Welcome. Thanks for stopping in.
I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you think. (Maybe it is.)
Part of what you’re seeing is the mess that August has been. Time and energy has been tight.
My daughter has been out of school for the month. A week of vacation and the rest of the month trying to work full-time from home and spend half+ days with her. Time to think, but only like 20-30 minutes of non-contiguous time to lift.
The Calvert-based routine took a bit over an hour, 3x a week. Used to use my lunch time for that.
But it was doing what I wanted to do, mostly. Both from a “physique” standpoint, and from a “functional strength” standpoint (mostly shows up with kid stuff, especially with them climbing all over me and stuff at playgrounds). Actually also from a “health” standpoint too; resting heart rate is down, aerobic endurance is up.
So, I’ll be going back to that when I can, which should be next week.
In the meanwhile… I’m mostly just BSing and doing what I can.
Easy Strength has been making the rounds in various training logs. I also read Sheiko’s powerlifting book. I made a hybrid of the two, focusing the clean, press and the deadlift. Basically the variation from Sheiko with the time commitment of Easy Strength.
Those tie into some genuine long term goals:
In the interim, it just so happens that I learned of a thing called “strengthlifting” – dumbest name ever – and also learned there’s a local competition doing basically that: press + deadlift. I’m going to do the video-only “qualifier”, and may or may not sign up for the in-person meet.
With limited time and energy, it’s at least something clear to focus on.
(Rippetoe is the one who came up with strengthlifting, but that’s as close as I get to anything he’s involved with.)
I do appreciate the general goals callout though. It probably needs to be clearly stated.
- get stronger at the clean, press and deadlift
- use Calvert’s stuff for “functional strength” and “physique” goals, and see where that takes me (and whether it lives up to its hype)
- if I still have time, energy, and work capacity left over, throw in some more modern “bodybuilding” methods to focus on shoulders, chest, arms
The emphasis I put on 1 and 2 will probably flip-flop a lot.
The actual Milo courses had a progression. The First Course was a general course, for physique and “bodily strength”. You’d do that for at least a few months. If not longer. Then the Second Course moved into actual lifts, Olympic lifts and static strength. Then, if you’re so inclined, the Third Course moved into stunt work for various traveling circus strongman performers.
While it may seem on the surface like it’s about static feats of strength, a good chunk of the programming is actually higher rep “bodybuilding” kind of work. For instance, squat variations are progressed in the 20-40 rep range, alternating shoulder presses from 12-24, etc. Miserable to do, but was working for me too.
Calvert himself actually became a lot more interested in the bodybuilding side of things as he got older, as he states a few times in Super Strength. Look the part, and be strong, but not so much as interested in building world-class lifters.
All that said, yes, @Alpha for sure is inspiration and a role model. He and I crossed paths back when I was on this site years ago. Pretty cool you’ve found success with his training methods.
Last thing, here’s a couple of Calvert’s prime example lifters. This is the realistic ballpark in terms of physique. Not Kazuya, lol.
