TACTICAL BARBELL 2 YEAR REVIEW: TB VS 5/3/1 AS PBJS

Holy cow that title has a lot of initialisms (which are different from acronyms: look it up), but it’s rather apropos for both Tactical Barbell and 5/3/1 given how they both tend to speak in their own language and code.  And that’s why I want to celebrate my second consecutive year of running Tactical Barbell (the longest I’ve EVER stuck with ANY training system) but offering my review of both TB and 5/3/1 offered through the lens of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, of which I apologize for my non-American readers who find the notion of these sandwiches off putting, but for us yanks, they are iconic.  Why that metaphor?  For 1: it’s honestly incredibly fitting giving my having stuck with TB for 2 years, because PBJs were the lunch I ate everyday for all 4 years of high school (I switched from 1 PBJ my freshman year to 2 sophomore year through senior, coinciding with my having picked up wrestling as a sport in my second year and needing more nutrition), so PBJs and TB are both something I can stick with for a LONG time.  And, much like TB, I looked FORWARD to my daily PBJ for lunch, and constantly remarked that the best part about eating a PBJ is immediately eating the second on that you packed.  PBJs occupy a significantly space in my mind for nostalgia and dopamine.  And, in turn, my dirty secret is also this: it was my DAD who made and packed PBJs in my lunch, and for good reason, because left to my own devices I discovered that I could NOT make a good PBJ for myself.  I sure THOUGHT that I could, until I was tasked with making one for someone else (who would one day become my wife), who dutifully informed me that I was using about 8x as much peanut butter as was appropriate for such a sandwich.  What was I to do in such a situation?  Enter: The Uncrustable, a premade and packaged PBJ, stored in the freezer (which you were SUPPOSED to thaw before eating, but I definitely ate frozen more often than not, similar to cold Poptarts vs ones cooked in the toaster) which I first discovered in 2005, and immediately fell in love with, because it instantly took me back to my high school days of perfectly proportioned PBJs, wrapped and ready for me (to which, yes, the best part about eating 1 was the second one I ate immediately afterward).  And with that allow to elucidate that, in this metaphor, 5/3/1 is the traditional PBJ and Tactical Barbell is the Uncrustable, and that neither is a declaration of superiority above the other, for as you can clearly see I have great love for both: they’re just simply “same but different”, and with that, let’s explore even further.

 

WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF THE PBJ?

Based off some of these suggestions, you can see why we're struggling with an obesity epidemic

Operating under this framework, if we understand these training systems in through the lens of the PBJ, we’re going to call the strength training the peanut butter, the conditioning the jelly, and the overall structure of the program as the bread.  Why? 

 

BREAD:

 

The bread holds everything together: without that structure, we’re just eating peanut butter and jelly straight out of the jar with no programming (this would be doing Crossfit “workouts of the day” daily, and funny enough, was one of the go to nutritionally approaches of 4x Crossfit champ Rich Fronning).  The bread contains and vectors the peanut butter and the jelly, much as the programming gives guidance to the strength and conditioning.  Bread also gets stale and moldy, at which point we need to go buy a new loaf.

 

PEANUT BUTTER:

 

Strength training is the peanut butter because, if we’re being real: people see 5/3/1 and TB as lifting programs first with the conditioning being an afterthought, and even if that’s wrong, it is what it is.  In turn, it’s not unheard of for people to just flat out skip the jelly and make a pure peanut butter sandwich (I’m guilty of just that, both within the framework of this metaphor but also just making PB sandwiches). 

 

JELLY:

 

When done right, the jelly is the perfect balancing compliment to the peanut butter in the PBJ.  The PB offers that element of salty and savory that the jelly’s sweetness balances, along with the slickness there to balance the grittiness of the PB and the bread.  But jelly also requires a bit of expertise and finesse to work correctly, as pro sandwich makes know that it will turn the bread soggy if applied incorrectly (pro-tip: put the PB on BOTH sides and then put the jelly ON the PB). 

 

…I promise, this will get less crazy in a few more paragraphs.

 

WHY 5/3/1 IS A TRADITIONAL PBJ

Jim most certainly enjoyed some PBJs in his time

5/3/1 is a programming system, and the books could best be understood as “cookbooks” if I were to continue with this sandwich metaphor.  They give you the guidelines of how to build your sandwich, but it’s still on YOU, the sandwich maker, to go buy the ingredients and assemble the sandwich.  In turn, this leaves open a wide avenue of choices, options and, unfortunately, opportunities to completely foul up the whole process.

 

The first foul up: not actually READING the cookbook, and instead relying on second/third hand sources to tell you what is in the cookbook, or just plain old winging it based off what you THINK is right.  We see this all the time in the world of 5/3/1, where people don’t even know that conditioning is PART of the program, or they’re relying on an app to tell them how to run it and it’s relying on old crowd sourced information itself.  There are all sorts of videos on youtube of people trying to make AI recipes and turning out culinary abominations: this is no different.

 

But for those that read the cookbook, you need to actually FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS, and this is the second area where people tend to screw up 5/3/1.  Either they don’t follow it because they don’t understand it (people say Jim is hard to understand, but I imagine these people never read anything Louie Simmons ever wrote) or they don’t follow it because they don’t want to.  In the case of the latter, it’s because these people approach the system already knowing how they WANT to train, and they just keep “modifying” 5/3/1 until it becomes this terrible Frankenstein’s monster of a program that is exactly how they like to train, never appreciating that the reason they came to 5/3/1 in the first place was BECAUSE they needed to do something different, since what they WERE doing wasn’t working.   I was very much one of these people, again inside and outside the metaphor, making terrible sandwiches with way too much peanut butter compared to the ratio of bread and running 5/3/1 programs with WAY too heavy of a training max and a poor balance of main, supplemental and assistance work along with conditioning.  Ratios matter, in sandwiches and in training.

 

But assuming you read, understand and (attempt) to follow the instructions, you can still screw up by using low quality/poor ingredients.  There is a WIDE range of peanut butters out there, with the Peter Pan brand notorious for having salmonella, natural brands that are so oily that they run clear off the sandwich onto your clothes, and highly processed brands that are more “peanut frosting” than peanut butter.  There are jellies with so much sugar added that they technically qualify as candy, and honestly some breads out there that are just as guilty.  This runs true as far as the metaphor goes: you can select strength and conditioning exercises that are absolutely inappropriate for you, the trainee, despite TECHNICALLY being within the realm of acceptable as far as 5/3/1 goes, permitting you to construct a program that “follows all the rules” and STILL gets terrible results, just like making a wonderbread peter pan and eggplant jelly (it’s a fruit..) sandwich. 

 

And continuing with THAT metaphor even further: ingredients eventually expire as well, and need to be replaced.  Jim Wendler understands this, and his cookbook even TELLS you to swap programs every 2-5 cycles…but you have to listen to that.  You need to buy and use new bread to change the programming, and get new jars of peanut butter to swap out the strength exercises and new jars of jelly to bring in some new conditioning.  And though I DID eat PBJs every day of high school for 4 years, we at least bought new stuff if the old stuff went bad, but some of you cats running 5/3/1 will do BBB for 14 months straight like you stocked up on a bread sale at your grocery store but didn’t think to put any of the loaves in the freezer and have just been eating stale moldy bread sandwiches.  After a few weeks, that’s going to start causing you some serious harm, and you’re going to move backwards rather than forwards.

 

Which, speaking of freezers, let’s get to talking about those Uncrustables now.

 

HOW TACTICAL BARBELL IS AN UNCRUSTABLE

So, I mean, the precedent is there

Whereas the 5/3/1 books can be understood to be cookbooks, Tactical Barbell is more like a catalog (which most likely alienates my younger readers to bring up such a concept) or a grocery delivery website.  No one is telling you HOW to make the sandwich: you just pick which one you want.  Once you do, it’s delivered to you, and all you have to do is unwrap and eat it.

What are the implications of this?  Ultimately, we’ve outsourced the sandwich making process to the “experts”, and though the folks at Smuckers may not be the greatest culinary artists in the world, they for SURE did the necessary degree of research to make their product as palatable as possible within the budgetary constructs they set in order to maximize profits and their return on investment.  This means that the ratio of peanut butter to jelly to bread is exactly “right” in terms of making the most people possible satisfied with their product by appealing to the tastes of the greatest percentage of the population.  And then they went and maximized shelf stability of their product by allowing it to be stored frozen, reducing the potential of spoilage and harm to the consumer.

 

What does this mean in the realm of Tactical Barbell?  Like the Smuckers company, K. Black has put together something that should be able to be applied to the vast majority of trainees in order to satisfy the general needs of that populace, but per his own admission, the programs in TB aren’t meant to achieve extremely specific training objectives, like a top marathon time or elite powerlifting total.  Rather than giving the reader “all the tools” to build their program, Tactical Barbell has multiple preset options that one selects (Operator, Zulu, Fighter in the realm of TB1, or General Mass, Grey Man, Gladiator, Fighter in Mass, etc etc) pairs it with the appropriate conditioning protocol from TBII or other source materials, and then executes it until the duration of the training phase before moving onto the next one (Operator-Mass-Specificity via Mass Protocol, or the fully fledged out “Activation” from TBIII).  We don’t need to be making any sandwiches here: we just unwrap and eat.

 

But continuing the metaphor even further: there isn’t just ONE Uncrustable, much like there isn’t just ONE Tactical Barbell program.  And that’s how we seamlessly move between the Tactical Barbell programs: one we’ve eaten all the uncrustables out of one box, we order a new flavor and start with that one.  This is the periodization of OMS or Activation understood through the lens of PBJs: there are PB and honey uncrustables, PB and raspberry uncrustables, PB and Nutella, and yes: even just plain PB uncrustables, similar to how we can have TB programs built to emphasize mass, strength, conditioning, power, strength endurance, etc.  The difference between how 5/3/1 handles this and TB is that the Uncrustable is STILL prebuilt to the specs designed by Smuckers: they’re just a different flavor, where with 5/3/1 we’re having to build it from scratch each time and hoping we know what the hell we’re doing.

 

And therein is the fundamental difference between the two systems: 5/3/1 allows the reader the necessary degree of latitude to be able to achieve a wide variety of specific training goals, as evidenced by Vincent Dizenzo using it to achieve a 600lb raw bench press across various weight classes or how Jim himself uses the system to train highschool football players.  However, this freedom is predicated upon the premise that the individual knows how to actually make a decent sandwich in the first place.  As I’ve demonstrated on multiple occasions: I cannot make a decent PBJ.  Both the actual sandwich, and through this metaphor, the training program itself.  Left to my own devices, my bread is basically a saltine cracker on one side and a tortilla on the other, ineffectively holding behind a tsunami of peanut butter alongside a small river of jalapeno and pickle jelly.  I have to rely on someone else to make me a sandwich, while it’s MY job to simply dutifully eat them and make sure I buy a new box in time to open up when the old one runs out.  And THIS is why I’ve stuck with Tactical Barbell for 2 years and don’t see myself changing any time soon. 

 

IN SUMMARY/THE WAVETOPS

Don't let this man down: have some PBJs

5/3/1 is the traditional PBJ.  It’s on you to make sure you select the appropriate program, movements, and conditioning protocols for your goals, and to then rotate all of these as appropriate in order to continue to progress and grow without experience the consequences of “going stale”

 

Tactical Barbell is the Uncrustable.  You open one box, open the package, and start eating.  The box could be Strength, Mass, Conditioning or Base Building, but once you finish the box, you open a new one and get started with that one.  The ratio of strength to conditioning is already established, as is the frequency of training and all the other variables: we just have to do what we’re told and we’ll do just fine.

 

“THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH TIME TO DO IT RIGHT, BUT THERE IS ALWAYS ENOUGH TIME TO DO IT OVER”

The quote for today’s post comes by way of John W. Bergman, a retired Lieutenant General in the United States Marine Corps turned politician, and it is of no shock to me to find that such an outstanding quote comes from a Marine, because god bless them and I’m glad they’re on our side.  I still talk about how much it imprinted on me that Marines eat a meal of steak and eggs after completion of “The Crucible” because it is “A warrior’s breakfast” and, in turn, whenever I eat that meal I feel a connection to these warriors…but I’ve already digressed here.  I love this quote not just for it’s originator but for the message it contains, and how incredibly applicable it is to those in the physical transformation sphere.  At age 40, after 26 years of training in some manner, I have a degree of patience one tends not to observe amongst the younger population, simply because they do not have the experience I have to know that we DO have plenty of time in this pursuit, that there IS no real urgency, and that, often, all we can do is plant the seed and wait for it to grow.  We cannot rush the process, and funny enough, in attempting to do so, we tend to actually make things move SLOWER rather than faster.  And that’s the ultimate irony of all of this: so often, these efforts that trainees undertake in the pursuit of saving time end up COSTING them time, and if they had simply done things correctly the first time, they’d be SO much further ahead of the game than they end up being.  Success leaves clues, but, unfortunately, experience is a cruel mentor, as we have to wait until the hot stove burns us before we learn not to touch it, no matter what those who have been burned before try to warn us, and, in turn, here I am futilely attempting once again to impart the wisdom of my experience unto those future stove touchers because, in turn, it appears that I myself have not learned from my own experience yet.  But here we go: once more unto the breach dear readers.

That was always my experience with Ikea

The most frequent sin I see in regards to the attempt to save time having the reverse effect is, of course, in the pursuit of gaining muscle.  This should be the simplest physical pursuit (NOT the easiest, quite the opposite, but that’s also probably one of the contributing variables) a young trainee can engage in: lift weights, try to lift heavier weights, and when you can’t lift heavier weights, eat more food until you can.  That’s, quite literally, how it works.  Bruce Randall demonstrated that you can take that approach for YEARS and actually DOUBLE your bodyweight in the process if you are so inclined, and Paul Anderson achieved something quite similar, as did Doug Hepburn.  But, in turn, those individuals also demonstrated something else about the process: you’ll put on bodyfat when you eat a lot of food.  Which, again, should be of NO surprise to anyone with the most basic of understanding of biology and metabolism…yet this one fact is so ABHORRENT to many a young trainee that they put their fingers in their ears and go “la la la la MAINGAINING” in the hopes of chasing away the bodyfat boogieman so that they can piles on slabs of muscle without an ounce of bodyfat blurring their Instagram ready abs.

 

Which yeah: I’ll take the potshot at social media here, because it’s primarily responsible for this epidemic among younger trainees.  Prior to everyone ALWAYS being on camera ALL the time, there was an understanding that physiques themselves were seasonal, with a bulking and cutting season factored into anyone’s plan who cared to actually achieve physical greatness.  Arnold lost his abs in the off season, and he wasn’t alone.  To the point that some bodybuilders in the magazine eras actually took to have photoshoots done with multiple outfits for hundreds of shots that they could leak out over the course of the year to create the ILLUSION that they walked around contest ready year round as a method to SABOTAGE their competition in attempting to do the same: effectively robbing them of their off-season gains.

The internet would call this "fat" these days

 

And there it is!  The dudes in the 60s and 70s understood the value of the off-season bulk so much that they tried to STEAL it from their competition, and meanwhile young trainees are doing it to themselves on purpose!  They refuse to actually eat enough food to CAUSE muscular development to occur, because this tends to require ALSO eating enough food to cause bodyfat to accumulate in SOME manner.  So they engage in a 16 week “muscle gaining” training block, only to gain…no muscle.  BUT at least they were training really hard during that block so now they’re exhausted AND their hormones are out of whack because they’re a bubbling font of cortisol with no meaningful nutritional intervention in place to aid in recovery.  Why did they suffer for these 16 weeks to achieve nothing?  So that they wouldn’t have to go on a cut of course!  Why?  Because time spent cutting is time NOT spent gaining muscle.  Ok, that tracks…but isn’t time spent NOT gaining muscle ALSO time spent…not gaining muscle?  Didn’t we do exactly what we DIDN’T want to do IN our attempt to not do the thing?  Holy cow that’s a lot of negatives.  Let me see if I can dig us out of this hole.

 

We were trying to save the time of the cutting phase by not putting on enough fat during the gaining phase to need to cut, operating under the premise that this would mean MORE time we could spend gaining muscle.  But if we’re doing a 16 week gaining phase and then an 8 week cutting phase (a 2:1 ratio), This allots for 32 weeks a year to gain, 16 weeks to cut, and 4 weeks of fudgery (I imagine those could just be deloads between phases, but god forbid you suggest a DELOAD to this generation of trainees).  Ok, let’s do some more math here.  If muscle is 75% water, this means every pound of muscle you build is 4lbs of bodyweight total.  Lean bulking advocates quote lots of numbers, but let’s say that they’d all be comfortable with .5lbs of WEIGHT gained per week.  Assuming this weight is 100% muscle and water, no fat whatsoever (already impossible), this would mean putting on .125lbs of MUSCLE per week, OR .018lbs per DAY.  That’s 8g of muscle per day.  If we took that extra 16 weeks we “waste” by cutting and invested it 100% into gaining muscle, this means we get to put on an extra…2lbs of muscle that year.  THAT is what all of our diligence bought us.  THAT is what we get for weighing our toothpaste to make sure we didn’t accidentally overshoot our macros and put on “too much” bodyfat.

Except in this version, 6 weeks later, we're STILL getting sand kicked in our face at he beach

NOW consider, instead, what we’re missing out on when we do, in fact, squander those 32 weeks a year.  If we actually DID eat enough to maximize muscle growth during that time, we’re earning that 4lbs of muscle and, with it, 16lbs of bodyWEIGHT total each year, alongside whatever fat comes along for the ride.  And since we actually ATE well enough to fuel hard training sessions, we trained hard enough DURING those 32 weeks that some time spent cutting away the fat with some easier training is going to feel refreshing AND it’s going to give us a whole host of biological and metabolic benefits, such as improved systemic recovery, greater insulin resistance, a ramped DOWN metabolism so that it’s no longer an arm’s race to mainline food into us to gain (check out Bruce Randall’s legendary eating feats for some reference), etc.  But, here again, the attempt to save time will inevitably force the trainee to waste time, because if you ever want to see a trainee in a crisis, find a trainee looking to lose some bodyfat.

 

Bodyfat loss is NEVER on a “take it as it comes” schedule, but instead ALWAYS a crisis.  People always need to lose the fat YESTERDAY, and they’re willing to do WHATEVER it takes to make that happen…except be patient.  And the fitness industry thrives on this crisis through predatory business practices targeting these folks in crisis.  No one is selling “get abs in 2 years” but instead “lose 30lbs in 30 days” and other “get fit quick” schemes, and people gobble them up, because desperate people are willing to suspend disbelieve in the place of hope, which is how “the lottery” exists.  So IF a trainee somehow actually permits themselves to put on a little bodyfat during the gaining process, they completely undo any benefit they obtained FROM gaining by attempting to employ what is all too accurately referred to as a “suicide cut”.  

The sad thing is, this WAS supposed to be a punchline...

 

We’ve all seen these, 2-3 a day training schedules, hours of cardio, a diet of protein powder and lettuce, etc.  We’re going to burn off ALL this fat in WEEKS, if not DAYS, so we can get RIGHT back to gaining.  And we’ve also all seen the outcome of these approaches, primarily by way of the recent “Biggest Loser” documentary on Netflix, but even before that, yo-yo dieters were a well known phenomenon.  IF this person manages to see the diet all the way to the end, they end up stringy and strung out, with their hormones completely tanked, and though they are a SMALLER version of their previous self, they are not a LEANER version of that self.  They just hemorrhaged all that lean tissue they had spent time building.  And they are prone to fits of binge eating, which not only reverses the weight loss but tends to result in “bodyfat OVERSHOOTING”, wherein the body accumulates MORE bodyfat than what was lost as it’s attempting to rapidly re-acquire the lean tissue it lost, for it’s far easier for the body to BUILD that fat vs the lean tissue.  So now the trainee ends up in a worse place than where they started, ensuring they’ll need an even LONGER cutting phase if they want to lose a similar amount of weight, to say nothing of the fact that FIRST they’ll need to have engaged in a gaining phase in order to rebuild all that lost lean tissue in the first place.  In attempting to rush the fat loss, they’ve put themselves WAY behind schedule.

 

Because as Dan John says, the body has to be “nudged” toward fat loss.  And this IS a revelation from Dan, who has on previous occasions mentioned the need for short intense fat loss phases ala the Velocity Diet and Tabata Front Squats, but it’s proof of concept of the evolution of thought and wisdom of experience in the training realm.  Those short blitzes can be a helpful “running start” into a fat loss phase, but ultimately it’s gradual and sustainable modifications paired with appropriate training stimulus that wins the day.  And again: how incredibly unsexy.  No one is selling THAT program.  But that’s because it’s poor job security to give away the keys to the kingdom when you can INSTEAD sell people on the idea of maingaining and suicide cutting so that they’re always getting strung along for the next “fix” for the very problem YOU created.

An arms dealer selling to both sides sets themselves up for perpetual business

 

And I haven’t even touched the training aspect of this, but I’m already 2000 words deep, twice as long as a traditional post.  So here I am “not doing it right” the first time and putting myself in a place we’re I’ll have to write another post to get all my thoughts captured, but take the lessons from what we’ve seen here.  The trainees that try to avoid fat gain so that they can spend longer building muscle end up achieving neither outcome, while those that attempt to rush the fat loss process so that they can RETURN quickly to the muscle building process put themselves FAR off the timeline.  There’s no shortcut or replacement for time and patience, and those who are effectively able to implement and utilize those tools are those that are able to succeed “the first time”.          

COMPETITION WRITE UP: “BACK TO SCHOOL BASH: CABERS, TRACTORS, AND VIKING STONES,OH MY!”

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF)

* I took 3rd place out of 4 competitors in the “þyngdarflokkur þrjú” division in an open weight charity competition.  This competition was a dream come true, as I’ve wanted to toss a caber ever since I was single digits years old.  I came to have a good time and I did exactly that.

 

BACKGROUND

Thankfully not this dramatic

* This competition was put on by the same guy that did my last comp in Feb: The Trials of Heracles.  I really dig this dude as a promoter: he’s a history and lifting nerd and he’s really focused on getting shows done quickly while still being fun.  These days, after competing for 13 years in strongman and 16 years in strength sports, that’s all I care about.  The fact that these events all support great causes is just icing on the cake. 

 

* This show was unique by combining strongman, highland games and Viking tests of manhood, and it was reflected in how divisions worked out.  There were no weight classes: you competed based on how heavy a weight you wanted to lift.  There was a bit of “honor among thieves”, with the assumption that 400lb behemoths wouldn’t choose the lightest class, but if worse came to worse, promoter had the right to move dudes.  It honestly worked well pretty well: we had a de facto female class, novice mens, light-middleweight mens and heavy class (going class 1, 2, 3 and 4), with appropriate viking names.

 

* I started training for the comp after having just finishing a mass building block of Tactical Barbell, comprised of Grey Man and Specificity Bravo, capped off with a cruise vacation of the Memorial Day holiday (that’s the end of May for my Non-U.S. readers), returning home at a bodyweight of 85kg, feeling large and strong.  Now I needed to become lean and athletic for the summer.  This was "Operation Cornhisterkur".  Cornhusker for the Nebraska Tractor element, Highlander for the Highland games, Fullsterkur for the Viking manhood stones.

 

TRAINING FOR THE COMPETITION

That's a fact, Jack

 

* I’ve already done 2 extensive write ups about my training leading up to the comp.  Give them a read here

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2026/07/program-check-in-tactical-barbell.html

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2026/08/program-check-in-tactical-barbell.html

* To sum up: I was able to employ Tactical Barbell’s “Operator Pro” program from the Green Protocol with very little modification to fit strongman.  The only event I didn’t train specifically for was the Caber Toss, due to lack of equipment and priorities for my time. 

* I took a bridge week leading up to the competition, which I filled up with weighted vest walks and Crossfit's "Cindy" WOD, just to keep blood flowing.

* Leading up to the competition, on 8 Aug, while coming down the stairs, I twisted something in my left knee (the one I blew the ACL out on) so badly that my knee swelled up like a grapefruit and spend the rest of the day clicking and falling out of the socket.  I lost the majority of my range of motion and dealt with a lot of pain, swelling, clicking and instability for the next few days, to the point that I had to reschedule a fitness test and seriously contemplated getting imaging done, as I was worried I had torn the ACL graft.  VERY slowly, over the next few weeks, with some aggressive icing employed, I was able to restore fullISH function to the knee just in time for the competition, but it definitely weighed on my mind, with me ultimately deciding that a charity comp wasn't worth blowing my knee out over, ESPECIALLY right before I went on a cruise where I was supposed to walk all over Europe.  Funny enough, the knee could perform well for strength work as long as I wore strong enough sleeves: it was lateral work that killed it, specifically when I trained martial arts.

 

NUTRITION FOR THE COMPETITION

True statement....

* Similarly, I’ve written extensively about my nutrition approach, found here

 

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-roulette-diet-dont-gamble-on-your.html

 

* To sum: since it was open weight and a charity comp, rather than go with “GFH”, I used this as an opportunity to lean out over the summer for a cruise I have in the start of Sep and to set myself up for a good solid long gaining cycle through the fall/holidays.  It succeeded: I showed up stupid lean at a bodyweight of about 175lbs.  My nutrition approach was a combination of intermittent fasting and carnivore diet with 1 meal a week that included carbs.  Over the course of 12 weeks, I lost 11.5lbs, without counting/tracking, and saw PRs in my training lifts.

 

MORNING OF

Breakfast of champions

* Though I did all of my training fasted, I had breakfast before the competition.  It’s a bit of a tradition to do so, and breakfast on weekends IS pretty typical for me, even during this training cycle.  I stuck with lamb and eggs: another tradition at this point, aping from Hercules.  Went with 5 lamb chops and 6 sunny side up eggs cooked in butter.  I ate nothing else throughout the competition, and relied on 1 cup of black coffee with breakfast and another cold brew coffee during the comp as my caffeine sources.  I don’t really need stimulants for competition these days, compared to my prior days of living off Rockstars and Poptarts.  I also made consistent use of electrolyte powders, rather than Gatorade, because, honestly, Gatorade sucks.

 

* It was a 15 minute drive to the competition site, which is another reason why I picked this one.  Crazy local with such good events.  Once I arrived, I set up tents and chairs for the family to relax and watch and proceeded to do my bare minimum warm-up of 1-2 reps with the lightest loads possible on the axle.  Ultimately, I was just testing out which set of straps I wanted to use, before settling on the “Why Our Way” straps, for reasons to follow shortly.

 

SUMMARY OF EVENTS

Brevity is the source of wit

EVENT 1: Axle Wagon Wheel Deadlift for reps: 370lbs

 

As usual, I did no specific training for the deadlift event.  ROM progression cycle with a Texas Deadlift bar against chains: pretty much the opposite of this.  That said, I came in strong enough that it didn’t matter.  The axle was STIFF and that first pull felt slow as hell, but I settled into a rhythm.  There was no up command, so I took advantage of that and went touch and go for as many reps as I could, which got me to 20, when the mark to beat was 19.  The advantage of signing up first: you get to go last and know what to beat. 

I used my “Why Our Way” straps for this, because they were long enough to wrap around the axle.  The crowd had never seen anything like them before, which made me feel like a dinosaur because these were all the rage a decade ago when Chris Duffin used them to pull 1000lbs for 2.5 reps.  But, in turn, a lotta folks were struggling to get their straps to work on the axle, so points for me to be able to dig deep into the toolbox.

 

EVENT 2: Log press for max

 

I trained on a “12 inch” Titan Log, which is really like at 13-14” log.  Meanwhile, we competed with a 10” Black Widow log.  This is a lot easier to press, but the clean is a little iffy, as there isn’t as much to “roll” up the body.  In turn, when I’d get the log in place, I felt myself pretty off balanced.  You can see it in the video: I clean the log and stumble back and forth a bunch until I get settled, then nail a pretty simple press.

I was being strategic with my selection, remembering who got what in the deads, and noted my 2 closest threats picking 170 as openers.  I went with 180 for mine, to have a lead on them, and when they tried to follow suit, they both bombed out.  There was a 4th guy who hadn’t taken any attempts yet, so I knew I was up against a log ringer, so I just went for solid lifts at this point.  Called for 200, they couldn’t do that, so we did 195, which I hit.  We then got to 210, which I called for my third, while the other guy called it for his opener.  I got the 210, but so did he, followed by 220 for a chipshot, so I had second here.

 

EVENT 3: Caber Toss

 

This was my first time ever performing this event, and because I hate warming up, my first attempt WAS my first ever attempt.  Seriously, I can’t stand how shows take FOREVER because people want a million attempts before we start.  We effectively had a full event’s worth of warm ups before we actually started the event, and I was getting pissy over it.  In turn, I didn’t put that or the second one on film, but it was me learning the caber and failing to turn it, which is how you score 0 points in a caber toss.  All the other guys in my group were able to get a turn on their cabers during their attempts, so I knew I had no chance of placing above 4th on this, but I ALSO knew that if I didn’t get at least ONE turn on a caber, I’d get a 0 on the event, which means NO points vs 1 point.  THAT can change things.

 

On my previous 2 attempts, I actually got the caber shouldered pretty easily.  On this final attempt, it was a real bastard to me, but, in turn, I was able to put some real “f—k you” energy into it, because I was getting ANGRY with this caber for not f-ing turning when I threw it.  After what felt like a million years, I finally was able to get it into position and give it a very solid near 12 o’clock turn, securing me at least A point in the event.

 

EVENT 4: Tractor Pull

 

We were told this was going to be a speed and horsepower event.  Then the first guy went and couldn’t move the tractor an inch.  I got excited: I suck at tractor pulls, whereas MAYBE now I had a shot because it went from a speed and footwork event to a total grind.  However, dude 2 and 3 ALSO tried and ALSO didn’t make it move, so when I went up I said “It takes a special kind of crazy to see 3 other dudes fail this but for me to give it a go”.  Which I did…and I didn’t move it.  And neither did any of the heavyweights.  Less learned for all involved, but, in turn, we were all on equal footing on this one with last place.

 

I’m glad I didn’t try to train harder for this event.  All the prowler work was still awesome, and I didn’t try to get better at harness pulls.

 

EVENT 5: Natural stones to truck bed

 

I honestly had some high hopes for this one.  Been doing a lot of loading in training and feeling strong.  One guy picked a lighter stone than mine for my opener, and then we all settled in for 224 as the “Halfsterker” stone.  I was the first to go for it, and as you can see in the video, it was a struggle.  Damn thing just slipped a bunch and wouldn’t set right in my grip.  I was eventually able to load it, and then watched the whole field do it with far less effort than me.  So when it came for 250 on the next one, I still gave it a go, but just plain didn’t have it that day.  Perhaps I’ve lost too much bodyweight (trying to grab a stone that was now 75lbs heavier than me), or perhaps whatever I did to my knee 3 weeks ago had me taking it easy, but this excites me at the prospect of spending more time building up my loading. 

 

CONCLUSION

 

I got some big dreams

Looking at the scores, I secured 3rd place by half a point.  That’s the sort of crazy narrow margin I live for.  I’m pleased with how today went: I fought hard, I’m bruised, bloody and satisfied, I’m 40 years old and still giving it hell, and I am incredibly excited at the prospect of an off season where I put on some quality size and strength.  The promoter said he’s going to do another show in Feb, which times out incredibly well with my plan of coming back from the holidays with some Operator, so I may already have my schedule laid out.

 

 

ESCAPE PLAN

Ya know, I’m honestly torn on writing this, because I’m already seeing how this is going to conflict with some previous notions I’ve expressed, but perhaps, once again, we’re experiencing “duality” live and in person.  So allow me to explain myself to myself, as right now this conflict is in my head and I haven’t even clued you in yet.  I’ve written before about the notion of “burning the boats”, how the Art of War talks about never backing your enemy into a corner they can’t escape from, because then they’ll fight like they have nothing left to lose, the whole Gatticka notion of “not leaving anything for the swim back”, the 300 Spartans that fought to the last man, etc etc.  All of these notions are quite romantic and useful TO A POINT, because quite often a newer trainee simply has no notion of what “intensity” is when it relates to effort that we have to FORCE them into these positions in order to get them some exposure and awareness.  Have them unrack the bar and then take out the safety pins so that they just plain HAVE to squat until failure: that’s cool.  But, at one point, we need to sit down and have a legitimate discussion about escape plans.  Why?  Because as cool as it is to scream Apollo Creed’s quote about how “There is no tomorrow!”, the reality is…there most likely will be.  I’m 40 years old: I’ve seen a LOT of tomorrows become todays and whip by to yesterdays, and when we live our life like there’s no tomorrow, we can quite often turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we’ve cultivated an environment where longevity is an impossibility.  Aesop had a fable exactly about this very notion: the grasshopper and the ant, so here, once again, we discover that nothing is original and everything comes from the Greek’s (thanks for progressive overload Milo of Croton!), so let’s go ahead and discuss what I’m referring to as “escape plans”, and how they benefit us.

This is why you want to come up with your plan BEFORE you need it

What do I mean when I refer to an “escape plan”?  Another notion would be an “exit strategy”, but ultimately what I am intending to convey is some sort of plan to get us OUT of the situation we got ourselves INTO.  Dan John wrote an entire book on this concept titled “Now What”, so once again, I’m out of my depth and someone else has already covered this, but it’s my blog and this is what I want to write.  What inspired this discussion was observing a trainee walk directly into a trap that I fell for myself and, despite my warnings, they are now in the middle of it with no escape plan.  They’ve set a goal and a deadline for themselves: abs by 1 Oct.  This means they are doing EVERYTHING in their power to accomplish this goal, to include upping the drugs they are taking while dropping the “food” (I use the term loosely, as it’s primarily a gruel mix of protein powder, egg whites and oats) to unsustainable levels and just “white knuckling” their way through the hunger until their goal date arrives.  To which I asked the question: what happens on 2 Oct?  After we reach the goal and the celebration and merriment ends…what’s the escape plan?  How are we going to get OUT of this mess?  Because I’ll tell you from experience what happens otherwise: a “cheat meal” turns into a 2 year junkfood bender, where not only do we lose those precious abs we worked so hard for, but we end up in a WORSE place than we started the whole process.  We fail to rebuild all that lean tissue we hemorrhaged during the hard cut while still managing to overshoot the bodyfat lost, so now we have less muscle and more fat than when we started the whole process, which means, if we want abs again, we have to diet HARDER than before, which is just going to set us up for an even WORSE rebound when we get to abs again, and the cycle continues.  In this situation, there IS no escape plan: we’re stuck in the trap, going around and around.

 

We see this in the training side of the equation as well.  How many folks are stuck in the “milking the beginner gains” trap, where they just keep running the same 3-5x5 program for 3 lifts until they stall, just to reset back to baseline, run it again, hit the EXACT SAME LIFTS as last time, stall and repeat?  Or what of people that just keep running the same peaking program (looking at you Smolov: why NOT run a program written by a coach who never existed that produced athletes no one ever heard of?), manage to barely survive to the end, hit a high squat, completely fall apart, spend months undoing the damage they did to themselves, and never actually get any stronger?  Hell, even my beloved programs, like Super Squats, Mass Made Simple, Deep Water, Building the Monolith, etc, after week 6 is done, what are we doing on day 1 of week 7?

Probably get some R&R

I’m in no way innocent in all of this.  As I wrote above: I’ve walked straight into the very traps I’m warning others about.  Which is WHY I understand the value of an escape plan now.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with engaging with these practices where we ACT as though there is no tomorrow, but “act” is the key here.  This is just kayfabe baby.  We are playing a part, but when the curtains close, we have to be ready to take off the stage makeup and come back to reality.  And this means we need to have some manner of escape plan or offramp to allow us OUT of the mess we got ourselves into through this process.  If we’re going to do some sort of stupid hard cut to hit some bodyfat mark, what’s our dietary strategy going to be coming OUT of that?  This is how “reverse dieting” has become popular, which is really just slowly increasing the food volume to gradually return back to a state of normalcy, rather than that “post show rebound” which used to be sold as some sort of anabolic alchemy but has since been understood to just be a speedrun to edema and diabetes.  But even then, this is just looking at VOLUME: if we’ve restricted ourselves to a diet of nothing but protein shakes and lettuce, we’re going to have to have an escape plan for the introduction of foods IN GENERAL back to our diet, so we can watch out for potential “trigger foods” that send us spiraling.  If we just spent 6 weeks hammering out Super Squats, we may need to escape plan that comes up with a way to get our shoulders and elbows recovered from having a bar on our back for 5 minutes a pop 3x a week, because many of us simply don’t have that mobility any more.  If we’ve just run a bunch of accumulation blocks in a row, maybe we come up with a plan to implement some intensification to get a break from that heavy volume (and hey, since nutrition and training tie together, maybe this will mean giving our digestive system a break).

 

None of this is revolutionary.  Smart people would simply call this periodization.  It’s thinking ahead and planning for the “next stage”.  But it ALSO means having to appreciate that THIS stage NEEDS to have an end state at some point.  And like a good plan, we need to have our escape figured out BEFORE we get ourselves into the mess, because trying to figure out how we’re going to escape ONCE we’re trapped is trying to come up with a plan while we’re panicking.  We can walk into the trap: let’s just know how we’re going to walk out of it as well.           

PROGRAM CHECK IN: TACTICAL BARBELL OPERATOR PRO FOR STRONGMAN PHASE II

  

INTRO

I can think of no better way to capture "Tactical Barbell" and "Strongman" than Commando carrying a log

In my last adventure, I explained how I set up Operator Pro to help prep for an upcoming strongman competition.  I’m now in the final week of the program, and wanted to share my experience and lessons learned through the process.

 

RESULTS UP FRONT

 

In the 11 weeks total I’ve followed this approach (I’m currently in my 12th week), I lost a total of 5.2kg (just about 11.5lbs).  During the first 6 weeks of the program, I improved on all of my key lifts.  During the final 6 weeks, I maintained on the front squat and log press while noting improvements in the deadlift

9x425+chains at the end of the cycle

and loading lifts while bodyweight continued to drop, which is another form of progression.  My conditioning metrics followed a similar trajectory, with improvements on my FOBBIT/prowler performance in the first 6 weeks and maintenance in the final.  I’ve reached a level of leanness that puts me in a very comfortable spot to start gaining in the summer, while also achieving performance goals.

Those Cerberus strongman shorts complete the look

 

THE STRUCTURE

But stick with me here

 

As I wrote in my previous check in, I was able to use the guidelines of Operator Pro to turn it into a multiphased training strategy for competition prep.  Pro allows for “hypertrophy” ranges for the secondary exercises (10s, 8s and 6s) along with “strength” ranges (5s).  For the first phase, I employed the hypertrophy ranges, and for the second phase I used the strength ranges.  By doing so, as I transitioned into Pro out of Specificity, I was able to use lighter weights on new exercises as I redeveloped the motor skills for the exercises, AND I was able to continue to work to preserve lean tissue in a phase where food was restricted.  In the second phase, prioritization of lean tissue was reduced as the focus was shifted more toward performance, and the low reps allowed me to groove more “perfect” practice on the lifts I’d execute in competition while also meaning that I’d be accumulating less fatigue due to reduced volume.  Emphasis was on explosive/strong reps and to limit grinding.  This also meant a greater emphasis could be placed on performance in general as part of my conditioning work, as I would not be splitting recovery demands on hypertrophy lifts.

 

Aside from the change in reps for the secondary exercises, I made no change from the previous set-up, aside from the loading exercise (to be discussed shortly).  This meant a cluster of SSB front squats, log clean and either ROM progression deadlifts or loading implements to a platform.  Per Op/Pro, I’d have one day where I set a 2-3rm for the front squats and one for the log clean, and then I’d pull deadlifts on the middle day using my own ROM progression protocol.  I keep the sets the same, with the deadlift day using 3 sets for the secondary exercises and otherwise using 5 sets.  I also continued to implement my daily dips and chins, ending the final week with 3 sets of 18 and 1 set of 17 spread across the day.  I DO feel these daily bodyweight exercises went a long way in preserving upper body mass, as typically getting this light tends to have my arms and shoulders looking small, but that was not the case this time.

 

For the loading exercise, I had to execute an audible that ended up being a blessing in disguise.  In phase I, I was relying purely on the Stone of Steel as my loading implement, increasing the weight each week.  Eventually, conditions became so sweltering in my garage that, even with a grip shirt and receiver gloves, the stone was too slippery to safely load.  I’ve already torn one bicep: I don’t need a matching set.   So I switched to the Power Keg, which is much easier to wrangle, which is a blessing and a curse when I’m trying to train to lift natural stones, as it meant I was able to develop the basic strength for loading stuff but not the “chaos strength” that comes with trying to load awkward objects that don’t want to move. 

 

This led me to use MULTIPLE implements during the loading exercise.  I couldn’t load the stone for 5 full sets, but I could get 1-2 out of it before it got too slippery, so I would swap between the stone and the keg between sets.  I also recognized the value of the keg for developing strength and the stone for technique, so I left the stone unloaded and loaded up the keg heavy and used a “1 minute on/2 minutes off” approach to make it a goal to get in as many reps as possible with each implement.  This tended to break down to 7 reps with the Stone and 3 reps with the keg.  To finish it all off, after a total of 4 sets (stone-keg-stone-keg), I’d break out my Ironmind sandbag at a fixed weight of 200lbs and load it for max reps in a minute, for a total of 5 sets of loading. 

 

I love this discovery, and want to use it moving forward.  I noticed that 5 full sets of loading the same implement was beating the hell out of me, whereas switching it up within the workout has a similar effect to the conjugate approach of switching up the ME lift each week: I was still pushing my body hard, but specific parts of it weren’t getting mashed over and over again.  I can employ a wide variety of resistances with the loadable nature of the implements I have, but also swap in fixed weight stuff as needed in order to expand variety.  This definitely has some wings, and it’s why I’m always tinkering away.

 

X-FACTORS

I couldn't NOT post this...and "Guido vs Blob" is such a great explanation for bulking and cutting

 

As noted: I was leaning out during this process.  This was driven by multiple factors, one being that the competition I was training for was a charity event without weight classes being done strictly for fun, so I had no compelling need to get heavier.  Along with that, it’s summer, which is a time when I engage in more general activity, so getting leaner is pretty natural for me.  Along with THAT, the fall tends to be the kick off for my gaining season, with a late October birthday leading into Thanksgiving leading into Christmas.  It’s a great time for feasting, which is a great time for gaining, and per Dan John, Jon Heck, John McCallum and many other authors: getting lean is a great step to take before getting big.  All that said, had I been eating to GAIN during this training block, I know I’d see even more progress.

 

Which, on that note, I’ve picked up a few non-training related injuries during this training block which impacted performance on a few days.  I’ve noted in my experience that I tend to get more injured as I get leaner, which is most likely a result of inadequate nutrition to support healing/recovery and a reduction of necessary “fluff” around my connective tissues to provide support.  The two most significant ones are an instance where I legit got out of bed too quickly and wrenched something in my back so badly that I thought I needed to get to the hospital, which ended up taking a week to resolve due to recurrence of nerve pain.  The second one was an injury to my left knee from trying to run down the stairs to let one of my dogs out before it had “disaster poops” on the floor…while the OTHER dog decided to use that opportunity to nip at my toes.  For 2 weeks after that, my knee would click/pop and slide out of place, but it seems to have some stability now.  I’m currently still recovering from that, with my knee in a brace, but able to still squat and do lifting stuff.  But, again: this is getting in the way of being able to effectively execute.

 

THE NUTRITION

You knew it was going to be this

 

I did an extensive write-up of my “Roulette Diet” approach that I’ve employed, but ultimately this was a combination of intermittent fasting with a carnivore diet that included a weekly meal with carbohydrates.  Fasting was the lever implementing to control fat loss.  If I wanted to lose more fat, I’d implement more/longer fasting days.  If I needed to prioritize recovery, I’d increase my eating window.

 

CONCLUSION/WHAT’S NEXT

He just works so well for what I'm after

Operator Pro provides the most streamlined manner to adapt Tactical Barbell to strongman training/preparation.  I didn’t have to violate the protocol or cheat to make it work, and the phasic structure is incredible simple to map out.  This is the strongest I’ve been at this level of leanness in quite some time: typically weighing this little comes with a degree of stringiness that I’m not a fan of.

 

I compete at the end of Aug and have a cruise that starts the next week and continues into Mid-Sep.  Upon my return, it may be time to do some TBIII Basebuilding, or perhaps a work capacity block (that looks fun), or just get a head start on mass building and really ride that through the fall.  As always: chaos is the plan.