Hah, thankfully my time travel powers are only forward moving.
If you want the program, it was this: do a max set once a day. The next day, do that +1. When you get to 200, do 5 more. When you get to 300, do 10.
I got the idea from “The Richest Man in Babylon”
Before I read it, I’m assuming you pulled from the idea of adding one more brick a day or something similar?
It no joke has that push up program in it, haha. It was being used as an allegory for saving money, but I was like “wait, will that actually work for push ups?”
Spoilers: it does.
Haha hell yeah. Alright, I’ll bank it and use it myself early next year. As always, thanks for another nugget of wisdom. You should do a blog post on this though honestly. Would make for an interesting read
Thanks for the idea. I just might. Save me the trouble of coming up with something this week.
Talk to me a little bit about your diet, Punny. I know you do the low carb thing. How does a typical day look, if you don’t mind posting?
Hey man, no problem. Granted, most of my nutrition is voodoo and alchemy, haha. For instance, when possible, I never mix carbs and fats. The science might be shakey on that, but that paradigm seems to keep me honest.
I have slightly different approaches for training days vs non training. On a day where I lift, it looks like this
0440-Wake up, eat 2 cookies, lift
0630-2 cups frozen mixed berries mixed with 2 scoops protein powder, 1 cup skim milk, 1 serving non fat greek yogurt, 1 cup fruity pebbles breakfast cereal
0800-1 cup greek yogurt mixed with protein powder (makes a pudding)
1200-12oz meat (eyeballed) and veggies
1700-12oz meat and veggies
1930-cheese and a pickle
For non training days, noon on is the same, but beginning is like this
0630-shake of 2 scoops whey, 1 cup 2%milk, cream (no idea how much, but enough to take the shaker to about 3/4 full when combined with the milk), 1 serving nonfat greek yogurt.
0800-12oz meat
Basically, I only eat carb sources near training, so I go higher fat on non training days.
This has been allowing me to maintain weight. When I want to gain weight, I make small changes. I will add a half an avocado to the day. Then switch to a 3/4 cup of cottage cheese for the evening meal. Then add a slice of bread to the post training meal. Then switch the cookies for weight gainer. I will sometimes add one more meal at 1000 as well, and usually eat more meat in my afternoon meals.
If I want to lose weight, I cut stuff out. Get rid of the cereal, then just 1 cup of fruit, then the yogurt in the post training meal, etc. Just totally slash carbs.
I am planning on gaining with my next phase. I am going to try to swap the cereal with honey, just to eat less processed stuff.
1000 push ups, damn Pwn you keep up amazing me.
I’ve heard about that before, don’t really know the science behind it, but maybe
Then this:
Made me smile, in my world a cookie consist of two things Fat and sugar.
Love reading your post man, I’m going on a deload, let me see what’s the best way to deload… yeah 10 push ups and then you end at a 1000.
Yeah, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to getting something fast in your system. I had more elaborate pre-training meals before, but the time it took to prep and consume them started cutting in to my training time.Thankfully, these cookies are at least ones my wife makes, with very simple ingredients. One of my other staples when I go the pure carb route is honey toast.
Appreciate the kind words as always. I can actually speak to my deload philosophy a touch. I pretty much always do something stupid like that on a deload, but it’s usually at the start of the deload. 1000 push ups, an elaborate conditioning workout, gigantic squat dropset, etc. Since my deloads are all scheduled, I try to make the most out of them by pulling out all the stops right before that week of rest. It allows me to take advantage of that time, knowing that the huge workout won’t impact training for the rest of the week. I feel like it will help with nutrient partitioning as well, still allowing muscle to get built during a week of inactivity as my body will STILL be recovering from the effort I threw at it.
But, again, this is all voodoo and alchemy, haha.
All training is and should be
Yep. I’m pretty sure that’s how it was done before they started playing with people in research labs.
I’m glad some successfull people have gone before me though. I’m not sure how this journey would’ve played out if I to start from scratch.
In lieu of yesterday’s 400 push-up conversation, I found this and figured I would post it as well. Seems like some masochistic thing someone one here would do.
Cool, man; thanks for posting all that.
So you time carbs around your workout, up the fats/lower the carbs on off days, and systematically increase/decrease calories based on whether you’re gaining/losing? Sounds more like well thought out logic than voodoo to me!
I was asking because I was thinking of trying a low(er - would still probably be to the tune of 150g not including veggies) carb approach for a while to transition out of the next cut I’m going to do.
While the science doesn’t really show a benefit, I think it makes loads of sense in practical terms. If you divide your meals up in such a way, then you have loads of room for manoeuvre. Like, if you’ve got 2 protein + fat meals and 2 protein + carbs meals in a day and you want to add some calories, just add some carbs to your protein + fat meals or fats to your protein + carbs.
That’s basically what I think I’ll try next. 2 (maybe 3) meals during the day of just protein and fat, then a pre workout meal of protein and carbs, followed by a post workout protein and carb meal, then I’m done. If I don’t gain weight I can add a small amount to carbs to each of the protein + fats meals until the scale starts to move again.
@Yogi1 Glad you got something out of it, and hope it works out. I’ve done high and low carbs, and I just always feel better on low carbs and high fat. Less bloated, “lighter”, stronger, etc. However, it WAS a transition the first few weeks I cut the carbs and junk out of the diet, and I definitely felt weak and flat for a while there, but once I established a new baseline, it was good.
Never really ID’d the flexibility of the no carb/fats thing like you did there, but it’s a good point. I have such a voracious appetite that, for me, it’s usually just a question of eating more at the meals I’m eating or adding another meal while keeping the construct the same. I’m actually gonna experiment more with adding fats with this diet and see how it goes. Hopefully your foray into it goes well.
@oldbeancam Man, that’s intense, especially in the full Walmart attire, haha. After so many shoulder issues, I’ve never allowed myself such crazy ROM either.
@Frank_C It’s funny: I “knew” a lot more instinctively than I gave myself credit for when I first started, then “learned” a bunch only to stall, and then I came back to the instincts. I’ve gotten good ideas along the way for sure, but so much of this just seems to be the logic of working hard a lot.
But reading about those good ideas can be pretty awesome, especially when something just clicks and you go “Huh: how come I never thought of that?”
Woke up at 192.4 after traveling this week. Good place to start gaining weight.
Love this, It is so true. For all of what we know about the human body we really don’t know much about how it responds to both training and food. Everything we do is basically trial and error based off some loose principles.
I have to say I also love the idea of doing something mad at the start of a deload week and having the week to recover without impacting your next block.
It’s these little pearls of someone else’s approach to this thing we all love (lifting weights) that makes me stick around here. Thanks for sharing.
@simo74 It’s honestly amazed how stupid we are about our own bodies, and yet how much hubris we have in thinking that we have it all figured out. A while back, it was the 4 humours, and then after that we were pretty sure the soul was located in the pineal gland. Now we’re REALLY certain we’ve mapped the human genome. I wonder what we’ll think in another hundred years.
Glad you got something from that deload approach. My deloads tend to be my most historic workouts, haha. On that note…
DAY 1 OF DEEP WATER
AM WORKOUT
Buffalo Bar Squats 270
10x10
Axle deadlifts 226lbs superset w/bodyweight lunges
3x10/10
Notes: 4 minutes rest between sets on squats, 2 minutes on the deads and lunges. The last set of squats was more like a 10 minute rest, as I was hammered. Exertion headache and trying to hold in my chow. Usually eat something like an apple fritter before training on these days just to get in a lot of calories quickly, but it’s a no-sale, as it kept wanting to come back around set 8. The deads are supposed to be light, and doing them after squats sure makes that happen. I still owe the ab work, but I’ll get that done latter today. This was the challenge I wanted, and I think, once the calories go up, it’ll become a little better.
Woke up at 192.2. Good place to start gaining.
Oh yeah, also, usually listen to the Downward Spiral when I start a new program, but today I just listened to this on a loop for 2 hours
It seemed to fit.
Do you get the urge to puke often during squats?
I’ve learned that some of my intense leg training seems to invite that feeling. I blame low blood sugar. I eat Starbursts when I feel myself fading. That would probably be around set 5 or 6 of your squats based on how long it took you to do them. They seem to help me.
Just some food for thought (literally).
Nah, this was a first for me. Sure, I’ll feel miserable during squats, but this was the first time I had a legit concern of vomiting from training in a while. I imagine it’s just from going from a pretty clean few weeks to eating something so sweet beforehand. Just kept retasting the sugar/glaze.
I never eat or drink anything during training, haha. Just a habit I got into. Tends to make me feel worse. I am contemplating getting some zero cal sports drink, just because I was getting some bad cottonmouth. Appreciate the information.
PM ABWORK
1 minute plank followed by 20 sit-ups
3 rounds with no rest (just continuous circuit)
Notes: Everything in the program looks ok on paper, and then the rubber hits the road and reality happens. The final round of sit-ups on this sucked. I think this ab work every time I train thing will be good for me.
You found your vomit threshold!! Nice work. 15 years ago back in the U.K. I always used to train legs on a Thursday night. Squat rack was next to the emergency exit to the car park and I spent every Thursday spewing out the back. The gym owner got me my own bucket that he would give me every Thursday when I arrived at the gym. High rep squats, followed by giant drop sets on the leg press always had be breathing so hard that it was spew time. I don’t get that any more (thank goodness) maybe I just done train hard enough or stupid enough these days.
Eh, ish. Again, I think it was more the food choice beforehand. I’ve trained harder before, but not with that particular meal beforehand.
A dedicated bucket is a good gym owner. My previous garage had a handy escape door, but currently, I have to open the big door if I want to run out. But my kid threw up in the garage on the way to school a few weeks ago, so the cherry is already popped there.