easy conditioning

My OFF days have morphed into a weird blob of mobility and easy conditioning. Im....into this. Hell, I had a baby bathwater moment this weekend where a workout was so effective that I considered dumping the rest. Note, I didnt. But I wanted to.

How we do.

1)Mobility and movement prep for the next day of lifting. This gets a little bit of movement frequency in the mix. Rotation is always a part of the show.

2)Easy conditioning for 10-20min.

- pick 2 movements and cycle through an EMOM.

- during rest time, swing a light club or mace for 10-20 reps.

Even 5-10x3 of a suspension movement is $$$$ here. The workout later in the day can be similar without the instability.

Easy means there is effort present, but at no point is failure going to happen. 

looking good versus feeling good redux

I've been in this situation before when I was doing near daily calisthenics. I feel GREAT. My energy is up. My libido is way up. Generally aches and pains are down. Conversely, I do not look as good as when I lift to beat myself into the ground. 

Its a conundrum. What do you do? Lift to feel great and see slower visual progress, or lift to feel good about the way you look? Id argue for gen pop the former is the way to go. I say this knowing fully that I want to look a certain way and am unsure if lifting the way I am will get me there.

Very likely because of the massive amount of social media influx, im jonesing after a kettlebell type physique. I.e. solid shoulder and back development. Medium on everything else. Those mother fuckers look like angry bulls with wide obliques. The weirdest shit is there is just as many kettlebell people that dont even look like they lift. And everyone has an opinion on why one way or the other.

you cant build a house on balsa wood

I accidentally built a foundation when I started lifting. Just, flailing at random stuff while still working on progressive overload. That mixed with youth got me pretty far. Trying to lift anything now is rough. Really rough. Its been so long since I've been able to lift with intensity that nothing feels right or locked in. At Joe kettlebell man states, there is no strength without stability. Thats where I am. Trying to build a house on balsa then getting surprised when it falls.

Yesterday was my first reattempt at 5/3/1. I dont really want to do barbell shit to failure, and it shows. The target muscles from yesterday arent even sore despite multiple sets to failure. And why? Because im trying to build on nothing.

Fast forward to today. I started with multiple sets of gorilla rows thinking I would switch to a one lift a day operation. It felt....fine. it was fine. But I remembered I've had a program i BOUGHT years ago. Sitting and staring me in the face. Each time I started it I stopped because I had too many limitations. I ran into said limitations again today before thinking the most obvious thing (note: the programs author, every god damn dre, also says this but it never stuck).

Not lifting with controlled form? 

Drop the weight.

Can't handle the volume?

Cut the sets in half. Cut the reps in half. Or BOTH.

Can't do a movement? 

Don't! Or cut range of motion. 

I did all of these things. The weight dropped from a sad 12kg to a pathetic 8kg. I did half sets and reps. I couldn't swing the bell so I didnt. I couldn't do lunges with my right leg so I didnt. 

And. I. Feel. Great. 

There is nothing I have that I can lose and everything I can gain. The idea that this program - notorious for being mobility and strength in a bow - can move me towards my goals is intoxicating.

baby and the bathwater

I won't erase blog posts even when I directly contradict myself. After I got back from vacation, I had an awesome idea. End easy strength with 10min EMOM of bodyweight movements. Increase the reps week by week until the volume is low key bonkers. And it IS a good idea. It felt so good, I tossed the baby out with the bathwater. 

Hey, instead of easy strength how about I just do this 10min emom! I can do press (squat and press) and pull (row and nordic) days. Oh joy! How quickly this fell apart. Because now the goal of increasing volume instead of load is mixed with movements that depend heavily on load via barbells. Am I training for strength or hypertrophy? Do I increase weight on non bodyweight and increase weight on barbell? What a pickle i created via a bad program no one asked for.

I tossed the baby out with the bathwater because I had a good idea for one aspect - hypertrophy - at the tail end of strength.

When I find myself in endless toil for sets and reps and load and movement selection, I know i am proper fucked.

Follow the program. Easy strength allows for 'everything else' so this is well within guidelines. But Easy strength still needs to exist as a base.

progress through accumulation

Resetting my training to an old standby - 10 sets of low reps + step loading. I used this successfully for YEARS. It really never stopped working, but I didnt have the wherewithal to replace exercises as I grew stale to boredom or overuse. Some 16yrs later, im slightly slightly slightly less stupid and majorly less strong. 

This doesn't mean that training to failure or fatigue doesn't work. It 100% works and works very well. It means that there are many routes to the goal of size and strength. One of those routes is accumulation. There is no special exercise or weight where things clicked (note: at the time, I 100% thought there was). Just spending enough time with the same exercises progressed in weight or reps was enough.

To be clear, this method is not great for bodybuilding or max strength. It is awesome for better than average of both for a surprisingly small time and risk investment. The other gaps in training - Mobility, athleticism, rotational strength - can all be done on its own.

easy strength and adding hypertrophy/conditioning

After easy strength is 'everything else'. This can mean sports practice, bodybuilding, whatever.

After easy strength, hypertrophy.

10 emom sets of bodyweight

Afternoon, conditioning.

20-30min of rounds