I’ve also allowed myself to not squat or front squat heavy due to this. The closest thing is a front squat with weight i can clean and jerk…
Which a) i dont think is a problem given my current situation and goals and b) I’m sure one can adhere to the spirit of the program and also squat and deadlift a few reps during the mostly-overhead hour.
Or in any additional hours haha.
PS did you add Waiters Walk to your list?
Edit just saw you suggested 10% for the non-overhead essentials.
Love it.
Chaos.
Absolutely dude! Rather than waiter’s walks, I AM thinking about including a “spend X amount of time getting up off the floor”. THAT is such a super valuable skill too, and a workout in and of itself.
It would totally fit with picking a weight off the floor and putting it overhead. Another good point. And as far as “get up off the floor”, I’m realizing that the Turkish Get Up does that AND get puts a weight over your head. I should definitely spend some time on that.
The TGU is something I always forget about and kick myself for doing so. It’s such a great full body tension movement.
The bent press is kind of a joke, kind of serious. Last time I messed around with them I strained an oblique, which means I need to do them more or not at all haha.
I much appreciated it, similar to the “hold a shoe” reference, but as a strongman I HAVE seen folks use it on the circus dumbbell, so it’s win-win, haha.
I’m ALSO realizing that the 10% corollary would actually work out really well for the nutritional portion of this too. “10% of your meals will not comply”. Assuming 21 meals a week (3 per day, 7 days a week, the “standard”), that means 2 meals “off plan”. Given that I’m a supporter of a carb-up meal once a week, that works well. It would allow for 1 planned deviation and 1 unplanned one (got stranded, forgot to bring lunch, moment of weakness, chaos is the plan: life happens). And I feel like we still meet the intent of a 3 sentence training plan, because you absolutely DON’T need to employ the 10% corollary. If you want to be super strict, you can do that and totally succeed. But if you want guidelines on how not to comply: there you go. I give you 10%.
I’m actually thinking of referring to this principle as “tithing”, because I’m cute that way.
Similar to how a lot of coaches will program curls into whatever program they’re doing, because “the trainee is going to do them anyway: I may as well tell them HOW to”. The “needle exchange” philosophy.
Pwn, this keeps getting better.
Really and truly does.
And not everyone is in a situation where this training method applies - if you’re training for a powerlifting meet, probably do something else. But remember the guy who posted and said “I have a 20 minute lunch break every day. It’s literally the only time I can train. What should I do?”
20 minutes of picking things up off the floor, 5 days per week - could do worse with your time.
Thanks man! You absolutely nailed it. This isn’t a prescription for max strength, size, conditioning, etc: it’s for physical transformation. The body WILL transform under these parameters. It will become SOMETHING better. Those in need of muscle will add serious muscle if they’re putting away the meat and eggs and moving loads overhead. Those that need to shed fluff will shed it when they’re NOT eating junk and moving weight over such a long distance for so long. And the force variety will make us all better at maximizing our toolbox.
Dude, for reals: my experience, at least, has been: if I am actually satiated with meat and eggs, I have zero desire to eat the junk. The junk was just there because I was LIMITING the meat and eggs, because, for some stupid reason, I had it in my head that meat and eggs were bad for me while a Snickers bar was good. Like…how f**king backwards. Only humans could convince themselves that eating processed sugar coated junk was “natural” but if I eat 4 eggs a day instead of 2 I’m going to have a heart attack.
Well, this plan just made contact with “the enemy” and already I’m seeing how the world isn’t ready for it.
I have the day off work and I was treating myself to a long walk on a nature trail this morning. A dude on the other side of the trail signals me, I take out my earbud and he asks
“How many calories?”
I express confusions and he goes on
“How many calories do you eat per day?”
I inform him that I’ve never counted a calorie or macro in my life and that doing so sounds like an awful way to live. He says
“Well that’s the route I’m trying to go. You look like the size I want to be, so I’m curious how much I should eat.”
I spring into “Meat and eggs, when hungry, until not”. He tells me he’s doing that, but thinks he’s losing weight too fast…while at the same time expressing a concern that he’ll OVEREAT if he doesn’t have a calorie goal to shoot for. He says he doesn’t have self control.
I say “No self control necessary: I stop eating when I’m not hungry”.
He tells me he eats meat and eggs even when he’s not hungry. …riiight…
I say “That sounds like eating out of boredom. I like to go for walks when that happens”
He then wanted to talk training. I shoulda gone into “pick things up off the floor and put it overhead”, but all he could talk about was using training to burn calories…even though he thought he was losing weight too quickly. He added a 15 mile bike ride to his daily activity.
Like Zarathustra, I feel people may not be ready for this message…
It amazes me how much people want complicated when simple will get you more than 80% of the way there. I am used to overthinking and overkill (it comes with engineering training) but working out/training has always been the one thing that has stayed simple to simple-ish for me. Move something heavy a lot + Eat lots of protein = muscle growth. Everything else is minutia.
People want it complicated, IMO, because it gives them an excuse when they don’t succeed: “It was too much to figure out” “I needed a personal trainer to teach me everything and I couldn’t afford it.”, “How do I optimize gains” “What if I have small wrists?”, “I won’t gain muscle without TRT/pharmacological intervention.”
100% this. And along with that, it also eliminates the obvious issue: “I wasn’t working hard enough”. No no, I was absolutely putting in all the effort: it just wasn’t with the right magical formula!
Which is why this guy wanting to know calories is a great demonstration of exactly that. He figured he must be getting the MATH wrong.
This is why I hate it when trainers or “influencers” say you shouldn’t feel at all terrible immediately after training. No, you should feel a bit run down/beat/weak. Otherwise, what have you accomplished? That feeling should recover quickly, especially if you have been training for a long time. It amazes me how many people I see “working out” at the gym who don’t even break a sweat in 2+ hours of being there.
Yup! I swear, going to a public gym feels like going to a library. No one is making noise! People look at me like a freakshow because I’m breathing hard, falling down on my knees, laying down, etc. Aren’t we here to work?! Haha.
