“TRAIN LIKE/LOOK LIKE” DOESN’T WORK

One of the simplest pieces of advice that is frequently administered online is “if you want to look like X kind of athlete, train like X kind of athlete”.  If you want to look like a soccer player, train like one, wanna look like an MMA fighter, train like one, etc etc.  And as much as I am a fan of Occam’s Razor (it makes the cutting clean), this is one of those instances where it manages to fail us and, instead, a fair degree of nuance and analysis is required to really understand what is going on under the hood here.  And that’s where I want to take this discussion today, because it’s honestly a really fascinating world to explore.  I posit that the majority of top level elite athletes (I’m not being redundant there: I am meaning to speak specifically OF those athletes who are the best AMONG the elite) achieved their physiques IN SPITE OF their training rather than as a result of it, and what we are observing is the effect of “generational” genetics at play: those kind of unicorns that come around once in a generation, grace us with their presence, and then vanish once again into the ether.  We are simply blessed in modern times to get so EXPOSED to these generational talents that we take it for granted that they even exist, but in an era prior to instant information exchange as provided to us by the internet and satellite communications you very well could have just spent your whole life f**king off in your little hamlet and had no idea that the next township over there was a man who could carry a full grown bull through the marketplace.  But, in turn, BECAUSE we are so overly exposed to these individuals, we are unable to fully appreciate just what unique specimens they TRULY are, and that attributing their outcome to be a product of their training is misattributing cause and effect here.  They do not look the way they look because they train the way they train: they train how they train to get GOOD at their activity, and their physique is a reflection of just how genetically blessed they are SUCH THAT, when combined with the skills that come with athletic training, they are a total dominant athlete.

By all accounts, all of this was true

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Ok, let’s begin by establishing something right off the bat: top level athletes in sports that are NOT physique competitions (bodybuilding and all the permutations of it) flat out do NOT look the same.  Already people don’t like to hear this, but it’s true.  One of the most dominant MMA fighters of all time was Fedor Emelianenko, which, if you looked at him, looked more like a world champion bowler than a dude that could put you into a coma, but he walked along fellow MMA heavyweight great Kevin “The Monster” Randleman who, by contrast, appeared to be carved out of obsidian.  And, already, in proof of concept, Fedor was clearly the superior fighter compared to Kevin (demonstrated both by competition record AND in their own match against each other), but Kevin’s immensely superior physique spoke to a reality such that he was such an incredibly genetically blessed physical specimen that he was able to exist AMONG the gods of MMA.  Both men trained for the sport of MMA, but training for said sport revealed VERY different physiques: both of which being the manifestation of the latent genetic potential within both athlete.  And the world of MMA is an excellent example of this, for you have Roy Nelsons, Tim Slyvias, Daniel Cormiers, and also Ken Shamrocks, Bas Ruttens, Brock Lesnars and Allistar Overeems.  Hershel Walker ALSO fought and won an MMA match…and why not discuss him as well?

Keep in mind he looked like this AFTER retiring "from his prime"

When God used “create-a-player” to make Herschel Walker, he was using cheat codes, because he breaks all the rules of reality.  He won both of his MMA matches at the age of 38-39 AFTER a full NFL career spanning 11 years itself.  NFL careers AREN’T known for their longevity promoting capacities: to win an MMA match AFTER such a long stint in a sport notorious for destroying bodies would be like running an Ironman in reverse, finishing off with the swim, and then killing a great white shark while still in the open waters.  But even CRAZIER about Mr. Walker is the absolutely bonkers physique he built for himself employing a protocol of ONLY bodyweight exercises.  He achieved a physique that physique athletes dedicate their lives ATTEMPTING to achieve, and his was simply a consequence of an attempt to get stronger for his sport: no actual desired physique based outcome motivated it.  Contrast Herschel Walker with the various other bodies that exist in the NFL, which in itself is a cultivation of the cream of the crop of the sport of American Football, to say nothing of those folks in MMA as well, and we further appreciate the reality that training is NOT what is driving the physical outcome here: the training simply made these folks GOOD at the sport, while their genetics elevated them to an elite level.  And before I’m accused of being myopic about sports here, appreciate how Usian Bolt doesn’t look like Tyson Gay, how Ronaldo Cristiano compares to Matt Turner, etc.  Even in the world of lifting, Mariusz Pudzianwoski and Derek Poundstone just plain looked DIFFERENT compared to the dudes they were dominating in the sport.  Some folks are simply “born better”.

Again: this is how Mariusz looked AFTER he retired from a sport focused on lifting and "got smaller"

Because, ultimately, every sport is simply a “genetics sifter”.  Sports operate at various levels of competition, starting with local and progressing through various echelons until you reach “elite”.  At the lower levels, one can overcome an absence of genetic talent with an abundance of heart and skill (we all love the Rocky story for this reason), and vice versa as well, but as we continue to advance higher and higher through the ranks, eventually EVERYONE has heart and skill…but you can’t train or learn genetics.  It’s why they’re called “gifts”.  And, in turn, as we climb higher and higher up the ladder, what we begin to see is that there are some folks who are so genetically blessed that they simply become Adonises whenever they do ANY sort of physical activity (if even that).  Not only do they have the necessary physical structure that lends itself well to the sport (being tall if they play basketball, having short limbs and a long torso if they’re a weightlifter, etc), but they also have a biology and anatomy that is just ready to explode with muscle while having an incredibly low personal fat threshold. 

 

Which ALSO means that we even have to discount the notion of the one sport MEANT to achieve physical perfection, because ESPECIALLY among bodybuilders, genetics are king.  It’s a truly unique double/triple whammy there, because in the professional setting, not only is it about genetic structure and response to training, but ALSO genetic response to drugs.  Some folks are able to get MUCH bigger outcomes with smaller dosages, which means greater longevity through the rigors of the sport, meaning more time/opportunity to continue to improve the physique.  Those of us remaining natural will only be able to rely on our natural genetic talent for putting on muscle in the first place, but if we’re built like a daddy longlegs, it won’t really matter HOW many 21s for guns we do: we’re just not going to look like Larry Scott.

Amazing basketball genetics: no future in bodybuilding

 

BUT, all hope is not lost here!  We have just made Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead” by telling you that you can NOT look like someone else by training like them.  But in the absence of said god, Nietzsche provided us “amor fati”, and the quote “Re-create yourselves, and let this be your best creation”.  And our best creation IS what we can achieve.  Fundamentally, we must understand and appreciate that the “look like” portion of our results is the outcome of REVEALING our genetic potential through the employment of hard physical training, and from there it’s on us to discover that physical training that is best suited FOR our unique genetic predispositions.  That will allows us TO achieve our best outcomes is what is best for us.  Sport training is excellent for exactly that: becoming better at our desired activity, and we should do exactly that FOR that goal.  To improve our “look like” portion, we build as much muscle as we are able to and try to keep our fat at the level that allows us to continue to perform as best as we can.  And we do that by eating in the manner that is best suited for us as well: not by attempting to “burn away the fat” by training like said athletes.  I can assure you that Mariusz never had to do a cutting phase to be as lean as he walked around at, nor did Mike Tyson, or any of these other dudes that were simply “born better”.  Let us NOT lament that we are NOT these generational talents: let us celebrate that we even got to witness them in the first place, and allow them to motivate US to reach our own personal absolute best.  

LESSONS FROM LEMMINGS

Being born in the 80s and growing up in the 90s, access to a computer was a novel concept as a kid, and we were typically limited to short durations of that in what was deemed “computer lab” in school.  These 30-45 minute blocks once a week or so were supposed to expose us to the wonders of the modern world which, of course, to us kids, really meant a way to play video games in school.  Selections were extremely limited back then, and aside from Oregon Trail (which BOY could I write about some lessons learned from that as well), the other classic staple was a game called “Lemmings”.  The premise was simple enough: you had to guide a group of “lemmings” (which looked nothing like an actual lemmings) through a series of obstacle courses in order to get to the stage’s exit.  Stages were become increasingly more complex over time, requiring increasingly complex strategies to achieve the objective.  What did NOT grow in complexity over time were the lemmings themselves.  They only possessed the capacity to move forward and, should they run into an obstacle: turn around and move the other way.  The player has the ability to assign skillsets to certain individual lemmings (climbing, parachuting, demolition, building, etc), but he can not dictate WHEN the lemming employs this skillset: the lemming will simply use these skills when they encounter an objective where their skillset is relevant.  That is to say, the player couldn’t tell a demolition lemming “plant the bomb…NOW!”, but instead, he selects a lemming to be the “demolition lemming”, and as soon as that lemming runs into a destructible object, it will use its skillset.  This incredibly long explanation of a computer game from 1991 is here because the lessons this game taught us are SO incredibly relevant as it relates to matters of physical transformation.  Ultimately, our bodies are on a fixed trajectory: it’s up to our minds to do the necessary strategic implementation to ensure that, as we mindlessly shamble forward in hopes of reaching the objective, we don’t run into resistance that forces us to turn around and walk the other way.

This was the Fortnite of Second Grade 1992

Ultimately, and perhaps unfortunately, free will is an illusion.  Yes, that’s quite a deep proclamation on a blog about physical transformation, but allow me to demonstrate with a personal story.  Once again: I was born in the 80s, during a time when smoking was still pretty prevalent in American culture.  My mother was a smoker (note the past tense: she quit when I was in middle school and has never lit up again, I’m incredibly proud of her).  When she found out she was pregnant with me, the prevailing wisdom at the time was for smoking mothers to NOT quit smoking during the pregnancy, operating under the premise that the shock to the system of withdraw could damage the fetus.  For one: this is one of the many reasons I’m never too keen on the “latest scientific understanding”.  But, in turn, I was a low birthweight baby, because that’s kinda what happens when you smoke during pregnancy.  But not to worry, because the OTHER prevailing wisdom at the time was to put cereal in the formula bottle of low birthweight babies to help fatten them up so that they’d sleep through the night (on our stomachs, surrounded by soft pillows, to simulate the womb…SIDS was a real issue for my generation).  THIS meant I went from a low birthweight baby to a CHUBBY baby in rather short order, which perpetuated into me being a chubby toddler, and eventually a chubby kid.  And I stayed “90s fat kid fat” until high school, wherein I righted the ship effectively through sheer willpower and overcompensation and became the fitness addict/nut I am today.

 

None of the above is meant to be a sob-story, but more a demonstration of what I mean when I say free will is an illusion: I had NO say in the condition of how I was born, and we can see how it already set me on a path early in life that I had no control over.  I eventually gained the agency necessary to be able to implement INTERVENTIONS to overcome my condition, but all I was doing at that point was course correcting the trajectory that my body was sent on from day 0.  And I’m only discussing “nurture” here in the nature vs nurture: just imagine how deep this discussion can go as it relates to genetic predispositions. 

Thanks again mom!

 

Bringing up my mother again (I’m so blessed to have her as a mom): her blood has been studied by Princeton, primarily because her HDL was 125.  I did NOT inherit the fitness bug from this woman: she proudly tells the story of how, in her 4 years of serving in the Air Force, she managed to never have to do the annual physical fitness test and, to this day, is unsure if she ever COULD run a mile if called upon.  She pioneered intermittent fasting, because growing up she only ever ate dinner, and when she DID eat it, one of her favorite things to eat was either a loaded baked potato or bacon cheese fries from “Hot Dog on a Stick” at the mall.  And as a fat kid, I was envious of her BECAUSE she ate this stuff and maintained what was referred to as a “petite” frame at 5’1 and barely breaking 100lbs.  Her mom had a similar blood profile, and THAT woman grew up in that interesting generation that didn’t seem to care to eat any meat aside from hamburger patties, boiled hot dogs and lunch meat (I always knew when Grandma was coming to visit because suddenly our house was LOADED with the most incredible junkfood).  And, in turn, whenever I get my bloodwork taken, my docs, at first, scold me over my LDL (yup, got that from them too) and then go “Holy crap, what is going on with your HDL?!  How do you get it that high?” 

 

Now that you have a long and unasked for detailing of my family history, reflect on your own and realize, again: you had no say in any of this.  The day you were born, you were set on a path, you loyal lemming you.  There is an objective to be reached at the end of the level, and your goal is to arrive there, knowing full well that, as soon as you bump into resistance, you’re going to walk yourself back instead of forward.  With this understanding, it means that the only tools you have at your disposal is your ability to CLEAR THE PATH.  You cannot give the lemming directions, it has no ability to listen to you, all it knows how to do is walk forward until it either reaches the goal or runs into resistance that forces it to turn around.  You have to find a way to clear all the resistance so that the only option it has is to reach the end goal.  This means having an understanding of WHERE your body is heading so that you can find the obstacles that are in the way and implement interventions to clear them BEFORE you get to them.

Knowing where you are is helpful in knowing where you are going

 

Because, quite frankly, if there is no free will there is no willPOWER.  Which is why we see Nietzsche refer to the notion of “will TO power” instead: the idea of an instinctive drive to overcome.  Will TO power removes the notion of agency and, ironically enough, makes it that our actions DO exist outside of our control and that it’s some instinctive drive that compels us to overcome.  But in either instance, the takeaway is that we cannot rely on our ability to MAKE ourselves to do something as a means of achieving physical transformation.  At best, this is a short term “fix” which has long term and significant consequences downstream.  You may think that you found a cheat code for the game, but then you go on to discover that your lemmings have simply all walked off the cliff and died.  They bumped into resistance, you tried to just force them to walk through it, and it just made them turn around even HARDER and walk away faster.

 

All is not lost here though: it simply means that we have to appreciate that ALL of us are playing a different stage of lemmings, so, in turn, we’re all going to need to employ a DIFFERENT strategy to be able to get to the end objective.  Sure, we can borrow tips and strategies from others, but if we try to just copy them directly, we’re not going to get to the end of OUR level.  We need to appreciate what our predispositions are as they relate to nutritional preferences and strategies (are we fasters, grazers, meat eaters, grain munchers, etc), training (do we need variety, do we need numbers, do we need freedom, etc), along with the tools we’ve been given (are we hinge/pullers, squat/pushers, etc).  And once we get a lay of the land and an understanding of what the level looks like, we need to implement the correct and appropriate interventions to get us to the end of the level.  If we try to use someone else’s intervention because they swear “it’s the best one” but it does NOT fit our current situation, our little lemming is just going to run into an obstacle and turn around on us.   We need to clear their path so that they can keep walking forward.

 

That, or work out a deal with Cyttorak

But hey, at least in this game we don’t die of dysentery.    

SIMPLE IS HARD: OPTIMAL IS EASY

I’ve written on many occasions about the bane that is the hyperfocus on optimization at the expense of doing the things that actually MATTER when it comes to physical transformation, and it dawns on me at this point that what we’re observing is yet another form of advanced laziness on the part of those who claim they desire said transformation.  It’s no secret that physical transformation is a long and arduous process, and it’s ALSO no secret that humans, in general, detest such processes and desire ways to make it faster and easier.  Enter optimization, because the more we examine optimization, the more we realize that the optimal “tweaks” are just that: small, easy adjustments that are supposed to yield maximal output for minimal investment, but, in truth, they yield minimal output for minimal investment when performed in the ABSENCE of those initial simple interventions that necessitate LARGE adjustments in order to, in turn, yield large outcomes.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Feel free to check my math here

 

Over the years, I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite simple interventions as it relates to having significant impacts on physical transformation.  This is the much beloved “80% solution”: the gameplan that’s going to get you very near your ultimate goal, and leave it up to you to get the rest of the way.  Much like my development of “Chaos is the plan: the plan”, the driveby advice I’d offer to someone wanting to radically transform themselves would be: eat only whole/unprocessed food while aiming to get 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day WITHOUT protein supplements, walk 8k steps per day, to include 3 10 minute walks after meals, engage in resistance training 2-3x per week, drink only zero calorie beverages, sleep at least 7 hours per night.  Honestly, this is another great “e-book in a paragraph”, and if I wanted to flesh out what to do for the resistance training, I COULD just throw in the “Chaos is the plan” program and call it a day.  But observe the reality of what is written here: it’s simple, but it is NOT easy.

 

I’ve recently taken to lamenting the tragic state of our food environment, but in summary: the deck is stacked against us in the modern age.  It, truthfully, should NOT be hard to eat only unprocessed/whole foods, but for a lot of folks this is going to be a SIGNIFICANT undertaking.  They’re going to have to restructure their entire lives, most likely spend some time learning how to shop and cook, possibly buy cooking equipment, etc.  A call to drink only zero calorie beverages will be an eye opener to many folks regarding how they don’t ever actually drink ANY water whatsoever (self-included: I lived off diet soda).  People tracking their steps suddenly discover that they’re racking up 2k in an average day. And this isn’t even speaking to the possibly withdraw symptoms people may experience as a result of coming off “the dope” of the chemical crapstorm that is contained in many processed foods, or the actual cessation of drugs and alcohol as a start of this process. 

It's sad how fitting this metaphor is

But, appreciate the reality that NONE of these interventions are complex.  People bemoan how “complicated” health and fitness is when it comes time to start, but ultimately that’s a result of hucksters trying to make a buck by making fitness APPEAR complicated so that they can sell you a solution.  Because no one is going to make money selling what I outlined up above, yet, as far as results go, taking these simple interventions is going to yield MASSIVE returns on investment.  Legitimately, if everyone on Earth did this, we’d extend our livespans, eradicate many diseases, and no one would want to be a doctor anymore because there’d be no money in the business. 

 

Optimization, on the other hand, tends to be incredibly complex and, in turn, something sold by the aforementioned hucksters as a solution seeking a problem.  Eating whole foods?  Nah, what you NEED to do is make sure you take a FAST absorbing protein paired with a low molecular weight carbohydrate 38 minutes into the lifting session the MAXIMIZE anabolism, or else the workout doesn’t count.  But THANKFULLY we have that pre-mixed into a powder that tastes like Fruity Pebbles that you can put in your shaker bottle before going home and order Door Dash.  You don’t need more sleep: you need more pre-workout!  THAT is how you’re going to maximize gym performance, and instead of engaging in a sleep hygiene ritual, you can just take ANOTHER powder.  And how will we solve getting the necessary protein to gain muscle?  Why yet ANOTHER powder: this way we won’t have to deal with all that messy cooking or yucky “real food”: we can just have ice cream and protein powder.  The powder absorbs better anyway!

We got this all locked down!

 

This is the primary reason why folks hyperfixate on optimizing rather than settling for “good enough”: because the optimization part is the EASY part.  People like to argue that they already have the basics “locked down”…but do they really?  Are they actually sticking with the resistance training long enough to see a training effect, or are they changing programs every 4 weeks in order to continually re-activate the novel effect of training and feel sore all the time without any actual progression?  Are they ACTUALLY complying with the nutrition, or is it Monday through Friday on point and weekends are a free-for-all?  Did they pick binge watching Netflix over getting in their steps today?  Or, in an ultimate sense of irony, did we spend all day binge consuming media regarding optimization that we forgot to actually engage in our 80% solution? 

 

And again, it’s also why confusions exists amongst the ranks, because when you get the big names together in a room to talk, all they talk about IS optimization BECAUSE they have the simple interventions locked down…but for real for them.  It wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense for them to talk about eating whole foods for all their meals because they already got that sorted out.  And, if they have any interest in getting traction regarding what they’re discussing, they know people are going to disconnect once the conversation goes toward the basics.  But there are a few holdouts out there that are still beating this drum, with Dan John, of course, leading the charge, but there are a few others worth seeking out as well.  What we can take from this is the accuracy of Occam’s Razor: wherein often the simplest solution is the most correct one.  And, in turn, we can appreciate the inverse relationship between complexity and difficulty.  Which, in and of itself, can be extrapolated as it relates to training a more advanced trainee, such that, if we’re in a state where we need to increase the COMPLEXITY of the training in order to achieve a training effect, it means that the solution is not ALSO to increase the INTENSITY of the training program.  A beginner trainee MAY simply need to train HARDER in order to get better, but as we trend up the scale of ability, we may need to actually ease off the throttle a touch in order to implement methodologies that allow us to continue achieving our desired outcome.              

THOUGHTS ON SQUATS

I’ve been training the barbell squat since 2003.  Steely eyed readers will note that this does NOT line up with my persistent claim of (as of this writing) having lifted weights for 26 years.  This is, of course, a testament to the reality that, in 1999, when I first started lifting weights, all I had was an adjustable standard weight bench with spinlock collars with a leg extension/curl/preacher curl station built in, along with some spinlock adjustable dumbbells, which meant I, of course, only did bench and curls 5 days a week, with some occasional leg extensions and curls.  And then I joined our football team for 1 season, wherein our coaches demonstrated the barbell squat to us and then promptly informed us it was a dangerous lift that would hurt our backs and that we shouldn’t do it.  Yeah: our program wasn’t super great.  So I spent my formative high school years NOT squatting: it wasn’t until I got to college that saw OTHER lifters performing this “dangerous” movement that I got the gumption to actually give it a try (fun fact: THAT college weightroom had a rule against DEADLIFTS, because THOSE lifts were dangerous, required a high degree of skill, and could hurt your back.  You’d get kicked out if you were caught deadlifting…so I called all my deadlifts reverse hack squats.  Also fun fact: this was the same college gym Jon Andersen lifted in…)  This incredibly long and undesired background story is here just to establish my bona fides as it comes to the following thoughts, observations and blasphemy I’m about to express regarding the squat, but why don’t I provide a little more background: the ONLY way I knew how to squat from 2003 to about 2023 was a low bar squat.  I never even tried high bar.  I then went through a stint of ONLY doing high bar, no belt, stupidly full ROM squats for about 2 years before returning back to my beloved low bar squat, for reasons I will discuss momentarily.  But for now: here are some thoughts on squats…

 

IT’S A BODYBUILDER: NOT A LEG BUILDER

And a soul crusher

Alright, before I get any further, let me clarify that when I say “squat”, I’m referring to what many other people call “the back squat”.  Since I’m pedantic, I do NOT call it the back squat.  Saying “THE” squat means it is, by default, with a barbell on your back.  All other squats are variations of this squat, and I’m not going to say “back squat” the same way I’m not going to say “overhead” when it comes to the press.  So anyway…

 

The squat always comes under fire in discussion on building muscle because of the fact that we have numerous various studies that absolutely confirm that there are tons of better movements out there for building leg muscles.  Leg extensions, leg pressing, belt squatting, and I’m sure various other machines and exercises have all come out ahead of the squat.  And this argument is used to remove the squat from muscle building programs, saying that it’s an obsolete movement and there are better choices out there for building the legs.

But still not this

 

This is missing the point.  The function of the squat in a mass building program is not, specifically, the building of the legs: it’s the building of the body as a whole!  And as much as glasses pushers wanna make a meme out of “squats make your arms grow”, there’s a reason the old school folks believed that maxim.  For a while, the idea was that training large muscles released more growth hormone, and though that may be true, the amount raise is, most likely, inconsequential.  No, my thought (yes, it’s my theory, the joy of solipsism is I don’t have to prove anything) is that it’s the whole body systemic loading of the squat that, in turn, promotes a whole body systemic RESPONSE to grow from the load.  THIS is why the squat features so heavily in mass building programs, like Super Squats, Mass Made Simple, Building the Monolith, Deep Water, much of the work of Stuart McRobert, Paul Anderson’s training, etc etc.  It’s not about the bending and extending of the legs, because if that were the case the leg press would be an adequate substitute here: it’s about the time spent with a load on your shoulders compressing your entire body.  Let’s use a little philosophy to compensate for a lack of biology here with this follow on explanation.

 

We take it as a given that, if you train a muscle DIRECTLY, that muscle responds by growing (assuming the training is correctly executed of course, balancing stimulus against recovery and fatigue).  It’s the whole reason isolation exercises exist: we want to target THAT muscle and make it grow.  But we ALSO know, through studies and experience, that even if we train only ONE side, the OTHER side of the body will respond.  If we train ONLY one arm, the other arm will STILL grow in response to this stimulus.  The body does NOT want to be asymmetrical, and will attempt all manner of hormonal and metabolic tomfoolery to be able to achieve balance even if we ham-fistedly try to make it do otherwise.  This is why you’re advised to train the uninjured side when you have an injury: in order to limit the amount of muscle lost during the recovery process.  When we take both of these ideas to be true, we understand something Dan John has been saying to us for years: the body is all one piece.  It actually CAN’T be isolated.  Even when we try to do so, the stimulus travels to the OTHER side of the body.  Which stands to reason, then, that even IF we’re doing “squats”, and the targeted muscles are in the legs, due to the sheer load of the exercise being placed across the ENTIRE body, the entire body will, in turn, grow.

 

THE WORSE YOU ARE, THE BETTER YOU ARE

Yeah, kinda like this

 

Referencing even more Dan John, he talks of the 4 quadrants of lifters: pullers, pushers, hingers and squatters.  In this case, we’re going to ignore those first 2 and speak specifically to hingers and squatters.  Some people are naturally built to hinge, and some are naturally built to squat.  If you need examples of either, Mark Felix, Steve Goggins and Layne Norton are natural hingers, while Tom Platz is going to be our example of a natural squatter.  Why do these distinctions matter in this discussion of the squat?  Because it further reinforces the notion of the squat as a BODYbuilder rather than a leg builder.  Because for certain naturally built squatters, it may actually BE the case that the squat is an awesome leg builder.  Tom Platz built the most noteworthy set of legs in the world relying primarily on the squat, and set a feat of strength so incredible with his 525lb squat for 23 reps that Bill Kazmaier flat out said it was fake and it took 30 years, lots of drugs and about 100lbs+ more bodyweight for anyone else to top it.  In turn, though, when you watch the footage of Tom squatting, you see a human that was practically lab built to execute the squat.  His legs are short, his torso is long, and each rep looks like machine precision, with a bolt upright torso and feet close together.  Kaz referred to these as “sewing machine squats”, like the needle in a machine bobbing up and down.

 

Compare this to the natural hingers I referenced.  You look at their bodies and see long, gangly legs with short torsos.  When they squat, they lean far forward, practically in a good morning, and the ROM of the squat is a journey that would give Frodo pause.  It takes FOREVER for these folks to find depth, and the return from it is an agonizing and awkward process: EXACTLY what we need for growing!  I suppose they said the same thing about middle school.

Keep in mind he was the first person to squat 1100lbs in competition, so it's not like he was a BAD squatter...

Because, again, the squat is building our BODY through a prolonged systemic load.  Super Squats figured out how to extend the duration of the load by use of the breathing mechanic, Dan John figured out how to do it by just cranking the reps up to 50, Jon Andersen figured out how to do it by forcing you to do 10 goddamn sets of 10, but examples abound, we observe how spending significant time stressing the body under load results in the body growing significantly.  This means that those UNNATURAL squatters are going to get even MORE benefit from the squat as an exercise that builds the ENTIRE body by nature of them being poorly suited for the squat.  Each rep is going to take FOREVER to get done and will place the body under significant stress, whereas the natural squatter may, in fact, find that the squat is an EXCELLENT leg building exercise because they are actually built to benefit FROM the squat as a leg builder.  These folks may, actually, need to learn more into hinging as a means to achieve a similar effect.  “May” being the word there: I bet squats still do an excellent job of growing those folks too.

 

THE ROLE OF THE SQUAT

Close enough

The big takeaway from all of this is that the squat needs to be evaluated against its actual intended purpose, AND it must be implemented in a similar manner.   When I want to grow, I put a bar on my back.  I KNOW it’s going to do the job.  But when I need to start getting stronger?  The bar moves off my back and in front of me.  Front squats are always my featured lift in Operator phases of Tactical Barbell.  Why?  Because these WILL strengthen the legs for me more than a squat will AND they put less total systemic stress on me, which means I can SAVE that stress for MORE strength work: specifically strongman events that are taxing on the whole body WITHOUT allowing for the same loading I can experience with a squat.  Atlas stones, sandbag carries, log pressing, etc, all tax the whole body significantly, but don’t “build” like a squat does due to how the loading pans out.  There still needs to be a balance between stimulus, fatigue and recovery, and swapping out the squat for a front squat achieves that.  The Safety Squat Bar can potentially achieve a similar outcome as well, simply because loading can be manipulated with it, but I find it a bit more “playing with fire” compared to a front or zercher squat, and tend to still employ the SSB in gaining phases.

 

Dan John (again) has observed that increasing his squat doesn’t tend to have much significant impact on athletic performance, whereas improving the front squat DOES have much better carryover (along with the goblet squat, double kettlebell front squat, etc), BUT that increasing the squat number DOES tend to result in growth in an athlete, which, again, speaks to the premise that we need to employ to squat for its beneficial function.  CAN the squat make your legs bigger and stronger?  Certainly.  Is it the BEST tool to do so?  Most likely not, at least not directly.  There’s a reason we don’t tend to see it prominently featured in the training of strongman or weightlifters, outside of in the off season.  But when its time for us to grow?  It’s hard to find something better. 

 

IN SUMMARY

Yeah pretty much

 

Critiquing the squat as a leg builder is missing the point of the exercise (pun fully intended).  The squat is an excellent movement for what it does: adding size to the entire body.  Shying away from it in a mass building program because there are “better leg exercises” is shortchanging yourself from the benefits contained in a whole body load that comes from this movement, but at the same time, attempting to strengthen this movement in pursuit of improving your own athletic capabilities is most likely putting you at a disadvantage.  And if it feels awful, it’s most likely working for you even better!

      

RESTRICTION: NOT DENIAL

I write this post knowing full well I have a post titled “body by denial”, but, hopefully, longtime readers of the blog will recognize that, ultimately, these past 14 years have been a process of my thoughts changing and, ideally, evolving over time.  Starting off with rough edges and getting refined through experience and exposure, often times with me doubling back right back to where I began, but with a different lens, similar to that “Newgame+” post I wrote previously as well.  And in that regard, I wish to discuss the distinction that exists between restriction and denial, and how it relates to the path of physical transformation.  One of my readers pointed out that all effective training programs and diets employ some manner of restriction.  For nutrition, this restriction can come in 3 different variants: energy restriction (amount of calories we eat), nutrient restriction (cutting out 1 or 2 of the 3 macros) and time restriction (fasting).  In the realm of training, restriction is more far reaching, but ultimately it’s employed in a manner to balance stimulus, fatigue and recovery in a manner wherein we achieve enough stimulus to promote growth without requiring more fatigue than we have the ability to recover from.  We can either push our limits and restrict ourselves by employing a deload week, meaning a week where we DON’T get to push our limits, or we restrict ourselves by always employing a reasonable degree of stimulus so we don’t overfatigue, meaning we don’t get to always go balls to the wall.  But in all these instances, the operating word is restriction: NOT denial.  Because when we restrict, we merely temper the destructive drives for the sake of achieving something greater, but when we deny, we set ourselves up for the inevitably counter-reaction of denial, which tends to set us back further than we progressed, taking 2 steps back for every one step forward.  Let’s continue to discuss.

Had it just been restricted, we wouldn't be in this mess

 

What are the key operating differences between restriction and denial?  I’m going to be terrible and use the word IN the definition, but quite simply put: restriction does NOT deny.  Restriction ACKNOWLEDGES, whereas denial ignores, and as anyone that has ever raised a child understands: ignoring something only makes it become more powerful and urgent.  And it is this underlying understanding that guide the implementation of successful restriction WITHOUT denial.  We must understand that it is imperative we do NOT ignore in our quest to employ restriction, but that we instead acknowledge, so that we can,  in turn, strategize and effectively overcome and succeed.

 

Ok, that’s all pretty conceptual: let’s get to brass tacks.  In the realm of training, let’s say we have that athlete who HAS to go balls to the wall in their training.  They wanna huff chalk and smash their skull on the barbell and they have an ammonia habit that could send a kid to college.  If we tell this trainee to go do Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program, what we do is deny.  Easy Strength is an incredibly effective program, it has a proven pedigree and track record, and, if followed correctly, will make a trainee stronger.  But “if followed correctly” is the operating premise here, and we have to face facts.  Telling Johnny Cocaine that he needs to never come CLOSE to failure and the weight should feel easy for 40 training sessions in a row of the same 5 lifts is flat out denying his nature, and, most likely, he’s going to get through 2 workouts before he decides to make Easy Strength into “Hard Strength” and make all sets absolute and total grinders, and, assuming they SURVIVE the end of the 40 days, they are going to be ground to dust, with a fried out nervous system, a bunch of joint and ligament damage, and completely and totally weaker than when they started.  We attempted to deny this person’s nature, giving them “the best program”, and in doing so, we did them a disservice.

This is NOT how we should look before a set of Easy Strength...

 

For this individual, restriction would be to acknowledge their psychology and find them a program that suits it while putting in the necessary restrictions to keep them from self-destructing.  As previously mentioned, the simplest avenue would be structured deloads, which already are quite an ask for someone like this, but when presented with the idea that “you do these deloads so that you earn the right to be able to smash PRs in training”, we are at least ACKNOWLEDGING this individual for who they are, vs if we give them Easy Strength and say “It doesn’t matter what you like: this is the best way to train”.  And other interventions exist too: some have speculated that “dynamic effort” work at Westside was honestly just a method to get those meatheads to cool down a few days a week, Dan John’s “bus bench-park bench” openly acknowledges the dualistic nature of a trainee and gives them the opportunity to unleash as needed, Super Squats gives you 6 weeks of low rep work to rechamber for the next round of insanity, etc.  And, of course, it all works the other way as well.  We’re not going to take granny and tell her she HAS to do Super Squats if she ever wants to grow, but we will, at some point during the run of Easy Strength, let her know that the weight DOES need to go up at one point, and we can’t just stay in our comfort zone forever. 

 

And we, of course, see this all the time in the realm of nutrition as well.  We like to use the term “overly restrictive” when referring to dietary approaches, but “overly restrictive” simply means “denial”, because it says “no” not “not now”.  People, in the pursuit of physical transformation, will engage in nutritional protocols with SIGNIFICANT amounts of denial, primarily because ANYONE can diet hard for ONE day, or one week, or one month: it’s the consistent, day-in and day-out over the long haul that gets us.  And, consequently, it’s our consistent habits that ultimately define our outcomes: NOT the month long “lettuce and water” diet.  These “diets by denial” can achieve their intended short term outcome, but the long term consequence always leaves the trainee worse off than where they started.  In the realm of fat loss, hardcore crash diets result in the shedding of a significant amount of weight, yes, but this includes a significant degree of lean tissue, primarily because, when you tank the body’s hormones by piling significant stress on it through severe caloric denial, it compensates by prioritizing fat storage and hemorrhaging all that inefficient lean tissue.  So congrats: we’re now a smaller version than we were when we started: not a leaner version.  And while we’ve been denying our hunger for so long, as soon as we allow ourselves to eat again, we enter a compensatory state of hyperpagia, because “the house always wins” when we attempt to deny.  The body has a setpoint, and it wans to get back to that NOW, and it doesn’t care WHAT kind of mass it takes to get there.  So now we gain RIGHT back to our original bodyweight (most likely a little heavier) with LESS lean tissue than before: a significantly worse body composition.  And then, like idiots, we repeat the cycle AGAIN, except this tie we need to eat even FEWER calories to get that weight loss result, because we have less metabolically active lean tissue, which means MORE denial, which means GREATER compensatory binge, etc etc.

It's so predictable we actually have multiple television seasons of it to observe

Successful nutritional strategies do NOT deny: they restrict, and in doing so, they ACKNOWELDGE the individual where they are at.  In the realm of fat loss, we can NOT deny hunger.  Attempting to white knuckle it just results in what I wrote above.  Instead, we acknowledge it and find methods of restriction that manage it.  Some find time restriction the solution: allowing them to eat to satiety by limiting the window of time allowed, such that they can only physically stomach so much food and it happens to allow for fat loss.  Some operate better with macronutrient restriction, finding that, in the absence of carbs or fats, they do not get the same hunger triggers they experience compared to when combining those two macros together (notorious for creating hyperpaltable foods).  Some find that they are “volume eaters”, and can operate well in an energy deficit so long as they are consuming large quantities of food, figuring out methods to take low energy foods and consume large quantities of them.  No singular strategy is “the right one”: it’s the right one for the right individual, and attempting to employ one that is a poor fit simply because we feel it’s “the best” is an act of denial, and, in doing so, an act of sabotage.  And, of course, this was all in the discussion of simply fat loss: you should see what I deal with on the weightgaining subreddits telling trainees that they don’t HAVE to eat their “daily required fiber intake” while in a gaining phase and that it’s OK to eat a protein source that ISN’T chicken breast.  Social media has created so many artificial barriers and methods of denial that I’m so glad I grew up in an era where I was told to drink a gallon of milk a day and I’d be like Milo of Croton.

 

Honestly, this could go on forever.  It’s taken me QUITE a while in my own life to realize and discover this, but there is always a trial of breadcrumbs to follow.  Success leaves clues, as does failure, and I’ve seen firsthand the compensatory binges that happen as a result of denial (reference by 2 year fast food bender after making weight for my last powerlifting competition), and I’ve seen how I thrive when I operate within self-imposed restriction.  Funny enough, I got inspired by this post as I was driving to pick up my favorite Friday meal of a double order of pork spare ribs, sliced and chopped brisket from my favorite local BBQ place after a day of fasting, acknowledging how, due to the restriction I had employed with the fast, I didn’t have to deny myself the joy of delicious BBQ.  I’ve lived pure denial before, and it’s just plain not worth it.

Not when you have a place at home that serves this

A life without restriction is hedonism.  A life of denial is asceticism.  Somewhere in between is humanity, and it’s achieved with restriction.  For we cannot achieve our maximum human potential by denying our humanity, but we must restrict in order to refine, focus, and overcome.        

JRPGS AND WRPGS

I already feel bad for my audience that isn’t fluid in nerd, because this is going to be incredibly nerdy.  Let me start by breaking down the two acronyms in the title: Japanese Role Playing Games and Western Role Playing Games.  These distinctions will matter as it relates to the subject matter I’m about to discuss, and credit to u/JeremiahWuzABullfrog over on r/kettleballs for providing the inspiration for writing on this topic.  I don’t feel like this is even really an intro at this point: me a mea culpa, so let’s actually start talking.

In a few paragraphs, this will be hilarious

 

In the world of video game nerdery, role playing games are constantly divided into 2 categories (which, yes, like heavy metal, there are a million SUBcategories, but we’re not going to talk about them today): Japanese RPGs and Western RPGs. The distinction between these two primarily relates to degree of linearity present in playstyle.  Traditional JRPGs typically provide you with preset characters to play with and a direct path to get there, providing an almost “on rails” experience as you play.  The focus is on making the characters you have strong enough within their own playstyle to be able to get to the end of the game.  WRPGs define themselves through their “open” playstyle, wherein you typically get to build a character/party of characters in whatever style you like, and there are multiple solutions and paths to the end of the game, to the point that you can decide if you want to even be a hero in the first place or play as a villain instead.  WRPGs are like playing a video game coded version of Dungeons and Dragons, while JRPGs feel more like a traditional video game in general, where you’re trying to “beat the game” within its own specific set of rules.  Why even discuss this?  Due to the parallels that exist between this and the world of training.

 

Much like how you can never step into the same river twice, you can never play a JRPG for the first time twice.  The significance of this is that, the first time you play it, you’re discovering it as you go, and the world is magical and incredible (assuming it’s a good game) and the story is full of twists and turns and it’s an epic journey…but the second time you play it, it simply can’t be as magical because you already know what’s coming.  Sadly, in physical transformation, we experience this same phenomenon.  Joel Greene, among others, discuss the premise of how we aren’t able to keep eliciting the same responses to training/nutrition as we get when we first experience them, and how this relates to the necessity of variety in both instances in order to continue growing.  Aside from just newbie gains and the novel training stimulus effect in general, the body is a mechanism built around adaptation, and once it adapts we are no longer forcing it to change.  Super Squats will trigger ridiculous growth the first time you run it, and then pretty decent growth the second time, but if it ALWAYS added “30lbs in 6 weeks”, we’d be 150lbs heavier in just 30 weeks.  The Velocity Diet can trigger rapid fat loss, until our body downregulates metabolism and we’re forced to do some reverse dieting in order to rebuild our caloric runway.  Even my beloved Tactical Barbell necessitates changing the program through periodic training phases to keep growing, as does 5/3/1, as does just general basic periodization.

Change does a body good

So enter the WRPG, wherein we can actually have a NEW experience each and every time we play it BECAUSE it’s on us to make the character that we play and the decisions our character makes as they navigate the world.  You CAN get a new experience with multiple replays of the game, and as you do so you discover more and more about the gameworld.  Games like Fallout New Vegas can have over 100 hours of gameplay tucked away, with various secrets and hidden easter eggs, and hell, I still play the original Fallout released in 1997 and STILL find new things in that game with my replays.  HOWEVER, in order to discover these hidden gems, it necessitates NOT playing these WRPGs like a JRPG: you have to actually be willing to play a different character and do some experimenting.  It’s honestly why I was hesitant to tackle this topic at first: because it was originally proposed from the lens of DnD, wherein, in truth, I’m ALWAYS a barbarian because it’s what I love being, but it is from the branching out and discovering the contents of the game that we learn so much.

 

Which is the lesson we can take to physical transformation: the more we’re willing to get out there and explore, the more we’re able to pick up tips, tricks, hacks and skills that we can apply UNIVERSALLY to the quest of physical transformation.  Aside from the fact that you can avoid stagnation simply through the act of changing the approach, you’ll also learn along the way in order to discover what works best for you AND have a bunch of tools in your toolbox for whenever you encounter a challenging situation.  Much like how various playthroughs of a WRPG can equip you with the necessary background to be able to tackle the problems you encounter from a variety of angles, trying out different programs and nutritional approaches can allow you to personally craft the solutions you need in order to overcome the problems you experience.

I appreciate the irony of this meme being over 20 years old

 

But fascinating enough, we enter into another realm of discovery here: challenges.  Because for avid JPRG fans, this tends to be how one reconciles adding replay value into a game that has preset rules, limits and paths to explore.  In order to make the game “new” again, we impose artificial restrictions on ourselves to see what solutions we overcome.  I’ve played JPRGs where I didn’t allow myself to use magic, where I couldn’t use certain powerful equipment, didn’t allow my characters to level up beyond a certain point, etc.  The game was STILL beatable: but it was up to ME to figure out HOW to come up with the solution in order to succeed.  Since the traditional way “wouldn’t work”, I had to develop new strategies, and in doing so, I once again learned new things about the game that I could apply further.

 

These same challenges allow us to take what is old and make it new again.  Our training doesn’t need to ALWAYS be played like a WRPG: with a completely new take on the game each time. We can replay a game we’ve played before and just implement a new challenge.  I once ran Super Squats where, instead of 1x20 and adding weight each workout, I kept the weight the same and added a REP each workout, until I got to 1x30.  I took Jamie Lewis’ “Famine” workout and ran the whole thing like a circuit, instead of running it linearly.  Running Building the Monolith in under an hour is a challenge many other trainees have taken on.  OR we can take a method that worked for one lift and apply it to others.  I've taken ROM progression from deadlifts and tried applying it to squats and seated pin presses, and I've taken the Zeno squats workout and tried it in combination with deadlifts.  And nutritionally, I’ve run various permutations of the Velocity Diet, the Apex Predator Diet, The Maximum Definition Diet,  and my own “Red Meat and Black Coffee” variant. 

 

How my dietary changes appear to outsiders

Interestingly enough, we’re getting into the area that Dan John describes as “wild, mild and none” in terms of variation, which he originally applied to Easy Strength, but the theme applies universally.  Easy Strength completely captures the JPRG mentality: you’re doing the same workout 5 days a week for 8 weeks for a total of 40 workouts, effectively “level grinding” so you can level up at the end and be stronger than where you started.  Within the workout, there are no forking paths or game changing decisions to be made.  But once those 40 workouts are done, we now have the option to just replay the game again (which, sometimes, for JRPG fans, that’s exactly what we want, just like re-watching a favorite movie or re-reading a favorite book), or we can introduce a “mild” variation (going from flat bench to incline bench) or a WILD variation (going from flat bench to clean and jerk).  And then we have the WILDEST variation possible: we just do a whole new program.  Dan talks about cycling 8 weeks of Easy Strength with 8 weeks of the Armor Building Formula, and we can always throw in a Mass Made Simple block to really shake things up, or the 10k swing challenge…and these are JUST Dan John programs.  If we threw in some 5/3/1 or Super Squats or something else, we’d REALLY be playing something different: like transitioning from Squaresoft (they’ll always be Squaresoft to me, not Squarenix) RPGs to Interplay.  A whole different RULEST to abide by.

 

We’re seeing the lessons we can learn from these games here.  If we’re a JPRG fan and just want to keep running the programs and diet we like over and over again, we simply owe it to ourselves to implement some challenge runs from time to time in order to keep the game fresh.  As much as we may consider Final Fantasy 7 to be the zenith of game design and story, we can only play it so many times in a row before our eyes start to bleed.  And if we’re a WRPG fan, variety is a necessary part of enjoying the experience.  We can’t just keep playing the game the same way over and over again: it’s missing out on the point of the experience.  We must, instead, try new characters and make new decisions and see what we can learn and discover through that process.  We make the most of our games playing them in this way.