BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF)
Apparently TB follows Zelda rules, where the third one may actually be the best ever
· Buy this book. I read someone refer to this as “What 5/3/1
Forever should have been”, and that’s a great summary. And 5/3/1 Forever is one of my favorite books
on training, because it quite literally gives you all the training tools you
need for the rest of your life, but THIS book does so in a way that is laser
focused, clear, concise, and “Army-proof”.
If you screw up what is written in THIS book, it’s clearly a “you”
issue. And much like I wrote about 5/3/1
Forever, I can not BELIEVE the price of this book and how it’s NOT $100. You are practically stealing when you get
this.
WHERE I’M
COMING FROM
I have a lot of military influence to inspire me
· I’m 40 years old. I’ve been exercising for 26 years. I’ve competed in martial arts, grappling,
powerlifting and strongman, and I’ve run races of various distances. I’ve read a LOT of books on physical
transformation/training, and reviewed many of them as well. This book is on my Mount Rushmore of training
books and in the race for the #1 spot.
WHAT’S SO
GREAT ABOUT THIS BOOK?
He strikes me more as a Vince Gironda kinda guy
· This is an “all-in-one” manual on how
to accomplish any general training goal while ALSO providing one the tools
necessary to be able to tailor toward specific goals (assuming they have the
requisite background knowledge/experience to identify what their specific
demands are).
· Because of that, this book takes the
time to pick from the “greatest hits” of Books 1 and 2 to be able to give you
everything you need in order to get bigger, stronger, and more physically
capable WITHOUT being overwhelmed by choices.
And it also means you don’t need to navigate between multiple books in
order to construct a plan. As a former
fast food junkie, the analogy is that this is a McDonald’s Express like you’d
find in an airport, rather than a full menu McDonalds. You can get a Big Mac or a Double Quarter
Pounder, but there’s no filet-o-fish.
· This is also a VERY easy read. Only a few instances where I got tripped up
on an acronym or had to double back to confirm something.
WHAT’S
NEW/WHAT EXCITED ME?
It's not just more of the same...although this DOES excite me
· I absolutely love the creation of the
“work capacity” block of training. This
was an idea that I was kicking around with my own mutation of Tactical Barbell
that was given wings/permission by the author.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of absolutely stupid workouts that leave
me completely trashed and take more than they give, and my original genius plan
was to run a 3 week Operator/Black block where I used these workouts as my
HICs. Basically just get it out of my system
and then get back to productive training.
This book, instead, made those workouts the FEATURE of a training block,
with an option to focus on power or strength endurance during the non-HIC
workouts, still in a 3 week duration.
· Base building has been
redeveloped. Now it’s a 4 week block vs
an 8 week block. My Tactical Barbell
dirty secret is I’ve never done Base Building, primarily because that 8 week
block was just a bridge too far for me, and after 2+ decades of exercising I
felt like my base was built. But I can
absolutely open myself up to the idea of a 4 week hiatus from hard lifting to
be able to develop other physical qualities.
That looks especially appealing in the summer months.
· The “activation” portion of the book
is a complete cradle to grave 25 week training protocol with everything spelled
out. I don’t have any intention to run
it myself, but I love that there is something in the book to say “just do this”
for anyone struggling to come up with an idea.
· New conditioning protocols. Black and Green have been re-tooled, and
there is an introduction for “Blue” as well.
Without giving away too much, this just continues to open up more and
more options to make TB modular to any training demand. And much like I’ve written about 5/3/1, the
introduction of NEW material doesn’t obviate the old material. This doesn’t make TB1 and 2 “not work”: it
affords more tools in the toolbox.
· Expanded options for previous lifting
protocols. As above: more tools in the
toolbox.
INSPIRED
IDEAS FROM THE BOOK
It's not QUITE this bad, but...
· That Work Capacity block of training
is honestly just perfect for my own Strongman preparation training block idea
I’ve created through Operator Pro. My
current approach is a 6 week block of Pro using the hypertrophy ranges for the
secondary work (10, 8, 6) and then a 6 week block with the strength ranges (all
5s). That’s 12 weeks leading into a
comp. From there, one could spend the
final 3 weeks doing ONLY events and power or strength endurance work depending
on what needs bringing up, and just put aside the basic barbell strength
work. And if a 15 week training block is
too long, 3 weeks can get cut from one of the preceding blocks to make up for
it. Factor in a bridge week as
appropriate.
· Speaking of Operator Pro, I feel like
this particular template opens itself up to be run in a Conjugate manner
(which, for the real lifting nerds out there, I’m sure my understanding of
conjugate isn’t “real conjugate”, but it’s what I understand from Westside
Barbell), similar to the Cube Method.
Since the training blocks are 3 weeks long, that’s the max duration for
a max effort movement rotation. The
2-3rm daily max is effectively a max effort movement. Each day, 1 of the 3 is featured primary
movements gets a 2-3rm set. After that,
the remaining 2 movements are trained in a submax manner. This opens up the opportunity to train them
in either a repetition effort manner OR a dynamic effort manner: use the
hypertrophy range for the former and the strength range for the latter. So, as an example, we have a day where we set
a squat 2-3rm (max effort), then bench press for 5x10 (repetition effort) and
deadlift for 5x5 (dynamic effort: make sure to perform each rep explosively). Next workout, we bench for a 2-3rm, deadlift
for 5x10 and squat for 5x5. Then, after
3 weeks, we change the primary lift of the day to a new variation (front squat
instead of back squat, for example). We
COULD swap out the secondary lifts too, or keep them in place for technique
work. And, if we wanted to get REALLY
conjugate, we could swap the primary lift more frequently than at the end of
the 3 week cycle.
WHAT
ISN’T THERE?
Makes sense to me
· The book doesn’t tell you HOW to
perform the movements (as in, there are no instructions on what a good squat
looks like, running technique, etc). In
classic parlance, it doesn’t tell you “how to suck the egg”.
· This book doesn’t contain the
explanations for the how behind they why with the methodology as it relates to
strength. TB1 explained the value of
frequent sub-maximal practice in order to develop strength, and why we DON’T
need to slaughter ourselves in the weight room to grow. However, this book does do a good job of
re-explaining the value of the aerobic capacity for anaerobic work, similar to
TB2.
WHAT ELSE
DO YOU NEED?
We're lacking ambition here
· I feel like a trainee could buy this
book and not buy books 1 and 2 and be alright, but I feel like Mass Protocol
still contains enough unique information/approaches to it that it’s worth
having in addition to this book. Along
with that, TBIII makes specific references TO Mass Protocol without “giving up
the goods”, so it will give you more tools in your toolbox. You most definitely COULD achieve hypertrophy
goals using just what is available in this book, but Mass Protocol will expand
that AND help get you into the “mass building mindset”. It also contains different nutritional and
conditioning protocols that are specific for the mass building function.
· There’s a fair argument to pick up
“Ageless Athlete” if you are an aging athlete.
It’s a VERY different book (which makes sense, with it being a different
author), and it provides some excellent training strategies and psychology to
help vector your way toward success.
That said, I’m 40 years old and still trying to train like I’m not…
IN
SUMMARY
· Buy this book. Buy multiple copies, in case you lose one.
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