THE SWORD OF BERSERKING: EVERY CURSE IS A BLESSING

 

For some reason, I’ve always been a fan of the “Faustian Deal”, which, for those unaware, is a reference to the character of Faust, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.  The idea of simply having power without consequence was always too boring to me: I really enjoyed the notion of power “but at what cost?”  In turn, Dungeons and Dragons afforded me an avenue to really geek out of this with the notion of “cursed gear”, which were items your character could employ but, once wielded, could not be removed, and typically featured some sort of consequence to balance out whatever blessing they bestowed upon you.  There was powerful armor that reduced your charisma because it had a foul odor associated with it, shields that would deflect swords but attract arrows, a spear that damaged you AS it damaged the enemy (referred to as “the back biter”), etc etc.  But one of the most classic examples of this was the “Cursed Sword of Berserking”, which, of course, I loved, because it was a stupidly powerful two-handed sword that forced your character into a berserk state upon the start of battle, wherein he would simply attempt to murder whoever was closest to him and move on from there.  Yes: this INCLUDED those that were friendly members of your party: berserkers don’t discriminate.  And while many would discover such a sword and quickly discard it, or try to find some sucker to pawn it off too, I was a much bigger fan of keeping that sword in my inventory and employing it when the benefits of the blade outweighed the consequence of the curse.  A lesson, of course, for us to understand and employ outward, in that EVERY “curse” we endure carries with it a blessing: we must simply learn how to leverage and employ it in the correct context.

 

Some even manage to leverage it for some quick cash

 

What ultimately inspired this post was my own personal reflections on growing up as a fat kid.  At that time, being fat absolutely felt like a curse: I was the constant target of bullies, as I was, quite literally, a big target.  I was slow, unathletic (which, in a point of irony, I was denied access to the pop-warner football program because I was TOO heavy…a program I was hoping would help get me in shape), awkward, and of course didn’t care for how I looked.  However, that fat kid background has been quite the blessing during these later years in my continued quest for physical transformation.  Primarily, during my most recent shift to “protein sparing intermittent feasting”, I’ve learned that my ability to eat MASSIVE quantities of food in a single sitting is an absolute boon, as I have zero issues with sitting down at a single meal and getting in enough food with enough vital protein and fat in it to be able to successfully gain weight.  I think of all the dudes that are out there eating 6 to 7 times a day and STILL struggling to be able to put on weight because they simply don’t have the capacity to get all the food in, and I realize that these fat kid tendencies are really coming through for me…and moreso in another way too.

 

I’ve already BEEN fat, which means, unlike SO many trainees out there these days: I’m not afraid of it happening.  It honestly saddens me how many dudes I see that are struggling with this absolute FEAR of adding an ounce of fat to their bodies in their quest to gain muscle, such to the point that they are tragically undereating and wasting all of their training time and energy because they simply won’t eat enough food to actually get anything out of the process.  They prize their current appearance over their future, unable to focus on the long term objective due to a focus on near term issues.  For me, looking peeled is a novelty: not a norm.  Even though I’ve been “fit” for 25 years now, having started the process at age 14, meaning I spent MORE time being fit than unfit, in my mind I’m still a “fat kid” and, in turn, when my abs go away while I’m in the quest to gain muscle, it causes no psychological disturbance: I’m simply “returning to normal”.  And, additionally, I have all the assurance in the world that I KNOW how to lose fat, because I’ve done it so many times.  The fear of the unknown tends to be the biggest obstacle for these trainees to overcome: they’ve never gotten fat in the first place, so they don’t realize how simple it is to become “unfat”.  They’ve built up the process so much in their head, made it so mythologically impossible, when, in reality, people do it EVERY day.  The curse of my childhood is truly a blessing. 

Little did I realize I was in training my whole childhood...

 

But this wasn’t meant to be simply a celebration of growing up fat: those on the opposite end of the spectrum have a curse that is a blessing as well.  The “hardgainer” (which, despite how often the internet wants to say it’s not really a thing, I believe it’s really a thing, and I can go into that in the comments if people are interested) has the curse of having to eat SO much in order to gain weight…but ALSO has the very same blessing.  Think about how non-nuanced your nutrition can become when you decide to embrace Stalin’s philosophy that “quantity has a quality all its own”.  While other dudes have to calculate macros and calories and perfectly craft their nutrition to achieve their goals, you’re putting away the J M Blakely special of pizzas drenched in olive oil and speed eating oreos.  You have absolutely ZERO fear of “accidentally getting fat”, because not only is it practically impossible for you to gain weight, but you KNOW that, IF you were to somehow finally put on fat, all you have to do is NOT eat like a death row inmate at their last meal in order to strip the fat right back off again.  Whereas my cursed blessing was to not care about getting fat, yours is to not WORRY about it.

 

Injuries are a classic cursed blessing.  Were it not for injuries, I never would have discovered ROM progression, or DoggCrapp, or Tactical Barbell, or so many other cools tips and tricks, nor would I have been able to justify many of the super fun gym toys now in my possession which afford me a wide variety of options in training.  What about a bad training cycle?  Picking “the wrong program?”  The cursed blessing of KNOWLEDGE.  Of EXPERIENCE!  We learned something: we learned what DOESN’T work.  You scoff, but isn’t that SO much better than those dudes who just run Starting Strength for 6 straight years, constantly resetting to the same lifts before building back up and regressing all over again because they’re too afraid to try something new?  Often, we need to take a few steps back so we can take a giant leap forward.

Being a little lighter might also help

 

These are all swords of berserking.  The curse is only a curse when the situation is wrong, but in the right situation, under the right context, the blessing is worth the curse.  Look at all the curses inflicted upon you and discover the blessing contained within them. 

       

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL WRAP-UP: 12LBS IN 15 WEEKS, LESSONS LEARNED AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Greetings once again folks.  I’ve finished up 15 weeks of Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol, consisting of 3 cycles of General Mass and 2 cycles of specificity, and wanted to share my experience and lessons learned here.

I like to start with the end on these and work backwards, saving you the effort of scrolling. 

Also, just a heads up, I'll be on the cruise I talk about in this write-up come next week, so expect a slight delay in that blog update.

THE RESULTS

Tactical Mass

 

* In 15 weeks, I put on 5.6 kg, going from 79.1 to 84.7, and the only reason I’m using kilos is because my bathroom scale defaults to that and I can’t figure out how to make it to pounds.  But for a quick conversion, that’s 174lbs to 186: a 12lb gain in 15 weeks, averaging about .8lbs per week.  That’s right in the sweet spot of what we’re told is “optimal gain”, and I did that with no tracking at all.

 

 

* As far as lifts go, the most telling is my squat.  When I started the program, I estimated my 1rm and had my first workout go with a 4x8x285lb squat, which I alternated with axle strict pressing out of the rack, waiting at LEAST a minute between exercises.  By the time I finished those squat, I was in so much pain I felt like I was going to have to quit the program, and when a co-worker saw me later that day, they asked if I had a herniated disc.  I was NOT moving healthy, which can be seen in the squat, where I moved VERY slowly up and down.

 

 

* On week 15, as part of specificity, I squatted 290 for 5x8 with strict 1 minute rests.  So, I had over half as much rest time, using 5 more pounds and 1 more set, and then immediately follow it with more squats via lever belt squat.  And when it was done, there was no pain in my back or hips. 

 

* So really, I got bigger, I got stronger, and I got better conditioned.  That’s a success.

 

 

* I’ve recorded every single workout along the way, so if you’re interested in observing, you can check it out 

 

THE TRAINING

 

What kind of training?

* I’ve done 2 check-ins along the way that further detail my specific training approach.  You can read them here

 https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2024/11/operation-conan-sitrep-current-update.html

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2024/12/operation-conan-sitrep-2-tactical.html

 

* But for quick summary: my 15 weeks of training included 3 cycles of Grey Man and 2 cycles of Specificity Bravo.  I did not employ a bridge week during that time, and that’s purely because of my schedule: I have a Cruise (as in, mobile buffet on the water kind, not drugs) coming up at the end of this week, and was going to count it was my bridge week, and taking one before that would have meant not being able to fully complete one cycle of training at some point.  All that said, I feel like a bridge would have been very appropriate before going from Grey Man to Specificity, and quite possibly even earlier: after the second cycle of Grey Man.  I intend to take bridge weeks more frequently in the future, as 4 months of training without a break is a bit much.

 

THE NUTRITION

Yeah, this was pretty standard

 

* This was where I demonstrated the most deviation from the Tactical Barbell protocol, and, in turn, it’s probably the most unique/interesting part of the whole experiment.  K. Black makes a recommendation based around counting/tracking calories and macronutrients, emphasizing the significance of ensuring one gets in an adequate amount of total calories in general, along with the important of protein for muscle building and carbs for energy and the support of muscle building.  He is very staunch on the importance of tracking and of carbs in particular.

 

* So, of course, I did absolutely no tracking whatsoever, of calories or macros, and the only ate carbs once a week.  Along with that, I whittled myself down to one solid meal in the evening on weekdays and 2 on weekends (breakfast and dinner), effectively eliminating lunch from my life.  This was about as high speed/low drag as nutrition could possibly become.

 

* I effectively brought back Jamie Lewis’ “Apex Predator Diet”.  I made use of a protein supplement (Metabolic Drive by BioTest) to achieve a protein sparing modified fast on weekdays, getting up at 0400 to train at around 0430, and then having 2 servings of Metabolic Drive at 0630, 0930, 1230 and 2030 (pre-bed), along with one serving sometime in the middle of the night as a shake I’d keep in my bathroom in an Ice Shaker.  At around 1730-1800, I’d have my one solid meal a day. Much like what Jamie wrote, I did my best to make this a “meat on the bone” meal.  HOWEVER, I ALSO did my best to make these meals absolutely gigantic feasts, with the intent being that THIS was going to be the food that was going to cause the growth of the program.  The protein was just there to ensure that I didn’t go catabolic post training: keeping a positive nitrogen balance while not trigger a blood sugar spike and not taxing my digestion.  The meal was the driver of weight gain.  I also made it a point to try to get ruminant animal meat (beef, bison, venison, lamb, etc) as often as possible for these meals, trying to minimize my intake of monogastric animals, given I was going to be eating a LOT of meat. 

 

 

* And along with meat on the bone, I always endeavored to have eggs (ideally pastured) featured in the meal as well, starting with 3 per meal, then 4, and eventually settled on no fewer than 5 per meal, but always willing to go in excess.  2 other regular features were a quarter cup of grassfed sour cream, and pork cracklin.  Those were just convenient foods to get in more proteins and fats, but if I had enough meat and eggs, I’d omit them.  In the context of Apex Predator, these were the standard days of the protocol, with no days with midday meals.  Jamie also wanted calorie waving through the week, but that never happened intentionally for me, but it DID happen organically: my schedule was busy enough that, some days, I just couldn’t cook/eat enough food at the evening meal, and just had to feast as much as I could and move on.

 

 

* Some sample meals include:

A whole rack of beef back ribs with 5 pastured eggs

 Ribs, wings and eggs with cottage cheese and cracklin

and surf and turf and turf

with steak, sardines, eggs, cottage cheese and crackling.  

 

* On weekends, I didn’t train in the morning, and would instead sleep in and my wife (who should be nominated for sainthood) would make me breakfast 

 

* My weekend breakfast has a pretty standard format: 2 omelets, made with 3 pastured eggs, grassfed ghee, some sort of grassfed cheese, and then whatever meat is leftover from the week.  I’ll top these with grassfed sour cream.  Alongside this, I’d typically have some beef bacon, a grassfed beef hot dog, a quarter cup of grassfed cottage cheese and pork cracklin.  I’d then fast for the remainder of the day (not a protein sparing modified fast, but traditional fasting) and then have an evening meal similar to what I’d eat on weekdays.  I’d also include the 2030 serving of protein, along with the middle of the night serving.  In the context of Apex Predator, these days served as the “high calorie keto days”.  Typically, Jamie wanted only 1 of these per week, and still 5-6 protein shakes, so I was deviating a little bit here as well.

 

* Once a week, typically Monday evenings, I’d have a meal with carbs.  In the context of Apex Predator, this would be the “Rampage Meal”, but I no longer care to binge eat on these foods.  Instead, it would be a “family meal”, where we’d all sit down and just enjoy some classic “comfort food” style dish. It was almost always some manner of pasta, either as a casserole dish (Midwest style stuff) or some spaghetti with bison sauce or a rigatoni dish, usually paired with some sort of bread, and the highlight was always the cookies my wife would bake.  For those cookies, I took to applying a layer of honey onto them as well to really jack up the carb intake, and typically enjoy them with a mug of fairlife skim milk.  Everything was always homemade with simple quality ingredients (grassfed butter and pastured eggs in the cookies, pasta that was just “wheat, eggs, water”, pasta sauce with no added sugar/artificial ingredients, stuff like that). In turn, unlike in the past, when I’d feast on fast food and pizza, after these “Rampage Meals”, I’d have no GI discomfort, didn’t start sweating profusely, didn’t enter a carb coma, etc.  I’d eat till I was content, get in a walk, and be ready for my serving of Metabolic Drive by the evening.  And typically, 2 days after that meal, I’d look leaner than I had before: my body seemed to respond well, replenish glycogen, and tighten up.  Which, in truth, aside from the family connection, that’s about the only thing that compelled me to do it.  I honestly PREFER eating just meat and eggs: there is no sacrifice there.  But on the few times where I’ve had to skip the family meal due to logistics, I’ve noted that my physique washes out and I just look flat.

 

LESSONS LEARNED, TAKEAWAYS, AND SPECULATION

Some lessons DON'T need to be learned the hard way

 

* This was, ultimately, a re-introduction to me about the relationship between stimulus and recovery, remembering that it’s about doing enough to trigger adaptation and not so much that you blunt your ability to recover and grow.  I’ve been slamming myself for a long time, making the method the goal, and this time I vectored myself to be more concerned with the actual outcome of the training and got to see that pay off.

 

* Which, on the above, shows the value of having a program.  It provides the bumpers that keep you on task.  However, along with that, it was MY job to actually FOLLOW the program.  Thankfully, whenever I follow a program for the first time, I’m pretty good about complying with it, because I want to learn from the experience, but my recent re-runs of some programs had me doing some silly stuff.  But here, I was willing to trust the process and see what would happen if I did exactly what it said…as far as training goes.

 

* This program afforded me an opportunity to heal from the damage I did to myself in my WAY too long strongman competition prep.  Events beat me up, and having my contest canceled and signing up for one 2 months in the future meant training events for 2 months too long.  I came into Tactical Barbell incredibly broken, and the intelligent management of volume allowed me to continue to train while I recovered until I got to the point where I could really start pushing myself again. 

 

* On that note, the structure of moving from General Mass to Specificity is a great play.  Just about the time General Mass was starting to beat me up, I moved onto Specificity, which allowed me to use some lighter weight due to the higher reps.  I kept the movements the same throughout both of those, but opting to change out movements would be another way to spare my body.

 

* There are a few ways to progress on these programs.  Along with the forced progression of upping the maxes, since the sets prescribed are a range, I like to start with the fewest amount of sets and use more sets of follow on cycles.  This means I can keep the weight the same from cycle to cycle and still progress, which allows me to maximize time at a training max.

 

* Using the reverse hyper as a programmed movement wasn’t a smart call.  I’ll keep it in the program, but consider it falling in line with the ab/rear delt work that K. Black allows the trainee to add into the program.  No need to program it: just get it done.

 

* My chins still never really got much better, but given my bodyweight was constantly increasing, I imagine that’s the reason.  I do think, next time I run this, I’m going to permit myself to treat chins like I did with 5/3/1, and just get in a bunch of sub-max sets in between everything else.

 

* I want to include the prowler in place of sprints for some conditioning in the future.  I feel like it will fit well.

 

* More lessons learned on fatigue management included my strategic inclusion of the belt when I started doing Specificity.  By allowing myself to use the belt on the heavier workouts of the week, I could spare some fatigue in my lower back, which allowed me to train more/harder throughout the cycle in general.  Much like how I stopped blowing my brains out in the conditioning so I could have the energy to train harder when it came time to train, allowing myself to use the belt was allowing me to train more IN GENERAL, which was allowing me to get stronger in the sessions without the belt.

 

* 4x a week of lifting still feels like too much for me at this point in my life.  I think, moving forward, Specificity phases are just going to be 1 cycle, to shake things up and allow me to use lighter weights for a bit.  Should time out well to go from General Mass to Specificity to Operator: the whole “medium-light-heavy” approach to loading.

 

* Which, on THAT note, I’m going to give myself permission to screw around with the order of the weeks for future TB runs to implement a “medium-light-heavy”, similar to Jim Wendler’s 3/5/1 approach.  I know from running General Mass and Specificity that, as each week went by and the reps reduced, the workouts felt “easier”, despite being heavier, and I think having that light week before the heavy week would help prime me to really put in maximal effort for that final push.

 

* I never needed to implement any of the intensity modifiers allowed in the programs (AMRAPs, additional sets, etc) and still saw fantastic growth, but it means there’s just one more tool available.

BAD MAC N’ CHEESE/GOOD CHEESY POTATOES: A MATTER OF CONTEXT

Allow me to tell you a story, dear reader.  Really, what choice do you have?  It’s my blog.  But anyway, once, I attended the wedding of my wife’s cousin (which I suppose makes that my cousin-in-law), and during the reception, we found ourselves eating in a very dimly lit room.  The buffet line and seating/eating area was also functioning as the dance floor, and there was a desire for dark lighting to support a discoball/glowlights sorta arrangement (this was the aughts: raves were still cool).  In turn, I had a plateful of food that I had a vauge idea of what it was, but couldn’t actually see what I was putting on my fork and bringing to my mouth.  For the most part, my instincts held true: what I thought was chicken turned out to be chicken, the bread roll was, in fact, a bread roll, the corn was corn.  But then, upon taking a mouthful of, as Paul Kelso referred to them in Powerlifitng Basics Texas Style, a UFO (unidentified fried object), I leaned over to my wife and expressed to her “This is the WORST macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had”, to which my wife dutifully informed me “Those are cheesy potatoes.”  Upon receiving this information, I re-evaluated my experience and said to my wife “In that case, they’re quite good!” 

Although I don't claim to be the expert

 

Isn’t that interesting?  My initial experience was one wherein I was disappointed, borderline disgusted, and ready to stop eating the food, but upon reframing the context, suddenly an entirely new evaluation was rendered and I found in myself a new resolve to finish my meal.  Literally nothing had changed: there was simply a new context that the situation was being evaluated under.  And for another goofy example I’m a big fan of: have you ever taken the time to realize that Christian Hell is Viking Heaven?  In Dante’s Inferno, those who committed sins of anger/rage are sentenced to the fourth circle of Hell, wherein they fight against each other in a constant physical battle, only to be dismembered, die, and reborn again…kinda like how good little Vikings who die valiantly in battle are rewarded with entry to Valhalla, wherein they spend their days in perpetual battle, being dismembered and regenerated just to do it all over again.  I actually wonder if it’s the exact same place, and some folks are miserable while others can’t contain their smiles, but, yet again: context matters.

 

And if it’s true in matters of cuisine or the afterlife, it’s fair to appreciate that it’s true universally, yet that is a statement that many trainees in the quest of physical transformation tend to take significant umbrage with.  Context is frustrating because it eliminates the possibility of a simple answer.  We want to know the BEST program and the BEST diet…but best for who?  For when?  Under what circumstances?  UNDER WHAT CONTEXT?  That should be the most immediate follow-up whenever ANY statement is made regarding the process of physical transformation: under WHAT context?  I see trainees say that there IS an optimal number of worksets to accomplish the goal of hypertrophy, and I immediately must ask “under what context?”  Optimal for WHO?  For everyone?  Yeah, I doubt that.  The parent of a newborn that is getting 8 hours of sleep a week is going to have SIGNIFICANTLY different recovery abilities compared to the state sponsored 18 year old whose literal profession is lifting weights.  To say nothing of the fact that the dude with an 800lb deadlift isn’t going to hammer 8 worksets with 70% of his 1rm like newcomer Johnny with a 200lb deadlift.  The latter can knock out that workout and go have a fun Friday night, while the former just called into work on Monday and said they weren’t going to make it in because they’re going to be sick.  Meanwhile, you take these same two athletes and tell them to do just ONE workset to get some gains, and the first dude is going to absolutely CRUSH that goal and be just fine, while the second guy simply lacks the ability to dig that deep and get that outcome.  One NEEDS that volume, because they lack the tool of intensity, whereas the other has the skillset to employ either metric but, in turn, they will employ them DIFFERENTLY compared to one who does not.

Probably gonna need a few more sets

 

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” is cute…unless you’re a diabetic.  Once again: context matters.  In the realm of nutrition this is INCREDIBLY true.  Because, quite simply, the best diet plan in the world sucks if you cannot COMPLY with it.  Some folks are natural abstainers: they’re better at simply eliminating entire foods from their diet, rather than including everything in small, reasonable regular occurrences.  Some folks are the opposite: moderators.  They’re really good at achieving balance, and as soon as you tell them “you can’t have X”, that’s ALL they want to have.  Knowing this about yourself is crucial for determining your success with a nutritional intervention: if you have to “white knuckle it”, to quote Vinnie Tortorich, you’re going to fail, because a diet based on willpower is going to eventually run out of willpower, and then the inevitable binge hits.  The best nutritional protocol is the one you don’t have to think about.

 

And in that regard, you have to think about what you don’t have to think about.  Are you the kind of person that NEEDS data in order to continue on?  This applies to nutrition AND training.  Some folks NEED to see spreadsheets and trackers and stats and facts and figures: they don’t want ANY mystery.  The unknown and uncontrolled terrifies them.  Other people are the opposite: they become obsessive ones numbers are introduced, and they need to be cut free of them in order to maintain their sanity.  If you try to prescribe an If It Fits Your Macros type approach to someone that is a natural abstainer that hates numbers because you feel it’s “the best”, you’re completely ignoring the context of your recommendation, similar to if you recommend a carnivore style “eat meat until you’re full” approach to someone who just got bit by the lone star tick.

There is a fair bet that THIS Tick doesn't have a beef allergy

 

But much like my experience with the cheesy potatoes, this should NOT be upsetting news at all, but, instead, bring you much delight.  There ARE no bad decisions: there are simply ones inappropriate for the context.  In our quest to say “good program”, “bad program”, “good diet”, “bad diet” in order to try to achieve simplicity, where forgot there is an even simpler answer: all of them are good: they may simply not be good for THIS specific circumstance.  When we find a method, rather than try to evaluate if the method is good, we evaluate if it fits OUR needs at that time.  3x a week lifting 30 minutes a day may sound like a sub-optimal method when trying to achieve the next Mr. Olympia, but if that’s what we have time for in our lives, it’s ABSOLUTELY the most optimal approach possible.  Hardboiled eggs and jerky from a gas station may sound like a poor nutritional approach, until we consider we’ve been traveling for 36 hours and this is the first food we’ve had in that time, in which case it’s excellent.  As far as Mac n Cheese goes, these choices are awful…but they make EXCELLENT cheesy potatoes.

DON’T SKIP THE SIDEQUESTS

Anyone who has regularly read this blog most likely knows that my favorite genre of video game is role-playing game (RPG), with an affinity in particular toward western RPGs, because they will allow me to live out my power fantasies and develop a stupidly overstrong character at the expense of all other variables and attributes.  I like Japanese RPGs too, of course, and between those two, my favorite games include the original Fallout, Baldur’s Gate II, Final Fantasy 6 and 7, with, of course, several other honorable mentions, but this is supposed to be a blog about physical transformation rather than video games, so I’ll try to wrangle this back on topic.  What tends to appeal to many RPG fans is that your characters “level up” over time: through the acquisition of experience points, accumulated through a combination of accomplishing objectives and winning battles, the characters in your game get stronger, hardier, more powerful, and more able.  It’s awesome and rewarding to watch your characters grow from those that could get one-shotted by a rogue pack of goblins to a total world ender by the end of the game.  However, in mentioning “by the end of the game”, we acknowledge the fact that these games HAVE beginnings and ends, and between the two points exists the “main quest”, which is supposed to drive you from point to point…but OFF that beat path lay the “side quests”. And folks: we must NOT skip those side quests.  For WITHOUT these quests, we’ll never BECOME that world ender: we simply won’t realize our REAL potential.

If it wasn't true, they wouldn't make memes out of it

 

Alright, so what the hell is a side quest?  Again, western or Japanese RPG, BOTH have a main quest that you need to solve.  Typically, there’s one mega-bad guy that needs to be destroyed.  HOWEVER, along the way, you encounter side quests: jobs/tasks you don’t HAVE to do in order to accomplish the main quest, but if you do them, you get more experience points or goodies (new weapons/armor/items/etc).  These can be as menial as performing pest control to kill some rats to rescuing someone’s children from a group of bandits to deciphering from ancient magical code to all sorts of other stuff, but they’re not required in order to beat the game: they’re just there in case you want to do something else.  However, in DOING these quests, you will end up SO much more powerful by the end of the game compared to if you just try to blitz through to the end of the main quest…and such is true in the realm of physical transformation.

 

I’ve competed in strength sports since 2010, starting with powerlifting, transitioning to strongman, and now I have some recent forays into grappling as well.  It’d be easier to consider the competitions the “main quest” of my training life…but those competitions only happen so frequently.  I can’t ALWAYS be competing.  Additionally, I’ve witnessed first hand what happens when I spend too long in a competition prep phase, as I was training for one comp that ended up getting canceled and then just signed up for another one 2 months later and kept up the same training style.  When it was done, I was so physically broken from the prep that it took about 12 weeks to finally get my body healed up enough to be able to train regularly.  Just like blitzing through the main quest, I got to the “boss fight” and was so woefully underleveled that it took just about everything out of me to win, expending all my value healing items/elixirs and having to spend time grinding again so I could have enough wealth to continue.  Enter: the side quest.

Racing to the end doesn't matter if you get killed by the boss

 

What’s a side quest in the world of physical transformation?  They’re those little challenges we set for ourselves OUTSIDE of whatever our main quest is in the realm of physical transformation that allow us to get bigger/stronger/more powerful WITHOUT advancing the main quest.  Examples would include running the Super Squats program, or Deep Water, or Mass Made Simple, but it doesn’t HAVE to be a program that absolutely crushes your soul.  ANOTHER challenge could be the challenge of actually maintaining program compliance for a WHOLE program.  Not deviating, changing it, “improving it”, etc.  Stack together 12 consecutive cycles of 5/3/1 or Tactical Barbell in a row following the instructions to the letter, or 1 entire year of Conjugate or DoggCrapp.  You could even combine the two, and follow Dan John’s park bench-bus bench thought process of doing 8 weeks of Easy Strength into 6 weeks of Mass Made Simple into another 8 Weeks of Easy Strength into 8 weeks of the Armor Building Formula into 8 weeks of Easy Strength into 4 weeks of the 10k Swing Challenge, not missing a single workout, doing it EXACTLY as laid out, and ALSO getting absolutely crushed during MMS and the 10k swing.  To say nothing of a nutritional intervention side quest, wherein you decide to try out the Velocity Diet, the Vertical Diet, the Steak and Eggs diet, the Carnivore Diet, Intermittent Fasting, Warrior Diet, Ketogenic Diet (in tasty traditional, cyclical and targeted fashions), Apex Predator Diet, Feast/Famine/Ferocity, possibilities abound! 

 

We gain quite literal experience in these instances: it’s no longer about points serving as a proxy to simulate the effect of growth.  And we also grow!  This is real life leveling up! These side quests allow us to experiment, discover new ideas, find out what works and what doesn’t work, and it does so under the codifications of a carefully worked out construction that establishes bumpers and guidelines for us.  For what is the alternative?  In the world of RPGs, that is simply “grinding”: wondering aimlessly through the world, looking for random encounters with roving bands of enemies and defeating them over and over while you SLOWLY accumulate some experience to force some level progressions.  It’s WHY it’s called “grinding”.  It never pays off as much as a side quest, and it’s typically something we resort to when the side quests are all dried up.  In the world of physical transformation, grinding are those periods of training/dieting ennui, where we are just going through the motions or, even worse, when we are left to our own devices and go make up our own training which “seems like a good idea” and just end up getting stupidly hurt, overfatigued, and regress while leaning nothing of value.

Yup

 

Don’t be in a rush to complete the main quest, because once you do, the game is over and you don’t get to play any more.  If you really are having fun playing the game, why not play as much of it as possible?  And grinding isn’t “playing the game”: no one has fun doing that.  But side quests?  Quite often, they can end up being more fun than the main quest itself!  Quite often, THESE are the quests that we remember when looking back fondly at our memories of the game: they’re the quests we talk about with others who enjoyed the game, marveling at some of the twists and turns, the unexpected rewards, the feeling of satisfaction when we take our time to achieve these objectives before returning to the main quest and realizing just how powerful we’ve become through tackling these side quests.  They’re not “add ons”, they’re not annoyances: these are there to enhance our experience and really allow us to fully enjoy our game.      

COMPETITOIN WRITE UP: SUBMISSION CHALLENGE 8 DEC 2024, OMAHA NEBRASKA, MEN'S MASTERS 1 171-185LB WHITE BELT

 

**INTRO AND SPOILERS**

 

It's a gaining phase, and I'm eating EVERYTHING

Once again, I have competed in a grappling competition, despite the fact I DON’T train in grappling.  The martial art I currently train in, Tang Soo Do, is primarily a striking martial art, with a heavy base from Shotokan (which is why it’s referred to as “Korean Karate”), that includes what could best be described as “situational grappling”, but what Matt Thorton (there’s a blast from the past) would describe as “dead training”.  Basically, the only time I get to grapple is when I compete at these things, as I’m otherwise relying on high school wrestling instincts and brief MMA training that I stopped doing when I was 21…and now I’m 39…so yeah…

 

But, relying on just that, and a LOT of strength and conditioning, I managed to take home another gold medal in the Men’s Masters 1 White Belt 171-185lb division.  That was actually me stepping UP, as I’m technically a Masters 2 athlete…because I’m getting too damn old.  There was one other guy in the division, so we were paired off in a “best of 3” match up, which, from this, you can tell that I won 2 matches, but I’ll leave the HOW I won as a bit of a surprise. 

 

**TRAINING**

Yeah, that's about right

 

Of course, I did zero grappling leading up to this grappling competition.  I’ve been advised by many people that this would improve my ability to grapple, but it’s a question of bandwidth for me. 

 

Instead, I’ve been following the Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol, as detailed in my most recent blog post.  This did result in me coming into this competition much heavier than before, weighing in at 185.6 in full sweats with a full belly, whereas before it was more like 181 with all that AND 40oz of tea/electrolytes in me.  I felt like coming in bigger and stronger would help.

 

Mass protocol doesn’t push conditioning too terribly hard, but I’ve been diligent about keeping my rest periods short, and I feel like that all helped me maintain a solid conditioning level coming into this.

 

 

**NUTRITION**

 

I'm pretty much following these guys for grappling techniques; might as well go with nutrition

I’ve stuck with my “protein sparing modified intermittent feasting” carnivore protocol for weekdays, and 2 meals a day (breakfast and dinner) on weekends.  Since this competition was on Sunday, I had a hearty breakfast on Saturday (2 omelets filled with some leftover thanksgiving turkey with swiss cheese, covered in grassfed sour cream, beef bacon, grassfed beef hot dog, some grassfed cottage cheese and pork cracklin) with a lighter dinner of 6 beef patties with butter from Culver’s.  Sunday Morning, I had my traditional pre-competition meal of steak and eggs.   And if you’re really curious, I had a full rack of ribs (no sauce), pulled pork, scrambled eggs and grassfed cottage cheese on Friday evening.  I stuck with beef for Saturday and Sunday because I find pork can make me somewhat inflamed, and I didn’t want to deal with holding water leading into the weigh in.

 

Saturday Dinner

Morning of comp Breakfast

Friday Dinner

Saturday Breakfast

 

**MORNING OF**

Gotta get started early

 

Where in my past 2 competitions I was WELL within the weight class, my recent focus on gaining actually had me in a state where I needed to be somewhat cautious, so I ensured to weigh myself on my home scale in full sweats first thing.  Upon seeing 83.4kg, I knew I was in the clear, but still decided to forego my traditional 40oz of green tea mixed with electrolytes until AFTER weigh in.  With a belly full of 14oz of piedmontese ribeye, 4 sunny side up eggs, a bunch of ghee and 1.5 strips of bacon leftover from my kid’s plate, I weighed in with full sweats at 185.6, which, with the 1lb allowance, meant I was cleared.

 

I got on the mat about an hour before my match, just to feel what it felt like.  Did a butterfly stretch and rolled onto my back, but ultimately spent 2-3 minutes “warming up” before sitting down and waiting for my match to start.

 

**MATCH 1**

 

 

 

 

The dude I was competing against chatted with my briefly before the match.  He asked where I trained out of and I said "I don't...but I wrestled in high school".  Well he relayed that to his coach, who stereotyped the hell out of me and kept yelling "He's going to hunt for the shot!  Watch out for the shot!"

 

Fun fact: I never shot in wrestling.  I was terrible at it.

 

But, that said, after too much time standing, we were warned that if we didn't have a takedown in the next 15 seconds, they were going to implement some sort of "get down" rule.  I'll admit I panicked upon hearing that, and decided to go for a takedown.  He responded by sinking a standing guillotine that was VERY locked in.  I got a little upset because I was violently tapping him and the ref was just ignoring it for nearly too long before finally someone from the audience yelled "He's been tapping for a while".

 

Upon reflection, there was no need to go for that takedown, because I realize, in all of these tournaments, I have NEVER felt threatened when I've been on the ground.  I may not have much in the way of offense there, but no one has ever put me in a threatened position.  So from here on out, I'll make them play my stupid game of standing until something happens, and if we get forced to the ground, even better.  Because on top of all that, I’ve never been taken down: I can keep things standing forever.

 

 

I DID benefit from that first round though.  Got to feel him out, determine he wasn't stronger than me, nor did he have better cardio than me.

 

**MATCH 2**

 

 

 

 

I took some lessons learned from that first match.  I decided to just be a bully this time.  I came out aggressive, shoved him, secured a thai clinch, which was of no value whatsoever but still cool, and forced my will on him.  At one point, we nearly repeated the same ending as before, with him locking in a guillotine, and it got me angry and I said to myself in my head "no this time motherf*cker!"  He pulled guard on me, and that's where I was better able to work my "magic".

 

 

I got out of the guillotine, and then just kept pressuring him as much as I could.  He went for a triangle, but I never felt threatened by it, and I just kept stacking and pressuring him.  Whenever I was in his guard, I'd put my weight on him, and I noticed that, whenever I got a forearm across his throat, he REALLY didn't like that.  He'd panic and give up position.  So, of course, I kept doing it.

 

 

Just like my other 2 competitions, I could feel the exact moment that his energy and strength left him, while I still felt dandy.  In my head I said "You seem tired: I can do this all day".  I guess I'm a nasty person inside my head.  I eventually wore him down to the point that he could no longer put up any resistance, at which point I locked in an Americana I had been hunting for for the whole match. 

 

Come time for the third match, and his corner informed me he wouldn't be coming out.  I had exhausted him so much he didn't want to do a third with me.  I had noticed between the first and the second match his fatigue level was already pretty heavy, and it seems he reached his limit.

 

 

What's cool is, on my record for this organization, it categorizes that final win as "win by KO"

 

              **WHAT’S NEXT?**

 

I’m just going to keep signing up for these as long as they’re convenient for my schedule.  In an ideal world, I’d love to get back into training again, but it’s just not in the cards currently as far as my available bandwidth goes.  It’s not “I don’t have time”, it’s “The time I have, I prioritize for other things”.  Ultimately: time with my family.  That’s WHY I lift weights at 0400 in my garage: that’s when my family is asleep, so they don’t miss me.  Sooooo, if I found a school that was open at 0400, I’d give them a go.

 

Meanwhile, what’s next on the competition front is a 10 mile race in the first week of April and a strongman competition in the second week.  In between that, I have 2 cruises and have drafted out a plan with Tactical Barbell to carry me through this next cycle of competition.

OPERATION CONAN SITREP 2: TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL 12 WEEK CHECK IN

**INTRO**

This captures so much of the awesome in just one shot

 

My love affair with the Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol continues, and I don’t foresee any stopping in the near future.  In fact, I’ve already planned out my training until my next strongman competition on 12 Apr, and it’s all Tactical Barbell, and even after that I genuinely don’t see any reason I would pivot (although, fair warning, I’ve been listening to a lot of Matt Wenning recently, and the idea of Wenning Warm Ups and conjugate is sounding cool, so who knows).  And with that understanding, I figured it was appropriate to do another “check in” rather than a program review, because I’m not done yet, but I’m approaching the conclusion of the 12th week of running the Mass Protocol, and given that so many of my program reviews were on 6 week programs, writing at the 12 week point seems fitting.

 

**WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW**

Honestly a bit dramatic

 

If you recall from my previous check-in, the Mass Protocol contains a base building section, which transitions into a general mass section, and then into a specificity section.  I skipped the base building (at my own peril) as I felt I was in a good enough place for that before starting, and ran the general mass protocol of “Grey Man” for 3 cycles (9 weeks).  From there, I made the transition to the specificity programs, selecting Specificity Bravo (for reasons I will detail momentarily).  Traditionally, one would do a bridge week between the programs here as a transition, but I opted not to PURELY due to scheduling: I have a cruise (like, buffet on a boat kind) coming up between Christmas and New Years that will time out PERFECTLY with me completing 2 3 week Specificity cycles at this point, which will serve as an EXCELLENT bridge week before I return home and start back into training/eventual strongman prep.

 

With this being the 12th week, it means I am finishing my first cycle of Specificity Bravo and prepping to start my second one.

 

**FROM GENERAL TO SPECIFICITY: WHY I WENT FROM GREY MAN TO SPECIFICITY BRAVO**

The B game is always the better choice

In full disclosure, my original plan WAS to do Specificity Alpha rather than Bravo.  The former is similar in structure to the ever popular PHUL program (which I’ve never run myself, but am familiar with) it that it’s 4 days of lifting with 2 days dedicated to lower reps with higher weight (strength days) and 2 days dedicated to higher reps and moderate weights (hypertrophy days).  Bravo, meanwhile, is pure hypertrophy days, still 4 days a week, with a A/B/A/B alternating approach, with the percentages ticking up each workout.  For the sake of preserving the content of the book, I won’t go into further detail, but you see the difference: once had all hypertrophy days, one had a mix.

 

Alpha appealed to me, HOWEVER, on the final week of 3 cycles of Grey Man, I found myself unable to complete a single trap bar pull at the prescribed weight, let alone a work set.  My lower back was incredibly overtaxed, and in dire need of fatigue dissipation.  I’ll address WHY I was experiencing that fatigue later, but to assuage your fears: it was not a fault of Grey Man/Tactical Barbell programming.  I COULD have accomplished fatigue dissipation with a bridge week, but as I noted earlier: my schedule didn’t support that.  I realized my other option was to select Bravo instead and let the time with the lighter weights give me some time to let that fatigue dissipate. 

 

However, the more I looked into it, there was one other thing I really appreciated about transitioning from Grey Man to Bravo: I could use ALL the same exercises.  When it comes to the specificity phase, you’re supposed to select a certain amount of movements to train depending on the protocol, with the strength cluster of Alpha being pretty rigid on the squat, bench press, weighted pull up and deadlift, and the hypertrophy cluster being in the 4-8 range of TOTAL movements.  Bravo, being absent of the demand for a strength cluster, allots for 6-12 movements to be selected.  If you recall from Grey Man, there are a total of 4 strength movements each day (2 trained on day A, 2 on day B) and 6 (max) supplemental cluster movements (3 on day A, 3 on day B).  This results in a total of 10 movements…which meant, when it came time to design my hypertrophy clusters for Bravo, I could just select all 10 movements from Grey Man and call it good.  Not only did this require no thinking/tinkering on my part, but it ALSO meant that whatever I did on Bravo was going to have direct and immediate carryover for whenever I transitioned back to Grey Man.

 

**HOW I STRUCTURED THE TRAINING**

Hah!  As if I have monkey/typewriter funding

 

With Grey Man, my day A was Squat, Axle Strict Press (overhead), Incline DB bench, chins and Glute Ham Raises.  My day B was Low handle trap bar lift, axle bench press, dips, lever belt squat and axle curls.  Because Bravo trains 4x a week, there was no way to allow for a minimum full day of rest between days while staying within the 7 day structure of the cycle, which meant the same muscles could NOT be trained on Day A and B (according to the rules of the program).  To make this happen, I effectively created an “anterior chain/posterior chain” split, or a full body push/pull split.  My day A for Bravo was Squat, Lever Belt Squat, Axle Strict Press, Axle Bench Press, Incline DB Bench, and Dips.  This left a Day B that was Trap Bar Pulls, Chins, Curls and GHRs…which WAS 10 total moves, but somewhat imbalanced between the two days.  I contemplated removing flat bench from day A, as it felt redundant with all the other pressing on that day, but after running day A the first time as written and seeing how outstanding awesome it was, I settled on throwing in reverse hypers on Day B.  I had been doing them on my non-lifting days when running Grey Man, so now they were legitimately established into the protocol.

 

Because you’re allowed 1-2 minutes of rest between sets, and because the workouts repeat twice in the week but with higher percentages on the second workout, I tried as hard as possible to stick with strict 1 minute rests for the first two workouts of the week.  This way, I had some leeway to creep into that 2 minute mark later in the week when the weights were heavier.  If I took max rests at the start, I had nowhere to “hide” on those second workouts. 

 

Similarly, because the plan called for 4-5 sets, I stuck with 4 sets for this first cycle.  It gave me the option to keep the weight the same and do 5 sets on the next cycle, or up the weight and stick with 4 sets.

 

**CONDITIONING**

Not as much of this as you would think

 

Conditioning during Specificity phases is a departure from general mass.  Whereas I was going 1 hour of walking twice a week, alongside getting in much leisure walking, specificity calls for 1-2 high intensity sessions per week.  These sessions do not exceed 20 minutes, and are focused on getting the heart rate high and then letting it return before starting the whole process again: interval training.  I took to doing hill sprints once a week and then “Reset 20s” on my Bas Rutten Body Action System (basically a free standing heavy bag) once a week.  The sprints were doing on Wed, between lifting workouts (trained on Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri), while reset 20s were on weekends (typically Sundays).  I still engaged in leisure walking as often as I could, not for the sake of the program, but because it’s one of my favorite physical activities to do and it was imposing no recovery demands on me.

 

I enjoyed the higher intensity work as a departure from the low intensity stuff.  The workouts were short and I could squeeze them in a bit easier on my schedule.  It took a lot of self control to NOT try to push them harder/longer, but I’m trying REALLY hard to comply with the instructions and give this an honest approach.

 

**WHAT WAS UP WITH MY LOWER BACK?**

 

I don't understand why this is so hard to understand

I’d like to be brief here, but this check in is already getting out of hand.  Prior to even starting Tactical Barbell, my body was wrecked as a result of prepping for my most recent strongman competition, which I detailed in my last write up.  Biggest issue I was dealing with was some intense hip pain, which would, in turn, force me to squat VERY slowly, which ended up loading up my lower back quite a bit. I found a solution in the form of reverse hypers, HOWEVER, like many tragic stories, eventually the cure became the poison, and I was doing reverse hypers too often with too much load.  Along with this, when I first began eating carnivore back in Mar of 2023, I completely changed my squat form, going from low bar, belted, moderate stance width powerlifting legal depth to VERY high bar, no belt, close stance, rock bottom squats.  I did this because I was going to be losing weight, and I didn’t want to see my numbers on the squat fall, so I decided to use an entirely new style of squat so I could actually progress on that WHILE weight dropped.  However, this style of squat TOTALLY doesn’t suit my body, with a short torso and long legs, and I would end up loading up my lower back quite a bit to maintain form WHICH, without a belt, just compounded things.  There were a few other factors at play as well, but ultimately I was just slamming my lower back with too much stimulus and never giving it time to recover.

 

So what I did during Specificity Bravo was bring back the belt in limited dosages.  Since workouts repeat in a week while percentages increase, I would do the first week’s workout WITHOUT a belt, and the second week’s workout WITH a belt.  This gave me a chance to still groove beltless work and get whatever benefits are associated with that, while also allowing me to belt up and reduce lower back fatigue on the heavier workouts, right before my 2 day break on the weekend.  I also reduced the weight I was using on my reverse hyper warm-ups, and went from training the reverse hyper 7x a week to 4-5x.  One other change I made was, instead of using the ab wheel after every workout (more on that in a bit), alternated between ab wheel and hanging leg raise every other training day.  Switching up the stimulus seemed to go a long way.

 

**WHERE I DEVIATED**

I try to keep mine cheeky and fun

 

Minimally.  I am really trying to give this program a fair shake.  I included ab and rear delt training on every lifting day (ab wheel/hanging leg raise and band pull aparts), and I entertained the idea of using the prowler vs doing sprinting, but so far I’ve stuck with the recommendations.  I do train martial arts 3x a week, and I engage in as much leisure walking as I can, but that’s about it as far as the training does.

 

As for the nutrition…

 

**THE NUTRITION**

THIS is best in life

 

I am still sticking with the protocol I was using the last time I wrote about this: protein sparing modified fast on weekdays, leading up to one big meal in the evening.  On weekends, I eat two meals: a breakfast in the morning and an evening meal.  When I eat, its carnivore.  I’m eating this way because it’s been my favorite way to eat.  I love feasting, and I don’t care about eating frequently.

 

**RESULTS**

Pretty much like this, without having to send in box top receipts

 

In total, I’ve been following Mass Protocol for 12 weeks, and as of the start of the 12th week I’m up 9lbs, having started at 79.1kg and weighing in at 83.2kg.  I apologize for mixing pounds and kilos, but my bathroom scale is stuck in kilos for some reason.  And again: I have gained this weight WITHOUT macro or calorie counting, on a VERY low carb diet, with one big meal a day on weekdays.  Pretty much eating the wrongest way possible.

 

Along with that, I’m absolutely getting stronger.  When I first started Mass Protocol, I did 4x8x285 on the squat as part of a superset with 4x8 sets of axle strict press.  After the set of squats, I’d rest 1 minute before starting the press, and then I’d rest 1 minute from the press to start the next set of squats.  So I was getting well over 2 minutes of rest between sets, and by the end of those 4 sets, I legit thought I would have to quit lifting, as I was in so much pain and so exhausted.  On the start of the first workout of the third week of Specificity Bravo (12 weeks total on Tactical Barbell), I did 4x8x285 with 1 minute strict rests between sets with MUCH faster squats and rapidly transitioned to 4 sets of belt squats with the same rest periods.  My pressing strength continues to climb as well. 

 

Suffice to say: I’m a fan of this program, and excited to continue running it through April.