BLESSED ARE THE GEEK: THE BENEFITS OF EXISTING ON THE FRINGE

I have never been cool.  I grew up a fat kid, from day 1, which I most recently learned was primarily because my parents followed the conventional wisdom at the time of the 80s to put cereal in our bottles so that we’d fatten up and sleep through the night faster, which meant I quite literally never had a chance, and from the first day of school I was an obvious target.  My family was also not particularly high income, so most of my clothes were hand me downs from my brother, Walmart specials my grandmother got me for Christmas, “Payless” brand shoes, etc.  From there, I also had nerdy hobbies: I loved video games, martial arts (they were NOT cool back then: this wasn’t MMA), Magic The Gathering, Pokemon, comic books and their trading cards, etc, and I shunned most sports, primarily because I was bad at them (but, keep in mind, this was 30+ years ago, so I still PLAYED a bunch of them growing up compared to today’s perpetual inside kids).  Even when I lost the weight in high school and got into lifting, it didn’t suddenly make me cool, despite what a lot of young trainees HOPE will happen when they start lifting: I was now just the nerdy kid that lifted weights.  After graduating from college at age 21, I married my college sweetheart (who is still with me to this day: I really struck gold), and my first car as a minivan…we had no kids…and I loved that van and drove it for 13 years.  And as a married man with a minivan, you can surmise that I did NOT spent my early 20s partying…especially as a non-drinker, smoker, or recreational drug user.  I say none of this seeking your sympathy: the opposite in fact.  I say all of this to establish what an INCREDIBLE advantage I had with this upbringing.  I’ve NEVER been cool so, in turn, I’ve never been in any sort of rush to conform or comply with what IS cool.  I’ve ALWAYS existed on the fringe, which has, in turn, given me access to SO many more opportunities compared to those that ONLY know the straight and narrow party-approved methods and ways forward.

Wisecracking smart aleck nerdy strong dude: there's a reason I resonate so well with this character

In point of fact, upon my own self-examination, it would appear that my lifetime perpetual uncoolness has resulted in me simply having my OWN bias that just so happens to REJECT the mainstream vs seek it: counter-culture purely for its own sake, which is trite and tedious in of itself on a social level (going back to my own 90s roots, the goth kids hanging out at Hot Topic just to form their own bizarro reverse-cliques) BUT, as it relates to physical transformation, has been a boon.  Holy cow that was a crazy run-on sentence.  But harken back to a key point I’ve made time and again: if you keep doing what everyone else is doing, you’re going to get the results that everyone else is getting.  In order to BE different, one must ACT differently, and this relates to methods and methodology employed in the pursuit of physical transformation.  One does not necessarily guarantee BETTER results, but they will at LEAST be different results, and those of us perpetually uncool individuals are VERY familiar and downright comfortable with being different.

 

This lifetime existence on the fringe made it that the idea of 20 breathing squats followed by pullovers to expand my ribcage and a gallon of milk a day made SO much sense to me, despite, to this day, having young trainees STILL try to inform me that you need more volume than that, squats don’t build the upper body, you can’t expand your ribcage, a gallon of milk a day will only make you fat and give you diabetes, and you can only gain .5lbs of muscle a week and anything after that is 100% pure fat.  Even IF all of that was true, one CANNOT account for the intangible benefits that came with my pursuit of Super Squats early in my lifting journey (but not early enough, because god DAMN do I wish this was my first ever program): I learned how to push myself STUPIDLY hard in the weight room AND in the dinning room, how to OBSESS over progress, and how to eat, live and breathe training: a skillset that was INVALUABLE in my pursuit of physical transformation, and came into play when I pursued ANOTHER fringe program by way of Jon Andersen’s Deep Water program.  Wherein, once again, the training AND the nutrition contained within it completely violated all semblance of what was “cool” and, once again, by following the protocol, I unlocked SO much inside of myself that simply could not be done if I stuck with the mundane 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps for 2-4 exercises per muscle group that all the cool kids did while they calculated their macros based off their TDEE with the ideal macro spread of chicken, rice and broccoli. 

In a world where "chicken, rice and broccoli" is somehow cool, be uncool and eat steak and eggs

 

My mind simply cannot be satisfied or placated by coolness, for I interpret it as “mundaneness” and, ultimately, ineffectiveness.  A program that is based around balance and gradual returns simply will not satisfy me: I need stupid gimmicks and hooks that fly in the face of all accepted conventions.  It’s honestly amazing I never got into HIT honestly, but maybe that’s because I somehow KNEW there was going to be a resurgence of it thanks to Tik Tok and it would one day become cool again, so I headed that off at the past.  And my nutrition has been this way as well: I was low-carb BEFORE it was cool, which, of course, meant I had to go take it in an even stupider direction once that got tired out and ended up becoming Captain Carnivore while the rest of the community derided it.  I honestly wouldn’t know how to function if I wasn’t getting made fun of for the way I do things: it’s literally the ONLY way I’ve ever known how to live.  And again: I don’t say this to lament my upbringing, but simply to highlight it.  There’s this mythos that those who get bullied take up lifting weights in order to create “armor” to protect themselves and that they grow stronger as a form of overcompensation, but perhaps what we’re instead observing is the instance wherein a lifetime of existing on the fringe sets one up to select the methods that are going to ensure a different outcome on the quest for physical transformation compared to what the majority will experience. 

Although if you ARE going to get revenge on bullies, this is MUCH better material than "bully beatdown"

 

Those that have existed on the fringe in perpetuity will be the ones who end up becoming the outliers as a result of fringe methods producing fringe results.

 

          

THE TARRASQUE SLAYER: IMPOSSIBLE GOALS FOR RIDICULOUS RESULTS

Welcome back to the DnD world fellow lifting nerds (referring to folks who are both nerds about lifting and also nerds who happen to lift, look at me go with the double meanings).  Today, I’m going to discuss what was once an in-joke between me and my brother: The Tarrasque Slayer.  And, in turn, how this joke actually models the very behavior that so many young trainees shy away from when they should, instead, run full tilt after it…much like the Tarrasque itself.  “What in the 9 Hells is a Tarrasque?” you say, already demonstrating your DnD nerdery with the correct number of hells?

 

THIS is a Tarrasque

 

Like something painted on the side of a van in the 70s

 

It is described as this in the Monster Manual as “the most terrible creature known to inhabit the Prime Material Plane. The beast is a full 50 feet (15 meters) tall and 70 feet (21 meters) long quadruped with a long tail, reflective carapace, and two large horns on its head. Supposedly, there is only one tarrasque, which slumbers within the world's core.”  Along with that, it’s immune to just about every spell, resists damage from all but the most heavily enchanted of weapons, has about a million hit points which it can regenerate during battle, etc etc.  It is absolutely ridiculous, and was frequently a threat leveraged by a Dungeon Master against an unruly party: “Play nice or I’ll make you guys fight a Tarrasque and have a total party kill”.

 

BUT, there’s also one other feature there to focus on: there’s only ONE of these things.  Which makes “The Tarrasque Slayer” equally ridiculous.  What is a Tarrasque Slayer?  In the world of DnD, one of the character classes a player can choose is “The Ranger”.  I’ve written extensively about the Barbarian, the Fighter, the Monk and the Paladin, but haven’t divulged much about the Ranger.  Think of them like Aragaon from “Lord of the Rings”: these are a fighting type class, typically fleet of foot/lightly armored and connected with nature, with animal companions and an affinity for hunting.  But what REALLY makes Rangers unique is their ability to have a “favored enemy”: a certain creature/race/enemy type that they gain an advantage to find, hunt and fight due to a combination of an extensive amount of time studying the enemy often paired with a deep seated hatred for said enemy.  You have rangers that are orc-slayers, giant-slayers, vampire-slayers (SO cliché), etc etc…which brings us to “The Tarrasque Slayer”.

This vampire slayer had the looks Buffy could only DREAM of

 

Consider how ridiculous the premise of that is, because you pick out your favored enemy at level ONE.  Level one rangers can get one-shotted by a Goblin armed with a sling who rolls lucky: they need to focus on not tripping over their bootlaces rather than trying to bring down the most terrible creature to inhabit the Prime Material Plane.  And then consider the fact there is only ONE Tarrasque in the game: you’ll NEVER get to actually USE the advantages of your favored enemy outside of ONE battle.  If you pick Goblin as your favored enemy, you’ll get to use your advantages against hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of the little buggers.  If you pick “Demon”, there’s an entire Abyss FULL of demons to unleash your fury on.  But there will only ever be ONE Tarrasque: all of your extensive study, training, preparation, and hatred will be for naught if you never even get to the damn thing. 

 

…or will it?  Consider this: just how ridiculous will the Tarrasque Slayer be when it fights a non-Tarrasque enemy?  What happens when you take the dude who has dedicated himself to fight a 50’ tall unkillable magical beast and pit him against a common orc?  An ogre?  Hell even a lich or a dragon?  Those things are traditionally pretty terrifying, but if you’ve established your baseline at “Tarrasque”, these fearsome creatures…they’re honestly kinda mundane.  Kinda “blah” and ho-hum.  “Hey, listen dragon, it’s cool you breathe acid and all, but I’m looking for something that’s a bit more of a challenge.”  Yes, the Tarrasque Slayer may have dedicated himself to the sole task of slaying only ONE creature…but by picking the most terrible creature known to inhabit the Prime Material Plane, it means they’re PROBABLY pretty darn good at slaying creatures that AREN’T quite so ridiculous.

Sorta like how a guy who has trained to fight 1 300lb man can take on 2 150lb men

 

This extends SO far into the realm of physical transformation that it’s honestly ridiculous what a great fit it is AND equally ridiculous how much folks fight this idea.  I constantly observe trainees that DEMAND to know what their limitations are as far as goal setting goes.  They’ll train for one month and ask the collective internet hivemind to evaluate their genetics to determine if they have “any hope” in this game.  They question anyone who has achieved anyone in success by claiming that they must be using every drug and have superior genetics and every other conceivable advantage possible, demanding that SOMONE out there present them with “realistic expectations” for an average trainee to be able to accomplish.  These folks are kobold-slayers: they’re trying to specialize in fighting the easiest monsters in the game.  They have no ambition to succeed.  And, in turn, they are going to peak VERY early in the game: their utility will quickly wane, and soon no one is going to want them around because they are going to be worthless.

 

Chase after a Tarrasque out there in the realm of physical transformation.  No one has pulled a 1200lb deadlift yet, so why not you?  Why not try to get NINE Olympia wins?  Go run a 90 minute marathon.  Do it all drug-free, carb-free, underweight, underslept, overstressed.  Take on the biggest challenges you can possibly take on in pursuit of the most ridiculous goals you could possibly chase.  Why?  Because through the PURSUIT of these goals, you will grow to BE ridiculous.  Someone chasing a 400lb deadlift will eventually catch it.  Great: now what?  Someone chasing a 1200lb deadlift won’t even think twice when 400 crosses their path: they will be marching onward to 500, 600 and on.  And funny enough, time tends to stretch to meet the very demands we have.  When we dedicate our lives to a 400lb deadlift, it will most likely take us our whole lives to get there.  When 1200 is on our mind?  400 happens QUICK.  Like the slayer cutting through an army of Orcs: what seems amazing to others will simply be a Tuesday for you.

GAME...OVER!

 

Pick “Tarrasque” as your favored enemy.  Become a dedicated slayer of the most terrible creature to inhabit the Prime Material Plane.  Let everyone else concern themselves with Hobgoblins and Trolls: you’re here for the BIG game.              

BOOK REVIEW: TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL

Let me start at the end: buy this book.  I say that because, in the past, I asked about this book and was told by several people “You wouldn’t get anything out of it.  You’ve been training long enough that everything in it will be obvious to you.  If you’ve read the other Tactical Barbell Books, you already know all of this.”  And, like a sucker, I BELIEVED those folks, and that kept me away from this VERY enjoyable book.  And perhaps it’s because I’ve been slogging my way through Robert Sikes “Ketogenic Bodybuilding” book (which, I love Rob for his contributions to the field, but that book is DRY), but this was a total breath of fresh air, an easy and captivating read, and my favorite style of book: an “all-in-one” that manages to NOT be an 800 page tome.  So, with that, let me discuss this book, what is in it, why I like it, and why you should buy it.

 

WHAT IT IS

 

The image we all have of Tactical Barbell and Mass Building

The title really spells it out: this is the book that gets written when the dude behind “Tactical Barbell” writes a mass gaining book.  For those totally unfamiliar with Tactical Barbell: it’s a series of books written from the perspective of a dude with a background in special forces/operations AND SWAT style law enforcement.  It is this background that vectors his approach to physical training, similar to Brian Alsruhe’s background in counter-terrorism and martial arts.  In turn, his books (up until this point) were about building a “high speed/low drag” sorta athlete: well conditioned to be able to endure many hardships and be physically capable across multiple domains while also being strong for their bodyweight: NOT a 300lb strongman competitor.

 

This background definitely comes to play in the Mass Protocol, because even though the goals have shifted, the philosophy and methodology remain the same.  It’s still very simple, to the point, reliant on a limited number of high return movements, based around percentages, with an emphasis on recovery and performance vectored toward the GOAL of improving mass specifically vs performance.  And, in turn, the author sets out to provide you ALL the tools you need to succeed.  By his own words, he “Army-proofed” the book, so anyone can make it work.

 

WHAT’S INSIDE

 

This is what really won me over about the book: it’s absolutely the kind of book you could give to a trainee on day 1 and say “Read this, do what it says, and you’ll succeed”, AND it even gives you the tools to be able to say “Do this for the rest of your life and you’ll be fine.” 

 

BASE BUILDING

Unlike this movie, the first half ISN'T the only worthwhile part

After the book establishes intent with the reader, it starts out with a “Base Building” program, which already won me over.  As it sounds, Base Building is about getting in shape TO train: a CRUCIAL step that many new trainees attempt to bypass, which results in them failing HARD and early in their training.  I’ve lamenting on many occasions how the modern trainee tends to have a sedentary childhood, and lack of athletics/physical activity significantly hamstrings them compared to their peers that grew up playing sports year round, climbing trees, swimming in lakes, and in general just being what a kid is SUPPOSED to be.  Base Building will ideally help recover from that neglect: it’s based around VERY light weights at high repetitions for the weight training portion of the programming, followed by walking on non-lifting days as a means to improve conditioning.  Interestingly enough, the author ALSO speaks about the necessity of Base Building for those coming into Mass Building from a strength/power perspective: remarking on how all their time spent in the lower rep ranges to build maximal strength has unprepared them for the type of rep work in the Mass protocol.  From my own experience of going from drinking the Pavel “no more than 5 reps” Koolaid to repetition effort work in Westside Barbell, I can attest to that reality: I was “strong”, but that all went away when I tried to do a set of 12.

 

MASS BUILDING

There are a few ways to do it

 

From Base Building, the book transitions to the actual Mass Protocol, broken down into 2 different sections: General Mass building, and Specialization.  Once again: the naming conventions are on-the-nose: General Mass Building are the programs one would use to add some general size to their frame, and specialization is what Stuart McRobert would refer to as a “finishing” program, or what John McCallum would refer to as…specialization.  It comes full circle folks.  5/3/1 BBB would be a great example of a “General Mass” style program: limited movements with a focus on hard work, whereas Building the Monolith could be seen as specialization: greater variety of assistance work and the emphasis on the yoke.

 

PROGRAMMING

That's about my attention span for the matter

 

Without giving out ALL the content of the book, there are about 4 different General Mass programs and 2 different Specialization ones, each designed for 3 week blocks, based on a percentage of your 1rm, after which time you’ll up the 1rm weight and continue.  The author advocates a block/phasic approach to training based around these two protocols, with emphasis on one or the other dependent upon the trainee’s current proximity toward their goals.  He actually has an entire section dedicated specifically toward discussing how to set up training blocks with these protocols in order to set up training blocks of various lengths (which is why I wrote that we could give this to a trainee and give them tools for life), and even includes ways to integrate programming from previous Tactical Barbell books to be able to set up phases of strength, hypertrophy and conditioning training.  I really REALLY love that.  Much like what Jim Wendler did with 5/3/1 Forever, but even MORE prescriptive, for those that choke on freedom.

 

CONDITIONING

 

Sadly not much of this

It should shock absolutely no one that I was eager to get to the conditioning section of the book.  Despite the fact that “Tactical Barbell II” is one of my favorite books because it contains SO many conditioning ideas, the author does a fantastic job of “keeping the goal the goal” here and prescribes conditioning protocols that are VERY bare bones and utilitarian to the cause of gaining mass.  He frequently reminds the reader that the goal of mass building is TO BUILD MASS, and conditioning can quickly take away from that IF over/incorrectly utilized, thus he programs conditioning that is short and effective without so much intensity that it will burn out the trainee.  Conditioning requirements differ between the General Mass programs and the Specificity programs, which is even more incentive to alternate between the two: an opportunity to vary your conditioning.  Yet again: I really dig the prescriptiveness of this.

 

NUTRITION

I have no idea what the context of this is, but it's great advice

 

I’ll admit flat out that I’m not a fan of the approach in the nutrition section, but I recognize this is a “me” issue.  The author prescribes an approach based around macro and calorie counting, laying down the exact amount of calories the trainee should eat, how much protein they should eat, and then a macro percentage breakdown to determine how much else to eat to achieve their goals.  I KNOW this method WILL flat out work: it’s just not how I like to do things.  Along with that, he’s very adamant about the necessity of carbs for the process of mass building, but he DOES at least on multiple occasions say things to the effect of “I don’t recommend a low carb/keto approach to mass building…but maybe you can get away with it”, which I’ll take as full license to do exactly that.

 

But what I REALLY appreciate about the nutrition section is the blunt force instrument employed to the reader regarding WHY we’re eating this way: to gain mass.  The author makes a point to say it’s better to overeat than undereat, that the hard work of the program is going to limit fat gain, that when we’re gaining mass we need to do the things necessary to actually gain mass, etc.  The constant reinforcement of this is key, especially with so many junior trainees that are so brainwashed by the “365 abs” of social media that the notion of ever letting their midsection get blurry in the pursuit of actually putting on some muscle is completely alien.  It’s refreshing to see someone really take nutrition to task.

 

The author also does a great job of emphasizing the value of wholesome, quality foods to achieve the nutrition goals, and he doesn’t shy away from meat to get protein.  There is no appeal to a plant based approach here.  He brings up quality protein supplements as well to bridge nutritional gaps, includes a brief discussion on supplements, advocates for a weekly cheat day, and does NOT try to find a way to make alcohol fit in the program.  He even includes specific recommendations for skinnier trainees vs fatbody trainees, and details how to eat during the Base Building blocks vs the other blocks.  Once again: everything you need to succeed.

 

SUMMARY

 

Spoilers

Once again, I am reviewing the book here, rather than the method, simply because I've only been able to follow the program for 2 weeks as of my posting this (which goes to show how well the book sinks it's hooks into you).  That said: this book is awesome.  Its $10 on amazon and gives you all the tools you need to succeed in your training.  It can be read in an afternoon, and re-read multiple times for inspiration.  Even if none of this is new to you, it can be incredibly refreshing to strip things down to the basics and remember the HOW and WHY behind what we do.

 

Buy this book.

 

 

COMPETITION REPORT: FIRST PLACE FINISH AND NEW STATE RECORD AT 2024 NEBRASKA'S STRONGEST MAN MLW (181)

**VIDEO AND RESULTS**

Get used to this image: you'll be seeing it a LOT!

 

* Here is the competition

 

* I took first place AND set a state record in the farmer’s hold for time (220lb for 43 seconds, beating previous record by 3 seconds).

 

**THE BACKGROUND**

We all need an origin story

 

* This competition was one I picked out after a July competition got canceled on me.  It had similar events to the July comp, so the transition wasn’t too tough.  The big thing was, it meant I spent a LOT of time in a more specific mode of training vs base building, and a LOT of time being skinny, as I don’t cut weight for competitions and therefore wanted to be able to comfortably show up within the 181lb class weigh in.

 

* I’ll have to detail the specifics of the training phase sometime, as I’m really happy with how it turned out, but it was a multi-phased approach, starting out with getting out of DoggCrapp shape and into strongman shape, then re-developing skills, then developing max strength, and then a taper/deload.  I showed up to the competition feeling good, and left feeling that way too.  Been a LONG time since I felt that way.

 

* I woke up STUPIDLY underweight, at 80.4kg, and that was after eating at a buffet the night before and weighing in at 79.1kg.  So I had an awesome breakfast of 3 different steaks and 4 pastured eggs, swimming in grassfed ghee 

, drank a 30oz green tea and electrolyte mixture on the way to the comp, and still weighed in at 180.8 with clothes on.  Mission accomplished: I showed up making weight and VERY well fed.  And I didn’t need to eat for the entire competition with that meal, so that was awesome: one less thing to deal with.

 

**THE EVENTS**

Nothing this cool sadly

 

EVENT 1: Last Man Standing Silver Dollar Deadlift

 

* This was the event I was most concerned about, since my hip has been bothering me for a few weeks now.  I showed up pretty late to the comp, and warm-ups were already pretty heavy.  I stepped up to about 495 loaded, pulled it for a slow rep and felt my hip twinge a little bit, so I shut it down.  Eventually, the women started warming up, and I jumped in on lighter weights and managed to pull pain free for a few reps there.

 

* But all of this became a non-issue, as the guy I was competing against jumped in at the opener of 365, to which I waited until 405 was loaded.  We were doing 10lb jumps, and they kept calling higher and higher.  When it got to 425, the other competitor asked me “How high are you going today?”  I said “I don’t know”, because I genuinely had no plan (Chaos is, of course, the plan), to which he said “Because I’m done”.

 

* …well bleep.  At first I was curious if he was playing some sort of game, but he seemed like a genuine dude, so I took him at his word.  I took 455 just to get in a higher number, and felt my hip not feel great, and then I waited for 505 just to get a 500 pull, which was my third attempt and final.  First place finish.

 

EVENT 2: Max Distance 40lb Sandbag Throw

 

* A recurring theme for this comp was that I misread the weights for my training.  I thought this was a 35lb throw, but it was actually 40.  The 40lb bag here actually DID feel lighter than my 35lb bag at home though, so that was good.  My training for this event to just get in throws whenever I could, Easy Strength style, but I never really tried to learn or study a technique for it.  Watching people in the warm-ups, I saw techniques that made a LOT more sense than what I did in training, and decided I would abandon the plan as needed.

 

* You’ll see my “plan” on my first throw: a two handed hammer throw style approach, which got me a paltry 16’ and some change.  I needed to beat 25’.  So with that, I adopted the 1 handed style I saw other dudes using and got 22’.  So close!  Tried it again for my third attempt, and it was apparently not as far as my second attempt: they didn’t tell me the distance.  I lost this event, but at least I learned a better approach for the future. 

 

EVENT 3: Axle Clean and Press Ladder (160-180-200lb axles)

 

* This was the OTHER event where I misread the weights, thinking it was 150-170-190.  I got 190 in training out of a rack, never off the floor, once again trying to work around my hip.  This was also my first time trying out my Cerberus grip shirt.  I honestly hate the idea of grip shirts, but I liked the design on it enough that I finally went and bought one.

 

* The guy I was competing against struggled on the continental with the 200lb axle, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to get it, but he eventually popped it up and secured 3 reps.  I approached 160 and it moved smooth enough.  180 felt heavier than I would have liked.  And then I went for 200 and it was STUPIDLY heavy.  I absolutely rested it on the belt for far longer than should be been allowed, and the grip shirt REALLY worked well, but I had to effectively limbo under the bar before it got into the rack position.  I went for a press, got it part way up, and that was game over.  My press has honestly fallen apart: it used to be one of the strongest parts of my game.  Dropping my bodyweight definitely has an impact there, but I really just need to get back to basics and struggle under a bar.  I’ve been doing a lot of dips because I like them and I’m good at them, but they’re not what is going to build my press compared to just some hard pressing.  At this point, I’d won 1 event and lost 2, which meant I had to win the next 2 events if I wanted to come home with a win.

 

EVENT 4: Max Distance 220lb sandbag carry

 

* This was THE event I was most excited about, which sounds nutty to just about anyone else, but if you “know” me, you know that I THRIVE in an environment where it’s simply a question of who can deal with the most suffering.  I read the rules so many times and they made it clear: as long as the sandbag doesn’t hit the floor, you can keep going.  So I spent a LOT of time training on keeping the sandbag lapped and recovering.  About the only thing that was of concern was my hip and knees, because picking up the bag and carrying it beat the hell out of them.

 

* The other guy went first, which was a HUGE stroke of luck for me, because it meant I KNEW what I had to beat, vs having to just go for max distance.  He went for near 3.5 laps of a 50’ track, and I had marked off his failure point in his mind, so I knew what I needed to do.

 

* You can see in the video it was a slow and stable pick, and I tried to get the bag as high up as I could to allow my hips some mobility.  I moved ok for the first 2 trips…and then the most epic sandbag carry of all time happened.  Like the Little Engine That Could, “I think I can I think I can”, I would just meander a few feet ahead, lap the bag, rest, regroup and go.  The biggest issue I had to contend with is that the bag was getting slippery as I went, and slightly off center, so I wasn’t able to get great re-grips when I’d start again, resulting in shorter and shorter runs…but I NEVER stopped moving forward.  I inched my was just ever so slightly past where I needed to be, and unfortunately the video cuts off before the very end, but I tossed the bag just a few extra feet from me to make sure I had it.  In the end, I beat the other guy by 4.5’, with a near 5 minute sandbag run.  I’m sure I COULD have gone even further if I needed to, but thank goodness I didn’t, because I was SPENT after that.  I made a noise like a set of dying bagpipies, and went and laid down.  Also, I forgot to take off my fit tracker, and found out my heart rate got up to 160 during that event, which may not sound high, but when you factor in that my resting heart rate is 38, it meant I was pretty redlined.

 

EVENT 5: Farmer’s Hold for Time (220lb per hand)

 

* So now we’re tied: 2-2, meaning whoever won this final event won the competition.  I’d been training for this event primarily by hanging from my chinning bar and doing a pull up every 30 seconds (something I stole from Dan John), with a once a week training where I’d actually hold onto a loaded up trap bar for time.  My grip strength isn’t super awesome, but I was progressing well in training.  But, really, the big thing was that this was ANOTHER event premised around “who can endure the most suck”

 

* I chalked up, set my grip, pulled slow, shut my eyes and immediately starting singing “Somewhat Damaged” in my head as a way to distract myself from the experience.  With my eyes closed, I was listening, and I knew that, once I heard plates hit the floor, I was in the clear, but I ALSO knew I’d have to hold on for a few more seconds after that because we didn’t necessarily start EXACTLY at the same time.  As I was holding, all I could think of was “I am NOT going to lose because of this event”.  Did it suck holding the handles?  Yeah…but apparently it sucked more for the other guy, because I eventually heard the very noise I was waiting for.  I stuck with the plan and held on for a few more seconds…which is what got me a state record!  Previous record was 40 seconds, and I held on for 43.  So I guess my grip strength IS ok.

 

**WAY FORWARD**

Way better than Capt America

 

* I don’t have any other strongman competitions on the horizon.  I have a grappling competition on 8 Dec, with a top weight of 185lbs, so I’m not worried about making weight there.  It’s clear my press needs to be brought up, and I need to not push my hip so hard that I break.  I want to get back to basics and focus on growing muscle and getting stronger, because I’m definitely at a point of leanness where I can start growing, and with summer ending and a birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a Cruise all approaching, I’m going to have an excellent opportunity to eat well.

 

* For training, I’m planning on running the Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol.  Reading the book got me excited about training, and it seems like what I need: basic and brutal.  I like that it has an opportunity to focus on my chins as well, because they’ve degraded quite a bit, and the conditioning will suit me well.  Nutritionally, I’m sticking with carnivore, and focusing on the meat and eggs and keeping the dairy on the low side.  And on the meat side, focusing on ruminant animals vs monogastric. 

 

 

* I may continue to bust out some throws here and there, to keep them grooved, and occasionally I’ll allow myself some sort of stupid strongman WOD to scratch that itch, but for the most part, I’m excited about getting back to my roots.

“HE WHO HAS A WHY TO LIFE FOR CAN BEAR ALMOST ANY HOW”

Yes, a Nietzsche quote: it never goes away.  And this is one of those that, upon reading it, absolutely changed my life, and those of you who are regular readers have absolutely seen the influence of this quote on all aspects of my physical transformation.  I’ve frequently spoken on the idea that I genuinely do not believe there is any such thing as willpower, which, in and of itself, is an idea that took me a while to come around to.  I’ve been lauded for my willpower, for my ability to overcome, for my ability to endure so much misery and pain and hardship in a singleminded pursuit of my goals, powering on like the Juggernaut, unstoppable in my path.  And as cool as that image is, it’s all just a fairytale.  The truth is: I am simply the manifestation of a strong “why”, and it, in turn, allows me to endure any how.  And just like I wrote in the very first entry of this blog: I have no idea WHY I have this “why”: it’s simply always been.  My earliest memories are of wanting to be physically great, and I’ve given up on trying to understand it: I just know that it is there.  Having this why has allowed me to bear almost any how in my pursuit…which leads ultimately to the question of “what WHY are you living for?”

I know that sentence reads about as well as this one: stick with me

 

That’s what is interesting about this game: our “why” will always be revealed by the how.  Specifically, the hows we surrender to are, in turn, our REAL “whys” that we live for.  Examples?  For 7 years, I’ve watched someone online manage to lose 10 kilos of bodyweight.  Yes: 10 kilos in 7 years, which averages to about 3.15lbs a YEAR, a good rate of weight loss for a WEEK, and if you want to be real nerdy, that’s .06lbs a week (no, not .6: .06).  This person started off at 120kg…at a height of 5’5.  They made a goal to lose 100lbs for their wedding that was happening in 9 months.  I was SO excited for this person, gave them all the resources I could, all the advice I could muster…and watched them frequently lament about how they “cheated a little this weekend”, “forgot to buy food: ate from the vending machine”, “needed sweets”, etc.  The wedding rolled around (puns!) and they were the same weight they were when they started.  And as a married man, I’ll flat out say I was upset that a spouse was NOT enough of a “why” to endure the “how” of avoiding yummy foods…but there it was.  We learned this person’s TRUE why: eating yummy food. 

 

It’s no different when it comes to waking up early to train.  Why do I train at 0400?  I am honestly very blessed there: I have TWO whys.  I train, in general, because I want to transform myself.  I train at 0400 specifically because I have a family that I want to spend my time with.  I do NOT want to be lifting weights or pushing prowlers or any of my other shenanigans when I could be spending time cooking with my wife in the kitchen or playing a video game with my kid or taking my dogs for a walk or just being present in some manner in their lives…so I train when they sleep.  My alarm goes off (which I set on my phone on vibrate and hold close to my body, so that I don’t wake my spouse), I get up, and I go train, and it sucks…but the why makes the how endurable.  Those of you asking “HOW do you get up and train early” need to ask “WHY do you get up and train early” instead.  Oh my goodness, I’m going to completely chase this pivot I just made, because THAT is the crux here.

Not sure why I went with so many political photos with this one

 

Asking the “how” to succeed will never work.  Everyone is going to have a different how, and one person’s how may not work for you.  We must, instead, ask WHY those who succeed do the things that they do.  Derek Poundstone, WHY did you drink blended chicken in water?  Because being a champion strongman was important enough that he was willing to do what it took to get in the nutrition he needed.  Asking him HOW to do it is pointless: it was done because it was necessary.  Bodybuilders, WHY do you starve yourselves and feel like zombies to get so damn lean?  Because winning on the stage is worth it: asking about some trick to make the hunger less awful (the “how”) isn’t going to work for you if you don’t have the why.  WHY do strongman and powerlifters manage to step under heavy weights again after suffering horrific injuries without fear of getting hurt again?  Because victory is more compelling than fear, and they’d rather be strong than weak and healthy.

 

Ask “why”, NOT “how”.  Ask YOURSELF “Why am I NOT doing these things”.  Ask yourself “why WOULD I do these things”.  What could be compelling enough to get you to change your behavior?  What “why” is enough for you?  Your actions are a pure reflection OF your why: you will always do the things that allow you to achieve your why.  It just so happens that your “why” may not be what you TELL yourself that it is.  You may SAY that your why is physical transformation, but when you come home from work after a bad day and eat an entire cheesecake, your “why” is really comfort.  When you hit the snooze alarm and blow off training for the 15th morning in a row, your “why” is sleeping in.  And there’s nothing wrong with these BEING your “whys”: you simply have to make peace with them.  That there’s no secret hack of “how” that will have you accomplish your whys.  It’s not about some sort of psychological programming or reframing or magic potion or powder or pill: your why will always determine your how.    

GRAPPLING COMPETITION WRITE UP: STEPPING UP TO WHITE BELT

Once again, I found myself bringing home some hardware from a grappling competition, despite the fact that I haven’t trained grappling in around 18 years and the last time I grappled was…the last time I won a competition, which was back in Dec.  Since that last one was a novice competition, I felt it was right for me to “step up” to the level of white belt, which sounds funny, but when you technically don’t hold ANY sort of rank in any grappling martial art, white belt is definitely the “next level”.  Additionally, my previous competition was as a “Masters” athlete, which was technically already me playing with the younger crowd (at 38, I’m a Masters II), but there were NO geezers to be found this day, so I ended up competing in the 18+ category.  This was a fairly exciting development for me: I’d REALLY have a chance to test myself.  I managed to walk away with 3rd place out of 4 competitors, losing my first match and winning my second, and I got to learn some more and push myself, which was really my goal. With that, allow me to discuss how I got here.

I can't tell if my face or my shorts are the most wrinkled parts of this photo

 

BACKGROUND AND TRAINING

 

A barbarian explaining to a fighter how training is a form of cheating

Once again, I signed up for this competition completely on a whim.  I was (and actually still am) training for a strongman competition at the time when this showed up in my e-mail as an opportunity, and I figured that the kind of strength and conditioning that would support strongman should play well into grappling again.  Last time I grappled, I was following “Chaos is the Plan”, and this time I was STILL doing my own approach to training, which I had titled “Phyrexian Dreadnought”, which, yes, IS the name of a card from “Magic the Gathering” and I’m totally ok with that.  I may do a write up of that sometime, but it was a multi-phased competition prep approach with an early emphasis on conditioning, middle emphasis on generate strength, and later phases focused on strongman comp specific stuff.  I did some sort of lifting 3 days a week (MWF), limiting the mainwork to 30 minutes and doing whatever I needed for assistance work afterwards, and would then include 1 day of weighted vest walking and 1 day of events type work (carries, prowler and throws).  I’d do 1 set of ROM progression pulls on Saturday, and either get in long walks on Sat and Sun or get in some sort of short intense conditioning.  The strongman competition I was training for was scheduled for Jul, and ended up getting canceled, with me signing up for another one in Sep (14 Sep: look for that write up) that had very similar events…so I just kept on training.

 

Probably the thing I did in this training that was closest to grappling applicable was max distance 200lb sandbag carries.  If I could mandhandle that bag, I could handle a human no issues.  Especially since I was going to be competing in the 171-185lb class.  I had just come off a run of DoggCrapp prior to all of this, and was walking around at 185 on my heaviest days, but averaging about 182.  But, getting into MORE stupid details here, these were post workout weights rather than first thing in the morning weights, and given how hot my garage gets, I knew I was losing a lot of sweat before the weigh ins…so I had a priority for this training cycle to drop my bodyweight a touch so that I’d have no issue making the 185 class for the grappling comp and the 181 class for the strongman comp.  What was awesome about this was, it meant I got to spend the week of the competition eating UP to gain weight.  Anyone who has ever done a combat sport realizes what an inside boon that is, compared to starving yourself and sweating out all your water to make weight.  I got to feel STRONG.

 

Dropping the weight was no issue whatsoever: took a break from Feast/Famine/Ferocity and instead went back to Apex Predator, which has always been awesome for getting stupidly lean.   And that’s exactly what happened, which was kind of nice for the summer: I started walking around at 175, had all my abs in, veins popping out, etc.  BUT, unlike last summer, I managed to hold onto a fair bit of strength for my squats and deadlifts, actually watching both of those grow with a combination of Zeno squats and DoggCrapp stuff for the squat and ROM progression pulls for the deadlifts.  My press strength dipped a bit, as is what tends to happen with my bodyweight, but I was able to hold on as much as I could.  This boded well for my goals of being competitive in grappling, considering I had no skills to bring to the fight, so all I could rely on what strength and conditioning.

 

MORNING OF

 

Folger's is for chumps: wake up to THIS!

I more than made my weight class goals, wake up and seeing 80.6kg on the scale (for some reason, my bathroom scale has defaulted to metric and I can’t reset it), so I engaged in my traditional pre-comp breakfast of “steak and eggs”, but REALLY turned it up a notch: 4 pastured eggs, a sirloin cap from Costco, a grassfed New York Strip from piedmontese, all swimming in grassfed ghee.  I LOVE this fuel for comp, because it doesn’t sit heavy in my guts, doesn’t slosh, and gives me VERY stable and sustainable energy compared to a bunch of carbs.  Plus, I just feel like a goddamn warrior eating like this.  It’s what Conan would eat before battle…although really, it would be ribs, so you can eat the meat off the bone.

 

It was a 45 minute drive out to the location, during which time I had my morning drink of 12oz of green tea mixed with 20oz of hot water (straight tea upsets my guts a little) and some electrolytes.  I bring that up to demonstrate how fully hydrated I was when I weighed in at 183.0 WITH a full set of sweats.  And since I’m an old man, that full set included compression shorts, then some Cerberus strongman shorts, and THEN my “Sprawl” fight shorts from 2005, because I wanted to REALLY show my age.

 

I only needed to wait about 45 minutes for my first match.  Timing was perfect.  I rolled around on the mat a little to loosen up beforehand, but otherwise had no real warm up.

 

MATCH 1: BLINK AND YOU’LL MISS IT

 

The first dude I got matched up against was a 22 year old that seemed to tower over me.  I knew this dude cut some weight to make 185.  We shook hands, engaged, felt each other out, and I could tell he was a strong kid, which meant that my strategy of outmuscling him was going to be tough.  Thankfully, skill made this a non-issue, as he quickly took me down and got my back, at which point all my wrestling instincts kicked in, I established a great 4 point base…which he immediately recognized and slapped a rear-naked choke on me.  He sunk it in DEEP and I tapped quickly.  The force of the choke was so strong that my jaw STILL hurts 4 days later as I write this.  I take solace in the fact that this dude went on to win our division.  Looking back, I lost my first match on my last competition for something of a similar reason: I need a “break-in” to remember how to grapple.  In this case, I was afforded about 28 seconds to do that.  I COULD have fought that choke a bit smarter, or scrambled better once I hit the floor, but this was a lot of rust showing up.

 

MATCH 2: GOING THE DISTANCE

 

I KNEW that I needed to win A match if I wanted to bring home hardware, since there were 4 competitors today. I didn’t actually get to see the other dude’s match, despite looking for him, as I was hoping to learn SOMETHING about his game before we rolled. But, as soon as I approached him, I looked at him and thought “lunch”. Once again, it’s kinda cool that my killer instinct is actually coming out to play these days, because in my 20s I was too much a “nice guy” and really missed out on a lot of possible Ws.

 

We felt each other out at the start and I quickly realized that I was much stronger than this guy, so I played that to my advantage and broke him down standing as much as I could: fighting off his underhooks, getting better positioning, dragging him where he didn’t want to go. I tried some more aggressive takedowns, and even felt the instinct to go for a double leg at one point, but instead I ended up on my knees with him attempting to get my back. I managed to prevent that and get him onto his back…and that’s where most of the match went.

I am pleased at how I was able to impose my will on him the entire time. He never got to have a say in where we were, what we were doing, or how we were doing it. Occasionally, he’d keep a guard longer than I’d like, or roll out of something, but that was about it. My conditioning was even better than last time, and his was significantly worse than anyone else, so I could feel his strength fading and it just got me to keep pushing even harder.

 

However, it was also blatantly apparent how undangerous I was. I kept going for the handful of subs I knew and none of them landed. I equated it to being like a Terminator robot who never got the combat programming uploaded into their CPU: I was relentless and unstoppable…and ineffective.

I keep my promises

 

BUT, the advantage of that is, when the timer ran out, overtime decision gets to go to the aggressor of the match, and there was no question that it was me. In overtime, both competitors get a chance to escape from the other competitor while they try to submit. I knew the other guy was exhausted, so I chose to be on defense first, knowing I could escape from him. He DID try to get in a choke, but in 22 seconds, I was out.

 

From here, I knew that all I needed to do was hold onto the dude and squeeze the sh*t out of him so that he couldn’t escape in 22 seconds, and that’s exactly what I did. His conditioning fell apart and he had no strength to deal with me, and eventually time ran out for him and I walked away with the win.

 

Some of the things I pulled off that I’m happy with: I actually employed some of my old wrestling tricks here, specifically the cross-face cradle. That was my go to in high school, and it still works to get positioning. I also was fighting for subs the ENTIRE time, up until the last second…to include what I’m pretty sure was a backwards set up for a triangle choke. I also was pretty creative in applying pressure from the top and just plain making the other dude uncomfortable. And again: I’m VERY pleased with how my conditioning held up. I actually felt better this time compared to last, where I was MORE focused on conditioning training. I’m thinking taking this week a little lighter in training may have helped.

 

THE FUTURE

 

At least it would make a good training block

I have that strongman competition coming up on 14 Sep, and I’ve already signed up for another grappling competition on 8 Dec, which is even closer to home for me, so that’s cool.  After the strongman comp, I may keep leaning out for 2 more weeks before jumping on the gain train, because I am tired of not eating, and my birth month is October, followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and another Disney Cruise, so it’s going to be a GOOD time to gain.  I also suppose I DO have a Tang Soo Do tournament coming up in early Oct, but those are really just for funsies.

 

Even while gaining, I’m not worried about missing the 185 class for that comp on 8 Dec.  I MAY even try to get in some open mat time at a local grappling school between then and now…but at this point, training feels like cheating.