Friday morning weight: 190.1
Thursday food:
9:00 - Bigass coffee, 1 1/2 scoops Metabolic Drive
11:00 - 3 eggs, deli turkey, cheddar, spinach/kale
2:30 - Indigo-3G
3:00 - Plazma, 5g creatine
4:30 - Clementine
6:00 - Chicken piccata (skinless chicken breast, breadcrumbs, chicken broth/lemon/caper sauce); white rice/cauliflower rice mix
9:00 - Mag-10; Cadbury egg
Thursday workout:
A1) Snatch-grip dead 5x3-4
A2) Neutral-close-grip bench 5x3-4
A3) Turkish get-up 5x2
B1) Front squat 5x3-5
B2) Gi pull-up 5x3-4
Adjusted the circuit to account for the “heavy” day. Definitely feels like cheating pairing 2 or 3 exercises instead of 7 or 8. Finding some more weights would be the easy solution. Maybe a Home Depot trip for chains?? Hmmm.
hope you dont mind me asking, you could disregard this if you are not interested, but being an author on tnation and all whats your opinion on the tgu? will they stimulate extra hypertrophy if you do them in a program that already contains full body exercises? they could of course stimulate some hypertrophy compared to doing nothing. it’s common wisdom i think that the tgu carry over to athletic ability - i believe its an old wrestling exercise. ive read somewhere (tnation of course) that the tgu is good for exposing weaknesses. it could be a sport in itself, how much do you tgu? just shear fun. did they do studies on tgu? risk of injuries?
personally, i go with the fun, some shoulder stabilization benefits and it ought to do something good for the hips, groin and pelvis.
/br bonoboschimp
Not questioning your knowledge or approach, but I am surprised by how little you eat at your size. I feel like I eat 2X that, and I’m in the mid-to-low 170’s. Maybe it’s because I do a pretty high amount of track work and running? Or maybe it’s because I’m underestimating the calories in the supplements that I’m not familiar with.
The epitome of the term compound movement. Often overlooked and/or dismissed as “some funky kettlebell exercise”. I refer to it as “weighted yoga” because you can’t/shouldn’t speed through a rep and you can take your time drilling each transitional pose. One full rep on one side might take a solid minute itself.
I wouldn’t expect them to really stimulate hypertrophy exactly because they disperse tension throughout so many muscles without really overloading any particular muscle group.
Really the only muscles that are going through significant ROM are the legs, whether you use a lunge style or squat style, but the load isn’t anything that’s significantly challenging to the legs. Pretty much everything else is working statically, which isn’t great for hypertrophy.
I actually learned about it in one of the first T Nation articles I ever read: Exercises You've Never Tried 1
And yeah, because so many bodyparts are involved, it works well as a diagnostic to find weaknesses. But shoulder mobility/stability will pretty much always be the first thing to notice.
I think Dan John has a test about doing a tgu with a cup of water, the goal being… don’t spill it. I haven’t tried it yet, but that’s definitely one way to make sure the arm stays vertical and doesn’t drift.
Not sure if you mean how much weight or how much like how often. How much weight, as I explained a while back, I use 185 pounds on everything. 
For how often, it’s sporadic. More due to attention span and/or focus than anything related to the exercise itself.
I haven’t checked, but I’d be super-surprised if they did. It’s a very, very niche exercise and I wouldn’t expect the majority of researchers to know what it is, let alone put major time into investigating it.
On par with most other overhead exercises and/or deep squats. Risk of dropping the weight on yourself, risk of the shoulder going a wonky way, risk of some ab/low back stress during the first transition up and on the descent, risk of some hip issues coming up from the bottom.
I do sometimes feel the same when I look back at it. Weird I don’t feel that way when it’s going down though, ha.
Not sure there’s a reason for that other than mostly convenience, It’s just easier and more intuitive for me to eat lighter during the day and go bigger with family dinner, which is also always post-workout.
Admittedly, I don’t really notate portion sizes for dinner and that’s always a larger meal. Like the other night with the chicken piccatta, it was almost two chicken breasts and probably a cup-ish each of white rice and cauliflower rice.
But yeah, without crunching the actual numbers, on paper it looks like it “shouldn’t” working. Of course, working is plainly evidenced by the outcome, for better or worse.
I do veer more towards “focus on quality, not counting”. That’s one-part legit copout to avoid weighing and measuring and one-part genuine faith in how they did stuff way back in the day.
But right now, I’m only training 4 days a week for about a half-hour each, and weekends (which I don’t typically write up) are generally loose for at least one day, so it’d be hard to justify 3,000 calories a day during the week.
FWIW, I’m all for this. No problem being questioned.
I hope it’s okay I chime in here. I recently (end of 2020) did the Simple & Sinister program, where you do 100 swings and 10 TGUs each day (well, 6 days a week). I kept this up for 6 weeks, and this was the basis of my training over that time. I worked up to doing all 10 TGUs with 28 KG (63 lbs). I agree with Chris’ assessment that they are not great for hypertrophy for the reasons he gives, but certainly worthwhile for other reasons. They are definitely like a weighted yoga move, and unless you go way too heavy for yourself, offer little chance of injury.
I was recently listening to a Dan John podcast on these, and he disagrees with Pavel in that going heavy on TGUs is worth it. After doing the program, I would agree. I think moderate weight with very controlled reps is the best. Perhaps in the 16-24 KG range for most. One note: these eventually caused me some jaw pain problems! Why? I was clenching my teeth pretty hard on these with so much time under tension and, I assume, the “concentration” factor to keep my balance and smooth movements compared to, say, a bench or squat. Took me a while to figure that out.
thank you for your elaborate and thoghtful response, and
holy diver! tgu with 185 pounds. okay… that’s impressive.
interesting. maybe i should use teeth protection. i have actually been thinking on that in connection with dead lift.
I was just joking on that. It’s why I linked that line to a post from a while ago.
I don’t like talking about numbers, so we can pretend I use 185 for every exercise (based on my profile pic).
sorry i missed to checked the link. cool.
Wednesday morning weight: 190.8
Tuesday food:
9:00 - Bigass coffee, 1 1/2 scoops Metabolic Drive
11:00 - Tuna-egg salad; Normandy veg
2:30 - Indigo-3G
3:00 - Plazma, 5g creatine
5:00 - Hard-boiled egg; clementine
6:00 - Chicken chili (chicken breast, chicken thigh, corn, kidney beans, salsa); avocado
9:00 - Mag-10
Tuesday workout:
A1) Rock high pull 3x1min
A2) Cable punch 3x1min
A3) Roundhouse kick, heavy bag 3x1min
A4) 1-arm power lateral 3x1min
A5) Shoulder-loaded reverse lunge 3x1min
A6) Band low-to-high chop 3x1min
A7) 1-arm sledgehammer smash 3x1min
A8) 1-arm sit-up wall ball 3x1min
Friday morning weight: 189.7
Thursday food:
9:00 - Bigass coffee, 1 1/2 scoops Metabolic Drive
11:00 - 3 eggs, pour of egg whites, bacon, cheddar, jalapenos; clementine
2:30 - Indigo-3G
3:00 - Plazma, 5g creatine
5:00 - Random half-a-chicken-breast found in the back of the fridge, bbq sauce
6:00 - Sausage, peppers, onions; Italian bread
9:00 - Mag-10
Thursday workout:
A1) Frankenstein Anderson squat 5x3-5
A2) Floor press 5x3-5
A3) Deficit RDL 5x4-5
A4) Thick bar curl 5x4-5
A5) Reverse sled drag 5x30 steps
Felt like a solid groove for the heavy day. Almost three weeks in and finally getting the hang of the programming, I think.
Before dinner: 30min walk with Mrs and dog
Tuesday morning weight: 189.5
Monday food:
9:00 - Bigass coffee, 1 1/2 scoops Metabolic Drive
11:00 - Fat-free Greek yogurt, 1 scoop Metabolic Drive, almonds, blueberries
2:30 - Indigo-3G
3:00 - Mag-10, 5g creatine
5:00 - Handful of boneless ribs (leftover Chinese from weekend)
6:00 - Taco bake (ground beef, kidney beans, salsa, tortilla chips, shredded cheese)
9:00 - Mag-10
Monday workout:
A1) 1-arm DB drop snatch 3x1min
A2) Double-end bag 3x1min
A3) Jumping tuck pull-up 3x1min
A4) Tire footwork 3x1min
A5) Heiden jumps 3x1min
A6) Clap push-ups 3x1min
A7) Sitouts 3x1min
Taco sighting!
They’re pretty much a regular in the dinner rotation. This was just a tweak on it. Basically a casserole, or inverted nachos, with the beef-beans-salsa on the bottom, chips 'n cheese on top, then in the oven for a bit.
Cool shirt. All we got my poor dad was ties.
I’ll definitely try the taco bake! “The same, but different” works well for lifting and meal prep.
