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.

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"

 

Squat: Elbow, Wrist and Forearm Pain

Elbow, wrist and forearm pain are pretty common for guys that squat heavy and often. When the weight started getting heavy, I was dealing with chronic pain on a regular basis. Everything I tried failed: grip variations, bar placement variations, hand spacing variations, etc. In the end, it was a major injury that ended up fixing it for good.

I tore my rotator cuff and bicep a while back and when I reentered the gym I spent 6 months doing nothing but squats an rehab work. For about the first month I was so fucked up that I literally had to use my right hand to place my left hand on the bar. What I discovered is that squatting with the injury totally fixed my elbow pain issue. Why? Because I couldn't squeeze and push on the bar. Hell, I couldn't even move my arm.

I ended up with a wider grip, but the real fix was my arm's relationship with the bar. I wasn't squeezing the bar, I wasn't pushing the bar, I was just holding the bar and letting it ride on my back. This is so simple and looking back, I feel kind of silly not figuring it out sooner. The reason I had pain (for years) was because I was squeezing the bar and inadvertently pushing up on it. So a heavy squat was not just a heavy squat...it was a heavy squat with a heavy static press (and) a lot of that weight was getting transferred down through my arms instead of my back where it belongs.

I'm sitting around 15 months post injury and my squat has improved about 50 pounds (pain free) in that time. I know that may sound like shit for some of you guys, but gains come slower and slower as your strength increases. You stronger guys will know what I mean.

Here's my advice. First, lower your training max a little and build back up. I think this is important when you are trying to make form changes because if you are operating too heavy, you're just going to end up doing whatever it takes to get shit done. What you are trying to do, is make a specific habit change and you're going to screw it up if you're in the gym bursting blood vessels in your eyes. Don't be a knucklehead, just drop the weight a little and work on developing the habit.

Shit happens when you lift heavy...but don't be in this mode when you're trying to sort things out.

Second, quit squeezing the shit out of the bar. I'm not saying that you need to limp wrist it or anything, but quit squeezing it like you're trying to open a jar of mayonnaise. Take a firm and manly grip, but stop there and quit trying to choke the life out of the bar. The harder you squeeze, the more you will end up pushing up on the bar without even realizing it.

Last, just let the bar ride on your back. You already have control and pushing up on it isn't doing jack shit to help you move that weight. Keep everything tight and let your legs and hips move the weight.

Here's the deal. If you're squatting heavy, it will hurt and it should hurt...that's just the game. It's okay for shit to get sore and “hurt”, but if you are feeling PAIN, something is wrong and you need to fix it. And I know from experience that this shit works.

"Give it a shot...what do you have to lose but some aggravating pain?"

Going to Jail

I was thinking about a close friend today. Sorry to write about you man, but at least I was thinking about you…hope all is well with the family. Anyway, he spent some time in jail and I was thinking about it and how I’d prepare for such a situation. Especially here in the Philippines where they just toss you in and sort it out later…perhaps years later.

I’ve had other friends that ended up in jail over the years but for them it was different because they were not able to make bail and went in from day one. This friend was a little different because he made bail and ended up with about 3 months to prepare. Before you get on your high horse and start saying it’ll never happen to you, just think about that for a second. We’ve all made mistakes over the years, but really, for the most part we just got lucky. Remember Tequila Sunrise? “we were both sharing a joint on the beach that day…Carlos went to jail and I went home”. Or something like that. The point is, we’ve all done dumb shit in our lives, and just got away with it.

Anyway, back to my friend. I think he was smart in the way he went about it. He was a state wrestling champ and he was already used to scrapping on the street/bars…whatever…check. He just ran some heavy steroid cycles, double downed on his training and walked through the gate sweating testosterone and strength. FYI: I've never done streoids and I'm not say'n it's a good idea, but I probably would in this situation, that's all.

Any rational person would do the same thing in my opinion; you’d program your shit to maximize your time and peak right before you go in. That’s a given…but what would you train? I think it’s easier to say what you wouldn’t do. You would not waste energy on anything that did not make you crazy strong and you sure as hell wouldn’t worry about your abs.

Yeah you can use the can, but you have to pee sitting down...abs boy.

If it were me, all of my training would be barbell and bodyweight based. Fuck training for appearance, fuck high endurance…I want to be all go, now! Really…have you ever been in a street fight that lasted more than a minute or two in your life? Heavy squats, heavy pushing and heavy pulling; supplemented with high rep chins, pushups, handstand presses, jumps and burpees. I’d eat like a horse to fuel my training and let the chips fall wherever. Fuck long runs in the park, fuck leg extensions, cable cross overs, preacher curls and fad diets…just give me a barbell, a steak and a huge plate of rice. The end result might not look “pretty”, but you’d be functional as hell (and) you’d be in better shape than 99.9% of the people walking the planet.

So why am I writing this? I’m really just trying to make a point, but if you are reading this because you are actually facing a prison term, just e-mail me and we can go over some programming.

Back to my point…My aforementioned friend told me once that he felt sorry for a coworker, because he was small and weak. Now this guy was a top producer in our industry and making money hand over fist, but my friend made a good point; that’s great, but how can this guy protect his family? Really, that’s our main function as men…yeah we earn money to put food on the table and so on, but it really boils down to protecting our loved ones. You can buy a gun for protection I guess, but what are you going to do when you don’t have it with you? You should be prepared for the worst case scenario in my opinion.

So when you think about your training, ask yourself this question. What if I was going to jail in 3 months, 6 months, whatever? You’ll be in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth…how would you train to survive…to dominate? That’s how you should be training most of the time in my opinion. Training to be a fucking tank!

 "Be a man...guns are for pussies"

Flexible Programming: Have a Backup Plan

I consider flexibility to be one of the most important components of a good program. I have heard so many people say that they are not motivated to train and although I really don’t understand that mindset, I can tell you that not having a backup plan is probably a big factor driving that statement. People tend to get off track on rigid programs because it’s all or nothing. My recommendation is to have a backup plan for every part of your program to include both scheduling and the actual training sessions. Figure out what you WANT to do and also what you NEED to do and you’ll have a program with a good backup plan.

Sometimes this is good enough

 I think of it as plan A, plan B, and plan C: plan A is the bare minimum to achieve my goal, plan B is extra work to support that goal, and plan C is reserved for my crazy/stupid side. Most people write out their programming with the best intentions and they leave no stone unturned. They load up their schedule with lots of lifting and then they fill in every nook and cranny with supplemental and conditioning work. When in reality just a few things will get the job done and keep the progress coming. I have no problem with ambitious programming as long as you understand the bare minimum requirements to make progress and are willing to drill everything down when you need to.

The first thing to consider when writing your program is when you will train. Most folks will specify certain days, MWF for example. This might be necessary based on your life schedule, but I think approaching it more like “I’ll train every 2-3 days” makes more sense if you can swing it. Maybe you’ll hit it every other day like clockwork and blaze through a cycle in 4 weeks. On the other hand, if everything goes to crap, what’s the worst thing that will happen? Maybe you’ll end up stretching that cycle out for another week or two. You’re a lifer and you’ll be lifting for 30-40 more years, is it really going to make a difference?  No it won’t…but that built in flexibility will go a long way to keeping you on track.

I also recommend having a full plan on training days, while being prepared to call an audible. This is not a license to be a pussy, but the minimum goal should be to just get in and do your core movement’s working sets. You can have all kinds of crap lined up; extra singles, multiple back off sets, 2-3 assistance movements, post training conditioning, etc. But if all you can manage on this day are 3-5 heavy squat sets, just do that and leave, happy that you got your main work in and that you moved forward. Plus, there is something kind of primal and barbaric about a guy that just rolls in to the gym, squats heavy and walks out. If I see a guy do that, I’m not thinking anything negative at all, just “that guy has his shit together”.

Here’s a sample squat session so you’ll see what I’m talking about:

Plan A:

Squat – (Whatever I have programmed) right now it would be a warm up then my work sets (6 sets of 2)

If I get to the gym and feel like crap or have limited time, I’ll do this & bail and be totally cool with it. This is the bare minimum work that I need to make progress and it earns me the right to move on to the next session.

Plan B:

Squat – Work sets (6 sets of 2)

Squat – Back off sets (1^st work set weight X3X10)

Good mornings – 5x10

Weighted abdominal work: 5 sets

This represents a full session and an average day. There is nothing special going on here…just getting the work in to support my squat.

Plan C:

Plan C is reserved for just getting stupid in the gym and tends to result in a massive training hangover. So it’s plan B, plus whatever else I decide to do: maxing out, tons of back off sets, repping to failure, running around the gym getting a ridiculous pump, stuff like that. Plan C is good old fashioned poor judgment and tons of fun.

I really think that building flexibility into your program is super important. Having a backup plan will keep you motivated to plug away and move forward even in the shittiest of conditions. Sometimes things can get rigid, a peaking cycle for example…there’s really not much that you can do about it so just suck it up and go to work for a couple of months. For your meat and potatoes training though, I strongly recommend that you build as much flexibility into it as you can.

 "Just don’t use it as an excuse to be a pussy"

Please Don't Stare at My Kid...It Stresses Him Out!

Didn't your parents teach you any manners?

Usually my son is super happy go lucky, but this day he was sweating me to get out of the gym from the first warm up set. Note to self; don’t take the boy to the gym and ask him to record form checks when he’s hot, hungry, cranky, AND freaking out because a bunch of ignorant & rude guys are staring at him.

That's something I'm working on with him. Folks tend to stare like they are trying to burn a hole in him with Superman laser vision. He's only 9 years old and too polite and too sweet to say anything, so he just clams up and kind of balls up because it stresses him out. You know, like he's trying to make himself smaller.

Staring is aggressive behavior and it makes people uncomfortable, because on some primal level, we know that instinctively. That’s why our parents always scolded us and told us “it’s not polite to stare”. Unfortunately, it’s a part of living here that must be accepted. There is just an abnormally high amount of people that apparently, were never taught that it is rude to stare.

Limit Strength is Functional Strength: A Case Study

I went out to feed the pigs yesterday and found that they had broken out, and one of them fell into an unused septic tank hole.

This Pig

This Hole

It sure as hell wasn’t picture perfect, but I muscled up a circa 170lb fighting, kicking and screaming pig out of a 5.5 foot hole yesterday. I do a little bit of odd lifting at home, but I credit the success of this endeavor to pure squatting, deadlifting, and pressing strength. That coupled with a good bit of adrenaline and a no failure attitude; THAT pig was coming out of THAT hole…period!

Getting brutally strong from head to toe is great for self-defense and sports, but sometimes you just need to be strong to get shit done around here.

"Good times in the barrio"

My Training Philosophy

My general philosophy is that I need to be as strong as possible, while maintaining an above average level of athletic ability. In other words, strength is the priority but I still need to be able to climb, jump, run, and generally put in some hard work when called upon. It’s kind of my mission statement if you will. In my mind, if I can squat 500lbs but I can’t climb a fence or chase down a thief, I’ve failed. So my training boils down to the basics; lift smart hard and heavy, condition, and prepare and recover hard.

It’s a strange concept in my gym, but personal appearance is absolutely the last thing I think about when it comes to training. I’ve been living in the Philippines for about 3 years, and the reality is that I’m thousands of miles away from any personal support system, and I have a family to protect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a dangerous place; in fact I feel quite safe. But in the end if I do have a problem, it will boil down to me, and me alone, to take care of it. Appearance based training simply won’t get the job done; vascularity, huge bicep peaks and washboard abs are a waste of energy for me. Being able to throw someone around like a ragdoll on the other hand, well…that’s probably pretty useful.

Here’s my approach to training:

1. Lift smart, hard and heavy: This one has multiple points.

First…..Focus on compound movements: Now I’m not all or nothing here, but this makes up probably 95% of my weight training. For example, I do believe some direct arm work is necessary for injury prevention and bigger arms can support more weight, so straight bar curls make sense from a strength and durability standpoint. Having said that, these are the staples:

• Back squats and squat variations
• Deadlifts and deadlift variations
• Bench and bench variations
• Overhead pressing
• Rows
• Chins
• Dips
• Shrugs

I’m open to new things but I’m not really big on variety here. This is the kind of basic stuff that really strong guys have been doing for ages. It worked for all of the guys that came before me and as it turns out, it works for me too. Who would have guessed?

I’m also a big believer in keeping things simple and using the lift to build the lift whenever possible. Squat assistance…how about pause squats? Deadlift assistance…how about speed pulls? Obviously I need to venture out and try different stuff sometimes, but I’ll look to a variation of the main lift first.

Second…..Have a logical and reasonable progression plan and strive to keep getting stronger. There’s not much to say about this since getting stronger is the whole point.

Third…..Condensed training. Now I don’t mean this like the short sessions advocated in muscle mags where they tell you to keep your sessions under 1 hour or you’ll end up in some dangerous catabolic state. What I mean is that I focus on one or a few things at a time. On squat day I may schedule 1-2 assistance movements at most after squatting, but the squat is the event of the day and the other shit doesn’t really matter. I don’t try to save energy for what follows. If I roll in and squat for an hour and totally knock my dick in the dirt, I’ll leave and be perfectly happy with the session. Less really is more sometimes…think quality not quantity. That goes for knocking your dick in the dirt too…not always a great idea.

2. Conditioning: I really don’t foresee needing to run more than a mile or so in an emergency situation. If I’m stuck at home with a broken down car and need to get to my family in town, at most I’d have to run about 1 mile to the highway and catch one of the dozens of tricycles heading in that direction. If for some reason I had to run the whole thing, it’s only about 6 miles and I could get it done. I’ve been running since I was a kid and I’ve done triathlons. It would hurt, but I know I could sack up and get it done in a pinch. And really, this is the most off the wall extreme emergency stuff I could think of. So steady state stuff really is a very low priority for me. In fact, from a survival standpoint, it’s hard to think of many situations where extreme endurance would trump strength or speed.

Having said that, I still run a couple of miles per week because it’s a way to do my sprints without looking like a douche, but everything else is weighted endurance stuff:

• Carrying and throwing stones
• Pushing cars
• Tire flipping
• Weighted sled dragging
• Sand bag work

Like I said before, I’m not big on variety. I just grab bag something and hit it hard.
.
3. Prepare hard and recover hard: These could be separated into two points but they also go hand in hand because it is an ongoing process. I don’t look at going into a weight or conditioning session as a workout, I look at it as an event and I prepare for it just like I would a race or a game. Now I’m not saying I’m going to go balls to the wall and knock my dick in the dirt every session; what I mean is I prepare to perform…hydrate, eat, mobility work, stretching, psych, etc. No fasted cardio at 5 a.m. to try to optimize my fat-burning and that sort of bullshit…I’m talking about preparing to dominate the session.

Recovery is just as important as everything else. Recovery is the focus during the training down time, to prepare for the next event. Obviously eating and sleeping…but also, stretching, mobility work, icing stuff, massages, contrast showers, etc.

That’s it. It’s not exactly magical groundbreaking stuff…just lift, condition, rest, repeat.

"Also, if you’re looking at yourself in the mirror between sets…you have failed as a man"