I had to go back to my roots, to put in effort, training every day, at home, alone – because training matters.
I’ve been blessed to be working 10+ hour kitchen shifts lately.
That much time on my feet alongside the massive sweating caused by the job = getting leaner without trying.
Having beef and broccoli to eat is a blessing.
What a nutritious combination!
I’ve been enjoying these, how I eat, which as I consider the beef and broccoli to be bodybuilder clean, is a 50/50 mix of eating bodybuilder clean and eating dirty at this point.
I drink mostly water from the fountain at work, usually laying off the soda.
I don’t need the caffeine.
Drinking cold milk, late night, after the day at work is incredibly refreshing.
The milk earned, then drank late night for great digestion and assimilation.
You setup with the bar in front of you, slowly deadlifting it to just above knee height.
Pause. A long pause, at least a couple counts.
Now, you shoulder it from that dead hang, whether you jump & shrug, or heave it up by upper body strength alone – that varies based on the particulars of the footing.
Be smart about it. However, know that you can do real well on muscle cleans/heaves from the dead hang when you choose and/or the available footing forces you to.
How different it is for me than on an indoor perfectly level gym floor.
Make the training variants harder than necessary. It has the side effect of building muscle and making you strong.
Okay, it’s shouldered. Wait a count. Press. Wait a count or two at the top. Lower. Repeat.
You’re pressing these reps real precise, real deliberately.
not pictured : me pressing
Good. You lifted.
Pressing every day this month so far. You’re pressing every day this month.
We’ll see where it ends up.
I’m really liking the deliberate pauses, it’s how some old time lifters said to lift – real controlled, deliberate every rep, stop at the top, stop at the bottom, basically an extended string of singles never unloading the body, keeping the time under tension high.
It’s strength work regardless of weight on the bar – in this case building up the press 10 rep, 12 rep max.
It’ll get above 200lbs soon enough.
Mindset wise I do better with a daily lift.
Even if it’s a quick one set of presses done shirtless in work pants before immediately hopping in the car and go!
That’s better for me than the no lift, sit around, sorry alternative.
I’m genuinely enjoying the hc&p, enjoying my lifting even though this abbreviated.
I’ve been laughing sbout how the last few shifts my cns must be fatigued, as simply trying to put a handful of croutons on a salad I end up flinging a couple of em – like the fine motor skill ends up way overcompensating halfway through dropping the croutons on the salad.
I did deadlift heavy this week.
Dehydration from work must play a role.
After work my pushups often involve my core shaking very much at the top before “recover, move”, similar to how it’d feel at the top of the final rep of a set of human weighted pushups or when pushing the lengths of time deep on, again human weighted, weighted pushup position planks.
…..
When you hire movers to move a grand piano, the legs are taken off, then depending on the circumstances as few as two men will either carry the main piece on a carpeted piano sled, held onto my rope loops for gripping (manual labor involves far more hand strength and hand endurance than anything gym), or more easily done – shoulder straps/shoulder harness.
Either way, and even with extra bodies thrown into the equation, the bulk of the work is done by those two men, and the hardest thing you will ever do on your cns is to be the one walking backwards under this half piano load.
Think about how rough some view a yoke walk, farmer’s walk, and the brief step step (step – three tops) of walking out a squat.
Now do this under load, for DISTANCE & TIME.
…..
I don’t own a sled.
I do have a barbell.
I realized, thinking back on my time as a mover, and having backpedal/sprint/cut some sprints recently – I can carry my barbell in a deadlift carry, and get creative with directions, forward/backward/side to side, even gait as many vary with sled work.
I know on my setup at home I’m giving up 10-20% on my traditional barbell lift maxes, so I’ve gotten creative on just lifting creatively for strength, am trying to not stress numbers in the moment, and just do yard barbell for bodybuilding strongman/strongman bodybuilding.
It’s not specific, but it forces me to have heart.
And having heart with consistency is what you need to train effectively.
Throw a barbell in a backward, now what you gon do with it?
Pay up, pay up, pay up.
this is not the same reference, though maybe the same end result (pay up) lol
…..
With no intentions of competing in powerlifting, weightlifting, crossfit, bodybuilding, or even strongman (though just walking into competitions would be fun), largely as why bother putting more $$$ into “gym”, partially as I see no need to make “official” totals when you’re not at least within spitting distance of WRs…
It looked like it would rain, I stepped outside, it started to lightly rain.
“Shoot”, I think to myself, “I guess I’m not hitting that 135lb power snatch amrap”.
It rains for five minutes, and “to give me vitamin d” the sun comes back out.
Thinking I’d not lift because of the rain isn’t like me, I’ve lifted in the rain, and while it has snowed before, but the sun coming back out…I couldn’t just stretch my tight lats while getting shirtless sunlight, had to lift…
Funny, it wasn’t the snatch amrap.
Lifting :
Press :
115-200 singles at every 5lb jump
That’s 18 c&p singles so far, more heaves/cleans than I’d usually hit at one per set.
I heaved until about 180lbs, at which point I switched to power cleans.
This is done about as fast as the plate changes until about 180lbs, with the 35s never coming off, and today I did not bother clipping it until again, about 180lbs.
Press w/Power Jerk Set Extender :
205lbs x 1pc+2p+5j
The first four jerks were not push presses, but used very little lower body, the fifth jerk used considerable hip power.
This bar has no whip, like 1800s germans doing continentals would be lifting on.
Karl Swoboda illustrating my point
Press :
7x165lbs
Eating :
I’m sipping water, reading, writing for awhile, then after showering up I’ve got some italian sausage to cook – lately I’ve started sprinting, mentally checked in to my intermittent fasting which has made it more purposeful than sheer laziness, I’ve taken the action of upping the amount of meat I eat.
Dinners are meat.
This is ;
•breaded chicken a few times a week over carbs, and with cheese cause the meat is low fat
•bacon cheeseburgers, no bun, few veggies, a few times a week, maybe with mashed potatoes which I mix a bunch of sour cream into, again upping the saturated fat
It’s all about the saturated fat.
•steak once or twice a week, generally without carbs other than from the milk I drink alongside all meals
There’s like two local enough gyms I could join to “lift seriously”, but it’s worthwhile to make it happen, training outside, alone.
Better in many ways ; the vitamin d, the fresh air, the barefoot, the shirtless…
Play firstly, move the c&p 1rm up secondly.
Recently with a pair of cinder blocks and four bricks I improvised pulling from toe height.
Remembering the lesson of the cinder blocks I set them up, stood on them, and with hands on knees got a full range of motion on the neck harness.
2×25 w/30lbs
The leverage is so much less advantageous, it’s a great movement for the back!
Yesterday I sprinted, I’ve started looking to never do the same session twice in a row…
I decided to lift, some overhead squats.
run & overhead squat is called nancy – pictured a stout german broad overhead squatting
2×10 w/95lbs, though in an hour or so I’ll probably do another mini session…
I’ve been liking this approach on the days I’m not working in the kitchen ;
•lots of mini sessions
•get my heart pumping/out of breath each time
This is how the body stays anabolic, fat burning, and amped up!
…..
30-60 minutes later…
Yeah, another mini session ;
w/95lbs
10 overhead squats
~12 total reps in the jefferson lift using two stances on each leg
3-5 reps hack deadlift
3 curls + 3 underhand presses
10 snatch grip rows
The hack deadlift worked better with 25lb plates, not bothering to touch the ground each rep, far better than trying to touch with 45s.
The curls could just be snuck up in weight sticking to low reps, 155lbs isn’t far – sneak up on it.
This was the third mini session on the day, as I have to get my 100 pushups in.
Three mini sessions daily is my current philosophy for every day away from the commercial kitchen.
I should be catching a brief 5:00 session, aside from the pushups before work, gloves, bag, then off to work.
I’ve started sprinting again. In only a couple applications I’m a bit leaner.
A large percentage of my desire is to train.
I’m trying to never have the same session two days in a row.
Almost everything is outdoors, barefoot, shirtless, and if the bar is in the shade I’ll stand in the sun on the rest period.
Tomorrow?
Dude, when did you deadlift last?
Single up to something challenging doh, probably first in snatch grip, then in conventional, then maybe pyramid back down, oh and use 40lbs on the neck harness.
There’s no such thing as a fat kid before some point in elementary school.
Every little kid is in their own world, going from sitting to sprinting full bore, jumping around, on, and off of everything, crawling, rolling, wrestling around, climbing, spinning around like a helicopter – the nearest playground great yes, but the entire world the playground.
No matter what the nearest grown up thinks 🙂
It’s not exercise as you define it, but movement.
The kid doesn’t care, they try the movement out. There’s no inhibition about looking weird. The kid is fear free and out to explore.
Whether actions, places, or people – the kid is free and out to explore.
And all this requires movement.
Food?
The kids gonna spit your garbage out, while neither mom’s idea of healthy or pop pop’s idea of junk exists to the kid.
The kid is gonna eat what the kid craves.
Bearing that the kid is gonna eat as close to what you offer as possible to what the kid craves.
Grandma likes cooking lean chicken breast or low fat fish, rice whether brown or white, and asparagus?
The kid is pumped when grandpa and grandma take him to the science museum after school then out for pizza instead of grandma’s low fat unfilling fare that friday.
Then with popcorn and past the kid’s bedtime they’ll watch a dvd, and the kid will be up before 5, amped for breakfast, then outside to play with millipedes.
Ahh to recall, 14 years old, and making the change from fat to
The school linebacker and I were enemies through most of high school.
The JROTC instructor once pulled me aside, thanked me for being mature enough to not take it to blows with him, and told me that would’ve been a fight he had no want to have to try and separate – he felt he couldn’t, he told me it’d go until the school cop came.
This kid started lifting weights asap.
I was mostly doing pushups, situps.
Though I started to lift at the end of my freshman year, it wasn’t until my junior year that I started to
Funny looking back at the 8×300 squat and 7×300 deadlift at 170 something lbs the summer between freshman and sophomore years and having that be roughly my best pound for pound rep strength ever in those lifts.
Freshman Year :
He was sprinting for sports.
I was riding hours on a recumbent bike in the kitchen.
He benched more than bodyweight.
I barely beat him on max pushups.
…..
Yes, do calisthenics, and long term they get you very strong.
Gorilla strong, doing pushups with people standing on your back.
Yes be able to run a good mile.
Freshman Year :
I recall being jealous, saying that I had more functional strength.
The Lesson :
While you’re playing sports, doing daily calisthenics, too be meaningfully under a barbell, be running sprints, and eating not like a pigeon, but like someone who wants to be brutally strong.
Weighted pushups for me were an adaption to pf, funny to realize the similarities between the training I did at planet fitness, and what I’ve heard done for prison fitness.
I can not stress enough how far a large base of calisthenic volume sets you on the path to being freakishly strong.
I’ll let you in on something, I always got better at pullups/chins from these two things :
•daily
•weighted
Comical how well that serves you, before the covid lockdown my amrap went from like 8 on a good day to 9 or 10 as PR with 7-8 as norm WHILE superset with machine curls simply from the occasional weighted 1s or 2s at bw+10 or bw+15.
Last summer I was approaching 30 as amrap, and hit over 20 at bw+20ish via kettlebell hooked to my foot.
What really was helping me was all these weighted sets, often amraps or near it, whether via dip belt or kettlebell(s) hooked to foot/feet – multiple sets, these were the training effect.
8xbw+70, totaling over 300lbs, often for multiple sets…
Weighted pushup position planks, a 200lb training partner standing on your upper back…
Weighted pushups, a 155lb training partner standing on your upper back sometimes holding dumbbells…
All in the realm of gorilla strong.
just as swole
Have a big dude sit on your upper back, or a chick stand on your upper back, and smash set after set of weighted pushup 8s.
If you can’t load the movement, live weight, or otherwise – band it.
Bands give a different stimulus, and I was doing weighted pushups with the thick grey bands, high reps on the purple.
I genuinely hope these are always color coded the same, I think they are.
Now to legs ;
“Picking”
Whether it’s via squat or lunge, with a buddy laying over one shoulder – bunches of reps.
You ever realized how impressive it is when one sumo lifts the other by the mawashi (belt), and carries him out of the ring?
Any movement can be partner resisted. Simulate anything generally done with weight or machine.
Mas wrestling looks like the greatest strength competition of all time.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. You ready? I’ll tell you how to train.
You’ve got a barbell? Good. That allows more variance, though you can be the strongest person you know simply doing thousands of pushups.
Put the barbell on the ground, shoulder it, press it.
Sometimes go a bit lighter and power snatch it.
Sometimes overhead squat it, as many as you can. Reps? From 15-50 is good here.
I like the high rep overhead squat.
If you want to, go heavier, simply pick it up – deadlift.
This is better with snatch grip or as an sldl, conventional and sumo are best as occasional tests, the other variants the better choices for training and muscle building.
To mix it up on occasion do any of the above one handed.
A staggered stance, “b stance” (kickstand), is worth mixing in, particularly on your power snatches both one and two handed.
I too like it with the deadlift.
The old time strongman had it right, just lifting the barbell off the floor every which a way.
And when you don’t have a barbell or any improvised equipment ; the military has it right – dominate the space when you’re on your face.
Everything you could possibly need to train is seen in the blend of old time strongman, girevoy sport, military pt, prison workouts, wrestling, and boxing.
Lift – weightlifting in all rep ranges like you mean it.
Calisthenic – with a passion, lots of reps, even weighted, weight can be anything.
Improvise – with the right mind you often don’t have to workout without equipment, something in the environment can be used.
The tree branch becomes a mace.
That rock a perfect implement for one arm pressing.
All sorts of places to do pullups to be found, used.
Random things to shoulder, stand, attempt to get overhead, like a waterlogged log.
I’ve spun a wok around in my kitchen as a grip exercise before.
And yes, I try to pick up that large piece of railroad track. I do every summer.
I think with my strongman strong buddy it would be done as a two man lift.
Best store for exercise equipment?
Walmart? Dick’s?
Nah, try the hardware store.
A heavy sandbag is civilization’s accessible, great logistics version of a manhood stone.
There’s that Bruce Lee story of him holding an 8lb steel ball for hours, alternating hands, in a front raise hold.
riughly this positioning – dumbbell in hand, arm parallel, glutes tight
The front raise hold isn’t given the credit it’s due.
One light dumbbell kept bedside (I have a pair of 10s in my bedroom) easily becomes a front raise hold as a shoulder feeder workout and results in fairly quick gains.
Even :60 is great, meditative, you breath in and out deep, and you find it’s not just the shoulders firing, like horse stance you feel your legs, glutes firing, and the grip is worked.
Lengths of time see the entire body pulling that dumbbell up.
