Monday, January 30, 2012

Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

I was impressed with how good Rashad looked in this weekends fight against Phil Davis.  Davis is kind of a mini-Jon Jones, who yes I still think is incredibly overrated and I'm not on the bandwagon.  Nor am I in any way a Rashad Evans fan, but Rashad looks to be ascending in skill level.  I think he's going to present some real problems for Jones.  Rampage showed that another solid wrestler presents some real issues for Jones, and Machida showed that the unorthodox striking style does as well.  Rashad has a bit of both.  Rashad also KNOWS Jones better than anyone, and from everything that has ever come out, Rashad used to get the better of Jones in the sparring sessions.  Yes, I know Jones has improved since then, but sometimes those things are enough.  I think Rashad will end up taking the title from Jones.  I'm calling it now.

My birthday is tomorrow but my wife threw my party this weekend and what a party it was.  My buddy Damon brought me some awesome glasses, another buddy brought 100+ jell-o shots which were all devoured within an hour.  My friend Karissa spent 8 hours making me a cake shaped like a woman with big tittays.  Of course we ate the crotch out first.  The wife bought a fog machine which set the smoke alarms off for hours.  We didn't give a shit we were drunk.  My dog ran out the front door a few hours into the party.  apparently he was jealous and figured he needed to go get some doggie style on himself.  He showed back up the next day and slept the entire day away.  I did much of the same.  I feel very blessed to have such a great group of friends.

I really do


I'm switching my cardio up a bit.  More interval work again and less steady state.  No reason other than boredom and the fact that I think I've kinda stalled out on the steady state.  I'd have to add more or go for longer and I'm just not going to do that right now.  So I will be knocking out 15 minutes of interval training every morning.  Maybe another 15 in the evenings.  I have a couple of weeks to play with what I want to before I have to start really getting down to business.

For those that listened to me on Iron Radio I wanted to emphasize something we talked about that should really hit home.  The peak strength in 6 weeks discussion.  THAT to me, seems to be about as true as it gets. I think inadvertently I have doing that with most of my programs.  If you look at my philosophy and programming it usually falls around planning for six weeks.  Just through my own experience over and over again, 6 weeks is about right for strength gains on a repeated movement.  In other words, you're doing the same movement every week during that time.  After the 6 weeks you tend to stall, then as I noted in the podcast, you kind of fall off the cliff.  This is also why I've never bought into the 3 week-then deload bullshit.  I've often hit my best after 5-6 weeks of hard training.  After that I find the same thing every time.  Everything starts to feel heavy, then strength dips, and I need to take a break.  This is just an accepted part of strength cycling.  That's why I don't sweat bad sessions anymore.  It's to be expected.  Especially after you've had a month of kicking ass.  Realize those shitty training days as something GOOD.  Your body is letting you know it's time to rebuild and repaid and rest is needed for that.  Take that time off so it can.  Don't be a stubborn asshole about it.  If you are, you will get forced rest by the body.  After your break, start back in slowly again.  Rinse and repeat.  Works like a charm.

The other part of that is exactly why the first three weeks of the strong15 is planned around your openers.  It should be light and easy and prep you for the (drum roll) 6 hard weeks of training leading up to the meet.  After the light week you should be timed out pretty well to hit some big lifts.  Everyone who has programmed intelligently with it has hit PR's consistently in that time frame.

I am going to be transferring the blog into an actual website soon.  I want to grow it out to where I can have more content, more features, and just more shit.

It's Monday and I'm still tired from partying all weekend.  I hope everyone feels as shitty as I do.  I have the eye twitch going on again.  I need more rest and less lifting.

12 comments:

  1. Paul,

    You said once you could dunk a basketball at 5'11 when you were younger, how much were you squatting then? Do you think squats helped you to jump higher? And what bodyweight were you? Finally, besides squatting, what else do you think will help one to dunk a basketball?

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  2. I always had a good vertical jump. I've always been fast too, so it's not something I ever had to work at.

    I would say if I wanted to improve my vertical I'd practice jump squats and box jumps and just get stronger overall in my lowerbody.

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  3. Paul,
    What kind of interval work are you thinking about doing? As I get older (39 in 2 weeks), I feel like I need something more than steady state to keep body composition and general conditioning where I want it. But, I don't want to affect my lifting progress too much. Maybe kettlebell stuff, or stationary bike/treadmill intervals? Thanks. -MC

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  4. either boxing or like 15-20 40-yard sprints.

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  5. Happy B-day Paul:

    I listened to the Radio Show yesterday, great stuff and prophetic. I hit some rep and weight PR's in my bastardized version of Madcow in weeks 5 and the beginning of week 6, the end of week 6 and now my first day of week 7 Im missing the required reps and everything feels 100lbs heavier than it should.

    I am going to drop 4 days of weight lifting and add 2 days of conditioning, what do you think of 1 day a 3 mile SS brisk walk with my dogs and one day of pushing/pulling the sled? I do not want to sap any strength I have gained but I also want the conditioning work to be effective.

    Thanks in advance.

    Matty

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  6. If strength is king right now, then just keep the conditioning on the light and easy side. Sled work is out in that regard for me. I always end up going too hard.

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    1. Hey Paul happy birthday.

      Do you have any experience with SI joint injuries? I've had SI joint problems on and off for a year and a half and I can't seem to get 100%. I currently do a lot of hip mobility and hip flexor and piriformis work in addition to the good girl/bad girl machine before lifting or doing sprints. But it always seems to flare up and I end up crooked for a couple of days. I start playing Australian football again in April and I'm hoping to stay injury free this season but I'm afraid one big hit will mess up my SI joint again. Any ideas in addition to what I'm already doing to rehab/prehab?

      Thanks man. I love reading your blog and appreciate any advice.

      Rob

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  7. Hey man - Someone talked about this in another post. I believe it was rest that was the biggest factor in fixing it. Lemme see if I can find it.

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    1. Hello,

      haven't listened to the podcast yet, so the answer might be in there, but would you then run two cycles of 5/3/1 without the first (planned) deload and then only do the second planned) deload after the 2nd cycle (if at all necessary)?

      A belated happy birthday!

      Mike

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  8. I'm not a complete Jones nuthugger so I won't say 'when' he beats Evans. BUT if Jones does beat Evans will that be enough for you? I mean the kid finished 3 top ten light heavies in one year. Most fighters don't even fight three times a year period. And really, Machida was the only one giving Jones problems for that first round. Rampage was kept at bay by Jones' reach for 4 rounds. I never count Evans out, should be a great fight and telling of the future of the division.

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  9. Regarding the SPPC challenge, how do you feel about cleans either instead of the back off deadlifts on day 1 or in addition to any other day? I enjoy them and have usually added them in on everything I've done, usually 5-10 x 1-3 depending on how the day is going.I've also toyed with a few warmup sets before I do anything else to get a feel for how the day could go. Bad idea(s)?

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  10. Mike - You can certainly do that. And thanks.

    Robbie - Ok just to be clear here is why I am not sold on Jones.

    Zero knockout power. At 205 you can't be Tito Ortiz and stay champ long. In other words, you need to be able to knock people out. Jones can't.

    Shogun was hurt going into that fight. Everyoe knew that. He was not 100%.

    With Page he literally ran away from him everytime Rampage got inside and starting throwing. That's cowardly. If he's going to brag about how he's going to stand toe to toe with Page, then do it. He won't because he knows he'd get knocked the fuck out.

    Machida whipped his ass that entire first round. It wasn't until he got cut that the fight changed. After that Machida took some shots because of the blood in his eye.

    I'd like to see him win a war once. Instead of using his reach to keep everyone outside him. When someone gets around that issue like Machida, without getting a gashing cut, how is he going to handle it? Until he cut Machida he wasn't handling it at all. He was getting his ass beat. So we'll see.

    Mike - Stick with the program as is.

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