I’m thinking about a three exercise cluster during the max strength portion of the base building period (Green) and for Operator (3x/week): squat, bench, horizontal pull + deadlift
They must love you dropping by. Discount or not, there will be more than one sidekick of ribs on your plate… Always struggled to find good ribs in the UK, on a trip to South Africa years back I had some of the best culinary experiences ever (if you’re a meat lover, not ideal otherwise), the ribs were awesome. Low carb out there would be in cruise control, I imagine Texas to be similar. Here, everywhere is a gluttony of carbs!
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@burien_top_team In general, I make it a policy not to discuss programs I haven’t personally run, and I haven’t run those particular programs. THAT having been said, purely from a theorycraft perspective, the issue I see with including the horizontal pull AND the deadlift is that (assuming a bent over row) the horizontal pull will most likely already tax the lower back, and the deadlift will add onto that. The chin is selected because it has no lower back loading. It actually even has something of a decompressive effect, since you can stretch out on the rack. If the row WAS selected, I would think to not include the deadlift. But, during the HICs, I’d pick something with a clean from the floor in it. Those mechanics can be similar enough to the start of the deadlift to have some carryover. Dan John spoke to that. ANOTHER possible solution was to employ a deficit deadlift rather than a deadlift, since it will naturally limit the weight that can be lifted, which will reduce lower tax loading.
@Greyhound90 I am definitely a known entity at my local Texas Roadhouse and other BBQ joints, haha. You have my attention there with South Africa. I’m hitting up a Brazilian steakhouse tomorrow, which is another locale I need to get to. And where I’m at currently (Nebraska) is actually known as “The Beef State”, with the second largest cattle production in the country. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
Birthday weekend celebration and it’s already been awesome. We got up at 0700 because I had to drop my truck off to get a chip in the windshield fixed, but I still got in my 50 squats and push ups. Back is feeling better, but not 100%. Old man Logan healing process these days.
Will document the breakfast Valkyrie made for me, because it featured a new addition: bacon spam
2 omelets, each with 3 eggs, that beef I got from Walmart, Sargento thin slice swiss and grassfed ghee, topped with grassfed sour cream, alongside some pork bacon, grassfed hot dog, pork cracklin, grassfed cottage cheese and the bacon spam. That final bit was a unique treat. With the Valkyrie being from Hawaii, we are a Spam forward family.
Took the dogs for a long walk, came home, dressed up in my Scorpion costume and went to my Dojang’s Halloween class. Hopefully they’ll upload photos soon, but we trained with swords, nunchaku (nunchucks), did some breakfalls and some board breaks. I made sure to do a board break that looked like throwing a harpoon (basically a ridgehand) while yelling “COME HERE”, which earned me some bonus candy. I ended up winning the costume contest too, which earned me a prize that I deferred to my kiddo. Lotta winning this month.
Came back home, walked the puppy for a long walk, took the kiddo to a birthday party, did some more walking with the Valkyrie, and went out for dinner at our favorite local BBQ place to continue on Operation Conan. You’ll note that I fasted through lunch, which is what I really dig doing on weekends these days, because I’m full from breakfast and would rather feast at dinner…which I did
A full rack of ribs, along with some pulled pork, that I topped with some butter.
and, of course, there were no survivors
I REALLY love this nutritional approach I’ve come up with. The emphasis on cottage cheese seems to be helping quite a bit, along with 2 meals on weekends vs 3. I am still seeing weight go up, but I am keeping lean and not feeling sluggish or overly full at meals, while also just absolutely gorging myself and enjoying myself at each meal. “Intermittent feasting”
And happy early birthday to me @freshyfresh and @tlgains
They’re SO pretty
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I swear I can never get tired of ribs, regardless of whether it’s pork or beef.
Hmmmm
Pwn, next time you order those short ribs
I would love to see 6x next to the beef ribs photo in the items column. An order with a total count 24 ribs+ is fitting for the Pwnisher.
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Oh my goodness yes. I am doing ribs 3 days in a row at this rate. Its a good weekend, haha.
And I would actually only need to order 3 orders to get 24 ribs. Each order is 2 racks of 4 bones.
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No food porn, but still an awesome day. Slept off an on until about 0745, Valkyrie made me another fantastic breakfast after my 50 squats and push ups, took the dogs for a long walk, back was still bothering me, so I did my 50x180 reverse hypers and then decided to try some burpee chins to loosen it up
55 in 5 minutes. I haven’t done this in FOREVER and my PR Is 56, so I’d say conditioning is holding up pretty damn good, especially while hurt.
After that, the whole family went to a rage room and we smashed all sort of stuff for 35 minutes. That was a blast. Super cathartic. Came home, took the puppy for a 20 minute walk, turned around and got to Texas De Brazil.
I found out they have a file on me there. I showed up, was taken to my seat and found a slip of paper for our server that had my name, my most requested item (beef rib) and most requested dessert, and no joke, as SOON as we sat down we got swarmed by 8 servers. We got picana, top sirloin, filet mignon, lamb sirloin, leg of lamb, flank steak, parmesan pork and chicken, and apparently my kiddo got some bacon wrapped filet before all that, because they sat down while the Valkyrie and I were still at the salad bar. And soon after that came my beloved beef ribs. I have a tendency to spend 90 minutes at Texas De Brazil when I’m there, and often the manager will come out and ask me what it is I’m wanting to have, thinking I’m holding out for something specific, when I’m simply enjoying myself. This time, they just kept a steady firehose on me and I ended up tapping out at about the 45 minute mark. Well played Texas de Brazil. I even ended up leaving some rib on my plate: I was at the point where just thinking about eating them was making me nauseous, which is the carnivore cue to stop.
No food porn, but this is the menu there, for an idea of what I was putting away
Of that list, the only things I didn’t consume were the BBQ pork ribs, garlic/spicy sirloin, and the sausage. And I’m pleased I didn’t eat any of those things. I usually end up indulging and I regret it.
Came home, walked the puppy again, and then the Mrs and I went out for a walk as well. It’s 1900 and I’ve got 23,204 steps logged. About to settle in and watch the Cowboys game. Helluva celebratory week.
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Hey! That’s where I’m going for my birthday dinner next weekend!
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Hell yeah brother! You been before? If you have a Costco membership, get the giftcards there: SUCH a good deal.
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Absolutely but not on the regular. We usually forget it exists bc of where it’s at
I never thought about it! I’ll have to look into it when I go to Costco next weekend
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Definitely bro: it’s a crazy good deal. That’s exactly what I did tonight, haha. And happy early birthday! You’re like me: prime gaining season.
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Getting in early and wishing you a happy birthday from the future mate. Hope you have a great day.
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Been a while since I did these but that was about my 10 minute performance, good to see you’re still a beast! Happy birthday, may your day be filled with meat and mirth!
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@simo74 Always appreciated brother!
@alex_uk Thanks so much man! Its good to see the conditioning holding strong. I feel like this exercise in particular bodes well for my grappling goals.
Took the day off work, slept until 0700, got in my 50 squats and push ups, took the dogs for a fasted 1 mile walk, then took the Mrs out to breakfast at First Watch. I had a sausage, bacon and ham omelete topped with sour cream and butter alongside 2 sunny side up eggs with butter and a pork sausage. Went out and bought a Juggernaut poster and a Conan poster for the gym and then stopped at my favorite burrito shop for a steak and egg breakfast burrito
Ate the insides, of course.
Came home, walked the puppies again, then Valkryie and I went in a beautiful 5.25 mile walk on a nature trail. Came home and she made me breakfast for dinner
Usual suspects there, and some sunny side up eggs. So basically I got breakfast 3 times today, which is my perfect day, along with all the walking. Which, I dropped my kid off at show choire and am currently walking while my Valkyrie makes my birthday cake: pumpkin oatmeal cookies baked in a baking pan so we can put candles in it and cut it like cake.
Currently over 25k steps, en route to a PR.
Couldn’t have a better day.
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Have you tried @SkyzykS ’s pumpkin cake? I’m sure it will meat your expectations.
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I am not going to make a punchline out of the loving work of my Valkyrie 
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AM WORKOUT (0355 natural wake up)
OPERATION CONAN Occupation Phase
Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol Grey Man-Cycle 3, Week 1, Workout 1
WARM UP
Roll out on LAX ball
Speed bodyweight squats holding onto barbell
50x180 reverse hypers
Sets of squats w/bar, 85, 175, 225 and overwarm walkout w/335
MAIN WORK
Buffalo bar Squats
4x8x280
Superset (30 second hang from bar between sets)
Axle strict press
4x8x123
SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER giant set
(3)Incline DB bench
2x12x60
2x12x55
NG chins
4x12 (last 2 sets stopped at 9 to regroup)
Standing ab wheel
3x10
SUPPLEMENTAL WORK
GHRs
4x27
TOTAL TRAINING TIME: 51.5 minutes
BREAKFAST
No walk w/dogs (schedule)
Notes:
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Before I get any further, I want to log that I think the ab wheels may be the sneaky culprit to my hip pain. I got through this workout fairly unscathed, but once I started doing them, my hips started screaming, and I reflected and realized that, whereas these used to help open up my hips after compression, they seem to be having the opposite effect these days. Going forward, I’m planning on doing hanging leg raises on squat days and ab wheel on deadlift days. I feel like the ab wheel still helps me unlock after pulls, but after squats I think hanging will do me some good.
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Getting that out of the way, the extra day of rest I took yesterday paid off, as I came into this feeling pretty awesome, and minus a bit of nerve pain right now, I’m feeling solid. I really tried to focus on moving quickly through the squats, because I’m fairly certain that taking them slow is a big contributor to many of my issues. I move slow because of my knees, which, if I can get them to cooperate, will spare the hips. Lots of links in the chain to deal with.
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I’m loving how my press is coming back. Slowly but surely, and that’s how I built it the first time too.
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I only upped the squat max by 5lbs vs 10 for this cycle. Slow and steady again, but it’s progression.
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Kept very close to 1 min rest per set on everything.
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The NG chins aren’t moving much, but with bodyweight increasing, there is progression. On that note, didn’t weigh myself yesterday, but this week is pretty wild with the celebrating and eating out so much. This will give me some time to re-establish a baseline.
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Which, on that note, I’m going to continue on my one-meal-a-day approach for the foreseeable future. I’m really digging how it works out. It seems I’ve abandoned feast and famine for now and am just staying on Apex Predator, but I’ll leave some room for a famine as needed. May have to do one before my grappling competition on 8 Dec. There’s finally another dude in my weight class. He’s 10 years younger than me, but those are the cards I’m dealt.
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I got in 29.5k steps yesterday. That’s pretty awesome. I got Tang Soo Do tonight, so more activity on the horizon.
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Got in my carb up last night too with my birthday “cake”. Had some very generous servings topped with some of that honey from Costa Maya. And I feel awesome. It’s amazing what quality ingredients can do.
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I missed your birthday! I hope it was awesome and judging by the motherload of meat that looks like it went down, I’d say it’s safe to say you did. Happy belated birthday!!
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Thanks so much! I was sneaky about the exact date of it in my posting, so no shame in missing it. It was an absolutely wonderful day: so good for body and soul.
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It won’t matter. My money is on you.
Happy birthday!
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