Category: Lifting

How To Change Muscle Fiber Type :

I believe in both the possibility of type three muscle fibers as described here, as well as the ability to change fiber type through applied stimulus.

You’re going to get higher performance training from slow twitch to fast twitch, though most likely to third type, than moving from fast twitch to slow twitch.

Always low reps peaks out before loads of high reps does. The high reps build a massive base for a peaking pyramid.

And as time goes on, up go 50 rep maxes, high reps become easier, more powerful, and able to push the speed and into even higher reps.

High reps with violent intent negate literature claiming endurance training.

You do it right, and you’ll be primarily in strength-endurance, and power-endurance.

These allow you to simultaneously build strength and power even though it’s barely specific stimuli.

You become able to use 5rm weights or better with short rests, set after set.

Ethan Reeve’s “game day” becomes par for the course.

Density power cleans (or sandbag shouldering for the low tech approach).

Sprint after sprint at 1:2 work : rest ratios or less.

The ability to wrestle, to row.
Calisthenics all day, very short rests.

Not a joggers long slow low output type endurance.

It’s the violent intent that brings the training from there into power.

You’re pulling heavy singles rep after rep emom, or faster.

You’re not mamby pamby doing 3×10, no no, you’re going 50 reps, and randomly throwing in pauses, forceful lockouts, and the like.

It’s “endurance”, using a whole different approach.

You can train like this with pushups, and bodyweight squats – if you have a barbell overhead squats and military presses (on neither of which the weight need be heavy).

You get far stronger than your high rep working weights – far stronger.

It’s the third type of muscle fiber having been trained, now in action.

The peak strength is always inching up, though you’re not specializing at it, far from it in fact. You’re just building the base, building the base, yet the peak has the mind of it’s own to raise higher, higher, ever higher alongside.

I want you doing loads of reps, massive reps per set – with intent, purposefully!

Long time under load!
Rest pausing high reps but never putting the weight down.
Time under tension.

Only one outcome, one possible result :
Super strength, freak ability.

Peak human performance.

Persistence & Tenacity

I’d already done a minimal amount of my hspu, band resisted pushups, and diamond pushup triset that I’ve been doing daily.

I had just finished my third set of mantra pushups (which has been my PT pushups for awhile – 3 mantra sets), when my buddy walked in.

A buddy walking in often means a minimal session for me becomes something different.

We got to talking, he wanted to do some weighted calisthenics. I was just going to do weighted pushups with him, I’m always game for them, but as a favor I grabbed my dip belt from my car so he could do weighted dips and chins.

I coached/coaxed him into some good PRs, dips 8xbw+90, weighted pushups 7xbw+100, how I coach/coax is another post coming up soon. For context ; today he was 150lbs, though that’s on the down fluctuation usually walking around at 160. He’s damn close to bw+bw sets for 10+ reps.

Today 9/18/20 got me a lot of write up able content.

•strength from high reps
•adding work to weaker muscle groups, (triceps & shoulders, as my chest is seriously developed)
•shoulder health (my shoulders feel better having done those super controlled heavy reps)
•coaching/coaxing PRs from another
•fairly heavy resistance bands building strength – westside has something here

So for me the weighted pushups :

1st set – 6 reps, the first two at 2p/90lbs, then either the next two at 2p25, and the last two at 2p, or it was the last 4 at 2p25.

It felt shockingly easy.
I had jotted down PRs in the movement, realized this was basically a PR set, and that I should go break a PR at 3p/+135lb which had been a 1rm 6-9 months back.

2nd set – 5x3p PR
This was my 1rm 6-9 months back when I first started weighted pushups, and I left 1-3 reps in the tank. What I’ve done for push strength this year is working very well. 4p/180lbs felt in the bag.

3rd set – 1x4p PR
Now the hspu, band resisted pushup, and diamond pushup triset has added horsepower here. I’ve only done plate loaded 4x including today, and the first session in December. The triset is building raw hp, and I’ve only been doing them having started daily this month.

Then the idea strikes…I just did a rep with 4p, and I have a 150lb human (while not a girl) available at present as weight. I figure I’m good for one rep at a minimum, if it’s plural reps, I’ll post the video.

Get desk staff to film the idea.

Vid Link Spot – video unavailable, filmed but unavailable.

(However I’ve since got this weighted pushups video : 11/1/20)

4th set – 2 reps with a 150lb guy standing on my mid/lower back

He stood lower than I wanted, still human live weight pushups ← s plural, as I did two reps with him as weight.

A little while later

5th set – 1 rep

I did another rep, just a single this time with him higher up on my upper back off camera to confirm I’d get the reps with him standing around my scapula/high on the upper back. He still stood about an inch lower than I’d wanted him to.

Him standing lower was harder on my core, him higher up shifted it from core stability more towards resistance on the chest.

Having someone standing on your back requires your form be dialed in, perfect. I went wicked slow not cause I couldn’t stabilize him…

I’ve stabilized more in plates, but because I could feel him shaking! I didn’t want him to fall off.

What an awesome Friday night session!

We’ll be doing these more often.

I have the idea to mix band and plate during the same reps.

It’d be sweat to bulgarian style live weight standing pushups.

Surprisingly I took video with a guy for low reps before I took video of a girl for high reps on back standing pushups. 5xbw+3p means I’m good for double digit reps with a couple different chicks I know, the question is when and which one will I run into first.

Calisthenics built. These things move up fast…Ape strong.

Persistence & Tenacity

My lazy form of leg PT is to hold a modified warrior pose.

In the hold I don’t do the upper body by the book, instead varying the position of my arms, sometimes in active use, sometimes just down at my side.

Many write off yoga stuff as useless, which is wrong.

A lot of yoga stuff can be used well. Where warrior pose shines most greatly is in use amongst the hefty, amongst the obese.

No matter how pound for pound weak someone is, they can stand briefly in warrior pose.

By the time they’re at 1:30+ each leg forward, and consciously feeling the muscles work, they are good to go for harder leg training.

(Yes, you can put the work in different muscles.)

The issue with many trainers having fat clients do wall sits is that they’re never pushing the leg static long enough, and they’re allowing less load on the legs by allowing hands to press against thighs.

Leg static hold exercises have an incredible effect overall…but you can’t do them for mamby pamby short lengths.

You’ve gotta do the holds long enough that the legs shake.

The obese video game player could easily do a warrior pose hold with controller in hand. This is how I was picturing this being done at first.

Not only is it a solid first step, but it’s enough for building strong legs, and a manner in which to lose weight.

I highly recommend training leg static holds regardless of who you are.

They and walks are my #1 and #2 staples for rebuilding the obese from the ground up. And these will work for everyone.

-J

Now I’ve pulled 315 for 20.

Video unavailable (it wasn’t on camera).

There’s no doubt in my mind that I would pull 20×405 right quick.

At this point I just do what I do, to near exclusivity at planet fitness, but during those three months of gym closed I did touch my barbell a little.

For awhile now I’ve found I get big benefit from small weights.

Now this premise assumes you’re relatively strong to begin with.

Despite no barbells I’m good for at least a few reps at 405, though it’s likely higher (both reps and weight) as I feel strong in general.

Even away from weights I still get stronger. Full body training – always.

I thought of this ;

“The Lazy Way From 20×135 To 20×500”

Jumping 5lbs a week this entails 73 weeks. Going lazier say this is spread out over two years.

Scratch that “strong to begin with” premise, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t have this work for them.

Do whatever you want aside from this, but once a week (~70% of the time), load the bar to the proper number, then emotionlessly, and I’d personally go without warm up pull the reps.

Two years, very little effort to diesel.

If deadlift specialization works, if high reps are adapted to fast, this low frequency end of the spectrum too will work.

Why?
Cause it all works.

From paper to reality, two years or less to deadlifting 500×20.

This is the laziest way, it can be done far more quickly with daily fresh low rep practice of the movement mixed with infrequent high rep tests.

Persistence & Tenacity

When you’ve done as much research on training as me, there’s gonna be a whole lot stored up in your brain.

Stuff you’ve stuck to, stuff you’ve done for short periods, and stuff you’ve yet to try.

Physical fitness is an individual endeavour. No one is going to workout for you, and to be frank, if you’re not willing to do your own programming, writing your own stuff and/or trusting your own instincts for self prescribed programming and/or instinctive spur of the moment training I don’t think you really want to train.

I’ve seen a bunch of big strong people, that for whatever reason, are paying for an internet coach.

My gut always said they’re the ones who if they had to train on their own, no programming from another, no community of powerlifters, without ideal equipment, they’d quit.

I like lifting to be something wholly my own. No programming from another to rely on. It’s mostly solitary, if I had to have training partners I’d miss more sessions than not.

A good training partner has been generally hard to come by, especially when you train high frequency and program whimsically on the fly such as I.

So, whatever training I do is something I come up with or decide to try after hearing about it.

I have a tendency to break programming “rules”. I enjoy doing so. It allows what I do to be my own.

I’ve long known about kettlebells. Girevoy sport is in my eyes better than low rep strength sports, but I’ve never had access to the right kettlebells ie heavy enough in a pair.

I do have a barbell, so I just lifted the philosophy from one implement to another.

I do high reps on barbell movements that are “supposed” to be low rep only.

Which gets me to the point.
All of the barbell work I’m doing right now is high rep presses and high rep overhead squats, basically every set with the empty barbell.

As I said in the post on posture from overhead squats it’s strengthening good posture, and I’ve also realized that the two are leading to a chest expansion effect.

Having pieced that together it dawned on me the other day that I could treat my empty barbell work like “breathing squats” to purposefully heighten this effect.

Let the neighborhood hear my booming breaths. It’s better to embrace my natural loudness.

Though since it’s so light just take the multiple deep breaths maybe every 10th rep, or as needed instead of between every rep.

Light weights can be used for very big effects.

Archives :
9/18/18

I remember doing this a few years back on my “retard strength Saturdays™” (there’s something to expand there) at the commercial gym, and as part of last weekend’s marathon session did it again.

The trapezius superset that only those willing to get ugly will do :

1. Shrugs – strapped up, as heavy as possible, with body English.
2. Oly variant – heavy enough to be some doubts as to your ability to get under the bar, but doable, I usually power snatch.

All out heavy shrug set with straps, drop the straps, snatch 1-5 reps, repeat.

You dig deep to pull the olys.
It’s a solid superset.

The Grinch got an idea, an awful idea, the Grinch got a wonderful awful idea. – The Narrator “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”

Sometimes ideas, devious ideas, wonderful awful ideas (use the voice), pop into my mind.

Usually in the bathroom for whatever reason. This was a teeth brushing eureka moment a couple days back.

I’ve been doing some overhead squats lately, I’ve also been riding my bike a little.

The two and horse stance have done my legs good in a brief period of time.

My pastime at present is sitting outside reading.

I’m always thinks about lifting, training, and generally when I think of sports it’s ones that are followed by precisely almost no one.

After biking full speed maybe .225 miles up a small incline the other day, liking the wind effect, then biking a steeper hill and liking the muscular effect, I had sprint cycle on my mind.

As I’ve been doing them, high rep overhead squats have been on my mind.

Somehow this got crossed with the idea of 8 hour arms.

Not exactly the same manner.

So it’s 16 mini sessions, at the top of the hour and at the half hour marks.

Here’s what I picture :

•high rep overhead squat set
•bike sprint – it’s just shy of a ¼ mile to a stop sign

So I’d have 16 mini sessions, in the yard, and biking in the road, spending a day training, and lounging around at home.

The day would end up something like 400+ reps on the overhead squat, with just under 4 miles of all out sprint speed biking.

And since I’d said to my buddy how if we were to do it, I’d not take protein shakes, I just eat a bunch of pb&j (though cans of chicken/tuna would be more congruent with the intended spirit of the thing). So there’s that too.

Bacon is the best preworkout, so it’d be the best eating choice for this.

However I’d likely do it with as little in me as possible, likely fasting as that’s what I’ve been doing lately.

I don’t know that I’d trust myself with stimulants. If I did…hyphy mud, instant coffee in dollar store or walmart generic cola, or if splurging in cherry pepsi.
I’m not drinking a bang energy drink ever again.

It’s an idea what with being unemployed while everything is corona closed.

If this was done at a gym I’d suggest very heavy front squat partials, sets of 8-20, and the same bike sprint whether indoor or out.
Don’t use a recumbent bike!

Persistence & Tenacity

You can build dense powerful athletic legs, in a short period of time, while racking up serious time under tension by doing leg static holds.

While you could use yoga postures, simulate the split from olys, or do something like a side kick hold from martial arts, the most useful and most beneficial overall is either the wall sit or the horse stance.

Both have their pros and cons.

Wall sit feels like it’s building more explosive jumping ability, and an underlay of an endurance component.

Horse stance feels more like a max strength builder with the explosive and endurance factors underlying.

They’re both pretty well rounded and accessible.

I tend to wall sit in public while wearing shoes.

Horse stance I’m barefoot, rare is the time I wear socks, if not fully naked (usually I’m naked) in my bedroom. I often do it before laying down.

Now I like 3:00 in posture daily as a minimum PT requirement. I’ve been doing this without exception all year if not longer.

However sometimes I throw in a wild card. I’ll go to 5:00 time under tension, even 10:00 total, it’s been as high as 20:00 on wall sits before.

Now this isn’t one set. It’s getting there as fast as possible, and trying to keep work to rest at a 1:1 ratio at the most. I don’t want to lollygag.

A recent time through this was 5:00 of horse stance in under 15 minutes with a piss break 3:00 in.

I try to average 1:00 or better per hold throughout. Close to that 1:00 per set minimum is a day where I’m generally more fatigued than usual. If I can go better I do.

Give this a try. You’ll be huffing and puffing by the time you’re done – cardio stimulus. Your legs will be well worked, activated, maybe a little tight, but not stiff, while still feeling fresh.

This does not take much out of you.
Day after day, even two a days, is not an issue.

Do it, and once you’ve completed 5:00+…

Stand in victory pose, you’ve earned it.

This has been a very rewarding practice for me.

Persistence & Tenacity

Archive 1/4/19 : Taking Flexing Far

Flexing is severely undervalued, as is Muscle Control, a style of training sadly mostly lost to the history books. Admittedly it’s simpler to learn to feel your muscles by training with a barbell, simpler, but likely unable to take you as far.

To a degree I wonder what one could be built like if they built their base on naught but flexing.

To have spent a few years systematically flexing their entire bodies…but isn’t that what muscle control is, and isn’t that how Maxick built himself up back in the day.

Shit, gymnastics to a degree is flexing in hard pose, and look what it does. You get some crazy leaness, strength, and body control in tiny packages.

That’s really all somewhat aside, and somewhat on topic.

Have you ever heard the story of the Shaolin temple before it was known for badassery?

Somewhere on the giant interwebs I’ve read it before. It went something like this…..

Continue reading “Taking Flexing Far”

Based on your leverages and insertion points you can have a big, jacked upper body from one movement alone.

A basic calisthenic at that :

•Pushup
•Dip
•Pullup
•Chin Up
•Neutral Grip Pullup

First you have to look at your leverages.

The easiest way is…are your arms long or short?

T-Rex arms will be served by the pushup.

Monkey arms the pullup.

Of course you’ll have to experiment with them all to find the one best for you.

One movement will shine above the rest.

For me there is no such thing as too many pushups. I can do them all day without issue.

My buddy is similar, but for him it’s pullups.

For you? Maybe it’s dips, chins, or neutral grip.

I’m confident in saying you can do this. Without much digging you’ll find scientifically scientific anecdotes of this principle having worked.

A movement on the list will be sustainable insanity for you, with no downsides.

Calisthenics are a thing of beauty, there won’t be imbalance. The antagonists will fire as well alongside the working muscles each and every rep.

I don’t have to balance my pushups. It’s an “I’m jacked” stimuli I repeat daily.

And coolly enough you can have the same for the lower body. I suggest walking swamp lunges, though again find your movement.

This isn’t to say only do the one move, that’s absurd. I’m here to stress to you that you can be set with the one if/when necessary.

With pushups I’m golden.

-J

To take this to a more esoteric level ; flexing, the answer is flexing.