Weight - 242 - cheated last night so this doesn't surprise me
Close Grip Bench -
135 x 15
225 x 5
315 x 1
365 x 1
405 x 1
Incline Db Press - 100's x 20
Pushdowns and Overhead Triceps - 6 sets
Notes - The 405 was easy and fast. I figure I'm still around 425 on close grips. This is without benching for quite a while and just doing some pec and tricep work and high rep inclines. So I managed to keep my strength up decently during this time. I only had minor elbow pain for the 365 and 405, but I'm going back to benching every other week. I think that suits me best.
Strength Life Legacy
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Training - Deadlift
Bodyweight - 239
Squats -
135 x 10
225 x 5,5
Deadlifts - Just gettin the reps in day
225 x 5
315 x 5
365 x 5
425 x 5
475 x 5
425 x 5
365 x 5
Notes - That was it. Exhausted today.
Squats -
135 x 10
225 x 5,5
Deadlifts - Just gettin the reps in day
225 x 5
315 x 5
365 x 5
425 x 5
475 x 5
425 x 5
365 x 5
Notes - That was it. Exhausted today.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Squats n Milk
Many years ago Randall Strossen wrote a book called Super Squat: How to Gain 30 pounds of Muscle in 6 weeks.
Sounds good right?
Basically, you do 20 rep breathing squats, with some pullovers and drink 9 dairy farms worth of milk a day, in a nutshell.
Breathing squats are squats where you take big deep breaths between each rep in order to well, breath heavier. Anyone who has ever done a 20 rep set of squats will tell you, this really isn't required. The "Golden Age of Lifting" crowd will tell you that you take the big breaths to help with rib cage expansion. Thus, why you do pullovers after the squats. So you can make your rib cage bigger. A bigger rib cage means a bigger frame, is the theory.
Maybe this actually does/did work for some people. To me, I never understood the need for the big deep breaths. When you do 20 reppers, you breathe heavy and hard enough without that shit. The only thing I saw happening with 3 deep breaths was hyperventilating and getting light headed. This doesn't seem like a smart mans way to squat to me.
Anyway, 10-12 years ago "squats n milk" became a mantra for all skinny "hardgainer" types. And it became the answer to all training related riddles.
"I want big arms"
"squats n milk"
"I want a big bench"
"squats n milk"
"I want to look like Arnold"
"squats n milk"
"I want a threesome with a my girlfriend"
"squats n milk"
Basically, it was like the "Direct TV hates puppies" syndrome.
"Time Warner offers this service free. Hundreds of dollars worth compared to Direct TV so you could be spending those hundreds on dog food. Puppies loves dog food, therefore Direct TV hates puppies."
Right?
No, wrong. Of course.
The idea was. But what got lost in it, by the dogmatic, was that the simple message was "do the big lifts, eat a lot of food, work hard, and you'll get big.
No, to the dogmatic, it was literally "squats n milk".
Literally.
It didn't matter if you wanted a bigger bench or bigger arms or a better deadlift or wanted to increase your overhead press. Everything had to start with squats and milk.
I don't know if it was intellectual laziness or dumb training advice or a real belief that high rep squats and milk cured all training woes and cancer. But shit got ridiculous.
I remember one particular message board guru who railed against me because I said you can get big and massive without doing squats and deadlifts. He even went so far as to call me to tell me I couldn't say that.
Bullshit.
I'm here to state, that's still a truth. If you never cared about a big squat or deadlift, you could do all sorts of lifts and still get as big you could get, from a genetics standpoint, without ever doing them. This is not blasphemy or sacrilege. Lots of bodybuilders get big as hell without doing lots of squats and/or deadlifts. In fact, many of them don't like squats or deadlifts from the fact that they don't always do the job that a bodybuilder might be looking for. If your hams need more work then stiff legs may be the better tool. Barbell rows and chins/pulldowns work just fine for filling out the rest of your back. And plenty of guys have built impressive wheels laboring on a leg press instead of under a bar.
I'm not saying squats and deadlifts are overrated either. They are still, IMO, the most economical movements you can do, and still the two best exercises in terms of demonstrating lower body and overall strength. However it doesn't mean they are requirements for building mass. And this kind of talk infuriated the squats n milk crew.
I also never understand all that work for a big ribcage. Some people say it's because you can fit more muscle on a bigger frame. This is bunk and bullshit. That is a genetically predetermined at birth. Lots of guys with big frames are naturally thin, and don't fill out very well. Anyone who has ever been around basketball players has seen some of these guys with huge frames, side wide shoulders, long clavicles, etc but these guys are walkings sticks. And they eat like they won't live to see the next morning. On the flip side lots of "small framed" guys carry a shit load of actual muscle. Your frame doesn't really have anything to do with how much muscle you can or will carry. Yeah I know, lots of really huge guys have huge wrists and ankles, etc so forth and so on. Everyone knows that "farm boy big" dude that has like 19" wrists and baseball mits for hands. So what? You can't train for that either. You got what you got. Spending that much effort to increase your ribcage by the smallest fraction seems galactically stupid to me. Especially when the return on your investment isn't anything guaranteed at all. You're probably not going to expand your ribcage. And again, who the hell gives a fuck if you can?
From an aesthetics standpoint, there isn't anything magical about making a bigger rib cage. A lot of that came from those old side chest shots you'd see where the guy had a big rib cage and somehow, that was impressive. So wanted that as a look. No one in bodybuilding gives a shit about rib cages, so I never understood the reasoning.
So what was so magical about it?
It was really just hard work, and eating. It doesn't really matter where the hard work comes from. You give me pathetically skinny 10 guys, and I can force feed the shit out of them and get them big as hell in a year. And I can do it without any of them ever back squatting or deadlifting. I certainly sure as shit would never use a breathing squat to do it. Some guy using a light weight to squat, so he can breath deep a whole bunch, isn't going to make half the progress of a guy that piles on as much weight as he can for medium-high reps on other leg movements like leg press or hacks or whatever.
In the end, it's really all about weight on the bar. The rest is bullshit.
Squatting to get big arms will not work as good at building big arms if you don't bench, dip, chin, curl, row and concentrate on moving big weights there too. You can grow a big ass upperbody without ever squatting or doing leg work. Don't anyone tell you that's not true because everyone knows guys that have stick legs and massive upper bodies. So which is it?
Again, a lot of it was witch craft. The dogmatic squat n milk guys know you can build big arms without squats, however they didn't want the noobs turning into douche bag beach lifters. Guys that walk in and bench and curl every workout. And I find this to be noble. I had to run an asshole out of the squat rack this past week for curling in it on my squat day.
But at the same time, taking a hard line stance or being dogmatic about something will only paint you into a corner and sooner or later you get exposed as a fraud. Or at least your advice does. Once you've been doing this long enough, you will know bullshit when you see it.
So do squats n milk actually work?
Sure. For some people I suppose. But I've never met a really massive strong guy that swore by breathing squats. I've always heard the legend talk about some guy in a gym that did em that looked like he was a former Mr. Olympia and shit like that. But in 21 years of doing this shit, I've never talked to a guy that impressed me physically that said he owed it all to breathing squats. Generally it's the same shit. Squat heavy, pull heavy, press heavy, do some fun stuff, eat a shit load of food. That's your recipe to get as big as possible.
Milk? Yeah, lots of us drank the shit out of some milk to build mass. Works good. In my teen years I relied on food for the most part. Shakes weren't as tasty then and often bloated me up too much, allowing me not to eat as often or as much. Now there is a whole "don't drink milk" crowd crying like bitches about how we're the only animal that drinks the milk from another animal. Which is also bullshit, but I don't feel like ranting about that now.
Now high rep squats work. But my personal opinion is that they work better as a supplemental piece to your training. After a hard set of 3 to 5, for example, or after some singles. As the main stay I think they have some draw backs.
For one, I don't think that beginners or relative novices get as much out of them as they can. Mainly because the form breaks down, they get injured a lot, they cut depth when it gets hard, and they flat out don't have the ability to train with enough intensity to get the return investment on them. New guys need to learn the movement, get a feeling for what their groove should be like and do a lot of volume real often with it until it's all pounded into stone.
Guys who can knock out a good looking set of 315 x 5 on squats are probably advanced enough to benefit from a high rep back off set. 225x20 or something like that. But shit like 135x20 and shit like this, I feel, is really a waste of time.
IMO high rep squats and deads are really advanced techniques that beginners and novice trainers should not be messing with. You can make plenty enough gains doing set of 5-12 for years when you start before you need to resort to high rep sets. I also don't think the benefit of doing sets of 20 in the squat are as great until some real weight can be thrown on the bar. 225x20 is kind of a minimum standard but really 250x20 is probably even better. An even better thought is that you probably don't even need high rep squats until you can squat 405 balls deep without a belt. Just my opinion. It doesn't mean you can't throw in a high rep set here or there, but a "widow maker" with 155 pounds is pretty much laughable weak sauce. My wife has done 135 x 20 and she's 120 pounds with an artificial hip. So let's keep things in perspective here.
Let me also add that because of the leverages you are born with, some people may be able to do high rep squats and benefit like crazy (Tom Platz) and some people may not (tall lanky guys).
I've written plenty of beginner routines and you will never find a 20 rep squat set in my beginner routines. There's no reason for it. A basic 3x10 works just fine. Why complicate shit?
You should definitely complicate your milk and add as much shit as possible to that however. I recommend starting with a basic chocolate syrup.
Sounds good right?
Basically, you do 20 rep breathing squats, with some pullovers and drink 9 dairy farms worth of milk a day, in a nutshell.
 |
| In case you never ran across the squats n milk crew |
Breathing squats are squats where you take big deep breaths between each rep in order to well, breath heavier. Anyone who has ever done a 20 rep set of squats will tell you, this really isn't required. The "Golden Age of Lifting" crowd will tell you that you take the big breaths to help with rib cage expansion. Thus, why you do pullovers after the squats. So you can make your rib cage bigger. A bigger rib cage means a bigger frame, is the theory.
Maybe this actually does/did work for some people. To me, I never understood the need for the big deep breaths. When you do 20 reppers, you breathe heavy and hard enough without that shit. The only thing I saw happening with 3 deep breaths was hyperventilating and getting light headed. This doesn't seem like a smart mans way to squat to me.
Anyway, 10-12 years ago "squats n milk" became a mantra for all skinny "hardgainer" types. And it became the answer to all training related riddles.
"I want big arms"
"squats n milk"
"I want a big bench"
"squats n milk"
"I want to look like Arnold"
"squats n milk"
"I want a threesome with a my girlfriend"
"squats n milk"
 |
| "Two chics at once...squats and milk man" |
Basically, it was like the "Direct TV hates puppies" syndrome.
"Time Warner offers this service free. Hundreds of dollars worth compared to Direct TV so you could be spending those hundreds on dog food. Puppies loves dog food, therefore Direct TV hates puppies."
Right?
No, wrong. Of course.
The idea was. But what got lost in it, by the dogmatic, was that the simple message was "do the big lifts, eat a lot of food, work hard, and you'll get big.
No, to the dogmatic, it was literally "squats n milk".
Literally.
It didn't matter if you wanted a bigger bench or bigger arms or a better deadlift or wanted to increase your overhead press. Everything had to start with squats and milk.
I don't know if it was intellectual laziness or dumb training advice or a real belief that high rep squats and milk cured all training woes and cancer. But shit got ridiculous.
I remember one particular message board guru who railed against me because I said you can get big and massive without doing squats and deadlifts. He even went so far as to call me to tell me I couldn't say that.
Bullshit.
I'm here to state, that's still a truth. If you never cared about a big squat or deadlift, you could do all sorts of lifts and still get as big you could get, from a genetics standpoint, without ever doing them. This is not blasphemy or sacrilege. Lots of bodybuilders get big as hell without doing lots of squats and/or deadlifts. In fact, many of them don't like squats or deadlifts from the fact that they don't always do the job that a bodybuilder might be looking for. If your hams need more work then stiff legs may be the better tool. Barbell rows and chins/pulldowns work just fine for filling out the rest of your back. And plenty of guys have built impressive wheels laboring on a leg press instead of under a bar.
I'm not saying squats and deadlifts are overrated either. They are still, IMO, the most economical movements you can do, and still the two best exercises in terms of demonstrating lower body and overall strength. However it doesn't mean they are requirements for building mass. And this kind of talk infuriated the squats n milk crew.
 |
| Just from an observational standpoint, you can't tell what kind of training philosophy someone has |
I also never understand all that work for a big ribcage. Some people say it's because you can fit more muscle on a bigger frame. This is bunk and bullshit. That is a genetically predetermined at birth. Lots of guys with big frames are naturally thin, and don't fill out very well. Anyone who has ever been around basketball players has seen some of these guys with huge frames, side wide shoulders, long clavicles, etc but these guys are walkings sticks. And they eat like they won't live to see the next morning. On the flip side lots of "small framed" guys carry a shit load of actual muscle. Your frame doesn't really have anything to do with how much muscle you can or will carry. Yeah I know, lots of really huge guys have huge wrists and ankles, etc so forth and so on. Everyone knows that "farm boy big" dude that has like 19" wrists and baseball mits for hands. So what? You can't train for that either. You got what you got. Spending that much effort to increase your ribcage by the smallest fraction seems galactically stupid to me. Especially when the return on your investment isn't anything guaranteed at all. You're probably not going to expand your ribcage. And again, who the hell gives a fuck if you can?
From an aesthetics standpoint, there isn't anything magical about making a bigger rib cage. A lot of that came from those old side chest shots you'd see where the guy had a big rib cage and somehow, that was impressive. So wanted that as a look. No one in bodybuilding gives a shit about rib cages, so I never understood the reasoning.
 |
| Not the look I am going for |
So what was so magical about it?
It was really just hard work, and eating. It doesn't really matter where the hard work comes from. You give me pathetically skinny 10 guys, and I can force feed the shit out of them and get them big as hell in a year. And I can do it without any of them ever back squatting or deadlifting. I certainly sure as shit would never use a breathing squat to do it. Some guy using a light weight to squat, so he can breath deep a whole bunch, isn't going to make half the progress of a guy that piles on as much weight as he can for medium-high reps on other leg movements like leg press or hacks or whatever.
In the end, it's really all about weight on the bar. The rest is bullshit.
Squatting to get big arms will not work as good at building big arms if you don't bench, dip, chin, curl, row and concentrate on moving big weights there too. You can grow a big ass upperbody without ever squatting or doing leg work. Don't anyone tell you that's not true because everyone knows guys that have stick legs and massive upper bodies. So which is it?
Again, a lot of it was witch craft. The dogmatic squat n milk guys know you can build big arms without squats, however they didn't want the noobs turning into douche bag beach lifters. Guys that walk in and bench and curl every workout. And I find this to be noble. I had to run an asshole out of the squat rack this past week for curling in it on my squat day.
But at the same time, taking a hard line stance or being dogmatic about something will only paint you into a corner and sooner or later you get exposed as a fraud. Or at least your advice does. Once you've been doing this long enough, you will know bullshit when you see it.
So do squats n milk actually work?
Sure. For some people I suppose. But I've never met a really massive strong guy that swore by breathing squats. I've always heard the legend talk about some guy in a gym that did em that looked like he was a former Mr. Olympia and shit like that. But in 21 years of doing this shit, I've never talked to a guy that impressed me physically that said he owed it all to breathing squats. Generally it's the same shit. Squat heavy, pull heavy, press heavy, do some fun stuff, eat a shit load of food. That's your recipe to get as big as possible.
Milk? Yeah, lots of us drank the shit out of some milk to build mass. Works good. In my teen years I relied on food for the most part. Shakes weren't as tasty then and often bloated me up too much, allowing me not to eat as often or as much. Now there is a whole "don't drink milk" crowd crying like bitches about how we're the only animal that drinks the milk from another animal. Which is also bullshit, but I don't feel like ranting about that now.
 |
| Nothing wrong with milk unless you're lactose intolerant! |
Now high rep squats work. But my personal opinion is that they work better as a supplemental piece to your training. After a hard set of 3 to 5, for example, or after some singles. As the main stay I think they have some draw backs.
For one, I don't think that beginners or relative novices get as much out of them as they can. Mainly because the form breaks down, they get injured a lot, they cut depth when it gets hard, and they flat out don't have the ability to train with enough intensity to get the return investment on them. New guys need to learn the movement, get a feeling for what their groove should be like and do a lot of volume real often with it until it's all pounded into stone.
Guys who can knock out a good looking set of 315 x 5 on squats are probably advanced enough to benefit from a high rep back off set. 225x20 or something like that. But shit like 135x20 and shit like this, I feel, is really a waste of time.
IMO high rep squats and deads are really advanced techniques that beginners and novice trainers should not be messing with. You can make plenty enough gains doing set of 5-12 for years when you start before you need to resort to high rep sets. I also don't think the benefit of doing sets of 20 in the squat are as great until some real weight can be thrown on the bar. 225x20 is kind of a minimum standard but really 250x20 is probably even better. An even better thought is that you probably don't even need high rep squats until you can squat 405 balls deep without a belt. Just my opinion. It doesn't mean you can't throw in a high rep set here or there, but a "widow maker" with 155 pounds is pretty much laughable weak sauce. My wife has done 135 x 20 and she's 120 pounds with an artificial hip. So let's keep things in perspective here.
Let me also add that because of the leverages you are born with, some people may be able to do high rep squats and benefit like crazy (Tom Platz) and some people may not (tall lanky guys).
I've written plenty of beginner routines and you will never find a 20 rep squat set in my beginner routines. There's no reason for it. A basic 3x10 works just fine. Why complicate shit?
You should definitely complicate your milk and add as much shit as possible to that however. I recommend starting with a basic chocolate syrup.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Training - Back and Biceps
Weight - 238
Db Rows -
60 x 20
110 x 35 per arm
Chins - body x 5 sets of 5 parallel grip
Db Shrugs - 110's x 60
Notes - Getting ready for my birfday party so I just grabbed the 110's knocked out a set of high rep rows, some chins and shrugs. May do some biceps tomorrow with more shrugs.
Db Rows -
60 x 20
110 x 35 per arm
Chins - body x 5 sets of 5 parallel grip
Db Shrugs - 110's x 60
Notes - Getting ready for my birfday party so I just grabbed the 110's knocked out a set of high rep rows, some chins and shrugs. May do some biceps tomorrow with more shrugs.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Training - Press
Bodyweight - 238 < - yes!
Incline Press - 135 x 15, 185 x 8, 225 x 20,10,5,5,5
Tit Machine - 3 sets of 10
Side Laterals and Pushdowns - 3 sets of each
Notes - Tired as shit tonight. Elbow felt ok though. Weight is starting to peel off finally. I'm thinking 230 will be about right. This diet seems to be working really really well as I can't do a lot of conditioning right now (or I could, but I hate doing cardio on machines).
Still, a bad workout is better than picking up this guy....
Still, a bad workout is better than picking up this guy....
Lean back, and enjoy the ride
I can remember days in my youth when my relationship with lifting was nothing but pure love/hate.
I can remember days of getting on the scale after weeks of big eating, and weighing the same, and then cursing the inanimate object as if it were its fault.
I can remember being stuck on a certain number of reps with a certain weight for months on end. Some of them still stick in my head from that time.
100 pounders in the incline db press for 8 reps
Clean and press 185 x 5
Incline Press 245 x 8
315 x 13 in the squat
I was not naturally strong at all. I wasn't that guy that deadlifted 585 the first time he really tried it, or benched 315 after three months of lifting. I can remember squatting 155 pounds for 8 reps and feeling like it was going to crush me. The first time I ever bench pressed, I was 14 and I could do the bar for 8 reps. Max.
No joke.
I was 114 pounds. I couldn't squat the empty hack squat machine, couldn't do a chin up.
I look back now, and I'm glad that I was nothing, and came from nothing, in terms of lifting ability. It makes me appreciate the ability I have now more than the naturally gifted, I believe. I love to talk to other guys that came up the same way. We generally have a lot of great stories to share and laugh about, and have often traveled the same roads.
What I am getting at here is, I am a very average guy in terms of genetics. When you look at how my lifts have progressed by no means do anything about me scream "freak". I've added about 100 pounds to my deadlift in the last 10 years (650ish). About that to my squat too (635ish). My bench was good early on, I cheated up over 400 by the time I was 20 but shoulder problems put my bench in the shitter for the better part of the last 15 years. It's only been the last few years of getting it diagnosed properly and me figuring out how to train it properly that have put it back up over 400 consistently.
When I was younger I wanted it all right then. I wanted to look like Arnold and be able to lift like Kaz.
I accepted long ago that I will never look like Arnold or be as strong as Kaz, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I live in my own little lifting world where my own progress and goals and issues are my own. I don't really care what someone else does, or get jealous of their lifts or physique. My own path is my own, and worrying about what anyone/everyone else does doesn't effect it. So why put any emotional energy into it?
I don't. Not anymore. It's useless. Pointless.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our want of something, that we don't enjoy the journey to our destination. Like going on a trip somewhere you are so excited to get to, you may miss all sorts of things on the way there that are incredibly interesting because you are so narrowly focused on the end destination.
If you know that you're probably going to lift for the rest of your life, then be cognitive of that. Enjoy the journey, the progress, even when it seems like there isn't any. It's like investing money. Your returns may not be evident now, and sometimes you may even go backwards, but good decisions will eventually put money in the bank.
So enjoy the ride.
I can remember days of getting on the scale after weeks of big eating, and weighing the same, and then cursing the inanimate object as if it were its fault.
I can remember being stuck on a certain number of reps with a certain weight for months on end. Some of them still stick in my head from that time.
100 pounders in the incline db press for 8 reps
Clean and press 185 x 5
Incline Press 245 x 8
315 x 13 in the squat
I was not naturally strong at all. I wasn't that guy that deadlifted 585 the first time he really tried it, or benched 315 after three months of lifting. I can remember squatting 155 pounds for 8 reps and feeling like it was going to crush me. The first time I ever bench pressed, I was 14 and I could do the bar for 8 reps. Max.
No joke.
I was 114 pounds. I couldn't squat the empty hack squat machine, couldn't do a chin up.
I look back now, and I'm glad that I was nothing, and came from nothing, in terms of lifting ability. It makes me appreciate the ability I have now more than the naturally gifted, I believe. I love to talk to other guys that came up the same way. We generally have a lot of great stories to share and laugh about, and have often traveled the same roads.
What I am getting at here is, I am a very average guy in terms of genetics. When you look at how my lifts have progressed by no means do anything about me scream "freak". I've added about 100 pounds to my deadlift in the last 10 years (650ish). About that to my squat too (635ish). My bench was good early on, I cheated up over 400 by the time I was 20 but shoulder problems put my bench in the shitter for the better part of the last 15 years. It's only been the last few years of getting it diagnosed properly and me figuring out how to train it properly that have put it back up over 400 consistently.
When I was younger I wanted it all right then. I wanted to look like Arnold and be able to lift like Kaz.
I accepted long ago that I will never look like Arnold or be as strong as Kaz, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I live in my own little lifting world where my own progress and goals and issues are my own. I don't really care what someone else does, or get jealous of their lifts or physique. My own path is my own, and worrying about what anyone/everyone else does doesn't effect it. So why put any emotional energy into it?
I don't. Not anymore. It's useless. Pointless.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our want of something, that we don't enjoy the journey to our destination. Like going on a trip somewhere you are so excited to get to, you may miss all sorts of things on the way there that are incredibly interesting because you are so narrowly focused on the end destination.
If you know that you're probably going to lift for the rest of your life, then be cognitive of that. Enjoy the journey, the progress, even when it seems like there isn't any. It's like investing money. Your returns may not be evident now, and sometimes you may even go backwards, but good decisions will eventually put money in the bank.
So enjoy the ride.
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