Paul’s right: This will suck if you’re not used to it. 🙂
Today is 2-B “Legs, Light” of the template. Indeed, it is “light”, but there’s a lot of volume and yeah… it sucks since I’m not used to it. 🙂
Pause squats. These went fine. Really had a chance to dial in form. One interesting thing was with unracking the bar and some improved chest position — both angle, how much air was in there, being “big”, hard to convey it, but it was a small thing that made a big difference. Going to try to continue exploring this.
That said, I wonder if I’m too light on the pause squats. I’m using Paul’s Strong-15 squat template (as per), and using the percentages listed there. Thing is, the pauses were very light today, even for triples. Now, it could be that I’m just at the start of things, so deal with it. But also, Paul is likely setting those percentages when the pause squats are used as back-off sets after a bunch of heavier squats — so you’re going to be tired, you don’t need as much weight. Not sure, we’ll see. Likely won’t matter much.
The extensions and curls? All I can say is that yes, this is where the suck comes if you’re not used to the volume. Gah.
Lunges were done walking. Nothing much to report there.
A light day, but still a good bit of work.
In other news… I’ve been hanging in the 209-211 weight range for a little bit. Nick and I are working to firm things up now so I can enter a formal mid. I’ve been very loose with the diet the past couple months because… I needed the mental break. I have a plan and have followed it generally, but have been happy to eat a little more here, some cheese there, etc.. And even then it’s been a little bit of work to get me back to 210-ish. So time to formalize things. I’m spending this week following my existing plan strictly to see what happens. So far I’ve lost about a pound and wouldn’t be surprised if I was at 209 on Sunday — which means the strict plan needs to be upped in order for me just to mid! But that’s what we want to find out, because we need to know strictly where things lie so I can mid properly and then start the cut. I’m not totally looking forward to the cut, but I am looking forward to the results.
Long term thinking? I suspect after I do this cut I’m going to be pretty happy with my body comp (tho who knows for sure — will see when I get there). If all is good enough, I want to formally start my quest for my next goal, which is the 3-4-5 bench-squat-dead. But… first things first.
Today is session 1-B, “Press Light”. The “light” days aren’t wussy days — only the weights feel that way. They are lighter weights, but many more reps. And I tell you, when you work that many reps, that little rest between sets, the cumulative fatigue is surprising. I really overestimated things today.
DB pressing… I thought I could do X, but no… not 20 reps of X. I wound up dropping weights just to ensure I could get the reps in. I figured then my incline benching needed to drop down but oh, even overestimated that and had to drop even more. Again, the weights seemed stupid light, but man, by the time I got to inclines my triceps were pretty exhausted. It was crazy.
Speaking of crazy: lateral raises. When I do these, I try to twist my hands forward, like I’m holding a pitcher and pouring the liquid out. I forgot who said to do them that way (Arnold?), but I felt that was good to do else my hands would tilt back, thumbs pointing more towards the ceiling than the floor, and that’d hit even more of my anterior delts which I’ve already been trashing: ensure the medials and posterior get some love. Well, after I finished I looked in the mirror. Holy crap! I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a trap pump that huge. It was nuts! Hooray lots of reps.
And pressdowns. I used to really love using the rope, but I find that I can get more out of using other bars. There’s just something about the rope and I don’t get as much work on the triceps as I can with other bars. Ah well, no big. Just something confirmed I guess.
It may have been a “light” day, but I’m pretty sure DOMS will hit me pretty hard later. 🙂
This is session 3-A “Back Light” on the LRB template. And for sure, light it was, tho still some work I’m sure my lower back is going to be feeling DOMS mid-weekend. 🙂
RDL’s. I had no idea what weight to use, so I just picked things. I shouldn’t have done that. Instead, I should have started at 135, concerned myself more with technique, then work the weight up from there to whatever is right. i.e. get the most out of the light weight, get the most out of the form. I went 275 and I certainly became more concerned with the weight than technique, despite trying to focus on technique all the way up. So I dropped back to 225 and tried to just be all about the form. Still, next time I’m going to start at 135 and if I stay there the whole time but get form dialed in, I’ll take that.
Rows. I forgot that last time I did these I was taking longer rest periods. I’m trying to keep things at about 1 minute between sets across the whole session. So all I need here is a little adjustment of weight.
Hypers. I hate these, but oh, they felt alright. Here’s where the DOMS is going to come from. Trying to do them focusing on the erectors: let the torso “relax/unwind” at the bottom, then focus just on contracting the erectors to come up. Sure, other muscles are still involved, and no I don’t get up as high as if I was really trying to focus on glutes/hams, but that’s ok as I’m trying to make this more a back exercise.
And curls are curls.
Anyways, so a bunch of adjusting needed, but good stuff. I’m curious to see how the heavy back day plays out, and how the whole 2-week: heavy/heavy/light light/light/heavy plays out. So far I am feeling more rested, which I’m happy with.
KR Training’s primary focus is on the handgun. For a number of years, Karl has offered his unique Defensive Long Gun class, but it’s an all-day class (which means a lot of time/resources to allocate) and over the past some years customer demand has been oriented towards handgun instruction, so the DLG class was mostly backburnered.
But, with so many people buying rifles the past few years, certainly people were coming to Karl wanting instruction on how to use this new purchase. Karl responded by offering Basic Rifle 1, which is akin to Basic Pistol 1 for a person who may have little to no prior experience to obtain a basic introduction to the concept of rifles. As well, Karl took the Defensive Long Gun class and trimmed some things to take it from a full-day class to a half-day class: Defensive Long Gun Essentials. DLG-E maintained the basic curriculum of DLG, but dropped some things such as the role-play scenarios. This class worked well to provide people with some fundamental instruction, but didn’t require a long day to do so.
Still, once people completed that, they wanted more; they wanted to continue to improve their skills. After I returned from taking Paul Howe’s Tactical Rifle Operator course back in October 2015, Karl asked me if we might be able to use learning there to create an “intermediate rifle” class. While we certainly could, I wouldn’t feel right about teaching it. As Karl and I continued discussion and who could perhaps teach such a course, I suggested Aaron Marco. Karl and Aaron got to talking, and here we are.
Aaron is certainly a proper person for such a class. Aaron is a USPSA Grandmaster-level shooter. He’s an avid 3-gun shooter. He’s also a member of a full-time Central Texas SWAT team. So consider, Aaron has knowledge of both the “gamer” side and “tactical” side of things. He can speak to both sides equally well, and he’s uniquely positioned to comment on both “gamer” and “tactical” topics, including all the back-and-forth that those exclusive to one side or the other lob about in disparaging the other side. Aaron’s got it pretty simple: if you’re a better shooter, because the fundamentals apply to either problem set, it will always help you. Granted, there are differences (and I was a good example of that; I’ll detail this later), but on the whole if you can be a better shooter, that will always be to your advantage.
Class
It was an unusually pleasant day: mid-70’s/low-80’s in January, sunny, clear; just an excellent day to be out on the range. We had a sold out class of 10 students, with a lot of familiar faces. I attended with my friend Charles from Tactical Gun Review, and Oldest came with me as well. Aaron running the class and Karl assisting. A range of equipment, with a number of suppressors and short-barrel rifles. I believe all but one person was running an AR-patterned rifle, some set up for “fighting” some set up for competition. Two people were running irons, the rest had optics (most popular were 1-4/5/6x scopes, a few red dots).
The class was certainly set up to be a competition class (3-gun, etc.). That wasn’t my expectation going into the class, but I was fine with it. I knew whatever skills were taught would still help me become better.
We started by checking zero. This is a good thing to have done, because people were zeroed in different places, which was fine and you could keep whatever zero you preferred. Aaron was mostly ensuring people were zeroed somewhere, but also understood the zeros. Furthermore, Aaron discussed zeroing in a 3-gun context. Whereas a lot of tactical shooting might zero at 100 yards because it rarely cares about more than a 300 yard engagement, in 3-gun you may be shooting out to 600 yards, so different zeros may be needed, such as a 200 or even 300 yard zero! The game is so much about a balance of speed and accuracy, and speed is sometimes about minimizing manipulations that consume time (e.g. reloads, adjusting your scope, getting in and out of positions). In fact, much of the class had that as the undertone.
After zeroing, we ran various drills to illustrate important concepts. For example, issues of holdover. Aaron set a target and we walked back: 10 yards, 15, 25, 50, 75, 100, shooting it standing offhand each time (let me tell you, 100 yards quickly offhand is humbling), working to help manage speed vs. accuracy, how holdover changes, and so on.
We also worked in different positions such as kneeling, prone, around barricades, off low barrels, etc.. We worked on target transitions, working on being smooth with a steady cadence.
One fun drill we shot was Kyle Lamb (VTAC)’s “1/2 and 1/2 Drill)
10 rounds at 20 yards in 10 seconds
10 rounds at 10 yards in 5 seconds
10 rounds at 5 yards in 2.5 seconds
Here’s a video from Kyle himself:
Of course, it’s a lot of fun to blow through 10 rounds in 2.5 seconds, but it’s also very challenging. On the longer distances, you have to slow down, use all that time, get acceptable hits. On the shorter distances, you have to really go but even then you can’t rush: you still have to ensure the front sight post, the dot, whatever, is still bouncing within the target area. Then we ran the drill backwards (5, 10, 20), and that’s also a tough one because
Oh, and if you watch the video and see the results? Notice how all the hits are in the lower portion of the A-zone? That’s the holdover problem, and it’s tough because on a pistol there’s holdover but it’s not much and usually we don’t worry about it. But on a rifle it’s significant, and in running a drill like the 1/2 and 1/2, your brain gets so focused on “that target spot” that it’s easy to forget to adjust. All telling learning points.
One fun part of the day was Aaron set up a competition stage on the shoothouse berm. We pulled out some .22 rifles and ran though the stage. When Aaron was critiquing my run, he pointed out how he could easily tell I was more of a “tactical shooter” than a competition shooter because of how I ran the stage: how I’d shoot OR move (instead of shooting on the move), how I’d approach doorways, etc.. Interesting observation for sure.
Take-Homes
I appreciated the class. It was great to finally meet Aaron (we’ve know of each other for a while, even exchanged some on Facebook comment threads; but never met in person until today). He’s very easy going, very skilled and knowledgeable. I also appreciated the extra time he took with Oldest to help him with some things.
For a first class, it was generally good. I do think there’s some room for improvement in the class flow. For example, the typical mode of operation in our pistol classes that might utilize the shoothouse berm will be to break class, everyone goes over to the berm for a briefing on the exercise/drill, then everyone goes back to the main range and continues class. Since the shoothouse drill is generally a one-person operation, then we’ll have 1 person break out from the main group, run the shoothouse, then rejoin class. By doing this the rest of the class keeps going, doesn’t stand around bored, everyone gets a run through the special drill/scenario, and things just run a little smoother in terms of time and curriculum management. In this class we didn’t do that: everyone stood around and watched while each person ran the stage. Sure, that replicates how a match works 😉 but a class doesn’t have to run that way. It’d would have been cool if perhaps the large range was set up with an array of paper targets and people worked on “with 15 yards” walking and target-transition engagements, or some other skill. Basically, keep everyone moving.
Small issue tho, and again, this was the first run of the class so of course we’re going to find room to improve.
Me personally?
The biggest thing I got was reinforcement of fundamentals. Again, I felt the CSAT course was not a beginner course, not an advanced course, but a fundamentals course; something that anyone and everyone can benefit from. I saw how the fundamentals worked, even in “competition”; it’s all the same. I also saw how when I forgot to apply the fundamentals, I stunk up the joint. It really reinforced to me that these skills are not fully engrained in me. Need more practice.
I also continue to see how rifle shooting and pistol shooting are more alike than different. Sure there are differences, but not as much as my brain wants to put into it. My brain needs to just “shut up and shoot”; it generally knows what to do.
I was happy for the class. It was just what I needed, both in terms of instruction, and just a bit of fun! A great day, excellent weather, good people, and yeah… getting to spend time with my friend Charles (we haven’t seen each other in a while) and my Oldest… hey, all good things.
It’s day 2-A, Legs Heavy, of this new LRB template program. All in all, good stuff, some new stuff, and just kinda happy to have some heavier stuff too. 🙂
Squats went well. I’m finding my bar speed: not too fast on the descent, not too fast (but still trying to be explosive) on the ascent. I’ve been doing so much sub-max work that it’s been hard to find the right speed: I mean, what you can do at 135 vs. 225 vs. 315 are different things, and I’d trying to get that speed and positioning for the heavier stuff, then letting the lighter follow suit. Happy this is really coming together.
Another note: while squeezing/clenching the bar with my hands is good for tightness, I just can’t do it before getting under the bar. It causes too much stress on my wrists. Better to get into position then lock things in.
The hack squats were an experiment. Hacks are part of the program, but I don’t have a hack machine at my gym. The googles said you can do it on a Smith Machine: position the bar like a low-bar squat, put your feet way out in front, and go (bottom position will look like a wall-sit). So I’m trying it. I wanted to be very light today to work on the mechanics, and I’m glad I did. It’s evident that you can get so low that leverages, angles, mechanics will just not allow you to come back up. As well, I could see a small lapse in tension or focus and you could wind up going for a quick ride to the floor. I did put the catch-hooks in place, but because of the odd angles of force on the rails they wobbled out! A simple remedy with some bands to hold them in place. But all in all, this went alright. I’ll certainly up the weight next time, but today was about figuring out the mechanics.
Leg press: all I can say is up the weight.
Split Squats. I’ve been doing the 1-legged Bulgarian Split Squat stuff for the past some weeks. I actually thought about continuing those (and apparently I need my head examined for thinking that), but no… take the variety. This is just keeping both feet on the floor, one way out in front of the other then squat down and come back up. Work to keep the torso upright and moving in as much of a vertical plane as possible (no bending, no shifting forward or back so center of gravity changes), and when in the up position get that back heel on the ground. What was interesting was finding more work happening in my hip flexors… man, they were worked. Sure the rest of the lower body got worked, but really felt it in my hip flexors on that more than any similar type exercise (the 1-legged, lunges, whatever). Interesting note.
Anyways, I dig it. Good work, and again I’m happier for the 1-hour-ish sessions again. Certainly the 1-minute rest between everything helps here (even the top work sets on squats).
Oh, and yes, I’m also so far enjoying going back to 3x/week. Getting to sleep in yesterday was wonderful.
When was the last time you articulated where that line was drawn?
When you articulated that line, have you subjected it to scrutiny? Have you read stories, considered scenarios, applied it (as a training exercise, in your head) while you go about your daily life? Does it hold up? Does it need adjustment and refinement?
What was more interesting to me was flipping through all the forum discussion of his account. The majority of it was comments such as “you shouldn’t have gotten involved”, or “wasn’t your fight”. But there were also counters such as “JV_” saying:
It’s interesting to watch incident videos, like the thug beating up on a big bus driver (who won in the end) and many people seemed surprised that no one stepped in to help the bus driver.
And here we have an incident where someone does step in to help out, and we’re back to the “it’s not my fight”. On the other hand, it’s a domestic incident, and if she turned on the helper, he’d still be in jail.
I don’t look forward to living in a society where everyone stands around and watches bad things happen.
And the discussion raged on, as Internet forums do, tho was overall quite civil.
Still, the armchair quarterbacking was interesting for me to observe and it mirrors responses I received in regards to my own incident.
It’s not really that people are trying to tell me or LittleLebowski that we were right or wrong (tho yes, some are certainly trying to scold or correct), it’s more that people are articulating their own feelings against the backdrop of our event. They might be saying “you shouldn’t have gotten involved” but they really mean “I wouldn’t get involved”.
Really, it’s tough to tell someone they shouldn’t have gotten involved – especially after the fact. “Gee, thank you for pointing out my mistakes… as if I’m totally unaware of them.” You may mean well, but think about what you’re really trying to say and why you are saying it. Someone telling their story is making themselves vulnerable, in hopes of helping you (including learning from the mistakes made). Don’t punch them in the gut over it.
And from that, work to learn. If after hearing the story you find yourself (re)assessing how you would respond to such a situation, good! That’s the point of sharing. You should be using the story to figure out where you stand, and if you need to adjust, if you need to change yourself, if you need to further your education.
Remember: as a result, we will all draw our lines in different places. What’s right for you may not be what’s right for me. It’s good to help guide people towards finding, improving, and making articulable where their line is drawn; just don’t look down on them or chastise them for drawing their line differently from yours. So long as they have a clearly defined and defensible line, so long as they can reasonably articulate where and why, that’s what’s important.
So last week didn’t happen so much. Was out on business, too many long days, not enough sleep, and it was more important to sleep than to lift. I know, sounds like blasphemy, but recovery is something I need much of these days — why dig the hole deeper?
Anyways, today starts on Paul Carter’s LRB-Template from his SSL book. I am hoping 3x/week will be better for me, since that 1. shouldn’t dig as deep a hole and 2. that I’ll get more recovery.
Today was about feeling things out, finding weights and such, and preferring to start light. It did feel a little strange doing some overhead pressing before cycle benching, but it also felt good… extra warmup, and I didn’t feel too much was taken out of me.
I also worked to get my rest periods down. Inception had a lot of longer rest periods, which had its place, but it also really stretched out my gym time to 90-ish minutes, which I can’t always afford. I like hitting that 60-minute window, and if today is any indication, I’m back in that slot. I mean, I even took only 1-minute rests between the heavy sets on benching! If things get heavier and I need more time, I’ll take it. But pushing myself, I think that’s good too.
I also have to say, I really do dig the overhead extensions. It gives a range of motion like no other triceps work I’ve done, and if you really do work it all the way to lockout, it’s a lot of work.
Anyways, enjoyed things. I’ll be upping some weights for next time, but all in all, dug it.
Seated, Behind-the-Neck Press (on the smith machine)
How do you internalize the idea that it’s the other stuff you do that really keeps you safe? How do you get over the irrational notion that it’s your CCW that does this? As I’ve told more than one class, I think a valuable drill is to occasionally practice NOT carrying your gun. I know it sounds odd, and I know the overly-shooting-oriented defensive training community will excoriate me for saying that, but I believe there are benefits to be had by occasionally doing such an exercise.
About a week ago, I responded to a Letter to the Editor about how “My gun kept you safe” saying “No, it didn’t. My original response to that letter had nothing to do with Grant’s proposal, but Grant’s proposal came in while I was composing and it was good food for thought, so I changed my response. As well, I figured that it’d be worthwhile to partake in the drill myself. I already have times when I don’t carry a gun, such as when I go to concerts. While I lose the use of a tool, I don’t necessarily feel “unarmed”. Again, it’s not the gun keeping me safe, it’s me keeping me safe. But I thought it’d be good experiment to try in a different context.
Different Context
I spent the past week on a business trip. Due to the nature of the trip and the events that would be participating in, having a gun on my person was going to be complicated. I’m sure I could have found ways to manage it, but I thought this would be an interesting context in which to try Grant’s drill. So I made the decision to leave the gun at home.
I also started going “naked” a couple days before the trip, just because I could. But those couple days started to give me my first insights.
Alternative Tools
There are other tools one can utilize.
Knives are a good example. Pepper spray is another. There are times I have a hickory or oak cane. What I might have can be affected by circumstance and situation, but realize there’s more out there. And if you opt to handle one of these others, it behooves you to obtain some sort of training and skill with that tool. Yes, even pepper spray. No, you don’t have to spend 10 years and become a black-belt in it, but knowledge and skill will aid you if you have to use the tool.
One downside? I lost a good ranged tool. While typical self-defense incidents happen in the 0-5 yard range (within the length of a car), there’s still more than enough data on incidents happening at longer ranges. But even 0-5 can be out of reach for some of these tools. A knife is really only useful if the person is WITHIN arms reach, which is already too close. Pepper spray has a degree of reach, but it’s limited and even more so if there’s wind blowing (which there always is to some degree). That is one thing that I was bummed about losing was the ranged weapon.
Change of Habits
For years I’ve carried my keys in my left front pocket. I’m right-handed, but use my left hand for keys. Why? Because it keeps my right hand free for other things. When I started carrying the ASP Defender (pepper spray, and quasi-kubotan), I actually retained my existing habit of the left-hand pocket. Well, going naked for those couple days made me think more about the Defender being a primary tool, and I realized I needed to switch and put my keys (and thus the ASP Defender) into my right-front pocket. Granted I could still work it from my left if needed, but it makes more sense for me now to have it on the right. The unorthodox drill forcing me into this different paradigm paid that benefit of having me rethink and improve my strategies.
Awareness of Awareness
One of the biggest take-homes from the drill was regarding awareness.
For sure, you perk up your awareness. What does that mean? That you weren’t running as aware as you thought you were.
Throughout the week my awareness went to various places.
When I was walking the dog, I realized how easily she caused distraction and my focus to shift. Same thing would happen when I’d be walking around with other people, talking to them. There just are times you have to pay attention to other things, to have the majority of your focus on something else. Your attention is easily divided, and you likely don’t realize it.
This is reality, I’ve known this, and anyone that denies slipping into Condition White from time to time is dishonest with themselves.
I did find myself paying more attention to things. Had one opportunity for some light MUC (Managing Unknown Contacts) practice. Being in semi-familiar surroundings, I spent time looking, watching, orienting myself in ways to survey what was going on and adjust behavior. But that’s another thing: when you’re “just passing through” there’s only so much you can fully assess.
The bottom line is: we can never be 100% dialed in, 100% aware, 100% knowledgable of all things. So what can we do to help manage that reality? How can we make decisions, have behaviors, etc. that, if they can’t help us gain advantage, at least minimize the loss.
There’s no single answer here. It’s just something to think about. It’s something to seek solutions on.
Sometimes you gotta go
There’s sayings like “don’t go to stupid places, with stupid people, and do stupid things” (Thank you, John Farnam). For sure, that’s a valuable piece of advice to keep you out of most trouble. But sometimes, you have to go to less than desirable places. For example, the place I had to go on business, I had no control nor choice over. Is it in a bad part of town? Not really, but for sure there are elements of “less than desirable”. Even speaking with other people working in the area, they all had minor reservations about the area. In fact, I spoke with someone else during the trip that said he was walking to get lunch and came onto an encounter with some dudes, a gun, and something “going down”. He immediately removed himself from the situation (he was no way involved; just walking down the street), but still.
Or on a more mundane note, some of the evening activities were known to be “unfriendly” to someone carrying a gun. For example, attending a Dallas Stars hockey game denies licensed firearms carry by law, and also requires passing through a metal detector. Or having a happy hour at a microbrewery that would have 51% signs posted. How to manage your carry gun, on a business trip, in such situations?
Sometimes you gotta go. And if you gotta go, what can you know ahead of time to help you with your decisions and course of action? The more you can know, the more you can learn ahead of time, it will be helpful in determining your course of action.
Drill Conclusion
I’m back home. My gun is back on my hip.
Of the drill, Grant writes:
If you find yourself feeling different, more careful or less confident without the gun, that’s your cue that you haven’t been paying nearly enough attention to your real safety. It means that you’ve assigned too much of your well being to a device of very limited utility. Your gun is a talisman, not a tool. It also means that you need to devote some of your training resources to those other skills I listed above and integrate them into your life.
If, however, you feel completely confident and change nothing about your routine or your habits, then you probably have a good understanding of your concealed gun’s real place in your personal security planning. That’s how you know you’re at a point of balance, which means you’re safer overall than someone who isn’t.
Strive for balance.
I didn’t feel too different. I changed a couple of things, I was given opportunity to think about some things from a different angle. But overall? Didn’t feel too odd or weird, I didn’t feel naked, I didn’t feel vulnerable.
I’d say, at least in terms of how Grant summarizes things, I have a good understanding of my gun’s real place in my personal security planning.
Of course, there’s always room for improvement, and I’m happy for having undertaken the drill.
Due to circumstance, I have to modify my gym time. The key tho is to still get good work in, using what’s available to me.
So when all I’ve got is dumbbells up to 40 lb and an adjustable bench well… you do what you can to bring up the intensity and workload.
I am slightly starting on my new plan. I am going 3x/week, with a push/legs/pull sort of approach of the LRB-template. I just don’t have full facilities to work within.
So do my warmup, then start benching. To bring it up my approach was to use the 40’s, work sets of 10, rest 30 seconds between each set, use a 3-0-1-0 tempo, and really focus on just using the pectoral muscles to move things. That was fairly decent, with the last couple sets feeling it somewhat.
Then onto flies, doing a few more sets than I’d normally do just because again I needed the workload. Lateral raises. Again, a little more workload than normal. See here on these, I normally do less than 40 lb anyways so it worked out alright.
Finally, overhead triceps extensions. Never done these, but they’ll be part of my LRB work so I figured why not do that for the triceps work. I probably could have gone heavier but I figured 20-rep sets would be good. I really liked these — got a great range of motion, far more than on other extensions type exercises. And it does make me think that I should NOT go too heavy on these lest my elbows hate me in the long run.
In the end, about an hour of work, had a pretty good pump, and not too bad given circumstance.
Just opted to not go to the gym today. I need the break.
Instead, I sat down to outline where I’ll be going.
Inception program? For sure, going to stop. I think it’s a great program, but it’s just too much for me right now. Again, I learned this back with 5/3/1 that I just can’t recover well enough from such a split. I mean, it’s basically an upper/lower A/B 2x/week type of split. I could recover from that, if I could get enough sleep in a day. But I can’t because numerous reasons, and even 30 minutes less sleep a day adds up. Sucks, but it does show how you have to work within your “Maximum Recoverable Volume” and all that.
Again, the only reason I went 4x/week was because diet, which isn’t a reason right now. I’ll fade back to 3x, then go back on 4x when/if diet needs it again.
So what AM I going to do?
Well, I’m enjoying working on some heavier stuff, and I was about to go into the Inception strength phase. Given I know another diet cut cycle is in my future, I’d like to work on heavier stuff and some mass building while I can. But again, keeping to 3x/week, tho that means I can make those sessions pretty intensive since it’s 3x/week overall and 1x/week per “body part” if you will.
Just by chance I was flipping through Paul Carter’s Strength, Life, Legacy eBook and came across his “Lift-Run-Bang Template”. It looks to be exactly what I need. So, going to run it. There’s no time-limit on how it’s run, but it seems fitting for about a 6-week run before you’d make adjustments and run again (or change entirely). That should be appropriate for my timing on things relative to my work and diet and such.
Paul actually originally put this on his website. Part 1, Part 2.
I spent time this morning figuring out what work to do, what weights, etc.. Bench and Squat, I’m going to use the max I calculated at the end of Inception, and use that actually as the target weight to hit (given how Strong-15 calculations work). Deadlift, I haven’t done in ages, but looking at my logs, comparing it to where the squat was back then, I’m picking a number and that should be good enough for me to work with.
I won’t actually start next week. Due to circumstance, next week will be a weird kinda “free-form” week for me. I will apply the 3x/week, but the work I do will be a little haphazard, dictated by what I can do based on my situation. Nothing bad, just not ideal. Just going to focus on getting in a bunch of work. Then starting the LRB-SLL template the week after.
Oh… one other thing that comes out of the 3x/week. That means 4x/week I get to sleep in. See, one problem I’ve dealt with is all the gym days, I need to be up and out the door by a certain time. Which means alarm clock, which means that yeah, sometimes I don’t get all the sleep/recovery I need. An intentional choice in 3x/week is that then on the other days, to turn off the alarm and sleep until I wake up. Granted, my body is well-conditioned to just waking up, but if it does then I’m going to work to go back to sleep or even if I just lie in bed for a while, I’ll take that. I don’t need to hit cardio work right now (on this bulk/massing diet), and what little I do need to do isn’t a huge sweat to do a little later in the morning (the dog is loving the morning walks in the cold). Point being, more sleep should be good.
Overall, I expect this should be a better deal for me.
Stuff From Hsoi 