Iâ??m not really sure how this happened but several years ago I woke up fat and weak. This was right before my wedding and I didnâ??t know how I got there. It was ugly. I didnâ??t fit in my suit and I have pictures of the most memorable night of my life looking like a big fat slob. Before I met my wife, I was young, strapping and single with a shit load more time. I was in decent shape. And while I wasnâ??t powerlifter strong (hell I wasnâ??t football player strong, strongman strong, or any cool person strong either) I was stronger than the people I knew and I was actually progressing. Then I stopped training, and got fat and weak. This lasted 3 years. I attributed this to both stress and laziness. Probably the laziness more than anything.
Fast forward three years, and a baby and a move to a different state in between. I am sitting in my car driving to New York City, where I work, from Pennsylvania, where I now live. I am sitting in traffic when my heart begins to beat faster than I ever felt it beat before. I began to sweat profusely and I am having trouble holding on to the steering wheel. I thought I was having a heart attack. After a couple hours I was able to get into the city and get to the nurses office in the building where I work. She assured me that I was not having a heart attack, but was worried because my heart beat was at 165 bpm. Now consider that this is AFTER driving in and after I was able to calm myself. I couldnâ??t imagine what my heart rate was when this whole episode started.
So off to the emergency physician I went. Thankfully the EKG came back negative. I went to have a second opinion at home. Different doctor, same diagnosis. Panic attack. Except this doctor gave it to me straight and hard. He said that I had this attack because I had symptoms of depression. To say this shocked me to shit would be an understatement. Depression? Me? How? He also told me I was very overweight. Key point there.
I called my Pop when I left the doctorâ??s office and told him what was going on. As always my Pop put It clearly and succinctly â?? â??Depression? What are you a pussy?â?? Pussy? What? No, holy shit, no!
Wait. Maybe my pop is right. Maybe Iâ??ve gone the route of pussiness. I noticed I had started allowing things to get to me. Work had been difficult and I had been reprimanded for losing my cool. Also I was an irritable shit at home sometimes. My wife and I would fight more than we used to, and I knew it was my fault most of the time. I also started to feel â??badâ?? for myself. This wasnâ??t good. I wasnâ??t good. This was embarrassing. My father called me the worst thing a man could be called.
Action needed to be taken. No, buying a Harley would be cool and all, but wouldnâ??t have fixed this. I knew I was my best, my leanest, and my sharpest when I was training. I needed to train again.
The first step was to lose some weight. My wife and I would take my daughter out for 1 ½ to 2 mile walks every night. I then joined a gym (I know have a gym in my garage)and started some fluff stuff just get the juices going. I even did the velocity diet for kicks. All in all I lost 35 pounds.
But now the time has come that I start to train again. Really train. I needed something that was easy to follow, time efficient, and got me strong. Most importantly I didnâ??t want to have to think about what I was going to do. I wanted EVERYTHING spelled out for me exactly. It came to me immediately, 5/3/1! But where would I start?
I had the second edition, and the powerlifting book, and happenchance that the Beyond 531 book had just came out, so I bought that one and read it too. What I noticed is that each book kind of progresses. It starts with a basic outline and then adds something to that outline. Theoretically if I start with the first template of the first book, follow that to completion, that would then prepare me for the second template. And so on, and so on.
So that is what I have decided to do.
This is the beginning of what I have entitled the 531 Experiment. I will follow each training template using set of specified parameters on how and when I do everything. These parameters allow me to progress in a logical manner and will allow me to review and critique each template in an, almost, scientific manner. Everything will be spelled out. Training, mobility work, conditioning, recovery and diet. EVERYTHING. Now, in all openness, I will not follow Wendler’s advise on all the above. I will follow Wendler’s training template, Joe Defrancoâ??s mobility drills, Marty Gallagher’s concepts on conditioning, Dan John in regard to goal setting and Mark Rippetoeâ??s concepts of both diet (yes diet!) and guidelines on technique for all the lifts I perform.
Tomorrow is my first Squat day. I have already done a month of the base program with extremely light weight to get back into the groove and to determine my training maxes. How this will end I am not sure. However with a well thought out training template, lots of food and a shit load of motivation, I canâ??t see myself failing.
Hell I already hit bottom. There isnâ??t anywhere else to go but up