Rebirth of the Juggernaut: Brute Force and Ignorance (Part 1)

Training Training Logs
9166

@mr.v3lv3t I am the Shasta to Brain’s CocaCola, haha. We don’t deserve that dude.

AM WORKOUT (0300 wake up via alarm)

25 Chins

GIANT SET (press-jump-chin-pull apart)

Axle clean and push press away
5xAxle
5x136
5x156
11x176
Axle clean each rep and strict press
22+3+5x136 (DC rest pause)

Box jumps
3x4

Chins (various grips)
4x6

Band pull aparts
4x10

Axle bench press
5xAxle
10x136
11+4+5x246 (DC rest pause)
Transition immediately to
50 dips (rest pause)
Transition immediately to lateral raise stripset

20x20lbs
20x10
20x5
20x2.5
20xEmpty Hands
70 second crucifix hold

Kroc rows 115
1x19

25 pushdowns
20 standing ab wheel
40 unloaded reverse hypers

Notes:Plate change rest on the giant sets. That clean each rep thing got pretty silly. Was turning into strict press Grace. Next time, I’ll enforce a “touch and go clean” to keep me honest, or use straps and do hang cleans. I saw Justin Harris use that approach in “project Super Heavyweight” and it seemed pretty legit. Still, got a crazy metabolic effort and a lot of press volume, so can’t be upset with that.

Bench PR’d by 2 reps. Beating the log book.

Push press is getting a little better. Still rough hitting this workout first thing.

Got Tang Soo Do this evening. Most likely do the actual Grace WOD sometime before that.

Been meaning to document that my sleep has been real good recently. Feeling more normal.

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9167

Dude just when I thought the new blog post couldn’t get any better with the dnd reference you had to go and drop a chrono trigger reference too. lol. epic.

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9168

@cstan097 Hell yeah dude! Gotta let that nerd flag fly, haha. I remember being so blown away by new game+ the first time I got to experience it.

PM WORKOUT

Axle Grace echo
30 reps: 2:48
15 reps: 1:38
7 reps: 0:35

Notes: It’s amazing how much I hate this workout for how short it is.

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9169

Since we’re mentioning your blog, You made post a while back about being the villain of your own story. That entry resonated with me big time, and I actually found myself using it to make a point yesterday completely unrelated to lifting, but in discussing matters of life itself. Had myself a nice chuckle afterwards, thoughtful meatheads.

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@mr.v3lv3t Hell yeah dude! I loved writing that piece. Great perspective framing. It’s a good mental exercise to sometimes ask “Am I the bad guy?”

Training Log: Entry 2514

AM WORKOUT (0540 wake up via alarm, 0700 workout)

50 chins w/rest pause

Axle deadlifts
5x136
5x226
1x296
5x346
5x401
5x451
13+4+6x346 (DC rest pause)

Got another 50 chins and pull aparts in between sets there

Axle shrugs against bands
1x112

GIANT SET CIRCUIT (no rest) hyper-abs-dips

Reverse hyper 410
5x8

Standing ab wheel
5x4

Dips
5x10+25 pushdowns at end

Axle rows against bands
12+4+4 DC rest pause

Notes: Pulling an axle remains soul draining, but it’s good for you. I ended up falling forward on the 3rd rep of the first rest pause set and pulled it dead stop from there. Humid as hell in the garage: was like I went swimming afterwards. Decent back workout. Want to get in some conditioning a little later.

I’ll be dropping out of the Sep strongman comp, as I got my third stripe in Tang Soo Do last night and will have belt testing on that day. Been awesome having this family activity.

I was a bad boy in Tang Soo Do last night. We were doing 1-step self defense drills. I get paired with the very senior student, because he’s the only other man in the class and these drills can get a little physical. Since he’s advanced, he gets to do drills I’m not trained in yet, so he’s explaining to me how I’m supposed to attack him for him to drill his defense.

He says “Ok, for this next one, you’re going to do get me in a hold from behind, like a standing rear-naked choke”

I go “OK!” It wasn’t the deepest choke I ever sunk in my life, but I have a feeling he was not quite anticipating it. The instructor picked us up off the floor and explained to him the proper defense.

Got the critique that I’m too stiff. Been hearing that my whole training career. Hard to take the lifting out of me.

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9171

Hey Pwn what got you into martial arts?

9172

I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s. It was everywhere. Ninja Turtles, Karate Kid, 3 Ninjas, Surf Ninjas, Street Fighter, etc etc. Along with being big and strong it was another thing I wanted growing up. Hung up the gloves when I got married, so it’s fun to be back.

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9173

Ever play the streets of rage series?

9174

Yup. Kid and I actually played the second one last week.

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9175

Dude I can never beat that game. I love the series. I should buy the fourth one. My nintendo switch is kinda collecting dust.

Hmmm
You ever play sonic
1,2, and/or 3 or cd

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:rofl:

It wasn’t just him you were strangling. It was his confidence in an entire fighting system turning purple.

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9177

@tlgains I have played a LOT of video games, haha. It includes those. Most of my youth was spent playing video games.

@SkyzykS I genuinely feel a little bad how much my alpha male instincts kick in at moments like that, haha. I’ve been a good boy for the most part but every once in a while I feel a need to point out that belt color only means so much.

PM WORKOUT (1400)

“LAST CASTLE”

Carry 150lb keg
Do 6 KB snatches w/45lb bell
Carry keg
Do 10 swings

Do it for 26 rounds

Notes: Watch me engage in peace talks with a hornet around round 9. Otherwise, this remains absolutely brutal and an awesome way to make everything hurt.

But for some real new: got back from my physical. Blood pressure is 118/66. Resting heart rate is 52 after an energy drink and a deadlift workout.

Biggest news: LDL was 81! I’ve been off meds since October. The doc’s words were “clearly your lifestyle changes are working”. It’s a total of a 119 point drop since last year. I’m just over the moon. It’s been awesome to find balance between training, nutrition and living. And this was a reading taken AFTER a weight gain phase. I imagine it’d be even better at the end of this weight loss. HDL was 87, always awesome. Will have to view the full panel sometime to get the triglycerides.

@cstan097 gonna throw a tag in here because I know you were curious. Looks like the method has worked.

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9178

Great news! Congrats, man.

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9179

Awesome news man!

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9180

I know you wrote down what changes you made before, but can you summarize them again?

I think the biggest thing was that you changed how much red meat you eat and upped your fat sources from nuts and other such things + eating cleaner in general?

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This made me laugh and took me back 20+ years. I did Tang soo Do as an adult in my 20’s. I had studied Judo as a junior and then a little bit of boxing but hadn’t trained any martial arts for a long time. My wife wanted to learn so we took classes together. When we would do sparring he would split the class into lower and higher ranks and rotate our partners every couple of minutes. It was always set up so lower ranks got to spar with higher ranks so they could help you with techniques. Most of the higher rank guys were really good and during sparing would either get you to attack and just defend or even show you a defense and then keep attacking so you could practice it, more like drills really. There was one higher rank who was a little younger and a little more cocky and he would take the opportunity to make himself feel real good when sparing a white belt by just raining in punches and kicks. Saw him do this many times to both men and women and I wasn’t a fan. Whilst it was only soft contact so no one was getting hurt it was the fact that it was unhelpful at best and bully behavior at worst that pissed me off. One night we are sparring together and he is just coming at me with punches fast a furious style, I just saw red went straight back into boxing guard rolled under a punch and hit him with a left cross straight to the solar plexus. He folded like a cheap poker hand and stayed on his knees for a few minutes trying to breath. Felt good but got me into so much trouble with Sensei. Sat out of sparring for a few weeks and my conditioning got really good from all the push ups and running he made me do.

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9182

@SvenG Thanks dude!

@boilerman Hell yeah dude! Deep Water wins again! Haha.

@magick More than happy to discuss. I took at lot of inspiration from the John Meadows article on elitefts titled “The Mountain Dog Diet—A Healthier Way to Get Lean/Add Muscle…or Both!”. If you google it, it will turn up. I never got into cooking with coconut oil, but switched everything to organic/free range/grass fed (which also corresponds with the diet advice from Jon Andersen). That said, like you mentioned, I switched out a lot of beef for white meat. I ate beef every single day, after twice a day. It was pretty much the only animal protein I ate. It was because beef was stupid easy to cook/prep. If you undercook chicken or fish, you can get food poisoning. You undercook beef and you have rare beef. And the beef I was eating was all grain fed. AND I ate large portions as well. 16oz was my default setting for meat. This was all good for being strong, but not so much for being lean and healthy.

However, what I think is the BIGGEST contributor is that I radically slashed transfats, and that’s because I was a total fast food junkie. Like all addicts, I still AM a junkie: I just don’t eat the stuff much anymore, but I still get the cravings for it. I was addicted primarily to the convienience of it: I loved that someone else would cook for me and I could clean up by throwing my trash in a bin. I was constantly not packing food and just banking on swinging through the BK drivethrough. I was throwing away the buns thinking I was “eating right” by only eating the meat and veggies, but it’s still very low quality food and I was eating a ton of it. It’s a treat, and should be treated as such.

I had spent too long looking at macronutrients and nothing beyond that. If it was low carb it was good, even if it was high fat, and even if those fats were saturated fats and transfats. Getting a bit more away went a long way.

Made an effort to get in good monounsaturated fats and polys as well. Avocados, macadamia nuts, pecans, and my growing collection of Nuts n More. Instead of relying on meat for fat, I now primarily eat lean meats and supplement fats with veggie sources.

All that said, I went too extreme at the beginning and basically crashed my hormones. Got the my leanest and was absolutely miserable. So working my way back to where I am now, I started including “thou shalts”: daily food requirements I had to meet. The biggest ones were mandatory grassfed beef consumption and mandatary free range organic whole eggs. Grassfed butter was included while I was gaining, but I’ve cut it out while I’m dropping weight for now.

Man, I could honestly ramble on and on about this, haha. For supplements sake, I started taking “Cholestoff”, which are plant sterols that are supposed to help lower cholesterol. Always happy to go into more detail.

@simo74 That’s an amazing story! Sometimes the big fish needs to be reminded that there are bigger ponds.

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9183

Awesome health news. Always cool to see your work pay off.

This is something I wonder about - you’re jacked, strong, and can (I believe) fight. Is this why you have alpha male instincts? Are they bred by living certain lifestyles or building the qualities that men like yourself have? Does a weak man or a man who has zero confidence in himself in a fight have those instincts?

Who knows.

This surprises me. I didn’t think veggies contained much fat. Or am I misunderstanding you?

Please always feel free too, haha. I love reading this kind of stuff. After a while, people’s paths to success start to sound fairly similar, but it’s still very interesting to hear all the details first hand, along with any personal observations on their parts.

9184

Thanks for the reply.

That change in LDL is significant. I think this adds one more positive evidence to what seems to be the most sensible diet out of them all-

Lean a lot of lean meat, occasionally fatty meat.
Eat lots of diverse veggies.
Get most of your fats from non-meat sources but avoid vegetable cooking oil.
Eat some fruit.
Avoid processed foods.

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@jshaving Thanks dude! I figure all men have those instincts and they just manifest differently. My brother is very slim built and physically unimposing, but get him in a video game or Magic the Gathering match and he’s trash talking and posturing like the best of them. When an opportunity exists to assert dominance, it’s hard to fight the urge to do exactly that.

Good catch on veggie sources. Meant to write “plant based” and just shortchanged it. Meaning nuts, avocados, olives and the like.

Be happy to discuss in more detail if you have specific questions I can talk to. It’s been quite a journey.

@magick To modify that list a little, I’d definitely harp on the “meat fed it’s natural diet” when it comes to eating fatty meat. If I eat something stupidly lean I don’t worry too much, but if I’m eating animal fat for the purpose of eating animal fat (primarily beef or fish) I want it to be an animal that ate what it normally eats. “You are what you eat eats”, as it were.

For vegetable cooking oil, I like avocado and olive oil. I realize those are technically fruits, but “vegetable” doesn’t really have a botanical component to it, so it gets tricky.

Regarding fruit, aside from avocados and olives, I don’t eat any. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with fruit: my gut just can’t handle it. I tried introducing blueberries again, and it just tore up my insides.

I LOVE Dan John’s phase “cardboard carbs and Frankeinstein fats”. Meaning food that comes out of a box and is shelf stable for a LONG time and transfats. If we avoid them, we’re in a good way. In that regard, Dan John just has fantastic nutrition advice in general. I still am drawn to Deep Water, and have been blown away at how my junk food cravings just don’t exist anymore, but as far as “sustainable lifestyle” goes, Dan is the man.

AM WORKOUT (0300 wake up via alarm)

Tower of Babel (225lb front squat, 5 six count burpees between sets)

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Time: 22:30 (2:38 PR)

Transition immediately to daily work EMOM w/4 40KG kb swing buy in for 14 rounds (included plate stripping of previous workout)

2 minute rest

Tabata high handle trap bar pulls 135

Notes: It genuinely upsets me how effective this workout is, because it REALLY sucks. A 2 minute and 38 second PR is an awesome sign: definitely seeing progress. Blitzed through and spent less time feeling sorry for myself during the dips. After yesterday’s deadlift and carry work, going light on these seemed like the right call. Still going for the 8 rep minimum during the Tabata work at the end. My mind always says we’ll do some more, but I definitely take my body to a point where this is it.

Going to mow my front yard later today for some low impact stuff.

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