October 2019 : PT Challenge Log : Hindu Squats & Reflections
Reflections :
Just like with my daily pushups, it’s a solid thing to do bodyweight squatting daily.
I saw some quad growth. This was to be expected.
How well this affected me is a large reason my next challenge will be continued daily leg work.
The Log :
1st : 50 in 2×25
2nd : 75-80 in x50, x25-30 + ~15 sissy squats
3rd : 75 in x50,x25, legs very sore, all the stretching over the last week or so seems to cause this
4th : 75 total w/shaking out legs, short pacing
5th : 60 total, 25+25+10w/prison cell length pacing between& cossack dancing to end
6th : 100 total, 60 reps superset at gym 5-10 at a time between sets of smith machine, 40 (15,25) at 915pm
7th : 115 in x60, x35, x20 w/short breaks in between sets
8th : 200 in x60 at noon, and
x40,30,40,30@8-830pm
9th : 100 in x30,20,25 short pacing between sets, 25 ~6 hours later
10th : 65 total, 46,14,5 short pauses, knee buggy, I figure the ground was uneven
11th : 115 total 25 4ct, 10 4ct, 15 4ct with short pacing between. 4 count style flows way better. Use 4ct reps more often, I whistled roughly counts 1-3, breathed in count 4. Then 10, 5 mixed with pushups.
12th : 100 total, as supersets at gym, 10x 3 chins (rotating variations) + 10 squats, I felt like a beast doing this, good pump, felt like solid mat strength
13th : 70 total 30,20,20 while chicken is microwaving
14th : 135 total, 50,30,25 few steps between each set, 10+10+10 as part of squat/pushup supersets
15th : 125 total 30,30 at gym, 25, 25,15 after dinner
16th : ~150, 10, 1-10-1 pyramid, some extra steps on way down, 25
17th : 100 total, 40, 20, 20, 20 short pacing
18th : 100 total, 5 sets mixed with pushups in kitchen, good cardio calisthenics, day off from gym (dumbbell play in yard), really good pump, glutes feel solid
19th : 75 total, 50+20+5 rest pause
20th : 110 total, 50, 25, 35
21st : 75 total, 50 in a few sets, 25 at gym between chins, I do believe that brunette (and the indian guy) thought it looked funny, self consciously I would lose my balance, which is the reason I did an extra set of 25
22nd : 135 total, 5 strict hack style morning, 30, 30 right after heavy dinner, was gassing, ~945pm 40, 20 mostly with arm stuff, 10 strict hack
23rd : 60 total, 40, 20
24th : 60 total 30, 30
25th : 165 total, 50, 30, 35, at night 50 more
26th : 85 total 55, 30
27th : 60 total
28th : 115 total 45, 35, 35
29th : 55 total
30th : 135 total 20, 40, 40, 35 after dinner, ~945pm, had done lots of smith squats a few hours prior
31st : 120 total 40, 40, 40
Total reps for the month : 3060, or about 99 daily.
This month the P&T YouTube channel wasn’t completely inactive.
In addition to some website writing
I did throw up three videos, two talk videos, and to my surprise an exercise video.
Quite frankly I hadn’t expected to film at planet fitness any time soon, initially thinking the Sig Klein challenge the only thing worth filming in a place of machines and dumbbells no heavier than 75lbs.
Feeling strong however I took video as I expected to accomplish something I’d never actually done before, a head to ground handstand pushup. I surprised myself with the newfound ability especially considering I’m getting bigger.
Machine shoulder pressing had carried over.
As is often my case I find I can do new physical tricks by accident not having purposefully trained for them.
I have precedence in this, first with one arm pushups, then an ugly muscle up, a standing ab wheel rollout, and now in addition the handstand pushup.
If you missed them as you’re not yet subscribed to my oft neglected but not dead channel, or you’ve seen them and are reading the site (watch them again then anyway) here they are :
I’m standing in the checkout line when in my peripheral vision I see my high school throws coach, the cool one, this giant older Irishman, Catholic as all hell, with a limp no one knew the cause of (Vietnam?), not the little blonde midget bro with an attitude issue from a Napoleon complex, his football playing days, not to mention the large stick he had to have had keister stashed, pushing an empty cart…
“Hello Coach”, he turns towards the sound, greating me with, “where you lifting now”.
I reply “PF”,
he says “Really”,
“Surprising I know”,
“How you making that work for you”, he asks, a test to whether I’m doing pussy shit or not.
“Mostly dips and chins”, the truth and judging by the look on his face an acceptable answer combined with my build which backs it up.
It was cool to see Coach. At 17 during practice I spotted him benching 5×405. The last time I saw him would’ve been a little over 3 years back, 2016, before getting kicked out of the commercial gym, probably spotting him on a 365 single about two years back in the same grocery store where all he really had to say was roughly the same thing, my answer at the time a place not Planet Fitness.
It wasn’t so much a greating back to me as making sure I was still training, and clarifying that it wasn’t piddly bitch shit style working out either. I like that mindset. Sees an old student, the only thing that matters to him is whether I’m training, and seriously at that, or not.
Man was a good athlete, huge 6’3″ frame, strongest curling I’ve ever seen, and kept his upper body strong in spite of whatever caused that major limp. He coached his entire lifetime at the local public and Catholic schools, I always thought he was the product of another time.
“Look like an athlete” – Him berating something that didn’t look athletic, heard ever practice.
Chins & Bridging
Minimalistic workouts :
With a barbell you have clean, clean and overhead (press, push press, jerk), snatch, deadlift, squat, front squat, bent row all as things that are acceptable to be the one and only movement you do in a session.
With no equipment I suggest pushups, and hindu squats as a solid option.
With access to something to hang on and a pillow or similar you have the title “Chins & Bridges”.
Right now instead of 300+ rep a day dip odyssey, I seem to be on chins nearly daily odyssey, doing 20-100 every time I’m at the gym.
I’ve been doing weighted wrestler’s bridging at least every third day.
The majority of today’s session was about 55 chins, and two weighted wrestler’s bridge holds of over a minute apiece with the 50lb preload barbell.
The two movements train the entire back, with no tearing you up bad type soreness!
It is a full body workout. 30 chins in my abs are sore, passing 40 my hands may be going (especially the day after 100 reps instead of 25-50) with forearms visibly growing, I get a solid lat and bicep pump, and the the bridges not only train neck, and the entire spine, with locked glutes hit the glutes, the movement stretches the abs, has a cardio effect, but most shockingly trains the legs in a manner analgulous to a wall sit.
PR is 2:00 at bw, 1:00 with the 60lb preload, and 1:15 with the 50lb preload. Double progression with time and weight. Owning the movement is 10:00 with the pair of 75lb dbs. There is also high rep bridge pressing, it’s likely harder than timed holds with weight at lockout due to extra required stabilization. Do both.
Trail Mix As If It Were Cereal
I joke about how I eat both trail mix and nuts out of a bowl with a spoon as if it were cereal.
(the other day actually eating two foods normally not associated with bowl & spoon for lunch each with bowl & spoon, cheeseburger “animal style” (no bun), and peanuts
if you were wondering).
It strikes me that eating nuts like this is very similar in ease of prep/eating, but far more nutritious.
Nuts/Trail Mix > grains
Cereal is sad, yes it’s standard american diet, but that’s not what I’m getting at here. The majority of the time I view eating a bowl of cereal as having a sad excuse of a meal, eating “sad cereal’, sad as in the emotion. I’ve went years without a single bowl before, as I had not worked through a strong disgust reflex in which I associated bowls of cereal with bitch tits and a disgusting slurping sound. My friend and his family when I revealed this were shocked, it’s a funny memory. I hope he’s doing well.
Trail mix and nuts are a far better food to eat in the place of cereal. I only rarely have bowls as easy energy, generally when refueling at night contrary to general practice. Corn Pops taste good, as do Peanut Butter Puffins, which is about the extent of that.
A Note On Recovery aka How The Body Will Adapt To Running Yourself Into The Ground
As long as you have enough recovery coming from mindset/food/sleep (yes in that order, the mental being as powerful as you can imagine), you can allow the muscles to stay sore, not fresh, you can allow yourself to run yourself into the ground.
March or die y’all, the body will eventually adapt.
The look of frustration as one is in the “in it” of running the body into the ground and waiting most scientifically for the adaption to take place.
It’s somewhat Bulgarian, and I’ve heard some interesting things out of college wrestling, and the military worlds on this note.
Gunnery Sergeants outrunning groups of in their prime 20 year olds, instructors donning pack, boots, and gas mask for competitive 5ks, heavyweight wrestlers running good 5ks.
Even if you’re doing none of the shit that gym knowledge claims you require…the body will catch up and adapt.
It has no choice, adapt or die, the mental allowing consistency forces the physical to…eventually.
Standing naked at the foot of my bed, these are the best sessions.
Aside from a short horse stance, and a little bit of gripper work it’s mostly pushups, and triceps flexing.
I press my hand, arm outstretched to the side, into the door frame. The house creeks, it’s not the time of night for noise. I’m already not in the kitchen for that reason.
Isometrics, I’ll have to add some extra sessions in, they haven’t been done in a long while. Luckily they can be done anytime anywhere.
Hugely beneficial.
Today I’d been changing the hand position/wrist angle as I flex my triceps. I’ve never before thought to do this, I can feel it hitting different heads.
Back to pushups. With the right hand placement there’s no noise pollution. The tricep flexes have them firing better during the pushup reps. With isometrics in my mind I do some slow and super slow reps. I’d forgotten how beneficial these are.
A shoulder had been buggy for a short while. STRICT pressing reps, pauses, full range of motion…healed it in one day.
For the last two days I’ve had the Sig Klein challenge on my mind. I’ve never completed it, it having the potential to be something I’d actually film at PF.
Just taking a pair of 50s into an antisocial corner for to c&p “all day” is a solid solid idea.
At present I don’t have the drive to lift weights meaningfully* at home. I do my PT, and go to PF. With how well I’ve been responding to the hindu squats, which I do in a style very much like a non strict unweighted hack squat, two things :
•Add high rep overhead squats back in. They work amazingly.
(Primarily at home with a barbell as a separate session, though at PF with a broomstick and kettlebell slid on is a possibility.)
•Do hack squats strict.
(Mostly at pf with the preload barbells.)
Bodyweight is 262. This is my lifetime heaviest, and I’m getting leaner. I feel great, very athletic, very strong…at PF (suckers).
Just about every day it irks me to not have a “real gym” to lift at, I’m making PF work. My brain runs full speed ahead seeing variations, and out of the ordinary things that carry over. I liken it to idiot savant, I’ll always advise to go dumb and just be brutishly strong. Improv works for me. Quit thinking. Only instinctive action.
I’m regularly and easily maxing out the unilateral shoulder press machine now. Still milking it. You can always find ways to milk your equipment for more.
“Maxing it out you say”, says the psychopath late 1800s Englishman split personality (I kid, it’s a joke fuckers), “well that must mean you have done it for at least a set of 50 paused reps”. I shake my head, grumble a little, then clicking my heels in joy giddily run back to the machine realizing it hasn’t been milked bone dry.
40 minutes of typing in…I drop and hit some more pushups.
I started doing egg shakes again. This time 6 eggs per instead of usually 3-4, and for the most part heavy cream in place of milk. Higher saturated fat very well may be more useful than the protein and carbs. I don’t think anyone really ever needs over 200g protein a day, and am confident that 100g-150g a day is an entirely acceptable level. My gut says that enough protein while calories and saturated fat are high is what’s best. Eat real foods, don’t fear fat, don’t fear natural sugar, eat a mixed macro diet based on meat, eggs, and dairy with the rest as side dishes.
If I was to get really serious it’d be 3 dozen eggs a day, mostly drank, plus a meal or two (maybe three) as per usual. My near constant hunger is a good sign. I’m constantly thinking of waffles, sausage, butter, and maple syrup as I lay awake at night.
I’m not very high on volume. More is more and would be better. Something should be added in, but will it?
What?
Long walks? Best on the beach, in new cities, or in winter. It’s about to be winter, plus it’s free.
MMA?
Labor?
I do calf raises as most of my before eating calisthenics. They’re best done glutes locked. The pushups I had been doing simply switched to being done in my bedroom at night. I add a few reps here and there to the calf raise sets.
This gym shit is so easy. Just act on your instincts. Eat well. Train (however).
Persistence & Tenacity
*My definition of lifting weights meaningfully. Bringing my 75lb db or a barbell empty or with only a few plates outside skirts the mental effort issue.
Not once have I ever watched any of those “I did 100 pushups a day for 30 days” type videos.
I have a different perspective.
At 14 years old I started doing pushups nightly. I’m 25. The discipline has been mostly unbroken with VERY few misses.
(For ~6 months I stopped while dead inside as a senior in high school, then starting up again soon after graduation so as to not be hypocritical when I advised a buddy to start doing them as a way to feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose in a society in which he felt dead inside.)
To pushups I’m an addict in essence. They’re OCD behavior, I have a checklist where daily I check them off, yet I often don’t trust the checklist and find myself doing them more and more.
100 a day is supposedly hard? Noteworthy? I’m not trying to come off as tough or similar here, I’m not, I’m trying to give you a better perspective…
Between 11 and midnight I did over 100 reps. In my fucking bedroom between 10 and midnight I did easily over 200 reps. This is normal to me. 30 days is noteworthy? Shit guys, it’s been probably 6 weeks of these nightly sessions…WITH the reps already checked off for the day.
“Putting on a clinic marching to the beat of my own drum” – “Let’s Go” by Johnny Richter
Squatting in the smith machine is a bastardized combination of the leg press and a true barbell squat. That angle makes it feel like an angled leg press sled but across the shoulders, awkward like a hack squat machine. I approached the lift as if I was truly hitting a heavy squat single,and locked out with full power, a violent hip thrust, after getting through the midway sticking point.
While the smith machine feels heavier to me than a barbell, 3p25 (3 45s + 25) a side isn’t much weight at the top… blasting through lockout and coming up on my toes with power that shocked myself I tilted the entire machine forward towards the mirror.
I’d guess the back came off the floor betwen 3-6in. “Thunk!” As it came back to its normal resting position.
I can only imagine what the college chick using dumbbells behind me was thinking witnessing this (“Holy shit! Wow, he can thrust hard!” – her thoughts). No “lunk alarm” either, Sunday desk was mostly new staff and chill.
Not today. Violent displays of hip power resulting in partially lifted smith machines ≠ Lunk Alarm at least at my home club.
Whatever I’ve been doing (no specific gym leg work, incidentals from the wrestlers bridge, plus regular horse stance, and some hindu squats) is working. It was like the time I nearly put a hole in my Vegas apartment’s hallway wall wedged in doing a leg press isometric.
This month I’ll be doing 50+ reps of hindu squats daily.
I’m not requiring the goofy looking arm thing.
The rom will generally be shy of lockout, pumping for the thighs.
Why this?
I figured a bit more leg stimuli will be helpful. I actually would’ve said 100+, but came up with the idea near midnight on the 1st, and only did 2×25 before it became the 2nd.
I’ve read before of a lightweight Irishman in the 1940s or 1950s who was tremendously strong.
Aside from Popeye forearms he didn’t look like much. Tall for his weight, skinny, didn’t look ripped either, a normal built light bloke.
He had a long period, the better part of a year, where all he did was train, eat, and sleep as he was capable through some life circumstance to live without an income.
(Training with the inheritance left by his mother? A flat and some cash. My recollection is hazy here. He may have moved onto his mother’s couch and spent his inheritance from another.)
He did little aside from pressing and pulling if my memory serves.
I can’t recall reading anything of him squatting, just the clean & press, bench, deadlift, and rack pull + axle stuff.
He’d alternate press day and pull days and do 100 singles. Yes you read that right, 100 singles, and they’d be in the 90% area of his 1rm.
It didn’t sound like he warmed up. Straight into heavy singles. Workouts would often take 4-6 hours, resting minutes between reps, he’d eat lightly before, maybe drink a little milk during, eat one feast immediately following, and then go to sleep.
A good clean and press, a good bench (surprisingly so what with his skinny build and long Bob Peoples length arms), past 3x bw deadlifting, it may have been around 4x bw, and the only picture I’d ever seen of the man was holding a stubby railroad axle, a super fat bar basically rack pull with a mixed grip and again over 3x bodyweight.
It came to an end, he was regularly sleeping 20 hours a day unable to eat and sleep enough combined with the long rest period 100 singles workouts each and every day.
(In what I’d read of him he stated he could really only train the 100 singles with long rests between reps, that he could only eat a meaningful amount after the days training was done, as the weight increased he found himself sleeping more and more, and when sleep was at a 20 hour requirement he didn’t have time to train fully without missing necessary eating or sleeping.)
My understanding is he basically quit lifting when income became necessary again, picking up a factory job to pay newly required rent and continued groceries.
A sad ending maybe, but the anecdote opened my eyes to what the human body is capable of when one truly pushes while basing their life around lifting heavy to the exclusion of all else.
He was sleeping on a living room couch through this, of this detail I am fully certain. I recall him speaking of this being a detail not in favor of his continued recuperation what with living rooms being an often trafficked and noisy area.
I must say he did quite well during this period of sleeping on a couch in someone else’s flat in an urban Irish slum.
The human body is meant for movement. The higher activity you are the more calories you need, and the more effectively you use them.
It’s said the postworkout period is the most anabolic window in which to eat. One such period a day, or less, isn’t very much. If you earn your meal by doing some PT immediately before you eat you will have done a mini session creating an anabolic window with food logistically/readily available. Your body will be amped up, anabolic, and primed for growth all day.
The human body is that of an animal. We are not herbivores, but omnivores most positively influenced by eating fatty protein, dead cow, et al.
Your body needs red meat, instinctively you crave it, you did before the media and medical field told you of it’s evils and you still do.
Follow your instinct. Eat red meat daily.
The simplest dietary thing to implement is drinking raw egg milkshakes.
•3+ eggs
• ice cream for flavor
• milk/heavy cream to fill container
Drink one shake each and every day in place of less effective, more expensive whey.
Raw eggs, and barely cooked beef are what your body most effectively utilizes. Do not overcook!
Test these three things :
1. PT to earn every meal, snack, or liquid calorie.
