I'm going to be making some big changes towards my blogging style and subject matter.
A fitness blog was not a dumb idea to start with but it took a few years of distillation for me to come up with something different and better.
Since I already have a bunch of page views here, I'm going to blog. I'm not married to Fianeant Flaneur either but it seemed like a cool sounding phrase.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, October 26, 2015
Confronting Procrastination
I decided to resurrect the blog because I need a better hobby than aimlessly dicking around the internet.
Back in the saddle, again.
Back in the saddle, again.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
An Update on Convict Conditioning
I know I've endorsed it in the past, but screw Convict Conditioning. There's not enough volume or training frequency to be worth doing as anything but a warmup. The suspiciously anonymous man himself, Coach Paul Wade, would not have done his own program if he wanted to get big.
Here, I'll write the whole book for you guys right here, but improved with tips and programming that will make it actually work. This is not terribly related to the thread but I might as well rant while I have an audience.
Get to five sets of 15 bodyweight rows. Congratulations, you can now do a few pullups. Do mass sets until you can get 50 in a 20 minute workout, then try to keep doing the same volume in fewer sets. Pause and hold at the top of each rep for a three count.
The one armed chinup has eluded me, you're on your own there. General consensus suggests that this can take a year or two depending on how big of a fatty you are.
Pushup
Start with regular pushups (knee pushups if you are a woman) and work to 5 sets of 15-20 with maybe a minute rest in between sets. Then do the same with diamond pushups or pushups elevated on something. Progress by either adding weight or not bothering with pushups except as a warmup and buying a dip station to work on your dips.
Handstand Pushup
Once you can do three sets of five pushups (not a joke) start kicking against the wall into a handstand position early. Get to where you can do handstands against the wall for at least 3-5 sets of 60 seconds. Then you can start working on doing little handstand dips. Do these miniature handstand pushups on a stack of phonebooks or something. Progress to negatives (do singles with much rest interval). At the bottom of each negative rep (this is not safe for beginners, land on a pillow) press upwards like hell for at least ten seconds.
To end the "controversy", the one armed handstand pushup is probably impossible unless you're Arthur Saxon.
Leg Raise
Get to where you can do five sets of 15-20 lying leg raises on the ground, then five sets of 15-20 hanging knee tucks, then buy an ab wheel and work from the knees. This should be renamed to the standing ab wheel rollout progression.
Bridge
These are stupid and worthless, don't bother unless you think you need the mobility. Most people do need the mobility but don't fool yourself into thinking this will build strength.
A standard workout would be at least M/W/F and better yet M/T/TH/F and hitting two or preferably three lifts per session. You can also do one lift at a time for two-a-days. Set and rep schemes do not matter as much as keeping your rest intervals somewhat short and your overall training volume high. Rippetoe is full of shit about overtraining, more volume is generally better than less. That extra set will not kill you.
Programming is not terribly complicated. If it is an easy movement then do lots of reps and fewer sets (5x15 is a good baseline). If it is a hard movement then do few reps and lots of sets (10-20 sets of 1 rep, 10-15 sets of 2 reps, 10 sets of 3 reps, etc). If you want to get more volume in, then pick an easier progression after your money sets and do a death set with that. For instance, you can do ten sets of 3 feet elevated pushups, then do knee pushups for a death set of 18.
Training more frequently and not to failure is probably preferable to going balls out, but on Fridays since you have the weekend to binge drink and putz around you might as well hit failure.
HSPU Difficulties
For HSPUs you are going to have to do isometric type shit for a long time. Handstand holds against a wall help significantly, straight arm and slightly bent arm. So does leaning against a wall in the headstand position and pressing upwards very hard for isometric holds of 5-20 seconds (however much you like). Isometric movements against basically immovable objects (it will be that way for a while) will teach your muscles to fire all at once on command.
Assistance Work
Just because you're doing bodyweight doesn't mean you should neglect the gym completely. You're going to have trouble with the pistol squat and handstand pushup for a long time if you neglect useful gym additions, like doing barbell back squats and military press.
Instead of the pistol squat progressions, you can do a 20 rep squat program and work on mobility for pistols. Inside of a month of doing 20 rep squats twice or three times a week you will probably be able to do a pistol.
If you can't strict press something like 70% of your bodyweight then the headstand pushup (it's true name) is well out of your grasp. If you can't back squat bodyweight for at least a few reps then the pistol squat might be out of your grasp as well. These are all just different ways to get the same shit done. You might as well add variety to your program since lifting does not have to be boring.
If you're stuck or not progressing, stop and think about why that might be before getting on the internet and asking everybody for their opinion. Struggling and figuring shit out for yourself is how you get better.
This little guide is just how I got from shitty to OK and it's stuff I figured out on my own. I've been derping around in the gym for the last couple months.
Here, take a look at Ring Drills and Skills ->
http://www.drillsandskills.com/skills/Rings/
Look at that, the muscle up on the rings is considered a basic skill. It's not even an A-level skill. And this list goes from A all the way to E in difficulty.
The back lever and front lever are considered A-level skills. Insane, right? Completely insane that a movement that would be considered elite strength by a CC athlete is barely a skill with respect to ring gymnastics. The CC athletes have to call the back lever the "reverse planche" to make it seem harder.
The choice is pretty clear to me, if you don't want to waste all your time at a comparatively low level of strength years, then once you get a good base of strength from doing calisthenics you should start with gymnastic training.
Here, I'll write the whole book for you guys right here, but improved with tips and programming that will make it actually work. This is not terribly related to the thread but I might as well rant while I have an audience.
The Six Basic Movements
PullupGet to five sets of 15 bodyweight rows. Congratulations, you can now do a few pullups. Do mass sets until you can get 50 in a 20 minute workout, then try to keep doing the same volume in fewer sets. Pause and hold at the top of each rep for a three count.
The one armed chinup has eluded me, you're on your own there. General consensus suggests that this can take a year or two depending on how big of a fatty you are.
Pushup
Start with regular pushups (knee pushups if you are a woman) and work to 5 sets of 15-20 with maybe a minute rest in between sets. Then do the same with diamond pushups or pushups elevated on something. Progress by either adding weight or not bothering with pushups except as a warmup and buying a dip station to work on your dips.
Handstand Pushup
Once you can do three sets of five pushups (not a joke) start kicking against the wall into a handstand position early. Get to where you can do handstands against the wall for at least 3-5 sets of 60 seconds. Then you can start working on doing little handstand dips. Do these miniature handstand pushups on a stack of phonebooks or something. Progress to negatives (do singles with much rest interval). At the bottom of each negative rep (this is not safe for beginners, land on a pillow) press upwards like hell for at least ten seconds.
To end the "controversy", the one armed handstand pushup is probably impossible unless you're Arthur Saxon.
Leg Raise
Get to where you can do five sets of 15-20 lying leg raises on the ground, then five sets of 15-20 hanging knee tucks, then buy an ab wheel and work from the knees. This should be renamed to the standing ab wheel rollout progression.
Bridge
These are stupid and worthless, don't bother unless you think you need the mobility. Most people do need the mobility but don't fool yourself into thinking this will build strength.
Pistol Squat
Skip all the introductory steps, work on your regular bodyweight squats until you can do 100 without stopping. Then start working on your assisted pistol or repeat the bw squat to 100 with extra weight - 40 pounds will work. I went from doing 50-60 bodyweight squats straight to two or three pistols. Why bother with the intermediate garbage. Once you can do a pistol slay that shit for reps.
A Few Observations and Remarks
ProgrammingA standard workout would be at least M/W/F and better yet M/T/TH/F and hitting two or preferably three lifts per session. You can also do one lift at a time for two-a-days. Set and rep schemes do not matter as much as keeping your rest intervals somewhat short and your overall training volume high. Rippetoe is full of shit about overtraining, more volume is generally better than less. That extra set will not kill you.
Programming is not terribly complicated. If it is an easy movement then do lots of reps and fewer sets (5x15 is a good baseline). If it is a hard movement then do few reps and lots of sets (10-20 sets of 1 rep, 10-15 sets of 2 reps, 10 sets of 3 reps, etc). If you want to get more volume in, then pick an easier progression after your money sets and do a death set with that. For instance, you can do ten sets of 3 feet elevated pushups, then do knee pushups for a death set of 18.
Training more frequently and not to failure is probably preferable to going balls out, but on Fridays since you have the weekend to binge drink and putz around you might as well hit failure.
HSPU Difficulties
For HSPUs you are going to have to do isometric type shit for a long time. Handstand holds against a wall help significantly, straight arm and slightly bent arm. So does leaning against a wall in the headstand position and pressing upwards very hard for isometric holds of 5-20 seconds (however much you like). Isometric movements against basically immovable objects (it will be that way for a while) will teach your muscles to fire all at once on command.
Assistance Work
Just because you're doing bodyweight doesn't mean you should neglect the gym completely. You're going to have trouble with the pistol squat and handstand pushup for a long time if you neglect useful gym additions, like doing barbell back squats and military press.
Instead of the pistol squat progressions, you can do a 20 rep squat program and work on mobility for pistols. Inside of a month of doing 20 rep squats twice or three times a week you will probably be able to do a pistol.
If you can't strict press something like 70% of your bodyweight then the headstand pushup (it's true name) is well out of your grasp. If you can't back squat bodyweight for at least a few reps then the pistol squat might be out of your grasp as well. These are all just different ways to get the same shit done. You might as well add variety to your program since lifting does not have to be boring.
If you're stuck or not progressing, stop and think about why that might be before getting on the internet and asking everybody for their opinion. Struggling and figuring shit out for yourself is how you get better.
This little guide is just how I got from shitty to OK and it's stuff I figured out on my own. I've been derping around in the gym for the last couple months.
Frame of Reference
The average Convict Conditioning "athlete" touts certain skills (such as the muscle up or pistol squat) as being indicative of elite strength, the same skills that a gymnast would not even consider an intermediate movement. Gymnasts don't even train the muscle-up in particular, it's just a fact of life that they need to use it to climb up the rings to do their actual strength workouts.Here, take a look at Ring Drills and Skills ->
http://www.drillsandskills.com/skills/Rings/
Look at that, the muscle up on the rings is considered a basic skill. It's not even an A-level skill. And this list goes from A all the way to E in difficulty.
The back lever and front lever are considered A-level skills. Insane, right? Completely insane that a movement that would be considered elite strength by a CC athlete is barely a skill with respect to ring gymnastics. The CC athletes have to call the back lever the "reverse planche" to make it seem harder.
The choice is pretty clear to me, if you don't want to waste all your time at a comparatively low level of strength years, then once you get a good base of strength from doing calisthenics you should start with gymnastic training.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Book Reviews: Robert Koch's "Brains and Brawn: A 30 Day Challenge"
This svelte motivational ebook from Robert Koch (of the blog 30 Days to X) is probably one of the better deals that the fitness and self-improvement realm has to offer. At only 99 cents, it offers an easy to follow template to becoming a better man inside of thirty days. With everything from workout advice, learning how to write properly, solid dietary info, and books that every man should read, following the material presented in the book is guaranteed to improve your quality of life.These "Four Essentials", as he calls them, will give your goals the proper focus.
What I most appreciated about it is that a 30 day challenge to any goal implies a sense of prepared urgency. He suggests getting the needed tools and resources together to completing your challenge (whether it is writing, eating properly, or exercising) and simply going all out to completing your goals.
The argument implied by the book is that we're all living on borrowed time, and making one significant achievement monthly will place you well on the track to mastery.
Though I am reviewing it on the first of April, this is not a joke post.
I recommend the book highly, especially if you're 15 to 20 years old. I believe that the young men in this age bracket need goals in a short and relatable form, so as not to bore them with unnecessary details that they will inevitably discover anyway. That's part of the joy of self-growth.
You can find it here.
Koch's "Brains and Brawn
What I most appreciated about it is that a 30 day challenge to any goal implies a sense of prepared urgency. He suggests getting the needed tools and resources together to completing your challenge (whether it is writing, eating properly, or exercising) and simply going all out to completing your goals.
The argument implied by the book is that we're all living on borrowed time, and making one significant achievement monthly will place you well on the track to mastery.
Though I am reviewing it on the first of April, this is not a joke post.
I recommend the book highly, especially if you're 15 to 20 years old. I believe that the young men in this age bracket need goals in a short and relatable form, so as not to bore them with unnecessary details that they will inevitably discover anyway. That's part of the joy of self-growth.
You can find it here.
Koch's "Brains and Brawn
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Real Men of Genius : Chaos and Pain
This article is intended to review a fellow blogger who goes by the handle of Chaos and Pain. Here's his information/blog profile that he has posted.
Jamie Lewis is an MBA from the University of South Carolina and is obsessed with picking up completely unnecessarily heavy shit and making it look easy. His training style is extremely unconventional, engaging in what most would consider to be a massive amount of overtraining, yet managing to be exceedingly strong and maintaining a bodyfat percentage low enough for his six pack to be visible through his child's large t-shirts. He's also an NSCA and ACE certified personal trainer who's worked at Iron Sport Gym in Philly, in addition to a variety of shitty commercial gyms (ahem, Bally's, ahem), and has worked as a BodyPump and BodyCombat instructor. Additionally, he is the all-time world record holder at 181 with a 1705 total and has tied the world record for raw, wrapless squat at 650.
As you can see, this guy practices what he preaches, and that is being a very strong dude. If you want unfiltered powerlifting gold, look no further than his blog.
The long and short of it is, I think his blog is awesome. I recommend it for pretty much anybody who wants to get jacked to shit and not end up being a fat bastard in the process. He has dieting advice (The Apex Predator Diet), how to get swole without him mollycoddling you, why you shouldn't be a pussy, how you should become a feral badass in the gym, and why overtraining is bullshit.
His articles on overtraining really caused me to reconsider how I stood on the subject. As he quoted in his articles, the Eastern stance on overtraining is a concept known as "staleness". Since the human body can take an unbelievable amount of punishment, what causes overtraining is actually mental exhaustion from throwing around heavy weights.
This is not a mainstream understanding of overtraining and does require some reflection, but I can see his point. There were times when I was doing heavy manual labor where I thought I'd drop dead from exhaustion, but I kept plugging along, farmer's-carrying five or six tons of rock by hand or racing up ladders with two bales of shingles in heat that would probably kill old people. I'd do this maybe five or six days a week depending on the conditions, with an insane work volume, but all I did was drink gallons of water, eat everything, and get my eight hours of sleep a night and was good to go.
Many people have done amazing feats of strength and endurance strictly because they had the balls-out willpower to fight staleness. Once they unleashed their inner potential these men had no mental blocks telling them they couldn't do it. Some examples of this are the "One Year, One Million Pushups", where a marine named Sargent Enrique Trevino is doing roughly three thousand pushups daily for the Wounded Warrior charity, almost everything Jack LaLane ever did, and Taoist monks who do one-finger handstands. A lot of gym work is really just a mind game, figuring out how to kill your inner bitch that sends negative feedback in your head and says you can't do something.
His other articles on becoming a feral badass really changed my outlook as well, and it helped me reconsider a lot about how I view the modern way of living.
If you're looking for very specific advice on how to get big in the gym, this is the wrong place to go, since he acknowledges that everybody has a different way of doing things and believes that we should all find our own path to greatness in the gym. He'll also probably belittle you publicly on the blog.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Profiles in Strength : John Gill
A lot of people have issues making lifestyle changes. Myself, for example. If you would have seen a picture of me from a year ago compared to today, you'd probably not recognize me. Though I still have a long way to go until I'm like this guy, I've made some pretty solid gains.
You can emulate what John Gill did without a huge investment in time (though effort is another story). Here's a really short bio and picture from Wikipedia.
Gill basically was a hardcore mathematician with a side-hobby that happened to be physically very demanding. He built a sort of practice arena in his garage to try out new rock-climbing maneuvers. That's a good way of looking at things, rather than fitness being a chore, you can choose to practice a sport (either by yourself or with friends) so it's enjoyable. After a hard day at work, you can crack open a beer, put on some tunes, and start doing something fun almost immediately.
So to the point, how to apply this to yourself. Pavel suggests that whenever you leave the house or enter it, you set up a pullup bar at the door and crank out one or two chinups, every time. Over a period of a day, that could be as many as twenty chinups. Skipping every Sunday is not a problem.
After a few months of consistent effort, you might be uncommonly surprised at your new maximum number of chinups. It's an easy way to get something done without having to set aside a lot of time to do it. It just has to become second nature.
You can emulate what John Gill did without a huge investment in time (though effort is another story). Here's a really short bio and picture from Wikipedia.
This is partially why I'm not very patient with people who give excuses about why they don't make an effort to get into shape. Gill not only was a world-class athlete (performing a one-armed front lever is still thought by some to be nearly impossible), but he was a top-notch mathematician, doing work with linear fractional transformations, something that's well beyond my grasp (I did see a presentation about this at a scientific conference, which provided no illumination). He achieved gymnastic greatness despite being 6' 2" tall and 180 pounds. You don't generally see tall gymnasts.John Gill (born 1937) is an American mathematicianwho has achieved recognition for his rock-climbing. He is considered the Father of Modern Boulderingby many climbers.[1]
Gill basically was a hardcore mathematician with a side-hobby that happened to be physically very demanding. He built a sort of practice arena in his garage to try out new rock-climbing maneuvers. That's a good way of looking at things, rather than fitness being a chore, you can choose to practice a sport (either by yourself or with friends) so it's enjoyable. After a hard day at work, you can crack open a beer, put on some tunes, and start doing something fun almost immediately.
So to the point, how to apply this to yourself. Pavel suggests that whenever you leave the house or enter it, you set up a pullup bar at the door and crank out one or two chinups, every time. Over a period of a day, that could be as many as twenty chinups. Skipping every Sunday is not a problem.
After a few months of consistent effort, you might be uncommonly surprised at your new maximum number of chinups. It's an easy way to get something done without having to set aside a lot of time to do it. It just has to become second nature.
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