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Keep Going

2/4/2021

When you want to quit. When it’s “impossible.” When you think it’s not worth it. When prospects are dim. When there’s no way. When it “can’t” happen. When it “couldn’t” happen. When it “shouldn’t” be possible. When it “should” be easier.

“What’s so special about this video?”, you may be asking (video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKv7_5rFV5C/). Just another big dude moving big weights, not even worthy of mention. Well, just two months before this I couldn’t use the left side of my upper body. Temporary paralysis. If that weren’t enough, not long prior, I’d had the right pec major surgically reattached after a complete avulsion/tear. The week before that, my daughter was born. A couple months before that, I had crippling Lyme disease. Around the same time, we discovered a cancerous lesion on our son, requiring surgical excision. Oh, yeah, and we built a new location for our business the same quarter. You know what they call that? Life. You keep waiting for a good or easy period of time. It won’t come. You wait for the universe to deliver you unearned credit. It won’t happen. Hell, it won’t give most people their earned credit, their due.

Keep going.

Why You're More Valuable Than Every Single Famous "Successful" Person

2/2/2021

It's a cop out to think, "I'm not good enough at 'X' or in 'Y'." Titles, recognition, and achievement are seldom contingent on skill or being "good enough," whatever that means anyway. If you’ve ever taken the time to study someone whom many call “successful,” you’ve found yourself somewhere between a little and very disappointed. Even in The Snowball, Warren Buffett’s biography, you discover that for each one of his sharp decisions, he made a great many blunders. And if his father hadn’t been a successful person and influential congressperson, none of Buffett’s initial opportunities would have even existed. Without his initial opportunities, there would have been none of his subsequent possibilities, and so on. And this is someone who is at least a little respectable. So imagine what that says about a more uncouth celebrity.

Have you ever met the allegedly or ostensibly "good enough" people? Or heard them speak? I have. Just about every "somebody" I've met at big companies is underwhelming. They aren't captivating speakers. They aren't strong writers. The don't have a powerful presence. Their critical thinking skills rank somewhere on the cognitive development chart between plankton and lichen. Most are just products of attrition, occasionally expedited in their rise by route of cronyism or nepotism. They've stuck around long enough, were in the right place at the right time, and/or were connected to the "right people." I wish it weren’t true, since I believe in merit. But when I search my soul I know that smarter people who are harder working have enjoyed much less worldly return on their efforts than dumber people who are lazy but well-connected. It’s a law. Worldly “successful” people may or may not work on skills. Some do. Most don’t. That is a very rare factor to explain getting to the top.

And you have to remember this when your mind goes into doubt or self-criticism. Those inept people were able to become presidents, VPs, executives, "somebody" fundamentally by hanging around and connections. Seriously. Learn their stories.
On the obverse, some of the most captivating speakers I’ve ever heard were lifelong missionaries with barely two nickels to rub together. What they’ve seen and how they’ve devoted themselves to their fellow man is beyond admirable. A doofus who tripped his way to the top can’t capture that impact in a speech.

The best among us and the most rigorous thinkers of all time refused titles. Ever heard of Newton? Descartes? Einstein? Jesus of Nazareth? Few or no riches. And those are the names we DO know. Then there are the many, many, many names we don't know. Most people haven't even heard of Rosalind Franklin, the scientist actually responsible for discovery of the DNA double-helix structure. In fact, there's a great example of how the smartest and hardest working person usually fades into obscurity, not only not capitalizing on his or her talents, but not even getting recognition. We have all heard the names Watson and Crick held in great esteem. But they were research thieves. Or, how many people believe they could outthink Tesla? He had zero ambition to become the world’s first trillionaire - an easy feat if he would’ve kept the patent on electricity and monetized his inventions. Meanwhile, some goofball who has spent two decades riding other people’s coattails is on a motivational speaking tour. Another trust fund goofball who’s ridden the backs of workers will stand in front of a crowd and seriously say he’s a self-made man. It's our fault too. We reward the worst of us and the least capable with our admiration, attention, and funding. We reinforce the success myth, the myth of the self-made man, the myth of worldly blessings, the heresy of the prosperity Gospel, the blasphemy of the prayer of Jabez as a thorough theological stance.

Moreover, I have to add that I know “big time” people. I’ve trained many. I currently coach a few. I’ve worked side by side with others. They aren’t one iota happier than the average person. Not one. Having failed to build the toolkit of contentment and selflessness, they are perpetually angry or depressed. Perpetually. I’m not exaggerating. Nine out of ten are substance abusers and/or food or sex addicts. If being successful by a worldly standard is so great, why is there ANY lying and cheating among “successful” people? Split hairs all you like. If worldly recognition and riches are so awesome, why would we even see a 5% fail rate in the relationships of these big time “successes”? Yet, the rate of infidelity among wealthy people is TWO TO THREE TIMES higher (https://www.forbes.com/.../wealth-matrimony-millionaires... ) than the national average (https://comparecamp.com/cheating-statistics/). And keep in mind that those wealthy people are factored into the average, pushing the statistic higher than it would be without them. It’s fair to say they are FOUR TO SIX TIMES more immoral than regular people. Their net worth in dollars may be higher; but their value as humans is worth less.

Go ahead and compare yourself. Go ahead. Stack yourself against highly “successful” people. But compare yourself on metrics that matter. How do you treat your community? How do yo show up for your family? How do you love your neighbor? How do you pray for your enemies? How do you find peace and contentment instead of incessant covetousness for more? My friend, you can be more than good enough, ESPECIALLY when compared to others. You're more valuable than every single famous "successful" person.

At-Home Results Destroy Gym Results

1/30/2021

Two subjects confuse most people: equipment access and results. These misunderstandings are intertwined. Results rely on consistent strategic progression. Progression has little to do with available equipment. And consistency usually decreases as we rely on more access or more equipment. In this past year, we've facilitated thousands of hours of virtual appointments and seen that some of the people whose programs were predominantly or exclusively in-home had the best results. Consistency reigns supreme. Relying on limited equipment makes for greater consistency. Greater consistency means one can compound the progression effect better.

Let me clarify. There are five modes of progression for a single rep of any given exercise: range of motion, instability, explosiveness, pause (in mechanically disadvantageous portions of a movement), and the last one is resistance. The third and fourth are ends of the tempo spectrum. Strength coaches study these modes of progression intently, never getting hung up on equipment. Dan John once said he was his absolute best as a trainer when he only had one single 16kg kettlebell. That’s not because the kettlebell is inherently superior to all equipment or that there’s something magical about 16 kilograms. It’s because as we LIMIT the equipment we must think more precisely about how to appropriately regress or progress movements.

Keep in mind that this is just the single rep. We aren’t even referencing energy systems or workload. If you create more demand in multiple energy systems and/or increase workload, that too is a progression even if resistance is reduced. Exercise “work” can be peripherally defined similar to the physics definition. Work = force X distance. In twenty reps the distance travelled is four times that of five reps (that is, if range is equal). Thus, the workload continues to progress from five to twenty reps (re: physics) all the way up to a 3/4 drop in resistance. Granted, if your range of motion is also greater, technically 20 reps at 1/4 the resistance would be MORE work performed than 5 reps at 4 times the resistance, and the stimulus is GREATER with a 75% reduction in bar weight.

In physiology, however, we have more at play than simply F X D, because with greater range of motion, not only do we increase distance, we also decrease mechanical advantage both at the lever ratios (your femur is "longer", that is, farther from the fulcrum, from an engineering perspective, when in a deep squat versus a partial squat) AND at the lengthening of muscle fiber cross connections (the more the muscle is lengthened or "stretched" the less capacity it has). This is also where we discover that “resistance” is not the same thing as “weight.” The resistance you experience and effective force you must produce at 95 degrees of knee flexion is more than at 85 degrees even though the weight on the bar is the same. Just below parallel versus just above parallel are practically different exercises altogether.

All that said, it’s pretty easy to envision a half squat with 500lbs for 5 reps on a stable surface and stable setup with no pause or explosiveness as actually a huge REgression from a 45lb squat at full range of motion for 20 reps with pause at 90 degrees and a hop at the top. READ THAT AGAIN. Five partial reps with 500lbs is less work, less stimulus, and less application toward human movement than twenty reps with a pause and jump with JUST THE BAR AND NO ADDED WEIGHT. If we make the surface less stable or stagger the stance, the progression may actually be too large to handle for a seasoned athlete who regularly squats 500lbs. In fact, I've seen exactly this. One of my first movement assessments as a new coach in 04/05 was with an advanced athlete who regularly squatted over 500lbs. When I ran him through a circuit WITHOUT ANY WEIGHTS, including an unloaded squat progression-regression sequence, he collapsed at two minutes into the assessment, got up after a few seconds, and went to the restroom to puke.

A 400lb squat at the same tempo on the same surface at the same angle of depth for the same number of reps is indeed a progression from a 300lb squat with all the same variables. But if any other variable is enhanced dramatically, resistance can go DOWN a lot and the progression is still immense.

What happens with most people is they get distracted by vast facilities and a broad array of equipment, never taking the time to understand HOW TO PROGRESS. Ask veteran trainers or long-seasoned strength coaches, and they can provide ample examples of people who kept using heavier weights and more equipment WHILE GETTING WORSE.

Top athletes in the world who make consistent progress have about 5 exercises they frequently train and return to. Most importantly, they’re consistent. The best of the best do not bog themselves down with 700 variations. And they may train for 20 years, day in and out, with nothing but an Olympic barbell.

Contrast that against many influencers. The ones who’ve looked exactly the same for the past 2 years, 5 years, 10 years are continuously uploading hundreds of different routines and exercises. Zero proof of concept. No evidence of improved strength or skills. No substantial athletic PRs for months or years or maybe ever.

What I’ve seen since moving to a private space is that 10-to-1 those who train here consistently have performance improvements which absolutely crush the results of gym goers at big facilities. Since expanding more and more into the virtual coaching, I see a linear correlation between program simplicity and outrageous improvements.

The fewer the items, the more intense the effort and focus can be. The more controlled the variables in the modes of progression, the more assured we are of results. This rule has no exception. A guy who once benched 185lbs for 6 reps and now does 225 for 8 may have done nothing other than shorten his range of motion, increase the stability of his setup, and increase the tempo so that he experiences less time under tension. This could be a massive REgression. Add incline, decline, hammer strength, cables, pulleys, and other variants, and he may actually be throwing away his pressing force production capacity each week. Meanwhile, a client who has NO EQUIPMENT can explode with ability when strategically implementing modes of progression. If she started with partial range of motion wall pushups for 20 reps and is now at the floor doing full range of motion single arm SLOWER for 5, we know she is producing more force. We know it’s a PR. We know it will elicit more progress. No gym necessary. No equipment necessary. No distractions.

Differentiate Between Time And Mechanistic Cause for Fitness

1/28/2021

Or weight loss, fat loss, health, and more.

There was this response you seldom hear any more, “what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

People see unrelated changes which happen over the course of time and falsely attribute causation. The price of tea in China also went up EXACTLY linearly with the same change-over-time outcomes you’re attempting to connect. Why not just say the price of tea in China caused this thing?

Don’t just show me statistical change over time. Propose a known, understood, and believable mechanism.

Careful on the “cholesterol CAUSES heart disease” and other seemingly sensible proposals. Just because someone developed heart disease and had a trend up in cholesterol doesn’t mean the latter caused the former. The price of tea in China also went up.

No falsifiable, repeatedly testable, verifiable mechanisms?

Then might as well blame it on the price of tea in China.

You Must Build to Improve

1/26/2021

This is the best and most concise explanation people need to hear. She gained 25lbs to look and feel better. And, as she notes, it was all about the lifestyle revision.

This is a reshare. Follow @longtrot500 . I want to be clear that this isn’t a client or close peer. I’m actually not even sure how we initially connected; but her post here is the most accurate and summarized message that men and particularly women of the “I don’t want to get big” persuasion need to hear.

The look and feel and physique which most people pine for is one which will require BUILDING. Especially those who fear gaining a momentary increase in size (mostly perceived, btw), please LISTEN.

A nonstop effort to waste away won’t build anything. By definition, it can’t. There must be seasons of targeted growth and seasons of targeted dearth. Cheers.

One leg? 600lb deadlift.

1/26/2021

We have to think BIGGER.

Ask any lifter, any dog-tired grinder who's been at this for over a decade, "what would your lifts be if you lost a leg?" NO ONE would be squatting 435 and deadlifting 600lbs (video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKOcRyjlWcb/). NO ONE. And, frankly, if you know anything about bench technique, being down a leg at this body weight, his bench shouldn't be possible either: @that1legmonster

Absolutely incredible.

Meanwhile, people whine that they can’t exercise because they tweaked a knuckle.

We all have to think BIGGER.

Could A “Good” Diet Be Bad?

1/22/2021

People seem to have a very difficult time differentiating between the value of an idea in theory and its practical outcomes. For example, in some ways it would appear beneficial to focus on plant-based eating. In theory it makes sense. However, in practice, there are some undeniable issues. In a 55,000 person study over a long period, people who focused on plant-based eating had higher incidence of bone fracture: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/.../s12916-020-01815-3

The central problem, of course, is that MERELY insisting on plants for nutrition has no inherent biological benefit. It can carry huge benefit, especially when contrasted against the behavior of average Americans who would otherwise eat processed garbage. But there is absolutely nothing superior about the micronutrients or macronutrients inside plants from the perspective of chemistry. Moreover, we know that they lack specific human needs, are more difficult to break down and digest, and are rife for food allergies and sensitivities (which are mostly absent in animal based nutrition). Thus, in practice, it doesn’t work out well for many. It doesn’t mean it can’t. It just doesn’t.

Simpletons boil down complex systems into name-calling and dumbed-down summaries which are inherently inaccurate. We see it A LOT in politics. People call themselves capitalists but then want private companies to lose individual control (ie - communism). They say they support free market but never stop to think about how the centrally-controlled military has no element of free enterprise, competition, or capitalist market, price, or buyer controls (ie - socialism). And I see it a lot with regard to dieting.

Specifically, people have obsessed over the “goodness” of veganism. I did too. In theory, it is a good idea. I will never argue otherwise. For years I tried to make it work. But no matter how diligent I was with filling in the gaps, my system does not respond well to plant-based eating. I cannot get or stay lean. My inflammatory blood markers go up. I ache and feel old. The average person who goes from processed garbage to vegan WILL absolutely benefit, at least at the beginning. Other people who focus on high quality foods and nutrient dense eating won’t gain much benefit on average.

Now pause. I’m not saying anything is good or bad. One thing which works incredibly well for one individual doesn’t for another. There is theory. Then there is practical outcome. We must expand our thinking to stop with the heroes and villains narrative in every single facet of life evaluation.

In stories, heroes and villains make the plot easy to follow. In real life, systems are much grander than that. Let us allow real life to show its grandeur.

How to Read: for Beginners

1/21/2021

This is how I see every single online guide to fitness. All of them are filled with a laundry list of crap that appears to contain a lot of wisdom. Cool. 99% of “readers” are illiterate.

Before you gain a significant amount of self-awareness, ALL fitness recommendations amount to the Beginner’s Guide to Reading. Lots and lots of letters. Zero lessons.

Giving people routines and macros when they haven’t spent 5 minutes to understand why they quit every single time previously is like handing Moby Dick to an infant and testing him on literary analysis.

New Year Reformation

1/19/2021

Imagine yearning for something which works 8% of the time. That’s not an 8% return on investment, friends. That’s like if for every 100 times you had to drive some place, your car’s engine fired up 8 times and didn’t malfunction on the drive. That’s like if an employee showed up to work once every two weeks and didn’t last the whole shift. That’s like if your spouse came home from work one week after not coming home from work for three months in a row. Not exactly reliable. But some people yearn for this rate of reliability.

If it were anything else in life, stocks, a company, a job, a relationship, with a minimum 92% fail rate, you’d at least think of some alternative route. But with resolutions, for some reason, people just keep lining up to invest in the exact same way over and over again.

Almost half of people try to run their lives with product goalsetting, while, OF those that do, about 8% achieve the product goal: https://thehiresolution.net/the-futility-of-most-new-years-resolutions-why-experts-say-no/ . Think about that. Four percent or less of the populace gets outcomes by virtue of making product goals and resolutions. ALLEGEDLY. I say allegedly for two reasons. One, because this statistic doesn’t include long term maintenance results, mind you. Two, because it turns out any product successes are probably PROCESS goal-setters after all.

That 4% statistic is simply for arrivals. If we run the tape forward 2, 5, or 10 years, uglier numbers emerge. So what we’re really talking about is maybe a 1% success rate even after adding sample bias and ignoring the long term.

When we interview success stories, we find that the product goal was incidental. The successful person had immersed herself in a process, and that process happened to dovetail with the stated product. Thus, we discover that no one achieves via product goal-setting. We only succeed through process goal-setting anyway.

So then, what’s the process you’re working? What allotments does it make for WHO you are? When you “messed up already,” how will you reorganize the process in order to improve outcomes?

Time to reform.

What Matters

1/15/2021

I got this message on Christmas 2020. It’s from one of my clients who is simply a remarkably consistent worker of the steps. Having started as a total novice, he’s now embarking on an athletic future. On the scale, he’s down 80lbs. In composition, it’s more like a 120lb transformation, as he’s gained at least 20lbs of muscle and lean tissue during his journey. That journey began with partial range of motion body weight squats, and is now over 400lb weighted deep squats ATG. And as nice as all those things are, what really MATTERS is moments like this. Something which was once so far off as to be “impossible” or “unbelievable” is now a reality. Theoretical potential was replaced by actualized attainment.

I failed to understand the magnitude of the message until the Sunday afterward when we had our next appointment. I wanted to clarify just exactly what it meant to him. He informed me that over a year ago he wore 4XL and it might fit snugly. What the reader or onlooker might miss is how he is more secure in his future and sticking around for his family. He contracted Covid a little over a month prior to sending this message; and, at least in part due to his tremendous efforts over the past two years which dropped several risk factors, he suffered only very minimal symptoms. So minimal, in fact, that DURING his sickness he set several personal records in lifting. All the while he maintained a conditioning practice with cardio programming WHILE sick with coronavirus.

We’ve been working on restoring him for a couple years. The weight loss is nice. The athletic gains are exciting. But his resilience against all challenges is what really matters - a resilience which once seemed impossible, but now is here. Merry Christmas everyone. May your new year bring what really matters into focus.

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