Alpha’s quote,
“-Go hug your loved ones, life can change pretty quick…”
b
I have spent the biggest part of my life in emergency service, starting as a volunteer fireman 25 years ago and now as a Sheriff’s Deputy…please, please go hug your loved ones, make that call. Of all the advice given on this thread or for that matter on T-Nation…wiser words have not been written…
Alpha, you are an inspiration…
Flow: thanks a lot bro, the 5/3/1 progression seems to be working pretty well, hopefully it will continue,
Thanks again bro
Thanks Badmf…it means a lot man
Thanks a lot dent…funeral is today, we will see how it goes…
So after the last workout my back felt fine…That night my back seized up in my sleep and i woke up in a lot of pain and walking pretty funny. It still will do weird twinges from time to time like it wants to seize up but then it releases.
Last night I got up to go tot he bathroom, with no pain…without warning it clinched and felt like I was getting stabbed…it seriously made my legs buckle- then it released again…weird
this hasn’t really happened to this extent before – anyone else have this happen at all?
“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”
-Arthur C. Clarke
06.29.09
Training: 5/3/1 - Week 2- Day 3 - wave 2
Warm-up: Dynamic
BB Flat Bench: Based off of 450lbs
Bench:
70% = 285/3
80% = 330/3
90% = 370/8
Accessory Work:
Superset
Blast strap Face Pulls: 10, 10, 10, 10 (just like an inverted row, but pulling to the face)
Dumbbell Incline: 140/12, 130/9, 120/10, 115/7
Giant Set
Blast Strap Pulls: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10
Blast Strap Dips: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10
Blast Strap Ab Layouts: 7 sets of 10
Rehab Work:
External Rotations: 30/10, 30/10, 25/10
Foam rolling
LAX ball
Stretching
Contrast showers
Notes:
-No energy systems work because I didn’t have a lot of extra time with the funeral and junk today, and I want fresh legs for squats tomorrow…
-all of my sets of bench felt heavy today–but 370/8 is a pretty good set…and all of the accessory stuff felt pretty good as well…
-My back has been feeling better today…I guess no one else really has these things happen to them. I am wondering if it is because of the broken bones…But I figured Modi or Hanley probably has had something like this happen…If anyone was has, hit me up and let me know…
Side notes:
Funerals are sad…But it is even more sad to see parents put their kids in the ground…
One of the the best books I have ever read on the subject of loss is “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” by David Crowder–if you ever go through some tough times and deal with crap like this a lot, give it a read…
Take it easy,
b
Really solid session, Alpha - particularly considering you’re probably not feeling at the top of your game right now. Good job.
Try to keep your chin up.
Mate,
Re the back - I haad some really funky twinges when I herniated my L4-5; sometimes at night I would just move a bit and then - whack - came the pain. Sometimes numbness as well. Solution for me was a lot of lying prone, a lot of hyperextensions and reverse stretches in the sagital plane. I think even light hypers and supermans are worth putting in the nightly stretch routine (do them in the gym only if you look mean enough that no one will give you shit - which you kind of do).
You seeing / seen an osteopath at all? Being a scientist / engineer by trade, I am skeptical of all witch-doctory, however I am now wholly converted to the osteo approach. They will analyse you until they figure out your issues, instead of treating symptoms. Got me from dragging one leg like a leper back to sprinting for my University.
See how you go with the squats - sometimes spinal compression can make these things pretty bad. Sitting on planes ain’t good either…
Other stuff:
I realised how few loved ones I actually have. Losing one would change everything for me.
I hope you can find your new outlook and push to it. I think it might be the only way.
PJ84: Thanks a lot brother…Things will start to get easier from this point on. Funerals allow for closure…I’ll be good in time.
Badmf: It’s weird man. This happens about once a month (either after a hard DL session or if I do not load my spine with some heavy junk for 4+ days) but it feels the same either way. There is a little bit of numbness but nothing like when I broke my L3 and L5…
It sounds similar to what you said though…I will be fine sitting still but when I moved “twinges” of pain shoot through my back…sometimes it is severe… And it will only last for about 2-3 days and then I am good for a while again…
I currently don’t go to a chiro or anything like that simply because I have not found one that hasn’t told me to, “Stop squatting and dead lifting, they are the worst things you could be doing”, and that, “Leg press is just as effective and safer than the other 2”…If I could find one that wasn’t such a pansy, they would have a client for life!
and thanks for the kind words bro, believe me, this will pass and better things are quickly approaching…
06.28.09
Fuel:
1 Scoop of Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey, 1 Scoop Metabolic Drive. 2. Biotest BCAA’s. 1 Scoop L-Leucine, 1 Scoop Superfood, 1 fish oil, 1 Flameout, 1 HOT-ROX
Turkey and swiss on wheat, 1 Flameout, 1 fish oil, 1 BCAA, orange
1 Scoop of Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey, 1 Scoop Surge, 15 Biotest BCAA’s
1 Scoop of Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey, 1 Scoop Metabolic Drive, 2.Biotest BCAA’s
Turkey and swiss on wheat, 1 flame out, 1 fish oil, 2 BCAA’s, Grapes, Strawberries
Turkey Meatballs, 1 Flameout, 1 Fish oil, 1 BCAA
1 Scoop of Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey, 1 Scoop Metabolic Drive, 2 Biotest BCAA’s, 1 fish oil, 1 Flameout, Superfood
Mate, with my osteo I said - this is what is going on. I lift this many times a week, and I lift this much weight. Fix me so I can do that and live happily without pain. They said no worries, and we got it done.
Actually, a secret might be finding a student osteo clinic; students spend ages with you and are really interested in your problems; osteos are about fixing you to suit the life you want to lead, rather than saying, I will massage this, but don’t do anything to hurt it. So if you are near a college / med school that teaches osteos, they will likely have a clinic where students get experience under professors. Good service, and pretty inexpensive too.
Otherwise, just work on both mobility and reducing the pressure / load on your low back through posture and corrective stuff. Stu Macgill (write on T-Nation a bit) has some great advice. Actually, you should see if you can contact him via the mods or other authors.
Use your celebrity on here for personal gain!
Im Sorry about the rough news.
Training is looking rugged.
Date Tate has a good theory on blast and dust-
that when something in life is on a blast- the rest can be dust.
Use the dust to go a big training blast.
you asked about feeling pain like being stabbed??
I have some serious neck junk going on- and it often feels like a big spike is stuck in my neck-
its nerve impigement or shit stuck between the vertabra ( or around it) getting smooshed.
kmc
Badmf: Thanks so much for the great advise bro! I actually live next to a University, so i may see if some hot young female students would like to practice on me!
knc: Man you are completely right brother! I was actually thinking about that after reading his intro for that book on the site… Hey have read that book yet? I am thinking about it, but am not totally sure I’m sold yet…Let me know what you think if you have gotten the chance to check it out.
And as always thanks for the kind words and great advise…
“Successful people share a willingness to get uncomfortable.”
-Alwyn Cosgrove
06.30.09
Training: 5/3/1 - Week 2 - Day 4
Warm-up: dynamic
(ATG) Squats: Based off of 560lbs
(ATG) Squats:
70% = 355/3
80% = 410/3
90% = 460/7
Accessory Work:
Giant Set:
Front Squats: 295/5, 315/5, 335/4
Good Mornings: 225/10, 245/10, 245/10
Cable wood chops: 7 sets of 8 reps each side
Superset:
BB Rows: 225/10, 225/10
Seated Calf raises: 180/10, 180/10
Notes:
-460/7 is not too bad, like I said before as long as I a doubling what I am supposed to get on the last set…
-I think I may be taking a few weeks to see where I am at strength wise, then I will jump back to 5/3/1 or 5x5 or something like that…To be honest, I am missing the giant sets and walking out of the gym smashed…
-I think 5/3/1 is great but I think it is really good for me when I am trying to recover from other heavy stuff…but again i could just be talking out of my arse here…
-Drew Carey sucks compared to Bob barker (The Price is right is on in the background as I am typing this…)
-I want to get some more vids up to let you guys know where I am at, and hopefully some PR’s will be broken–I guess we will know soon enough…
I would sell myself for my very own Plinco board…
-b
Keep pushing through, man. Your positive attitude even in the mist of life’s B.S. is something to be admired.
Thanks GuerilliaZen, yea I’m kind of tired of feeling sorry for myself…I appreciate your kind words
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
07.01.09
Energy Systems work:
35 Minutes interval running on the worst treadmill ever in Columbus Ohio…
Got here at 2300 Last night and am headed back out in a few hours…If I had more time here I would have tried to set something up at EFTS to see if those guys could help get my deads and squats up…But alas, it was not in the cards…
I 'll be posting another rant before I leave Ohio so check back later…
Seriously…the WORST treadmill in Columbus…
-b
So it’s about that time again…Agree or Disagree – It’s something to think about…
Knowledge does not always equal power…
Let me begin this soapbox session with two statements.
Number one: This rant is on a topic that has been haunting me lately, so please understand that I am preaching to myself here more than to anyone else.
That said…please don’t take this as a personal attack on you.
Well, unless what I say describes you…in that case - take this as a direct personal attack on you…
And Number two: Before I get 50 angry PM’s about how much of an idiot I am…I have ABSOUTELY nothing against knowledge.
In fact if it weren’t for knowledgeable websites like this one, I would not be where I am today. Not only in my training, but also not in my life.
However, I fear that we are at a point in our history where we are now so overwhelmed with what we should or should not do, that we end up simply doing NOTHING AT ALL.
In some ways the knowledge we have gained about our passion has paralyzed us from getting out there and pushing our limits in order to gain the experience that is needed for us to get to where we want to be. And the training world, whenever there are more words than actions, - a change needs to take place.
At times in my own life I have gotten so tangled and turned upside down by rep schemes, rep tempos, and time under tension, that I have forgotten that there are plenty of people out there who are a lot bigger, stronger, and faster than me, and none of them became that way by sitting around and thinking or reading about it!
It is these same revolutionaries that paved the way for all of the studies we have today, with their own blood, sweat, and puke. I would go so far as to say that the training world as we know it, is as complex as it is, simply because over the years, a few hard-headed individuals chose not to believe in the limits people tried to put on the human body, said “Screw the science” and made their gains through EXPERIENCE and hard work. It was not accomplished trying to perform every rep with an exact 3.762 second eccentric phase!
These individuals knew what they wanted, and although they may not have had the best road map of how to get there, they were all more than willing to do the leg work involved.
That’s a whole lot more than what I can say about lifters today.
What in the hell happened to us?
I would like to stand by calmly and say that none of this is our fault. I would love to say that it is society that has made us soft; that convenience and technology has brought us to a place where we had no choice but to adapt along with everyone else, and in doing so, we were sculpted into the weakened individuals that make up our society today…
But I can’t.
Or rather, I won’t.
You see, we are “PART” of a hedonistic culture. We have the innate tendency to run away from pain and move toward pleasure. This is why most people choose to do bench presses and curls instead of squats and deads. It’s why people would rather watch reality TV instead of actually getting out there and really taste the bitterness and sweetness of life. And unfortunately, it is also why so many people are weak, fat, and dying and not willing to do anything to actively change their situation…
As so many revolutionaries before us have proven, choosing the correct path, or even better, making your OWN path, requires Hard Work. And, in this culture, most people will avoid Hard Work like the HIV! They would rather choose to take the easier, already paved, road most traveled…
These people that choose the easy way out have a tendency to get really excited by “ShamWow” type marketing and often get distracted by shiny objects. In the ecstasy of reading a new article or seeing an infomercial, they ditch time tested basic barbell exercises for the latest greatest training techniques, or have collected an army of bow flexing, ab lounging clothes hangers covered with dust in their basements.
Weak-minded individuals like these also have often built up a veritable cornucopia of training knowledge, but have been plateaued in their training forever because they are avoiding the hard things that they hate doing the most, because Muscle & Fiction has them believing that working out should be easy and everyone can look like the guy on the cover.
To put it bluntly, these people suck at life…They acquired everything they needed to reach their goals, and yet, knowledge, equipment, and an electronic ab stimulizer wasn’t enough…The one thing missing was the most important…
The mindset to get up off their asses and put in the time and effort.
If we want to be honest and take a good hard look at ourselves, ALL of us have no choice but to admit that we have been given everything we need to attain our goals on a silver platter…If we are not where we want to be - We have no one to blame but ourselves…
99.9999% of people will never reach their goals and attain their true potential, not because they do not know how, but because 99.9999% of people are NOT willing put in the TIME and HARD WORK required to achieve these things.
Now I am not negating the fact that we all NEED a plan, a lot of knowledge, and the help of great coaches to take us to the higher echelons of our training…
But whatever happened to that anxiety before a workout where you can’t wait to get through the doors even though you know all that awaits you there is pain?
When, while training, you forget about women, work, and life, because the next set of power cleans in front of you is the only thing that matters at that moment?
â??These days are not foreign to us, most of us have visited that place inside of us before…
It was probably during one of those sessions where you considered calling a friend to drive you home because your squat weary legs were less dependable than a French guy in a fist fight, and the Spaghettioâ??s you ate for lunch are left on the locker room floor for some poor high school employee to clean up…
We’ve all had them — One of those days you left the gym “Better” than when you entered…
Now it is just one guys opinion here, but I am willing to bet that if we had more of those days and less “But my program tells me to stop at 4 reps” days – all of us would look and feel a lot different than we do right now.
There was probably a time in your life when you lifted weights and yet you didn’t know where your gastrocnemius was, or where a granny smith apple fell on the glycemic index…So you do understand that it is possible…
For most of us, it was probably when we first got into the iron game. And most likely, it was some hard-nosed coach or friend who told us that they would “gladly” help us get started.
Whoever it was… May not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, training wise, but instead of talking to us about “the crepitus and pain in their supraspinatus”, they chose to call us parts of the female reproductive system, threw more weight onto the bar and made fun of us until we “willed” that thing off of our concaved chests.
It was at this time that you lifted like an animal, didnâ??t get your “required” 1.58467 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, had no idea what a sternocleidomastoid was, and yet still made the best gains of your life.
You didn’t know exactly what you were doing, but it didn’t matter… You pushed yourself and good things happened…
Chalk it up to you being a beginner, or chalk it up to having balls…either way, most of us have fallen well below that level of intensity for fear of one thing or another.
You can fill in here with whatever scientific BS you want, but more likely than not, we lost that intensity and ability to make some of those gains because training like that was HARD, HARD work…and now we find that hiding behind excuses like recovery time, lack of sleep, and not enough nutrition are a whole lot easier for our weak little minds to rationalize that saying, “Screw the science” and getting it done anyway…Then again maybe I am way off base…
I cannot say that I know how hard you are training; But one thing I can say is that most of us have no idea what our bodies are capable of, and ALL of us could step it up a notch.
And if we are going to be completely honest with ourselves, most of us spend more time on the internet reading about the “perfect” program, exercise or rep range, and less time getting to the gym and picking up heavy things over and over again.
Sadly, in the last year, I think my fingers have developed more than my hamstrings…
for me, it is time for a change.
Like I said at the beginning, I am trying to not be hypocritical, and this has been written as my own wake-up call – But to any of you who can relate and feel a little bit convicted like I do, realize this:
The time is now! For the love of Megan Fox! Stop typing! Get out there and TRY it for yourself! You have legs and a heart; try using them instead of your fingers for once! Try using your body as a lab â?? run tests, take different supplements, give these things enough time to see if they work before you jump on one the boards screaming, “DC training sucks because I haven’t gained 20-lbs in two weeks!”
Try caring enough about your training to keep a log for the gym as well as your food. Then in a month you can look back at your lack luster results and see that you weren’t even sticking to your plan in the first place…The police call that a clue!
I am not requesting that anyone stop asking questions or reading articles! We can all learn a lot from each other.
But if your ratio of TALK/POSTS exceeds your ratio of time spent TRAINING, I am pretty sure you have a couple of things confused…
If like me, you can see parts of your behavior in this rant, please stop immediately! And for everyone’s sanity, rectify said behavior before we have to ask your skeevy Uncle Herman to explain this, and other mysteries of life, to you with a zucchini, a fruit roll-up, and a minimal amount of Vaseline…
In conclusion, Read your articles, ask your questions, do your research –
But if you find yourself getting too tied up in your brain with all these studies and statistics, put the computer down, go to your gym and get reacquainted with how people got bigger, stronger, and faster before they knew “How they were Supposed to”.
Change is coming.
Strength & Honor
-b
Once again after reading your words of wisdom, finding a comfortable position to sleep in tonight will be completely…well lets just say “not gun-a happen” !!!
fuck if this doesn’t apply to 99% of my life. Just switch out a few words for context…I gotta read this again later.
I got lucky when i started in the gym 4 weeks ago, i logged on here was given a program told to eat 2lb of Protein and 1 lb of Fat/lb of body weight.
Since then i have have come on leaps and bounds, in fact i outlift alot of people in my gym already in Squats and Deadlifts LOL
http://tnation.tmuscle.com/free_online_forum/blog_sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_log/big_beyond_belief_program
Thank god i ran into Modok and Cephalic before i started reading the million articles and getting even more confused 
But as i was told your not building a nuclear bomb, just building muscle, lift hard, eat alot and thats it !
Nice rant 
Mate,
The latest research suggests that an active male aiming for hypertrophy requires at least 1.86 g protein / lb lbm. Just kidding…
Spot on buddy. The only reason I read this stuff at all is because I can’t train all the time. And it gives me the fire I need for the days when training is hard.
Brings to mind a quote from my main man Winston Churchill:
Words are easy and many, great deeds are difficult and rare.
Alpha,
awesome rant, it really should be mandatory reading for many in my gym. Just looking at your log, how can you be directing any of that at yourself?
Nice rant. I gotta stop watching so many sitcoms.
I don’t think that sentiment can be stated enough.
Jim Wendler put it very well here: EliteFTS.com -Jim on the net - *strong profanity - YouTube
I know that’s who I was when I started and I still struggle with that mindset to this day.
Rants like that tend to wash away the bad connotation the word can sometimes have.
Spoken like some one from the trenches.
I am working to achieve a balance between scholar and practitioner myself, and it is an ongoing struggle. I find that balance shifts from one side to the other intermittently, but I have been good about just pushing the iron and forgetting about the foo-foo stuff when the time is right. That said, I still believe in the ability of the specific to address the general.
I really enjoyed the rant, and I hope you don’t mind me posting something to compliment what you said:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
I think this is relevant because so many arm-chair experts never allow themselves the privilege of “victory or defeat”.