Montreal - Day 2

As my life would have it, I woke up at 5 and was unable to go back to sleep.  I didn't want to be awake, and I knew I had a long day ahead of me and my eyes were heavy, but it wasn't happening.

I had to meet Charles and Juan downstairs at 7:15 to eat and go train, so I just sort of vegged out in the bed.  Travel is hard on me for some reason.  I don't mean that in a bitch kinda way.  Generally it takes about two days before my hips and joints stop hurting.  Airplane seats seem to really fuck my hips and low back up a lot.  Not only that, but when I woke my elbows were screaming at me as if someone had taken a blow torch to them while I slept.  

Fortunately for me, I had to do presses that morning.  There's a deep amount of sarcasm in that in case you didn't pick up on it.  

After breakfast we headed over to Atlantis gym where we've been training, and went to work.  I knew a few sets in I wasn't going to have a very good morning but I tried to make the best of it.  

I wasn't going to barbell bench in the state my elbows were in, but for some reason db bench press doesn't bother them as much.  

Db Bench - 

30's x 40

40's x 30

50's x 20

100's x 10

150's x 5

100's x 20

Incline Press -

135 x 5

225 x 5

315 x 4

Pushdowns - 2 sets of 20

This was probably the worst session I've had in weeks and weeks.  Because of the travel and lack of sleep, I didn't sweat it too much.  Still, I'm a month out from a meet and it's not fun to have such lackluster sessions.

After training we headed over to the hotel for the seminar.  I told Juan "in about two hours we're both going to be fighting to stay awake."  Not because of the seminar obviously, but because neither of us like training that early and generally don't do so.  So I knew in about two hours we'd both get hit by that post workout fatigue.  

Sure enough, around 10:45 I started looking at the floor thinking how comfy that shitty carpet looked.  Juan turned to me and had what I call "doughnut eyes".  You know when someone is super sleepy and their eyes are just glazed the fuck over?  Yeah, like that.  

At lunch I got to meet the CEO of ATP supplements, Vincent Comtois.  We had a great talk about the supplement industry and the fact that supplements made in Canada are regulated more strictly.  Which is a good thing because it means whatever you see on the label, well, that's what is actually in that supplement.  So if you want to look into a name brand that actually contains what is in the bottle, check ATP out.  

I told Vince of my sleeping issues and he told me he had a supplement to help promote healthy sleep.  He kindly gave me a free bottle to test out (as I am writing this I can tell you that it worked REALLY well) for that evening.  

Post seminar I came back to the room, vegged for about an hour, then ate, caught up on e-mails and passed out.  I know some of the folks that helped get me here wanted to go out and do a little partying but I was really just too spent to do such.  I also told Charles I was going to take the morning off from training to rest up a bit.  I'm sure that made him want to call me a pussy and hit me in the nuts with a nail filled baseball bat.  

I will say that I feel like learning another language is something I really want to do now.  I hate everyone around me speaking French and not understanding a god damn word they are saying.  It's especially awesome when the women at the gym are talking to Charles about me and I have no fucking idea what they are gabbing about.  Apparently he told them I don't speak French and I color outside the lines as well.  

Overall, I'm tired as fuck but having a great time.  More updates soon.

Montreal day 1

So today was my first full day in Montreal.  Charles and Juan picked me up this morning at the hotel for breakfast, then afterwards we headed out for day 1 of the Bio Print seminar.

Charles went over a myriad of topics and the 14 points of bodyfat testing that gives an idea of hormone and/or mineral and vitamin deficiencies.  Charles also has great delivery and despite a topic that might seem boring, he has a way of presenting these things that definitely keep you from falling asleep.  Can't say the same for other seminars I've been to where listening to the speaker was about as fun as putting together one of those shitty entertainment centers from Target.

At lunch we went to a famous chicken place in Montreal that served an absolutely ridiculous roasted half chicken.  Charles and Juan eat slower than a crippled grandmother crossing the road, but I've used to pretty much everyone else eating slower than I do.

I also got to eat horsemeat for the first time.  A lady at the seminar had horsemeat jerky, and it was god damn delicious.

The seminar closed shop around 6, or a bit after, then the three of us went to train.  The gym itself was unbelievable.  The owner makes all of his own equipment it's very top notch.

Juan and I did back and bicep work and Charles did calves (for an hour).  I gave him a few pointers on what I did when I needed to bring my calves up and he put that work.  Let's say he had trouble getting down the steps after we were done.

I will do my best to give updates each day and fill in some pieces here and there.  I'm fucking beat right now so it's shower and relaxation time.

The Hardest Worker

Trials, Tribulations and Victories of the “Hardest Worker" – How I got to be the athlete that I am today

The “Hardest Worker” – that would be me, well, at least according to the inscriptions on the trophies I collected at the end of each year at gymnastics awards ceremonies throughout my childhood.   At the time, I was not too happy about this but knew it to be the truth.  I wanted to be the MVP. That is not to say that I did not do well, my mother has a closet full of ribbons and medals that say otherwise, but most the awards from that time were not the gold ones, unless Kim, my best friend and teammate, was absent from competition.  In these cases my first place finish was meaningless to me because the best girl was not present to challenge me.  

This pattern started shorty after kindergarten and continued until I was 14.  I wasn't the prettiest girl on the team (Sarah), or the most flexible (Christy), or the most graceful (Nicole), or the most technically proficient (Kim).  Nor was I the most fearless competitor (also Kim).  I was the hardest worker and so I became the strongest.  When I was seven years old, the senior girls coach, Ralph, gave my first nickname was "mighty mouse".  I loved the name and answered to it with pride.  In the early years, I was a mess – toes never pointed, posture never correct, runny nose from the chalk, unruly hair, and often walked around sporting a wedgy from my leotard.  

As a result of not being perfect, I was punished with endless conditioning and calisthenics.  In one particular training session I was deemed unworthy of practicing routines with the girls because I yawned during warm-ups (Kim will laugh about this when she reads this).  My coach was not very nice.  I often did push-ups, leg raises, pull-ups, standing back tucks, and squats jumps in solitude while watching the other girls practice the dance sequences of their floor routines.  I recall sitting out a gym pizza party because I was forced to practice my glide kip on the uneven bars.  I never really minded though – I loved the feel of the hard work.  Sometimes I was scolded for puking from over exertion.  If I puked, I was not allowed to have a friend sleep over that night – bummer!  As a result, I learned to hold my cookies!  On occasion, I would be sent home for “chickening out,” and this particularly bothered me.  Failing to fully attempt a skill due to fear, or “chickening out” is about the worst thing you can do in gymnastics – you endanger your own safety and that of the coach.  It implies a lack of trust in the coach and/or personal fear.  Both are big obstacles to conquer, and extremely difficult for an athlete to overcome.

This may sound crazy, but I started my own conditioning regimen at home with my friend, Kim.  We would run, jump, do calisthenics, play on the high bar and balance beam in my backyard, and play fight.  Yes, fight.  Somehow we figured out that beating each other up by throwing punches and wrestling was the best exercise.  Our parents were not very happy and the other kids that witnessed this kept their distance.

This work ethic came from my father Russell and my grandmother (his mom) Shirley.  My father has always lived by the notion that nothing brings more satisfaction than a hard day’s work.  Physical labor and building things with his hands have always been both his therapy and livelihood.  He does not understand the training that I do because I "pick things up and put them down" versus getting real work accomplished like raking leaves, shoveling, digging ditches, and roofing.  Most of my life when I told him I was off to the gym he would offer to give me work in the yard instead.  This might sound a bit odd because I grew up in New York City - Queens to be specific.  For those that are unfamiliar, there are parts of Queens that may seem similar to wilderness in comparison to Manhattan.  My grandmother was tough on me – she accepted nothing less than my best.  She taught me that the only way to get ahead was to work hard and set yourself apart from the others.

I was an anomaly. As a child, I sported a Mary Lou Retton haircut and I wanted to be just like Superman and Tarzan.  Some thought I had gender identity issues – I didn't.   I simply thought that Superman and Tarzan were way cooler than the female action heroes of that time.  I spent many hours daydreaming about swinging through the jungle, or running so fast that I could take off and fly.  It didn't help that I (too frequently) wore a T-shirt my mom gave me emblazoned with the phrase "Anything Boys can do Girls can do Better".  I was not the first of my friends to have a boyfriend.  Somehow I could never accept that there were activities that were gender specific, which leads me to the following…

In 1989, I entered Junior High School at the age of 12.  My school offered two morning activities before school – weight training for the boys and aerobic dance for the girls.  I wanted to participate in weight-training, and begged the PE teacher Mr. Hammer to allow me participate in spite of my gender.  He was hesitant (at first), but conceded when I demonstrated my ability to do pull-ups.  There were few weights - the club equipment was stored in an old closet.  We had a bench, some dumbbells, a dip bar, a pull-up bar, and some mats.  The club maintained a “Wall of Fame” in the gym that boasted various physical records.   The Wall of Fame consisted of three columns ( 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students respectively), and two entries – one for the boys and one for the girls.   As a 7th grade student I looked at the column of 9th grade boy’s records and told Mr. Hammer that I would break every one of those records - that day.  He chuckled – but stopped when I showed him!  Enough said.

Instances like this were the theme of my life for the rest of my teenage years.  My freshman year of high school I pleaded with my parents to buy me a Universal Station weight machine that was sale at Consumer Distributors.  My bedroom became a gym with a pull-up bar, incline sit-up board, multi-station weight machine, mini-trampoline, sand filled dumbells, and a stair climber.  I hung anatomy charts on the walls and inspiring pictures of athletes.  Admittedly, to an outsider, this was peak adolescent weirdness.  Three cassettes - the soundtracks from Rocky IV, Flashdance, and Footloose – were played on my mini boombox while working out every evening for two hours after gymnastics or track practice.  My younger sister was so embarrassed of me that she did everything in her power to keep her friends out of my stinky room.  At the time, I didn't know much about training and did every exercise that I knew - every single day.  I believe that everyone hoped my obsession would wear off, but it never did.

It was during theses years, 1991-1995 that being the Hardest Worker started to morph into being the MVP.  My passion for physical fitness became infectious at my high school and we started a physical fitness team that competed in the United Stated Marine Corps Physical Fitness Championships at a national level.  Gymnastics started to take a back seat after an injury and I focused more effort on track and field and physical fitness competition outside of gymnastics.  At the time I had exceptional leadership and coaching (thank you Mr. Featherston) and it gave me an opportunity to focus my efforts on specific goals.  I faced significant adversity during this time.  People were not sure what to make of me - especially the boys.  I was often made fun of and groped in the halls.  During my senior year, my pre-calculus teacher once drew a depiction of me on the chalkboard as a cartoon figure with huge muscles and lots of hair with a caption about me beating up my boyfriend.  My boyfriend was in the class at the time.  I arrived three minutes late to see the picture, hear a room full of laughter, and find my boyfriend somewhere between tears and rage.

I never gave up.  No amount of teasing, prodding, or labeling as a freak prevented me from being the hardest worker and reaching my goals.  A local newspaper once ran an article about me titled, "Is she human?" after I won the Marine Corps National Physical Fitness Championship (1995).  I had a strong psyche and a supportive group of friends and family, and this allowed me to press on.  I lived by two personal mottos.  The first, “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me”.  I can still hear my grandmother repeating it to me over and over again. The second, “if you quit once, you will quit again”.  I don’t know who said that to me - but it stuck.

I attended a large high school with more than 4,000 students, and I was somewhat of a legend after a school wide push-up competition in the auditorium during my senior year.   The competition was held onstage and a full audience counting reps.   Reps were performed together, with competitors dropping out when no longer capable of performing another rep.  Each rep was chest to the ground with a full lock out at the top. The final two competitors were the best male on the fitness team and me.   Brad did phenomenal – he did somewhere around 160 reps. Long after he finished I was still going.  I stopped at 500 – I am not sure why, perhaps boredom, maybe my wrists were starting to hurt.  I probably should have documented my experience at the time.  Brad was a true friend - he congratulated me, it didn't matter that I did more push-ups than him.  In case you have any doubt I am not a naturally gifted genetic freak – I spent countless hours doing push-ups on a daily basis to train for this. Anyone that knew me at the time can attest to my wacky ways of spending my free time.

Like junior high, my high school boasted its own wall of records, not in the main gym like my junior high, but in the weight room.  I was told that 17 years after I graduated that my records still hang on the wall (push-ups, pull-ups, dips, bodyweight bench press for number of reps).  My mile run time and standing broad jump distance have been broken time and time again, they were far from outstanding.  I ran into the new coach of the fitness team (when I was in high school he was doing his student teaching there are part of his undergrad degree in Phys. Ed.).  He told me that each year his students ask, "Who is Mounsey?" and they want to know whether those numbers are for real or some kind of twisted prank.

This makes me feel special.  I will not always be the best at everything in life but I will always be the Hardest Worker.   My advice - more people should spend less time complaining and comparing themselves to others and more time working!  My satisfaction is far more related to the effort that I put forth versus the end result.  The end result is often out of my control, my effort on a daily basis is not.

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Hoodies and long sleeve "death is winning..." for dudes

PRE-ORDER for hoodies and long sleeves start this week.  End on Friday.

Grab one!

http://store.lift-run-bang.com/mens/

10 tips to clean eating on a budget - Gillian Ward

10 tips to Clean Eating on a Budget 

1. Budget and meal plan - First step, set a budget for a week of groceries. Then, examine your current stock in the fridge and pantry. Make your own meal plan (or utilize one of the dozens of online sources) that includes items that you already have in the house. Be sure to incorporate perishables that are nearing their expiration. Now make a shopping list of what you will need to complete the meals. Have a snack or small meal before you shop to ensure that you don’t make unnecessary purchases motivated by your hunger. 

2. Cut down on packaged and pre-made – We buy these items for convenience and to save time but most of them are awful for us in addition to being pricey. Set aside 2 blocks of time per week to do food prep. I personally like Sunday’s and Wednesdays. These times are written into my schedule just like any other appointment that I can’t break. Invest in storage containers that can be frozen, microwaved and dishwasher safe. After a few weeks, you will become efficient and it will take half the time than it did the first week. 

3. Eat leftovers – After you finish a meal, don’t discard the scraps. Last nights dinner makes a great breakfast or lunch the next day. This is especially helpful is you are one of the people that misses breakfast due to lack of time. Pack the leftovers as an actual meal as opposed to just throwing them in the fridge. If you have to fuss with them you will be less likely to grab them. 

4. Buy cheaper cuts of meat - Experiment with cuts that are unfamiliar to you such as chicken thighs if you are always buying chicken breast

5. It’s not all or nothing when it comes to organic – We can’t all afford to stock our kitchen with nothing but organic products. The simple guide to the “dirty dozen “ and the “clean fifteen” will help tremendously with making educated decisions about produce. Check out the Environmental Working Group's lists to determine your priorities for organic purchases. There is even an iPhone app.

*Quality animal products including eggs, meat and dairy, and wild-caught seafood are worth investing more money in when it comes to your health and clean eating

6. Make your own dressings and sauces - The average bottled dressing costs $3.00 a bottle, and is loaded with preservatives, sugar and sodium. If you want an “organic” bottle of salad dressing, you’re likely to spend $5.00. You can make dressings at home for pennies with olive oil, assorted vinegars or lemon juice and spices. Here is a typical ingredient list from a very popular packaged dressing

 - INGREDIENTS: WATER, SOYBEAN OIL, SUGAR, BUTTERMILK POWDER. CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: SALT, DISTILLED VINEGAR, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, PHOSPHORIC ACID, XANTHAN GUM, ONION POWDER, GARLIC POWDER, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, SORBIC ACID AND CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (USED TO PROTECT QUALITY), POLYSORBATE 60, SPICES, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, PROPYLENE GLYCOL ALGINATE, MALTODEXTRIN (CORN), NATURAL FLAVOR, DISODIUM INOSINATE, DISODIUM GUANYLATE, SOY LECITHIN.

Need I say more on this topic. Why would you coat your healthy greens with corn starch and MSG?

7. Source online – Many ingredients on your shopping last can be purchased online for cheaper than the grocery store. Make a list of your most frequently used products and price online. 

8. Buy in-season produce and frozen veggies – The cost of a pound of apples can vary by as much as $2.00 per lb depending on the season. Stick with seasonal fruits and veggies. Many fruits freeze well - stock up when they are on sale. Blueberries are great example. Frozen options (without seasonings and sauces) are a great option too. The other benefit to frozen is that you don’t have to worry about tossing molded or wilted fruits and veggies every week. Most large markets always have at least one brand of frozen vegetables on sale each week. 

9. Buy in bulk – Grains, nuts and seeds, and expensive flours can be bought in bulk either online or at natural food stores. Buying from bulk containers allows you to only buy what you need and without the fancy packaging your costs are even further reduced. This is true of supplements too. If you don’t already know about this- check out TrueNutrition.com 

10. Stock up on the essentials during sales – set aside room on your pantry for stock. This seems obvious but is often neglected. I like to tell my clients to spend $15 each week of their budget on stock.

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The things that are going to hold you back in training

Information overload - The internet can be a wonderful thing.  We have all of the information in the world readily available to us at our finger tips.

The problem is, how do you decipher what information to retain, and what information to let go of?

I can't give an absolute solution to this problem because it takes a certain amount of experience to know when someone is telling you it's raining yet they are pissing down your back.

This is a big reason why so many experienced guys often preach the "basics" so much.  My pet peeve is that I've read many times from inexperienced guys on the net "yeah there's nothing new here."

Is that what you want?  Something new?  Do you really believe there is some magical book out there that has been kept from you that details all the REAL secrets of training, diet, and supplementation?

I've read where guys were put off by "another article that just says "squat, press, pull, eat a lot blah blah blah."  Nothing new here."

You're right.  It's not new.  But it is what works, and so far it's been the best thing we've known about the barbell since it was invented.  So why are you in search for something more complicated when the answer is right in front of you?

Training?  Lift three to four times a week.  Base your training around the big lifts.  Squat, press, deadlift, row, chin, dip, do some arm work.  Sets of 3-5 work really well for strength development.  Sets of 10+ seem to be more efficient for hypertrophy.

Diet?  Get 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.  After that, manipulate your carbs and fat up or down depending on if you need to gain muscle, or lose fat.

If you want to lose fat, bodyweight x 10 for total calories a day is a decent baseline to start at.  So if you're 250 pounds, then 2500 calories a day is about where you need to be.  This is a fairly aggressive model, but so what?  If that scares you, start at bodyweight x 12 for total calories per day.

If you want to gain mass, it's about 18-20 x bodyweight.  So if you're 200 pounds, then it's about 3,600 to 4,000 calories a day.  Yes, it's a rough guideline and someone will want to debate all the "in betweens" and that's part of the fucking problem.

Debating every little nuance of training and nutrition does nothing but cause paralysis by analysis.

Supplementation?  Stop spending so much money at GNC and spend that money on food.  Get a quality protein powder, a quality vitamin/mineral to cover your bases, some creatine, and that's about it.  

Conflicting goals - This applies to probably more than 90% of the recreational lifters I talk to.  They want to keep their abs, but also want to get as big as possible.  They want to run a 5K, look like Phil Heath, dunk like Michael Jordan, bike like Lance Armstrong, bench a thousand pounds, swim underwater for 15 minutes with a single breath, climb buildings like Spiderman, fly, survive in outerspace without a suit, flame surf on the sun, control tornadoes with mind power, and understand women.....all at the same time.

The best way to see a goal come to fruition is to decide on a singular goal, and put all of your energy into attaining that singular goal.  Period.

If you want to gain mass?  Focus on that.  Not "I want to gain mass....and put 30 pounds on my bench...and increase my vertical.....and...."

This applies across the board.  Pick a goal.  Smash it.  Rinse and repeat.


Inability to embrace discomfort - When I was 280+ pounds I can tell you that life was not a good time.  Oh it was a good time when I was eating what I wanted.  But tying shoes was not a good time.  Walking across a parking lot was not a good time.  Now I'm sitting at 265 leaner than I was last year at 265.

It sucked to feel like that.  It was something I said several times I would never do again (gain that kind of weight).  However after reassessing my goals, I knew I needed to be bigger if I wanted to see some strength goals get accomplished.

I had to embrace something I wasn't really comfortable doing in order to get to where I needed to be.
And THAT is what lifting and life is going to be about sometimes.  I could machine gun off a million cliche's about that right now but I will spare you.  The point is, nothing that is worth attaining will come easy.  If it does, good for you.  However 99.99% of the time getting to a place you desire to be will mean spending a lot of time embracing discomfort.

If you're not willing to do that, then it's likely you won't ever see the things you desire come to pass.  Ask any bodybuilder how much it sucks to diet for 12+ weeks to get into stage condition.  Ask a football player who is trying to make an NFL roster how fucking hard he has to work in order to leave enough of an impression on the coaches to make that happen.

Great things generally just don't fall on our doorstep via UPS.  If you want to find your own personal greatness, then get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  The amount of discomfort you are willing to submit yourself to is generally in parallel with the amount of greatness you're trying to attain.

Success - That's right.  Success.  Success can often be the biggest roadblock in attaining more success.  Because success is often the thing that causes so many people to rest on their laurels.

Anytime I've done a seminar I will always ask "who here has accomplished a significant goal in the last year?"  I will follow that question up with "and who here hasn't accomplished a new significant goal since that goal was attained?"

Every single time there are people who, once they hit that big goal they had been striving for, never pushed forwards past that point.  They cling to their success and proudly boast of it like the trophy they got from the pinewood derby race they won back in 88.

Attaining goals is awesome.  Sitting on top of them is not.

When people get motivated to accomplish a task and see it through, some of them have trouble refocusing on that next step.  That next step being another 5 pounds on the bar, or 5 less pounds showing up on the scale.

This behavior can be seen in people who will tell you "I've lost 50 pounds in the last two years" but still clearly have a ways to go in terms of fat loss.  Or the guy that proudly boasts of finally squatting 405, but hasn't squatted it since then, and isn't capable of doing so now.

Being proud of your accomplishments is a great thing.  Just don't let that pride get in the way of getting even better.  Write down goals in stages.  Literally.  So once something is accomplished put a slash mark through it, and write the following goal next to it.

And just an FYI, don't tell anyone your goals.  It's been proven that talking about your goals tends to make you realize them less.  Keep them to yourself as much as possible.  After you've accomplished it, then brag like a son of a bitch.  Then start your march towards the next one.


Confidence - Actually this should be "lack of confidence".  Confidence is such a driving force in our lives that it is often the biggest factor in success or failure.  When we are confident about something we literally stand differently.  Our posture is taller.  Our chin is up.  Our demeanor is completely reflective of the fact that we feel assured, strong, and vibrant.

When confidence is lacking it is apparent as well.  Our chest is sunken and our head is down.  Our eyes and demeanor tell the story of uncertainty.

Often times we are fully capable of something either physically or mentally, but can't see it through because of self doubt.  Grabbing momentum can be difficult at times.  Especially when we have had a string of poor execution or performance.  Those times will make us question ourselves and our methods.  It can cause one to overhaul everything they have been doing with the hopes that change will bring forth more success.

Sometimes that is what is needed.  And other times, it was simply a matter of our own disbelief.

Enduring to persevere through the lulls in training is an absolute requirement if you want to find success, find confidence, and develop the ability to weather setbacks, lows, and misfortunes.

If you train long enough you'll hit a plateau.  If you train long enough you will get injured.  If you train long enough you're going to have a string of training sessions where everything sucks, and seemingly nothing goes your way.

Finding confidence again during those times can feel like a monumental task.  After all, when life is raining shit on you it's hard to smile about the sunshine.

Remember that the lows in training are teaching you an awful lot.  Also keep in mind that in training, just like in life, that the present is never permanent.  The only constant is change.  If you keep plugging away progress will eventually be forthcoming again, and you will find momentum again.

You also need to remind yourself that confidence, like self esteem, is really a state of mind.  It is up to you to make a choice to decide how you feel.  I think sometimes it's hard for people to get their head around the fact that they can empower themselves that much.  If you don't feel confident, it is likely because you are dwelling on the wrong things, and for the most part just need to change your state of mind.

For example, a bad training session is really no big deal.  You get a chance to make up for it later.

A week, or even a few weeks of bad training isn't a big deal either.  You might just need a break for a while, then you can reload and have another run at things.

If you haven't made any progress in months and months, then perhaps some reflection on your training, eating, sleeping, and life stress levels need to be evaluated.

Remember that you're not alone in your stagnation.  Everyone has been there.  And everyone that hung tough in the fight eventually found their way through it.  So either you're going to see this through, and you WILL get better....or you'll quit, and become another guy that "used to bench 700."

State of mind.  Your choice.

Inconsistency - There's nothing worse than reading or hearing from someone that they did a program for a few weeks but "didn't make many gains off it."

Any program that you intend to follow deserves a fair shake.  That means, in my opinion, at least 6 weeks of really pouring your energy into it.  If you can't stay on a program for 6 weeks and follow it to the letter then the issue isn't with the program.  It's with your inability to be disciplined about follow through.

You cannot comment on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a training program if you don't stick with it long enough to allow the process to unfold.  Hypertrophy doesn't happen overnight.  Strength peaking doesn't happen in 3 days.  If you are program hopping for 6 months trying to find that "perfect routine" then that's 6 months that went by that you could have made progress just being consistent with one program.  That's time lost that you can never get back, and progress that was delayed from your training ADD.

To add to this, if you do decide to run a program, RUN IT AS WRITTEN THE FIRST TIME.  It's maddening to have someone tell me "I ran this program....but I changed this and did this other thing with it instead.  And oh yeah I changed out this part for this other thing too."

What's so hard about running a program in the manner it's presented to you?  Is that really so hard?

Find something - stick to it for an extended period - don't change anything about the original version.


Listening to the wrong people - If you've been training for a few years, then the guy offering you advice that has been training for a few years sounds a whole lot like the "blind leading the blind" to me.

The circle jerk of weak and small guys I see going on on the net now is fascinating to me.  They constantly criticize people who are strong, who are big, who have knowledge, and then proceed to break their recommendations down all the while being able to bench 225 and squat 315.  The guy next to them affirms their criticisms, and then offers up his advice on how he got his bench to 245, and his squat to 335.

It's like the Jiu Jitsu white belt sitting around with his fellow sparring partners watching UFC going on and on about what dog shit fighters those guys are.  Then commenting on how they would have reversed this, and choked a bitch out in no time flat.

Just stop.

I've read where guys have scorned, mocked, and belittled guys whose sandwich they can't carry, all the while giving bro fist bumps to some guy that benched 185 for 5 hard reps.  It's astonishing.

Now let me say that just because a guy is insanely strong doesn't mean he's knowledgeable either.  I have talked to a lot of very big and strong guys that really do not know a lot about training.  Ronnie Coleman, in his prime, could walk past the barbells in Dick's sporting goods and gain a kilo of lean mass.  If you're a guy that has to fight and claw his way to gaining a pound of lean mass every six months, he may not have a lot to offer you in the way of advice.

Thus, my point here still stands.  You'd still be listening to the wrong people.

Understanding a guys experience, his education, his accomplishments, and his degree of knowledge isn't that hard to find out in this day and age.  There are plenty of guys who talk the talk AND walk the walk now.  Do your research and find out who is an expert in their field.  Find out who they have worked with and who they have trained.  Do they have a track record of making people better, and being sought out as "knowing their shit"?  

It doesn't matter if you don't agree with everything they write, or espouse.  The whole body of work is what's important.

Over time you'll learn what to apply and what to discard.  Until that time it's probably best not to run around discrediting people who have a million times more knowledge an experience than you are currently in possession of.

Life - As the saying goes, "life gets in the way sometimes."  There will be times when training just has to go on the back burner because at the end of the day, it's a hobby for most people.  Now when I write "backburner", my definition of that is probably different than some others.  I would never flat out "quit" training.  Just that training or the goals associated with training aren't as big of a priority anymore.

Training can be a very valuable tool in terms of stress relief and escape when life does get "in the way".  Even in the most difficult of circumstances I can't see a reason why one couldn't find a way to train twice a week.  I also completely believe that dumping training all together would be a very poor choice even in the most stressful of times.  Training releases endorphins.  Now you're going to drop something that actually makes you feel good in a time when you are stressed and feel like shit?

Doesn't seem like a great idea.

If you're physically unable to train for a while, then that is a different story.  But dropping training because life is stressful doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  Find escape in training during that time.  You don't have to load up the bar and go for back breaking PR's.  Use that time to make training fun.  Get a pump.  Train arms all week.  Do whatever gives you that break from the things that are detracting from your personal happiness.

If you make training a part of your "life" that can be a good thing.  Just use it properly and at the proper times.  I wrote about balance a while back and the thing to remember is, balance is something that is achieved over a length of time.  At times, training can be a priority.  And at other times, it might not be.  Balance means understanding when something should and shouldn't be prioritized to make your life fulfilling.  If life sucks, it's very possible you're prioritizing the wrong things.

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Routine design - Part 1

Writing routines was always fun for me.

When I was younger I would write out literally hundreds a week.  Contemplate how they looked on paper, how that work might "feel" in the gym, and then write more.

I always found the myriad of ways you could structure training to be interesting, and I felt like I had a good grasp on what looked good on paper, and what would work in the gym.

Unfortunately not everyone seems to be able to do this.  People write out routines, then go on forums and ask people how they look.  I  never really understood that because I always felt like I could write my own routines and discern if they looked good or not.  Other people can't really tell you what routine looks good for you.  You need to spend enough time training to get an idea of workload tolerance, frequency tolerance, and what set and rep schemes resonate with you as a lifter.  I always felt like it was asking someone else what a certain food tasted like.  Go try it yourself, and see if you like it.  That's the best way to know.

Writing out routines, or figuring out program structure isn't a lot different.  After you've spent enough time in the gym you should be able to discern what looks good on paper for you in regards to what you can do/tolerate in the gym.

So with all of that said, let's break down some of the components of routine design.

Frequency - 

Before you decide on frequency, you have to ask yourself a number of questions that pertains to it.

1.  How many days a week can I physically make it to the gym?

Now the fact is, I won't really allow for a lot of excuses here.  However if you don't have a car and rely on someone else (like a youngster might), then you have to work that out with whoever would be driving you.

If you DO own a car then you should be able to start with "7 days a week".

2.  How many days a week do I "want" to train?  

This is an entirely different question.  The fact is, some people don't desire living in the gym.  And that's really ok.  Lots of people have this thing called a life outside of the gym, and it's full of magical places like their friends house, their significant others house/apartment, restaurants, parks, museums, movie theaters, etc.

And then there are other people who truly enjoy just spending a lot of time training and immersing themselves in the iron.  They may train 6-7 days a week, sometimes training twice a day.

It really all depends on what you like here.  There is no specific right or wrong answer.  That is, until we come to the next question...

3  How many days a week do I "need" to train?  

Notice the difference in wording here from question 2?  The primary word change is "want" and "need".  Those two words mean very different things.

You may only want to train three days a week.  But in order to reach the goals you have set, you may NEED to train 4 or 5 days a week.  Answering this question will force you to be introspective about training, and how serious you are about attaining your goals.

On the flip side, if you haven't made progress in a very long time and you've been in the gym 6-7 days a week, you may NEED to train less.

Sometimes overzealous people need to do less.  I think a lot of women in the fitness industry probably train too often.  I've known some that train three times a day, when you include their cardio sessions.  They often look stringy and flat because of this.  Not only that, year after year they seem to make very little in the way of progress because they are afraid to eat more, and afraid that if they miss a training session they will lose muscle.  Shit, there are plenty of guys just like this too, so I will try to not to just hang this perception on females

Remember that training is a stimulus.  And once the stimulus has been achieved from training, the recovery cycle has to take place at some point.  Otherwise, no progress will be made.  What sucks about that is, you can indeed train your ass off, and basically make no progress.  People who talk about being "hardcore" are often the ones that spin their wheels the most.  They may have heard the saying that "you don't grow in the gym", but they can't seem to get those words sunk deep enough into their skull to actually apply the meaning.

This question of "need" will essentially spawn off several other questions.

"How many days can I recover from?"

"How many days do I need to get the optimal amount of work in?"

"What is the combination of those two factors?"

When you arrive at the conclusion to the last question there, you should be able to answer number 3.

If you want my general answer it's this.  I've never seen a reason why you can't reach your goals training 4 days a week.  Lots of people do even better with just three.


Mass or strength?  

The next question seems like they could or do work very well together, but to the dismay of all the "powerbuilders" out there, they really don't.

The fact is, training for maximal strength is very different than training for maximal hypertrophy.  And you need to decide on one or the other, and train towards that goal.

A guy training for a powerlifting meet doesn't need to do the type of training an offseason bodybuilder would.  Nor does a bodybuilder need to worry about the amount of weight he can lift for a single rep max.

The powerlifter isn't going to flex on the platform.....well, I guess he could after an attempt but he's not going to be judged on his symmetry or lines.  And no one gives a shit what the bodybuilder on stage can bench press.

Now all the powerbuilders out there will say that you can mix in the two.  The fact is, you'll end up a little stronger, and a little bigger, but you won't really maximize either the way you could have if you had prioritized one or the other.  Besides, I've grown to hate the term powerbuilder.  It generally means a guy who goes to the gym that isn't going to compete.  So you're just a gym goer.  That's it.  That's all.

I've written many times about the difference in moving weight through space, and making the muscle work.  When you're training for strength you should be all about moving the weight through space in the most leverage efficient position as possible.  For the purposes of bodybuilding, or hypertrophy, you should be all about accentuating the eccentric potion of the movement, and making the muscle work.  You should also be keen on what movements you need to do, and how to do them, in order to improve certain areas of the musculature.

While it's true that you can't totally isolate a bodypart, you can use movements that do indeed place more of an emphasis on certain parts of the muscle than others.  Some people used to argue this fact, but there's been research done that has shown that certain movements do in fact place a greater emphasis on certain areas of the muscle, than others.

For example.....

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24978835

Ten young, resistance-trained men were recruited from a university population to participate in the study. Employing a within-subject design, participants performed the SLDL and LLC to muscular failure using a load equating to their 8 repetition maximum for each exercise. The order of performance of exercises was counterbalanced between participants so that approximately half of the subjects performed SLDL first and the other half performed LLC first. Surface electromyography was used to record mean normalized muscle activity of the upper lateral hamstrings, lower lateral hamstrings, upper medial hamstrings, and lower medial hamstrings. Results showed that the LLC elicited significantly greater normalized mean activation of the lower lateral and lower medial hamstrings compared to the SLDL (p < 0.05). These findings support the notion that the hamstrings can be regionally targeted through exercise selection.
This really shouldn't be of surprise, however it's nice to get confirmation through study that what you believed was thought to be true (though I will admit, I've gone back and forth on this one through the years).

I will give you my own experience in regards to this.

After I tore my quad, I did some self assessment work and determined that my quads indeed, were weak.  I was weak on hack squats, and basically anything that took my hips out of play when knee extension was called on to overcome a certain load.

So I made it a point this past offseason to make a point to bring up my quad strength.  The first few weeks every hack session I would strain one of my vastus medialis muscles.  Not bad, mind you.  Just enough to remind me that my quads were weak and lacking.  The fact is, hacks made my quads do the work without the aid from my hips and adductors very much.  Two areas I was much stronger in.

I had the same issue with high bar squats.  I stayed more upright, and pushed my knees out harder than previously.  I would slightly strain my VMO every few weeks with these as well.  To me, this was a good sign.  It signaled that my theory was correct.  My hips, glutes, and adductors were plenty strong.  But my quads were an area of weakness that needed to come up.

Eventually that happened, and I stopped straining my VMO.  I was eventually doing doubles with 585 in the high bar pause squat.  So all the work I did in the offseason paid off with some squat PR's, and being well rounded in my lower body strength.

Now that I've gone around the world and back to make a point about movement selection, you can see why it's important to make a choice about what you are training for.

If you want to train for mass, then your movement selection will probably need to be configured a bit differently than if you are training for the big three.  Yes, having phases where you build on one can and will indeed transcend into the other, however it's more beneficial to concentrate on one than trying to ride two horses with one ass.

If you notice, I didn't include "cutting".  I don't really believe that training looks any different for losing bodyfat.  You're either trying to build or maintain lean tissue (the latter in a cut phase), or trying to build or maintain strength (again, the latter in a fat loss phase).  If you're in a fat loss phrase it's still paramount that you ask the body to work hard in order for it to WANT to hold on to lean muscle mass.  Now bodybuilders who are in the last few weeks before a show aren't going to want to push the limits in training.  The joints ache and they are usually quite dry from low carbs, so that's a great time to snap some shit up by going too heavy.  Up until that point, you should still be training hard to give the body a reason to retain that lean tissue.

My recommendation here is this.  EVERYONE should be using the offseason to either get lean, or build mass.  If you're over 15% bodyfat, you need to get that in check.  If you're in good shape in that department, then you should be working towards building more lean tissue.  Why?  Because regardless of what you read on the internet about "CNS" at the end of the day it's your MUSCLES that lift the weights.  And the more muscle you have, the more weight you're going to lift.

For the powerlifter, he or she should change gears once meet prep starts.  For the bodybuilder, nothing really changes except diet.  I feel like that should simplify answering this question.

In part 2 I will go over whole body routines, split routines, why I like both at various times, and what kinds of each I prefer.


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