ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN MYSELF: MONUMENT TO NON-EXISTENCE

I can only summarize so much insanity

This may actually become a continuing series for the blog, because I feel like it’s got some legs, but something I get a LOT of questions about these days is my Saturday workout of “Monument to Non-Existence”, an example of which I’ll post below

And for those that can’t watch the video, this particular version of the workout had me do 15 barbell front squats, afterwards I immediately rack the bar and get under it for 20 squats, then I dump the bar behind me and head straight forward into the rack to do 25 safety squat bar squats, then turn around to the dumped bar and do 30 deadlifts with it.  All of this with a weight of 225lbs

There’s been other versions of this.  The OG version had me do 20 squats to 20 deadlifts into a bunch of different Crossfit WODs, and I most recently did a variation that was 20x100lb log viper presses, 18x135 stone to shoulders, 16x155 keg one motion overheads, 13x185 front squat to back squat and 11x225 SSB squats

I share these videos because, quite frankly, I’m proud of them and they’re absolutely bonkers, and each time I get questions about them that I find EQUALLY bonkers, because I feel like the answers are self-evident, but “allow me to explain myself”.

---

So first, the name.  “Monument to Non-Existence” is a quote from the Final Fantasy IV Villain “Kefka”

Considering he's one of the few villains to actually succeed...he's worth listening to

I picked that name because, 1: it’s awesome, but 2: this workout is like a final boss fight in a Japanese RPG.  You defeat one form, only to move on to the next and the next: each getting progressively more challenging as you go.  As I’ve gone through, I’ve numbered and named different permutations of it, but the core is the same: various movements, higher reps, no rests.

THE most common question I get, whenever I do something like 13 front squats is 

“Why 13 instead of 15?  Why 18 instead of 20?”

This is how I imagine those people to be

Folks: WATCH THE VIDEO!  That’s as many as I could do!  You’re seeing a man die out there!  Typically, from there, I have to figure out what the rest of the rep progression is going to be.

And that’s one of the keys to this workout: it’s controlled chaos.  It starts out as a rough outline in my mind, and shapes itself MIDWORKOUT.   “Chaos is the plan”, and it could not be more in effect than it is in this moment in time.

So let me walk it back a little bit and explain intent, because that may help.

Honestly this about sums it up

I’m no longer working many shifts, and have a pretty stable 9-5ish M-F kinda gig.  What this means is that my weekends are time I get to spend with my family.  It also means that my 0330 workouts are less than ideal, because my wife would like to wake up next to me at least a FEW times a week.  I lucked out in that regard.  In turn, I do all my long workouts during the work week, ending with deadlifts on Friday.

So Saturday rolls around and I wanna get in something to get some restorative bloodflow into the muscles that were trained.  BUT, I DON’T want it to take a long time.  15 minutes max would be ideal.

Along with this, in my training plan there are movements I WANT to include but simply don’t due to time constraints.  We’re back into the realm of opportunity costs.  Time spent training X could be spent training Y.  Right now, those movements include the SSB Squat and the Front Squat.  So now I have a chance to shoehorn that all in here into one workout and get the reps in.

“How did you select the weight?”

That'll do the trick

That’s another really common question, and typically people want to know what my maxes are so they can replicate the effort on their own.  Weight selection has always been by “plate milestone”.  225, 315, 405, etc.  The only exception was the strongman focused one I did, and for that I was using unloaded implements, so I went as light as they could go.  Aside from the version where I go for 20 reps at the start, it’s not about getting a certain amount of reps: it’s about getting as many reps WITH that weight and going from there.  

I picked 225 for the version where I drop the barbell because that seemed light enough not to damage my floor with the crash pads.      

“So is this a conditioning workout or a strength workout?”

This is how you're coming across...

This question is the ultimate “not getting it”, and again, one of those “watch the video” sorta moments.  

This is an “overcoming” workout.  

THE most critical part is the transition.  The transition between the front squat to the squat, and the squat to the SSB squat specifically.  The shorter that transition, the more effective the workout, because THAT is CHOOSING to “run into the fire”.

This workout is always the hardest workout of my week.  It absolutely sucks, and what blows my mind is that, when it’s all over, it’s ONLY been 15 minutes.  I’m going through a legit vision quest every time I do those SSB squats: talking to myself the whole time and finding out who I REALLY am under that bar.  Once I unrack the bar for that first rep of the front squat, I’m locked into the worst ride through Hell I can imagine.  And the thing is, I can choose to quit at ANY TIME, and that’s the point.  It’s why that transition is so huge: it’s all a decision at that point.  Do we stop and take a break, or do we continue on to the next level?  The longer the pause to make that decision, the less I am. I pride myself on just how quick I can turn around and get in that first rep.  Once that rep is done, I can rest all I want…with the bar on my back. 

Yeah pretty much this

Yes, the workout has a conditioning effect.  Yes, it has an active recovery effect.  Yes, it builds strength, but fundamentally, this is me taking a day each week to come up with something awful to subject myself to and FORCE myself to make the decision to keep going through it when opportunities are abound to abandon it at any time.  This workout is a “everything” workout.  When you do it, you get better at everything, and it only takes 15 minutes…and they will be the 15 hardest minutes of your life.

Why not give it a go?!

BEHIND THE 8-BALL

One of the biggest struggles I’ve had for writing this post was coming up with a title: I had too many to choose from!  I settled on “behind the 8-ball”, but other choices were “You’re failing: how excellent” and “No better place to be than surrounded by the enemy”, and the fact I was struggling to choose between so many great answers was one of those “life imitates art” proof of concepts.  Primarily because my goal is to discuss just how awesome it is when things AREN’T going great, because it allows you SO many more amazing options compared to when things are dialed in and perfect.  For the life of me, there’s no better place to be than behind the 8-ball.

Some of us a bit more familiar with the 8-Ball than others...

This notion upsets so many trainees who are hoping to “outsmart” physical transformation.  They think that, if they frontload their training career with a bunch of reading (by which I mean watching videos, by which I mean Instagram shorts, by which I mean memes of shorts), they’ll have ALL the answers BEFORE they even lift their first weight, and be guaranteed the MOST gains per ounce of effort, ensuring maximal efficiency of effort and optimization, not like those big dumb meatheads at the gym who just show up for a few decades and get jacked.  MAN…that was quite a sentence.  Anyway…yeah, that’s just silly.  We’ve all seen how that shakes out.  Absent an actual physical understanding and experience, all this “knowledge” is just trivia.  The trainee can’t comprehend the nuance or application of the information: they know it purely on an “intellectual” level (heavy emphasis on the quotes).  Similar to how Peggy Hill spoke Spanish on “King of the Hill”: the person who is only educated through literature and does not have the necessary pedigree of application is, at best, HALF educated.

But that’s not even what I meant to write about, so consider that paragraph just a little present from me to you.  I just wanted to point out the demographic of people that get anxiety about being behind the 8-ball.  And clearly, that’s not a demographic you want to belong to.  So, in turn, those that appreciate being behind the 8-ball tend to be those that have an appreciation for the reality of physical transformation: the “human” element, the chaos factor, all those elements that come into play when we have to live outside of a vacuum and inside of reality.  And when we deal with reality, we deal with things like injuries (minor or significant), compromised sleep schedules, compromised nutrition, compromised training situations (ever roll up to the gym ready to get in a monster squat session only to find out that someone bent the ONE decent barbell?) etc etc.  

But I'm sure what's holding you back is lack of high quality nutrition and a reverse hyper...

The thing is: these limitations are LIBERATING, NOT confining.  Because now that we are BEHIND the 8-ball, we are no longer restricted to making the perfect decision: we can instead simply try to do the best with what we have.  Instead of using the “right” volume, the right intensities, the right movements, the right rest periods, etc, we use the “right now”.  We let EFFORT dictate our plan: so long as we’re sending it, we’re doing our part.  And how much simpler can things be than to only need to focus on ONE variable?  When all else is chaos, “effort” is the one variable we control, so let’s make it our guide and measure all efforts AGAINST effort.

Recently, I had to travel for work for 4 days, come home for 1 day, turn right around and travel for 7 days for leisure.  The 4 days for work allowed me access to a hotel fitness center with 50lb dumbbells, the days at home I had 2 20kg kettlebells stashed at my parent’s house.  I got in 11 of the absolutely craziest workouts I’d ever done in my life during those 11 days, because I no longer was constricted by a plan nor did I have any ability to be in a BETTER situation.  I had what I had, and the only variable I could control was effort, so I turned that up to 11 and got after it.  And when I returned home, the very next day I started 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake, jumped into the deadlift workout first thing, and didn’t skip a beat, because all that effort reflected in my ability to push myself, even THOUGH I had dropped to the lowest bodyweight I’d held in 15 years.  

This is what living off fish tacos and In n Out gets you

And we can put ourselves behind the 8-ball WITHIN a training session itself!  And when we do so, we alleviate all pressure on ourselves to meet or match any previous bests: once again, all we can lean on is effort.  This morning, after my bench workout, I did a gnarly conditioning workout where I set a goal to get 50 burpee chins done as fast as possible BUT, every minute on the minute, I would do 2 Barbell Bear Complexes with 95lbs.  I got it done in 11:53…then immediately grabbed my 24kg kettlebells to do 5 minutes of Armor Building Complexes, per my daily routine.  On MOST given days, I average around 23-26 rounds of ABCs in 5 minutes.  Today, I managed 18, because I was BEHIND THE 8-BALL.  I wasn’t doing these fresh: I was doing these after nearly 12 minutes of constant movement, at the END of a bench press workout.  I was GRINDING reps out: this was absolutely brutal, ugly and SLOW…but the EFFORT was as high as it’s ever been, and I know that, from that, I was growing.

When we get behind the 8-ball with injury or equipment limitation, we are no longer beholden to make the “best choice”: we simply choose that we can do best AT THAT TIME and send forth maximal effort.  When our sleep is compromised, we simply train as hard as we can.  Same with our nutrition.  Or how about when our nutrition is compromised, we simply eat as well AS WE CAN?  We get the fast food salad, or the burger with no buns, and are at peace that we exerted our maximal effort of choice.  We are no longer confined to ONLY one path, but can instead choose from a variety of adequate choices and give it our all.  

No

There’s no better place to be than behind the 8-ball: because there is where you find freedom.

SERIOUSLY: YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES

 

Dan John was the first to shame me this way (not directly of course, he’s too classy for that), and now it’s my turn.  When Dan did so, it was with the Tabata protocol.  Already the nerds with the pocket protectors (NOT the super cool “Dungeons and Dragons” nerds) are up in arms because Tabata can ONLY be done on an exercise bike and can ONLY be done if your heart rate reaches and exact specific threshold and even THEN you’re not DOING IT RIGHT…but for the rest of us living here on Earth, we appreciate what Dan meant when he wrote about it.  And for those of you living under a rock, let me give you the wave tops: 8 rounds of interval training: 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, meaning a total of 4 minutes of exercise.

For many of you, I've exceeded your math quotient for the day

 

When done correctly, they are the longest 4 minutes of your life. I have had anxiety attacks THINKIN about these 4 minute workouts.  I have spent 10 minutes convincing myself to do 4 minutes of work.  I have planned whole days around 4 minutes.

 

…but, ultimately, it’s 4 minutes of work.  Everyone has 4 minutes a day.  If you somehow don’t, try this trick: set your alarm clock for 2 minutes earlier in the morning, and go to bed 2 minutes earlier in the evening.  Instant 4 minutes.

We miss you George

 

Also, if I’m ever feeling lonely, I start one of these workouts.  Inevitably, someone will call my phone at the 5th round and I’ll have stop, recompose myself enough to answer the phone, field the phone call…and then start the whole thing over again, which REALLY sucks.

 

But, of course, now I have to address the elephant in the room: the blog post title says FIVE minutes: not four.  Why?  Because I’ve taken it upon myself to tackle Dan John’s standard of 30 Armor Building Complexes (ABCs) with the 24kg bells in 5 minutes.  For those unfamiliar with it, the ABC is 2 cleans, 1 press and 3 front squats. 

 

 

Dan makes reference to this with such cavalier disregard that it seems like a triviality to accomplish, but so far my best is 26, and it’s a soulbreaker.  But, for the past 6ish months now, I’ve been doing 5 minutes of Armor Building Complexes every day, watching the numbers slowly tick up.  And before that, I was doing Tabata double kettlebell front squats every day for a similar length of time.  Both of which, by the way, are ideas that Dan considers to be pretty silly, with the expectations being that these workouts will floor you and require very much in the form of recovery.

 

Which is honestly part of why I started doing these things in the first place: because good, sensible people thought it was a bad idea to do so, so or COURSE I had to do it.  Because ultimately I’m trying to “be that which does”, and in this case I’m also trying to be something that should not be.  I’m hoping my very existence can disprove reality and force us to reconsider reality itself.  But until that happens, I’ve noticed nothing but positives from this.  My conditioning is just absolutely bonkers, I keep incredibly lean during my gaining phases, I’m getting in so much extra volume in such a small chunk, and, fundamentally, I’m building a great degree of discipline.  Just like making your bed in the morning, or doing the dishes, making sure you get in your 5 minutes of ABCs every day no matter what instills in you a degree of personal ownership and responsibility. 

And because seriously: I have 5 minutes.

Though sometimes I wish I didn't

 

So I’m making this a call-to-action for my readers: take up the mantle and start including one daily 5 minute workout into your life.  I imagine you already engage in regular resistance training, so this will be done IN ADDITION to that.  And it’s done on “off days”, because it’s ONLY 5 minutes of work and won’t interfere with recovery.  If you want to cheat, you can include it with your conditioning work, but hopefully you do more than just 5 minutes of conditioning.  On the weekends, this is the FIRST thing I do in the morning, so that it’s out of the way and done with, and typically from there I use it as a springboard into a slightly longer morning conditioning workout.  Something like: 5 minutes of ABCs into 5 minutes of burpee chins into 5 minutes of KB swings into 3 minutes of burpee chins into 2 minutes of swings for 20 minutes of work.  Or, the other day, I came home from a night shift and immediately did 5 minutes of ABCs, threw on the 80lb vest and walked for 30 minutes, came home and went for as many ABCs as I could do unbroken (got through 10). 

 

Suddenly, you will find yourself looking for little 5 minute chunks in the day when you can slot in your workout, and, in turn, you will become VERY grateful whenever you can find 5 WHOLE minutes in your day.  Here’s my chance to get my workout done!  And then, you learn just how MUCH you can get done with 5 minutes.  Soon, along with 5 minute workouts, you’ll have 5 minute dishwasher emptying, 5 minute laundry folding, 5 minute meal prep, etc etc.  Because, seriously: you have 5 minutes.

Fairly good chance you've used 5 minutes to make a few bad choices too...or you used 3:15 and burned the ever loving F**K out of your mouth

 

I get that not everyone has a set of kettlebells ready to go, but the idea should be clear by now: just do SOMETHING that sucks and get your heart rate up and doesn’t feel great for 5 minutes a day, every day.  And if 5 minutes is a big ask, you can do Tabata instead.  Never let it be said I am not without grace.

 

Some great go to bodyweight movements would be burpees, prisoner squats, mountain climbers and lunges.  The theme there is obvious: move your largest muscles a lot.  Burpees are particularly awesome because they include a level change (going from standing to the floor), which Dan John has pointed out is pretty instrumental to getting the heart rate up.  Just getting up and down from the push up position can be a significant workout, which is why Brian Alsruhe has a challenge where you do 1 push up, stand up, do 2, stand up, etc up to 10, then back to 1.  That standing up is evil.  Hell: do 5 minutes of just getting to the floor and getting back up off it somehow and you’ll feel pretty smoked.

Those of you that grew up in the 90s know that this is the only appropriate song for this situation

 

Have dumbbells?  The world is your oyster.  You CAN do ABCs with them (I did it when I was staying at a hotel, to keep up my streak): they’ll just be a little awkward.  Otherwise, Devil Presses are a fantastic dumbbell movement, especially with hex bells.  Snatches, especially double DB snatches, are a fantastic full body floor to overhead movement, which ALSO ranks up there with “level changes” as something significant to look for when trying to come up with short, burst fire conditioning.  If you get something from the floor over your head, you’re doing reat.  You can do burpess with DBs in hands, dumbbell cleans, thrusters, clusters (a clean into a thruster), swings, clean and press (strict or push), bear crawls with DB in hand, front squats, lunges, etc.

 

Much of the same can be said with kettlebells.  They have the bonus of tending to be a bit more “user friendly” with most of these moves, although Devil Presses work MUCH better with hex bells in my experience.

Plus, they make for great black and white photos

 

Got a barbell set up?  Dan’s original RX with the Tabata work was front squats with 95lbs total (so 25s on the bar).  Give that a go!  Or take it from floor to overhead in some manner.  Or deadlift it. Or power cleans.  There’s really SO much you can do.

 

Either way, you get the point: you’ve got 5 minutes.  You really REALLY do.  So start using it for something worthwhile.

 

 

NOT DELOADING: EDGE KEEPING

Let me start by saying that, despite being a fan of Vikings, medieval warfare, and Dungeons and Dragons, I have zero actual awareness of how to maintain the edge of an edged weapon, so this metaphor has gotten away from me before I’ve even introduced it, but grand me the principle of charity here and appreciate my enthusiasm in the face of my incompetence.  “Deloading” is a much maligned concept in the world of training, either completely misunderstood or viewed with disdain by those who simply ALWAYS want to push to the limits and don’t understand WHY they can’t.  And keep in mind: that’s coming from me!  But, in turn, that’s why I want to discuss it: there IS a way that one can deload while STILL pushing to the limit and, in turn, I find it helpful to re-frame how one thinks about deloading.  This isn’t “deloading”: this is “edge keeping”.

The alternative is viable at times as well

First, let me say that, when I was a late teen/in my early 20s, I had scheduled deloads.  Why?  Because I had so much free time that I COULD.  These days, in my 30s, working full time, as a father, LIFE provides me deloads, so I wait for them to happen.    Hell, as I am writing this, I actually subluxed my left shoulder this morning in the middle of a deadlift workout and ended up calling an audible and doing 10x10 Safety Squat Bar good mornings.  There could not be a better example of a life provided deload and, in turn, an exercise in edge keeping.  Yeah: I didn’t do my scheduled deadlift workout, but there’s no question regarding if I put in the work to keep strong.  Deloads, as the name infers, are an opportunity for us to reduce the load on our body, but that doesn’t mean we dull our edge.  We heal AND we grow strong during that time.

Edge keeping is creativity paired with intensity.  We impose an artificial limitation upon ourselves: we AREN’T going to do what we usually do.  For me, operating off a 5/3/1 based paradigm, when I engage in edge keeping, it means I am going to spend a week NOT doing the barbell squat, deadlift, bench and press.  And no, I don’t get cute and swap to trap bar deads, safety squat bar squats, etc: the point is to spend time AWAY from these lifts.  BUT, I am NOT in the business of training any less INTENSE (understood meaning banging your skull against a wall, NOT “percentage of 1rm”, for you nerds out there): I’m simply no longer beating my body up with the same movement patterns.  It gets a chance to rest and heal BY doing new stuff.

Sometimes new things DON'T quite have that healing effect...

And the “new stuff” is crucial here.  Any week you spend edge keeping is a GOLDEN opportunity to try out new stuff and LEARN from the process.  If all you do is the exact same movements you normally do but with less volume, that’s a squandered week.  But if you head over to wodwell and roll a die and pick 7 workouts for the week, you’re BOUND to pick up something from the process.  Just this last time I ended up edge keeping, I was limited to 2 20kg kettlebells and a hill, and I came up with ALL sorts of insanity and developed a nasty kettlebell complex of a half snatch caught into a thruster.  I also discovered Dan John’s double kettlebell front squat challenge of 1 clean-1 front squat, 2 cleans-2 front squats, up to 10, down to 10.

One of the other rules was to not put the KBs down...I failed

A good amount of my “bad ideas” have come about during periods of edge keeping.  And once that period is done, I can carry those lessons learned into my regular training and get even better.  Because what could be the possible consequence of making a mistake during this 1 week period away from regular training?  We recover TOO much?  Now is the time to keep our edge THROUGH variety, experimentation and intensity.  We’ve seen what happens to those that settle into ruts and refuse to experience new experiences: latency, decline, and death.  Be alive!  Keep sharp and try new things.

Early in my training, I was so much the opposite: whenever I had time away, I did EVERYTHING in my power to try to simulate what I was doing previously to the maximal extent possible.  I’ve done deadlifts in a smith machine (you can imagine the disaster THAT was), I’d use stupidly light dumbbells to try to simulate machine movements, I’ve pulled deadlifts with a standard barbell (ouch), etc etc.  I was focused entirely on the wrong thing: I thought it was the PROGRAMMING and movements that mattered.  What was the result?  I’d come back from my downtime fatter, smaller and weaker, because I had spent so much time trying to replicate what I had been doing previously that I never had any time to actually get good at any of those weird movements and put in the necessary effort to grow from them. 

Maybe I could just put more weight on the bar instead...

Now, I come into my edge keeping time knowing that nothing is going to be like it was, and that’s by design.  All I have to guide me is effort.  I’m going to do some stupid WODs or self-inflicted insanity and go until I can’t.  And each time I do this, I come back better, stronger, fitter and ready to tackle the “real” training.  I jumped STRAIGHT into the hardest workout of BBB Beefcake when I got back from edge keeping, doing my final edge keeping workout on Thursday and hitting BBB Friday morning.  I was a little more sore than usual afterwards, but just as strong, ready and able DURING the workout.

There’s no reason for a period of deloading to mean a period of getting WORSE.  Make the most of these downtimes and focus on keeping your edge.  Do things that are new, weird, different, out of your comfort zone and experimental and let effort be your sole consistent link between how you normally train and how you’re training.  Upon your return, you will be fresh, healed, strong and, ultimately better.  

He always comes back like that...

Or should I say: sharper.

YOUR BODY WANTS TO CHANGE

  

This thought hit me on my way walking into work after lunch, as I was contemplating the fact that I just ate my 4th identical lunch of the week (combination of chicken tenderloins and thighs in a sugar free teriyaki marinade with cauliflower rice and broccoli, eaten with chopsticks, because I am California yuppie scum) recovering from a morning workout that included 350 dips and 50+ reps of benching with a planned 5 minute run of my daily kettlebell Armor Building Complexes, contributing to a total amount of pressing reps somewhere in the bajillions.  THAT is one hell of an opening sentence: let me take a moment to be proud of that.  But anyway, I’ve already digressed: the above mentioned diet AND training program are absolute loony tunes bonkers and conform to pretty much no “ideal” approach out there.  But I woke up like this this morning

 

 

And I am the product of SOOOOO many bad decisions and ideas as far as eating, living and training go.  I am doing everything wrong, yet achieving results that have gotten me multiple accusations of both superior genetics AND drug usage.  The past 2 weeks I’ve been accosted by 3 strangers who wanted to inform me that I have large arms (thank goodness: I hadn’t noticed!), despite the fact I do 1 set of curls once a week.  I train the whole body everyday, I perform ludicrous challenges like this one weekly

 

 

And here I stand: a living testament to this one fact: your body WANTS to change.

 

And writing this is so weird, because I’ve written on many occasions about how much the body DOESN’T like change.  How it will fight VERY hard to maintain the status quo.  How you have to beat it into submission in order to FORCE it to grow.  But that’s the thing: that’s ALL you have to do to get it to grow.  You have to bend and shape it to your will…but it’s all TOO willing TO be beaten, bent and shaped.  It is modular, flexible, shapeable and transformable.  The body CRAVES change: it’s up to YOU to be the one to do what it takes to give it what it wants.

 

Don't leave it up to others

 

And the implication of this (man, I’m starting a lot of paragraphs here with ‘and’: my 1st grade teacher would kill me) is that it REALLY doesn’t matter HOW you attempt to force the body to change: it wants to change so bad that it will accept just about ANY stimulus whatsoever…as long as it remains CONSISTENT.  THIS is where the body not liking change comes into play.  The body tends to respond to consistent, repeated patterns.  It’s why I constantly say “it’s hard to lift weights wrong”: it REALLY is.  You just need to send the effort and consistency and the change will happen.  But if you’re little Johnny Program-Hopper and you’re constantly changing your approach, the body has no idea what the Hell the demand is, and never realizes an opportunity to change.  It wants that change SO badly, but because of your constant self-doubt and desire to optimize before you’ve even figured out how to achieve “good enough”, you’ve squandered that opportunity and denied the body it’s one real desire: to change.

 

Your body wants to change because it’s unsatisfied with what it is…and who can blame it?  It has SO much more potential just WAITING to be unlocked…and YOU hold the key…and it’s REALLY pissed at you for not opening it up!  All it wants is a chance: an opportunity.  It is champing at the bit here: give it what it wants!

Dan here doing his damndest to try to give it everything all at once

 

It’s why every single diet on the planet works.  Why?  Because a diet is simply a codified approach to eating.  It’s a consistent, repeatable approach based on SOME sort of principle, and that will ALWAYS achieve AN outcome when compared to the chaos that most people subject their body too nutritionally.  So many people live off the “wait until I’m hungry and eat whatever is around until I’m full/it’s gone” diet, and their physique and health are a reflection of this depressing approach.   How negligent: to subject your body to such mistreatment when ANY other approach would be better.  People who take control of their diets start by doing the most important thing first: they exercise MINDFULLNESS of what/how they eat.  Vegans and Carnivores BOTH experience improved health markers, because they went from someone who NEVER thought about what they were eating to someone that took time to think, even for a minute, about what they were putting into their bodies.  They provided their body what it needed in order to change: a mind willing to steer it.

 

“But isn’t chaos the plan?”  Oh my goodness yes!  BECAUSE chaos is the plan, my body has adapted into an outstanding avatar of chaos.  My body is an “on demand” body.  THAT is why I can roll up to a strongman competition having trained multiple times a day leading up to it INCLUDING that morning and still take first in 2 events.  It’s why I can accidentally drop to my leanest level of bodyfat ever when I’m living off fast food for a week.  It’s why I can “break all the rules”: because chaos IS the consistent variable I keep slamming my body with.  It’s not “chaos Monday through Friday, structure on weekends”.  It ONLY knows chaos, and, in turn, it is consistently changing to adapt TO chaos.  Consistency in chaos: how chaotic!

Yeah that checks

 

I realize how much I’ve tooted my own horn here, but the world will beat you down enough that it’s worth overcompensating on your own end in order to achieve some semblance of balance (future blogpost: be on the lookout).  I do so because, again, I am a living example.  With awful genetics, no drugs, substandard nutrition (ask the internet: you need carbs to grow!), and a ridiculous training plan, I’ve still succeeded.  It’s because your body really REALLY wants to change.  It’s so tired of looking like a melted candle, it’s so tired of feeling like it’s got pasta sauce for blood, it’s so tired of BEING so goddamn tired.  It was to move, fight, strain, grow, overcome and achieve: give it what it wants!

POST STRONGMAN COMPETITION WORK TRIP BULLET POINTS

  

The day after my most recent strongman competition, I flew out on a work trip, and spent a lot of time in meetings with significant downtime…so here are some bullet points I came up with.

 

 

* I saw a 16 year old kid at my competition and had so much envy over how much access he had at that age.  But I wonder if it creates too much press to “do right” vs just go hard.  That was the only guidance I had…and it worked.

I suppose I also had "say your prayers" and "take your vitamins" too

 

* You don’t need sugary junk to perform maximally.  I mean YOU, specifically.  I am sure SOMEONE does, and they don’t read blogs on lifting.

 

* Been getting a lot of comments on my arms since including a daily 5 minute workout of kettle bell Armor Building Complexes.  Dan John says they’re a great arm builder, and I have to agree.  But Dan John ALSO days not to do them everyday…

 

* “Monument of Non-existence II” answers a lot of questions.  Need conditioning, extra barbell work, mental toughness and a challenge?  There it is.

Still no answer to the question of "what is wrong with me" though

 

* I’ve had 2 deload weeks now where circumstances gave me limited equipment.  I had only kettlbells for one, and dumbbells for the other.  I am thinking that might be a good intentional approach.  Take stuff away and force yourself to recover and get creative.

 

* Speaking of getting creative: the benefits of cycling NUTRITIONAL approaches is that it forces food prep creativity, and you can carry those lessons forward.  Fat loss taught me that I was really undervaluing egg whites while overeating yogurt products for quick protein.  Also learned the value of frozen avocados vs fresh.  Meanwhile, gaining teaches you all the little tricky ways to sneak calories INTO the diet that you can, in turn, sneak back out when it’s time to lose.

 

* Nutrition only gets “complicated” when you try to chase multiple goals: specifically health AND performance.  Just one of those?  Too easy.  But, again, the “secret” is patience.

 

* In turn, quit getting hoodwinked by supplements that primes results in just one domain.  You can save money and just eat food.

The OG weightgainer

 

* I have shifted a lot of my focus on multi-move conditioning to reducing the time between movements.  Too easy to meander during that time.  I’ve got one workout that is clean and push press into burpee chins, and I make it a goal to come right out of the burpees into grabbing the axle and getting it overhead.  It’s a BIG difference.  “Monument to Non-existence II” is absolutely invaluable for practicing that.

 

* I had an excellent training day of 12 rounds of EMOM deficit deadlifts/safety squat bar squats straight into a 2 mile weighted vest walk straight into 5 minutes of Armor Building Complexes.  Give yourself a training day like that.  Multiple modalities all at once.  Jack up the heart rate to start, ride it out for a long time, come back and blow it out.

 

* I’ve bought 2 people a copy of “Super Squats” as long as they promised to log their training and diet through the process.  I’ve made that offer to several other trainees.  …still waiting on those logs.  I’m really just a sucker for a transformation story.

 

* “How much of the gains were fat?” How to tell when someone is not ready for success.

Someone who didn't care about getting fat

 

* Growing up a fat kid gave me an advantage that way: I never had abs to lose in the first place!

 

* Its interesting how, when we start, we admire everything that is size and strength and typically just call it all “bodybuilding”.  Bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongman, just plain old big and strong dudes: bodybuilding.  Then we “evolve” and get all weird and tribal.  Then we grow up and learn to think like a child again.

 

* Every time one of those “pick only 3 movements” lists comes along, ever notice how pretty much NO ONE picks a non-static movement?  Where are the carries, pushes and drags?  The REAL transformers.

 

* Build a monster in 3 steps: breathing squats, Gallon of Milk a day OR Building the Monolith diet, prowler.

 

* I finally get “why squats”.  Specifically on the whole “if you could pick ONE movement to building the most muscle”.  It’s not about squats triggering whole body growth.  It’s not about hormone release.  It’s because squats are THE lift where you can push SO far beyond your limits.  Rest-group-rep.  Super Squats, DoggCrapp, Monument to Non-Existence, Mass Made Simple, it all makes sense.  When I’m in a pinch and only have a VERY short amount of time to train, it’s just gonna be an all out set of squats.

Just like that really

 

* More conditioning benefits: you get better FASTER.  Being in shape means less fatigue IN a set, which means grooving BETTER reps MORE.  Perfect practice makes perfect: garbage reps self-perpetuate.

 

*  Do you get more joy from that second bite, or just the same amount o fjoy repeated a second time?  Or, possibly even LESS joy?

 

* I think adults need fewer snacks and more meals.  Snack sized meal?  Fine.  But the mental shift between a snack and a meal is significant.  I also appreciate Jon Andersen’s “feedings” idea.

 

* It will always be funny watching someone drinking olive oil and peanut butter shakes turn their nose up at canned veggies because they “aren’t as healthy as fresh”.

Tell this guy not to eat canned veggies

 

* “How does it taste?” For f**k’s sake: try it and find out!

 

* Money or time: you gotta spend at least one.  And often, the less willing you are to spend one, the more you’ll need to spend the other.

 

* Having to explain the benefits of being in shape to someone pursuing physical transformation is always weird to me.

 

* I am baffled at the folks that can’t do the math required to run 5/3/1.

 

* Stop doing dumbbell farmers walks.  Just carry the dumbbells in your arms like a sandbag.  That’s called a front carry.  It’s SO much better.

POST COMPETITION WRITE-UP: FUTURE TRAINING PLAN

 You lucky readers EVEN get a part III, since competition write-ups aren't quite what the blog is about

I'd say this is close

---

Alright, I’ve had some downtime on this work trip I'm on (look for future bullet points!) and it gave me a chance to plot out my return to training with BBB Beefcake to kick off.

Can't beat a classic

* Some things I’m stealing from my previous training phase: I’m going to lean off the week with squats, then do press, then BENCH, then deadlift to finish out the week.  I do this for my intensification block and it just makes so much more sense to me.  Lot of space between the squat and the dead that way, and I have the weekend to recover from the deadlift.  

* Between press and bench, I intend to do a prowler workout.  Having found a space for the prowler has been a game changer, and it’s just the ultimate conditioning tool.  When weather shows up, I can run “Snakehandler mass” instead, or some equivalent terrible WOD.

* The day after deadlifts, I want to keep up with “Monument to Non-existence”  It’s only 10 minutes, it absolutely floors me, and it gets in volume on movements that I deem to be valuable, ESPECIALLY in a gaining phase.  

* The day after that (typically a Sunday), I’d endeavor to get in some manner of weighted vest walk.  Since that day and the day before would be my weekends, I’d kickstart the day with some manner of fasted conditioning as well, but that’s more ad hoc based on when I wake up and what the schedule is for the day.

* I intentionally let daily work slide while I was in the diet break/fat loss, but it’ll come back in full form while gaining.  50 chins, 50 dips, 40 Reverse Hypers, 30 GHRs, 20 standing ab wheels, 50 pull aparts, 50 pushdowns and neck work.  In addition, I will keep up the 5 minutes of ABCs daily until something shiny comes along, but I think 4-5 minutes of some sort of daily quick conditioning burnout is a fantastic bad idea.

As for the workouts themselves…

**SQUAT DAY**

One of the OG beefcakes

* On my squat day, main work will be a giant set of 5s pro squats, jumps and meadows rows.  Rows are going to be a big feature in this plan, as they get de-prioritized later.  

* BBB work will be the usual.  My goal would be to finish the second cycle doing 5x10 with 405.  That just sounds fantastic.

* Going to bring belt squats back in for a finisher.  Having the landmine already set up for meadows makes this easy.

* Reverse hyper and heavy abs to conclude

* Conditioning could be a sandbag EMOM, swings and burpee chins, Tabearta, or whatever else fits the bill

**PRESS DAY**

How imPRESSive...

* Main work will be 5s pro and rotate between 3 approaches.  On 3s week, I’ll use an axle and clean the first few reps of the set (1-5).  On the 5s week, I’ll do log vipers.  On the 1s week, clean once and press away.  I may throw a superset of chins into this as well.

* Supplemental work will be BBB.  Thinking clean each rep on the 3s week, log vipers on the 5s, clean once and press away on the 1s.  On the 1s week, I’ll superset rows when I’m done, whereas for the other weeks I’ll count the clean as the rowl.

* Assistance will include shrugs against bands and Poundstone curls

* Conditioning could be Grace, my Clean and Press/burpee chin workout, Cluster Bomb, Tabearta, or whatever else fits the bill.

**BENCH DAY**

Don't mess with success

* Main work is 5s pro.  3s week, pause the first few reps.  5s week, pause every rep.  1s week, touch and go.  Same approach with the BBB work.

* BBB work will superset w/t-bar rows.

* Assistance will feature my lat raise stripset and possibly a DB incline stripset.

* Conditioning will be the same choices as press day.

**DEADLIFT DAY**

The look you get to have when you STILL hold a deadlift record 20 years later...

* Main work is 5s pro.  3s week is a power bar, 5s week an axle, 1s week a Texas deadlift bar.

* BBB work may alternate w/weighted dips for the 3s and 5s week.  1s week gets to be special.

* Kroc rows and reverse hyper/heavy abs for assistance.

* I’d like to include that Stone of Steel to shoulder/front squat workout I’ve been doing with this, either as more supplemental work or as a conditioning workout.  Other conditioning choices would be some sort of swing/burpee chin combo or whatever else needs doing.

---

I’m liking how this looks for now.  Only TM I know for sure would be setting squats to 520 so I can get my 405 BBB squat at the end of the second cycle.  On that note, I’m thinking of going from 5s pro to 3s pro or bare minimum reps for the second cycle.  That worked well last time.