Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff - Monday "light" edition

It's been a while since I have been able to get one of these in, with traveling and doctors appointments and all sorts of shit going on.

I had the MRI on my leg last week.  Finally!  I haven't heard anything back yet, however let me bitch for just a minute about the miracle of "modern medicine".

First off, we really don't cure shit.  Cancer and AIDS are still sticking around, killing the fuck out of people.  I know someone will post a link to something we cured that kills 7 people a year but seriously, we don't cure shit.

So I go in to get this "open MRI" done, because a lot of people can't do the closed MRIs because of claustrophobia.  Oh yeah, I might be talking about myself when I say "a lot of people".  The MR machine looks like the god damn Star Trek Enterprise.  I lay under it, face just a couple of inches from the bottom of it, feet taped together and I can't move, while Slayer and Cannibal Corpse battle it out for worst repeated power chord.

"BUHBUHBUHBUHBUHBUHBUHBUHB!!!!!"
"ANCH ANCH ANCH ANCH ANCH ANCH ANCH!!!!!!!!!"  

"tick......tick.........tick...........tick......."

"BBBBZZZZZZZAAAARRRRRRRRRRZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I was told 45-minutes.  Two hours later, the length of time a LONG MOVIE runs, I was finally finished.  All for a leg.  A LEG!  Not a full body scan with happy ending by the nurse.  Just......a.......leg.

I don't understand how it is, we can send a rover to mars to test for water droplets, have aircraft that can fly insert-classified-speed-here that is completely undetectable by highly advanced radar, put railguns on battleships, have a satellite take an image of a mosquito's penis as he jacks it in the African jungle, etc so forth and so on, but we don't have something that can just scan my leg in like, 5 minutes.

We have sonogram machines now, that can show you the 3-D image of a baby inside the mothers womb, but I have to lay under the Enterprise for over two hours to get my leg scanned, while my extremities go numb to the point that I couldn't stand properly after it was done (both feet were completely asleep).

So now that it's done, I hope to hear something in the next week to let me know if they could spot anything wrong with my leg.  It's having more good days than bad at the moment, however I would love to eliminate the bad days all together.  Though smashing a 405 front squat with ease, I might add, felt pretty good since I haven't been able to squat heavy in forever.

Speaking of heavy, I made that post about my new training ideas and things I've been working on, and sure enough the "singles group" showed up to balk about it.

People have asked me for a while now "why were the guys from the 70's and 80's so much stronger than the guys now?" Because they trained for mass, and rep strength 90+% of the time. It's kinda like how you see all of the top raw guys now. They are jacked. Why? Because you can't bench 500 raw without some muscle mass. You can't squat 700+ raw without some wheels. Yet you see all sorts of big numbers come from guys in gear, that don't even look like they lift. This isn't a "gear vs raw" debate, because I don't care one way or the other. But if you're not getting stronger PERIOD, then your training isn't thought out very well. And too many guys now, spend all of their time trying to hit their maxes in the gym. Why? It serves no purpose. Period. Gym lifts DO NOT COUNT. If you're talking rep PR's, awesome. If you're talking personal PR's, awesome. But they don't go into a book, and training near max singles is for the most part, an ego tool.

Again, all old things become new. It's amazing to me how so many guys are doing soul searching in their training and all finding the same place to progress again. It's the same place guys found that worked 30 years ago. But you still have a large group of guys that want to balk at this, because they are fucking lazy. It's not hard to walk into the gym and pull some singles. I don't care what anyone says. That shit is infinitely easy compared to going in and doing rep work. If it wasn't, they would do the rep work. I mean, when a guy tells me "anything over 2 reps is cardio" I generally know he's fat, and weak.

Your training cycles should be made up of 5-20+ reps.  Anyone that tells you that getting a higher 20 rep max doesn't equal into a higher 1 rep max, is full of shit, and didn't work hard enough.  You just have to take the time to allow that strength to be applied.  Tons of strongmen do 20 rep squats, and they are far stronger than powerlifters.  One of the reasons that is, is because they live up and down the rep range.  Sure, they do heavy singles, however because strongmen have to do reps in a contest, or do an event that involves some conditioning as well, they can't just sit around and do some singles here or there.  They actually have to you know, get fucking stronger.  An 800 pound deadlift is considered the bees knees in powerlifting.  Yet in strongman, it's really the bare minimum for competing at a high level.  THE BARE MINIMUM!  Lots of strongmen can hit 500 benches, and then follow that up with 350-400 pound overhead presses.  In powerlifting, a 500 bench is the fucking balls.  And how many of those guys can do heavy overhead presses?  Few and far between, aside from T-Rex armed bench specialists who aren't strong to begin with (sorry, being a 1 lift wonder doesn't make you strong).  

I find it funny that so many people want to argue this, then tell me I am dogmatic.  ME?  I've done the "singles shit".  I use singles in my training.  However, they are not used for the purpose of building strength.  They are used to prime the body for the strength building work sets, and for testing strength.  It's generally them that don't want to venture outside of "you gotta do max singles to build top strength!"  

From an article from Poliquin's site about how the Russians structured their squat training.......

Using the 1RM percentage system, the Russians would organize their training into intensity zones, such as the following: 60-65 percent of 1RM, 70-75, 80-85, 90-95 and 95-100. The designers of the Russian Squat Program put most of their workouts in the 80-85 percent zone and said that “large and limit weights” should comprise only 16 percent of the total volume in squats.

Jesus jumped up on a cross!!!  

You mean the guys that have been kicking our ass in strength sports and powerlifting for a while now, didn't do fucking 90+% singles more than 16% of the time?!?!  Not possible.  I'm told by fat and weak asshats that I MUST do heavy singles in order to get stronger at doing heavy singles.  So all of those people, who run my programs, and listen closely, that only end up with a few weeks in the 90% range, and smash all of their previous PR's EASILY, are doing shit wrong?

I guess we'll just keep doing it wrong.

Since the Russians have had this figured out for a while, let's examine a little closer.

Smolov introductory cycle - 

Day	Workout
1	65%x8x3, 70%x5, 75%x2x2, 80%x1
2	65%x8x3, 70%x5, 75%x2x2, 80%x1
3	70%x5x4, 75%x3, 80%x2x2, 90%x1

The best part is the notes PRECEDING this cycle......

Like every other program that works off percentages you have to plugin your one rep max in order to find the weight you should be using. Use your best raw squat or a projected max using this calculator. Whatever your max is you should subtract 10-15 pounds just to be on the safe side. Below are the first three days of the first week of Smolov.

So you're STILL not even using 90% in day 3, when it calls for 90%.

Here's the cycle.......

Week	Monday	Wednesday	Friday	Saturday
1	70%x9x4	75%x7x5	80%x5x7	85%x3x10
2	(70%+20lbs)x9x4	(75%+20lbs)x7x5	(80%+20lbs)x5x7	(85%+20lbs)x3x10
3	(70%+30lbs)x9x4	(75%+30lbs)x7x5	(80%+30lbs)x5x7	(85%+30lbs)x3x10
4	Rest	Rest	work up to a near max single	work up to a near max single

So, you spend how many workouts going over 90%?

None.  Zero.  Guess what you do?  You test that in week 4.

How the fuck is it, that people have used this cycle for such a long time, with such awesome results, and did not do heavy singles?  Oh guess what, there isn't a single workout of actual singles in the entire cycle!

'Mazin.

Oh hey, since people will say "well yeah, but that's the Russians and they train multiple times a week, so they can use lower percentages."

Lamar Gant's bench routine.

week 1: 135x10, 190x12, 190x12, 190x12, 190x12, 190x12

week 2: 135x10, 200x12, 200x12, 200x12, 200x12, 200x12

week 3: 135x10, 210x12, 210x12, 210x12, 210x12, 210x12

week 4: warm-up then 240x6, 240x6, 240x6, 240x6

week 5: warm-up then 250x6, 250x6, 250x6, 250x6

week 6: warm-up then 260x6, 260x6, 260x6, 260x6

week 7: warm-up then 280x3, 280x3, 280x3

week 8: warm-up then 290x3, 290x3, 290x3

week 9: warm-up then 315x1, 315x1, 315x1, 315x1
Now what?

He did 1 week of singles before the meet, to TEST, where he was.  He spent the previous 8 weeks building strength with reps.  Once a week.  Using low percentages.

Ed Coan - "My cycle for the deadlift is 12 weeks. It consists of 3 weeks of 8 reps, 4 weeks of 5 reps, 4 weeks of 3 reps, and the week before the meet includes just a double at or around your opener. "


Really, Ed?  Well what the fuck do you know about training and hitting big lifts, Mr "I never miss a lift in training".

Hey wait, how on Earth would someone program, so that they never missed in a lift in a 12 week cycle?  Think about that.

Jim said a quote to me, that I laughed about because I couldn't believe he was serious.

"That's smart.  People should train for their opener."

Train for your opener.  Wait.......that's around 85% of your "goal" or should be.  No my gawd, I just slapped my head and said "I coulda had a V8!"

I'm going to beat this god damn horse for a while.  Not because I'm trying to win arguments or battles or because I'm being "dogmatic" (which is just fucking stupid to talk about with me, because I'm willing to try anything).  It's because this is where so many of us advanced guys find ourselves later, when guys had this all figured out years and years ago.  Shit the Russians have had it figured out for decades now.  You don't need to lift your near max weights, in order to get brutally strong.

So eventually YOU have to ask yourself, are you willing to drop your OWN dogmatic approach to training, be willing to leave your ego at the door, and look at the big picture?  That is, getting brutally strong but not always being able to "show it", i.e. maxing at the gym.  Not only that, are you willing to stop doing all of the stupid shit you've been doing, like fucking reverse banded chained safety squat bar deadlifts while standing on a decapitated midget?

What the fuck happened to strength training so much that people can't do it without just a bar and some plates?  I thought that's what strength training was.  A bar and some plates.  Apparently it's not.

My goal is to get bigger and stronger and jacked as fuck.  If that is not your goal, and you are fat, weak, and not jacked then keep doing what you are doing, and keep your mind closed.  Or believe the non-sense you've read from todays mondern age of "max singles" land that it's the best way to get strong....all the while we keep getting our asses handed to us by guys who DON'T train that way.

Also for the guys of "I did X lift" ok that's great.  There's some Russian that did that weighing 100 pounds less than you as his warm up, that never did a "max effort" day until he TESTED where he was.  Even then, it was SUB MAX.  Hence the term "near max single".

Singles should be in every cycle.  So don't mistake the message I am sending here.  It's how they should be used that matters.  

Build strength, don't demonstrate it.

I await all of the pissed off people who will show up about this.