Yeah, lifting and fishing both do that for me.
Do you need to have a plan at the gym or does just getting there and just doing something, anything, give you that headspace?
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That was a great question, and I had to think about it.
Honestly, I’d say they’re different things. Taking the dog for a walk and listening to a book would more be my fishing. It’s a total break, it’s restorative, and my mind can wander.
Training implies a different goal, which forces a commitment. This gives me an opportunity to have to invest mental energy elsewhere. I am pretty competitive by nature, perhaps a bit ADHD…, and having something else (that isn’t work) to really put myself into is important for me.
To that end, I like having some semblance of a plan. I don’t mind making adjustments on the fly, in fact, it’s something I will do even if I don’t have to, so I need that leeway. I do like to have some general outline, though, because that forces me to pay attention.
I really appreciate that thought-provoking question!
Anyway, today was more screwing around. I did a push day with slow eccentrics and mechanical drop sets like CT writes about. I hate playing with tempo every time I do it. I don’t mind pauses at the bottom or any of that, and I tend to control my eccentrics, but trying to count out 4 seconds or 5 or whatever when lowering a weight turns me off. I do like keeping it as a tool for hotel gyms when I don’t have a ton of weight available.
I’ll keep doing whatever this week while drafting out some “general plan” thoughts I feel like I can take on the road with me. I’m doing better about finding local gyms or booking hotels with gyms - I was able to backfill my old role which gives me a little more time to be a little more selective about this stuff. Always upward and all that!
My son is pumped for Halloween, as he always is. We’ve got big plans this weekend to start going to the haunted house stuff at the amusement park and decorate our place. It feels kind of weird to do it when we’re near record high temperatures, but I know I’ll be wanting this back when it snows on the trick or treaters in a month!
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How have you enjoyed The Incinerator?
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Hello good sir! I like it. I like John’s older, base programs - Muscular Demolition (the first 6 weeks of which is the “Reactive Hypertrophy” that was on this site) was probably my favorite. I’m a big fan of challenge sets, although I do often prefer working up heavy and then backing down before that last set.
Today I did the week 5 back day, but I’ve honestly had to modify things so much through weeks 3-4 I don’t know if we could say I’ve really done the program. Certainly not in such a way that I’d write a real review or anything.
My new few weeks, my gym access looks decent:
- Trip 1 - dumbbells and some selectorized equipment. Maybe I just go high-volume (like 10x10 or something) on the lifts I can load? What would you do here?
- Straight into trip 2 - looks like a smith machine, dumbbells, machines. I’m good to go here.
- Straight to trip 3 - this has an overnight flight, but then a full old-school looking gym when I get in; this one should be fun. I feel like I’ll just bump into Dorian Yates.
- Trip 4 - trying to get in and out same day, so no impact.
I’m thinking the best “plan” for me might be to just go with the split, which I like, and more or less the exercise order, but not overthink it past that.
In other news, I’ve been eating basically carnivore plus potatoes (and intraworkout Surge + Mag-10 the days I’m home), and I am absolutely shedding weight without having to think about anything. I’ll be riding this out for a bit.
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So awesome to see this working out for you. It’s great when you can land on a “default” approach that gets you where you want without having to suffer.
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Can you talk more about the potatoes? Like, how many, how cooked? Is this a dinner only thing, or…?
I wonder if this would be a way for me to address what I believe is a need for carbs as a woman, and also hit the quantity-reducing benefit of keto or carnivore (via the monotony that allows satiety signals to come through more clearly).
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Thanks man! It’s all back to the age-old “one variable at a time” kind of thing. Potatoes were a magic add, for me, but I wouldn’t have really had that epiphany without stripping it all back.
For sure! Short answer - I just kind of add them in when I feel like it. I haven’t been overthinking it at all. My meals my last couple of days have been:
- Training - Surge Workout Fuel (1/2) and Mag-10 (1/2)
- Breakfast - Omelette with a couple eggs (from the farm!), whites, a little ground beef (from our cow!), and sometimes a piece of bacon (again, from our hog), sometimes not. I haven’t been putting potatoes in this meal because I haven’t wanted them after the Surge.
- Lunch - Roasted potatoes and ground beef. Probably about a potato here. What I did was first cook up several pounds of ground beef, then chopped and fried the potatoes in that fat. I haven’t weighed or measured anything from this point.
- Dinner - more of the same, although twice I mashed the potatoes with a bit of cream. So I guess not pure carnivore here, but I don’t seem to have an issue with dairy.
- If/ when I get hungry in the afternoon I’d grabbed either a couple pieces of turkey or a scoop of Metabolic Drive. I think this has happened maybe once or twice when I’m home.
I don’t know if that’s helpful, but basically I find I do a little better with some carbs and potatoes have been the friendliest to all the markers I can estimate: digestion, satiety, energy, weight, boredom, etc.
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You might appreciate “carb backloading” John Kiefer has written about this on Elitefts. Effectively, you keep low carb during the day and eat carbs in the evening.
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Eh, depends who you ask. If it comes from an animal, I’d call it carnivore. People eat butter and call it carnivore without any backlash. Like all diets, you’re gonna find pockets of cults and extremist AMONG the extreme that are trying to be “king carnivore”, but really, the most important point is to quit eating stuff that’s harming you, and cream is REALLY awesome in not harming a lot of folks.
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I really liked this approach when I was able to lift in the evenings. I know it can be adapted to morning trainers, but I never gave it a fair shot when I switched my day up. I still think it makes a ton of physiologic sense.
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Trip 1 sounds like doing 10x10 on each exercise with about a minute rest between sets will probably be the best way to get a proper stimulus on the dumbbell movements. I do think you’ll probably be able to do more conventional loading schemes on things that you can use the selectorized equipment on. Usually when I’m in that situation I either go with the 10x10 or I’ll do Muscle Rounds from Fortitude Training!
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Had a lot of time this morning!
I started the day with a bunch of prowler pushing and band walks and mobility stuff - my hip has really been tight. This helped a lot and only took maybe 20 minutes.
Then I did a really high volume push workout. I don’t know if this is my next phase, but it felt good today. It was different enough than what I’ve been doing that it felt new, but not so far away it took any mental gymnastics. I’d like to experiment a little more, but it won’t be during this next travel season.
-
DB Incline
Worked up and then did 90/8 x 3, one more set of 6 -
Smith Incline
155/12
165/10
175/7
135/14 -
Machine Press
3 sets of 12 or so + 5 partials -
Seated DB Shoulder Press
Pause at bottom
50/9 x 3 -
Giant Set ( 2 x 10ish):
- Cable Side Raise
- DB Rear Lateral Top 1/2
- DB Rear Lateral Bottom Half
- Machine Shoulder Press
1 double drop set
Had a fantastic day with my son yesterday. My daughter’s volleyball game was early, and then she went to a friend’s house. I took the boy to a Mongolian grill, then to see Beetlejuice 2, and then to one of the Halloween stores because he loves decorating the house. Splitting the siblings for the day was a good move, too, because they bickered slightly less last night (or I fell asleep - either way, a positive result).
Now for more volleyball and then we’ll see if Dalton can do anything positive for the Panthers this afternoon. I guess 100+ yards of total offense is a good ROI at this point?
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Go Panthers!
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The Red Rifle! New sheriff in town!
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Looked like a freaking superhero! I’m ready for the civil war at home next weekend when the Bengals go to Charlotte
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I’m on the road most days for the rest of the month, so I’m trying something maybe counterintuitive: I’m taking my frequency up. My thought process there is the workouts become shorter, which is friendly with the tighter schedule, and each one is “less important,” so adjusting for hotel gyms or even just doing pull-ups or something isn’t a big programmatic derailer.
Also, I’ve been taking P-Well for about a month. It might be new favorite supplement. I’m going to highly recommend that one to any of you dudes over maybe 35.
I got to chaperone my daughter’s camp field trip on Monday. Their school actually takes them out to a YMCA camp where they zip line and ride horses and stuff for a couple nights. Pretty cool. I helped at the climbing stuff, where the counselors were sure to correct every harness I tied. I’ve air assaulted into combat, but apparently am unqualified to clip an 11-year-old onto a rope - humbling.
I did some legs yesterday that I didn’t write down. Today was some more Chest/ Shoulders:
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HS Press
Warmups
1.25pps/8 x 3 -
Incline Press
45/8
135/8
165/8
185/8 -
DB Incline
70/8
80/8
90/6 + 70/5 + 60/4 -
Cable Flye
3 x 10 -
Machine Rear Delt
4 x 20 -
Machine Side Raise
4 x 8
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It’s wild isn’t it? That and Flameout are two supplements where I felt the effects REAL quick.
I like your high frequency idea. Very “Easy Strength”. When time is tight, break the workout up and get it done over the whole week.
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I’m even sleeping better! When I do wake up, it’s a sprint to the bathroom, but I guess just having to get up to go may have been a good bit of my insomnia woes.
I don’t know why taking frequency up during busy periods seemed so off, but it seems common sense when you put it like that.
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Yup! My plan of using my middle of the night pee break to drink my Metabolic Drive shake ended up falling apart because of P-Well, haha. I end up drinking it much earlier in the night, right before falling into a deep sleep. And then, with the better sleep comes better recovery: it’s self-perpetuating awesomeness.
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Today I did the first workout from the old-school CT HP Mass series. It was outstanding - I feel great.
My daughter had a tough volleyball game, but gritted through some early misses to bounce back and make some critical plays in a comeback win. I thought that was a good lesson.
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