Definitely feeling that end of the second week of famine. As typical: woke up with zero desire to train, and had to make some concessions and compromises to get me there. Cut out the heavy axle work, went for reps, and then in the middle of that came up with the absolute most bonkers idea for squats that was such madness that I HAD to do it. Combined Mass Made Simple with Super Squats to go for 50 reps with bodyweight (+chains) BREATHING squats, with pull overs. That absolutely hit on a whole other level, and once it was done, I was done. The kroc rows I did weren’t even close to worth anything, and at that point I just decided I’d trained “enough”…because I did. Was awesome to just leave it all out there.
Got more Tang Soo Do sparring tonight, so I have a little bit more activity on the table.
Weighed in at 77.9kg this morning…I need to fix the bathroom scale. But was 79.4 at the start of the famine, so that’s a drop of 1.5kg in that time. Meaning I’m weighing 171.4lbs, so this squatting effort was ever so slightly above bodyweight. And man, it’s been 4 hours and I am absolutely feeling it.
You are a legend man, honestly just standing with the weight on your back for 6 minutes is a feet in and of itself, and the fact you ass to grass it with that much is so ridiculous I don’t think people who haven’t tried it can really understand what you’re accomplishing here
@Lonnie123 Dude, that really means so much: thanks for writing it. I certainly left a big piece of my soul out there on the garage floor this morning, haha. It’s always awesome to be able to share with someone who has “been there”.
AM WORKOUT (0545 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm. Had the day off work)
CHAOS IS THE PLAN: THE CIMMERIAN CHRONICLE Week 9, Day 1 “Paradise Lost”
20 minute limit
Axle Grace
66 Devil presses w/22.5lb DBs
Another attempt at Axle Grace (9 reps accomplished)
Extended Fast (no breakfast)
Walk w/wolf with 50lb vest
Notes:
We fall from Grace into Hell and try to claw our way to Purgatory. Open with axle Grace (30 reps of 136lbs floor to overhead), then 66 Devil Presses (I used 22.5lb DBs), then finish with another Grace attempt with remaining time (20 minute limit). If you want salvation, you need 30. 15 would be purgatory. I am still in Hell.
With the day off, I wanted to spend more time with the Mrs, so slept in with her and got in a quick workout while she got ready for the morning. This hit plenty hard. First time running Grace without a power belt and it’s definitely a different animal. Doing it at 25lbs less bodyweight changes things as well of course. I liked the story this told and how it shook out. Really gotta move quick on those devil presses: too easy to get slack.
Doing an extended fast today. Had a delightful carb up yesterday with some of the Valkyrie’s christmas baked goods and homemade sourdough. Going stupid low carb today to throw some chaos at the body.
Plan to get in a high rep squat post lunch to round out the training.
I’d missed the last month or three in your blog. The training ideas as gods was an interesting take.
Once we display a wavering of faith, the magic is gone and it’s time to move on.
There’s so many things to be drawn out and discussed from just that single statement. You could move on. You could change nothing. You could question and attempt to refine your faith. You could question whether faith even matters, or whether your self assessment is correct or even question who exactly is this self that has faith, that lost faith, and whether that’s even the same self that’s the one taking action. Was the magic ever real?
@raven78 Much appreciated dude! It was fun to write.
@LoRez My theology background shines through, haha. But it’s absolutely true, there are a lot of directions one can go there. Ideally, I find faith in a new god to be the more ideal approach, or renewed faith in an old god.
AM WORKOUT (0425 wake up via alarm)
CHAOS IS THE PLAN: THE CIMMERIAN CHRONICLE Week 9, Workout 2 “Noble Savage”
Log Viper Kalsu
135lb log
100 reps, but EMOM do 5 burpees
Done in 44 rounds
15 minutes of assistance work (3x10 standing wheel of pain, 50 pull aparts, 25 conan curls/25 pushdowns, lateral raise dropset)
Breakfast
Walk with wolf (no vest)
Notes:
Went to sleep wanting to do this workout and woke up wanting to do it. That’s an outstanding sign. This is like “catfish week”, which might actually be how I approach the deload on “Chaos is the Plan: The Plan”. Shaking things up has been refreshing, and it’s hitting at the point in the program where I was experiencing the most significant degree of burnout. Along with that, I got this workout done in about the same time as I usually do, and that’s at a bodyweight of 20-25lbs lower than before. That’s just plain stellar. And upon reflection, I realize that all my training up to this point has basically turned me into a “Kalsu machine”. I’ve mastered taking things off the floor and putting them over my head, my conditioning is top notch, but the dirty little secret is that all those breathing squats have significantly improved/maintained my mobility. That was a total gamechanger for how Kalsu ran, as every attempt prior to this would absolutely murder my lower back, because I couldn’t get into a low lap position for the log, so I’d end up back extending it into place vs cleaning. Being able to hit that low set up with every single rep kept the back pain to a minimum, allowed me to maximize the input from my legs, and, in turn, made it so I didn’t have any “empty rounds” on Kalsu. Previous attempts would have at least 1 round where I did only burpees, but here every round had at least ONE viper press, and really, the only reason I had a single round (rep 86 IIRC) was I went too fast with the log and sent it behind my head, so I had to drop the rep and regroup. In general, I felt the best after this Kalsu than I did after any other one in the past, which is awesome AND a slight amount of a letdown, as I wanted to be completely floored when this was over, haha.
I am proud of myself for hitting up the ab wheel as part of my assistance. In the past, abs were the first thing I’d neglect when left to my own devices. I’m still bad about training my calves, but little steps. I also included an ab wheel plank at the end, which I really dig.
Went without the vest this morning. It was 26 degrees with strong winds, and I wanted to get my wolf back inside quickly. She’s 13: she’s earned pampering. Her and I get “meat treats” at the end of our walks. For her, it’s leftovers, and for me it’s liver.
Tang Soo Do tonight. We should find out who is the sparring champion of the Dojang. I didn’t give up any points last week, but I didn’t have a great deal of competition.
I’m going for a famine until Friday this week, which will be 3 workweeks of famine. I’m super lean again, which isn’t the goal but is a good indication of the success of the method. In terms of physique impact of “Chaos is the Plan: The Plan”, my upperbody has definitely gained some mass and I’m filling out my t-shirt sleeves again. What’s unique, and I should have anticipated it, is how much my obliques filled out while I still got lean. Where my pants sit has gotten so lean that my size 30” jeans are sliding off of me, but my waist proper has thickened up, which gives me an interesting look where I have veins on my abs and obliques while being blocky. Very unique combination of lean and thick. Legs are pretty thick with “only 3 sets” of squats per week, but there’s something to be said about all the burpees and the prisoner squats, along with thrusters when they happen. I DO still feel like I should get in some more GHRs and reverse hypers on my next training cycles. There’s a reason I used to include those in my daily work. I SHOULD also do some rows, but man, I’m so terrible about doing them. That is the reason I bought a rower: to get in more rowing. But pretty much any time I COULD do some rowing, I do something else.
So much for me to love in this log entry, but mostly just how nice it is to see the remnants of normal human psyche as opposed to sentient farm machinery.
These:
Could be written about me, even down to buying a rower!
Fantastic to hear how well Feast and famine are working to get you bigger and leaner.
@alex_uk Really dig what you wrote there. That’s been one of the biggest changes since getting healthy: reclaiming my humanity. It’s amazing to me the state I had gotten to without realizing it. I forgot what healthy felt like. And feast and famine is probably one of the best nutritional discoveries I have made in quite a while. SO much simpler than long cycles.
@boilerman Hell yeah dude! Never any shortage of misery, haha.
AM WORKOUT (0545 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)
77x185lb Buffalo Bar Squats
No breakfast, extend fast, stumble inside, leash up wolf, throw on 50lb vest and stagger through the streets for 2 miles
Notes:
Got the day off work, and this was all I wanted to do. Cody Lefever (GZCL) very recently accomplished 185 for 76 reps, so I had that in my head. At around rep 15 I realized that wasn’t going to happen. At rep 30 I knew I wasn’t even halfway there. At rep 50 I was at peace with getting 60 reps. At rep 67 all I could think was “glorp, haffle-flop”. After rep 77, the floor felt quite cool and a nap sounded lovely.
Dig the depth on these. NONE of them felt good. Typically rep 7 is where things start clicking with breathing squats. It never happened here.
Went with the Dan John playbook and went for my walk right afterwards. THAT was an experience with the weight vest on.
I have the axle loaded for some deadlifts later today, and maybe I’ll do some overhead stuff as well, but right now Chaos remains the plan and the results of that plan are on display. I’m 170lbs, so this was 15lbs over bodyweight for 77 reps, and in truth I didn’t find my limit there, but I had a goal and I met it. “Where you are now you can’t even imagine what the bottom will be like”.
I was crowned my Dojang’s “Sparring Champion” for the month of Dec, the same month I won my grappling competition, which I feel serves as proof that I am lethal on my feet and on the floor…which is how that squat set went.
Thanks so much in all regards man! I like COMPETING in grappling, but never cared for the training, haha. Honestly, I don’t care for the training in Tang Soo Do either. I just like to bang.
I don’t like martial arts training in general. Like I said: I just wanna bang. Group classes in particular drive me batty. I hate dealing with all the personalities. Private lessons are cool though.
