IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T DO

Americans, and possibly other westerners, are obsessed with doing.  We take pride in it: “we’re doers, not talkers!” and other such trite bravado.  We see inaction as sinful and action as virtue, and even I have displayed this mentality with one of my favorite Klingon proverbs of “in battle, make a decision: if it’s a good one, even better”.  However, quite often, it’s the stuff we AREN’T doing that is responsible for our success, while the doing becomes our undoing.  And this fact is the cause of so much cognitive dissonance, because we take so much satisfaction when we are in the process of doing, whereas we experience so much anxiety from not doing.  But, in that regard, the basic premise of physical transformation continues to hold true: physical transformation is an uncomfortable process.  The body transforms BECAUSE of discomfort, as the body is attempting to adapt as a means to avoid this discomfort.  And this will include the discomfort associated with the stuff you AREN’T doing.

In this case: exhaling

 

The fitness industry has latched onto this broken part of our psychology and weaponized it against us in order to make a profit.  Growing up in the 90s in San Diego, I heard radio ads (holy cow what a 90s sentence) for a product called “Metabolife”, which was a miracle weight loss powder.  All you had to do was, stop eating 3 hours before bed, and then mix this powder with water and drink it before bed, and like magic, the fat would just come off.  Hey, what happens if you stop eating 3 hours before bed and DON’T drink the powder?  …oh yeah…but you can’t sell “Don’t eat for 3 hours” to people for fat loss: where is the DOING?!  Where is the ACTION that MAKES the fat loss happen?  Surely it can’t be the INACTION causing this!  And it was the same with the “shock your abs to a six pack” electro stim products sold by infomercial.  Ever notice how those products came packaged with a diet?  What happened if you followed the diet WITHOUT the ab shocker?  Oh yeah: abs.  Because they’re made in the kitchen.  But where is the DOING!?  Same with 8 minute abs, the ab wheel (which is a GREAT product for training abs, but won’t make a size pack happen) and, honestly, the entire “health food” industry.

 

Why health food?  Because it’s not what we eat that is making us healthy: it’s what we AREN’T eating.  We, again, see this trap all the time: people fill their shopping carts with kale and wheatgrass, and chow down on it alongside their Captain Crunch and 5 drinks per evening.  This idea that the “health food” will “undo” the consequences of the unhealthy food.  That drinking a diet coke will undo a Big Mac.  That Manuka honey and protein bars will undo eating out of the vending machine at work.  That slamming a Slim Fast shake alongside a Subway footlong will make us skinnier.  Because, again: now we’re DOING something.  No one wants to believe that the path to health and fitness is traveled by NOT eating the stuff that’s killing us.  No one wants to believe that the health food DOESN’T come in a box with special labeling and mixing instructions: that it’s just ACTUAL food.

We figured this out decades ago...

 

This is why REAL nutritional interventions are successful, irrespective of the specifics of them.  Whole food vegans experience similar health benefits as carnivores when it comes to the initial phases of the intervention, because both AREN’T doing the same thing: eating highly processed hyperpalatable chemically engineered “food like products”.  One is only eating plants, one is eating no plants whatsoever, but both have eliminated the stuff that was actively poisoning and killing them, and their health improves.  And, consequently, you can go on the other end of the spectrum, eating “dirty vegan” or “dirty keto”, living entirely off of Oreos (yes, they’re completely vegan) or Atkins frozen pizza (yes, ALSO a thing), completely following “the rules” of the diet, DOING all the things, and end up in far worse health than you started, because now you’re ONLY living off of hyperprocessed junk.  The only “not doing” that’s happening here is NOT eating actual, real food, which is absolutely setting you up for failure.

 

This, of course, exists in the training world as well, with examples abound.  Both Chris Duffin and Stan Efferding have spoken of how, during their peak performance in the sport of powerlifting, they were training about 3x per week.  But the ENTIRE internet has decided that we NEED to lift 6x a week to get the OPTIMAL muscle protein synthesis: why can’t these dumb strongest humans to eve live figure that out?  Both these dudes were forced into these training frequencies as a result of life circumstances…and both talked about how, with such infrequent training, they were able to RECOVER so much better from the demands on their training, such that they could develop SO much more strength, now that their fatigue was better managed.  It’s the whole reason deloads exist: we let fatigue heal so we can continue to push hard.  Dan John has shared a similar sentiment with the origins of Easy Strength: life as a busy father and teacher confined him to 15 minute workouts 3-5 times a week, and it was during that time he had his best ever performances in throwing the discuss. 

What's the point of training 3 days a week if you can only deadlift 1000lbs?

 

Hell, what we just described is WHY abbreviated training itself became so popular: trainees had been slamming themselves with volume for so long in the pursuit of growth that, when they FINALLY backed off, they were ABLE to grow.  They were SO obsessed with doing that it was their UNdoing.  They had it in their minds that they HAD to do more sets, more workouts, more training, more frequency, more more more…and, ultimately, it was the NOT doing that would get them results.  Stuart McRobert wrote about this exact experience in Brawn, and he was not alone in that era.  What weren’t the trainees doing?  RECOVERING from the training.  Because the recovering WAS the “not doing”, and not doing was so hard to accept.

 

 

Take stock of all the “not doing” you need to be doing.  Stop doing the things that are taking away from your progress.  Stop OVERdoing the things that are supposed to be BRINGING you progress. 

GREATEST HITS ALBUMS SUCK

Full credit to Brandon Crawford over at T-Nation, who pointed out that this would be an excellent blog post topic on the very day I was struggling to come up with something to write.  This delightful lunatic has already taken it upon himself to run “Chaos is the Plan: The Plan” for well over 4 months at this point, so needless to say, I’m a fan of his.  But unto today’s topic: Greatest Hits albums.  We’ve ALL fallen for them.  They seem like a great idea: why not just get ALL the best songs from one band and put it all on one album, and then you get all the best parts and none of the bad ones.  It’s the Jeet Kune Do of music (which, I’ll go off on that tirade one day, believe me): take what it useful and discard what is worthless.  Ever notice how rarely you end up actually listening to that greatest hits album in full?  If you listen to it at all, you often will just skip to the one song you actually WANT to listen to and then be done with it?  Hell, I’ve got an MP3 player (dating myself, I know) that is full of only my “favorite songs”, and I CONSTANTLY find myself skipping tracks on it looking for “something good”.  What’s going on here?  Why aren’t I having the MOST enjoyment by gathering all the best things onto one platform?  It’s because, as I wrote: greatest hits albums suck.

Especially when you get the generic version of the greatest hits...

 

When an artist (with integrity) creates an album, they often times do so with an overall vision for the album.  Sometimes, these are concept albums, like Nine Inch Nails “Downward Spiral”, intended to be listened to from beginning to end in order to hear the full story of the narrator’s downward spiral, forsaking their own humanity.  Other times, it’s an opportunity for an artist to explore a new sound, like how Madonna would reinvert herself every few years, or how ACDC would do the opposite and just release 8 albums that sound exactly the same, but that’s ALSO another blog post for another time.  The point is: the albums exist as whole, rather than simply a sum of its parts.  It was not merely a gathering place of songs wherein the artist just waiting until they made enough of them to fill up an album: there was a reason it was put together the way it was put together.  Again: this is for those artists with integrity.  Yes, some bubblegum artist just like people write songs for them that they grind through without any passion and foist upon the public just to make a buck, which is pretty analogous for the state of online coaching today, but that will have to be ANOTHER blogpost for another time. 

 

 

Because why am I writing today?  Because this conversation was brought about because of the realization that I can NOT do my own programming, primarily because I WILL try to make a “greatest hits” album whenever it comes times to that…and that album SUCKS.  Why?  Because all of my “greatest hits” were in context of the supporting songs in the album of my training, and when I try to just isolate them and mash them all together, rather than something that flows and builds off itself, I get a disjointed cacophony that only bears a passing resemblance to its source material: losing to nuance and greatness that it was derived from.  I KNOW that, when I ran Super Squats, I grew well, and I also know that, when I do ROM progression deadlifts, my deadlift grew well, so why not do Super Squats with ROM progression deadlifts, so I get really big and really strong?

Yeah, it was about this intelligent

 

…because when I ran Super Squats, I wasn’t doing ANY heavy deadlifts: just some straight legged deads after the breathing squats.  And when I grew the best during ROM progression deadlifts, I only squatted once a week, employing my Zeno squat workout.  Which, consequently, I’d do the Zeno squats AND the ROM progression deadlifts in the same workout, well before hearing Stan Efferding and Derek Poundstone employing a similar strategy, because it’s easier to recover if you just completely blow your brains out in one workout and spend a week recovering vs doing something stupid and heavy and one day of the week and doing something stupid and heavy on ANOTHER day of the week in the middle of your recovery…kinda like how it’s a bad idea to do 20 breathing squats 3 times a week while trying to do ROM progression deadlifts.  Or like when I tried to shoehorn in the 10k swing challenge in the middle of my own run of “Chaos is the Plan”, already a protocol that had so few rules in it and I sought to break it, because on the topic of music again, there’s a great lyric from Nine Inch Nails’ “Even Deeper” that goes “and in a dream I’m a different me/with a perfect you, we fit perfectly/and for once in my life I feel complete/and I still want to ruin it.”  So often, things are working so well that we can’t HELP but destroy them.

 

I tried to write my own training for my last strongman competition, and when it was over, my body was so badly beat up that I needed about 3 months to recover and heal from it before I could move and train normally again (which, true enough, I did so by trusting my programming over to Tactical Barbell and following it EXACTLY as written).  Did my programming “work”?  I won the competition and I set some state records, but this was very much the definition of a pyrrhic victory, as I truly won in SPITE of my training.  I was in so much pain during the competition that it was really my ability to grind THROUGH the pain that allowed me to tap into any of the strength I had built along the way, and were I healthier and in less pain, I could have done much better.  My best performances happened IN training, and by the time I got to the comp, it was too late (part of the issue being my competition was effectively postponed for 2 months, which was a LONG time to be in “prep mode”, but still).  I had pulled out all my “greatest hits” to design that training block, and they all worked…until they didn’t.  Like a greatest hits album, it was fun for the first rotation, but after that, the lack of cohesion became VERY apparent, and all those blockbuster numbers without the necessary b-sides and experimental tracks to even things out took their toll on me.

I can't afford all this winning!

 

These lessons exist on a micro and a macro level.  Within a workout itself, it can’t all be “greatest hits”.  Some parts GOTTA be b-sides.  The big 3 may be your bread and butter if you’re a powerlifter, but you’ll hamstring yourself (pun partially intended) in the absence of some boring assistance work to shore up weak areas, along with some GPP to make it so that you can SURVIVE your hardcore training sessions.  And, in turn, the overall structure of the plan itself cannot be all greatest hits: you’ll need some sessions that are there for recovery, for bringing up weak points, for setting up FOR those bigger workouts.  You’ll need some training CYCLES that aren’t greatest hits: this is effectively what periodization itself boils down to.  Even Ronnie Coleman said he’d take 3 months off after Olympia to get his body healed up from the beating it was taking.  And none of this is meant to denigrate those “non-greatest hits” tracks in life: like in the albums, they’re there to set UP those big hits and even out the rest of the album.  They serve an important role, and their absence is noted whenever we try to compile only the best in one spot.

 

Enjoy the hits as they come and quit trying to force them all together.  You’ll appreciate them more that way.

IGNORANCE VS STUPIDITY

At one point in my life, I found myself in the position of a professional educator.  During that time, my fellow educators and I found ourselves frequently having to differentiate between those students who were ignorant and those that were stupid, because we frequently equate the two, when, in fact: they are different.  Put simply: someone who is ignorant is someone who simply does not KNOW something.  Everyone on the planet is ignorant: their ignorance simply needs to be uncovered and, in turn, it can be rectified.  No one can know everything, and you can easily corner someone and “stump the dummy” with some sort of gee whiz pop-quiz on random state capitals or the atomic symbol for Boron or the melting temperature of copper, etc etc.  And once this knowledge has been imparted upon that person, their ignorance has been corrected: now they are slightly less ignorant than there were before.  But stupidity?  My co-workers and I had to constantly repeat the mantra of Ron White: “You can’t fix stupid.”

Yes yes, I know: he never actually said that.  Sometimes, a good story is more important than the truth.

 

While ignorance is a lack of knowledge, stupidity is a lack of ability to COMPREHEND and apply knowledge.  Stupidity is a character trait, a quality, a part of one’s being, whereas ignorance is simply the absence of information.  A car with no gas is ignorant of gas: a car with no gas tank is stupidly broken.  Why does this distinction matter?  Well, as educators, it was important for us to understand when we were dealing with an ignorant vs a stupid student because the approach to rectify the situation was different.  An ignorant student simply required more time: more time to teach, more time to study, or more time to employ different strategies to convey the information in a manner that they COULD understand.  But once it was determined the student was stupid?  We were now beyond the point of fixing: we had reached the limit of this student’s ability to absorb and retain information, and now it was on us to find a better place for them.  …I realize that reads as though we euthanized them, but we enrolled them in a program that was better suited for their abilities.

 

Ok, why does this discussion matter?  Because ignorance and stupidity can exist in both an intellectual capacity AND in a physical capacity as it relate to the matter of physical transformation, and trainees get this confused in all sorts of ways, resulting in them spinning their wheels in an attempt to resolve the wrong problem.  So many young trainees are operating off the false assumption that they are, somehow, intellectual ignorant on the matter of physical transformation.  These trainees consume TONS of media on the matter of physical transformation, typically in a matter best suited for those with short attention spans, ala Tik Tok and Instagram reels, but some even legitimately read studies (not just the abstracts), watch multihour long podcasts, attend seminars, read published books, etc etc.  Yet, despite obtaining ALL this knowledge, these folks still have nothing to show for all that effort.  What gives?  How much more do they need to KNOW before they can finally unlock the secrets?

No matter how smart you get, a strong man with a sword will still be valuable

 

These trainees are, in fact, stupid, and in a variety of ways.  Intellectually, they are stupid because they simply don’t realize that physical transformation is NOT that complicated.  I always point out that we had TWO men that could bench press over 600lbs in 1967: Pat Casey, who did it officially in a meet, and his training partner “Superstar” Billy Graham.  The bench press itself was a new lift at this point, and bench PRESSES were shoddy pieces of equipment that you wouldn’t risk yourself on in a modern setting with even an empty bar, and these two dudes benched that weight raw.  Nearly 60 years later, with all the advances we’ve had in drugs, training “knowledge”, nutrition AND a much bigger pool of athletes to select from, a 600lb raw bench press is STILL insane, and the record has only advanced by less than 200lbs.  We KNEW everything we needed to achieve ridiculous physical transformation well over 60 years ago, and, in truth, far earlier than that as well, as humans have been getting big and strong for years relying on the basic principle of straining hard, eating big and recovering well.  “Effort, consistency and time”: it always comes back to these 3.

 

However, these trainees are ALSO, quite often, intellectually stupid: despite the VOLUME of material they consume, they lack the ability to understand and apply the majority of it.  My background is POLITICAL science, and even from that I learned how to read a study, which, in turn, also gave me the ability to learn how to determine when studies were performed poorly, by observers who didn’t know what to observe with volunteers who were unfit to volunteer and controls that were poorly implemented, to say nothing of epidemiological studies that rely on self-reported information from a populace that has a terrible ability to recall information.  So many young trainees just cut straight to the conclusion or the abstract: not looking into the details of the study, or rely on some internet talking head to do all the interpreting for them, ignoring the strong possibility of bias in reporting due to the fact that many of these folks have an agenda based around promoting their own brand (to say nothing of biases in studies based on who is funding them, but I digress).  And many other trainees (myself HEAVILY included) are simply too stupid to understand any of the actual SCIENCE within the study itself.  I was a straight D student in all of my chemistry and physics classes: biology was the only form of science I ever did well at, and whenever I try to read about chemical reactions and bonds, my eyes just plain glaze over.  I recognize this limitation in myself, which is also why I default to the case of Pat Casey: this stuff AIN’T that complicated.

Meatloaf sandwiches between sets and hard work got you a 600lb bench on a bench you wouldn't pick up for free off the side of the road

 

But trainees remain ignorant and stupid in another sense as well: the physical sense!  Often times, trainees cannot apply all the knowledge they soaked up from all their study because they lack the physical EXPERIENCE necessary to be able to implement it.  And the worst part about this type of ignorance is that it is very much a “if you know, you know” sort of phenomenon.  Like trying to describe the color red to someone that has been blind since birth, physical experience is one of those things that, once you obtain it, it’s obvious, but until you do, it’s elusive.  One of the greatest examples can be found in maximal exertion and training to failure.  A physically experienced trainee knows HOW to push themselves to their absolute physical limits: well beyond the point is discomfort, pain, and agony, and bypassing many of their natural governors, digging DEEP into their own recovery wells and going all out for one BIG push that tends to leave them exhausted for days, if not weeks.  A junior trainee simply lacks this ability: it’s something that can only be developed through years of consistent practice.  In turn, an advanced trainee discussing the significance and impact of training to failure or maximal effort is speaking to an entirely different impact than what this junior trainee can generate, yet, if that same trainee tries to implement the instructions FROM that advanced trainee, they will achieve a less than ideal outcome, simply as a result of their physical ignorance.  Their body needs to “learn more” before it can excel.

 

And, of course, physical ignorance can be even more rudimentary.  Some trainees simply haven’t been taught how to perform certain movements and, once they receive instruction, they are now less ignorant and able to perform.  Dave Tate talks about adding 50lbs to a trainee’s bench simply by teaching them the correct way to bench.  Some trainees, however, are physically stupid: they have problems that simply aren’t going to be overcome through more physical knowledge, and they need to recognize this limitation.  Some trainees are going to be in possession of leverages that are simply NOT suited for weightlifting (as in, the sport of the clean and jerk/snatch, rather than the mere lifting of weights): doomed with a short upper torso and long limbs, these folks will make great deadlifters.  Some trainees are going to be severely lacking in type I muscle fibers and find explosive work ill-suited for them.  And some folks, no matter how hard they try, are going to flat out have some movements just NOT click for them.  Rather than try to put the square peg in the round hole, they need to get enrolled in a “new program” and find what works for them.  And yet again, these trainees need to recognize their physical stupidity in order to understand how their attempts to rectify all issues via resolving intellectual ignorance is amiss: no matter how much they “learn”, they won’t be able to apply it.

Sometimes our talents are just waiting to be discovered

 

All this to say that nothing is hopeless here: we simply need to understand what is the right solution for the situation.  You can’t “fix” stupid, but you can redirect it to the appropriate program.  Ignorance is easy to resolve: it simply takes time, but if your issue ISN’T ignorance, your time is being wasted.     

THE SWORD OF BERSERKING: EVERY CURSE IS A BLESSING

 

For some reason, I’ve always been a fan of the “Faustian Deal”, which, for those unaware, is a reference to the character of Faust, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.  The idea of simply having power without consequence was always too boring to me: I really enjoyed the notion of power “but at what cost?”  In turn, Dungeons and Dragons afforded me an avenue to really geek out of this with the notion of “cursed gear”, which were items your character could employ but, once wielded, could not be removed, and typically featured some sort of consequence to balance out whatever blessing they bestowed upon you.  There was powerful armor that reduced your charisma because it had a foul odor associated with it, shields that would deflect swords but attract arrows, a spear that damaged you AS it damaged the enemy (referred to as “the back biter”), etc etc.  But one of the most classic examples of this was the “Cursed Sword of Berserking”, which, of course, I loved, because it was a stupidly powerful two-handed sword that forced your character into a berserk state upon the start of battle, wherein he would simply attempt to murder whoever was closest to him and move on from there.  Yes: this INCLUDED those that were friendly members of your party: berserkers don’t discriminate.  And while many would discover such a sword and quickly discard it, or try to find some sucker to pawn it off too, I was a much bigger fan of keeping that sword in my inventory and employing it when the benefits of the blade outweighed the consequence of the curse.  A lesson, of course, for us to understand and employ outward, in that EVERY “curse” we endure carries with it a blessing: we must simply learn how to leverage and employ it in the correct context.

 

Some even manage to leverage it for some quick cash

 

What ultimately inspired this post was my own personal reflections on growing up as a fat kid.  At that time, being fat absolutely felt like a curse: I was the constant target of bullies, as I was, quite literally, a big target.  I was slow, unathletic (which, in a point of irony, I was denied access to the pop-warner football program because I was TOO heavy…a program I was hoping would help get me in shape), awkward, and of course didn’t care for how I looked.  However, that fat kid background has been quite the blessing during these later years in my continued quest for physical transformation.  Primarily, during my most recent shift to “protein sparing intermittent feasting”, I’ve learned that my ability to eat MASSIVE quantities of food in a single sitting is an absolute boon, as I have zero issues with sitting down at a single meal and getting in enough food with enough vital protein and fat in it to be able to successfully gain weight.  I think of all the dudes that are out there eating 6 to 7 times a day and STILL struggling to be able to put on weight because they simply don’t have the capacity to get all the food in, and I realize that these fat kid tendencies are really coming through for me…and moreso in another way too.

 

I’ve already BEEN fat, which means, unlike SO many trainees out there these days: I’m not afraid of it happening.  It honestly saddens me how many dudes I see that are struggling with this absolute FEAR of adding an ounce of fat to their bodies in their quest to gain muscle, such to the point that they are tragically undereating and wasting all of their training time and energy because they simply won’t eat enough food to actually get anything out of the process.  They prize their current appearance over their future, unable to focus on the long term objective due to a focus on near term issues.  For me, looking peeled is a novelty: not a norm.  Even though I’ve been “fit” for 25 years now, having started the process at age 14, meaning I spent MORE time being fit than unfit, in my mind I’m still a “fat kid” and, in turn, when my abs go away while I’m in the quest to gain muscle, it causes no psychological disturbance: I’m simply “returning to normal”.  And, additionally, I have all the assurance in the world that I KNOW how to lose fat, because I’ve done it so many times.  The fear of the unknown tends to be the biggest obstacle for these trainees to overcome: they’ve never gotten fat in the first place, so they don’t realize how simple it is to become “unfat”.  They’ve built up the process so much in their head, made it so mythologically impossible, when, in reality, people do it EVERY day.  The curse of my childhood is truly a blessing. 

Little did I realize I was in training my whole childhood...

 

But this wasn’t meant to be simply a celebration of growing up fat: those on the opposite end of the spectrum have a curse that is a blessing as well.  The “hardgainer” (which, despite how often the internet wants to say it’s not really a thing, I believe it’s really a thing, and I can go into that in the comments if people are interested) has the curse of having to eat SO much in order to gain weight…but ALSO has the very same blessing.  Think about how non-nuanced your nutrition can become when you decide to embrace Stalin’s philosophy that “quantity has a quality all its own”.  While other dudes have to calculate macros and calories and perfectly craft their nutrition to achieve their goals, you’re putting away the J M Blakely special of pizzas drenched in olive oil and speed eating oreos.  You have absolutely ZERO fear of “accidentally getting fat”, because not only is it practically impossible for you to gain weight, but you KNOW that, IF you were to somehow finally put on fat, all you have to do is NOT eat like a death row inmate at their last meal in order to strip the fat right back off again.  Whereas my cursed blessing was to not care about getting fat, yours is to not WORRY about it.

 

Injuries are a classic cursed blessing.  Were it not for injuries, I never would have discovered ROM progression, or DoggCrapp, or Tactical Barbell, or so many other cools tips and tricks, nor would I have been able to justify many of the super fun gym toys now in my possession which afford me a wide variety of options in training.  What about a bad training cycle?  Picking “the wrong program?”  The cursed blessing of KNOWLEDGE.  Of EXPERIENCE!  We learned something: we learned what DOESN’T work.  You scoff, but isn’t that SO much better than those dudes who just run Starting Strength for 6 straight years, constantly resetting to the same lifts before building back up and regressing all over again because they’re too afraid to try something new?  Often, we need to take a few steps back so we can take a giant leap forward.

Being a little lighter might also help

 

These are all swords of berserking.  The curse is only a curse when the situation is wrong, but in the right situation, under the right context, the blessing is worth the curse.  Look at all the curses inflicted upon you and discover the blessing contained within them. 

       

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL WRAP-UP: 12LBS IN 15 WEEKS, LESSONS LEARNED AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Greetings once again folks.  I’ve finished up 15 weeks of Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol, consisting of 3 cycles of General Mass and 2 cycles of specificity, and wanted to share my experience and lessons learned here.

I like to start with the end on these and work backwards, saving you the effort of scrolling. 

Also, just a heads up, I'll be on the cruise I talk about in this write-up come next week, so expect a slight delay in that blog update.

THE RESULTS

Tactical Mass

 

* In 15 weeks, I put on 5.6 kg, going from 79.1 to 84.7, and the only reason I’m using kilos is because my bathroom scale defaults to that and I can’t figure out how to make it to pounds.  But for a quick conversion, that’s 174lbs to 186: a 12lb gain in 15 weeks, averaging about .8lbs per week.  That’s right in the sweet spot of what we’re told is “optimal gain”, and I did that with no tracking at all.

 

 

* As far as lifts go, the most telling is my squat.  When I started the program, I estimated my 1rm and had my first workout go with a 4x8x285lb squat, which I alternated with axle strict pressing out of the rack, waiting at LEAST a minute between exercises.  By the time I finished those squat, I was in so much pain I felt like I was going to have to quit the program, and when a co-worker saw me later that day, they asked if I had a herniated disc.  I was NOT moving healthy, which can be seen in the squat, where I moved VERY slowly up and down.

 

 

* On week 15, as part of specificity, I squatted 290 for 5x8 with strict 1 minute rests.  So, I had over half as much rest time, using 5 more pounds and 1 more set, and then immediately follow it with more squats via lever belt squat.  And when it was done, there was no pain in my back or hips. 

 

* So really, I got bigger, I got stronger, and I got better conditioned.  That’s a success.

 

 

* I’ve recorded every single workout along the way, so if you’re interested in observing, you can check it out 

 

THE TRAINING

 

What kind of training?

* I’ve done 2 check-ins along the way that further detail my specific training approach.  You can read them here

 https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2024/11/operation-conan-sitrep-current-update.html

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2024/12/operation-conan-sitrep-2-tactical.html

 

* But for quick summary: my 15 weeks of training included 3 cycles of Grey Man and 2 cycles of Specificity Bravo.  I did not employ a bridge week during that time, and that’s purely because of my schedule: I have a Cruise (as in, mobile buffet on the water kind, not drugs) coming up at the end of this week, and was going to count it was my bridge week, and taking one before that would have meant not being able to fully complete one cycle of training at some point.  All that said, I feel like a bridge would have been very appropriate before going from Grey Man to Specificity, and quite possibly even earlier: after the second cycle of Grey Man.  I intend to take bridge weeks more frequently in the future, as 4 months of training without a break is a bit much.

 

THE NUTRITION

Yeah, this was pretty standard

 

* This was where I demonstrated the most deviation from the Tactical Barbell protocol, and, in turn, it’s probably the most unique/interesting part of the whole experiment.  K. Black makes a recommendation based around counting/tracking calories and macronutrients, emphasizing the significance of ensuring one gets in an adequate amount of total calories in general, along with the important of protein for muscle building and carbs for energy and the support of muscle building.  He is very staunch on the importance of tracking and of carbs in particular.

 

* So, of course, I did absolutely no tracking whatsoever, of calories or macros, and the only ate carbs once a week.  Along with that, I whittled myself down to one solid meal in the evening on weekdays and 2 on weekends (breakfast and dinner), effectively eliminating lunch from my life.  This was about as high speed/low drag as nutrition could possibly become.

 

* I effectively brought back Jamie Lewis’ “Apex Predator Diet”.  I made use of a protein supplement (Metabolic Drive by BioTest) to achieve a protein sparing modified fast on weekdays, getting up at 0400 to train at around 0430, and then having 2 servings of Metabolic Drive at 0630, 0930, 1230 and 2030 (pre-bed), along with one serving sometime in the middle of the night as a shake I’d keep in my bathroom in an Ice Shaker.  At around 1730-1800, I’d have my one solid meal a day. Much like what Jamie wrote, I did my best to make this a “meat on the bone” meal.  HOWEVER, I ALSO did my best to make these meals absolutely gigantic feasts, with the intent being that THIS was going to be the food that was going to cause the growth of the program.  The protein was just there to ensure that I didn’t go catabolic post training: keeping a positive nitrogen balance while not trigger a blood sugar spike and not taxing my digestion.  The meal was the driver of weight gain.  I also made it a point to try to get ruminant animal meat (beef, bison, venison, lamb, etc) as often as possible for these meals, trying to minimize my intake of monogastric animals, given I was going to be eating a LOT of meat. 

 

 

* And along with meat on the bone, I always endeavored to have eggs (ideally pastured) featured in the meal as well, starting with 3 per meal, then 4, and eventually settled on no fewer than 5 per meal, but always willing to go in excess.  2 other regular features were a quarter cup of grassfed sour cream, and pork cracklin.  Those were just convenient foods to get in more proteins and fats, but if I had enough meat and eggs, I’d omit them.  In the context of Apex Predator, these were the standard days of the protocol, with no days with midday meals.  Jamie also wanted calorie waving through the week, but that never happened intentionally for me, but it DID happen organically: my schedule was busy enough that, some days, I just couldn’t cook/eat enough food at the evening meal, and just had to feast as much as I could and move on.

 

 

* Some sample meals include:

A whole rack of beef back ribs with 5 pastured eggs

 Ribs, wings and eggs with cottage cheese and cracklin

and surf and turf and turf

with steak, sardines, eggs, cottage cheese and crackling.  

 

* On weekends, I didn’t train in the morning, and would instead sleep in and my wife (who should be nominated for sainthood) would make me breakfast 

 

* My weekend breakfast has a pretty standard format: 2 omelets, made with 3 pastured eggs, grassfed ghee, some sort of grassfed cheese, and then whatever meat is leftover from the week.  I’ll top these with grassfed sour cream.  Alongside this, I’d typically have some beef bacon, a grassfed beef hot dog, a quarter cup of grassfed cottage cheese and pork cracklin.  I’d then fast for the remainder of the day (not a protein sparing modified fast, but traditional fasting) and then have an evening meal similar to what I’d eat on weekdays.  I’d also include the 2030 serving of protein, along with the middle of the night serving.  In the context of Apex Predator, these days served as the “high calorie keto days”.  Typically, Jamie wanted only 1 of these per week, and still 5-6 protein shakes, so I was deviating a little bit here as well.

 

* Once a week, typically Monday evenings, I’d have a meal with carbs.  In the context of Apex Predator, this would be the “Rampage Meal”, but I no longer care to binge eat on these foods.  Instead, it would be a “family meal”, where we’d all sit down and just enjoy some classic “comfort food” style dish. It was almost always some manner of pasta, either as a casserole dish (Midwest style stuff) or some spaghetti with bison sauce or a rigatoni dish, usually paired with some sort of bread, and the highlight was always the cookies my wife would bake.  For those cookies, I took to applying a layer of honey onto them as well to really jack up the carb intake, and typically enjoy them with a mug of fairlife skim milk.  Everything was always homemade with simple quality ingredients (grassfed butter and pastured eggs in the cookies, pasta that was just “wheat, eggs, water”, pasta sauce with no added sugar/artificial ingredients, stuff like that). In turn, unlike in the past, when I’d feast on fast food and pizza, after these “Rampage Meals”, I’d have no GI discomfort, didn’t start sweating profusely, didn’t enter a carb coma, etc.  I’d eat till I was content, get in a walk, and be ready for my serving of Metabolic Drive by the evening.  And typically, 2 days after that meal, I’d look leaner than I had before: my body seemed to respond well, replenish glycogen, and tighten up.  Which, in truth, aside from the family connection, that’s about the only thing that compelled me to do it.  I honestly PREFER eating just meat and eggs: there is no sacrifice there.  But on the few times where I’ve had to skip the family meal due to logistics, I’ve noted that my physique washes out and I just look flat.

 

LESSONS LEARNED, TAKEAWAYS, AND SPECULATION

Some lessons DON'T need to be learned the hard way

 

* This was, ultimately, a re-introduction to me about the relationship between stimulus and recovery, remembering that it’s about doing enough to trigger adaptation and not so much that you blunt your ability to recover and grow.  I’ve been slamming myself for a long time, making the method the goal, and this time I vectored myself to be more concerned with the actual outcome of the training and got to see that pay off.

 

* Which, on the above, shows the value of having a program.  It provides the bumpers that keep you on task.  However, along with that, it was MY job to actually FOLLOW the program.  Thankfully, whenever I follow a program for the first time, I’m pretty good about complying with it, because I want to learn from the experience, but my recent re-runs of some programs had me doing some silly stuff.  But here, I was willing to trust the process and see what would happen if I did exactly what it said…as far as training goes.

 

* This program afforded me an opportunity to heal from the damage I did to myself in my WAY too long strongman competition prep.  Events beat me up, and having my contest canceled and signing up for one 2 months in the future meant training events for 2 months too long.  I came into Tactical Barbell incredibly broken, and the intelligent management of volume allowed me to continue to train while I recovered until I got to the point where I could really start pushing myself again. 

 

* On that note, the structure of moving from General Mass to Specificity is a great play.  Just about the time General Mass was starting to beat me up, I moved onto Specificity, which allowed me to use some lighter weight due to the higher reps.  I kept the movements the same throughout both of those, but opting to change out movements would be another way to spare my body.

 

* There are a few ways to progress on these programs.  Along with the forced progression of upping the maxes, since the sets prescribed are a range, I like to start with the fewest amount of sets and use more sets of follow on cycles.  This means I can keep the weight the same from cycle to cycle and still progress, which allows me to maximize time at a training max.

 

* Using the reverse hyper as a programmed movement wasn’t a smart call.  I’ll keep it in the program, but consider it falling in line with the ab/rear delt work that K. Black allows the trainee to add into the program.  No need to program it: just get it done.

 

* My chins still never really got much better, but given my bodyweight was constantly increasing, I imagine that’s the reason.  I do think, next time I run this, I’m going to permit myself to treat chins like I did with 5/3/1, and just get in a bunch of sub-max sets in between everything else.

 

* I want to include the prowler in place of sprints for some conditioning in the future.  I feel like it will fit well.

 

* More lessons learned on fatigue management included my strategic inclusion of the belt when I started doing Specificity.  By allowing myself to use the belt on the heavier workouts of the week, I could spare some fatigue in my lower back, which allowed me to train more/harder throughout the cycle in general.  Much like how I stopped blowing my brains out in the conditioning so I could have the energy to train harder when it came time to train, allowing myself to use the belt was allowing me to train more IN GENERAL, which was allowing me to get stronger in the sessions without the belt.

 

* 4x a week of lifting still feels like too much for me at this point in my life.  I think, moving forward, Specificity phases are just going to be 1 cycle, to shake things up and allow me to use lighter weights for a bit.  Should time out well to go from General Mass to Specificity to Operator: the whole “medium-light-heavy” approach to loading.

 

* Which, on THAT note, I’m going to give myself permission to screw around with the order of the weeks for future TB runs to implement a “medium-light-heavy”, similar to Jim Wendler’s 3/5/1 approach.  I know from running General Mass and Specificity that, as each week went by and the reps reduced, the workouts felt “easier”, despite being heavier, and I think having that light week before the heavy week would help prime me to really put in maximal effort for that final push.

 

* I never needed to implement any of the intensity modifiers allowed in the programs (AMRAPs, additional sets, etc) and still saw fantastic growth, but it means there’s just one more tool available.

BAD MAC N’ CHEESE/GOOD CHEESY POTATOES: A MATTER OF CONTEXT

Allow me to tell you a story, dear reader.  Really, what choice do you have?  It’s my blog.  But anyway, once, I attended the wedding of my wife’s cousin (which I suppose makes that my cousin-in-law), and during the reception, we found ourselves eating in a very dimly lit room.  The buffet line and seating/eating area was also functioning as the dance floor, and there was a desire for dark lighting to support a discoball/glowlights sorta arrangement (this was the aughts: raves were still cool).  In turn, I had a plateful of food that I had a vauge idea of what it was, but couldn’t actually see what I was putting on my fork and bringing to my mouth.  For the most part, my instincts held true: what I thought was chicken turned out to be chicken, the bread roll was, in fact, a bread roll, the corn was corn.  But then, upon taking a mouthful of, as Paul Kelso referred to them in Powerlifitng Basics Texas Style, a UFO (unidentified fried object), I leaned over to my wife and expressed to her “This is the WORST macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had”, to which my wife dutifully informed me “Those are cheesy potatoes.”  Upon receiving this information, I re-evaluated my experience and said to my wife “In that case, they’re quite good!” 

Although I don't claim to be the expert

 

Isn’t that interesting?  My initial experience was one wherein I was disappointed, borderline disgusted, and ready to stop eating the food, but upon reframing the context, suddenly an entirely new evaluation was rendered and I found in myself a new resolve to finish my meal.  Literally nothing had changed: there was simply a new context that the situation was being evaluated under.  And for another goofy example I’m a big fan of: have you ever taken the time to realize that Christian Hell is Viking Heaven?  In Dante’s Inferno, those who committed sins of anger/rage are sentenced to the fourth circle of Hell, wherein they fight against each other in a constant physical battle, only to be dismembered, die, and reborn again…kinda like how good little Vikings who die valiantly in battle are rewarded with entry to Valhalla, wherein they spend their days in perpetual battle, being dismembered and regenerated just to do it all over again.  I actually wonder if it’s the exact same place, and some folks are miserable while others can’t contain their smiles, but, yet again: context matters.

 

And if it’s true in matters of cuisine or the afterlife, it’s fair to appreciate that it’s true universally, yet that is a statement that many trainees in the quest of physical transformation tend to take significant umbrage with.  Context is frustrating because it eliminates the possibility of a simple answer.  We want to know the BEST program and the BEST diet…but best for who?  For when?  Under what circumstances?  UNDER WHAT CONTEXT?  That should be the most immediate follow-up whenever ANY statement is made regarding the process of physical transformation: under WHAT context?  I see trainees say that there IS an optimal number of worksets to accomplish the goal of hypertrophy, and I immediately must ask “under what context?”  Optimal for WHO?  For everyone?  Yeah, I doubt that.  The parent of a newborn that is getting 8 hours of sleep a week is going to have SIGNIFICANTLY different recovery abilities compared to the state sponsored 18 year old whose literal profession is lifting weights.  To say nothing of the fact that the dude with an 800lb deadlift isn’t going to hammer 8 worksets with 70% of his 1rm like newcomer Johnny with a 200lb deadlift.  The latter can knock out that workout and go have a fun Friday night, while the former just called into work on Monday and said they weren’t going to make it in because they’re going to be sick.  Meanwhile, you take these same two athletes and tell them to do just ONE workset to get some gains, and the first dude is going to absolutely CRUSH that goal and be just fine, while the second guy simply lacks the ability to dig that deep and get that outcome.  One NEEDS that volume, because they lack the tool of intensity, whereas the other has the skillset to employ either metric but, in turn, they will employ them DIFFERENTLY compared to one who does not.

Probably gonna need a few more sets

 

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” is cute…unless you’re a diabetic.  Once again: context matters.  In the realm of nutrition this is INCREDIBLY true.  Because, quite simply, the best diet plan in the world sucks if you cannot COMPLY with it.  Some folks are natural abstainers: they’re better at simply eliminating entire foods from their diet, rather than including everything in small, reasonable regular occurrences.  Some folks are the opposite: moderators.  They’re really good at achieving balance, and as soon as you tell them “you can’t have X”, that’s ALL they want to have.  Knowing this about yourself is crucial for determining your success with a nutritional intervention: if you have to “white knuckle it”, to quote Vinnie Tortorich, you’re going to fail, because a diet based on willpower is going to eventually run out of willpower, and then the inevitable binge hits.  The best nutritional protocol is the one you don’t have to think about.

 

And in that regard, you have to think about what you don’t have to think about.  Are you the kind of person that NEEDS data in order to continue on?  This applies to nutrition AND training.  Some folks NEED to see spreadsheets and trackers and stats and facts and figures: they don’t want ANY mystery.  The unknown and uncontrolled terrifies them.  Other people are the opposite: they become obsessive ones numbers are introduced, and they need to be cut free of them in order to maintain their sanity.  If you try to prescribe an If It Fits Your Macros type approach to someone that is a natural abstainer that hates numbers because you feel it’s “the best”, you’re completely ignoring the context of your recommendation, similar to if you recommend a carnivore style “eat meat until you’re full” approach to someone who just got bit by the lone star tick.

There is a fair bet that THIS Tick doesn't have a beef allergy

 

But much like my experience with the cheesy potatoes, this should NOT be upsetting news at all, but, instead, bring you much delight.  There ARE no bad decisions: there are simply ones inappropriate for the context.  In our quest to say “good program”, “bad program”, “good diet”, “bad diet” in order to try to achieve simplicity, where forgot there is an even simpler answer: all of them are good: they may simply not be good for THIS specific circumstance.  When we find a method, rather than try to evaluate if the method is good, we evaluate if it fits OUR needs at that time.  3x a week lifting 30 minutes a day may sound like a sub-optimal method when trying to achieve the next Mr. Olympia, but if that’s what we have time for in our lives, it’s ABSOLUTELY the most optimal approach possible.  Hardboiled eggs and jerky from a gas station may sound like a poor nutritional approach, until we consider we’ve been traveling for 36 hours and this is the first food we’ve had in that time, in which case it’s excellent.  As far as Mac n Cheese goes, these choices are awful…but they make EXCELLENT cheesy potatoes.

DON’T SKIP THE SIDEQUESTS

Anyone who has regularly read this blog most likely knows that my favorite genre of video game is role-playing game (RPG), with an affinity in particular toward western RPGs, because they will allow me to live out my power fantasies and develop a stupidly overstrong character at the expense of all other variables and attributes.  I like Japanese RPGs too, of course, and between those two, my favorite games include the original Fallout, Baldur’s Gate II, Final Fantasy 6 and 7, with, of course, several other honorable mentions, but this is supposed to be a blog about physical transformation rather than video games, so I’ll try to wrangle this back on topic.  What tends to appeal to many RPG fans is that your characters “level up” over time: through the acquisition of experience points, accumulated through a combination of accomplishing objectives and winning battles, the characters in your game get stronger, hardier, more powerful, and more able.  It’s awesome and rewarding to watch your characters grow from those that could get one-shotted by a rogue pack of goblins to a total world ender by the end of the game.  However, in mentioning “by the end of the game”, we acknowledge the fact that these games HAVE beginnings and ends, and between the two points exists the “main quest”, which is supposed to drive you from point to point…but OFF that beat path lay the “side quests”. And folks: we must NOT skip those side quests.  For WITHOUT these quests, we’ll never BECOME that world ender: we simply won’t realize our REAL potential.

If it wasn't true, they wouldn't make memes out of it

 

Alright, so what the hell is a side quest?  Again, western or Japanese RPG, BOTH have a main quest that you need to solve.  Typically, there’s one mega-bad guy that needs to be destroyed.  HOWEVER, along the way, you encounter side quests: jobs/tasks you don’t HAVE to do in order to accomplish the main quest, but if you do them, you get more experience points or goodies (new weapons/armor/items/etc).  These can be as menial as performing pest control to kill some rats to rescuing someone’s children from a group of bandits to deciphering from ancient magical code to all sorts of other stuff, but they’re not required in order to beat the game: they’re just there in case you want to do something else.  However, in DOING these quests, you will end up SO much more powerful by the end of the game compared to if you just try to blitz through to the end of the main quest…and such is true in the realm of physical transformation.

 

I’ve competed in strength sports since 2010, starting with powerlifting, transitioning to strongman, and now I have some recent forays into grappling as well.  It’d be easier to consider the competitions the “main quest” of my training life…but those competitions only happen so frequently.  I can’t ALWAYS be competing.  Additionally, I’ve witnessed first hand what happens when I spend too long in a competition prep phase, as I was training for one comp that ended up getting canceled and then just signed up for another one 2 months later and kept up the same training style.  When it was done, I was so physically broken from the prep that it took about 12 weeks to finally get my body healed up enough to be able to train regularly.  Just like blitzing through the main quest, I got to the “boss fight” and was so woefully underleveled that it took just about everything out of me to win, expending all my value healing items/elixirs and having to spend time grinding again so I could have enough wealth to continue.  Enter: the side quest.

Racing to the end doesn't matter if you get killed by the boss

 

What’s a side quest in the world of physical transformation?  They’re those little challenges we set for ourselves OUTSIDE of whatever our main quest is in the realm of physical transformation that allow us to get bigger/stronger/more powerful WITHOUT advancing the main quest.  Examples would include running the Super Squats program, or Deep Water, or Mass Made Simple, but it doesn’t HAVE to be a program that absolutely crushes your soul.  ANOTHER challenge could be the challenge of actually maintaining program compliance for a WHOLE program.  Not deviating, changing it, “improving it”, etc.  Stack together 12 consecutive cycles of 5/3/1 or Tactical Barbell in a row following the instructions to the letter, or 1 entire year of Conjugate or DoggCrapp.  You could even combine the two, and follow Dan John’s park bench-bus bench thought process of doing 8 weeks of Easy Strength into 6 weeks of Mass Made Simple into another 8 Weeks of Easy Strength into 8 weeks of the Armor Building Formula into 8 weeks of Easy Strength into 4 weeks of the 10k Swing Challenge, not missing a single workout, doing it EXACTLY as laid out, and ALSO getting absolutely crushed during MMS and the 10k swing.  To say nothing of a nutritional intervention side quest, wherein you decide to try out the Velocity Diet, the Vertical Diet, the Steak and Eggs diet, the Carnivore Diet, Intermittent Fasting, Warrior Diet, Ketogenic Diet (in tasty traditional, cyclical and targeted fashions), Apex Predator Diet, Feast/Famine/Ferocity, possibilities abound! 

 

We gain quite literal experience in these instances: it’s no longer about points serving as a proxy to simulate the effect of growth.  And we also grow!  This is real life leveling up! These side quests allow us to experiment, discover new ideas, find out what works and what doesn’t work, and it does so under the codifications of a carefully worked out construction that establishes bumpers and guidelines for us.  For what is the alternative?  In the world of RPGs, that is simply “grinding”: wondering aimlessly through the world, looking for random encounters with roving bands of enemies and defeating them over and over while you SLOWLY accumulate some experience to force some level progressions.  It’s WHY it’s called “grinding”.  It never pays off as much as a side quest, and it’s typically something we resort to when the side quests are all dried up.  In the world of physical transformation, grinding are those periods of training/dieting ennui, where we are just going through the motions or, even worse, when we are left to our own devices and go make up our own training which “seems like a good idea” and just end up getting stupidly hurt, overfatigued, and regress while leaning nothing of value.

Yup

 

Don’t be in a rush to complete the main quest, because once you do, the game is over and you don’t get to play any more.  If you really are having fun playing the game, why not play as much of it as possible?  And grinding isn’t “playing the game”: no one has fun doing that.  But side quests?  Quite often, they can end up being more fun than the main quest itself!  Quite often, THESE are the quests that we remember when looking back fondly at our memories of the game: they’re the quests we talk about with others who enjoyed the game, marveling at some of the twists and turns, the unexpected rewards, the feeling of satisfaction when we take our time to achieve these objectives before returning to the main quest and realizing just how powerful we’ve become through tackling these side quests.  They’re not “add ons”, they’re not annoyances: these are there to enhance our experience and really allow us to fully enjoy our game.