the fountain of youth is easy daily effort

Im seeing the fruits of my efforts bloom after a few weeks and it is niceeeee.

Besides mobility, the largest change I've made in my training in the last 6 months is cutting out difficult second daily workouts. Due to working from home, I need exercise to keep me sane. The 2x a day workouts were manageable in effect, but they made me tired as all hell, and did not under any circumstances give me any noticeable gains beyond what I would get training once a day. Endlessly quoting dan john, but sometimes more is Just more. Or...its 1hr or 10hrs. Everything in between is not making a difference. 

So, 1hr a day. This can still be 2 workouts, but the vast majority of work getting allocated to light tonic work is a boon I didnt know i needed. 

How we do

- 3-4x week, AM strength training. Simple and predictable. Slowly add load and volume over time. Using the armor building formula. If you are thinking of adding more, dont.

- 3-4x week, AM mobility. There should be some common movements based on what youre trying to improve.

- 7x week, PM daily work. This is the $$$. I did nothing but this on vacation and glad I did. This is easy to do, easy to recover from, and can still add hypertrophy and strength through accumulation.

The daily work is today's topic so ill elaborate. 

- 10min EMOM pushups.

- 10min EMOM swings and animal walks.

Rope flow done during rest periods. 

Pushups alter variations every set. Add 2 reps/set every 2-3 weeks. This gets really nasty without incurring a fatigue debt. 

For swings/walks

- start 2 sets swings and 8 sets walks.

- add a set of swings and remove a set of walks each day.

- start over with 2 sets of swings but add a rep per set.

- after you hit 10x10 swings, increase the weight and restart.

armor building - variations

To be clear, this is me making shit up. There is not a Dan John's program or suggestion to do this. Each variation keeps to the same tenet - 2 cleans, 1 press, 3 squats - but gets there in different ways.

How we do

- (1)(2)kb

- (1)kb but overhead squat

- (1)kb but bent press

- sandbag clean to squat to ring dips

- (2)(1)landmine clean to press and hack squat 

- (1)kb curl from squat, squat into halo

- (1)kb curl from squat, squat into thruster 

Other variation 

increase number of presses (note: especially for ring dips) and/or squats per set. 

results of daily activity, not daily training

Building momentum is what we are doing. My energy and sex drive are doing pretty stellar compared to when I poured my energy all into training. The downside? At least for the time being, my physique is not what id like. As I've alluded to in other posts, I am giving my all to avoid focusing on this short term valley so I can harvest long term benefits from what I've invested in.

What im doing

Training 3-4x a week. All ABC single kettlebell.

AM mobility 3-4x a week. The only 'lifting' in this session is mace/club/medicine ball lateral movements

PM 5-7x a week. This is my nucleus overload, rope flow, and animal walk training. Goal is to get some sun and active recovery.

armor building weeks 3 and 4

Not every day is stellar, but im seeing slow and steady progress. Considering my legs need the most work, I've cut the press only day out so im only running the ABC. Short term shoulder hypertrophy is suffering, but Considering how much pressing I am getting from daily pushups this is not a big concern.

Legs are finally growing again!!!! Even with light weight. My back is definitely the limiting factor, so will work on this with mobility coach.

Improvements are not necessary to weight (12kg --> 18kg working weight) but I get way more sets at the top range AND the weight is moving faster. My rest between sides and sets is also decreasing. Just overall great stuff. 

In my next post, I'm going to create a working list of ABC variations that could be fun in the future. I can see using this method for the foreseeable future, and using the cooked up variations at the end of each 8 week cycle.

tissue tolerance

Ive mentioned in previous blogs about how an early goal for me was to increase the amount of time before things hurt. This is still 100% the goal, but i want to take it further. If your shit ain't right, consider this before doing random shit. So says the guy who decided to do zercher squats and lunges yesterday and now has angry knees.

Progression

- static holds assisted.

- static holds unassisted.

- holds unassisted. Some motion.

- full movement. Multiple sets of low reps.

- Add sets.

- Add reps per set.

- Add weight or difficulty.

what is your turning point?

There is no one turning point for people for the most part (notable exception David Goggins). Its a spectrum of life changes made when we had no choice. These little forks in the road make us who we are.

For me, the latest was a narly back injury sustained from high rep deadlifting near my 40th bday. I've done high rep deadlifting in the past and loved it. The difference between then and now is then I was building on top of a solid foundation. Now, I was putting high fatigue on a lift i had barely trained in years and had sustained multiple injuries on from weaknesses in all supporting body parts. Big big difference.

The turning point is not the fact that I got hurt. It is that I got hurt when my wife and I needed to paint our future kids room. The work ended up being 20/80 me to her because I could not stay upright and mobile for very long. My wife was happy to take on the work. That isn't what this is about. It is about not being able to participate in things I hold to be important because I decided to train like an asshole.

Unless it is your JOB to look pretty or break heads, the main goal of training (important note: for people outside of the adolescent age band) is to become more resilient. This doesn't mean that muscle and strength isn't in the picture. Quite the opposite. But if you are not becoming more insulated from normal injury (see: throwing your back out from sneezing, stupid shit) or not able to do normal human things then you may want to rethink your shit. Dont be a war story bro. Train forever.

dont snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Lot that this can apply to, but in this case it's training ADD. If something is working. Dont. Change. It. 

The most common symptoms for me is I think im missing out on muscular gains by not doing X movement. In reality, if week over week I can stack more weight and volume safety then the process is working.

There is no world where more weight and volume on the same movements done consistently does not pay off. Stay with something until the program is done or you stop making progress.

to heal: target above and below, hold ranges

Full disclosure, my right knee is still a work in progress. But compared to last year im fucking superman. What helps my back more or less applies here too:

- strengthening the muscles above and below the impacted area.

- exploring ranges of motion by holding positions.

Strengthening above and below is something you should be doing anyways. I.e. normal ass strength training. You should not have weak or perpetually tight muscles. 

For the knee

- Above: quads, hip flexor, glutes, hamstrings. 

- below: tibs, calves.

My big hangup was that I could not FEEL the muscles listed even when I did exercises that targeted them. The wrong muscles would get tight and hurt trying to protect my knee. The panacea ended up being isolation or Banded movements. It isn't enough to spark major hypertrophy, but it is enough to get you from suck to kind of ok. And kind of ok is a great starting point when you are coming back from an injury. 

Apply the same logic to the back:

- above: t spine, lats.

- below: glutes, hamstrings, quads, hip flexor, ql

Holding positions is a little more art than science. You are SLOWLY getting your body used to deep ranges of motion. Do not be hesitant to use assistance. Getting in and out of a position pain free consistently is a major win. None of the Instagram mobility freaks you see were able to juat do that. They had to practice for years. So do you.