Becoming an Athlete

An alternate title could be: Reasons To Go Retro With HIT I donated a kidney to a very close friend of mine on 5/26/2020.  It was supposed to be in March, but COVID-19 pandemic exploded, and everyone's plans were derailed.  I was genuinely afraid my friend would die while we waited for the hospital to give us the green light for surgery.  It was scary enough giving up an organ for a friend, but even scarier to be in a hospital with no visitors allowed because of COVID.  I was quarantined in my room for 2 days.  She was there, totally alone, for 12 days.  We are nearly 2 months since our surgery and both recovering well.  Her health is better than it has ever been since I've known her.  We were part of a genuine miracle. After a few weeks of doing nothing, and sleeping constantly, I finally tried to get back to normal life.  I radically overestimated my ability to sustain physical effort.  I thought I could just lower the weights and ...

Man, so much has happened since I last posted. COVID pandemic was a huge one.  I made changes to keep systemic fatigue low so I could train almost every day.  Sometimes I could go 8 days with no rest days.  Sometimes only 3 days. The key for me has been to move to push/pull splits, and to manage fatigue with ladders.  Here is a simple framework you can follow. Add rest days between sessions whenever you need it. Day 1: Push 1 Compound circuit a. Overhead press: 5 x 5 b. Kettlebell swing: 5 x 10 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Incline lateral raise: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 2: Pull 1 Compound circuit a. Ring row: 5 x 5 b. 1-arm swing: 5 x 5+5 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Supinating dumbbell curl: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 3: Push 2 Compound circuit a. Pushups: 5 x 15 b. Kettlebell swing: 5 x 10 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Skull crushers: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 4...

My goal in training has always been to develop the physical qualities necessary to be an agile bodyweight athlete (rock climbing, ninja warrior stuff), with explosiveness (Highland Games), and stamina (MMA, boxing), with enough muscle to look like a badass (marginal bodybuilder). I have finally distilled it all down to the principles that make most sense to me, and are yielding consistent results. I'm going to lay out my principles as succinctly as I can, and hopefully in a logical order. 1. Follow the Old-school Split: I was a whole-body training zealot for years, till my deadlift got to 500+ lbs and my squat to 475.  Once I started getting heavy in those lifts and my snatches and cleans, my lower back just couldn't handle the constant exposure to training stimulus.  Also, my targeted muscles needed more time to recover.  Paul Carter recently wrote an article on why Push, Pull, Legs is the best split.  I use it.  It works. At the moment I'm cycling throug...

I rolled my ankle on an easy trail run Saturday morning.  It was pretty bad.  Lots of discoloration in my foot from the internal bleeding, lots of swelling, etc. etc. But like I posted on instagram, every injury is a two-fold opportunity to grow.  First and foremost, is discerning the lesson.  Every setback or injury affords me the opportunity to pause, assess myself, my motives, and discover a lesson.  Every lesson is different, so each one is an experience to fully embrace. Secondarily, it's an opportunity to keep my ego in check and rehab my way to a level of structural balance and strength that is greater than before the injury.  It exposes the weaknesses I've been ignoring and forces me to address it with precision and consistency. So for now, my plans of trail running, high frequency squatting or deadlifting, and lots of plyos will be shelved. I'm coming back to that plan in the spring with determination!!!!! For now, I'm doing what I call "D-...

I've trained so many times this week.  But the experiment led to some obvious conclusions after just one week. I can't train legs every single day, even when alternating from quad-dominant movements to hams/hips-dominant movements.  Every other day will be the max. Basic rowing is adequate for developing muscle, but it isn't enough to develop power and athleticism. I'm going to add snatch grip high pulls from blocks to every Pull day. The lack of eccentric loading should make recovery a non-issue. Dips are absolutely tanking my ability to press with any real load, but watching the reps go up during my 3 minute AMRAP sets is crazy motivating. 3 minute AMRAP sets are the absolute sickest way to do your accessory work.  45 reps of dips, or 21 or chinups, or 110 reps of alternating jump lunges in 3 minutes each builds stamina, conditioning, vasularity, and size. I'm gonna stick with these!!!!!

About 3-4 weeks ago I really tweaked my right trap.  I deadlifted what I'm calling my 40's PR: 485 x 1. A few days later, my trap started hurting was down into my lat and even down to my elbow.  It was incredibly painful but I worked around it. Now that I'm lifting like normal again, my pulling strength feels hampered by neural inhibition more than muscular pain.  To overcome this as quickly as possible, I'm moving to a high frequency program. For this month, I'm following a push / pull split, and will train 6 days per week. Every muscle group will be trained three times per week. Monday: push-1 Tuesday: pull-1 Wednesday: push-2 Thursday: pull-2 Friday: push-3 Saturday: pull-3 Volume within each session will be fairly low, but volume across a single week will be higher than a normal bodybuilding split.  Each of the three sessions have a bit of variety to ensure week to week progress. I'll write up a summary at the end of week 1 to see how it's goin...

I feels amazing to see myself getting bigger muscles, losing fat, and feeling my mobility improve and my stamina increase all at the same time. My lower back was starting to hit a wall from all the clean and snatch complexes, so now I'm starting my workouts with bodyweight circuits. I'm blowing through these and plan to do a few weeks of them while increasing reps per circuit, then sprinkling in a couple complexes each week. Yesterday I was able to deadlift 435 for 5 reps.  2 weeks ago I BARELY hit 3 reps with that weight. Today is the first time in my life I was able to curl 100 pounds as a work set. I worked up to 100 x 10 on ez-bar curl.  I'm so pleased with the steady inches of progress. God willing, there is no end in sight.  I just need to keep my ego in check and focus on consistent diet and sleep. Happy Friday!!!!