Month: June 2017

Take 4 Action.

What are the limits?

People have done amazing things. Strength,endurance, willpower, survival.

But I’m thinking bodybuilding here.
Powerbuilding is actually a better term as far as what’s in my head. To be big, fairly lean, and rugged, more like a lean strongman, the type with manhandling strength.

But what would be the natural limit? I say it’s far further than is commonly accepted, and probably further than where a bunch of steroid users are at.

But really what’s on my mind is not just the long term, but the short term.

Take an already built natural with average genetics, how far could they go in say a 12-16 week sprint following the Barbarian Brother’s mantra of ” There is no such thing as overtraining, just undereating and undersleeping”

3 or 4 months of obsessional lunatic training and big eating.

What’s the line you could push til?

The hardest part in my mind is eating the amount necessary here, which brings up another point;

Why is it that you have to get fat?

5000 calories that’s outtrainable.
6000 ditto, remember this hypothetical is looking for steroid like strength gains and recomp, and the starting point is already fairly big.

10000 calories seems ridiculous, but I bet it can be consumed.

8000. I like this number, it is both semi-ridiculous,and far past 5000, yet I feel sustainable.

8000 calories a day for 3-4 months, and training to burn it off.

How to hit 8000 you ask?

~3lbs ground beef,whatever you mix in with the beef(cheese, onion,rice,etc), a gallon of milk, and 8-12 eggs blended with whatever(peanut butter,banana,ice cream,etc) into real protein shakes.

Get all that down to hit 8000.

Now to the training.

Daily or damn near daily marathon sessions, and I’d say multiple sessions as well.

Morning cardio and calisthenics.
Evening weights.

The morning is more to keep healthy and athletic while adding volume in an easy way.

Walking,jump rope, a bunch of calisthenics, then end with some 40s.

The evening?

Oh boy. We have a lot of work to do.

This is about rugged strength so high rep pump work would be minimal, and besides already covered in the morning session.

Full body training is a must here, and giant setting push, pull, and legs would be beneficial.

Lots of sets of 4-8. We want hypertrophy and strength here.
This is a recomp and a mad dash towards scariness, we don’t want to be simply puffy and pretty.

The tonnage per session would be awe inspiring.

I’d say that this experiment breaks all the gym rules. I can already hear the “natty bros” screaming steroids, overtraining,and you’ll get fat.

Why not send a nice middle finger the naysayers way and prove the fuckers wrong.

You’ll be physically far more robust for it.

-J

 

Before writing to get in some physical activity I swung my 20lb kettlebell for 5 minutes straight.

At the start I was tossing it from hand to hand spinning it in the air (not flips like in juggling), but as time progressed the tosses got less lively.

Soon the transitions from hand to hand became less frequent.

My glutes started getting pumped, and I could feel the insertion between my obliques and lower back.

Near the end I started mixing in squat style swings after having done only hinge style swings prior.

Finally the timer buzzed, and I swung an extra 10 seconds to even out the number of swings with each hand.

I was drenched in sweat, had a decent glute pump, my heart rate was up, and I was feeling euphoric.

About an hour later my glutes mildly spasmed while standing.

Overall it had been great, and I decided to write on time under tension again.

Most people spend very little time actually moving weights. Sets and reps just don’t lend themselves to lots of time under load unless you’re doing sets of 50-100 reps (or more).

I challenge you to pick an exercise, it doesn’t need to be a hard one, and set a timer for 5 minutes and go.

I know you’re thinking that 5 minutes is nothing,so go ahead, do it.

You’ll quickly discover it’s not when you’re actually working the entire time.

Depending on your patience you may expect the 5 minutes to be up in as little as one minute.

Certain exercises will make this one set hellish. A decently loaded leg press for example is one (I can push hard on the leg press).

Some will make it damn near impossible like holding a good low horse stance.

I’d suggest pushups, Hindu squats, or light kettlebell swings to start with. The swings and Hindu squats you can definitely finish, but the pushups will likely hit total failure before the time’s up.

Make the 5 minutes and don’t rest (Unless you’ve hit failure).

Give it a go. You’ll find you respect certain abilities far more once you have.

-J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go into any gym, and see what is being done.

Routine.

People have their routine. Most are just spinning their wheels, making progress slowly if at all.

Most are scared to ever do something crazy like an iron marathon, or even up the volume slightly.

Upping The Volume

Now to get bigger and stronger you’ll need to do more volume.

Common methodology says to add more reps.

I’m suggesting do something different:

Don’t add more reps,that’s too normal,instead add A TON of time under tension.

I’m not suggesting you do tempo’d out lifting. 4 seconds lower,pause 2,4 up,pause 1. No, not at all.

Leave that primarily for the bodybuilding magazines.

So how to dramatically increase your time under tension?

One word; Holds.

Holds

This is isometric work 101.

It could be against an immovable object, but yielding style(holding a weight) is far easier to track.

Is your grip lagging? If so make sure the bar (preferably an axle/fat bar) spends a lot of time in your hands.

Holding a weight at lockout for time is the simplest way, although you could add movement ala farmers walks.

This method can be done with any muscle group.

I’m partial to using it with shoulders. In fact just last night I did 1 arm axle snatches and held the weight for 30 seconds at lockout. (I used an interval timer, and alternated hands, 5 sets of 30 seconds each hand)

5 x 30 seconds is only 2:30 of tension each side. Easy right?

Not so much, generally our sets and reps don’t equal much time under tension at all.

You’d be surprised the difference in work when you do holds.

It’s quite straight forward, and is an instant intensity multiplier.

Remember it can done with any bodypart, and any movement.

Bench holds for time? I’ve done it, in fact it’s how I first passed 275.
Deadlift holds? Check.
Chin up holds and hangs? Check and check.
Hand and thigh lift and holds are brutal.
Olympic lifts held at the top? Oh yeah, and this applies to EVERY variation.

Remember this can be used for any bodypart or movement.

You’ll quickly see how little work you’ve actually been doing.

Get intense, add some volume,and get jacked!

-J

There is tremendous value in keeping your body,and your muscles primed. By doing so you allow yourself to always be good to go,to be able to constantly perform, and even do so under adverse circumstances.

Now in the past my best squat gains came from daily squatting. However it’s been almost a year since I did that protocol for around 7 months without missing a day.

I decided that as long as I have gym access (iffy, I’m in a tight spot financially) that I’ll start squatting everyday again, and with the intention of building some leg size also do reps on either the leg press or back squat more sessions than not in addition to the low rep squat work.

There’s a feeling of being primed,of the muscle in question feeling “solid” when trained frequently. In the legs this is a feeling of being planted in the ground, immovable.

This feeling consists of a mild soreness, but also grants far higher muscle activation.

You’ll have to play around with protocol, but I can tell you this; when you’ve found the proper daily workload the activation from the frequent work will far outweigh the effects of the mild soreness.

In fact it’s a different kind of soreness, I find that it actually makes me feel better,that it makes me feel stronger. Obviously this is far from the I can’t walk soreness that many urge you to train yourself into.

This is really part of the core of my lifting philosophy. Train yourself to always “be up” physically. This does however require high frequency. If you can’t make it to the gym do bodyweight work to keep the training streak going. It’s like how John Broz says to squat with an empty bar if you have to, that the stimulus (no matter how ridiculously easy) still helps with the adaption process.

What I’m trying to get you to do is even described by Broz when he says that his lifters don’t do mobility, and barely warmup ….wait for it….. because they are already these things from all the lifting they do.

Sadly this experience is not common in most gyms.

I want you to push your limits,and discover that you are not meant to be a soft little pudgy bitch, but actually intended to be big strong vigorous and rugged.

When you understand being primed like I’m advocating for you’ll be far closer to the latter than the former. You can thank me for your gains in awesomeness later, I’ll be squatting most likely when you do.

#everydayislegday

-J

P.S. I feel dirty having thrown that # in.

Most advice says your training program must be balanced.

Now I’ve said it time and again, I don’t program in the sense that most do.

I go to the gym, and lift. The question of what lift is generally answered once I get out of the locker room and onto the gym floor.

I’m going to give you a piece of advice, again:

Train however you want.

As long as you don’t get injured from it, it’s perfectly alright to throw balance in training to the wind.

Recently outside of my PT, which is at the minimal amounts, my weight room work is practically all pulling.

In the past I’d generally do full body, but lately I’ve been enjoying the hell out of Olympic lifts and back work.

Is my program balanced? No.
Am I going to get injured? Also no.

Internet lifters are likely to bag on people who specialize in certain lifts or bodyparts for example the mockery made of the young men commonly known as bench and curlers. Do most not see that in powerlifting there are bench specialists?

If you want to prioritize and specialize a certain bodypart or bodyparts even to the exclusion of “well rounded” development I say have at it.

Bodybuilding is meant to be a man’s individual expression of what his ideal body looks like. It’s an individual thing, or at least meant to be.

Now many seem to lose this feeling(or have never found it in the first place), and clique up into groups that end up looking practically identical based on whether they identify as bodybuilder,powerlifter, or whatever else.

Herd behavior. Something that solo sports are not meant to have.

Be a training maverick. Throw the “rules” out the window.

Want to bench everyday? Go ahead, despite Western rules Russian powerlifting seems to swear by it.

Like squatting? I’ve squatted everyday for 7-8 months and had the best 1rm gains in my life from it.

Deadlifting can’t be done frequently? Ha, that’s a laugh. I’ve pulled 10x in a week before and once pulled about 12 days in a row.
My mind was right, so therefore the recovery was right as well. My experience says heavy 2x a week,and speed pulls for as many extra sessions as you want.

Training is meant to be individual expression. If your true individual expression lacks balance and wants to obsessionally hit the same thing over after over, again if you can stay healthy doing it, have right at it.

Throw the rulebook into the flames and do you.

Balance is bullshit. No one ever became the greatest by practicing balance in their passion,their art.

Now what lifts shall I hit today?
I’ll find out once I’m on the gym floor.

Get it!

-J