NIGHT SHIFT BULLET POINTS

- Gonna kick off with the sensitive topic of drugs, but not what’s usually discussed when it comes to lifting.  I often see people ask the question about the impact of marijuana on lifting.  My follow up question is always “If you found out it had a negative impact, would you stop using it?”  I’ve never seen a single person respond with an affirmative to that, simply that they would use LESS of it, or that they’d try to time their use better.  What the hell is the point of this question?  We’ve now run into that weird bit of pseudo-optimization where we want to do everything in our power to maximize gains…except of the things in our power to maximize gains.

Not pictured: a steak

- On that note, let’s discuss being “drug free” here.  People use that term to mean free of performance enhancing drugs, but consider taking it a step further.  The only drug I’ve ever used recreationally is caffeine.  I never got into drinking (to the point that I’ve never had a drink), no nicotine, and nothing illegal.  I’ve used pain killers when I was in pain, with a doctor’s prescription, and even then, sparingly.  I’ve managed to accomplish some things that some folks in the internet community insist are only possible with the use of performance enhancing drugs.  Perhaps it’s worth considering what the impact of being drug free has as it relates to training and achieving physical results.  I’ve never been hung over, I haven’t imbibed controlled poisons for prolonged durations, haven’t filled my lungs with smoke, haven’t made poor nutritional choices as a result of an altered mental state, etc etc.  I don’t say all this to be holier than thou, as hedonism is just as valid a decision as asceticism when we see things as an absurdist, but it’s more something worth considering when we view what is possible.  When we talk about the limitations of “drug free trainees”, as we really thinking of trainees that have been “drug free”.

- Diving down even further into discussion on natural limits, I observe a direct overlap between those individuals that claim that a natural trainee achieves their max potential after 2 years of training and those same individuals that want to optimize their training to the greatest degree possible.  I genuinely don’t understand how one can hold both of these beliefs in their head at the same time.  If you’re going to reach your maximal potential within 2 years of training while training the most optimal way possible, how long will it take you to reach those same results training just a little sub-optimally?  2 years and 3 months?  2.5 years?  A mere pittance really.  Why not just train the way you want to train vs worrying about being as optimal as possible?  You’ll get there soon enough.  You’d imagine the only people worried about training as optimally as possible are those folks that will admit that a natural trainee can grow for over 2 decades of training, because in THAT instance you wouldn’t want to waste any of your training time: eventually, your body will be too aged to make the most of your training.  In THAT situation, you’re up against a clock, but 2 years?  Hell, it takes longer to graduate high school.

- Paul Carter is pissing some folks off right now talking about how volume isn’t the answer to growth, but instead it’s intensity of effort that drives it, referencing back to DoggCrapp style training.  I had to admit: my experience agrees.  Now, that having been said, Deep Water is still, in my mind, the most effective program I’ve ever done, and it has tons of volume, but it ALSO mixes it in with an insane degree of intensity of effort.  But left to my own devices, I tend to favor a lot of “single set” work.  It can get a little confusing to the outside observer, as what I’ll consider to be a single set will, in fact, have a significant degree of rest pausing and dropsets in it that one could make the argument I’m really doing several sets with short rest periods instead, equating to an argument FOR volume, but I feel that a trainee with experience can tell the difference between the two.

And if you REALLY think of it, time between reps is an illusion anyway

- Let’s talk about that experienced trainee above though.  One of the biggest arguments AGAINST single set work for a new trainee is that they simply lack the ability to push themselves hard enough to get anything out of just 1 set of work.  I’ve had SEVERAL trainees talk to me about the Super Squats program and ask if they should do 2-3 more sets of squats after that first set, at which point my eyes bug out of my skull and I ask them how they can even THINK about squatting after the 20 reper in that program.  But the fact of the matter is that they can’t push themselves hard enough to actually dig in deep and get as close to failure as someone with more experience under their belt.  So we tell these trainees to just get in as much volume as possible because, in the absence of intensity of effort, one can substitute with an abundance of training volume.  But now we also have arguments that reps below a certain percentage of 1rm are “junk volume” and don’t contribute.  So now we have trainees that can’t train hard enough to make use of single set work, because of that they also have no conception of what their real 1rm is, and when they push for volume sets they’re staying so far from failure that they aren’t getting in effective reps.  So should we just tell new trainees not to train?

- I came up with the ultimate “weight gain plan”: 2 cycles of 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake, a 1 week deload, Building the Monolith, 1 week deload, Deep Water Beginner then Deep Water intermediate.  Boils down to 26 weeks of training: half a year, all mapped out, and there’s even an eating plan detailed 18 weeks of it.  Well, in watching people implement this program, it looked like I forgot to include one important piece of instruction: don’t f**k it up. 

- That I have to say “don’t f**k it up” blows my mind.  I can’t tell if it’s a sign that I’m smart or that I’m stupid, but I don’t have any issue with program compliance.  A program says “Do X for Y”, and that’s what I do.  But I observe trainees who hire coaches and pay them money and STILL go off program.  “I know today was supposed to be 80% for triples, but I was feeling really good so I set a new 1rm!”  Hey, genius, the reason you felt good was because your coach was PROGRAMMING you to feel good: so you could set that 1rm in a competition.  But no, it’s cool: now it’s on Instagram.  That’s all that matters, right?

One day, you're gonna wish it was never posted online

- I genuinely, truthfully, do not understand the current claims about unrealistic male body image expectations in the media.  Some 40 year old dude recently got in shape for a Marvel movie and there was a bunch of backlash for it because of the expectations it set for young men.  Did we forget the 80s?  Did we forget Arnold, Stallone, The Barbarian Brothers, Dolph, JCVD, etc etc?  If anything, the male image has been getting SMALLER, not bigger.  It’s becoming MORE realistic.  How come no one cared when the ideal male image was absolutely bonkers? 

- I’ve had a few requests for me to voice my thoughts on “evidence based training”.  I suppose first I have to learn what the hell that is.

- I remember when we were concerned about the results training had on US, rather than the results it had on other people.

- I’ve noticed a direct correlation between someone having leaked 5/3/1 Forever online and a rise in very stupid question about the book.  Almost as though paying for a book promotes more careful reading.

- I am going to show my ignorance on this one, but are English speaking authors (and primarily Americans) really the driving force behind all things health and fitness related?  I ask, because the common complaint about 5/3/1 Forever is “international shipping is expensive”.  Don’t folks in other countries have their own dudes putting out material?  Like, Jim Wendler doesn’t seem like he should be that big a deal to reach world-wide acclaim.  And I say that as a guy who is a big fan of his work, but fundamentally we’re talking about a dude that was in one of the most niche sports ever with unlimited-ply powerlifting.  You don’t need 5/3/1 Forever: you can use a different book and still get big and strong.

I bet THIS guy has some cool things to say on the topic of training

- “You protest too much” is such a stupid thing people say, yes, even if you’re paraphrasing Shakespeare.  It’s typically when it comes to accusations about using steroids, where if a trainee doesn’t argue against the accusation it’s guilt by omission, but if they argue against it they “protest too much” that it’s a sign that they’re being too defensive and, therefore, are guilty.  There’s no winning on that situation, which is typically the intent of anyone that makes the accusation in the first place.

- I’m getting sick of people thinking strongman is a sport where you eat a lot of food and lift weights on occasion.  I’ve seen more photos of food than I have of lifts on certain sections of the internet, and you got dudes who absolutely REFUSE to lose any weight.  Remember how we started exercising to get healthy?