easy strength as a base

Easy strength was built for athletes to train a single quality, strength, then spend the majority of their time on their sport. It's a minimalist program by design that can exist in isolation. As a non athelete I'm finding it's value in other ways.

Easy strength value points

- time efficient: even days that are fucked at work mean nothing. I already got my workout in. I'm low key prepping for become a father when I know I'll have even less time.

- scratches the itch for working from home. Days off when I work from home are unbearable. I need something to feel sane and easy strength provides an outlet to lift daily without excess stress 

- increases walking around strength. When you respect 'only increase weight when it feels too easy' the poundages creep up without a ton of effort.

I'm a little more than halfway into a round of easy strength and can confirm there is HIGH value with never pushing sets close to failure or even struggle. As Dan says, this feels like you are 'not doing anything'. I promise you, it is. 

So far, easy strength has NOT been something I would use to peak strength. It's been great for slowly raising the floor of what I consider light weight. A weight that was a hard single a few weeks ago (I e. Before the institution of don't struggle fuck me standing) is an easy double. I fully expect to add another 10lbs to what is 'easy' on this lift before this 40day cycle is over.

The fun surprise is that I've been slowly growing. Not a ton, but a little. For a program that is not hypertrophy focused this has been pretty damn cool. When you think about it, it makes sense. None of my reps are grinders, but they are definitely within the threshold for hypertrophy (within 5ish of failure if the science doesn't change in the next 10min). Compound that by 6-10 effective reps per day every day and you can see how you can get a little meat with your strength.

Fun surprise 2 is my mental state. If I'm pushing reps close to failure I tend to get down in the dumps and lethargic. Meticulously avoiding failure has been a great workaround.

All in all, I'm very much enjoying this round of easy strength. It's sustainable long term and opens the door for so much more. 

The everlasting schedule 

- easy strength as a base

- carries, kettlebells, and sprints to stay bouncy

- extra grease the groove upper pulls for fun

- small body parts for work breaka