daily lifting - balancing conditioning with linear periodization

I said recently that I was goaded for years into thinking lifting more often was better. I proceeded to lift 4-7x a week for damn near a decade before overuse injuries overcame me. During that decade, I also regularly felt sad, tired, and stressed. As I healed, I found I was getting bigger and stronger while lifting heavy 2x a week. As of late, I've said that daily conditioning has made me better than I have in a long time. Both of these things are still true and can coexist.

Lifting heavy 2x a week doesn't have to mean a drawn out session. It can mean two balls out sets (1 heavy, 1 light + rest pause) to failure. All in all this takes maybe 15-30min a week to do, and can still drive linear progress week to week. Surely, you have 4 hard sets a week in you, right?

Every other day? Conditioning. Possibly multiple times a day if energy and time allows. The body has enough parts to where you shouldn't ever have to reuse the same worked section 2 days in a row. 

Example

1)Heavy press: floor press

2)conditioning: pull, swing, calves, tibs, lunges, squats, single leg rdl

3)conditioning: press, (ditto)

4)Heavy pull: power clean

5)conditioning: press, (ditto)

6)conditioning: pull, (ditto)

Rest or repeat

Press = calisthenics presses. Use down, Juarez, straight sets, emoms

Pull = sandbag row. Normally this is a good place for calisthenics pulls as well, but that shit aint serving me at the moment.same type of rep models.

I list a ton of movement patterns after press/pull as a potential grab bag. Use whatever isn't tired. If you are going back and forth with dip Juarez valley and seated calf raises, guess what. The calf raises are your rest periods. They're filler episodes.

are you actually hungry?

I found a really easy method for discerning between actual hunger and the general desire to consume/craving.

If your body screams FOOD NOW, ask back - can you eat 6 eggs? If the feeling or response back is fuck no. It's a craving. Ignore. If the answer is yes, eat the eggs.

I'll take my money now.

conditioning is the assistance

Main work is easy to program. Work up to a top set. Do some backoff sets or a backoff set.

Assistance is a minefield of endless decisions with regards to movement choice, volume, and intensity. 

Conditioning saves a fuckton of time and energy. Assistance is dead. Conditioning is now also your assistance. Long live the new hotness.

look good versus feel good

I have to remind myself  of this fact daily: I feel amazing right now, but I also look objectively worse than 12 weeks ago. 

What changed?

12 weeks ago

- tired as fuck without copious caffeine.

- I trained full body 2 days a week. Everything to failure and beyond.

- goal was strength and size.

- off days were mace and stretch days. 

- Get some sun daily 

- I was damn near useless the day after lifting but soreness otherwise wasn't a thing.

- sex drive = not great

Today

- energy levels are amazing. Drinking less caffeine then I have in years.

- I train daily. With few exceptions (see: the occasional set of arms) nothing is to failure 

- goal is endurance.

- there are no off days.

- get some sun daily.

- low grade soreness every day, but it doesn't actually do anything.

- sex drive = constant. Not 20s levels but it exists

I gotta tell ya, my brain keeps trying to edge me back into looks good territory but in fighting it hard. I love the way I feel right now, and I'm just a few weeks in to this style of training. More to come in the future, but I need a reminder in print for the next 30min when I wonder if a 5/3/1 bench has a place in my life (narrator: it doesn't).

the things you do yourself

One of my favorite Dan John tidbits is 'the things you do to yourself are more effective than the things done to you for recovery.' For the life of me, I can't find where he made thos quote, so im going to accept the possibility of being dead wring and give him credit for the impotis for this post.

The tldr is massages are great. Acupuncture is great. Cupping is great. These are great for symptom relief but they are not going to be q long term preventive strategy. Addressing mobility takes care of a lot of the symptoms things like massage address. What you do yourself out weights what is done to you.