ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN MYSELF III: THE MINUTE OF MOURNING

 As part of this ongoing series, allow me to explain an idea that is not originally mine alongside with a name given to it that is not my own, because geniuses create and winners steal. 

I can feel your nerd rage from here

 

People tend to marvel at the training sessions I put myself through.  Often I am called a masochist, to which I have to immediately jump and defend myself to explain that I do NOT like training this way.  I’ve already written about that a ton, but to sum up: I hate training but I love the RESULTS of training so much I’m willing to train to get them.  Which, in turn, creates the question of HOW do I put myself through this sort of training if I hate it so much?

 

I am a big fan of David Goggins.  I first learned of him from the book “Living with a SEAL”, and then went on to read his own work of “Can’t Hurt Me” and then consume a few podcasts he’s been featured on.  Dave and I are kindred spirits in the fact that we BOTH hate training.  Dave is unapologetic at how much he hates it.  And much like Dave, we were both overweight before dedicating ourselves to fitness, demonstrating a propensity to seek comfort in food and leisure vs activity.  I constantly say I am a hedonist, and that’s exactly what I mean: I LIKE yummy food and being lazy: it just doesn’t get me to my goals.  Dave is the same way.

But, of course, Dave being Dave, he even did "being fat" better than I did

 

So in that regard, when Dave talks, I listen, because I can learn from someone like me (which is the same reason I’m a big Jon Andersen fan, but you all know that).  In one podcast, Dave was talking about how, sometimes, he’ll spend 45 minutes just staring down at his shoes trying to psyche himself up for one of his psychotic running workouts. As an ultra-marathoner, Dave will have workouts with running mileage approaching triple digits: which ultimately means just dealing with something sucking for a LONG time.  It’s always that first step that is the hardest, because that’s what locks you in.  When I was doing the 10k swing challenge in 7 days, it was like that on a microscale for me when I did those 600-800 unbroken swing workouts: getting through swing 12 was about the hardest.  Just like on 20 rep squats, getting through rep 6 is going to suck, because you just want to abandon it BEFORE the pain starts.

 

Hearing Dave talk about that, I realize I had fallen into the SAME trap before.  Before those epic Deep Water workouts, where I was going to have to get 10x10 done with 2 minutes of rest, or 100 reps in 8 sets, I’d spend a LONG time agonizing OVER the agony I was about the experience.  And this sucks in a few ways.  One: your workout just got LONGER.  You have to add this time onto it.  Secondly, if you had warmed up, odds are you cooled down during this time, so you either need to warm up AGAIN OR risk tweaking something in the workout.  And finally, it’s rare that these sessions work to get you motivated.  They are more just an opportunity to get MORE into your own head and create doubt, which is the LAST time you need before tackling something like this.

This would be better

 

But, I AM Human: all too human.  I recognize that these moments WILL happen.  So what did I do?  Once again: I stole.  This time, I stole from where I already had success: training. And what I stole from there was TIMED rest periods.  Because, ultimately, when you compare the two, it’s pretty much the same thing: time to get squared away and ready for the work ahead.  And, in turn, if you look at the follies of many trainees, they are the same ones: spending TOO long resting due to a lack of discipline. 

 

There are SO many stories, jokes and memes about dudes taking 15+ minute rests between sets to make sure they’re “fully recovered”.  Really, unless you’re Paul Anderson, smashing sets of 700 in the squat, you don’t need that much time.  You need probably, at most, 1/3 of it.  BUT, those extra 10 minutes are VERY comforting.  It’s time spent NOT dealing with how much the training sucks.  And if you only budget yourself 60 minutes to train, it makes it so that you deal with VERY little suckage.  But those who are seeking radical physical transformation understand the need for discipline, to “go when you’re NOT ready”, and they’ll typically set a timer to keep them honest on rest periods.  It obviates the need to employ any manner of Kentucky windage: instead, we rest until the timer says it’s time to stop resting, and then we lift.  And, like we’ve seen in Deep Water, we can make ourselves BETTER by reducing these rest times: eliminating comfort for the sake of becoming something better.

If this is what Nietzsche had in mind, I'm all in

 

It's no different when it comes to the psyche up BEFORE training.  Do we need a bit of “psychological rest” before we are fully recovered and ready to tackle the hard training?  Sure, I’ll buy off on that.  Do we need 45 minutes of it?  No.  All we’re doing is stalling, and in doing so, delaying the inevitable, and in doing so, delaying our opportunity to become something greater.  Enter “The Minute of Mourning”. 

 

I, legitimately, set a one minute time on my phone for me to feel sorry for myself for the training that is about to happen.  I use that time to tell myself how much I DON’T want to do this, how much it’s going to suck, how much I hate that I have to do this to reach my goals, and unleash whatever other negativity I have in my headspace at that time.  And once that minute is up: it’s time to train.  I gave myself adequate time to mourn what’s about to happen: more time isn’t going to help, but it IS going to stall, and that’s just going to make me worse.  Consequently, since implementing this controlled mourning period, I have MORE time to train…lucky me.

Consider implementing your own minute of mourning, if you find yourself staring at your shoes for 45 minutes.  Allow yourself to feel these feelings, revel in your own humanity, and then move on and transform.

LEAN INTO IT

I’m once again going to tap into my first “love” of martial arts/combat sports (which, for those that are interested, I’m over 1 year strong in Tang Soo Do now, competed in a tournament and won Silver in open hand forms and am on my way toward testing for “4th Gup”, so I’m a huge deal) for this one, because, as is often the case: lessons transfer across mediums.  For those of you out there that haven’t been in a fight since elementary school, the idea of “leaning AWAY from the blow” makes a LOT of sense.  When someone is taking a swing at you, you want to escape it, so you lean away.  You try to get away from the attack so that it can’t hit you, you try to dodge, you try to evade, you try to NOT BE THERE.  Because really: who WANTS to get hit?  But anyone that has ever fought in any capacity understands that, when you flee, you lose your power.  When you are standing still, steady and strong, you are rooted and braced and ready to absorb impact, but when you are back peddling and fleeing, you take away that strong connection and are now suddenly at the mercy of your attacker.  Which, a GOOD fighter, will capitalize on and strike you AS you flee, such that they catch you flush and “the blow you don’t see coming” knocks you out.  This is why those who fight know about this dirty little secret: they don’t lean AWAY from the blow, they lean INTO it.

Within reason, of course

 

Once again I offer my standard “mea culpa” that I am a student of politics and philosophy, not physics, so I’m sure I’m screwing this up but I’m ALSO sure I don’t care: when we lean INTO a blow, we rob the attacker of their power.  A punch, thrown with violent intention, reaches full power at the full extension of said punch.  The attacker has an intended trajectory that they aim to hit with their attack, and your chin or liver is at the end of it.  When we lean AWAY from the blow, often, this results in MORE power being generated: the blow gets to travel even FURTHER.  BUT, if we lean INTO the blow: we STUFF the attack.  We cut it short, we intercept it partway through its trajectory, it never gets to achieve “full force” or realize its potential, because its course was interrupted.  And, if we are TRULY “with bad intentions”, we are now CLOSER to our opponent, and, to paraphrase 7th United States President Andrew Jackson upon letting his dueling opponent shoot him first so that he could take time to aim: “you’ve had your chance Sir, now it is MY turn”. 

 

 And in that regard we understand the difference between the two: fear.  Fear compels one to flee the blow, whereas there needs to be an absence of fear to lean into it.  There needs to be an understanding of “this is going to suck, but it’s going to suck MORE if I DON’T do it”.  And that’s how we rob the opponent of their power: we rob them of their ability to EMPLOY fear.  Mike Tyson was ferocious, he fought with absolute “bad intentions”, and had insane punching power BUT, in truth, almost every fight he won was won BEFORE he fought, because he had inspired SO much fear in his opponents that they were looking to ESCAPE rather than fight.  The few fights that Mike lost were against opponents that did NOT have that fear.  They withstood the shots, leaned into the blows, and fought a smarter, more effective fight.  They conquered the fear, and it let them conquer the man.

To be clear: fear wasn't an unreasonable response

 

This has been a long climb for this slide, but this lesson DOES hold true to the process of physical transformation.  Those that lack the “fighting experience” often lean AWAY from the blow when it comes to physical transformation. When losing fat, they desperately seek methods to mitigate hunger.  When conditioning, they try to figure out how to make it NOT feel like their lungs are going to escape through their throat.  When gaining, they want to know how to NOT feel constantly full and bloated.  When training heavy, they don’t want to feel like they’re getting crushed, and when getting in reps, they don’t want to feel like they’re dying. 

 

Folks: those are the blows.  Your own body is throwing them at you.  Your body IS the opponent: it is RESISTING your efforts to change it, and it’s doing so “with bad intentions”.  You try to lose fat, so it makes you hungry so you’ll eat.  You want to get better conditioned, it produces lactic acid to set you own fire so you stop.  You push hard, it gets injured so that you quit moving.  And all we need to do is NOT FEAR the body and its bad intentions.  Instead of leaning away, we lean INTO the blow.

This is how you say "f**k you body" with Polish sign language

 

You’re losing fat and you feel hungry?  Lean into it: see how long you can push that hunger feeling, and once you DO eat, eat sparingly: don’t binge.  You’ll find that, the longer you do it, the further out you can set your hunger tolerance (hey, isn’t that the whole “ghrelin/leptin hormone thing” people talk about training?).  Feel like you’re gonna die during your conditioning workout?  Excellent: do 2 more rounds.  You keep leaning into that feeling and your conditioning WILL improve.  Injured?  MOVE THE DAMN THING!  Get blood flowing INTO the injured part so that it will HEAL: don’t give it rest so that it stagnates and dies.  You’re gaining?  Go read some 2008 Dave Tate articles and embrace that bloated, sick and swollen feeling, KNOWING that every calorie you take in is directly fueling you achieving your goals.  When I ran Super Squats, I could legit feel myself GROWING bigger and stronger with every sip of milk I took. 

 

Lean INTO these blows and rob the power from your opponent.

PROGRAM REVIEW: 5/3/1 FOR HARDGAINERS

 

**INTRO/BACKGROUND**

I'm sure he'd prefer to skip the introductions

 

* 5/3/1 For Hardgainers was a program I always wanted to run, but the logistics of working the prowler into my training for the lower body assistance was always the limiting factor.  I finally found a stretch of parking lot somewhere isolated enough that my 0400 prowling sessions wouldn’t wake anyone up, and managed to time a training cycle so that I wasn’t in the middle of winter and didn’t have to worry about snow/ice gumming up the works, so it was game on.

 

* This go-round of 5/3/1 for Hardgainers was coming off the tail end of another VERY successful run of BBB Beefcake, wherein I had squatting 5x10x405.  This was part of my “26 week gaining block” I had run twice in the past, and this time I decided to play around a bit more and see how things worked out.  Rather than follow up Beefcake with the traditional Building the Monolith, I decided this would be an opportune time to use Hardgainers.  I thought it would fill a similar role to BtM, as it contained BBS pressing, Squat Widowmakers, 5x5/3/1 for bench: almost like BtM spread out over 4 days vs 3.  [SPOILERS: Nope.  Jim, once again, is a programming wizard]

 

* On yeah, and in between Beefcake and Hardgainers, I ran Dan John’s 10k kettlebell swing challenge…in one week…as my deload.  Yeah, I’m not smart.

 

**COMPLICATIONS & CONSIDERATIONS**

Medical teams looking at MRIs of me

* Prior to starting this program, my left bicep was in a pretty bad way.  During the program, I partially tore it, which, in turn, limited my ability to execute my gameplan of taking all reps from the floor on the overhead day.  This resulted in me making more use of the log vs the axle than I originally planned, as I could have better control of the clean of the former vs the latter.

 

* I also came in recovering from a torn tricep/teres minor that I sustained on a set of deadlifts while running BBB Beefcake, and I hadn’t been able to pull heavy for a while.  This resulted in me making use of low handle trap bar pulls for the 3s and 1s week of deadlifts, and axle deads for the 5s week.  I also was limited in my ability to do chins.  I could manage a handful of them, but not my glory days of 20+ reps.  It made some of the circuits I was running take longer than I’d care.

 

* Pretty much every single week got compromised in some manner, so I ran all 4 lifting days together back to back and would use the weekends to focus on conditioning.

* I came into this after completing the 10k KB swing challenge in 7 days, which was fantastic, but most likely put in me an interesting state of fatigue.

 

**MAKING IT MINE**

Because when you're the King, you can make a PBJ even better...with bacon

 

* Since each training day is different, I took to finding ways to make each training day uniquely challenging.

 

*SQUAT DAY*

Week 6's Widowmaker: 24x345

 

* I played the main work straight.  Once it was done, I’d do a 14 round circuit workout of t-bar rows and double kettlebell clean each rep and strict press.  The goal was 7 reps per round, at 90 second rounds.  This got me 98 reps in 21 minutes, which was me stealing from BBB Beefcake and trying to have a rule of only 20 minutes for assistance work.  The rows were the pulling, the press was the pushing, and the DKB cleans counted as the KB swing.  You’ll note I’m doing this BETWEEN the main and supplemental work: my goal was to steal from Dan John’s “Mass Made Simple” and use a complex BEFORE a high rep squat workout.  I also took the squat widowmaker BEYOND 20 reps, going to very near failure.  Approaching it under a heavy state of fatigue was a real game changer, and it honestly took me about 1 full cycle before I discovered my “second gear” on squatting.  But the payoff was big.  I also took to chasing the squat widowmaker immediately with a big dropset of belt squats, followed by reverse hypers, GHRs, and ab work…and then a conditioning workout later.  I was playing by the rules that I couldn’t deviate from the program until AFTER I had done the whole program…because at that point, I was done “doing Hardgainers” and was now totally on my own.

 

*PRESS DAY*

Supplemental and assistance work combo

 

* With press day, my goal was to continue taking all sets from the floor, but I had to deal with what I believe is a partially torn bicep.  I never got the bruising, and the bicep didn’t roll up, but it’s shorter than it was before, and I’d get frequent tugs/pulls.  For the first cycle, I had to violate my ethos of taking all weights off the floor, and ended up having to take the topset of each week out of the rack.  I also constantly switched between log and axle, depending on how healthy I felt.  The log was good on days the bicep felt buggy, because I could slowly clean the weight compared to the explosiveness needed for axle cleans.  When it came time to do the supplemental work, I’d take all REPS from the floor, so clean each rep.  Once I was done with the set, I’d do a set of 5 chins and 10 dips, which, with 10 rounds, got me 50 chins and 100 dips.  From there, I’d head out and knock out the prowler work, which was honestly pretty vanilla throughout (I’ll detail it later).

 

*BENCH DAY*

100 burpee chins with a 60lb vest...the only exciting part of this day

 

* I’d follow up with bench day, which is already a deviation to run bench after press vs the more traditional lower-upper-lower-upper approach, but I found, through experimentation, that I function better having a LONG stretch between the squat and deadlift workout, so I’d bookend them like this.  Since bench is 5x5/3/1, there’s no real main vs supplemental work to speak of, so I made this day challenging by having the shortest possible rest times I could.  I’d do this by doing a set of 10 band pull aparts between sets of benching, and on the 5s week I’d just bounce between the two.  I managed to be able to pull that off on the 3s week of the second cycle as well.  For the 1s week, I’d eventually need an extra minute of rest between sets, but it was still VERY short periods.    I’d then go knock out the prowler work and THEN come back for the upper body assistance, which was honestly the highlight of bench day: 100 weighted burpee chins.  First week it was unweighted, next week 20lbs, then 30, then 40, then 50.   This got the be VERY challenging, starting off more conditioning-esque and ending far more in the realm of assistance work.  In turn, I gained a solid appreciation for weighted push ups as an assistance exercise.

 

*DEADLIFT DAY*

Main work

Supplemental/assistance

* Deadlifts moved in a similar way as pressing.  I started the program recovering from an injury in my left tricep/teres minor that made me VERY unstable in heavy pulling, so I actually went with low handle trap bar lifts for my 3s and 1s week and the axle for my 5s week.  This allowed me to still pull heavy without compromising my healing.  But when it came to the supplemental work, I stuck with the axle and ran another circuit.  This time, 5 rounds of 5 deads, and initially 10 chins and 20 dips.  I found that the 10 chins were taking TOO long, primarily due to having to work around healing injuries (my ability to knock out chins was compromised, and I was lucky if I could get 3-4 done in a set), so after the first cycle I broke the workout into 5 deads-5 chins-20 dips-5 chins-repeat.  This moved much quicker and had the desired metabolic effect I was going for.  Once again, got in my 50 chins and 100 dips this way.  For assistance, I spent a LONG time searching for the “white whale” of intensity and coming up short.  I l kept veering toward lunges, thinking I wanted something with knee flexion that was still single leg, and I’d try for 100 reps per leg, thinking that it would be intense…but it just fell flat.  I went with the Pendlay death mark for 100 paces, and still the same issue.  So I settled with burpee KB swings, and that was far more in the direction I needed.  My first go around was 100 burpee swings, and the second time I did 100 burpee swings with a push up, primarily because my injured rib made it so I couldn’t work the dips into my conditioning circuit like before, so I had some pushing reps to play with.

 

*PROWLER WORK*

 

* For prowler work, I kept it simple, and rarely went over 20 minutes.  I know it’s unlike me to not push to the limits and go the full 30, but the logistics of the prowler was still not quite ideal. The spot I used was a 3 minute drive from my house, and then required me to unload my truck and assemble the prowler, then break it down and reload it when the workout was over.  I had a LONG space of parking lot to play with though, so that was clutch.  I took to a simple protocol of putting 2x25lb on the prowler for a low handle push down and high handle push back, then loading it with 2x45s and repeating that, followed by loading it with 140 total and pulling it with a harness down and reverse dragging it back, closing with an unloaded run of low handles down and high handles back.  It would gas me, it sucked, and it got me better: what more could you ask for?

 

*THE REST*

Just sheer insanity

 

* And then, of course, on top of all this, I need to express how I was my usual self and went absolutely bonkers with my own conditioning and assistance work.  I kept my Poundstone curls on Press day (hitting somewhere in the 220s for reps these days), my Lateral Raise deathset on bench day, a belt squat stripset on squat day, shrugs on deadlift day, etc.  And usually ended each workout with some sort of conditioning burner, and included a 4-5 minute conditioning blitz later in the day (either TABEARTA or ABCs typically).

 

**NUTRITION**

 

You know me by now

* How I eat is already so bizarre and I’ve detailed it in plenty of places, but once again I stayed on the low-carb side.  The exception was on my squat and deadlift workouts, I’d go with half a serving of Surge pre-workout fuel before the workout and another half during, which, in total, is still pretty light on the carbs.  I stuck with frequent smallish meals outside of my bookended gigantic breakfast and pre-bed meal, but found that, through out the program, the “nutritional arms race” came back.  I simply could NOT eat enough, and was finding ways to add calories to all sorts of dishes.  Extra servings of avocado, more yogurt, added cream/dairy, slathering on heaping servings of nut butters vs a spread, etc.  There was never “too big” a portion size.

 

**RESULTS/LESSONS LEARNED**

 

* This program whipped me into amazing shape, especially coming into it so hurt.  I added 30lbs to my 8rm squat from the start, took a widowmaker squat from 23x320 to 24x345 in the span of 2 weeks, got through 100 burpee chins with a 60lb vest, added 2 reps and 20lbs to my initial set of 9 on the trap bar in the span of 4 weeks, etc.  And it made me EAT. 

 

* I learned that weighted vest push ups are probably one of the most effective upper body assistance exercises out there and I’ve been neglecting them.  Burpee chins are awesome too, but if I wanted to cut out the chin and focus on the push up, that’d be just dandy as well.

 

* The “trick” for a program for hardgainers is to just make them so hungry from training that they FINALLY start eating.  The prowler is great for that: you can run yourself into the ground yet the lack of eccentric loading means you won’t beat yourself down from it.

 

* People that complain about 5/3/1 not being difficult enough are simply lacking in creativity.  Jim gives you all the tools you need to make these programs as challenging as you need AND to also back off if that’s what you need.  In that regard, running 5x5/3/1 on bench with effectively zero rest periods still ranks high for me to make bench day “worthwhile”.  In a non-Hardgainers environment, I’d follow that IMMEDIATELY with weighted vest push ups or burpee chins to really get in a solid training effect.

 

* Dan John’s genius should also be celebrated: high rep squats AFTER complexes are just awful.

 

**WHAT I LIKED**

We have the same headband

* Prowler for single leg assistance.  That’s what drew me to the program in the first place, and also what kept me away from so long: I needed to figure out a place to push a prowler at 0400 that wasn’t going to wake up the world.  But the prowler/sled is just an awesome tool, and using it in this manner is amazing…and, also, if you AREN’T using a prowler/sled, you AREN’T doing Hardgainers, so stop saying you are.  It’s what makes hardgainers “hardgainers”.  Because god DAMN does it make you hungry to run the prowler so often.

 

* Hard rules and loose conditions.  “Do 50-100 reps of upper body push, pull and single leg/core, pick ONE movement”.  I LOVED that, because those were the ONLY rules, and with those I was able to come up with circuits and complexes and all sorts of nasty ways to make this program REALLY into something awful.  Sure, if you wanted, you could just do 100 curls, 100 pushdowns and 100 crunches, but then it’s on YOU for coming up with a wimpy program.  There’s SO much opportunity here.  And let me tell you: doing 100 burpees with a 60lb vest has REALLY taught me the value of weighted push ups as bench assistance.

 

**WHERE IT FELL FLAT**

I appreciate how "fell flat" works on 2 levels here

* As a gaining program, 5/3/1 for Hardgainers does not contain what is typically present in my successful gaining programs: a defined end goal.  BBB Beefcake had me set 5x10x405 as a goal, Deep Water will have me set high marks for short rest periods or 10 reps in 8 sets, Building the Monolith has goals for Widowmakers and 5x5 squats, but because so much of hardgainers is based around PR sets, it was on ME to come up with goals…and that just doesn’t have the same punch for me.  I do better with that when calories are down, but to make the use of an excess of calories, I do better when I had a goal I need to eat FOR.

 

* The upper body workouts are LONG.  20-30 minutes of prowler means you already know where 20 minutes of your program is going to go, minimum, to say nothing of the logistics of the prowler if you have to actually travel with it like I did.  As much as I tried to make these workouts as fast as possible, I knew was in for a long haul on each of those days, and it typically meant reducing my post lifting conditioning to practically nothing.  And yeah yeah, I know: “the prowler IS conditioning”: you know what kind of mutant I am by now.

 

**HOW IT FITS**

I'm sure it's probably fine...

* This doesn’t belong in “where it fell flat”, because it’s a case of me mis-applying the program.  I considered BBB Beefcake a “baseline” program, where I’d branch off into other directions (Monolith, Hardgainers, Deep Water, etc).  After having run Hardgainers though, it would have made MUCH more sense to run it BEFORE Beefcake.  Hardgainers got me in fantastic shape, so that’s a base of conditioning to get through the supplemental work in 20 minutes, and it gave me an opportunity to practice supplemental mixed with assistance with a time limit.  It also helped me dial in training maxes and establish a solid baseline of strength to build from.

 

* And that’s simply how it fits in with a gaining program.  As far as Hardgainers in the overall scheme of 5/3/1, I feel (yes, this is theory) that this plays VERY well with SVR II.  Hardgainers has you train each lift in it’s own specific way, but it remains in that specific format for the full cycle.  SVR II has you train each lift the same way each week, but each week that method itself changes.  Bouncing between the two would cover a LOT of different ground.

 

**WOULD I RUN IT AGAIN?**

I do make a fair amount of these...

* Under the right conditions: absolutely.  I see this as “fight camp” training.  This is the kind of program that gets you back into shape real quick.  You’re constantly moving, improving, and getting stronger from lots of different angles.  It would also be a great program to lead/ease into a very hard and heavy training block.  Especially so because it ignites the appetite with all the activity, which is awesome to have established before you take on something aggressive.  But I don’t see it as a valuable finisher.

 

 

**WHAT’S NEXT?**

Speaking of bad decisions!

 

* Chaos is the plan!  But as far as desires and hopes go: if my body can hold up, I want to give Super Squats a run soon.  I have a cruise (like real deal “buffet on a boat” kind) starting 18 Dec, and if I want to get in a full 6 week run, that means starting on 7 Nov, so my traditional “7 week diet break) has turned into a 4 week fat loss pivot, and I am pushing an intensification program currently based around Zeno Squats, ROM progression Deadlifts, some sort of Kalsu WOD for overhead, and I just did 1000 dips in place of a bench workout…because bench still sucks.

 

You know at this point that I was telling the truth

BODY BY DENIAL

Hey folks, my write-up for 5/3/1 for Hardgainers will happen at some point, as I just finished the final workout today, but I tend to put a lot into those, so in the interim, I’ve been thinking…

You know where this is going

I wrote recently about the “Body By Chaos”, and I realize that leads into a bit of a deeper concept at work here: the body by denial.  Specifically, any sort of impressive physical specimen, either in terms of capability of physique, is going to be a product of constant, frequent, and last denial.  It is through denial that greatness is achieved, and the absence of said denial results in…well, what you see every day.  The average person is a reflection of what is achieved WITHOUT denial, whereas those that achieve greatness are those that engage regularly in denial.

We’ll start with the very obvious: body composition is absolutely a product of denial.  How do we lose fat? We deny ourselves food despite being hungry. We do this for a consistency, for long durations, such that they body must choose to utilize store fat as an energy source.  Without this denial, we have indulgences and binging and, in turn, the “modern physique”.  Through denial, we achieve otherworldliness.  But this also works in the process of gaining muscle, as anyone who has ever seriously dedicated themselves to doing so KNOWS it’s going to include frequent periods of eating when you don’t want to.  You deny yourself the luxury of being comfortable, and, instead, voluntarily choose to live in discomfort, with bloat, fullness, and simply denying our basic instincts, which tell us to eat when we are hungry and to not eat when we are not.  Whenever you see someone that has achieved an impressive amount of muscle mass or an impressive degree of leanness, that person has done with through denial.

Like no carbs, for instance

But when we talk training, that’s when it gets REAL interesting.  Through some introspection, I discovered that, when I want to gain, I have to train in the manner that I am BAD at.  In reference to my “allow me to explain myself” post: I am NOT a squatter.  I am absolutely not built for it.  In turn, all of my most successful gaining programs are HEAVILY squat oriented.  Super Squats, Deep Water, Building the Monolith, etc: the squat drives the bus.  If I focus on deadlifting, I don’t grow, I don’t progress, I don’t change, but in denying myself what I am good at, I grow, evolve and transform.  How often is it we discover that the “answer” in training is to do those things we’re BAD at?  Examining it further; my bad squat got BETTER when I did more front squats, which is the squat variant I am MOST bad at, primarily because it improved my very lagging quad strength and allowed me to tap into reserves of built up hamstring/lower back strength.  This is why so many people hire coaches: they MAKE you do those things that you are bad at.  They enforce denial, and in doing so, we achieve the “body by denial”.

In interesting observation as well, I whenever it’s time for me to lose mass, THAT is when I STOP engaging in denial in my training.  To engage in self-denial requires a necessary degree of fuel to recover from the process.  In the absence of that fuel, self-denial can rapidly turn to self-destruction.  When I am gaining, I am squatting, and I am doing it for multiple hard sets with a moderate weight.  When I lose, I tend to stick with single sets and stupid high reps, because that’s what I’m good at…which, as we’re observing, is NOT good for making me grow.  So my reward for a long period of self-denial is to engage in the comfort that comes with eating normally and training the way I am good at…which, in turn, I tend to refer to as a break.

Some do diet breaks differently than others

And what is conditioning, if not simply denial in practice, achieved consistently and frequently?  Conditioning is the enforced denial of comfort: it is enforced chaos.  Conditioning is throwing the proverbial match into the powder keg of the body and watching what happens.  When we wish to improve our conditioning, we understand that this means undertaking a task of feeling VERY uncomfortable, because it’s that frequent denial of peace and introduction of the disruption of homeostasis that FORCES adaptation and growth.

Because the body WANTS to be at rest.  The body WANTS pattern, routine, comfort…and what does it reward US with when we give it what it wants?  What do we win?  Look around and you’ll see the consequence of the ABSENCE of denial…which is why we seek the body by denial.

We have gameshows where people try to get back to "normal" through denial...

And that’s how we observe the “body by chaos” come into play.  That body is a living embodiment of a body by denial, because we deny the body the ability to adapt by denying it predictability.  But we now understand that it cannot be through chaos alone that this is achieved.  Could we not also be chaotic by introducing new and various forms of sloth and gluttony?   Is that not, in fact, the type of chaos that others tend to engage in when they break from routine?  A binge or a bender of debauchery, throwing the body into a chaotic state of recovery from the various poisons it’s been exposed to?  Instead, we embody chaos AND denial, in frequently denying the body predictability AND comfort.  We introduce into it the chaos that comes from rapidly changing conditioning, which is only guided by the principle of “make this suck more than last time”.  We deny it full recovery in training, forcing it to develop a means to compensate.  The only thing we don’t deny the body IS chaos…and it’s certainly not asking for that.

If in doubt: build a body with denial.  Take your instincts and run them in reverse.  “I’m hungry, what should I do?”  Lean into it: that’s the feeling of fat being lost.  “I’m not hungry”.  Good: eat.  That’s how muscles are made.  You’re sore?  Train more: get blood flowing to the area and have it recover.  Not built for deadlifts?  Deadlift more (I swear to God I am going to chuck a 45lb plate at the next person that asks me if they can substitute RDLs or trap bar pulls for deadlifts).  Good at singles?  10x10.  Endurance monster?  Build your super total.  Deny, deny, deny, and in doing so, grow grow grow.  

ON PBJS

 It is absolutely no secret that I am a total unapologetic Dan John fanboy.  My recent posting of “eat the big elephant first” was a total homage to him, and completing his 10k swing challenge in 7 days was made all the more sweeter by him commenting on my work (even if it was most likely VERY tongue in cheek, I’ll take it).  In that regard, his work “Mass Made Simple” dedicates a significant amount of time discussing the merits of a peanut butter and jelly (PBJ) sandwich as a gaining meal.  Specifically: it’s something you’ll actually eat, which is a plus when you’re trying to gain (those of you putting away a dozen eggs a day for 6 weeks on Building the Monolith get this), and, with a low sugar jelly, high fiber bread and some natural peanut butter, it’s honestly not a poor choice nutritionally.  The same people that scoff at eating PBJs tend to be the same people that will rush to put any manner of processed garbage pre-workout or protein/mass gainer supplement into their body without a second thought, or are so concerned with “optimal” nutrition that they can’t understand the point of eating a vegetable, so, in that regard, their opinions don’t matter.  But allow us to further discus the merits of the PBJ, because trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.

You have missed the mark so hard here

 

First, many of my non-American readers are most likely already baffled at a PBJ in the first place, possibly even asking “what is jelly?”  You may know it as jam, but it’s a fruit spread.  The PBJ’s origin is war born, which already makes it hardcore.  Soldiers were allotted bread along with peanut butter and jelly (among other food items) in their food rations on the front line and took to making sandwiches out of the ingredients, then returned home and brought the habit with them, much like prisoners that understand the fine art of combining ramen with canned tuna.  From there, it grew into a staple foodstuff for children across the world…until everyone seemed to develop peanut allergies and now they’re banned on school campuses.  But I digress: if you suffer a similar malady, look into sunflower butter: it’s delicious!

 

And herein we see the beauty of the PBJ: it answers SO many questions.  It’s a meal you can make in a foxhole without any cooking equipment, it gives you energy to fight a war or to grow from a child into an adult (if you’ve never watched a hungry kid going through a growth spurt eat before, it’s insane how much food they can put away), it’s got complete nutrition, it’s healthy “enough”, and it just plain tastes good.  In turn, the PBJ is my answer to SO many nutritional questions.  I spend a lot of time on subreddits and forums where dudes who have ZERO cooking skills are looking to gain, and my answer is always the same: “PBJ”.  “What is a snack I can bring to school/work that doesn’t require refrigeration and is good for gaining?”  PBJ.  “What’s a good breakfast?”  PBJ.  “The day is about to end and I need to mainline some calories.”  PBJ.  Pre-training meal?  Post-training meal?  Intra-training meal?  It just keeps on coming back.

We got you covered

 

And really, I could stop writing right now and be content, but I’m using this post to share with you my “PBJ” philosophy.  I love how the PBJ proper is the one-stop shop for all questions of nutrition, and, in turn, I stumbled across my own PBJ for training.  And ironically enough (warning: not real irony), I discovered it WHILE undertaking the 10k swing challenge from PBJ Prophet Dan John.

 

Allow me to present: THE PBJ

* TABEARTA-Bear Barbell Complexes (a clean into a front squat into a strict press, catch the bar on the back, squat, press over head, return to floor) done in the Tabata protocol of 20 seconds on/10 seconds off for 8 rounds (total of 4 minutes).  I use 95lbs and I get 3 complexes per round by turning it into a Cluster (clean into a thruster) into a back squat thruster.  You are moving FAST if you do that.

* Transition immediately to 5 minutes of burpee chins.  Don’t slack here. The temptation will be to dog it to recover from TABEARTA, but you wanna keep that heart rate jacked.  It helps to establish a baseline goal rep total during this time.

* Finish up with 50kb swings.  I use a 40kg bell, so ideally you want something on the heavier side.

 

This takes a little over 10 minutes, and has become my training PBJ.  It’s what I do when I don’t know what else to do.  If I have 10 minutes and need to train: I do a PBJ.  If I have 20 minutes, I can do 2 of them, just like how, if you are hungry after your PBJ, you can have a second one.  OR, I can do a PBJ and something else, like having a PBJ with a side of something

 

PBJ+Monument to Non-Existence=Sabin Figaro, because you can't wage war on an empty stomach

 

What makes this a PBJ?  Because it covers everything good enough.

Go through your Dan John checklist: push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry.  We’re only missing one of those things here, and that’s simply because I’m doing this in a confined space.  Otherwise: vertical pushes during BEAR, horizontal pushes on the burpee.  Pulls on the clean of the bear and the chin of the burpee chin.  Hinge in the BEAR and swing.  Squat in Bear and Burpee Chins. 

 

Is it conditioning?  It certainly is!  We’re doing Tabata, then we’re doing 5 minutes sustained effort, and then an all out blast for a little over a minute.  What tools do we get to train?  Barbell, bodyweight AND kettlebell.  We get to groove the barbell squat from the front AND the back, and our clean and swing gets us some deadlift work.  Are we getting stronger?  Absolutely!  Bigger?  Certainly: you’re hitting ALL the muscles here.

Don't be that guy

 

And like a true PBJ: modifications are possible, if not recommended.  Hell, when I eat a PBJ these days, it’s on keto bread with no sugar added jelly/applebutter/whatever, and in my past life I would use sourdough and honey.  Some of you grew up with parents that lovingly cut the crust off your bread: some of you had to get that experience by buying an “Uncrustable” (protip: they’re better frozen than thawed), some like diagonal cuts, some like vertical, some just eat the whole damn thing, some use almond butter or sunflower seed butter, some use toasted bread, etc etc.  The PBJ of exercise is no different.  I know a dude that uses double snatches instead of swings for the kettlebell work, you can go heavier on the Bears or lighter and go for more reps per round, you could wear a weight vest for the whole thing, go longer on the burpee chins, more reps on the swings, etc etc.  It’s YOUR PBJ: make sure it fills you up and hits the spot.

 

PBJs are the answer to everything.  If you’re ever in doubt, go for a PBJ and then you can move on to the next meal.

BODY BY CHAOS

  

“Chaos is the plan”.  Ever since I wrote it, I’ve been equally a fan of myself for having come up with the expression and upset with myself for having not come up with it sooner.  Much like one of my readers that complimenting my “brute force and ignorance” approach to training and nutrition and me instantly getting upset that I never thought to name the blog that (seriously: it would have been EVEN better than “Mythical Strength”), “chaos is the plan” just sums things up so well.  And as we follow that plan, what’s interesting is that we get to observe just WHAT chaos being the plan produces.  Specifically, we become the embodiment of chaos, for we, in turn, develop a body produced by and from chaos.  And what a fascinating thing that is to observe.

Seems to be working well for this dude

 

SO many people in the world of training are fans of the principle of specificity referred to as “Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands”, or “SAID” for short.  That cute acronym ties in so neatly with having SMART goals (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound).  Hell: both of those even include “specific” in them: a match made in heaven.  For those of you who have thankfully NOT suffered through hours of leadership/fitness presentations, the first principle basically speaks to the idea that the body will specifically adapt to the demand imposed upon it.  This is a simple concept: if you lay down on a bench and bench a heavy single every day, the body will become a heavy benching machine.  It won’t grow giant legs in response to the demand, your heart rate won’t improve, you won’t get better lung capacity: you become a machine dedicated to benching.  “SMART goals” is pretty self-explanatory, and basically serves as a guide to ensure that, when you develop a goal, you develop one that can actually be accomplished.  The absence of one of the SMART principles tends to interrupt one’s ability to achieve a goal…

 

But f**k me: how boring is all of that?  Achievable?  Why do I want an ACHIEVABLE goal?  Know what you get when you achieve a goal?  Ennui.  Dan John talks about the pain of achieving goals.  There is such a letdown when you actually get that brass ring, as there was far more passion and drive in the PURSUIT of the goal than there ever was in the achievement of it.  It’s why Vegeta is such a better character than Goku, why Clubber Lang was far more appealing the Rocky, why we “root for the underdog”: it’s the PURSUIT that is fascinating.  I’m not trying to be Kaz or Mariusz or Poundstone: I wanna be Cain Marko.  And that’s just ONE aspect of “SMART” I take issue with.  Let’s just be Sisyphus here folks.  My goals are not at all time-bound because they’re not achievable, and relevancy went out the window a long time ago.  We’re gonna push this rock up this hill forever.

Or combine it all and be Cain Marko pushing the Hulk up a hill forever!

 

But let’s get back to SAID.  The body will specifically adapt to the demand imposed upon it…but what if?  What if the demand imposed upon it ISN’T specific?  What if we hammer it with heavy lifting sometimes, hard conditioning sometimes, running sometimes, walking sometimes, 3 minute workouts, 30 minute workouts, 90 minute workouts, sometimes kettlebells, sometimes barbells, sometimes bodyweight?  What specific adaptation will the body make in the absence of specificity? 

 

It becomes awesome!  It becomes capable!  It becomes “more trouble than it’s worth”, because it can do SO many things, because it’s been subjected to so much ridiculous stimulus that it decided “f**k: looks like I need to be ready for ANYTHING”.  And not only that: it becomes better AT adapting.  It can rapidly shift gears because THAT is its own skillset.

Unlike some others out there...

 

When I took on the 10k swing challenge in 7 days, I could observe improvements DAY TO DAY in my ability to swing a kettlebell and recover from the training.  My body was THIRSTING for specificity, such that, when finally GIVEN an opportunity to employ SAID, it rapidly embraced it.  It was so used to being a pure being of chaos that, when finally given an opportunity to do something a few times in a row, it became remarkably proficient at it.

 

It’s the same whenever I go on my multi-month long binges of some sort of “new hotness”, like Tabata front squats or 5 minutes of ABCs or my current daily “TABEARTA” thing.  The first session sucks, and then, within the week, I’m dialed in, and I can ride it out until my brain starts melting down from TOO MUCH SPECIFICITY and I HAVE to change it up.

Like the worse game of horse ever

 

Hell, it’s the same with warming up, and my complete lack of it.  The vast majority of my workouts are done WITHOUT warming up than with.  I want my body to be able to act immediately upon demand, without prep and without warning.  Hell: wouldn’t you?  Doesn’t that seem more valuable?

 

And yes, this post has become incredibly self-congratulatory, but f**k it, I’m a case study of n=1 regarding my own insanity and if I don’t share no one else will know.  I bring that up because I’m turning 37 in Oct, I’ve never prioritized physique, and I can ACCIDENTALLY cut down to stupidly lean levels by getting too busy to eat and my training is so looney tunes that I never worry about overeating: I’m far too concerned about under-recovering.  My body is constantly primed to grow, because it’s essentially living in total fear of my brain and is champing at the bit to “adapt to the chaos”.  It soaks up nutrients and produces results because it NEEDS to: it is a body by chaos.

I don't count calories or macros because that takes away from the time I need to spend EATING so that I don't get rhabado

 

For those of you struggling, for those of you experiencing inadequate results, for those of you that are unsatisfied: why not introduce a little chaos into your life?  Why not try to produce your own body by chaos?  We’ve seen what the body by convention tends to look like these days: it’s unimpressive.  We’ve see what the body by the party approved training plans is producing: it’s underwhelming.  What have you got to lose from trying out a little chaos and seeing what comes out the other side?  Throw away the recipe book and make yourself a real stew out of intuition.  Let effort be the sole determinant of your plan and chaos be your guide.  Roll die to determine your workout and get after it.  Throw some darts.  Spin the globe and see where it lands.  You may find that what is produced is far greater than anything you could have achieved had you actually set out for it.