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.

armor building formula - weeks 1 and 2

Tldr its been great. I started with 12kg for all movements and have graduated to 16-20kg for most at this point. Borrowing from the armor building formula 2, there is no reason why an entire workout has to be 1 weight. Its whatever you can do at that time. Even if it means dropping weight mid workout.

Results 2 weeks in...

- general energy is way up. Especially after I stopped adding sets to failure of other movements after the main abf work was done. 

- shoulders are slightly rounder. This is a genuine surprise given the low weight im using.

- my mid back is always sore. Always.

- im ravenous haha. Minus some fasting attempts im hungry all the time. I do my best to feed that impulse with whole foods.

Alterations

- im using the single kettlebell version. The double feels a little too sketchy right now. But its a good version to graduate to.

- every 5 days, I throw in 2 sets of nordic curls to failure. It costs little and feels amazing.

- if I have the energy mid day, I've thrown in a second kettlebell workout that consists of big whole body movements. I jealously protect my lower back if this is on the menu.

Alternatively, I get a walk in with my dog to get some sun.

Off days

Mobility, always. This consists of 5-10min sled pulls, glute work with bands, and a series of hip openers. Again if energy persists during the day, ill walk the dog to get more sun. Im not against getting in some horizontal pressing work via pusbups done for EMOM rounds.

training arcs, not mesocycles

Ask yourself. What did Naruto do when training for a rasengan? Yhe answer is not, a bunch of random shit. He spammed shadow clones who all practiced the same movement to cheat the frequency and time of what would normally take years. What happened when he was done with this arc? Did he keep training the same movement in the same way? Hell no. He USED it while learning other new techniques - often spamming the same high frequency strategy.

I digress. This is not a parable for frequency as much as sticking to a program until you have earned the right to deviate.

Case and point, the armor building formula is a lot of kettlebell clean, press, and squat. My first few weeks, I added hypertrophy work for dips and rows and nordics. And it was fine. Things were fine. But there is a cost to going to failure mentally and physically and I paid the troll toll. Versus, dropping those movements and focusing on the main story arc, I've been able to push more weight and more volume every time I step in my garage. 

I get weird vibes of I can do this forever meaning this is fun and safe. Will I? Prob not. Dan john himself doesn't suggest that you do unless you work in deloads. The arcs that dan outlines more so bounce between his different programs.

- armor

- easy strength

- mass made simple

Etc

assisted step up rdl = money

Every once in a while you try out an exercise that looks like it will fit your needs, and it far far exceeds your expectations. Today, we have the assisted step up rdl.

Steps up a weak point for me because of quad and knee tendon strength in certain ranges of motion, but unlike normal step ups this is almost entirely a glute and hamstring exercise. Kind of like a pistol on a platform, the step is allowing for more tension in the targeted area without the added complexity of balancing or positioning the opposite leg.

How to do

1)Get on top of a step/bench next to a power rack (or otherwise stationary object you can hold on to). Grab on to the structure with the hand opposite of the leg worked.

2)Hinge forward with a single leg. Let the other leg drop straight down. Continue until you cannot hinge through the stretch any more.

3)come back up and repeat. Switch legs. Go nuts.

Why this rules

Its a back safe machine like way to burn out your legs after something more dynamic or strength oriented has tapped out. I love that shit. By itself, this would be an easy hinge. Paired with other movements it is a golden way to build muscle. 

S tier movement (note under the conditions listed above).

Eugene Tao and barbells. the edge lord has a point

A few years ago, Eugene Tao released a video with a deliberately inflammatory title: i stopped using barbells and you should too.

CLUTCH. PEARLS.

The actual argument within is much more moderate. If he can replace a barbell movement for himself or his clients, he does. I've also found this to be thr case, but it isn't a baby and bathwater situation. Its user specific. A kettlebell clean is not 'better' than a barbell clean. Apples and oranges. Both movements have value and offer something unique.

How this came up for me was with the barbell floor press. For weeks, my right shoulder hasn't been feeling super batman. I adjusted by taking my grip in (i.e. close grip floor press) which bought me another week before that too felt wonky. So what now? The weight isn't heavy yet. My muscles have the capacity but the joint does not. I flipped the script and switched to a ring pushup. Sane overall movement pattern with a larger range of motion and larger freedom of movement. Immediate relief. My shoulder is still a little inflamed from the work I tried to do, but that is easily fixable with some rest and light movement.

So what is the lesson here? The same lesson as always - movement dogmatism isn't a good call unless your sport demands it. For most of gen pop, this means nothing is required. If barbell movements feel good, have at it. If they dont, there are a legion of options.

spam activation

The big sexy that keeps coming into vogue is spammed reps for growth. Almost a decade ago, it was alex leonidus talking about nucleus overload - i.e. taking a single body part and spamming daily reps for a period of time (30 days +). Concept being that the repeated signal creates new satellite cells in the area making it easier to grow when heavier weight training is applied. The frequent example used is ex athletes like soccer players/swimmers growing their legs/shoulders respectively after they retire and train those body parts.

This is all good stuff, but what about if you are recovering from an injury? What of growth is desired not because of athletics or looks but survival? Same concept, different approach.

Instead of performing muscle building movements your body cant handle yet, perform movements that activate the targeted area. Do it daily.

Examples using myself, my back (herniations) and knee (god knows what) have been issues for years. My best friends are to activate the muscles around both body parts.

- Glutes.

- Hams.

- Quads.

- Abs.

This doesn't NOT take more than 10min a day. For the time investment this pays dividends.

Example warmup, 1-2 sets each

Glute bridges

Light cable row

Band leg extensions 

Band shoulder press

Jefferson curl progressions

Calf raise to tib raise 

Thoracic pushups

Glute walks

when you cant feel it, hold it

Since my daily work resembles mobility and strength, it is imperative I actually FEEL the target muscles working. I.e. this is not a 3 rep max squat where I need to move as much weight as far as possible. Im building control, stability, strength, and muscle - in that order. This morning I wanted to bail from two movements i couldn't feel and suspected my legs locking up from the effort before I ran across a great idea. If you cant work it, hold it. 

Isometrics are awesome because you can force contractions at any range of motion. Instead of adding speed and movement when a muscle isn't firing, hold still and force it to fire. This is like laying the foundation for future movement.

expanding the point where volume hurts

Discomfort at different volumes is not an on or off switch. It is a spectrum. Rather, the joint prep and mobility work i do on the reg allows me into positions and strength movements i couldn't have sneered at 6 months ago. BUT! My weaker areas - back, right knee - have a tolerance threshold to volume after which im just doing damage.

The goal here isn't to avoid those positions. Exact opposite. Get in volume while there is tolerance, then stop or perform regressed movements (better!) when shit gets uncomfortable. Workout to workout, try to expand the threshold where those positions arent working.

Example

A few weeks ago, my right knee tapped out of goblet squats around 3 sets. The tightness and discomfort was at the top half of the movement, so I switched to unweighted duck walks and continued the workout. Problem fucking solved.

Fast forward to today, I was able to knock out 6 sets of b stance kettlebell thrusters with 0 discomfort. Conversely, i lasted 2 follow up sets with Bulgarian split squats before my right knee decided it was done. No problem. I did sets with my left leg only.

Circuit training doesn't have to be light

Fucking big brain moves yo. This isn't my idea, but i feel like I finally see the logic behind this concept. When I hear circuit training I imagine lots of movements back to back with no rest. Conditioning is the main driver here. And that isn't wrong or bad. What im suggesting is it doesn't have to be that way. Instead, think of a 3 exercise circuit as a slow giant set.

Take a hinge, press, and squat. Spoiler, im literally about to head to the garage and knock this out.

Hinge: hip flexor setup. Foot anchored by a kettlebell.

Press: B stance staggered kettlebell press.

Squat: Bulgarian split squat.

Each set, work on more range of motion or increase weight. There is no reason why you cant peak at a 6-8 rep max then perform 10s on subsequent circuits. Will you not still get the conditioning effect you are looking for while using heavier weights? Fucking $$$ brother.

how much more is better

Im starting to feel dan John's comment in the easy strength omnibook - sometimes more is just more.

He described for him training is either 1 hour a day or 10hrs a day. The in between is where time is lost. I.e. in 1 hour a day he could promote muscle and strength gain while managing fat loss in the kitchen. If he wanted to reach the heights of his genetics and be on a bodybuilding stage, he would need 10hrs a day (lifting, meditation, eating, cardio, etc). 2hrs would not move the needle.

Right now im hitting close to 45min a day in the mornings. I haven't particularly felt the need to get in afternoon workouts minus the odd mid day walk. Every thursday, I have personal training and honestly it has been a slog. Everything we train for strength or mobility has already been trained that day. 

This isn't a call to say extra does nothing. Far from it. In the example above, I get to work on work capacity so the same situation is less shitty weeks down the road. But in terms of body composition and strength, more might just be more. 

you cant lift like youre 20 anymore

What does the phrase 'you cant lift like youre 20 anymore' mean? 

Firing from the hip, it can mean:

- increasing weight at all costs.

- ignoring mobility.

- ignoring imbalances. 

- practicing movement dogma.

- lifting heavy every day.

Increasing weight at all costs

The biggest lie we ever learned was increasing weight was the gold standard of progression. Make no mistake, eventually weight on the bar has to increase in some format. But there are so many forms of progressive overload that you would be remiss to forget they exist.

Specifically - volume, density, range of motion, variation. Its the creative question of how can you make a light weight feel heavy other than JUST using a slow af eccentric.

Ignoring mobility 

This is a big one. Mobility for years felt like this black box. Even worse, now that its more popular everyone and their mother wants you to sign up for their subscription service to learn their certified method of moving joints slowly. Do these programs work? Probably. Are they necessary? Hell no. Mobility is building strength in all ranges of motion. You want to do this so small deviations of lifting or life do not become injury. Ye old I went left and my knees went right.

Mobility feels like an extra homework assignment no one wanted in the first place. But here is the rub. It can be done any time. I.e. rest periods of other lifting is fucking $$$ for mobility of other body parts. Even conditioning sessions can have 1 mobility and 1-2 more normal dynamic movements. Mobility is concentrated and 'rest.'

Ignoring imbalances

Not the same as mobility, but there is an overlap. Im more so thinking body constraints like flat feet and bad arches. What do you think has a more deleterious effect on your joints? A few had reps of squats or millions of steps where one foot caves in spread over decades.

Practicing movement dogma

This one is tough. I was caught in this trap for years. I.e. if I can do X then I cant make progress. Very simply, this is loser talk. Winners find a way. 

If a movement hurts or you hate it, dont do it! Wild.

Lifting heavy every day

Partially calling myself out and partially calling out my nephew. The immortality of youth is mired in shit you can get away with for free. When you are older, you have to actually care about whether or not you are recovered. This doesn't mean you cant or shouldn't do some sort of physical activity every day. Far from it. Your daily light may look like someone else's extremely heavy. It does mean you need to respect you current ability to jump back each training session.

failure to progress. what do now.

The wall exists for everyone on every exercise. The idea that you can improve indefinitely feels possible when you are in the first few weeks of a program, but that's just not how life works.

You will improve:

The nervous system 

Muscles

Tendons

Bone

Somewhere in there, progress will stall. So what do now?

Option1: do nothing

This is definitely an option but it SUCKS. It means hitting the same weight and the same movements week after week until progress occurs. 

Option2: deload

This means a week of lighter weights and volume on the same movements. The idea is that you will restart a new cycle at a lower weight (but a higher threshold than the previous cycle) post deload. Great if you plan on keeping the same movements for a longer period of time.

Option3: change movements

This is NOT a program overhaul. It is a form of deload by exchanging the stalled movement for a similar movement. This is the money shot if you have no intention of being an expert on what stalled. I.e. Gen pop, quadrant 3, non sports specific damn near everyone training.

on isolation exercises

They're good. They work. And they have their place.

But...

Isolation is one of those weird topics its easy to get passionate over. Ask yourself this - do you want a bigger body oe bigger (body part)? If you have the time and the capacity and the passion then go for it. Conversely if your entire body is weak and small, reconsider. It isn't that Isolation has no value, but it has less value in this instance. Isolation brings up weak points. But when your entire body is a weak point your training capital is best spent elsewhere. 

I.e. worry about small arms or shoulders when your big compound lifts are respectable or stalled out.