COMPLETE OVERHAUL PART 3: CRACKPOT IDEAS AND WILD THEORIES

I am big on only writing about what I know and what I’ve experienced, so whenever I DON’T do that I like to clarify.  Often, these wild ideas pan out well (like the 6 month gaining block I developed with 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake, Building the Monolith and Deep Water), but not ALL of the are winners.  What I’m going to detail below are spitballing and theories.  Some might work, some might not, but it’s fun to dream.

From the champion of crackpot ideas himself!

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* This one is a quick kill, but if you recall my “strongman on the road” series of posts (http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2020/10/strongman-on-road-part-i-nutrition.html) you’ll remember the circus tent of food I would need to pack to sustain myself without having to eat garbage the whole time I’m away from home.  Apex Predator/Velocity makes SO much more sense.  Throw a bag or two of protein powder in the suitcase and get in ONE meal a day otherwise.  High speed/low drag.  I could still pack some food too, going with canned chicken breasts and be squared away, or get a couple of rotisserie chickens and be good to go.  That’s definitely my next travel plan.

* Despite the fact that this evolution came about as a result of me being absolutely destroyed from Super Squats, I remain a huge fan of Super Squats IN TOTALITY.  So not just the program, but “the program”: the workout AND the nutrition AND the book.  “High speed/low drag”: shut your brain off, do the squats and drink the milk.  You do it and you get the results and you grow.  It’s also why I liked the Velocity Diet/Apex Predator: Drink the shakes, eat the meal, done.  No counting or thinking.  Well to solve the “how to train” portion of that, I think Dan John’s 10k kettlebell swing challenge is the answer, for a variety of reasons that I’m going to detail below this bullet.

Seriously: Dan talks and I listen...and go buy his "Easy Strength Omnibook" as soon as you're done reading this blog (https://danjohnuniversity.com/bookstore)

* My recent posts on duality (http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2023/02/periodization-via-duality.html) have spoken to the very concept of “undoing” a program after doing it, and 10k swings is precisely that.  With Super Squats, there is minimal hinging.  In fact, if you run the abbreviated version, there is NO hinging.  But there is a LOT of squatting.  With the 10k swing, it’s the opposite: you are doing nothing but hinging.  There’s room for squatting if you want it, but it’s not required.  So if you were to bounce the two against each other, doing 6 weeks of Super Squats and then the 28 days of the 10k swing challenge, there’s a fair chance that, over the course of your training history, you’ll maintain balance.

* Alongside that, Super Squats is laser focused on gaining weight and minimizing exertion outside of the training sphere.  “Don’t run when you can walk, don’t walk when you can stand, etc”.  10k swing is, of course, the opposite: not heavy on the static strength, very conditioning focused.  The Velocity Diet also speaks to being “movement seeking”, so that pairs well there too.  Again: periodization here.  You’ll have an accumulation phase and a GPP phase.

* What’s really neat about 10k swing challenge and the Velocity Diet is BOTH are 28 day challenges, so they map on perfectly with each other there.  The Apex Predator is meant to be a bit more “long term sustainable”, but depending on how lean you are at the end of Super Squats, either can be just dandy.

Looks like it can get you pretty lean!

* If there’s a concern about building/maintaining strength while running the 10k swing challenge, I feel like there’s an avenue to include Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program in there for the strength work.  This maps on well with the 10k swing challenge, as Easy Strength is done 5 days a week, just like 10k swing, and the workouts are supposed to run about 15 minutes long so you have time to do “the stuff that REALLY matters”, which, in this case, would be the swings.  It only gets a little messy because Easy Strength is a 40 day program vs 28, so we lose a little bit of the “shut off the brain” element here.  But still: it seems effective enough.  And Easy Strength is still “squat avoidant”, so you would still be able to heal from Super Squats.

* I write about Super Squats a lot, because it’s what I know, but if you wanted to make this a 100% Dan John run, I feel like “Mass Made Simple” would be a fantastic swap.  His book also lays out exactly what to do and when to do it.  It doesn’t have a 100% prescriptive diet, but Dan’s “eat like an adult” is a solid starting point, and his golden ticket is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is just plain awesome.  You still squat a TON of Dan’s program, but there’s also barbell complexes in it, so you have a chance to maintain your fitness a bit better.

Another book you should go buy after reading this blog

* For myself, I can foresee me eventually coming off of shakes for the majority of my meals, but I still see myself keeping them around as needed.  I could see implementing either alternating days of Apex Predator/Velocity and a more “normal” dietary approach (more solid food on the harder training days/more shakes on the easier), or keeping days consistent and relying on shakes for my breakfast, pre-bed meal, and snacks here and there.  There’s also the chance of modifying the shakes themselves to make them a little more substantial: mixing them with egg whites and nutbutters.  The primary driver here being that I keep losing fat with this approach despite it not being my goal, so if I find myself in a harder phase of training, or simply wanting to maintain, I feel like this would be the more logical approach vs trying to get in a TON of calories in the limited amount of solid meals I’m taking in.