YOU CAN’T FORCE WILLPOWER

As a man who finds himself a fan of brute force, as evidenced by my admiration of Marvel Comic’s “The Juggernaut”, alongside my penchant to always play the Half-Orc Barbarian in Dungeons and Dragons, alongside all the ridiculous and absurd sh*t ya’ll have seen me engage in over these decades, there’s a bit of comedy in me acknowledging that willpower itself CANNOT be produced THROUGH sheer force of will.  So many trainees honestly try to force themselves to HAVE willpower, and they attempt to do so through the capacity they tend to have in abundance: intellectualism.  But, of course, if nerds could be jocks then we’d have no nerds or jocks: just the fabled philosopher kings that Plato wrote about from the mouth of Socrates.  No dear reader, willpower is not something you can think your way through, nor can you fake it until you make it, it simply IS, and if you are unwilling to do what is necessary in order to achieve your goals in physical transformation, rather than try to force yourself through, you must analyze WHY you have this absence of willpower.  You can’t force willpower: all you can do is vector it appropriately.

Sadly, not even then

What sparked these thoughts was the idea of how there are SO many successful training programs out there, and many of them have WILDLY different approaches.  Deep Water and GVT’s 10x10 protocol is wildly different from HIT or DoggCrapp, wherein a trainee does ONE big set for each muscle group and calls it a day…but they both have demonstrated success.  Super Squats has produced results for decades, and in Easy Strength you do NO squats whatsoever.  Sheiko and Westside Barbell have both produced champion powerlifters.  Jamie Lewis has expressed outright hatred at the approach of Stuart McRobert, and both individuals have produced training programs that have achieved success in their trainees.  Lists go on and on, and there are authors I’ve never even HEARD of that are out there producing results, and there’s also a chance that, of all the programs and authors I’ve listed above, you’ve also never heard of any of them and have STILL achieved results.  There are SO many avenues for success in the realm of physical transformation…so how do some STILL manage to fail?

Because WILLPOWER is the essential driving element to success.  And I want to be clear that I am saying that in stark contrast to the notion that it’s a matter of discipline.  No: I do NOT agree that it’s simply a question of having the discipline to make the pursuit of physical transformation a “lifestyle”: many people live lifestyles that are wholly unbeneficial and unproductive.  Alongside that, all discipline does is establish a routine.  People equate training to brushing their teeth: something they do simply because it is a part of their daily life.  Their “discipline” has instilled in them the habit of always training.  Well when is the last time you got REALLY fired up about brushing your teeth?  When did you determine that you were going to have the BEST oral hygiene of anyone you knew?  When did you decide to be a paragon of clean, white, perfectly aligned choppers?  Do you want to employ the enthusiasm you dedicate to teeth brushing toward your whole body transformation?

Yes: Schoolhouse Rock beat me to the punch on this

WILLPOWER is essential to the process of physical transformation, for it is the driving force that produces the intensity necessary to actually enact some manner OF physical transformation in the presence of the discipline that got us INTO the training space in the first place.  Sure sure, it took discipline for you to get to the gym every single day: it takes WILLPOWER for you to actually EXERT yourself under the heavy bar on another set of squats when you feel like your soul is escaping through every applicable orifice of your body.  WILLPOWER compels you through those horrific conditioning sessions where you’re pretty sure your lungs are bleeding and you taste copper in your mouth.  WILLPOWER is what allows us to “stick with the diet”, whatever the hell that happens to mean at that exact moment in time.  …but what is it that produces this willpower?

We cannot FORCE ourselves to have willpower: that is self-referential.  That’s like trying to pick yourself up by your ankles to get to a higher point of elevation: you are going to fall flat on your face.  It’s like plugging a surge protector into itself to have “unlimited power”: it doesn’t work.  No, willpower is produced through faith.  And no, I am not referring to believe in the almighty (although, sure, that will actually do just fine for many), but faith in THE SYSTEM: WHATEVER system that may happen to be.  Because I see SO many trainees who operate in a total absence of faith and then wonder WHY they aren’t succeeding despite doing “everything right”.  You aren’t doing everything right, you forgot the one thing that actually matters: work hard.  And you work hard BECAUSE you have the willpower to do so.

Laugh all you want, but you're literally going nowhere on your treadmill

All of the programs I mentioned earlier work.  It’s simply the truth: we’ve OBSERVED these programs working.  We KNOW they work. BUT, we also know they can fail.  And a trainee who believes that the program they are on will fail…will fail.  Irrespective of how well designed the protocol is, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: you believed you would fail, and you did.  Man, what an awesome superpower you have: the ability to predict AND control the future.  WHY are you using this power for self-destruction instead of self-improvement?  One must have unbreakable, unquestionable, unwavering faith in whatever approach it is that they are undertaking, for it is THIS faith that creates the willpower necessary to succeed.  The INSTANT a seed of doubt creeps in, it is time to abandon course and find a new path.  

If you select a way forward simply because it’s “the best”, but you personally do not have the necessary degree of faith in the approach to actually believe that, you will NOT have the necessary degree of willpower to actually create the stimulus for physical transformation.  You will limply pay lip service to the protocol, doing all the required reps and sets with all the required weight and eating all the right foods and completely removing the HUMAN element from the equation.  You will be robotic and mechanical, and reap the rewards of such an existence.  Your vehicle does NOT get better with more repetition: it tends to actually DECLINE with use.  The same is true of most machines: they decline, break down, and become obsolete.  When you undertake a process mechanically, you achieve a mechanical outcome, but when you take on a challenge as a HUMAN, you benefit as humans do.

Don't get me wrong: The Terminator was pretty cool, but Conan got to go on and become a King!

This isn’t a question of motivation: motivation is fleeting, and subject to manipulation easily impacted by current mood, environment, atmosphere and circumstances.  Motivation can carry one through a workout: willpower carries on TO victory.  And again: this is NOT something that you can logic your way through.  Willpower is NOT a reasonable process: willpower is what we employ when reason FAILS us.  When a mom lifts a car off of her child to save their lives, they abandoned ALL reason in that pursuit.  Reason told that mom that there is no way she can lift that vehicle: willpower empowered her to do exactly that.  You thinking your way through a program, dutifully analyzing how the frequency of the movements balanced against the volume and intensity has produced the most optimal outcome simply will NOT give you the necessary force of will to violently execute the training ONCE the time arrives: THIS is from willpower.

In turn, we can make use OF illogical means in order to obtain this willpower.  People are in such a rush to point out when a logical fallacy occurs, as though it’s some sort of secret trump card in the game of life we’re all playing that instantly secures victory.  It could not be further from the truth: when we’re attempting to elicit an emotional outcome, logic is simply holding us back, and appeal to emotion, in and of itself, is a logical fallacy, which ends up proving how inconsequential these tools are.  SEEK OUT confirmation bias: intentionally ignore the failures and focus ONLY on the successes.  When I first discovered Jon Andersen, it was the best thing that had ever happened to my training: FINALLY a guy out there eating low carb and training STUPIDLY intense and getting ALL the results from it: a pro-strongman AND a pro-wrestler AND a pro-bodybuilder, with the strength and physique and crazy conditioning to back all of that up.  Hell yeah: looks like my approach is going to be just fine.  The same is true when you read Super Squats: Randall Strossen cites EVERYTHING in that book, and the academics LOOKING to fail will point out that the citations employed by Randall don’t meet THEIR scientific rigor.  But for those of us looking to turn into monsters?  Those citations are amazing.  NOTHING Mike Mentzer says makes ANY sort of sense…but if you operate off the premise that “doing what everyone else is doing will get you the results that everyone else is getting”, suddenly doing ALL the wrong things is the ONLY right thing to do.

Especially true when you find out he is Odin

You can’t force willpower.  You can’t outthink it.  You can’t produce or create it.  All you can do is channel it.  Find your appropriate channel and use it to your fullest extent possible.  If you find that your current approach is stifling your ability to do so, abandon it and go find something that works.        

SCHEDULED SUFFERING

I have run into this situation SO many times, and it’s happened recently enough that I finally figured it was time to write a post about it.  People read my blog or see my youtube videos or follow me on reddit and decide that I am a guy who knows things about physical transformation, and they end up seeking my advice on things (you fools!)  An individual ended up finding me from youtube, set up a chat with me, and laid out his situation for me to advise on.  He worked a hard physical job that was exhausting him, especially since it involved shift work, and on top of that with the training and being a dad, he was exhausted.  He wanted to know my solution for recovering better.  And I asked the question that I KNOW everyone hates to hear from me, based on the responses that I get: “Do you do any conditioning?”  

How I imagine it feels when I ask this question

Right away, I got the response I tend to always get: “I consider my job to be conditioning”.  So then, I persisted: “That’s cool, but do you DO any conditioning?”  “Aside from the job, no.”  “Ok, so you’re NOT doing conditioning then.”  Which is how I quickly lose friends and alienate people, but it’s ALSO one of the reasons I never accept money for any of this stuff: I’m beholden to no one, I can say whatever I think or feel, and people are free to take it or leave it.  I never need to bend my message to make it easier to hear or prevent cognitive dissonance.  And to this dude’s credit, he told me he would TRY to add some conditioning to his training, primarily because I gave him my whole “conditioning is magic” spiel (which, for shorthand, not ONLY does conditioning help you recover BECAUSE it gets restorative bloodflow through your body, but it ALSO makes it so that you are better, stronger and fitter WHEN you are called upon to perform, do it’s doubly beneficial).  And through that dialog, it dawned on me: we ALL will have to endure the same AMOUNT of suffering: it’s simply a question of WHEN.  So why not schedule your suffering for when YOU want to experience it?

We go back to that dude with the physical job: at his job, he suffers.  The work is hard and it physically exhausts him, and it taxes him OUTSIDE of the job due to the physical demands.  That person has scheduled his suffering to his work hours.  BUT, suppose this individual, instead, decided to engage in some regular and hard conditioning work?  If, for 20 minutes a day, every day, he did some brutal challenge that jumped his heart rate through the roof and made his lungs catch on fire?  Every SINGLE time he did this, he would suffer (at least, if he wanted the effects of the conditioning), BUT…outside of that he would NOT suffer.  When he goes to his physical job, he would be more fit for the tasks before him and better able to handle them.  The job would no longer detract from his recovery: it would simply be ADDITIONAL physical activity, and in that regard, possibly even RESTORATIVE physical activity.  And when he engaged in the conditioning again, it would help recover from the demands previously placed upon him.  

Unlimited power!

…but the suffering doesn’t change.  That’s the takeaway here.  We must be at peace with the reality that there is no ESCAPE from the suffering.  It is our plight as humans to endure suffering.  And I’m not profound in saying that: I’m pretty sure Buddha beat me to that by a few thousand years.  But it STILL holds true.  And once we stop trying to hide from it, we can do the one thing that IS within our power to do: schedule it.  We suffer on OUR terms.  Previously, we were at the whim of the universe: suffering happened as a necessity.  In order to earn our livelihood, we had to suffer.  Like some sort of awful trap from the movie series “Saw”, we endured suffering in order to continue living.  But now, we suffer not to survive, but to THRIVE.  We suffer, on OUR terms, so that we become a BETTER human: a superior member of our species.  We suffer on OUR terms so that, when the universe attempts to MAKE us suffer, it simply cannot conjure up the degree of suffering that matches what we have already inflicted upon ourselves.

I experienced this exact exchange in that grappling competition I wrote about recently.  I showed up without having engaged in any grappling training for 18 years, but I had scheduled MUCH suffering in that time and, in turn, showed up in significantly better shape than my competition.  Those folks were more skilled, but they did NOT schedule their suffering as I had done.  The result?  THEY suffered in the competition: I felt their stamina leave them, their breathing become labored, and their strength fade.  Meanwhile, as they tired, I would find another gear: my stamina INCREASED, my strength improved, I smelled blood and went in for the kill.  I had scheduled my suffering in advance, I ALREADY suffered, and so, when it came time to perform, I was able to perform.  As exhausting as grappling CAN be, it did not match up with the suffering I voluntarily endured,

The conversation my body and brain regularly have with each other

“Cry in the training hall and laugh on the battlefield”, once again: I’m not original for coming up with these observations, but they continue to hold true, and are also apparently STILL worth bringing up because all these thousands of years later folks still think there is some sort of cheat code to avoid the suffering.  That’s what the “fitness industry” is always trying to sell: how to succeed WITHOUT suffering.  How do you lose fat WITHOUT being hungry?  How do you get jacked WITHOUT hard and heavy workouts?  How do you transform without suffering?  The answer?  You don’t!  BUT, we have the freedom to decide WHEN we suffer.  Do we suffer when we go to the beach and have to wear a t-shirt because we look like a beached whale, or do we suffer in the gym with the hard training and in the kitchen with the sound nutritional decisions?  The suffering WILL happen: but WE can decide the when and the how.

THAT is our power, and it is a huge power to wield.  Don’t squander it.

ON SELLOUTS

I’ve become something of a Jim Wendler apologist over the years, which is frustrating, as the man can speak for himself and it’s ultimately a waste of my own time to engage in this habit.  And no, I’m not speaking about being an apologist for how he presents his personality (because he can ESPECIALLY handle himself there: I have zero interest in engaging in that dialog): I’m referring to his 5/3/1 programming methodology.  And, in that regard, TODAY I’m referring to the fact that he has released multiple books ON this methodology (some other day I’ll tackle how people butcher the method), because it appears that lifters are, indeed, a fickle breed and are genuinely upset at being provided with an ABUNDANCE of quality material rather than an absence of it.  Quite frankly, as someone that’s been training (and obsessing) for 24 years, this attitude baffles me to the point of upsetting me, because my transcendent envy comes through and I think to myself “you kids don’t know how good you got it: in MY day, we’d KILL to have SO MUCH quality content from a single author”.  But really, what confuses me is this: do you people ever listen to music?  Play video games?  Eat out?  Why are you so forgiving in THESE situations, yet so strict with those in the sphere of physical transformation?

We spent too much time wondering if we could and not enough wondering if we should

Seriously, consider this: bands (good ones at least) will release MORE than one song.  And we EXPECT them to do that.  There is no reasonable human out there that gets upset, saying “They already made a song: why are they making ANOTHER one?” To say nothing of whole albums full of songs.  To say nothing of MULTIPLE albums with multiple songs.  We CELEBRATE bands that do this.  And, quite often, we seek for these bands to EVOLVE over the era that they’re releasing these albums: to change and grow as culture changes and as the ability of the band changes too.  And yet, when we really break down what music is: it’s just different sounds arranged in a certain order that we (often) find pleasing.  The core principles of music remain the same, but we can EMPLOY these principles to generate a near limitless amount of songs and sounds.  And we EXPECT that from those who call themselves musicians: for them to do otherwise would make them unfit for the task.

You understand how this applies to the other media I mentioned.  Can you imagine if all video gaming ended at Pong?  “You already MADE a video game: why are you making MORE?!”  If all fast food ended at the hamburger?  “What are you doing adding CHEESE to that burger?!  We already HAVE a burger!”  Heck, we tend to enjoy these two things concurrently: smashing the latest Taco Bell monstrosity while we engage in the 7th hour of our Call of Duty binge.  And we cannot WAIT for these latest iterations to come out.  We anxiously anticipate the newest console or latest edition of our current favorite game series, we drool over the commercials of the latest nutritional debauchery to be foisted upon our gullets, we love and DEMAND innovation, newness and creativity.

Ironic for a show that came out in 1999 and keeps getting rebooted

BUT, we also understand that the development of these new things does NOT invalidate our enjoyment of the old stuff.  We can STILL enjoy that first album from our favorite band just as much as we enjoy their 14th.  Sometimes we enjoy it EVEN MORE, because it was that original sound that hooked us.  I STILL have my original Nintendo Entertainment System plugged in, and I regularly find myself playing the original Fallout that was released in 1998.  Sometimes, a regular old Whopper from Burger King hits just right.  Through this, we recognize that the presence of new stuff does not somehow make the old stuff no longer enjoyable or effective at achieving its goals.  We realize that we simply have MORE good stuff now.

Why should it be any different when it comes to lifting programming?  I’m going to use Jim Wendler here in particular, but this applies to MANY authors in the lifting sphere.  People FREQUENTLY bemoan how many books Jim has released on 5/3/1.  “Looks like Jim needed more money: he released another book!”  “I guess I’ll just have to get ANOTHER book to learn that program.”  “How many books do I need to buy to learn how to do 5/3/1?!”  Etc.  Again: how ridiculous.  You’re going to be upset that an author wrote MORE material?  You’d rather he NOT share more information with you on how you can achieve your goals?  That, after he spends time in his lab, trying out new things, tweaking older formulas, finding new ways to succeed he just…do nothing with it?  Why?  For what reason could you possibly be upset that you can now have MORE material from someone that is out there producing results?

As opposed to...

The new material does NOT invalidate the old material!  5/3/1 worked when Jim started writing about it in his training log in 2008 on Elitefts.  If you were to use THAT particular method, you would succeed.  The stuff that was in the first edition book?  It all worked.  Same with second.  Same with beyond, powerlifting, and forever, AND all the stuff on his blog, t-nation articles, and the things he talks about on youtube.  All of these things work, and 1 idea working does NOT make another idea NOT work.  This isn’t a zero sum game: we’re ALL winning here.  And along with that, there is no SHAME to be had in enjoying/preferring the old stuff over the new stuff.  We don’t need to be hipsters or die-hards here: there is no prize to be had for ALWAYS using the latest and greatest.  And just like music, it’s also possible to enjoy A song from an artist and NOT go and purchase their full catalog and listen to every song and become an expert on them, much like we can appreciate A program from AN author, use it and move one.

The biggest bit of comedy here is that Jim IS a musician, and when you hear him speak, his passion really seems to lie IN music rather than training.  Training is a thing he does to stay fit, capable and sane, whereas music is something he does to become fully self-realized as a human.  And, in turn: of COURSE he’s going to have his craft evolve over time…it’s what we EXPECT to happen with his REAL passion.  And I also imagine he finds it just as ridiculous to be held to one standard for one craft and a completely different standard for another.  As should you.

Seen here, giving away all the secrets

It’s fine to enjoy things that are enjoyable and appreciate things that are appreciable.     

WE GOT TO WHERE WE ARE BY DOING WHAT WE’VE BEEN DOING

We humans are a delightfully flawed species, which, if you’re the religious type, you may refer to as “original sin”, or if you’re the philosopher type you may simply think of Nietzsche’s “Human: all too human”, the latter individual also claiming that God is dead showing the unification of two contrasting schools of thought arriving at the same conclusion.  But already I’ve digressed before I’ve started: one of the fun ways we are flawed is how often we seek familiarity as a form of comfort.  This is, most likely, an evolutionary trait that served us QUITE well in an era where we were running from sabretooth tigers and trying to remember which mushrooms we could eat vs which ones killed us dead, but in the modern age this comfort seeking behavior is ultimately one of the many causes of our downfalls.  And even those that believe that they have saved themselves by engaging in the process of physical transformation manage to fall for this trap, for, quite often, these individuals constantly seek the comfort of familiarity WITHIN their process of physical transformation.  But herein we realize the error of that way, for physical transformation IS a process OF transformation, and in order to transform, we must BECOME something different than what we are…whereas we got to where we are by doing what we’ve been doing!

Chewing bubblegum and kicking ass got him this far...let's see what he does without the gum!

 

This STATEMENT seems obvious, but consider how many trainees turn a complete blind eye to it.  Let’s establish a very simple baseline premise: one does NOT engage in physical transformation IF one is satisfied with their current selves.  That seems agreeable, no?  Outside of some sort of situation wherein one engages in physical transformation purely as a lark (exercising Sartre’s “radical freedom”), the vast majority of trainees MUST have some sort of catalyst to drive them.  Perhaps they watched a movie with a training montage and got inspired, perhaps they put on a swimsuit, looked in the mirror and had an “oh sh-t” moment, perhaps they decided they wanted to compete in a physical event and realized they were WOEFULLY underprepared for it, but whatever the case, those seeking to transform are NOT satisfied with what they currently are.  Well how did we get to where we are?  We got there by doing what we’ve been doing!  All decisions and actions up until this point have resulted in THIS outcome.  We understand the equation put in front of us: X+Y=Z.  So now, we look to change either the X or the Y (or both) to arrive at a new answer!

 

We intellectually understand this…but emotionally, we’re a wreck!  Our stupid lizard brains WANT familiarity: it wants things to be the way they’ve ALWAYS been.  But doing what we’ve been doing has gotten us right where are right now…UNSATISFIED!  We need to remember that as we embark on this adventure.  We’re going to have eat differently, we’re going to have to sleep differently, we’re going to have to train differently (or at all, for that matter), we’re going to have to LIVE differently.  None of this even assures that we are going to IMPROVE, but it DOES ensure that we’re going to CHANGE.  So far, we are EXPERTS at being what we are: to become something else, we will need to become amateurs once again.

Although sometimes those previous expertise are STILL pretty useful

 

…Do I hear “noobie gains?”  You bet!  We’re going to experience that rapid change that occurs when you transition from doing a thing you’re good at to doing a thing you’re bad at.  “White belt mentality”: it’s outstanding!  You never move faster than when you start from nothing, as you have nowhere to go BUT up!  THAT, alone, is your insurance policy through this period.  SO many folks are SO afraid to try something new, but what could you possibly have to lose?  You have to face the fear of the unfamiliar, but remember: you didn’t choose to pursue transformation because you were SATSIFIED with what you are: you wanted to be different.  Well here are the keys to that kingdom!  Embrace the weird, the alien, the different: do what you HAVEN’T been doing to get to somewhere else.

 

But this isn’t just about the stat of the journey: those that are in the PROCESS of transformation absolutely need this lesson as well.  BECAUSE we experience that rapid growth the first time we change direction, it’s quite easy to fall victim of the trap of infatuation: we soon become zealots of our new way, because we KNOW it produces the results we seek, and we fall in love…and refuse to change!  THIS is the way that produced the results!  This is the NEW way!  …but, eventually, we find ourselves STILL unsatisfied, STILL seeking transformation, in which case…what do we do?

No

 

We stop doing what we’ve been doing!  The principle STILL applies.  We have to recognize when we’ve wound up in yet another rut: when we’ve EXHAUSTED the new way and must, instead, move on to ANOTHER new way in order to, once again, NOT be where we are.

 

Anyone that has followed me has recognized this exact pattern unfolding.  This very blog started with me espousing what a fan I was of abbreviated training, only to immediately take a HARD pivot into stupidly high volume work, and here I am back to abbreviated training with some recent runs of Super Squats and Mass Made Simple, with all sorts of wild journeys in the middle.  I employed abbreviated training through my second powerlifting meet, was unsatisfied with having failed a 502lb squat AGAIN, and ended up going in a completely different direction and trying 5/3/1, which allowed me to finally get my 502lb squat AND a 601lb deadlift in a meet…all before I completely switched gears and started competing in strongman.  Oh, and that powerlifting phase came AFTER I hung up my gloves after 12 years of martial arts training/focus.  All of these approaches worked…until they didn’t, and then it was time to do something else.

This is what PTSD looks like

 

And, of course, I’ve annoyed so many of you with my nutrition, but once again, I’ve broken out the etch-a-sketch on that SO many times and just completely obliterated all my previous approaches.  I’ve gone from a Gallon of milk a day with copious amounts of PBJs to a paleo style approach to dirty keto to low fat/low carb (THAT was really stupid) to shakes only to carnivore, and in every instance, it was the same situation: I was unsatisfied with what I WAS, so I needed to do something different than what had gotten me there.  And EACH and every time I did that: it worked!  And that’s the feedback loop we need: the re-assurance that, each time we stop doing what we’ve been doing, we WILL get to somewhere else.  Through the repetition of the experiment, we receive consistent confirmation that these changes WILL produce results, and we develop the habits and skills of a being CAPABLE of change, which, in turn, allows us to continue onward in a process of consistent transformation.  A stagnant being never changes, but a being that transforms gets there THROUGH change.

 

Make yourself a being of consistent change.  Find your current paradigms and smash them all to pieces.  Slaughter all of your sacred cows, disavow all your gods, blaspheme and forsake, so that YOU can become something other than what you are.