Some Exercise I Like, and Why I Like Them

Back Squats

Yeah, yeah, you knew these were going to be on the list. Let's get past that already. A lot of people think of squats as the King of all Lifts. I don't think they're all that great, or that any exercise deserves king status, but back squats are, nonetheless, a very good exercise. The biggest strength of the back squat is also it's biggest weakness (in my books, anyway), and that is that it's a very general exercise. Back squats strengthen just about everything in the body, they help to build muscle all over the place, they have an intense cardiovascular effect, they burn a lot of calories (not as many as people trying to convince women to squat will normally imply, but still a lot)....the downside to being a great general exercise is that general and specific tend to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. Squats are good for your quads, but there are specific exercises that are better. Squats are good for your posterior chain, but there are specific exercises that are better. Squats build a strong core, but good core conditioning builds a stronger core. Squats build a good cardiovascular system, but good cardio builds a better cardiovascular system.

Front Squats

The little brother to back squats, front squats are one of those more specific exercises. Front squats are very technical, and as such I have a love-hate relationship with them. Front squats work the quadriceps, core and spinal erectors, and I've found them particularly good for helping me develop use of my stretch-strength reflex for both front and back squats.

Tyre Flips

Where elogance abounds, there probably aren't too many 200kg tyres hanging around. Tyre flips are one of those exercises that really have you getting down and dirty, and bring you in touch with your Neanderthal side. They're a bit like a deadlift which involves pulling, but they also involve a lot of pushing. They'll work the whole body, being very general, and being a lot of fun.

Farmer's Walks

Want some functional fitness? I can think of few exercises that are more functional than farmer's walks (actually, I'm not sure if I can think of anything more functional). You literally just pick up something heavy and carry it. Your upper traps and forearms will get quite the workout.

Dumbbell Bench Press

As someone who's into powerlifting, you'd think I'd go straight for the barbell bench press. But to be honest, if I wasn't into powerlifting, I'm not sure I'd actually bother with the barbell bench press. I've found that dumbbells actually make it much easier for me to focus the load on my pecs, partially because I'm not trying to pull anything apart when doing them, partially because of the range of motion, and partially because...well, just because, okay?

Push Press

The push press is one hell of an upper body ego lift. But don't let that fool you into thinking it isn't a lift worth doing. As a technical point, when I've done push presses, I've gotten more out of them by driving down and exploding up (basically, treating my body like a ball that I'm slamming into the ground and trying to bounce as high as possible) than the seemingly more typical route of "dip and drive." You want to be aggressive on these, which is half the reason why I love them. A lot of people regard push presses as cheating and thus not as effective as strict presses, but on the flip side, past a certain point your legs aren't driving the weight up anymore, which means that from that point onwards, your upper body is getting more work than it could have with strict presses. On the note of slamming balls into the ground....

Medicine Ball Slams (and the like)

Slam them into the floor, slam them into the wall, slam them into the ceiling, I don't care. The important thing is that you throw them and throw them hard. Be as obnoxious as possible. When I do medicine ball slams into the floor, my goal is for the ball to hit the ground so hard that it bounces back up to face level so that I can catch it at its peak height and slam it into the floor again. There are various fitness benefits here, such as power/explosion, core work and cardio, but the main things is just that they're obnoxiously fun.

Glute Bridges

Glute bridges are a great way to overload the glutes. Like seriously. You think squats, deadlifts and lunges are good glute exercises? You mustn't have done any glute bridges. The trick is to try and hyperextend your hips (not your back) by keeping your torso tight and driving your hips as high as they'll go. Pushing your knees apart would be good here, too. Glute bridges give you an epic glute contraction. They also make you look like you're training to be in a porno, so if you're like me and get a kick out of people looking at you weirdly, it's a win-win.


Kettlebell Swings

This is another great opportunity to look like you're training to be a porn star. It's good assistance work for deadlifts, it's good conditioning, and it really helps you bring your hips through to get a great glute contraction.

Seated Row

I'm constantly told by the internetz that barbell rows are better than any other row. My experience says otherwise. I can't really explain why I get a great contraction in my middle and lower traps during seated rows while bent-over rows leave my back feeling confused and untouched, but that's the way it is. Seated rows work my mid-back better than any other exercise I've tried thus far. Besides that, if you're going to be doing a lot of presing, you need to be doing a lot of pulling...you know, if you like your shoulders.

Bench Pull

Okay, so I'm not a big fan of barbell rows, generally speaking. But this one's a whole lot of fun. Specifically, it's the kind of fun that will result in management politely asking you to please stop that exercise, at least it is if you do it the way I was taught. Now, you could be sensible and gentle, and perform a controlled concentric until the bar lightly touches the underside of the bench, and then lower under control. Or you could do it the way I learned it, which is as a ballistic power exercise. The reason this works as a power exercise is that you have a little more feedback than you would for other exercises on how fast you're moving the weight -- you can tell by how loudly the bar hits the bench. When I was studying my Diploma of Fitness, I did this exercise (and made clients do it, too) in multiple gyms, and never failed to get a high number of bertstares from across the gym.


Weighted Pull Ups

Pull ups are nicer to my wrists and shoulders than chin ups. Weighted pull ups make me feel like I'm one step closer to being able to save a life if I'm ever stranded in the jungle with the beautiful lady of my dreams and we're being chased by a mob of cannibals.

Deadlifts

Come on, please. No explanation needed.

Training -- Wed 17/02/2013

Front Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x35kg
3x50kg
1x62.5kg
3x5x75kg -- Last rep of each set didn't feel overly stable up on my shoulders thanks to fingers slipping out, so I was concerned that the bar would come crashing down in a spectacular fail in every set. But I got each rep.

Deadlifts

10x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
1x115kg
5x5x130kg -- I feel mantastic. Pretty sure my lower back will be thanking me tomorrow for sticking with bench first, deadlifts second; no chance I'd be getting any good work on bench press tomorrow.

GHR/Shrug/Calf Raise

3x6xBlue/15x71.5kg/16x300lb

I find it interesting the way different people respond to deadlifts. Some people can't productively deadlift more than once every 2-4 weeks. Others can deadlift multiple times per week. I see plenty of people online swearing that if you do more than 1 work set, more than 5 reps in a set, and more than 1 session with deadlifts in it per week, you'll overtrain. That sentiment sounds suspiciously Rippetoey*, and so I suspect that those people are speaking from a book and not from personal experience. Books on training are useful, but when it comes to training, even the most broadly applicable and effective rules are a guideline rather than absolute truth.

*Ironically, these sentiments don't actually reflect Rippetoe's apparent intentions when he prescribed 1x5 deadlifts in SS. Low reps were prescribed because beginners have sucky technique and even suckier consistency of technique, so he reasoned that 5 good reps are better than 5 good reps, 5 okayish reps and 5 fugly reps (a volume which is quite achievable with the weights you'd be using at the start of that program). And he only prescribed 1 set of deadlifts instead of a higher number of sets because you're already doing 9 working sets (plus a billion warm up sets) of squats per week which work similar muscles. If you did just as deadlifting as squatting, you probably would burn out on that program. But the point is that 1x5 deadlifts every other workout to minimise complications from getting it wrong are prescribed in the context of the program, rather than as a rule that everyone should adhere to

Training -- Tue 26/02/2013

Not international bench day.

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x35kg
3x47.5kg
1x60kg
5x5x72.5kg

CGBP

2x10x52.5kg

Pull Ups

4x10xBW

Cable Row (no fat gripz today, wanted to save my grip for tomorrow)

10x40kg
10x50kg
3x10x60kg

Water Cut Results

I barely got any sleep last night. I went to bed tired enough. I fell asleep, and then some time before 2am I woke up. I felt like I must have been out for hours, and figured I'd woken up just before dawn, so when I finally opened my eyes, expecting to see something like 5:30, and instead saw 2:00, I wasn't entirely a happy camper. But, I figured I'd get back to sleep just fine.

Two hours later, this theory wasn't looking so good.

At 4am, I decided to get up, go to the toilet (hah!*), and once I was done see how much water I'd shedded so far.

*This is worthy of a laugh, because it turns out that the absence of water coming into the body is quite directly related to an absence of water leaving the body in the form of urine.

Now, to put things into perspective, on Thursday morning (before I started saturating myself for the water cut), I weighed 68.8kg before doing my business, and 68.5kg after. So, when I stepped on the scale at 68.7kg at 4:00 this morning, I wasn't overly impressed with these results. It appears that what I've lost in sweat and breathing, I've retained in not peeing or pooing (yeah, the backdoor seemed to close up yesterday just as much as the front door).

So, I'm annoyed that I spent 3 days drinking too much and 1 day drinking not enough and got nothing out of it, but also kind of relieved -- now I get to rest assured that I won't benefit from doing it again (at least not using the same protocol) leading up to competition, so that'll make the week of competition less of a hassle.

Once I saw that I hadn't shedded weight, I went straight off the water cut, and got right back into rehydrating myself, although without the rapid reinjecting of water I would have undergone had I been trying to rehydrate for competition. I had a cup of water at 4:00, and after still failing to get back to sleep, had another cup of milk about half an hour later. I think I actually got a bit of sleep intermittently between the earliest part of dawn and about 7:30am. That's fairly typical of me on a restless night -- as soon as my brain acknowledges that it's no longer night and that it would actually be good to be awake, it lets go of whatever hangup has been preventing me from sleeping.

Off-Hand Rep Max Guestimator

There are a lot of RM calculators out there. All of them have some truth to them, and all of them are wrong. So is this one, but I use it as a seemingly reasonable point of reference anyway:

Reps	%1RM
1	100
2	95
3	90
5	85
8	80
10	75
12	70
15	65
20	60

How to apply it:

Basically, the above table by yours truly is saying that if you take your 1RM on a lift, you should (in arbitrary theory) by able to perform 95% of that same weight for 2 reps, 90% of it for 3 reps, etc. So if you know your 1RM, you can predict your 2-20RMs as well, using the following formula:

xy

100

x = actual 1RM. y = percentage for target reps.

Therefore if your 1RM is 150kg, and you want to perform a 5RM (which, is 85%1RM), you would multiple 150kg (x) by 85 (y), and then divide the number by 100. 150x85/100 = 127.5kg.

Alternatively, if you want to predict your 1RM based on what you can do for reps, use the following forumla:

    z   

y/100

z = RM for reps.

Therefore, if your 5RM is 127.5kg, and you want to guestimate your 1RM, with your 5RM being 85%1RM you would divide 127.5kg (z) by (85 (y) divided by 100) (or, more neatly, you'd plug in 127.5/0.85). 127.5/0.85 = 150kg.

Why it's wrong:

Other than the high likelihood that since high school I've forgotten how to accurately write up an equation, this is all wrong because of that SAID principle:

Specific

Adaptations to

Imposed

Demand

That is, you get good at the stuff you do, more so than you get good at the stuff you don't do. This should be intuitively obvious, but once we discover that 1RM calculators exist, that intuitive obviousness has a tendency to go out the window in our minds. "But such-and-such-a strength and conditioning coach has a great calculator on his website for this stuff. It even has percentages like 91 and 87! Surely this stuff is scientific!" It may be scientific, but it's still wrong. Okay, "wrong" may not be the nicest word, but it applies. Research and experience allows coaches and sports scientists to test people's strength in different rep ranges, and conclude mathematical averages for how a 10RM relates to a 5RM and 1RM and so forth. But these are averages, not absolutes.

If your 1RM is 150kg, it does not guarantee that you'll be able to achieve 5 reps at 127.5kg. If your 5RM is 127.5kg, it does not guarantee that you'll be able to hit 150kg once. If you do all your training in the 1-3 rep range, then your 20RM will probably be below the guestimation on the table. If you spend all your training in the 10-20 rep range, then your 10 and 20RMs may actually be higher than 75 and 60%, respectively.

Besides that, people have different ratios of muscle fiber types, different techniques and different leverages, allowing different degrees of talent at different intensities and volumes.

And that's just dealing with relatively simple exercises like squats and bench press. Take a look at complicated, highly technical lifts such as the Olympic lifts, and these predictions become even further removed from reality.

Training -- Sat 23/02/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x100kg
5x5x115kg -- Every set was a grinder, but every set was also successful. Felt a lot like how I remember 5 rep sets being: get to third rep, reach a concentric speed that suggests you won't get any more reps, do 2 more reps anyway with the 5th rep being very slow around the sticking point then popping up past it. Despite each set being a grinder, it still didn't feel like that big of a deal, which I'd like the thank all my recent sets of 10 (and a very recent set of 12) for. The last time I did sets of 5 at 115kg, it was 3 sets back in 2011. When I went for 117.5kg the next training day, I knew I was only going to get the 1 set. So to get 5x5 at this weight is a volume PB, and being confident that I'll get 5x5 with more weight next week is something I'm quite pleased with.

Speed Pull

5x60kg
3x5x77.5kg -- Between sets I was coaching rack pulls. Turns out they're a lot easier to coach than deadlifts for someone who struggles to keep their chest up and their lumbar spine neutral. I knew I had some good ideas floating around up top.

Bulgarian Split Squat

10xBW
2x8x10kg

Glute Ham Raise

5x5xBlue -- Made a few adjustments. This felt much better for my hamstrings than what I've been experiencing thus far. I was tempted to just keep on going and going and going, but I considered that I would like to be able to walk again by the time I do front squats and deadlifts on Wednesday.

Calf Raise/Decline Sit Ups

2x16x300lb/10xBW
12x300lb/8xBW

Training -- Fri 22/02/2013

Incline Bench Press

10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
3x8x50kg

Press

10x20kg
5x25kg
3x30kg
3x5x35kg

Pull Ups

12xBW
3x5x13.75kg

Fat Gripz Rows

3x15x50kg
14x50kg

Dips/Barbell Curls

8xBW/15x20kg
8xBW/10x20kg
8xBW/8x20kg

As of next week, I'll be training Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat, on account of uni taking up all my time on Mon. I spoke to Nick about this today, and asked for his opinions regarding which days I should do each lift on. I've been concerned about pull ups and rows interfering with deadlifts the following day, so I've been considering changing the days to DL/BP/SQ/IBP, as oppose to the current schedule of BP/DL/IBP/SQ. Nick feels that deadlifts the day before would cause more hassles for bench the day after, than pull ups and rows the day before would cause hassles for deadlift the day after, so he recommends that I keep to the same schedule, just moving BP to Tue. I'll let him be the coach, and go with his recommendation, and see how things play out.

I'm also experimenting with a water cut right now. This shouldn't have much (if any) impact on actual body composition, but it will let me know how my body responds to it. Much better that I trial this now and have things go badly next week than that I use competition as my first trial of this and have a bad meet because of it. I'd rather weigh in heavier and perform well than to weigh in lighter and perform poorly, which is one major thing to consider when doing a water cut. Another factor to consider is that I may not lose as much water weight as predicted, and consequently it may be a lot of trouble for not a lot of reward.

Training -- Wed 20/02/2013

Front Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x35kg
3x47.5kg
1x60kg
3x5x72.5kg

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x80kg
1x100kg
5x5x122.5kg -- All the way up until I did the last warm up set, I wasn't sure if I should go for 3x10x120kg, or 5x5x122.5kg. I think I made the right decision.

Trap Bar Shrug/GHR/Calf Raise

15x69kg/3xBlue
2x15x69kg/3xBlue/16x300lb

Method to Madness and Madness to Method

While working in a commercial gym, a lot of my colleagues went to great lengths to plan out their PT sessions ahead of time. Meanwhile I spent my time wondering why they bothered. I know that sounds like a really slack thing to say, but it's true.

A lot of PT's spend a lot of time perparing each individual session. When you're in a private environment, I can see the merit to this. When you're in a gym with 3,000 members, training your clients in peak hour, I can't.

My reasoning is simple. The more variables you can control, the more specifically you can plan, and the more potential you have to stick to the plan. The less variables you can control, the less specifically you can plan, and the less potential you have to stick to the plan.

Here's a specific plan for a workout:

Back Squats 5x5
Rack Pulls 5x5
Bench Press 3x10
Seated Rows 3x10

Now let's get to the gym in time for the session to start. The squat rack (or racks, if it's my kind of gym) is taken, and it'll be a lot of hassle to work in. You can spend time negotiating with the current occupant of the rack and changing weights, but you're on the clock. Oh look, we've got a bunch of dumbbells available, should we perhaps do 3x10 goblet squats instead?

Goblet squats are finished, now it's time for rack pulls. But oh look, the rack is still in use, and trying to set up rack pulls in an occupied squat rack that's being used for its intended purpose will cause even more hassle and more time-wasting. But there is still a free barbell and plates. Now we can do deadlifts from the floor.

After deadlifts, it's time to bench. But OH NOEZ, a horde of 16yo boys have clung to all 3 bench stations and have created an impenetrable barrier around the benches. But this is interesting, the pull up/dip stand is free. I wonder what we should do? Gosh oh golly, I just had a great idea, let's do alternating sets of dips and pull ups.

And there you have, your session completed in a way that completely didn't adhere to the session planned. MADNESS, I say! But, there's a method to this madness, and it's a method that should be quite clear. One kind of squat wasn't available, so we did another. One kind of hinge wasn't available, so we did another. One kind of push wasn't available, so we did another, and we worked in an unplanned pull while we were at it.

It should go without saying, but the more specific your client's goals (or your own goals), the more specific the programming has to be. I'm competing in my first powerlifting meet in about 10 weeks, and deviations from the key parts of my program are very likely deviations from how well I can compete when the time comes. Fortunately for PT's, most clients' goals are a little less specific and a little more general, which means that the PT has the freedom to step away from the plan to some degree. I figured this out long before I had my first paying client. You just can't control all the variables, or even most of them, in fact you can barely control any of them. Consequently, I spent time behind the scenes figuring out what exercises can be swapped in for something else and elicit a similar effect, rather than figuring out how each session should go, knowing that it probably won't go according to plan anyway.

So I took to introducing a little madness, but with a method to it.

Method is good. It gives programming something reliable. But if method is all you've got, you're going to give yourself and your clients a lot of undue stress (or distress) when the inevitable happens and the method can't be practically reconciled with the reality of the environment.

Madness is good. It allows flexibility and variance. But if madness is all you've got, there's very little you can be sure of. If your workouts are completely random, then the odds of them being appropriate to your client's goals, needs, wants and capabilities is drastically reduced.

Method on its own works perfectly on paper and poorly in practice, because the conditions required to make it work are seldom there. Madness on its own works poorly both on paper and practice because it seldom hits the mark, however on the off chance the it does hit the mark, it does start helping you get somewhere. But incorporating the two together can be the next best thing to a magic pill in trainer-land.

Training -- Mon 18/02/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
5x5x70kg -- Felt heavier than expected, but no bouncing, so good.

CGBP

2x10x50kg -- I figure that while I'm doing 5x of the main lift, I should cut back the volume a bit on these so that I don't end up promoting (or really, worsening) an imbalance between push and pull).

Pull Ups

12xBW
11xBW
2x10xBW -- Best bodyweight pull up session I've had in ages.

Fat Gripz Row

4x10x55kg

Biceps Triset/Triceps Triset/Decline Sit Ups

10-10-10x7.5kg/10-10-5x7.5kg/8

Training -- Sat 16/02/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x95kg
12x110kg -- Seems psyching myself up for this over the last three days worked. This week and last week are both officially 3x8. Last week I made the deal with myself that if I got 2x10x107.5kg, I wouldn't have to do a third set. Seemed to work. This week I really wanted to set myself up well for my 5's starting next week, and what better way to do that with an awesome rep PB 10 weeks away from competition. So I decided I'd go for 10+. I hadn't set out any specific rules for myself, but I think if I'd stopped at 10, I would have been doing a second set. I knew I wanted to get 11-12 reps for 1 set, so that was my goal, and that's what I did.

Speed Pull

5x60kg
3x5x75kg

Tyre Flip

14x140kg
12x140kg

Bulgarian Split Squat

10xBW
2x10x5kg

Calf Raise

2x15x300lb -- That's a bit unimpressive. Oh well.

Training -- Fri 15/02/2013

Incline Bench Press

10x20kg
5x30kg
1x40kg
2x10x47.5kg
8x47.5kg
7x47.5kg

Press

10x20kg
5x25kg
1x30kg
6x35kg
5x35kg
4x35kg -- I think I'll be repeating this weight next week.

Pull Ups

12xBW
3x5x12.5kg

Fat Gripz Rows

4x15x47.5kg

Biceps Triset/Triceps Triset

2x12-12-12x5kg/12-12-12x5kg

Training -- Wed 13/02/2013

Front Squat

10xBW
10x20kg back squat -- Somehow I forgot which kind of squat I was meant to be doing today.
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
3x5x70kg

I got me some videos. This is the first time I've seen myself

lifting in my TK's and UGE lever belt.

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x80kg
1x100kg
3x10x115kg

GHR/Trap Bar Shrugs

10xGreen/15x66.5kg
6xGreen/15x66.5kg
2xGreen/15x66.5kg -- The GHR's were going fine until Nick saw me doing them and told me to slow them way down.

Calf Raise/Leg Raise Pullover
19x300lb
2x15x300lb/10x5kg

James Carlsington

James Carlsington knew only one life in his early days, and that was the life of a train conductor. Day after day he welcomed passengers into their carriages on the steam train. He took care of the trains he worked on, and he took care of the passengers and crew, too.

But one day, life had worn him thin. James snapped, and threw a passenger out of the moving train. The passenger died, and James was taken to court. Now this was back in the day when convicted criminals still faced the electric chair, and James was found guilty of murder.

The judge ruled that electricity would pass through James Carlsington's body for one minute. It was expected that by the end of this minute James would be dead, however if he survived, his punishment was still complete, and he could walk away as a free man.

On the day of his execution, James was offered his final meal.

"I would like one green banana, please," James requested.

"Are you sure?" asked the warden. "This is your last meal on earth. Are you sure you don't want anything more?"

"No, I'm sure. One green banana."

So James ate his green banana, and was sent to the electric chair. Electricity passed through his body for one whole minute. To everyone's amazement, when the minute was up, James stood up, unphased, and walked out of the room.

James, realising that he couldn't trust himself in a job that involved constantly working with people, set out for a life in recluse, working as an artist and hiring an agent to sell his works for him. For a little while he had success, but in time his arts business dried up. Knowing no other profitable skills, he returned to work as a train conductor.

James worked well for three year, but as time went on, the inevitable drew closer and closer. One day, he was dealing with a particularly rowdy carriage of passengers. Geriatric old ladies, spoiled children, and everything in between. Enough was enough. James was about to snap, but he calmed himself. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone on-board if he had snapped, because what happened next for surpassed any temper tantrum he could have thrown.

Unwilling to put up with the stresses of this carriage, he made his way into the next carriage...and unhooked the connection between the two. The train kept on moving, taking him with it, and leaving his carriage behind to be carried only by inertia. As the train crossed an intersection in the railway, the lines changed, and the carriage steered off. Another train was coming in the opposite direction, and the driver couldn't stop in time.

Twenty-three people died.

James Carlsington was taken into custody by the police, and arrested on twenty-three counts of manslaughter. Once again he is found guilty, and sentenced to the electric chair. The judge, aware of Carlsington's history with penalisation, added an extra minute onto the sentence, giving him two minutes in the chair.

On the day of his execution, James was offered his final meal.

"I would like three green bananas, please," James requested.

"Three green bananas?"

"Yes."

"No pork? No pie? No pastry?"

"No, just three green bananas. Please."

So James ate his three green bananas, and was sat in the chair. The lever was pulled, and for two minutes electricity passed through his body. When the two minutes were over, James stood up, smiled, and left. The audience were stunned.

No one heard of James Carlsington again for five years. He found himself work on a farm -- a banana farm, in fact. For the first time in his life, he truly loved what he did for a living.

One day, James had to go into town for supplies. So he caught the train and rode in. It was a pleasant trip, until the conductor on his carriage recognised him.

"It's you..." the conductor said. "James Carlsington! He's here to kill us all!!!"

James stood up to defend his honour, and insisted that he didn't want to hurt anyone. But the conductor wouldn't have a bar of it. Things got physical. Very physical. And soon there was only one man standing: James.

James was reprimanded and convicted of second-degree murder. He had fought so many battles in court, he just wanted to get it over with, so he confessed to the crime and accepted his punishment. This time, the judge was merciless. The judge did not sentence to one minute in the electric chair, or two minutes. The judge declared: "Electricity shall pass through your body until you are dead."

On the day of his execution, James was offered his final meal.

"I would like seven green bananas, please," James requested.

There was no argument, no debate. Everyone in prison knew his history. They knew that nothing could talk him out of eating his green bananas. So James got his green bananas, and was taken to the electric chair. He sat down in the chair, and let the wardens strap him in. The lever was pulled.

One minute passed.

Two minutes passed.

Three minutes....

Four....

Eight....

Fifteen....

And finally, the electric chair short-circuited, no longer able to function.

The wardens and the audience watched in horror and amazement as James, completely unharmed, asked: "Are we done here?"

The wardens released him, and he walked out of prison.

Ten years passed, and one day a journalist spotted James sitting at a cafe. The journalist couldn't believe his eyes, but he had to go up and see for himself.

"Do you....mind if I sit here?" the journalist asked.

James shrugged, and returned to reading his news paper.

The journalist sat down beside him and asked: "Excuse me for intruding, but are you...it's you, isn't it? You're James Carlsington. Right?"

James looked him in the eyes. The last time someone made a fuss about who he was, it had landed him in the electric chair. He didn't want the hassle.

"I'm sorry," the journalist said, "I don't mean to be rude. I'm just a really big fan of your story."

"Oh. Really?" James asked, surprised.

"Oh yes, definitely. I've been following your story since I was a boy. James Carlsington the Invincible, I always say. But, what I really want to know is...what's the secret? What is it about green bananas that allows you to survive death?"

James was taken aback.

"Oh, did you think...? No, no, don't be silly. There's no secret about green bananas, I just love the taste. Everyone knows I'm a bad conductor."

Training -- Mon 11/02/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
10x67.5kg -- First 8 reps had a pause on the chest, last 2 reps TnG.
8x67.5kg
7x67.5kg -- It's international bench/chest day. On the second work set, I went for a 9th rep, but hit my sticking point and needed assistance to finish the rep. Same happened with the attempted 8th rep of the final work set. Moving onto 5's next week.

CGBP

3x10x47.5kg

Pull Ups

2x10xBW
7xBW
6xBW

Fat Gripz Rows

2x8x55kg
10x55kg -- Not sure why this set worked such much better than the other sets. Everything just felt better on this set. On the other sets, grip fatigue left over from Saturday did a fair amoun of getting in the way.
8x55kg

BB Curl/Dips

25x15kg/3xBW -- Nothing exciting over here.

How I Deadlift

The more advanced I become, the more of a beginner a realise I am. Before I completed my Diploma of Fitness, I was big on trying to perfect my form and technique on everything (which is good), but defined good technique as: "What my teachers say is good technique." I now define good technique and good form as being the method that gets the job done effectively and with relative safety. As such, I acknowledge that there is more than one way to deadlift (or to do any other lift) correctly. There is no single right way to do this, although there are plenty of wrong ways to do this. In light of that, here are some pointers on deadlifting, based on how I deadlift (or at least how I try to deadlift).

Setting Up...

Undoubtedly, there are far too many technique points to be thinking about all of them at the same time. Fortunately, your setup comes before actually lifting, so there's some room for mental seperation here. This is especially true in the deadlift, because you aren't under much load when setting up for the deadlift (from what I hear, this may not be so true when using a deadlift suit, but I've never used powerlifting suits, and am finally acquiring enough wisdom to consider that maybe I shouldn't be preaching about things I have no experience with). I use a conventional deadlift with a belt and a hook grip, normally.

• Set bar to ~20cm off the ground, using standard plates or blocks to bolster the bar up.
• Feet point forwards, set close enough to get hands shoulder-width apart with straight arms when you grip the bar.
• Feet under the bar, bar about 1 inch in front of the shins.
• Pivot at hips to bend down until fingers (not full palms) can be wrapped around the bar.
• I use a hook grip -- wrap the first two fingers over your thumb on the bar. Your thumbs may feel a bit explodey if you mimic this.

Initiating the Pull...

• Take a deep breath and hold it, squeezing your abs out (against a belt, if wearing one).
• Pull on the bar (not enough to break it off the floor) and set your back by lifting your chest.
• At the same time, bring knees forward until shins touch bar.

Moving the Bar...

• Heels drive down into the floor.
• Chest drives up.
• Hips drive forwards.
• Hands pull bar back into body.
• Abs tight tight tight.
• Lockout hips and knees at the top.

I typed "heels" into google. This isn't what I meant.

Lowering the Bar...

I don't use a controlled eccentric so much as a controlled drop. If you're trying to get a hard eccentric contraction, I'd recommend just doing the pull in reverse and lowering it steadily. My lowering of the bar is a bit less strict.

• Hips back.
• Bar close to body.
• Bend knees once bar passes them.
• Enjoy making an obnoxious sound with the weight.
• Get kicked out of most commercial gyms.

Training -- Sat 09/02/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x95kg
2x10x107.5kg -- I went in with the plan that I'd do 2x10. If I missed any reps, it meant I had to do a 3rd set. Good insentive not to miss any. Bear in mind, I'm supposed to be doing 3x8 this week and next week. I can't help but to feel that, given the same weight, 2x10 is better than 3x8. I didn't miss any reps. Yay. Nick still wanted me to do a 3rd set. As I was unloading the bar, the conversation went something like this:

Nick: "Where's your third set?"
Me: "2x10's good enough."
Nick: "3x10's better."

Can't argue with his logic. So instead of arguing, I shut up and continued unracking the bar regardless of what he said. As far as I'm concerned, if I get 10x110kg next week, I've got a 150kg max secured, and then I've still got 10 weeks to build on that (4 weeks of 5's, and a 6-wk peaking program that's supposed to add an additional 5% onto my max).

Speed Pull

5x60kg
3x5x72.5kg

Tyre Flip

2x16x140kg -- Rep PB, I think.

Farmer's Walk

2x50mx42.5kg -- 25m laps back and forth. Getting better at approaching these gently.

Bulgarian Split Squat

2x10xBW -- 2x10 on each leg. Getting the back foot set properly was a bit tricky. Lots of stretch + lightweight = I'm going to have such long, lean muscles, ladies. Lollerskatez.

Calf Raise

2x18x300lb
>> 6x200lb
>> 6x100lb } Drop sets after 2nd main set.

Medicine Ball Leg Raise Pullover

2x8x4kg -- I don't know what you'd actually call this, but this seems to be an apt description. Basically, you're doing a medicine ball pullover, and at the same time doing a lying leg raise, touching the ball to your legs at the top. I got a nice pinch in the abs in the transfer from eccentric to concentric. Haven't done this one in years, but we've got medicine balls, a fitball and an EZ-bar in the gym now, so I thought I'd make use of the new equipment. Plus, I'm hating hanging leg raises.

Training -- Fri 09/02/2013

Incline Bench Press

10x20kg
5x30kg
1x40kg
3x10x45kg

Press

10x20kg
5x25kg
3x8x32.5kg -- I'm feeling a bit reminiscent now, to when I was doing Starting Strength back in 2010, and had just hit 3x5x32.5kg for the first time. I think I'd already stalled and reset the lift once at this point, and stalled again at 37.5kg. Now, here I am, doing the same weight for sets of 8, when I'd barely done any strict pressing for the last year (and had even taken several months off from all overhead work due to shoulder issues).

Pull Ups

10xBW
6 full + 2 partials x11.25kg -- That was a bit more than I expected to be able to do, or had planned to do. There was some motivation in the form of peer pressure right here.
2x6x11.25kg

Dips

2x6xBW

A .gif is like a gift.

Fat Gripz Rows

4x15x45kg -- Rest-pause on the last set to get the final 3 reps. It should come as no surprise that rest-pause while holding onto fat gripz gives quite the burn in the forearms.

Biceps Triset

2x11-11-11x5kg

Band Pull Aparts

40
30
25

I've filled in my 2013 membership application form for Powerlifting Australia. Now I just need to get an appropriate ID photo to send in with the paperwork.

"They're Just Jealous"

NO THEY'RE NOT!

I can't express enough in polite language how much it irks and frustrates me when people refer to the nasty looks/comments/attitudes that others dole out, and say "he/she/they're just jealous." Now, granted, sometimes people are mean because they're jealous, but it grates my nerves when I see people treating any and all negativity as jealousy. Because very often, it isn't.


When I was about 4 years old, I entered pre-school. This is the first time in my life where I can recall being bullied consistently. I'm sure there were people who I was mean to and who were mean to me before then, but this is when I really remember it becoming something I took note of. There were three boys in my pre-school class. For anonymity purposes, let's call them Joey, Jeffie and Jamie.

Now, one of these boys, let's say Joey, was pretty much horrible to everyone. I had to put up with him in pre-school when I was 4, and I still had to put up with him in high school when I was 14, and he still treated most people like crap. I was no exception.

For whatever reason, Jeffie and Jamie (who grew up to be much nicer men) were willing to be friends with Joey. And when Joey picked on me, they joined in. That seemed to be the extent of the bullying I endured for the next couple years, then some time around Year 2 (definitely by Year 3), I noticed something -- other students had picked up on what was going on.

Now, in a world where 7-yer-olds are kind, responsible, caring people who look out for each other, this might have meant they'd have started sticking up for me. You know what I've learned? It seems to be irrelevant who you are, but there's almost always something not right at home or at school. This makes kids insecure, and they feel weak. They challenge this weakness by attempting to dominate others. If, as the "they're just jealous" mentality goes, they take on someone who they wish they could be, it's probably because defeating someone they think is bigger than them seems like a good way to make themselves the top dog. However, not all kids go for the one they're jealous of. There's risk involved in going for the target that you perceive to have higher standing than yourself. So, what else can kids do?

They can become vultures. They can identify the easy target, and rip it to shreds. This way, they may not be the biggest and best at the top of the food chain, but at least they're not the weakest and worst at the bottom.

Once I was in Year 3, things escalated. Three boys bullying me became most of the year level beating me down. And it continued to escalate from there. By Year 5, it felt as if the majority of the entire school cohort was antagonistic towards me.

This isn't a woe is me, post, by the way. Figuratively speaking, I was attacked by vultures, but I also became one. If I saw a way to hurt someone, I took the opportunity. I became as horrible to the world as the world was to me, and this escalated sharply when I hit puberty, at which point I consciously decided: "The world's been a **** to me, so I'll be a **** to the world." I've since turned my life around and realised that people break stuff because they themselves are broken, and am more interested in building my own personal strength of character (a task in which I brilliantly fail in often enough to remind myself that there's always something that needs fixing and working on) and helping others to piece themselves back together. In that same vein, I've forgiven everything that was done to me at school, and hope (without expectation for or against) to be forgiven by those who I wronged at the same time.

This picture seems awkwardly appropriate right now.

Damn hippies.

Regardless, my point is that "they're just jealous" seems an awful cop-out to me. It can be true, but often it isn't. People like to feel strong, and so they might treat you poorly out of jealousy in order to make themselves feel better. But then maybe you're the one trying to prop yourself up by feeding yourself the story that behind their malice is the secret desire to be you.

There are other alternatives, too. Sometimes people say or do things that you don't like with absolutely no intention of harming you. They might even be acting out of love (sometimes misguided love, sometimes wisely guided tough love, but love nonetheless). Bringing this over to fitness-related stuff, I often bear witness to girls who train complaining about the things their family and friends say about it. "You don't want to get too bulky." "You're getting too bulky." "You know, no man wants a woman who's big and bulky." The reported comments all amount to about the same thing.

These girls (or their lifting friends) then turn around and say: "Your friends/family are just jealous that they don't look as good as you/don't have the determination to do what you do." And hey, maybe they are. This one time, I got a hair cut that I think went well with my head, and all the friends I had with high self-esteem said it looked good, as did randoms who I had little association with otherwise, while the friends I had with low self-esteem looked at me and said: "Never do that again." One could speculate that the friends with low self-esteem didn't want to risk me looking good enough to out-shine them....or maybe they honestly thought my haircut sucked. I don't think I lost any sleep over it one way or the other.

Back on topic, maybe the friends and family of these girls really are just trying to sabotage these girls because they know they can never live up to what these girls are doing. Or maybe they actually believe what they're saying (rightly or wrongly) and are legitimately worried that these girls will turn themselves into something ugly and unnatural.

So again, sometimes people do things that you don't like because they're jealous. But if you tell yourself that anything anyone says or does that you feel opposes you is an act of jealousy, then I propose that you're making no effort to interract with reality. You're running away from reality.

Shinji Ikari: "What's wrong with runing away from reality if it sucks?!"

You can run away from reality if you want to, but if you do, it's my feeling that you're refusing to acknowledge and fix what's broken in your life.

Training -- Wed 06/02/2013

Front Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
4x45kg
1x55kg -- Jokes were had about being able to count to schfiffty-five.
3x8x65kg -- I'm pretty sure this is a rep PB.

Deadlift

5x60kg
5x80kg
1x100kg
3x10x110kg -- Surprisingly, these felt less impossibru than last week's deadlifts. I don't want to give the wrong impression and have people thinking this was easy, but it was less insanely hard. I like it when this happens, especially since, as I mentioned on Monday, I only have to be doing 3x8 at the moment.

Farmer's Walk/GHR

50mx37.5kg/8xGreen
50mx37.5kg/10xGreen -- Little PB's indahouse. This is normally where I do shrugs, but the space I normally use for it was taken up, and this gave me a good excuse to turn to the guy I was training alongside and say: "I'm gonna go for a little walk, but don't worry, I'll be right back." About halfway through the second set of farmer's, I remembered that I'm trying not to choke the handles if I don't have to.

Calf Raise

20x300lb -- Another little PB.
>> 6x200lb
>>6x100lb -- Drop sets. Couldn't be bothered waiting around to do another full set, so I figured I'll drop set it instead.

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Last week I mentioned bringing in one of my friends and coaching him on the squat, bench press, deadlift and seated row. This week I got him back in, this time at the same time as me. While I was doing front squats, he was doing chin ups and high bar back squats. While I was doing deadlifts, so was he. He finished his deadlifts by the time I'd done my first work set, so then I had him doing overhead presses. Lastly, while I was doing FW's and GHR's, I had him doing a circuit of decline sit ups, curls and standing triceps extensions.

We were both really pleased with his deadlifts today. Made me proud. Last week, he was struggling with 25kg. This week we got him up to a couple sets of 5x40kg with good form, and he tried a set of 50kg and got 8 reps, although form wasn't so pretty (still legal, though, and I could tell that the intensity of the lift was low enough that he wasn't likely to hurt himself this time around). I think next week we'll have him going for 3x5x45kg. I didn't have to give him my whory cues to get him into the right position on most of his sets, either. I used my brain and stuck a belt around him instead ;) A lot of coaches, PT's and lifters are against people using belts until they've reached some arbitrary heavy loads, but the fact of the matter is belts give you proprioceptive feedback, which makes it easier to cue yourself. He'd also had a week to mentally review technique tips, which I imagine had some benefit.

The Myth of the Myth of the Myth 2.0

In The Myth of the Myth of the Myth I discussed women's muscles. This time I'm going to discuss toned muscles.

In 2010 and 2011, I worked as a personal trainer at a commercial gym in the CBD. My gym didn't do the best job at promoting the fact that we had personal trainers and sold personal training, or at least this is what I gather from the fact that the receptionists kept telling me about all the members who would come up to them and ask if we did personal training (as an aside, I would have enjoyed these stories a lot more if they all ended with the receptionist telling the member: "Yes, and Ryan's your man"). It turns out we had a great big pile of brochures in the gym to promote PT, but instead of being somewhere in which members might actually see these brochures, the brochures were stashed away in the membership consultants' office. Whoops.

I read the brochures one day. I can't remember exactly what they said, but they made a big deal about how with personal training you can get the toned look you're after without getting bulky...or words to that effect. It always struck me as interesting that instead of assuming that personal training is, you know, personalised, and as such people might actually want different things, it's all about getting toned and not bulky. Then again, I can't say it was all that surprising (albeit I did find it rather offensive to my profession), either, as one of the most common goals stated by members in that environment does seem to be about toning.

Hey look, I found a relevant picture that barely constitutes softcore porn.

What a feat.

This is all well and good, I guess. If they want to market towards people whose goal is to become "toned but not bulky" (or if they don't, seeing as the brochures where nowhere that the normal members would have ever ventured), that's fine. But a lot of fitness professionals will jump right on this, over one issue that we've been trained to make a big deal over: the use of the word "toned."

The fitness expert will see this brochure and roll his/her eyes, because they know better than to think that you can tone your muscles. And when they have clients ask them what they need to do to get toned, they'll explain to their clients that toning is a myth. And it is a myth, isn't it?

....Isn't it?


Okay, so here's what we're all taught while we're studying to become personal trainers, or from other experts in the field. There is such a thing as muscle tone, but it's the amount of contraction going on in the muscle at rest. The visual result that everyone calls "tone" is unrelated to this, and is actually the effect of having visible muscle, usually caused by building some muscle and losing some fat.

That seems to settle it. And from 2008 (maybe even earlier) up until very recently, I would have parrotted the same sentiment as a fitness mythbuster. But now that I think about it, I can't reasonably say this is right. To explain why, I'm going to defer to a story from even further back in my past.

Back when I was a teenager, I wanted to have toned muscles. As quickly as I became aware of the word "tone" being used in relation to muscles, I also became aware of the physiological concept that you can't "tone" your muscles, you can only make them bigger, smaller, stronger, weaker, etc. And as I was informed of this, I wanted to raise a huge objection. This objection wasn't about me doubting the source of the information, or the information itself. See, I was okay with the concept of building muscles and altering fat around them to create a certain aesthetic. But that's not properly grasping the purpose in which the word "tone" is being used here.

"Tone" is a word with way too many meanings, but a whole lot of those meanings are experiencial. To be "toned" is something you can touch and feel as well as see. It's texture and shade and shape. When people say they want "tone," they're saying that they want their bodies to look and feel a certain way...and this is a correct usage of the word tone. The problem in the language here is that they're talking about their muscles on an experiencial level, and when we say "you can't tone your muscles," we're talking on a biological level. We're using the same words but speaking a seperate language. We're correcting something which, frankly, I'm not sure warrants correcting.


In saying that, we trainers should certainly be informing people on what they need to do to create that experiencially toned physique. They need muscle mass and an appropriate amount of body fat, and they need to apply sound (or sound enough) training and nutritional principles to make that happen. If they believe things such as "low reps bulk and high reps tone," then the issue isn't that tone is the wrong word, the issue is that they don't know how to get there, and perhaps don't understand what factors contribute to being toned.

Likewise, we don't normally consider it wrong to describe a physique as "lean," or "cut," or "bulky," or "pudgey," or "soft," or "shredded," or any of the other descriptions we might use, so I don't see the rationale behind blacklisting the word "toned" in this sense. It seems to me that we're arguing for the sake of arguing.

And besides, let's suppose that "toned" is the wrong word to use. If we say that it's a myth that you can tone your muscles, clients will be quite reasonable to assume that we're telling them that their goals are unachievable. After all, we did just tell them: "Hey, you know that thing you want to do? Yeah, being able to do that is a myth." If we then go ahead and tell them that they actually have to build muscle mass and lose fat, and then they'll have the exact results they said they wanted to have, then we've now effectively told them: "Hey, you know how a minute ago I said that doing that thing you want to do is a myth? Well, here's how to do it. But we can't call it that thing you called it before." Does that sound sensible? It doesn't to me.

Training -- Mon 04/02/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x55kg
2x10x65kg
8x65kg -- Some would be disappointed with only getting 10/10/8 instead of 3x10. Considering that my program only has me doing 3x8 this week and next week on paper, I'm okay with how this turned out.

CGBP

3x10x45kg -- Felt much better than last week. Whenever I do these, I make a point of trying to keep my elbows in at my side, so that my forearms run straight up and down. There are probably multiple reasons to do it like this, but the only thing on my mind is that I tuck my elbows and try to pull the bar apart at normal grip, so I'll try to do the same close grip, even though tension is generally lower by comparison to my regular grip.

Pull Ups

10xBW
12xBW
10xBW

Fat Gripz Row

4x10x52.5kg

Biceps Triset/Triceps Triset

2x10-10-10x5kg/10-10-10x5kg

Farmer's Walk

40mx32.5kg
40mx37.5kg -- Evidentally my left hand slips quicker than my right hand. Good to know...probably.

An accurate photo of not me.

Training -- Sat 02/02/2013

I didn't train yesterday. I went to see Django Unchained with my brother and some friends around lunchtime, figuring I'd get to the gym afterwards. I figured wrong. So today I tried doing both my Saturday and Friday sessions (although I culled isolation work).

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x92.5kg
3x10x105kg -- I only got 8/8/5 at 102.5kg last week, and I only got about 6 hours sleep last night, so I wasn't expecting great things here. It didn't feel like things were going to go well, either, from the start of the first set. Then something beautiful happened to overpower the confidence issues from last week's session plus tiredness plus physically feeling like I wouldn't perform well: one of the guys at the gym started yelling at me from behind. By the final set, I had multiple yellers, which did wonders for helping me to dig deep and finish the set, because I almost failed due to muscular fatigue on the 8th rep. After the 9th rep, I couldn't breathe properly; I was gasping for air trying to fill my lungs for a good valsalva, but my lungs couldn't hold the air. Eventually, I grabbed hold of whatever air was there and just went for it....and made my way back up :)

Now to walk away fromt he computer and eat roast lamb for lunch.

...

...

..............

...Annnnnnnnnd we're back.

Speed Deadlift

5x60kg
3x5x70kg

Incline Bench Press

10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x10x42.5kg -- My shoulders felt a bit awkward doing this. I have a feeling it was tension from the shoulder end of pec major.

Press

10x20kg
5x25kg
9x30kg
2x8x30kg

Pull Ups

5xBW -- The fact that I didn't do high reps for bodyweight should be an indicator of how buggered I was feeling by this time. I was only expecting to get triples once I added weight, but got a pleasant surprise.
3x4x10kg

I messed around with some dips and Bulgarian split squats at this point, but my body didn't approve. No proper sets were completed.

Fat Gripz Rows

15x25kg T-Bar Row -- The hook attaching the cable to the handle was in use elsewhere when I sat down to row, so I did a set of T-bar rows instead. When I finished that set, the hook was returned, and I returned to what I find to be a much more effective kind of row.
4x12x42.5kg

I arrived at the gym at about 10:15, and left at about 1:00. Just shy of 3 hours training. In that time I went through 1,800mL of water.