How Can You Save Me If You Can't Save Yourselves? Part One: 'Evidence-Based' Training Is The Strength World's Flat Earth Theory

"Vexation is the attitude of the individual as intelligence towards the check imposed upon repressing the violence of will- in other words, by virtue; or by keeping the intelligence from dwelling upon the check- in other words, by stoicism."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Given the fact I coined the phrase "Violence over Virtue" and printed it on t-shirts long before reading Schopenhauer's "Essay on Controversy," and the fact I have long considered the Stoics to be the most chickenshit bunch of faux tough guys this side of Redditors, I find myself invariably and unceasingly vexed.  Nowhere do I find myself more often vexed than when faced with the prospect of slapping down some pseudointellectual, pseudostrength athlete on the subject of science-based strength training and nutrition because it is akin to challenging a Young Earther who insists dinosaurs and humans coexisted on Earth in the last ten thousand years.  Both belief systems are so inherently and irrevocably flawed, yet so violently, ignorantly, and dogmatically defended that rational discussion is impossible.  Hilariously, both groups cite logic, reason, and "fact" as the basis for their belief systems, yet neither group possesses a modicum of the intellect or knowledge necessary to understand the idiocy of their arguments, and furthermore lack the requisite grasp of rhetoric to either win a debate on the subject or realize how utterly specious their claims are.

How lucky, then, that I'd reread Aristotle and Schopenhauer recently, and love handing out verbal curb stomps more than Proud Boys and Trump supporters love to fantasize about having penises, the physiques of adult male humans, and handing out real curb stomps at Antifa protests!

Behold the Great Leveller.  I live my life as an outcast, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've always been an outsider in my own proverbial country- my writing style is considered (bizarrely to myself and anyone who knows me personally) as satirical, my diet hyper-extreme, my workout volume nigh on impossible, and in an industry where success is almost always measured by one's social circle I have none, yet I have success.   Given the fact that I have been an inveterate meathead since the mid-Nineties, I have a unique perspective- I am now so deep inside lifting culture that I've tunnelled my way under and out of it, and I am now so disassociated with a community in which I should be steeped like an abattoir in blood that my life's work seems slightly gross from the taint the current incarnation of the lifting community has brought upon it.  So, without going off on strength coaches in general, who hold their jumped-up Phys Ed degrees overhead while screaming overly complex jargon that belies their total lack of understanding of strength science (because if you cannot explain it easily to a child, you don't fucking understand it), I'll simply put the "evidence based" coaches on blast.  Fuck it- if I cannot put them before an actual firing squad for the potentially irrevocable damage they have done to the lifting community as a whole, I might as well metaphorically gun them down in an effort to take back our fucking scene from the pussies currently flooding it.

Actually, fuck that- a firing squad is too good for these self-righteous, lying shitslugs.  If we're going to take back our scene, we need to make examples, not corpses.

Extreme?  Perhaps, unless you consider the fact that lifters are by and large getting weaker as they get more closeminded, all while professing to be enlightened and correct.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that the people promulgating evidence-or-science based training have degrees that seem to legitimize their opinions on strength training and nutrition, but in reality they are simply posers hiding behind obtuse verbiage intended to mystify the laymen to the point that they appear as authorities.  This trick is nothing new- it explains the rituals and mystique of witch doctors and shamans, and the reason Catholic priests held services in a long dead language.  It's also why channers and the dickless retards who ape them vomit idiot-speak non-words all over the internet- the utilization of their "in crowd" lexicon gives them a sense of belonging and superiority so spurious and hollow that it shatters like Anderson Silva's shinbone the moment they step away from their computer into the real world.

Renowned German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer aptly described the aforementioned style of controversial dialectic (the art of disputation that allows one to hold their own in a debate over an assertion for which there may be many proofs) as sophistic.  The fact that Sophists basically run our scene is more than enough justification for a widespread purge, because their method is the method to use when the person defending it knows their conclusion is false, although it seems correct at a cursory glance.  A Sophist disgustingly looks to the reputation and money they'll gain by promoting a falsehood rather than using a priori or a postiori logic to arrive at the correct answer and promote that.  Not unlike the progenitor of the Flat Earth Theory, Samuel Rowbotham (who did not actually believe the world was flat- he just needed the money his lectures brought in to support his ridiculous number of children), science-based exercise "scientists" sell their souls for money and lead people to an easy untruth to provide a salve to their bruised egos.  "Science-based" training is nothing more than shitty training methodologies rooted in a conspiracy theory, only rather than blaming the Rosicrucians or shapeshifting alien lizards, the science-based community blames steroids for all super-strength and all fantastic physiques. 

Think I'm off base?

"Though imagining shadowy cabals behind every corner might seem scary, conspiracy theories also seem to offer believers the promise of control in the form of knowledge and insight that others lack, Douglas said. 

'You have a need for security and control, and you don't have it, she said, 'so you try to compensate for it. 

Finally, conspiracy theories can give believers a self-esteem boost and allow them to feel good about the groups they belong to. Some studies suggest narcissism and conspiracy belief are linked, Douglas said, and many conspiracies divide the world into "good guys" (e.g., the moral YouTube star setting out to find the truth) and "bad guys" (e.g., the government, or a given ethnic group)" (Pappas).

... by harnessing the full magical power of steroids.

The natty and evidence-based movements go hand in hand, and they vilify users of various performance enhancing drugs as "cheats," then claim that anyone who falls outside of the acceptable range of performance must be a user of those drugs (the list of which changes daily).  This, then, justifies the lack of progress that the adherents to these belief systems have had, and provides them which their desired self esteem boost.  Rather than blaming their methods and efforts for average gains and performance, evidence-based natty bros blame the raw material of their biology and genetics- their insertion placement and physical structure, their metabolism, their fat deposition, or anything other than themselves and their shitty coaches. 

"Unfortunately, once a conspiracy belief is established, it's hard to change, said Swami; people tend to hold on to their beliefs. Arguments and discussions only tend to entrench those beliefs, as people tend to engage in what's called "psychological reactance," Swami said, spending time honing their own arguments and convincing themselves even further of their own rightness" (Pappas).

Frankly, we don't have to stop the conspiracy- we can just watch that fad die and hope the people promoting it die with them, in a vast conflagration that engulfs the weak of mind, body, and spirit.  Or we can just crash one of their conferences and beat them to death with weights they could never hope to lift.  Whichever works.  Frankly, we should start with Lyle McDonald and his fans, as that lazy former dickrider of Dan Duchaine, who came on the scene completing that man's work after his death, has now turned his back on all of his former research and position (and in doing so fully spitting in the face of the man who put him on the map in the first place) in the quest for the almighty dollar.  Being that McDonald has done nothing and coached no one, he realized his utter lack of credentials place him in the perfect position to coach the uncoachable natty shitbirds of the internet, since the fact that they grew up without Choose Your Own Adventure books left them wholly incapable of separating fact from fiction and choosing between similar options and they want to be told they're special and everything is going to be alright because everyone who outperforms them is a "cheater."  Yeah, well, that dog just won't fucking hunt... but these idiots are so weak, slow, and stupid that hunting them is easier than hunting the dodo, and given that McDonald is an apparently violent autist, starting with him is simply doing the world a service before he angrily drives his parents' car into a crowd of people because he can't get laid.

Dan Duchaine would likely be thinking this is a fitting end for little Lyle, because that pussy motherfucker stabbed a far better man's corpse in the fucking back.

If you're shocked, don't be- this shit should have happened a long time ago.  I'm not just some dark-souled avenger who's decided to descend upon a community of hapless, pious hypocrites in a random feat of rage- I'm a pure, ferocious product of a culture that has been usurped by know-nothing, bitch-made pussies in capri pants who have every fucking bit of this vitriol coming to them.  And the reason for this vitriol is simple- anyone who started training prior to the advent of the internet is very well aware that sports science is decades behind the bro knowledge you'll find in the gym, and anyone with a modicum of sense and the ability to look impartially at the two will note that this is obvious.  Immediately obvious.  Even beyond that, for millennia gym bros have been doing what sport scientists claim is impossible for drug free athletes- for instance, Greek trireme rowers routinely outperformed the efforts of our most elite modern rowers (our elite can only row 70% as fast), and both sumo and Indian pehwani easily exceed and have exceeded for hundreds of years the lean body mass of modern drug free bodybuilders, and how it seems from my observation that practically everyone who has ever lifted weights seriously has outperformed the skinny dipshits in their fancy workout gear following "evidence-based" programs (Pain)... 

Ah, how I love fisting these motherfuckers with the long arm of truth.

Which leads me to wonder how they expect to save anyone from weakness if they cannot save themselves?  Shit, they can't even save themselves from the logical fallacy that their systems are based on studies so limited in scope that they're statistically insignificant, whereas "bro-science" is based on literally hundreds of years of observational evidence.  As such, the statements made by "eminent" authors who should be teaching fucking kickball to snot covered toddlers rather than bloviating about their bullshit, "science-based" training theories are ad rem false- their propositions are not in accordance with the nature of things.  They claim that the innumerable examples one might provide are either outliers, the produce of science experiments of ancient aliens, pure fiction, evil, nefarious drug users, or other assorted poppycock, simply because the existence of those things doesn't fit their belief system.  

If Brando had lived to see the evidence-based training bullshit of the internet, he would have laughed his fucking ass off rereading his own quote, because it was incredibly apt.

Funny how that is in no way scientific, eh?  And I have just begun, people- more reasons to pelt those evidence-based faux coaches with brickbats coming soon.  The exceptions to this polemic are Greg Nuckols and Mike Tuscherer, who if not captivating writers can actually move weight and read- if I had to guess, their similar methods suit their Spock-like temperaments, which allows him to succeed in ways few can.

Sources:
Pain, Stephanie.  When men were gods.  The New Scientist.  7 Feb 2007.  Web.  6 Dec 2018.  https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325902-200-histories-when-men-were-gods/

Pappas, Stephanie.  Flat Earth: What fuels the internet's strangest conspiracy theory?  LiveScience.  5 Feb 2018.  Web.  30 Nov 2018.  https://www.livescience.com/61655-flat-earth-conspiracy-theory.html

Feast, Famine, And Ferocity Diet, Part 3- And Now We FEAST

"Feasting, loosely defined as the public consumption of an elaborate meal often accompanied by entertainment, is a feature of most ancient and modern societies. Hayden and Villeneuve recently defined feasting as 'any sharing of special food (in quality, preparation or quantity) by two or more people for a special (not everyday) event'" (Hirst).

Certainly a couple of weeks of protein sparing modified fasting qualifies as a special event, and not just because eating anything at the end of a fortnight of hunger will be glorious- at this point, your body is wringing every last bit of nutrition out of every calorie you consume, and your metabolism is a ravening beast straining at the chains that bind it.  Well, now is the time to throw off those chains and write an ode of sweat and blood on the floor of your gym.  

Tradition dictates that a major feast would last about two weeks in pre-Christian western societies, and during those times there would be a hell of a lot of partying and a hell of a lot of eating in addition to epic feats of strength and athletic competition.  Will their bellies full of meat and booze, people would decide that they needed to prove who was the biggest badass in the room, and they would set out to do so.  Whether this meant seeing how far they could carry a ship's mast, lift heavy stones, wrestle, race, or even do crazy-ass weighted situps like the Indians do when they're not chugging ghee, that meant there were more varied and impressive feats of strength than you would find on Festivus in the Costanza house.  As such, it is time to seriously get your lift on.

Before you get down to the business of chumping your friends in the gym and generally acting like the most vicious iron warlord in history, displaying strength that causes grown men to weep and fertile women to conceive simply from being in your presence, you've gotta eat.  In a stark departure from what you're used to, what you eat here matters far less than how much you eat.  That's right- after you hit your body's protein requirements, the macronutrient profile of what you're eating isn't precisely insignificant, but matters less than you would think (Rozenek).  This might explain, then, why Senegalese and Indian wrestlers are far more muscular than the macronutrient profile breakdown of their diets might indicate. 

That level of muscularity on a guy who's never seen a gym and never had a protein shake makes me wonder what in the fuck I have been doing with my life.  

Like sumo, who if you've forgotten carry more natty muscle than gassed up pro bodybuilders,  and Indian pehlwani, Senegalese laamb fighters focus more on carbohydrates than protein when they're making meals (Men's Health), which cuts down on the cost of bulking and makes the experience a bit easier from an eating perspective as well.  Now that science has finally caught up to the reality in which we've already been living, perhaps the internet will finally take notice- getting big and lifting big requires eating big.  And if you're worried about getting a little fat, don't- even people in studies who don't lift and shovel down enough food at the Chinese buffet to make it look like they were setting up for the Gluttony death in Se7en 2 have weight gain that is at worst equal amounts of fat and muscle and often a 2:1 ratio of muscle to fat (Forbes, Jebb).  This is due to marked increases in IGF-1, testosterone, and insulin, all of which mean fucking gainz.  

The Feast Diet (4 weeks)

• Multiply your bodyweight by 20 for total daily calories (if you're feeling like you want to go seriously big, go with 25 calories.  Halfthor goes with a minimum of 27)
• Ensure at least 35% of your calories are protein
• Eat whatever the fuck you want thereafter

There is nothing magical going on here- the weight of the human experience supports the idea that you're going to pack on mass like you're getting ready to stand in for the Hulk in the next Avengers flick.  Bear in mind when you're making food choices that not all macros are created equal.  I'm not suggesting you need to eat like a 1990's bodybuilder and just shovel down boatloads of brown rice and boiled chicken, but know for a certainty that 1000 calories of candy corn will likely not yield the same metabolic advantages of, say, a diet of human livers and blood sausage.  Use your fucking head here, and remember that the guys around the world who are jacked as hell without the benefit of modern training aids and refrigeration got that way mostly using the power of stew.  Icelandic strongmen still use it, as do the aforementioned Senegalese wrestlers, Indian wrestlers, and sumo, and they all credit stews for their heavy musculature and freakish strength.

In addition to stone lifting, the Tahitians actually compete yearly in a fruit carrying race.  No, I am not making this up- a 2km foot race carrying 30kg of fruit.  Given that they only thing kids are competing in these days is fucking Fortnite, a fruit race wearing a skirt and a garland of leaves seems insanely badass.

Polynesians also eat a hell of a lot of stew in the form of fafa, and they're some of the largest and most terrifying people on the planet.  Though their fafa is cooked in a badass underground oven called a hima'a, fafa is so easy to make on the stove I feel like I'm going to develop a sick tan and grow six inches just from reading the recipe.

Tahitian Chicken Fafa (Source)

Ingredients (4 servings)

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white rice
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/3 cup shredded coconut

Directions (and holy hell is this easy to make):

• In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook 2 minutes. 
• Mix in the coconut milk, water, rice, and chicken, and bring to a boil. 
• Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, until rice is tender and chicken juices run clear.
• Stir the spinach into the skillet, and cook just until heated through. 
• Sprinkle with coconut, and serve.

Nutrition
Per Serving: 599 calories; 23.2 g fat; 66.2 g carbohydrates; 32.1 g protein.

Dunno about you guys, but I would like to live in a place that had random stone lifting competitions for shits and giggles.  No fucking participation trophy, no membership cards, no nonsense- just a few people who wanted to see who could pick up the heaviest rock and then eat like they escaped a concentration camp.

And this next recipe doesn't really have any cool origin beyond the fact that I absolutely love smoked meats and keep my smoker popping all the time.  If you have any interest in quick and easy smoked meats, there is no shame whatsoever in owning an electric smoker- they're quick, easier to operate than half of the microwaves on the planet, and they make smoked fucking meats.  There is really only one reason not to have one, and that is just sucking worse than anyone ever has... or you live in an apartment with no balcony.  There is no fire, so rules against grills don't apply.  

Barbecue is pretty much ubiquitous across the world, but the US definitely has a culture of smoking meats that exists nowhere else in the world.  Because other countries don't smoke meat as much, or you might not have a smoker, or you're just lazy, I've got a couple of ways to do this recipe, including one with a biscuit topping (which is banging) and one that is a shepherd's pie.  However you make this fucking thing, it will both taste amazing and put meat on your bones.  

Pulled Pork Pot Pie (not sure of the source- I saved this awhile ago)

Pulled Pork
You've got three options: 

1. Drop 3 lbs of pork shoulder in a crock pot for 8 hours with 1/2 a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (I combine a shitload of Dave's Insanity sauce and Whole Foods 365 Texas barbecue sauce).
2. Rub 3 lbs of pork shoulder with spicy mustard, then coat generously with Bad Byron's Butt Rub and pop it in the smoker at 225 degrees for 6 hours (2 hours per pound).  The meat's internal temp should be between 195 and 201 degrees (hotter for softer pork).  Then pull the meat and add sauce if you want.
3. Make the pork in the oven.  

Crust
The easy way:  buy pie dough from the store.

The less easy way (which really isn't hard, and being able to make a banging pie crust will definitely come in handy at some point in your life):

• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c cold butter, cubed
• 1/4 c ice water

Mix flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry knife (or fork if you don't have one) until the texture of rice. Add ice water one teaspoon at a time, mixing until a stiff dough forms. Roll that into a ball and smash between two layers of saran wrap. Place that in the freezer for four hours. This makes a top crust only. Double recipe for two crusts, freezing two balls of dough. When chilled, roll out pie crust between the saran wrap layers, to fit the pie pan.

Pie Filling

• 1 can each of corn and peas, drained
• 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 potatoes microwaved for four minutes, diced
• 1 packet chicken gravy
• 1 1/4 lb of your pulled pork

When cooking gravy mix, add carrots to the pan to soften in hot gravy. If making double crusts, line pie pan with one crust. Layer filling ingredients in pan, pour gravy over top. Top pie with the second crust, pressing the edges onto pan (or bottom crust) to seal edges and prevent leaking. Cut steam vents in top crust. Bake on a cookie pan to catch leaks at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

To top with biscuits, use Pillsbury's recipe.

To make as a Shepherd's Pie, go here.

Any way you make that, the result is going to be a fuckload of quality calories that taste amazing and travel well.

Not only did Rory Leidelmeyer like to hang dong in the gym in broad daylight, but he ate 7000-8000 calories a day to fuel his heavy-as-a fat-broad-facesitting-a-midget workouts.

The Feast Program (4 weeks)
The logic here is simple- you're going to lift so heavy and brutally that if you were participating in an orgy filled with obese people at an Acacia Strain concert, you'd... I have no idea where I was going with that.  The first exercise in every workout is all about strength, and the remainder is about hypertrophy.  As everyone already knows, both are getting worked all the time, but the primary focus is maximal strength and then hypertrophy, respectively.   As with the Famine workout, if you have something you'd rather try, have at it- this shit isn't set in stone.  Hell, if you want to tackle Eddie Hall's 13.5 hour a week insanity, be my guest- you'll never know how your body will respond unless you try it, no matter what the 150lb pussies on your favorite website of choice for pointless discussion of training techniques is.

You'll notice there are no loading protocols because you're expected not to be a fucking pussy for a few weeks.  Go heavy as shit.  Take whatever rest period you need to attack the next set.

Day 1
1/2 Squats- 12 x 2 (10 second holds at the top of the rep) (apparently the internet calls these Anderson squats now)
Wide Stance Good Mornings- 3 x 6 (go heavy on these to bring up your glutes and hams)
Hamstring Curls- 5 x 10-15
Calf Raises- 4 x 50
Pullups / Chinups- 5 x max

Day 2
Bench Press / Floor Press- 10 x 2; 2 x AMRAP with 60% of your work set weight and a wider grip) 
Weighted Dips- 4 x 6
Unweighted Dips- 2 x AMRAP
Military Press- 5 x 12 (do these reps short and fast.  You're not locking out on them, but keeping constant tension on the muscles and firing them off as quickly as possible)
Superset of Rope Pushdowns and Overhead Extensions- 5 sets with the weight you would use for sets of 12 on pushdowns and do AMRAP on both.

If that doesn't get your ass to the gym on the regular, nothing will.  

Day 3
Pull- 10 x 2 (I don't care if these are high pulls, deadlifts, hex bar deads, rack pulls, or whatever.  The what doesn't matter so much as the why, and the why is because heavy pulls are the reason you have arms and hands)
Bent-Over Rows- 6 x 6 (again, the style you use matters not at all- the effort you put in does)
Face Pulls / Bent Over Laterals- 4 x 20 (the key here is working
Hammer Curls- 4 x 6
Barbell Curls- 3 x 25 (Go light and get a huge pump.  Bodybuilders do this shit for a reason)

Day 4
Optional fill-in day.  Use this for whatever you want to jam into the workout that's not already in there.  Bodyparts you want to bring up, pet lifts on which you want more work, etc.  For me, this is always shoulders and arms, because neither can ever be too big (short of the synthol retards, who should be gassed and their corpses should be used to poison the IG broads filling their faces with the whore version of synthol, Juvederm).

Or use it as an off day if you need one.  Let your conscience be your guide, slacker.

Jose Raymond, who has some of the sickest legs in bodybuilding, can rep 405 for 10 on the front squat pre-contest and has squatted 700 in the gym, had this to say about why he focuses on he doesn't go as heavy anymore, and it wasn't injuries: "Back in the day it was all about how much weight I could lift and for how many reps. That’s how I built the mass, but now what I need is a lot more separation and detail." 

In short, he was just getting too goddamn big from going crazy heavy.

Day 5
Front Squat / Back Squat- 6 x 3; 1 x AMRAP with 60% of your work weight
Hamstring Curl- Same rep scheme as the squatting, but with 2 AMRAP sets
Calf Raise- 8 x 6
Shrugs- 10 x 3 with at least 125% or your 1RM on deadlifts.  No more bitch weights on shrugs.
Curl- 5 x 10 (Dealer's choice on the exercise- just do some kind of curl.  Get a good pump.)

Day 6
Strict Military Press / Push Press- 8 x 2
Klokov Press- 5 x 10
Incline Bench Press- 5 x 5
Close Grip Bench Press- 4 x 6
Skullcrushers- 1 x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, AMRAP (with the weight you originally used for 10)

Day 7
Off

So there you have it- the Feast, Famine, and Ferocity Diet.  Two weeks of rather unpleasant but productive protein sparing modified fasts and workouts designed to burn the fat fat off you like the skin off Germans being firebombed in Dresden followed by a month of eating like your gainz depend on it and training like a Tookie Williams on some badass PCP.  The net result will be net fat loss and net muscle gain, all in a timespan that the internet will claim is entirely unrealistic and the result of steroids because they're jealous as fuck and essentially useless.  And even better yet, you can repeat this cycle as many or as few times as you like, depending on what you're trying to accomplish, so you can drop this in as a quick six week shake-up or a six month bulk that will lean you out.  Either way, like Parker Lewis, you can't fucking lose.

Sources:
Forbes GB, Brown MR, Welle SL, Underwood LE.  Hormonal response to overfeeding.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Apr;49(4):608-11.

Hirst, K. Kris.  Feasting: The Archaeology and History of Celebrating Food.  ThoughtCo.  1 Oct 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  https://www.thoughtco.com/feasting-archaeology-and-history-170940

Jebb SA, Prentice AM, Goldberg GR, Murgatroyd PR, Black AE, Coward WA.  Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-d continuous whole-body calorimetry.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Sep;64(3):259-66.

Rozenek R, Ward P, Long S, Garhammer J.  Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training.  J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2002 Sep;42(3):340-7.

Senegalese wrestlers: stars made from fighting spirit and mysticism.  Men's Health UK.  7 Sep 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  http://www.menshealth.co.uk/fitness/senegalese-wrestlers-stars-made-from-fighting-spirit-and-mysticism

Feast, Famine, And Ferocity Diet, Part 2- Welcome To The Suck

Miss the intro to this series?  Yeah, it's been awhile.  Go here for a refresher.

The story of a phoenix rising from the ashes is iconic and timeless.  It's an archetype that transcends time and place and speaks to the indomitability of the human spirit.  Be it humanity's seeming inborn tendency to root for the underdog, or the dominant American/Western appreciation for the rags-to-riches, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, polar-opposite-of-Donald-Trump motherfuckers who spit in the face of adversity and dominate the opposition because they simply refuse to fucking lose, these stories dominate the modern zeitgeist.  This is the reason the Rocky series seem to be endless in spite of the fact that Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago would have quite literally killed that little man in the ring and worn his skin to their birthday parties, why the films of the 1980's were so obsessed with horrible rags-to-riches stories like Brewster's Millions and that cinematic nightmare Arthur were popular in spite of their dogshit plots and Dudley Moore, and why tales of redemption and rebirth are some of the oldest and most beloved stories ever recorded.

Did any non-Italians actually root for Rocky in this fucking flick?

Rising from the ashes, digging yourself out of the rubble and emerging from the previous conflagration like V in V for Vendetta is as intrinsically motivational thing as one can accomplish, and the inspiration it provides serves to drive you to even greater heights.  Too often, we become complacent, trapped in a mindset that the status quo is good enough, convinced we have chosen the most prudent, effective, and correct path, adopting a mindset that disallows consideration of alternatives.  Stagnation and plateaus then plague our training and stymie our physique and strength goals, yet we tinker and tweak when what we really need is a firestorm to purify our minds and bodies.  To scorch the fat off our soul.  A cataclysm from which we can be born anew, and from which we can regain our predatory glow.

Rebirth after destruction is the natural order of things- maggots grow into flies eating rotting flesh, new growth forms in the ashes of forest fires, and new nations are formed from the rubble of the old.  Hell, the French even refer to orgasms as "the little death," bring new life, ostensibly, from each load dropped.  Just as Taiwan grew out of the ashes of China's post-monarchic socio-political disaster, the United States Constitution was penned after the dissolution of the Articles of Confederation and a near civil war, Robert Downey Jr's rebirthed career after passing out in his neighbor's kid's bed, and Five Finger Death Punch grew out of the death of a couple (and in the case of Motograter, far better bands), lifters can also destroy and rebuild themselves anew.

Bruce Randall bulked hard as fuck, cut even harder, and then rebuilt his physique into a solid 1950's bodybuilder look with enough strength to move serious weights.

What I am proposing isn't as dramatic as self-immolation, though it might seem that way at first.  Nor is it intended as a long-term scheme, though it could be used as one if one so chooses.  Instead, this is a diet that is intended to be used periodically to shock the system, shake things up, and knock the rust off of doing the same fucking thing month in and month out.  If you're a fucking machine who is continually making progress with the same 'ol shit and rocking abs that local Amish women use as a laundry washboard, you can just stick this in your back pocket in case you need something different down the road, because if experience has taught me one thing, it's that nothing works forever in the strength game.  

Strength sports legend Hermann Goerner was one of these poor fuckers not once but twice in his hyper-illustrious career.  Losing weight is hardly the end of the fucking world, and you're no special snowflake, no matter what you say- the weight will pile right back on.

With all of that said, it's time to get into the the details of the Feast or Famine Diet.  The diet begins with a brutal introductory period of a protein-sparing modified fast (PSMF) designed to strip both body fat and muscle glycogen from your body (in addition to burning the proverbial fat off your soul) followed by alternating bouts of overeating and extremely heavy lifting and PSMF and high volume repetition work, respectively.  In this way, we compress the cyclical eating utilized by out historical forbears into shorter "seasons" that will net overall muscle gain and fat loss, profound changes in the look of your physique, and concurrent gains in both your maximum effort and repetition strength.  Yeah, with this motherfucker you can literally have your cake and eat it too.

You just have to starve for it a bit.

Remember this transformation?  Christian Bale went from a lean and muscular 6' 184lbs to damn near dead in the Machinist (dropped to 124lbs), then bulked hard as hell for Batman, getting to a thick 215 and then cutting to 190 so he'd fit into the Batsuit in five months.  Bear in mind he was so goddamned malnourished after the Machinist it took a couple of weeks of stuffing himself before he could even go jogging or lift.

The first three weeks are gonna be fucking rough- you'll be hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, but to hell with that HALT shit- stimulants are going to become your best friend.  When I PSMF, I combine either Red Sky, Bronk-Aid, and an aspirin, or Cannibal Inferno and Bronk-Aid three times a day for energy (which you will seriously need) and vastly increased fat metabolism, or do one of those two stacks twice a day and then Cannibal Ferox and Bronk-Aid the third.  Though ECA and ECY stacks offer make dieting a far less miserable and lengthy experience and provide ample energy for training, Chaos and Pain LLC does not endorse such a stack, as such advice would be imprudent, immoral, and illegal, so bear in mind that is my personal recommendation, lest anyone with a JD and a penchant for ambulance chasing out there get any stupid fucking ideas.  In any event, you will likely feel as though you've been exsanguinated by Chaos chiurgeons should you attempt to train without stims, so get acquainted with them and learn to love them if you don't already.

I've basically been reading naught but Warhammer novels for three months, so buckle up for some 40k references.

The Famine (2-4 weeks)

• 4-6 protein shakes per day, evenly spaced, in water, totaling 1 gram/lb of bodyweight a day.  No meal replacements- keep your carbs as close to zero as possible.
• 2 weeks if lean / leanish, 4 weeks if chubby / fat
• Stimulant-based thermogenic (containing caffeine and yohimbine HCl if possible, like Cannibal Inferno).  You can also go old school and combine caffeine, yohimbine HCL, aspirin and ephedrine yourself.  I don't get too crazy dosing it out- when I do that I just take a couple No Doz with a Bronk Aid, 5mg of Yohimbine HCL, and an aspirin- do the research yourself and see what you tolerate, because those stims hit people differently.
• A thyroid-based fatburner will obviously help as well.  You can either go all in and get T3 and albuterol on a peptides site online, or if you want to avoid the internet stigma of "eat clen, tren hard," you can grab some Cannibal Claw, which is about 75% as effective as the aforementioned stack.  The thyroid stuff is less important than the stimulants, though, because you need the energy, so if it is a one-or-the-other proposition, go with stims.
• Nutrition repartitioning agents / blood sugar management supplements.  I've tried everything from Cannibal Claw to Predator to handfuls of cinnamon and vanadyl sulfate caps, and they seem to help speed fat loss, but they're not 100% essential like the stims are.

The amount of protein is based on your bodyweight- you're going to consume one gram of protein per pound of your weight.  Thus, you should be getting roughly eight or nine calories per pound of bodyweight due to the trace carbs and fat in your protein shakes.  These shakes are not intended to fuel your workouts or daily life- you're essentially fasting.  Instead, they're to ensure you lose as little muscle as possible while undergoing a fortnight-long fast.

If you're Russian or a communist and reading this, stop short of your natural inclination when fasting... and try to avoid a Cannibal Island type situation.  There's nothing wrong with cannibalism, but if it's starvation induced, you've taken the diet a bit too far.

The idea of starting with a famine period is simple- if you're considering a recomposition diet, you're likely not seeing much in the way of definition or abs.  And if you're both small and chubby, stripping off some fat will mean your will put on less fat in your bulking period, because studies have shown that the less body fat you hold, the less you will gain while bulking. And ladies, this is why you put on more fat during a dirty bulk than your boyfriend/husband/training partner/coach/fuckbuddy/etc- it's one of the many ways the gods have issued your gender a hearty "fuck you,"

"Overfeeding: In experiments of at least 3-weeks' duration, the weight gain of thin people comprises 60-70% lean tissues, whereas in the obese it is 30-40%. Underfeeding: In humans, there is an inverse curvilinear relationship between initial body fat content and the proportion of weight loss consisting of lean tissue" (Forbes).

I, for one, tend to appreciate females' higher bodyfat percentages.

As chicks hold higher body fat percentages naturally, the probability they'll gain a greater amount of fat while bulking than a guy is pretty high.  So again, dropping some fat before starting the bulk makes sense.  The second sentence in that study is also important, because it essentially states that people carrying more body fat will lose less fat when dieting than leaner people.  As Metallica said, it's sad but true, 

so if you're a bit on the fatter side, you might want to extend the initial famine period to a month to put you on a better footing when you start bulking.  It'll suck harder than an amateur porn star trying to pay her kid's private college tuition for a month, but it'll be worth it from a metabolic and an aesthetic standpoint.

With that said, you have the single most effective dieting strategy on your side, because the protein sparing modified fast is just as effective in losing visceral fat as bariatric surgery, and it preserves the muscle you have while you're burning fat cells like they're bodies in a death camp (Ravasia).

This bad little motherfucker trained his ass off in a British military prison after slapping the shit out of a British officer while in the RAF and survived the Bengali famine before winning Mr. Universe in 1951.  A bit of privation does a body good.

Famine Training Routine (2-4 weeks)

The logic behind the training routine, then, is fairly simple- just as many of the more warlike (and coincidentally more muscular people in history had an on and an off season dietv(the campaign season and winter), they had an on and off season physical regime.  Whereas the non-campaign months were generally reserved for more sedentary activities and the heavy lifting that would go into building ships, dragging logs, the feats of strength to be performed at festivals, and the like, the campaign seasons were devoted to shit like rowing and fighting.  In short, exercise that would build far more muscular endurance than strength.  Famine training will follow that lead and focus far more on the endurance/pump aspects of lifting than training for pure strength, and the diet will somewhat (at least calorically) mimic the often meager rations that would employ.

Having trained in this kind of caloric deficit quite a bit, I can tell you firsthand that you will likely not be putting up PRs during this period.  You will likely feel drained, lethargic, shaky, and weak, and that is not the state in which most of us put up record numbers.  Though that sucks, remember you are not a fucking slave to your stomach.  Your mind controls your body, not the other way around.  That said, training with your usual poundages likely isn't going to happen, but keeping your training weights close to what they usually would be if you were stuffing your face and increasing your volume will put you in prime position to crush weights when you start eating like you're at an old school Roman bacchanalian feast.  

The following is what I recommend, but it isn't set in stone.  Protocol training can just as easily lead to training as success, because what works like a charm for one person might end in catastrophe for another.  As such, I encourage you to forge your own path.  Having made that disclaimer, I've found that training 4-5 days a week with your sessions consisting of a single heavy compound lift followed by a bunch of repetition work that focuses on the pump and burning up muscle glycogen seems to do the trick.  This is different than the old Chaos and Pain shit for two reasons- 

1. this is designed to deplete glycogen during a fast, 
2. the point of my training style is that it isn't dogmatic and remains fluid.  In spite of that shit, I still get people telling me that my own training style "isn't Chaos and Pain," because reading comprehension is fucking lacking in schools these days, apparently.  

* As I mentioned above, I recommend either an extra cap of your chosen fat burner (or two), plus whatever you might want to stack it with, prior to hitting the gym.  That or a stim heavy preworkout (which will also burn fat, and I have no idea how or why that isn't obvious).

Day 1

Strict Military Press- 4 x AMRAP (90%1RM).  2 minute rests between sets

Incline Bench Press- 6 x AMRAP (60%1RM).  2 minute rest. 

Machine Shoulder Press- 6 x 10-12 12RM. 90 second rest.  Triple drop sets on the last two sets.

15 Minutes of bi/tri supersets- 8-12 reps per set.  15 seconds between each superset to shake out arms.  Use cables if possible to keep constant tension on your arms.  

Day 2

Front Squat / Back Squat- 4 x 3 (5RM).  3 minute rests between sets
Front Squat / Back Squat Death Set- use 50% of your work weight for a single AMRAP set 

Machine Row / Super strict Bent Over Row- 6 x 20. 90 second rest. 

Leg Extensions- 3 x 25.  90 second rest.
Leg Curl- 3 x 25.  90 second rest.
Calf Raise- 5 x 5.  90 second rest.

Day 3

Off / Cardio

Day 4

Flat Bench Press- 4 x AMRAP (90%1RM).  2 minute rests between sets

Strict Military Press- 6 x AMRAP (60%1RM).  2 minute rest. 

20 Minutes of Dips.  Whatever your max number of consecutive reps, chop it in half, then do sets of that number with 15-60 second rests between them for 20 minutes.  Prepare to be fucking sore.
Unilateral Concentration Curls (with wrist twist at the bottom)- 5 x 20.  60 second rest

Day 5

Explosive Bent Over Rows (from the floor)- 4 x AMRAP (90%1RM).  2 minute rests between sets.  Call them Pendlay rows if you want, but tards on the internet do them like they're attending a fucking tea party.  Rip the bar off the floor and slam it into your solar plexus, then let it crash to the floor.  Try not to use too much body english, but don't make this something form Nazis can masturbate to.  Make some fucking noise and go nuts.  I rarely do fewer than 10 sets on these because they're more fun than a free handjob in a lube factory from a Vivid porn star, so do more if you feel like it.

Front Squat / Back Squat- 6 x 4 (6RM).  2 minute rest.  

Cable Low Row- 6 x 20. 90 second rest.  Triple drop sets on the last two sets. 
Pullups- Same as the dips on Day 3.
Calf Raise- 5 x 25.  90 second rest.

Day 6

Dealer's Choice.  Train whatever you want for up to 90 minutes.  Literally whatever you feel like training- I've been known to do shrugs for over an hour straight.  Just enjoy yourself.

Day 7

Off / Cardio

Running doesn't seem to be hurting CrossFitters' gains.

A Word in Regards to Cardio
I've made no bones about the fact that I fucking despise cardio.  I don't think it's entirely necessary for getting super lean or for general fitness, but it isn't going to hurt to do some.  Weighted steady state cardio is an excellent choice if you feel like doing some extra training and want to drop fat faster, as are sprints.  Honestly, any extra training you do is going to speed fat loss, so feel free to throw it in. 

By the way, there is some evidence out there that the aerobic exercise will induce hypertrophy (Konopka), which actually supports a theory I have regarding the use of a couple of specific exercises to develop maximal strength (which is the basis of a book I'm in the process of writing).  As such, you would probably do well to include some cardio in your routine.

So there you have the Famine part of the Feast, Famine, and Ferocity Diet.  Coming up next, I'll detail the fun part- the Feast, and the program that goes with turning you into a musclebound warlord of the weight room.  Also in the hopper are articles about another 1950s era bodybuilder, a good, old fashioned Chaos and Pain rant, and part twoof the Berserker or Zen Monk series (about which I had completely forgotten).  Like I said, I've got a ton of new shit to drop on you people. 

Sources:

Forbes GB.  Body fat content influences the body composition response to nutrition and exercise.  Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2000 May;904:359-65.

Konopka AR, Harber MP.  Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy after Aerobic Exercise Training.  Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2014 Apr; 42(2): 53–61.

Jebb SA, Prentice AM, Goldberg GR, Murgatroyd PR, Black AE, Coward WA.  Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-d continuous whole-body calorimetry.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Sep;64(3):259-66.

Longland TM, Oikawa SY, Mitchell CJ, Devries MC, Phillips SM.  Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss: a randomized trial.  Am J Clin Nutr. 2016 Mar;103(3):738-46.

Ravasia D, Ravasia K, Sabowitz B.  Protein Sparing Modified Fast Favors Loss of DXA-VAT and Preservation of Lean Body Mass. J Clin Dens. 2014 Jul;17(3):399