A Place For My Thoughts On Lifting Y'All
No matter what, be it nerves or whatever, I can stomach a bowl of white rice with a little Mexican mix cheese added in.
Some carbs, some fat, some protein, and easy on the stomach.
It may not involve dead animal, but it covers all the bases. It’s enough to keep me going.
Similarly if I need to eat on the go a simple slice or two of bread with nothing on it can work. In fact it can work quite well.
Food sometimes is best kept simple, cheap, and easy.
To a degree fuel is fuel.
-J
I vaguely remember this concept in karate, to be able to generate force from the toes running up the leg into the hip and out into the target via the fist without moving the feet much if at all.
This systema video describes the concept quite well as “wave” power generation.
Now I’ve heard multiple anecdotes of lifters doing stiff/straight legged power cleans.
I decided to try it.
Wouldn’t you know it requires doing exactly that method of power generation.
From the toes to the hips to the traps, back, and hands exerting the pull on the bar.
I can see this being a very good lift for wrestling as you’re creating power in an odd position and odd manner.
Louie Simmons agrees with me.
(Note: Louie says Kevin Randleman did a complex of slpc+hc+pp with 225 every 30 seconds for 10 minutes. Realize he was a 205lber.)
At 185 I can do the slpc strict and all day. At 225 I was barely missing and had lots of body sway like that pic of Arnold cheat curling just keeping my feet planted.
(I have done 225 in that manner once, lots of sway, and off camera)
Feet planted power production is a fun concept to play with, and the slpc is a fun lift.
It’s likely of note that after snatches and slpc I was broad jumping PRs. I’d assume I was firing my hips better because the SLPCs forced me to really figure out firing them while stretched.
-J
Wherever you are and with whatever you have you should be able to “catch” a workout.
It may be done with some odd equipment, or with none at all. Whatever you have available and feel like doing.
I have decent work capacity. Why? Because I’m constantly tacking on small amounts of volume to my day be it in PT, in the gym, or at home doing fun little sessions.
Sometimes I’m too amped up and need to expend some energy.
I have a little collection of “toys” if you will at home to play with:
If i don’t feel like straight calisthenics I’ll play with something out of the above.
Late last night it was the kettlebell.
You’d be surprised that a kettlebell only weighing 20lbs can be so useful.
Swings? I get great pumps here.
One arm rows? Great muscular contraction. (I use hand on my own knee, and a high body angle)
High rep side bends are in order.
This is what I did:
Well I got:
AND most importantly I got myself out of my head and feeling better with the world.
So this uplifted spirits, calmed me down, and got me a bit of volume adding to my work capacity.
Some other takeaways:
-J
For a while forget the scale, and don’t give a damn about what you weigh.
Unless you have to make weight just go by look and feel.
For a while I’m done stepping on a scale (I haven’t in a few weeks now), I’m done caring about 1 rep maxes, and will be doing far more reps and volume. A shift towards bodybuilding, conditioning, and work capacity.
I realized cardio is a weakness.
It’s pretty bad to be gassing from multiple low rep sets, even if I’m taking short rest periods.
It’s called strength and conditioning.
I’d forgotten the and conditioning part.
Sometimes you need a change, need a different approach.
Pound for pound I was stronger ~40lbs lighter, and at that weight I had cardio. My absolute strength was similar.
For life cardio is necessary, I’d become far too much the one trick pony, lifting weights but not doing much else. It’s time.
-J
Our culture is set at only two speeds:
•100mph (rat race)
•Zombified (TV staring)
Sometimes you need to take a step back and simply breath.
Let the oxygen fill your lungs, for a moment have no troubles.
Yeah you can’t meditate your life away, but the rat race ain’t healthy either.
Deep breathing does something, you may not be able to explain it, but you can feel it… psychological, and physiological.
I believe it was Martin “Farmer” Burns in an old time physical culture publication that said “Deep breathing alone has made many a weak man strong”.
The more I focus on breathing the more I believe it.
The kicker? This may not mean physically strong, alone or primarily.
Sometimes the best thing to do is take a step back, and just breath for a while.
-J
Of all topics, and not wanting to do the stereotypical “what I am thankful for” type post that so many would publish on Thanksgiving without further ado;
As a senior in high school I started doing 16/8 fasts regularly (16 hour fasts, 8 hour eating period daily)
For at most 3 weeks my stomach would grumble at me it being unused to skipping breakfast.
Then I adapted.
I soon learned it is far easier to wake up, fast a few hours, eat, wait a long while, feast, fast a few hours then sleep. Hard physicality is best done just prior to the feast.
A 16 hour fast is very easy. You’re sleeping a solid percentage of it.
Doing this I’ve found I function better with little in me, stacking the calories at nighttime instead of evenly spread throughout the day.
I eat opposite of the stereotypical bodybuilder 6 tiny meals a day plan. Mine looks more like a couple hundred calories early, then a 3000-5000k calorie meal at night or after training.
Performance issues? Maybe in the adaption period, but I find my performance is just fine like this if not better.
My stomach feels better with the less frequent meals, and I don’t have to take as many shits.
Occasionally as a test of willpower I’ll fast 24 hours. This length still is quite easy.
While fasted I’ve done just about everything physically one can do without issue. In fact a lot of my best workouts are while empty often even lacking sleep.
To be able to perform through adversity.
(This is something I’ve purposely trained for over the years, cold reps, on empty, lacking sleep,middle of the night, etc.)
You will adapt mentally and physically if you allow yourself to. However this requires not shooting yourself in the foot by constantly thinking about food and the eating of it.
It’s more natural for the human body to eat this way. I doubt cavemen were carb loading before mammoth hunting. At most they’d eat a little, go get their meat, and after doing so eat copious amounts while sitting around the fire. Feasting and fasting/feast and famine, not constant satiation.
Happy Thanksgiving,
-J
I view the snatch grip deadlift as closer to a squat, and more easily recovered from than an actual conventional deadlift.
While I have pulled high frequency before conventional the snatch grip deadlift I can do daily indefinitely without issue.
As I said (at least for my build) I can do it daily. It’s very similar CNS wise to a squat, meaning I’m built for this.
Generally it’s within 10% of my conventional pull. (Same as stiff leg deadlifts, even with small deficit, likely due just to how I’m built.)
Straps are the only accommodation away from raw here. You can’t mix grip a snatch grip.
It’s the one pull variation where I actually feel my legs fire in breaking the weight off the floor, and it’s honestly the #1 lift for getting my lats sore.
The bar is either going to lockout or it’s dead on the floor, no midway knee height failure like in my conventional deadlifts. Whatever weak point I have in conventional, I bypass it by going low into the snatch grip.
Likely I’ll start doing it frequently again. My pull being down is pissing me off, and I’d forgotten that there are variations that build strength for me very well.
Picture this (as my heavy, not stupid high volume) pull focus day:
I like how this sounds, and when you like how it sounds generally you’ll do it.
Pull gains time!
-J
P.S. This was today’s session (yesterday snatch grip deadlifting 365×10 was inspiration for this post):
Notes: Solid session. The 465 pull was very ugly though. Keep setting rep PRs and volume PRs on this movement. Don’t go past 435 for a while. I need to do more cardio. Jump rope is easy enough to start and/or end with.
I like volume, and I like frequency. I’m built for some movements physically and mentally like the snatch grip deadlift.
We as “civilized” people have grown too far from our roots in nature.
Our happiness is quite correlated to our being in touch with the natural,the primal, the animalistic.
Living in a city can easily get you down.
It may sound like total hokum, total malarkey, but i believe there is energy we are meant to feel, to absorb, to interact with, that we do not get when in 100% man made environments.
In essence we need “to get back to our roots”.
Call me crazy, but open your mind and give it a shot, tell me this doesn’t work.
Kick off your socks and shoes, and put your feet on real ground. Natural god made ground.
Being barefoot on natural substance has a grounding affect be it grass,dirt,sand, whatever.
The act itself centers you, and for a short moment (as hippie as this sounds) you are one with the Earth.
As you feel the damp moss (or sand) between your toes for a short while you forget the existence of the modern world.
No one thinks of the spiritual affect (aside from the physical benefits) that being barefoot can provide.
Go for a short walk in the woods sans shoes. You’d be surprised how out of touch and soft you’ve become.
It’s a depressing part of the concrete jungle that is a city: you can go months without feet touching something as natural as grass. Even five minutes on a small patch is better than nothing.
Being barefoot on grass instantly ups my mood.
However don’t limit yourself to being barefoot in warm weather. From time to time go barefoot in winter conditions (just not for a long period of time). It is quite childish, fun, and silly to do, yet even this year I ran about 100 yards down and back barefoot in the snow, finishing off by making snow angels and doing rolls in the snow going far past my buddies original dare for me to do the run portion barefoot.
This essay is related in some manner to my recent one on the lifting of weights outdoors.
Winter is in the air, and I’m feeling a call of the wild. Awhoo!
-J
I’m unsure of what exactly I get out of this, but it definitely does something good.
It may just be a matter of it flushing the muscle with blood, each second of contraction being equivalent to a rep making this a great work capacity/volume tool, and when held for long enough times a good mental toughness exercise.
I start the stack at 70lbs which is honestly too light for 5-10 reps.
Then jump 30-40lbs for sets of 5 until the stack is reached (260lbs) where I either do holds of 30+ seconds or a rep out (generally 20-30 reps) then holds.
I dont like doing lots of leg extensions, but this protocol I do like.
The protocol is a nice little way to get the leg work you need done by in and out 5-10 minute style.
-J
I am by no means a great weightlifter/olympic lifter. I’m simply better than most at it, especially considering the average gym crowd.
I know I have never snatched 225.
It’s possible I’ve hit 215, but I’m uncertain of it. (There’s no video of it, and I don’t maintain a logbook, YouTube functioning as a sort of “cool shit that happened” logbook.)
I know I’ve been capable of 205 since capturing it on video (March 6 based on upload date), and relatively consistently at that.
(That rep, my first at 205.)
11/15/17 ~0600-0635 I pulled it 30+ times in a similar number of minutes only missing 2 or 3 times. One of those fails had so much velocity I lost it behind me, a manner of olympic lift failure I’ve never had happen before, that would’ve been a PR rep had there been more weight on the bar.
This is why I say fuck programs, as no percentage based program would allow me to hit 30+ singles with either 95% or 100% of my known max in one session. (And yes I’d failed a couple attempts at 225 before going totally fucking psycho with 205.)
It was a fun lift. I got to bounce around blaring music, predator stare and stalk the bar, keep hitting reps, and take the utmost care that I didn’t take out a not paying attention group fitness class bystander. (I actually faced opposite the normal manner on the platform for such reasons especially after the 100mph throw over my head unintentionally rep.)
I’d wait for a gap in group class participants to finish walking around/across the platform, hit it again, and so on and so forth really until I started losing pop which was well into the 30ish, likely 35-40 attempt area. I was pulling faster than every minute on the minute for at least 15 minutes, and then about EMOM for another 15-20.
This my friends can be defined as a solid ass session, and is as I’ve said reason #10783948735 that you shouldn’t be so wed to a program. Guidelines are far more likely to allow cool shit to happen.
-J