I had the full English breakfast while vacationing in the Caymans once. Amazing.
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Glad you were into it, if you’re ever in the UK I’d happily extend the offer to cook one for you! (We might not have a globally renowned reputation for food, but full English, fish and chips and a Sunday roast are specialities!).
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I might do that. I retire in a few years. I would like to spend time in England and the Hamburg area (that is where the family is from originally). I even told my wife I want to attend the Wacken Festival. She seemed dubious about that. Thank You!
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Thanks for taking the time to write that up dude. You’ve sold me on ordering the 45M ebook and I plan to start it after I finish my current cycle. I’m slowly realizing as I get older that I’m not the best self-programmer and I need someone smarter than me to say “do this, not that”.
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22/01/25 - PM
45M W2 B5 D25
Strength (and technique)
Deadlift: 60, 60, 100, 120, 140, 160, 160, 160kg x 3
S/s
Hanging leg raises: 6 x 5 sets
“Volume”
Even mins: GHR x 5
Odd mins: KB swings 24kg x 5
Got to round 4 and felt like I’d undercooked this whilst recognising that my hammies and glutes would get the perfect amount of stimulation, so added:
Unilateral DB bent over rows (opposite hand on sandbag, switch and go, so 10 reps total per min): 40kg x 5
10 mins
Didn’t want to do an EMOM for the deadlifts, still feeling the technique out and the clock puts a pressure on that I don’t want to be there, I want space to really think through and then analyse post reps, make sure I’m ingraining good reps.
Saying that videos I think show that there were a couple of very minor ramps, I was thinking about various queues and forgot the “don’t ramp” queue, kept that in mind and that helped. 160kg is definitely the perfect weight for this at present, no panic about getting it, no pressure to pull fast to break through sticking points, I can take time and am always confident that the reps will be there it’s just a case of executing them well. Practicing where the start is slow is probably going to be useful in maintaining composure and form when the weight gets heavier and doesn’t move fast off the ground.
The volume was solid, built on some fatigue from the deads, happily almost all in hammies and glutes. The additional 6 sets of rows was a good call, but glad there was only 6 sets of it not 10, not much rest from a minute after doing GHR/KBS and then doing a unilateral movement, I did briefly consider doing it 1 side per minute but decided to be better than that.
Vids to follow!
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I am so with you on this, I think the more I relinquish it the better I feel about it as well, I realise that I don’t really care about the theory, I just want the results and smarter people than me can spend their time and energy on learning and experimenting and finding the most effective ways, I’ll pay them for their efforts and save my energy for execution of the plan and then the rest of my time and effort on stuff I care about more than lifting theory.
I really enjoyed @T3hPwnisher latest blog post, I was definitely identified my younger self with this:
However, these trainees are ALSO, quite often, intellectually stupid: despite the VOLUME of material they consume, they lack the ability to understand and apply the majority of it. My background is POLITICAL science, and even from that I learned how to read a study, which, in turn, also gave me the ability to learn how to determine when studies were performed poorly, by observers who didn’t know what to observe with volunteers who were unfit to volunteer and controls that were poorly implemented, to say nothing of epidemiological studies that rely on self-reported information from a populace that has a terrible ability to recall information. So many young trainees just cut straight to the conclusion or the abstract: not looking into the details of the study, or rely on some internet talking head to do all the interpreting for them, ignoring the strong possibility of bias in reporting due to the fact that many of these folks have an agenda based around promoting their own brand (to say nothing of biases in studies based on who is funding them, but I digress). And many other trainees (myself HEAVILY included) are simply too stupid to understand any of the actual SCIENCE within the study itself
You’re welcome for the write up and definitely recommend Dark horse if you’ve ever got a period in life where you can dedicate time to smashing the crap out of yourself and then even more effort into recovery.
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Sounds like a great way to spend some retirement time; let me know nearer the time and I’ll throw you my email!
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Appreciate the tag, and allow me to “third” the sentiment about outsourcing the thinking here. I completely destroyed myself training for my last strongman competition, because I let myself do the programming, amalgamated a “greatest hits” of things that worked for me, and just like a greatest hits album, it’s amazing how putting all the “good things” together in one spot just isn’t as good as when they exist on their own. Meanwhile, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the Tactical Barbell system and feel like I’ve got something I can run for a LONG time, with an occasional allowance to go do something crazy when the need arises.
There’s so much peace when you have “one less thing” to think about. Clear out the noise and get some more bandwidth. Just like Dan John buying 12 of the same black polo so he never needs to think about what to wear in the morning.
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Deadlift videos:
60kg
60kg
100kg
120kg
140kg
160kg
Hopefully that’s all uploaded correctly, for reference my back was a little grumpy so I started with the neoprene belt, when you can see the lever belt that’s just the belt open over the top my hoodie, when you can’t see the belt (140-160 from memory) it’s still on, just lever closed underneath hoodie.
Hoping I got all the uploads right this time!
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Bingo! I have no desire to crunch numbers and so forth. I do enough of that at my day job. Just tell me what to do and I will do it. I don’t know about Dark Horse but I have been watching his videos and scouring his site and can say that RPM and Minimalist also look like things that fit my goals and could work with my schedule.
Oh my gosh, if this isn’t the topic of a future blog post I will be disappointed.
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Dude, I legit had no idea what I was going to write this week, so thanks for this!
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23/01/25 - 204.75
I ate a fair volume yesterday, I didn’t eat until about midday, but ate the following:
Chicken breast, potatoes, peas (and mustard)
Banana & 25g of whey
Banana & 50g of whey (pre and post wo)
3 eggs
2 chicken breasts, 250g Greek yogurt, 25g cheddar, a huge volume of veg (most of which I wouldn’t consider but there was a fair bit of sweet potato in the mix).
Then my wife came home from a meal out with some leftovers - so ate some burnt end brisket bits (they were awesome).
I assume that my slight blip up in weight was transitional food volume (noting this just for interest sake, I’m not bothered). For interest I ran this through chatgpt (copied and pasted the above and asked it to do macros for me)
Protein: 259.6g
Carbs: 159.8g
Fat: 56.3g
Calories: 2,109
It’s not counting stuff it’s not aware of (olive oil that the veg was roast in is the main example, can’t thinking of anything else off the top of head). It’s a slightly higher than usual protein day and the EVOO would push the fats slightly higher (as would my normal 6 eggs a day), but it’s nice to see me landing somewhere in the ballpark of where I’d aim for, without measuring or counting - the joy of just eating single ingredient, homemade stuff.
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24/01/25
45M W2 B6 D27
Strength
A) Wide grip pull-ups: 4 x 4 sets
B) Banded OHP red bands: 20, 40, 50, 60kg x 4
C) KB swings: 24kg x 8 x 4 sets
D) Russian twists: 10kg x 8 e/s x 4 sets
Volume
Banded OHP red bands: 40kg x 5 x 6 sets, 35kg x 5 x 4 sets EMOM
S/s
Neutral grip pull-ups: 2 x 10 sets
Assistance finisher:
Sandbag floor to overhead: 50kg
AMRAP - 5 mins timer
After writing up about DH I felt like I could sneak a little extra work in here, particularly with OHP, without significantly adding to time. It worked, and that top set was better than last time where I failed rep 4, it was an absolute grinder, but I didn’t give up and got it done.
Kept a little bit of extra work in with the volume, but kept it minimal - absolutely pristine form on the pull-ups though. The last time I did this I did 35kg x 5 x 10 the jump up, the extra grind on 60kg, the extra work in giant setting and super setting the EMOM, all conspired to make me stall out after rep 3 on set 6, tried to rest pause it, got 1 rep, then had to push press the second (5th), dropped the weight and was ok until the very final rep, which was also a push press.
Finisher was an interesting challenge. Haven’t counted the reps yet:
Edit, watched it I count 16 reps.
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Banded OHP what it sounds like? Sounds pretty good. Good work, I mean.
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Respectfully, if you catch me trying to fool around and get cute with the sessions when I start this program next week (beyond my daily non-negotiable stuff), kindly smack me upside the head. You’re stronger and more experienced than me so I won’t comment, but that’s why I’m here, for the accountability. It’s my first time paying for programming in awhile and I want to do it right.
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Yea absolutely, I followed it pretty much to the letter first run through and I fully recommend that, this time I’m happy to sneak the extra in because it is a paired back program and I did have a little extra time today, plus I’m absolutely destroying my diet tonight, intentionally, friends over from Canada and a celebration, ate a large dominos, a lot of melted cheese, bread and pickles, plus 5 or 6 non-alcoholic beers, so I’m going to say I needed something more to recover from!
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Yup, same as last time:
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I cannot be held accountable for my past writing.
Also I think I just don’t understand banded OHPs.
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It’s like a regular OHP, with bands!
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What I mean is…I don’t understand the point