As of my
writing this, I am proud to report that I am 5 weeks sober.I had a near pack a day habit, and I quit
cold turkey.The hardest part was after
meals, as that’s when I tended to crave it the most.No, this isn’t smoking: it’s gum.And as innocent of an addiction as that may
seem, it was one of many that I’ve managed to quit recently, and, specifically,
it was an addiction I had traded.Before
that, it was an addiction to eating in general, with my reported instances of
eating something every 30 minutes, taking the Deep Water “never be
hungry/always be eating” philosophy to WAY too stupid of a direction, wherein I
found myself addicted to simply CHEWING something at all hours of the day, my
mouth ALWAYS needing to be in motion.Along with that, I’ve managed to go from over a gram of caffeine a day
(once again, taking Jamie Lewis’ recommendations in “Feast, Famine and
Ferocity” and running them WAY too far into the ground) to 1-2 green teas a
day, over a gallon of diet soda a day to none of that stuff, and, of course, my
various documented fast food addictions.I don’t say this as some sort of testament to my willpower, because the
truth is, if I REALLY had decent willpower, I never woulda ended up addicted to
this stuff in the first place.No, I say
this more to speak to a patter of behavior that I DO find worthwhile: the habit
of habit BREAKING.
Although sum of us can make addictions look cooler than others
Habits are
comfortable, and they are comforting.They, effectively, alleviate us of the burden of thinking.They free up bandwidth: we just fall back
into our habits and auto-pilot ourselves through life.But, in turn, ask yourself: do you endeavor
to BE like one who is on auto-pilot?In
the realm of “being that which does”, do we WANT to be that which does things
without thinking, without being “in the moment”, without living authentically:
an automaton simply coasting through life?Are these the behaviors and actions that result in greatness?Or do we, instead, observe that those who
have accomplished great things are those that have broken out of their habits,
gone above and beyond the norm, and sought to do the things that were
uncomfortable BECAUSE it was through this discomfort that they were able to
experience growth and progression?
And yes:
quitting gum does NOT elevate one to godhood…but the HABIT of breaking habits
DOES put one on that path.Because
consider the other habits we can break.What of the habit of ALWAYS including the bench press in our
programming?Why?Because we HAVE to?Because we’ve been benching since we were 14
and it’s our favorite lift?Because it
ALWAYS gets results?But what if we were
to break that habit, decide to run a training cycle with no benching in it
whatsoever, in order to see what impact this has on our training?And what if we observe that removing the
bench allows our anterior deltoids to recover better from training, as they’re
getting beat up less, which allows us to perform better in the barbell squat
(since our shoulders don’t scream at us when we hold the bar in position
anymore) and the strict press?What if,
through breaking the habit of benching, we LEARN more about our own body, how
it responds, how to program other lifts in the absence of this stimulus?What if, through breaking the habit, we
actually end up STRONGER on the very lift we abandoned once we return back to
it?
Doesn't this dude know that behind the neck pressing is dangerous and won't help your bench at all?
What if we
break the habit of avoiding conditioning because it’s supposed to compromise
our gains?And what if, by doing that,
we break our habit of ALWAYS needing to set PRs in training in order to know
“the training is working?”We allow
ourselves time for the lifts to drop a little bit while the conditioning comes
up, and, soon enough, we see the maximal strength come back and SURPASS our old
numbers while our conditioning ALSO improves?What if we break the habit of doing “what always works” once it STOPS
working?Instead of trapping ourselves
into 3x10 for every movement and just banging our head against the wall when
progression stops, we try a different split, different rep ranges, different
movements, different protocols, etc etc?What if we allow ourselves the discomfort of doing something new and
different that ISN’T our habit?
And, of
course, our nutritional habits.I
receive frequent messages from folks that want to know HOW to train without
carbs, because they simply can’t fathom this idea.They are in the habit of ALWAYS having carbs
pre, post and DURING training, because “that’s where I get my energy”.I found out it was possible by breaking the
habit, because anyone that has read through my “going full circle” piece on
nutrition knows that I was definitely a carb monster in my earlier years, to
include going through a full box of Pop tarts and a pack of minidonuts at my
strongman competitions, after loading up the night before on pizza and
pancakes.My most recent competition had
me eating steak and eggs in the morning and fasting through the comp, and I had
no issues with energy, which I would not have discovered had I not broken the
habit.And even my most current approach
of Vince Gironda’s Maximum Definition Diet is me breaking my habit of relying
on protein powder as my primary source of nutrition, thanks to my time on the
Velocity Diet, which, in turn, was me breaking the habit of eating every 30
minutes from Deep Water, which was, in turn, me breaking the habit of my fast
food based diet.And through all this
habit breaking, I took away something from every experience and LEARNED
something.
I love the irony of getting this tattooed
Find your
own habits in training, nutrition and life, and make a habit to start regularly
breaking them.The more you make a habit
of breaking habits, more the habit OF breaking habits BECOMES a habit and, in
turn, the discomfort associated with habit breaking diminishes, to the point
that, eventually, you become uncomfortable HAVING habits.You get the itch that you’ve been stagnant
for too long and need to start making changes, because you recognize the
toxicity inherent in being stagnant.You
enjoy the freedom associated with being unchained to any one methodology, able
to freely maneuver and adapt to whatever environment and situation you are
presented with, armed with a toolbox full of experiences and lessons learned,
readily able to apply them as needed.
And when
that happens: you need to break the habit of breaking habits.Because life is funny that way.
* I’ve competed in yet another strongman competition (I think
this is my 14th or 15th one: I’ll have to count it back sometime), taking a
hard fought second place in the Caveman Classic 2025 Men’s Open
Lightweight.Though I did not take
first, this was a major redemption arc of a competition for me, with some of my
best performances in recent years along with feeling my best through out
it.I’m always learning and growing, and
I want to share that process with you.
THE VIDEO
THE TRAINING
I could have picked worse role models growing up
* I’ve written pretty extensively about this in my Tactical
Barbell Operator check-in, seen here
* About the only things worth mentioning are my daily sandbag
carries, which happened on accident and become an awesome addition.I ran out of time to do a full on events day
one weekend, so I told myself “just do 1 round with the sandbag. 1 round is
better than no rounds.”That took all of
about 2 minutes to do, to include set up and tear down, and I realized I could just
do that EVERY day, and instead of getting in 3-4 reps in a weekend, I’d get in
7 reps over the course of a week.Very Dan
John there.And it absolutely worked: I
got VERY proficient at picking up the sandbag, seeing the picks get faster and
more efficient over time.I started drilling
running TO the sandbag to pick it up, to help prep me for competition
conditions.I also took to doing my
sandbag throws in a similar manner: just get in a few throws everyday vs doing
1 throw day a week.
* For the conditioning: I settled into a pattern of Oxygen
Debt 101 on Tuesdays and a 90 minute 45lb ruck on Thursdays, using Saturdays to
train stones in some manner and Sundays just being a day of activity.This helped me with getting conditioned for
strongman AND surviving my annual 10 mile race which ended up happening the
weekend before the competition.I’m not
a smart person.
* For the bridge week before the competition, all I did was
walk on a treadmill for 75 minutes each morning. These were leisurely walks,
for 2 reasons.One being I’m fairly
certain I picked up a stress fracture and plantar fasciitis from my run, so I didn’t
want to push the walking hard, and the other being that this was meant to help
me recover from training fatigue, reduce cortisol, and keep bodyweight under
control leading up to the comp.
THE NUTRITION
When this guy talks nutrition and definition, you should probably listen
* 3 weeks out from the comp, I had to change from my protein
sparring modified feasting/Apex Predator diet approach, as I had run out of
protein powder.I decided to try out
something I always wanted to try: Vince Gorinda’s Maximum Definition diet, aka:
“The Steak and Eggs diet”.I chose to
eat 2 meals a day, as, honestly, I find 3 meals pretty absurd these days.I’d eat a post training breakfast and a dinner
in the evening, and would still have a middle of the night protein shake (just
protein in water) as a means to ensure I covered my bases with protein AND so
that I didn’t train totally fasted in the morning.
* The diet lives up to it’s name: I dropped weight and got
even leaner during the process leading up to the competition, but since I’m fat
adapated, I suffered no training consequences and actually saw my numbers
continue to grow.Right before I started
the diet, Costco had an awesome deal on leg of lamb, so for 3 weeks my
breakfast was 1lb of leg of lamb air fried with spray duck fat alongside an
omelet of 3 pastured eggs, 5 whites and 1 tablespoon of grassfed beef tallow
alongside a piece of beef liver.Dinner
was typically the exact same omelet alongside another 1lb+ of some sort of
meat.
* As for nutrition as it relates to the comp: I still stuck
with 2 meals.That meant a hearty
breakfast
14oz piedmontese grassfed ribeye, 8oz of grassfed New Zealand lamb, 5 pastured eggs with grassfed ghee and 3 strips of beef bacon
* fasting through the competition, and then an awesome dinner to
celebrate.
A full rack of spare ribs and some brisket
* I had zero energy issues
during the comp with this approach. It
may have helped that, the night before, I shared a 36oz piedmontese grassfed
tomahawk ribeye with my kiddo, alongside 5 pastured eggs.
* First event was the press medley, and this was what I've
been training for this whole time.I was
an awesome presser at one point, and then it fell apart, as my press strength
tends to correlate with my bodyweight, and when I dropped 35lbs, my press
plummeted and I effectively "forgot" how to press.My last comp, I totally bombed the event, and
I was up against the same guy as last time.
* I did zero training for the keg and the axle, because I knew
I was strong enough to take care of those on their own: the log was the white
whale here.That said, I bobbled the keg
a little at the start, but got it under control to one motion it.The axle I may have been able to one motion,
but I kept it safe and continentaled it and pressed.I dropped it from overhead, which I felt
sheepish about.
* Finally getting to the log, I knew 2 reps was the mark to
beat, as I was thankfully in the position of going second in these events due
to when I signed up.Nice thing was that
this log was smaller diameter than what I trained with, although the handles
were further apart.This was also my
first time wearing my grip shirt for the log clean.In retrospect, the log didn't feel heavy when
I picked it up, and I sunk it in deep and felt the shirt really do an awesome
job gripping it on the way up, making the clean effortless, which was the whole
goal of my training block.From there, I
muscled out a press just like I used to.
* This was a clean once and press away event, but the press
took so much effort that I dropped the log so I could have time to recover
before trying another rep.I'm not sure
if that was the 100% right call looking back, and maybe I coulda gotten more
reps if I kept control, but things happen.I heard how much time I had left and knew I could get in one more rep if
I took my time and set up strong, which is exactly what I did.I muscled out the other press and felt some
redemption for all my previous pressing bumbles: the training paid off.
* The press put me in a good place psychologically.It had fallen apart so hard leading up to
this, and being able to reclaim it was huge for me.I’m feeling like a strongman again.
**SECOND EVENT** (Car deadlift max reps)
* Because we tied, when we went into the car deadlift, I got
to go second again.The guy I was
competing against is a self-confessed poor deadlifter.He got 2 reps and then pulled out, saying he
felt something in his back pop.I only
needed 3 reps to win.It was at that
point I decided exactly why I had shown up: for me.Not to win, but to have the best competition
I was going to have.Because I cared
more about the experience of deadlifting vs winning.I’ve never had a chance to pull with a bar in
front before on a car deadlift, I have ALWAYS wanted to do that, and there’s no
telling if I’ll ever get to do it again.I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass me by.And I got to prove to myself that I still
have some pulls in me.I managed 11 reps
within the allotted time, with the 12th getting edged out by time.
* But the best part was I felt absolutely fine after it was
done.Despite giving it my all, I didn't
blow my load on the second event.All
the training leading up to this paid off immensely: my recovery was on point,
and I could give maximal output in an event without concern for downstream
impacts.
* I'm also really delighted because I spent the first 9 weeks
of the training cycle training "wrong" for this event: I thought it
was going to be side handles.When I
learned it was front handle, I had to quickly pivot, but it turns out I still
have some pulls in me.
**THIRD EVENT** (200lb keg, sandbag and husafel stone
carry 45')
* This is the one that I was employing daily training on, and
I was curious how that was going to work out.Specifically, it was the sandbag pick I wanted to speed up, because I
was taking FOREVER to get it done in training initially.In turn, I was ONLY training with a sandbag,
as it was the hardest implement for me.I don't regret that, but do have “regrets” about the event.It was mine to lose.I rushed the keg, and it caught me.“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”.I didn’t take my time to get set to load the
keg, and I lost MORE time recovering it.But I felt awesome on all the pick ups, and that was what I focused on
in training.This was the second time in
my life carrying a husafel stone: it wasn’t all that awful.
* I lost this event by 6 seconds, which, upon reviewing the
video, I could have recovered that if I loaded the keg properly at the
start.That stings a little.
**FOURTH EVENT** (20, 25 and 30lb sandbag over 15'
bar)
* This didn't get caught on video, which is for the best,
because I zeroed the event.This was
supposed to be 3 sandbags thrown over a 15' bar.I really don’t like these events, but if I
don’t start getting decent at them, I’m going to really limit myself in
competitions.Technique is what is
lacking.And zeroing this event cost me
the win, because what should have been a tie between me and the other guy ended
up giving him the win, because my zero got me zero points vs 1.
* Thankfully, I didn't realize this at the time, and I went
into the fifth event thinking that winning it would have us tie, which created
some outstanding pressure to perform.
**FIFTH EVENT** (240lb stone over 48" bar)
* This was another redemption event: I haven't gotten a rep on
a stone event in my past 2 competitions, and blacked out on a few
occasions.I've ended up glued to the
stone due to tacky on a few occasions, and otherwise just didn't have the
strength to get through the event.I had
been training hard with my stone of steel and working hard to develop actual
technique and strength to get through this.The heaviest I went in training was 205lbs on a stone of steel, but
carryover is different, as this concrete stone was smaller in diameter.
* The initial pick felt heavy, and I STILL used too much tacky
and had to fight it on the first rep, and I got the stone low and had to fight
that first rep, but after that I found my groove.The training leading up to this had me
feeling comfortable with the stone, and I remembered the techniques I
learned.My time with the front squats
had me sinking low and bouncing back out, and I learned how to get my chest on
the stone with my grip shirt.I got the
4th rep JUST in the nick of time, and watched my competitor manage 2 reps
before pulling out, claiming he felt something pop in his back again.
* At this point, I was elated for having won the event,
thinking I got the tie, but was also elated just to finally get some points on
a stones event.
**GENERAL TAKEAWAYS**
* I felt
like I belonged again.No imposter
syndrome.No being out of place.No feeling like a fraud.I saw myself in the mirror in between events
and I looked like a strongman.My
physique was filled out and thick, not stringy.
* Cardio,
conditioning, and recovery were all top notch.My body feels healthy and strong.And this was after a 10 mile race last week.Tactical Barbell gets my full regards.
* Nutrition
was sound as well.Didn’t need to eat at
all during the comp, felt energized and level.No spikes, no crashes.Just had
to keep hydration up.
WHAT’S NEXT
* I have no competitions on the immediate horizon, primarily
because every competition I have my eye on is happening at the same time I go
on a cruise through Italy and Greece, getting to live out my Hercules/Heracles
fantasies (eating all that lamb prior to the competition helped out there).So I intend to continue to use Tactical
Barbell and the Maximum Definition Diet to show up to my cruise absolutely
peeled to the bone and jacked out of my mind in good conditioning.I’m currently wavering between more Operator
or a switch to Zulu, but either one is going to be a VERY limited program of 2
main movements: a squat or deadlift and some sort of press.I’m specifically NOT training the chins heavy
so I can train them high volume instead, as I want to recover a lot of lost
back size and strength, so I’m going to do a LOT of chinning and rowing.Removing it from the strength cluster will
allow me to emphasize it as assistance instead.I also intend to trade in my running shoes for time on the rower, as now
that my race is done I don’t really have any desire to continue running, and I
figure that time on the rower will result in more back growth.
* Once I return from my cruise, I should be in a prime spot to
start focusing on hypertrophy, which will mean getting back on the Tactical
Barbell Mass Protocol.Yes; I have definitely
drank the Tactical Barbell koolaid.It’s
treated me very well.When I left myself
to my own devices training for the competition before this one, I was so
absolutely destroyed that I spent the first 6 weeks of the Mass Protocol just healing
from the damage I had done to myself, whereas now I finished up the competition
and immediately returned to training on Monday.Definitely not going to fix what isn’t broken here.
* I’ll be keeping my eyes out for more competitions in the
future.I’m definitely feeling strongman
again.I’ll need to figure out how to
throw a sandbag at some point.And I’m
still open to getting in some more combat sports time.This is the year I turn 40, and I’m not
nearly done.
