STRONGMAN COMPETITION WRITE-UP: "STRENGTH GAMES V" @ "THE BAR" JOHNSTON IOWA: THE PRE-WRITE UP

 **INTRO/BACKGROUND**

The last time I competed was summer of 2022 in an Unsanctioned Competition at Testify Strength and Conditioning in Omaha, NE, wherein I came in 2nd out of 3 competitors in the 185lb category.  Since that time, I had radically switched gears as far as nutrition went and ended up walking around regularly at 166lbs: my high school weight.  It was a wild ride to get there that goes beyond the scope of this write-up, but it meant that this was going to be my first competition as a lightweight male.  Previously, I’d competed at Strength Games as a Middleweight, so I was excited for a new challenge, but also realized that coming in 15lbs under the weight limit against guys who most likely cut weight to get there meant I was definitely operating behind the 8-Ball.

 

To make things even more interesting, I actually signed up for TWO competitions: this one, and another one 2 weeks later.  I took on that second one primarily because it was in my current hometown, so it meant zero travel necessary.  But of the two competitions, Strength Games looked to be the more fun of the two, so I was the most excited for this one, but it also meant I had to consider balancing the two competitions against each other.  Again: new challenges.  Reference my post “Here Comes a New Challenger”: I need this in my life.

 

**TRAINING**

I made it a point NOT to train for this competition.  I signed up for it because the events looked fun, but also signed up for another competition that would be 2 weeks later with similar-ish events, and at that point decided that I was just going to get generally “strongmanny” again, as prior to this I was really just winging it and experimenting with my training.  The closest thing you could say it was before was “Crossfit”: just trying to get ok across a broad range of physical qualities.

 

I saw this as an opportunity to try out Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program to build up my ability to handle heavier poundages again while ALSO giving myself more training time to do some event/carry style stuff at the end of workouts.  And since I was so skinny, I blended it with “Mass Made Simple”.  You can read my reviews of that here and here

After 32 Easy Strength workouts, I found myself 6 weeks out from competition.  If I ran Easy Strength for the full 40 workouts, I would have been in an interesting spot as far as a follow-up program went, so I cut Easy Strength early and transitioned to Jamie Lewis’ “Juggeryoke” program, a review of which may occur in the future, but ultimately it looked like it would be a pretty beneficial approach.  It contained a solid amount of overhead work and focus on the arms, traps and abs: some areas I had been neglecting.  I made some slight modifications by allowing myself to use some of the implements that would be featured in the upcoming competition (log for push press, axle for strict press, trap bar for high pulls and shrugs), and would use weekends/ends of workouts to drill strongman style stuff like carries, stone loading, KB “throws”, and just general moving heavy stuff over distances.  Again: VERY general “prep”.

 

**NUTRITION**

Yeah, it was basically this

 

I went and did a VERY detailed overview of what my nutrition is like, and you can find that here

 

Which, if you want to contrast it against how I WAS eating, you can go to my previous nutrition post, found here

  

But ultimately I had fallen for the “keto junkfood trap”, where I had convinced myself that, as long as everything I was eating was “keto friendly”, it meant I was eating “right”.  This meant I was taking in an ungodly amount of artificial sweeteners, nut flours, and all sorts of other frankenfoods and alien substances, and my guts were an absolute wreck as a result.  I ran an amalgamation of T-Nation/Biotest’s “Velocity Diet” and Jamie Lewis’ “Apex Predator Diet” as something of a total system reset, and through experimentation arrived at my current approach, which I’ll give the highlights of below, as these write-ups always end up WAY too big as it is.

Seriously: this is NOT human food

 

* Overall, this is a cyclical ketogenic diet.  I have no idea if I’m actually IN ketosis, but it would make sense given how the rest of the diet shakes out.  I have a weekly carb-up meal (Sunday evening), and otherwise, when I eat, it’s carnivore: all meat/animal.  If I’m not eating, I’m consuming a blended protein powder (Biotest’s “Metabolic Drive”).  Which is why I assume I’m in ketosis: there’s pretty much no carbs.  I’m not consuming any veggies, grains, fruits, starches, or honey, and the dairy I do consume is consumed sparingly and frequently full fat, which means the lowest carb amount.  The weekly carb up is what makes it cyclical, and I also wave calories through the week.  Most of this comes from Jamie Lewis “Apex Predator Diet”.  On some weeks, I skipped the carb-up meal, but this was more due to schedule than intent.

 

* There is a “famine” phase and a “feast” phase.  Famine is 2 weeks, feast is 4.  They are run back to back.  

 

* On weekdays, protein sparing modified fast accomplished using Metabolic Drive blended protein powder.  I’ll fast either until the midday meal or evening meal (famine will be until evening, feast will be until midday). 

 

* On the above, some days I eat a whole food midday meal and some days I don’t.  This is part of waving the calories.  Even during the feast, I’ll have 1-2 days where I keep the PSMF until the evening meal.  One of those 1-2 days is ALWAYS the day after the carb-up meal.

 

* On weekends, I ditch the shakes and transition to pure carnivore eating.  3 meals a day at least.  On Saturday, it’s pure carnivore the whole way, while Sunday has the evening meal be the carb-up meal.  This is true even during the famine phase, because weekends are times with the family and I’m not going to go through a PSMF with them.  I WILL try to eat leaner cuts of meat during that time and fattier during the feast, but that’s about it.

 

For this competition, I decided to keep up with my current nutrition.  In the past, I’d legit eat an entire box of poptarts, along with a bag of hostess minidonuts and breakfast cereal and gatorades and basically take in like 800g of carbs, but given I was so rarely consuming them AND, whenever I did I’d experience some VERY interesting reactions (excessive sweating/overheating, extreme fatigue, etc), I decided not to mess around with that.  I also got off my excessive amount of caffeine I was consuming previously (nearing a GRAM of caffeine a day…) and didn’t want to play around with that during the competition either.  So I boiled up a dozen eggs, mixed it with some ground venison and grassfed sour cream and brought some extra meat snacks in case I needed it.

 

Is this egg salad or venison salad?  You decide!

 And in full disclosure, as I write this my competition is tomorrow, so we'll see how all of this shakes out.   Stay tuned for part 2!

WE AREN’T BAKING A CAKE: WE’RE MAKING A SANDWICH

For those readers that have been diligently tracking/being annoyed by my recent carnivore proselytizing, I’m sure this topic title seems just as bizarre as my behavior, but I assure you I possess the experience and faculties to discuss the topics of baking and sandwich making and how it relates to you!  And it’s honestly a result of trolling facebook carnivore spaces that I arrived here, as, much like in the lifting world, I’m finding many individuals keep asking the question “Am I allowed?”  For carnivore, it’s something like “am I allowed to use spices/spritz lemon juice on my food/eat food that has touched a leaf”, and in training we see the question of “am I allowed to add curls to Starting Strength/skip the conditioning in Building the Monolith/make rows a 5/3/1 movement?”  In both instances, we observe the individual approaching the process of physical transformation with the wrong mindset: these folks are cake bakers, when they NEED to be sandwich makers.

No...just stop

 

And, of course, now I do the explanation piece.  Anyone who has ever engaged in baking of ANY manner of baked good is fully aware of just how much of baking is a chemistry experiment. Baking requires the correct ingredients, measured to the CORRECT amount, and, often, at the correct temperature as well.  You could have all the ingredients assembled and in the correct amounts, but if your milk is cold and it’s supposed to be room temperature, your cake is now officially a delicious baked brick.  And then from there you need to actually execute the proper baking OF the baked good: bake it at the correct temperature for the correct amount of time.  Some baked goods need to be taken out of the oven and off the baking sheet ASAP, whereas others are left on the sheet to continue to cook OUT of the oven, and some are left in the oven with the oven shut off, letting the residual heat continue to cook it.  Everything is very precise and exacting, and if you screw up ONE part of the process, you screw up the entire cake. 

 

Sandwiches are FAR more forgiving, because whereas a cake is a specifically defined idea, a sandwich is more of an intent: put something in between something else so you can eat it.  And I specifically phrase it as “something in between something else” because to say “meat between bread” would technically NOT be true.  That is to say: it would be limiting.  You can make sandwiches with no meat whatsoever (hello classic PBJ), AND sandwiches can be made with rolls or other grains aside from simple traditional bread, to say nothing of the ever controversial topic of “is a hot dog a sandwich?”  They can be as plain as just a slice of ham between two slices of white bread, or you can make a true Dagwood of a sandwich.  Sauces and toppings are dealers choice, they can be savory or sweet or a combination of the two (hello Fool’s Gold Loaf…and goodbye waistline!).  Yes, sure, there are named sandwiches out there they have certain rules they have to conform too, like the Rueban or the Club, but even then you’ll find plenty of places willing to take artistic creative license with these things (you put avocado on any sandwich and suddenly it’s Californian, whereas pineapple makes everything Hawaiian), but for the most part, a sandwich is honestly more of an agreement than a hard defined topic: we took something and put it inside of something else so we could hold onto it while we eat.  Cakes tend to be a bit more stringent.

Just in case that Dagwood reference was lost on you

 

The process of physical transformation is a similar process: it’s making a sandwich.  Good ingredients help make good outcomes, and when paired with good execution we get even better results, but there’s no one singular ingredient or methodology that is going to make or break outcomes.  Trainees want to believe that if just ONE variable is askew, the whole thing will collapse.  “Did I ruin my results by getting 6 hours of sleep instead of 8?”, “Did I ruin my results by not setting a PR on this last workout?”  Akin to wondering if you ruined your sandwich by using mustard instead of mayo.  Nope: you just made it different.  A sandwich is effectively limitless in it’s potential: you have to REALLY start deviating from the norms to turn a sandwich into a “non-sandwich”, whereas cakes are pretty easy to ruin.  Your physical transformation process is similar: so long as we abide by the principles of effort, consistency and time, we can continue to transform.  It may take a slightly different route than originally intended, but it will STILL be transformation, and who knows: we might accidentally discover something more delicious than we originally intended.

 

Of course, it’s worth asking the question of WHY we want to deviate in the first place.  Quite often, many of you sandwich makers haven’t even TRIED the sandwich before you wanted to change it.  Like a child who only eats bologna on white bread with American singles (fun fact: it’s not called “cheese” because…it’s not cheese), if you’re not willing to branch out and try new things AS they were intended, you miss out ON those new experiences and, in turn, an opportunity to develop new tastes and preferences.  You might discover that you’re a huge fan of rye bread once you get yourself a reuben, or realize that cheesewhiz CAN actually be a sandwich topping when you get yourself a legit philly cheesesteak, or you possibly discover you have a toxic allergy to onions one day after avoiding them for years…but at least now you know.  Yes, this is not cake baking, you don’t need to have anxiety about making the “wrong” choice when you’re standing in line at Subway, but maybe instead of ordering your 400th ham and yellow cheese sandwich, you get a little wild and go for the meatball sub today. 

Or REALLY eat like a King

 

Who knows: you might like it.

“GOD IS DEAD”: CREATING OUR OWN PURPOSE WITH THE ABUNDANCE OF CHOICES

It’s no secret that I’m a total Nietzsche fanboy, so it’s always a delight when I can write about him (and DnD and Magic The Gathering for that matter, and I’m sure I’ll combine them all sometime soon, but stick with me).  Nietzsche is famous (or infamous depending) for the quote “God is dead”, which appears in many of his works, to include “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “The Gay Science”, but many tend to take it at face value as some sort of rallying call for atheism, which severely undercuts the meaning and intent behind it.  Irrespective of one’s personal beliefs, Nietzsche was expressing the notion that the BELIEF in God had died on a cultural level, for era that Nietzsche wrote it was an era wherein the Church and God no longer had the cultural significance that they held during the presiding eras (from Rome to the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages to even the Renaissance).  Not only does this have an immediate cause for a crisis of faith, but it is also, in turn, the catalyst for an existential crisis: when God originally gave us purpose, and now God is dead…what is our purpose?  And what specifically is the SOURCE of our new purpose?  And to resolve this, Nietzsche proposed the following solution: we make our OWN purpose.  In that, he has many outstanding quotes as well, to include “I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible” and “Become who you are.  Do what only you can do.  Be the master and the sculptor of yourself”, and “One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art” and honestly a ton more, but this post could get VERY huge if I just keep slinging baller Nietzsche quotes, so let me just go into HOW in the world this relates to physical transformation.

Honestly, you could do worse as far as a training plan goes

Many who proclaim to be pursuing physical transformation are, in truth, “seeking God”.  I don’t mean in a true religious sense, but in the sense that these folks want the ONE TRUTH.  They want to know what is the 100% absolute most true and accurate way to achieve physical transformation, so they can cast aside all the false idols and beliefs and find their way to heaven.  And they want studies and facts to back it all up, which is comedic to me, given that religion is faith-based, yet these folks need hard evidence.  But that’s a discussion for another time.  Let’s, instead, take time to lament these poor misguided souls, because they seek monotheism in a world where the gods are many and exist in a pantheon, constantly bickering, plotting, scheming, but also partying, cajoling and causing mischief.  These God seekers are Christian Pilgrims that just stumbled onto a 2 week long Viking mead festival, and Loki is pouring with a heavy hand.

And while I’m sloppily applying religious metaphors to training, allow me to channel religious scholar AND track athlete AND amazing coach Dan John, who has gone on to say on multiple occasions “Everything works…for 6 weeks”.  And with that, I’ve finally arrived at the point of what I’m writing here: “God” is dead.  There is no ONE true way to achieve physical transformation.  But, in turn, we should not see this situation as lamentable but as FREEING, because what it means is that we have SO many ways to achieve our goals of physical transformation.  We are not BOUND to ONLY one way to succeed: there is, in fact, an ABUNDANCE of methods to get where we are going.  In turn, it means that the odds of us failing to achieve our goals are incredibly slim: failing in ONE approach could quite literally be the path of success on another avenue.

Redefine the terms of victory and you can never lose!

Let me go back to the religion bit again here.  Within the 10 Commandments (Judiasm/Christianity/Islam) is “Thou Shalt not kill”.  It’s pretty clear.  In Dante’s Inferno, the wrathful are condemned to an endless war against each other, constantly engaged in battle, facing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and forced to fight again for all eternity.  Then we pivot over to the Vikings again, who believed that the greatest virtue was to die violently in battle, wherein they would be rewarded by going to Valhalla, wherein they would…engage in an endless battle against each other for all of eternity, experiencing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and do it all over again.  One man’s sin is another man’s virtue, and one man’s punishment is another man’s reward.  This holds true in systems of physical transformation.

Did you oversleep and miss out on breakfast this morning?  That’s the most anabolic meal of the day!  Oh wait, no: you just did some accidental intermittent fasting!  Hey: there’s a TON of research on how valuable that is.  “Accidentally” binged on the weekend?  No way amigo: you’re doing the ABCDE diet!  Or the Zig-zag!  Or maybe you’re carb cycling!  You were doing carnivore and “caved” and had some peanut butter: cool, we’re doing keto now.  Or was it organic?  Today is a paleo day it looks like.  Oh, it was a full on PBJ on white bread with skippy and grape jelly?  Know who loves PBJs?  Dan John for “Mass Made Simple” and Paul Carter for Blue Collar nutrition/training.  And this is JUST the nutrition side of things.  In contrast to Deep Water’s 10x10 squats, you have a single set of 20 with Super Squats, or a set of 50 with your bodyweight with Mass Made Simple, or 6x1 with Easy Strength, or 3x1 with Conjugate, of the classic 3x8-12 with so many other protocols, that if you “mess up” a squat workout, you’re bound to have succeeded with a different one at the same time.

This guy is all set for success SOMEHWERE...

This drives “truth seekers” nuts!  They are constantly looking for studies to REFUTE the findings of other studies so that they can KNOW for sure that the path that they have personally chosen IS the “one true path”, but instead it becomes necessary for us to make our own purpose THROUGH this abundance of choices.  We construct a patchwork religion comprised of the various bits of pieces of information and approaches that suit US.  Because what we are discovering from all the studies and reports of success with so many different approaches to training and nutrition is that pretty much EVERYHING works (for 6 weeks!)  But, like religion, it works WHEN we believe in it.  When we fully invest ourselves into our approach, giving it diligent and authentic effort and intensity, when we know that it’s going to work because we know it’s going to work, when we are “bought in”, we make our own purpose.  It’s only when we merely dip our toes in the water while clinging onto shore that we find our results wanting, because we were never really “believers” in the first place there.

Read whatever studies you want to read.  Listen to whatever stories you want to listen to.  Believe whatever you want to believe.  God is dead, and through his death you have been granted unlimited freedom to create your own purpose.  

IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED

I’ve written/spoken to the title of this post several times and even have a rant video based around “quit overcomplicating it”, but while walking my dog (with a weight vest on, of course, because I AM that guy in your neighborhood) the other day I realized WHY things seem so complicated.  I was looking for a podcast to listen to while I walked, and had a Matt Wenning one queued up for quite a while that, by all accounts, I SHOULD be excited to listen to, but I’m just flat not.  And it’s because Matt tends to want to talk about powerlifting, which makes sense, considering he was a very awesome powerlifter and comes from that background.  However, I have minimal interest in actual real deal powerlifting these days: I don’t care about setting 1 rep records in 3 specific lifts.  I’m very much going in the opposite direction: strength at weird angles in various rep ranges alongside conditioning.  “Chaos is the plan”, and I am training for said chaos.  But, in turn, that means that my goals are far more general, and there’s minimal writing to be had in such general, broad reaching goals, primarily because it’s really hard to train “wrong” when you’re not training for anything specifically.  Any “mistake” I make is, in truth, me simply accomplishing ANOTHER physical goal.  If I do too many reps to build strength, I end up building endurance, which is also awesome.  And in turn, this led me to realize something: people don’t talk/write about achieving general goals FOR THAT REASON.  If someone IS going to talk/write about training, it’s going to be for a specific goal, like powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman, weightlifting, etc.  Because those goals require a specific approach, and, in turn, necessitate discussion and advancement.  This, in turn, creates the false notion that training, in and of itself, is complicated, when the truth is that training to achieve physical transformation is so incredibly simple that no one feels the need TO write about it.

Really not that far off...holy cow I need to re-watch this series

We’re effectively observing a survivor bias as far as information availability pertains.  A new trainee, in pursuit of “mere” physical transformation, goes to a bookstore (yes, I’m dating myself here, I’m sure it’s more about going to social media and finding digital content, stick with me) and finds manuals on “how to train” that go into great depth about percentages for training cycles and accumulation phases leading into intensification phases and setting up for a peak week and maximizing performance, etc etc etc.  This leads the trainee to the (false) perception that training is VERY complicated, but this is merely because there is no DEMAND for simple training material because…it’s simple.  Writing a manual of obvious things (engage in resistance training and cardiovascular training, stay active, eat well, drink water, etc) tends to result in poor reception, because we all “know” those things, but when it comes to the “secrets” of the elite: THAT we will buy.  In addition, the knowledge of the obvious is possessed by many, whereas the knowledge of the elite is possessed by the few, making it far more valuable and, in turn, far more WORTHY of discussion.  But, in turn, one must come to appreciate that the things that ARE written are VERY specific and narrowly focused.  They’re complicated BECAUSE these individuals have maxed out what can be achieved with simplicity and needed to move on TO complexity in order to reach that “next level”.  Much like a business suit: you can buy and wear off the rack just fine, but they’ll never fit as well as one specifically tailored toward you.

But physical transformation is NOT a complex goal.  It’s not specific: not compared to “increase my bench press by 10lbs in 13 weeks”.  We can engage in the process of physical transformation daily, whereas hitting max numbers on meet day is a VERY precise process.  In turn, it’s too easy to dismiss the lessons of achieving physical transformation as mere hand-waving and not “getting it”, but, as Stan Efferding says: “Compliance is the science”.  We know HOW to achieve physical transformation: who is actually out there DOING it on a consistent basis?

If this is you every Saturday evening: you're not doing it

Dan John is a masterful author on this subject, and it’s BECAUSE Dan has the necessary degree of knowledge in achieving high level specific goals that he can also work backwards and achieve physical transformation.  Dan has performed at the top levels in the discus AND coached Olympic Level athletes alongside Special Operations operators and other high demand athletes, and he’s also coached high school kids, people in their 60s, and dudes lifting in their garage trying to be able to keep playing with their kids.  When Dan talks about physical transformation, it IS all obvious stuff, so much so that he’s able to sum it up into one run-on sentence that he throws into just about every podcast: push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry, go for a walk, eat more protein, eat more veggies, drink water, get 7-9 hours of sleep.  That’s so simple…so who is out there DOING that?  Every day?  Dan says he has 3 cheat days a year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Superbowl Sunday.  Who out there is actually COMPLYING with this basic prescription 362 days a year?

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Mark Rippetoe: he attempts to force simplicity INTO areas of complexity.  I think “Starting Strength” is a fantastically adequate approach to getting a trainee under a barbell and building the habit of training.  The book goes into great detail explaining how to perform the movements, and the Starting Strength program gets a trainee in the gym 3 days a week practicing work with moderately heavy loads and building a habit of consistently progressing and building strength.  The issue is that Mark (and many of the victims of the telephone game) tends to continue this prescription BEYOND its scope, and therein it fails.  Mark has written an article titled “Conditioning is a Sham”, wherein the prescription for improving conditioning is to just get stronger in the basic barbell lifts, premised off the notion that a 400lb squatter will have light weights feel lighter compared to a 300lb squatter, and therefore they will have better endurance for moving light weights for many reps (which is what running/athletics is).  This definitely makes sense IF you have no background in athletics and really WANT to believe it, but those of us that have ever played A sport know about dudes that are monstrously strong in the weightroom and CAN’T apply it on the field (“Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane”) and also the contrast: dudes that can’t put it together in the weightroom and are MONSTERS on the field.  My first ever strongman competition, I was coming off the best powerlifting meet of my life where I crushed a 500lb squat and 600lb deadlift as a 181lb raw competitor, only to get humbled on a 500lb yoke walk by dudes who MAYBE could squat 315.  Herein we observe a case where we now have a SPECIFIC goal outside of basic physical transformation and require a more precise approach. 

Max strength does not always mean max conditioning

I feel like Jim Wendler is a fantastic middleground here.  I am a big fan of Dan John’s complete lack of prescription when it comes to movements and percentages (push, what kind?  Just push.  How heavy?  Heavy enough, but not too much) and Mark tends to be very authoritarian (YNDTP: You’re Not Doing The Program), Jim created a program to allow him to ESCAPE powerlifting and train for “being awesome”, premised it around 4 basic movements and 3 specific percentages, and then allowed for enough variation to vector toward a variety of generic goals.  You’re not going to use 5/3/1 to become an elite powerlifter (although we’ve observed powerlifters DOING just that) or an elite strongman or etc, but you can absolutely use it to become pretty damn awesome.  And as your understanding of programming and specificity grows, you can mold and change the programming to best suit you.  Or you could never do that and also be fine.

Why?

Because it’s not that complicated.  

Failed math, passed Occam's Razor

Effort, consistency and time reign supreme yet again.