Q&A – 32

PR Friday

The weekly tradition continues. Post your PR’s or training updates. I PR’d by completing every lift in the universe while loading a moving truck yesterday for 7 hours. Squats, presses, deadlifts, cleans, continental cleans, farmer’s, pinch grip, curls, rows, RDLs, good mornings, curls, curls, curls, curls, curls, curls, and curls.

Chris at the seminar in Tucson earlier this month

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge asked you to “put 25 to 35 pounds in a pack, wear it on your back, and walk for 30 to 60 minutes non-stop on at least one day”. When I made this ‘challenge’, it was more so to give you an appreciation of the military. However, in light of my interests in hiking, survival, guns, and EDC, it’s an activity that would only help your ability to “go”. Under any worst case scenario — zombies, nuclear war, the apocalypse, alien invasion, etc. — you will need to have basic survival and movement capabilities, the kind that revolve around carrying your supplies and moving the fuck out. Did anyone complete the challenge? I would expect a report of sprouting more chin hairs, cause there’s something manly about carrying relatively heavy shit around.

Next Week’s Challenge:
Go out of your way to help a stranger by lifting something heavy. Do not accept a reward.
I know, I know, it almost sounds like we’re starting a fight club or something. My ‘job’ is centered around helping people, but I help people I don’t know all of the time. I’ve returned wallets full of money, helped push cars and trucks out of the road, picked things up and put them down, and laughed when a girl fell on the stairs. Last year while visiting in Texas, in a 12 hour period I helped push two vehicles to a gas station. Do it.

Weekly Recap

On Tuesday there was a quick post on obscene levels of motivation from Ben and CC as well as a post on using crappy equipment. The latter post’s comments were full of people erroneously equating a cheap econo bar with a Texas deadlifting bar. On Thursday I linked to a preview post for the lifting at the 2012 London Games that Peter Upham wrote. Thursday was a quick post on the new “70’s Big Insiders Newsletter” that will be sent out several times a month; read more here.

Q&A

milktruckcopilot asks:

Justin,

Why do you not program in deadlifts when you are designing training schedules for the military?

Dear milktruckcopilot,

It depends on the person’s job, where they are in their op schedule, and what the unit requires them to do. Without knowing any other information, a combat arms position in the military has the goal of being able to perform optimally in the job or mission, staying alive, and — arguably most importantly — keeping other people alive. Heavy deadlifts are both locally and systemically stressful to the point that they will interfere with other training and cause a compounding recovery deficit over several weeks. It’s possible to do lighter deadlifts and keep them in the program, but nobody ever does that. The deadlift is an ego lift; a weak guy can pull more weight with shitty technique whereas on the squat, nobody is going to squat the heaviest weight with terrible technique.

In this situation I prefer to use the RDL since it will develop strength/musculature in the posterior chain that will create balance in the hip/thigh strength and musculature (to result in increased performance and injury prevention). Again, this doesn’t apply in all cases, but usually will to guys in the military or anyone doing decent rucking twice a week.

ChadTheMeatBeast asks:

I’ve read all the way back in 70s big history to page 85. A couple of questions:

1. What are your training/fitness goals currently?

2. You stated you were experimenting with reduced salt, potassium, and seeing how they affected your blood pressure. Did you ever have any results?

3. With respect to your post “Lessons From A Workout”, can someone do 3 back-off sets rest-pause style for all the big movements while on a linear progression?

I know you like context so:

I am 28, 6’3″ and 245, squat twice a week, bench/press 1.5 times per week via greyskull lp a/b style, and deadlift once. I eat at least 1 gram of protein a day. I have been doing this since March 2nd when I jumped back into lifting after being sedentary for 1.5 years.

Squat- 305x5x3
Bench- 215x5x3
Press- 150x5x3
Deadlift- 365×5

>
I’m just looking to gain some swollertrophy but I’m enjoying my linear strength gains. I’m most concerned about strength.

Dear ChadTheMeatBeast,

1. RE: my training goals
I work with a lot of military guys, so I’ve been doing some kind of “rucking” (moving with a pack) at least once a week, and usually twice. I used the GoRuck as an event to funnel my training into. Other than that, I strength train and do a little conditioning to maintain or improve those capabilities. I plan on doing a lot of hiking and climbing very soon, so my training will accommodate that. I also travel a lot, so “training plans” usually go down the shitter. Generally speaking, I have a moral obligation to set the example for 70’s Big readers, and that includes being strong, conditioned, nutritionally sound, and healthy. Aside from the outdoorsy stuff, I may get into a couple different martial arts (probably Judo and an efficient striking art — anyone feel free to give suggestions). I’ll eventually do some Oly meets within the context of this other stuff. I’m more interested in learning new activities or sports, and would be interested in competing in something different in consecutive weekends (would make interesting content for the site).

2. RE: potassium and blood pressure
I think that potassium is important, but it’s minor when compared to hyperinsulinemia (high levels of insulin, insulin resistance), which causes high blood pressure. This is directly related to types and amount of carbohydrate content, and another reason why the Paleolithic diet is a good outline to follow. If you have high blood pressure, my suggestion is to shift to paleo — and this is completely doable as a lifter.

3. RE: lifting question and referenced post

I appreciate your thoroughness regarding your personal question as well as your reading. There are some pretty decent things that I’ve written that get lost in the archives.
My suggestion would be to pick one particular exercise that you use for the “rest-pause style back off sets”. Typically when I think about using these, they are for the smaller lifts or movements like bench, press, and curls. You could use them on the larger lifts, like squat or deadlift, but I’d make sure the weight is light enough where there is no form degradation on any rep. Like I said, just pick one movement. If you add three sets to every lift, you’re getting 18 to 24 additional reps on all of your movements — it could get to be as much as 70 extra reps. The tonnage would creep too high and you’ll most likely have issues recovery. My suggestion is a) use one movement at a time, b) if you use large compound movements, use minimal weight, and c) probably stick to smaller compound movements.

Ad-libbed question I’ve received in person recently:

We are skinny guys who are trying to gain weight. We see that online it is recommended for us to drink lots of milk and eat lots of food. Okay, cool, we’re doing that, but we’ve grown fat in our mid-section a bit. Tha phuck? How should we be eating to gain quality weight?

Dear skinny dudes of the world,

To give some context, the guys I’m referring to are in their early 20s and weigh 180 or less (one of them has worked his way up to about 180). The reason that milk helps people gain weight is because a) it’s sole purpose is to make baby mammals grow and b) it helps provide the calories to a person who has trouble consuming them. I skinny guy has done something in his life to be skinny, and that typically involves not eating or training well. The training should consist of a linear strength progression with compound strength movements (squat, press/bench, deadlift, row, pull-ups, etc). Let’s worry about the diet.

My suggestion is to bring down the milk and put a focus on quality meats and fats, eat potatoes, some veggies, and be sure to vary it up. This is just a paleo approach with an exclamation point on eating enough. The two fellas in question have been training consistently for several months, have seen gains in their lifts and body size, do mobility regularly, have weightlifting shoes, and will be getting belts soon. They are students of the game, and I expect them to solidify their training with proper eating. I think it’s good for really skinny guys to use those first couple of months to go all out on eating a lot (they have sent before and after pictures of them eating two pounds each of barbecued meat). Now, I encourage them to clean the intake up.

“Cleaning their diet up” means they will reduce milk to one or two glasses a day, but make sure to eat plenty of meat and quality fats like coconut oil, olive oil, butter, and avocado. Generally speaking, grass fed meat and butter will be better, but you get what you can get when you’re young and on a budget. They’ll aim to get most of their carbs through potatoes, veggies, and some fruit. They are free to eat nuts and seeds, but will put a preference on the fats listed above. One of them mentioned how his training improved when he started eating vegetables, so I recommended they get a standard multi-vitamin. They also haven’t been taking fish oil, so they’ll be starting on that as well.

All in all, they are merely shifting to a paleo diet by eliminating processed foods and trying to eat nutrient dense foods with quality proteins and fats. The thing with skinny guys is that they’ve lived their whole life skinny. It’s not possible for them to get jacked in the next several weeks. Skinny guys have to commit to the long haul; consistent training with consistent recovery (nutrition and mobility) will yield muscular improvement. I always cite the example that if a person squats twice a week for the next year, that’s about 100 squat workouts. Even if the weight only increased every week or two, such a person would still have accumulated a year of squatting and their body and musculature will improve as a result.

There is no shortcut. Train hard, but train smart, and you’ll magically become tanned with your swollertrophy.