Built to Endure - Training the Tactical Athlete By: Mike Prevost, PhD Captain, United States Navy
I started putting these ideas on paper when I started blogging in 2014. At that point I was working as the Director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the US Naval Academy. I was also serving as an exercise physiology consultant to the athletic department and working with lots of individual Midshipmen who were training for special programs (Airborne training, BUD/S, Infantry Skills Team, USMC TBS, ultra marathons, weight loss, powerlifting etc.). It was an ideal place to test lots of different programs and get feedback on effectiveness. I literally had hundreds of “test subjects” and was learning rapidly. I started blogging to capture that information, to put it somewhere that my Midshipmen could access it in the future, and to clarify my thoughts and ideas. This book is a way to organize that information into one resource. I am giving this book away at no cost with the hope that current and future tactical athletes find it useful. It is a way to honor the sacrifices they make every day.If you find this free e-book to be useful, please consider donating $5.00 to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
The book is getting nearer to completion so I am starting to move content over to the new blog. The book will be a free download and will consolidate many of the ideas from this blog. Eventually all content from this blog will be shifted over. Any new posts will be made at the new blog. Please bookmark it for the future.
Read the post and then read through the responses. Consider the basic message. This is a tremendous insight and virtually nobody was talking about this before Dan John. You'll find it here.
At some point everyone who's is serious about lifting will run into the problem of not being able to find a dumbbell heavy enough for one arm rows. A lot of gyms only carry up to around 130 lb. dumbbells. Some get as high as 200. But unless you're at a legit black iron gym you probably won't even find that. Of course, at homemade strength our gym is our garage, or living room, or backyard. Very few people want a rack of dumbbells in their home.
They take up way too much space. One solution is adjustable dumbbells. These are notoriously small. You can fit about 80 lbs. on them, and that's assuming you use 25 lb. plates too. This makes them too large in diameter, but still usable. One solution, albeit not the perfect one, is the "Big Ass Dumbbell". No, I'm not talking about a circus dumbbell that is large in diameter. I'm talking about the design that Matt Kroc came up with. Perhaps you have heard of Kroc rows. These utilize what is more accurately called a "long ass dumbbell". But that doesn't sound as good, nor does it produce as nice an acronym. You can buy these Kroc row bars for a few hundred dollars if you wish, or you could make them yourself. I based my design on the initial description I heard Kroc give in an interview.
The backbone of this thing is a 1 inch threaded rod. You can find threaded rods in any home improvement store, but not every store has them as large as 1 inch. I'm not sure if Home Depot or Lowes in your area will have them. I got mine at a Midwest store called Menards. They also have them at places like TSC. You'll also need 4 nuts that match your threaded rod. Then you'll need about a 6 inch length of pipe that fits over the rod. The pipe should also be called "1 inch" because pipe is measured by inner diameter and the rod by outer diameter. Of course the best way to make this all work is to just buy all the materials at one store so you can test fit them before you buy.
So with you nuts and rod in hand, we can begin assembly. Short lengths of pipe often have threads on each end. This is not ideal but it is what I bought. If you are willing to spend more money buy a longer length of pipe and cut it down so you have an appropriate sized handle with no threads on it. You might think the threads dig into my hands when I use it but they don't. I don't feel them at all so it's not an issue worth fixing for me. But ideally use plain pipe. You can clean the pipe with a bit of steel wool. You're probably going to use straps, and as such the lack of knurling is irrelevant. however, you can improve the grip with grip tape, or the poor version: masking tape and lifting chalk. I can't see how you wouldn't be using straps when rowing a massive dumbbell like this, for the same reason you use straps with doing shrugs. Although I concede that not everyone shares my views on the proper way to do such movements.
This project really couldn't be much more simple. you decide how big you want your dumbbell to be and cut your threaded rod to that length. The longer your rod, the more cumbersome it becomes. No matter what, you're going to end up with a dumbbell that needs to be lifted in a slightly different way, because it's simply too long to row in the conventional fashion. It utilizes standard plates (which means they have a one inch hole in the center, as opposed to olympic plates which have a 2 inch hole). If you leave it at 36 inches in length you can cram on enough 5 lb. plates to make it over 200 lbs. This will be of similar diameter to a normal dumbbell. If you use 10 lb. plates you can get it over 300 lbs. This will be slightly large in diameter, but not very much. If you cut it down it wll obviously hold less weight and you'll have to do the math yourself to figure out just how much less.
Then all you do is slide the pipe over the rod and center it. Screw a nut on each side of the pipe. Your dumbbell is basically done at that point. Load it up with plates and screw a nut on each side again to lock them down. Here's a few extra tips:
You can get 1 inch spring collar clips. These fit perfectly in the threads of your rod so they will be secure even if you hold the dumbbell in a vertical orientation. Just make sure you have a few inches of rod at each end. You don't want to load it up to maximum capacity and have a spring clip at the very edge of the rod. In those cases, lock it down with a nut. But if you aren't loading it up that much it's a pain to screw the nut on and off. In these cases it's nice to quickly use the spring clips instead.
If you lock down the two center nuts tightly your handle in the middle won't rotate. If you want it to rotate, simply loosen the two center nuts a tad until it does. In general you do want a dumbbell handle to rotate for the same reason you want a barbell to rotate. If it needs too it will simply spin rather than try to roll out of your hand.
Because of its size, you have to take a different stance when rowing this thing. First, you need the foot that's on the ground to be a bit further away from the bench. And you need to grip it slightly off center, away from your feet. This is because you need it to be higher towards your head, and lower towards your legs. This thing is so long it will literally be between your legs when you row it. As such you need to be able to touch it to your chest without jacking yourself in the crotch on every rep. This is common sense and mere trial and error will teach you how to use this thing on the first set. Or just watch videos online of people doing "Kroc Rows" if you want to prepare ahead of time.
Is Cannibal Ferox the best preworkout supplement, or just a ridiculous mix of stimulants on top of stimulants? Perhaps the two aren't mutually exclusive. Will it really melt your face, or is that just hyperbole? I'll give you my thoughts on Chaos and Pain's most popular product in the newest installment of Supplements Not Miracles. First I need to say that I have followed the Chaos and Pain blog for years now. I love it. So when Jamie started releasing supplements it was only a matter of time before I tried them out. I would have done so sooner but I was actually out of work at the exact time. In any case, while I am a fan, I'm far from swinging on his nuts. I agree with him on most things, but not everything. So let it be know that I like to support C&P, and at the same time I'm not a huge fan of wasting money on shit that doesn't do anything, regardless of who made it. So you're getting an honest review here from someone who likes the company, blog, and philosophy so much I rep CnP shirts as part of my regular wardrobe, but is far from a fan-boy who will blindly do anything as long as it's CnP approved. And if I don't get anything out of a supplement I'm not buying it, and I won't claim it's the greatest thing ever, fooling myself with placebos, just because I like the guy who made it.
Cannibal Ferox has gone through several changes since its inception. As of this writing there are three versions of Ferox, plus one for international customers. My actual review is going to be of Ferox 3. The first version of Ferox apparently tasted like complete shit, to the point it was difficult to choke down, but people loved the stim-packed goodness so much they took it anyway. That problem was remedied with version 2. It tasted (I guess) like Ferox does now, which is awesome. Version 2 also had AMP Citrate in it, and it is touted as the holy grail of pre-workouts by fans. I've never had it, because as I mentioned, I didn't have disposable income at that time. AMP Citrate got targeted by the FDA and as such it had to be removed. So now we have Ferox 3, which doesn't have the AMP Citrate. Fans of version 2, as said, still claim it was the greatest thing ever. And to test that theory I went ahead and got some AMP Citrate, and brewed up my own hybrid of Ferox 3 plus 300mg of AMP Citrate to mimic the Ferox 2 formula. I'll get to that at the end so read on.
The next thing to say is that other reviews range wildly with some claiming it's akin to methamphetamines and others saying they "can't even feel it." First, it's pretty obvious that taking a teenager who has never done drugs' opinion on the similarity between a pre-workout supplement and an illegal addictive hard substance they've never even tried is bad advice. This is not meth. If it was you'd be on the street sucking dick for your next Ferox fix. As such, use logic. Next, for those who can't feel it, they either don't know what to look for or they are so stim tolerant that they need to take a step back and let their body reset because they are apparently running on stims 24/7. Case and Point:
450mg caffeine 75mg Synephedrine 3mg Yohimbine
If you can't feel that, lay off the starbucks for a few months and try again. But you'll notice there is no Beta Alanine in this product. As such, you won't get that itchy tingley feeling. If that's what you want, you can add your own. So as with most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the extreme opinions you see online.
When I want "energy" I'm looking for that "bouncing off the walls" just want to get up and move kind of feeling. It's like when you're a kid on Christmas Eve. You can't sleep, you're so excited. This seems intricately tied to two things for me. One is happiness. There is no supplement for this. Things are very different on my Saturday sessions because it's Saturday. I don't have work. It's awesome. The same is not the case for Tuesday. This is likely the reason I could fuel my Saturday sessions with nothing but Ferox and 2 hours of sleep (when I used to work nights and don't want to waste my Saturday so I take a nap after work and get up Saturday morning like a normal person.)
The other component is calories. It should go without saying, but usually doesn't. If you're trying to run the machine on nothing but stims you're not going to have a good time. It works for a little while but not long term. You can't empty your gas tank and then think the NOS button is going to win the race. You have to be fueled. Otherwise what you will feel is akin to red lining an engine while in 1st gear. Your CNS and heart might be going hard but it doesn't translate to throwing around heavy weights. And you might feel hyped until you try to rip that PR off the floor. When you fail and feel drained you might understand my point. Calories > Caffeine, every time. Calories + Caffeine > Calories alone.
A quick note about me, before Ferox I hardly every used stims. I never drink soda or energy drinks, rarely drink coffee, and I can't even remember the last time I took a preworkout, which was C4. My stim tolerance, in theory, should have been rock bottom. I started with half a scoop, felt fine, so next time took the full scoop and still felt fine. I have since stacked it with aggro (just for lols) which kicked me up to 650 mg of caffeine in one blast, still felt fine, but not necessarily better. So I usually stick to just a scoop of ferox. I have also done a super blend, where I add 5mg of Beta Alanine and 300mg of AMP Citrate, which I'll address at the end of this article.
And finally a note about Chaos and Pain. Their labels are completely transparent. They list every ingredient and how much of each is in the tub. Most of these came from Jamie's own formulas that he was making for himself using bulk ingredients. There is a reason for everything in there and you can straight up ask him the purpose for his decisions to include an ingredient if you want to. But more than that, the label is transparent so you can decide for yourself if the formula is something that will work for you. No guessing games here, just science.
THE REVIEW
One glance at the label will tell you that Cannibal Ferox is a stimulant heavy product. If that's not what you're looking for then obviously you'll have to look elsewhere. They have a non-stim pump based preworkout called PermaSwole and also an energy drink style product called Aggro, which is superior to Monster and Redbull in numbers, price, and taste. Ferox is very much for those who want to stim up like a Marine in Starcraft.
The picture above shows the ingredients. 450mg of caffeine, 75mg of Synephrine, 3mg Yohimbine, 75mg Higenamine, 75mg Hordenine; all stims. Plus Noopept for focus and some other stuff for good measure.
If you want to "feel" Ferox you have to pay attention to what your heart and CNS are doing. You might feel a little jittery and your heart will be beating faster. As I mentioned there are many factors that contribute to your level of perceived energy. If you are excited and happy , that helps. If you are depressed, Ferox isn't going to change that. If you are on a cut Ferox isn't going to give you caloric energy. But if everything is sorted, Ferox is like a slap in the face to get your going. Pressing the accelerator when there is fuel in the tank results in increased performance, obviously. That's what stimulants can do for you. They also suppress your appetite and can burn more calories but that's not the role of Ferox. If that's what you want look for Cannibal Inferno for that purpose.
You should also note that this is not an endurance product. You don't take Ferox and expect to be fucking shit up 3 hours later. You take it, you lift, and you're done. CnP has a product called Mercury that is supposed to be for endurance sessions. I've never taken it because I only lift for about 90 minutes, so I don't know how well it works. Ferox really isn't something you should take for a night shift, for example. Ferox is more like dropping a bomb. Aggro is better suited to shift work, although blackout curtains so you can sleep properly is far better. I don't need to stim to get through work and I work 12 hours a night. Bt then again, I'm single so it's no problem for me to then sleep 8 hours a day, get up at 2pm, and basically eat/lift/work the week away with nobody to bitch at me or kids to take care of.
Cannibal Ferox tastes fantastic. I'd give it an 8 out of 10. It depends on how much water in which you mix it. I would say a full scoop needs about 12 to 14 oz of water to maximize the taste. 8 oz of less and it starts getting pretty intense. It's not bad, but it starts getting more like a sour candy. You could argue that this is a pre-preworkout kickstart as usually the first sip of Ferox combined with heavy music is a kick to face when you do this. As of right now I've only tried the Watermelon flavor but I haven't heard any complaints about he others. It's basically what I remember C4 tasting like (which is known for tasting awesome). So if you're looking for a new preworkout and you aren't hypersensitive to stimulants, give ferox a try. Start light so you can assess your tolerance to it.
*Note: A handful of you may have caught this article before this edit. I have since tried Ferox Amped and I've been experimenting with various mixes of CnP products and bulk ingredients to dial in a super pre-workout formula. Instead of tacking it onto this article I have decided to make a separate one, so stay tuned for that. For now, if you want to try Ferox, head over to chaosandpain.com and get you some.
I think that a fair share of my readers will agree that T-Nation over the years has degenerated into the strength website most like your refrigerator. Sure, you'll glance at it (regardless if you'll admit to it or not) to see if there is anything interesting but you know there isn't; just the same shit as the last time you glanced in. Still, every once in a while, someone puts something interesting in there. You know, like a friend brought over some good beer and threw it in there much like Nick McKinless posted there what seems like too long ago. If, you know, you had friends that nice...which you probably don't.
Okay, T-Nation pretty much sucks.
Still, I did read Dean Somerset's article, "The Five Best Exercises Ever." It was a reasonably well written piece. I even agree with a good chunk of the movements listed as well as enjoying the historical perspectives.I also like that the movements were less specific to a particular execution with a specific implement. Still, like any other internet fitness God, I think I have a better list and you're about to get bombarded with my rendition of the five best movements in history.
Actually, I wouldn't change too many on the list. I'm just going to give better reasoning as to why I think they're so good. I'll even do it without wearing a polo shirt.
Seriously, why do so many trainers and PT's wear polo shirts?
Removing the Antiquity Requirement: Squatting From what my modest research over the years into physical culture history, the squat seems to be relatively new to hoisting for strength. It seems to show up in Germany around the time that barbells started to catch on. Somerset mandated in his inferior article that exercises had to be around for thousands of years. Generally I'd agree but the squat has too consistently shown to build strong, massive legs, even entire bodies in general, for the past century and a half.
Just because the Romans weren't quite genius enough to use it can't take away from the fact that this was probably the best, single movement to become popularized in the past 150 years of lifting. In fact, if you look at who were considered the real leaps forward in strength athletes in this period of time, most of them were also prodigious (for their times) squatters. Hackenshmidt, Steinborn, Grimek, Anderson... Name an all-time great strength guy and you'll likely also name a great squatter.
Squatting alone may be the most convincing evidence that the modern strength athletes are better than their counterparts, if you chose to pick that fight.
Rope Climbing This is one I'll agree on for sure. We all know that rope climbing is regarded as more advanced BW movement. Someone usually has to be very proficient with pull-ups before even trying this. Advanced bodyweight demands a high strength to bodyweight ratio. That favors a person who is muscular and lean.
Hey, Whiffet, challenge! Top this, Mr Six Pack...
All lifting sports have their contingent who loves to be fat and strong, arguing that it gives them some sort of edge. My chosen sport of strongman loves to hold up Zydruanas as the latest piece of evidence, disregarding the fact that prior to him the most of the WSM winners were all lean. In fact, at least 3/4 of the strongmen who won that title were all lean guys. Historically, the strongest guys were usually the leanest guys.
Did the they climb ropes? Fuck if I know. Still, I've never seen a fat ass get up a rope. It's a lean, strong person's proposition all the way. That's probably why rope climbing so consistently shows up throughout history as an exercise. It builds lots of strength and promotes high strength-to-bodyweight ratio like few other movements do.
PCP... Who says drugs in training aren't useful? Well, only people that like being wrong, I suppose. Still, I'm not talking about using the drug that the LAPD (circa 1990's) favorite drug to hate. I'm simply consolidating all forms of weight training-bipedalism into one acronym: Pushing, Pulling and Carrying.
People love to talk about lifting weights all the time and even though strongman has nearly half of their events involving PCP, I still don't think this shit is given nearly enough attention. PCP's are all pretty easy to learn, idiot resistant with execution and can serve dual roles of strength and conditioning. If the strength gods would bless me, I'd do some sort of PCP every single day.
I've alternated between more upper body-dominant stuff like frame carries, overhead sandbag walking, famers handles, and weighted sled pulling. Then, I've pushed trucks, dragged sleds, and used prowlers on days where I want to hit my legs. Repeat process. For weeks. That's how valuable I think they should be to the strength world.
Combining them makes good stuff even better. I've done sled/prowler combos. I've dragged sleds while carrying a sandbag on my shoulder. I've seen beardo-extroardinaie Adam Wayne Caposella do a yoke with a sled. Friend Chip Conrad did a sandbag shouldered-farmer carry. There's as much versatility with weight-walking as there is good work for the body.
Getting Shit off the Ground and Overhead Another one that I agree that Dean got right. There's a reason that this combination of movements essentially is the backbone of both modern strongman sport and early physical culture alike. There really is a lot of limitations on your strength if you can't do this well. Recall my broscience theory years ago: if you have strong hips, back and grip, then you're good to go. Ground-to-overhead lifting pretty usually hits all of this pretty hard, demanding that you have all three.
A funny thing happened years ago in strength gyms. People got really, really focused on putting up insane lbs of weight. While there's nothing wrong with that inherently. What was wrong was that weights started getting less awkward. They were pre-positioned in places to make them easier to lift more. Putting them over the head was marginalized since, you know, its hard to do a lot of iron over your head in a very short timeline.
So, if you wanted to combat that asshole that said modern lifters are stronger because they squat, you could retort that old time lifters took things off the ground and put them overhead with far more regularity. While the modern gym-goers are starting to rediscover the utility of ground-to-overhead (giving birth to quaint phrases like "functional training"), the ancients knew it all along.
Push-ups... Going back to what dead people you forgot all about after your tests in school, you'll see a common thread in Dean's and my list: Asid from being rooted in manual labor, the implements needed to execute these strength movements are pretty rudimentary. Chances are good that most of them you could do right now if you'd just stop fucking around on the internet, pushed away from the screen, and got moving. In that regard, there are few strength movements that are more minimalistic than the push-up. All you need is your body and the ground.
...Or a stupid-popular, crazy old motherfucka for extra weight
Just because the rest of the strength world outside bodyweight training doesn't look at push-ups as strength moves doesn't mean they can't and don't build strength. I've been pretty vocal about this lately. They can throw weight onto every other strength movement. Just throw some weight on push-ups too. It's like they forgot that there is no rule book that says push-ups can't have weigtht. Chains, vests, sandbags, other humans...they've all been used in the past. They all work. They've worked for years too, regardless if shaved apes of today forgot about that.
This list also happens to summarize my training lately since I got home from Florida. In this period of time, I've gotten bigger (10 lbs) and did my first no-zero strongman competition. While I won't say that this qualifies me as an expert yet, I will call it definitive progress using stuff that's worked for millennia.
About four years ago, I wrote one of my favorite blog entries about adding weight to common BW movements. It's turned out to be one of my more popular entries. While I'm opinionated I'm not dogmatic or without a sense of compromise. So, I imagine that my audience is much the same. That might explain why an entry like that one, with its compromising tone, went over so well.
As my training has given more into weights and strongman, I haven't forgotten the effectiveness of BW stuff. Often times, I weigh them down with heavy stuff. Very recently, I finally got off my ass and showed off how I used a sandbag for heavy push-up work in lieu of both not having a place to bench press and despising the bench even if I did. You can find that here. Although ambition got the better of me momentarily by posting that video, laziness struck when I noted that I liked adding chain to one arm-push-ups but failed to post proof that I am awesomely clever enough to undertake such a movement.
Such maneuvers are excellent ways to bring up questions of validity in training. As I've stated in the past, I don't care to enslave myself to practicality when training. If it's fun, I'll do it. Still, there are methods to the madness. One arm push-ups are a great way to hit those muscles that nobody gives a shit about because girls and gym bros don't tend to admire them. You know, the serratus and all those lower shoulder blade chunks of meat that make you care about them via injury from lack of training. In case your overpaid online coach never told you, working these muscles are why you do face pulls.
The next merger of iron and bodyweight that I've adored lately is double rope climbing with some junk chain that someone inexplicably stretched the piss out of (which should have taken tens of thousands of lbs to do) at work.
Rope climbing kicks all kind of ass. At the moment, I'm trying to goose my bodyweight up to the 215 lbs territory. Doing BW during such attempts has served me well. Things like this 30 lbs o' chain rope climb require a good strength to bodyweight ratio. That's generally obtained by having a lower bodyfat percentage. In other words, doing these while bulk generally keep getting too fat in check. That may be brocience as fuck, I admit, but it's worked for me in the past.
Note that on both of these, I've gone out of my way to use other methods to increase the difficulty. Rings and two ropes will go a long way to making less weight more difficult. I may be doing weighted BW but I'm not going to fall on the sword of only using adding weight to make stuff harder. Plus, these aren't BW movements that often get the weighted treatment. Take this as friendly reminder to not be afraid to take a different road that's slightly less traveled.
The term “metabolic conditioning” or METCON is an unfortunately vague term.Frequently, when two people are speaking about METCON, they are thinking about completely different concepts.Generally (and this is not always true) what is meant by METCON is a training session that is high intensity and results in a heart rate in zone 4 or 5 (in the 5 zone system we discussed earlier).There are three important facts to know about METCON.The first concerns the sites of physiological adaption (physical changes due to training).The second concerns transfer of training effects and the third concerns the adaptation timeline (how fast fitness develops).
Although the reality is a bit more complex, it is useful to think of there being two adaptation sites for METCON training, central and peripheral.The primary central adaptations are cardiovascular.The heart becomes stronger (greater stroke volume).There are also some hormonal changes. The peripheral changes occur in the specific muscles that are in use during the METCON.Only the muscles that are recruited and used adapt.Furthermore, some muscles are used to a much greater extent, so they adapt more.Think of a METCON exercise like the “thruster.”The biceps are used a little, but not nearly as much as the deltoids and gluteus (if you are doing it right!), so the biceps will not adapt much to that exercise. There is a specific pattern of adaptation that depends on how much specific muscles were recruited, how long they were used, and the pattern of use (i.e., intervals, or on/off cycles).This makes the peripheral adaptations very mode specific (mode refers to the type of exercise used.).The central adaptations are very general and the peripheral adaptations are very specific.
This brings us to the concept of the transfer of training effects.Does one METCON exercise make you better at another METCON exercise, or a real life challenge?The central adaptations have a high degree of transfer.After all, it is the same cardiovascular system being used no matter what exercise is performed.So the improvement in cardiovascular capacity is expected to result in improvements across a wide range of training and life challenges.However, the peripheral adaptations are very mode specific.There is little transfer from one exercise or mode to another.The transfer effect is proportional to the extent of overlap in muscles used.Even if there is lots of overlap in muscles used, there may be little training transfer because the weak link muscles may be different.For example, an athlete may have done tons of “thrusters” but when they transition to “sumo deadlift high pull” they may find that they can’t do many because their grip gives out.Grip strength is not trained significantly with “thrusters.”
The real issue here is that most of the training effect is peripheral, not central.Central adaptations account for only a small part of the training effect.Therefore, the concept of improving general work capacity is a flawed one.There really is not “general” work capacity.If I want to improve a wrestler’s work capacity do I have him swing a sledge hammer and row a Concept 2, or do I have them grapple?Specificity matters, a lot.Everyone knows that strength is mode specific.A big bench press does not necessarily mean you have a big squat.However, other fitness modes are very mode specific as well (i.e., METCON, endurance, flexibility).Exercise programming should take this into consideration.METCON, if needed at all, should closely mimic known job demands.Where job demands are unknown but likely to be intense, METCON should focus on movements that are most likely to be encountered such a gripping, pulling, lifting, throwing etc.
The third important fact about METCON is that fitness adaptations happen quickly.Anyone who has trained and measured METCON performance knows that significant improvements can happen after only 2-3 specific METCON workouts.What you may not know is that although results happen quickly, they plateau quickly as well.Three to 6 weeks can get an athlete very close to their max METCON performance at their current level of strength.METCON fitness is built quickly.This is good news and bad news.Athletes can expect big improvements quickly.However, pretty quickly results will taper off with little improvement to follow unless they get stronger.This has programing implications.Doing METCON year round, or starting it too early may be a mistake.If you are training for a specific school, selection or deployment, you may be better served by saving your METCON training for the last couple of months prior, and focusing on fitness qualities that take a long time to develop in the months or years prior to that (i.e., strength and hypertrophy).Also, METCON incurs a high recovery cost and can directly interfere with strength and hypertrophy gains.Both are very important considerations that are rarely discussed.Depending on the athlete’s goals, it may make sense to minimize METCON training until it is needed.
The exercise is called the Victorian Hold (demonstrated in the video above). You need to do this exercise because you spend too much time hunched in front of a computer or smart phone. This leads to head forward, kyphotic posture. To counter this, you need to train the muscles of your upper back, the rhomboids and middle/lower traps. Nothing I have done targets these muscles better. You probably cannot do the exercise right away. A good starting progression is to place your elbows on an elevated surface. I used two steps (from step class) that were about 6" high. After a few weeks of 15-30 second static holds (3-5 reps) done three times per week, I can do a decent Victorian Hold unassisted. Again, this is a great posture corrective and is also great for shoulder health.
Those who feel that science has little to contribute to the discussion on strength training programming have not been reading the science. Every year we add new peices to the puzzle. A recent review by Ogborn and Schenfeld (Strength and Conditioning Journal, Volume 36, Number 2, April 14) does a great job of sumarizing what is known at this point. Here are some of the key issues:
Type II fibers display superior growth following high intensity (heavy) loading, approximately 50% greater than type I.
If loading is greater than 50% of 1 RM, type II muscle growth exceeds type I growth
Direct, head to head comparisons of 6-8 RM VS 20-30 RM demonstrated that 6-8 RM is superior for hypertrophy and that all fiber types showed some hypertrophy
Training at slow repetition speeds improved the hypertrophy response of light loads, but heavy loading was still superior.
Aiming for the SINGLE protocol that maximizes hypertrophy may not be optimal. For example in one study comparing 3 sets with 30% 1 RM, 80% 1 RM, and 1 set 80% 1 RM, hypertrophy overall was greater using 3 sets of 80% 1 RM, but type I muscle fiber hypertrophy was greater with the 30% 1RM protocol (Mitchell CJ, Churchward-Venne TA, West DWD, Burd NA, Breen L, Baker SK, and Phillips SM. Resistence exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men. J Appl Physiol 1134: 71-77, 2012. ). Perhaps the optimal approach is a combination of heavy loading for low reps and lighter loading for high reps to maximize hypertrophy of both type I and type II fibers.
Although recruitment of type II fibers increases with increasing load, type II fibers are also recruited in the latter repetitions of a set due to fatigue. This response is maximized by training to failure. There is some evidence that lower load, higher repetition training can produce hypertrophy responses similar to high loading protocols if the sets are taken to failure.
If pure hypertrophy is the goal, it makes sense to train across a range of repetitions. High repetition, lower loading sets should be taken to failure.
High load, low rep training maximizes type II muslce hypertrophy.
Lower load, higher rep training (especailly taken to failure) maximizes type I muscle hypertrophy.
If the primary goal is strength, higher loads and lower repetitions are more optimal because higher loading leads to greater strength than lighter loading, even if the hypertrophy response is the same.
From a practical perspective this research gives credence to the old bodybuilder technique of including lighter "burn out" sets at the completion of training each body part, and methods like drop sets or high time under tension sets using slower performed higher reps. This would ensure that type I muscle fibers experience a maximum hypertrophy stimulus as well.
For more in depth information on this topic, Google Brad J. Schoenfeld.
Disgraceful to myself that I got so nervous about my latest strongman competition. I had so little implement training time for this and it flat-out made me nervous. I allowed my previous, luxuriously-outfitted gym to lull me into thinking that without implement time, I was going to bomb on this heavier Massachusetts Strongest Man Competition. I was so tense that I needed some lower back work by the much-appreciated chiropractor on site at the competition.
I didn't have a log and I hadn't touched a log in over a year. I had no car deadlift set-up or a 500 lbs frame. I do have sandbags, some kegs, a fire hydrant and just prior to the comp I scored an anchor chain. With no place inside to train these and a winter that just didn't want let go of the ice all over my driveway, it would seem that I was kind of screwed.
Bullshit. Such thinking was never part of my mindset prior to all of this and I was determined to not let it become that way again for this training cycle. I'd just have to get creative, like I always have. So what did I do and how did it call come out? I'll elaborate...
The Log Press Of all of the events I'd have to do, this was probably the most difficult to improvise for. The log is technical and there isn't a great direct substitute. Overhead pressing in my training environment is even more fraught with issues since I have a low-ceiling basement that only really allows the use of my kettlebells over standing overhead training. I did do some overhead work outside before my driveway turned to pure ice and the frequent sub-zero temperatures made my fingers go numb.
So, heavy, double kettlebell pressing was the only play I had. I'd clean them and push-press away, doing heavy sets of 2-5 reps for as many sets as I could or had time for. Then, I'd strip off some weight in ten lbs increments and do three sets of strict presses, taking off 10 lbs each set.
My previous best on a log was 180 lbs, over a year ago when I was fresh off physical therapy restrictions but was training the log a couple of times per week. I managed only one rep with 200 lbs. This felt more like a technique issue since the one rep felt weirdly easy when I got it. I didn't attempt more because my knee made one of those disturbing pop noises and I elected to stop since I still had a whole competition to complete. Sixth place, but no zero.
The Car Deadlift Without a doubt, this was by biggest success in spite of having no car deadlift frame to use. Back in Tampa, I discovered that a barbell hack squat was very similar to a car deadlift. So similar that I'm downright shocked that practically nobody uses them to train for it. I guess it's a sign of the blind hegemony of modified powerlifting routines that dominate strongman programming. Dumb shits.
I think the reason why this so closely resembles the car deadlift lies in the fact that to successfully hack squat, you have to move your hips very quickly forward so the barbell doesn't smash into your hamstrings or your ass as you hoist it upwards. That's the exact, same hip movement in the car deadlift.
This was supposed to be a heavy car lift. Unfortunately, the frame wasn't set up properly and it turned into a rep festival. I took third place in this event, getting credited with 38 reps. Carryover at its finest.
Keg Carry and Chain Drag I was disappointed with this one more than any other event. I had the most implement time with this event and I didn't place well at all. I had to run 50' with a 200 lbs keg and then grab the anchor chain and run 50' backwards.
This is what I was preparing for: 550 lbs drag here!
I planned this out pretty well. Since I have stupid-long arms, I was going to use my knee to push the keg high up on my chest and grab it on both sides. In practice runs, it worked beautifully. I rigged up a tire sled with 150 lbs of chain to drag it by before I got my anchor chain. Once I got my anchor chain, which weighed around 550 lbs, I figured out that I could go two seconds faster if I grabbed both ends of the chain and dragged.
So, I figured I'd have this one sewn up.
The disgruntled face of dashed plans...
I was the third slowest time. The keg we ran with had a bizarre, two inch bulged rim that ran around the middle of the keg. I didn't want to chance dropping the keg since It was obviously wider than my practice one. The anchor chain was easily 200 lbs lighter and had a cut-off link at one end that wouldn't allow me to grab both ends. So, this turned more into a test of foot speed than how much weight I could drag.
Dude, where's the other 200 lbs?
500 lbs Frame Hold I don't want to say that I have great grip strength, but I certainly have enough to do strongman. That was definitely something I had going for me when I started the sport. I thought I had placed worse than I really had on this one. I got 31.3 seconds, coming in 4th for this event.
When it comes to grip work, I've gotten to the point where I'd rather just throw in a grip element into my training movements where it doesn't hinder the progress of the overall set too much. So, I high rep-deadlifted, hack squatted, rowed, and curled with my axle mostly. Often times, I'd hold reps on my hacks and my deads for as long as possible. I did a lot of rope climbing too. So, while I beat myself up a bit for not holding longer, in the end I didn't do too bad on this one at all.
Odd Object Load This is another event that went pretty well for me too. Initially, we were supposed to pick up, carry, and load a fire hydrant, a 200 lbs sandbag, a 200 lbs keg, and a 240 lbs atlas stone onto a 54" platform. On the day of the show, the carry was eliminated (to save time) and a field stone was substituted for the hydrant (much to my chagrin).
I do this kind of stuff all the time, both for work and for fun. Plus, I also do a lot of Zercher Lifting to strengthen the muscles I'd use to load stuff. Another mystery to me is why not that many strongmen throw in stiff-legged deadlift work into their training since so much of what we do involves getting shit off the ground in a stiff-legged fashion.
While I took 4th in this event, I had some of the cleanest lifts. Except for dropping the stone because I didn't get myself situated dead-center of the stone, I had the some of the technically-sound lifting in the show, it seemed. The sandbag was left loose and that gave a lot of people fits. Another fun part for others was the rule that the keg had to be stood up. Neither bothered me.
So, overall, I had a weak event (the log) and a disappointing event (keg and chain) but the events I placed high were pretty well executed and I took 5th place out of 9. As I got to the end of the competition, I realized that at 5'10" and 205 lbs, I was probably the smallest guy in this novice class. The winner was 6'5" and 300 lbs. Fittingly enough, he looks a little bit like Thor Bjornson.
What I was happy with was this show was heavier than my first and I got no zeros. I successfully strengthened up my lower body and also put on about 20 lbs since October. At this point, I'm looking to do Granite State Strongest Man at the end of July as a Middleweight. At this point, I think I'm done with being a novice and losing events for no other reason than I'm undersized. I'd like to bump my weight up to 215ish lbs in the meantime. I tried to get to this weight for this competition but the soreness from training and growing was just becoming a pain in the ass. Clearly, bulking up should be done when I'm not in the middle of contest preparation.
In the end, I had a ton of fun and I managed to progress despite being limited by the quantity of the gear I have. That's been a goal of mine long before I took up the sport. The affirmation that I can still do so is gratifying.
There are certainly plenty of energy drinks out there to choose from. Today I'm reviewing Chaos and Pain's take on it with Aggro. Can this new product really give Monster or Red Bull a run for their money? I don't know about that, since that's a business question and those companies are massive, while CnP is essentially a two man operation, but I can tell you my opinion on which is a better product.
Before we start let me say that I am not affiliated with any supplement company in any way, including Chaos and Pain, Monster, or Red Bull. I receive no free product or payment in any form. I payed for my bottle of Aggro, just like anyone else. The following is based on my opinion and experience only.
Aggro is marketed as being specifically designed for gaming. I used to be a so called "hardcore" gamer. Depending on how you define it, that usually means you play more adult themed games, but almost always means you dedicate an unusually high amount of time to it. I started gaming in the Eighties, when the NES was the current gen system, and I've gamed on just about every major system since then. As usual, as I get older, and more and more time goes to working, I have less time for other things, and my gaming habit has taken a huge hit. Now I generally game on PC and only play those few games that I really enjoy. My series of choice recently is Borderlands, and one can log dozens if not hundreds of hours on such games. One particular year, when I was unemployed I daresay I logged nearly 2,000 hours on one particular online game (not WoW). So while I used to be "hardcore" I'm hardly that anymore. Aggro, therefore isn't really useful as a gaming supplement for me. So if that's why you want to use it I unfortunately can't help you there.
I'm going to be reviewing it simply as an energy drink. You can also use it as a more mild preworkout. And although I say "mild", if aggro is mild then so is nearly every other preworkout on the market, like C4. It's simply mild when compared to CnPs actual pre-workout Cannibal Ferox. There are essentially two reasons why you would want an energy drink. You want the stimulants, or you like the taste. And Aggro delivers on both.
TASTE
Now I'm not an energy drink junkie. I have only had a few monsters and Red Bulls in my life, and they aren't particularly good. They both have a slight carbonation, which I don't like at all. I don't like soda for that same reason. Aggro, however, is more akin to juice than pop. Actually it's more like an artificial candy flavor, not so much juice. Monster doesn't taste all that bad, but Red Bull simply sucks. I have had the "Hulk Juice" flavor of Aggro, which I suppose is actually green apple. It essentially tastes like candy. Of course, Aggro is a powder so you can vary the dilution to your liking. I personally think it's best in a 1/2 scoop per 12 oz. of water ratio. It is certainly better tasting than any other comparable energy drink that I've had. That being said, Starbucks doubleshot is the best tasting energy drink since it's essentially iced coffee.
INGREDIENTS VS MONSTER and REDBULL Below is a comparison of Aggro, Red Bull (calorie free version), and Monster (calorie free version). A 16oz can of regular monster has nearly 50 grams of sugar in it. Because Aggro does not have sugar I went ahead and showed the calorie free versions of Monster and Red Bull below to be more fair. Monster has about 175 milligrams of caffeine per can. A serving of aggro has 200. The caffeine in aggro is in multiple forms, however, so it has a time released effect. Red Bull is pretty similar to Monster, except it's half the size and thus has half the caffeine and sugar in a can. It tastes about half as good too. So the basic formula for the popular commercial drinks is essentially sugar, caffeine, and inferior forms of B vitamins.
Click to enlarge. Doesn't work on biceps.
Aggro omits all the sugar yet tastes better than even regular versions of other energy drinks, has more caffeine, and dumps in a slew of other focus enhancing ingredients, the most notable being Noopept. And they actually list all the ingredients on the label so you can research for yourself what they all are. The other notable thing about aggro is that it's a powder so you can mix as much as you want.
PRICE AND CONVENIENCE Aggro being a powder is less convenient than a Monster. Well, let me re-phrase that. The fact that Monster and Red Bull are sold in stores is what makes them convenient. If you're buying them, taking them home, then packing them for lunch, you could just as easily mix up some aggro in one of the dozen shaker cups you have and take that with you. But you won't be going to a gas station or vending machine to get an Aggro whenever you want. So if that's your habit I guess Monster wins this one.
But Aggro is cheaper. It's 1 dollar per serving, compared to over $2 for a Monster or Red Bull. And remember a serving of Aggro is stronger than Monster and over twice as strong as a Red Bull. I might as well just stop talking about Red Bull as it's inferior in just about every single way to Aggro. Monster still falls way short, but at least it's comparable in terms of caffeine, which is what the average person is going to look at when choosing an energy drink.
Aggro probably isn't going to catch the attention of the average person for that reason. They don't know what half the ingredients on the label are and they won't look them up online. But you're not the average person, are you? It's so easy to use Google. Why don't you try it now? I'll wait.
RESULTS To be completely honest, the boost an energy drink gives me is pretty tame. Maybe I'm more tolerant of stimulants than the average person, or maybe, and this is what I'm betting on, the effect can easily get lost among more important factors. I'm particularly sensitive to my emotional state, which is to say I'm very aware of if I'm happy, excited, angry, or ornery. And I've made correlations through years of paying attention between how I feel mentally and how I feel physically. I personally believe that how you feel mentally is a major factor in how much physical energy you will have. I don't know about you, but when I want "energy" I want that pumped up excited can't sleep because it's Christmas Eve feeling. That is something a supplement can enhance but not create.
As such, if I take stimulants when I'm not particularly happy about what I will be doing that day, it enhances that negative feeling. Certainly I get the CNS effects like increased heart rate, but it feels akin to being nervous. Conversely if I stim up on the weekend when I'm going to do something fun I get more of the effect I'm looking for, where I'm excited and then get a boost of energy to go with it. This all assumes being properly fed so that you have caloric energy to use, otherwise it's like pressing the gas pedal with fumes in the tank.
So all that being said, Aggro definitely hits me the hardest of the energy drinks I've tried, Red Bull did absolutely nothing (no surprise as it's the weakest). Monster and Starbucks Doubleshot seem to have some effect. Although it may have just been my surprise at how the Doubleshot tasted since the second time I tried it, it didn't seem to have the same result. But again, for the most part an energy drink is not a huge stim packed drink. And really it shouldn't be.
Aggro is aimed at gamers, and you definitely don't want to be jittery when trying to line up a quick headshot. And for that purpose I think Aggro would work quite well. It's designed to increase mental performance and focus, not just ramp up your CNS. It tastes great. It's the cheapest. And it has the best ingredients. And to top it off, it's made by a company who happens to give a shit about their customers, as evidenced by such things as completely transparent labels. In fact, the only downside of Aggro is that it doesn't come in a ready to drink form. So if mixing it yourself in a shaker cup is a deal breaker for you, then I guess that's that. Otherwise, if you regularly slam Monsters, Doubleshots, or Red Bulls, give Aggro a shot.
There might be too decent of a chunk of my ego that's driven to let you know that I'm not a normal strength trainer. That variation in strength training is easily explained by the simple fact that while I get acknowledgements (which polite manners dictate that I should accept with a, "thank you") to being strong, I came about that label by unconventional means. Very simply: I very rarely trained in gyms like other people around me do. The past decade or so has been very top heavy journey of improvisation to get to where I am today. So, I don't see the same means, movements and methods as the answers to strength like everyone else does.
Still, my ego has limits. I abhor any notions that I'm an expert, even the mere thought that I might know what I'm doing. I generally don't disagree with Alex Viada either so this one has me in some very strange territory:
Had an interesting conversation the other day regarding conveying information, with a certain person not "feeling" like an expert because nothing novel or earth shattering was conveyed during a training this individual gave.
People don't go to experts to be shocked- there are very few fields I've seen where you can speak to an expert and learn something you quite frankly didn't already know. In the time I spent in consulting, I certainly never told a client anything surprising... A coach, even an amazing coach, will rarely, if ever, tell you anything you didn't already "know". When's the last time you read a "10 things you need to fix about your squat" article written by a world-class squatter that told you anything you hadn't heard before?
What the experts will tell you, though, is what matters. They give you focus. They take those six hundred things you already know and tell you which matter the most, and in what order.
Is it right to disagree with a guy whose legs look like this?
I've relayed it before: when I first started training in a gym in Florida (which lasted well over a year), I really did feel like I had landed on Mars. My training was so, drastically different than what everyone else around me was doing that for the duration of my visit. What I considered very important was very, very different from those around me. WHAT I FOCUSED ON WAS DIFFERENT. Naturally, you all know I got into strongman and I did it with some of these people. So, what was so different between me and them in terms of what was and wasn't important that stuck out at me?
Change of movements just don't happen Bodyweight long ago taught me that to make progress, I'd have to modify the form of the movement that I was doing, sometimes drastically, to keep making strength gains. Even when I started touching weights, I usually worked with an object of limited ability to modify the weight. So, once again, I'd change how I moved with it to get progress.
That just doesn't happen a lot in gyms. The moves stay pretty constant. The accessories might change. Weight just gets added. The reasons are pretty simple: competition. That narrowly defines strength into specific lifts with the most weight. Since these gyms will also have far more specially adapted environments to improving your performance in competitions, the need to change movements to make progress not necessary.
up until strongman, I never competed in anything. I never defined my strength that simply. I couldn't. Still, I got strong. A friend of mine who set records in powerlifting at 20 years old in shirted benching acknowledged that the first time we trained together that I was. Even now that I do strongman, I love the variety of different lifts in the sport. So, training movements can vary and still have some success. Or at least it should...
Powerlifting's foot print has been ENORMOUS I said that strongman should have some variety to movements in training that I can enjoy but I was kind of surprised when I found out that training generally involved a weekend, "event day", while the rest of the training week often looks suspiciously like 5/3/1 or modified Westside. Oh, wait, it often IS 5/3/1, Westside, or some other powerlifting-based programming.
Even in amongst strongmen, everyone loves to talk about their total and their prowess in the three power lifts. Even the bodybuilders do this. At least with crossfit, you get a break from this comparison since they don't do them since they're not functional.
Actually, their functionality in my chosen sport of strongman is questionable to a degree. Lots of people talk about how wonderful of a base powerlifting can be for strongman but the truth is that there is no real basis to say what previous physical endeavor best prepares you for strongman. Zydrunas, the consensus-best strongman at the moment, started powerlifting before doing strongman. Yet, he has traded WSM and Arnold wins with Brian Shaw, who used to play BASKETBALL, as does the heir-apparent to both in WSM, Thor Bjornson. Before the Zydrunas era, Pudzanowksi dominated strongman and he was an avid martial artist in his childhood years. Strongman has been largely dominated by guys who never really did a lifting sport before they got into it!
I never bothered with powerlifting since they have yet to build a cage, barbell, bench and plates that can easily fit in the back of a pick-up. Plus, my morbid, almost-unreasonable, disgust for the bench press has been well-documented by myself. So, clearly I have no plans to compete in powerlifting any time soon. That doesn't seem to have hindered my strongman training too much.
It's surprising to me that such an increasingly marginalized lifting competition continues to be exert such influence since...
LOTS OF THESE PEOPLE DON'T EVEN COMPETE... in anything So, when you frequent a gym, it seems like you have to be in a group. Ever notice that? For purposes of brevity, let's just look at strength training. You can do bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, Olympic weight lifting, or crossfit. So, they all have their training protocols and their choice movements that they do to get to their definition of strength.
Why? Because I can!
What I find comical is how many people choose a branch on this tree, but never compete in any of the above. So, riddle me this: if you're not going to compete, then why not just do whatever you like to do to lift? It's surprising to me how many empty headed dumb asses would bench religiously with powerlifters even with no intention of ever powerlifting, even if they weren't fond of benching. I know I'm not the only one. What I can't understand is if you don't like a specific lift, then why do it if there is no real need (competition)?
Yes, I will agree that some kind of squat and some kind of deadlift is important to integrate into any good strength training. Yet, it doesn't have to be a back squat or a conventional deadlift. Drew Spriggs brought this up in an excellent training article here about how to train for strongman without implements. Note how many times he brought up stiff-legged deadlifting. I don't see them done enough depite the obvious carryover. Odd, since this form of deadlifting is probably more relevant to normal life than the conventional one we're all commanded to do because...POWERLIFTING
"people try so hard to be different from everyone else that they end up being the same as everyone else. Stop trying. Just be who you are. Wtf?! "
Yeah, those kind of people are clearly annoying, even in strength training. So, I do different shit quite a bit because what's important in my situation to get strong is very different than the rest of the well-equipped world. I enjoy odd and wacky but it usually has a point. While I may not totally disagree with such a statement that Alex makes, I do think that too many people out there wearing the expert label don't have the right focus in matters of getting strong. Their focus has a narrowed field of view. Maybe they're just like the rest of us: novices still learning.
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator cult
s>
5a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
b: the object of such devotion
c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
The definition, copied right out of Merriam-Websters, must have been completed while in a gym. The level at which each high school click-modeled strength sports will stay glued to their respective movements would impress Jim Jones (If he were around to be impressed). One thing that they all kind of agree on the vital importance of the bench press for upper body development. While my newfound sport will at least relegate this lift to an accessory status, I still guarantee that you could send them, as much as the rest of the strength athletes, into anaphylactic shock should you dare disregard the bench.
There's plenty of reasons why I think that Ltrain is a fucking riot, even if all of them are formulated from a facebook interaction. One such example is this little gem.
Unlike me, a barely year-long extra-don't-know-shit about strongman athlete, Matt pretty much makes every overhead press his bitch. There's little room to doubt he's the best 175 lbs presser in the USA. While he does use bench, he's gone without the bar, leaving chest Monday to the flex-Friday crowd. Naturally, anyone who defies the cult edict about benching is going to earn my man-crush.
Anyone doing push-ups in strongman is rare. If they're doing it, they're most likely most likely in a darkened room, just in front of the people watching bestiality porn. They seem almost that far off-limits. While I may have compromised and added weight to my push-ups a while back, I won't ever write them off. I refuse to agree that they are an inferior exercise.
A heavily weighted push up has been firmly in my routine since that article last July. What I should have done was made a video of the whole ordeal since getting a sandbag to the back is best shown rather than described. Apologies for my laziness on this front:
Sadly, I've fallen to another form of laziness that pisses me off when working out in a group of Floridians: being too much of a slug to get out (or put back) training gear. I left that sandbag in my pick up truck after re-filling it. It subsequently got cold and all the sand froze up. I've been procrastinating about bringing it inside so it can thaw and I can start using it again. So, when I need a weighted push-up, I've been doing one-arm push-ups with chains around my neck. That's firmly in my category of "exercises to do with embarrassingly little weight" since just a 20 lbs chain with a OAPU will tax my upper body to the limit with just 5-8 reps per arm. Then, it's easy to put them away, so I can continue to be more Florida-like.
...and once again, I'm too lazy to shoot a video!
Of course, I do still stay true to my BW-only, no-weights roots often. I even do some high rep push-up work as a finisher to pump some blood into my upper body push muscles. I still use an old favorite that I haven't blogged about in years: a 45 rep set of 15 wide, 15 standard, and 15 close-hand push-ups. I've always loved this one because as you get deeper into the set and move the hands closer together, the distance to move the upper body gets longer. That makes the set harder out of proportion to the number of reps I'm doing. Hello, Triceps pump!
I had a friend in Florida who used to taunt me about becoming too much like a mainstream strongman, even using the word, "cult," to describe my entrance into the sport. While comical, there are a few things I don't think that I'll ever do. First, I'll never buy rehband shorts. Second, i'll never let the bench become a regular part of my staple movements. I just don't like it and I don't need it. I need a strong chest but I don't need to go about it just like the cult of the bench press princesses go about it.
