LESSONS LEARNED FROM SWIMMING: KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR LANE

My regular readers will know this spiel I’m about to lay out, but for those unaware: I grew up as a fat kid.  It was very recently I learned that I was set up for failure from the start, discovering that my mom followed the conventional 1980s parenting wisdom of putting cereal in my bottle at a young age so that I would fatten up and sleep through the night better, and then a steady “diet” of commercials targeted at children revealing all the latest inventions of Poptart flavors (smores is still my favorite), toaster strudels, Sunny D’Light and the coolest and latest toys in the cereal box (I’m still kind of gutted that’s not a thing anymore) had me totally primed to achieve “90s fat kid” status.  Because it’s worth appreciating that, even as “the fat kid”, I wasn’t nearly as obese as most kids are nowadays, and it’s also worth appreciating that I was “THE fat kid”: a testament to the fact that most kids back then WERE decently fit and being fat was the exception, compared to today where fat is effectively the default setting.  I was “husky”, rather than obese.  All this said, my parents were also involved in many interventions to attempt to rectify my fatness, and since we existed in an era where nutrition was, once again, something television told us to eat, we all believed in the “no pain/no gain” mantra that we had to EXERCISE the fat away.  So I was enrolled in MANY youth sports (again, a difference between my upbringing and what we observe in modern adolescence), to include t-ball, soccer, ice hockey, martial arts (which I eventually stuck with, but that’s not what today’s post is about), and, at one point: swimming.  My parents observed how swimmers had a “swimmers physique”, we had constantly heard that swimming was “the BEST exercise you can do” (a myth that is still out there), and we had access to a local high school pool/swim program at a relatively low cost.  I only lasted one season, competing in a handful of meets, and when I tried taking a swim course in undergrad as a means of getting some easy credits, I was referred to by my instructor as “negatively buoyant”, so much of the time spent swimming was wasted, but I DID walk away with at least ONE valuable piece of information: keep your eyes on YOUR lane!

 

Yeah, this is me in pretty much any pool

 

Anyone who HAS swam competitively in some capacity completely understands that phrase, but for those of you not in the know: when you swim in a meet against other swimmers, you’re each assigned a lane to swim in, marked off with a floating divider.  It’s similar to racing on a track, just, you know: in water.  You’ll all start at the start time, with a goal of completing the assigned swim distance the fastest among other swimmers.  BECAUSE you are among other swimmers, it’s tempting, while you are swimming, to look at the other lanes and see how the other swimmers are doing, in order to gauge where you are in the competition.  However, an interesting phenomenon occurs here: when a swimmer looks into the other lanes to check the competition, they slow down!  The body tends to follow the eyes, and when we start looking off center, we start moving off center.  AND, along with that, time spent trying to watch the competition is time NOT spent giving 100% of our effort into the act of swimming.  Heck, we observe this same situation with traffic accidents: rubberneckers will cause FURTHER traffic delays because they drive SLOWER when they’re trying to observe the traffic accident, even if they swear it’s just a “quick peek”.  A good swimmer keeps their eyes on their own lane.

 

 

Which is SUCH a valuable lesson in the realm of physical transformation, because SO many trainees keep trying to watch the other lane while they’re swimming, and all they end up doing is slowing down their own work at the time.  The classic example of this (which inspired this post) is the trainee that SAYS they’re engaged in a “muscle building” phase of training…but that they want to minimize fat gain.  Why?  Because they don’t want to spend much time in a cutting phase (to the point that many claim they want to NEVER enter one, which is patently absurd for reasons I’ve written about on many occasions and this is already going to run too long for me to bloviate on that today).  Here, the trainee is looking at the cutting lane of transformation WHILE they’re still in the muscle building lane.  And in doing so, they compromise their success in muscle building: the very thing they’re SUPPOSED to be accomplishing!  These trainees are so concerned with minimizing fat gain that they ALSO minimize muscle gain: trying to eat on the thinnest of margins and gain the absolute barest minimum of weight on a fixed, linear and predictable weekly pattern in order to ASSURE themselves that the weight they’re gaining is 100% pure muscle with no fat at all.  And then, if they actually DO enter that fat loss phase, it sure is a short one…because they gained NOTHING during that muscle building phase.  They managed to successfully accumulate water weight from the inflammation of training and some food mass in their gut from increased intake, but their body simply upped its non-exercise activity thermogenesis to match the paltry 100 calorie “surplus” they implemented and burned off everything with no discernable gain.

Yeah, he's fast, but he's gotta eat about a billion calories to STILL not be The Juggernaut

 

This trainee needed to LEAN IN to that muscle gain phase and give it the 100% full effort that wins swim meets.  Am I saying they need to go full Bruce Randall and get up to 400lbs bodyweight?  No: but it sure worked for Bruce.  I’m saying they need to enter a muscle gaining phase with an intent to GAIN MUSCLE.  “Overeating” should be the goal.  Seeing that scale tick up should be rewarding!  If we’re gaining fat, that ALSO means we’re gaining muscle: we’re SUCCEEDING!  And since we’re dedicating 100% of our efforts to muscle gaining, it means, when it comes time to cut away the fat, we can focus on THAT with 100% of our efforts and REALLY reveal something pretty awesome in the end. 

 

And training is no different here.  No one wants to employ periodization, because trainees want to watch EVERY lane at the same time.  The idea of letting the bench press numbers take a quick dive while we build up our conditioning is abhorrent to many trainees: it’s like blasphemy to them!  The idea of giving up a favorite pet lift in order to spend time prioritizing a weakness is unacceptable.  Training can never be phasic: we have to do all the things all the time…and, in turn, we get good at nothing all at once.  You watch every lane, you end up last.  Hell, even swimming figures this out: you don’t try to do every stroke all at once.  They have a medley for that!  A time for freestyle, a time for breast stroke, and a time for butterfly.

And those who figure that out can do pretty good for themselves 

 

When the whistle blows, dive into the water, take off like a shot, and keep your eyes on your lane.  You’ll get where you want to go much faster, and may even find a medal around your neck when you get there.     

“FOR WHAT?”

I frequently write about the value of context, and today will be no exception, because after writing 1000 words once a week for nearly 12 years now, I’ve discovered that I basically just write on 4 basic themes and remix them over and over again.  So, essentially, I am the Taco Bell of physical transformation blogs, but just like Taco Bell, you know I’ll always be there when you have a craving and you’ll most likely hate yourself when you’re done.  And for a post about context, I’ve already completely lost the plot by talking about Taco Bell, so let me reign this back in: “for what?”  What do those two words signify?  They are the two words I use VERY frequently whenever I am asked a question on the realm of physical transformation: “for what?”  Why do I ask this question?  Because the question asker does not see fit to provide that information IN the question…most likely because the question asker themselves has not bothered to ask this question to themselves.  And until we ask “for what”, we will never be able to actually HAVE an answer to this question, and anyone who professes that they have the ability to do otherwise is just a huckster interested in fleecing you of your money…and the question asker, in a desire to avoid having to employ nuanced thinking, will GLADLY accept that answer, vs my asking for more.

This clumsy dialog was a warning sign we all missed

 

What do I mean about “for what?”  How about this: “Is the prowler twice a week enough conditioning in 5/3/1?”  Enough conditioning…for what?  “Am I lean enough to start bulking?”  Lean enough…for what?  And no: “to start bulking” is NOT the answer to that question.  “Is 1lb a week too fast for weight gain?”  Too fast…for what?  Is 3x a week lifting enough for hypertrophy?  Are 3 sets of GHRs enough for hamstrings?  Is 50g of fat enough?  Etc etc.  These are lazy questions: the hope for the question asker is that they can throw out some sort of conversation lure and some sucker will bite onto it and give them all the information that they need.  OR, often, it comes from a place of shame: we don’t want to admit what our REAL goal/intent is, so we leave it ambiguous in hopes of someone being able to fill in the blanks and leave what’s best left unsaid…unsaid.  In either case, this is a lack of ownership on the part of the question asker: you’re still ultimately responsible for the outcomes of your decision making and actions, even if you attempt to crowdsource that as a means to absolve you OF said responsibility. 

 

But when we actually take the time to ask ourselves “for what”, we learn a bit ABOUT ourselves in the process.  Enough conditioning…for what?  WHY am I doing conditioning?  Because I HAVE to?  That’s stupid, but if it IS the reason, then just do what the coach says and quit thinking about it.  That IS a valid approach.  But if we ARE going to be a bit more cerebral, let’s look into why we’re doing conditioning in the first place, what the goal is, and what the cost is.  Oh my goodness, yes: let’s look at the question about “enough” conditioning and consider the IMPACT that conditioning will have on the rest of the programming, and then let’s consider if our goal right now is the focus ON conditioning and let the other physical qualities slide/hold or if the conditioning is there just to meet a minimum threshold of staying in shape/recovering from training while we really push the strength and hypertrophy work.  And look at that: when we ask ourselves “for what” we actually learn the answer to our initial question: it just took a little bit of thinking.

The horror!

 

Nutrition questions go the same route.  Lean enough to bulk…for what?  What is the goal OF your bulk?  This question fundamentally stems from egocentrism: we presuppose that all individuals think exactly as we do and prioritize the same priorities we have.  And for so many young trainees that have grown up with social media, the goal is to be as lean as possible ALL the time because you’re always going to have your physique on display, and they want to be in a state so lean before they gain that they can minimize the appearance of fat on their physique and reduce time spent cutting (ultimately hoping to NEVER enter a cutting phase…which reminds me that I want to write a post about people who end up working MUCH harder in an attempt to not work so hard, but I digress).  And sure, there’s something to be said about the notion that being in a certain state of leanness will mean being more insulin sensitive and having a better response to training and nutrition as it relates to muscle building, but wanna know who didn’t consider that?  Bruce Randall.  And Hugh Cassidy.  And Eddie Hall.  And Glenn Ross.   And Paul Anderson.  And JC Hise.  And Pat Casey.  And Doug Hepburn.  Man, I can keep going, but you get the point: there is a LOT established history of individuals who, in the pursuit of the greatest most absolute maximal strength, completely and totally ate their faces off in order to get as big as physically possible, with zero regard to their starting leanness.  There is no predefined starting point of leanness required to bulk: you can do it WHENEVER you want, UNLESS you have a “for what” that creates parameters that we need to plan around when describing when the appropriate time to bulk is.  You need to establish your “for what” before you can ask the question.

 

 

Don’t force the question answerer to ask you “for what” because it’s wasting time for both of you.  Once you answer the “for what”, you’ll most likely have the answer to the original question.  Your method cannot exist in a vacuum: it will always operate within the context of your goal, and without a GOAL that is clearly established, you can’t possibly know what method to employ.  “If we don’t know where we are going, we can’t possibly know how to get there” is a sentiment I frequently express which somehow people consider to be a profound thought, but it’s just simple reality.  It’s not a metaphor of pithy witticism: it’s a literal truth.  If you get in your car and turn your GPS onto “nowhere”, there’s no direction you can drive.  As soon as we tell it to get to Taco Bell, we now have a destination, and can NOW come up with a method to get there.

 

I dig how this image is offensive to Mexico AND pizza

 

I’m gonna admit: I’m proud of myself for tying Taco Bell back into this post at the end.         

BOOT CAMP VS SELECTION

Apparently, Tactical Barbell has infected me, because I’m going to keep going military mode in these posts.  I intend to compare two instances of military training that, upon initial glance, may APPEAR to be similar, but once you get to understand them you realize that they’re very much on opposite ends of the spectrum and representative of our own journeys through physical transformation.  If you’ve ever watched a military movie/series OR, of course, if you have SERVED in any manner of military (thank you for your service, btw…assuming you’re an ally…), you’ve most likely witnessed scenes of Boot Camp/Basic Training and scenes of military special forces selection (Navy SEAL BUD/S, Ranger School, Recon Marines, Green Beret, etc).  Again, at initial glance, they appear similar: terrified recruits getting yelled at, enduring much physical turmoil and trouble, minimal sleep, uncomfortable eating situations, etc.  However, it’s worth appreciating how the INTENT behind these two environments is very much different and, in turn: so is the outcome.  Many of you out there in the world of physical transformation may find yourself in a selection process when, in reality, you need to get yourself to Boot Camp.  Let’s explore.

 

It's not like you have a choice really

 

“Boot Camp” (which I do want to want to clarify belongs EXCLUSIVELY to the United States Marine Corps, whereas all other branches have “Basic Training”, but I already digress) refers to the initial phase of military training wherein civilians are brought to a singular training facility and undergo the process of transformation from civilian to soldier (“Marine” technically, but stick with me).  It is a 3 month process, wherein recruits are stripped down to their most raw state and then completely and totally rebuilt into an effective fighting unit.  They are told and taught how to dress, how to cut their hair, how to eat, how to shower, how to walk, how to fight, how to talk, etc etc.  There is A right way to do everything, and learning, mastering and executing it is key to survival and, ultimately, transformation.  Because that’s the key here: this is a TRANSFORMATIVE process.  We take a civilian and transform them into a Marine/weapon.

 

 

Selection, meanwhile, clearly identifies its intent with its name: it is there to SELECT the recruits who are best fit to join the special forces unit.  Selection does not MAKE SEALS/Green Berets/Recon Marines/Delta Force/Ranger/etc: it FINDS them.  Much like Boot Camp, a whole busload of terrified looking individuals are dropped off at some hell on earth, screamed at, subjected to mind games and physically exhausted.  However, unlike Boot Camp, there is no intent to MAKE these recruits into something: the cadre are interested in DISCOVERING who among them has “what it takes” to be part of the team.  Whereas Boot Camp equips you with the skills to success, here, at selection, you needed to already show UP with those tools.  If you hoped to acquire them AT selection: you’re hosed.

Oh the puns!

 

From the outside observer, these environments APPEAR the same, but upon closer examination we realize how much they are opposites.  Similar approaches with radically different intents and outcomes.  This occurs in the world of physical transformation as well, which is why the observant trainee must ensure that WHILE they are observing they are also understanding the context OF the observation.  They may observe what they THINK is someone taking the steps necessary TO transform but, instead, they are simply in the process of “selection”, and attempting to emulate their approach will simply lead to them washing out and ringing the bell.

 

What do I mean here?  I’m talking about the fact that most trainees need to get in shape BEFORE they try to get in shape.  Most trainees are jumping STRAIGHT to selection when they haven’t even gone to boot camp yet!  They’re trying to become SEALS when they still civilians: not yet soldiers.  Think about what Boot Camp is all about: the BASICS (it’s why other services call it “Basic Training”, which I really should have just done from the start of this blog post, but I’m in too deep now).  Now reflect on how many trainees don’t even have “the basics” due to a life of physical neglect.  We actually see this IN the military for real, so the parallels are now life imitating art: new fresh faced recruits will show up after a lifetime of literally NO physical activity whatsoever.  No sports, no playing outside with their friends, no “play” whatsoever, to say nothing of simple regular physical exercise.  They have bodies that no human should have: undermuscled to the point of appearing scrawny yet overfat to the point of resembling a melted candle when they have their shirt off.  The instructors at Boot Camp have their work cut out for them, as does the new trainee in the realm of physical transformation who seeks to make a change.

This is about right

 

Is this trainee READY for basic barbell work?  Hell no!  They’re most likely not even ready for bodyweight work.  They lack basic body awareness, coordination, mobility, flexibility and general strength, along with any sort of conditioning base, meaning they’ll quickly get exhausted in simply attempting to LEARN how to build any of these things.  These folks are already stripped raw and ready to be rebuilt, which is one of the benefits of being at rock bottom: the only place to go is UP!  Just like Boot Camp, we’re about to learn how to do EVERYTHING: now is NOT the time to specialize.  Here was are in the land of GPP: trying to build that wide and broad base of physical abilities so that, if, somehow, we actually make it TO selection, we have the skills and capabilities necessary to BE selected.

 

And this is just from the physical fitness side of things: don’t think you get off easy with nutrition either.  I observe this with trainees all the time: they’re attempting to employ a “selection” diet when they haven’t even gone to diet boot camp.  “Should I bulk or should I cut?”   Dude: you should eat REAL FOOD first.  Because you’ve been living off of hyperprocessed garbage for so long that your metabolic system is broken and nothing is responding the way it’s supposed to.  You’ve been slamming your insulin so hard for so long that your glucagon has effectively waved the white flag and you’ve become “insulin resistant” and on the verge of type II diabetes.  “Calories in/calories out, If It Fits Your Macros right?!”  No!  That is “selection” nutrition.  You have to EARN the right to eat that way by getting through nutritional boot camp first!

And once again, life imitates art here with some steaks for Marines

 

A body that is damaged is going to prioritize healing over everything else.  A body that is damaged is going to prioritize STORING fat over anything else: because fat is FAR more crucial to survival than muscle is, and it’s not nearly as metabolically expensive to produce or maintain.  And a body that is damaged is simply not going to RESPOND to food the same way as a healthy body.  “Calories in/calories out” may determine WEIGHT gain and loss, sure, but if you wanna start talking body COMPOSITION, we suddenly find that other variables matter.  Same with your magical macros.  1g of protein per pound of bodyweight might seem good for gaining…unless your testosterone is clocking in at double digits for a male.  Suddenly, all these calories and all this protein just isn’t have the same effect.  Post workout carbs are probably really cool…unless you’ve given yourself type II diabetes from a lifetime of living off of high calorie processed junk, in which case now we’re monitoring that carb intake and chasing after it with a syringe.  Before you start worrying about the perfect ratio of your macros, see if you can go 7 days WITHOUT eating something that comes out of a box.  See if you can actually survive a whole foods diet.  I don’t care if it’s carnivore or vegan or keto or paleo or Mediterranean or pescatarian or Atkins or Zone etc etc: just see if you can actually eat real HUMAN food for 7 full days.  ONCE you can start doing that, and once you can REPEAT that feat when it ISN’T a dare, THEN we can start talking about nutritional selection programs.

 

Once we graduate Boot Camp, THEN we can start considering selection.  We can pursue those programs like Super Squats, Deep Water, Mass Made Simple, Building the Monolith, BBB Beefcake, Feast/Famine/Ferocity, etc, which, yes, I HAVE referred to as “transformative”, but ultimately we needed to show up READY to transform with all the physical skills and tools and abilities before we could let the programs “select” us FOR transformation.  Because just like military selection, if you show up unready for Super Squats, it’s not going to LET you get ready in the middle of the program: it’s going to wash you out.  Hell, once again, this really happens in the world of physical transformation: “Bulgarian training” wasn’t a protocol that PRODUCED champions but SELECTED them: those that could SURVIVE that style of training were the kind of athletes that were going to BECOME champions because they had “the right stuff”.  Unready trainees that take it on get “washed out” with injury and other maladies.  And once you’ve mastered cooking and eating on a regular schedule and got your body in a generally healthy, THEN we can start trying to manipulate the variable to impact our body composition.  Otherwise, you’ll “wash out” of your bulk and just get fatter, or wash out of your cut and just get skinny-fatter.

Here we see both outcomes

 

Don’t waste the cadre’s time: get yourself through Boot Camp FIRST and THEN show up for selection.

"OPERATION CONAN" SITREP: CURRENT UPDATE ON MY TIME WITH TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL

Already full apologies for those of you that hate when I go “in character” with my training and lifestyle, but with this being my foray into “Tactical Barbell” I’ve totally embraced “TactiCOOL” and have been militarizing everything with this training protocol.  A few months back, I reviewed the Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol book and basically said it was THE book I wish I had started with and I regretted everyday I hadn’t read it up until that point.  Needless to say, I soon after started following one of the programs listed in the protocol: Grey Man.  Along with that, I’ve been VERY diligent about complying with the instructions laid out by K. Black…with the exception of one area: nutrition.  Mr. Black is very much a fan of carbohydrates to drive up bodyweight, and, in the discussion of low carb approaches to mass gaining, though not explicitly forbidding it, he notes that he does not recommend such an approach.  I, however, have decided to completely ignore that advice and, instead, pursue weight gain while undertaking a carnivore style diet, which is what “Operation Conan” became: Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol training with carnivore nutrition, a blending of soldiering and barbarism.  It’s been 7 weeks so far, and I want to share my thoughts and experiences as they currently are, with room to continue to update.

Just pointing out that "TactiCOOL Conan" IS a thing

 

WHY DID I PICK GREY MAN?

 

Because sometimes grey is the only color you need

The go to recommendation in Mass Protocol is General Mass, which is about as bare bones as it gets.  3 days a week you squat, do a weighted pull up, and bench press, and then on a 4th day you train the deadlift.  I am more than certain this approach would be awesome for many trainees.  However, coming into Tactical Barbell I was coming off my most recent strongman competition, wherein the training leading up to it had me really junk up a nerve in my right hip, and whenever I tried to squat heavy it would force me to regress even further into pain.  Grey Man has the trainee alternate between squats on 1 day and deadlifts on another, still training 3 days a week (so in 2 weeks, you squat 3 times and deadlift 3 times).  Deadlifts were NOT bothering my hip in a similar manner, and this meant I actually had time to recover between squat workouts and heal up.  Additionally, Grey Man rotates between the bench and the overhead press, and as someone with a few strongman ambitions left, I wanted to continue to train my overhead press.  Beyond all this, Grey Man is legit 3x a week, vs that sneaky 4th day of General Mass, and I really wanted to keep the lifting at 3x a week, and the supplemental movements allowed in Grey Man had it so I felt like I was covering all my bases programming-wise. 

 

There are plenty of good programs in Mass Protocol.  Grey Man isn’t the best: it was just the best for me.

 

MY SUPPLEMENTAL WORK

 

No, not this kind

As previously mentioned, Grey Man allows the trainee to pick up to 3 exercises to form a “supplemental cluster” to train alongside the two main lifts of the day (in my case: squat and press, or bench and deadlift).  On the day that I squatted and pressed, I picked the incline DB bench press, neutral grip chin (weighted on the final 2 weeks, bodyweight on the first) and glute ham raises (bodyweight only).  On my deadlift and bench day, I did lever belt squats, weighted dips and axle curls.  I trained each cluster in a giant set format: going from 1 exercise to the other to the other before resting a minute and starting again.  I prefer this approach, as it’s faster, and tends to generate a decent metabolic hit. 

 

A quick overview of the logic in my exercise choices: since I train in a home gym with a small training footprint, I can’t do lever belt squats and incline DB bench comfortably (I’d have to move equipment between exercises, making giant sets less viable), so those two don’t occur on the same day.  On the day I train deadlifts, I want something quad focused in my supplemental work, whereas on the day I train squats I want something posterior chain focused.  My back is getting heavy training on the deadlift day, so I don’t need to hammer it again with chins, and can instead focus on arms, and I’m focusing on arms/biceps because ever since tearing my left bicep I’ve felt like it’s worth keeping them strong.  I also figure that it will help contribute toward my chinning ability.  It’s honestly a bit like a Sudoku puzzle.

 

 

MY CONDITIONING

 

Not this...at least, not yet

I kept this incredibly vanilla and listened to K. Black’s recommendation: twice a week, I’d engage in a 60 minute walk on the treadmill at an incline.  4.0 was my default incline, and 3.5 was my default walking pace, but I’d play around with both of those depending on the day and my level of excitement.  Ultimately, these were recovery workouts, ESPECIALLY after the squat workouts.  The squat workouts aren’t particularly brutal for many, but with my junked up hip and a torn meniscus in both knees, training first thing in the morning, I’d always finish those workouts pretty stiff, and these walking workouts in between (along with some reverse hypers and hanging from a bar) would always have me feeling ready to roll come the next workout.  They really fell into Dan John’s recovery workouts that he talks about in “Mass Made Simple”.

 

On weekends, I’d engage in as much leisure walking as possible, simply because I feel like it’s the best physical activity we can possibly engage in, especially if done outside in the sun.  On my birthday, I racked up 29.6k steps, just doing what I found fun.  Also, 3x a week, I’d attend an evening Tang Soo Do class, which, now that the whole family has moved up to the advanced class, IS a bit of a workout in it’s own right, and I had a few nights where I came home having broken a good sweat in the Dojang, but I don’t feel as though these detracted from my recovery…minus the time I got kicked in the knee in a sparring match, woke up the next morning unable to extend my leg, and had to postpone training to the afternoon.

 

There was only 1 time I deviated from the plan, and that was after getting a wild hair and deciding I wanted to see how well I’d do on my “5 minutes of burpee chins” protocol.  After 6 weeks of just walking on a treadmill, I came within 1 rep of my PR, getting 55 burpee chins in 5 minutes.  I felt like that was a good sign of the conditioning holding up.

 

PROGRESSION

 

Gotta appreciate a leveling system where you lose your hair AND your pants as you get stronger

Another thing I dug about Grey Man was how I could approach the progression on it.  K. Black lays out “4-5 sets” for the main work.  I took this to mean, do 1 cycle with 4 sets, the next cycle, do 5 sets, THEN up the maxes, start over at 4 sets, repeat.  I like this, because it allows me to progress for a long time on the same maxes and really “own the weight”, vs racing to a stall.  For the supplemental clusters, no such option exists, so I would just up the weights on the maxes each cycle (5lbs for upper body lifts, 10lbs for lower body lifts).

 

HOW I DEVIATED

What?  Me?  A deviant?!

 

Surprisingly: not by much.  Unlike many of my other program reviews, where I twist programs into horrible mutations of their former selves, I remained VERY compliant with Tactical Barbell, which honestly may just speak to the fact that I genuinely found the right program for me at the right time that I needed it.  I DID attempt to employ a mat pull ROM progression day on weekends, using a barbell, since I’ve experienced success with that protocol in the past, but that honestly became a pretty hit or miss approach, as many weekends my training time was compromised and, in other cases, my hip pain was flaring up and I decided against actions that would make it worse.  In regards to that schedule, there were 2 weeks within the past 7 where I was only able to get in 2 lifting workouts in a week vs 3, so we can call that a deviation. 

 

Otherwise, I added ab work to the end of every workout (3x10 standing ab wheels), which K. Black DOES say you can do, and, on bench days where I had extra time, some lateral raises (which CAN fall into the realm of shoulder health exercises).  Also, all of my “deadlifts” on the program are done with the low handles on a trap bar vs a traditional barbell.  I’ve a VERY good barbell deadlifter, and I’m not very good with the trap bar, so I felt like it was worthwhile to spend time focusing on that (reference my previous writings on how training what you’re bad at is good for hypertrophy).  This was another reason I wanted to include that weekly mat pull workout: to maintain skill with barbell deadlifting…but it’s not the biggest deal.

 

And this isn’t a deviation, since it’s allowed, but it’s worth noting that, along with Giant Setting the Supplemental Clusters, I ran the main work in a superset style.  In this case, I would rest 1 minute between exercises, but still alternate them (Squat, rest 1 minute, press, rest 1 minute, squat, etc).  Between this and the giant sets, training never lasted over an hour, and often I’d complete the required work in under 40 minutes, taking the extra time to train my abs.  And I got in a little sneaky grip work by hanging from a bar after my press set before my squat set, but this was less for grip and more for spinal decompression.  Which, on that note, I DID also include reverse hypers into my training, but as a warm-up exercise, rather than an actual exercise.  I found they were quite restorative to my hip.

 

 

NUTRITION: INTERMITTENT FEASTING

Seems legit

 

Now here is where things go totally off the rail and brings the “Conan” into Operation Conan.   It’s no secret I’ve taken on a carnivore approach to nutrition (and my frequently declining readership numbers have alerted me that this is an unpopular choice, but I’ve always been myself since the start of this blog, so here we are) and I had no intention of interrupting that for this program.  K. Black effectively says “good luck” if you try to do a low carb approach to gaining, so I took that as a blessing and went for it.

 

However, an even more interesting pivot occurred around week 4 of the protocol, where I decided to experiment with another unique approach to nutrition: protein sparing modified intermittent feasting.  Yes, that’s a mouthful, but let me explain.

 

One of the big reasons I took on a mass gaining protocol in general was that I was coming out of summer, wherein I had leaned out to the point of feeling kinda stringy, and there was an upcoming holiday season in front of me, starting with a late Oct birthday, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and after Christmas, we go on a Disney Cruise, wherein I intend to continue eating my face off.  It was THE most ideal time to start leaning into heavy eating and feasting.

 

Well, as I got closer to my Birthday, and after spending some time traveling and living off of restaurant cuisine (still sticking with meats, but didn’t have the quality control I wanted), I felt like “drying out” a little.  Before this, I was eating 2 solid meals a day: a lunch and a dinner.  The rest of my nutrition came by way of Metabolic Drive protein powder (I don’t say “shakes”, because I actually eat them, by mixing in a little bit of beef gelatin and hot water to create a sticky pudding substance).  Well, I decided to replace that middle meal with more Metabolic Drive and ONLY have 1 meal a day at the end of the day, effectively re-implementing the Velocity Diet/Apex Predator diet.  In the week following travel, I was able to keep that end of day meal a little lighter to re-establish my baseline, and from there I REALLY started leaning into the “feasting” portion of intermittent feasting.  Since I was only eating once a day, I got to eat a TON at these meals.  And I found out I REALLY dug that style of eating.  With 2 meals a day, I was eating a reasonable amount per meal, whereas now I could just absolutely gorge myself and eat until I was satisfied both from a satiety level AND a hedonistic level.  It was, actual, legit feasting, and it happened daily.

 SAMPLE MEALS

Ok, that's probably enough food porn, but check out the variety I'm getting despite the "limitations"

 SCHEDULE

A simple breakdown of my weekdays would be

 

* 0400: wake up, train

 

* 0615: 2 scoops of Metabolic Drive with 1 tsp of gelatin

 

* 0930: Same as 0615

 

* 1230: Same as 0615

 

* 1730ish: FEAST

 

* 2030: Same as 0615

 

* Sometime in the middle of the night: a 1 scoop Metabolic Drive shake in water

 

 

On weekends, I would do 2 solid meals a day: a breakfast and a dinner.  Both of these tended to be on the larger side, and I’d still have the evening Metabolic Drive serving and the middle of the night serving.  There was no training on weekends: I’d sleep in, and just engage in regular physical activity/walking.

 

 

I will note that I do have ONE meal a week wherein I break completely from carnivore, and this meal tends to have a gracious amount of carbs.  Previously, I would use this as an opportunity for a “cheat meal”, but the truth is, I legit love eating meat so much that there’s nothing out there in the realm of junk food that compels me to “cheat”.  I’d have to actually force myself to eat that.  However, if my wife makes something at home, I’ll definitely eat it, because I enjoy the family bonding of the shared meal, and we use some very quality ingredients in the stuff we make, compared to what you get when you eat out.  Often, these meals are pasta or casseroles, and I’ll have some homemade cookies and some raw local honey to top it off.  This creates a cyclical ketogenic approach, which is, once again, very much in line with “Apex Predator”.  I imagine many people are going to read this and go “SEE!  You NEED carbs to gain weight!”, to which my rebuttal is, if the ONLY carbs you need to gain weight is 1 meal a week, then we REALLY don’t “need” THAT many carbs to gain weight.

 

 

RESULTS SO FAR

 

Can't argue with results

I have recorded every single workout and uploaded it to youtube if you want to watch the live progression.  

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfcuGAffLlSc-iaZX2bPBhdDZaqT4aMEw

But I’ve been able to progress on all of my lifts per the progression scheme I’ve previously outlined, and haven’t missed any reps.

 

I’ve also grown in bodyweight, despite K. Black’s opinion on a low carb approach.  I’ve done my best to weigh myself every Monday morning, but sometimes it just plain slips my mind (I’m not one to weigh myself usually), so I only currently have data between weeks 1-6, but in that time I went from 79.1 kg/174lbs to 81.9/180lb.  

 

And then, of course, the things that really matter: my wife says I look bigger, I’m filling out t-shirts more, but my lifting belt still fits the same and my abs are still visible.  I feel like the combination of the walking for conditioning, being zone II cardio that relies on fat as a fuel source, alongside the hard but brief training and my approach to nutrition have all been instrumental in allowing me to feast hard and stay lean through the process of gaining (feel free to watch the training videos for a reference point to level of leanness I’m maintaining while eating my face off each evening).

 

 

THE FUTURE

The more things change, the more they stay the same

 

I legit see no reason to stop training this way.  This is honestly the most content I’ve been with a training protocol in a LONG time, and I STILL have the “specialization” phase to do!  There may be a time that I take on more of the traditional Tactical Barbell work to emphasize strength and conditioning, or get re-bit by the Deep Water bug, but I feel like this is going to be my baseline approach for the foreseeable future.  If nothing else, I plan to at least ride this out until my cruise around the new year, which I will treat as a “bridge week” and roll from there.