How Bad Do You Want It?

I just saw this post on Joe DeFranco's blog and I had to put it up here for those who don't check out his blog regularly. This goes hand-in hand with my earlier comments about alcohol. I suggest more people take this advice to heart:

Q: Joe,

I just turned 21 and i play division iii football in pa. I grew up in philly and have been partyin with my friends there since i was 13. Problem now is, I take my training and health very seriously. But all my friends want to do on the weekend is go out and get drunk or high, then stumble into a diner at 4AM and eat crap. Alcohol and drugs really mess with my training and the late nights on the weekends throw off my sleep cycle. What should i do boss? I don't wanna be a social outcast but at the same time i'm inhibiting my progress by going out like that. any response, even if its not on the site would be helpful. thank you

dave

A: Dave,

After reading your question, there was no way in hell I WASN'T going to post it on this site!

I'm going to give you a wake-up call brotha - YOU'RE A BULLSHITTER! That's right, I'M CALLING YOU OUT, SON! Do you really expect me to believe that you're "taking your training and your health very seriously" when you're telling me that you're drinking and getting high??? Now I'm not going to turn this into a "Don't Do Drugs" lecture because I'm sure you heard it all before. But, what I will tell you is that anyone worth a shit to me is NOT a follower. Call me cocky, but I was raised to be a LEADER, not a follower. I won't associate with followers or haters anymore - I only surround myself with other leaders and self-motivated people. And guess what? NONE of the people I associate with are losers, nerds or "social outcasts" (as you say)!

Here's a quick story for you...

I have a client that I've been training since high school. He's always been his "own person" and he's always been in the "cool" crowd - even though he doesn't drink and party a lot. You see, this kid never wanted to be "ordinary"...he always wanted to be "EXTRA-ORDINARY". Now don't get me wrong, he still goes out and he's very social, but unlike YOU, he doesn't abuse his body because he really "takes his training and his health" seriously. In fact, before this kid left town a couple months ago, I went to dinner with him and his girlfriend. After dinner, we hung out at the bar for 2 hours. While everyone else was drinking, he drank water. About an hour into the drinking he even excused himself, went out to his car, drank a protein shake, then came back in the bar and continued to have a great time with the rest of us. Not one person busted his balls because everyone knows this kid has a desire to be the BEST. He doesn't give a shit what YOU (or anyone else) thinks...and he doesn't give a shit if he doesn't "blend" with the crowd, either. Instead of following in other people's footsteps, he blazes his own trail. In fact, the morning after the night I'm referring to, he blazed his own trail to Houston, Texas.

Yes, the individual that I'm referring to is Brian Cushing. I'm going to assume that you and your friends think Brian Cushing is pretty cool. But guess what? He wouldn't be half as cool if he "blended" with your crowd. Because if he did blend with your crowd, he wouldn't be "Brian Cushing". He would be "just one of the guys"...and he sure as hell wouldn't be where he is today!

Now I'm not trying to say that if you stop drinking, you're going to make it to the NFL. But my point is that every person that I know that is successful in their field has been a LEADER. Leaders (regardless of their age or their profession) don't give a shit what other people say about them. In fact, when people start talking shit about you - that's when you know you've made it!

The choice is yours, Dave. If you truly want to start "taking your health and training seriously", you already know what you have to do. Drinking, doing drugs and staying up until 4AM obviously isn't going to help you accomplish your training and health goals. This doesn't mean that you can't hang with your boys or you're never alloud to have a drink. But if drinking and doing drugs continues to be a regular occurance for you, I will continue to call you a bullshitter.

Are you a follower...or are you a LEADER?

The choice is yours, Dave...

-Joe D.

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This should be a call to arms for a lot of athletes out there. Decide what you want to achieve for yourself in this life. Recognize the price that you have to pay to achieve greatness and then get busy paying that price. 

Train hard. 

- T

 

Training - Summer 2009

Training for the Circus

Stability balls and BOSU balls have become a pet peeve of mine lately. You'd be hard pressed to come into the gym at my university on any given day and avoid seeing some moron squatting with their feet up on a BOSU ball, or trying to stand on a stability ball while doing their bicep curls. I was about to write up a long winded post about how dangerous and pointless these activities were, but Charles Poliquin summed up my thoughts nicely in today's T-Nation article:

About 70% of Swiss ball exercises are worthless. It's just one of those things where people are taking an idea too far. There's some value to it, but it's not a cure-all.

Most personal trainers and strength coaches just don't know how to get people strong. I remember talking to this one trainer who uses all these stability gizmos. I asked him why he used all that shit and he said, "I'm not good, so I have to do these weird things so people will come to see me."

I call it "entertainment training," not strength training. And any time I see that horseshit, I want to kick the personal trainer in the head with a pair of steel-toe construction boots.

— Charles Poliquin

If you don't know who Charles Poliquin is, and question the validity of this statement, maybe it's you who needs a kick in the head with a pair of steel-toe construction boots. 

I'll leave you with one final thought: Let's take two twins and put one of them on a strait-line mission to take his squat from 225 lbs up to 405 lbs. Let's give the other one a steady dose of squats with 45 lbs standing on a BOSU ball. At the end of the year, which twin do you think will be jumping higher? Running faster? Looking better naked? The answer should be obvious. 

And when the hell does the ground move under your feet in the real world anyway? 

I will make an exception to this rule, however, and say that if the instability is above the waist, then the movement is fine. This means unstable pushups and things of that nature are fine, and can actually be very productive movements. Eric Cressey goes into detail on this topic in his product The Truth About Unstable Surface Training. 

Until next time, stay off the damn BOSU ball and train hard!

- T

What I'm doing in the gym and in the kitchen right now.

I've had lots of questions on what I'm doing in the weightroom right now, and what my days of eating look like. Right now I am in the pre-season of university basketball, so my volume of activity outside the weightroom is very high. This means I have to lower the volume of weightroom work, and keep my sets short of failure. This is different for me because I've always tended to take every set to clean failure - it's really the only way I know how to train. Also, I just recently re-tested my Metabolic type, and I came out as Balance Dominant this time, meaning that I needed to adjust my diet. 

My weightroom plan is very simple. I rotate through two very simple workouts and simply lift on whatever days I don't feel rundown from basketball. I always lift at least twice per week, though, and most of the time I hit three workouts. 

The two workouts look like this: 

Day 1: Back Squat, Bench Press off pins (no spotter), DB Rows

Day 2: Deadlift, Military Press, Pullups

I simply hit 2-5 sets of each movement not to failure. The reps tend to vary, but I generally hit 1-3 reps on deadlifts, 3-5 on squats, 4-6 for upper body presses and pullups with one higher rep set of 8-10, and generally 8-12 for rows. I really train according to how my body feels that day. I don't usually recommend an approach like this for new trainees, but for people who have been training for a while, a "cybernetic" approach to training can often work well. To make it work, it really requires strict attention to your logbook to ensure that you are making consistent progress over time. 

In terms of my diet, as I mentioned before I recently re-tested as a balanced type meaning I need roughly 50% carbohydrate, 30% protien, and 20% fat. Each day I have one source of protien, one carbohydrate, one of a few choices of vegetables and one fat. I cook it all up and split it into 5 meals, then eat the same meal all day long. The next day I rotate to new sources for each macronutrient. 

My days look like this: 

Day 1: Red meat, pumpkin, broccoli/cucumber/bell peppers, organic raw butter

Day 2: White meat, sweet potato, spinach/carrot/cauliflower, olive oil

Day 3: Fish, winter squash, broccoli/cucumber/bell peppers (different choice than day 1), coconut oil

This approach allows me to avoid developing any food intolerances, and stay strictly to the foods that are right for my metabolic type. I have also only selected foods that I am tolerant to, and have no IgG reaction. 

I truly am able to eat meals that are perfect for my body every time. It may seem boring, but it is well worth it judging by my recovery ability and energy and mood as of late. I have also noticed an extreme leaning out/detoxification affect, and I feel like I am carrying very little fat compared to where I was before (~9% bodyfat). 

August 3, 09

September 9, 09

I don't eat or train at all for leaning out, so this was a surprise to me. It just goes to show how powerful Metabolic Typing is as an eating plan. 

Anyway, hopefully that will shed some light on my current plans for all those interested. If there are any questions, comments, thoughts or suggestions I'd love to hear them below. 

Train hard. 

- T

Training Partners and Atmosphere

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

- Jim Rohn

Set up a roundtable with the most experienced experts in the strength game. Ask them, across the board, what is the most important aspect in building an incredible gym. Without a doubt, the answer always comes down to training partners and atmosphere. 

When you train in a pussy gym, you get pussy results. What qualifies as a pussy gym? Probably the gym you are in right now. Do you think Dorian Yates trained in a gym full of smith machines, mirrors, and old ladies on stepmills? What about Ronnie Coleman? Matt Zroczaleski? 

That's what I thought. 

The common theme between all the best gyms and all of the strongest men in the world is the atmosphere of the gym they train in. They don't complain about the chalk in the air, it's a mainstay. They love the smell of ammonia tablets, and don't shy away from blood on the floors. Yelling, spitting, swearing and puking are all daily occurrences. 

But behind the atmosphere of any great gym is a group or a pair of incredible training partners. These men compete every day, and are always out to get the next man in line. However, they are all striving towards the same goal, and understand that they are only as strong as the gym they train in, and that the gym they train in is only as strong as it's weakest link. So while they are always on a mission to beat the next man in line, they take pride in improving the other lifters around them.

Great training partners don't bring their cell phones into the gym. They are too busy giving cues, coaching other lifters, spotting attempts and loading plates. Great training partners don't forget to spot you because they are too busy talking to the treadmill bunny in the spandex shorts. Great training partners are always willing to pick each other up for workouts because they understand that training alone is never the same as training in a group. Great training partners don't ask endless numbers of questions during workouts, they come in and hit their workouts hard, then ask questions after the workout or go home and research the answer themselves. 

Great training partners spend hours of their free time building extra equipment for the gym with their bare hands: 

Our brand new Chest Supported Row, courtesy of Brad Doyle

I have been blessed with an incredible training partner. It takes a while to find the right group of guys, and some of the strongest guys in the world take pride in making sure the "new guy" doesn't make it through his first squat workout. But when you find that guy who claws his way through and comes back ready for more, you have found a teammate for life. 

Post-Workout Nutrition

I've seen tons of athletes  who train extremely hard in the gym, only to fuck up their results in the kitchen. They skip meals, under or overeat, and generally just eat crap. I also know a lot of guys who go for hours after their workouts without food. This is a huge mistake. To optimize your results in the gym, a proper  meal within the post workout window is a necessity. 

The post-workout window is a period of time where your body will partition nutrients more favorably. This period of time lasts for roughly one hour. This means that whatever nutrients you put in your body will be more likely to be stored as muscle than fat. In addition, the carbohydrate requirements of your peri-workout meals are higher. As a rule, one should consume a shake or solid food meal that is higher in carbohydrates as soon as possible after heavy exercise. The carbohydrate content for the post – workout meal should generally be one portion of carbohydrate larger than the requirements for your metabolic type.

            For example, a protein type who would usually consume 30% carbohydrate, 50% protein and 20% fats might have 30 grams of carbs, 50 grams of protein and 10 grams of fat in a meal (fats contain roughly twice the amount of calories per gram than protein or carbohydrates). For the post workout meal, this individual would consume twice the amount of carbohydrate with the same amount of protein and fat. Therefore, the post workout meal would contain 60 grams of carbohydrate, 50 grams of protein and 10 grams of fat.

            The best sources of carbohydrate during the post workout meal are healthy options for higher glycemic carbohydrates. Specific foods recommended include bananas, potatoes of all varieties, dates, figs, rice, and oats. The sources of protein and fats in the post workout meal are of little long-term importance (no matter what the supplement companies try to tell you!).

            A word on fats in the post – workout meal: There is some controversy over whether or not fats belong in the post workout meal at all. This is due to several factors. First of all, insulin sensitivity is higher after exercise; meaning that whatever nutrients are consumed post-workout will be shuttled into the tissue at a much higher rate of absorption. This is a good thing when considering protein and carbohydrates because glycogen stores need to be rapidly replenished post-workout. However, shuttling fat strait into the tissue will not replenish glycogen, and will (in theory) have a negative effect on body composition. Also, fats tend to slow down the insulin response of a meal, meaning that when fats are consumed in the post-workout meal the overall absorption rate of the meal will be slower. Since the post workout window is roughly one hour (depending on the individual’s hormonal makeup), consuming fats in the post-workout meal will slow the absorption of the meal and potentially miss this one-hour window.

            Having said that, it is my opinion that in the real world, consuming some healthy fats in the post workout meal will not affect your progress in the least. The meal will be healthier as a result if you do choose to consume some healthy fats in this meal due to the fact that the insulin response will be lower and you won’t experience such a dramatic blood sugar crash. You also shouldn’t have a problem replenishing glycogen stores due to the fact that most trainees will only burn roughly 60 grams of carbohydrate in a workout. I personally consume 10-15 grams of fat in my post workout meal, usually from flax, coconut butter, or avocado.

            Here is a simple post workout shake you can make to greatly accelerate your progress in the gym: 

30-60 grams protein from powder

Mixed brozen berries

2 bananas

2 – 3 dates

1 Tbsp Nut butter or Coconut butter, or ½ avocado, or 2 Tbsp Ground Flax

Several handfuls of spinach (sounds gross, but you can’t taste it at all)

Try it out after your next workout. You can tweak it to fit your needs and metabolic type as well. Also, if you are going to cheat and eat junk food, try to do it around the post – workout window, as insulin sensitivity will allow for a better partitioning of nutrients and therefore less body fat gain from the junk food. 

Train Hard. 

- T

Training OCD

I'm headed to university in a few weeks, and so for the eight months that I stay in residence I won't be able to train at home. For once I'll be in a public gym, lifting in the university weight room facility alongside all the other students. I took a walk around the gym on campus the other day and was quickly reminded of all the reasons I decided to start my own gym at home. You know the scene. Johnny-big-arms doing curls while checking out his massive biceps in the mirror, spotters practically deadlifting the bar off his buddy's chest while yelling "it's all you!" There were guys who were literally spending more time talking to the girl walking on the treadmill than training themselves. 

However, for every idiot Fratboy who was only in the gym to pump up his "gunz" for the bar that night, there were some hard-working strength athletes who were busting their ass in the gym, spending hours upon hours in an effort to add even a couple pounds of lean muscle tissue to their frames. Unfortunately, for the most part, they were spinning their wheels. Although they tend to come by it honestly, most highly motivated trainees are simply running in circles when it comes to achieving a high level of strength and muscularity. 

I believe that in this sport it is possible to take a high level of motivation too far. Often times you will see guys spending hours on the internet, searching the chat rooms for the next "secret" supplement or "magical exercise that will turn them into Ronnie Coleman overnight. This is the number one problem I see in the sport, and is the main reason many people get nowhere. 

There are people right now frozen in their tracks over the latest marketing campaign by their favorite supplement company, wondering whether N.O. products or Glutamine will be the answer to their muscle-building prayers. They are sitting in the kitchen unable to mix their post-workout shakes because they aren't sure if 5 grams of Creatine will do the same thing as 6 grams, whether they should use waxy maize starch or maltodextrin/dextrose for their carbs, or if whey isolate will absorb too slowly into their bloodstream and they should throw the whole batch out and order some whey hydrolysate. 

These are the same guys who spend hours on their biceps trying to hit the long head, the short head and the brachialis, do flat bench, incline bench, and decline bench followed by flat, incline and decline flyes so that they hit their chest from every angle, and think that leg extensions are going to give them the quad "sweep" that they are looking for. This is only if they decide which movements to do in the first place, because often they are so caught up looking for the perfect routine that they don't even remember to train. 

I know, because I used to be one of these guys. And you know what I realized over time? 

It doesn't fucking matter. 

Do you really think any of the top bodybuilders or strength athletes are worrying about petty shit like that? I can promise you that they are far too busy paying their dues in the squat rack, choking down their sixth meal of the day, and telling their friends that they can't go out to the bar that night because they have an early workout the next morning. Fads in the fitness industry will come and go, but the one thing that remains constant is hard work and dedication to the basics. 

What do you think is going to build more muscle on your quads? A 500 lb squat, balls to the wall taken all the way to the floor for 20 reps, or a 100 lb leg extension? Do you really think that if you work hard enough on that set of squats you should have enough energy left for the extensions anyway? 

If more people picked 6 - 8 big, basic compounds movements and got brutally, inhuman strong on each of them while consistently adding more food to their plates, there would be far more massive human beings walking around. 

The fastest way of getting absolutely nowhere in this sport is to jump around from program to program like a chicken with your head cut off, following the latest bullshit routine that rolls through Flex magazine and thinking it's your ticket to mass-ville. 

Bodybuilding is both a blessing and a curse for many people. The types of people that are generally drawn to the sport are those who are insecure about their image and are constantly worrying if they are doing the right thing. They think that there are a bunch of "secrets" that all the big guys are keeping from them, and are always on the search to find them out. For the small handful of guys that figure out the keys to progress in this sport, they are blessed with the realization that consistency and simplicity will trump the most complex routine of isometric thermogenic myofibrillar hypertonic volume training any day of the week. 

My advice to all the highly motivated athletes out there is simply to consider what the keys to progress are. If you think hard enough about it, you already know them: Consistently add weight to the bar and get stronger at big, basic movements such as deadlifts, squats, presses, chins and rows, while eating upwards of 4000 calories per day of non-junk food, and get 8 hours of sleep each night. 

This sport is simple, but for some reason it's the most motivated athletes who make it complicated. I'm going to leave you with a quote from Dante Trudell that sums up the point I've been trying to get across:

"You want to worry bout something? Worry about that damn logbook. Worry about staying uninjured in your quest. Worry about not missing any meals. Worry about somehow someway making yourself the strongest bodybuilder you can become.

A brute. A behemoth. A human forklift."

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- T