Momentum

Posted on November 5, 2012 by

This blog has been a reflection of my life the past two years: no momentum.

I just haven’t been able to get into a flow or zone.  Is this partially self created?  Yes.  But, it is also due to a confluence of factors.  The economy has been terrible, some family stressors have reared their ugly heads again, and I’ve reached a point of existential crisis.   Together they create the perfect breeding ground for an apathetic existence.  And as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m leading quite an apathetic existence right now.

Rather than facing life head on I’ve been running away from it, hoping that someone else is going to save me.  I’m waiting for a teacher or guru to appear, offer sage advice, and leave me in a state of fearless confidence.  I’m waiting for the perfect employer to offer me the perfect job.  I’m waiting for my life to get better instead of taking action every day to live the life I want to.  Frankly, I’m sick of it.

So, what am I going to do?  Am I going to write a blog post outlining the steps I’m going to take over the next sixty days to radically change my life?  No,  that doesn’t work. You know why it doesn’t work?  That strategy fails because sixty days later I’m off the hook.  Real change doesn’t have an expiration date.  Real change is not a one-liner.  Real change is an everyday occurrence.  Real change creates momentum.

My initial challenge is to identify the “things” that either cause or are a byproduct of my apathy toward life–and then to change them immediately.  That will be the subject of the next few posts.

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Day 1

Posted on July 12, 2012 by

One down, 37 to go!

I started the day by drinking some coffee then went for a mountain bike ride.  Food intake was on point all day and I didn’t feel the need for anything on my DO NOT EAT list.  In addition, I kept pretty busy all day long.  Not stressed out busy, but just nice and steady: picked up the car from the shop; went shopping & found a great deal on some grass-fed beef; took the dog for a walk; washed the dishes; made dinner; played with my daughter; etc.

I’m going to meditate after I finish this quick post.  And, tomorrow I’ll lift, get my sprints in, and do some reading.  Tomorrow’s post will be a bit longer because I’ll discuss the lift and the sprints a bit more in depth.  Feels great so far!

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38 Days Later

Posted on July 12, 2012 by

It’s been awhile since I posted anything.  I wish I had a good reason, some great story, or even a slightly valid fucking excuse.  Truth be told: I’ve gotten soft and lazy lately.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been lifting, hitting the iron.  Hell, I’ve even been hitting the trails and the books.  But, I am soft of mind, body, and spirit right now.  What I need is a serious kick in the ass, and I’m just the person to stomp a mud-hole in my face.  I am Jim’s smirking revenge.

My wife, daughter, and I (along with some great friends) are leaving for vacation on August 18th.  I have until then to get my shit together.  So, here’s the plan:

  • NO alcohol (not until we hit the beach August 18th)
  • NO grains (some quinoa & rice excepted)
  • NO sugar or sugar substitutes
  • NO dairy (pastured butter & all natural yogurt excepted)
  • NO sitting for more than 35 minutes at a time (if studying, reading, etc., get up & walk around, stretch, squat, move)
  • NO TV (live sporting events OK, going out to see a movie OK)
  • Eat ONLY whole, real food (meat, chicken, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts)
  • Drink ONLY water, black coffee, or tea
  • Sleep 7-9 hours per night
  • Lift 3x per week (auto-reg, very high intensity, full body)
  • Train high intensity sprints 3x per week
  • Burn as many “extra” calories per day as possible (play, mountain bike, yard work, honey-do list, wash dishes, walk the dog, just keep moving!)
  • Meditate (sit zazen) 20 minutes every day (doesn’t matter when, just get 20 minutes in every single day)
  • Post a blog article every day about the experience

That’s it.  If I can’t do this for 38 days, then I have absolutely no self-discipline to speak of.  Time to go on the hard routine and get my shit straight.  See you in 7-9 hours.

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New Upper/Lower Split…..So Far

Posted on April 9, 2012 by

Last week I went into the gym determined to begin anew.  I mapped out my new program and took a few days to work out the kinks and procure some benchmarks.  You can find the new program and the reasons I created it in my previous post, Dr. Strengthlove or: How I Learned to Stop Overcompensating and Love Unilateral Movements.

This morning was the first day on, what should end up being, a 38 day lift.  Today was lower body.  Here are the results:

Bulgarian Split Squats–45×6; 65×6; 95×7; 95×7
1 Leg SDL (DB’s)–40×6; 50×6; 60×7; 60×7
45 Degree Hyper–BW x 6; 5×6; 10×7; 10×7
BB Hip Thrust–155×6; 235×6; 315×8; 315×8
1 Leg DB Calf Raise–60×8; 55×8; 55×8 (calf raises completed not using the rep/set scheme because I had to move a bit quicker due to time constraints)

My biggest takeaway from today was, HOLY SHIT!  My legs are fried.  Now, in March I was warming up with 75 lbs DB goblet squats for about 15 reps, deadlifting 375-425, and leg pressing about 700-800.  But this lift absolutely torched me.

The second biggest takeaway from today was, Brett Contreras is an evil genius.  Why?  First, barbell hip thrusts.  My glutes felt fine until I walked down the stairs leaving the gym.  I have never performed any single movement that worked the glutes as directly and efficiently as hip thrusts.  Second, the exercises he prescribes for injury prone lifters are deceptively difficult when paired with one another.  For instance, moving from Bulgarian Split Squats to 1 Leg SDL’s covers pretty much all the ground you need to cover for your hamstrings and quadriceps.  But, add in hypers and hip thrusts and the lift takes on a new measure of difficulty.

Needless to say the lower body lift is a keeper and I think I’ll make some great progress using it.  Tomorrow I’ll do the upper body lift and find out if the program as a whole is going to work; or, if it needs some tweaking.

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Dr. Strengthlove or: How I Learned to Stop Overcompensating and Love Unilateral Movements

Posted on April 9, 2012 by

I am unhinged and off my rocker, out of tune, out of whack, and out of true.  I’ve lost my center and my inner child.  There’s no doubt about it, I’m unbalanced!!

But, things could be worse.

Since finishing the 40 Day Program, I’ve been on a upper/lower split.  For the better part of March I lifted upper body and lower body twice per week.  The upper body lifts were standard fare–chins, pushups, DB bench, DB OH press, cable rows, DB curls, barbell rollouts, planks.  The lower body lifts were simple too–deadlift, single leg leg press*, RDL, calf raises (fun), etc.– but I concentrated on raising my deadlift numbers.  Why?

That’s a good question with a pretty straightforward outward answer: I love deadlifting.  The deep seated psychological reason, however, is more complex.  When I returned to lifting from a lower back injury that had sidelined me for over a year I was weak.  The 40 Day Program helped my deadlift progress toward respectability, which gave me false courage.  So, I started overcompensating by adding weight too quickly.  I lacked the patience and humility to wait on my body to recover completely.  My juvenile thinking went something like this: “Shit, I might as well lift something heavy and show all these high school kids and Jersey Shore wannabees what real lifting looks like!!!  I’m tired of controlled sets and light weight, let’s blow out a couple of max singles!!!  Right??”  Wrong.  Dead wrong.

Oh, my numbers continued to go up.  Two weeks ago my deadlift days looked like this:  Monday–275 x 8; 315 x 6; 315 x 6; 405 x 2; Friday–315 x 5; 315 x 7; 405 x 3; 425 x 2.  However, I started feeling a familiar twinge in my lower back.  Wait a minute, wasn’t I beyond the injury?  Didn’t I make it out of the desert pretty much intact?  Well, kinda.

You see, while my DL form appeared spot-on and “looked good” from my and my training partner’s point of view, structurally my body was already overcompensating to my right side (or so I thought).  My working hypothesis was this:

  • I never fully corrected the muscle imbalances that caused my lower back injury;
  • I started the 40 Day Program with decent symmetry strength-wise, but not enough to justify relatively “heavier” (not really “heavy”) bilateral movements;
  • the 40 Day is a great program, for me all it did was create more imbalance because I used it when I shouldn’t have;
  • I started the split program with an even greater imbalance than I did the 40 Day;
  • thus, when I started throwing more wheels on the bar my body used any advantage it could to pull the weight, namely overcompensation to the right (my strong side).

How do I know it is a muscle/strength imbalance?  I tested myself with single leg straight leg deadlifts, split squats, single arm OH DB presses (one arm moving at a time), single arm DB benches, one arm pulldowns, and and one arm rows.  The results were manic:

  • on the SDL’s my right leg was weak (2 reps weaker);
  • on the split squats my left leg was weak (2 reps weaker);
  • my right arm was weak on bench, OH press, and pulldowns (1-3 reps weaker); and,
  • my left was weaker on one arm rows.**

Houston, we have a problem.  Needless to say I have modified my hypothesis because my body isn’t just overcompensating with my right side, rather it’s completely out of whack.  What happened?  I never reached a muscular stasis after completing rehab for my lower back injury.  My musculature appeared symmetrical and by low level standards it seemed to be in balance.  In reality, I never allowed my body to recover to the point of strong muscular stasis. 

Now what?  Well based in part on this article by Bret Contreras and this presentation by Theory to Practice’s Keith Norris, I’ve developed the following upper/lower split:

  • Set/Rep scheme is autoregulation: 4 sets per exercise, 6 reps for first 2 warm up sets and 7-11 reps for 2 working sets; warm ups at 50% of previous max and 75% of previous max; final 2 sets are working sets; 1st working set matches previous weight and attempts to increase reps beyond rep limit (or at least match); final set can match previous weight or increase previous weight, depending upon how I feel that day.  Why autoregulation?  I am really intrigued by the idea and want to try it over the course of a fairly long term program–as simple as that.
  • Lower Body Movements: Bulgarian Split Squat; 1 Leg Straight Leg Deadlift; 45 Degree Hyper; Barbell Hip Thrust; 1 Leg DB Calf Raises.
  • Upper Body Movements: Incline DB Bench; 1 Arm DB Row; 1 Arm Lat Pulldown; Prone Rear Delt Raise; Lat Raise (scapular plane); Hammer Curls; Barbell Rollouts; Side planks.

I am hoping this program will restore me to a strong muscular stasis and that I’ll be back to pulling some big weight off the ground sooner rather than later.  I’ll post lift results and updates starting later today after the first lower body lift.

One parting note: the title suggests I already know I love unilateral movements, and I’m not sure I will love them at all.  If they help me restore balance to my body then I will love them and use them as part of my training in the future.  This seems a likely outcome.  With that said, I will venture to guess that bilateral movements will always fill up a significant part of my training calendar.

*Yeah, yeah, I know, but I think Lyle McDonald has made a good argument for the leg press in limited situations (here), and I have spent a good amount of time under the bar as it were–so, back off!

**On all these tests I’m being very, very simplistic–I understand there is more musculature involved than that presented.  However, I believe the tests generally support the proposition that my strength/musculature is unbalanced.

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The Importance of Where You Train and Who You Train With

Posted on March 29, 2012 by

Six or seven years ago I trained in the best gym ever.  Now, I’ve trained at some very, very nice, modern athletic training facilities in both high school and college.  But, my favorite gym ever was a musty, wet basement at the old Lakewood, Ohio YMCA.

I can list every piece of  equipment in that basement: a power rack; about 1000 pounds of plates; dumbbells up to 120 pounds; a hammer strength lat pulldown; a stationary incline and flat bench; an adjustable bench with wheels; a leg press/hack squat; a smith machine; a roman chair; and a cable crossover wedged into the corner by the sometimes working water fountain.  I still remember everything that sucked too: the pipes above the rack leaked; if you were lifting overhead you had to be very careful of where you ended your lift–unless you wanted to flood the place; as previously mentioned, the water fountain was in a constant state of disrepair and only worked half the time; it smelled like wet laundry…..left in the washer for two weeks; there was no air conditioning, no windows, and the giant fan drowned out the circa 1984 boombox if set on high and did absolutely nothing if set on low; and every piece of aforementioned equipment had been rode hard and put away wet years ago–literally & figuratively.  So, what was so great about this facsimile of the Seventh Circle of Hell?  The people.

Here’s a list of the occupations/life situation of the lifters I got to know at my favorite shithole (occupation ’cause we never really knew each others names): lawyer; priest (orthodox); college student/rugby player; high school student/wrestler; corner grocery store owner; unemployed divorced guy living in his brother’s basement; Christian metal mullet preacher man; quiet respectful squat dude who I think worked for NASA because his gym bag said NASA Glenn Research Facility on it (squat dude because all I ever saw him do was squat….big, as in repping 585); and tattooed bike messenger Aikido cat (some people are deserving of the title cat, and this guy epitomized the term).

There were hobos who hopped onto the freight car with us, but they got off in Sheboygan.  We were headed all the way to the coast and back again.  So, in the 4 or so years I lifted there I came to know these guys relatively well.  A couple of times I ran into them outside the gym and we said our polite hellos and maybe talked about lifting, but rarely did it go beyond that.  I say rarely because I once ran into christian metal mullet preacher man at a bar and he talked my ear off about biblical numerology for an hour before I was able to steer the conversation back to whether he was using a training log or simple periodization.

The point is, we were all training partners.  We spotted one another on max days and encouraged each other on days when one of us didn’t feel right.  Critiques were always welcome.  We accepted the two younger guys because they had a healthy respect for their elders and brought fresh training ideas, boundless energy, and youthful eagerness.  We worked hard while talking about politics, love, life, sports, religion, death, family, and lifting (among other topics).  We listened to one another’s music (the first guy there had dibs, guy there next longest that day had next).  We didn’t always agree but we always respected the other man.  This was our space.  It was our cigar shoppe.  It was our local bar.  It was where we went to unwind after a long day or long week.

Now there’s a state of the art facility where that old, grimy Y once stood.  There’s a sauna, whirlpool, Olympic size pool, two sets of “machines”, a huge power rack, awesome glute-ham machine, nice bars (even an Olympic lifting bar [meaning needle bearings] I’m sure they bought by mistake), rows of ellipticals and bikes and treadmills, lots of weights, and rubberized DB’s (although they only go up to 100 lbs).  There are karate classes, spinning classes, sculpting classes, and classes for everything in between.  But, the weights are out in the open, commingling with all the other equipment.  There are unblemished mirrors on every wall.  There is no music.  Everyone silently listens to their iPod as they bob their head to a concert only they can hear.  No one talks.  No one listens.  It is dead space.  There is nothing.  Living among the detritus of a bygone era was more intoxicating than this sanitized present.

It is extremely important where you train and who you train with.  Train with people you like.  If it’s possible, if you have a choice, train at a place you like.  You will make more strength and hypertrophy gains.  You will enjoy your time at the gym.  You might learn something.  And, you will miss it dearly when it’s gone.

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“This is 100% magnesium”

Posted on March 29, 2012 by

Saw this video and had to post it.  It goes to everything that I hate about the modern fitness industry and there’s one great line in it too!!

 

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Knowing Your Limits

Posted on March 4, 2012 by

So, I’m done with the 40 Day Program.  And it was a great lifting experience.  I will definitely work it, or at least its methodologies, into future lifting schedules/programs.  But, wait a minute, isn’t the 40 Day Program supposed to take, well, 40 days to complete!!  What the fuck!

The short answer is: yes.  The more accurate answer is: it depends.  Whether or not a certain lifting program is effective is a mix of objective metrics–have you increased weight, reps, time, on the chosen movement patterns–and various subjective criteria–how do you feel, are you injured, is the lift still interesting/fun, is the lift still challenging, etc.

I completed 22 days on the 40 Day Program.  According to my interpretation of Dan John’s T-Nation article the most obvious objective metric of the program is “finishing . . . all 40 days” and the most telling subjective criterion  is “when you feel your strength has come up to a level that more advanced training methods are appropriate.”  Further, Dan John offers the two criteria as an either/or proposition: move on after you either finish 40 days or feel your strength is up to par.  I didn’t finish 40 days, but my strength increased greatly over the 22 days I was on the program.

Here are my starting and finishing numbers on all five program lifts:
Exercise          Starting Weight          Finishing Weight
Deadlift             2 x 5 x 175                          2 x 5 x 225
Incline               2 x 5 x 155                          2 x 5 x 205
Chinups            2 x 5 x -60                          2 x 5 x -40
Creds                 1 x 10 x 40 (each arm)    1 x 10 x 50 (each arm)
Rollouts            none horizontal               all five horizontal and very, very solid

So, by those objective criteria and my own feeling that those weight increases are significant for me, I have decided to move on to more advanced training methods.  Now, those are pretty big jumps.  But I’m not a novice lifter, I’m an experienced lifter returning to the game after an injury.  A novice lifter may only jump five or ten pounds after 22 days, and he/she may want to consider continuing on the program for a bit longer.

This was a wonderful program and I traversed the desert a little bit quicker than anticipated.  With that said, I learned the value of tenacity, got my deadlift form in proper order, and, most importantly, gained strength.

 

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Days 14 and 15

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

Things are going pretty smoothly.  Day 14 was a normal lift, but Day 15 I maxed on the four lifts.  Now, this wasn’t a true max.  It was a 40 Day Program max, which, in my opinion, means that the weight must be one that you can move smoothly, using as little energy as possible.

Day 14
Deadlift–2 x 5 x 205 (felt great)
Incline–2 x 5 x 200 (still a bit of a twinge on my surgery shoulder [right rotator cuff])
Pullups–1 x 5 x -45; 1 x 5 x -40 (the -40 set was tough, and I probably don’t want to try doing it for two sets yet)
Creds–1 x 10 x 45 (each side)
Rollouts–1 x 5 (all felt great)
20 minutes cardio/sprints

Day 15
Deadlift–1 x 1 x 315; 1 x 1 x 325 (felt very good, very smooth; while not easy, very manageable)
Incline–1 x 1 x 225; 1 x 1 x 230 (not bad, but surgery shoulder felt a bit impinged)
Pullups–2 x 1 x -20 (felt good, probably could’ve done a few more reps)
Creds–1 x 1 x 75; 1 x 1 x 80
Rollouts–1 x 5 (all felt great)
10 minutes of sprints

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Never Too Old: Odd Haugen

Posted on February 6, 2012 by

Odd Haugen is 61 years old and he is stronger than you.  That thought constantly looped through my head as I wrote this.  Along with: not only is he stronger than you have ever been, but he is stronger than any person you’ve met your entire life…..at 61 years old.

I first heard the name Odd Haugen while watching the 2006 World’s Strongest Man Competition.  At the time he was 56 years old and competing against men half his age.  I was simply amazed by his strength and competitive nature.  Normally when we think of a person in their 50′s we don’t think of amazing strength or competitiveness.  These, after all, are one’s retirement years.  Thankfully, no one bothered to tell Odd that he was supposed to be golfing and taking leisurely strolls while pondering his impending demise.  Instead he was flipping tractor tires, deadlifting cars, lifting 300+ pound stones, dragging 500+ pound anchors, and training harder than most 20 year old young men.  Oh yeah, he was also running a business and raising a family.  Odd is what 60 should look like, hell Odd is what 37 should look like!!

Odd is living proof you’re never too old to throw around the big iron.  Below you’ll find a couple of videos that say pretty much all that’s needed to be said about Odd Haugen.

Odd lifting Atlas stones to become Hawaii’s strongest man back when he was a 58 year old youngster.

Odd carrying 880 pounds at 57 years old!

Odd featured in a documentary called Superhuman Strongman (again at the tender age of 57).  The feature on Odd starts at about the 1:41 mark.

Odd kicking ass in a grip competition from this year, at almost 62 years old.  Pay close attention to the weights and the apparatus’ being used, very, very tough lifts!

Odd taking the 500 pound Sorinex Monster Barbell (very, very thick handled barbell) for a ride in 2011 (61 years old). 

A young (read: 52 years old) Odd in 2002′s World’s Strongest Man Competition. 

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