THINGS I BELIEVE IN 2025 AT AGE 40

As 2025 comes to an end and with my experiencing of a milestone birthday, allowing me to officially compete as a Masters athlete in strongman (and an even OLDER athlete in grappling), I felt it prudent to take this moment to document where my thoughts are currently.  This blog has reached over 13 years in age, and through that time my own thought process has continued to grow and evolve, to include coming around absolute full circle on some things with a better understanding and appreciation as to WHY that happens.  And, of course, in the next year, all of this could change yet again, so allow this to be simply a snapshot in time.

 

Without further ado…

 

Training leads the diet: not the other way around

And sometimes, it leads us down some dark paths

 

·       I sometimes feel like I’m the only dude in the world that has figured this out, based on what I see online, and I really wish others would get on board, because it just provides SO much more clarity in how to move forward.  I see so many people that look at themselves in the mirror and try to let THAT determine their path forward in physical transformation, and, in turn, they often end up at an impasse.  The classic “should I bulk or cut?” question online, which is patently ridiculous, because no one can tell YOU what your priorities are.  That’s the point: they’re YOUR priorities.  But people ASK this question because they are at a physical impasse: too scrawny to cut, too much fat to bulk, or so they feel.  So how do we move forward?  We move forward by looking AWAY from the mirror and down at our training log.  Where are we lacking in terms of physical capability?  Are we in need of accumulation?  Great: now we run an accumulation block of training.  And while we run that, we eat to recover FROM the accumulation block.  Accumulation blocks are heavy in training volume: much food will need to be consumed to recover.  Hey, look at that: we put on some muscle.  Excellent.  What happens after we’ve done enough accumulation?  We enter intensification.  Now the volume has dropped, we aren’t approaching failure in training, and the recovery demand has reduced.  Less food is needed, and we lean out.

 

·       This approach ALSO prevents the stupidity that comes with forced fat loss approaches to training.  People decide that fat loss is the priority, and think that the way to train for THAT is to, per Dan John, “burn the candle at both ends and blow torch the middle”.  They slam themselves in the weightroom, then double and triple up on hard intense cardio, burn up all the sugar in their body, jack up their cortisol, piss away all their lean tissue, and end up looking like a smaller version of themselves imitating a melting candle.  The longer I’m in this game, the more I realize that fat loss is a product of RELAXING.  Lulling the body into a state of security and abundance such that it no longer NEEDS to hold onto all that precious fat it’s been hording for survival sake.  When we ease off on the stress, we coax the body to give up that fat, and end up looking like a physical being in a state of thriving, rather than surviving. 

 Make the method the goal

 

 

He was talking about Deep Water

 

·       This was a lesson that took me a LONG time to learn, but I’m glad I learned it.  It’s very easy to set goals based on numbers: I want to gain 30lbs in 6 weeks (thanks Super Squats), I want to deadlift 650lbs by the end of this ROM progression cycle, etc.  I have found that attempting to pursue goals in this manner can be quite self-destructive, as we can give up a LOT of good things in the pursuit of this ONE thing, and by the time we reach it, we NOW need to spend MORE time undoing the damage we did to get back to a decent baseline to operate off of.  How many times have we observed someone so married to the idea of ALWAYS losing 1lb a week that they end up taking DRASTIC measures to accomplish the goal as soon as they body plays its fun game of peek-a-boo with the scale weight?  Or dudes running in the opposite way, fixated on ONLY gaining the EXACT right amount of scale weight that they undereat to prevent gaining “too much” OR binge on junk food just to get to the exact right number?  These folks are so fixated on the number that they forget WHY they were chasing that number in the first place.

 

·       Instead, I have found that the best way to achieve success is to make the method the goal.  After I pick a program to run, my goal is to run the program: period.  “I am going to accomplish every workout of this program, as written.  I am going to eat exactly as needed to support this program.”  With that as my northern star, I no longer concern myself with what the scale is doing or what the weights on the bar look like: my goal is the method.  And, in turn, I KNOW that, upon achieving my goal of complying with the method, LOTS of good stuff will happen along the way.  I also know that, should I deviate from the method, I will experience reduced success.  It’s practically cheat codes for physical transformation: I know EXACTLY what I need to do in order to succeed, and I can evaluate success by simple compliance.  Get a calendar and 2 different colored markers: one for training and one for diet.  Put a check mark on it each day that you successfully complied with the training and the diet for the day.  Tally up your score at the end of the month and you’ll know how much success you achieved.  Think about the existential angst you save yourself from by NOT having to worry about if what you’re doing is “working” like those that are fixating on number chasing: the only number YOU need to concern yourself with is the amount of checkmarks you tally up.  The results achieve themselves!

 

All things in cycles and phases

Good enough for the greatest show on earth

 

·       I started this blog at age 28 and wrote that I was a fan of abbreviated training.  I then went into a long phase of very high volume training.  I am now back to abbreviated training.  None of this was flip-flopping or turning my back on myself: it’s periodization and cyclical/phasic training.  Because prior to me becoming a fan of abbreviated training at age 28, I was doing a LOT of training, mainly because I was a teenager full of piss and vinegar that was obsessed with training montages and the likes of Dragon Ball Z, so I accumulated a LOT of volume to be able to leverage into my abbreviated training.  And nutritionally, I’ve gone from periods of significant restriction to “anything goes”.  Life is seasonal, nothing is consistent, everything is constantly undergoing a pattern of death and re-birth: it’s only silly humans that seek to make things static and fixed.  The biggest favor we can do ourselves is try to ride the wave when the time is right and not fight the current when it’s clearly operating against us.

 

Nutrition and training need to align with personality

It's why I like to eat with my hands

 

·       This is why there ARE a million different training protocols and diets out there: they ALL work, just not for all people.  We can MAKE them all work too, but when we do that, we’re on borrowed time.  I compare it to stretching a rubber band.  The longer we train/eat “against the grain” of our essence, we stretch out the rubber band of our willpower, essentially “white knuckling” the physical transformation process.  Eventually, that rubber band snaps, and just like how a snapping rubber band returns to it’s baseline with pain to the user, once WE snap, there is a compensatory binge in order to try to restore our own internal harmony.  Nutritionally, this is the story of the bodybuilder that completes the contest and then goes on a 2 year junkfood bender, or the marathon runner that completes the race and doesn’t lace up the shoes for another decade.  It took SO much of our resources to reach the end that we have nothing left in us to continue on.  Per Dan John’s “Now what”, we needed to figure out what we’re going to do for week 7 of our 6 week program.

 

·       Instead, I find it crucial to find those training protocols and nutritional plans that align with our own personality types.  As far as the latter goes, I’ve enjoyed the idea presented that there are 3 forms of restriction: energy restriction (sustained caloric deficit), nutrient restriction (elimination/reduction of fats, carbs or protein) and time restriction (some manner of fasting).  I’ve been VERY outspoken about how much I don’t care for the first, as it requires counting and tracking of food, and how much better I am at the latter 2, so I find nutritional protocols that work within that framework.  When I eat that way, I don’t stretch the rubber band at all: I experience internal harmony.  There is no dissonance, and my energy can be vectored elsewhere, rather than toward dietary compliance.  The same is true of training: there are MANY protocols out there where I would have to FORCE myself to comply.  Pretty  much any bodybuilding protocol that emphasis rep execution technique (controlled and exact tempo, emphasis on finer points within the rep, etc) immediately tunes me out.  Same with protocols that require more skill lifts (jerks, snatches, etc) vs muscling up the weight.  But I am a big fan of full body training, hard sets, and simplicity, and when I get to train that way, I experience that same harmony, and am able to achieve my goals without fear of a compensatory binge. 

 

·       Of course, all that said, refer to my previous comment about cycles and phases.  Sometimes, we NEED that little bit of harmonic disruption to break us out of our comfort zones and shore up some weak points.  But those moments need to be rare, controlled, and planned with bookends with the stuff our personality ALIGNS with in order to protect us from ourselves.

 

Movements need to be rotated

For instance: never do this one

 

·       This is something I’m APPRECIATING now that I’m older, but something I SHOULD have been doing when I was younger.  And, in fact, I WAS doing it, until I got “smarter” and stopped doing it.  My first exposure to this concept came via Westside Barbell and the rotating max effort movements, along with the supplemental/accessory lifts.  I did it simply because that was what I was told to do, but I learned that the idea was to prevent burnout/stagnation by training the same lift too frequently.  Which, in turn, sounds a lot like bro-science muscle confusion.  Well surprise, once again, the bros were right, even if they didn’t fully understand why.

 

·       What I observe is the primary benefit Louie spoke of: this avoids burn out.  In my 40s, what I particularly notice is, if I train the same movement for too long, I eventually start grinding down my connective tissue and pick up nagging injuries and pain.  This is especially apparent to me when it comes to the squat.  If I stick with the buffalo bar for too long, I eventually want to cut off my elbows/forearms due to the pain I accumulate.  SSB for too long will overtax my upperback and start negatively impacting my deadlift.  SSB front squat for too long will limit maximal loading.  But if I rotate them intelligently (like, when I switch programming phases), I’m able to milk the benefits of those lifts and apply them to the other movements in a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop.  And changes don’t even have to be that significant: my ROM progression deadlift has me performing a new lift weekly, just with a slight modification to the ROM.  It’s small, but it’s enough that I don’t burn myself out on it. 

 

·       There are camps out there that espouse the idea that you need to just pick 1-2 lifts and master them and never deviate from them: just alter the programming.  My suspicion is that we’re observing survivor bias there: the folks that are outspoken about such approaches are simply those that managed to SURVIVE such approaches, whereas those that didn’t fell to the wayside and no one listens to them because they didn’t accomplish anything.  Meanwhile, rotating of training stimulus has such a long established history in training that it’s so obvious it’s not worth discussing.  Kids used to play seasonal sports, athletes have off seasons and in seasons, and during these times, different tools are being used and different skillsets are being built.  It doesn’t have to be “conjugate” to have the movements rotated: it can simply be intelligent.

 

Walking is the greatest gift we can give ourselves

Not everything needs to be a competition

·       This is very much a recent realization of mine and very “40s”, but I’m spreading the word on this.  I was very much opposed to low intensity ANYTHING in my 30s, and absolutely annihilated myself on a daily basis in my training with the highest intensity ANYTHING I could throw at myself.  All things in cycles: there’s a time and a place for that, but now that the time for that has ended (for now), I’m finding so much benefit in getting in regular walking.  It’s one of my highest priorities in training, whereas, previously, if I had any downtime, I’d get in a crossfit WOD or something equally ridiculous, now, I get in a walk.

·       Walking is restorative: it doesn’t take AWAY from recovery, but, instead, aids it.  It improves blood circulation and helps sore muscles recover, and, when performed after meals, has a whole host of other benefits as well (covered much more eloquently by Stan Efferding, so go see what he’s said about it).  It is low intensity, relying primarily on fat as a fuel substrate rather than sugar, which means it also doesn’t result in post exercise sugar cravings/binging, and, instead can often help with digestion and assimilation of the food we’ve taken in.  Throw on a weight vest and it’s like a cheat code, while still keeping the heart rate in range.

·       Walking is also an awesome social activity, a great way to get some vitamin D, a fantastic avenue to take in podcasts, a wonderful way to get out into nature and meditate, etc.  And the aerobic base it builds carries over into all physical activity.  Plus, it’s one of those things that, as we age, we NEED to do more of, so that we keep mobile.  Much like how getting up off the floor is a critical skill, so, too, is walking.

·       Getting a step tracker has been incredibly helpful in this regard as well.  Daily steps are an excellent way to approximate NEAT.

“Metabolism” just means NEAT

·       Figuring this out has really been so eye opening for me.  We’ve been looking at the wrong thing all along.  There have been arguments about slow and fast metabolisms, to the point that we’ve had medical studies to CONFIRM metabolic rates of individuals and discover that said rate only seems to differ by about 200 calories over the span of 50 years.  But in doing so, we missed the point, because even if the actual METABOLISM doesn’t change, Total Daily Energy Expenditure DOES change and vary, and it’s because of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).

 

·       It took having a kid for me to figure it out, but my kid recently came back from their annual checkout with a prescription I NEVER got as a fat kid: they need to gain weight.  They’re UNDERweight.  My kid is NOT deprived of food.  We don’t put food off limits in our house, we do the opposite: everything is available, nothing is special, that way, nothing gets horded or fetishized.  My kid eats their fair share of junk and fast food, and it’s easy to look at them and be envious of their metabolism…but what I notice is that my kid NEVER sits still.  And not in the parental frustration style of that expression: they’re literally ALWAYS in motion, like a humming bird.  Dancing, fidgeting, practicing handstands for no reason, breaking out into martial arts moves, etc etc, sitting still is practically offensive to my kid…and, in turn, they’re BLITZING through calories throughout the day.  Meanwhile, I remember being a kid and taking pride in the fact that I once played 14 hours of Final Fantasy 7 in one day (spoilers, but it meant I got to see Aeries die twice in one day).  Yeah: we may have the same genetics, but we are different people.

 

·       This just makes things make so much more sense, ESPECIALLY when we understand that SOME individuals end up scaling NEAT with caloric intake, such that, when they eat MORE food, they performed MORE NEAT.  It explains those people that can “eat whatever they want”.  The internet goes into conspiracy mode trying to figure this out, saying that these people are secretly fasting for long durations between eating copious amounts of junkfood, or are secretly running ultramarathons, or all other manner of madness.  It makes SO much more sense to understand that these folks are just scaling up their NEAT as the calories ramp up, ending up with a zero sum game.  It also explains those skinny kids that SWEAR they’re eating a 500 calorie surplus and not gaining.  No, what happens is, they add 500 calories to their original baseline, and their body jacks up NEAT 400 calories to compensate, and they end up with now a 100 calorie surplus instead.  We don’t need to break thermodynamics or accuse others of witchcraft or flat out lying.  It’s very possible people are eating the amounts they say and failing to gain and lose weight, and it could simply be that, as the calories go up, so does the NEAT, and as the calories go down, the NEAT follows as well.