Thursday, November 14, 2024

“FOR WHAT?”

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



This clumsy dialog was a warning sign we all missed

 


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

 

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


The horror!


 

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

 

 

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

 

I dig how this image is offensive to Mexico AND pizza


 

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

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

BOOT CAMP VS SELECTION

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

 

It's not like you have a choice really


 

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

 

 

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


Oh the puns!

 


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

 

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


This is about right

 


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

 

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


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


 

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

 

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


Here we see both outcomes


 


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

Friday, November 1, 2024

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

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


Just pointing out that "TactiCOOL Conan" IS a thing

 


WHY DID I PICK GREY MAN?

 

Because sometimes grey is the only color you need



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

 

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

 

MY SUPPLEMENTAL WORK

 

No, not this kind



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

 

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

 

 

MY CONDITIONING

 

Not this...at least, not yet



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

 

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

 

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

 

PROGRESSION

 

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

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

 

HOW I DEVIATED


What?  Me?  A deviant?!


 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

NUTRITION: INTERMITTENT FEASTING


Seems legit


 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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


 SAMPLE MEALS













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

 SCHEDULE

A simple breakdown of my weekdays would be

 

* 0400: wake up, train

 

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

 

* 0930: Same as 0615

 

* 1230: Same as 0615

 

* 1730ish: FEAST

 

* 2030: Same as 0615

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

RESULTS SO FAR

 

Can't argue with results



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


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


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

 

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

 

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

 

 

THE FUTURE

The more things change, the more they stay the same

 

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

Thursday, October 24, 2024

DUNGEONS AND DIETS PART 5: DETERMING YOUR STATS

Welcome, yet again, to the DnD World fellow physical transformation nerds.  Herein I will continue the saga started a while back where I make hamfisted analogies between DnD and nutrition.  In this post, I will discuss how nutrition and training relate to the notion of our character stats, which, for the uninitiated, basically described the general attributes that make us who we are.  Whereas class determines what we do for a living and race determines our ethnic background (which, in turn, can influence what we have an affinity toward, and aversion against, and other qualities, ultimately being an appropriate representation of “genetics”), the stats are the point black numerical representation of where we stand in the world.  Allow me a quick crash course and then an explanation of where this is headed.


Inevitably, it's always this


There are six core stats in the world of Dungeons and Dragons: Strength (my obvious favorite), Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma.  For a quick rundown, strength is obvious, and will impact how much damage you do with melee weapons, whereas dexterity impacts ranged weapons along with your general ability to move swiftly/steal stuff/etc.  Constitution is like endurance/hardiness/hard-to-kill-ability.  For the best ever explanation of the last three: intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is understanding that you shouldn’t put tomato in a fruit salad, charisma is understanding that you can sell a tomato fruit salad as salsa.  Intelligence is knowing stuff, wisdom is being able to actually apply the stuff you know, and charisma is about emotional intelligence and being able to navigate/manipulate people.  And here’s what else you need to know: stats range typically range from 3-18 for a newly created character, with 3 being the absolute worst you could be at something and 18 being the absolute best, traditionally indicating that a “newly minted” person in the DnD world is all 10s down the board: completely average.  So now let’s talk about HOW we can those stats to range from 3-18 vs simply walking around as straight 10s down the board.

 

There are 2 primary ways to determine your stats in DnD: you can “roll a character”, which you’ve most likely heard the term before, or you can employ a “point buy” system.  In the case of the former, traditional/hardcore rules dictate rolling 3 six sided die (3 d6, if you wanna know the hardcore lingo) and whatever those numbers add up to: that’s your stat.  You can see how 3-18 happens now.  A kinder/gentler approach is to roll FOUR six sided die and take the best 3 of those 4 rolls.  In either case, you do this for a total of 6 times, and then plug the results into your stats.  There are even more homerules approaches to this, but we’ll cap it off there for now, because this is already going to get way too wordy.  Point buy, on the other hand, is a system wherein you are allotted a fixed amount of total points to spend across the 6 stats.  It removes randomness from the equation and creates a more “fair” character creation process.  Worth appreciating is that, as stats get higher, they require more points spent to increase the stat (like, going from 10 to 11 strength only costs 1 point, whereas going from 17 to 18 costs 3, for an example).  Already THAT is an excellent metaphor for training, and how, the more advanced you become, the harder you have to work to get the gains that used to come so easy at the beginning, but perhaps I’ll save that for another blogpost.  Worth appreciating is the fact that the Dungeon Master will ultimately decide HOW many points you could to play with: if they want you to have a high power campaign, you get a lot of points, whereas a low level campaign will be few points.


You laugh until you realize these are YOUR party members...

 


Now, all THAT established…what the hell does it have to do with nutrition?  Because, in the realm of physical transformation, nutrition is what DETERMINES your “stat pool”.  Irrespective of if you are doing point buy or rolling a character, your nutrition determines what NUMBERS you have to play with.  But what makes us roll a character vs point buy?  Nuance and approach, fundamentally.  Many MANY trainees are employing a “roll a character” approach in the hopes of scoring a whole bunch of 18s with some random luck, but if these folks want a predictable and fair approach, they need to engage in some point buying.  Allow me to explain.

 

When I was young, I definitely was rolling stats as far as my nutrition went.  My focus was on food QUANTITY.  I was operating under the premise that, as long as I ate ENOUGH of it, I was BOUND to eat the right stuff to trigger the physical transformation I required.  I watched the scale as my feedback for my success, and saw my bodyweight climb up as I pounded away all the fast food, yummy sugary treats, blender bombs, gainers, PBJs and quick fixes I could get my hands on.  It was an approach of pure randomness that I had convinced myself was logical and intelligent: as long as I kept my protein high, I was bound to be building muscle, and all that other food was going to provide me energy to fuel training and the metabolic functions necessary to promote growth.  And this is not that much further away from If It Fits Your Macros, operating under the premise that, as long as you hit specific benchmarks and milestones of nutrition, you’re going to get the results you desire.


I was taking some nutritional cues from this dude...in his 2008 era of nutrition


 

As I wrote: this is randomness.  It’s rolling 3 die and hoping they end up all 6s.  Maybe they will…and maybe it’ll be all 1s.  Because, unfortunately for you, there IS nuance when it relates to this whole “human biology” stuff, and what you eat DOES have a determining impact on the outcome you receive.  Calories in/Calories out may determine bodyWEIGHT outcomes, but it does NOT determine body COMPOSITION outcomes.  And along with that, WHAT we eat can even impact BOTH the calories in AND calories out portion of the equation: foods we cannot actually properly digest due to intolerances among other issues will not factor into our “calories in” despite our counting of it, and some nutrients are going to have a thermic effect that actually contribute to their own “calories out” portion of the equation, to say nothing of the impact of surplus energy sometimes unconsciously impacting our own non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).  And then, from there, we can discuss the impact of spiking insulin frequently with sugary food intake vs the impact of a fat based diet, the influence of being in a fat adapted/ketogenic state vs a sugar burning state, the myriad of hormone responses in the body, etc.  This isn’t to say that calories/energy/macros DON’T matter, but to say that OTHER things ALSO matter…which brings us to point buy.

 

With point buy, the randomness is taken away from the equation.  This is what one hopes to accomplish with a more nuanced nutritional approach.  And look: you already know I’m big on carnivore, but at least you ALSO know I’m big on it BECAUSE of the research and personal experimentation I’ve done in order to come to this conclusion over MANY decades of playing around with my nutrition.  In the same way, I fully support people with a mixed diet, a vegan diet, a flexible diet, etc etc, so much as they have taken the time to consider BEYOND merely their caloric and macronutrient needs when determining WHAT to put into their body.  Because nutrition DOES have more to it than that…at least, if our goal is to have a solid stat pool to pull from as far as physical transformation goes.  By going deeper and understanding the hormonal impact of food, the influence of micronutrients and minerals, the impact digestion plays and our ability to actually ABSORB the nutrients we are consuming, avoiding our own personal food intolerances, etc etc, we allow ourselves to remove randomness from the equation and to be able to have a much more stable stat pool to draw from. 


I get how you 90s kids think random is always best

 


And, in turn, we absolutely have the opportunity to achieve some 18s: it’s just not going to happen accidentally.  It will be focused and achieved through legit hard work and research.  Stan Efferding is a fantastic example of someone who took the effort to play in a high level campaign with their stat points, along with folks like Thomas Delauer, John Meadows, John Berardi, etc.  Can you Sam Sulek, Dave Tate, Randall Strossen, Paul Anderson, Hugh Cassidy your way to victory as well, by simply relying on the notion that quantity is a quality in and of itself?  For sure: randomness is always an option, especially in the realm of DnD, but what IS worth appreciating is that even those aforementioned people at least had a method to their madness.  None of them were simply relying on an app to tell them what their “goals” were: many were at least mindful enough to have a theory to their approach to nutrition.   

 

 

And once we have our stat NUMBERS, it is training that determines stat ALLOCATION.  Yes, if you train to get stronger, you’ll be able to take that high number you either rolled or saved up points for and put it in strength.  You spend your time on mobility, it goes to dexterity.  Spend it on endurance, it goes to constitution.  Etc etc.  But the key takeaway here is this: training determines ALLOCATION: it does not determine AMOUNT.  The actual stat NUMBERS you get to play with are a product OF that nutrition.  You can train as hard as you want: if the nutrition isn’t there to actually give you a high stat pool, you’re just going to take your highest crappy stat and put it into one of your attributes.  So congrats: you now have a 12 in strength instead of a 10.  Play a high level campaign and you’ll have a MUCH better character to play.


Although sometimes you SWEAR they were cheating when they made their character...


 

Roll a character or point buy: the decision is yours.  But, in real life, you don’t’ get a mulligan on your die rolling: what you roll is what you roll.  Do you really wanna risk being all 10s and 8s in your pursuit of an 18? 

Friday, October 18, 2024

LESSONS LEARNED FROM CONAN THE BARBARIAN: BUILD THE BASE FIRST, THEN SPECIALIZE

Once again, it’s incredible how those OUTSIDE the realm of physical transformation understand the process SO much better than those of us inside of it, proof of concept enough that we “get this” on an instinctual, primal, lizard brain level, and it takes the kind of hubris and stupidity that can only be produced by humans to convince ourselves that there is a “better way”.  In today’s diatribe, I reference the phenomenal 80s movie “Conan The Barbarian”, inspired by the works of Robert Howard and his “Conan the Cimmerian” stories, but I wish to make the distinction that I am SPECIFICALLY referring to this movie in this instance.  If you have NOT seen this movie: stop reading right now and go watch it.  It is your birthright to do so, and it will also make it that this post does not spoil anything.  This movie chronicles Conan’s beginnings, including the ransacking of his village as a child, his being taken into slavery, being forced to fight in the pits for his life, and his eventual escape from slavery and journeys as a dangerous man seeking vengeance for the slaughter of his people.  It was a breakthrough role for Arnold, has a banging soundtrack, and viewing it is an anabolic experience.  But, specifically, I want to focus on that early part of the film, for, within it, the filmmakers actually laid out for the viewers a FANTASTIC protocol for physical transformation, which, somehow, we all overlooked, forgot, and reversed.  Conan undergoes a process of developing a BROAD physical base to build from before he goes through a process of specialization to become an incredibly dangerous man, yet so many trainees want to either do this in reverse or completely skip the first part.


Just like skipping leg day


 

When Conan is first captured and sold into slavery, he is put to work on the “Wheel of Pain”, which is one of the most iconic scenes in 80s barbarian film history (which may sound incredibly niche, but is actually a pretty well fleshed out genre of film).  It’s not really stated what the intent is behind this wheel: it’s simply an apparatus that slaves/prisoners are chained to that they push laboriously, day in and day out, with no rest in sight.  The mechanics of it are not unlike a prowler: there’s no eccentric load, you just set your hips and shoulders and push for all you’re worth.  Over the years, we watch Conan’s development laboring under this wheel, going from a scrawny boy into a powerfully built man, each day and each repetition lending itself toward developing a powerful and massive physique: the result of much general toil with no real specific intention behind it.  And, once his time on the wheel has been deemed adequate by outside observers, Conan faces his second phase: time in the pits.

 

Now a fully grown man (“grown” here emphasized, because god DAMN did he get big), Conan is thrown into the pits in order to fight for his life and the fortune of those who wager upon him.  His captors are banking on the premise that Conan’s time under the wheel has given him the physical advantages necessary to be able to take on all comers, for when you observe HOW Conan fights initially, it is clearly the work of an untrained savage (dare I say: a barbarian).  He fights primal and feral, like a caged animal backed into a corner and forced to defend itself.  He bites, gouges, grabs, smashes, and oafishly clubs and swings whatever weapons he manages to acquire.  As time goes on, we see Conan start to develop his own style and approach to combat.  He takes that raw, physical talent of his and is able to sharpen it to a finer point through frequent repetition, practice, refinement, and testing of concepts under the most rigorous possible testing field one could engage in: quite literal “succeed or die” situations.  Much like how, under the era of Miyamoto Musashi, inferior swordfighting styles were weeding by means of killing to owner of the style to prevent it’s flourishing, there was no room for significant error under Conan’s pitfighting phase of training, and lessons had to be learned quickly in order to continue to thrive.  It was from here that Conan entered his final phase of training: specificity.



Just in case you legit have no idea what I'm talking about

 


Yes, after enough time in the pits fighting as a barbarian and developing the basics of combat, Conan’s captures saw fit to get him some REAL training, in order to take that edge he had developed and turn it razor sharp.  We observe him receiving personalized sword instruction from a master instructor, no longer relying on instinct and savagery, but instead learning about technique, precision, efficiency and maximizing capabilities.  It is at the end of this phase that Conan has reached “peak dangerous”: he has all the raw physical strengths granted to him from the Wheel of Pain, the savagery, aggression and instincts granted to him by his time fighting in the pits, and the technique, skill and proficiency afforded to him by direct, one-on-one expert level training and coaching.

 

WHICH IS SUCH AN OBVIOUS WAY TO DO THINGS!  It’s so obvious that fantasy authors and script writers managed to figure it out without ANY advanced education in the realm of physical transformation, yet you have individuals who dare to refer to themselves as coaches that are out there trying to convince new trainees that they need to START with specialization and MAYBE consider building up some GPP when they run into a stall.  Jesus Christ how are we this stupid?  Everyone who WATCHED Conan the Barbarian ALSO totally understood what was going on, and yet we, who call ourselves “ironheads” or “meatheads” or “strength athletes” or “athletes” or any other term expressing our interest, love and passion for physical transformation somehow convinced ourselves that the most obvious approach to physical transformation was wrong and that flipping it on its head would somehow get us where we wanted to go.



Just want to point out that none of this is doctored or edited



 


Learn from Conan: he had it totally figured out.  I upset a LOT of folks on the internet when they ask what they should do to start lifting and I say “Go play a sport for 6 months”, but it’s the absolute truth: if you have NO athletic base, you need to develop that FIRST before you start touching barbells.  It’s taken for granted that a trainee will have such an athletic base, but we currently live in a world where a human can grow to an adult at the age of 18 having NEVER played any manner of sport during that time, and some of these individuals never engaged in any sort of basic outside play either.  No running, jumping, swimming, swinging, crawling, etc etc.  What happens when you throw this adult into the pits?  They get killed within the first 10 seconds: they have NO physical attributes to rely on to allow them an opportunity to discover and refine their inherent savagery.  We need to get in shape BEFORE we get in shape.

 

And again, if you HAD that sports background, it would make total sense to you.  When you show up out of shape, you aren’t able to spend the time necessary to develop the reps to develop the skills, because you gas out too quickly in practice.  If you’ve ever attended a martial arts class, you’ll see this first hand: folks aren’t able to do the drill for the day to develop their skills because they’re winded and their muscles are tired.  Whatever reps they DO drill are sloppy and reinforcing bad technique.  It’d be similar to trying to learn to shoot freethrows after doing 500 lateral raises: your shoulders are just junked up and you can’t get the mechanics right.  But if you get yourself in good shape first (like, generally prepared to do physical stuff…GPP?), when it comes time to learn the skills, you’ll be able to focus on JUST learning those skills, AND you’ll be able to apply all your physical strengths INTO the skills as well.  You’ll be physically able to learn AND physically able to produce.


When you're built like this at 15, you get to be the heavyweight champ at 20

 


And from here, we can move on still to a phase of GENERAL strength training.  It makes no sense for us to try to master the sword when we don’t have any of the necessary aggression, savagery, or reflexes to make use of the weapon in our hand.  Similarly, dedicating ourselves to mastering a handful of lifts makes no sense when we haven’t even developed any sort of rudimentary BASIC strength and coordination with the iron.  There are a LOT of muscles in the body, and they’re all pretty cool at getting bigger and stronger, and to focus on just a handful of them so we can master a few lifts is a surefire way to burn out quick, accumulate overuse injuries and end up neglecting parts that will eventually result in plateauing until we address them.  BUT, if we show up for specialization as a specimen who has spent time developing a broad general base of strength through a wide variety of exercises, we have MUCH more potential to draw from when it comes time to specialize.

 

Because there’s nothing wrong with specialization: it’s the key to maximizing our ability to be dangerous.  But there IS something wrong with trying to specialize at the wrong time.  If Conan attempted to master the sword as a boy, he would have been slaughtered by the first highwayman he came across in his quest for vengeance.  Sword mastery can only carry you so far when you’re 4’ tall and weigh 60lbs.  In turn, if you decide to take on the squat, bench press and deadlift from day 1, you’re most likely going to hit your first stall at about 80lbs.  But, if you decide to spend the necessary time suffering under the wheel and fighting in the pits, when you decide to undertake mastery, you will be able to excel FAR and for long periods of time, being able to rely on all the qualities and attributes you developed leading up to that decision.  While others fumble merely attempting to hold the sword, your physique and instinct will carry you far.


VERY far

 


Learn these lessons from Conan.  Hell, soon enough I can discuss his nutritional wisdom as well.