ALWAYS PICK CHAOTIC: CHOOSING YOUR ALIGNMENT AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF LARRY SIZEMORE

Yet again we dive into the nerddom of Dungeons and Dragons to discuss the exciting world of alignment.  For my uncultured readers, “alignment” in DnD is a brief overview of how your character behaves, and is divided across 2 axis: good or evil, and lawful or chaotic.  The first is rather explanatory: is your character good, evil, or neutral (moral relativity not being a valid argument), whereas the latter is about how inclined your character is to observe law, order, and discipline.  I’ve already spoken about the virtue of evil in previous blogposts, but today I discuss the value of chaos, and specifically illustrate it with one of my favorite TV series: Burn Notice.  And within that series, one of my favorite characters in all television history: Larry Sizemore.

Seriously: if you're a fan of psychos in cinema, get to know this man

I realize I’m shifting nerd paradigms for a second here, but stay with me: we’ve moved from DnD to campy spy action/dramas.  Burn Notice was a fantastic series from 2008-2013 that featured the adventures of a “burned” spy named Michael Westen (“burned’ in this case referring to having his cover blown, rather than actually immolated).  In his quest to find out who burned him, Michael runs across several unsavory characters, and the two representing the opposite ends of lawfulness and chaos are Tyler Brennan for the former and Larry Sizemore for the latter.  (This synopsis is already getting crazy long, but the payoff is worth it for this one scene, so stay with me).

Brennan represents lawfulness because he is more the “mastermind” type of malcontent.  He plots, plans, schemes, and always has backups to his backups.  He’s never caught off guard, and has leverage on everyone, meaning he never has to get his hands dirty and can rely on others that he has manipulated to do his dirty work.  Larry, on the other hand, is a psychopath that moonlights as a mercenary, taking high paying jobs for risky work that usually ends up with a significantly higher bodycount than necessary.  Brennan takes to hiring Larry to supervise Michael on a mission, having exploited Michael to action by means of threatening to release damning evidence to Micahel’s current employer if he does not comply (an audio-file of Michael selling out his employer).  This evidence is rigged to be delivered to Michael’s employer at 5:00am every day UNLESS Brennan specifically denies it’s transmission, thus insuring that Brennan CANNOT be killed, or else all manner of disaster were to unfold.  Like I said, it’s complicated, but the point remains: Brennan had everything figured out, until this scene (at 36 minutes and 9 seconds in)

https://youtu.be/ZvzBG6boTNM?t=2168 

Once again, for my readers that cannot watch the video, here is the relevant dialogue.  Upon celebrating the victory of Michael’s first of (supposedly) many missions while being manipulated by Brennan, Larry pulls a gun on Michael, stands next to Brennan and relays the following dialogue

“You know, the interesting thing about a biometric lock”-Larry stabs Brennan

 “You son of a bitch!”-Brennan 

“Is that the owner can still open it after he’s dead.”-Larry 

“You know what your problem is Brennan?  Other than this knife in your chest?  Is that you are so busy thinking 10 moves ahead, you don’t see the move that’s right in front of you.  I knew, Michael would take care of all the hard stuff and leave me to focus on fun”-Larry 

“You didn’t beat me... Michael”-Brennan 

“No: I did.”-Larry

 “Sorry kid.  I revised your plan.”-Larry to Michael 

“Larry, what are you doing?  Now there’s nothing stopping Vaughn (Michael’s current employer) from coming after me!”-Michael 

“I was counting on that: you’re locked in now!  You NEED me to survive.”-Larry

I absolutely LOVE when these scenes happen.  If you watched the schlock that is “Under Siege 2”, you saw something similar unfold when Steven Segal shot the villain after the latter declared he was invincible.  There’s something amazingly cathartic when the smug villain who considers himself untouchable simply because they devised severe consequences should they expire encounters a lunatic with zero regard for consequences.  The lesson is simple: an alive man who has to contend with future consequences has a significantly higher chance of survival than a dead man.  No one can make themselves passively invisible: it’s a matter of being willing to take the chance and seize the initiative when the moment strikes.  And the person who has the greatest chance of seizing the initiative IS the chaotic one: the one that does not let rules, boundaries, convention or consequences intervene when the moment is right.  The one that acts: not thinks.

In training, these moments for chaos are abundant, and it’s up to us to recognize when they arrive and to jump on them before they go away.  And furthermore, observe what happens upon the death of Brennan: the world did not end, the day continued on, and now the plan needs to change.  This is what people fail to realize when they make up their own hostage situations.  People make up their own Tyler Brennan’s and say “I can’t POSSIBLY take that action, because if I do, I’ll get injured.”  Know what happens when you get injured?  It’s almost EXACTLY like the scene form Burn Notice: it happens, you stand around pissed off about the situation…and then you move on.  The world does not end, and meanwhile, THAT which was holding you hostage is now dead.  The injury has happened, and now the threat is dead and you can just move on, alter the plan, and continue LIVING.  You survived: the villain did not.

Granted sometimes death is only the first step of villainy 

Meanwhile, so many endeavor to be like Tyler Brennan in their training, failing to realize that they are setting themselves up to get stabbed by their own Larry Sizemore.  They’re so busy thinking 10 moves ahead they don’t see the move right in front of their face.  They want to plan their training cycles YEARS in advance, not taking into account things like potential injuries, life events, unavailability of the right amount of food, competition opportunities, etc.  They refuse to auto-regulate, taking advantage of the good days and backing down on the bad ones.  They refuse to experiment and find out if something new and possibly dangerous could have a high payout.  They refuse to get strong at bizarre angles with weird movements, in doing so setting themselves up to be victims when chaos arrives and they are unprepared to match it with equal parts chaos.  They just want to sit back and smugly smile as the mastermind, picturing themselves as the puppetmaster and not realizing that their undoing will be from someone or something that they consider “beneath” them.     

Pick chaotic.  Chaotic can always be lawful when needed.  Choosing to be lawful when you’re chaotic is being chaotic TO being chaotic.  It fits.  But lawful always has to be lawful.  Being lawful to lawful is being lawful, while being chaotic is being chaotic to being lawful.  Lawful is limiting, it’s restrictive and ultimately, it’s fatal.  It is choosing to be dead, because all your choices have already been made now and you’re just watching them unfold.  Be chaotic, be alive, be strong, and be ready to take the move that’s right in front of you.

 

STRONGMAN COMPETITION WRITE UP: STRENGTH GAMES @ THE BAR

BACKGROUND

I last competed in Jul of 2018.  I ended up taking a long break due to moving/starting a new job and just needing to get settled.  Also, in truth, I was getting burnt out on the sport.  Signing up for this comp, I was still feeling burnt out, but with my new move I finally had a competition only 2 hours away from me vs my traditional 6, so I felt like I needed to do it.

Plus, it had a Conan's Wheel in it, which was part of my strongman bucket list.

TRAINING/NUTRITION

I need to point out this isn't a meme: I ate a LOT of the $5 nacho box with the half-marathon prep

As part of my burnout, I'm at the point in my life where I don't really plan to train for competitions anymore.  I want to just train the way I'm training and make the competitions fit.  In turn, I stuck with my traditional 4 days of lifting and 1 day of conditioning split.  Broke out to a press day, squat day, bench day and deadlift day. 

Press day was heavily based on 5/3/1, with supplemental work including axle strict press and behind the neck barbell press as part of a 4 move giant set.  Only push pressing I did was a backoff set after my topset of strict pressing. 

Squat day was rotating between 3 squats (buffalo bar, SSB and SSB front squat) as part of a giant set that included stone of steel lap and extension and reverse hypers.

Bench day was the Deep Water bench program. 

Deadlift day was Westside style Max Effort rotating between 4 movements chased by a giant set of deficit axle deadstop deadlifts (using a 3 week ROM progression cycle), reverse hypers and alternating between SSB front squats and buffalo bar squats. 

Conditioning was farmer's walks with a turn (driveway required it due to slope/hill) and sandbag medley.  This was the first time I had touched farmer’s handles since about 2015 (minus using them for shrugs), and it showed.

During my training, I observed pain in the left bicep.  I attribute it to the stone and sandbag primarily, along with curls done during the press workout.  I also did VERY little practice with the continental, working up to 256lbs for a single on my conditioning days and doing a single set of whatever my topset weight was on my press day.  Since the comp was clean and press away on the axle, I didn't want to waste a lot of energy on it.

On top of all of this, I decided to start training for a half-marathon (scheduled for 2 weeks after the comp) about a month out from the competition, so I added about 16 weekly miles of running onto my training.  And new job had me working nights for 3 weeks solid, so was averaging about 5 hours of broken sleep a day.  I’m pretty good at making bad decisions.

This was my first time competing in the USS, which meant competing in the 220 weight class.  I knew I was coming in significantly underweight, so I quit weighing myself and just ate to recover from training. By the end of my training cycle, I had put on about 6-7lbs of bodyweight.

COMPETITION

I also made sure to wear my sweet "Bloodsport" shirt

Drove a little over 2 hours and weighed in at 204.8 wearing full sweats and shoes with wallet, keys and phone in pocket.  I feel like when I’m this much under the weight class I should just be allowed to take video of myself weighing in at a home scale and send it in, haha.

Did my traditional warm-up of 2 reps with a light implement before deciding this was stupid and sitting with the family until the comp started.  My left bicep was hurting from the light continental I did, but it seemed that, in training, the first warm-up was the most painful, and after that things got better.

FIRST EVENT: AXLE CLEAN AND PRESS AWAY 240lbs

In a first for me, I never touched comp weight leading up to this event.  Just didn’t fit my training schedule.  Heaviest I had used was 220lbs.  My biggest concern was that the continental was going to drain all of my energy and I’d have nothing left on the press.  The mark to beat was 10 reps, set by a dude that straight up cleaned the axle and wore no belt while he effortlessly jerked 10 reps.  There was a 9 and an 8 after that, and then a lotta 0s and a 4. 

Surprisingly, the continental wasn’t terrible.  It certainly looked ugly, since I never got great at the final turn over and tend to have to limbo under the axle, but part of that is because I only use double overhand on the continental because 1: I’m a big goon and trying to switch my hands mid pull sounds absurd and 2: I figure it’ll cut down on bicep rupture opportunities.

Once I got it to the chest, I had to pause for a few seconds to let all the stars go away.  This would turn out to become a mainstay in the competition, as I kept wanting to pass out on several events.  I attribute part of that to being out of competition shape, but maybe the half-marathon training is showing in there too with some fatigue.

Once that was out of the way, I went on the hammer out 6 of the ugliest reps in the competition.  I got warned on the first rep to wait for the down command before I went down, but was given the rep.  Judging was consistently lax that day, which I think is the way to go.  It’s not nationals: we’re here to have fun.  I felt like I heard “down” before going on the downward, but either way it worked.  Rep 5 felt like it may have been the end, but I still had enough juice for 6.  I honestly think the behind the neck presses went a long way on this, because I kept saving reps during the lockout portion by grinding them back to the correct path.  Once 6 was done though, I was done.  Gave 7 a quick attempt but knew it wasn’t there before it even left the rack position.  6 reps got me 4^th place, which I was happy with.

SECOND EVENT: BARBELL DEADLIFT FOR REPS 455LBS

At the rules meeting, they announced this would be a touch and go event, and my eyes lit up like it was Christmas.  That having been said, I didn’t actually TRAIN touch and go at all leading up to this event, which was some sort of bizzaro-world scenario, as typically I train touch and go leading up to deadstop events.  I got to go second to last on this one, and the mark to beat was 20 reps set by a dude with a 900+lb pull.

I’ve pulled 405 for 23 reps and 495 for 15 reps touch and go before, but the extra variable in a competition is having to wait for the down command, which tends to throw off my rhythm and breathing compared to solo.  Nothing about this felt terribly good, but I chugged away on it.  The next highest to beat was 15, and when I hit 16 I heard how much time was left and did the quick calculation on the likelihood of me grinding out 4 more reps in that time.  Realizing it was not viable, I cut it and saved my energy.  It was the right call, as the guy after me did not beat 16, so I secured a second place finish in the event, which put me in second overall in the comp at that point.  About the only thing I think I coulda done better is really slam the hell out of the bar to get some bounce, but it’s not something I’ve ever trained and didn’t wanna mess with my pattern at that point.

A quick thing I want to highlight from the video, is something I learned from Clint Darden: I get asked “competitor ready” and I shake my head.  Primarily because: I wasn’t ready.  I see a lot of competitors not do anything with the question, but it’s YOUR opportunity to get set-up.  Don’t get rushed.

THIRD EVENT: 50’ FARMERS WALK (240LBS)/50’ SANDBAG CARRY (220LBS)

Once again: never used comp weight on the farmer’s here, but WAS using the same handles I had used in training, so that was cool.  That said, I was shocked at how heavy it felt.  It started to dawn on me at this point that this competition was about as lower back/posterior chain intensive as it could get, and things that would normally be ok in isolation were soon starting to show their difficulty.  I biffed the initial pick because I was trying to pick and run at the same time, but once I realized how heavy the weight was going to feel in my hands I settled on getting the pick and then waddling it to the finish line.  All that time I spent training with a turn paid off, because I had JUST enough grip strength to make it in one go.  If you look close on the video, you can actually see that the right farmer’s handle is in my finger tips as I cross the finish-line.  The judge asked “do you have any skin left on your hands?” and I replied “Yeah, but I sold off the rest of my soul”.  He chuckled.

Stripped the belt and sprinted to the bag to regain some time.  Whereas I never trained comp weight on the farmer’s, the only sandbag I have is over 250lbs, so that’s what I trained on.  Most likely helped, because the 220 bag didn’t feel awful.  Coulda picked it up quicker, but not by much.  Got it to the end and pulled my hands off quick for a 36 second finish, which secured 4^th place and had me moved to 4^th overall in the standings.  The next closest time was 9 seconds ahead of me, which made me happy with how I trained for this, as I don’t think any amount of prep woulda closed that gap.

FOURTH EVENT: CONAN’S WHEEL 660lbs

This was what drew me to the comp, so I was excited.  That said, I did exactly zero prep for it.  I really just wanted to see what it was all about.  I picked up the empty implement twice, and both times felt my back go out on me.  This was when I realized just how much this comp was beating up my back, and started feeling my age.  Went with the soft belt under the Inzer belt for a little extra support.  In retrospect, I had 3 belts available, and it mighta actually been the smart move to wear them all.  I’ve seen stuff like that before on super heavy yokes. 

2.5 full revolutions was the mark to beat, and it was set by the dude I needed to beat if I wanted to get back into placing position.  I figured “no problem: just gotta deal with the pain, I’m good at that”. 

Nope!  There’s actually more to the Conan’s walk than just pain tolerance: you need to be strong too, haha.  Picking it up it was ridiculously heavy, and it got no better with each step.  Soon 2.5 revolutions went out the window and I was just battling for 1.  I made it with 8 extra feet before the body just shut down.  I was honestly shocked and thought I’d have more in me, but the day was just hammering me.  I ended up tying for 4^th in the event with someone who went the exact same distance, keeping my 4^th place finish.

FINAL EVENT: ATLAS STONE (275lbs) OVER 52” BAR

I was feeling pretty good for this event.  I had been training with a stone of steel and no tacky in a sweaty garage, so I figured a concrete stone with tacky would be a cakewalk.  I was half correct.  I had zero issues on the pick, which was awesome, but I biffed the load.  I’ve learned my lesson: no more competition grade spider tacky.  It’s a great product, but that’s the problem: it’s WAY too sticky, and, in turn, it’s impossible for me to get set up well.  Once the stone is in my lap, I wanna get a feel for the best angle to load it, but I instead get glued to the stone during the feeling out process and just have to go with it.  I watched the video and my hands are way too low to get a good load on.

Which then turns into the next fun part of the day: this was the closest I ever came to blacking out in my life.  I lapped the stone, went for the load, got it to the cross bar, went to push…and suddenly I wanted to take a nap.  I had the wherewithal to recognize what was going on, and suddenly went into triage mode, where the goal was to not let the stone fall on my body vs getting the stone over the bar.  I went right and left with it before I finally regained full faculties and was able to focus on pushing the stone again.  Once I finally got it over, my back spasmed HARD, which is the fish dance you see on video.  What’s funny is THAT is when people thought I was going to pass out, but at that point I was fully aware.  Thinking through it, what I imagine happened is that my body went limp when I was about to pass out, which meant losing my brace and compromising my back, and once the load was off the body and over the bar it had it’s reaction.  I now had 1 rep in, and so far the mark to beat was 2, but at this point I knew I was buried in 4^th and that it would take a miracle to change that.  I gave the second rep an attempt, but once I met resistance I shut it down.  I’ve experienced that sensation in my back before, and knew it could go 1 of 2 ways, so I played it conservative.

RESULTS & WAY FORWARD

Maybe in my future...

Came in 4^th of 11 competitors.  I’m the king of 4^th place, haha.  But given all the variables at play, I’m content with it.  And, more importantly, I discovered I still love this sport, even if I don’t care to train specifically for it.

On 4 Apr, I’m doing the “Brawn and Brews” (or is it Brews and Brawn) comp in Kansas City, which I’m excited for.  Keg press medley up to 275lbs, Car Deadlift, Hus Stone and Stone over 48” bar.  I wanna try to gain some quality weight between now and then, as I’m in a weird “fluffy yet lean” stage right now and I might as well ride that out.  Once that’s done, I’ll be training for Murph again, which will let me drop some excess chub.  However, the immediate thing now is a half-marathon in 2 weeks, so the lifting will go into a bit more of a maintenance phase until that’s done.  I actually am anticipating some sort of super-compensation effect once I’m no longer doing 16 miles of running, and I may be able to use that training time to do more strongman stuff or muscle building. 

Also, apparently it’s time to get a new camera.  Looks like it died on the Conan’s Wheel. 

“I’M AT LEAST GOING TO HAVE A BACKFLIP AT THE HOSPITAL”

The quote for today’s blogpost comes from Brian Alsruhe, who, if you don’t know, is one of the most positive driving forces in the world of physical training and an absolute badass.  A former martial arts instructor/counter terrorism operative turned strongman competitor, Brian is a living action figure that is overcoming 2 internal parasites, Lyme’s disease and a traumatic brain injury and doing so while still deadlifting 700lbs.  This particular quote comes from when he was learning how to backflip while being instructed by other internet sensation Jujimufu.  Brian had sustained an ankle injury in the process of learning the backflip, and by all appearances it was pretty gnarly.  It looked like the day was over and that Brian was going to have to leave having not accomplished his goal of hitting his first backflip.  But then, the following transpired (at 10:20 in the video)

For those of you unable to watch, I’ve transcribed the important parts.  Juji was narrating to his handcam, explaining what it was that happened to Brian and why Brian wouldn’t be able to hit his backflip that day, but in the midst of this explanation, he witnessed Brian attempting to figure out how he was going to land his backflip while bypassing his injury, which led Juji to inquire

“Brian are you really just going to do a backflip again?”

To which Brian replied

“If it’s hurt, it’s already hurt.  Right?  So, if I’m going to the hospital, I’m going to go to the hospital.  I’m at least going to have a backflip, at the hospital.”

This is met with one of the most pregnant pauses in all of recorded history as the rest of the group attempted to come to grips with the insanity before Brian continued

“If you’re already hurt, you might as well get it.  It’d be stupid not to.”

It's amazing how well this sums up the whole scene

If you watch the video, you can note Brian demonstrating a very rare and uncharacteristic frustration with those he is addressing.  Now, in truth, I imagine Brian was more frustrated with the experience of being injured, but a part of me thinks the frustration ALSO came from having to explain this in the first place.  And that’s because I TOTALLY get where Brian is coming from.  I am certain Brian and I share some sort of common ancestor, because we’ve been on the same wavelength for a LONG time, and it seems to breed equal parts insanity manifested in similar though diverging manners.   This exchange just sums up everything perfectly: If I’m going to the hospital, I’m going to go to the hospital-I’m at least going to have a backflip at the hospital.

First, let’s go surface level on this one: what Brian is expressing here is known in formal logic as a “sunk cost fallacy”.  It’s the argument that, if you’ve invested so much (time, money, effort, energy, etc) toward some sort of goal, you should do whatever it takes to achieve that goal: otherwise, that investment is wasted.  It’s a logical fallacy because it’s an illogical argument: just because you’ve invested in something doesn’t mean you have to achieve it.  HOWEVER, those of you who are regular readers of the blog know this: just because something is ILLOGICAL doesn’t mean it is WRONG: it just means it’s not logical.  Being logical doesn’t make something “right”, as right and wrong exist outside of logic.  Thanos was very logical when he ruled that exterminating half of the population would make the available resources last twice as long, but the rightness of said action was highly debatable.  In turn, one must understand that the critique offered in the video regarding Brian’s logic was unnecessary.

"Puny logic"

Why?  Because it doesn’t matter if what Brian said was illogical: it was still RIGHT.  It was right to the point of causing frustration in having to explain it, because it was painfully obvious.  “If you’re already hurt, you might as well get it.  It’d be stupid not to.”  Once again, we discuss the liberation of injury, and to a further extent, if hitting the bottom: you have nowhere to go but up.  What’s the concern in learning the backflip?  You might screw up and get injured.  Alright, cool, we just got injured, so NOW what is the concern?  Well…nothing.  The bad thing already happened.  So now we’re free to do the backflip.  We already “paid the price”: we may as well ride the ride now.  Because if we wanna talk about being stupid, getting injured for NO reason is really stupid.  At least if we get injured AND do the backflip, we got the backflip.  What’s the concern: getting MORE injured?  Folks, we’re already going to the hospital: at least we’ll have a backflip at the hospital.  

  

But the biggest part is that this mentality encompasses a metaphor that extends to such a greater point of life.  We’re all “going to the hospital”: we all have the same trajectory and end state, so how many of us are going to land a backflip on our way?  You’ve heard all this from me before, but it’s great to see it coming from those that are both crazier and stronger than I am.  Some folks are ONLY going to attempt the backflip if there is a guarantee of absolute and total safety, which is to say, they will never make the attempt.  What is their reward?  They got to sit at home that day and watch youtube videos of people learning how to backflip.  Some folks will only attempt the backflip up UNTIL the point that they get injured, and then they stop.  What is THEIR reward?  An injury, and no backflip.  And some folks show up to learn how to backflip: and they’re not going to stop until they get it.  Sure, they might get injured, but what is their reward?  They got the backflip.  And that’s so much more satisfying than being injury free and watching other people do it.   

EAT LIKE YOU SLEEP

I am by no means a nutrition guy.  I eat a low carb diet because it’s one less thing to think about, I’ve never counted a calorie or a macro in my life minus 1 day in 2004 when I started my training log, and I found the whole experience so off-putting I never tried again.  I really don’t think it’s all that complicated, yet I constantly have trainees asking me to explain to them the idea of “eat to recover from your training.”  That is ALWAYS the advice I offer when it comes to nutrition: your food supports your training, so you need to eat in a manner where you are recovering from training.  Inevitably, the brain of the person asking the question starts going to the realm of macro counting, and they ask me if I mean to eat so that they’re gaining 1-2lbs a week, or eat for maintenance, or something else entirely.  Folks: that’s a WEIRD question to ask in the context of the conversation.  Food is recovery: just like sleep, yet somehow folks completely understand how to sleep and have no idea how to eat.  Allow me to demonstrate…

Some of you already have this figured out

Let’s say you and I have a big day planned tomorrow.  It’s winter, in North Dakota, so we know that the first thing we’re gonna need to do is shovel snow for 2 hours so that we can get our car out of the driveway, and then we’re gonna drive to a strongman competition, compete all day and drive back home that same day so that we can beat the winter storm that will inevitably follow us home and snow us in again.  I tell you in the evening: “Hey, we got a big day tomorrow: make sure you get enough sleep.”  How come that’s ALL I need to say to you in order for you to understand intent?  Why is it that when I say “get enough sleep to perform” you know that means you probably need to get to bed an hour earlier than you usually do?  You’re not asking me dumb questions like “Do you mean get enough sleep that my eyes aren’t red when I wake up in the morning?  Or should it be that I get enough sleep that I wake up naturally on my own and don’t need an alarm clock?”  No, somehow, when I say “sleep enough that you are recovered from today and ready to perform for tomorrow”, you know what you need to do, but when I say “eat enough that you are recovered from today and ready for tomorrow”, you’re helpless.  It’s ALL just recovery.

And it’s the same thing when it comes to QUALITY of recovery.  Same exact scenario, I tell you to get enough sleep for tomorrow, you KNOW that what you need to do is get to a bed in a dark room and try to get some solid, unbroken, restful sleep.  You won’t try and do something stupid like take a 1 hour nap on the couch with the TV on, wake up, hang around for 20 minutes, then go sleep on the floor for 2 hours with the lights on and dogs barking, then figure you’ll grab a nap on the car ride to the comp and that should be good.  We KNOW that quality sleep is important ALONG with quantity sleep, but when it comes to nutrition?  We have “If It Fits Your Macros”, the “car nap” of nutrition: collecting macros from anywhere just like getting your hours of sleep at any time.  We have folks that have memorized the amount of carbs in a large McDonald’s French fry yet have no idea what Vitamin A does.  We have folks that have convinced themselves that fast food and TV dinners are the superior choice because they are mega high in sodium and “salt is good for lifters bro”, not recognizing the terrible quality of food they’re putting into their bodies.  Yet again, I tell you to sleep to support your training and it makes total sense, but when it comes to eat to support your training…

Yup

The real kicker out of all of this is that I’m the first to say that sleep isn’t that important for recovery: at least, not compared to food.  Folks, if sleep was the most important part about getting big and strong, I woulda been a world record holder at age 17, but I slept a LOT as a teenager.  I slept like a baby, multiple double hour sleep sessions a day, ESPECIALLY in the summer, when I had no real obligations.  My body was PRIMED for recovery: but my nutrition was crap.  Not enough food, and what I did eat wasn’t very good.  I’m in my 30s now, and I continue to grow bigger and stronger every year, despite the fact I’ve been sleeping less, and the sleep I get tends to be erratic and broken.  It’s a byproduct of children/pets, being a light sleeper who tends to react to both of those things when needed, and a weird work schedule that forces my sleep to adapt.  But my nutrition has improved substantially.  For one, I learned how to cook, and can make enough quality food that I’m never forced into a situation where I have to eat something awful for me “for the macros”.  I’ll indulge in fast food or eating out, but that’s the thing: I acknowledge it’s an indulgence.  I understand I’m getting a “car nap” of nutrition out of it, but in turn, it’s not a permanent fixture of my lifestyle.  I’ve experimented with both, and folks, given a choice between an abundance of good quality sleep with awful nutrition vs awful sleep with an abundance of good quality nutrition, the latter absolutely wins, hands down, at least insofar as getting bigger and stronger goes.  In fact, in a true bout of “proof of concept”, the IDEA for this blogpost came to me as I was driving home at 3:00 AM, with an alarm set to get up at 6:15 to walk my kid to school so I could get back to bed by 7:30 and get another 3 hour nap before starting my day and training at 12:30.

So take this metaphor to heart and uncomplicate how you eat.  When you hear “eat to support your training”, think of it as no different than how you would sleep.  If you have an average training block ahead of you, feel free to eat averagely.  If you have light training, eat lightly.  But if you’re entering a training block that is going to be intense, and call upon your reserves, you’re going to need to eat in a way to support that training.

Sweet dreams.

MAKE LIGHT WEIGHT HEAVY

One of the joys of injury is that it forces you to learn new ways to train in order to keep achieving your goals, and in the course of recovering from a knee surgery and a buggy shoulder, along with dealing with the joy that comes with aging (though it’s really the mileage that gets to me) I’ve learned the benefit of making light weight heavy.  When I first began training, I fell into the trap of many trainees where I assumed the only way to get bigger and stronger was to ALWAYS lift as much weight as I possibly could on every exercise, to the point that I started growing neurotic about the benefit of exercises LATER in the routine because I wouldn’t be able to lift as much weight on them compared to if I did them earlier.  Later in my training, I realized that one can still gain significant benefits in their training using reduced poundages, insofar as that trainee made it such that those reduced poundages represented the max amount that trainee could lift under THOSE circumstances.  The other benefit to this approach of training is that, once understood and mastered, it means there are a LOT more options opened up when a trainee is limited in access to weight.  I’m not original in this approach in the slightest, with John Meadows being someone who has ultimately mastered this, but, in turn, there’s proof of concept out there about this approach to training and how viable it is.  Intro aside, I wanted to share a few ideas I’ve been using recently in order to make the most of less weight. 

RAMPING SETS

Not all ramps are created equal

This is a classic approach to training, and one that generates a lot of questions from new trainees, specifically “why use ramping sets instead of straight sets?”  It’s once again for the sake of making a light weight feel heavy. 

For an example, a straight set of 5x5 would simply be a case of a trainee taking a weight and doing 5 sets of 5 reps with that weight: so 185 for 5x5, for example.  Ramping sets, on the other hand, have the trainee stick with sets of 5, but ultimately work up to a topset of 5 reps in 5 sets.  The weight on the final set will be the highest, and the trainee isn’t going to failure in the sets leading up to it BUT those sets ARE generating fatigue and reducing the ability of the trainee to exert to their absolute maximal ability.  Instead of moving your actual 5rm if you were to just lightly work up to it, the topset of 5 that you accomplish with ramping sets will be lighter while still being incredibly effective. 

As of recently, I’ve been enjoying combining ramping sets with…

GIANT SETS

Don't use giant sets with viking press: bad combo

Anyone that has been a fan of Brian Alsruhe’s channel knows what these are, but for the uneducated, a giant set is like a superset, except it’s composed of 3 or more moves.  Because of the structure of a giant set, the movement performed after the first movement is going to necessarily be of less weight vs what you could handle if you were fresh, and it will continue on as the giant set goes.  This effect is particularly pronounced when you use giant sets that employ the SAME muscle rather than opposing ones.  2 that I’m currently employing is a press day giant set of press (strict press or behind the neck), parallel bar dips, dumbbell lateral raise and band pull aparts, and a deadlift day giant set of axle deficit deadlifts, reverse hypers and squat (buffalo bar or front squat).  Whereas I can normally hit 40+ dips in a set, going after pressing limits me to around 15-18, and I’m lucky to hit 3x10 of 230lbs on squats at the end of my deadlift day giant set, yet I’ve seen significant growth in my deadlifting and pressing while employing these giant sets as supplemental work.  Proof of concept that employing lighter weights will make you stronger as long as you make those light weights FEEL heavy.

PRE-EXHAUST


The SEALS have mastered this technique to spend a whole WEEK pre-exhausting themselves

The above mentioned giant sets are effectively benefitting from the concept of pre-exhaust.  This was a popular notion in bodybuilding circles, and was specifically intended to bring up lagging muscle groups, but can also simply be useful for sparing connective tissues by once again making light weights more effective.  For the down and dirty: get the muscle groups tired BEFORE you train them.  I’ve been employing this technique specifically with direct arm work via “running the rack” with dumbbell curls.  I have a set of powerblock classic 50s, so I can work with 10-50lbs going up in 5lb increments.  I’ll start with 10lbs and hit a set amount of reps (say 20), then move up 5lbs and repeat, and keep going until I can’t hit the required amount of reps, at which point I’ll start progressing DOWN by 5lbs going for max reps on each set.  By the end, my arms are absolutely fried, yet I’ve placed little stress on the elbow itself due to the light weight.

This technique can also be employed with heavier compound lifts.  The squat, in particular, benefits from this, as it’s pretty easy to load/unload the weights and the consequence for failure isn’t quite as awful compared to benching without a partner.

DROPSETS

No dumb caption: this is still just plain awesome

This is a classic staple of mine.  Work up to a topset, do it, then immediately take some weight off and keep chasing after reps.  This doesn’t quite have the same effect of pre-exhaust, since the topset weight you’ll be using IS around the max you can handle, but the follow on sets will employ less weight than if you were to do a straight set workout across multiple sets, while the training effect is VERY powerful.  Some of the best results I’ve ever got in my squat training came from dropset workouts.  I’m particularly fond of combining it with rest pausing, so I’ll hit a set of squats, strip weight off, take 12 deep breaths and then go after it again.

Along with the benefit to your body, dropsets have a PROFOUND training effect on the mind, especially when performed with heavy compound lifts, and particularly with the squat.  When you just do a burnout set of some lift, it’s easy to go until you quit, but having to get back UNDER the bar after that set to do even more work requires some serious guts.

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There you go folks: one my rare posts with some actionable advice.  Go forth, do some damage, and write any questions you have in the comments.

WE’LL SEE WHO GETS THE FIRST LAUGH

Yet again dear readers, allow me to reassure you that, in my haste, I did not screw up the topic title here: I do, indeed, mean to discuss getting the FIRST laugh.  The traditional expression, of course, being “we’ll see who gets the last laugh”: an expression referring to the notion that the expresser is sagely aware that downfall awaits those that they warn who are, in turn, the one’s currently laughing.  Yes yes, you may mock the expresser now, but just you wait! …right.  Wanna know one of the interesting things about getting that first laugh?  It means that you already GOT to laugh.  Your laugh has happened: you were able to deride the other, hold advantage over them, experience joy at their defeat, exert your will on them, etc etc.  In short, you already got to achieve victory.  You were the bully kicking sand in their face at the beach in the Charles Atlas ad.  And yeah, MAYBE that dude is gonna go risk a stamp and get a book on isotonics and get jacked and come back and punch you in the face, but until that time happens, YOU got the first laugh.

Maybe you'll come back and avenge yourself, but he will DEFINITELY be fooling around with your girl until you do

Let’s go about this from a logical approach for a bit, shall we?  There’s no benefit in getting the LAST laugh.  That’s a hollow victory if I’ve ever heard one.  We’re all on a finite timeline here, and when you get your laugh in EARLIER than the other person, you can experience the joy of that laughter for MUCH longer than the span of the laugh itself, for now you can also look BACK upon that laughter in your twilight years.  Those that laugh last?  The laugh LESS.  They laugh closer to the end than the beginning, and spent much more of their timeline NOT laughing, attempting to take solace in a laugh that MAY happen one day in the future.  That’s a dumb psychological trick best reserved for children that are being good NOW in the hopes of Santa coming later to reward them. 

Does he who laughs last laugh best?  Once again, a pithy saying at best, but let’s say it’s true: he who last first may ALSO be the one that laughs last.  If you laugh FIRST, you are guaranteed to have at least LAUGHED: your laughter is locked in and assured.  Meanwhile, while you hold out hope that one day you TOO will laugh, and it will be the last laugh, and therefore the best laugh, you haven’t laughed YET.  You have no guaranteed your laughter will arrive.  You may, in fact, find that you have expired in your wait for the last laugh, and that the last laugh happened LONG ago: you just missed it, assuming that, since it was the first laugh, it couldn’t possibly be the last laugh.  You failed to recognize the opportunity, because you foolishly assumed that the first laugh was the inferior laugh.

"Since WHEN has it been good to be the first to do something? ...oh"

We see this SO often in training: this preoccupation with getting the “last” laugh, while meanwhile folks are out there busting their hump and getting the first laugh and rubbing it in everyone’s faces.  The mother hens cluck their tongues at dudes exerting themselves, straining, pushing past limits and say “We’ll see how they feel when they’re 40, lol!”  Yeah, well guess what idiot: you’re going to feel like crap when you’re 40 because you were sedentary, while this person is going to feel like crap because they were active.  But in the interim, they got the FIRST laugh, because you spent your 20s and 30s being small, weak and insignificant, while they were out there succeeding.  And just imagine the REAL comedy when it turns out it’s not 40 when these things start to show, but 50, or 60, or 70…or never.  And there they were: just WAITING to get that last laugh, only to expire on their deathbeds having never had the chance to laugh.

There are SO many training opportunities out there that afford the trainee an opportunity to get in the first laugh.  After about a decade of neglecting them, I brought behind the neck presses back into my training.  And upon bringing them back, I heard from all the gurus about how they would cause my shoulders to spontaneously combust in a visceral display of blood and sinew, like a piñata filled with the contents of a butcher shop dumpster.  Well to quote Matt Dimel “Ha ha ha mother f**ker”, I got the first laugh, because I ended up crushing some lifetime PRs that I had plateaued on for years once these got added to my programming.  Meanwhile, what last laugh are the people hoping for on this one?  Healthy shoulders when they’re 80?  Man, that’s gonna be awesome to brag to your great grandkids about.  “Ya know Jimmy, I was never a terribly impressive man in my 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, but NOW I can reach for the package of Jello on the HIGH shelf.”  Rest assured, as you enjoy that last laugh for your last few years on the earth, I had enjoyed my first laugh for decades.

Rest assured, I can laugh at the same thing for a LONG time

Because, fundamentally, I’m laughing at those of you waiting to laugh last, because you’re missing out on the true comedy: you aren’t at peace with your mortality.  You’re so absolutely terrified of a future where you’re old, crippled, decrepit, feeble and unable that you desperately cling to anything within your power to prevent it, ONLY to make yourself all of those things when you are in your youth!  In order to not be weak when you are old, you choose to be weak when you are young.  THAT is something worth laughing about.  Life can either be a comedy or a tragedy: it all depends on when you’re willing to open yourself up to laughter.  The people waiting to laugh last decided to die first, but if you pursue the first laugh, you’ll be laughing a LOT. 

I REFUSE

More fun stories from real life, because sometimes procrastinating to write my blogpost gives me an opportunity to do some living.  Was out on a walk with the Mrs yesterday, and we started off in suburbia before we ended up on a nice path by a lake near the house.  We hadn’t been on it before, so we decided to just follow it and see where it went.  We soon transitioned from pavement to a nature path, and from there ended up completely twisted around in what I believe were actually horse trails upon reflection.  We’re walking on a carved out grass pathway surrounded by very tall weeds/marshland, but can clearly see where we want to end up: we just don’t know which trail or path we need to take to get there.  We eventually find the way out, and all in all the experience was totally enjoyable, but in discussing it my wife told me she was glad we found the path, and I told her I wasn’t worried, because if worse came to worse, I was just going to walk through the weeds straight to where we wanted to go.  When she said she wasn’t going to do that, I assured her that I would carry her through it, so that she wouldn’t have to concern herself with ticks or other nasty critters.  When she asked why, I said “because I refuse to be trapped by grass”, and from this she made the pointed observation that I refuse to be trapped by a lot of things.

How I saw it in my head

And that’s today’s lesson: “I refuse”.  My wife’s observation was incredibly spot on, and I could do nothing but admit her accuracy when faced by it.  She elaborated that she was referring to how I refuse to be trapped by weather, having a history of driving through dangerous blizzard conditions, flashfloods, mudslides, etc, all of which she has had to endure alongside me, so it’s etched into her mind.  However, my training is mired in “I refuse”.  One of the primary ones, that constantly seems to blow the mind of others, is that I refuse to do mobility or flexibility work.  The more I get told that I “must” do it, the more I refuse to do it.  And I’ve been told that I must do it for over a decade, which, in turn, is a decade of refusing.  AND a decade of succeeding!  Where are the consequences that I was told I was going to face?  It’s going to happen when I get old?  Well how interesting, because….

I refuse to grow old.  I’m in my mid 30s with 19 years of training mileage, and I’m training harder and crazier than I ever did in my 20s, despite what I hear from my peers about how everything is harder and worse in your 30s.  I find THAT to be the fundamental issue: they tell themselves it’s going to get harder, and it gets harder.  I refuse to let it happen, and I force my body to adapt to that stimulus.  Much like the expression “We don’t stop playing because we get older: we get older because we stop playing”, you grow old when you start training like you’re old.  So many people have simply given up while they are in the PRIME of their lives, and I observe the unfortunate ways their bodies decay over the next SEVERAL decades from neglect and, ultimately defeat.  Not me: I refuse.

What many of my peers wanted for their 30th birthdays

I refuse to be trapped by injuries.  This is one I see SO much among other trainees, and it just blows my mind.  ONE part will have an injury, and they just quit ALL training.  “Broke my hand: looks like I won’t be lifting for the next 3 months”.  What?  Go pull a sled, or hit up the leg press, or safety squat bar squats, or zercher good mornings, or cable or machine work, etc etc.  These people lament how they “love” training and won’t be able to train and won’t put in ANY effort to figure out other ways to train.  Man, if this is how they treat things they love, I’d hate to be a family member or loved one to these people, because they are QUICK to abandon their love.  I hate training, and I will rig up the most Rube Goldberg-esque contraption possible to train around whatever injury I have because I REFUSE to be trapped by injury. 

And fundamentally, that boils down to the fact that I refuse to let anything external to me determine MY fate.  This is Sartre’s “radical freedom” taken to the extreme.  It’s Nietzsche’s “Will to Power”.  The fact so many philosophers have discussed it as a means of existentialism is proof of concept of just how inherent such a notion is in ALL of us: that we CAN refuse.  And when you wallow in self-pity about your powerlessness, you simply refuse TO refuse.  Otherwise, exercise your ability to refuse when presented with an obstacle that threatens your success or presumes to alter your fate. 

Shoulda refused this idea from the trainer

And do so out of anger.  Understand that these external variables are an affront to your very nature, and that they act in hopes of defeating you.  And you refuse to be defeated!  You refuse to let them have the last word!  And if you crash and burn in a fireball, it is on YOUR terms.  You decide your fate, because you refuse to let anything decide what will be your downfall BUT you.  When you go out, it’s because you decided to, and when others tell you your time is up, you refuse to listen.  You refuse to give in to fear, to injury, to age, to fatigue, to convention, to science, to anything that is not what YOU want it to be.  And if people tell you that’s insane, you can refuse to listen.