MORE OF THE BAD, LESS OF THE GOOD

In the realm of physical transformation, the notion of “do the stuff you’re bad at” isn’t novel at all.  In fact, that extends beyond physical transformation: that applies to pretty much all physical activity, and beyond that, activity in general: at least so much those activities that we seek TO become better at.  We, as humans, have a tendency to shy away from our weak areas and attempt to emphasize our strengths instead, as no one LIKES to feel weak, clumsy and incapable, and we enjoy having the ability to peacock and strut our stuff when it comes to those things that come naturally to us…which, in turn, is a surefire recipe to never actually BECOME better at our chosen activity.  Paul Kelso highlights this brilliantly in “Powerlifting Basics Texas Style” when he discusses the club hardhead that has a decent enough bench press but refuses to ever train in a submaximal way to ever actually BUILD the bench even stronger; instead wanting to always be maxing so he can show off his strength in the training hall.  However, what I hope to discuss today is a PRACTICAL means that we can apply this mantra, and, specifically, just HOW we would still train those things we’re good at WHILE also focusing on the things we are bad at. 

Always playing to our strengths can often result in some imbalances...

 

Stealing from the greats once again, I’ll default to Dan John’s 4 quadrants notion.  He describes the 4 quadrants of movement: pushing, pulling, squatting and hinging, and, from there, goes on to describe that one is typically strong on 2 of those quadrats and weak on the other 2.  Pushing and pulling refers to the upper body, while the squat and the hinge are in the realm of the lower body.  From here, we observe that there are 4 combinations of humans that can exist with these quadrants: push/hingers, pull/squatters, push/squatters, pull/hingers.  Quite often, one can identify where someone falls on these quadrants without even observing them train: simple body construction will tell the story.  Someone with a long torso and short/stubby legs is going to be quite gifted at squatting, while finding the hinge to be rather unenjoyable, whereas a short torsoed/long limbed fellow will hinge masterfully and then…hinge their squats, because squatting is so unnatural to them.  But, if NOT readily apparent, simply analyzing performance metrics or even mere preference in the gym will be enough for us to determine amongst ourselves what we are.  I, myself, am a push/hinger: I got my first 300lb bench press before my first 300lb squat and am nowhere close to being able to row that amount, and managed a 540lb beltless deadlift with a technique that best resembled a terrified cat pooping in a litterbox before I ever really learned HOW to deadlift.

 

So now that I know what I’m good at and what I’m bad at…so what?  Well now we go back to the basics.  How do we grow?  Through toil: through struggle, through placing a DEMAND on the body that says “you NEED to adapt to this new stimulus”.   Well, in turn, HOW do we struggle?  Do we struggle when we do the things we are naturally gifted at?  Do we struggle when we shine?  NO!  The opposite, of course: struggle is brutal and ugly and, quite often, NOT how we want to be seen, captured and documented.  Unless we’re shooting some sort of broody noir piece for a commercial, no one LIKES to be observed struggling, because it’s an admission of weakness in face of a challenge or obstacle.  We want to effortlessly overcome that which is placed in front of us…but, in doing so, we never actually generate the necessary demand or stimulus TO get bigger and stronger.  In the absence of struggle, the body remains stagnant, but when SUBJECTED to struggle, the body overcomes.

Somehow we all understand this when it comes to fiction but NOT reality

 

Again: so what?  So now we know: when our goal is to grow, we must struggle, which means that we must pick from our WEAKER quadrants.  Historically, this completely checks out for me: the best gaining programs I’ve ever undertaken were HEAVILY focused around the squat.  Super Squats, Mass Made Simple, 5/3/1 Building the Monolith (2 squat workouts per 1 deadlift), Deep Water (equal parts squatting and deadlifting, to be fair, BUT…it’s a lotta damn squatting), DoggCrapp, Jamie Lewis’ protocols (a self-described non-fan of the deadlift), etc.  In addition, I saw my greatest upper body physical developments WHEN I focused quite exclusively on improving my pulling ability, which my long time youtube followers will recognize with my 3 part series on how to pull with the elbows alongside my various forays into the world of obtaining mandatory amounts of daily pull ups.  And, looking at Building the Monoliths 100 chins and 25 weighted chins, the pull day of Deep Water, Jamie Lewis’ appreciation for the pull up in his protocols, etc, we observe this proclivity continuing.  Whenever I have needed to grow, I’ve always gravitated toward those programs that force me to do those things I’m bad at and to do a LOT of them.

 

I admit I’ve already pretty much written this post previously, but here is something of a recent revelation while walking down this path: since we’re doing MORE of what we’re bad at, we must, necessarily, do less of what we are good at.  HOWEVER, recall from previous postings my philosophy about what happens when volume drops: intensity will naturally rise!  Intensity and volume are on opposite sides of the scale, and the increase of one results in the decrease of the other.  The consequence of this is that, while we’re hammering the volume on the hard stuff, we’re lifting heavy on the stuff we’re good at.  But the one-two punch is this: BECAUSE we are good at these lifts, we are ALSO good at INTENSIFICATION of these lifts.  Intensification is about increasing our ABILITY to maximally express the strength we built during accumulation: it’s a phase where we focus on getting BETTER at BEING stronger, rather than actually GETTING stronger.  Coordination and proficiency are key there, which, when we take something we are naturally predisposed to, we have an advantage.

 

Just imagine if he exercised!

But to go even FURTHER into the implications here, consider this: we frequently advise junior trainees to train with much volume and, as one becomes more seasoned, the volume tends to become reduced.  Why is this?  Because a more experienced trainee is better able to recruit their body (motor units/neurons/muscles/whatever term you wanna use here) toward the task of training, which, in turn, means they can dig deeper into the “recovery well” by being able to better maximally exert themselves compared to a junior trainee.  A junior trainee may only be able to squat 20lbs above their 10 rep maximum, simply because they’re not good at squatting, so when they do 3x5@80% of 1rm, it may be tough but still well within the realm of recovery.  An advanced trainee with an 800lb 1rm squat will effectively die somewhere in that second set.  In turn, this is why Dante Trudel advises people NOT follow his DoggCrapp protocol UNTIL they have about 3 years of basic bodybuilding under their belts: his single set work approach isn’t going to be effectively utilized by a junior trainee who simply does not possess the ABILITY to maximally recruit themselves into one single set of all-out effort.  Similarly, minimalist training protocols are intended to be employed only AFTER a trainee has engaged in a prolonged period of maximally volume training in the pursuit of maximal gains, and HIT AND abbreviated training tended to find success amongst those trainees who had “tried EVERYTHING” before finally settling on 1-2 sets of all out effort.

 

What’s the point of all that?  We treat our BAD lifts like junior trainees, and our GOOD lifts like advanced trainees.  So we maximize the volume of the bad BECAUSE we’re not able to squeeze out our maximal effort on them, but for the good?  THAT is the time to employ a single set of maximal effort in order to make the most of our abilities.  This is the EXACT revelation I’ve had with my current training protocol, wherein I’ve simply taken a grab bag of things that have worked for me and slapped them all together.  Key of which being this: I only do single set deadlift work, with one of those being a max rep set of low handle trap bar pulls once a week, and the other being my well documented ROM progression mat pull protocol for deadlifts, and on BOTH of those I am seeing continued perpetual progress week to week.  Meanwhile, I am squatting in SOME manner 3x a week, giving me lots of volume, and one of those squat protocols is my infamous “Zeno Squat” protocol, which is RIFE with training volume.  Because, historically, whenever I try to do high volume deadlift training, I burn the hell out because I can dig WAY too deep into myself, and whenever I try to go with infrequent heavy squatting, I regress because I can’t train hard enough to make that work.

Some dudes CAN work hard enough to train that infrequently

 

As a bit of an aside, I’ll add that, for those lifts we are bad at, it’s a sound idea to ensure we implement some manner of movement rotation in order to prevent overuse injuries.  BECAUSE we are not good at these movements, they are an unnatural fit for our anatomy, which, in turn, means the constant and frequent grinding of the same motor pattern is going to wear the hell out of us.  This is why my elbows scream at me when I do too many kettlebell cleans for too long, or don’t change up the angle of my chins frequently, or my well documented hip and hamstring issues I was running into at the end of Super Squats.  With my current training protocol, I rotate between 3 different styles of squats each week, and the first day in particular has me rotate between 2 squatting variants each week as well (so Monday is either SSB front squat or SSB squat, Wed is Axle zercher squat from floor, Friday is Zeno squats with the Buffalo Bar).  And really, movement variety is a GOOD thing in the pursuit of accumulation anyway: we get to get stronger from multiple different angles while still emphasizing the same general movement pattern.  That’s the premise behind the assistance work in 5/3/1: just build some muscle.  And really, it was the same for the accessory work in Westside Barbell: build some muscle that will support the powerlifts.  I am finding this work of caution need not apply for those lifts we ARE good at, primarily because the volume is naturally lower.

 

This already got really long and rambly, but to make it actionable, here is how I am saying one would construct their own training protocol if their goal was to abide by what I’ve laid out here.

 

* High volume on the bad quadrant lifts, achieved via high frequency (for frequent exposure) and high volume in the session itself.

* Low volume via frequency and low volume within the workout with high intensity on the good lifts.  Intensity could be via percentage of 1rm OR via intensification modifiers (rest pause, dropsets, beyond failure training, etc)

 

As always, take caution when designing something yourself

If you didn’t want to think too hard about this: remember when I combined Easy Strength with Mass Made Simple?  That had me doing Easy Strength lifts 5x a week, and squats 1-2x a week for limited amounts of VERY intense sets.  That would be a simple avenue to approach this.  One could even take another Dan John program, the “one lift a day” program, and run that on top of Easy Strength: using Easy Strength for the bad lifts and running the “one lift a day” program 1-2 times a week for the good lifts.  And, of course, Dan isn’t the only one out there with high frequency programs: Pavel made a ton of those as well, with “Power to the People” being one of the most well known, and you even have Steve Justa’s (RIP) “Barrel Lifting Program” from “Rock, Iron, Steel” to play around with.  And, of course, you can always just gran one of Jim Wendler’s millions of 5/3/1 variants and play around with frequency as needed.  We learn from playing around and experimenting, so take these thoughts and observations and see what you can do with them.