whelp, new plan

All my shit hurts. I've got topve furniture today and I'm genuinely afraid I'm going to herniate a disc. This is not ok.

The entire point of strength training is to get stronger. To be pliable and resilient. This isn't it fam. I followed a new kettlebell dude on insta yesterday (kettlebell grant) and saw a post that hit home. If what you did in your 20s doesn't work today or you are constantly hurt, then your long term plan failed. It pisses me off. It's right and it pisses me off.

The plan I was following gave me a few weeks of bliss. I not only felt strong, but also I could move how I wanted to move. I was STABLE. Fuck bro, even my knees stopped hurting to the point where I felt like I was on the right path. And then kablooey. It's unclear if it's because I added more shit or the timeline where things work ran out, but it ran out.

I spent yesterday feeling bad and sorry for myself. That was yesterday. Today is today.

The new plan

Step1: small deload. 

- bodyweight or light kettlebell goblet squats.

- lower leg training.

- lots of walking and light sled work.

Step2: dre kettlebell program.

- use the program I've already purchased. This focuses on mobility and stability.

- continue lower leg training.

- continue walking and sled work.

Step 3: not sure.

After step2 (8 weeks) it might be apt to rerun at a higher weight. Find a new program. Or find new ways to incorporate calisthenics and kettlebells. It would make sense to replace some pressing movements with ring presses 

Dre himself breaks up his kb training:

Lower press, upper pull x2

Lower pull, upper press x2

Mobility

Full press

Full pull

don't blame the equipment

When I was in college, I wanted to become a film maker. Its all I wanted to do. And I stopped making movies because I had a shit camera from the time I was 16. It wasn't good enough to be taken seriously I would think. And even when I saved up enough to buy a massive upgrade, I moved the goalposts to a new and better camera.

Years later, I didn't leave the same lesson when it came to training equipment. My first purchase was a 20kg kettlebell. I thought, this is a good start, but I can't do anything amazing until I get a full barbell set. Jokes on me. If I put in serious chops with that bell, I could have accomplished great things. Hindsight and all that. 

I'm.not saying I don't appreciate my barbell. Or my rack. Or any of the other things I've accumulated over the past few years. But the more you move goalposts, the less you will accomplish with the tools at hand. People have always been able to make due without cutting edge anything. Idolizing a symbol at the mountain to climb is at best procrastination.

training calves in a home gym

I avoided calf training my entire life. Early on, it was because I had an excessive amount of calf work between marching band, karate, and just generally sprinting all the god damn time. This continued into college where I was break dancing 4x a week for 4 years.

Adult me thought calves were stupid. I don't care how they look. And barring basic athletic function, I didn't care how well they worked. At least part of me was also bit by the 'calves are genetic' bug and said why bother. Fast forward to today, part of the reason my knees got hurt was because of weak ass calves. They are now a priority. 

The giant surprise I've gotten is I love training them. You can mash them into dust and they just jump back. it fits great into an OFF day on daily training. Finding out the how on training has been a joy too. The answer is it doesn't really matter. I'll usually opt for easy setup and less weight over anything else, so keep that in mind with the following choices.

Top 2

1)Seated calf raises

Do one leg at a time. Place a pillow between you and the weight. Use plates or kettlebells. Flex your calf before any rep. For an additional stimulus, you can change the angle of your foot compared to your knee, and bring the foot in closer as a mechanical drop set.

Making light weight harder:

Press down into the weight during the eccentric (negative) and fight the resistance. This shit is HARD.

Pull up on the weight when you can no longer complete a rep, flex to the top of the rep, and perform a small negative.

2)knees over toes calf raises

Lean against a wall, rack, etc. bend your knees in so they are over your toes. Do calf raises. Increase tension by holding a weight or wearing a vest.

Afterwards

Stretch your calves after every day and every session. Do this for longer than you think you need (2+min).

easy strength example slow progression

A big question Dan gets often is - how do you know when you are ready to increase weight. The answer is disappointing - when it's easy. And ya, that is the right answer. But the problem is that what is easy today might be a fluke, better rest, better food, etc. when you bump up the pounds all of a sudden it's heavy again.

Try this instead.

Day1: start 2x5

Day2: start 2x5

Day3: start 1x5, start+5-10 1x3, start +10-20 1x2

Day4: OFF

Day5: start 2x5

Day6: start 1x5, start+5 1x5

Day7: OFF

If the last set on day6 is easy. That is your new start weight. This can increase what feels dogshit east by 25lbs per cycle. 

don't add more shit

 The dumb thought goes - well a little is good, so a lot must be better!

I struggle with this EVERY WEEK. Obviously. I wanted to expand my bodybuilding days to have more work. And shit man it isn't like I can't handle more. BUT. Vastly increasing volume via the kitchen sink works for a very short amount of time. What I'm doing is working. All lifts are slowly increasing. My joints feel great. Body composition is improving. Why the fuck would I dump an extra 40% volume into the plan? Ridiculous. 

corrective intro

It's been a week of corrective exercise. Some thoughts.

Back

Jefferson curls are very uncomfortable right now. BUT. After a few sets of full range of motion with a very small amount of weight (2-5lbs) I felt soreness in my erectors and hamstrings. There is value to this exercise. If I can build up my resilience to the point where it is a comfortable position with a decent amount of weight, I feel like we can do great things for future me.

Knees

Backwards walking is boring but whatever. Considering adding kettlebell squats to my Jefferson curl days. Really would enjoy some larger legs overall.

Neck

A small child hung from my neck yesterday, and my left hand went numb ish for a few min. Not entirely surprising given my past, but this is concerning. Calves and tibs day may get a neck/traps partner in crime.

a week after not alright

Things are going better. Removing deadlifts from easy strength has let the lower back fatigue bleed off. I no longer feel like I'm a day away from injury. Honestly, with the kb swings and squats in my warmup, my lower body feels taken care of to the same capacity. Side benefit is I noticed my knee health also doing better without daily pulls from the ground.

Walking backwards sucked at first but I'm acclimating. I found it's actually a good 'rest period' from daily conditioning outside in addition to a standalone activity. Going to continue for a few months before attempting single leg work and sled pulls.

Current plan

EZ 5x

Pull

Press

Ab

Bb 2x

Bi 3x12

Tri 3x12

Shoulders 3x15

*Moved to barbell presses behind the back for shoulders instead of rear delt raises.

Off 2x

Calves, tibs, hip flexors

Erectors 2x

Jefferson curl

Rdl or sandbags 

Conditioning

Mace every other day

Backwards walking daily

Goals of like to reach

- Jefferson curls 100lbs for easy reps.

- conditioning includes keg carries and sled walks.

Curiosity

Am I not - as Dan states - a hinge guy? I always thought I was, but the lack of ability to hinge daily says otherwise. As I build my erectors, I would like to introduce one of 2 things to EZ strength.

- squats. Dan says no but cmonnnn legs are cool and I'd be far from the first person to squat daily.

- or, kb hinges. More so on the dynamic side.

not alright. not gonna back out previous post.

My last couple of posts have been sunshine and rainbows. If I'm being honest, it's not because shit is great. It's not. It's because I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude while things are not looking my way. In my angst last night, I explored something outside of EZ strength via density training. All of a sudden, I remember why I abandoned this method. It's borrrrrrring. Ooo look at me! Doing X work in Y minutes. This works baller for some movements, but others (see: ring chinups) I wanted to die of boredom. The one good thing about last night is I discovered an ab exercise that is not limited by my knee health. More on that later.

What is not going well

- my lower back is giving warning signs of fatigue before a major injury. Part of this is the daily deadlifts,  but I think the lions share is not being able to incorporate ab wheel after my knee went tits up again. Ab wheel is a god damn godsend. I can link every period of my life where my back was solid up to periods where I was pushing the ab wheel hard. 

- extension of the ab wheel issues. I've had problems finding a hinge that doesn't hurt. This may have more to do with fatigue than movement selection. It's still be upsetting as I'm supposed to be building general strength. And here I am struggling with a 50lb sandbag clean.

- my knees aren't feeling great. Plural. This is after I tried doing sled drags and hip thrusts. I'm always a little down in the dumps when I do things that are heralded as gentle and they wreck me.

Word vomit

- I have to really decide whether density is a viable method forward or not. I like the idea that I can help manage lower back fatigue better by having days where I'm not putting it to hard work. This works under the context of being able to lift heavier and incorporate abs daily to reinforce my weaknesses. But if everything is as boring as yesterday it's a stretch.

- lower back is off limits for a few days. Even if we continue with easy strength.

- ab movements variation is going to keep me healthy. Using the wheel in the first round of EZ was clutch, buty abs where also the first body part to feel overuse creep in. 

- knee health needs to regress. If sled drags are no good, we start at backwards walking. Yes this sucks, but it has worked for others and could work for us. Swallow pride and do it. 

- revisit Jefferson curls. If spinal erectors and mobility is a limitation, deal with it! Unclear whether this would work better with density over EZ.

Comparing methods

(Density)

5 mornings 

20min movement super set abs 

5min minor isolation 

Basically one lift a day and abs 

Allows for more movement variation and volume

(Easy strength)

5 mornings 

20min 5 movements

2 days also include minor isolation

More specificity. Changes what feels easy in any given movement 

easy strength week 8 feedback

Things are still going well! The plan is to keep up what I'm doing until I'm sick of it.

Comments 

- conditioning daily is $$$. I don't always want to do it but always glad that I do.

- lower back fatigue is becoming a problem. Nothing hurts but it's always low grade sore. Very different than the first few weeks. Possible deload required.

- stretching daily is also $$$. I need to get more creative with what I'm doing.

- less complex movements > more complex. Maybe it's because I'm lifting in the morning, but hinges like cleans or sandbag cleans don't feel great daily.

- more protein is needed than I'm taking in. Always a good idea so whatever.

Adjustments

- I'm back on wave loading weekly weights. 2x5 for extended periods works but it's BORING. The key difference with this period is dropping some days way below.my easy threshold before ramping back to a new difficult day. 

- ab movements still in flux. I love ab wheel as the mainstay. Lord knows my back feels way way better when ab wheel is my jam. Near the end of week 6 I started feeling irritation in my right dick root muscle (technical name) and had to back off. Soon after I deviated from the plan and was unable to put pressure on my right knee. 

- hinge movement also in flux. Testing the waters with more kettlebell swings (i.e. conditioning plus heavier). The nice part about this setup is swings don't use a barbell, so setup time is non existent.

Everything else

- alternating mace and sled days as my afternoon break is awesome. Great work breaks without digging into recovery.

- the day before an easy strength off day is still arm and shoulder hypertrophy day. Not changing this. I'm finding my strength in isolation movements is slowly creeping up, and my arms are looking sexy AF. Shoulders on the other hand, don't look super different post isolation. I'm going to make my next easy strength push exercise more shoulder biased to address this.

Possible future ventures 

- landmine movements have an entire world of movements I've never messed with.

- easy presses: dips, ring dips, high incline bench.

- easy pulls: ring chinup, chest supported rows.

- arms shit: easy bar will be my friend for both sides of the guns.

success is stringing good days

I wrote this title thinking about injury recovery, but it applies to any desired skill acquisition as well. Getting better or better at something isn't the result of one really good day just as failing isn't the result of one really bad day. Consistency of effort is what gathers momentum.

Where injuries are applicable. Two weeks ago I decided I was better than the plan I was running (call back to previous posts). I added a shitton of new stuff in - going heavier, doing squats I had never tried, adding full range of motion lateral squats. Once I felt the numbness creep back in my knee, I knew I had fucked up. 

Fast forward to today. My knee feels...fine. it's fine. But the anxiety over whether or not it can get better is gone. I already did this once, and recently at that. If every day I can strive to be pain free and hit the plan (humane burpee + ez strength + stretching) the signals will be heard. It can't not.

membuh: hip contact and kettlebells

I have no idea what correct kettlebell form is. So, grains of salt. I do know that when my hips make contact with my forearms on the up swing that I actually get to push my hips into the kettlebell. The resulting contraction and power is WAY more than of the kettlebell is on its own.

Good stuff. Membuh.

training is communication

Dumb dumb thoughts today. Why is it important that we repeat the same training or training pattern until it doesn't work? That's because we can't just tell our tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles, and nervous system to...do stuff. The way we communicate a need is by training. 

Say you sell muffins. Every day people come in and buy muffins and all is well. It's what you do. Then one day, someone comes in and asks for an egg muffin. Fuck. We don't have eggs. Homeboy is going to get a muffin and walk away without what they asked for. Then over the course of the next few days, more customers come in and ask for egg muffins. Whelp, it doesn't make sense to not provide a growing demand with no supply. You start buying some eggs to feed the customers who specifically want egg muffins. But the demand only grows. Soon, you're the egg muffin shop. It's what you do. 

If only one person came in and requested an egg muffin one time, there would be no need to change. It's a one off. Repetition is communicating a need.

Get it?

This does not mean that you stick with the same movements forever. It means you stick with them until progress stalls.

first day back on the plan, solid day

As I said yesterday, the plan is solid. The plan going forward is to keep following the plan. 

First day back was fucking solid. I can already feel my knee loosening up and feeling better. A few more days and I'll be sitting pretty.

The plan

Warmup: humane burpee.

Puts blood back in my bum. This gets daily squatting practice in. The magic here is the weight will increase so slowly the tissues have no choice but to acclimate even when sick dying or dead.

The workout: easy strength

The plan is work up to an easy 2x5 and maintain it before weight increases. 1-2 weeks ain't shit here. The speed and ease should be increasing and not decreasing. Easy days or weight acclimation can be via 3x3 instead.

The goal is to slowly bump up the easy baseline.

The fun: mace work

Strength and flow. Not either. Both.

if the plan is working, follow the plan

Experiencing a minor setback with my right knee. For weeks it was feeling awesome. I overall felt like a fucking tank. And it was because I had a plan, and I was following the plan. But then I thought, maybe I can do better.

Bad. Idea.

What was the plan?

- easy strength, 2x5, stick with a weight and keep working on speed for a week.

- daily humane burpee.

- daily mace or kettlebell work when work time allows 

What did I add?

- armor building. First via kettlebells then via barbells 

- Cossack squats. 

- Nordic curls till death.

- increase weight when possible. Ramp up to 5/3/2 days.

The top three things above were added in the last week. The fourth I've sprinkled in. More on the fourth later.

The new additions were sudden jolts into tissue health I didn't have in ranges of motion I havent touched. Adding one of these would have been ok. Kind of. Adding 3 was stupid. The Nordic curls in particular to failure is where I started feeling numbness again. This is my fault. I am error.

The fourth item isnt 'bad.' it's one of the actual programs after all. But if I'm doing this to feel good and not necessarily focus on the weight lifted, building a set progression ain't the best idea. Dan's original comment of increase weight when too easy is a great guidelin, vague as it is.

I will get back to where I was. I have to remember that 6 weeks ago I was in worse shape than I am now. Follow the fucking plan. You can't keep busting your head against a wall.

armor building and the barbell clean

Time is funny. You do something that works, then you stop to chase the new shiny. Years and many injuries later, you come across your old love and oh ya this was always great.

The cornerstone of my old productive training was power cleans and snatch high pulls. Those 2 movements covered SO many bases it was ridiculous. My biggest sin with them was continually pushing weight, never taking time off, and never swapping for variations. The movements themselves are excellent.

Fast forward to present. I'm reading and rereading Dan John's armor building formula. Honestly I bought the book to support the guy. After all, I'm running easy strength and feeling better and stronger than I have in years with little effort other than consistency. The book is a fun read, but after dipping my toe briefly back into kettlebell training I remember I really don't enjoy that stuff (note: other than the daily humane burpee warmup, that shit is OP). For whatever reason, I found myself reading the part2 of the program which is an option for barbell armor building. The format is very similar -cleans and presses - the biggest difference being the amount of squats included. But this shit is my JAM. A set of 8 clean and press left me gasping for air. It works EVERYTHING and makes me feel like a god damn tank. 

This post is a love letter to Dan. Thank you for giving me my life back! Thank you for helping me work past injuries I wasn't sure I'd overcome. And thank you for showing me the barbell is not off limits. I swear my Instagram feed is jam fucking packed with anti barbell and pro kettlebell and odd objects. Those things are fine. And shit man I love me some sandbags. But I have permission to say this isn't for me if I genuinely have 0 love for an implement.

coding your tissue: this is what we are doing

Connective tissue joints and tendons are weird. they don't give you the same feedback of improvment like anything else you train so it's easy to think my X is fucked. It isn't going to get better.

This isn't true. It just takes 2 things:

- repeated pain free movement.

- more time than you'd think.

Every rep you perform that is pain free is money in the bank. This is why full range of motion but regressed stress (see: major band assistance) can be such a boon when it comes to building connective tissue strength. This applies regardless of whether you are recovering from an injury or trying to build a new skill that requires amazing tissue health.

As for the time aspect, I started seeing major improvements in my knees after 3 weeks of daily squats and swings. After 6 weeks, my joints are feeling great all the time. I can venture that continuing down this path will unlock more dynamic and difficult movement that would have been a pipe dream a year ago.

easy strength worked so well I stopped doing it

Adding a quote from Dan john on easy strength

When you get to a certain age, you can not keep throwing yourself into the wall.

Reigning myself back in from a bad week of training lol. I was feeling awesome and strong and stable after weeks of easy strength, so of course I try to 'improve' it. 

Here is what I did

- add a flailing 5/3/1 day. It went poorly and put my recovery in a hole for the rest of the week.

- add a deadlift only day. This actually went really well (+50lbs over easy strength base while still feeling easy) and spiraled me towards reworking my program into a one lift a day type deal 

The second option honestly wouldn't be super bad, but it flies along the same thing Dan says is a pitfall for his atheletes. I don't 'feel' this working. Or it was working so well I stopped. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

The truth is I've got diet to keep my weight down and conditioning to cover the 'everything else'. Looking good isn't a matter of finding the right training magic bullet to overcome a diet infraction.

Tldr keep doing easy strength. Slowly nudge the baseline UP.