Category: Lifting

Often it’s said that cardio is a small man’s game. While this is certainly the way most activities trend there are some exceptions.

Rowing is a big one.

Go look up Concept2 erg times, the heavyweights consistently post better times than the lightweights.

That’s all aside the point. If you’re big you should definitely spend some time on a rower.

You can treat it as a sprint. You can do intervals. Any cardio protocol is possible, but where it shines most is during distance work.

Nothing works as well for distance running like cardio stimuli for the big man as rowing does. (Nor is jump rope a bad choice.)

While weighing heavy, running will fatigue you earlier than you’d expect, particularly if at a smaller weight you ran. This isn’t always a cardio issue. It can be a knee thing, a shin thing, or often enough just fatigue around small stabilizers.

Rowing levels this playing field.

You can test your heart without the running drawbacks, build your ticker without pounding the pavement.

Plus on a long row you can visualize being a Viking in a longship rowing to pillage a French village, this technique can not be overstated for the enjoyment of the activity, nor does any visualized target work as well as imaginary French villages.

Rowing times should be faster than the equivalent distance run times, though you’ll be a ok shooting for rowing respectable run times. While not by any means elite aim for a 6 minute mile pace, and try to keep a respectable sub 20:00 5k as far as distance work. For sprints reps done as fast as possible at the 300m distance or for the max distance in 60 seconds are good. Intervals can be played with also.

Like all things experiment, and have fun with it.

-J

As I am built for squatting and benching (short limbs) I gain more benefit pulling than one who is built for pulling does.

Likewise the reverse is true.

A person built for pulling gets more benefit squatting and benching than one who is built for squatting and benching does.

Having wrestled I adapted to having to get low. Getting used to effort in this low round backed position has served me well.

My time as a mover likely was far harder metabolically than it was for any of my coworkers, even the ones similar in weight to me. They all had monkey arms, while I  possess t-rex arms. They’d all be walking upright, and for me to hold onto the desk I’d look like Quasimodo. At 6′ even the 5’6″ guys on the crew had longer arms than me. It simply meant I had to carry shit in weird rounded back positions just like the wrestling position.

To shovel snow or chip ice I have to get very low as well. Snow clearing is not only GPP/work capacity/whatever, but a ruggedness builder.

The fact that I have to get into these positions has made me very durable in my “core”.

I’ll never injure my lower back as any pull type work requires me with my short arms to get into very “awkward” positions.

I’ve spent years building durability in these odd often twisted low positions due to necessity, this base has allowed me to “get away with” some “stupid” stuff like an off center 495 deadlift that ended with a side bend to lockout one side.

Throwing a different take on leverages out there. They’re not a thing to complain about. Getting stronger on the movements you’re not meant for will pay dividends in ruggedness if not in one rep maxes.

There’s more to strength that your one rep max. Gym culture seems to forget this sometimes.

-J

With a small amount of willingness to improvise the world can be your gym.

Most look at a doorway as a doorway. I have done the same most of my life. However, while gymless in 2015 I noticed the potential of a doorway.

With just my finger tips holding I realized an isometric to simulate a one arm row. Standing, pulling against the doorway, crazy good for finger strength due to positioning required.

Hold for as long or as short as you want. Just put in effort. Have fun.

The level that back isometrics translate over to a barbell is scary. I’ve talked how this exercise, a deadlift simulation isometric in my apartment complexes hot tub, and chins off a tree (doing mostly today’s described exercise) saw my deadlift up 30lbs, and my grip up proportionally way more without touching a barbell for 9 or 10 months.

I’ve just finished a quick 5 minute doorway push-pull workout.

I set an interval timer for 10 seconds on/5 seconds off.
About ¾ were pulling sets, ¼ pushing sets.

I stuck to one push variation, and a few pull variations. It’s isometrics though, you can make infinite variations.

The beauty of this is the adaptability. I didn’t have to commute. It was done in my bedroom doorway.

The work is very condensed. Consider I was under tension 40 seconds per minute for 5 minutes. 200 seconds, that’s not a little time under tension. In fact you could mentally equate it to a similar number of quality reps for the same bodypart.

It gave a stellar pump, and honestly these shorts sessions will strongly add to your work capacity base and strength.

This work pulled me out of a deadlift slump before without any specific barbell work. Adding it in again makes sense.

Get it done.

-J

Overload training whether it’s partial reps, holds, cheat reps, or an isometric are great. (These things can be combined.)

Nothing beats them for kicking up anabolism in your body.

Do some then wait until that night, you’ll be horny as fuck.

For this reason (the test boosting effects) alone you should be getting right on these overload protocols.

Every time I do them I’m pleasantly surprised both by the soreness I have when I awaken and the horniness gained.

Overload then don’t get off that night. You’ll go slightly bonkers and precede to have dreams full of glorious sex and violence.

Not to mention you’ll feel solid, like your body was forged from one piece of steel, and that when you do full range work within roughly the next day that will feel light as your body was prepped to support way more.

As you should be training full body and with high frequency doing an overload variation every 2-3 days is a solid guideline. Starting out? Once a week. Feel like experimenting? Go crazy. But every 2-3 days is a solid metric to get the best of both full range and overload work.

-J

Over the years I’ve had phases where I did nothing other than pushups. So I’ve actually done the “limited to one exercise” thing before with pushups for a time.

As far as the weight room is concerned I’d agree with Dan John. One can in fact be awesome doing nothing but the clean and press…

But I also say that some form of heavy ass partial in the rack is a solid one exercise choice for just brutishness. I’m partial to a partial front squat (they’re better than partial back squats), or some variation of cheat rack pull work, my favorite variation being a strapped hand and thigh lift into cheat form/body english shrugs.

Of course one could just work a heavy labor job like men of yesteryear, and not give a fuck about exercising.

Labor which brings me to this last bit…

Sled work, if you involve your hands is the closest to labor strength you’ll get in the gym.

While I see people pulling for scientific amounts of time with scientific amounts of weight generally using a hip belt, I prefer to go full retard on these movements.

Firstly I refuse to use less than bodyweight on the sled. Almost always I involve grip by pulling/dragging holding onto a fat bar.

Only once have I used that hip belt. It resulted in this:

315 sled moved for 10 minutes.

Yesterday I did 2 x 3 minute sets with 270 holding on to a fat bar.

In the vein of the 1000lb plate load prowler…

I once pulled a 500lb sled  10-15 yards before having my fingers slip launching myself like a off the rails locomotive towards an unsuspecting personal trainer. Somehow that crash was averted.

So…

Drag/Pull a heavy sled for time holding onto a fat bar. It’s also a damn good choice for one exercise should you only do one exercise for some odd reason and not simply work heavy labor.

With it you’ve got legs, grip, and cardio/GPP/work capacity/whatever rolled all into one fun suck pretty brute force unscientific caveman laborer package.

However this is a silly thought experiment as why would you limit yourself to one exercise?

Even in the most limiting of circumstances (say solitary confinement) you can still do it all with your body alone.

-J

Frankly this qualifies completely under the category of gym play, as it was not planned and solely happened out of boredom and the fact my hang cleans were going very shitty today.

I knew I’d hit reps with 50lbs before, and in between sets of seriousness (hang cleans and cheat form shrugs) I’d do some random bottoms up pressing.

(I count 5 reps in the above video.)

I started with the 50lber, 3 reps easy. Ok, cool. 55lber next, huh can’t find it. Wait 24kg is what 53lbs, so another triple with the 24kg bell.

I walk across the gym to shrug and on my way there “Why look a pair of bigger looking kettlebells in the wrong place, I wonder which trainer and client pair forgot to put them away, silly trainers and clients.”

I found a 55lber and a 60lber.

• 55lb x fail, as I was not focusing well at all.
• 55lb x 2 fail 3, I still wasn’t staying tight up the chain
• 60lb x 3 no to very little shaking as I made sure to stay tight. (Bottoms up pressings greatest lesson, to stay rigid/tight.)

Ok, lets skip 65 (the gym actually didn’t have it, I didn’t know this at the time), and go to 70 or 75 whichever they have.

I didn’t find a 75lber, so 70 it was.

Delete the first vid, I lost it on the negative after a successful press.

Vid result?

(I opt not to try to get a perfect rep on camera, notice the shake shake shake at the top.)

The entire time I was doing shrugs here and there. After the vid, I rep the 35lber for 10 with my left hand, and then got something like 2 with a 35lber in each hand (like a cowboy, dual wield style).

One hand I can hit 70 with the right, two hands I could maybe go 35 left + 45 or 50 should I focus well and be ok with going uneven. I’m not sure my left one hand max.

Really its the weird shit that is best for your grip. Just yesterday I was finally able to do the bumper plate flips again 9 weeks later, and this time I made a solid 6 or 8 catches, still not with the right hand though. (Update 12/31/17: I’ve since done it with the right hand.)

As I’m now getting off the initial subject of bottoms up presses I shall conclude, and likely do a more comprehensive wrist post in the next few days.

-J

P.S. The next stage seems to be some combination of higher reps, two handed, and double up bells (one sitting atop the bottom up one).