My Walden Pond

 

 

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment [at Walden Pond]; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.  In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.  If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them.”  (Walden 323-324)

 

In late March 1845, Henry David Thoreau retreated from “civilized” society to escape to Walden Pond, a sixty-two acre body of water located just a few miles from his parents’ home in Concord, Massachusetts.  Thoreau later wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn from what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”  (Walden, 90).  The beauty of Walden, is that from Thoreau’s simple challenge came forth a tremendously complex reflection, complete with examples ranging from ants to antiquity.  Scholars have said, “Walden stubbornly refused to constrain itself to a single genre, a single argument, even a single meaning per word.”[1]  To me, this sounds an awful like weightlifting, i.e. snatch and clean and jerk, a sport that places a doctrine of rugged individualism over all else.  

 

My own retreats to the weightlifting platform and squat rack serve a similar purpose, for they both cleanse my soul and keep me tethered to what is really important in life – hard work, accountability, humility, and a willingness to embrace difficult challenges.  Coming to understand and appreciate these lessons has not only made me a more accomplished weightlifter, but also a better husband, brother, friend and co-worker.  The best advice I can offer anyone – weightlifter or layman, alike – is do not bask in the glow of yesterday’s results; eliminate the past tense from your vocabulary and focus solely on the present.  Strive to make the next rep better than the last.  Tunnel vision.  Horse blinders.  Whatever analogy works for you.  Keep your mind sharp and your feet fast.

 

Let’s retreat now to our wooden shanties, load up a barbell with a 120 kilos, and pull the hell out of it.  We might make it, we might miss it, but in the end, irrespective of the result, we will have learned something new about ourselves.

---

[1] Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, 1.

You Can't Rush the Harvest

Sorry to bust your bubble, but you can't add 40 kilos to your squat overnight.  It takes time and a lot of small incremental gains to reach a twice bodyweight squat.

When training, several people have approached me and asked the same question, "How did you get strong?"  Now, I would argue that I'm not anything special, although I have squatted double bodyweight for multiple sets of five AFTER an hour of snatches and cleans, but this is child's play compared to the numbers of some other big-time weightlifters.  Nonetheless, my response is always the same, "Patience and stubbornness."

If I were to address the biggest problem that I see holding back these people's strength numbers, it would be their unnecessarily complicated "Secret Squirrel Super Hybrid" training program, as John Welbourn calls it.  These programs often fail to produce results, because they are unable to balance training frequency, intensity and volume.  Quite simply, if someone does not have at least a year of consistent training with linear progression, they are leaving a lot of strength on the table, particularly in the squat.  This is a huge no-no for weightlifting, as all the other lifts – the classic lifts as well as their respective power variations – are derived, at least to some degree, from the squat.  For this reason, I call the squat an individual's "denominator strength," and I have never come across anyone who is too strong.

A basic linear progression in the squat would look very similar to Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength template, i.e. working up to three sets of five across on three non-consecutive days each week, with two kilo adds between training sessions.  If a person is squatting as part of a larger Olympic weightlifting program, the squatting would occur after any prescribed snatch or clean work.  In my opinion, a beginner should snatch, clean and squat every workout, even if the reps are performed with only an empty barbell or pvc pipe.  Consistency is integral for developing fast and efficient pull lines, end of discussion.

Eventually, every individual will need to reduce their inter-workout jumps to only one kilo, but this is not a big deal.  Successfully adding one kilo every workout for a standard six-week training block (18 training sessions total) would still produce an 18-kilo gain, that's roughly 36 pounds for my American powerlifting friends.

Linear progression is not ideal for the snatch and clean and jerk due to the technical components of these particular lifts, but I would still argue that taking it slow is the most efficient way to skin the cat over the long run.  Donny Shankle recommends never repeating a PR in training, but instead always going for one kilo more.  I've adhered to this philosophy for quite some time now, and I think it's excellent advice.  PRs build confidence, and confidence builds PR. thus this approach is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Three sets of five across, three days per week, for at least one year, preferably two.  When a person starts missing reps, they should not get frustrated and scrap the program.  Everyone is human, and everyone runs out of recovery capacity at some point.  Glenn Pendlay recommends dropping 7-8 percent, sometimes more, off the heaviest sets, and then working back up towards that previous PR.  Hopefully, in six weeks or so, that individual is challenging his previous best. Just keep rinsing and repeating this process. It isn't terribly interesting. It isn't terribly sexy. But it does make you strong, and that is the goal of many.

Stay patience, stay the course, and fight like a wounded grizzly bear for those one- and two-kilo adds.

Paleo Diet Nitty Gritty Details Revisited

 

Barbell Shrugged is a really cool podcast.  I strongly recommend people check them out.

In my first post on nutrition, Paleo Diet Nitty Gritty Details, I discussed several of the nuances associated with the Paleolithic Diet, including cost concerns and complications brought on by travel obligations.  This piece continues that discussion with an examination of how a Paleo Diet follower can effectively coexist with a non-Paleo spouse, partner, fiance, or boyfriend/girlfriend.  Admittedly, that sentence is ridiculous, but any major life change can cause significant relationship friction.  Moreover, this is a subject with which I have significant experience, having lived with my non-Paleo wife now for over four years.

First and foremost, don't judge your significant other.  I learned this lesson the hard way earlier on, but it nonetheless stands to be repeated.  Most people don't like to be told what they are doing is wrong, and their resentment towards your "judgy judgy" behavior, as my wife calls it, will only torpedo the rest of your argument, regardless of how well it is formulated.

Second, don't try to convert your significant other.  Results always speak louder than words, so focus on the meals you can control, and let any body composition or performance changes speak for themselves.  For most people, breakfast and lunch are solo acts, with some exceptions. Between these two meals, if you consistently consuming a plentiful amount of high-quality protein and fiber-rich fresh veggies, you are off to a great start.

Dining with your significant other, or your kids (sorry, no experience from this angle just yet, folks), can be a bit tricky, but here are a couple of things you can do.  For starters, be the “first actor” when it comes to grocery shopping.  If it's not in the house, it's all the more difficult to eat. Additionally, on the relationship side, my wife always appreciates it when I take on certain household responsibilities that were once "delegated" to women.  I'm not about to walk through that minefield, but guys need to pitch in as participating partners.  Nuff said.

Planning ahead will also serve you well on those nights when things simply aren't going your way, but you still need to fill up before a tough day of squatting and/or conditioning.  Trimmed meat (center cut pork chops, bone-in chicken breasts, steak, etc.) from the butcher will save you time on the preparation side of things, and certain veggies require little to no additional knife work (asparagus and baby carrots immediately come to mind).  I'm also a huge consumer of sweet potatoes so I tend to buy a dozen or so at one time, but the key here is looking for sizes that will easily cook through in the microwave (medium length, medium thickness, no homo).

Another way to ease into Paleo dinners is taking note of what specific meat or veggies your significant other enjoys.  My wife loves seared skirt steak – rare, of course – with broccolini on the side. I'll microwave a sweet potato as an additional side dish, and I'm off to the squat rack tomorrow morning with belly full of beef.

If you aren't buying into the Paleo diet hook, line and sinker (this is something I would actually recommend to most people), you can always make room for compromises at communal meals. Personally, I've been strict Paleo for so long that lots of foods now irritate my digestive track, including milk, which is unfortunate because it's a very easy and powerful tool for getting big and strong (I've experimented with the grass-fed stuff, but it still makes my face and back breakout. No thanks, I'm too old for zits).  But other people might have different results.  If you start experimenting with non-Paleo carb sources, such as white rice or gluten-free rolled oats, etc., I would strongly, strongly recommend trying new foods alongside fiber-rich veggies, as the fiber will blunt an immediate digestive problem. Grilled pork chops, broccoli and homemade mac and cheese make for a great summer meal (my wife's mac is one of the few foods I make an exception for simply because it's so damn good). Nonetheless, I still load up on the broccoli and keep my mac serving more conservative.

The Legs Feed the Wolf

Game Over.

My experience with competitive athletics stems primarily from my ten-plus years as a swimmer, during which time I competed at both the national and NCAA championship level.  This pursuit of ever faster times in the pool invariably shaped my personality, but it also taught me many excellent life lessons, one being the importance of bringing up weak points.

Prior to my arrival on campus, I had enjoyed two consecutive "breakout" seasons as a high school junior and senior, respectively; the first thrust me onto the State level in New Jersey (not a major power like California, Texas, or Ohio, but respectable nonetheless in the upper tier), while the second catapulted me onto high school's national stage.  I ended my senior year with automatic All-American times in both my primary events, the 200- and 500-yard freestyle.  Not wanting to rest on my laurels, I spent the summer after my senior year training with a top notch USA Swimming program.  There, my training volume doubled, almost tripled, from a modest 6,000 yards per workout to upwards of two 10,000 yard workouts each day (in fact, during "Hell Week" we swam at least 20,000 meters per day for ten consecutive days while at altitude in Colorado Springs).  All signs pointed to a third straight breakout season for me as a college freshmen.

Funny thing is, that third breakout season didn't materialize, as I expected.  Aside from a huge improvement in a relatively new event, the 200-yard backstroke, my freshmen year was by all accounts quite pedestrian.  I qualified for the NCAA championship early in the season, but I failed to put it all together when it counted the most.  At the championship meet, I took both of my freestyle events out fast, in keeping with my past racing style, but each time the field passed me midway through the second half.  Swimming as the unofficial "rabbit," I failed to advance out of the preliminary heats.  Not accustomed to laying eggs on the biggest stage, I was befuddled, frustrated and later angry.  At that same championship meet most of my other training partners also performed below expectations, all but one. Jonny, a junior and one of my best friends on the team, swam great, achieving All-American times in all three of his individual events.

In a later conversation with Jonny, I vented my feelings over my sub-par performances.  I'll never forget his response: "Dick, you need to learn how to kick. Your kick sucks."  You gotta respect brutal honesty.  None of my other coaches had described my weakness in such blunt terms.  A few days later, I was ready to leave the pool after another average when Jonny said the words that would change my swimming career at the collegiate level, "Dick, go get a kickboard."

The kickboard looks humble enough, it's a simple foam flotation device that swimmers can use to immobilize their arms while relying solely on their legs for forward propulsion.  Most swimmers hold it with their hands atop the foam, their arms fully extended, and the bottom of the board resting against their chest.  While it may have been a device originally crafted for old ladies, I can assure you that it's a gnarly, yet indispensable, piece of training gear.

"I don't care how slow you go," Jonny said as we began, "but you can't stop kicking for twenty minutes."  True to his words, after a 100 yards or so, I was indeed moving quite slowly.  Meanwhile, Jonny, by far the fastest kicker on our college team, was buzzing back and forth.  In fact, now that I think about it, he may have lapped me twice that first day.  Afterwards, we loosened up with some easy swimming.  We left the pool that day long after our teammates had already departed for the dining hall.

We repeated this mini kicking workout at the end of every other practice, usually three to four times per week, never using more than just the kickboard.  Back and forth, back and forth. Away from the pool, Jonny showed me how to subtly stretch my ankles while sitting in class.  I was very diligent about doing this whenever possible.  Slowly, yet surely, I started to keep it closer with Jonny, and after a few months I was unquestionably faster.  Prior to swimming the 200-yard freestyle in an otherwise meaningless dual meet that fall, Jonny pulled me aside and said, "Dick, swim as easy as you can for the first 100 yards while staying within striking distance of the field, then, at the halfway point, go to your legs."  Respecting his opinion now more than ever, I did exactly that -- swam even with the field for 100 yards, then went to my legs, switching from the distance swimmer’s two-beat kick to the sprinter’s six-beat kick.  After 75 yards, there was significant daylight between myself and the rest of the field.  The rabbit had now become the wolf.

Over the next few months, Jonny and I continued to kick together after practice for longer and longer sessions, sometimes we ended up staying an extra forty minutes (racing the last 25-50 yards, of course).  But I didn't complain, because I was slowly learning how to use my new weapon when racing in practice.  The confidence of knowing that I owned the second half of races was probably an even more powerful psychological weapon for me.  About three weeks before the NCAA championship meet, Jonny took his old ratty kickboard and flung it towards the cabinet where we all stored our training gear.  "No more kicking, Dick, the hay is in the barn."  (Farm kids and their folksy sayings . . . ).  I continued to stick to Jonny like glue for the next three weeks, attempting to absorb everything he said about tapering, warming up, resting, and racing.  Surprise, surprise, a few weeks later at the NCAA championship meet, I swam lifetime bests in all three of my individual events, and earned several All-American honors.

Over that offseason, I continued the kicking regiment Jonny had taught me, pushing myself to hold faster and faster paces.  Even without a terribly high volume of aerobic work, I knew I was getting much, much faster, especially in the sprints.  Why?  Because I was now single-mindedly focused on bringing up my biggest weakness.  Over the next season, I did nothing to change the kicking ritual.  Fast forward to the NCAA championship meet that March, and I swam three more lifetime bests, times that put me on the map at the collegiate level.  People even came to fear me in the back half of races solely because of my closing speed.  It even got to the point where I started to use my kick as a psychological weapon of mass destruction, "Start looking over your shoulders at 75-yard mark," I would joke with our team’s best sprinters, "because if you look for me at the 100-yard mark you might get whiplash." 

The point of this long, drawn-out story is that all athletes must be honest with themselves when assessing their own performances, and they must come to recognize their own weaknesses.  At this point, sufficient time must be dedicated to turning these weaknesses into strengths.  In the world of competitive powerlifting, Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell preaches a similar philosophy: performance assessment – weakness recognition – tailored training programs.  I never could have made the same improvements without Jonny's help, and I always attribute a large degree of my collegiate success to his tutoring.  I tried in vain to pass on these same lessons to my younger teammates, but sadly only one ever listened (for reference, he, too went on to earn multiple NCAA All-American honors).

Be humble enough to admit that you suck at something, then be strong enough to do something about it.  People don’t often like working on their weaknesses, but this must be done in order to continue progressing.

Mountain Climbing

"Mountain Men: The Ghosts of K2"

 

Mountain Climbing

by Vir



The climb begins with a simple, innocent step
Fair weather and ample company make the early days enjoyable
Words "fun" and "participation" float whimsically through the air at base camp
Your pack is light and the pace is brisk in those early days
You feel progressively stronger every time you lift your foot;
 
But in the days to come a few friends will drop off
They have decided mountain climbing is not for them
After all, they see other kids frolicking in the meadow below
They are having more fun
The days are starting to become a bit more boring and monotonous;
 
The remaining climbers reach the next camp barely out of breath
All are having a great time
A few stragglers from earlier expeditions make for a jovial camp
Together you sit around the crackling fire and tell stories until the early hours of tomorrow;
 
Morning breaks and the once light-hearted mood has now been replaced by a harsh reality
Feeling their heavier packs several say, "I'll rest here another day or two . . . but I'll catch up later”
"Okay," you reply back naively, not realizing this is your parting exchange;

The terrain has become more rocky now
And dark clouds loom ominously on the horizon
"Better get out that jacket," you think to yourself, it looks like rain
Not long after that a soft but subtle rain begins falling across your face;
 
You race to set up your tent at the next camp, never realizing more climbers have dropped off
This night will be your toughest yet
Whipping winds and pounding rains punish your Gore-Tex home 
No one ever told you the climb would be this difficult;
 
The sun fails to rise high in the sky the next morning
Only more wind and rain
Several climbers are attempting to wait out the storm inside their tents
Others are already retiring down the mountain
Not you
You shoulder the heavier pack and zip your jacket clear up to your neck;
 

The higher elevation has begun turning rain to snow and the drifts are getting deeper and deeper 

With each step your legs grow more tired
Leaning on your trekking poles is just as much a physiological crutch as it is a physical one
Your arrival at the next camp fails to solicit a boisterous response
The grizzled veterans there share only subtle nods of the head and solemn handshakes
"Welcome, brother" they say;
 
The next morning you rally your strength for an assault on summit camp
A few other climbers agree to make the push with you
But make no mistake, this is an individual journey
You alone will determine the success or failure of this expedition;
 
Battling worsening conditions you continue to put one foot in front of the other
Nonetheless you periodically doubt yourself
Only on the rarest occasions do you exhibit a cat-like quickness 
Nonetheless, these bursts of energy are few and far between
This is a slow slog, nothing more;
 
Just when you think all hope is lost you see the faint outline of a small campsite up ahead
However, there are no fires, food supplies, or posh amenities at this stop
Only a spartan way of life
All that is missing now is the boiled pig's blood;
 

Huddled in a small tent you tell the other climbers that you plan to summit at daybreak

"You're crazy...quit, you've had a great run," they exclaim in unison
But surrender is not an option, not when you know others have conquered the peak
More importantly, this climb has come to define you as person, both mentally and physically
At first light you are already a few steps into your final ascent
You alone are responsible for reaching the summit.

What Are You Training For?

People who see me lifting at the gym or running on the track often ask, "What are you training for?"  Setting aside their poor English for a moment, I usually just shrug my shoulders and casually respond, “nothing special.”  However, this response is not all-in-all accurate.

The simple truth is I train to test my soul, venturing inward to see if I am willing to accept that day’s challenge.  “Can I add one more kilo to this or that particular lift?”  “Can I shave a few tenths of a second off this or that repeat?”  Irrespective of my day-to-day results, this test, this internal challenge, this search for perfection is what keeps me coming back for more.  I must accept and battle that challenge each and every workout.

Now, I realize most people can’t handle this answer, especially at six in the morning, and the unfortunate reality is that we are all living in a society that is growing ever softer by the day, both mentally and physically.  Nonetheless, select communities give me reason to hope, and I am striving to embody the change I want to see in this world, nothing more, nothing less.

The road to improvement is obstructed by the mightiest of gauntlets so keep testing yourself, folks.  Don't get slow.

 



Leave a Rep

Kirk Karwoski is a powerlifting legend whose highlight reel of competition lifts includes squatting 1,000 pounds, yes, you read that correctly, 1,000 pounds, for a double, yes, you read that correctly, too, a double.  What's even more impressive about Karwoski's feat – not that it needed to be any more impressive – is that he walked it out, squatted it to a depth where his hip crease was below his knee, and walked it back in.  No monolift, "at parallel" here folks, just brutal absolute strength.  I mention this accomplishment only to serve as a backdrop for those readers who have never heard of "Captain Kirk."

In keeping with the interviews of other great athletes, Karwoski's discussion below with Mark Rippetoe is filled with little gems, tiny tidbits of advice that can help a lifter at almost any level. One gem, in particular, has stuck with me for the last several weeks: "leave a rep."  Like all good advice, it is simple to say but difficult to practice.  Nonetheless, I have found it an incredibly helpful concept to remember when squatting.  Some days, most often on Mondays and Fridays, I come to the gym fresh off a rest day and ready to eat nails.  Sets of five across in the back squat be damned, it's game time.  Conversely, on Wednesdays, I come to the gym a little tired from Tuesday's double and not looking forward to my three sets of five.

Irrespective of these day-to-day feelings, a linear progression-based program is difficult to execute, primarily because the small adds continually require the athlete to be a little stronger than they were the previous workout.  The compounding interest that simply defeats you.  However, by sticking to the rep scheme and resisting the urge to go for  a final set of six, seven, eight, nine, or even ten reps on the final set of five, you buy yourself some much needed insurance, either for those days when are feeling your best or for those final workouts before the deload.

Squatting and deadlifting are incredibly powerful training tools, but their impact on the central nervous system must be respected. Whether squatting to a daily maximum or pursuing a linear progression scheme, do yourself a favor and leave a rep (or in the former case, routinely stop before the squats start becoming a grind).

 

 

Grab your pencil and notebook, class, school is in session.