Category: Lifting

Those who break themselves down physically with the weights are doing something wrong.

You could be like everyone else racked with joint pain, back pain, while living a mostly sedentary life, or you could make the choice to prioritize squatting and/or deadlifting.

Depending on your build, and your leverages, one or the other (if both you’re a lucky lucky bastard) will be the magical elixir of “I feel phenomenal”.

Whichever of the two this is for you (or again if both you lucky lucky bastard) you’re physically well served doing this for some volume with moderate loads as often as you can do so.

Me? I’m built to squat. Physically I’m better when I squat frequently, as long as I don’t push it too heavy too fast which my elbows don’t like.

Remember this? Continue reading “Load Up : The Case For Squatting And/Or Deadlifting Frequently”

(Written a long while ago, ~April 2018)

A rant :

The biggest issue with gym training is the stationary aspect of it.
Unless you’re training specifically for strongman you’re likely training only in a 2 dimensional plane, up and down.

3 Dimensional movement is superior.

Instead of up and down you add in the movement aspect.

Labor is like this (on the more endurance side of the spectrum) and strongman is as well (on the strength end of the spectrum)

This 3rd dimension is what makes the laborer or the strongman competitor superior in strength to the 2 dimensional powerlifter or bodybuilder.

Continue reading “The Gym Lacks Movement”

During a short gymless period when all I had was a 300lb weight set I deadlifted about 2x weekly.

Nothing special…right?

Wrong.

I decided arbitrarily (likely after reading a Ken Leistner article and wishing I had a gym membership) that I’d train 30 rep per set deadlifts.

I started light, and after ~2 sessions weekly for a 6 week period recall fairly easily hitting 275 or 285 for about 35 reps.

I recall pulling only double overhand, and I think my choice of footwear was work boots (I’m hazy on that detail, though I vaguely recall doing that as an experiment to see how much work shifted from my posterior to my quads.)

It was a fun time, and it ended when I joined the local commercial gym during a no join fee promotion. (At the time I really thought I needed more gym than my yard would provide.)

Looking back over the years it seems my deadlift needs high reps. I can show the strength I’ve developed without that volume, but without primarily pulling AMRAPs in 5rm-10rm range or work sets of 15+ it’s generally a struggle for maintainence or even regression.

(Isometrics & “game day” EMOM the only exceptions to the high rep necessity that I can come up with.)

If I truly want my deadlift to go up I’ll be pulling 15s or better.

And now it’s a 500lb weight set.
Sky’s the limit.

*As Ken Leistner points out ; if you don’t mentally view the rep range as “tough” it won’t be. During that time it was simply how I trained, no mental block, so it progressed quickly.

Bas Barbell spoke of a time where he was bent rowing heavy and not worrying about deadlifts.

Chaos And Pain recommends heavy bent rows as base work for military pressing.

With military press (off of a clean, often from the deadhang) as the main lift, and semi burnt out from hitting it frequently yet still finding myself in the gym…I decide to bent row.

10×3 with the last set a rep out.

Being that set 10 still is in the area of 12 reps I’m obviously not going heavy yet…pulling double overhand with thus far 265 relatively strict for sets 1-9.

I can see this moving up quickly to deadlift weights hitting it “hard”, 10 sets in about 30 minutes.

Great way to move up grip strength on a barbell. (Maybe I’ll up the volume and hit some strapped some not. Imagine dual 10×3 in the same session, strapless first then strapped second. A one movement back day.)

I’m seeing separation between side and rear delts, and my upper body is vastly improving.

I can tell I’m getting glute/ham work near the end, and definitely on the rep out set. Who says you need to specifically train legs?

Best not to sleep on them heavy bent rows.

It’s a powerful (usually neglected) movement.

(Without deadlifting but cleans and bent rows I hit a rep PR on deadlifts already. 10/19/18 9×405 with reps in the tank baby!)

-J

Here it is short and sweet :

•Hang cleans for forearms.
•Tire flips for biceps.
•Heavy pressing variants for triceps.

What you want more?

Ok, I’ll feed you fuckers.

I’ve never been big on doing curls.

Effectively I’ve never done an “arm day”. Hell, I’ve always viewed such things as laziness. An “arm day” isn’t a day at all. It’s undeserving of your post workout shake and meal and dessert and McDonalds and Gatorade, etc.

What arm development I have has come solely from compound movements.

I view most as having or going for an overdevelopment of the arms in relation to the rest, I prefer say the torso to overpower the arms.

My 17″ish arms aren’t small mind you, but my torso makes them look it.

I’ve built myself the way my leverages combined with compound movements will.

I say choose the compound to hit your arms vs the isolation.

Hammer curls, “cheat” curls, reverse curls, high rep heavy wrist curls, and JM presses the only “arm” work I’ve liked anyway.

(I do like grip work. I hate most curls for the biceps always prefering overload “cheat” curls or more forearm centric variants. Still arm work is usually byproduct of a compound exercise.)

Currently my biceps are growing as everytime I hit the weights I end with tire flips.

As my pressing moves up so will my triceps.

Forearm growth will occur by doing hang cleans regularly with metal not bumper plates. Pauses, no dropping with that “rough” catch from the drop at knee or waist height, oh yeah, forearm growth.

Fin.

-J

(I wrote this about 2 weeks back, but it expands out well to what I just wrote today.)

I’ve known for a long while that jumping, and explosion in general before heavy efforts acts as a priming technique.

It makes you ready to perform.

I’d done 7 sets of presses, hang cleaning the bar to shoulder.

7 lightish dead hang cleans is very similar to the equivalent number of broad jumps.

My body had been primed quite well for that squatting.

A note : olys are “heavier” and slower than a jump. A moderate or lightish weight oly variant is closer in stimuli to a jump than a max oly.

If my lifting science is on point it’s power vs speed-strength or would I be describing strength-speed?

No matter, it’s best to think through your lifting in layman’s terms anyway.

Layman Terms For Speed Of Effort :

•Explosive
•Quick
•Moderate
•Slow
•Grind
Etc.

And at each stage still try to move as fast as possible (unless purposely going superslow for the muscular effect).

The science of all of it stifles gains far more than it grants them.

On the opposite end if the spectrum the partial range overload will also make you stronger.

With partials and explosive work you likely don’t need to train the full range of motion lift heavy, or even at all.

Some partial squats and a bunch of cleans from the dead hang has made my squat go up.

-J

Update : 10/10/18 – same with front squats. 3×275 was far too easy.

Any decently strong man should have no issue flipping any tire they have access to.

I repeat : the tire isn’t big enough that you can’t flip it.

Specificity : I’ve found it matters and effects my ability to flip tyres something fierce.

Well two weeks of specific adaption later has me flipping the gym’s bigger one almost explosively (it may qualify as explosive), and for reps if I feel like switching sides back and forth.

(Space issue, sometimes you can flip it a ways, sometimes only back and forth.)

I imagine in another week or two I’ll practically be getting it over caber toss style.

At this point it’s like an ugly Yate’s row with a regrip or two depending on if it needs a bit more height before being pushed over or not.

It’s terribly easy at this point and people are still making a big deal of it.

Paraphrased :

“I’m going to flip the tire.”
“If you can flip the tire.”
“Why does everyone here make a big deal over flipping this tire?”
…I flip the tire…
“Well I guess you can flip the tire.”

Yeah, that conversation happened.

Perspective. My high school having a bigger one gave me some.

-J

Finger pulling, the archaic continental corollary to arm wrestling used the middle finger.

One finger lifts (also quite archaic) use the middle finger most often.

There’s a reason for this, your middle finger is your power finger.

Squeeze each of the four fingers into your palm. You’ll feel the most meaty section and the largest percentage of the forearm activate when doing this with the middle finger.

(This may be part of the reason hook grip functions how it does… anatomically advantageous.)

Whatever the overhand deadlift variation, be it a regular barbell or an axle, when focusing on pulling through the middle finger, and focusing my power through it’s wrap around the bar and pressing it into my palm…that’s when I hit overhand PRs.

We’re so disconnected from the physical as a society that simply wrapping our hands around a thin barbell is something so foreign to us that we don’t know how to do in the best manner.

9/19/18 : I pulled 365 doh (double overhand) without chalk in a humid environment.

The truth of the middle finger and it’s grip power, something I’d known instinctively for a while, finally came to words.

That rep was completed due to pulling through the middle finger, in a chi like manner focusing on pressing the tip of the middle finger into palm, and feeling the forearm engage.

(You want to squeeze through the middle finger. This is best understood in practice using a pinch grip.)

Peace,

-J

Anyone who knows me in the real world, and quite possibly has seen some of my YouTube stuff will realize that my strength is odd compared to most.

The fact that :

•Injury – never happens
•Recovery – insanely fast
•Heaving/Cheat Reps- I’m far better at heaving/cheat reps than using strict form, and get more out of this style than most.
•Traps-way stronger than most.
•Core/Abs- bulletproof, very thick, I’ve never worn a belt.
•Cold Reps/No Warmups Necessary – likely cause I’ve done stuff demanding so much tension.
•Odd Objects/Weird Angles-way better here than most, and as compared to my own barbell lifting.

I believe what I’m calling “stupid strength saturdays™” is a large factor here in all of the above traits.

For two years at this commercial gym (oddly only infrequently at the more powerlifting oriented gym) like clockwork I’d go in on Saturday, sometimes also Sunday, and with another optional session in this style mid week go in and do partials in the gyms slightly uneven footed and only power rack.

It’d definitely be partial squats, started at pins anywhere from ¼ to ½ reps (usually top ⅓ to ¼), followed by shrugs in the strapped up heaving manner.

Sometimes I’d RDL as heavy as possible to a top set of 5-8 before the partial squats, and sometimes hit a full range 90%+ 1rm single to end the squatting.

At the time the partials were always back squats, it took me til the powerlifting oriented gym years down the road to discover that I love front squat partials, usually I’d work up to a top weight of 3-5 reps and then do about 10 sets at that weight with the occasional back off set of 10-20. Sometimes I’d do rep challenges like go for 50 partials with my full range 1rm as fast as possible. I’d always be doing some serious old school weight room work.

Sometimes I’d run the heavy pulling variant from shrug to rack pull to hand and thigh lifts as the weight increased, as well as sometimes superset in an oly variant, usually the power snatch, between sets of the heavy exercise.

These sessions could be bonkers from the outside looking in.

I’ll admit this was my college age self inspired primarily by the chaos and pain blog to do shit that I’ve never seen anyone else doing. I had a blast, and didn’t view it as a chore. In fact I can’t recall training that I ever enjoyed more. It paid dividends in a rugged whole body strength severely lacking in most.

I did this type of thing last Saturday at a bodybuilding gym, and this is kinda me getting amped up for a heavy marathon session tomorrow.

Right now I’m doing infrequent weight room sessions. If I stick to it I’ll write about it soon enough.

If I stick to ~2 sessions a week I’ll still likely end up with at least 5 hours gym time, and quite possibly even 10 hours weekly.

Will my frequency itch stay scratched by PT, walking, improv, and more? We’ll see.

I know I’m moving up  levels physically right now. I can feel it.

Give the described style of session a try. Hell, even add more to it.

Whole body & heavyweight marathon session here I come.

-J

There are many tricks, little things that you can do that will make you instantaneously stronger.

Here’s one :

Bam! Bam!

Stomp your feet while setting them :

This could be when getting under the bar to unrack a squat, or it could be in the placement of your feet for a deadlift.

It primes you for power like a jump does.

As you’ve set your feet well and hard into the ground you’ll push more effectively through them.

You’ve quickly become more efficient at energy transfer.

Try it.

You’ll like it.

-J