BIG TOOLS FOR BIG CHANGES

This idea hit me while I was driving this morning, as many of my ideas do.  It’s rather interesting to think about how the biggest changes we employ in our approach are what are responsible for the biggest changes we observe in our journey in physical transformation.  That should seem like an obvious concept, yet, when observing the thoughts and actions of trainees, we frequently note a preoccupation with the SMALLEST and least significant drivers of progress.  Jim Wendler’s “majoring in the minors” concept.  I feel it’s necessary for us to step back, observe the similarities that exist in (what appears to be) vastly different approaches to physical transformation so that we can understand the significance OF the big tools employed to affect big changes, and thereby be able to appreciate when and why the small stuff matters.  I adopt the analogy of a sculptor: when they start off with the large bit of stone, they hack away at it with hammer and hatchet at first, and as they get closer and closer to the fine details, THEN they switch to the smaller, more precise tools.  If you try to start carving a sculpture with a fine chisel and tiny hammer, you will drive yourself mad and achieve nothing over the course of your lifetime.

Maybe if you had 600 years...or 17...

 

What’s one of the biggest tools we have available in our toolbox of transformation?  ACTION.  Simply do SOMETHING.  Again, that seems obvious, but consider HOW many trainees run into “analysis paralysis”.  I’ve known of “trainees” that have spent MONTHS researching an approach before committing to it…and during that time, they simply resumed their current state of inaction, engaging in NO training or nutritional protocol whatsoever, since they had not completed their research yet.  Let us all appreciate the common variables here: no one ever changed by doing the same thing they were doing: change only happens when we change SOMETHING, and we can change something by DOING something.  Simply doing 10 push ups a day, every day, will achieve SOME sort of change compared to NOT doing those push ups.  So if we’re ever in doubt of what needs to happen to achieve physical transformation, we can agree that action is required.

 

From there, we also observe the common variable held across all systems of physical transformation: they make the trainee do SOMETHING.  HIT is different from Crossfit, is different from Deep Water, is different from 5/3/1, is different from Easy Strength, is different from bro-splits, is different from Reactive Training Systems, is different from Juggernaut, etc etc.  They employ different exercises, sets, reps, methodologies, etc…but they all have the trainee do SOMETHING, and there is an expectation that the trainee will do this SOMETHING in good faith: with honest effort, dedicated toward the pursuit of physical transformation.  And as I just recently wrote on the subject of willpower: as long as you aren’t FAKING it, and are actually trying, all systems will work.  Dan John went on to say “everything works…for about 6 weeks”, which is WHY we had monthly muscle mags that came out with a new program each issue: it was just in time to switch off your old “stale” program and start a new one, which would work until the next one.  ACTION is required for change, and these protocols afford us an ability to vector that action along a specific trajectory, but that’s all they are: a vector.  Programs are organized methods to balance the variables of intensity, volume and recovery: they (in theory) help direct on how much and how hard to train to create the stimulus to change, and also dictate the frequency in order to facilitate our ability to recover and, therefore, GROW from the stimulus. 

What happens when we have too much recovery and not enough stimulus

 

We see this in the nutritional sphere as well.  Every nutritional intervention is that: an intervention.  It’s a hard and sharp stop to what we’re currently doing and pivoting to a different direction, primarily because, again: what we were doing WASN’T working.  The biggest pitfall of most people regarding nutrition is the sheer fact they don’t think about it at all.  Most folks have NO plan when it comes to nutrition.  That may seem baffling when written out like that, but when you stop to think about it, it’s true: most people are just “winging it”.  People will open their fridge or pantry HOPING to find something in there: not even KNOWING what food they have in their OWN house.  These people wake up in the morning, either skip breakfast, grab something out of a box in their house, or pick up something on their way to work/school, figure out what they’re going to eat for lunch when lunch rolls around, and pick up something for dinner on the way home, the entire time only stopping the intake of food once the food has run out.  For these people, ANY manner of nutritional intervention is going to achieve physical transformation.

 

This is why we see successes with vegan, keto, paleo, carnivore, IIFYM, Weight Watchers, Vertical Diet, Snake Diet, Intermittent Fasting, the Mediterranean diet, etc.  ALL of these approaches require the user to stop and THINK about what it is they’re putting into their face.  That ALONE is a huge driver of change.  Beyond that, quite often, it’s not about what you’re eating but what you’re NOT eating that is the driver of physical transformation.  Carnivore is an all meat diet, the Vertical Diet will have the trainee taking in rice by the THOUSANDS of calories as a backfill…but both programs are about NOT eating seed oils, processed foods, and so many of the other nutritional pitfalls out there.  Even the critics OF extreme approaches like carnivore relent that it’s STILL better than the standard American diet, because even IF someone focuses a diet entirely on a “known carcinogen” like red meat, AT LEAST that person isn’t eating Pop Tarts, Captain Crunch, deep fried Twinkies, beer, peanut butter cups, and all the other ridiculous nonsense that makes up the current diet that we FOR SURE know is killing us.

Oh for f**k's sake it's COOKIES FOR BREAKFAST! It should come with an insulin syringe for a prize

 

And herein we’ve already identified a roadmap for success: pick A program and A diet and you will accomplish about 90% of whatever your goal is.  You will affect the BIGGEST changes toward physical transformation WITH these biggest tools: a MASSIVE overhaul of how you train and how you eat: effectively, how you live.  NO nuance needs to be discussed at this point: we didn’t NEED to wonder if whey protein isolate was a better post workout protein compared to concentrate, we didn’t NEED to wonder if dumbbell lateral raises were superior to cable raises, we didn’t NEED to ponder the impacts of fasted cardio vs fed cardio: we simply needed to get the big rocks established.  But WHY are we so inclined to break out the small tools before the big ones?

 

Because when we observe those that have achieved success, it seems like ALL they discuss ARE the small tools. About how nutritional timing was the ONE thing that was holding them back, about how turning their pinky on lateral raises FINALLY got their medial delts to respond, about how sets of 6 were FAR superior to sets of 5.  If this is what the best of the best are pre-occupied with, why not those who wish to walk among them?  Because these folks ALREADY mastered the big tools: they EARNED the right to focus on the minutia.  And at THAT point in your development, the minutia IS what matters.  Everyone in the final heat of World’s Strongest Man already KNOWS how to get big and strong; now it’s a matter of WHO has the best gameday plan: who has the PERFECTLY timed pre-event nutrition that digests well, doesn’t elevate the heart rate and controls insulin spikes?  Everyone at Mr. Olympia already KNOWS how to achieve a champion-level physique: now it’s a matter of who can best present it on that HOUR of that day.  No one got here by screwing up the big tools and mastering the chisel: they were ALL masters of the mallet and hatchet.

Axe mastery and being jacked tend to go hand-in-hand

 

But if you go check out someone like Dan John, you find someone who specializes ON these big tools, because Dan recognizes that, as far as generating the MOST significant impacts on the most significant portion of the population, THIS is what needs to get focused on.  And when you read what Dan writes and hear him speak, he is the master at getting right to what matters: little and often over the long haul.  And when you hear Dan talk about his programs, the language makes it clear as well.  “Use a heavy weight here” “Use a weight where you don’t need to strain”.  There’s no RPE calculation, no percentages, no need to know your maxes: you simply have to SHOW UP and train.  His nutrition recommendations are the same “Eat protein, vegetables and water”.  Why?  Because if you get THAT part down, the rest will follow, but if you can’t even do that: what good will it do you to have the best protein supplement?  It’s a supplement for a reason: it’s supposed to be employed AFTER the nutritional protocol has been established: not in PLACE of the protocol.   

 

The big tools create the big changes.  A plan creates change: it doesn’t matter WHAT that plan is.  And BIG changes to the plan create BIG changes in turn.  If you’re not gaining weight, you’re not going to suddenly start doing that when you add 100 calories to your diet.  100 calories is a rounding error when adding mayo to a sandwich.  100 calories is when you accidentally take a 3rd Oreo out of the sleeve instead of a second.  When we want to create significant change, we need to use BIG tools to hack, hammer and cleave away.  When we want to gain, we LIVE gaining for that period, and we take on the ridiculous programs like Super Squats or Mass Made Simple or Deep Water and we eat the COPIOUS amount of food to recover from the skullsplitting training.  THERE are the big tools: SUPER hard training and SUPER big eating.  It’s a gallon of milk a day for Super Squats, PBJs for Mass Made Simple and pounds of flesh for Deep Water, but we see the common trend: it’s a LOT of food.  And when we lose fat, we see the big tools there: LESS food, because that’s how we lose fat.  We’re not going to get there with baby steps and a light touch: big tools for the big changes, and, eventually, we earn the right to break out the small chisel.