Great to see this man! You’re crushing it. 50 in 1 by the end of the program!
As horrid as it is to think about I think it’s doable (might be 20 singles at the end but as long as I don’t rack it it counts right?)
Thats 100% how it works! Just gotta grit it out
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Last nights workout was good, squats were miserable in the best way for the first set as I build to 50 in one set
Got it in 3 sets today - 25/15/10 the first of which was brutal, the 2nd was hard but the 3rd was “easy” comparatively. Can’t believe how hard that first one was and it’s only half way to 50-in-one Jesus
Complexes are funny, 135 was hard but no risk of missing but the clean and front squat transition on 140 was such a bitch, crazy what that 5 lbs did
Everyone in the house is sick again, wife diagnosed and treated for Strep so now I’m just waiting to catch that too, bad season for us out here with viruses and infections.
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The Road to 50:
2 sets to get to 50 today, sets of 30 and then 20
Todays attempt was very interesting, and Im learning a bit of the ins and outs of these super high rep sets:
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There comes a breaking over point where you want to pause to give your legs a break, but then your body uses that break to start breathing faster and catch up on the oxygen debt you are building up. Its this weird give-and-take between wanting your legs to rest but oddly during this time your body “reveals” how out of oxygen you are, so the better your legs get the worse your breathing gets
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For me at least there definitely some amount of mental block happening. Just getting myself in the mindset to start the first set takes a lot more time than a normal set, like my body knows its going to suck to it takes a while to get there.
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Then around rep 20 or so when it transitions to doing singles and doubles the body seems willing - as in the reps go up relatively easily, no grind - but the mind is telling me every second to quit and to rack it and how hard it is, and 95% of the effort of the set seems to be shutting this part up and just continuing to rep the weight. I feel like I racked it at 30 today almost just because - while it was hard, the reps were still going up - I had set the goal of 30 before I started the set and once I hit it that was enough for the set, but I had more actual work left in me…
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Hopefully just coming to this understanding will let me keep adding 5 reps per set until 50 is in the bag, Its not the REPS that are hard, its the mental side of it
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The road to 50 is proving very difficult
Hitting 30 reps on the 185x50 didn’t prove THAT hard it seemed, but getting much beyond that in one set is a Herculean effort both mental and physical.
So far I’ve gotten 30,32, and 33. Honestly the hardest part seems to be simply supporting the weight for that long and the breathing. As the final reps are “doable” but my entire body is screaming for me to stop
I have one last attempt… let’s see if I can make it happen but boy it’s gonna take everything in me
Side note but @T3hPwnisher according to YouTube you are basically the only person I can find who actually has done the 185x50 set (which isn’t even your best effort).
Not to say it hasn’t been done elsewhere (I actually remember seeing a guy do like 195x98 or something one time), but this type of effort seems exceedingly rare to catch on tape.
Full write up and pics should happen some time next week
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Very much appreciate the kudos man! Your words have always carried much weight with me. I’m excited to see what you put together here at the end. I know you have that 50 in you: you just gotta give yourself permission to get it.
Final workout in the books
Full program write up incoming after this week is over. I wanna give my body a chance to acclimate to this workout, maybe do a velocity day or two to shed a tiny bit of fat/water, and then take an after pic.
But I will review this specific workout here:
The only thing that really matters is the squats, so lets talk about it
I did get 50 reps in one set, buuuuuttttt…
Unfortunately I wasnt able to to 50 “real” unbroken reps. As in the past 2 workouts My upper back is the weak link here, it was just screaming in pain/fatigue, but I did set a PR @ 35 “regular reps”, and then I’ll explain what I did next
Before I do though, let me remind that for better or worse I am doing SSB low box squats, so I think maybe thats what was putting so much pressure on my traps/shoulder girdle area?? Who knows, I didnt do it with a straight bar so I dont know the comparison. Maybe I’ll give it a shot later this week.
What I wanted to do was whatever it took to not rack the weight until 50 reps were done, so once my upper back threw in the towel I put the smallest amount of grip on the uprights, literally poking my middle finger in the holes on the side of the rack to the first knuckle.
What this did was shift a touch of the weight from my traps/neck area into my outer shoulders and arms
And while Im sure that gave me some upward assistance so I wasnt actually squatting the full weight in the same fashion as reps 1-35, I did everything I could to make sure my legs were actually moving the weight up and down. The reps were a teeny bit easier, no denying that though.
So while I cant say I did 50 reps of bodyweight squats, I did do a completely balls out, 100% effort and beyond
Full program write up coming later, thanks for reading if you did
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Photo results of the 6 week Mass Made Simple. Lighting and stance is a little different so not a 100% comparison but I got it pretty close I think. I’ll let you all decide what the difference is, my eyes are telling me something but I want to see if you all agree
Weight went from 193 to 197 (although it was 199 the day after the program, the 197 was 2 “velocity days” I did just to dump any “fake” water/carb weight I was holding. I was coming into the program after a low carb phase so I consider that the 1:1 comparison for weight)
Initially I felt like maybe I flabbed up a little too much over this, but these pics to me done show too much of that IMO. I was worried I was gonna have to shed 5 pounds of flab but Im not real sure I do, but as I said I’ll wait to hear your alls verdict.
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Dan John Mass Made Simple Write Up:
This was such an interesting program… At the end of the day there’s really only 1 set training workout you are doing and tracking, which you will repeat nearly verbatim 14 times over the 6 week. Consider the differences in even something “simple” like Wendlers 5/3/1 which typically has you rotating 4 different workouts a week (which is fine, but I just wanted to highlight the nature of this program). Yes, there is the “recharge” workout but that is more of a lose ends, fill in the gaps, just do some work type thing. The meat and potatoes is the tracked workout with the squat set
And the goal of that single, simple workout is simple as well… Squat a lot. Way more than youre probably used, with the goal at the end to do something very close to your body weight for a single set of 50 reps.
I dont know how many of you are squatting 185-225x50 in a single set, but I sure as hell wasnt at the start of this.
Dan John has a sneaky way of ratcheting things up. What starts as “hard effort but doable” quickly becomes “hard, but maybe I can do it” do “Oh shit I have to do WHAT in 4 days…?”
And with that ratcheting up, for me, came a looming sense of “dread” on my workout days towards the end (the final 4 workouts are all trying to get the 50 reps of 185-225 in a single set depending on your body weight). I would literally wake up thinking about having to do it, and just the mental weight of the squat set at the end of the workout was always there.
As for the actual work … It was really good. If you are a person who enjoys sucking wind at the end of the workout and really feeling like you gave it your all, this is a good program for you. The Bench and the single arm press kept the upper body in line, the complexes got “the work” in, and the squat sets were always a tough challenge to end the workout.
Overall Id rate this as my favorite Dan John program, and maybe even the quintessential one. While 10,000 swings was interesting - and useful in the right context - and Easy Strength is a nice “add on” to an already active persons training… Mass Made Simple represents something you can do by itself, and it has all the hallmarks of Dan Johns philosophy in it (“getting the work in”, slowly moving things up over time, stacking work on top of work to create a great effect… and hard effort when its needed)
Pros: Good workouts, unquestionably effective, hits basically everything.
Cons: Done without the box squats could potentially give you sore legs for nearly 6 weeks straight if you are prone to DOMS
Anyone on the fence, or noticing you are kinda spinning your wheels looking for something to challenge yourself with, give this program a go. I do recommend the book, as the T-Nation article I initially posted at the start of this log is quite a bit different, and looking back at it Im not real sure you could piece the porgram in the book together with it (and it has a completely different layout with a recommended 5/3/1 strength portion … something I might try if I give this a go again, which I might)
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Bonus Workout!
Program is over but just for “fun” I did 185x50 with the straight bar tonight to see the difference
“185” on the SSB is actually 205, so Im sure that made a huge different, but the straight bar not having that around-the-neck yoke and forward lean of the weights also helped Im sure prevent some of that crushing upper/lower back fatigue that stopped me dead with the SSB
Perhaps I should have done 205, but I just wanted to see what would have happened if I did the weights the program recommended.
It was definitely hard, but I wasnt in any danger of not completing the set.
At rep 30 I was like “okay this is hard, but my body is only whispering at me to stop instead of yelling at me”
At rep 35 - my previous best with the SSB - I was thinking “okay, youve proved your point, its easier with this set up… do you really need to go on?” and of course I did need to go on.
At 40 I was thinking “Fuck it, Youve already hit a new record, only thing left is to actually finish the set… just 10 more… 2 set sof 5… just breath and grind it out”
At 45 I knew I had it, just took a few more deep breaths and pounded at the last 5, which were hard but not anywhere near as hard as reps 30-35 with the SSB @ 205
After 50 - Collapse to the ground for 1-2 minutes
Now, having said that… 0% chance I could do this if it wasnt box squats. So take that for what its worth, but for anyone who hasnt done these super high rep squat sets before give this shit a go, it will teach you something about your mental fortitude and mind set, and your self-talk as you approach these upper ranges where will power is more important than physical capability.
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Dude, you got LEANER running the program! Hell yeah! I think that speaks to the value of those complexes. Loved reading about your experience going for 185 for 50. The fact you have been going 20lbs heavier the whole time is NUTS, haha. Fantastic write up. You got me wanting to run the program again. So glad you found the book helpful.
The book was indispensable … I kind of remembered my initial plan was to do some kind of 5/3/1 strength work or something with it, and after I finished the book program I was like “where the hell did I even get that idea?”
Then I went back and read the article, and honestly its completely different. It doesnt build to 185x50 like the book, it actually has a day to build to a heavier weight for a set of 3-5, and one other day you go “to exhaustion”, but not the challenge of getting to 50.
It looks like it has a MWF layout, with M and F being the main workouts (one to a heavier weight, and one is the one we both know and love) and Wednesday being the “recharge” type workout from the book.
The complexes are also kept @ 3x8 the whole time, but they are rotated around with different exercises, he gives 4 different ones in the article.
Now that I have experience with the set program from the book I think I can make this one work too.
I was thinking of what to do next since I kind of finished the Dan John programs I wanted to try, but now I think I might even make that my program for the rest of the year. its 6 weeks, has a slightly different layout, and I seemed to respond pretty well to it.
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Dan has gone on his podcast to tell people NOT to use that article if they really want to run MMS, but I get it too: when forced to come up with a soundbite, we do the best we can. What’s in that article could absolutely still produce solid results: it just wouldn’t be “MMS”. I love your follow-up plan! An idea I had for melding 5/3/1 with MMS was to take Jim Wendler’s “5/3/1 for hardgainers” as my 5/3/1 base
I’d steal the bench and press days for the upperbody work. I feel like those lend themselves well to MMS, as they were to be followed up with some KB assistance work and the prowler, which I feel can easily be switched out for complexes and high rep squats.
Okay having had the weekend “off” (from a plan at least) I came up with the following ideas and plans:
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I AM going to do the “article version” of MMS… kind of.
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Given that I am coming off of the regular MMs, I probably dont need the 2 week break in period of squatting 95 or 115 pounds
So with that in mind I have conconted the following plan to run until the end of the year
Day 1: a 5/3/1 style PR set of overhead press and deadlift, 3x8 MMS complex @ 95 pounds, regular BB (aka not the SSB bar) box squat to top set of 5
Day 2: “odds and ends” day - iso circuit for arms/abs/pullups/loaded carries … anything I dont think is getting adequately hit on the other days basically
Day 3: a 5/3/1 style PR set of bench press and front squat, a rotating 3x8 complex (one of the 4 in the article), “to 50” with 205 on the straight bar.
I say 5/3/1 style because I have just decided to pick a weight and stick with it the entire 6 weeks and try and add reps. I wont be doing 5/3/1 so I dont really feel like keeping tabs on 3 different rep and weight PRs and percentages and all that 5/3/1 entails, and this is a mass focus and not a strength focus so Im just making sure medium-range volume and performance is going up. I kind of know my 1RMs from my time with Easy Strength, so Im just kinda ball parking what an 80-ish% weight is from that and using it.
This will be a MWF type deal, but with my work schedule it will end up just being 3 non-consecutive days as I can get them in. For the 3rd day, I already did 185x50 so this will be my new build up, if for some reason I end up hitting 205x50 before 6 weeks is up I will simply go to 225 for even more misery
For “fun” I might even throw in @T3hPwnisher tree of woe workout on day2 if Im hating myself enough haha.
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Still plugging away. Couple long stints at work so not much time to log, but I did get 2 different episodes of thigh chaffing so thats gotta mean my legs are larger right??
Im 100% sure some of that is fat, but thatll come off in the new year.
Hey @Chris_Colucci are we doing a T-ransformation this year??
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Chris has moved on to other ventures, but @TrainForPain ran the (Un)Official 2023 T-ransformation Challenge, and it was downright awesome, so…
How about it, @TrainForPain?
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For some reason, I hadn’t even thought about it. You guys want to do it again?
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I’d participate! I love the banter, for sure, but really seeing everybody’s hard work all in one thread is the real fun.
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I’d be down to do it again
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