Accessories To Murder 2- The Greats Get Dead

The greats in deadlifting all appear to have a great deal in common- first, they've all done some ridiculously high volume routines, which would indicate to me that they love lifting more than Lindsay Lohan loves cocaine and they border on self-flagellating-priest style masochism, they're built (to scale) like gorillas, and they actually think about how to make themselves better, rather than consulting with a pack of weak know-nothings on the internet.  Asking a kid who's marginally better than you at something about how he got there is about as sensible as a Jew asking a Nazi to hold the oven door for him while he tries to clean its back wall.  Don't be fucking retarded.  If you read about any of the greats, they didn't get great by following routines prescribed by people weaker than a 19th Century railroader with tuberculosis- they took the advice  and followed the routines of exceptionally strong people.  Not marginally strong- EXCEPTIONALLY strong.

Ernie Frantz- the guy Ed Coan went to for advice.  Fucker squatted 516 at 172 at age 76.  Recognize.

Next, stop being fucking lazy.  According to Sakari Selkäinaho, all of the great Finnish deadlifters grew up doing manual labor, which inured their bodies and minds to hard work.  Likewise, Bob Peoples was a farmer, Lamar Gant rode his bicycle for extremely long distances and worked as a janitor, Konstantin Konstantinovs grew up doing gymnastics and playing judo in a tiny town in Latvia (which means he's cut more firewood than you've likely ever seen in your life), and currently works as a bodyguard.  This means they were/are all highly conditioned athletes capable of mentally pushing themselves to extremes and possess the physical endurance to do so.  Since World of Warcraft doesn't count as GPP, you might want to think about getting off your fat ass and doing some conditioning.

Most, if not all of the best deadlifters have done or do extremely high volume pulling work.  You'll see the occasional admonition against overtraining, but the elite conception of overtraining and your conception of overtraining are likely bears as much resemblance to one another as Steve Buscemi bears to a healthy human adult.  For instance, Brent Howard's conception of "too much" work mirrors my own experience:

"I used to do heavy DL, then heavy stiffs, heavy racks, then 15 sets of upper back almost every week. I kept this up until one day when I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Kaz on the subject. He related how he used to beat the heck out of himself with high bar squats of 615 x 25 reps followed by heavy DL’s and rack pulls. The bottom line was that was too much even for a superman like him."(Mason)

That's fucking brutal, and likely more volume than you'd get out of three weeks of Starting Strength or two weeks of 5/3/1, in a single day.  Chuck Vogelpohl, who pulled 793 at 242, trains ten to fourteen times a week, does abs in every workout, and trains lats in five of those workouts.  Louie Simmons does the same thing.  Thus, elite lifters know how much is too much because they've traveled a hell of a long ways over that line.  Until you've shit upon that line with zero fucks given, then run as far past it as you can brandishing a a Viking sword and a bottle of Jager, slaying all weights in your path (at least until your damnable human vulnerability crushes you like a roach under a steamroller) you've no fucking clue what overtraining is.  Thus, stop fearing it, since you don't even fucking know of what it is you're afraid.

Those statements made, let's get into some of the greats' deadlifting routines.  As a preface I'll mention, anecdotally, that badass pullers have badass routines.  Powerlifting legend Ernie Frantz did all three lifts on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, and did some light squats and deads on Tuesday. On the heavy days, he hit a heavy single on each lift, in addition to something like walkouts, negatives, or partials thereafter. In the Saturday workout he would go all out.(Stone)  Finnish deadlifters either deadlift two, three, or four times a week, and supplement their deadlifts with Olympic lifts, partials, deadlifts standing on a block, stiff-legged deadlifts with a variety of forms, and hack deads.(Selkäinaho)  Bob Peoples deadlifted every single fucking day, to a daily max.  Thus, great powerlifters push the absolute limit and take a giant steaming shit on anyone who tells them otherwise.

Lamar Gant
Lamar Gant is perhaps the closest thing we'll ever see to a real-life Spider man, hitting a 4.95x bodyweight deadlift at two different weight classes, making him roughly insectoid in his relative strength.  I suppose that was to be expected, given the fact that his weird-assed bodyshape and diminutive stature made him look like  the main character in the movie Antz (the above pic seriously is not photoshopped- he's that weird looking).  Gant eventually pulled 638 at 123, boasting 2% bodyfat, and 654 at 132.(Todd)  His initial deadlift routine consisted of truly insane volume- 25 sets of 5, in what he called his "Monster Man" routine, after doing squat and bench.(Todd) On top that, Gant bicycled 30 miles a day to and from work, and cycled for long distances on the weekend.  (Todd)  Eventually, Gant abandoned the aforementioned program, which he'd lifted from professional strongman Harold Ansorge, and developed the program he provided to Powerlifting USA, which I've titled 8/5/3.


Lamar Gant's 8/5/3
Week 1: 5 sets of 8 with 70% 1RM
Week 2: 5 sets of 8 with 73% 1RM
Week 3: 5 sets of 8 with 76% 1RM
Week 4: 5 sets of 8 with 78% 1RM
Week 5: 5 sets of 5 with 82% 1RM
Week 6: 5 sets of 5 with 84% 1RM
Week 7: 5 sets of 5 with 86% 1RM
Week 8: 5 sets of 5 with 87% 1RM
Week 9: 5 sets of 3 with 92% 1RM
Week 10: 5 sets of 3 with 94% 1RM
Week 11: 5 sets of 3 with 96% 1RM
Week 12: 5 sets of 3 with 98% 1RM
(Powerliftingwatch)

Konstantin Konstantinovs
This man needs little introduction.  Until Stan Efferding recently topped his total, KK reigned supreme at 275.  He's recently moved to 308 to battle with Andy Bolton for the title of premier hippopotamus-sized deadlifter and has pulled 903 raw, in a tested meet.  His program is a bit less regimented than most, and is as follows:


Workout 1.
1. Light squat for a warm up.
2. Deadlift. I do a different variant every time I train: rack pulls – 7, 11, 15, 20, 23 cm from the knees (higher than that I never pull). I do either a set of 3 reps or 8-10 depending on how I feel.
3. Bench press. I consider bench press as rest between heavy work. I bench either with touch and go with a medium grip, or with a close grip pausing at the bottom. I might do a single set of 10 reps with touch and go, or might max out pausing at the bottom. It all depends on how I feel and my mood.
4. 2nd deadlift. I pull either from a floor or from a deficit (about 9 cm). I do a single set of 2-3 reps pausing at the bottom. Then if I have enough energy, I might do another set of 6-8 reps.
5. Box squat. Heavy box squat as described above.


Workout 2 (in two days).
1. Medium heavy squat as described above.
2. Heavy bench press for a single set of 3 reps. Once in two weeks: negatives – 1-2 set for 1 rep. Then a single set of 8-10 reps with either close or medium grip depending on how I feel.
3. Cardio – 15-20 min.


Workout 3.
1. Light squat.
2. Medium heavy bench press: a single set of 6-8 reps.
3. Speed deadlift with bands: 8x1. Bands increase weight by 130 kg at the top.
4. Pull ups with weight or bands. ONLY explosively. Very important for my deadlift.
5. GHR, hyperextensions, very heavy abs work (6 sets with emphasis on strength).


Workout 4.
The same as workout 2.


He then starts a new cycle, taking one to two days off between workouts 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, which means he deadlifts between two and four times a week and squats four or five.(KK and Carter)  Like Andy Bolton, he focuses on explosiveness from the floor in training, but unlike Bolton appears to go fucking heavy.  In this video, he hits 380kg (836 lbs) for four reps.

This means we all suck at life.

Benedikt Magnusson
Bennie seems like the gentle giant of powerlifting- he's got a baby face, seems overly nice, and has described himself as the smallest and weakest man in his family, which is ridiculous given the fact that he's 6' 380 lbs.  He's consistently one of the strongest guys on Earth, and currently holds the world record in the deadlift with a 1015 pull.  Note that the workout below's not a static workout- Bennie's much more of the "make it up as you go along school."  Last year, he had this to say about his routine:

"Right now I have two days a week where I have a planned workout. I rarely miss these. I usually end up working out for most of the other 7 days of the week though, just doing recovery workouts and some bodybuilding stuff to keep the joints feeling healthy and my muscles full. I always try to include heavy behind the neck presses, squats and of course deadlifts in my routine. I feel that these are the exercises that have contributed the most to my progress. I don’t really bench though. Flat benching has never felt natural for me and has resulted in several pec tears. I just rely on behind the neck presses and bench warm ups for my bench strength."(Freyr) 

Bennie's deadlift workout, from what I found online, generally consists of the following:
Week A
Deadlift warm up to about 80%
80% 8setx2reps
Platform deadlift about 3-4inch high
Train with weights from 40-70%
4-6set x 4reps Speed!
Then go down to about 40-50% 2setx8reps


Week B
Deadlift. Work up to 3rep max.
Platform deadlift about 3-4inch high
With weights from 50-75%
4-6set x 3-5reps Speed
Then go down to about 50% for 2setsx8reps


Week C
Jeff Jet Method Deadlift ( This is hard to write down )
When you do Jeff Jet Method deadlift you start by doing a rack pull. Then your training partners take the rack away and you go down and then up! Then your partners put the rack back in! The rep starts up by your thighs then you go down and up again ( I hope you get it )
A guy from America told us about this. His name is Jeff Jet. We started doing this because pretty much everything me and Benedikt can pull up we can do more reps! So we thought this would be a great way to do work with much more weight to shock the body! It worked!


Jeff Jet Method Deadlift - Go up in 1-3reps max ( Do what the day allows!! )
Platform deadlift about 3-4inch high
4set x 4-6reps with weights from 50-60%


"We train deadlift every week. The last 3 or 4 workouts before a meet we just do regular deadlift off the floor and work in singles. We never go heavier than the starting weight at the meet though."(Magnusson)

Rickey Dale Crain
Quite frankly, I'd never heard of the guy, but between his name and the fact that he looks exactly the way his name would indicate, I had to include him.  Crain was a bad motherfucker in powerlifting in the 1970s and 80s, and put up some beastly deadlift numbers in the 165 class.  Like the rest of the behemoths I'm discussing, Crain was born to deadlift- as you can see from the above pic of his family, he'd likely have had to sleep out back of the double-wide with the dogs if he skipped a day in the gym.  According to Clarence Bass, "After teething on a dumbbell-shaped rattle - his father Don was and is an avid lifter - Crain started lifting at age 2, was deadlifting triple bodyweight by the time he was 10, and soon after discovered he had "real" talent in the squat, doing 200 at 13 and 400 before he turned 17 - as a 132-pounder. In 1976, at age 23, he became the first middleweight (165 lbs) in history to squat with 700."(Bass)  Interesting to note is that Crain hates raw lifting with the burning passion of 1000 suns, and sells a shitload of training gear.  In his (again, unsurprisingly barely coherent given his name and appearance) words,

"RAW IS A PHENOMA OF THE PAST 5-10 YEARS....IT DID NOT EXIST BEFORE THAT.....
I AM NOT SURE WHAT HAS PROPAGATGED IT OTHER THNA GIVE SOME VERY AVERAGE OR BELOW AVERAGE LIFTERS A CHANCE TO WIN A TROPHY OR BREAK SOME RECORD THAT REALLY MEANS NOTHING.....
MOST LIFTERS THAT LIFTED IN THE 60'S AND 70'S WHO USED WHATEVER THEY COULD DREAM UP TO LIFT IN TO HELP THEIR NUMBERS AS WELL AS A SAFETY FACTOR......LIFTED WAY MORE THAN 99% OF TODAY'S SO CALLED RAW LIFTERS SO WHAT HAVE THEY ACCOMPLISHED??????"(PLwatch)

Given his penchant for posting in all caps and rocking an afro and a mustache, the extremity of his routine should not surprise you.  This program is designed to end with a 620 pull, according to his site.(Crain)

John Kuc
John Kuc was also a hilariously mustachioed powerlifter of the 1970s and 80s kind enough to step out of his rape van filled with lollipops to show people what's up on the deadlift.  His record pull of 870 in the 242s stood for 18 years, until Ed Coan decided he'd go 2 Girls 1 Cup and took a giant steaming shit on it with an 887 pull.  Kuc's program is a 16 week competition prep cycle split into two 8 week microcycles, the first consisting of two days a week of pulls and the second consisting of one a week.


                                 (First Day)                                                                                     (Second Day)
         DL Starts                                                DL lock outs                                                 Reg DL's
1.  .63X4, .53X4X3                        (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.00X4X3)                        .65X6, .80X4X4
2.  .63X4, .55X4X3                        (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.03X4X2)               .65X6, .80X4, .81X4X3
3.  .63X4, .75X4, .79X4X3            (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.06X4X2)               .65X6, .80X4, .83X4X3
4.  .63X4, .75X4, .79X4, .81X4     (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.05X4, 1.09X4)      .65X6, .80X4, .83X4X3
5.  .63X4, .75X4, .79X4                 (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.05X4)                           .65X6, .80X4X4
6.  .63X4, .75X4, .81X4, .83X4     (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.05X4, 1.12X4)      .65X6, .80X4, .83X4, .85X4X2
7.  .63X4,  .75X4, .81X4, .85X4    (.65X6, .85X4, .95X4, 1.06X4, 1.16X4)         .65X6, .80X4, .83X4, .88X4, .92X4, .90X4
8.  .63X4, .75X4, .81X4, .87X4     (.65X6, .80X4, .95X4, 1.07X4 1.07X4,1.20X4)   .65X6, .80X4X4
9. No DL workout on First Day.  (TRY LIMIT SINGLE DL on second day- .65X6, .80X4,
.92X1, 1.03X1, .80X4*)


 (REGULAR DEADLIFTS ONLY, ONCE PER WEEK, AFTER A 9TH WEEK TRYOUT)
10.  .63X6, .77X4, .82X4X3
11.  .63X6, .77X4, .84X4X3
12.  .63X6, .77X4, .87X4X3
13.  .63X6, .77X4, .85X4, .89X4, .87X4
14.  .63X6, .77X4, .85X4, .90X4, .87X4
15.  .63X6, .77X4, .85X4, .92X4, .87X4
16.  .63X6, .77X4, .87X4
17.  (LIMIT DL IN CONTEST)   work up to 1.03 of previous best
* Designates new PR set the 9th week.

Ed Coan
If you don't know who Ed Coan is, you're either a neophyte to lifting or you're fucking retarded.  His routine is one of the most jerked off to programs on the internet, and I'm endlessly amused by the dogmatism that surrounds it.  If you are one of those people who worships the Coan-Phillippi routine and considers it sacrosanct, consider this- that's not the routine Ed Coan's year round routine.  From the lips of Ed Coan to your proverbial ears:

"Friday is deadlifts and all back work. This Friday, since it's off season, with no belt or anything, I'm deadlifting off a 4-inch block. It actually teaches you to push more with your legs since you have to bend over so much farther. It's a lot fucking harder!
Most powerlifters I know who no longer compete, they'll squat and bench, but won't deadlift! It's too difficult. Then I do stiff-legged deads off the blocks, then rows, regular pulldowns, then some type of Hammer pull-down machine, like high rows. Afterward, I'll do chins for reps, then bent-over laterals. I do my rear delts on back day."(Koenig)

Coan's "2,500 Pounds and Beyond" Workout(Colescott), conversely, looks like this:
Monday
Squats:                       7-10 sets of 2-8 reps
Leg Extensions:          2 sets of 10-12
Leg Curls:                  2 sets of 10-12 reps
(In the off-season, high bar squats to activate more of the quads and sometimes front squats afterwards).
Seated Calf Raises:    3 sets of 10-12 reps


Tuesday
Rest


Wednesday
Bench Press (regular grip):                7-10 sets of 2-8 reps
Wide-grip bench:                              3 sets of 8-10
Incline Dumbell or Barbell Press        2 sets of 2-8 reps
Flyes (high reps):                               2 sets of 10-15 reps
Tricep extensions (a whole bunch):    2 sets of 2-8 reps


Thursday
Rest


Friday
Regular deadlifts or S-L Deadlifts:     8 sets of 2-8 reps
Bent-over Rows:                              2 sets of 8-10 reps (Coan does these with 485 for 8 strict reps - "no problem.")
Pulley Rows:                                    2 sets of 8-10 reps
Pulldowns:                                       2 sets of 8-10 reps
Hammer Strength Back Machine:     2 sets of 8-10 reps
Rear Delt raises:                              2 sets of 10-12 reps


Saturday
Close-grip Bench:                            3 sets of 8-10 reps
Shoulder Press:                               5 sets of 2-8 reps
(either Behind-the-Neck Press, Front Military Press, or Seated Dumbell Presses. Coan has done a Seated Behind-the-Neck Press with 400 pounds)
Side Laterals:                                  3 sets of 10-12 reps
Pushdowns:                                    3 sets of 8-10 reps
Light Barbell Curls:                         1 set of 20 reps          


Sunday
Rest


There you have it- even the best pullers on Earth- people designed by the gods specifically for deadlifting, cannot agree on a single program that's best for success.  They experiment like they're last name was Tesla, however, and seem to happen upon some common themes.  Thus, if you want to be a deadlift master, you must adhere to the following golden rules:

• Don't be a pussy.
• Condition the shit out of yourself in and out of the gym.
• Pull like a 15 year old with the internet, Jergens, and a fistful of cock.  Read the linked article about Finnish Deadlift Secrets, start speaking an incomprehensible language in a frigid wasteland of a country, burn a church or two, listen to black metal, and sack the fuck up.
• Test yourself.  You'll never know how much is too much until you actually do too much.  Once you determine how much is too much, do a little less than that.
• Don't forget to not be a pussy.

Jesus fuck I despise black metal.  Tis' a shame that there's an incontrovertible link between it and an epic deadlift.

Sources:
     Askem, J.V.  Deadlifting Part 2.  http://jva.ontariostrongman.ca/DL2.htm
     Bass, Clarence.  Rickey Dale Crain.  http://www.cbass.com/RICKEY.HTM
     Benedikt Magnusson's Deadlift Routine.  http://powerandbulk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5432
     Carter, Paul.  Interview with Konstantin Konstantinovs - Translated.  Lift-Run-Bang.  http://www.lift-run-bang.com/2010/04/interview-with-konstantin-konstantinovs.html
     Colescott, Steve.  Ode to the power king Ed Coan.  http://www.rxmuscle.com/articles/latest-news/174-ode-to-the-power-king-ed-coan.html
     Crain, Rickey Dale.  Deadlift Xtreme Routine.  http://www.crain.ws/deadlift_xteme_routine.html
     Freyr, Hakon.  Interview with Benedikt Magnusson.  http://www.brotherhoodofiron.com/articles/interview-with-benedikt-magnussonworld-record-deadlift-holder
     Koenig, John.  Atlas Speaks: An Interview with Ed Coan.  T-Nation.  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_interviews/atlas_speaks
     Konstantins Konstantinovs Interview.  Serious Powerlifting.  http://www.seriouspowerlifting.com/3755/mens-interviews/konstantins-konstantinovs-interview
     Powerlifting USA.  Lamar Gant's Deadlift Routine.  http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/files/Lamar%20Gant's%20Deadlift%20Routine.pdf
     PowerliftingWatch.  Rickey Dale Crain on Raw Lifting.  http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/5435
     Selkäinaho, Sakari.  Finnish Deadlift Secrets.  ElitFTS.  http://www.elitefts.com/documents/finnish-deadlift-secrets.htm
     Stone, Eric.  Interview with Ernie Frantz.  Chicago Powerlifting.  http://www.chicagopowerlifting.com/ErnieFrantzInterview.html
     Todd, Terry.  He Bends But He Doesn't Break.  Sports Illustrated.  October 22, 1984.  http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122739/1/index.htm

Accessories To Murder- Making The Dead Even More Deadly

Much has been made, on sundry message boards, of my refusal to do the deadlift in the gym.  Many have decided to ape my methods due a variety of factors, though the most predominant one, in my mind, is the fact that the deadlift is the hardest fucking thing you'll do in the gym, nine times out of ten.  It's a brutal, gut-wrenching, man-making lift during which you can actually feel your testicles drop and afterwards you sound like Barry White, provided you've got enough weight on the bar.  Skipping the deadlift, then, is usually nothing more than caving in to the fear of hard work, a fear that's more ubiquitous in our society than rhinestones on a tranny's Saturday night wardrobe.

Aaaaaaaaand they all have cocks.  Gotcha!

Why, then, do I skip it?  Because I've earned the right to do so, and because I'm focused on the squat.  For at least a decade, I deadlifted more in a year than most of you have masturbated in your lives, nevermind deadlifted.  I pounded the shit out of the lift, doing every conceivable variation for innumerable sets and reps.  My deadlift workouts took, on average, one and a half hours, and ran the gamut in design from 30 straight minutes of pulling singles with 90% of my one rep max for max reps (my record was 27), to 10-8-6-4-2-2-4-6-8-10, to German Volume Training, to 5 sets of 5 followed by a death set with 315, to the utterly ridiculous workout I've posted previously that consisting of deadlifts, one arm deads, two finger deads, rack pulls, and shrugs.  That was, in fact, a workout I used for over a year, and resulted in the cramping I still experience when I pull.  It did, however, give me a gym best of 545 at a bodyweight of 165.  Once I hit 600 for a single, however, I noticed that the high-percentage lifts that had gotten me to that point were killing a variety of other lifts, as my back would be too sore and too exhausted to allow me to do other lifts that I loved, namely, back squatting and overhead pressing.  Thus, I started dropping deadlift workouts and training movements that would have a lot of carryover into the deadlift.  Additionally, my focus has been on the squat since I started competing, as I'm within shouting distance of a 40 year old world record.  Thus, it seemed that splitting my attention between the two would not help me in my goal of breaking that record.

Piper did that to himself, apparently because cocaine does not lend itself to rational thought.

I could, I suppose, simply drop my volume on the deadlift and continue deadlifting.  That would certainly be the rational thing to do.  I do not, however, train rationally, and once I start pulling I like to keep pulling until I am physically incapable of continuing.  That's right- I had to stop deadlifting in training because I love the lift so fucking much that I do it until I'm literally crippled.  Due to the fact that I've done this for the last 15 years, I can safely say that I've put in my time with the lift, and it's unnecessary for me to train it on a regular basis.  Notice I did not say you.  Unless you're highly ranked in powerlifting, have been training the lift religiously for the better part of two decades, and allow your love of the lift to completely obliterate any vestige of common sense the second you start doing the lift, my experience should in no way apply to you.  Thus, you should stop being a fucking pussy and start deadlifting, because to get good at the lift in the first place, you're going to treat it like Roddy Piper did coke, and do an insane amount of it.

I am the Devil, and I'm here to do the Devil's work.

There Will Be Fucking Murders
Murdering the deadlift is much like committing an actual murder, in that you have to begin with determining how you're going to do it.  This has led many of you to engage in debates online so insipid that they would shock even the least functional simpleton, as that simpleton certainly would not ask another waterhead for advice on how to do long division- he'd instead emulate the actions of people who do long division well.  As such, you should not ask the denizens of any message board which stance you should take, as they know absolutely nothing, and will likely cement in your mind ideas so illogical and ridiculous that they'd make Andy Dick wonder aloud how they arrived at them, as he shit in a hole outside of the shed in which he lives in spite of the fact that he's fairly wealthy.  How then, should you choose a stance?

Do what anyone worth half a shit has done before you- experiment.  Bob Peoples, the greatest 181 pound deadlifter prior to the arrival of chimp-like freak of nature Ed Coan put the record out of everyone's reach, experimented constantly with his form, and eventually developed a form more unique than the penises on BME.  Through years of experimentation, Peoples eventually pulled 728 at a bodyweight of 178, using form that could only be described as horrific- he pulled with a round back and stiff legs, after completely exhaling, and with a double overhand grip.(Hise)  That's right- years of experimentation got him to his ultimate form.  
"Our deadlift champion began to study his body leverages and gravity centers. He would take a bar in a starting deadlift position and view himself an a mirror and notice by the raising or lowering of the bar as he changed grips, using different height shoes, inhaling slightly, inhaling heavily, exhaling slightly, exhaling heavily and observing the positions and conditions that suited him best."(Hise, Deadlifter)  Eventually, he happened upon form that most people would regard with horror and what the idiots on Youtube would claim would send his spinal column soaring into the air, give him AIDS, and could only be the produce of massive steroid use- weak people are incredibly overdramatic.  Despite what weak people and personal trainers the world around would proclaim about Peoples' form, “His dead lift style.... is not "incorrect" for him because his type of physique with rather long legs, short trunk and very long arms makes it the best style for him.”(Peoples)

Amusingly, this body type has been ascribed to another amazing deadlifter with completely different deadlift style- Ed Coan.  Coan is 5’5” and boasts arms that nearly hang to his knees, due to the fact that his arms and legs were incredibly long compared to the length of his trunk.  Because he's built as if he were the unholy child of a chimpanzee and a postal box, Coan had incredible success deadlifting.  At 181, Coan pulled 793; at 198, he pulled 859; at 219, he pulled 901; and at 241 he pulled 887… like I said, a fucking freak.(Gallagher 60)  Coan also pulled with a unique style, as his stance was fairly narrow for a sumo stance, and his hand placement was fairly wide- just inside his knees.  This goes against convention on sumo deadlifting due to the fact that it doesn't appear to make the best use of that style, which is essentially to reduce the range of motion dramatically.  Coan apparently didn't give a shit, because his unique form produced poundages that may never be topped.


These examples should point you to one inalienable fact- your body style has little to do with the form you should utilize to maximize your deadlift.  Instead, you should employ whatever form you prefer after experimenting with them both.  If you have comparatively long arms and a short torso, guess what?  It doesn’t mean you should deadlift with a certain form- it means you’re destined to be a badass deadlifter if you bust your ass at the lift.  Any attempt to analyze leverages to determine your best style is absurd for a multitude of reasons:

1. It fails to consider a wide array of muscular factors, ranging from your muscular strengths to the placement and thickness of various muscular attachments
2. It fails to account for past activities in which you might have engaged that would increase your neurological adaptations to certain movements
3. It overthinks what will essentially amounts to a battle of wills between you and the weight.  All of the leverages in the world won’t get 600 pounds off the ground if you don’t hate the fact that the weight is defying your will more than Rick Santorum pretends to hate anal sex.

One caveat to this is for chicks- I think females are likely more suited to sumo deadlifting because their pelvis angles considerably less than men and because it's so much wider, and they've generally got more flexible hips as a result.  Additionally, they're almost invariably lower-body dominant, and the sumo deadlift employs far more of your vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, and (oddly) your tibialis anterior than does the conventional deadlift.(Escamilla)  One other thing I think makes the sumo deadlift a better choice for women is the fact taht, due to their hips, squatting with a wide stance generally results in a massive increase in a female lifter's squat, and most of the high-level female squatters I've seen seem to use a wide stance.  That stance and strength can translate well to the sumo deadlift, which as Ed Coan put it, amounts to a reverse squat.(Gallagher 61)  That doesn't necessarily mean chicks can't pull well conventional or shouldn't try, but rather that I think they'd likely find sumo to feel better as a movement than conventional.

Hot, actually a woman, and she probably out-deadlifts you.

Lest you wring your hands and pout due to the frustration of having to think for yourself on picking a style, Derek Barker had a great idea on how to determine it.  He suggests you do Louie Simmons' five week deadlift program twice, using conventional form once and sumo the other.  Thereafter, you can examine your progress with each and choose the style that best suits you.  In Barker's words:

"The program started with the lifter having achieved a max single in the deadlift coming into the program. In the first week, the lifter was then to perform 15 singles with 65 percent of that single with short rest periods. For the next week, the percentage was raised five percent and the amount of lifts dropped to 12. This goes on until the fifth week when the lifter has reached 85 percent and performs six singles.

I feel this program is vastly superior to any other for new lifters because by using weights in this percent range, the lifter is able to focus on his technique and think through the lift rather than get all psyched up and possibly miss or just muscle the barbell up. In addition, weights of 85–100 percent for a new lifter may in fact reinforce bad technique rather than correct it. In the sixth week, the lifter should attempt a new max in the deadlift.

Here’s my advice. For the first training wave, pull conventional. Play around with the conventional stance and find what suits you best (shoulder width stance, very close heels touching, feet angled out). Experiment and find an optimal pulling stance.  

After a new max has been attempted and hopefully achieved in week six, start the cycle over, this time with a sumo stance. Again, experiment with foot stance such as an ultra wide sumo or a more moderate sumo. Play around with the angle of the feet. A good rule of thumb is to have them angled out at least 45 degrees to keep your center of gravity as close to the barbell as possible. Go through the cycle, and on the sixth week, attempt a max with the sumo stance. Now, you’ve spent three concentrated months on your deadlift. You should have a good idea what your particular strengths and weaknesses are with each style and what style allows you to lift the most weight in a contest. Regardless of which style you choose, it’s important to still train the opposite style at some point. One style will help the other."(Barker) 

One question few people ask, though I think is the cause of many of the torn biceps you see in deadlifting, is in regards to the grip one takes.  Years ago, I had someone ask me which hand should pronate and which should supinate, and it occurred to me I never gave it any thought.  While pondering this, I looked down at my hands, which were hanging at my sides, and realize that the one that was pronated (facing my body) was the one I pronated in the deadlift, and vice-versa.  As such, I looked at their hands and let them know which hand appeared to be more pronated than the other.  If you're unsure about what grip would be best for you, stand with your arms hanging relaxed at your sides and have someone look at them and tell you.  It should be fairly apparent.

Now that you've got a jumping-off point for starting to include a program that's made more boys into men than chest suspension-induced vision quests.  Coming up, my favorite deadlift programs, a couple of other badass programs, and my favorite accessories and the reasons I think they're almost as awesome than getting a blowjob while eating pizza.

She must be having one hell of a vision quest.

Sources:
     Barker, Derek.  Beginner Deadlift Considerations: Conventional or Sumo?  http://www.elitefts.com/documents/con_sumo.htm
     Escamilla RF, Francisco AC, Kayes AV, Speer KP, Moorman CT 3rd.An electromyographic analysis of sumo and conventional style deadlifts.  Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Apr;34(4):682-8.
     Hise, Bob.  Bob Peoples- Deadlifter.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/02/bob-peoples-deadlifter.html
     Hise, Bob.  The Bob Peoples I Knew.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/01/bob-peoples-i-knew-bob-hise-ii.html
     Gallagher, Marty.  Purposeful Primitive.  

Ask The Asshole #12 - All Apex Predator Diet, All The Time

Quick note to begin:  I've come to the realization while googling for questions about the diet that there are at least two other diets by this name.  One I've already mentioned, though he didn't quite title it as such, and was the brainchild of J. Stanton of gnolls.org.  If you've not checked out his site, do so.  The other was a thread post on elitefitness.com in 2001 by a guy named Paul.  His idea was really more intermittent fasting than mine, but we focused on a couple of similar points about meal timing.  I'd imagine my ridiculously overcited blog might have been a tipoff that I'm pretty scrupulous when it comes to intellectual property and giving credit where it's due, but I wanted to make it clear I'd not interested in coat-tail riding or theft.  As such, I'm going to change the title of this diet to one of two things, and though you assholes might like to chime in:  The Predatory Diet, or the Predator's Diet.  Let me know in the comments

No matter what I end up calling it, it will unfortunately never be as awesome as this scene.

Moving on, I've received a shitload of questions in the comments, on message boards, and in emails, so I felt it was high time to answer them for everyone in a lengthy fucking discourse outlining every last scintilla of whatever I end up calling this diet.  Hilariously, I've seen the "broscience" tag bandied about one more, in spite of what I consider to be an overindulgence in citations on my part.  I've never once seen anyone cite their diet more heavily than I, but for those motherfuckers who've continued to talk shit, prepare for an onslaught of citations the likes of which you've only seen in the on-line texts from which you stole all of your high school essays.

Q:  Is there any truth or science behind ["once you get into the single digits (or middle double digits for chicks) you'll find that your metabolism resembles the Israeli Killdozer- it crushes damn near anything in its path provided you have someone competent behind the wheel]? I've never been under 11% as far as I can remember, so I have zero personal experience to draw from and I haven't been able to find any sources that confirm this. Figured this would be a good spot to ask since there are some BBer's here that have definitely gotten into single digit BF%. Thanks.


It seems to matter whether you are naturally lean or not.
A:  First, the author of that post cited the wrong bit by McDonald.  In the Ultimate Diet 2, McDonald addresses the overfeeding/fat gain deal when discussing P-ratio, which is the amount of protein lost or spared during dieting.  In fat people, it's typically a shit show, which is one of the reasons I recommend such high protein levels.  In any event, it's people with a poor P-ratio that have the most trouble losing fat as they get leaner, and who respond less well to overfeeding.  While I'll agree that at the extreme end of that poor p-ratio and genetic fuckedness, that's likely true, but I don't think it applies to the vast majority of people on Earth, and I hardly think that much of my readership is genetically predisposed toward extreme adiposity- I'm hardly Richard Simmons.  Additionally, the problem with fat gain during overfeeding is due to insulin sensitivity, which is resolved by getting and staying lean, and is helped a great deal by following a ketogenic diet.  As such, fear of gaining fat on a Rampage is probably misguided.

My reasoning behind the Rampage is actually a bit different than what I posted in the above quote.  To be honest, I'm always looking for reasons to put the Killdozer into the blog, so I might have muddled my message a bit in an effort to shoehorn in that Killdozer pic.  The main reason I place so much emphasis on the Rampage is actually because as you get leaner, and the longer you diet, you experience metabolic slowdown.  A rapid influx of food causes your body to react strongly, and ramps your metabolism back up.  This is why you sweat like a slave during a Rampage- your BAT (brown adipose tissue) activates and you basically turn into a furnace.  This rebound was the basis for Duchaine's, McDonald's, and Warren Willey diets, all of which were based on Michael Zumpano's Rebound Training.  My methodology differs from their due to the fact that there appears to be fairly compelling science stating that glycogen supercompensation works a bit like a crack high- every time you experience it, it's a little less awesome.  I'd rather save the true anabolic rebounds for meets and the like, so just do a violent refeed and reap the benefits.

As for the original post above, it seems the poster didn't actually read the study McDonald cited in his treatise on NEAT.  The study, for those of you who are interested, compared Caucasians with Pima Indians.  This was not a comparison of people who are naturally lean versus those who tend toward fatness- it was a comparison of two ethnicities, one of which is known for conquering the modern world and dominating at strength sports, and the other which is known for making trinkets, having Type 2 diabetes, and for drinking themselves to death.  The Pima Indians are genetic anomalies who've become so due to the fact that their traditional diet is one of feast and famine.  Additionally, they're an extremely insular community that marries within their own group, thus reinforcing their ethnic genetic predispositions.(DeMouy)  With the introduction of the  modern "waddle up to the trough at Sizzler and eat until you pass out in your own vomit and turn up that song because I love the way Billy Ray Cyrus pronounces 'heart'", Pima Indians are some of the fattest people in the Western hemisphere and are about as healthy as you'd expect a community filled miniature brown Jabba the Huts.

Isidro of the Tohono O'Odham nation

If you're not following me, this means that unless you're a indian (casinos, not slurpees) or of that sort of descent (I'm looking at you, people whose ancestors were raped repeatedly by Spaniards), you're likely not one of the people to whom Lyle McDonald refers to as a spendthrift type.  Thus, you needn't really worry about whether or not you're a "spendthrift (big increase with overfeeding/small decrease with dieting)" or a "thrifty (small increase with overfeeding/big decrease with dieting" (McDonald)  Instead of worrying about whether or not your genetics are going to get in the way of your fat loss, take the important point away from that paper- lean people are lean in large part due to the fact that they're not shiftless fucking layabouts.  Instead, they're constantly in motion.  If you think about the people you know who can "eat anything", you'll likely recall they're the same annoying motherfucker appears to have a palsy because they've always got one leg or the other shaking like a a lone American girl on a deserted beach in Aruba.  Because they're always in motion, they have a much higher NEAT than the average person, which means they get to eat more without getting fat.

One day, pretty white girls will figure out the fact that they should stay the fuck out of Aruba.

NEAT, or nonexercise activity thermogenesis, is regulated by the shit you do every day when not in the gym, like fidgeting, random physical activities, and shit like standing up while you play XBox.  You might find that the latter is ridiculous, but science has shown rather definitively that it's more likely your random activity that contributes to bodyfat, rather than diet by studying office workers that and comparing rates of obesity in offices that employed labor-saving devices rather than those that didn't.(Lanningham-Foster)  In the aforementioned study, "changes in NEAT accounted for the 10-fold differences in fat storage that occurred and directly predicted resistance to fat gain with overfeeding."(McDonald)  Additionally, "NEAT increases with overfeeding and decreases with underfeeding."(Levine 2002)  That's right- it increases with overfeeding.  This is likely why you're so fucking overheated during your cheat meals- I personally know that I sweat like fucking slave during my cheats, and the more aggressively I cheat, the more pronounced the physiological response.  As such, I dress for warm weather no matter what temperature it is, and utilize the thermogenics to drive my metabolism on like I'm a a a manager in a DeBeers diamond mine.  Thus, the Rampage is a ridiculously important part of this diet, due to the fact that fat gain is inversely proportional to NEAT levels.(Levine 1999)

During my cheats, my name is Toby.

Random shit to increase your NEAT levels (and therefore get lean more quickly):

• Move somewhere warm- NEAT doubles in the summer compared to the winter months.(Levine 2004)
• Move around as much as humanly possible- take the stairs, use a printer on the other side of the office rather than the one in your department, jiggle your fucking leg all day long like that annoying asshole in accounting, and stand up while you play video games.  Basically, stand rather than sit and sit rather than lay down.
• Do your cardio with added resistance, like a weighted vest or carrying dumbbells, Heavyhands-style.  Doing so will double your energy expenditure.  this is especially important as you lose weight, as your NEAT will drop as you get lighter.(Weigel)
• Chew gum.  This is a favorite suggestion of one author, who noted that it actually does cause a substantial increase in NEAT.(Wilson)
• Do what I do- read while you walk.  though that sucks for taking notes, I will go for long walks and read while I do so all the time.  It's fun as hell, because you're outside, getting sun, enjoying a book, and amazing everyone around you with what is to them a fucking magic trick.  If it's something on which you need to take notes, simply dog-ear the pages on which you need to take them and take the notes afterward- your retention rates will go through the roof since you'll essential read the important shit twice.

Q:"Too much protein damages your kidneys."(More of a statement, really, made by someone who has no fucking clue what they're talking about)
A: This is wholly, completely, and patently incorrect.  For healthy people, your internal organs adapt to your diet in the same way that your muscles adapt to increased training levels, and suffer no ill effects whatsoever in the transition.(Skov)  Once you get your protein levels through the fucking roof, keeping them there doesn't adversely affect you either.(Knight)  Additionally, high protein diets are associated with higher B-12, B-6, and folate levels, and better lipid profiles.(Knight)  Frankly, I think the entire idea that there can be "too much" protein in your diet is about as sensible as Shaquille O'Neal's foray into rap.  Americans in particular are historically a nation of meat eaters, and we were eating 178 pounds of meat per person a year in the 19th Century and eight times as much meat as bread in the 18th... which is a tremendous amount considering the fact that refrigeration had not yet been invented.(Taubes 11)

The Harder Than You Crew.

Even if the human condition had deteriorated markedly in the last couple of hundred years, your lifestyle has bestowed upon you far greater ability to absorb the protein you consume than the average person, as resistance exercise confers greater protein synthesis.  The theory behind this, called the "Energetical Theory" of muscular hypertrophy, suggests that when "the mass of proteins catabolized by resistive exercise exceeds the mass of proteins newly synthesized... between training session, protein synthesis is increased.  The uptake of amino acids from the blood into the muscles is above resting values.  This repeated process of enhanced degradation and synthesis of contractile proteins may result in super-compensation of protein."(Bernadot 33, Zatsiorsky 8)  Due to this phenomenon, it seems ridiculous that the human body would be adversely affected by high dietary intake of protein.  Were humans subject to a hard limit on their protein intake, we'd be unable to heal properly when burned, or to recover from the types of incredibly hard labor that were common as iPhones in a Starbucks today.  Should you be concerned that a diet heavy in protein shakes like this one would cause your system some undue stress, fear not- science has our backs once again.  "During food restriction, protein anabolism is favored when the delivery of amino acids is evenly distributed throughout the day"(Mosoni) and greater frequency of feedings increases the amount of protein you absorb.(Cohn)  So, we know that your body will adapt to high protein levels, and that the more frequently you eat protein, the easier it'll be to absorb.

But where are the benefits for a heavy lifter, you might ask?  For starters, an intake of greater than 1 gram per pound of bodyweight, in addition to being comically easy to consume, results in a positive nitrogen and negative fat balance.(Forslund)  Even larger amounts (>1.5grams/lb. of bodyweight) will stimulate significant muscle growth, and the unused protein will be oxidized and excreted, wholly without deleterious side effects, by healthy kidneys.(Fern)  This diet, being somewhat lower in fat and higher in protein than the typical ketogenic diet, will obviously result in some glucogenesis, which is for some reason strikes in a bunch of you terror not unlike that which small children used to reserve for the bogeyman and Michael Jackson.  Glucogenesis, or the process by which the body converts protein to energy to replace lost muscle glycogen, occurs irrespective of the type of diet one follows.  5-15% of the amino acids you consume are going to be used as fuel in weight training, and endurance sports utilize an even greater percentage to repair the extensive damage caused by whatever shenanigans in which they happen to be engaging.(Bernadot 31)  In short, more protein is good, and a shitload more protein is a even fucking better.  Thus, according to both common sense and a meta-analysis, the following is true: Unless you're suffering from renal failure, you can eat protein to your heart's content, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar spouting hippie bullshit, and is possibly a communist.(Martin)

If you're worried about kidney stones, you're either a woman, a 70 year old man, or you're fucking retarded.  Kidney stones are caused by dehydration or disease, not your protein intake.(NKUDIC)  In other words, quit yet bitchin' and drink more fucking water, and if you're a chick, take a fucking leak after you someone smashes the fucking granny out of you- untreated UTIs lead to kidney stones.

That, motherfuckers, is called dropping knowledge.

Q:  What about fiber?
A:  It's not like you're worried about getting enough fiber when you're on the see-food diet eating white bread and fried chicken.  If that answer is unsatisfying to you, I can expound a bit.  Dietary fiber is hardly as necessary as some make it out to be.  From some accounts, you'd think that fiber is the very essence of life, and that we'd all die  with ten pounds of impacted feces in our colons just like John Wayne.  Well, he didn't and neither are you.  Fiber becomes necessary when one's diet consists of naught but protein.  From the accounts of the awesomely cannibalistic soccer-playing motherfuckers involved in the plane crash in Chile in 1972, it was related that their diet of low-fat human flesh caused severe constipation followed by bouts of equally severe diarrhea.  Some guys actually went over 30 days without shitting, due to the fact that they were reticent to eat the fat from the bodies.(Travis-Henikoff 50)  They soon discovered that the introduction of fat into their diets immediately relieved their digestion problems, and resolved to include fat in all of their meals from then on.  Arctic explorers also discovered this around the same time they discovered that you can get hyper-vitaminosis from eating polar bear liver, and then began emulating the diet of the Inuit so as to include far more fat in their diets.  In other words, you needn't be preoccupied with fiber.  Should you want it, take it.  It won't negatively affect your ketosis.

Someone's been eating their fiber.

Q:  Oh, diet check me: 4-6 protein shakes a day and 2 meat-only meals. One small meal, one larger. I eat boiled eggs, chicken, fish, nuts and jerky. I'm in Israel, so decent chow isn't always available. Use what ya got.
A:  First off, that's really not what I'm recommending at all- it's paleo dieting supplemented with a lot of shakes.  There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but I'm willing to bet that you're not getting enough calories.  I'd add another food meal and just keep an eye on your carbs.  You can't really utilize my diet scheme with that list of foods due to the fact that they're not nutrient-dense enough.  It'd suck if you tried to break from cover and just fucking collapsed because you're half-starved (he's a "contractor"), so I'd definitely focus on eating your face off when you do eat real food.  Additionally, it probably wouldn't hurt to pick up a book like the Paleo Solution just to bone up on the finer points of the paleo diet.

Ok, so Bruce White's a wheat farmer and thus hardly paleo, but this pic rules.

Q: Anyways, just wanted to shoot a quick email about the Predator diet for fat fucks (as I am at 22% bf - shameful I know). Most of my training is 90%+ of 1RM for singles, doubles and trebles. My total is 935 (beginner's total I know but up 100 pounds in a few months) and I want to hit at least 1100 by the end of 2012. Essentially, will the Predator diet allow me to increase my maximums or is it unrealistic to get to 1100 this year while dropping some bodyfat? I'm about 211 and would like to hit 195-200 with 15-18% bf in the next 6 months or so. Nothing drastic but it would be progress.
A:  The whole point of this diet is to drop fat while getting stronger.  As such, you should be in good stead.  Your workout sounds like it's pretty metabolically intense, but you can up the ante by increasing the pace of your workouts.  In an effort to chase big weights, you might start dragging out your rest periods.  Don't.  You'll increase your work  capacity and metabolism much more quickly if you keep your rests to a minute or less.  Jump setting will help even more with fat loss.  Thus, pick two movements and do them together- for instance, do a low rep set of squats followed within 30 seconds by overhead press.  That will wind the shit out of you, so you might have to drop your weights a bit, but you'll benefit in the long run.  Additionally, you're weak enough that there's really nowhere to go but up, so increase the pace and get the fucking fat off.

On another note, I get a lot of emails with line similar to your bit about your bodyfat being shameful.  If you were unwilling to do shit about it other than bitch, you would be a sorry motherfucker.  Given that you're in the gym breaking your ass and following one of the stricter diets most people will ever try, keep your fucking chin up.

Fat's not always a cause for shame.  (If you're not seeing the movement, click the pic.)

Q:  I've recently decided to go keto and try your Predator diet. I do have one question:
Basics;
Lift 5x a week. Cardio and or Combat Sambo classes the other 2.
Weigh in at 175lbs, at (estimated and I'm erring on the heavy side) 14-15% bodyfat.
6'1", 35 years old.
BMI = 23.1
BMR= 1845.35
1845.35 x 1.725 = 3,182 k/cal
So, on the Predator diet, should I take 3,182 and -500 from that, for a total of 2,682 k/cal per day? I'm keeping my carbs at 30 and lower.

A:  As I've said in the past, I really don't put any faith into those BMR calculators at all.  They're bad science, in my opinion, because they're based on averages and hope.  I don't place much faith in unfounded faith and know for a certainty that there's no such thing as an actual "average" person.  There are boring people, but even they aren't biochemically or physiologically average.  Thus, I recommend that people initially base their diets on protein, then fine tune them with experimentation.  I've personally noticed that the same caloric intake from year to year does entirely different things to my body, due to factors ranging from my age to (much more importantly), my NEAT levels.  I've mentioned this in the past, but figure it bears mentioning again- the same diet may not work for you twice at the beginning and the end of a decade.

Another side note- BMI is a ridiculous tool for lifters.  It's utterly meaningless for people like us, as well- burly fuckers who like to pick things up and put them down, due to the fact that our physiques should put us in the obese section of that scale.  I know I'm off-the-charts obese for my height by that standard, which is preposterous.

BMI of 41.55.  Morbidly obese, according to the geniuses behind the BMI.

Moving along, you should be eating at least 350 grams of protein per day.  That means you should be eating roughly 2800 calories, just as a baseline (350x4 calories per gram x 2 because it's 50% of your calories).  It's far easier to place yourself in  caloric deficit by increasing your activity (as I mentioned above), so I'd do that rather than drop your calories.  I've found that I'm eating a hell of a lot more calories on this diet than I would otherwise, so be prepared to eat truly astonishing amounts of food while you lean out.

Q:  Half way through my workout I start smelling acetone/ ammonia. Why do I have shit like that pumping through my veins, and should I be worried?
A:  That's the smell of ketosis.  "This is a fairly common report on very low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diet (defined, once again, as any diet containing less than 100 grams of carbohydrate per day), a report of a fairly strong ammonia smell in the sweat during exercise. As I discuss in detail in my first book The Ketogenic Diet this ammonia is produced due to the ultimate breakdown of ATP to ADP to AMP and ammonia.
This appears to occur more readily when muscle glycogen is depleted (as occurs with the combination of of a very low-carbohydrate intake along with training) and may be part of the increased protein requirements that have been known to occur with endurance training (this is discussed in detail in The Protein Book). I would mention that it appears that this ‘protein breakdown’ is not actually coming from the breakdown of skeletal muscle itself; rather it’s from the breakdown of BCAA (branched-chain amino acids) within the free amino acid pool.  So is this ok? So long as dietary protein intake is sufficient, I don’t see this as being any real problem. The effect is slight in terms of the absolute amount of protein being broken down (in terms of grams) and so long as protein intake is sufficient, there shouldn't be any detrimental effect other than the smell." (McDonald, Ammonia)

You know, Vicki mentioned she smelled like ammonia during Friday's workout, and come Monday, BAM!- Full blown AIDS.  She should also get that eye looked at.

Q:  Obviously someone would be in the gym during this diet, does it matter how many days a week or which days as far as matching up with the caloric cycling?
A:  I don't really match my training to the diet. I've found that sort of thing never quite works out. I recommend training at a bare minimum 4x a week, heavy as shit. I typically train no fewer than 5 times a week, and am usually in the gym 7-10 times a week. 20 mins in the morning, and 45-75 minutes in the evening three days a week, then one 1-2 hr workout and two 30 minute workouts per week.  I basically live in the gym or the bookstore, which is completely incomprehensible for most people and impossible for many more.  Bare minimum, I'd say spend, at the very least 4 hours lifting per week.  That's not "in the gym" time- I mean four hours of actual fucking lifting.  Bullshitting by the water fountain while you check out some broad's ass is fun, but it's not putting pounds on your total.

Q:  Any recommendations on "Predator for Broke College Students"? I work two shitty jobs that don't pay nearly enough for all the meat, protein powder, and stimulants to pull this off as it should be done. I'm also tied to a meal plan on which I can only get food which gives me the shits and makes me want to curl up in bed and never move again, so I'm loath to make use of campus food for evening meals.
A:  You can definitely pull this off with cheap protein powder and ground chuck, which wouldn't quite be in the spirit of the diet, but you can follow the macros pretty easily.  You could also add in something like turkey breakfast sausage for an earlier, lower calorie meal.  Figure two lbs of ground chuck at $3/lb for dinner and you're looking at about $170 a month in meat, plus a couple of bags of Matrix 5.0, and you're out the door for $300 a month.  You bar tab's more than that a month, guaranteed.

Q:  Just to clarify - these are all for cutting, right?
A:  They're to get you lean and keep you lean as you get stronger. I've been doing this for the better part of a year and keep setting new PRs, all while I've got veins sticking out on my abs.

This PR happened after about 7 months of experimenting with this diet.

Q:  Any thoughts on using homemade jerky as a substitute for the Protein shakes?

     --A:  That's the most ridiculously expensive but delicious idea ever. It might be simpler to infuse your protein shakes with gold flakes.
     --Q:  Fortunately not for me, I usually have a decent supply of (free) venison to work with so it is just the investment of buying a food dehydrator and learning the correct process.
A:  Then you are a lucky motherfucker.  You'll get far more satiety out of jerky than shakes, so you should be in even better stead.  Just ensure you're not eating jerky made with sugar.

You come from fine stock, Serpico.

Q:  I Rampage (or overeat, or overfeed, or stuff my face or whatever) on Friday nights (which is an off day for me).  Once, way back in the day, you recommended never to cheat on off days, but recently, I believe I read you saying that it doesn't matter quite that much if you're training hard and dieting honestly
----Incidentally, on Saturday mornings after the Rampage, I feel awesome in the gym.  By Monday, when I'm back to no carbs, I have nothing in the tank on Monday night's lift, and don't feel normal in the gym until about Wednesday, when I'm a few days in.  Is this a normal response?
A:  Given that you look like Serpico and you're named after one of the apostles, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're one meatball hoagie away from heading to Neptune's for an evening of fist-pumping and English-raping.  As such, you've probably subsisted on a high carb diet for years.  Dan Duchaine and Lyle McDonald both recommended an interim phase for you greasy wop bastards, wherein you follow what amounts to a Zone Diet.  I personally have been low-carbing it for so long I never needed that kind of a transition, and I just sucked it up when i initially made the plunge.  Trying a 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat diet for a month or two might ease the transition for you.  Like I said, however, I've not tried that, and I'm generally loathe to enthusiastically recommend shit I have never tried.  Thus, while I'm inclined to simply tell you to suck it the fuck up, you might want to try their recommendation.

Now, go forth and hang an epic intellectual beating on motherfuckers.

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