I agree with @bigpappafrance. You might’ve just given me a chance to include sled work in my classes. That carpet looks just like the carpet surface I use at the Y and I love it.
3 Likes
@dietdrfapper Way to find a way to get to yes there dude! Looks like you inspired some folks there as well.
Non-training recap. Valkyrie ran her 40th half marathon today, completing her goal of 40 under 40. We got up at 0440 to be able to make the drive. I fasted through breakfast, and the kiddo and I walked around downtime while we waited for the finish, racking up 11000 steps.
After we got home, Valkyrie was understandably fatigued, so she took a nap while I whipped up lunch for the kiddo and I. I scored a bunch of reduced price flanken ribs this weekend, so I made that for myself (1.5lbs) alongside 3 whole eggs and 5 whites. This was totally ad hoc: took them out of the freezer and threw them in some water to thaw for about 30 minutes before I air fried them at 400 for around 10 minutes with some wagyu spray and salt. They’re definitely chewy when you do that, but still quite delicious.
Did yard work for 90 minutes after that (watch doesn’t track those steps, lame) and Valkyrie wanted our local burrito shop for a celebratory dinner.
Got myself a carne asada breakfast burrito (cheese and egg) and a “cabeza” burrito (beef cheek). Unwrapped them and ate the insides.
Valkyrie is still absolutely ridiculous and made peanut butter cookies with recees’ pieces and butterscotch. I had 5ish (some broken bits) of those with some raw local honey.
I’m at 18,700 steps at the moment, with the yard work unaccounted for. This was a great day. The food choices continue to be eye opening in a positive way. Preferred fasting in the morning, rather than eating just to eat. Was hungry at midday, since dinner yesterday was small, and I could eat whatever I wanted, since I was the one making it…and that’s exactly what I did. And come dinner time, it’s the night of the week I traditionally eat a high carb meal, I was at a Mexican place, excellent opportunity to get some nachos, a quesadilla, a full burrito, tacos, all those things I grew up with in San Diego…and I got exactly what I wanted, which was meat and eggs. It wasn’t some sort of obligation or restriction or denial: I just plain didn’t want to eat anything other than meat and eggs. I knew how I’d feel after eating that stuff compared to the stuff I get to eat at home, and though I had a “free pass” to do exactly that, it didn’t appeal to me at all, whereas carne asada, eggs, cheese and beef cheek was absolutely wonderful.
I traditionally don’t do as well trying to “dessert load” compared to a full on legit carb refeed, but I’d rather eat like this and suffer the consequences of that than force myself to eat carbs just to eat them. And when I used to run the Apex Predator diet, it was the complete opposite: I’d try to leverage that Rampage Meal to eat fast/processed junk.
I’m such a fan of the place I’m in these days.
10 Likes
AM WORKOUT (0358 natural wake up)
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL SPECIFICITY BRAVO Week 2, Workout 1
SSB Squat
4x10x290
Consider praying to Crom, then realize he won’t listen anyway
Lever belt squat
4x10x270
Axle strict press from rack
2x10x136
7x136
8+4+2x136
(3) DB incline bench
4x10x70s
Dips
10,8,6x67.5
15xBW
ASSISTANCE
Hanging leg raise/band pull apart circuit
3x10/25
Notes:
- I came into this feeling better than I thought I would. I was wiped out yesterday from all the activity, and though I wasn’t super excited at the prospect of sets of 10 with 1 min rest on squats, I was ready, willing and able.
- Which yes: 1 minute rests for all squats, and it still absolutely sucks and I have no idea how I’ll somehow manage to do it again with even heavier weights next time, but we find a way. I went 60-90-120 for the axle press, 60-60-90 for incline bench, and 60s on dips. Really didn’t care about the dips by the time I got there.
- Though the press sets fell off at the end, the first set, in particular, felt stupidly light, and it was awesome to toss around 135 like an empty bar again. I’m rebuilding to where I used to be.
- Got all 7 days with 19-18-18 chins. This week starts 19-19-18.
- Weighed 83.6kg this morning. Not at all surprised at that number: we ate out a lot and I took in TON of sodium. The sodium isn’t going to change: doing kalua pork tonight. But I’m also going to not eat like a prom queen as specificity finishes up, because it’s such a nut kick.
- Only 1 Tang Soo Do class this week: tomorrow. This week’s schedule is pretty nuts. In turn, I may get in a walk tonight while my kid is rehearsing at a function.
8 Likes
@BethB Outstanding! One of the best parts about Crom is I don’t have to worry if I believe in him: I wonder if he believes in me.
Nutrition recap
Breakfast was 14.5oz of corned beef “drowned ends” a tin of sardines, 3 whole eggs and 5 whites with beef liver.
We did kalua pig for dinner. I had a ton, with 3 whole eggs and 5 whites that I topped with the drippings from the instant pot.
6 Likes
This blows my mind. I keep mine to around 3 mins and that is hard enough for an old boy like me. 1 min is like no rest at all. Salute to you mate.
2 Likes
I’m doing this too. Most of that minute is stripping or adding weight. Sucks so bad.
2 Likes
@Simo74 Much appreciated dude. It’s WHY I only ever do 3 weeks of Specificity, haha. Funny enough, the lighter weights and higher reps make my body feel great AFTER the fact, but the training is just absolutely brutal. And the book makes out Specificity Bravo to be like bodybuilder pump stuff, but I imagine it’s because the intention was to use machines and the like vs running it with SSB squats.
@Taylortooswift I know, if left to my own devices, those plates changes would somehow take longer and longer each set, haha. I have to have the clock to keep me honest. Do the point that I actually “rest” for 45 seconds, so I can factor in the 15 seconds of time I’ll feel sorry for myself before I start the next set, fudging around with my belt and sleeves and unracking the weight.
AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s Alarm)
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL SPECIFICITY BRAVO Week 2, Workout 2
“ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BLOAT”
19 chins
20 minute recovery row
Notes:
- 4150m done: 50 meters improved from last time. I am stupidly trying to match/set PRs on a recovery workout, but I’m still meeting the objective, because my body is feeling really awesome right now. One of those rare “painfree days”. Having 2 nights off Tang Soo Do this week should help quite a bit there.
- This is honestly one of my favorite days of the training plan now, which is such a reversal of my previous self. Enjoy being able to sleep in, get up when my wife does, and get my body loose, along with a simple morning of just coffee for breakfast.
- Last night, got in about 2 miles of walking in the evening. Walked to a Mexican supermercado and picked up an avocado and cotija cheese to make our Cinco de Mayo a little more authentic tonight.
- Tang Soo Do tonight. One step defense: tends to be lighter activity.
- Weighed in at 83.7kg. I called 83.9: so close. Body awareness is solid, and leanness is really coming out, despite the bodyweight creeping up. I think that means I’m winning this whole “recomp” thing.
9 Likes
100% that’s why I have my workout programed into my garmin and it tells me when my rest time is up so I feel obligated to start.
2 Likes
Same. For me, it’s the stopwatch on my phone, which is the abyss I’m staring into during my rest periods, haha.
1 Like
Couple of thoughts I had on the way into work.
- I keep commenting on how my body is feeling great, and the biggest reason is the change in stimulus. Specifically, swapping the buffalo bar for the SSB, as this is the primary driver of soreness for me in general, but even just swapping the order of exercises plays a role as well. This was the lesson Louie Simmons was trying to teach that I just wasn’t receiving in my 20s, but I SO wish I figured it out. If you HAVE access to various implements, you SHOULD frequently swap them out for just such a reason. The only reason to stay married to one is if you don’t have the ability to swap. I got it confused, in my head thinking that I needed to “master” the barbell squat through constant repetition, like the boys in the York Barbell club did back in the day, but if they HAD more tools, they’d have used them. My ROM progression protocol occupies an interesting space in this regard, as changing the ROM ever so slightly every week seems to achieve a similar effect.
- This is also why, even when it feels like a program is working great, I need to keep changing. It’s working BECAUSE I keep changing. I’m already tempted to get right back on Grey Man after this, but it’s those periods of Operator, with low reps and front squats, that make it so that Grey Man IS so effective. And I can’t stick with Specificity for too long because the SSB is playing with fire as it relates to total body destruction.
- Was listening to a podcast with Lyle McDonald and realized that my 2 days of coffee fasting per week is, once again, not anything new, and that the 5/2 approach is so well understood/appreciated that T-Nation has covered it before as well
- Interestingly enough, I’ve moved away from the constant protein pulse thing BECAUSE I find that I’m hungry once I START eating, whereas, if I don’t “break the seal”, it’s far easier to go without food. I feel I get myself out of the woods here BECAUSE I eat carnivore, so when I DO finally eat at the end of the day, I’m getting sufficient protein to offset whatever detriment I experience from a day of not eating, alongside the fact that all the protein I eat on the eating days is also having a similar effect. But Lyle spoke to something that I’ve been finding is true as well: anyone can diet hard for 1 day. And now that I’ve played around with it for a little bit, I’m enjoying the offset schedule of Eat-Fast-Eat-Eat-Fast-Eat-Eat.
9 Likes
I like how well that captions the thumbnail.
1 Like
@LoRez YouTube has been good for keeping me humble, haha
Nutrition recap.
Fasted until dinner. When Cinco de Mayo falls on Taco Tuesday, taco bowls are a must. First one has a base of scrambled eggs (3 whole, 5 white), with 93% lean beef, avocado, sour cream, crumbled bacon and cotjia cheese. Second bowl had no eggs.
7 Likes
AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL SPECIFICITY BRAVO Week 2, Workout 3
(2) Texas Deadlift Bar Mat Pulls
10x455
DB rows
4x10x145
Axle curls
4x10x83
GHRs
4x10x65
ASSISTANCE
GHR sit up
20, 11
Reverse hyper
3x15x270
Band pull apart
3x25
Notes:
- Felt good coming into this. No body aches of note. Wasn’t very strong in the warm-ups though. Think those SSB squats takes quite abit away from me. The set of 10 for the pulls was well fought, and I could have gotten an 11th with a gun to my head, but since next week is the pull from the floor, no real point in blowing myself out here and now. My SI joint continues to feel better each week, and stringing together good decisions helps there. And, funny enough, this resulted in a set of 10, which coincided with what I was supposed to do for the day.
- DB rows felt better than I expected. Back was really well connected. GHRs got a good pump too
- Ran into a weird issue on the sit ups where my ankles were burning on the second set from suspending myself in the GHR. Shut it down early, because it was a weird pain to deal with.
- Tang Soo Do last night was pretty low energy. But managed over 10k steps yesterday.
- Weighed 82.8kg this morning. My weight is following last week almost exactly. .9kg drop from yesterday. That said, I’m going to throw a wrench into that. My kid had a 3 hour rehearsal tonight that starts really early, and there is a Texas de Brazil (Brazilian steakhouse) a mile away, so I’m going to walk there for my dinner and then spend the rest of the evening walking some of that off. I’m going to enjoy myself, rather than gorge, but depending on how much I take in, I may introduce an additional coffee fast tomorrow. As always: Chaos is the plan.
7 Likes
I miscalculated my training timeline and will actually find myself with about 10 extra days after the end of the 3 week cycle of Specificity Bravo before my cruise begins and, with it, my bridge week.
Running through a few COAs. One is to take Specificity to it’s logical conclusion and just keep increasing the weight while dropping the reps, the other is to do a “Operator Recon” cycle where I pilot some maxes and see how a 6 day training week shakes out. Another could be to run half of a 3 week cycle of Grey Man.
Not the biggest of deals either way, but an interesting situation none the less.
3 Likes
Many years ago I attended an NSCA Conference and attended a session they said 3x10 on something like squats with 1 minute rest boosted natural testosterone and HGH levels the best. I was sold.
I rest 60-90 seconds now but my brain has the timer built in and I’m usually ready to go around 55 seconds. I also used these intervals to keep my workouts down to reasonable times when I was younger. I’d get distracted and talk between sets and end up being at the gym way too long.
It’s just another form of progression. Getting the same amount of work done in less time is success.
2 Likes
I totally get the concept and the training benefit. There is just no way after a hard set of squats I am good to go in 60 secs. If you can do it, then play on.
2 Likes
@Frank_C It speaks to the value of conditioning as it relates to strength training. People buy into the stupid meme about strength athletes never doing cardio, but having a solid base of conditioning goes SO far toward helping you get strong.
Nutrition Recap
Breakfast was 14.5oz of corned beef “drowned ends” alongside beef liver, 3 whole eggs and 5 whites topped with some cotija cheese.
Went to Texas de Brazil for dinner and ate red meat for about 50 uninterrupted minutes. I told them I like beef rib, and I’m fairly certain they fed me 3 bones of it just to get me to finally leave, like a sacrifice to an angry tribal god. I stuck with steak and lamb: no pork or chicken. Did one quick trip to the cold station beforehand to get some various cheeses and salmon as well. Pictured just one of many plates, to capture the experience, but when it was done my plate was a river of grease.
Actually got in 10k of steps AFTER the meal, which was nice.
6 Likes
Good to go? Not really, but able to go? Yeah. I’ve seen the stuff you do for fun on weekends. Getting back under the bar after 60 seconds of rest is similar to the conditioning work you do (loaded carries). Would your set suffer? Absolutely. But you would adapt pretty quickly. If you ever have a week or two where training cycles don’t line up and you want to do something to keep moving, then try 3x10 at about 60% with 60 sec rest. Lower loads so less intense for an off or down week, but still a good workout.
1 Like
AM WORKOUT (0350 wake up via dog, snoozed until 0400)
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL SPECIFICITY BRAVO Week 2, Workout 4
SSB Squat
2x10x315
8x315
9+3x315
Lever belt squat
4x10x285
Axle strict press from rack
5, 10, 6 x146
6+3x146
(3) DB incline bench
2x10x75s
9x75
10+1x75
Dip/hanging leg raise circuit
15/10, 10/8, 5/6
Notes:
- Predictably, this was a rough workout, and my primary goal was to not vomit (success). There’s a point where we adequately fuel for training and there’s a point where we cross a threshold of “energy toxicity” and I was definitely operating in the latter after last night’s nutritional debauchery (of which my only regret was turning over my red card right before another round of picanha came out). Honestly, what held me up the most was how short I was keeping my rest times, which was primarily a result of being behind the 8-ball schedulewise, due to a little extra time dedicated to gastric emptying prior to training as a result of attempting to test my gallbladder’s max capacity.
- On that note, I kept the rest times to 1 minute on the first 3 sets of squats. Part of that was to be consistent with the previous workout, but the primary driver was just wanting to be DONE with squats as soon as possible. If I had allowed myself 2 minutes, I have no doubt I would have succeeded.
- The axle strict press caught me quite off guard with how awful it felt, with proof of concept being that I got 10 reps on that second set: doubling what I did on the first set. I’m going to stick with this weight for next week’s sets of 8 and see where that takes me. The incline went well, so the press strength was there, but I just seemed to be exhausted.
- It was very easy to decide to fast through breakfast today: still feeling satiated. Didn’t even want coffee either: just LOTS of water. I’m sure all the protein running through my system is needing it.
- Surprisingly, only up half a kilo, weighing in at 83.4 this morning. I thought for sure I’d be at 84+.
- Today’s workout gave me some food for thought about progressing after Specificity. I may come BACK to this workout/week and re-conquer it. This is definitely the hardest week of the program: the reps are high while the weights are heavy. My hips don’t care for the SSB squat as well, but my elbows like it, so it’s a mixed bag.
- Also, last night’s adventure was a classic “missing the point”, as I listened to Lyle McDonald discuss his “Rapid Fat Loss” diet on a podcast for 2 hours while I was walking after having consumed about 300g of protein and fat in a single sitting. That said, the parallels between it and my own nutritional approach gave me a lot to steal.
2 Likes