Keen to hear more about the Disney Cruise!
We’ve been looking at that one for a future trip.
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Love the Gaston hoodie, happy new year to you and the family.
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@littlesleeper Dude! Always so great to hear from you. Very much appreciate the kudos, and we had an absolutely amazing time on our cruise. Hope you and the fam are all doing well. You gonna join in on world carnivore month? Haha. You set a GREAT standard on it.
@wiseman83 Would be happy to discuss dude. What would you like to know? This was my 7th cruise with Disney, and we have 4 more on the schedule, haha.
@simo74 Happy new year to you as well dude! Definitely brought my Gaston game to the cruise.
AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, semi-restless sleep)
12 LABORS
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 1
MAIN WORK
SSB front squat
5x5x195
ALTERNATE w/
Log clean and press away
5x5x135
NG chins
5x5x30
ASSISTANCE
Superset circuit (no rest) of
SSB front rack hold
3x30 seconds x 140kg
Standing ab wheel
3x10
Band pull aparts
2x25, 1x50
BREAKFAST
No walk w/dogs (no dogs…still in the kennel)
Notes:
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This is the start of the next training phase. I’ll go into further detail in a later post, but the “12 Labors” is a reference to Heracles, and it coincides with me having 12 weeks of training until my next strongman competition, along with the fact that, in June I will be going on a cruise to Greece and Rome to celebrate the year I’m turning 40, and I fully intend to look, feel and perform like Heracles when that time arrives.
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I employed 2 minutes of rest between sets. It absolutely killed me to wait that long, but I am, once again, fully complying with this program. 2 minutes is the absolute minimum amount of rest to take between sets, so I’m doing that, with an option to extend further as weights get heavier. You ARE allowed to alternate between exercises, but with 2 minutes of rest between EACH exercise, so I’m really taking like 4 minutes of rest between squats with this approach.
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I paired up the squats and the press together because they both used the same belt set up, and I didn’t want to deal with taking the belt off and putting it back on if I were to throw in the chins as well…primarily because, while wearing this many layers and with my increased abdominal circumference from 7 days of feasting, putting the belt on over top the soft-belt is a chore.
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I have finally returned to a more traditional wider squat stance. I’ve proven whatever point it was I was trying to prove, and, in returning, also validated a few other theories I had. One being that my mobility/depth in the wider stance would be much better than it ever was before, and the other being that the narrow stance has been the reason my right knee feels like absolute garbage. I tore the meniscus in it on a log viper about 1.5 year back, but all this time narrow stance squatting has just been grinding it to a pulp. Sitting for prolonged periods in confined spaces has been agony. Meanwhile, today, there was minimal pain DURING the squat, and minimal pain after the workout. I think the big takeaway is that the majority of my squatting needs to be a more traditional stance, and the close stance stuff should be used sparingly, and for high rep sets.
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I’m also belting up because my intention is for my lower back to get hammered during strongman prep, which I will also expand upon in a later post. But I’m really trying to learn how to balance the training demands throughout the training program.
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I’m going to spend this week “drying out” from my vacation, and not do any weighing in. Next week, I’ll take a weigh in and assess where I am in regards to my comp on 12 Apr. However, “diet starts Monday”, so I’m already on my way to leaning out. “Operation Conan” has ended, as I’m no longer trying to gain size at this point and, in turn, the nightly updates on meals have ended. I intended to prove that I could gain on carnivore, and I did, but there was never any doubt you could LOSE fat on carnivore, so there’s no novelty there.
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May get in some more walking tonight while my kid is at their Monday activities.
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Alright, wanted to get some thoughts down.
THE CRUISE
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The biggest highlight is that this was the most “normal” feeling cruise I’ve been on for a LONG time. I’ve tried to remain candid with my healing, and these vacations have kind of been a metric in that regard. I did a few cruises while I was sick, and I remember greatly restricting myself as far as eating went and prioritizing training time over family time, basically being in a foul mood until I could get in my training. I went a bit of an opposite direction with the food on my past 2 cruises, almost treating them like eating competitions and effectively trying to “make up for lost time”. I would employ the “Feast/Famine/Ferocity” protocol to intentionally fast the two weeks before the cruise, feast during the cruise, and then fast 2 weeks afterwards, really just kinda fetishizing the food. This time, after so much feasting leading up to the cruise due to “Operation Conan”, I found myself simply enjoying myself. In truth, there were many moments where I just plain didn’t WANT to eat. I got so used to only 1 meal a day or 2 on weekends that the idea of eating 3 meals a day seemed ridiculous. I still joined the family at meals, but rather than focusing on volume, my goal was always “What can’t I get at home” and to really look for enjoyable/exotic foods. Fish was a big feature, as I’m the only fish eater in the house, and every breakfast I had smoked salmon/gravlax and trout, along with other fish/seafood options throughout. And when the Mrs and I had our dinner together at the exclusive restaurant, I treated myself to that porterhouse, because when else am I going to get something like that. I lived it up at the sit down dinners each night, ordering 3 appetizers, soups, 3 entrees, etc, but otherwise buffet trips were often just 1 plate of unique items, “saving room” for dinner.
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Training was also very much non-prioritized. This was the first cruise in EVER where I didn’t feel a need to train. I’ve been cruising since I was 15, and even back then I was always making time to get out to the jogging deck, hitting the gym on the ship, etc. This time, I packed some resistance bands and got a quick pump workout in twice, and I hit the fitness center once simply because the wife and kiddo were playing Bingo and I had nothing else to do, but otherwise, I felt zero compulsion to train. I liked walking, and I’d walk around the pool deck out in the sun if I had some downtime, and often found myself getting 22-25k steps per day, but never as part of a concerted effort to “get in steps”. We have a rule to NEVER take the elevators on a cruise, always using the stairs, which is an effective way to get in steps and maintain some lower body tone, especially if you’re in the middle of the ship and have to go up and down stairs ALL the time to get anywhere, but that was about it: I prioritized being “active” rather than training. I found myself having this thought on the cruise: “You can’t undo 25 years of work with 1 week of cruising”, and it was true: despite it all, I still looked and felt amazing when it was done.
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We ran a 5k as a family, which is an event offered on Disney’s “Castaway Cay”, as part of the beach day there. Always a good eye opener as my 10 mile race looms in April. With Tactical Barbell, I intend to get in some more running training (more on that later).
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My wife comments on how cruise staff members always have man-crushes on me whenever we cruise. “You must workout a lot!” “You are very muscular sir!” Sure, they’re being polite, but it’s still always fun with the language barrier creating some blunt interactions.
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For future cruises, I have one coming up in early March and early June. For this one, I gained for the 14 weeks leading up to it and still felt “beach ready”, but with these being more summer cruises than winter, I WOULD like to be leaner going into them. And really, I’m also just kinda sick of eating so much. Which leads to…
THE TRAINING
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My strongman competition is on 12 Apr. My March cruise has me departing on 7 Mar and returning on 15 Mar, which gives me 9 complete weeks of training, a 1 week break, and then 3 more weeks until the week of the competition, wherein I intend to deload leading up to the comp. So that’s 12 complete weeks of training, hence “12 Labors”. I love having a theme. And, again, the June cruise has me traveling to Greece and Rome, so the nod the Heracles/Hercules has to be there. And he’s owned by Disney too, so that works.
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With 12 weeks of training, and upon re-reading Tactical Barbell 1 and 2 on my trip, I decided that 2 6 week blocks of Operator made the most sense. However, I previously announced that I did NOT want to spend 12 solid weeks prepping for my competition, as it would most likely beat the hell out of my body. So my compromise is to use the first 3 weeks of Operator as a general conditioning block, where the only implements I’ll touch will be during the lifting portion of Operator. Conditioning for these first 3 weeks will be bodyweight/running/KB/sleds/etc, but no carries/stones/throws/etc. Consider it a break-in, similar to the Recon phase I used during Operation Conan.
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I’ve decided on SSB front squats, log clean once and press away, and weighted chins as the primary cluster. The SSB front squat use less loading than a back squat, which will spare my lower body and allow me to push events harder during conditioning. The log is the heaviest implement in the medley I’ll be competing in, so it’s good to keep that skill. Weighted chin is just generic heavy pulling for balance. I’ll be employing the option for deadlifts as 1 set per week of the trap bar, which should carry over well to the car deadlift. I’m also contemplating using KB swings as a workout finisher, which is something I saw K. Black write about. I didn’t do it today, as I just wanted to test what a minimalist approach would be like, but I think it would have some solid carryover.
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After my competition, I’ll have 8 weeks available until my next cruise. I don’t intend to take a week off to recover from the comp, as I’ll already have quite a few bridge weeks at that point, and the June cruise will be a longer break from training (10+ days, since we’ll arrive early on site), so I’ll have to figure out how to fill that gap. Part of me is thinking about going into base building, as that is 8 weeks of training, so it slots perfectly, but the idea of doing so little lifting for 8 weeks and then taking 10 days off when I’m wanting to look like Heracles seems like it’s missing something. I could consider the Mass Protocol Base Building. I’ve also considered doing 2 cycles of Grey Man and 2 weeks of Specificity, or going really bananas and doing “Armor Building Formula”, as it’s exactly 8 weeks long as well. I’m just really enjoying my time with Tactical Barbell and don’t want to depart yet. But it’s always a good thing when my biggest problem is having too many ways to succeed.
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Nutritionally, I’m going to start leaning out. Since I have the cruise in Mar (and I’m tying it in with a trip back home to San Diego), I’ll be eating well about a month before my comp, and I’d like the buffer to not have to worry about making weight on comp day. Since the comp is here in my hometown, I do intend to take the day off beforehand so I can weigh in 24 hours in advance, which DOES allow me an opportunity to cut weight if needed, but even for just quality of life purposes leaning out will be good. If nothing else, it will resensitize my body to food and make it so that every meal isn’t an arms race to see how much more I can eat in one sitting.
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Which, on that note, I still ordered a full rack of ribs from my favorite BBQ place when we got home last night, since I fasted through lunch due to travel, and on the box they wrote “Thanks Jared!”. I’ve moved around so much, it’s pretty awesome to have a place feel like “home”, and to be part of the local scene.
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AM WORKOUT (0430 wake up via alarm)
12 LABORS: SLAYING THE NEMEAN LION
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 2
“BUFFALO LAPS”
4 rounds of
- 10 burpees
- 400m (ish) run
- 10 KB swings w/24kg bell
- 45 seconds rest
Total time: 17:07
400m cooldown walk
BREAKFAST
No walk w/dogs (weather/schedule)
Notes:
- The headings on these posts are getting ridiculous, but I’m too bought in at this point. In keeping with the 12 labors, each week will be labeled sequentially as the labors of Heracles, the first being the Slaying of the Nemean lion. I don’t necessarily have sins to atone for here, unless we’re going Judeo-Christian and counting gluttony these past 14 weeks, along with pride, but if nothing else, it’s a good story and lead into a montage. Which, actually, the Super Mario Brother Super Show had a great episode on this
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It should surprise absolutely no one how influential that episode was for me as a kid, along with the “Karate Koopa” one.
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This was a good wake-up call. After the second round, I was getting that copper taste in my mouth, which I’ve had explained to me is the taste of blood. Something about metabolic waste products and blood vessels. It’s all alchemy to my simple barbarian mind. But I was breathing hard but also remembering how to recover between rounds.
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Running definitely wasn’t setting any landspeed records. I actually ran in my bearfeet shoes, which may be a good idea, or it might be terrible, but with the short distance and need to perform burpees and swings, it was my preference. My distance wasn’t exactly 400m: I was running around the block my house is on, but I’ve measured it out that 4 laps of that is .97 miles based on my GPS, so it’s close enough for my purposes. The big takeaway for the conditioning work is to meet the spirit of the exercises from TB II, rather than the exact letter, especially once the strongman stuff comes in.
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It was 17 degrees outside according to my phone. Toward the end, the swings were a little challenging as my hands were numb. Tried to focus on exploding up AND back down, per Dan John. Tried to keep the burpee form sharp as well. I liked this workout structure in general to hit just about everything: some running, some getting off the floor, some triple extension. All areas I’m weak in.
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We have Tang Soo Do tonight. We might do a double class: we have to make up for some lost time.
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I had my carby meal yesterday. Some tater tots with my dinner, and then a dessert of 3 of my wife’s cookies with some honey alongside a slide of a “peppermint bark” cheesecake she made. Heckuva way to start a leaning out phase, but it’s been about 10 days since I’ve had any sort of carb, and I know I do better with the cyclical approach.
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Some more observations from my cruise…
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My heart breaks for the current generation. I’ve never seen so many obese children in one location. And “obese” is the word I mean to use: I feel like we don’t even have “fat kids” any more. Honestly, I felt like I was observing a case of the genetics “haves/have nots”, because kids were either rolly-polly with middle aged bodies and manboobs or were peeled to the bone lean. There’s no middleground any more. And I say it’s a genetics have/have not thing, because I don’t at all believe it to be a case of habits allowing the lean kids to be lean. I see them putting away the same junk as the fat kids, but they seem to be relying on a blessing of youth that is most likely setting them up for a rough future when the good luck wears off…although I imagine that future isn’t nearly as rough as it is for those kids that just don’t plain have a chance from the start.
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Which, on that note, without failure, sickness always spreads through a cruise ship. On day 1 everything is fine, by day 4, you can hear a persistent cough throughout the entire ship. Everyone has come down with some sort of crud. We’re just an incredibly unhealthy species these days.
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I observed several men that had visible abs AND a gut at the same time. The stomach clearly had jiggly fat around it, but they abs protruded through and had definition. Is this some sort of ozempic thing, or are dudes getting ab implants, or is this something else entirely?
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It’s kinda interesting the assumptions we make about gluttony. At dinner, I’d order 3 appetizers, something from the soup course, and 3 entrees. The dessert menu would come out and I’d say “Nothing for me thanks”, and our waiter would be shocked. “No dessert sir?!” I’d say “You just fed me 3 main courses: I’m full!” It reminds me of how people would always laugh at the idea of ordering a Big Mac with a diet coke, but that makes the MOST sense to me. You save calories in one place so you can maximize them in another.
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Carnivore has really been a hack when it comes to travel. Along with the fact that I can always find something to eat wherever I go, the other benefit is I can also just plain NOT eat wherever I go. I felt like a “food camel”, wherein I could just load up at one meal and let that ride out for as long as I needed. This was a boon on the days we were flying, as I just skipped my meals when I was at the airport, whereas back in the day I’d be dropping like $45 on airport grub. It DOES, however, make me an awful travel companion, because I don’t know when the rest of my party is hungry any more. I frequently discovered it was time for the next meal based on breakdowns.
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During my 1 visit to the ship’s fitness center, there was a spin class going on. You have to pay to attend these classes: they’re not included with the cruise. The spin instructor was obese: high 200s, quite possibly 300lbs. The only reason I don’t fully commit to saying he was 300lbs was because he had some of the skinniest legs I’d ever seen. He looked like a giant candy apple. The legs are the one part of the body I would EXPECT to be developed if you were a spin instructor. And this dude CRUSHED the class he was leading…which, in turn, blows my mind as to WHY anyone would want to attend such a class. Look at the results it produces! Why did I want to lift weights when I was growing up? It wasn’t because I thought lifting weights looked cool: it’s because big strong dudes did it, and I wanted to be like them. And yeah, there’s a chicken and egg element to this (tall guys play basketball, playing basketball doesn’t make you tall), but still, to pay money for this on top of what you’re already paying for a cruise? I don’t get it.
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I wonder if the lean kids on the cruise are getting ‘let off the leash’ for the holiday so they can splurge, but back home the pantry contains far less processed crap and real food (meat, veg etc)…?
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@raven78 I’d certainly like to believe that, but given how GOOD they were at being off the leash, I’d imagine they had some practice. Like, we did the same thing for my kiddo, but I saw the habits come through still. We allowed our kid complete freedom: order whatever you want, eat whatever you want, etc. They ordered 3 desserts at one meal…and had about 3-4 bites of each before deciding they were done. Couldn’t finish any of the really decadent foods there. And having grown up as a fat kid, it STILL blows my mind to watch that happen, because I would have been scrapping the plates, haha.
AM WORKOUT (0415 natural wake up)
12 LABORS: SLAYING THE NEMEAN LION
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 3
MAIN WORK
SSB front squats
5x5x195
ALERNATE W/
Log clean and press away
5x5x135
Low handle trap bar lift
5x385
ASSISTANCE
Ab circuit (no rest between exercises)
SSB front squat rack hold
3x30 seconds x 315lbs
HLR
3x10
Band pull apart
4x25
BREAKFAST
No walk w/dogs (weather)
Notes:
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Sticking with 2 minutes rest between exercises. Still kills my soul to do that.
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I’m employing the “1 day of deadlifts” protocol from the book, rather than a workset every training session. I’ve settled on one set for now, as, historically, I’ve done quite well with one big set of deads per week vs multiple sets. I’m willing to play around with that, but I feel like once I start regularly training stones and carries, this will be the right call. Since the weight was light, I went with the soft belt/power belt set up vs my traditional power belt set up, and that’s not something I’m going to do again, because it felt awful.
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On that note, I’m already losing some of the travel boat, as the belt is fitting better. My digestion has been absolutely wrecked, which is another reason I’m taking a week to dry out and get situated.
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The squats and presses both felt smoother today than Monday, which is the exact goal of this protocol. This is like a programmed take on Easy Strength. Let the strength be the strength work and the conditioning be the conditioning work.
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Meant to mention it on the first day, but I started doing those front rack holds, as I feel like that should have some solid carryover to trying to be a strongman again. I remember these were really popular about a decade back. It’s like doing an upright heavy loaded plank. This becomes almost like the “plank and shank” when I combine it with the ab wheel or HLRs.
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Most likely not going to get in much walking with the dogs as winter is setting in, but thankfully we haven’t had any legit snowfall yet. It’s just cold.
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Tang Soo Do was pretty low impact yesterday. Our instructor was wanting to ease people back in after the 2 week break. We’re doing a double class today, so we’ll see how that goes.
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Leaning into the lower rations at this point. I don’t tend to count calories, but we’re eating more quick meals as we’ve returned from vacation and didn’t do any sort of legit shopping, and yesterday’s dinner was 3 Don Lee chicken breast patties, a quarter cup of Kalona grassfed sour cream and 200g of egg whites, which was exactly 500 calories according to labels, and around 95g of protein. I’m really good at not eating, but, in turn, I have to make sure I don’t fly too close to the sun there.
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I was brainstorming what I am going to meal prep for my breakfasts, and my head went to eggs, because obviously. Then I remembered these awesome “Cheesy Bacon Egg Muffins” I used to make (or Egg McMuffins as I called them), and realized they are totally carnivore so I thought I’d drop the recipe your way. These things are dangerously tasty, and I find you can mess around quite a bit with the cheese and meats, to include straight up excluding them. They also stay well for a few days in the fridge, id say about equal stability to a boiled egg
If you give em a shot, let me know what you think!
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Much appreciated dude! Only eat one meal a day these days, so I don’t have many avenues to eat these, but I’ve made something like them in the past and they’re absolutely delicious. My wife actually made a batch a while back, which she wasn’t a big fan of, so I ended up having them alongside my regular mea. It was a good time to be gaining, haha.
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This is not to take away (pun intended!) from the obese epidemic that’s rife in the western world as per your original point. I’d anticipate poor food choices in early years would definitely set up most kids to end up obese as those habits become ingrained over time.
We can only set the best example we can for our own kids and hope it rubs off.
My kid told my wife last night to eat some steak as we sat down for dinner (she had no protein on her plate), that did put a smile on my face.
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@raven78 Hah! That’s a fantastic story. “From the mouth of babes”.
12 LABORS: SLAYING THE NAMEAN LION
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 4
“CONNAUGHT RANGE 10 TO 1”
10 burpees
100m sprint
9 burpees
100m sprint…
to 1 Burpee
Time: 9:23
Notes:
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Day off due to national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter, so slept in, got some breakfast with the Valkyrie and got this in while she went off to get her nails done. The weather was good enough that I wanted to get in an outdoor session with some running, but still keep it on the short side. This worked out perfect. Those “sprints” were definitely fast runs, but I’m getting back into shape. I also measured off the distance using strava, so nothing is precise here.
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This met the intent of breaking my lungs. 12 weeks of this is going to be good for me.
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Doubled up Tang Soo Do last night. Did a lot of roll/break falls. Doubling up tonight as well, with some intent to get in some walking today as well.
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Digestion still a mess. Constantly changing diet, but I’m keeping the protein stupidly high while keeping the energy low.
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AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)
12 LABORS: SLAYING THE NAMEAN LION
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 5
MAIN WORK
SSB front squats
5x5x195
ALTERNATE w/
Log clean and press away
5x5x135
Weighted NG chins
5x5x30
KB swings
100x24kg
ASSISTANCE
Ab circuit (no rest between exercises)
SSB front rack hold
3x30 seconds x 358lb
Standing ab wheel
3x10
Band pull aparts
2x25, 1x50
Notes:
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3rd lifting workout of the week, keeping the weights the same, and I’m really digging how this all works. Today felt the best it’s felt, and I moved smooth and quick on everything. It took me quite a while to be mature enough to “get” this program, but I’m in the right spot for it now.
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Focused on really bracing hard on those front squats and really trying to pop the log up on the clean. No wasted energy. Chins felt strong as well.
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The swings come from K. Black discussing one of his clients (I forget if it was TB 1 or 2) that performs Operator with squat, bench and 100 swings with a 36 or 48kg bell. I’m blending ideas here, but as far as I can tell, still complying with the protocol, as Operator allows for 3 movemetns+1 BW, which would grant me the ability to include those 100 swings alongside the weighted chins. I feel like having the swings on Mon and Fri and the deads on Wed should work well for me. Allow me to still train the hinge/triple extension without beating myself up too much. Having the deads on Wed and then stones on the weekend gives me longer breaks between heavy posterior chain work to recover. I really dig the puzzle solving when it comes to this stuff.
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My right knee is feeling so much better, which bodes well in a lot of ways. It’s good to know I didn’t permanently destroy it: I simply wasn’t giving it enough time to recover because I kept hammering it with that squat style that just wasn’t a good fit for me. Going back to a more normal stance has me moving fast and feeling strong again. I do want to keep that other stance as a tool in my backpocket, but I think 2-ish years of squatting that way was enough to accomplish whatever I needed to accomplish.
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I keep upping the weight on the front rack hold, with no real end goal. This may have been heavy enough at this point to settle in for a while. I don’t need to be a front rack champion: just have to get some benefit from it.
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I keep talking about wanting to do 3/5/1 for TB, and I can definitely do that in the future, but I realized I have an avenue to employ something similar within the week itself. It’s 3-5 sets, which means I could always do something like open up the week with 4 sets, do 3 sets on the second workout and then finish up with 5 sets. There’s also the potential to do 4 sets, then 5 sets, then 3 sets on the final workout, saving my back a little before I do events work on the weekend. Both have their advantages: having the low amount of sets in the mid workout correlates with the workout where I do trap bar lifts, so I can save myself for that OR I could do more than 1 workset of the trap bar that day. It’s funny how, the more limited the training, the more creative I get.
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We ended up only doing 1 TSD class last night. We all are still feeling a little crummy post travel. We’ll get in one more class on Saturday.
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12 LABORS: SLAYING THE NEMEAN LION
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 1, Workout 6
“MEATEATER”
100m sprint
20kb swings w/24kg bell
Walk back to start
10 total rounds
Time: 21:10
Notes:
- Got this done around 12:30. Figuring out training on weekends. It was stupidly cold outside, but no snow, so I wanted to take advantage of that and do some outdoor stuff. I’m feeling speedier on the sprints. Last 2 rounds my legs were done, but still got my heart rate up and breathing hard.
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I see this all the time too, not just kids though,
It never ceases to amaze me how weak and out of shape most of the adult population is too.
My family definitely in the minority as I am sure are yours .
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@simo74 Oh, fat adults are a given. That doesn’t shock me any more. The thing is: the adults have had decades to make poor decisions in order to get that fat. Putting on 2lbs a year during the holiday season means being 40lbs overweight in 20 years. But when you’re only 8 years old? How did you get so fat? THAT is what breaks my heart: those kids don’t even have a chance.
But yeah, totally relate with the family. I bring that up to the Valkyrie as well. She’s her own worst critic, as we all are, and I constantly tell her to open her eyes and look around. These days, just STAYING the same is a victory, because everyone else is in a state of decline. I can still wear the same clothes today that I wore in college when I met my wife: very few of my peers can say the same.
AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)
12 LABORS: SLAYING THE LERNAEAN HYDRA
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 1, Week 2, Workout 1
MAIN WORK
SSB Front Squat
5x5x225
ALTERNATE W/
Log Clean and Press Away
5x5x155
Weighted NG chins
5x5x35
KB swings
100x24kg
ASSISTANCE
Ab circuit (no rest between exercises)
SSB front rack hold
3x30 seconds x 348lb
SUPERSET w/
HLR
3x10
BPA
4x25
Lateral raise dropset
35x10, 35x5, 35x2.5, 35xEmpty Hands
BREAKFAST
Short walk w/dog
Notes:
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First workout at 80%, and it’s feeling solid. I’m thinking the program is working as designed. Really focusing on getting that front squat smooth. Instead of the 2 stage approach I’ve used where I squat, hit my natural depth, relax and get deeper, I’m trying to get it all into one solid motion while keeping tight/braced. Along with that, focusing on getting that log clean as explosive as possible so I don’t waste any energy on it. Wearing my grip shirt will help too, but I don’t want to rely on gear: I want to have strong mechanics. It’s why I’m wearing my belt so early into the training phase: I want to practice it the way I need it to be.
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Still keeping 2 minutes rest. If I need more, I’ll take it, but right now it’s still plenty.
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My left hip was a little achy from the swings from yesterday, and I considered not doing them today, thinking maybe I’m doing too much, but I reflected on how the 10k swing challenge requires 500 per day 5 days a week and people manage. I’m sure I’m out of condition, but I can fix that. I’ll still listen to my body as best I can, but it’s a balancing act.
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Allowing myself a little bit of hypertrophy maintenance work in the assistance if time permits. Lateral raises, some direct arm work on my deadlift day, and maybe some chest work somewhere else. I don’t intent to do a workout on top of a workout, but I can spend a few minutes if I have the time to get a slight pump that won’t interfere with recovery.
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Weighed in at 86.4kg this morning. When I finished Mass Protocol, I was 84.6, so that’s up almost 2 full KG 2 weeks after finishing the program. I also know I’ve dropped some weight since last week, based on how my weight belt was fitting this morning, alongside my rings. Some of that is definitely inflammation, as the whole family is still overcoming some manner of stomach bug we contracted while traveling, but I’m also calling this a “hypertrophy hangover”. Even though the TRAINING for mass had stopped, the RECOVERYING from the training did not, and that 1 week on the cruise gave me ample time to eat, recover and grow. Having “too much muscle” is a great problem to have, but it’s also something for me to keep in mind for future training cycles in relation to proximity to competitions and weigh ins. I’m not at all concerned about making weight for 12 Apr at 181lbs at this point, but I’m also delighted to have so much “runway” as far as nutrition goes. Primarily because I’m really not good at maintenance, so being 9lbs over gives me plenty of time to slowly lose some weight while focusing on getting my strength up.
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Already making small, simple changes that will add up big. Swapped out some whole eggs for egg whites, ditched the pork rinds, going with leaner cuts of steaks, including a little more lean white meat, etc. We ate out twice this week (we tend to on the weekends), and I went to my favorite Hibachi place and had a plateful of shrimp with a touch of beef, compared to my normal half/half approach, and I went with the full rack of ribs at our BBQ place with no extra sides. I’m still sticking with solid meal a day and the rest being Metabolic Drive, because I really like that approach, and it means far fewer variables to control as far as nutritional manipulation goes. Whereas my 1 meal a day used to be an eating competition, now I just eat to satiety with leaner foods. We’ll see how it all shakes out.
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Going to try to get in some more walking today while my kid is at show choir. It was 5 degrees this morning when I walked the dog, so it’ll be chilly, but I don’t mind bundling up, as long as it’s not raining.
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Awesome work on those TB track workouts. Those got me in shape to a new type of level and really changed the way I workout. My favorite (and by that I mean the one I hate the most) is the 6 x 600m resets. So good yet so horrible.
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600m resets are aweful to do but awesome to have done! I did these every other week (alternating with Fast 5 and in conjunction with longer slow runs) in preparation for a 11 miles trail race. I want to give that training credit to me being always able to sprint when there was an opening to pass some slow people.
It was my first trail race and I had no idea that many people would be walking and that single trail means it’s really hard to pass people. I was happy I did them when those opening came and at the same time I was asking myself why the hell do people do a trail race if they can’t run it.
Good job @T3hPwnisher on Meat Eater! I need to work on that faster work short rest interval type anaerobic. I bet the swings were fun! Lots of snow here in Canada though. I might try Meat Eater II.
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I think this is exactly it.
I’m the same way off-leash. It’s exciting to get treats, but I’m going to lean into healthy foods for filling up, then have some bites of sugary, creamy stuff for thrills.
I always go back to my mother’s “eat something if you’re hungry,” which was always said when I was eating something, just not something she deemed “food.” The lesson stuck.
My kids are the same way. It’s been interesting to blend families with my husband, whose family never met a sweet it didn’t like and who are big consumers of things like ketchup.
Which means in part that when let loose, the kids on my side are going to act like complete animals because there’s scarcity, whereas his side takes it all in stride. But mine are happy - as I am - to step away from the bacchanalia when it’s time, and they grow up appreciating real food.
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@antiquity Hey thanks so much man! I need to find an actual track sometime, as right now I’m going off GPS estimates on distance. I’m at least consistent with my benchmarks that way, but it would make a lot of this simpler.
@Hugo_Fillion I appreciate that dude! I’m definitely taking advantage of the lack of snow as much as I can, knowing full well I have tons of “indoor only” conditioning should the need arise.
@EmilyQ It’s definitely interesting to see how the habits manifest. I remember thinking around day 4 of the cruise “I’m so sick of food” haha. Eventually the novelty of hedonism wears off. But I also feel like it’s a good sign when I WANT to get back to “normal” while still being able to enjoy vacation for what it is. “Eat something if you’re hungry” is a great expression as well. That’s been a big game changer for me. If I’m not hungry enough for a meal, I don’t need to eat.
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