THE FREEDOM OF LIMITATION

I know I’ve written about this multiple times, but I’m observing this phenomenon outside of the realm of lifting so much that it’s sticking inside my head.  I’ve recently become addicted to “Erik the Electric” videos on youtube which, if you’re unfamiliar with Erik, are videos of a 5’9 160ish ultra endurance athlete tackling massive food challenges.  I already feel a kinship with Erik being of equal height, he is a San Diego native, much like myself, I’m (sadly) around his weight as well, I enjoy eating prodigious amounts of food as well, and my heart is one of an ultra endurance athlete, but Erik is also addicting just because he actually ENJOYS the food he eats in the challenges vs the horror one observes at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating competition wherein competitors are effectively choking down food to meet the goal.  But weird competitive eating tangent aside, Erik is so talented at his “craft” that he often goes out of his way to impose challenges WITHIN already absurd challenges, because the initial wasn’t challenging enough.  He’ll take on the infamous “octuplet bypass cheeseburger” from the Las Vegas Heart Attack Grill (yes non-US readers: all of that is really a thing) and then make it more challenging by eating a SECOND one AND only allow himself an hour to accomplish it.  These are no one’s rules but his own: a self-imposed challenge and limitation. And quite often, Erik will meet the ACTUAL challenge just fine, but fail to meet his own self-imposed challenge, and hold himself as a “failure” for having done so.  My friends, there is so much to learn from this black hole given human form.

If my subconscious could be photographed, it'd look like this

First of all, it’s worth observing that, again: Erik is not unique in this style of competitiveness.  We can observe this with video game speedrunners as well: people so good at games that they race to see who can beat them the fastest.  Eventually, they all learn the same tricks and strategies to maximize win speed, so they move on to FURTHER handicap themselves, with rules like “no moving left” or “without glitches”.  We’ve seen combat sports athletes that will only use 1 or 2 techniques to win a match.  The list is extensive, but the point to observe is that these folks are so GOOD at what they do that they need to impose limits on themselves “just to keep it interesting”.  But in keeping things interesting, they keep themselves sharp as well: they force themselves OUT of their own comfort zones and give the opposition a leg-up.  Growth is an outcome of overcoming, and in order to overcome one must experience adversity, and in the ABSENCE of the necessary adversity to promote growth, one is challenged to CREATE the very challenge necessary TO grow.  The challenge is to challenge: how fitting!

Let’s take a few lessons out of there.  1: no matter the situation, we can find a way to make it worse.  That almost sounds sarcastic, but here: it’s liberating!  This was a lesson many of us learned during COVID.  Resources were limited, and soon it became a competition on HOW we could make things more challenging.  Dan John (shocker) is a master at just this: give him 1 kettlebell and he’ll find a movement that puts you in such a poor position that this KB, irrespective of weight, will force you to grow.  Many people were limited to just bodyweight, so they had to learn all the tips and tricks OF bodyweight work to maximize it, finding ways to maximally disadvantage the body.  Some had SOME weights, but very limited amounts, and minimal ability to obtain more…so out came the pre-exhaust work, dropsets, stripsets, rest pause sets, etc etc.  And HERE there WAS a forreal limitation placed upon us: the world of COVID forced many away from their training spaces and stole their equipment.  Absent that FORCED limitation, we can still create our own.

Limitations in other ways I suppose

Along with that, though, consider the necessary degree of creativity that must be there when we CREATE these challenges AND formulate the execution plan to accomplish the goals.  First, there is a necessary element of creativity in creating a challenge: as the word “create” is right there.  We must be able to think and act in an inventive manner in order to invent a challenge for us to overcome, and if we lack said creativity the very repetition of attempting to create these challenges will drive us.   There’s no shame in employing dice or a spinning wheel or a random number generator to determine your fate.  Consider the mental bandwidth that gets relieved when one outsources their own creativity externally.  But, alongside that, there comes the creativity necessary once the challenge is underway!  If mere conventional manners of approach were enough to overcome the challenge, It would be no challenge at all: it would be the status quo.  Instead, because we created a unique challenge, we need to create a unique plan of execution.

You can again observe this with the elites like Erik.  If they give themselves an hour to eat a 5lb cheeseburger and order of onion rings, you’ll see them attack the food in an unconventional manner, eating the protein first and saving the carbs for last, since they are the most filling, for example.  There is an exponentially effect of creativity: creating the challenge forces us to create the solution.  But I’d say one of the biggest boons here is that we are no longer shackled by the chains of “optimal” once the challenge has been issued: we’ve now simply climbed into the realm of “survive”.  And through surviving we grow, and through growing we achieve.  By artificially hamstringing ourselves, we put ourselves intentionally off-balance and can now only simply maximize from our current position rather than from the most ideal position, which is to say that there now is no longer “THE” right way to do things: simply A right way to do things.  Once again: THAT is freedom.  When success has many avenues, you are in an ideal state.  When there is only one path, if you miss it: it’s game over.  Going back to the speedrunners: if they miss one jump in Super Mario on one particular stage, they’ll just quit and start over.  It’s known what needs to get done to reach “optimal”, and if it’s missed: it’s over.  But if playing the game with your feet?  Who KNOWS what the optimal time or strategy is for that: let’s just see if we can do it first!

Oh my god it all makes sense now

There are so many lessons to be learned from all of this, but what I want to impose on those reading is that this can happen TODAY.  We can place a limitation on ourselves and use it NOT as a limitation but as a vector.  As a “freedom granter”.  In a world with an abundance of choices, we can suffocate from too much freedom, but we, in turn, have the freedom to DETERMINE our limitations.  Much like “the myth of Sisyphus”, we can CHOOSE a less than desirable fate and, in doing so, be liberated.  I’ve been most likely boring many of my readers with how big a fan I’ve become of the carnivore approach to nutrition, but it’s because of this very freeing limitation that I enjoy it so much.  I thrive with restrictions and flounder with freedom, and for so long I employed the restriction of “low carbohydrate” that I became TOO GOOD at it, and was, in turn, consuming all manner of keto junk food, treats, tricks and hacks while still abiding by my own rules.  By making the game harder and saying “animal only”, I’ve once again placed myself in a corner and have to use creativity to solve it.  It is liberating: I no longer need to think about WHAT I am going to eat: it’s an animal of some variety.  I’m following Easy Strength right now, and therein is a program where the limitations are hard set: 40 workouts, 3-5 exercises, 3-5 days a week, no more than 10 reps, never miss a rep.  The program is SUCH a breath of fresh air if you’ve been suffocating on percentages and RPEs.

Take this homework assignment and run it to completion.  Give yourself some limits and see what you come up with.  Imagine if you said you could only use a rack and barbell, like the York lifters did back in the day.  The precious bench press is gone: however will you survive?  Probably by building a set of shoulders so massive and dense that they draw all surrounding light into themselves and actually prevent humans from being able to observe your pectorals.  You can only do squats AFTER 10x40 yard prowler runs: better get fit if you wanna get jacked!  Try a month of eating BELOW recommended protein intake and see how the REST of the world somehow manages to put on muscle DESPITE inadequate protein intake.  Use intermittent fasting during a gaining phase and learn how to get in 4000 calories in a 6 hour window.  Come up with your own, try it for a training cycle and see what the impacts are.  You don’t need to wait for an injury to train like you’re injured, you don’t need to wait for a food shortage to train like there is a famine, you don’t need to develop allergies to cut wheat out of your diet: these are all opportunities to learn, grow, challenge yourself, overcome and, through it all, improve your creativity so that, when the time comes, you have THAT skill readily developed and deployable.  

Tell me more stories Uncle Pavel

And you will be free.  There will be no right choice: just the choice that’s right at that moment.    

MY JAMIE LEWIS EXPERIENCE PART 2: "FEAST, FAMINE AND FEROCITY" AND THE RESULTS

 Readers, part 1 of this got released a while back, so for a refresher, be sure to re-visit here

https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2023/05/my-jamie-lewis-experience-part-1-apex.html

Now onto part 2!

---

CHANGE 2: “FEAST, FAMINE AND FEROCITY”

I had no idea when I bought this that it was literally going to change my life. I now get chills seeing it.

It was practically kismet when Jamie released the Feast, Famine and Ferocity e-book, itself a re-packaging and update of an article series he’s previously released on his website.  I’ll do a review of the book package itself sometime in the future, but a quick summary is it’s a 50 page e-book where half of it is dedicated to the aforementioned program series of “Famine” and “Feast” while the other half is a republishing of his Bruce Randall article.  The later article IS a fantastic read, and I’d read it many times beforehand, but it’s worth appreciating that it’s really more a 30 page e-book in this regard.  That said, much like I wrote about in my review of Ben Pollack’s “Think Big”, a short e-book where every page is gold is SO much more valuable than 300 pages of fluff, and Jamie’s book definitely achieves that standard.

I genuinely had no intention of changing programs when I bought the book: I just am such a fan of Jamie that when he sells stuff I buy it so I can give him support.  However, upon reading it, I new my fate was sealed, similarly to the first time I read “Super Squats” and was all keyed up to begin my 6 weeks on that program once the book was done.  The primary draw was the fact that the “Famine” diet was VERY similar to the Apex Predator modification I was currently following.  The primary difference is that Famine has NO solid meals whatsoever: all shakes.  I wasn’t about to do THAT, but I did permit myself a few “all shakes” days in the 2 weeks that I followed the program, primarily because my schedule would permit for that…which meant, specifically, my wife would be out of town and I wouldn’t be missing any meals with her.  If she’s around, I’m not going to skip a meal with her to have a shake.  Sorry: priorities.

Seriously: don't be this person

I’ll then go on to say that, when I finished the entire book, I thought “Yeah, Famine fits, but this diet has been going so well that I’m not gonna do ‘Feast’.  I’ll do Famine and then something else”.

Yeah: that fell quickly to the wayside.  Jamie’s programming was so solid that I couldn’t wait to see it all the way through.  So with that, allow me to discuss both programs in a broad scale before going on to discuss each in detail.

THE PROGRAMS IN GENERAL

"Chaos is the plan: the plan"

I’m drawn to Jamie’s programming primarily because he doesn’t rely much on percentages and he encourages experimentation.  His programming is far more ideas and structures than an actual set routine, and the focus is on effort.  What was even more awesome about both Feast and Famine was that Jamie offers a 3-4 day variant and a 5-6 day variant of both programs, so there’s a LOT of flexibility there.  Those 3-4 day variants are LOADED to make it all work out, so, amazingly, I found myself drawn to the 5-6 day variants instead.  Since I get up early to train, I’m able to train 5 days a week without issue and didn’t need to cut down to 3-4 days, despite the fact I’ve written about the value of lifting weights 3-4 days a week to put on size.  It helps that, at this point in my training, putting on size wasn’t the concern: I had Super Squats for that.  For now, the goal was simply to experience the training and see what happened.

**AWESOME ELEMENTS OF FAMINE AND FEAST PROGRAMS**

Because combining 2 awesome things can often result in exponential awesomeness rather than linear

* Both programs feature a day Jamie refers to as “Dealer’s Choice”, which is as it sounds: do what you want.  For Famine, it’s up to 90 minutes.  For Feast, there’s no set time and Jamie even permits you to make it a day off if needed (which, despite all the increased cals, you may still need: I’ll detail that more later).  Either way is brilliant, and I think EVERY program needs this.  Trainees are stupid.  I’m including myself in there.  Trainees will ALWAYS sneak stupid crap into a program.  Pet lifts (curls, of course), stupid human tricks and gimmicks, “weak areas”, etc.   Trainees will inevitably wreck a program because they’ll change it up too much to fit in all this extra stuff that they end up reducing the effectiveness or flat our violating the intent, turning accumulation into intensification or GPP.  By having ONE day of the program where you just do what you want, you can get it all out of your system and then get back on program.  It’s the “cheat meal” of training.  During Famine, I’d throw in ALL that extra stuff I was doing before: Poundstone curls, lateral raise deathsets, belt squats, Kroc Rows, mat pull ROM progression, etc.  During Feast, my schedule was nuttier, so I often would just continue the ROM progression cycle and, if I had time, throw in some conditioning work and call it good.  But in both cases: my program compliance was MUCH stronger compared to programs I’d run in the past.

* Daily physical requirements/daily work.  Prior to starting up the program, I had my own daily work, which was: 50 chins, 50 dips, 50 pull aparts, 40 reverse hypers, 30 GHRs, 20 standing ab wheels, and often some neck work.  I’d get this done no matter what.  Jamie prescribes a daily 2 mile walk, outside, no matter what, along with 300 squats and 300 push ups.  I balked when I first saw that…and, in turn, loved that I had a new challenge in front of me.  And yeah: the first 2 days, I was SORE AS HELL, but upon adapting, I saw some AMAZING results.  The push ups and squats have honestly been transformative, as I’m seeing veins all over my quads and shoulders, but honestly, that daily 2 mile walk outside has probably been one of the most positive things I’ve ever done for myself.  It’s a chance to clear my head, get in some vitamin D, and bring back some health into my life.  Having it be a daily requirement and forcing myself to come up with ways to fit the walk into my day has been awesome, and my dog is appreciating all the time outside as well, and it’s gotten me to break out my weight vest again to add in even more resistance opportunities.  And that 2 mile walk has become a mere minimum, as I find myself becoming “activity seeking”, and will often get in 2 miles unweighted walking and then an extra 1-2 miles with a weight vest on as well. 

* On the daily work, Jamie is adamant that “this is not part of your workout-it is part of being a human being”.  I appreciate the sentiment there.  Being able to move your body through space is huge.  That said, I was big on making the push ups and squats INTO a workout when possible.  Toward the end, my go to was to use Tabata intervals of 20 seconds on/10 seconds off and do squats during the 20 second and push ups during the 10.  I’d settle on 20 squats per round and 15 push ups, getting me 300 squats in 15 rounds, and then I’d do the remaining push ups as fast as possible.  Keeping to those Tabata intervals makes this a pretty solid conditioning hit and only takes about 9 minutes to knock out.  Typically, I’d do this after the workout on weekdays, and on weekends I took to accomplishing it literally as soon as my feet would hit the floor in the morning.  I HATE working out, still do, and getting this done ASAP was pretty big for me.  Sometimes, though, I’d get cute and start incorporating push ups and squats into a larger conditioning paradigm, like in a circuit with swings, or GHRs, or chins, etc.  But, either way, I always met these goals.

**DEVIATIONS I MADE TO BOTH PROGRAMS**

Yeah, none of this with Jamie

* Jamie encourages experimentation, so game on.

* Jamie slots that “Dealer’s choice” toward the middle of the week with both programs, but for my work schedule it worked better to put it on Fridays/Weekends.  In the case of Famine, his middle of the week workout is either a day off or a 30 minute bodyweight conditioning circuit, which fit MUCH better with my weekend schedule, so putting that on Sat/Sun and Dealer’s choice on Friday allowed me to get in a 60+ minute dealer’s choice workout, which got in a lot of work.  In the case of Feast, there are 5 loaded days of training that worked much better for M-F for me, and then dealer’s choice on weekends allowed me to get anywhere from a 4-60 minute workout, depending on what my choice was as the dealer.  

* I made sure to run a full week of both programs exactly as written out, to include rest times, exercise order, etc.  In doing so, many of my workouts ran into the 80+ minute mark, which became a bit cumbersome with my schedule, but I wanted to understand how the training “felt” before I mucked with it.  Once I had that baseline established, I broke out the giant sets, short rest times, etc: all those tricks I’ve used in the past to get in more volume in less time.  I still made sure to bring the intensity, but wherever I could find logical pairings and groupings, I’d throw them in.  The 5xAMRAP hanging leg raises that happen EVERY training day are a quick kill, and much of the arm work could work in with other stuff.  Sometimes, though, it’d become something incredibly brutal, like bouncing between heavy shrugs and squats during Feast (more on that later).

* You’ll note I did NOT write about additional conditioning work, extra workouts, etc etc.  Jamie really “fixed” my compulsion here.  I’d be done with the training…and I’d trained “enough”.  This was really pretty huge for me.

*”FAMINE” SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS/DEVIATIONS*

In case you need supplemental reading

* With Jamie’s permission, I took full workout footage of all my training sessions of Famine AND Feast, so I’ll post those if you want to see the whole thing in action.

* I made a few deviations from the programming, more out of equipment limitations.  I don’t have a leg extension or leg curl machine.  For extensions, I could use my reverse hyper, sit on top of it, hook my feet through the straps and do extensions.  That worked well.  Turning around to do curls that way?  Not as great.   I stuck with it through Famine, since it’s only 2 weeks, before eventually just going with GHRs during Feast, and when I return to Famine, that’s where I’ll go.

* My cable set up is pretty janky, so for cable rows I went with landmine t-bar rows instead.  I also don’t have a machine shoulder press, but I rigged up a VERY awesome Viking press set-up with bands that was clutch (you’ll see it on the video).

* Strongman implements regularly featured, because they’re awesome.  I also was making extensive use of the SSB, because I was still pretty broken from Super Squats.

* I didn’t follow the diet 100%, but I met the spirit of it.  LOTS of caffeine, shakes made up the majority of my nutrition, calories were low.  I trained fasted as well.  

*”FEAST” SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS/DEVIATIONS*

This photo needs a trigger warning for excellence

* Here’s the “FEAST” playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfcuGAffLlSf-y7VAbGZ3TVKoE1T5OycC

* I underwent a MAJOR nutritional pivot during Feast, and it’s been one of the most positive things I’ve done for myself in a long time.  I absolutely didn’t meet Jamie’s prescription as far as calories goes, primarily because I’m not going to count calories.  In addition, the shakes were still regular features because they went a long way toward streamlining my life.  HOWEVER, for my solid meals: I went carnivore.  I’d been wanting to try out a carnivore diet for a few years now, after listening first to Shawn Baker and then Paul Saladino and a few other carnivore influencers talk to the approach (and constantly hearing Mark Bell beat the drum for it).  This also matches up a bit more directly with how Jamie laid out the “Apex Predator Diet”, as the solid meals were all meat.  I honestly just wasn’t in a good place psychologically to undertake it, but this protocol was VERY freeing in that regard, so I went full steam ahead…and it’s been amazing.  I’ll probably just have to make it another blog post (a continuation of the overhaul series), but I’m only eating meat, eggs and cheese/dairy, and I attribute that to some of the AMAZING results I’ve gotten (will sum that up at the end).  I still opt for high quality sources (grassfed beef/dairy when possible, pasture raise eggs, etc), and I’m still using supplements to fill in gaps (Superfood, Flameout, several others), but the Feast has been a carnivore Feast.  Conan approved!  

* After the first week of Anderson squats, I used a larger ROM and started using bands.  That was the right call.  My hip and knee were STILL messed up from Super Squats, and heavy loading was killing them.  The bands allowed me to keep the bar weight low, but the intensity was THROUGH THE ROOF.  Try breaking a dead weight off of chains when it’s banded in place.  It takes EFFORT!  And you can NOT quit once you start. 

* Rather than do 5x10-15 leg curls, I did GHRs.  But along with that, I did them with my push ups and squats, turning it into a circuit workout.  I worked up to a final workout of 15 rounds of 15 GHRs, 20 squats, 15 push ups, then got in the remaining 75 push ups to get my 300, then went for a max set of GHRs.  It was a LOT of GHRs. 

* For benching, week 1 was dead bench, week 2 was dead bench against bands, week 3 was touch and go axle bench, week 4 was pause axle bench with chains.  I ultimately just needed gimmicks to get me through it, but I was getting stronger.

Me and gimmicks?  No way!

* For pressing, I set out with a goal to get all 8 sets done in 8 minutes, using an EMOM style, so I never increased the weight on it.  Different ways to progress.

* For the squats and shrugs day, I rotated between SSB front squats and SSB squats, primarily because, with a deathset at the end, it was good to use the SSB.  SSB front squats are honestly a hidden gem of a movement that I rediscovered, and I’ll need to include it more in the future.  For the shrugs, I did my best to set it up like a hip and thigh lift, but on one set in particularly I REALLY crunched my left quad and had to eventually settle on trap bar shrugs for the final week.  And I think that’s going to be a more permanent solution.  It just works better.

* On that same day, instead of the leg curl work, I would do GHRs while holding a kettlebell in a goblet squat position.  Honestly: this is an AMAZING hamstring workout.  I made my final one particularly tough by doing sets of 3 every 20 seconds, getting in 9 sets total, then the 2 AMRAPS, then dying.

* For pulls, I did a whole bunch of crazy crap, but it always included the trap bar.  High handle one week, ox lift one week (torqued my knee and wanted to keep loading light on the knee), high handle again but with short rests, low handle.  I stuck with trap bar because my “Dealer’s Choice” was deadlift bar ROM pull progression (I started the cycle on Famine and continued it through Feast, which was like a billion IQ move on my part) and I didn’t need to pull heavy with a strap bar twice in a week.  This also made the rows awesome, as I went with trap bar rows, which are what I’ll bring into Famine.  They’re an awesome movement.

**RESULTS**

Christ I'm old to be referencing this...

 

* It’s so rare I do photos, so appreciate this.  This isn’t 6 weeks purely on FFF, but the end of Super Squats and the final week of “Feast”, so about 9 weeks of change. 

 

 

* As far as lift results go, I genuinely hate detailing this stuff, since my training is so wild and difficult to track.  I’m gonna just shotgun some stuff here, but ultimately: I’m the strongest I’ve been in a LONG time while also the leanest.

 

> From week 1 to week 4 of Feast, I went from only being able to do 3 rounds of EMOM 200lb log clean and press for doubles to getting through a full 8 rounds of it.

> From 4 triples of SSB squats w/405 in the first week of Famine to 6 triples of 415 in the third week of Feast

> 4x2x321 axle bench in the first week of Famine, 10x2x301 in week 3 of Feast (with 1 minute rests vs 2+)

 

* But honestly, stuff like this 

is really what I find most impressive as far as results.  That’s an 11+4+3x405+chain mat pull, but the context is: I had been walking around the zoo for 6 hours that day, having only had a Metabolic Drive shake for lunch and then coming home from a solid [carnivore feast https://global.discourse-cdn.com/tnation/original/4X/e/1/d/e1d5ffdf73834fc67487531f81d2d921476cc598.jpeg), and I had 5 minutes before we were going to turn right around and walk the dog (get in my 2 miles).  I threw on some shorts I had on the laundry, warmed up with ONE rep of 155+chains, and then pulled that.  All the daily activity, new stuff I’ve been exposed to, good eating, etc etc has me fully healed and ready to move and act when needed.  I’ve genuinely just never felt more capable and dangerous.

 

**CONCLUSION**

And now I'm even older to reference this...

* Folks, I could legit talk about this protocol any Jamie’s intervention into my life for a LONG time.  It’s honestly hard to cut myself off here (my current write up is 10 pages in length, but I’m trying to chop it down to make it readable for you).  Please ask questions, but, in general: this has become my favorite protocol in 23 years of training.  Everyone needs to run it.  Everyone needs to try Apex Predator.  Everyone needs to buy stuff from Jamie.  Call me a shill: I don’t care.  This has been life changing.

ON THE NECESSARY DISRUPTION OF HARMONY

One of my favorite scenes in cinema comes from the “so-bizarre-it-HAS-to-exist” 90s film “The 5^th Element”, wherein criminally underrated (because no matter how many positive things you say about him it wouldn’t be enough) actor Gary Oldman, playing the part of Jean-Baptize Emanuel Zorg, pushes a glass off his table while having a conversation with a space-priest in order to demonstrate the benefits of chaos.  With “chaos being the plan”, you can understand already why I’m a fan of this scene.  But what unfolds is a symphony of robotics that come to the aid of the situation, one to clean the broken glass, one to replenish the drinker with a new glass, one to fill that new glass with a new beverage, etc.  The scene, of course, goes on to demonstrate the benefit of humanity in the face of all these robots, but that’s a dumb lesson, so instead I focus on what Zorg was trying to teach: how the disruption of a harmonious state is more than simply “not negative”, but, in fact, very much positive AND necessary in order for us to achieve higher levels of excellence and, ultimately, realize our maximal potential.

Seriously, just a fantastic movie and scene

This, of course, comes screaming in on the heels of my post recent posts wherein I have described the bliss that comes with eating, living and training in a manner that suits my internal nature, effectively aligning my actions with my instincts and achieving a truly “intuitive” state of existence.  That joy and bliss IS real, BUT, I also frequently speak to the reality of duality and dualistic forces in nature, and duality is ALSO key to achieving a harmonious state.  Balance is crucial to harmony, and imbalances create disharmony.  Too much virtue and not enough vice creates disharmony in the same way that too much vice and not enough virtue do.  The external outcomes may be different (an excessive sinner’s sins tend to impact society to a greater extent than an Ned Flanders type does), but, internally, the outcome is disharmony.  BUT, when we go into a macro level here, we are forced to understand a true bit of irony: there is DISHARMONY in having TOO MUCH HARMONY.

 

YES!  How incredibly comedic: if we exist in a state of harmony for TOO LONG, we become necessarily disharmonious due to the lack of disharmony to balance out the harmony!  In order to remain IN harmony, we must necessarily be regularly exposed to periods of disharmony.  I am genuinely laughing as I write that, because it’s the kind of cruel trick that only nature can play on us.  I wrote about how I spent far too long in a disharmonious state and how it was destroying me internally, but I was not existing in that state purely for the sake OF self-destruction: my intent was to have disharmony force my body and self to achieve some manner of adaptation in order to overcome the state OF disharmony.  Nietzsche’s “will to power” coming into play there: a catalyst must exist in order to drive adaptation and evolution.  Absence a threat from the environment, there’s no force to drive change within a species, but when something presents which disrupts harmony, change and adaptation occur.  This drives evolution, the realization of potential and, ultimately, self-actualization, which is a necessary part OF existing in a harmonious state.  Absent self-actualization, one experience ennui, which, in turn, is in itself a disharmonious state wherein the only escape is SUBJECTION TO DISHARMONY!  Oh my goodness it just doesn’t stop.

 

See what happens in the absence of challenges...and major props if you get this reference

Holy cow, how is this about training?  Let me try to get back to the micro-level here.  Training and nutrition, done correctly, are phasic by nature.  This is basic periodization at work.  In training, we have conditioning/GPP phases, accumulation phases, intensification phases, etc.  Our nutrition matches to align with these phases as a means of recovery support.  Phasically structured training is training with the intentional disruption of harmony effectively built INTO the plan.  We give an athlete just enough time to adapt to the training only to switch it up on them, generate a disharmonious state, have that state force adaptation, and have adaptation result in growth, and have that growth be part of the realization of potential.  Done correctly, this style of training and nutrition will ultimately have the athlete realize their MAXIMAL potential and, ultimately, achieve whatever greatness they have within them.  And, in turn, they realize harmony: but only by EXPERIENCING a necessary degree of the disruption of said harmony.  Had we never disrupted their harmony, they would have never achieved a true state of it, instead existing in a lesser state, which, in turn, results in the disharmony that comes with NOT realizing one’s true potential.

 

I was experiencing this first hand living intuitively these past few weeks.  My heart was full, my mind was clear, I was joyful…and I found myself growing soft.  I was gravitating to the things I was good at and avoiding the things I was bad at.  I noted that I had stopped training my abs and arms directly, and, in turn, I observed declines in their performance.  I found my body had gone flat because I was settled into a style of eating that brought me internal harmony, and that style included no carbohydrates whatsoever and was purely animal protein.  I was living in a state of harmony and bliss and, in turn, not making strides toward internal greatness…and, in turn, experiencing ennui at “this being it”.  So I ate a bunch of carbohydrates on a Sunday evening (but opted for “clean” sources vs my typical junk food Rampages) and woke up Monday to combine Jon Andersen’s Deep Water program and Dan John’s 10k swing challenge into 1 workout which I stretched into the full week, because I recognized that I grow at my best rates when I follow someone else’s programs, primarily because they will force me to do things I will not do for myself.  And it worked.  I started with 10x10 SSB squats with 50 swings between sets to get in 100 squats and 500 swings, and with that workout on Monday, my legs were sore until Friday.  I kept up my Viking motif through it all, because it’s been an excellent driver of decision making, and let this disharmonious state drive me toward adaptation.  And now that I’ve discovered this, I have an idea that, every few weeks, I can inject a “harmony disruptor” into my intuitive lifestyle in order to keep sharp.  This coincides very much with Jon Andersen’s “catfish” notion written about in Deep Water, alongside Dan John’s “Bus Bench” training and his 28 day fat loss attack strategy, and so many many other very smart authors out there that realized all this well before I did.

There's always this...

 

But, once again, the comedy here is that, by establishing a PLAN of harmony disruption, I create a plan that will, necessarily, NEED to be disrupted itself in order for me to continue to achieve greatness THROUGH the disruption of harmony.  Soon, it will become too predictable that I am disrupting my own harmony in order to achieve greatness, and it will become necessary to find a new way to do so that is not predictable or stable: something I myself cannot anticipate.  And perhaps that is something accomplished by NOT disrupting harmony: “the only winning move is not to play”, to quote Wargames.  However it unfolds, the lesson remains: an abundance of harmony without a necessary degree of disharmony is, in itself, disharmonious and will result in the dissonance that comes with experiencing disharmony. 

 

In order to BE harmonious, we MUST experience regularly bouts of disharmony. 

“DON’T HAND ME NO LINES AND KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF”

The blog title comes from the band “The Georgia Satellites” and their 1986 hit “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”, which goes to show you my age, because that song was in my head this morning…but for good reason!  I remain an agent of duality, with opposing forces constantly battling within my brainspace and, in doing so, existing harmoniously in a state of balance.  Whereas many western ethical/philosophical schools may support the notion of maximizing virtue and minimizing vice, there have been several schools of the east that speak to the benefit of achieving balance of these forces through a more or less EQUAL presence of them.  And so we have “don’t hand me no lines AND keep your hands to yourself”, and this regards specifically the notion of ego…and as I continue to bloviate on philosophical/psychological schools of thought, I mean this sense of self-worth and self-value.  I am a firm believer in having a HUGE ego, which is to say, a HUGE sense of self-worth and self-importance.  I believe it is in the best interest of the majority of humanity to think quite highly of themselves (even though, as a misanthrope, I think quite LOWLY of them…again, balance, duality).  I constantly express that “the world will go out of its way to beat you down: don’t give it a hand!  Overcompensate in the other direction so you can reach neutral/balance”.  However, while I say this, here comes to counter-proposal: “don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.”

Ok, maybe just "keep yourself to yourself"...

 

What am I trying to say here, aside from inviting an earworm into your cranium (you’re welcome by the way)?  I believe we should think VERY highly of ourselves.  I am amazing.  I am excellent.  I am incredible.  I am a Viking and The Juggernaut and all things fantastic, and I will be the biggest and strongest and fittest and most jacked being to ever walk the planet.  HOWEVER, these are the things I THINK.  I tell MYSELF these things, because having a healthy and strong ego is beneficial for the sake of maintaining a healthy and strong positive self-image and, in turn, mental health, which governs physical health.  The systems all play together.  BUT, I also exercise “staying in my lane” DESPITE how I think and feel about this.  I don’t hand you lines, AND I keep my hands to myself.

 

Some of you folks out there in internet-land have ONLY focused on the “thinking highly of oneself” angle here, and have forgotten this OTHER important half.  And, in turn, you end up speaking out WELL above your paygrade on subjects you know absolutely nothing about, NOR do you have any right or credibility to do so.  And before someone keys in on that word “right” and yells “FREEDOM OF SPEECH”, a fantastic rule of thumb is that, if the ONLY reason you can do something is that it’s illegal to STOP you from doing it: you’re PROBABLY being an a-hole.  It’s not illegal for me to walk down my street and blare an air-horn every 38 seconds…but there’s no reason for me to do it.  It’s not illegal for me to microwave fish in the office microwave…but I’m probably an a-hole for doing it.  Here, when I say you have no right to discuss this subject outside your area of expertise (whatever THAT happens to be), let’s add “lawyer” to that list of things you AREN’T.

We still miss you Phil

 

When your opinion is valuable, it will be SOUGHT AFTER.  Think of all the coaches out there that have opinions that are so valuable they get PAID to share it.  It’s LITERALLY valuable: it has an associated monetary worth assigned to it.  “My opinion costs $X”.  When your opinion is WITHOUT value, you can’t even GIVE it away.  You have to FORCE it on people.  That’s a sign that you should “keep your hands to yourself”.  No one wants your touch right now.  We learned “keep your hands to yourself” when we were kids, and it holds true today.  When you are desirable, your touch will BE desired.  When you find yourself having to force it upon others, you must understand the implications of such a situation.

 

And to what “benefit” does your touch bring in the first place?  Compared to those who are sought after, what are YOU bringing to the table?  Could it at ALL be more valuable than what’s being put out there by those that are sought after?  At BEST, it will be equal…and that would be purely out of coincidence OR (most likely) a result of you simply parroting that very advice…which runs into the dangerous impacts of “the telephone game”, in that you can very easily misconstrue what is being communicated since you lack the necessary context of the degree of success achieved by the original advice giver AND you lack the necessary degree of knowledge held by that person as well.  So you do not have the tools or experience to even adequately RELAY information to achieve success.  You are merely polluting the signal-to-noise ration here.

Simple enough

 

PLEASE, DO think highly of yourself!  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When we think we are excellent, we become excellent, because we become that which we think of.  To say nothing of practicing being “that which does” as well.  Success starts with the brain and the body will follow.  HOWEVER, THINK highly of yourself: do not ACT highly of yourself.  Do not inflict these thoughts upon others: have them SEEK these thoughts.  It WILL happen, ONCE you realize these thoughts.   Once you become the very awesome thing that you think you are, others will recognize it, they will seek your opinion AND your opinion will be valuable.  And that is VERY self-perpetuating: you think you are awesome, you do awesome things, to include teaching OTHERS how to be more awesome, and that makes you even MORE awesome, and others will inform you how awesome you are. 

 

But until that day arrives, don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.

“TO VALHALLA”: LET YOUR TRAINING TELL A STORY

Folks, I’m having the most fun with my training I’ve had in a LONG time and I needed to share the methodology, primarily because so many folks that follow me on youtube have been asking “why” and it’s honestly because…because!  

Plus, you should always support local charities! 

I’m fully aware that, as of recently, I appear to have gone completely off the rails, and I may have even lost some readership because all I can talk about is how I’m reinventing myself and how I’ve discovered carnivore and completely overhauled my life and etc etc.  From the outside, I’m sure it’s annoying, but on the inside it truly is like the phoenix rising from the ashes, as I feel the best I have in a LONG time, and I have just so much joy and exuberance about it that I want to share it as much as I can.  I shouldn’t horde this feeling: I want EVERYONE to experience it.

And so I have even more nutrition stuff to write about, and the second part of my Jamie Lewis experience (which is a major contributor to this for sure), but today, allow me discuss how my decision to take a slight detour in my training has got me in a way where my training is absolutely delightful: letting my training tell a story.  

**SOME BACKGROUND**

I was running Jamie Lewis' "Feast, Famine and Ferocity" protocol, which I’ve already done some writing about, but to re-iterate: it's premised around the idea that, historically, man has existed in alternating periods of famine and feasting, and it's only recently we've achieved a sustained period of abundance.

Alongside that, he speaks to how war-like societies would, in turn, have campaign seasons and at-home periods.  Basically, they experienced famine when they were out waging war, conquering and pillaging, and then, upon successful return home, the feast would begin.  He absolutely referenced vikings in that regard: rowing away from home during the harsh winters to go pillage and raid, then returning home to feast and celebrate.

He builds the training AND the diets together to simulate this.  Famine is bare minimum calories (pure protein, to spare the muscle) and the training is just a short burst of strength work followed by lots of higher rep endurance work, whereas the feast is eating in abundance and heavy lifting.  I ran them both as written when I first ran them.  I was on my second run of it, and, in turn, I created a theme.

**THE START OF THE STORY**

Here's a helpful guide!

Going from the first feast into the second famine, I decided to make my training tell a story.  I went from the feast to "Famine: Ragnarok is here".  So the story goes; there we Vikings were, feasting in Valhalla, as was our reward for dying valiantly in battle...but now, Ragnarok has arrived and it's time for us to earn our keep.  What made "Ragnarok is here" different from the initial Famine training block was how I made the majority of the training into giant sets/circuits with minimal rest.  Every training day was an intense battle.  Whereas the first Famine was about surviving the famine, this was about giving every last ounce of us in battle.

And initially, I was going to go straight into the feast after Ragnarok: back to Valhalla we go.  BUT, through happenstance, my schedule pivoted and it was Memorial Day, I ran Murph and thought "We should continue to honor the fallen", and it turned into "To Valhalla": a transition phase BETWEEN the famine and the feast.  "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die".  Here: we die.  Initially, it was going to be a solid week of hero WODs with a Viking twist...but I really didn't feel right doing that to heroes.  So, instead it's been more just WODs in general with a Viking twist, and nutrition is straddling between famine and feast.

At the end of this post, I’ll post the actual workouts I’ve been doing, as something of an addendum (since there’s been interest in that), but allow me to discuss…

**WHY LET YOUR TRAINING TELL A STORY**

You might get a movie deal!

Folks, for the first time in possibly…ever, I am training and eating intuitively.  As a non-calorie counter, I’d always get upset when people would say to me “I wish I could just eat intuitively like you do, but I need to measure things”, because my eating was SO unintuitive.  I was constantly hungry and eating stuff I didn’t want AND not eating stuff I DID want.  I’ve since flipped the script and found total harmony in that regard and now, yes, I AM eating intuitively.  

But now the TRAINING is intuitive as well.  It was, again, simply a matter of schedules and circumstances that the day I was supposed to begin Feast was a holiday and I ended up running  Murph instead of Feast.  But I woke up the next morning…and I just plain did not want to do the workout I had scheduled.  And decided then to do something else.  I listened to myself and did what I felt compelled to do.  And I’m continuing to do exactly that.  “But how do I decide from there?”

Duels to the death are like coin flips with higher stakes

LET YOUR TRAINING TELL A STORY!  Feast, Famine and Ferocity was doing exactly that, and like other authors before me, I took some source material and used it as inspiration for my own story.  And now I’m having so much fun coming up with a story for each workout and then living out that very story.

Remember what gets us success: effort, consistency and time.  The difference in outcome I’ll get from training in the most optimal way possible vs training in this style I have is so inconsequential that the tradeoff is absolutely worth it.  Meanwhile, the story can provide a helpful vector for your training and get the creative juices flowing.  If nothing else, it gets you thinking, and that’s never a bad thing.  More people need to be mindful of their training.  And as far as “being that which does” goes: if you wanna BE a Viking, you gotta be willing to DO Viking things.

Folks, I’ll always be a Dungeons and Dragons nerd.  Being able to LARP my training and nutrition has just satisfied something so primordially deep inside of me that I’m just living my best life.  Imagine crushing a Viking workout and celebrating with a feast of beef ribs.  It doesn’t get better.

Find me a more anabolic lunch

There were no survivors

**THE STORY OF “TO VALHALLA”

This is a helpful guide

I am still building this airplane as I fly it.  Initially, this was just going to be one week of training before I got back on with Feast, but, in truth, I may honestly just train like this for the rest of my life.  Chaos is the plan!  And in that regard, I just let it fly. But here’s the story (and workouts) so far.

I’ll be honest with you here folks: the formatting is about to get all kinds of junked up, and I’m flat out running out of steam because simply WRITING this has been an epic.  You’ll need to google some of these names to find out the TRUE story here, but still: appreciate this for what it’s worth.

WEEK 1

Workout 1: Harald Hadrada's Campaign: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdEj6fJntcs

A modified Kalsu, wherein we united the 2 kingdoms of burpees and thrusters.  And everyone is dead at the end.

* 100 Viking Thrusters w/90lbs on the axle, EMOM do 5 burpees onto the handle w/a Viking handle deadlift

Workout 2: Viking Raid: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dVKpOjZDQ

Row to the shore, disembark, steal the mead/goodies, load it on the boat, row further to the next shore and repeat, wear your armor because we're a raiding party, not a war-party (no berserkers here)

• Viking row 20 reps w/25lb on the axle

• 3 keg carry and load w/100lb keg

• Add 5 reps to the row each round

• As many rounds as possible in 40 minutes

• Wear a 10lb vest

Workout 3: Carried Away by Valkyries: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu9k_aqIcqo

Take "girl WODs" and make them Viking.  Based on time, there as potential for a Viking Fran, Grace, etc.

For my run of it, I settled on Linda and Cindy the first time.  Second time through my plan is Grace, Fran, and a few others.

“Valkyrie Linda” is as follows:

• 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of

• Viking deadlift: 270lb loaded onto axle

• Axle bench: 181lbs

• Keg clean: 155lbs

“Valkyrie Cindy”

• 5x40kg kb swing

• 10 push ups

• 15 squats

Workout 4: "Battle of Stamford Bridge": 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEUfegvFFSI

How Harald's campaign ended, and, with it, the Viking era itself.

• 30 minute workout: Death by Viking Armor Building Complexes (ABCs are 2 cleans, 1 press and 3 front squats)

• 90lbs loaded on the axle

• “Death by” means start with 1 at minute 1, 2 at minute 2, etc until you get beat by the clock

• Between rounds: baseball bat strikes against mats (sledge to tire would be ideal, but gotta use what you got)

• Once you die: do a full round of strikes, then start over at 1 (I died a LOT)

Workout 5: Jötunn Siege Engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KvAol3cA78

The jötunn are inhuman, so they don't perform humane burpees: they perform INhumane burpees.  That's why we do 5 extra goblet squats.  They carry their battering ram to the gate to crash it down.  Once they finish, our troops on the other get down to the cellars and retrieve the burning oil to pour upon the shock troops.

It's a siege.  You don't win: you just survive.

10 rounds:

• INhumane burpee (15 swings, 10 goblet squats and 5 push ups) w/24kg bell

• Carry 100lb keg between burpee

After that, 10 rounds of

• Keg one motion press into 5 push ups

Workout 6: Tearing off Grendal’s Arm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75rCGZ7U-Vs 

8+3+3 mat pulls w/415+chains off of a 4 mat high pull

10 rounds of

• 15 KB swings

• 5 goblet squats

• 15 push ups

WEEK 2 

It’s worth appreciating that, at this point, I decided to stack on an additional challenge: get in 15k KB swings in 26 days.  So, in turn, the KB features a LOT in this week’s programming.

Workout 1: “Erik, Baleog and Olaf Get Lost in the Woods of DanJöhneimr” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SelROVocXv0

The title is a reference to an AMAZING video game

• 575 kettlebell swings w/24kg bell in as few rounds as possible, BUT…

• EMOM: First 25 minutes: 2x 1 burpee into 1 Viking thruster w/110lbs on axle

• EMOM: Remaining rounds: 1 burpee into 2 Viking thrusters (so effectively 1 fewer burpee per round)

Workout 2: “Viking Raid: Varangian Guard Ambushed At High Tide”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EwERtpr_7A

Here’s the story behind the workout: we’re back to the Viking raid. We’re wearing our armor (10lb vest) because we are a raiding party. BUT, we planned poorly, and high tide rolled in. This is why the keg has to be carried to the boat locked out overhead: gotta keep it above the water. The tide has also made a quick escape impossible, and our victims have more fight in them than before. So this means we row to the shore, swing our weapon 30 times, take the bounty, load it on the boat, swing our weapon at the reinforcements, and row it back home. We get home and find that the province has come under invasion from marauders who sought to strike the homefront while we were away, so we fend them off, unload the bounty, get in some quick weapon training to stay sharp, and row out for the next raid. And, of course, since we are Varangian, there are many Rus among us, which is why our weapon is the mighty kettlebell. …oh my goodness, yes, that is SUCH a stretch

10 rounds of:

• 20 Viking rows w/25lbs on axle

• 30 KB swings w/24kg bell

• Keg carry (carry locked out overhead on way up, cross body carry on way down, alternate each round)

• 30 KB swings

• While wearing 10lb vest

Increase Viking rows reps by 5 every odd round

Workout 3 “Carried Away By Valkyries: Grace, Fran and Cindy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1bL5kOWWJ8

I proved unworthy of Grace and was forced to face Fran and Cindy as my penance.

“Valkyrie Grace”

• 30 floor to overheads w/Viking handle

“Valkyrie Fran”

• 21-15-9 Viking thruster and strict chins

“Valkyrie Cindy”

20 minutes AMRAP of

• 5 chins-10 push ups-15 squats-20 KB swings w/24kg bell

Workout 4 (Part 1): “Festival of Orm Stórolfsson: Feats of Endurance”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaXDqcWCdA8

The festival runs through the day and ends with a feast! We start off the morning with a light breakfast and feats of endurance

“Why 38 rounds?” Because we’re still going to get 15k swings in 26 days, and 38 rounds of 15 got us to 570, with 5 more tacked on for 575, which puts us on pace. 8s for push ups and squats got us slightly over 300: our daily goal.

38 rounds of

• 15 KB swings w/24kg bell

8 squats

8 push-ups

While wearing our armor (10lb vest)

Workout 4 (Part 2): “Festival of Orm Stórolfsson: Feats of Strength and Tribute”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Nn_eNkiys

“VIKING POWERLIFTING MEET & TRIBUTE TO ORM”

A Viking would not debase himself by lying down, so there is no benching here.

Double bodyweight on squats, bodyweight on log, 3/4 bodyweight on stone. 

2 reps per lift: one for me and one for Orm.

18 rounds, because 6 attempts per lift: once again, 1 meet for me, 1 meet for Orm.

When it’s over, we load up the bar much like the ships mast that did in our hero and we hold for as long as we can. That was 645lbs. Nothing significant about the number: it was the heaviest I could load onto the bar in the fastest time.

Workout 5: ”Blacksmith of Valhalla Outfits the Fallen”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dve_1L_qXcc

We are swinging this hammer and building armor for our heroes, every minute, on the minute. We have a job, and we do it with pride!

* 575 kb swings w/24kg bell, but EMOM do a Viking Armor Building Complex w/90lbs loaded on axle.

---

The story isn’t over, but this is how far it’s gone for now.  Write your own!