Legalize Raw Milk!

Raw milk has long been known to be an incredible food. Unfortunately, it has been made illegal to purchase in many places all over the world, including my home of Ontario canada. Please contribute to the health of Ontario by signing this petition to legalize raw milk:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rawmilk2/petition.html

Until the law is passed, here is a great resource to find raw milk in your area:

http://www.realmilk.com/where.html

Lets bring food back into it's natural state and eliminate many of the diseases caused by modern man. 

- T

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.

------------

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.