WHERE I FIT IN

Green787878 (I assume Green1-787877 were taken when he made the username) on reddit submitted a question to me the other day.

“I would be interested in hearing how your training has affected your personal life. Such as your discipline and physique - how that affects your relationship with family, friends, co-workers, etc. You've been doing this for a long time so I'm sure you'd have some interesting anecdotes to share.”

I liked the idea of exploring this topic, as it’s something I’ve addressed in round about ways before but never really dove into head on.

And head on is always the best way to do things

I’ve commented in the past about how my sense of normalcy is fundamentally flawed as a result of my training and lifestyle.  This manifests in ways such as drinking a gallon of water in under an hour at a meeting and having it cause the person leading it so much distress that they called for a bathroom break for MY sake, or how, after rupturing my ACL I didn’t understand why people were making such a big deal about it and how upset they got when I joked about it and told them I was still training.  I am fully aware that I am an outlier and that what I do is not normal, but not so fully aware of to what DEGREE what I do isn’t normal.  I’ve been living like this for so long that I can “forget” how normal humans function.

However, that’s more about how people interact with me, rather than the other way around.  Being fully honest and aware of myself, I am severely lacking in empathy amongst other humans.  Specifically, I have zero understanding or capacity to understand how or why people let adversity deter them from accomplishing their goals.  This isn’t a lack of sympathy, it’s legitimately a lack of empathy; I simply do not grasp this idea.  It ends up manifesting as a lack of sympathy, because people approach me and share their stories and, in my inability to relate, I offer them no solace.

Still a great movie

Adversity can slow you down, this is absolutely true, but unless it is death, I do not see why it stops you.  In the competition where I ruptured my ACL, tore my meniscus and fractured my patella, I was in Monterrey CA, where there was an awesome aquarium.  As part of the trip to the competition, I told my kid that we’d go to the aquarium the day after the competition.  After I blew out my knee, I went back to my hotel, took a shower, wrapped my knee up in a knee sleeve, woke up the next day and limped around the aquarium with a cane for 4 hours before driving home for another 4.  I made a promise, I had a goal, and I accomplished it.  Yeah, I had to deal with an injury, but I wasn’t dead, so why would I be stopped? 

And the same was true with training; I started Matt Kroc’s 16 week detailed bodybuiding program out of the book “Insane Training” that Monday, since I wanted to do something different while my knee healed.  Saturday was squat day, so I grabbed my squat box, set it as high as I could, and did squats with the buffalo bar for as many reps as I could.  Yeah, it wasn’t much, but it was something.  And then I also trained the whole way through surgical recovery and physical therapy.  A lot of people would just stop training entirely until they were fully healed, and I literally cannot understand WHY they do that.

Not the first time I've been baffled

I’ve got other stories too that objectively I KNOW are crazy and stupid but emotionally I cannot understand why.  I set a deadlift PR 24 hours after being discharged from the hospital for severe dehydration due to gastroenteritis, woke up at 0445 to lift after rolling over in the middle of the night and dislocating my shoulder, regularly train after only getting 2-3 hours of sleep, etc etc. I don’t think of these things as significant; it’s just getting through life.  People have to put up with way worse crap than I do just to eek out an existence.

Unfortunately, the consequence of making this a habit is that it’s warped my sense of normalcy, so I don’t understand why others find it so weird nor do I understand why THEY don’t do it.  It’ll hurt?  So what: pain is temporary.  So is discomfort, and injury.  It’s nihilistic to be sure, but everything is temporary really.  It means I tend to come across as cold and disconnected when it comes to dealing with a lot of problems and emotions, but on the other side of the coin, I tend to be sought out for objective opinions, decision making, or simply getting stuff done regardless of costs. 

Much like this; it's cool at first, but eventually people get tired of it

In regards to physique, I’ll try to be a bit more brief, but basically I spend the majority of my social interactions attempting to overcome the presupposed image people generate about me via my physical appearance.  Most people tend to assume I’m some sort of meathead and that I’m gruff and abrasive and intimidating, so in turn I try to tell a joke about every other sentence.  Lots of smiles, lots of levity, and just trying to kill people with kindness.  If I can do that well, I tend to find myself in more advantageous positions compared to my peers, because being larger and in shape does seem to automatically generate some degree of respect compared to being fat or scrawny, and if people think you possess a modicum of intelligence to go with it, it carries you far.

I DO have to contend with a lot of stupid jokes about my size/strength all the time.  Humans like things simple and categorized, and once they’ve categorized something, they like to mock it to minimize it.  People will make dumb creatine jokes or flex in front of me or feel up my arms.  It’s something I’m at terms with.  I remember Mike Tucscherer was once asked if he got tired of all the dumb jokes people made about him being so big, and he said “If I didn’t want to deal with it, I wouldn’t be 275lbs”.  That resonated with me pretty well.  But it also means it’s something I have to be aware of constantly.  If a 150lb dude shouts at someone or gets a little aggressive, people tend not to care, but if I start showing aggression it can get misinterpreted as legitimate assault pretty quickly.

This is already getting pretty long winded, but just a comical aside to mention is how much my mentality can “infect” those around me.  My wife and I have been together in some capacity for 13 years, and she’s been a big part of the process for me.  She’s seen me accomplish some pretty ridiculous things, and it’s not set HER bar for normalcy ALSO off course.  Her expectations for what men can do are pretty high, because to her, I’m just her goofball husband, not some sort of high standard or mark for my gender.  In a comical anecdote, one time, my dad sold some sort of Weider all in one home gym on craigslist, and a guy and his son came by to pick it up.  They showed up with a bunch of tools and started taking the whole thing apart to put in their truck to move.  My wife was watching and getting frustrated that it was taking so long, and she leaned in and whispered “Why don’t they just pick it up and put it on the truck: this is taking forever?”  My wife and I have moved 5 times since we’ve been together, and she’s seen me carry full bookshelves, marble topped end tables, dinning tables, etc etc, all by myself, so in her mind that’s just a thing men do.  I had to lean back and whisper to her “Because not all men are your husband.”

It made her blush.

BEWARE OF UNDERTRAINING

Dear readers, I come to you today to discuss an epidemic that is sweeping the nation.  This plague has claimed many young trainees over the years as a result of propaganda, bro knowledge, internet forums, youtube channels, and social media in general.  I am, of course, talking about undertraining.  The dangers of undertraining are severe, yet every day, more and more trainees engage in this reckless behavior.  In most cases, this is due to ignorance, as trainees are either poorly informed on the topic of training, who they should talk to, or just what dangers lurk around the corner as they start down this dangerous path.  My hope is that, by educating my readers, you will know the signs to look for and be able to take care of any young trainee about to embark on this practice.

Hurry before it's too late!

So what is undertraining?  Undertraining is the current craze sweeping the lifting internet nation.  There are many examples of this, but typically it can include trainees only perform 3-5 sets MAX for a movement for the day, and of those sets, no more than 5 reps, trainees only lifting weights 3x a week, trainees performing ZERO cardio, conditioning or athletic work, and in general a complete lack of exertion and physical stress present in training.  Parents and coaches beware; your child or protégé could be undertraining under your very nose!  There are peddlers everywhere pushing this stuff on young naïve trainees.  They use words like “minimal effective dose of volume” and “CNS burnout” to trick young minds into following their devious and perverted ways.

How can you tell if your child or student is undertraining?  Know to look for the signs!  Symptoms include a complete lack of physical development despite months of “training”, claims of being a “hardgainer”, claims of “eating everything and not gaining weight” or needing to “dirtybulk”, having to rest 5-8 minutes between sets in order to make their workouts last an hour, a lack of gym clothes in the laundry, an abundance of freetime to argue on the internet about what program is optimal, CARING about what program is optimal, a complete lack of awareness of what an assistance exercise is, zero conditioning base, a complete set of SBD gear and Olympic lifting shoes, having an Instagram fitness handle, and a physical appearance resembling a sweet potato someone left in microwave for 4 minutes too long.

More like 14 minutes

What can you do to combat this?  You need to chase away the overtraining boogieman that has tricked your loved one down this path and get them on the road to recovery.  Most perceived sensations of “overtraining” or “CNS burnout” amongst the general training populace are simply the manifestation of poor recovery, which can easily be remedied with a focus on IMPROVED recovery.  For the basics, ensure your trainee is eating well enough to support training.  Most likely, your trainee is convinced that they are both a hardgainer and need to follow a dirty bulk, which means they’ve found a means to justify a lazy, slovenly approach to eating that allows them to dine like a child on junkfood and candy without any actual awareness of what they are consuming.  Have them immediately start eating meat and veggies with every meal and watch the recovery improve almost instantly, with some muscular gain to match. 

Along with this, be aware that, the reason your trainee is having difficulty recovering between sets in the gym and between workouts outside of the gym and feeling overtrained in general is because your trainee is most likely a skinnyfat sack of untrained cookiedough with zero conditioning base due to a lifetime of neglecting any basic athletic activity who got sold a load a horse manure by a snake oil huckster claiming that the only way for a beginner trainee to overcome this is to train less than everyone else.  That was a long run-on sentence, because holy Christ it is so goddamn insane that I wanted to just contain it all in one spot like a freakin’ quarantine zone after an outbreak of zombie syphilis.  You’re trying to tell me that the way we’re going to get Johnny No-Sports on par with lifelong athletes is by starting him off with the lowest training volume ever witnessed by man and then reducing it even MORE once he inevitably stalls due to a lack of work capacity?  How are people still believing this?

The way we get your loved one back on track is by viciously attacking that lack of work capacity head on with some dedicated time and energy focused on conditioning and assistance work.  This is where we can sneak in a little volume to help them grow and develop their work capacity to recover better BETWEEN workouts while still improving their baseline conditioning to help them recover IN their workouts.  And hey; more recovery IN a workout means more volume, while more recovery BETWEEN workouts means that more volume won’t lay your trainee out flat.  Get them out running, riding bikes, playing sports, pulling sleds, splitting work, etc etc.  If it feels miserable at the time, it’s probably the right call.

You’ll note that I failed to address sleep on the recovery agenda.  Well, I’m gonna level with you on this one folks; I haven’t had 8 hours of sleep since 2010 and I’m jacked out of my mind on energy drinks and diet mountain dew.  My resting heart rate is 44, so I get to call those things “medicinal”.  So I honestly can’t tell you that sleep is important without being a hypocrite, but here’s an idea; if you’re really really super duper hardcore concerned about overtraining, maybe try getting to bed at a decent hour every night and consistently trying to get there around the same time so that your body has a chance to develop a pattern here.  I’m not saying you have to do it, but man, if you’re worried about overtraining and you’re NOT doing that, you’re most likely pretty dumb.

I'm not mocking you though; it's not in my nature to mock dumb things

Folks, I’m running out of time here and more causes need my attention, but please take care of your loved ones and break the spell of undertraining.  Once you remove this burden from their shoulders, you may see some positive changes, such as increases in muscle mass, greater strength, better athletic performance, more money available after spending less on supplements, a more significant amount of freetime from shorter, more effective workouts and less time on the internet arguing about WHY super low volume workouts are the best, and in general, and improved disposition and awareness of how to train.  Take care for now, drink your Ovaltine, and buy some war bonds to support our troops!     

ON OVERCOMING

A while back, someone took the time to compile all of my random thoughts blog posts and put them into one singular document.  It ended up being 70+ pages of bizarre one-liners and non-sequiturs that ultimately made me look like some sort of psychotic strength prophet, but among the discussion was a curiosity regarding why, if forced to only choose 3 movements to train, I’d pick the squat, chin and press.  Specifically, the question was why the press vs the bench press.  There was a good argument for the bench over the press; it engaged more muscles (specifically the pecs) and it allowed you to lift more weight, so surely it was the superior option of the 2, no?  Ultimately though, my answer was that, though the bench may have advantages on paper, the press makes you a stronger human compared to the bench, and when asked why, it is because the press is an active practice in overcoming.  The bench is a workout, the press is overcoming.

You were all making this joke in your heads already

Fundamentally, all strength is derived via a process of overcoming.  Nietzsche deemed this process “The Will to Power”, and it was predicated under the notion that all living creatures have an inherent drive to exert their power against another force.  Nietzsche’s belief was that this drive was even stronger than the will to live, and consequently many creatures faced their deaths as a result of their will to power having them bite off more than they can chew.  This is why Nietzsche is also famous for the quote “that which does not kill me makes me stronger”, which was rather fitting for an individual that spent the majority of his life suffering some form of sickness or another.  In either capacity though, what we observe from this is that strength is not acquired from mere practice of BEING strong but from the act of overcoming; of exerting strength against a superior overwhelming force.

The press is an active practice IN overcoming.  A true strict press, taken out of the rack, with the bar racked across your body, has no eccentric loading whatsoever.  There is no wind up, there is no stretch reflex, there is no bounce and there is no stored energy; it is purely you exerting your will against the bar in the hopes that you will be strong enough to move it.  It is OVERCOMING the dead weight and inertia inherent in the implement, and if you fail to overcome, you fail to move the weight.  This is why there are so many tricks to overcome the starting position of a strict press; holding the bar in your hands rather than across your collarbone so you can dip down at the start, push pressing, slight knee/ankle flexing, viper pressing, that abomination of a double bend Rippetoe is now promoting, etc etc.  All these things are “solutions” to what isn’t a problem at all; they remove the overcoming element of the press.

Seriously; what the f**k is this?

This is why pressing makes you stronger than benching; it forces you to actively practice overcoming every time you train.  You build a habit of overcoming through constant practice, and in turn that ability to overcome itself is trained.  And this ability applied universally; not simply to the press.  One in the habit of overcoming overcomes fatigue during the medley, they overcome exhausting late in the training session, they overcome a lack of sleep and food, they overcome injuries, they overcome stress, etc etc.  They are the practiced and skilled overcomer.  They are strong; not simply able to lift more weight, but actual for real strong.

This is what I talk to when I discuss “real strength”.  I’ve written on the topic on many occasions, and I constantly remark that the mere ability to lift a load is no indication of strength.  In a significant amount of cases, what one witnesses is in fact skill.  We observe the technician dutifully set up through an elaborate ritual ensuring that they are optimally configured with the best leverages to maximally exert themselves.  They take full advantage of all techniques allowed within their ruleset, select the style best suited for their leverages, and masterfully perform their craft.  But this is not overcoming; this is performing.  Overcoming is ugly; it is brutal, sloppy and dangerous.  Overcoming is what we witnessed in the first "World’s Strongest Man”, when competitors attempted to bend rebar and lift water filled barrels over their heads for the first time.  It’s what one observes at a competition when someone handles an implement for the very first time.  All that is available IS overcoming, and the practiced overcomer succeeds while the technician unpracticed in these ways fails.  Real strength is the ability to impose your will against an object that resists with all of its might relying purely on your ability to overcome.

Did I mention that it looks ugly?

And this is true of all exercises that necessitate overcoming.  Good mornings off pins, deadlifts, yoke squats, etc, all of these are movements that allow one to develop the skill of overcoming.  And, of course, this is not a call to ONLY train these movements.  It’s the classic beginner’s mistake to think that, if 1 is good, 10 is better, and all is best.  There is certainly room and need in programs for NON-overcoming movements, but one must understand the value in regularly practicing TO overcome.  And this is why, when limited to only 3 movements, at least one of them MUST be a movement of overcoming, for without this, the skill of overcoming is lost and one becomes reliant on tricks, tools, techniques, skill and ability rather than sheer tenacity and will to power.

In your pursuit of strength, do not neglect your ability to overcome.