**This World is Mine

A mere ten weeks after tricep surgery, I'm deadlifting 605 again. Want to know how?



It's not just because I rule. I mean, that's a rather major part of the equation, but most of it is busting my ass in the gym every day. Since my surgery, I've trained 6 days a week, squatting two to three times a week and deadlifting at least once. Three days a week I eat no carbs, and simply eat 5 pounds of baked chicken wings. Yes, 5 lbs of chicken wings. They're delicious. But as for deadlifting, I've been sticking to singles, doing them solid for about an hour, working up to a weight at which I fail, then backing off about 10 lbs and doing singles until I cannot, usually 15-20 sets. Then I go home, usually, after doing some ab wheel. The inclusion of the ab wheel is why I needed a belt like I needed cancer of the AIDS in this video. Sorry for the quality, but I had to do it on my cell phone.

Thus:
15x1x90-95% 1RM
seems to get it done. Give it a shot.

A typical week might've looked like this:
M-
Squat 10x1x95% 1RM
Reverse Grip Bench 10x1x95% 1RM
Weighted Pullups 10x3xheavy

T-
Arm Medley
Ab Wheel
Neck

W-
Deadlift 15x1x95% 1RM
Behind the Neck Push Press 5x5x8RM
Calves

T-
Arm Medley
Neck
Ab Wheel

F-
Front Squat 15x1x3RM
Bent Over Row 6x3x Super fucking heavy
Bench Press or Behind the Neck Push Press 10x3x5RM

S-
Power Cleans/Snatches/Log till I die.

S-
Rest, or do something light

Enjoy.

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*Baddest Motherfuckers Ever #4- Marvin Eder

Critical Stats:
5'8", 203 lbs.
Neck and Biceps 19", Waist 34", Forearms 15", Thighs 26", Calves 17"

His best lifts, according to the article 'The Iron Master' (December 1993).

Clean and Press - 355lbs
Snatch - 285lbs
Clean and Jerk - 345lbs
Clean - 365lbs
Squat - 665lbs (not a max effort)
Bench Press - 515lbs
Floor Press - 530lbs
Dips - 434lbs (with two men hanging from his legs, see picture below)
Dips - 400x7
Chins - 250lbsx1, 200lbsx7
Strict Curl - 210lbs
DB C and Press - 120lbs for reps
Crucifix - 100lbs Db's
Pullover SA - 210lbs
Eder was a bad motherfucker who did everything heavy, and trained A LOT. RIppetoe would have fainted at the mere mention of Eder's training volume, and Mike Mentzer would have crossed himself, then cloistered himself in his closet with the better part of a pound of coke and a collection of Ayn Rand books, and then resolved not to train for a month in an effort to balance the cosmic training load. Eder usually trained 2 on one off, though he himself admitted that he had no set routine and would simply train what he felt like training when he felt like training it. As one of the guys to officially bench 500+ lbs., I suppose he might have been onto something.

According to David Gentle:

"Eder used many routines over the years. Enjoyed Olympic lifting best perhaps, the standing press now an exercise or lift rarely practiced, yet his favorite exercise. For bodybuilding he mainly trained on the split routine system of 2 days with 3rd day resting. Usually using 5 sets of 10 reps, always very heavy poundages e.g.

Day 1 - five sets of 10 reps dumbbell laterals using 120lb dumbbells (unlocked elbows), 5 x 10 seated dumbbell curls same 120lb dumbbells. Ditto bench presses and triceps curls (5 x 10 120lb dumbbells) followed by lat machine pulldowns 5 x 10 x 350 lbs.

Day 2 - exercises for abdominals, sit ups plus added resistance i.e. 5 x 15 plus 50 lbs. He once completed 1 00 reps sit-ups with lbs. added. High repetitions on calf machine 5 x 50 reps and parallel squats 5 x I 0 x 475lbs. " He could squat 10 x 8 x 475lbs. and make 3 reps with 520lbs or 50 repetitions with 300lbs on parallel squats!"

Eder's workouts were more unconventional because he "never took weight off the stand in the conventional way. I would clean the weight to my shoulders and then do the heavy presses. I worked up to repetition presses with 340 pounds. I bench pressed over 500 pounds, deep-knee bends for repetitions with 550 pounds and side laterals with 120-pound dumbbells. The laterals were not done with perfect form mind you."

By the time the man was 67, Marvin could still do 100 dips and 90 chinups in a row. At that point, he was training three-times-a-week and doing five sets of chins for 50 reps, five sets of dips for 50 reps and 550 alternate jumping lunge squats, still at a bodyweight of 197 pounds.

For a guy so randomley ripped, you'd think he had some kind of diet secret. nope. That motherfucker was a genetic freak who must've trained himself lean. In his own words, he ate: "just normally. I would eat about three times a day. I could never eat as much as others. Oddly enough, I saw some of the old-time muscle men put away food that astounded me. I tried to do that one time when I was out in California when I entered one of the Mr. America shows.

Ed Yarick who had a gym at the time invited us to his home - there were several of us - and he made a huge amount of hamburgers and all this food and I could not match the other guys and how they ate. I forced myself to eat more. I turned green and went to the bathroom and vomited it all up. I could never eat as much as others could. Apparently my body didn't need it."

So, what'd we learn?

• Train what you want, when you want.
• Eat your fucking face off.
• Strict form is for the weak.
• If you're doing the same thing everyone else is, don't even bother going into the gym.

Go tear it up, fuckers, and make sure that weighted bodyweight exercises are in your routine.


Bibliography:
An Interview with the "Biceps From the Bronx" Marvin Eder, by David Robson. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson304.htm

Workout Routines: Marvin Eder Workout, by Brian Carson. http://workout-routines.blogspot.com/2007/01/marvin-eder-workout.html

Marvin Eder Man of Might and Muscle, by David Gentle. http://www.robertuniverse.com/davidgentle/edergentle.htm


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*The Road Less Travelled

Someone recently queried me on how I got started with all of this high volume shenaniganery. Though I'm sure I'll leave some of the less important bits out, I shall tell you.

I was always a small, chubby kid growing up, in spite of the fact that I pretty much played sports year round. My diet sucked, and I didn't exactly come from a long line of herculean people, so I was built like an homo floresiensis with a little potbelly. It was a bad deal.

I was, however, fast, and tremendously violent growing up, like a pudgy Dennis the Menace. Thus, when I was able to try out, I went for football, and was dismayed to discover that I could not bench press 135 lbs at a bodyweight of about 130. At the time I would imagine I was around 5'3". This fact was accompanied by no small amount of mockery, and I found myself in the gym thereafter, with no idea of what the fuck to do with myself other than bench press. Focusing almost exclusively on the bench press, weighted dips, and for some reason, calf raises, I was benching 285 by the following year, and kept after it, getting stuck here and there but plugging away diligently, using the shitbox routines I found in Muscle and Fitness and other assorted bullshit bodybuilding magazines. Throughout high school and the first two years of college, I was forced to keep my bodyweight low, running a shitload and continuing with my ridiculous bodypart routines, as I wrestled 134. Thus, once I quit wrestling in my junior year, and simultaneously running, I found my bodyweight jumped up to around 165 within a couple of years, and I kept after it, eating the typical bodybuilding diets and doing the basic bodybuilding splits, all the while competing in powerlifting.

I kept tinkering with my diet, and by around 2005 I was always hovering around 170, lean enough that a couple of my abs were always visible, but struggling with my bodyfat and my constantly plateauing strength levels. I then dropped my bodypart splits and adopted some collegiate wrestling strength and training plan I purchased online. That program jumped up my volume considerably, as I had always stuck to the 3 exercises by 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps, with the occasional maxing session, and I was now doing more along the lines of one exercise per bodypart a couple of times a week, with a bunch of sets and 4-5 reps per set. This resonated with me, as I recall my favorite leg workout throughout college was nothing but squats, going:
1x10x135 (weights are pretty much ballpark of what I was doing around 2000)
1x8x185
1x6x225
1x4x275
1x2x315
1x2x335
1x4x315
1x6x275
1x8x225
1x10x185
I loved that workout, so when I had the opportunity to do just one exercise per bodypart, I did it. After doing that program, I started dabbling in hybrid bodypart splits, doing some upper/lower or push/pull workouts, and dropping my reps. This continued, and I kept working out no more than 4 or 5 times a week, until I discovered Dinosaur Training by Brooks Kubik, and Rock, Iron, Steel by Steve Justa. Those guys opened my eyes to a bunch of shit I had never considered doing, and I started seeking out old school lifting advice in the form of books posted on sandow.uk, building wacky routines that were pretty much catch-as-catch can. I found that I could train the same bodypart 5 days in a row if I did it right, with no adverse effects. My lifts kept going up steadily, and I was no longer bored to fucking death by the monotony of always doing the same fucking cookie-cutter routines. It also occurred to me that if I kept training like everyone else, I'd look like everyone else, and just about everyone I see in the gym looks like shit. The old timers, though, they looked like they could eat sheet metal and shit nails. Around that time, I stumbled upon Chad Waterbury's High Frequency stuff. That shit confirmed what I was already starting to discover- the human body can handle a hell of a lot more punishment than your average trainee dishes out. I started training up to 8 times a week, and I found that I got leaner and stronger, though I would actually get burned out after a while and take a forced layoff of a few days, and then come back rested and refreshed. Waterbury's stuff was too programmed for me, though, and too planned, and it seemed retarded to me that I would be forced to keep adding reps or weight week after week, all the while knowing that it was fucking impossible to do so at certain points. I'd always felt that the human body is neither a machine nor a computer, and treating it like anything but the organic entity it was would result in little more than disappointment and frustration.

Winter of 2005-2006. Apparent Toughguy pose. Yikes.

Thus, I started working within my boundaries, maxing a lot, pounding exercises on the days I was strong and backing off or dropping them on days I didn't, and I found that my strength jumped up exponentially, and my bodyfat dropped precipitously. I then started to train with a like-minded lunatic, Matt Weist, the nephew of the owner of Iron Sport Gym, and the two of us started doing what were, by all accounts, the craziest days of lifting ever. We'd clean and press for two hours nonstop with 90-95% of our one rep max, then finish with the log or the stone. We'd do singles on shrugs with 945 lbs until our straps exploded. We'd train 13 days in a row. And all the while, we got bigger and leaner and stronger.

Weist the beast.

This is how ChAoS and PAIN was born.

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Ask the Asshole #1

Yes, I drew that. I rule in every possible way.

I've been getting the occasional email asking me a variety of questions, most of which are pretty useful in terms of elucidating what appears to most to be a tremendously esoteric training philosophy. As I personally think that I'm a fucking bull in a China shop, and am generally amazed that my training style is quixotic to some, I'm posting their questions and my responses so that you may learn from their inquisitiveness.
Q: Regarding your testosterone article: If busting a nut increases test prodcution (Editor: spell check, fuckers! HAHA) then why is it a bad idea to rub one out before you go to the gym? Like, if my chick wants to fuck and it's squat day, I stay away from her until after the gym. I know from experience that if I shoot one off before the gym, I'm good for nothing.

A: the answer to this is simple- you've trained yourself to be a fucking pussy and fall asleep after blowing a load. this is what most guys do, much to the lament of their sexual partners. Thus, here's your chance- start training yourself to wake up after nutting. yes, I know that most of you think it's impossible. It's not. Start rubbing one out midafternoon, when you have to go do something thereafter (like work), and then go do it. You'll be surprised how energetic you'll feel. Furthermore, you'll soon be able to go straight from a marathon of Max hardcore-style vaginal destruction to some full on Bennie Podda gym destruction, with no change in your general level of aggressiveness. Studies have shown that the more frequent your ejaculations, the higher your testosterone levels. Thus, you fellas need to start getting after it. (1)(2)

Q: I did cable crossovers today...supersets, 3 sets of 25 reps. Don't shoot me.

A: While not really a question, it's an upsetting statement. If you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to do crossovers, do them with resistance bands. The're far more efficacious, and you look like an athlete doing them. Well, somewhat. You can only take so much douche out of crossovers.

Q: You seem like a "live in the moment" person, so the whole "eat truckloads of meat" philosophy, which I admire, sounds awesome, but any research on the damage that a heavy meat diet does to the colon? Isn't the urban legend that John Wayne had the equivalent of a few cinder blocks of impacted feces in him when he died because he lived on red meat? I love fucking meat, but I try to maintain overall health, as well.

A: That is total bullshit. Don't pardon my pun. The myth of Elvis and Wayne's fecal-impacted colons are perpetuated by the same douchebag lying vegans who believe that Bill "I drink two gallns of milk a day before I fuck your mother" Pearl is a vegan. those fuckers know about as much about history, bodybuilding, and nutrition science as Corky from Life Goes On knows about Quantum Mechanics. That is, they MIGHT be able to spell one of the necessary words, if push came to shove. Don't belive me? Believe Snopes. Humans are omnivores. We're desinged to eat meat. Considerable amounts of it. What aren't we designed to eat? Well, just about anything a vegan tell you to eat. So if you see one, rape them with a frozen Boca burger and drive their Prius off a cliff.

Q: If you have a second, I was wondering (as I see you using one), "why the fat bar?"

Looks like you do a lot of arm stuff with it, I have a full length thick bar, other than the length, it's the same thing, so what is the advantage of the fat bar??

A: You ask a good question, although I'm moreinclined to think, "why NOT a fat bar?" Hahaha. I like the fat bar for a variety of reasons.
1) It's frequently used in event choices for strongman competitions, and as I like to enter strength competitions with little or no forethought or specific prep, it's good to be comfortable with them.
2) They're extremely challenging on quick lifts, and force you to change your form a bit for things like cleans, which makes the exercise a bit more fun, especially when it's your 8th session of the week. ;)
3) I love them for arm work, since my forearms have always been a weak point in my physique, and it's quick and dirty way to bring them, and my grip up without a ton of direct forearm work.
4) They increase hand strength a great deal without putting a ton of wear and tear on your traps and biceps with heavy forearm work.
5) Last, and most importantly, they make you look like a fucking badass, because most people are too chicken shit to try them, hahaha.
Vain, I know, but it's fun to be seen as a beast in the gym.

If you've got the cash laying around, I think elite FTS makes fat bars, but I know there are cheap sleeves you can buy for bars as well. I'm not entirely sure who makes them, but they're cheaper than the bars, from what I hear. As Elite is located in Springfield Mass (as I recall), shipping shouldn't kill you on the deal, so it might just be easiest to go through them.

Q: Anyways, as usual, questions. My dumbass has shot back up in bodyweight to about 220. Pretty upset about it, and its been pretty hard to stick to any type of routine since Ive been laid off. Lots of free time tends to fuck with my head on what Im supposed to be doing. My strength is fine, although my stamina has gone down and my bodyfat has gone back up. My real key question to you is, what type of cardio/GPP can I do on my off days, that I wont be so fucking drained on my lift days? I apologize in advance, as I have probably asked you this fucking question before, twice, but I've really fallen off the ladder here and I am struggling a bit. I guess its mental.

A: For GPP, I recommend light Oly lifts, stones, or anything else that you enjoy doing, but keep it light. That's the key. In and out in 30 mins or less. I'm down to taking about one day
a week, or every week and a half, off from lifting, and all of my lifts are still going up.

Q: So basically I'm wondering what your experience was performance wise when you do your Keto runs. I've done keto dieting before, but only when I've been training for bodybuilding shows. I used to experience quite a downturn in the gym after a few days. I would do a refeed day, but it was very controlled to the gram.

Now I have become almost, i say almost, exclusively focused on performance I could give keto a run again but with more leadway on the refeed days, possibly making more out of the diet. I'll be looking for performance gains first with body compositon a close second or sometimes taking a slight lead in my training.

A: I typically do short keto runs of 2-5 days weekly, as my body seems to thrive on them, and it keeps me really lean. During those runs, I lose no performance of any kind, in spite of keeping my total carbs (including postworkout) below 30g a day (<5% onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestsellers-2006/2724-1.jpg">

So fuckers, remember, there's no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people. Email me, fuckers, and earn your place in (relative) immortality!

1. Dabbs, Jr. and Mohammed. "Male and female salivary testosterone concentrations before and after sexual activity."Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Received 6 January 1992. Available online 5 March 2003."Salivary testosterone concentrations were measured in male and female members of four heterosexual couples on a total of 11 evenings before and after sexual intercourse and 11 evening on which there was no intercourse. Testosterone increased across the evening when there was intercourse and decreased when there was none. The pattern was the same for males and females. Early evening measured did not differ on the two kinds of days, suggesting that sexual activity affects testosterone more than initial testosterone affects sexual activity."

2. Kraemer, Becker, et al. "Orgasmic frequency and plasma testosterone levels in normal human males." Archives Sex Beh. Volume 5, Number 2, March 1976. "Twenty males participated in a 2-month study examining the relationship between 8 a.m. plasma testosterone levels and orgasmic frequency. Within subjects, higher levels of testosterone are associated with periods of sexual activity."
   
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**Oderint Dum Metuant

Caligula was famous, according to a play by Lucius Atticus, for championing "Oderint dum Metuant" as his favorite phrase, in addition to having his troops collect seashells as spoils of the sea, fucking everything that moved (including his sisters), killing everything else, making his horse a consul and a priest, and for building a floating bridge across a huge bay and riding his horse across it, just to spite an asshole oracle. I was recently reminded of my appreciation for this statement and think it's a perfect motto for ChAoS & PAIN- "Let them hate, so long as they fear."

No doubt you've encountered the douches, online and otherwise, who think that bodypart training is the only way to go, and that overtraining is running as rampant throughout American gyms as AIDS through Lesotho (28% of the goofballs in that shithole have it), that FST-7 and Rippetoe are the only ways to get big/strong/awesome if you've any inclination to lift weights. At this point, your average gym rat is about as innovative and open to new ideas as your average Puritan in modern day Las Vegas would be.

You know what? Fuck them.

Clearly, you guys by now know that I consider Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength to be one of the worst fucking training manuals ever printed- this includes utter shit like "Get On The Ball".
You might be asking yourself "Why? That fucker promotes squats and cleans, etc." Yes, yes he does. Kudos for that. I'm sure he promotes eating and breathing as well. Shall we send him a basket of cookies as a thank you? Fuck no. Rippetoe has created a legion of retards who populate gyms across the US who believe that:

1. one cannot lift in anything but Chuck Taylors, who squat pathetically light weights fairly deep (ATG advocates are so vocal because they need to publicly excuse the PATHETIC fucking weights that they lift. Ever read Tom Platz whining about how he squatted deeper than everyone else? Nope. Know why? HE WAS TOO BUSY FUCKING SQUATTING.),
   
2. use a training volume so astonishingly light that even people with cancer of the AIDS could easily handle,
   
3. who think that doing Pendlay rows with preloaded barbells will give them a "barn-door back" because their form is strict,
4. and who refuse to deviate from their workout AT ALL, for fear of overtraining. Nevermind the fact that there's evidence ranging from the success people have had with Sheiko and Smolov, the Bulgarian weightlifting regimen, Westside Barbell, every strongman program on Earth, and the training volume of every single pro football team on the planet.

Compare any of those to this silly horseshit:

Workout A:

• 3x5 Squat
• 3x5 Bench Press
• 1x5 Deadlifts
• **2x8 Dips (if you cant do these or no assist machine then do Decline Dumbbell Bench Press with your hands Facing each other)

Workout B:

• 3x5 Squat
• 3x5 Standing military press
• 3x5 Bent Rows (or power cleans)
• **2x8 Chin-ups (recommended mainly if doing the cleans)

Note: This doesn't include warm-up sets (**)Means this is OPTIONAL

Assistance Work:

Most people cant get it through their head that compound lifts also work your arms plenty and always insist on direct arm work. As quoted by Madcow2,

"Don't **** with this. Every bodybuilder seems to have
Attention Deficit Disorder and an overwhelming desire
to customize everything."

If you are one of these people note that you have the option of doing the dips and chins which give PLENTY of arm work. Abdominal work is fine to do also if needed.

I recommend weighted decline sit-ups and/or Hanging Leg Raises at 2x8-10.

I do more volume on my off days than people on Rippetoe do in an entire heavy training session, but then, I'm about as strong raw as Rippetoe was using gear, weigh 60 lbs less, and look good on the beach, whereas he is a sloppy motherfucker. Christ, you can get a higher volume of training working in the yard. It's fucking absurd. Nevertheless, you will find the pasty-faced pussies all over the internet, espousing this shitbox routine for one reason- they're weak of spirit, mind, and body. This routine is nothing but an excuse to suck, just like calling one's self a "hard gainer" or an "ectomorph" is. Most conventional routines will lead to nothing but weakness, close-mindedness, and fat. Avoid them like the plague. And for fuck's sake, against everything Mark Rippetoe would like you to believe - LIFTING IS FUN. So have fun doing it.

If you want other sources for interesting training techniques, check out the following:

Crossfit- yes, I know it's a rumba with 10-lb dbs, but I actually lost the stones event to a Crossfit kool-aid drinker, so there has to be something to it, hahaha. Crossfit Bill at Crossfit Renaissance in Philly is the man.It's worth it just for the chicks.

Brooks Kubik's Dinosaur Training- This shit is the reason why I started looking into old school lifting techniques and exercises. Awesome program, even if Brooks has the weirdest physique ever.

Steve Justa- The man is a laughingstock, but he's got some out-of-the-box theories about lifting and GPP. Retarded, but interesting. (A note to Steve P.- HAHAHAHAHAHA got you good, fucker!)

Chad Waterbury- The guy has skills.

So, let them hate you, because anyone doing a conventional routine DEFINITELY fears you. Not just because you're a fucking loon, if you do anything like C&P, but just because you're doing something different. And as weightlifting is inherently vaguely antisocial and individualistic, why the fuck would you do what everyone else is doing?

I hope your sister gets polio and your family's farm goes under. I'll piss on your grandfather's grave.... you gerbil tit scumbag!
-Years Spent Cold

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*Lateral Raises? Seriously?

The following is the only shoulder exercise you'll ever need for brutal shoulders and traps. Forget what douchey bodybuilders will tell you about needing to isolate the various heads (really? does anyone actually think they can isolate their various muscular heads in their delts? If you believe you can, I've got some Russian Bear weight gain powder to sell you).

It might be a little dusty- I don't think one has sold since 1990.

You need a big-ass, brutal exercise to build big-ass, brutal delts and traps... And have I got the exercise for you.

Behind the Neck Push Press/ Push Jerks

There's no official name for this exercise, insofar as I know, but what I do know is that

1. given a choice, strongmen will do presses from the back rather than the front
2. you can push a hell of a lot more weight this way, and your strength is not dependent upon wrist flexibility, like it is in presses from the front
3. Marius Pudzianowski does them regularly. Nuff said.

So, how do you do them? It's pretty simple. I recommend setting up outside of the rack, so when you have to dump it (and you will, my fuckers, you will), you can ditch it on the floor and refrain from bending the shit out of the bar, which would merely make you the most hated gym member at your local iron emporium.


Set up like you're going to squat. Get under the bar, set your grip evenly with whatever's comfortable, and set your feet shoulder width apart. Then use a considerable amount of leg drive to start the bar's motion, lock out the bar with your head pushed forward, and then return the bar to your your traps. When dropping the bar back to your shoulders, remember this: if you misjudge, you will either drop it on your head, which hurts, your neck, which hurts for weeks, or too low on your shoulders, which can wreck everything from your brachialis to your shoulder girdle and your traps. Thus, start out light, figure out your groove, and don't be a hero your first time out. Once you get the hang of it, you'll start wrecking shop with the big boys.

As for sets and reps, this is my absolute favorite exercise for singles. Thus, start with singles to get the hang of it, and then start hitting up some singles in a 15x1 fashion, with your rests as short as you can manage. This exercise is an absolute man maker, and can change your entire physique if you bust your ass at it.

Just say no to lateral raises.

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