THE STELLANATOR SAGA: HOW TO TAKE DOWN A 5LB CHEESEBURGER IN 30 MINUTES

On 4 May 2023, I took on “The Stellanator Challenge”, detailed here

Allow me to give you some spoilers

And here is the video footage

Those of you following my blog know that I am NOT a competitive eater.  This is the first time I’ve ever taken on such a challenge.  To have absolutely crushed it with 15 minutes to spare is pretty awesome, as I’ve now joined a group of 44 (now 45) other people in history to accomplish this at a restaurant that dates back to 1938.  

I wanted to document how I approached this and really just capture this moment while it’s still fresh in my head.  This should prove a valuable text on the subject of training hard and eating big.

MAKING ROOM AND GENERATING APPETITE

It's amazing how much we could all learn from this one man

My dinning time was set for 1930 on 4 May.  That’s much later than I usually eat dinner, and closer to when I eat my final meal of the day (remember I get up at 0345 to train, so I don’t tend to stay up stupid late).  So I knew I was going to be thrown off my body’s natural rhythm for this challenge, but it ALSO meant I’d have a LOT of time to “generate hunger”, and that became my plan.

I took the day off of work, in part to prep for the challenge, but also because my wife had been out of town for the week and I wanted to take care of all the chores around the house BEFORE she got home so we could just spend time together for the weekend.  I rolled all that into one.

Yes: often combining 2 good ideas results in 1 bad one

My goal for the day was to show up to the challenge exhausted and depleted.  I wanted my body to be PRIMED for a LARGE intake of food.  I needed to be starving and in a state where I was ready to soak up every single nutrient I threw at me, along with having a totally empty stomach.

My plan for training was to take on a 2-a-day lifting session, and in between work in chores while wearing a weighted vest.  My plan for eating was to use JUST enough protein shakes that I could survive the training.  This would keep food mass out of my gut but minimize catabolism.

Apparently, these days I need to clarify what the Hell a protein shake is.  That honestly blows my mind, but here: a protein shake is protein powder in water.  Hence “protein shake”.  If you make a shake that has the majority of calories from peanut butter, avocados, cream/milk and 1 scoop of protein powder: you have a FATS shake: not protein.  If you make a shake where the majority of the calories come from sugar (via honey, maltodextrin, dextrose), oats, rice, etc and 1 scoop of protein powder, you have a CARBS shake.  And really, if it’s more than 500 calories, it's a gainer anyway: not a shake.  I clarify this because people heard I was drinking protein shakes for this and thought it was some 1.5k calorie monstrosity vs 200 calories of protein in water.

Doesn't always have to be protein powder

 

Those following my blog know that I’m currently following Jamie Lewis’/Plague of Strength’s “Feast” Program, and it’s ABSOLUTELY brutal.  It’s also what inspired me to take on this challenge in the first place.  I’ll do a full write-up on THAT soon, but for now know that taking on TWO of those workouts in one day was going to do a fantastic job of absolutely depleting me. 

My schedule that week was already messed up, so I ran “Feast” out of order.  I started the day getting up at 0345, eating some egg whites (already breaking from the plan slightly, but I want to have something in my gut before I train) and hit this Squats and Shrugs workout, which you can view the full video of here

But the big highlight is 10 sets of shrug triples, 6 sets of SSB squat triples, then a SSB deathset where I got in 28x250lbs, then some other work.  On top of this, I got in 300 push ups and 300 bodyweight squats, which is a daily requirement for the program.

Already a brutal start to the day, I had a breakfast of 2.5 scoops of Metabolic Drive protein powder after that session, walked my kid to school, then threw on my 50lb weight vest, took my dog for a walk, brought them inside, and then mowed my front and back lawn with the vest still on, resulting in a total of 5.25 miles covered in nearly 2hr and 15 min.

A weighted vest is almost cheat codes when it comes to conditioning.  You can just throw it on and turn anything into a workout, and as far as generating hunger goes, it’s fantastic at that.  Mowing a lawn while wearing a vest is almost like sled work.  

By this point, I was already pretty exhausted.  I decided to take in another shake, as front loading the nutrition and tapering seemed like the right call.  From there, I decided some low activity activity was in order, so I took care of the grocery shopping for the week, committing the cardinal sin of grocery shopping while hungry.  I ended up buying 6 cartons of egg whites, since I’m on a big carnivore kick these days, and earlier in the morning bought 20lbs of grassfed steak tips from piedmontese.com…so at least now I have a LOT of steak and eggs in the future.  

These guys get it

Once that chore was done, the exhaustion was reaching max capacity, so I decided to grab a nap.  Sleep is a GREAT way to pass time when you’re hungry and when you’re waiting for a future event, and in a case like that day where I had more training ahead of me, it was going to be good to dissipate fatigue.  I grabbed about 40 minutes of rest.

Upon waking, I had what would end up being my final shake of the day before tackling what would be my final workout of the day: the Press and Bench workout of “Feast”.  Full workout here

Big thing to note is I try to open up with EMOM log clean and press and biff it on the second set: I had underestimated just how exhausted I’d be at this point.  I pivoted and went with strict 1 minute rests to get through the workout as quickly as possible, because I was effectively trying to outrun how exhausted I was.  I knew that, the longer I trained, the worse I’d be.  I had zero glycogen in me at this point.  So as you can see in the video, I am blitzing through rest periods.  When it was all done: so was I.  I had originally thought I might get in some heavy bag work or sled work on top of this, but after this workout I knew that all I had left in me was some walking at most.  So I walked to pick up my kid from school and then just called it.

I made my kid dinner, which, once again, sucks when you haven’t really eaten all day, but it DOES help drive the whole “generate hunger” thing.  I was starving at this point and STILL had 2 hours until showtime.   I decided to try to pass the time by watching some TV with my kid, but eventually settled on another nap.  By the time I woke up, it was time to roll, which was awesome, because I was about to eat my arm.

IN TRANSIT

I’m sorry, this is self-indulgent, but I want to remember it.  It was a 20 minute drive to the restaurant and I had picked out the PERFECT song to kick it off: Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.  My kid and I jammed out to it, and I asked them what they thought would be another good one.  They picked “Gaston”, from Beauty and the Beast, which was also a great choice, since he talks about eating 5 dozen eggs and I had to eat half a dozen of them to get through the challenge.  After that, I went with Weird Al Yankovich’s “Eat It”, then circled back to “Cheeseburger in Paradise” to finish it out.  It was an awesome time.  We were excited and just having a blast.

EATING WITH “BAD INTENTIONS”

Holy cow I can't believe this photo exists

We get to the restaurant, they have me sign a wavier that was hysterically written, then bring out my burger.  The presentation is grand, the locals gathered around and wanted photos, and it gave it a chance to cool down for a second.  I’m told that I get to decide when the timer starts, and I can break down the burger first before that happens.  I’m given 3 plates, which is great, because you’re not going to actually be able to eat a 3’ tall burger and breaking it down allowed me employ my strategy: eating with bad intentions.

“Bad intentions” comes from Jack Dempsey, one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, who engaged in one of the most BRUTAL matches of all time against Jess Willard

When describing his approach to boxing, Jack said you had to fight with “bad intentions”.  Jack wasn’t boxing with the intent of winning a boxing match: he was there to HURT the other person.  His intentions were bad.  It wasn’t about winning a sport: it was about FIGHTING and, in fighting, about inflicting MAXIMAL HURT.  In doing so he won matches, sure, but he won BECAUSE he was hurting the other boxer so much he beat them.  Mike Tyson would co-opt this strategy to become one of the most feared heavyweights of all time (irrespective of if you think he was the best, he definitely ranks amongst the most feared, having “won” many of his matches before they even began because the other guy had effectively given up).  

Why am I talking about this?  Because I approached this challenge with bad intentions.  Back when I did MMA and wrestling, I wasn’t good at either, and I’d approach each match with the mindset that I had ALREADY lost: I was just there to make sure the other guy KNEW he was in a fight.  I wasn’t going to win: I was going to send the dude home with the belt AND a broken nose, 2 black eyes and some fractured ribs, while I got to sleep peacefully in my bed defeated but not beaten.

So instead of strategizing how to best win this challenge, I came in just wanted to enjoy it as much as possible.  So I lost $55: whatever.  I was going to FEAST.  I earned it.  So I went after the best parts of the burger first which, in turn, would also go down the fastest, because your stomach has a timer, and it’s all about beating THAT.

I took on the patties first, having to hunt for them through a forest of onions.  I prefer white cheese to yellow, but the patties honestly went down so fast that it wasn’t worth discriminating.  I take on the first 4 in about 4 minutes, hitting a brief snag because I talked in the middle of one, swallowed some air and had to belch to make some room, but otherwise they pretty much vanished.  I was 7 minutes into my 45 and already the “burger” was gone.

It absolutely was!

From there, I went after the eggs.  I have a bottomless appetite for eggs.  That said, I’ve been eating pasture raised eggs for a few years now, and these 99 cent a dozen eggs had minimal flavor to them…but they went down easy enough as a result.  They said there was supposed to be 6.  I could only find 5, but I’m thinking one broke up in transit.

A moment of comedy: my kid asked me if my plan was to go for the bacon next.  I got to respond “Chaos is the plan!”.  Folks: I live this.  It’s not just something I write.

That said, from there, it WAS onto the bacon.  I haven’t had REAL bacon in quite a while, so it was a real treat.  My original plan was to take the bacon, but it between the buns with the peanut butter and make it a sandwich, but I honestly thought I might run out of stomach space before I got through all the bacon, so I decided to tackle it “ala carte” instead.  I inhaled all 12 pieces, but could feel myself slowing down a touch from there.  I now had the bun with peanut butter.

There are a TON of these online

Instead of making the buns into a PB sandwich, I ate them open faced.  I haven’t had “real” peanut butter in like a decade, and by real I mean fake.  The GOOD stuff, with sugar and palm oil mixed in.  It was absolutely delicious, which honestly made this challenge so awesome: I really enjoyed so much of it through out the process.  I wasn’t force feeding myself…until I got through those buns.  There were a few moments where I wished I had some jelly to help break it down a little, but otherwise I really enjoyed it, and the mixed in jalapenos were a nice touch.  But, suddenly, I found out I had about 30 minutes left and all that stood between me and victory was a plateful of onions and some fries.

…oh f**k me, a PLATEFUL of onions.  Suddenly my bad intentions had turned on me.  I like fried onions as much as the next guy, but since this was 6 burgers worth of them, it was like eating a spaghetti dinner of onions with some residual peanut butter mixed in.  But game on: I grabbed my fork and went to town, and the first half of it actually went down pretty smooth.

…but folks, it’s worth keeping in mind I’ve been doing basically carnivore keto for weeks now.  I haven’t had a veggie in a while, let alone a nightshade, let alone a few POUNDS of them.  I could feel the poison building up toward the end there.  I don’t intend to ever do this challenge again, but if somehow I did, I think BBQ sauce would have been a gamechanger here, which they offer at the restaurant.

It was painful getting through the end there, and I was finding my limit, but once again I saw I had a TON of time left, and all I needed to do was get through my order of fries and I’d be set.  A big of comedy here is that the waitress came by and asked if I wanted a refill on my Mountain Dew and I specified "DIET Mountain Dew".  I even pointed out to myself how silly it was to care at that point.

When your burger is even bigger than the meme...

I was beyond “bad intentions” now and was fighting to actually win, so that meant out came the ketchup.  Ideally, I’d go without, but I needed a food lubricant to get to the end.  I kept drowning the fries in ketchup with every bite, and was trying to find ANY space in my guts to get them in.  Each bite was agony, but I could see every fry vanish and knew it meant being closer and closer to winning.  Once I got in the final bite, the most painful part of the challenge started: having to wait for 10 minutes at the table before I could be granted victory.

That 10 minute wait is for obvious reasons: they don’t want you just stuffing yourself and then puking it all up.  For one: that’s disgusting, but it also doesn’t meet the intent of an “eating” challenge if you’re just renting the food.  But man: I HURT for those 10 minutes.  I could feel every single one of those goddamn onions in my gut, and all the ambient smells kept triggering my gag reflex.  The stomach has a timer, and I had reached mine, and now it was letting me know what a bad decision this had been this whole time.  

Imagine how I'd score!

…BUT, those that follow me KNOW that I can endure pretty much anything, and I tapped into that skill and waited out the clock.  When it was over, I graciously accepted my victory, paid for my kid’s fried ice cream, left a 100% tip for that to celebrate my free meal and t-shirt, and drove home VERY slowly, as I was worried that sudden movements and bumps would send all that food out of me.  I safely made it home, sent my kid to bed, and laid on my back for 3 hours until I finally felt at peace enough to sleep.

And I got up at 0445 and still trained.  Because that’s what we do.  It was a 1.65 mile weighted vest walk, followed by 300 push ups and 300 squats in under 9 minutes, and then I fasted for the majority of the day after that.  I didn’t start feeling hungry until about 2100 and, in turn, didn’t eat until that point, and my body has been passing nothing but onions…but I am victorious.

LESSONS LEARNED

The drive home is the other half

* If you wanna eat big, you gotta give your body a reason.  If I just showed up to the challenge on a normal day, I’d have tapped out stupidly early.  I basically trained for 5 hours in a day under a protein sparing modified fast so I could put away 5lbs of food in 30 minutes.  If you’re not pushing the training, you won’t be able to push the eating.

* I LOST 3 lbs the next morning, and still had my abs.  All you folks freaking out about 1 bad meal ruining your progress, please take note.

* Eat the good stuff first!  If you’re looking to gain at least.  Your stomach has a timer, so eating the palatable stuff first will mean more room for the other stuff.  Going about it the other way, trying to save a “dessert” that you earn after eating your veggies just means less net food consumed total.

* Food lubricants.   I’ve brought that up before, but sauces, seasonings, etc, can go a long way to make food go down smooth.  

* Don’t be afraid to get messy!  You can see I eat most of this meal with my hands.  It’s barbaric, and it’s FUN!  Try to work in some handhelds into your nutrition sometime.  Ribs, wings, drumsticks, etc.  Tap into those primal urges!  Embrace your inner berserker.

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Thanks for reading!  It was fun to write.  Feel free to drop a comment or question.

COMPLETE OVERHAUL PART 3: CRACKPOT IDEAS AND WILD THEORIES

I am big on only writing about what I know and what I’ve experienced, so whenever I DON’T do that I like to clarify.  Often, these wild ideas pan out well (like the 6 month gaining block I developed with 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake, Building the Monolith and Deep Water), but not ALL of the are winners.  What I’m going to detail below are spitballing and theories.  Some might work, some might not, but it’s fun to dream.

From the champion of crackpot ideas himself!

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* This one is a quick kill, but if you recall my “strongman on the road” series of posts (http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2020/10/strongman-on-road-part-i-nutrition.html) you’ll remember the circus tent of food I would need to pack to sustain myself without having to eat garbage the whole time I’m away from home.  Apex Predator/Velocity makes SO much more sense.  Throw a bag or two of protein powder in the suitcase and get in ONE meal a day otherwise.  High speed/low drag.  I could still pack some food too, going with canned chicken breasts and be squared away, or get a couple of rotisserie chickens and be good to go.  That’s definitely my next travel plan.

* Despite the fact that this evolution came about as a result of me being absolutely destroyed from Super Squats, I remain a huge fan of Super Squats IN TOTALITY.  So not just the program, but “the program”: the workout AND the nutrition AND the book.  “High speed/low drag”: shut your brain off, do the squats and drink the milk.  You do it and you get the results and you grow.  It’s also why I liked the Velocity Diet/Apex Predator: Drink the shakes, eat the meal, done.  No counting or thinking.  Well to solve the “how to train” portion of that, I think Dan John’s 10k kettlebell swing challenge is the answer, for a variety of reasons that I’m going to detail below this bullet.

Seriously: Dan talks and I listen...and go buy his "Easy Strength Omnibook" as soon as you're done reading this blog (https://danjohnuniversity.com/bookstore)

* My recent posts on duality (http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2023/02/periodization-via-duality.html) have spoken to the very concept of “undoing” a program after doing it, and 10k swings is precisely that.  With Super Squats, there is minimal hinging.  In fact, if you run the abbreviated version, there is NO hinging.  But there is a LOT of squatting.  With the 10k swing, it’s the opposite: you are doing nothing but hinging.  There’s room for squatting if you want it, but it’s not required.  So if you were to bounce the two against each other, doing 6 weeks of Super Squats and then the 28 days of the 10k swing challenge, there’s a fair chance that, over the course of your training history, you’ll maintain balance.

* Alongside that, Super Squats is laser focused on gaining weight and minimizing exertion outside of the training sphere.  “Don’t run when you can walk, don’t walk when you can stand, etc”.  10k swing is, of course, the opposite: not heavy on the static strength, very conditioning focused.  The Velocity Diet also speaks to being “movement seeking”, so that pairs well there too.  Again: periodization here.  You’ll have an accumulation phase and a GPP phase.

* What’s really neat about 10k swing challenge and the Velocity Diet is BOTH are 28 day challenges, so they map on perfectly with each other there.  The Apex Predator is meant to be a bit more “long term sustainable”, but depending on how lean you are at the end of Super Squats, either can be just dandy.

Looks like it can get you pretty lean!

* If there’s a concern about building/maintaining strength while running the 10k swing challenge, I feel like there’s an avenue to include Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program in there for the strength work.  This maps on well with the 10k swing challenge, as Easy Strength is done 5 days a week, just like 10k swing, and the workouts are supposed to run about 15 minutes long so you have time to do “the stuff that REALLY matters”, which, in this case, would be the swings.  It only gets a little messy because Easy Strength is a 40 day program vs 28, so we lose a little bit of the “shut off the brain” element here.  But still: it seems effective enough.  And Easy Strength is still “squat avoidant”, so you would still be able to heal from Super Squats.

* I write about Super Squats a lot, because it’s what I know, but if you wanted to make this a 100% Dan John run, I feel like “Mass Made Simple” would be a fantastic swap.  His book also lays out exactly what to do and when to do it.  It doesn’t have a 100% prescriptive diet, but Dan’s “eat like an adult” is a solid starting point, and his golden ticket is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is just plain awesome.  You still squat a TON of Dan’s program, but there’s also barbell complexes in it, so you have a chance to maintain your fitness a bit better.

Another book you should go buy after reading this blog

* For myself, I can foresee me eventually coming off of shakes for the majority of my meals, but I still see myself keeping them around as needed.  I could see implementing either alternating days of Apex Predator/Velocity and a more “normal” dietary approach (more solid food on the harder training days/more shakes on the easier), or keeping days consistent and relying on shakes for my breakfast, pre-bed meal, and snacks here and there.  There’s also the chance of modifying the shakes themselves to make them a little more substantial: mixing them with egg whites and nutbutters.  The primary driver here being that I keep losing fat with this approach despite it not being my goal, so if I find myself in a harder phase of training, or simply wanting to maintain, I feel like this would be the more logical approach vs trying to get in a TON of calories in the limited amount of solid meals I’m taking in.

COMPLETE OVERHAUL PART 2: TRAINING

 THE TRAINING

I’ve written extensively on the idea of how training drives nutrition, and this was honestly no exception.  Despite the fact I opened with a discussion on how my nutrition radically changed, it’s worth appreciating that I changed my training FIRST and simply picked this dietary approach to match that training.  I knew I was going to employ a protocol that wasn’t oriented toward gaining size, and that this protocol was going to allow my hybrid diet to function.  Had I stayed with something like Super Squats, I’d have eaten the diet that supports that.  So all that said…

THE SITUATION

Yeah that about sums it up

* As I wrote in the previous section: my body was BROKEN after that final run of Super Squats.  I gave a LOT of myself to get that 20x405, and it was time to heal.  Along with that, looming over my head was my annual 10 mile race that the Mrs and I did.  I had about 6 weeks to go from 20x405 Super Squats shape to 10 mile running shape, and I had ZERO desire to do any running to prep for this.  

* I was VERY good at being big and strong at this point.  My static lifts were high.  My conditioning had fallen apart, primarily because my body was so damaged that, outside of the specific lifts of Super Squats, I couldn’t do much.  My elbows were so shot that chins and dips were non-viable, to say nothing of cleans, most kettlebell work: even burpees were a struggle, as getting on and off the floor was excruciating.  I was also accustomed to resting between sets at this point, having abandoned my typical super/giant set protocol in order to meet the demands of Super Squats.  

THE STRATEGY

When in doubt

* I opened up my copy of 5/3/1 Forever, having written previously about how 6 weeks of a 5/3/1 program would be a great counter to Super Squats.  My goal was to find something that had sets of 5 making up the majority of the work alongside a heavy emphasis on conditioning.  It was all about duality I’d written of previously: many sets of 5 vs one set of 20.  I ended up settling on Krypteia, specifically phase 1.  Jim wrote about how this was the phase used to prep trainees for the later phases of training, and a prep phase was exactly what I was looking for.  Something meant to whip me back into shape.  Other contenders included Fat Loss and Prep and 5x5 FSL, but I dug the inclusion of dips, chins, DB SLDLs and DB squats in Krypteia, along with the time limit restriction.  It seemed like everything I needed: shorter training time, intense compressed volume, low rep sets, chins, dips, and a chance to get some reps in on the lower body stuff.  I DID give some serious consideration to Dan John’s Easy Strength (after having devoured his Omnibook), so I could get in and out of the weightroom and focus more on running, but decided to save that for another time.

* Prior to starting, I deloaded.  This deload coincided with me starting my new diet, and I decided “high speed/low drag” was the theme, so I settled on a week of the following workout: 30 minutes a day, Mon-Fri, 1 round of burpee chins, then run around my block (turned out to be a little over 1/4 mile).  Max rounds in 30 minutes.  I started with bodyweight and sets of 8 on the burpee chins for day 1, and then put on a 10lb weight vest for sets of 7 on day 2.   I’d add 5lbs to the vest each day while taking away a rep from the burpee chins.  On the weekends, I played it by ear and got in whatever I could.  I kept my daily work where possible, but didn’t stress over it.  This definitely had a positive impact: the weighted vest was barely any real load on my body, which meant I had a week of time to let my body bounce back from the thrashing it had been suffering.  Super Squats had it so that every other day I was beating my body to hell, and I could tell it had discovered that pattern.  Giving it just 2 days of break itself was enough to feel it start to really heal up, and by the end of the week my elbow pain was gone.  I still ached in my hips and knee, but it was moving in the right direction.  And getting in that little bit of running helped my body remember how it felt to move through space again.

* Before I discuss Krypteia in depth, if you want, here I am running a full 3 week cycle.  If a picture is worth 1000 words, let this speak for itself.

First workout here, entire playlist below

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfcuGAffLlScb4E9ihdg-HPlNZPGveynX

* As far as “making it mine” went, the big thing I did was try to get each workout done as fast as possible.  Jim laid out the challenge to get it done in under 45 minutes, and I absolutely met that goal (the final deadlift workout came close, at 43 minutes), but had a few workouts that finished in the 20s.  This technically went against Jim’s guidance to not turn these workouts into conditioning workouts, but, again, I needed to undo the damage of Super Squats, and that included getting my conditioning back and getting back to “no break” training.

EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED

This is too accurate

* As much as I’m the first to say “it’s assistance work: it doesn’t matter”, I was honestly the mandated assistance protocol of Krypteia that drew me in, and it was exactly what I needed.  Once again, my goal was basically to “undo” Super Squats, so I needed something that had me moving in a totally different direction.  Super Squats had me laser-focused on making 1 big lift get as big as possible: now the big lifts were stagnant and it was ONLY the assistance that was progressing.  And I made it a goal to make them move as hard as possible.  My dips, chins, DB SLDLs with a shrug and KB/DB goblet squats moved right along the whole time, and, in turn: my body healed.  I was able to focus on weaker areas and smaller muscles and not beat myself into the ground with stupidly heavy compounds.  The time limit forced me to keep things light and move quick, and I had to pick intelligent TMs.

* This also marked my first time pulling over 400lbs since I tore those muscles in the program before my final run of Super Squats.  I set a TM that was 20lbs lower than my squat, which is atypical for me, but it was necessary to stay within my limits.  I also used an axle 2 of the 3 weeks, because it forced me to slow down and not jerk the weight off of the floor.  I used a deadlift bar for the final week and it felt solid.  

* Meanwhile, for squats, I rotated between SSB squats on the 3s week, front squats for the 5s and buffalo bar for the 1s.  My body was so wrecked from using the same bar every day for Super Squats that I had to get far away from the Buffalo Bar for a while.  My TM was too high for the SSB to be able to hit the topset, but, otherwise, I made good choices.  Front squats work well for Krypteia because it’s just sets of 5.  Higher reps would be difficult.

* I’d run Krytpeia M-Tues-Thurs-Fri, and on Wed for 2 of the weeks I did a 5 mile run, to prep for the 10 mile race I had with the wife.  The first week, my schedule got compressed and I ran all 4 days in a row and got in some sort of conditioning on the other 3 days that week.

* I honestly really liked Krypteia, and had full intentions of actually seeing it all the way through…until Jamie Lewis released his updated “Feast, Famine and Ferocity Diet” e-book, which completely grabbed me and took me in yet another wild direction…

CHAOS IS THE PLAN…THE PLAN

Jamie must know this about me by now

* Before I discuss further, here’s the link for the book

https://plagueofstrength.com/the-feast-famine-and-ferocity-diet-is-now-updated-and-available-as-an-e-book/

* And here’s the video playlist of me running the program

First video, rest in link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnicWt6NqU&list=PLfcuGAffLlSdfWeHmA6BsUctSrdGdaObB

* It boils down to this: Jamie sells something, I buy it.  I am such a fan of everything he puts out that, any chance I have to support him, I take it. Hell, I was running his Apex Predator Diet and it had effectively saved me from myself, so I owed him that much.   I’m also the same with Jim Wendler, Jon Andersen, Brian Alsruhe, etc.  Support those that are making a difference.  So when Jamie released this book, even though I already had a diet and training protocol I was following, I still bought it and read it with zero intention of following it.  Fun fact: that exact same thing happened the first time I read the Super Squats book: I was reading it purely for academic interest…and just like that situation, I finished up Jamie’s book and suddenly scrapped my current plan of Krypteia and had a new plan: the “Famine Workout”.

* Jamie structures the whole protocol where you open with “Famine” and progress to “Feast”.  I don’t want to spoil the book (seriously, buy it), but it’s premised around mankind naturally having “seasons” of activity and nutrition, and modeling that on a microlevel to drive individual progress.  There are lean times, where we’re doing lots of work, and there are fat times, where we feast and celebrate.  This mirrors exactly with stuff Dan John has written about, and coincides with my phasic approach to training and nutrition as well.  It was an excellent fit, and it mapped on to how I was currently eating…for the most part.

There was an adjustment to be sure

* Whereas Jamie’s Apex Predator diet has solid food meals built into it, as does the Velocity Diet, the “Famine” diet was purely protein shakes as a protein sparing modified fast.  I flat out wasn’t going to do that, for the “family man” reasons outlined previously…BUT I did have a few days while running the program that I was actually able to pull that off due to how my schedule shook out.  But the Apex Predator diet was working enough magic while running the program that I was still meeting the intent: I was leaning out while I was training.

* The training itself was such a RADICAL departure of everything I was doing that it was absolutely what I needed.  And Jamie has always been on my wavelength as far as training/nutrition goes.  There’s minimal use of percentages, no calorie counting, and options for lifting 3-4 times a week or 5-6 times a week.  Jamie also has his own version of daily work programmed into it, which I’m a fan of.  Otherwise, you open each day with heavy work and chase it with high reps, which is what I’ve learned works for me in periods of reduced calories.  I’m good for 1-2 big sets, and then after that it’s just pump work.  Always good to get that validation.  

* One of his training days is something called “Dealer’s Choice”, where you train whatever you want for up to 90 minutes, which is honestly one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen in a program.  THINK about how many times people screw up a good program because they want to keep adding and tweaking it, self-included?  I caught myself thinking “I’ll get in my lateral raises on this day, poundstone curls on this day, shrugs on this day”, and then when I got to “Dealer’s Choice” I said “Oh: I’ll just put them all in on THAT day”.  It’s just the perfecting holding bin for bad ideas, and you can just get them all out of your system on that one day and then get on with your life.  I can absolutely see myself carrying that into other training programs.

You know what, knock yourself out...maybe literally

* Part of Jamie’s daily work is a mandatory 2-3 mile walk outside.  He’s very clear that this isn’t a workout: it’s living.  I really dig it.  And forcing myself outside for a walk everyday has been awesome.  However, since I train at o’dark stupid, I don’t always get the “vitamin D” benefit.

* As of my writing this, I have finished out two weeks of the program, and between week 1 and 2, on my squat workout, I went from 4 triples of 405 on the SSB to 3x4 and 1x3, and then went from a 33 rep deathset of 205lbs to 43 reps.  That was nuts.  My dealer’s choice day also saw some great growth.  I am also EXHAUSTED, but I can still turn up amazing performances in the gym.  This second week coincided with me working a solid week of 12 hour shifts at work and sleeping 5 hours a night, so I’m really living the “famine” lifestyle here.

* For the first week, I ran the program VERY close to what was prescribed.  I would superset the ab work with some other work for the sake of time, because these workouts would take a long time.  After running it as written for the first week, I felt like I had gotten enough of a feel for the intent of the program, and allowed myself to start shortening rest times and playing around with super/giantsets in order to make things a little more time efficient.  Thankfully, Jamie is more than ok with experimentation, so it all fits. 

The precedent is there to be jacked AND experimental

* That said, I had to re-arrange the order of the days so that I ran all the lifting back to back and moved the days off to the weekend, as that fit my work schedule better.  Also, on the first week, instead of doing 30 minutes of push ups, squats, etc etc, I ran 10 miles…because it was the week of that 10 mile run I was talking about.  I counted 2 of those as my walk, and called the rest 8 miles of cardio.

* My current plan for Chaos is to run this program for at least 3 weeks, as that fits my dietary schedule.  Once that’s done, I’m looking at taking on the Feast Routine, and will carry forward some lessons learned for diet.  And with that, why don’t we start discussing some theories and ideas?  That’ll be the next post.

SUMMARY

* In order to heal/recover from Super Squats, I had to undo Super Squats.  I’ve written about this regarding duality and periodization.  Since Super Squats was 1 big set of a lot of reps, I looked for a program that was many sets of few reps.  Super Squats had me squatting 3x a week, so I needed a program that was 1x a week.  Super Squats was heavy on core lifts, so I needed something with a heavy focus on assistance.  I also had a 10 mile run to prep for, so I needed something that was focused on getting me fit. 5/3/1 Krypteia fit the bill, and suited my nutritional overhaul as well.

* Alongside the programming, I also changed up what implements I was using for squatting and deadlifting.  Super Squats was laser focused, so I needed to be all over the place.  Balance.

* I had no issue with 5/3/1 Krypteia and I think it’s a solid protocol, but upon reading Jamie Lewis’ “Feast, Famine and Ferocity Diet” e-book, I pivoted, and that’s where I’m currently at, with plans for the future.

COMPLETE OVERHAUL PART 1: NUTRITION

This is going to be a large undertaking and I may end up writing it in a few different parts as a result, but since its my blog I get to write what I want, and this is what I want to write about right now.  People that follow my training log already know what’s going on, but to catch you up: after I ran Super Squats for a third time in my life (with my second time resulting in me tearing my hamstring after contracting RSV, then taking 6 weeks to run a higher intensity program wherein I tore my lat/tricep, then another 6 weeks of Super Squats capping out with a 20x405 squat, crippling elbow pain, a swollen right knee and hip and a pinched nerve in my back that took another 6 weeks to heal), I was in desperate need to do something different.  Alongside my various physical ailments that came with effectively tearing my body apart every time I trained and then eating as much as possible to put it back together: I was dealing with the fallout that came WITH eating that way.  I had forgone the recommended gallon of milk a day with Super Squats because it wasn’t nutritional behavior I wanted to model for my kid, but, in turn, I was ALWAYS EATING. The sheer volume of food necessary to support the training was absurd, and my whole life revolved around food.  Buying it from 4 different grocery stores/online, bringing it all home, cooking it, storing it, eating it, cleaning up after it, and passing it through my system: I had no time for anything else.  

Change was needed.

Something more than just switching from regular to chocolate

VELOCITY DIET/APEX PREDATOR DIET INTERVENTION

High velocity apex predator you say?

Ever since I read “Never Let Go” by Dan John, I’d been interested in “The Velocity Diet”.  A super quick overview of that is: a 28 day fat loss diet comprised of protein shakes and fish oil capsules and that’s it.  I dug the idea behind this protocol because it sounds like something I would do: intense and ridiculous.  BUT, as a parent and husband, the idea of spending a full month NOT sharing meals with my family was a non-starter.  That time is precious, and they already deal with enough of my insanity on the daily.  I try to minimize my burden by training before they wake up and committing my nutritional deviance away from them while I’m at work…which is why, when an updated version of the Velocity Diet was released that included a daily “Healthy Solid Meal”, things became a LOT more viable.

Alongside that, readers of the blog know that I’ve reviewed Jamie Lewis’ (of Chaos and Pain/Plague of Strength fame/infamy) “Issuance of Insanity 3” wherein he lays out the details of his “Apex Predator diet”, which, itself, was based around the OG Velocity diet and given Jamie’s personal spin.  Rather than being specifically a fat loss diet, Jamie’s approach was more modular, and could be adapted for a variety of goals.  In turn, his approach allowed for up to TWO solid meals a day alongside a battery of shakes. 

I relate too well to this

And herein I re-discovered something that has been pretty successful for me in the past: have TWO.  Here, it’s two diets, but it also works with two training protocols.  By having at least two options, I double my chance of success, because if I fail to meet ONE protocol I can still work to achieve the other.  In that regard, I went on what I deemed my “family man Velocity/Apex Predator Diet”, as I was taking the two diets and mashing them together to meet my needs.  If I “failed” on the Velocity Diet by having “too many” healthy solid meals in a day, it meant that I could still meet the Apex Predator diet’s protocol.  And if I “failed” on Apex by having too many carbs in a meal, it could STILL be a “healthy solid meal” ala the Velocity Diet.

I will now lay out in greater detail the specifics of my deviance, alongside observations and lessons learned.

A TALE OF TWO DIETS

If only...

* Breakfast with my kid every morning is precious, and I still wanted to sit down and EAT with my kid vs drink a shake with them.  There was a “cool tips” section on the Velocity Diet that talked about mixing in just a small amount of water to make a pudding out of the powder.  I was able to accomplish a similar feat making “oatmeal” by taking a tablespoon of riced cauliflower, nuking it in the microwave for 55 seconds and then mixing 2 scoops of protein powder and a trickle of water.  Stirring the water in slowly would create a paste-like texture which answered the mail completely.  I’d throw in some cinnamon and salt and the charade would be complete.  With that, I already had ONE meal solved and still complied with the intent of shakes for my meals.

* Alongside that, the Velocity Diet is 4 shakes a day: breakfast, lunch, midday and bedtime.  I get up between 0300-0400 to train, and if I have my “breakfast shake” then…I’m not gonna have it when it’s time to have breakfast with my kid.  Alongside that, if I push it off and DO have breakfast with my kid, that’s still like 0600.  It’s a LONG time between breakfast and lunch then, and I’m “post training”, so I’m wanting protein.   A few solutions: I move the midday shake to a mid-morning shake, as I found that I was really forcing the midday shake down anyway with a lack of appetite while I was RAVENOUS come mid-morning.  But the other solution I took was to steal from Apex Predator and have a shake in the middle of the night when I’d get up to pee (which I could rely on, since I was stupidly hydrated through this process).  This would just be a 1 scoop shake, but it meant I wasn’t training fasted and ALSO allowed me to speed up my pre-training ritual in the morning by being able to just roll out of bed and get after it.

Pretty much that

* Jamie recommends some sort of multivitamin to cover nutritional basis during the Apex Predator Diet alongside Omega 3 supplementation, which the Velocity Diet cover through use of “Superfood” and “Flameout”, which is what I used.  It honestly IS reassuring to use those products.  When I have a more diverse diet, I don’t ever sweat vitamins, but now that I’ve almost entirely phased out vegetables, nor am I getting in my whole eggs all that often, the inclusion of these supplements allows to push on without worry.  Also, Dan John, Jon Andersen, Jamie Lewis and Chris Shuggart are all onboard with sugar free Metamucil too.  That helps a lot.

* On my “normal” work weeks, I’d have midday meals on Tues, Wed and Fri.  Those are the days I could meet my wife for lunch.  I’d make this meal an Apex Predator style “meat on the bone” meal: typically chicken drumsticks.  Dinner that evening would be a leaner meat and trace veggies (running opposite of Jamie’s suggestion of a leaner midday meal and meat on the bone in the evening).  Mon and Fri was typically 1 solid meal a day, more akin to the Velocity Diet, and when possible I’d try to make it meat on the bone, but otherwise it’d be a lean meat and veggie meal.  Some weeks, I managed to get in the Protein Sparing Modified Fast ala Apex Predator or a Velocity Diet 1.0 day of pure shakes (same thing basically) 1 day a week.

I mean, the precedent is there (man, lotta Simpsons on this one)

* Weekends were where the “family man” aspect shone through, but ALSO where Apex Predator really helped make this all work.  Jamie has a “Rampage day” and a “High calorie keto day” in his diet.  The Rampage day is a basically the reverse of the entire diet: moderate carbs meals through the day followed by a 3 hour “rampage” window that is a lot of carbs and calories to top off glycogen stores and reload for the rest of the week, alongside cycling calories in the diet to keep the metabolism humming.  For me, this meant a social meal with the family on the weekend where we got to eat some fun food, alongside solid meals through the day.  I’d have shakes for snacks, but that’s about it.  The high calorie keto day would be my other day of that weekend: a meat and egg heavy breakfast and then meat centered meals for the rest.  These were days where I was with my family all day, which meant having meals with them the whole time, and these two days were perfect for that.  Jamie prefers these two days to NOT be run right next to each other, but Chaos remains the plain.  I was absolutely still getting results from this.  However, those Rampage days definitely did a number on me: I am so NOT carb adjusted that a little bit goes a LONG way.   Spent a lot of weekends sweating profusely from the insulin shock and trying my absolute hardest not to slip into a coma.

* Because my carbs are so low, I had to start adding salt to all of my protein shakes.  Low-carb dudes know this exact problem: your body is bad at holding water and balancing electrolytes without carbs.  On the plus side, the salt actually enhanced the sweetness of the shakes, which is a baking trick.

EXPERIENCES, OBSERVATIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED

Sorry to let you down Stan!

* I have become stupidly lean, and fat loss wasn’t even the goal.  I dropped 11lbs of bodyweight in the first 26 days of NOT supergreat compliance, as the second week of the protocol I had family in town and spend 5 consecutive days eating 3 solid meals a day on top of the shakes.  I’ve stayed on the protocol for even longer, currently in my 6th week of the protocol, with no real intention of stopping.  This is less a “diet” and more a lifestyle.

* I’m experiencing ZERO performance degrades with this approach.  Now, sure: I’m not running Super Squats off of it, and if I were to try to take on a hypertrophy block I’d have to do some tinkering (more on that later), but I’ve been seeing weights go up in the gym while bodyfat goes down, I ran a 10 mile race with minimal prep (a 5 mile run 2 weeks out and a 5 mile run 1 week out, preceded by 50 weeks of no running), and I do not feel beat down or fatigued.  This has also taught me just how little I “need” to perform.  I used to have a HUGE meal before bed every night…

Big omelet, cottage cheese, veggies, meat, lotta nut butters on celery, toast, and other keto junk

*…thinking that I “NEEDED” that food to help me sleep through the night AND have fuel to train off of in the morning.  These days, I’m eating 2 scoops of protein powder in an oatmeal before bed, having my “wake and shake” in the middle of the night, sleeping well and training hard first thing in the morning.

* This approach totally gels with my “no counting calories” approach.  There’s no thinking nor is there any doubt: drink the shakes dummy! I KNOW I’m getting enough protein to spare my muscles and I know fat loss is going to happen unless I eat the STUPIDEST HSM possible, at which point I’ve most likely dropped the “H” from it.  It’s really just “set and forget”, which clears up a LOT of mental bandwidth.  That was the big goal OF this undertaking: I needed food to STOP consuming my life, and this totally did that.  I have to think about ONE meal a day, and when I co-opt Jamie’s approach even THAT meal is simple.  “What are we eating today?  4-6 protein shakes and chicken drumsticks.”  One week, my wife was away on business, and I had no issue making my kid “to order” dinners while I just batch made a BUNCH of chicken drumsticks and had them every night.  It was the simplest week ever.

"Meal prep" really doesn't get easier

* “Packing” for work is just so much simpler now.  I used to have to bring a cooler FULL of food, which I’d pack every morning, and it’d eat into so much of my morning time.  Now, I’ll throw a bag of protein powder in a bag, bring that to work, and it makes up the majority of my meals through the week.  When the bag runs out, I bring another.  I make sure to have my other supplements, and a few times a week I pack a solid lunch…but that’s it.  Once again: less bandwidth.  I also GET to work much earlier now, because I don’t have to spent 30 minutes cooking and cleaning up breakfast.  It ALSO means I get MORE time to train, because, again, it’s time I don’t have to spend on food.  To say nothing of the time I save SHOPPING for the food.  Which, from the “family man” perspective, is a huge win.  I have SO much more time with my family now.  THAT has been one of the biggest draws to this overhaul, and why I have no real plans to change course.

* My digestion is the best it’s been in YEARS.  Introducing Metamucil to my life was huge in the first place, but the sheer volume of food I was eating was just tearing up my guts something fierce.  A primarily liquid based diet with 1-2 solid meals a day is SO much more manageable, and, once again, it means less time spent voiding the food.  Wins all around.

* My relationship with food is ALSO substantially repaired.  I’m no longer food obsessive, because the majority of the nutrition is already decided.  And when you only eat 1-2 meals a day, you learn to APPRECIATE those meals.  Food tastes and smells delicious and is absolutely enjoyable.  I need no artificial sweeteners or science fiction/Frankenfoods: REAL food is a treat.  I had so much “keto junk” in my diet: keto bread, keto wraps, keto syrups, keto cookies, etc etc.  It’s all just re-branded junk.  Now, I get such limited opportunities to have food that WHY would I waste it on that junk when I can have some REAL eggs, some avocado, some real meat, etc?  Even my Rampage meals tend to be just hearty real food.  A decade ago I was doing low carb all week with 1 weekly cheat meal, and it was always a fast food binge.  And “binge” is the right word: I would eat as FAST as possible so I could eat as MUCH as possible. That is NOT healthy in SO many ways.  Now, I savor my food, enjoy the taste, and enjoy the company.  I’m enjoying the EXPERIENCE of food: I’m re-discovering humanity.  I’m also NOT afraid of those things that I can find in nature.  My LDL scare a while back had me TOTALLY dietary fat phobic, with animal fats in particular triggering some serious anxiety.  Now, I’m not going to let cheese or chicken fat get in my head, because I’m not LIVING off of that: it’s my 1-2 meals a day.  Knowing that nutrition is “on point” so much means that any deviation isn’t even worth worrying about.

A "healthy solid meal"

A "Rampage" meal, that is still pretty darn healthy

* Alongside that, I’m trying out things I had previously written off in my life.  I used to lean primarily on diet soda for my caffeine source, having not cared for coffee.  Now, plain ol’ black coffee is fantastic, which is great, because Jamie wants you to put away a lot of caffeine for Apex Predator and this makes it easy to comply.  And I’m pretty happy to not be putting away a bunch of chemicals from drinking a gallon of diet coke a day.  

As predicted: this grew HUGE and I haven’t even scratched the surface of how I’ve changed up my training or my random spitballing and theories to follow.  I’ll write that section in a bit and release these in pieces so they’re a bit more digestible (hah!  Nutrition pun), but allow me to throw in a quick summary.

SUMMARY AND TAKEAWAYS

No you idiot!  We were so close!

* Eating to sustain 2 rounds of Super Squats forced me to seek a change, and in order to satisfy my desire to take on challenges, I leaned toward the Velocity Diet/Apex Predator Diet.

* Having TWO diets to follow allowed me to have more ways to succeed rather than more ways to fail.  It also allowed me to meet my goals of making this approach fit in while prioritizing my family.

* Some might theorize that a diet of primarily protein shakes with 1-2 solid food meals a day would create a damaged food relationship/body, but it did the opposite.  The food I get, I value, my body is performing well, and I have more time with the family and less time obsessing over food.  This is also a great fit for non-calorie counters, and, in turn, if you find yourself obsessing in THAT regard, it might be worth trying that way too.

 

IT SHOULD SCARE YOU

 

Readers, I’ve once again taken off on a wild tear tilting at windmills with a new protocol and program.  After reading Jamie Lewis’ “The Feast, Famine and Ferocity Diet” ebook (which is absolutely fantastic, along with the bundle he’s currently selling at plagueofstrength.com), I was all too ready to take on the “Famine” training protocol, and am currently midway through the first week.  Jamie has actually given me permission to do full uploads of the workouts on my youtube, so feel free to check them out to get an idea of what the lifting looks like.  And part of the reason I took on this training program was because I was already in the process of following Jamie’s “Apex Predator” diet, itself a variation of the T-nation/Biotest “Velocity Diet”, which, in turn, is very close to the nutritional protocol advocated IN the “famine” phase, so it was a pretty easy switch.  I’ve been logging all of this in my various logging locations, and perhaps it’s the copious amounts of caffeine I’m consuming alongside this protocol, per the recommendations (I’ve re-discovered black coffee, but this time ALSO discovered a love for it), but I’m genuinely excited to eat and train again, which is something that typically only occurs when I have a competition on the horizon.  But, in turn, upon looking deeper, I realize that this has occurred other times in my training history: when I began “Building the Monolith”, when I began “Deep Water”, when I took on my own 6-month gaining block, and each and every time I ran Super Squats.  And, in turn, I’ve identified the common variable: before starting all of these protocols, I was scared of them.

This is scary for all sorts of reasons

In disclosing that, I need to one again re-iterate that I am in fact human.  All too human.  It’s too easy for people to write me off as a machine, or insane, or a bit of both (Futurama proved that they do exist), but the truth is, when you prick me, I do in fact bleed.  The only difference between me and “normal” people is simply WHERE my limit is, but I DO have limits just like everyone else.  In turn, I will read a training or nutritional protocol on occasion and immediately say “Oh f**k that”.  That is fear.  That is my mind taping out and saying “No”.  It absolutely happened the first time I read the Deep Water e-book and got the program and saw the 10x10 squats that had a reduced rest time over 6 weeks.  It happened when I read Randall Strossen suggest drinking a gallon of milk to survive Super Squats, or Jim Wendler suggest a dozen eggs and 1.5lbs of ground beef.  I actually BOUGHT the Deep Water e-book and had it in my kindle for a full year before I ever ran the program…because what happens is, I say “f—k that”, put the book away…and then it gets inside my head…

 

…and I begin to think “…well HOW could I make that work?”  For Building the Monolith, it was “HOW could I do that in an hour?”  For Deep Water, it was “What day could I put the 10x10 squats so I could get it done?”  For Super Squats, it was “how much milk will the college dinning hall let me take home?”  and then 15 years later “How much FOOD will I need to eat if I won’t drink the milk?”  THIS, in turn, is the facing OF these fears.  It’s my own personal “exposure therapy”, where in my own headspace I manufacture the necessary degree of safety in order to encounter these fears.  I create control of the variables that I CAN control so that I can assert myself over these things that generate fear, which, in turn, allows me to encounter, face them, and eventually conquer them.  And, in turn, that’s what allows me to have a greater threshold limit than most: I’ve simply DONE this more.  I’ve been around longer.  Like an RPG: I’ve been grinding, so I’ve leveled up, but we’re all still the same character class.

I am absolutely a level 100 Magikarp

But all these programs I’ve mentioned are ALSO the ones that I credit with creating the MOST profound physical transformations in me.  Much like my most recent post on doing what you’re bad at to get big and what you’re good at to get strong: doing these things I was afraid of triggered a necessary growth response, whereas doing the things that looked like they’d be “fun” or “easy” were the things I did when I needed a break.  And this, of course, speaks to the consistent recurring them I keep noting, the “will to power”, and how, in order for the body to grow, it has to be subjected to a stimulus that tells it “if we do not adapt, we will die”.  The body MUST be afraid of the current environment in order to be triggered into changing, for absent such fear, it will have no motivation or catalyst for change.

 

Which is “the rub” when it comes to this pursuit of physical transformation: we must seek out exactly what which we fear in order to grow.  And no: this is NOT masochism.  That defeats the purpose.  The masochists seeks out exactly what it is that they want: pain.  They enjoy pain, revel in it, desire it: when they receive it, they are satisfying a want.  That’s just another form of hedonism.  For the masochist to grow, they would have to intentionally seek COMFORT, as paradoxical as that seems.  But for those not-afflicted, it’s a far more straight-forward process: when you look at a training or nutritional protocol, if you want it to create physical transformation, it should scare you.  At least a little.  SOMETHING about it should seem terrifying.  Some aspect of it should seem…wrong.  It should be different.

Too far

 

For many, this “fear” is going to be fear of the unknown.  In fact, I’ll say that for MOST that is the very fear that must be experienced.  I have known trainees that have stalled for YEARS because they refuse to abandon their paradigm of “what works”.  The irony, of course, is lost on them that “what works” STOPPED WORKING.  The “sets of 5” acolytes that REFUSE to use any other rep range, the “must hit each muscle twice a week” gurus that only know how to lift weights 6 days a week to train, the HIT Jedis, the bro-splitters, the camps that either can’t figure out 5/3/1 or can’t do anything BUT 5/3/1: it’s all the same.  You MUST be willing to make that jump without the parachute in order to actually get that growth that lies beyond what you know.  You must face the fear of NOT having a map and simply getting lost in the woods and hoping you can find our way out.

 

And what’s wild is: you face THAT fear often enough and you suddenly develop the habit of seeking out these uncharted territories and exploring them.  People will think you’re fearless, but no, quite the opposite: you’ve become a fear JUNKIE, because you KNOW that it is this constant exposure to and overcoming of fear that creates growth.  You establish a new baseline of “bravery” with each successive attempt, wherein it takes more and more to scare you which, in turn, opens up avenues for even crazier methodologies that may in fact lead to some even wilder success.

To think Milo of Croton merely LIFTED the bull...

 

Start small, sure.  Find something that scares you a little…and conquer it.  Then find the next thing and conquer that.  Think of what program or protocol you’ve had in the back of your mind for a while now and resolve to take it on.  It SHOULD scare you.