PROGRAM CHECK-IN: TACTICAL BARBELL OPERATOR PRO FOR STRONGMAN

 

INTRO

Yup: time to buy another book

As I’m approaching my second full year of running Tactical Barbell programming without interruption and, while more and more material is being released about the system, I am playing around more and more and finding ways to make the system fit my goals and needs.  The original Operator in TB1 has proven itself plenty effective for strongman competition prep in the past, but I had to take certain liberties with it to make it “work”, while a recent experiment with Operator Pro out of the Green Protocol is proving to obviate that need.  I’m currently 5 weeks deep into a 12 week approach (13 if we count the bridge week) and wanted to share what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what I plan to do in the future, to show how to make this protocol fit strongman.

 

THE DEMANDS

No big deal: just be good at everything

I am currently training for a strongman competition that is fairly unique, which is what compelled me to compete in the first place.  It’s unsanctioned, so no real pressure to perform, but it’s combining elements of strongman, highland games and Viking stonelifting but featuring a log clean and press for max weight, elevated axle deadlift for reps, harnessed tractor pull, caber toss, and “Dritvik Viking Stones to platform”.

 

THE PROGRAM (OVERVIEW)

Yeah actually I guess...

 

To meet these demands, I selected “Operator Pro” from Tactical Barbell Green Protocol.  It features 3 days per week of lifting weights, with the remaining training days available for conditioning (or, in my case, events).  One selects a cluster of lifts, and trains each lift in that cluster each training day.  What is particularly unique about Operator Pro is that ONE lift of the cluster is trained for a 2-3 rep maximum for that training day, while the other lifts are trained at lower percentages for reps.  So, if one had a cluster of Squat, bench and deadlift, Squat would be trained for a 2-3rm while bench and dead would be for 3-5 sets of reps on Monday, then wed would be Bench 2-3rm with squat and deadlift for reps, etc.

 

What is of particular note here is the rep work though.  The percentages are low, ranging from 65%-75% and originally prescribed for 5x5.  HOWEVER, there was an option included “for hypertrophy”, which used a system of sets of 10 on week 1, 8s on week 2, and 6s on week 3.  Seeing that gave me a real lightbulb moment, which I will explain later.   

 

HOW I LAID IT OUT

 

It's simple really

The two primary lifts of the cluster are the safety squat bar squat and the log clean and press away.  On the rep days, it’s a strict press, on the 2-3rm day, it’s a push press.  The other lifts in the cluster are the Stone of Steel loaded to a platform on lifting days 1 and 3 and the Texas Deadlift Bar ROM progression mat pull on day 2.  I also have axle curls programmed for my deadlift day.

 

On Day 1, the front squat is my 2-3rm lift, while log and stones are trained for 5 sets.  On day 2, the deadlift is my primary lift (following ROM progression protocol, which is different from what TB lays out), while squats and log are trained for 3 sets.  On day 3, the log is my 2-3rm lift, while squats and stones are trained for 5 sets (squats for higher reps than stones).

 

Which, speaking of reps, THIS is where Operator Pro shines: for the first 6 weeks of the training cycle, I used the hypertrophy reps for the secondary exercises (so sets of 10 for week 1, 8s for week 2, 6s for week 3).  My intent for the final 6 weeks is to go to the standard Op Pro approach and just do sets of 5.  The exceptions to this approach are for the deadlift (trained using ROM progression protocol) and the stones, which I do for the hypertrophy sets on workout 1 while doing for 5x5 on workout 3.  I find trying to do high reps of stones twice a week tears up my SI joint.  In turn, for workout 3, I use the weights that I will use for the next week’s hypertrophy workout, in order to get my body accustomed to it ahead of time.

 

Between lifting days 1 and 2, I do Fobbits on a rower, performing a martial arts kata (technically a hyung) between rounds, and between lifting days 2 and 3 I do prowler sprints (4-5 sets, long rests).  On the weekends, I walk.

 

Daily, I perform 4 sets of chins and dips, increasing the rep total by 1 per week (not 1 per set: 1 rep total).  I also train martial arts 3x per week, typically on Tues, Weds and Thurs, but this is traditional martial arts rather than combat sports, so not incredibly intense.

 

WHY I LAID IT OUT THE WAY I DID

 

Most likely

The most significant “strongman prep” element of this is the phasic structure of the programming.  I get to spend the first 6 weeks of the program using lighter weights for the rep work and rebuilding technique and the specific muscles necessary to get better at events.  At the same time, I still get a weekly opportunity to regularly practice moving heavy weights as well. Every 3 weeks, I can adjust the training maxes to make them heavier, which means that, as I move into the final 6 weeks of the program, my weights will have increased but I’ll then be using lower reps, focusing on grooving perfect technique without experiencing significant fatigue.

 

Which, on the topic of fatigue: it’s why I use the SSB front squat.  It’s not because front squats are more “strongman transferable”: it’s because they don’t fatigue the lower back as much as a back loaded squat will.  Given I’m doing log pressing and stone loading/deadlifts whenever I lift, my lower back is already getting plenty hammered.  The front squat allows me to still train A squat without compounding fatigue, and I use the SSB because my ability to maintain a rack position is pretty poor.

 

The stone/deadlift pairing is pretty simple to explain away.  Stone loading and deadlifting recruit a LOT of the same muscles, to the point that I was at a Kaz seminar where he postulated that modern strongman use wider stance deadlifts for conventional because they spend so much time loading stones, so they’re stronger with their feet further apart.  In turn, even for NON-strongman competitors, I think there’s a LOT of value in employing some sort of implement load in place of a deadlift in programming.  There is no eccentric whatsoever to deal with, so it won’t beat up the trainee quite as much, which I feel is what allows me to train 3x a week compared to deadlifting, which I would keep at just 1x a week as well.  Difficulties exist in adjusting the loads if you don’t have a loadable implement, but the Stone of Steel and Power Keg CAN bypass that.  One could also do an old fashioned stone trainer by using a loading pin and some bumper plates to achieve a similar effect.

 

On THAT topic: the deadlift is the reason I use 3 sets of the secondary work on the second lifting day.  The deadlift just takes SO MUCH out of me that trying to stack more work on top aside from the bare minimum is a poor strategy.  But this has a pretty neat downstream effect.  My weekly structure shakes out that, for the press, I start the week with 5 sets, then cut down to 3, then finish with a 2-3rm single set: like a mini-taper.  For the front squats, I end up setting a 2-3rm, then progress to 3 sets, then up to 5: like a small accumulation block.  The stones end up being for 5 sets on high reps on the day where I’m only front squatting for a single set, which is allowing me to make up some volume on the back end, whereas the day I’m doing the highest volume of front squats, the stone volume is kept moderate by keeping the reps at 5.  Each training day is unique and gives me something to look forward to, and it all builds upon itself.

 

I’m strict pressing the log on the rep work, because it’s helping me build up the muscle I need to be strong and stable in the log, whereas I’m push pressing the heavy work so that I re-learn the skill of moving heavy weight with the implement.

 

I use the ROM progression deadlift because it works.  I’ve tried messing with success and it goes poorly.  I also train the deadlift LAST on the deadlift focused day, rather than first, because once I’m done with that lift I’m pretty much exhausted.  The only thing left in me is curls and small assistance work.

 

I’m doing nothing to train for the caber toss.  I’ve never done one before, and it’s just a bucketlist item for me.  I’m going to show up to the competition and have fun.

 

The prowler sprints are there to improve my ability on the tractor pull.  I SHOULD be doing these with a harness and a rope, but since I train so stupidly early in the dark, I don’t want to deal with trying to hitch up to my truck.  I’m noticing significant improvement in my conditioning and ability just doing high handle prowler sprints on a LONG track with 5 minutes of rest between sets.

 

The Fobbits on the rower are effectively recovery work, but also continue to contribute to my conditioning and cardiovascular capabilities.  I’m sticking with the martial arts because I have a tournament coming up in July, am getting close to black belt testing, and we run a summerlong “hyung competition” that I am part of, so it all works out. 

 

Even though I used programmed percentages for axle curls, I consider them assistance work rather than primary or secondary.  I just use the percentages for force me to actually train hard on them, as otherwise I’ll blow them off.  Those get trained once a week, after deadlifts, for 3 sets.  I otherwise prioritize ab work for assistance, followed by rear delts, and then lateral delts.  If I STILL have more time after training all that, I’m just going to go for a walk.  Most days, the only assistance I do after the heavy lifting is 2-3 sets of ab work.

 

 

THE NUTRITION

Yes, this actually WAS one of my meals...

 

I’m still going strong with “Red Meat and Black Coffee”.  The most significant change is, I’m prioritizing getting leaner, as its summer, activity is higher and my fall gaining block will be here soon enough.  To accomplish this goal, rather than eating less at meals, I’m eating fewer meals, having increased my One-Meal-A-Day days from 2 to 3-4 per week.  As of week 5, I’m not experiencing any negatives with this approach as far as energy levels and performance go, and observing downward trends on the scale and reduced waist circumference as measured by how my clothes and weight belt fit.  Once again: this “works” because the one meal I eat is very high in protein.  A small, mixed diet meal may not prove as successful.

 

IN SUMMARY

High praise indeed

Operator Pro removed the need for me to modify Operator to “make it work” for strongman and, instead, provides all the tools necessary to make (what appears to be) an effective strongman training protocol.  I’m observing increases in my front squat, press, deadlift and stone training even while bodyweight is slowly dropping and conditioning is improving (log went from 3x200 to 3x210 and 2x215, front squat from 2x315 to 2x320, deadlift ROM progression proceeding as normal and went from one set of 10 and then 4 sets of 5 with 135 on the stones to a full 5x10x135, while also reducing my prowler times from 54 seconds to 38 seconds).  Transitioning from hypertrophy reps to strength reps builds in a phasic structure of training, while the “primary/secondary” structure paired with waving the sets per workout creates it’s own “Daily Undulating Periodization” structure within the workout itself.  And the intensity and volume is balanced enough to provide me all the training opportunities I need to continue to progress toward my goals without overextending.

BUFFETS AND MICHELIN STARS

My dad did a lot of business in Las Vegas, primarily because he worked for my Grandfather, who was a real-estate mogul that leveraged that into becoming a guru, who would put on seminars and sell books (so you can see this runs in my blood) but was also INCREDIBLY cheap (or “financially responsible” as he would put it) and Vegas in the 90s was marketed as being a very inexpensive resort town (very much different from today’s Las Vegas), which made it the perfect place to gather his subscribers and host events.  That was one helluva run-on sentence.  But anyway, Las Vegas in the 90s managed to be inexpensive because it leveraged the income it received from degenerate gamblers in order to subsidize family entertainment, which is actually probably about as twisted and evil as it sounds, but boy did WE benefit as kids.  There were arcades EVERYWHERE in Las Vegas, all with the latest and greatest games, and my dear sweet grandmother was one of those aforementioned degenerate gamblers who was entrusted with watching my older brother and I while the adults were away discussing real-estate and would, instead, swing by on occasion and go “The slots are running hot, I just hit it big, here’s $50 in quarters, I’ll be back in a few hours!” and we would live like kings of the arcade.  This same saintly woman, having no real concept of money, would one day give my brother and I $300 to “go buy a video game”, to which we purchased our first ever Super Nintendo.  This is way more of my family history than you ever wanted or needed, but it’s my blog and I get to tell the stories, and where this story is EVENTUALLY heading to is the fact that one of the other charming graces of 90s Las Vegas were the DIRT CHEAP buffets.  These days, a trip to the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace can run you $65-$95 per meal WITH a 90 minute time limit imposed on you, whereas in the 90s the average buffet cost was $5-12.  I say all this to establish the fact that: I KNOW buffets.  I grew up in buffets.  To the point that, whenever I visit some sort of TERRIBLE dingy poorly lit smoke filled buffet off the beaten path, with food trays that clearly haven’t been emptied out for hours and food that is of questionable origin and quality (like what we saw in “Vegas Vacation”), the dopamine centers in my brain light up like it’s Christmas, because my brain goes “you’re a kid again!”  I went to buffets so much growing up that I started to make it a game with each Vegas trip to ONLY eat a certain item the entire time I’m in the city: one glorious year it was fried chicken, which WAS at every single buffet, without question.  I bring all this up in this INCREDIBLY long introduction to discuss how many of those in the physical training realm are LIVING the buffet life, which, as we’ve established here, is really…a pretty scuzzy kind of life, subsidized by degenerate gamblers, in a city built by the mafia, premised entirely around fleecing you.  Many are missing out on some REAL gourmet Michelin Star experiences, where it’s not about the QUANTITY or variety of food, but the actual quality of the experience.  Let’s explore this metaphor.

Wonderfully awful movie and a time capsule of the era

 

On the surface (which is as deep as you ever WANT to look at a buffet, believe me), a buffet seems like the ULTIMATE dinning experience.  You get to pick WHATEVER you want, as MUCH of it as you want, and you don’t have to put ANYTHING you don’t want on your plate.  Watching children at buffets is especially delightful, because they’re shameless, and unlike adults that might try to ACT like adults by putting some sort of vegetable on their plate that they have no intention of eating, kids will have a mountain of French fries next to a lake of chocolate pudding while using mozzarella sticks to form a dam.  We then take our monstrosity back to our table, absolutely gorge ourselves, and even WITHOUT the 90 minute table limit, we still try to shovel the food in as fast as possible so that we can accomplish MULTIPLE passes at the buffet in order to take in even MORE massive quantities of bizarre food combinations: spaghetti and buffalo wings, next to pizza, nachos and sushi, with a hot dog chaser and 4 different desserts.  And at the end of the meal, we roll ourselves out of the booth, slough off to our vehicle, and spend the rest of the evening feeling absolutely miserable and swearing we’ll NEVER do that again…until the next night in Vegas, of course.

 

When we have a for real, sit down, gourmet experience, it’s entirely different.  The chef EXPERTLY prepares the meal, using years of culinary training to achieve effects in terms of taste, texture, aroma, and all other senses involved in the dinning experience.  Each element is expertly seasoned: many high end establishments will refuse requests for additional condiments or seasonings because they don’t want YOU to ham-fistedly RUIN the chef’s hard work.  The food is portioned appropriately in order to compliment the MEAL as a whole and as an experience: it’s not an arms race to simply give you the BIGGEST possible serving of meat next to a MOUNTAIN of potatoes, but instead the right amounts in order to achieve the right effects.  Many places will even employ palate cleansers between courses, to ensure that you are receiving the intended experience.  And when the meal is done, we are satisfied with our experience and feel BETTER than when we arrived.

Until this part of course

 

And speaking of “ham-fisted”, allow me to finally get this metaphor out: most trainees in the realm of physical transformation employ a “buffet approach” when it comes to their training and nutrition.  They look at all the “dishes” prepared by all the chefs of the world of training and nutrition, and only pick the parts that they like: excluding all the “yucky” foods and only gorging on the hyperpalatable delicious and overly indulgent parts.  And, along with that, they select portion sizes that are ENTIRELY inappropriate within the context of the meal: becoming overly saturated with one taste and completely neglecting the others.  And much like the buffet experience, they just keep on gorging on the parts that they like over and over again, never once making a pass over to the “lighter fair”, and once the meal is done, they’re in a worse place than where they started and are swearing that they’ll NEVER do that again…until they do.

 

We see this with the trainees that are addicted to just slamming themselves with volume and intensity and never once put in a thought toward the value of fatigue management as it relates to growth and recovery.  We see this with the trainees that cut out ALL the hard work in a program, designing some monstrosity of nothing but cables and isolation exercises and never managing to grow.  We see this with the trainees that lock in on “If It Fits Your Macros” and view it like it’s a Tetris like challenge wherein, through a strategic implementation of protein powder and ice cream they “win” at Macros.  I absolutely did this myself, “following” the Deep Water Diet by getting 2 double quarter pounders at McDonalds and “only” eating the meat and cheese.  And I got buffet style results from that.

Suffice to say he approaches it a LITTLE differently...

 

And I’m speaking about “Michelin Star Chefs” here when discussing this buffet style approach: coaches in the realm of physical training that have created “dishes” worth enjoying.  But the food at a REAL buffet is never going to be the same quality as what you get from an individual meal, even WITH the greatest possible chefs working there (which the aren’t…because it’s a buffet), because the sheer logistics of it don’t work.  And we see this in the realm of physical transformation as well: trainees COULD be sampling the dishes of Dan John, Jim Wendler, K Black, Dave Tate, Chad Wesley Smith, John Meadows, etc etc (seriously: it’s borderline unfair the amount of unrestricted access a modern trainee has to some of the GREATEST minds in the industry), but instead they’ll follow the plan of some influencer online whose only credentials are having abs and lots of followers.  THAT is buffet chow for sure, and they’re loading up on it, because these influencers are like true buffet line cooks and just producing “food” simply for the sake of producing it.  There’s no thought or consideration to portion sizes and putting together a meal: they just know that, today, they gotta make 400 chicken wings, 500 meatballs, 100lbs of spaghetti and enough taco meat to feed General Santa Ana’s army.  They don’t care who eats it or how much of it they eat: they get paid for QUANTITY, not quality.

 

It’s no wonder why you feel so terrible when your meal is over: you made a stupid meal to eat you big dummy!  Because think about that: as much as you may think “I’ve been eating my whole life: I know how to eat”, it actually takes YEARS of culinary training to fully understand how to build a MEAL such that it is a satisfying experience for the diner.  Yeah, you can take a nutrition course and figure out which foods are healthful, and you can take a food safety course to learn how to make food that doesn’t kill you, but the art of actual meal construction takes education and effort, which is WHY people entrust it to skilled chefs when dinning out.  In the realm of physical transformation, this is “working out” vs “training”.  Working out is about exhausting ourselves that one particular day: training is about building up to something greater over the course of many training sessions.  A skilled chef knows how to build training, whereas when you build your workout plate, it’s nothing but mac n cheese and mashed potatoes. 

When left to our own devices

 

And folks, I don’t say all this to overcomplicate food.  We don’t have to be Michelin star chefs in order to create a decent meal: we simply have to spend a little bit of time and effort learning and experiencing different element of cuisine to able to understand and appreciate the balancing act that occurs through the process.  But if we treat each meal with the buffet mentality, all we ever know is gorging, oversaturation/stimulation, flavor fatigue and a general malaise.  A trip to the buffet on occasion can be enjoyable: these are those stupid workouts that we KNOW we shouldn’t do but we do anyway.  But we can ALSO treat ourselves sometime by going out and getting a real gourmet experience from someone that knows what they are doing, where we just sit back and enjoy what is put before us. 

HOPE IS NOT A PLAN

Already it’s fascinating for me to discuss plans when I am the champion of “Chaos is the plan”, but let us appreciate that often, within chaos, there IS no hope, so the premise that “hope is not a plan” actually fits well here.  “Hope is not a plan” is one of my favorite quotes to introduce into discussions WHEREIN we are attempt to develop plans or courses of action because, quite often, I find that “hope” is the contingent variable OF the plans of many, in similar manner that the “Underpants Gnomes” of South Park had no real notion of what step 2 of their plan was to make a fortune.  Everything else will be laid out in meticulous detail, all variables accounted for and squared away, but finally, when it comes time to actually make the plan SUCCEED, we discovered that success is entirely premised around hope…and, in turn, destined to fail.  “Abandon all hope” is not necessarily a call to pessimism but, instead, actionable advice and guidance when it comes time toward drafting up plans for success, because in the absence of hope as a variable, one must begin to actually implement strategies and tactics that will succeed in the absence OF all hope.  Let’s discuss wherein we observe these failures in the realm of physical training.

It's practically foolproof!

Quite often, in the topic of “bulking” (a term I deride because it’s meaning continues to get twisted, abused and manipulated by hucksters and the ignorant that ape them), hope is the PRIMARILY tool being implemented, and the results go on to show just how hopeless we are.  The term “dreamer bulk” originally referred to a screename on Bodybuilding.com that went on to perform one of the most nutritious failed bulks of internet history but now goes on to accurately reflect the reality of all failed bulks: you must have been dreaming to think this strategy would work.  This is, again, because these bulking plans are premised entirely around hope.  Specifically, the dreamer bulker approaches the entire process backwards: they eat a LOT of food and then HOPE that it turns into muscle when they go lift weights.  Very often, these individuals have the diet “dialed in”, reflected by having a set macro and calorie goal that they ALWAYS hit, if not exceed, every day no matter what!...while the training is a bit of an afterthought.  “Yeah, I’ve been getting in 3500 calories a day, 250g of protein, I make sure to get in all my carbs pre, post and peri workout, and then I go do PPL 6x”.  What the f**k is PPL 6x?  That’s not a plan, it’s not even a training split, it’s 4 letters and a number.  It creates the ILLUSION of intensity because “everything is taken to failure”, of which you realize that, in order FOR that to be true, with a training protocol that necessitates training 6x a week, the actual effort employed in each session has to be SO paltry that there is ZERO stimulus FOR muscle to grow.  It’s all machines and isolation work with minimal heavy loading, “great pumps” and zero progress, followed by a gigantic caloric surplus, most often of “protein maxxed” hypergarbage, wherein the result is 16 weeks wasted and being in a terrible physical state that necessitates going on a “cut”…which oh boy, let’s talk about hope there!

 

Because thinking is hard, most in the fitness sphere want to sell all physical transformation as a math equation, and never is this more accurate than in the realm of fat loss.  “It’s all Calories In/Calories Out” which, though accurate, is unhelpful when it comes to formulating a plan for success, because new trainees will simply take THAT maxim and make THAT the plan.  “All I have to do is eat 500 calories below my maintenance and I’ll lose 1lb a week, and then I just do that until I’m lean.  How come EVERYONE isn’t a bodybuilder?”  And really, it’s the absence of THINKING that final thought that is the downfall here, because if we DID ask that question, we’d realize how much hope is the necessary operating variable in such a “plan”.  “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, and diets are OFTEN punched in the mouth by things like…hunger.  Hunger, cravings, schedules, social obligations, feelings of fatigue, and all of these are issues we can run into when things are going RIGHT on the diet.  What if we discuss all the fun biological variables that come into play as well, like how our metabolisms will downregulate and NEAT will naturally reduce when food intake is restricted and suddenly we need to re-adjust our math equation, and how THAT might be an issue if we came into this fat loss phase overdieted with minimal caloric runway, primarily because we ran that “dreamer bulk” above and didn’t really build any appreciable lean tissue to begin with so we don’t have much of BMR to operate off of.  You came into this simply HOPING you could eat 500 calories below maintenance until you were lean, and reality punched you in the mouth.

"What's the harm of just one bite?"

 

Hope is not a plan.  We must be hopeless, which does NOT mean that we must be powerless.  Much as per Nietzsche’s declaration that God is dead, when HOPE is dead, we “re-create yourselves: and let this be your best creation”.  Instead of relying on hope to get us to our objective, we take success into our own hands and MAKE it happen.  When we gain, we do so by ensuring that our TRAINING is dialed in and effective at the intended goal of building muscle and THEN we eat in a manner in order to fuel that metabolic process.  And that “manner” is not simply based on numerical value but on QUALITY of nutrition as well, understanding that our biology is complex and benefits from a wide variety of contributions from nutrition that are not necessarily easily quantifiable.  And, in turn, we appreciate that, on the opposite side of the spectrum, it’s not a matter of eating less food, but of developing the necessary strategies to ensure COMPLIANCE with such a protocol of controlled starvation.  Discovering the foods that trigger binging and coming up with strategies to remove them from the diet WITHOUT creating a sense of restriction that results in hyperfixation, figuring out how to navigate blood sugar response to avoid feeling foggy, weak, and experience significant sugar cravings, discovering the foods and eating windows that allow us to feel satiated, managing schedules in order to ensure access to the foods we need when we need them, etc etc.  Success in physical transformation means having a strategy that will lead us along the path toward the goal, NOT depending on sheer willpower and hope to make it all happen.

 

Hope is not a plan, which is not a negative, because in a world without hope, we still have ourselves to depend on.

 

     

“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

\

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.