THIS BLOG MOVED

This blog is now being updated at http://www.merrykano.com/

The All Squat Workout

Cry all you want about it and feel free to post on message boards how I’m over-training and how I will end up frying my CNS faster than an American T.V. plugged into a Philippines electrical outlet. But I’m a huge fan of banging away at squats for a whole session. No three and out token squats for me on squat day. That’s some really unsatisfying shit in my opinion; I’m gonna camp out and get after it for an hour or two straight. And when I’m done, I just walk out.

This type of training is nothing new. Big strong guys were unapologetically doing this shit 40 years ago; back when I was running around the house shitting in diapers. Hell, Paula Anderson was hitting golf balls and squatting for 4 hours a day over a decade before I was born and that guy definitely knew a thing or two about getting strong.

There is one caveat here though. You need to squat frequently to get away with this shit. So on your other gym days, it's a good idea to throw in a few sets to keep your body used to it. On those days, I just squat for my general warm up and move on. If you never get sore, that’s fine. But for me, the all squat workout will fuck up my whole week if I’m not already squatting frequently.

My squat was shit for a long time. I’m not saying that my squat technique anywhere near perfect now and I’m sure that a good coach could probably put 10% on my squat in one hour. But I will say that at this point in my life, my squat is automatic and consistent. I attribute this to a shit fuck ton of reps. There is no magic here. The more you do something, the better you’ll get at it, period.

My programming is pretty strange right now because I’m in the year of the “bulk”. So, although I’m trying to get stronger in general, the real focus is adding 20 pounds to my frame. So reps, reps, reps, eat, eat, eat is my current mind set. I got a wild hair up my ass a couple of months ago, that I’d work on hitting a 240x50 squat. This is Dan John’s fault by the way, because of something he wrote about a BWX50 challenge. 240 is not my current BW, but that’s the goal, so I’m using that number. I figure that it’ll get easier as my BW increases, so I’m starting there. Here’s how I have shit programmed now.

1. Hit a heavy double or triple for the day (not a max, but pretty hard, pausing some warm up sets)

2. (240xmax reps) trying to beat last week’s reps

3. Cut reps in half and do straight sets of 240 till I’m “done”

4. Hit some front squats if I feel “done” but not really “done”

5. Resume eating

There are a bazillion ways to go about this, but I guarantee that if you’ve never laser focused on your squats like this before, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with your body’s response. Plus it’s kinda cool to roll in and just get down with the squat for a solid hour or two. People will think you’re crazy and the hacks in the gym will start referring to you as “squat guy” behind you back after a while, but fuck them. You know what’s up!

Lessons Learned With a Bar in My Hands

As I went about my daily chores this morning I found myself thinking; “what the fuck do I stand for?” When you have children, these strange introspective thoughts tend to pop into your head every once in a while. “What do I stand for?” that’s an easy question for me to answer because I live my life by what I call the “man code”. It’s very simple by design; “A man lives a life of integrity and cares for & protects his family”. That’s what I stand for. If what I’m doing doesn’t support this simple code, then it’s fucking wrong…period. My son knows and understands the “man code”. Now that’s all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t exactly lay out a road map to living a successful life for him now does it? As I pondered this idea, my mind kept coming back to training and how the lessons learned in training all cross over into my life. So, in no particular order…here goes.

1. Small goals

Dreams are great and dreams are the foundation of goals, but the goals are the meat and potatoes. You want to live a jet set lifestyle, have a fat pad in the Hamptons and bang supermodels every night? That’s great kid, but maybe you should be focused on learning this math first. You want to be a world record powerlifter and you dream of standing on that platform with your arms raised in front of 3 white lights? That’s great, but maybe you should be focused on adding 5 more pounds to your squat this month. The small stuff isn’t fun and it’s not sexy, but achieving all of those small goals will eventually add up to a tsunami of success in the long run. There are no short cuts in lifting or in life.

2. Compound movements.

To be effective in life, you need to really focus on the big and important stuff. You cannot allow yourself to get wrapped up in the minutia of life. You should spend the majority of your time doing the boring stuff, the hard stuff and the shit that really matters. If you’re hosting a barbeque, “maybe you should cut that knee high grass first…Slick, and make that beer run later”. Same goes for getting stronger; you need to focus on the stuff that really matters.  Build strength and mass with a shit ton of heavy squatting, pulling and pressing, and do some detail work later, as time/energy permits. That’s where it’s at.

3. Consistency

Consistency over time is king. You’re going to have some good and some bad days, but 90% of your days will be boring and average. Whatever life hands you, you’ve got to keep punching that clock. Don’t get down though, because when you string all of those boring and average days together over time, it’ll add up to a shitload of progress. Adding 5 pounds per month to your squat is boring as hell, but if you keep punching that clock, you’ll have added 60 pounds in a year’s time. That’s a solid gain and that’s the power of consistency. Again, there are no shortcuts here; in life and in lifting. Be there for your family, show up on time, finish what you start; be consistent every day. You really can’t make up for lost time.

4. Specialization

We only have so much time and energy; and you can either half ass a lot of things or be really great at a few things. You have to decide what is most important to you and then really get after it. In life and in lifting, you need to balance what you want and understand that it’s a sliding scale. If one thing goes up, another thing will probably go down. You’re getting bigger and stronger…well; you’re probably running slower and putting on some fat. Your squat and bench are going up…well; your deadlift is probably in the toilet right now. Career’s going great and your making money hand over fist…well; you’re probably not spending a lot of quality time with your family these days. Understand? There is nothing wrong with this, and you can “balance” it, but if you want to be really, really awesome at one aspect of your life, then another aspect will suffer.

5. Sometimes, you just need to do some stupid shit

You’ll never really know what you are capable of until you’ve done some stupid pointless shit. My first triathlon was by far the hardest race I’ve ever done. At that point in my life, I had never competed in anything like that…not even a 5k fun run. I signed up for the race about 2 months out and proceeded train, I had to learn to swim first…stupid right! I didn’t get a wink of sleep and the race took about 3 hours to complete, and it took everything I had to will myself to the finish line. The mental toughness that this stupid shit builds, will bleed into the rest of your life. So last month my wife called me and said that the car overheated and she was about 2 miles from the house. It’d been a solid 6 months since I did more than a brisk walk, but “hell it’s only 2 miles”. I dropped the phone and took off running and I was there in less than 15 minutes. There is no doubt in my mind that I could blast out 10 miles to get to my family if I had to. That’s confidence built through stupidity right there.

Every challenge that life throws you is an opportunity to grow, to develop that mental toughness that will serve you for the rest of your life. You should seek it out in my opinion. So work 2 jobs and attend school full time when you’re young. One job and a family will be a piece of cake down the road. Join the Marines and endure boot camp…hell, try out for the Special Forces while you’re at it. A few sleepless nights with a new baby will be a piece of cake after that shit. Go out and do some hard shit, son.  

Undisciplined (or) not Disciplined?

Discipline…this is a huge buzzword around here. “We’re not disciplined.” “They are not disciplined.” “Drivers lack discipline.” Blah, blah, blah….

I have the grave misfortune of being forced to take a class called “Moral Recovery and Restoration”. School has been in session for a month and we just had our first class last week. This is totally normal at my school by the way, and as it turns out, class is cancelled this week too. As it was explained to me, this is a class designed to restore the moral values of the country (AND) wait for it…the discipline. True to the school’s mission statement, this is a class designed to develop “responsible, patriotic and noble Filipinos”.

What they mean by “discipline” is someone’s willingness to follow rules. This got me thinking about the school’s soft approach regarding discipline. They go out of their way to have a full blown class to tell students that they should follow rules, when in fact; all they need to do to accomplish their goal is to…wait for it…..actually enforce the rules they already have.

So what I’m saying is this: if you want disciplined students, then you need to quit treating your rules like guidelines, and actually discipline your students. This is pretty simple.

I honestly believe that the root of the “discipline” problem is that people don’t know which rules are important and which ones are not. Some people are just dishonest and self-centered, but the majority of folks want to do what is right. A lot of this stuff seems like common sense to an outsider; like not cutting in line, not cheating, etc. But you have to keep in mind that you likely came from an environment that actually enforced these rules/norms, and you were conditioned for years and years to conform, so now deviation makes you feel “strange”.

I’ll use myself as an example. There are signs in classrooms that read “no eating, drinking, or smoking”, but I carry a water bottle with me everywhere and drink it all day long.  I consider that rule to be more of a guideline and I’ve justified this “rule breaking” in my mind. “It’s just water, blah, blah, blah”. I’ve justified my behavior in my own mind and no one seems to give two shits about it, so I don’t either. Does that make me an undisciplined person?  That’s a grey area, and the answer depends on perspective.

So here I sit in a college full of “adults” that can’t seem to follow even the basics of social consideration; like waiting your turn in line or not talking at 100 decibels in the library. This basic stuff is rarely enforced via institution or by individuals. Therefore, these self-centered individuals just do whatever the hell they want, as the school sits around TALKING big with no real action.  

Then you have the important stuff. I was in a class where the cheating during an exam was so bad that I literally couldn’t concentrate and I requested to take my exam in another room. The students were talking throughout and exchanging papers and the teacher didn’t say shit. Do you see my point? These students are undisciplined BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT BEING DISCIPLINED. If the institution actually cared about their own mission statement, they would have enforced their own rule and suspended the entire class.

So the message that they are sending with these contradictions is that you will leave this institution as a “responsible and noble Filipino” but cheating is okay. The message is that cheating is a grey area, just like my water bottle example. “Rules are merely guidelines, so justify cheating, plagiarism, and generally rude behavior anyway you see fit, young noble.”

Training Update

I’m wrapping up my semester break and my training has been going very well for the past few weeks. I attribute this to several things. First, since school is out, my stress levels are way down. Second, I’ve been getting good sleep and better than average nutrition. But the main thing is that I’ve pretty much removed the training wheels and started training more instinctively.

"Also...a beard is sure to add weight to any lift"

 

I have been lifting weights (off and on) for over 20 years, but for the most part I lifted to maintain my weight and poured most of my energy into various other athletic pursuits. It wasn’t until I moved to the Philippines that I shifted gears to training with strength as the sole end. In some ways, I feel like I wasted all of that time. But in reality, I spent that time developing an endurance and mass base that serves me well today.

 

I rarely discuss my lifting numbers and my goals, but here goes. I’m 41 years old and I’ll be in the Philippines for 4 more years, and I plan to find a lifting team and compete when I return to the United States. I don’t have any record breaking dreams; I just want to total elite at some point. Even at my age, I don’t consider that to be a very lofty goal, but when you throw out the numbers that an elite total represents, it raises eyebrows, so I just don’t bother. I just tell folks that I’m trying to get stronger, and leave it at that.

 

I could compete here but it’d be a hassle and it’s already hard as fuck to coordinate traveling for necessary things. Telling the wife that I want to roll down to Manila to lift some weights isn’t really going to fly. I’ll just keep getting stronger and do that shit with a supportive team when I get back to Hawaii. It’s not like I’m going to roll in and hit anything big right now anyway.

 

The one thing I do know is that this shit takes time. Once I knuckled down, I went to a 300 squat and 400 deadlift fairly quickly, but it took another 18 months to take those numbers to 400 and 500. That sounds like a long time, but it’s still pretty fast. The next hundred pound increase could very well take 3 years, if I work hard. Granted, I did have a six month setback with a partially torn rotator cuff, but I squatted the whole time. It sucked, but it did help my squat quite a bit because I got a lot of practice squatting every session back then.

 

That’s where I am now; I’m hitting on the 400 squat and 500 deadlift 2 months ahead of my year end goal. I haven’t actually taken the singles because I was saving it for year end, but all of my training numbers indicate that it’s there pretty easily. I’m just plugging away and I’ll try to hit those numbers for doubles at year end. If it’s there it’s there, if not, I’ll still be perfectly happy with the singles.

I’m just starting to reach a point where I’ve tried enough different shit that I have a pretty good idea of what works for me. I’m not really programming right now per se and it’s working, so I’m rolling with it. I seem to make the best progress with a mix of heavy singles, doubles, and triples (and) rep work in a heavy/light format. So on a heavy day, I might work up to something heavy and stay there and do a lot of sets and maybe try to set some kind of a PR if it’s there. On a light day, I’ll work up to something heavy and then drop down and do a bunch of high rep sets and maybe try to set a rep PR if it’s there. I don’t go in thinking “this is a light (or) heavy day”; I determine that when I get to my top set based on how it feels. This is nothing new and probably a Frankenstein version of a dozen programs, but fuck it…I’m getting stronger and it’s working for me.

Random Thoughts

My next door neighbor was recently murdered (shot) at his home and they buried him this morning. My other neighbors are in their front yard popping off firecrackers RIGHT NOW. I’m not exactly Mr. Sensitive, but damn, that seems kind of like a common sense thing to abstain from today. You know…cuz it kinda sounds like…a little like…..I don’t know…..gun shots?

Let's just pop this shit off!

Staying Lean Year Round: Don’t Be That Guy!

I was sitting around at a corner sari-sari store shooting the shit and drinking a few beers with a friend a couple of days ago and he said something that sparked a brain storming session. Unlike me, he’s a friendly guy and actually talks to people in the gym. He said some dudes in the gym were bagging on him because he’s not currently sporting a six pack. Now this is a pretty big dude and although he’s a little smooth at the moment, he still has vascular arms and obvious muscle separation just walking around in a t-shirt. So what’s the problem?

Lattimer was probably a big eater off season

I experienced a similar thing a while back when a guy commented on my work ethic and said one day I’ll be as big as him. I was confused by this comment and thought the guy was delusional, since I probably outweigh him by 50-60 pounds.  What’s the definition of big? There is a bit of a language barrier, but what I think he meant was, a low body fat cut up look. So in his mind, being a 170 pound twink with a six pack, trumps actually being big and strong.

Not big, not strong...all twink.

This is so common. An average guy in my gym is probably 130-150 pounds and a “big” dude is say in the 170-180 range. The common denominator is that most of them are circa 10% body fat lean and although they train diligently, they don’t make any noticeable changes from year to year. They want to get freakishly big and strong, but their obsession with perpetual leanness is holding them back. They will never achieve the “look” they are chasing, because they want to have it 24/7. I’ll let you in on a little secret…those freakishly huge and lean guys in the magazines only look that way a handful of times per year.

The truly sad part is that many of these guys are on steroids. I don’t have any personal experience with steroids, but I can confidently say that they are wasting their money on that shit. If you’re not eating big it’s a waste in my opinion. It’s like pumping NO into a car with an empty gas tank and expecting it to perform. Fucking stupid!

So back to my friend, our ultimate goals are different, but the process to meet our goals is basically the same.  He works on strength to facilitate mass and I put on mass to get stronger. Here’s the conclusion that we both came to; if you don’t compete, to make the best progress, you should still train like a competitor for your given sport.

Think about it, a bodybuilder might do 2 shows per year and maybe just one that they consider to be the big show. How is that guy going to structure his training? He’s going to bulk up and then lean out for the show and see what’s going on. Then he will assess his weaknesses and work on being better for the next show. He will repeat this process over and over and continue to get better and better. Powerlifting is no different except that you’re peaking for strength instead of maximal size/leanness.

This is nothing new…it’s just good old fashioned periodization. So for the guy trying to get that bodybuilding look, I think peaking 2x per year is a decent way to go. I’d try to schedule these peaks around significant events like vacations and such to add a sense of urgency.  So it would look something like this:

6-8 weeks (Strength) get stronger on the heavy compound movements and eat big

6-8 weeks (Mass) coast on the big weights, increase the hypertrophy work and continue eating big

6-8 weeks (Cutting) increased cardio and tighten up the diet to peak

2-3 weeks (Awesomeness) coast, rest, and bask in your awesomeness

So you’ll only spend 10% of your time basking in your awesomeness and that kind of sucks. The truth however, is that you will at least be legitimately strong and awesome. And unlike your gym comrades, you’ll build yourself up to actual man size.

"Chow down"