COLLEGE KID PERIODIZATION

Much like how Dan John likes to comment on how, at the age of 14, he came up with the only 2 movements he’d ever need and STILL thinks it’s a good idea, upon review, I’ve discovered that 19 year old undergrad me really had this whole “physical transformation” thing figured out, and I spent a LOT of years unlearning all those lessons before I could really appreciate them.  In my instance, though, the lessons I learned where thrust upon me by circumstance, rather than something I discovered through a process of education, and, in turn, I wasn’t able to truly understand or appreciate them at the time.  These things were occurring organically, and with no other baseline to compare against, I could not truly fully appreciate just how significant and valuable these experiences were until I spent some time NOT experiencing them.  And already I can hear the collective “huh” from the audience, so let me go ahead and tell you a story from 21 years ago about a budding young future blogwriter, armed with only a handmixer and some vanilla protein powder that tasted like wallpaper paste…

It wasn't QUITE this bad...but it was close

 

I’ve been lifting weights since I was 14, had very little in the way of education for those first few years, relying on stuff my dad told me, high school folklore, a few magazine articles, and internet forums (I first signed up at age 16 on the GameFAQs Martial Arts forum, and 24 years later I am STILL terrorizing the internet).  But through internet forums, I had learned that powerlifting was how you lifted to get strong while bodybuilding was how you lifted to get big (yes: this was what “education” looked like in the early 2000s).  AND I THEN learned that Westside Barbell was THE powerlifting program to follow (once again: early 2000s information availability), and T-nation was the forum where the bad boys gathered, so from there I had gotten exposed to Joe DeFranco’s Westside Barbell for Skinny Bastards (version 1) program.  BUT, along with that, during my time terrorizing the internet, someone (I wish I could remember who, because they basically changed my life) set me up with a copy of Pavel Tsastouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding”, and I immediately drank ALL the Pavel kool-aid and got hooked on his “3-5” program.  I wrote about this in my recent e-book, but the numbers tell the story: 3-5 movements, for 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, trained 3 days a week, in an A/B/A, B/A/B format, no grinding reps, deload every 4th week, double progression, switch movements upon stalling.  I say all this to lay down the foundation of HOW I got myself into the situation I was in.

 

Because keep in mind, I was now effectively armed with two REAL programs, as opposed to the throwing spaghetti against the wall approach I was using before.  AND I was in college.  Why does that matter?  Because I went to school in Portland OR while my parents lived in San Diego CA, which meant my calendar year was split between two different locations and circumstances.  Specifically: my college had a FULL weight room AND a dinning hall with unlimited food, while my parent’s house had my old standard weight set or a gym I could get daypasses at and food was limited based on what groceries my parents had/how much I was willing to spend on fast food (reference that I learned NO cooking skills until I was married).  In turn, I was in a situation of FORCED periodization…and I made some INCREDIBLE gains because of that.

Don't get me wrong though: being in San Diego, an occasional order of carne asada fries DID factor into the diet...

 

Because, as I lamented in my book, if I had stuck with this protocol since the age of 19, I’m fairly certain I’d be much further along now than I currently am (but I also wouldn’t have had all the wild experiences I’ve had, of which the knowledge obtained from that cannot be traded).  Westside Barbell is full of variety: you’re switching the max effort lift every 1-3 weeks, and the supplemental and accessory lifts every 2-6 weeks.  It also lends well to big eating (“for skinny bastards”) with the bodybuilding work done after the Max Effort/Dynamic effort work.  Being in a college weight room that was fully stocked (it wasn’t Gucci, but it was enough) allowed me the ability to EMPLOY this variety, and having access to the dinning hall allowed me to eat enough to support the training (as evidenced by my gaining of 12lbs in 6 weeks when I ran Super Squats with this same dinning facility).  Meanwhile, Pavel’s 3-5 is entirely the opposite: very limited movement set, low volume.  So when all you have access to is a barbell and plates AND you’re eating on a budget, a program that doesn’t need much variety AND doesn’t have a lot of volume to recover from is perfect. 

 

Then, from here, the academic schedule determined my training schedule.  I’ve have the first semester to focus on Westside, with deloads as a result of our 1 week fall break and 1 week Thanksgiving break, then I’d get 4 weeks to do Pavel’s 3-5 during the Winter Break, second semester for Westside, then the 4 months of summer to do Pavel’s (yeah, we had a LONG break) before starting the whole process over again.  And think about how that translates from a training perspective: long periods of accumulation and variety, then short intense blocks of intensification, dialing in technique on a handful of lifts compared to the constant shifting that comes with Westside, and then taking that newfound strength and applying it right back into Westside.  And on top of that, 4 months in the summer to lean out put me in a PRIME position to get back to college and start gaining again.

Especially with that dinning hall waiting for me...

 

But it gets even better: back then, I was still heavy into martial arts. During the school year, I didn’t have the bandwidth to do any serious training, and would just get in a few classes here and there.  But in the summer, I had more free time, and would typically sign up for a boxing gym or grappling club or something along that line, and alongside the abbreviated programming of Pavel’s 3-5, I’d also be engaging in some extensive MMA training, effectively improving my GPP as well.  And once again: I could manage that because the weight training I was doing was low enough in volume that I could recover and still push the martial arts training hard, similar to Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program (which, coincidentally, he got from Pavel and took to refine).

 

And, of course, I squandered all of this, not realizing what the REAL magic was behind it all, and trying to force it artificially.  I had phases where I tried to gain while running Pavel, I had phases where I tried to run Westside without changing the lifts frequently enough because I wanted to improve proficiency on them, I had phases where I stopped all GPP training, etc etc.  Life had already provided me the periodization I needed, but time and experience was necessary in order for me to be able to understand and appreciate them.  But here I am now, reflecting, and thinking that, knowing what I know now: I definitely could have done worse than this plan that just sorta happened.  People will tell me “ya know, you’re not 19 anymore…”, but maybe I should still try to be sometimes…