Dear
readers, I have, once again, returned from a cruise, wherein I engaged in a
one-man reign of terror against the entire species of sheep in my quest to
consume enough lamb to attempt to achieve the physique of the farnese Hercules.But between bouts of consuming copious
amounts of ruminant animals, I found myself inclined to walk in order to aid my
digestion, and wondered into one of the shops onboard this Disney cruise,
wherein I observed my inner-child and past-self all at once in the form of a
pre-pubescent youth armed with a “Pirates of the Caribbean” plastic
cutlass.Disney sells a ton of these on
the ship, as each cruise has a “Pirate Night” theme, wherein we all dress in
our pirate gear, eat a pirate themed cuisine (which, yes, DID include lamb),
and watch fireworks out at sea.However,
this youth was NOT in his pirate gear: he sported a pair of purple Crocs, green
athletic shorts, tube socks and a baby blue hoodie, which did not hide the
substantial paunch of a belly he was already sporting at a young age.Which, again: I was observing my past-self
there, for I was the same fat kid in the goofy get up.But I also recognized in this youth the same
mentality I had as well, for with the sword in his hand I saw him fixated on
the blade and the implications behind it.NOW he was a warrior: armed with a weapon of war and ready to engage the
enemy.And, in turn, it led me to
realize how much we are all just boys with swords, completely oblivious to the
fact that, though we may have sword in hand, we’re also sporting a set of Crocs
and athletic shorts with our paunch pressing against our baby blue hoodie.It doesn’t matter if you have the tools of a
warrior in your hand if you, yourself, are not a warrior.
I'm sure that kid sees me just like Leela sees this fly
We see this
so much in the world of physical transformation: trainees get so fixated on
“the sword” that they never take stock in the arm that swings it.What good is a cutlass in the hands of a
small fat kid in a pair of purple Crocs compared to an unarmed man with the
capacity for great physical destruction by the sheer nature of their
physicality?The same holds true with
all the “swords” of physical transformation.So many trainees fixate on having the right PROGRAM in order to achieve
the results they need.They spend months
pairing the right movements with the exact right amount of reps and sets in the
right split with the right frequency training to the right amount of
failure…and achieve nothing.Why?Because the arm swinging this sword is the
arm of a child: not a warrior.They
don’t actually put in the EFFORT necessary to make this program work, they
don’t invest the necessary degree of fanatical adherence and reverence to the
program, they don’t live, sweat and breathe the training…
…AND they
quite often come in with the capabilities of a child rather than a
warrior.Which is to say, they are too
unfit to actually train hard enough to make results or recover well enough to
grow.They are too poorly conditioned to
recover well enough between sets and workouts, they are too poorly coordinated
to be able to control the weights in a manner to achieve the intended training
stimulus, and they simply lack the ability to even push hard enough to be able
to even achieve any meaningful results, which is why many ultra beginner
programs tend to have LOTS of reps and volume included, because we know that
the beginner simply can’t push hard enough in 1-2 sets to be able to achieve an
outcome.Before we pick up this sword,
let’s trade out our purple Crocs and green athletic shorts for a set of boots
and pants, shall we?
Although sometimes we lose the pants in the pursuit of becoming a warrior...
And what of
the sword of nutrition?We see this with
those that hyperfixate on quantity vs quality.They wield the sword of macronutrients, armed with the power of CICO,
and believe that they have all the tools necessary to achieve their desired
physical outcomes.As long as they eat X
amount of carbs, Y amount of protein and Z amount of fats in order to achieve
XX amount of calories, they will succeed!…and then they achieve this by consuming the purple Crocs of nutrition
inherent in packaged processed garbage, many times because it’s easier to count
calories or macros when the food comes pre-packaged and measured for us.I’ve known trainees that were spending top
dollar for pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because they didn’t want
to take the time to bust out the food scale to measure out their intake: and
that was honestly the healthiest choice they were making!These folks live off fast food and protein
bars because it makes it easier for them to punch in their numbers into their
app, and then they wonder why they still look like a melted candle after years
of dieting and training.As much as we
want to fixate on the sword of CICO and Macros, the sword arm of QUALITY
nutrition still holds true.The hormonal
impact of eating quality food, along with WHEN we eat it, is going to have a
say in the impact of the CO portion of CICO, and if macros are the only thing
that matter, go ahead and get ALL of your fats from Omega 6s for a few years
and let me know how that turns out for you.For a real fun trick, pair that with getting all your carbs from
fructose: you will blow your cardiologist’s mind, especially when you did such
a good job staying away from those “harmful” saturated fats in eggs…
And there
are SO many other swords out there.The
sword of supplements?How many perpetual
undereaters think that they’ll see the growth they desire once they buy the
latest “mass gainer” that is just a bunch of maltodextrin mixed with low
quality protein powder?Or those
desperately seeking the “edge” of naturally elevating their testosterone with a
supplement when they haven’t engaged in any of the other readily available
natural remedies like sleeping more, eating better, being less fat, getting
more sunlight, drinking less alcohol, having less stress, etc etc.Or perhaps the sword of equipment?All those trainess who are absolutely
CONVINCED that it’s the glute ham raise or reverse hyper that’s missing from
their lives, and once they get these they’re SURE to see the growth they
need.Ignoring the generations that came
before them that got significantly big and strong armed with just a barbell and
some plates: if THAT!Hell, we can
combine all those points into one, remembering the story of Henry “Milo”
Steinborn, who grew up slight of frame and employed 20 rep squats with a
barbell that he had to tip onto its side, since there were no squat racks,
along with copious amounts of real food and milk, in order to become big and
strong enough to earn his nickname.He
wasn’t focused on the sword: he was focused on the arm that swings it.
Or swings the barbell in this case
Let us
assess and take stock of our current situation.Are we truly warriors, or are we the boy in the Crocs with a plastic
sword?
Amazingly, it seems the training was really the "easy" part of this story, for when I finished writing out about how my eating has come full circle yet again, I discovered just how many goddamn circles I'd go on through these past 25 years. Hopefully you can pick up some lessons from this and save yourself some time having to make these mistakes.
---
The
eating went full circle as well.I grew
up a fat kid, which, if you may recall, I later discovered I had a few factors
working against me from the start, to include having cereal put in my bottle as
a nursing infant so that I’d fatten up and sleep through the night, meaning I
really didn’t have a chance from the get go…but I ALSO didn’t do myself any
favors with my love for fast food, candy, and literal Koolaid vs the Pavel
Tsastouline kind, drinking pitchers of artificially flavored and colored sugar
water.At the same age I took to
lifting, I took control of my nutrition using, once again, the only tools at my
disposal: effort.I white knuckled it
and cut my food intake to 1/3 of what it was before, which was easy to measure,
since I was eating so much it was a matter of eating 2 slices of pizza instead
of 6, 3 tacos instead of 9, etc.I still
had absolutely no idea WHAT to eat, and was operating off all the stuff I
learned from television: a healthy breakfast of juice, bagels with peanut
butter, breakfast cereal, lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tins of
fruit and protein bars, and whatever my parents served for dinner.In doing so, I went from a bodyweight of
176lbs as a 5’9 14 year old to 152lbs over the span of the summer between my
high school freshman and sophomore year, which also inspired me to quit
football (where they ONLY thing I had going for me was my bulk) and take up
wrestling (where my ability to control my food intake was quite valuable).Wrestling would prove to probably be the most
physically beneficial thing I ever did for myself, but that’s a post for
another time: onto more tales from my nutritional journey!
A bow of Captain Crunch, 2 slices of buttered white bread toast, a tall glass of skim milk, a glass of juice, a bowl of fruit and a muffin...yes, we were told that THIS is what a healthy breakfast looked like in the 90s...
At some
point, my interests in martial arts got me online, and I found a martial arts
forums where, for some reason, low carb dieting was popular, and since this was
the late 90s/early 2000s, we all knew that as “The Atkin’s Diet”, which, funny
enough, I had learned about from my grandfather a few years earlier, but we all
just thought he was crazy because he was eating bacon and butter and losing
weight.But, THIS time, I had internet
access and could “research”, and had decided that THIS was the most absolute
best way to eat because it made so much sense to me.It was all these goddamn carbs were making
everyone fat!That wasn’t the wrongest
conclusion to draw, but it’s clear the lack of nuance that such a ham-fisted
approach achieves.Still, I knew what I
needed to do: cut out carbs!Problem: I
didn’t actually know what carbs were.Sure, I THOUGHT I did: it’s bread, sugar, rice and potatoes…and yeah,
those are SOME carb sources, but not all of them, nor did I realize just how
many things I THOUGHT were safe contained these things.
Because
there I was, in college, with a meal plan, thinking I was CRUSHING this low
carb thing when I would go to the dinning hall and get my bacon and eggs for
breakfast, and, since they eggs were more “egg loaf” since they were using
powedered eggs, I’d use a healthy amount of ketchup to make them more
edible.The same ketchup I’d put on top
of my stack of cheeseburgers (no bun, of course) I’d get for lunch.With, of course, entire BOWLS of peanut
butter for dessert, because there’s no carbs in peanut butter!...right?And then, when I was hungry between meals,
I’d hit up the on campus restaurant and ALWAYS get the chicken strip basket and
make it a point not to eat the fries, because the FRIES were the carbs, of course…oh
crap, why do they call it “breading” anyway?I figured: they were CHICKEN strips…that’s pure protein, right?It was the same when we’d sneak off campus to
Panda Express, and I’d make sure to get the large ala carte Orange Chicken and
avoid all that carby rice: pure protein baby!And speaking of protein, I was making sure to take down my daily protein
shake, using that delicious late 90s/early 2000s vanilla protein that tasted
like wallpaper paste that I had to mix with a handmixer…alongside the care
packages my parents sent me of Atkin’s cookies and treats that were none too
pleasant on my digestive system.Keep an
eye on those Atkin’s treats: they’ll show up again sometime.
With enough denial, we can convince ourselves of anything!
And let’s
talk about the saint that is my mom, because as you can see: she was always a
provider.I’ve never questioned how much
that woman has loved me, and she loves by providing, to include that cereal in
my bottle, those care packages, and a house that was ALWAYS stocked with some
amazingly incredible junkfood.The
best/worst of which were the gigantic cookies and muffins that Costco stocked,
which were a quick lesson to me in just how much you CAN’T out train a bad
diet, because one summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I
decided I wanted to get a six pack, and I would do it by burning off all my fat
by running…sixteen miles a day!Yes: I
had an 8 mile run that I would do twice a day, and even then I’d also skip rope
and do other training during this time.And, when all that training was done, BOY did those cookies and muffins
look good, so of course I indulged in my share of them.Hey, I earned it. …yeah, no six pack that
summer, but I DID get a pretty awesome stress fracture in my foot.
But while
we’re on the topic of my college dinning hall, it was in my senior year of
college that I did my first ever run of Super Squats, which was a great place
to do it, because I could drink all the milk I wanted and eat as much as
possible in that dinning hall.At that
point, the carb restrictions were gone and I was just going with the book’s recommendation
of a LOT of food, which, at least with the dinning hall, it was far less
processed than the “Dave Tate Method”…which is exactly the method I employed
after I graduated college, got married, and decided to quit my pursuit of
martial arts and fully invest myself into lifting, and, by extension, “getting
huge”.I made a home gym, was married to
a wonderful woman that would cook and bake whatever I wanted, and suddenly had
disposable income, which I disposed of at all the wonderful fast food locations
in central coast CA.3 double doubles
from In n Out was a regular for me, as was 4-6 cheesy gordita crunches from
Taco Bell, 4 sausage biscuits at Burger King, 6 double stacks from Wendy’s (you
can tell this was back in the era when we still had $1 burgers at value menus),
to say nothing of how I’d take the mini banana bread loaves my wife would wrap
in tin foil and upwrap and eat them like candy bars.While Super Squats had me put on 12lbs in 6
weeks and finally see more than 200lbs on the scale for the first time in my
life, this way of eating got me from 190lbs to 217 in my desperate attempt to
see 220 on the scale, because Matt Krocazleski was the same height as me and
competed at 220lbs, and I was convinced that I’d look the same and be just as
strong if I could weigh the same…
Surely I was just 3 burgers away from this!
…yeah, after
2.5 years of living and eating this way, I was done.I remember the exact moment, having just put
away my usual dinner of 2 “simple life quesadillas” from my work’s cafeteria
that were comprised of just chicken, very low quality cheese and a pound of
grease that I drowned in sour cream, alongside 2 apples and 2 servings of green
beans (healthy fruits and vegetables), laying on my side in bed and wondering
“Why am I doing this to myself?”I
decided to get back to what I knew: food and carbohydrate restriction.This time, I at least had a better idea of
what the hell a carbohydrate was, and was far better at kicking the junk out of
my diet and, when I went and got fast food (because, truth be told and
unbeknownst to me at the time, I was totally addicted to it), I at least knew
how to operate portion control and restriction to make these visits NOT total
disasters.It was from this point I cut
my weight down to a lean 190lbs…which was actually exactly where this blog
initially started.Those intro photos
were the end of a long and gradual fat loss phase that had me at my leannest I
had been up until that point.It was
from that level of leanness I was able to cut to 181lbs, take “best lifter” in
my final (as of this point) powerlifting meet, set national records in the
total and deadlift…
…and go on a
2 year junk food bender.Apparently, my
life has been marked with a constant cycle of “binge and purge”, as I am a man
of extremes.But really, the lesson I
needed to learn (and this will come back a few more times) is that you can only
white knuckle and deny yourself for so long before the body eventually DEMANDS
payback.And the longer and harder you
do it, the more intense the demand.My
bender began with just grabbing a burger at Hardee’s after my meet, to
celebrate my win, and it spiraled for years.I, once again, abandoned my low carb principles, and instead discovered
a newfound fondness for red velvet cupcakes, alongside dark chocolate Reese’s
peanut butter cups, Quest Bars (hey, it’s protein!), post workout Poptarts and
cereal, etc etc.This also correlated
with me transitioning to strongman, so I had the perfect excuse to justify
this: I “needed the fuel”.And again,
it’s interesting to discuss all this, because you regular readers were there
alongside me the entire time, to include when I would go on journeys to become
lean again by employing those same principles that had worked before, only to
balloon back up again when I was tired of being lean.
Spaghetti DID get me in and out of this jam...
At one
point, in that journey, I discovered Jon Andersen’s “Deep Water”, and it REALLY
clicked for me.Stupidly hard training
paired with low carb eating: EXACTLY what I want.Jon also talked about small, frequent meals
to keep the metabolism humming, which was actually something I picked up from
my dad with a fad diet he followed in the 90s that I always employed as well,
since I was ALWAYS hungry and perpetually grazing seemed to help with that.However, my previous weaknesses shined
through, as I completely glossed over Jon’s point about organic/grassfed high
quality meat and, instead, found myself eating 2 bunless double quarter
pounders from McDonalds, because they were “low carb”, along with all sorts of
low carb frankenfoods via protein bars, quest treats, peanut butter powders,
etc etc.Despite all this, it STILL
worked, because the training was so intense and I was still doing a decent job
managing MACROS even if my micronutrient values were terrible that I got
immensely big and strong running this program and was able to validate that I
did NOT “need” carbs for energy…although I DO recall that I’d still have a
weekly cheat meal the night before the hardest workouts of Deep Water, which,
the weekly cheat meal itself was a habit I picked up during the powerlifting
weight cut saga, and it was ultimately more a “binge eating episode” vs a cheat
meal.Once again: I took a LONG time to
learn these lessons, but that’s how the circles get smaller: we learn lessons
and make new mistakes.
And speaking
of mistakes: strongman eventually led me to a competition that had an awesome
event: a 275lb keg clean and press.At
the time, I could manage a 200lb press, and this competition allowed me to move
up a weight class…so I dedicated myself to adding 75lbs to my keg clean and
press in 12 weeks, which I was going to achieve by eating EVERYTHING.I went right back to my Dave Tate style of
eating that “worked” so well in my early 20s, but DID manage to use some of my
lessons learned from my previous trips around this circle.Fast food was still there (there’s that
addiction again), but wasn’t the cornerstone, as I instead DID try to make use
of whole foods, to include oats (PROTEIN OATS by Kodiak, of course), heavy
cream, honey, peanut/almond butter, blueberries, etc, but there was also
breakfast cereal, sourdough bread, and way too many quest frozen pizzas
(they’re the GOOD for you frozen pizzas…right?).I also really tucked into the “frequent
meals” thing and found myself having a pre-pre workout meal, and then a
pre-workout meal, and then a post workout shake, then a post-post workout meal,
alongside my traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner, late night snack, and
other foods.And again, it worked,
because I became the strongest presser I’d ever been in my life, nailing a
250lb keg clean and press in training along with 5x241 and 1x266 on the axle
press.
5x241, 1x256, 1x266 and a near miss at 276, filmed like a snuff film
…and then I
got an annual physical, my blood lipids were messed up, my doc put me on a
statin, and I went on a VERY ill-informed attempt to resolve all of this
through nutrition and lifestyle changes.Once again, I leaned into what I was very talented at: restriction, and
ultimately went on a low fat AND low carb diet…which, for those of you paying
attention at home, is a TERRIBLE idea.Yes, I got my blood lipids on track, and I got as lean as I possibly
could, and horribly compromised my health through the process.I also leaned into old habits of eating SO
much frankenfoods in my attempt to avoid all the evil meat, eggs and animal
products my doctor informed me were causing my blood lipids issue, basically
living off of processed foods because the macros were sound, despite the fact
the ingredients read like a horror movie.
This kept up
until I eventually reached a breaking point after my third run of Super Squats,
trying to survive the intensities of that program through a diet of
protein/keto bars, protein supplement enhanced nut butters, sunflower butter,
“keto bread”, and basically all other manner of keto treats, cheats and
hacks.Remember those Atkin’s treats I
talked about before?There they were
again, and I basically wasn’t eating ANY real food.I eventually got sick of having to shop at 5
different grocery stores per week in order to get all my weird foods, so I
decided to streamline everything by hopping on the Velocity Diet, since I had
read Dan John’s glowing reviews of what a reset this was.The most current version allowed for one
healthy solid meal a day…and now that I could only eat food once a day, I no
longer wanted to waste it on “food like products”: I wanted ACTUAL food.This meant actually eating some for real
meat, along with all those healthy veggies I had stuffed myself with when I was
eating low carb/low fat as a means to chase away the all consuming hunger that
was always present when I was eating that way.
When you're only eating once a day, there's no room for this nonsense
This,
eventually, transitioned itself to Jamie Lewis’ Apex Predator diet, because I
always wanted to try that as well, and it was basically just a more directed
version of the Velocity Diet with the HSM.And then, this naturally led itself to carnivore, since the Apex
Predator’s one meal a day was pure meat, and I suddenly discovered that, the
more meat I ate and the fewer plants I ate, the better I felt. …and that, for
the first time in my LIFE: I wasn’t hungry.I was finally eating the food that I WANTED to eat this whole time, and
when I gave my body what it wanted, it stopped being hungry.
And THERE
was the biggest lesson I learned from going full circle.And what a BIG circle this one was.I was a fat kid who was eating whatever I
wanted, but what I wanted was a product of my environment.I started off behind the 8-ball, weened on
processed foods that just continued to perpetuate and lead to consistent and
frequent poor decisions, and each and every time I tried to overcome my drive
with just willpower and white knuckling, the rebound just became harsher and
harsher.Low carb kept calling to me for
a reason: because it was transitioning me toward the foods my body was in NEED
of eating in order to feel satiated.Restricting myself would always result in a binge as a response, and
when I binged, it was never on the food I NEEDED but on the foods I was addicted
to.Despite the fact that a carnivore
approach may appear restrictive, it’s been the opposite to me: I’m finally
eating the foods I WANT to eat, in the amount I want to eat them.I wrote recently about how, during my
“Operation Conan” experiment, where I gained on a carnivore diet, I went on a
cruise and was totally OVER the idea of feasting, since I’d been doing it for
so much time leading up to it, that the novelty of overeating was gone.I was satiated: I’d had “enough”.I’m back to being the same fat kid who is
just eating whatever he wants: it just so happens that what I WANT to eat is
the stuff that’s actually suited for me.
This IS a valuable lesson for sure
And for
those of you that have stuck around this long, both through this post itself
AND through the years of this blog: thanks for taking the time to read and
enjoy this journey with me.It’s not
over yet!I’m back at the start of this
circle: let’s see how long it takes me to get back here again!
This is
going to be totally self-indulgent, but I’m going to give myself a moment to
reminisce and reflect, because as of recently, as I look back, I realize it’s
not really like looking back but more like looking forward.Primarily because it appears I have gone full
circle from where I have started, which, in turn, means I have a pretty good
idea of where I am going.That’s one of
the nice things about a circular timeline: they’re very predictable, it just
falls upon us to recognize when they’re happening and where we are on them,
once we’ve identified them.And once we
have that ability, we can use that predictable ability to anticipate where we
are headed and, hopefully, apply some of those lessons learned from the LAST
time we were on this part of the journey.But, already, I’ve digressed.Let’s go back to the beginning, which is to say, now, the present.
Trust me: it just gets more confusing
I started
writing this blog in 2012, and during that time announced that I was a fan of
abbreviated training.Almost immediately
after saying as such, I departed on a journey that was very much NOT
abbreviated training, with 5/3/1 BBB having been a program that broke me out of
that abbreviated rut, with 5x10 seeming like insane volume to my 3-5x3-5 based
mind, only to go completely into “Deep Water” with some 10x10 efforts, “daily
work” racking up volume totals, 2, 3 and 4 a day training sessions, and other
just maddening feats of training volume, effort and intensity.Yet, after all of that, here I am again, back
to abbreviated training.And I eased
BACK into it, having 5/3/1 Krypteia lead me on a “high speed/low drag” approach
to training, Mass Made Simple and Easy Strength reminding me just how little I
needed to train to see results, Building the Monolith reminding me that I used
to train 3x a week full body and see results, and DoggCrapp reminding me that
just ONE big set is enough, before I re-read and re-remembered Tactical Barbell
and found myself once again excited to train, primarily because the training no
longer consumed my life, time and being.It was something that ENHANCED me, rather than consumed me, and it
created a positive feedback loop, wherein, the less I trained, the more I grew,
which allowed me to train harder and better in the limited time I trained,
which re-affirmed that I didn’t need to train so much.
But what got
me to abbreviated training in the first place in 2012 for me to have been such
a big fan of it?The EXACT same process
as before, just less refined.I started
lifting weights at the age of 14, armed with a standard adjustable bench press
station I bought at a Play-it-Again sports from some birthday money I saved,
equipped with a leg extension/curl and preacher curl station, along with 2
spinlock dumbbell collars.I lifted
weights 5-6 days per week, and just did all the exercises I could, which was a
lot of flat and incline barbell benching, 2 different kinds of curls, leg
extensions and leg curls, and then I’d finish each day with 200 push ups and
200 sit ups, because that’s what my dad told me would get me a six pack and a
big chest.This was during the summer,
as once the school year rolled around, I got access to my high school weight
room, which meant I got to do all sorts of benching and dumbbell work on top of
maxing out all the machines with my buddies and doing tons of chin ups and pretty
much everything that wasn’t a squat or a deadlift (we were told they were
dangerous by our football/weightlifting coach…so much wasted potential).I kept this up until I got to college, which,
interestingly enough, was the same college Jon Andersen went to (he had
graduated before I started attending, sadly), wherein I got access to an even
BIGGER weight room and decided to “step up my game” by using a bodybuilding
split, which I, of course, designed myself, which was FULL of volume and
movements….and a leg day that had no squatting whatsoever and was all just
machines.
In retrospect, there's probably a reason I was always such a fan of this guy...
BUT,
eventually, I decided I wanted to be a “powerlifter”, since I was into martial
arts and in the early 2000s we KNEW that powerlifting was how you got STRONG vs
just “looking pretty” from lifting weights, so I FINALLY started squatting and
deadlifting, and actually navigated my way into a Westside Barbell for Skinny
Bastards workout.But, of course, I had
NO idea how to effectively run it, and just kept slamming the max effort lifts
with too much frequency and did a bunch of bodybuilding for the supplemental
and assistance work, before someone on the internet sent me a copy of Pavel
Tsastoluine’s “Beyond Bodybuilding”, which was the SECOND book I had ever read
on the topic of physical training.The
first being Loren Christensens’s “Fighting Power”, which was geared more toward
building strength and explosiveness for martial arts…and it really pretty
awful, but still holds a special place on my bookshelf for being the first book
I ever got on the subject.But for a
SECOND book on training, “Beyond Bodybuilding” absolutely ROCKED MY WORLD.
I drank WAY
too deep of the Pavel Koolaid, no question, but I “learned” how sets of 5 were
the answer to all training questions, and how you only needed 1 movement for
your pushing muscles, your pulling muscles, and your legs per day, and that
full body was the only way to train, and read stories about Paul Anderson and
Bob Peoples and learned about Stuart McRobert and Randall Strossen and Super
Squats.But I ALSO learned about
deloading, practicing strength, and ultimately fatigue management balanced against
training stimulus.AND, coming from
having absolutely NUKED my body with volume for YEARS up until this point,
switching to abbreviated training allowed me to unlock a LOT of growth, as I
was able to recover from all the fatigue I had accumulated and actually spend
some time growing and gaining.This, in
turn, led to me becoming a big fan of abbreviated training, because it felt
like magic to me.After years of
throwing everything I had into training and getting ok results, I started
training LESS and getting MORE results.
That's how linear progression works, right?
Which, as I
said, turned me into a total Koolaid drinker, and suddenly abbreviated training
was the answer to everything, and I remember when I wanted to run Super Squats
for the very first time I was trying to make all the OTHER lifts in it 5x5, and
I tried doing the same when I attempted another run at Westside Barbell, and
then I’d alternate between conjugate and 5x5 for a long time until I eventually
blew out my back so hard I couldn’t deadlift for 3 years and almost completely
quit lifting…until I discovered DoggCrapp for the very first time, which led me
to elevated deadlifts, which had me remember that lesson I learned about ROM
progression from Paul Anderson/Bob Peoples, which got me able to deadlift for
my very first powerlifting meet….which led to me finishing my third meet in
2012, and then the blog started, and there I was…
As I said:
full circle, and, of course, that’s an overview of 25 years of training in the
span of 1000 words, but what IS worth appreciating is that, though things come
full circle, it appears the circles get “tighter” as time goes on.When I started, I was a babe in the woods,
operating completely off of instinct and drive, with no real guiding
knowledge.But, at the time, that WAS
enough to create some manner of change toward physical transformation, and, to
this day, those principles of effort, consistency and time still hold
true.But, after coming all the way
around to abbreviated training the first time, when I departed back to the land
of volume before coming back to where I am here today with Tactical Barbell, I
had picked up a LOT more tricks and knowledge along the way to help me apply
that effort, consistency and time in a more focused and productive manner.It’s fine to make mistakes: just avoid making
the SAME mistakes.Make new, INTERESTING
mistakes, so that you’re always learning.And that’s what I’ve been doing the whole time: making new mistakes on
my circular path, so that, when I meet myself at the start again, I have so
many interesting things to share before we go all the way around again.Like Bill and Ted meeting themselves: “Don’t
forget to wind your watch!”
EXCELLENT!
---
Folks, this was originally going to be a one shot, but when I finished up writing about how the eating has also gone full circle, it ended up being over 4500 words, so I'm breaking it up here and will post the second part next week. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!
I have
written about this extensively over my time with this blog, but it’s what I
want to write about today, and since it’s my blog I get to do that.The longer I spend training and observing the
training and eating of others, the more I realize that there are ultimately a
nearly unlimited amount of ways to succeed at the goal of physical
transformation that, in turn, it’s somewhat baffling to see just how often
people fail in this quest.I’ve deduced
the variables of success down to 3: effort, consistency, and time, and
ultimately conclude that a failure to achieve physical transformation stems
from a failure to meet 1, or not ALL, of these variables.But then, from there, we must ask the
question of WHY a trainee is unable to meet these variables.If physical transformation is so simple
(which is it), what is it that makes it not EASY?Because, as I’ve written before, and as Dan
John has spoken of before I wrote it (because I don’t claim to be original),
simple and easy are two different things, and we can intellectually KNOW what
it takes to achieve our goals yet still be unable to do so due to some sort of
(apparently) insurmountable obstacle.And, like many monster movies, it turns out that WE are the monster: the
obstacle is us.Specifically, it is our
minds, and specifically within that, it is our psychological PREFERENCES that
dictate our success, and our inability to meet these preferences with the
appropriate tools that results in our failure.Put simply: you cannot put a square peg in a round hole.
Even if you're the smartest man alive
New trainees
to physical transformation tend to bemoan the same point: they are overwhelmed
by all the information that is out there.The laundry list of training programs out there include the DeLorme
Method, Conjugate, HIT, Western Periodization, DoggCrapp, Super Squats, Deep
Water, 5/3/1, Juggernaut Method, RTS, Tactical Barbell Cube Method, NeverSate,
and then programming styles without names that just belong to authors like Matt
Wenning, Paul Kelso, Stuart McRobert, John McCallum, Alex Bromely, etc etc.Go to nutrition and you run into the same
issue: flexible dieting/IFFYM, primal paleo, whole foods keto, vegan,
carnivore, Mediterranean diet, Dukan Diet, Atkins Diet, Warrior Diet, Vertical
Diet, Velocity Diet, Apex Predator Diet, ABCDE Diet, etc etc.And here’s the thing: all of these things
WORK.You WILL find someone, somewhere,
that has succeeded with these methods.That’s just simply the nature of this field: only the successful methods
survive to the point of being in the gestalt.A program or diet that 100% of the time fails will, eventually, fade
out, because NO ONE will be able to point to someone that succeeded with it,
and eventually people are gonna wanna see results before they buy off on
it.All of these programs work!
…but they
don’t ALWAYS work.Which is to say: they
don’t work for EVERYONE.All of these
programs and diets HAVE produced failures, and those zealots deeply imbedded in
their respective camps will always say the same thing: “they did it
wrong.”Well let’s say that’s true: the
only reason the diet or program failed is because the trainee did it
wrong.WHY did they do it wrong?It’s because the program and diet DID NOT FIT
THE TRAINEE!Specifically: it did not
fit their psychology!Something about
the approach did NOT resonate with the trainee for some reason: they did not
care for the movement selection, the progression model, the frequency, the
split, or for the diet, it was made up of food they didn’t like, meal
frequencies they didn’t care for, foods that they had experienced trauma with
in the past, was too boring, etc etc.Something about the approach resulted in non-compliance, which, in turn,
resulted in failure.
This dates back to when we thought milkshakes were healthy AND the Simpsons was amazing
Which is
ultimately HOW programs and diets matter: they MUST be something that the
trainee can and will actually FOLLOW!My
second paragraph of this post wasn’t just mindless filibustering: it was me
rattling off, from the top of my head, dozens of successful programs and diets
that exist out there, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s out
there.What this indicates is that there
are a near limitless amount of ways to succeed in physical transformation,
because, ultimately, all these programs and diets are simply manners of
ensuring some manner of achieving effort, consistency and time in the pursuit
of physical transformation.The 1s and
0s OF these methods are genuinely inconsequential: there is no magic to be
found in their combination.Instead,
these are arranged in the manner that they are arranged in because they are
looking to appeal to a certain type of individual.And when that individual DISCOVERS this
method and gets locked in, they WILL invest that necessary degree of effort, consistency
and time to be able to achieve their goal of physical transformation.But if they’re NOT locked in?They pay lip service, go through the motions,
invest no passion whatsoever into the process, and ultimately fail.
This is why
the pursuit of the optimal approach completely misses the point: it operates
off the premise that it is the method ITSELF that matters most, and it is
incumbent upon the trainee to psychologically bend THEMSELVES to the
method.To make the analogy even more
incestuous, that’s the Bulgarian training method put into practice on a macro
level.The Bulgarians basically made the
hardest program on Earth and figured that any athlete that could SURIVE to the
end of it must have the necessary genetic chops to become a world class
athlete.It’s a SELECTION process.The program picked the lifter: not the other
way around.But we, AS the individual,
must go about the from the other end: WE must pick the program that suits
US.And, in turn, it’s not about taking
a program and BENDING it to our will: when we do that, we simply make a program
that WAS effective for someone else now ineffective for two people: that person
AND us.Much like my post about “quit
making it taste like ketchup”, we don’t need to find the perfect program and
diet and then try to find a way for us to like it: let’s just pick the program
and diet that we like from the get go and do THAT!
I mean...you DO get to eat PBJs...
Because we
cannot escape the power of our own minds.Ultimately, the heart wants what it wants, and it will do what it takes
to secure that.When we select a way of
training and eating that does not align with who we are, which is to say, as
per Sartre, we live “inauthentically”, we experience the necessary existential
cognitive dissonance and ennui that transpires from that, and ultimately end up
listless and unaccomplished.When we
force ourselves to act against our true will and desire, we simply exhaust our
own willpower in the pursuit of achieving excellence.We work AGAINST ourselves, and our outcome
reflects as such.My father always told
me “you can swim further downstream in one hour than you can upstream in
three”, and too many folks are attempting to be upstream swimmers.
This is
where the value of introspection manifests: find out WHO you are and what
drives you.I KNOW that I can NOT stand
to count, measure, weigh or track anything when it comes to nutrition: it’s why
I vector toward nutritional protocols that are based on nutrient and time
restriction vs energy restriction.Other
folks live and die by their spreadsheets: they CRAVE data, and if left alone
without it, they’ll have a breakdown.When I first discovered Deep Water, it was like the heavens opened up
for me, as I found a program that pacified my desire at the time to train
psychotically hard and eat a meat based diet and grow, and grow I DID!Meanwhile, other folks have taken on that
same approach and completely failed to physically transform, because it did not
resonate with their psychology in the slightest, and they were living a life
AGAINST themselves the entire time.When
I tried to address my health by following a low fat AND low carb diet, I got
the leanest I’d ever been in my life and absolutely destroyed myself physically
and my drive to train.I was not eating
in the manner that suited my psychology, and it took it’s toll, compared to the
first time I ran Super Squats, where Randall Strossen’s PhD in psychology got
into my head so well that I never felt more “authentic” in my life than I did
between squats 17 and 18, knowing I had a full gallon of milk waiting for me in
my fridge back home.Meanwhile, other
folks think there’s nothing special about a 20 rep set of squats.
What could Jesse Marunde have possibly known about getting big and strong?
…they’re
wrong, but that’s ok: we can enjoy being wrong!As long as we get results, it doesn’t matter what program or diet we’re
following.We need to follow the one
that gets us to comply!We need to fit
the square peg with the square hole.We
need to make the obvious successful match ups that will ensure we are able to
fully invest ourselves with effort, consistency and time toward our goal of
transformation.When we try to go about
it backwards, carefully selecting the optimal diet and program in a vacuum,
completely ignoring the very real element that is US and our humanity, we force
ourselves to act against our nature, and in doing so work AGAINST ourselves in
our pursuit to better ourselves.When
all parts of us are aligned, mind, body and soul, we work as one toward one
goal, and our strength is all the more multiplied in that pursuit.
As far as trinities go, you could do a whole lot worse
* I intended
to keep this short.I failed.It’s over 4000 words.I don’t know why I do that.But I’ve been running Tactical Barbell
Operator for the past 8 weeks now in order to prep for a Strongman Competition
in the second week of April along with a 10 mile race in the first week of
April, all while dropping bodyweight in order to make the weight class for said
strongman competition.I made a few adjustments
to make the program best fit my needs for strongman and running, but still
stayed within the lanes and rules OF the program in order to do so, and wanted
to lay out what I’ve done, how it’s gone, and what I’ve learned.
BACKGROUND
Reading this book will sum me up pretty well
* In
preparing for my last strongman competition, I ended up breaking my body
HARD.Two biggest contributors were
doing my own programming for it combined with my initial competition getting
canceled and signing up for a new one that was 2 months down the line from the
last one.If I isolated these variables,
I probably would have been fine, but I ended up pushing myself too hard in
training for too long that, by the time I got TO the competition, I could
barely perform, and then I had to spend the next 8 weeks AFTER the competition
healing from my efforts.This can be
observed in the training videos post comp/my first run of Mass Protocol’s Grey
Man, as I struggle just to get into deadlift position and basically combust
after every set of squats.The day of my
first post comp workout, I had a co-worker ask me if I had a compressed disk,
because I was limping hard and favoring one side.
* On top of
all of this, I’ve genuinely lost my appetite to lift weights more than 4x per
week, and even then that’s a bit of an ask.I didn’t care for that during the Specificity phase of Mass Protocol, so
3x week is my sweet spot.I discovered
that during my most recent run of Building the Monolith, which led me back to
DoggCrapp, and even my own self-built programming was 3x week, so this made
Operator a great fit.
* I had a
few specific goals to train for.One is
the strongman competition in April, the other is a 10 mile race my wife and I
run every year, which was the week BEFORE the strongman competition, and I also
had a Disney Cruise in March and one in June, for which I wanted to be lean for
the sake of looking awesome on the pooldeck AND being able to just absolutely
eat my face off without regard for the impact it had on me.
* Which, on
the subject of cruises, before starting my strongman competition prep with
Operator, I had just finished running 2 cycles of Grey Man followed by 2 cycles
of Specificity Bravo from Mass Protocol before going on a 1 week New Year’s
cruise, resulting in me putting on 15lbs of bodyweight in 16 weeks, landing at
190lbs and needing to be 9lbs lighter in order to make weight for my weight
class, meaning I needed to engage in training where building muscle WASN’T the
focus.
* All of the
above led me to select Operator from TB1, and the Black conditioning protocol
from TB2.
HOW I RAN IT
About the only kind of running I can stand
* The
strongman competition I was preparing for had a press medley, topping out with
a log press for max reps, a car deadlift, atlas stone over bar, a triple
implement carry medley (husafel stone, keg and sandbag) and a sandbag throw
over bar series.This helped determine
my movement selection for the Operator Cluster: SSB front squat, log clean and
strict press away, weighted chins, kb swings and trap bar lift for my deadlift.For the first cycle, I’d train the deadlift
once per week for 3 sets on Wed, and then would perform the KB swings on Mon
and Fri for 1 set of 100.For the second
cycle, I kept the deadlift the same, but started including the KB swings in an
assistance circuit (detailed below).
* Thought
process: the other two implements in the press medley were the keg and the
axle, and the weights were light enough that I wasn’t concerned with my ability
to clean and press then, so I wanted to max focus on the log.The trap bar deadlift doesn’t EXACTLY
replicate the car deadlift, but it’s close enough for my purposes, and easier
to program compared to a lever deadlift set up.Neutral Grip chins spare my elbows from pain, which is crucial when
training for strongman, as they tend to take a beating from heavy loading, but
keeping that pull in the program is good for the sake of maintaining a strong
back.I opted for a front squat variant
over a back squat because I knew that, training for strongman, my lower back
was going to get heavily loaded from the stones, deadlifts and carry medleys,
and I didn’t need to add on top of that.A front squat naturally forces one to use a lower amount of weight,
which is less load in general.I went
with the SSB because my ability to maintain a front rack is limited by
mobility, and the SSB front squat actually feels a bit more like a log and
stone movement based on where the weight sits on the body compared to a barbell
front squat.
* For the
first 3 weeks of my first cycle of Operator, I did no strongman implement work
for conditioning.I, instead, opted for
very general conditioning, with a focus on running in the 400-800m range along
with some bodyweight work.Strongman
implements can really beat up the body, as I learned in my last training phase,
and I didn’t want to burn out too early.I went through a variety of workouts in TBII, to include Black Out on
Oxygen, Buffalo Laps, Meat Eater 1, etc.We had good weather, with no snowfall, so I was maximizing my outdoor
training capability during that time.I
also would include a regular 90 minute walk/ruck.After those 3 weeks, I started training stone
over bar and carry medleys on my conditioning days, specifically on weekends,
performing the Operator Workouts Mon/Wed/Fri with some TBII workouts on Tues
and Thurs.I started including some
non-running based workouts for the TBII work, like Heavy bag resets and Meat
Eater II, primarily when weather was bad or when I was short on time.I continued this protocol into the second
cycle, at which time I settled into a pretty steady rhythm of M/W/F Operator,
Tues Oxygen Debt 101, Thurs 90 minute ruck, Sat Stone over Bar, Sun carry
medley.I would train throws when I had
time to do so, but they weren’t a high priority.I picked weekends specifically to train
events because they’re LOUD, and I train at 0430 on weekdays, so I wasn’t going
to wake up my family.It did make it so
that my weekends weren’t very restorative for my lifting efforts, but I just
had to manage recovery as best I could.
* On the
first cycle, I would finish each lifting workout with some ab/core assistance
work.I took to performing a circuit
that was 3 rounds of a 30 second timed front rack hold with the SSB heavily
loaded, along with either a set of 10 standing ab wheels or hanging leg
raises.The front rack hold was
something I remembered from the aughts/10s that people were really into, and
it’s like a heavily loaded standing plank.After that, I’d get in 100 band pull aparts, and then either direct
chest work via dips and push ups, direct arm work with curls and band
pushdowns, or a lateral raise dropset.During the second cycle, I started training the assistance as a circuit,
turning it into a small conditioning workout.I would do 3-5 rounds, 30 seconds each, of SSB front rack holds,
standing ab wheel OR hanging leg raises, dips, KB swings and push ups.The first time I did this, it just happened
to fit my schedule, but I ended up appreciating it so much I made it a permanent
feature on the second cycle.
* Two other
additions I made on the second cycle was the inclusion of 1 heavy log clean per
week, performed on Wed before the trap pull sets.The intent was to condition my body to moving
heavy weight on that one lift so that I wouldn’t waste energy on it during the
competition.Along with this, I added 1
push press rep after finishing my 5 strict reps on the log for each set, once
again with the intent of re-grooving the motor pattern of push pressing.
HOW I CHANGED IT
Nailed it
* I
didn’t.My cluster was basically the
grunt cluster (front squat, overhead press, weighted chins and trap bar lift),
the 100 KB swings was something I lifted directly from TB2, I stuck with the
recommended structure of the Black conditioning protocol and considered my
strongman events as HIC workouts.About
the only thing that could be called deviations was my inclusion of direct arm
and side delt work, as even my core work was permitted as assistance work and
the push ups and dips fit within the general conditioning workouts.I wanted to make sure I ran this program as
laid out so I could give it a fair evaluation.
* If I WERE
to change anything, I’d consider changing the order of the weeks, employing a
3/5/1 rather than 5/3/1 structure.Which
is to say, instead of going 70% week 1, 80% week 2 and 90% week 3, I’d go 80%
week 1, 70% week 2, 90% week 3.I liked
that layout from 5/3/1, as the 70% in week 2 effectively primes you for a big
performance in week 3, whereas the gradual scale up in weight week to week can
leave me feeling beat up by the time I get to the final week.I may experiment with that in future runs,
but as it stands, I’m not messing with success.
* I also
think, instead of straight deadlift sets, I’m going to bring back ROM
progression.I’ll still only pull once a
week for 1 set, go for max reps rather than a fixed set of 5 at a percentage,
and increase the ROM each week.I’ll
have to experiment and see how much it impacts recovery: I may have to do it on
Friday vs Wednesday in order to have more recovery time.
WHAT I LIKED
Hey, double Homer Simposon
* 3 days of
lifting gave me 4 days to do things OTHER than lifting.It made it easy to balance strongman event
work, alongside general conditioning work, walking, and 3x a week martial arts
classes.
*
Sustainable progression.Lifting the
same weight 3x a week gave me ample opportunity to recover and “master” the
load before moving on, and the percentage increases between weeks were gentle
enough that I didn’t get crushed in the next week, even WHILE losing
bodyweight.I employed a forced
progression between cycle 1 and 2, rather than testing maxes, because I had
specific marks I had to hit for my competition.
*
Flexibility of set and rep ranges to account for demands outside of lifting and
recovery.There was a bare minimum and a
maximum to work within, and it gave me a chance to autoregulate as necessary.
* Wide
variety of conditioning workouts to choose from in TB2.There were some days I wanted to sleep in,
and I’d pick a very short and intense HIC workout, and other days I had more
time and could expand to a 90 minute E workout.
* This was
the first time in quite a while I managed to drop weight without just
completely jettisoning it.Muscles
stayed full as I leaned out, and my strength improved through the process.
* I liked
how the conditioning was laid out that we did an easy week during the heaviest
week of lifting.It made this week a
week where I could sleep in more, since the workouts were shorter, which meant
I recovered better, and therefore could put in my best performance.I also liked how K. Black had specifically
scaled workouts in TB2 so I KNEW how to “make it easy” vs leaving it up to my
own devices (since I would inevitably do something stupidly challenging
instead).
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Just please, don't give him any more ideas
* Resting a
minimum of 2 minutes between sets.Try
as I might, there was no way to avoid it.K. Black had me beat at every turn when I tried to find a way around it.
I thought about super/giant setting the main lifts, only to read in his FAQ
that you’re free to alternate between movements: just rest 2-5 minutes between
them.When I ran the Mass Protocol
workouts, I rested the bare minimum 1 minute between sets to make it really
challenging, but there was no avenue for that here, and it honestly just killed
my soul to rest that long.BUT: I did
it.Because I wanted to give the program
a fair chance, and not change it from the start and then complain about it not
working.
* The very
consistency that made progression sustainable is also going to be flat out
boring.Doing the same workout 3 times
in a row makes you start to wonder if the third workout is any more valuable
than the second, and the temptation to skip or mess around is there.
WHAT I LEARNED
I could kinda see why Skynet wanted to kill John Conner after this movie...
* My entire
time with Tactical Barbell has been a real eye opener on the balancing act
between stimulus and recovery, and how one needs to work “hard enough” rather
than trying to make every single training session a war.At least, if the goal is to improve in the
metrics of strength and size, AND to do so while also still improving
conditioning.There’s definitely room
for the maniac training I’ve done in the past, but that ultimately did a great
job of building my conditioning at the EXPENSE of other qualities.I DO have a resting heart rate of 38 these
days, which I attribute to all that time, energy and effort, but now, with
Tactical Barbell, I can throttle back on maximizing conditioning and instead
allow my other qualities to grow.
* Make the
strength work strength work and the conditioning work conditioning work.Similar to my above point, I tried too hard
to make my own workouts everything at once, and in turn none of it was much
good.Similar to my blogpost about
greatest hits albums, I also may write a post where I equate this to buying the
jar of peanut butter mixed with jelly vs just getting two separate products and
mixing them on your own: the latter will work out better than the former.When strength work is JUST strength work, you
focus hard on that one objective and you crush it, and then, when it’s time to
do conditioning work, you do the same, and you maximize the RESULTS of both
efforts.When you try to sneakily turn
your strength work into conditioning by playing around with rest times and
giant sets, you end up degrading your strength work so you can accomplish a not
great conditioning workout along with it, which is, as Stan Efferding puts it
“stepping over dollars to pick up dimes”.
* And with
that above point, K. Black DOES employ a good “no dessert until you eat your
dinner” approach with how he lays out Operator.You want intensity?You want
variety?Cool: that’s what CONDITIONING
is for. You do your lifting to get your strength done, and then, when it’s
conditioning time, go wild.Pick any
workout you want (within the prescription of Green or Black) and have at
it.You want to suck wind?Do Oxygen Debt 101.Feel like suffering for a long time?Do a 90 minute LISS session.Need some Crossfit stuff?Do the general conditioning circuits.And he’s got challenges in there too. I
suppose this is more of a “what I liked” bullet, but it ties into the above.You CAN make the strength work the strength
work, because you know that, after you get that done, you can go wild with the
conditioning.
* On THAT
note, what I like about TB is how easily it can map to other programs.TB1 is basically a structured version of Dan
John’s “Easy Strength”: it just slightly breaks the rule of 10 reps, but you’re
still not struggling on the reps and focusing on building the SKILL of
strength.Meanwhile, TB2 totally answers
the 5/3/1 question of “what should I do for conditioning”, and could ALSO be
mapped directly onto Dan John’s Easy Strength if you wanted to use THAT program
instead.
NUTRITION
Trying to get more Dakota Dude and less Buffalo Bull with the high beef intake...and props if you get this reference at all
* Since my
goal was to drop weight, I still stuck with a similar approach to what I did
during the weight gain phase: I just changed the end of day meal.To recap: I’m employing the Velocity
Diet/Apex Predator diet, wherein I consume a protein supplement throughout the
day leading up to one evening meal of solid food.Specifically, I’m using Metabolic Drive by
BioTest, with me training first thing in the morning at 0430, then having 2
scoops of MD at 0615, 0930, and 1230, then a solid meal around 1730, 2 scoops
of MD at 2030, and then 1 scoop of MD in the night, kept in a shaker bottle in
my bathroom that I’ll drink at some point when I wake up to pee.
* When I was
gaining, that evening meal was MASSIVE, and very high fat.I’m sticking with carnivore, so the main
feature was some sort of large amount of fatty meat, and then 4-6 whole eggs,
pork crackling and cottage cheese, with ghee typically to backfill some
energy.Now, with fat loss as the goal,
I’ve leaned out the protein source, switched to egg whites, and cut out the
cracklin and cottage cheese.
* I should
point out that the above describe my weekday nutrition.On weekends, I have 2 solid meals: my wife
makes me a great breakfast, consisting of 2 omelets made with 3 whole eggs,
ghee, swiss cheese and whatever meat we have leftover from the week, alongside
3 strips of beef bacon and a piedmontese grassfed hotdog.For dinner, on Saturdays we go out somewhere
(frequently it was either our favorite local BBQ spot where I’d get a full rack
of pork dibs without sauce or an awesome Hibachi/buffet spot where I’d load up
on all sorts of grilled seafood) and on Sundays I’d typically cook steaks.
* Aside from
water with electrolytes, the only other thing I’d drink is a green tea twice a
day, also mixed with electrolytes.I
picked up some sort of cold around week 5 of the program, and took to including
a teaspoon of cinnamon in the tea, as it felt good on my throat.
* After week
9, my intent is to attempt Vince Gironda’s “Maximum Definition Diet” of
steak/meat and eggs for all of my meals, ideally doing a breakfast and dinner
daily with this approach.I’m currently
below weight for my weight class, and should ideally be able to eat UP to
weight leading up to the competition.
OUTCOMES/LESSONS LEARNED
Honestly, this would be just as accurate for many program jumpers
* Since I’m
still running the program with the intention of competing at the end of the
second cycle, this is a “check in” rather than a program review.Along with that, I have no intention of
testing maxes to evaluate results, as this is the year I turn 40, and I’ve only
got so many maxes in me and I intend to use those IN competition.So instead of “results” or “before/after”,
I’m going to list the current outcomes I’ve gotten from running Operator for
these past 8 weeks (along with TB programs in general for these past 23 weeks).
* The
biggest thing is that I healed up a lot of nagging injuries by following
programs with controlled volume and intensity.Once again, if you roll back to my training videos at the start of Mass
Protocol, you can see how dysfunctional my squat pattern is, and it was because
my right hip was in so much agony that racking the bar after each set
effectively crippled me.It was a
significant amount of nerve pain, and there’s a fair chance I had/have some
manner of compressed disc that is pressing against a nerve, but with enough
time on an intelligently laid out program, I’ve managed to heal to the point
that I have much better mobility and do not need to hang from a bar between
sets to stretch out my back.My warm-ups
have also gotten shorter, as I need less prep for training.I’ve also eliminated the persistent pain I
have in my elbows, which typically grows during strongman competition prep.
* But all of
this healing has come along with consistent performance IMPROVEMENT as well,
compared to the results one gets when they simply rest to recover.I haven’t tested maxes, no, but I am moving
weight easier in training while my bodyweight continues to drop, which in and
of itself is an observable form of progress.My Stone of Steel workouts get stronger each week, I’m able to lift more
loads during my strongman medleys, I see progression on my log clean maxes, and
my technique is getting sharper from all the consistent practice.
* Part of
the healing process was also about me not being stubborn any more.I was still dealing with pain during Grey
Man, and it was primarily a result of my squatting style.2 years ago, when I radically changed my
nutrition, I ALSO radically changed my squat style, because I was taking a page
from the Dave Tate injury playbook of picking brand new movements so that I
wouldn’t have my old ones to compare against.I went from a belted, VERY low bar moderate stance squat to a beltless
very high bar VERY close stance squat, to the point that my heels practically
touched.When I first started squatting
this way, there was no problem, as the weights were so light, but once I
started getting strong on it, it started putting pressure on my structure that
I wasn’t able to support.If you look at
me, I’m built for conventional pulling and low bar squatting, as I’m pretty
much all femurs with no upper torso.Squatting high bar with a close stance had me squatting about a mile
before I reached depth, and without the belt my core was getting hammered.Eventually, this resulted in my grinding up
my right knee (I tore the meniscus in it on a log clean over a year ago, which
most likely happened because I was stressing it with this squat style), forcing
me to squat SLOW to work around the knee, which put more pressure on my core,
which I imagine is why my hip was so beat up.I finally got over myself and put the belt back on and widened up my
stance a little for the Operator phase of training, and since that time my
healing has really taken off and I’m feeling incredible.I think there IS still a place in my training
for that style of squat, but not as a main strength movement.
Day 1 of Mass Protocol
Training as of today. Note the difference in squats
* I’ve lost
around 10lbs in 8 weeks, once again without having to count or track anything
that I’m eating, and through the process have grown in strength and managed to
hold on to enough lean tissue that I don’t like stringy as I did after my last
strongman competition prep/fat loss experience.I imagine this is a product of NOT trying to turn the lifting workouts
into conditioning workouts, and actually giving my muscles an opportunity to
recover from heavy work while still getting stimulus from that and some of the
conditioning work.That, and also
keeping conditioning on point, to either be short and intense or low effort and
long, avoiding the middle ground of moderate intensity for moderate durations.As I learn more, I realize how significant it
is to understand what energy systems you’re training and what fuel sources
they’re using.I don’t want to be a
“sugar burner”.
SUMMARY
You mean to tell me there is no room left for a trained weapon of mass destruction?
* These past
8 weeks with Operator have been a success, and I imagine that will continue
until I get to my competition.After I
finish week 9, I go on a 1 week Disney Cruise, which I will be counting as a
bridge week, then come back and finish up the last 3 weeks of the program,
culminating with the 10 mile race, followed by another bridge week, and then my
competition.I’ll do a write up of those
events, and from there we’ll see what happens.8 weeks after the competition, I go on ANOTHER cruise, this time for a
longer time, to Greece and Italy, of which I am excited for the cuisine and my
attempt to LARP Heracles.I’m kicking
around a few ideas of how I’ll train leading up to that, but ultimately how I’m
doing after my competition will determine that.
* And, of course, if you want to watch all the videos of the training up until this point, here is the playlist.
