it, then dumped the 7th.

Walked away feeling good and healthy, so that boded well.  Next was the one I was most concerned about: loading.

**EVENT 2: LOADING MEDLEY: 140lb stone, 200lb stone (both natural), 150lb sandbag, 200lb sandbag**

How I WANTED it to go...went more like WSM '08

All events were a mystery leading up to this, and I was training primarily for heavy loading at first and then light loading afterwards to let the elbow heal.  However, what I wasn’t training was transitions, and that came to bite me, as watching the video I was clumsy and slow between implements.  I also bobbled the second stone and wasted a bunch of energy recovering it.  In general, I was sleep-walking through the event, just trying to play nice with the elbow.

I was a little miffed by an admin error: I should have gone last, since I won the first event.  Instead, I went second.  In turn, I had no appreciation for just how technical and fast the dude that followed me was.  He blew away my time by 4 seconds.  Part of me thinks I woulda tried harder knowing the thread he was, but it is what it is.

At this point, of the 3 of us, me and one dude are tied for first, with 1 win each.

**EVENT 3: 50lb Bag over Bar**

Well put

The only prep I did for this was kettlebell swings and snatches.  I hate throwing events, and part of my deal for this comp was to not train things I didn’t like.  It was rising bar, last man standing, take whatever attempts you want, starting at 8’.  I took every attempt, because I knew it was going to just be luck at this point.

8’ barely cleared, as did 9 and 10.  I did a throwing event in 2018 where I launched stuff, but I trained for it.  Amazing x-factor.  The other dude missed 11’ the first time but barely cleared it on his second go, so he took this event.

**EVENT 4: 100’ Pick-up Truck Harness Pull**

Was trying to channel this dude, succeeded only in part

I never cared for truck pulls, but this event was at least moving quick. I had my “secret weapon” of rock climbing shoes, which I think only 1 other athlete had.  They helped: I had a good grip on the floor for this, but I struggled to break the inertia of the truck at the start.  I tried a technique I had been using in training of pulling on the harness to start and get low, but, in retrospect, a better approach would be have a 4 point stance/bear crawl.  I threw my arms forward, which, again, was something I was using in my training to get my bodyweight moving froward and hips down.  I finished around 25 seconds and some change.  Guy I needed to beat was 1.5 seconds faster.  Heart break that one.  But I at least enjoyed this more than any other truck pull.  Not having the pull rope helps, and training for it showed me how awesome pulling a prowler with a harness is.  My conditioning also shined through: I was winded at the end and recovered by the time I walked back to my family.  Great to be in such awesome shape.

**EVENT 5: 515lb tire deadlift for 1, 395lb (combined) farmer’s handles deadlift for 2, AMRAP axle deadlift of 335lbs (no straps for any lift)**

Sorry not sorry to keep spamming the Poundstone

More admin frustration in times never being announced for any competitors that, at this point, I had no idea if I had won the truck pull or not, but I also didn’t care about winning: I was there to be more trouble than I was worth.  This was absolutely my event for that, because I was going to pull deadlifts until the other dude caught rhabado.  I used an old trick of wrist wraps.  When you can’t use straps, wraps can help, because they’ll force your hands to naturally close.  Every little trick you can use.

Pulling without straps always sucks, but I managed to get 515 moving with a little effort.  Once that was done, I used a trick I had employed before and jumped into the farmers handles to save some time, which put me slightly ahead of the other dude.  From there, got to the axle and use a thumbless grip.  It seems counter-intuitive, but taking the thumb out REMOVES a weakpoint.  Now you only have your 4 fingers to fail vs 1 thumb.  We were told touch and go was good AND I saw the judges were allowing bouncing, so I went full tilt and just banged out rep after rep.

I got called on “soft knees” on a few reps.  Ever since my ACL reconstruction, I can’t fully extend my left knee.  I may need to let judges know about that in the future.

The way they scored reps on this was by total, so we got 1 rep for the tire, 2 for the farmer’s, and however many after that.  I was credited with 16 reps total, the other dude got 14.  I still pulled the 17th rep, despite being told many times the event was over, because f**k you: I’m getting that rep.  

This event went great, and was really the one that re-lit the fire in me.  Being able to just go out and give it my all like that was a blast, and the challenge was exactly where it needed to be.  My conditioning held up real well, and despite no real grip training, I had zero issues on the axle.

**RESULTS AND WAY FORWARD**

As you’ve been following along, this was a second place showing.  Could I have done things differently and gotten first?  Yeah.  Do I regret that?  Not at all: I met my goal of training the way I wanted to train and just treating this like another workout.  I trained the morning of, and I trained the next day (5 minutes of ABCs for 23 total, straight into 5 minutes of burpee chins, and then the “Gut Check” WOD later).  I ate the way I wanted to eat, made weight the way I wanted to make it, and, through all that, found out I do still enjoy this sport and can still have fun with it.  Trying to “be a strongman” just wasn’t fun: “doing strongman” is much more enjoyable.  I don’t care about winning or nationals or anything; I want fun shows that push me hard and are a blast, and I’m gonna keep training and eating “my way” for them.  

And in that regard: I’ve never felt better the day after a competition.  Still able to train hard and move well. 

Reference my previous manifesto: I got to live being more trouble than I was worth that day.  I showed up, I set the pace for the first event, I kept on the heels the whole time, I made the last event suck for the guy ahead, and I was absolutely positively yoked out of my absolute mind, having achieved that physique with no counting of calories or macros or martyrdom to speak of.  If I can walk into a strongman competition without training for it, having trained twice+ a day up until the morning of the competition, put up a good showing, and do it all again the next morning, I am absolutely more trouble than I’m worth.

And that’s the plan moving forward.  This timed out perfectly with a deload week after my intensification block.  I’m traveling right now, doing a few nights in a hotel before coming home for a day and then heading to San Diego to visit family.  I’m going to make due with dumbbells and kettlebells, keep up my daily ABCs, and then come back and get back to gaining with 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake.  I plan to do another long gaining block with diet breaks: Beefcake into 5/3/1 for Hardgainers into a 7 week diet break/intensification block, then Beefcake into Monolith into 7 week intensification, then Deep Water Beginner and Deep Water intermediate.  Should be pretty nuts.

Game on.

COMPETITION WRITE-UP: 2022 Testify Strength and Conditioning Summer Strongman Showdown MLW (185) PART 1

 Going to break up the write-up into 2 parts: the pre-write up and the write-up itself.

**PART 1**

"Have you ever seen something as healthy as this?!"

**INTRO**

It’s been about 3 years since my last strongman competition.  I competed in Oct 2019 after moving to my new location in Nebraska, found myself developing a bit of ennui with the sport, signed up for a comp in Apr of 2020 that originally featured a 275lb keg press that got me REALLY excited, only to have it bumped down to a 250lb press that got me really pissed off and upset with the sport again, only to end up canceled anyway as the world shut down for 2 weeks to flatten the curve for 3 years.  

During THAT time, I had a blood lipid test come back that had my blood type listed as “Ragu”, so I had to turn the ship around healthwise.  In chasing that 275lb keg press, I had made the right decisions nutritionally for that goal, but now that health became the priority, I had to do a total 180.  And speak of 180: that’s how much I weighed when it was over (177 technically), dropping over 30lbs of bodyweight in the process.  I’m fairly certain I crashed my hormones too, but I was stupid lean and jacked, and now needed to find a way to eat that allowed me to perform AND be healthy.  It was a fun time of discovery and exploration.

I discovered a LOT of veins

Training emphasis shifted away from max weights and more into my own version of Crosssfit.  Lots of focus on longer duration consistent workouts, like Kalsu, Murph, and other evil stuff I wrote up in my E-book, with some occasional burst first stuff like Fran and Grace.  Got super into kettlebells too.  My conditioning is the best it’s ever been, and my strength stayed ok.

Eventually, the world seemed to have figured itself out and I found myself wanting to compete again.  I found a competition that was stupidly closeby AND all the events were a mystery until the week of the competition, which meant I could just keep training the way I wanted to.  This was going to be a good test to see if I still even liked strongman anymore.  On that note, here is now I trained.

**THE TRAINING**

I built as much armor during this training phase as I did during all my time in Skyrim

Prior to my current training phase, I had finished my second run of my 26 week gaining block (BBB Beefcake into 5/3/1 Building the Monolith into Deep Water Beginner into Deep Water Intermediate).  I experimented with a 7 week diet break/intensification phase in between Beefcake and Monolith and found it so effective that I decided to do it again before moving back into gaining, and it timed out perfectly that I’d finish the final week the week of the competition, be able to compete, then deload and get back to it.  

As an overview, I'm doing Zeno Squats on my squat day (from my book: take a weight you can squat for 6 reps comfortably, squat it, rack it, 12 deep breaths, half as many reps, round up, repeat until you get to 1, strip either a 25lb or 45lb plate per side, repeat process again, get to 1, strip plates, go for a widowmaker, add 1 rep to the topset next week and repeat), ROM progression deads on my deadlift day, and then one press day where I work up to a topset of 5, 3 or 1 on the log clean and strict press away, then another press day where I take the weight I hit for the log and use it for axle continental and push press.  Lift weights 4x a week. 

Day 1 is squat day

Day 2 is log press day

Day 3 is axle press day

Day 4 is ROM progression deadlift.

Hey, it worked for this guy

* On each of the press days, after I hit the topset, I take 70% of the weight used and do a set of strict presses.  On the log day, I clean once and strict press away, with 2 rest pauses (so something like 15+4+4).  On the axle push press day, I clean each rep and get as many total reps as I did on the clean once day.  I'll set a timer and try to beat the previous week's time.

* From there, on those press days, my supplemental work is that shoulder superset I've written about that goes some sort of press or weighted dip into bodyweight dips into lateral raises into band pull aparts.  For pressing exercises, I rotate between BtN presses, trap bar presses, incline DB bench and axle flat bench.  One of the press days will also include Poundstone curls (current record is 207 reps, I add 1 each workout).

If you hate training biceps, "It's just one set"

* On the squat day, for this training cycle, I've taken to following the squat workout with a 10 minute EMOM workout where I do pick up and extensions with my 250+lb sandbag.  It's helping me prep for a loading medley by getting good at lapping and moving a bag in short order.  After THAT workout, I'll do a set of 40 reverse hypers and 30 standing ab wheels and 30 GHRs, then follow it up with some more small assistance work until I run into my time to do a 10-20 minute conditioning workout.

* After the mat pulls, I have an EVIL EMOM workout I do where I spend 12 minutes alternating between deficit deadlfts and SSB squats.  I started it by going for 8 reps each movement, then 7, 6, 5, etc.  Then, each week, I add a rep to the back end.  I finished my last workout doing 3x8 and 3x7.  It was BRUTAL.

I legit hate what my brain comes up with sometimes

* After THAT is done, I'll do an unbroken circuit of one set of: Axle shrugs against bands, KB kelso shrugs, 50 band pull aparts, neck work, 40 reverse hypers, 30 standing ab wheels, and 50 dips.  I'll get in 30 GHRs somewhere in there, and then finish off the day with a 10-20 minute conditioning workout.

* Between my 2 press days, I’d pull a prowler with a harness as part of a circuit that included KB walking lunges.  I also was still doing Tang Soo Do twice a week and other conditioning.

* On Saturdays, the day after my deadlift workout, I’d do “Monument to Non-Existence II”.  It was a whole bunch of things for a while, but I settled on: Max front squats of 225, take that rep number and match it for squats of 225, SSB squats of 225 and deadlifts of 225.  Keep time between movements as short as possible

Doing stuff like this by choice will make anything in a competition feel easy

* Oh yeah, and every day I would do 5 minutes of Dan John’s “Armor Building Complex” with 24kg kettlebells, once again because Dan thought that was a terrible idea.  I went for max pain, no other real goal in them.  My best over the training cycle was 26 in 5 minutes.

**NUTRITION**

Never enough of this

My diet is all kinds of screwy, so I’m just gonna hit the wavetops and say that I kept it low carb, focused on quality fats, and actually went beyond a diet break and focused on fat loss.  I was competing in the 185lb class for the first time ever, and I didn’t want to do a water cut to get there, so I leaned out a ton and got myself to the point that I was 181.0 the week of the competition.  I could have been stronger if I was heavier, but whatever.  It was nice to NOT have my life revolve around food for a while: I was eating less, which meant less cooking and cleaning too.