Am I Being Obtuse?

Apparently.  Thus, due to the following well-written request for clarification, I find myself compelled to explain myself... or to allow myself to introduce myself.  Either way.

"I agree that you have a perfectly legitimate reason to deadlift relatively infrequently and given that you can dead 635 easily, your program obviously works. In fact I heartily agree with everything in this post.

My implied point was that it is possible, however unlikely, that some people who train other lifts only once a week might also have legitimate reasons for doing so.

If "There are no universal truths in lifting- there's only what's working for you right now, and what have and haven't worked for you in the past.", why is it necessary to imply that everyone who trains comparatively less frequently is a base coward? While I agree that probably most people who adopt lower frequency training systems do so out of indolence, some extremely strong mother fuckers have adopted lower frequency training programs for for reasons in line with points one two and three under "What'd I learn from this?"

You've offered ample evidence that your training system is a good one, but constantly bashing other systems does little to further your case. I like that you are willing to call people bleeding vaginas and the like, but I'm pretty sure you've hit some people to whom the epithets don't apply with collateral damage. Still, great blog, and much respect.

Oh, and to the loyal followers, I'm pretty sure Jamie isn't going to cry himself to sleep tonight because I called him a hypocrite, so you probably don't need to leap to his defense. Kool-Aid isn't paleo so don't drink it. No one ever improved themselves by being constantly told how great they are and being shielded from criticism."

First, an elucidation of my point in the previous entry- I was not posting an excuse for why I had been deadlifting tremendously infrequently.  Instead, I was posting an explanation of how I came to structure my workouts to facilitate more frequent training.  Thus it is the how, not the why or the what, that is important in the creation of a routine, be it wildly unstructured or rigidly constructed.  Given the fact that no two people are alike, and that no two people will likely respond identically to similar loads, uniform structure for any workout seems to me to be absurd.  Granted, various parties will assert that the average person can handle a certain load, but there is a simple counter to that- the average person does not, in fact, exist.  The "average person" is a fictional character who exists only in the minds of people so deluded that they'll hold onto the fanciful notions of a fictional character to justify their construction of banal programs that produce mediocre results and insulate the program's creator from lawsuits. Furthermore, if an "average" person does exist somewhere, I will bet my spleen that they don't fucking lift, so any point predicated upon what the average person can do is moot.

If I'm wrong, you can have it. 

Next, I'm certain that anyone can produce any number of reasons not to do something.  I found that I was consistently crippling myself by deadlifting at over 95% of my 1RM, and so I drastically curtailed the frequency of that lift.  It wasn't because my body could not handle more deadlifting- it was because my body couldn't handle more deadlifting at that loading protocol.  I felt, however, that any weight under 585 was beneath me, both literally and figuratively (fuck me, I'm a funny motherfucker), and so I'd force myself through endless singles at what was at the time between 95% and 96.6% of my one rep max and fuck myself up in the process.  Nowhere in my blog does it state that one should confine themselves to that sort of loading- I did it without actively considering the protocol, or the ramifications thereof, but rather because I liked deadlifting 6 plates.

As to the "constant bashing of others" to which you refer, I find a great many training systems to be predicated upon cowardice and a staunch adherence to mediocrity, and am pleased to state as much.  I would caution one, however, not to read too much into those statements, as applying the perceived epithets therein to one's self, if you are not one of the parties specifically mentioned, is incorrect.  I'll happily call out those parties whom I find distasteful, pathetic, or completely beneath contempt.  If you're you've gone unnamed, it's likely because you're not one of those parties to whom I'm referring.  I am attempting to make a fairly comprehensive list, though, and it'll be in an upcoming blog entitled "You're the Disease, and I'm the Cure", which was obviously inspired by the movie Cobra, in all of its wonder and glory.  Hosanna in the highest.

As to the last bit, I actually welcome criticism, as it helps me flesh out bits of my thesis that are either mis- or simply not understood.  For instance, people seem to have gotten the idea that forbid certain exercises, which is completely ridiculous.  The only exercise for which I would suggest someone be summarily executed for performing is a squat on a swiss ball, because that's just fucking stupid, and of course, Hercules Curls, for reasons I've already outlined.  That stated, if people feel like doing them, I could give a flying fuck- just know that you're an asshole and we can move on, haha.  To the guys who'll going to whine, as they do incessantly, that I never address their criticisms, it's because they confuse slander and defamation, in the form of ad hominem attacks on myself and my family, with criticism.  That's understandable, because they're obviously fucking retarded.

The denouement- if you've come to the conclusion that you're only capable of doing an exercise once a week, it's because of the manner in which you've chosen to do it, time constraints, or a simple conscious decision not to, rather than because you're incapable.  I love shrugging, and always get carried away with it, and so I preclude doing so more often, because with the myriad pulling movements I find myself doing, I get all fucked up.  Additionally, given that the shrug, the high pull, the clean, and the deadlift are all variations of what amounts to the same movement, it seems redundant to do them all everyday anyway.  Thus, the fact that I'm doing cleans 4-6 days a week means that I'm essentially doing light, dynamic deadlifts in 70-85% of my workouts, and the fact that I've increased my deadlift by 20 lbs in the last couple months is a testament to my methodology, rather than an identification of hypocrisy therein.

Deadlift Frequency... Or A Total Lack Thereof.

I've stated before that I rarely deadlift more than once a month. I'd read in the past that a wide variety of elite level powerlifters eschewed the deadlift in favor of other exercises for the majority of a month, and then trained the deadlift once or twice therein to ensure that they were still capable of doing the lift. Though Andy Bolton trains 10x3-5 every Wednesday on the dead, and does so after his squat, it seems more often than not powerlifters avoid doing this exercise more than fortnightly. I've essentially tried every level of frequency imaginable for the deadlift, as for a long time it was by far and away both my favorite exercise and my best lift.

My Jon Pall Sigmarrson imitation with 375.

At one point around 2000, I was doing a push-pull meet every 6 months or so, and as I've never been a big bencher, was relying entirely on my deadlift to get me through. As such, I started doing some of the craziest shit you could imagine to get it moving up ever further, and in doing so discovered that my body does indeed have a limit on the amount of training shenanigans it will endure before it tells me to fuck off. Now, I'm not talking about "cheeky and fun" shenanigans- I'm talking Farva-esque "cruel and tragic" shenanigans. This was the workout I developed to get my deadlift from 515-555 over the course of about a year, done once a week:
Deadlift to max 8-10 sets progressively increasing until failure
Rack deadlift from knees to max in the same manner
One arm, 2 finger deadlifts 5x5 (using two fingers and a thumb on one hand, alternating hands)
One finger deadlifts 5x1 (using both arms, thumb and index finger)
Shrugs 6x5-10

Yeah. That just fucking happened. I loved that fucking workout, and looked forward to it all week. That is, until my midback cramped one day while picking up a 30 lb dumbbell off the rack, and I had to stop lifting back for a couple of months due to completely debilitating, uncontrollable cramping. Since then, nearly every time I deadlift to max more than once every couple of months, my back cramps up horribly and it totally fucks my other lifts, most notably front and back squats. As such, I'd all but laid off deadlifts for the last year or so, doing them only when I didn't feel like doing anything else and wanted to get fucking nuts in the gym.


Lately, I decided that discretion was the better form of valor, and as my dead had been stuck at 615 for the last 6-10 months, I figured I'd try something a bit different. About two months ago, I decided to cut my shrugging back to once a week and supplement that with deadlifts at 85% of my 1rm for 45 mins to an hour of singles. I didn't track my reps, ground out all of the knots in my back in between sets by laying back onto a barbell and driving myself into it as it lay in the rack, and hitting a single about once a minute. The result, after dropping about 5 lbs of fat, I pulled 635 easy. Thereafter, I went for 675, and got it halfway up before realizing it might be the last thing I ever did if I kept pulling, haha.

What'd I learn from this?

1. If you lift like a complete fucking asshole, your body's going to let you know what it thinks about things at some point.
2. If you tone down the assholishness a bit, you can get your body back on the same page as your brain, more or less.
3. Dogmatism of any form is a fucking horrible thing. If you dogmatically follow any program, as I did, without considering the repercussions, or simply ignoring them when they arise, you're fucking yourself, and you look like a jackass in the process. Adaptation, assimilation, and modification are your fucking friends in the gym. Additionally, dogmatically following any system, be it Rippetoe's, Pythagorus's (that asshole drowned one of his students, because the guy discovered irrational numbers) or Jesus's, and you'll one day find yourself a pudgy little fucker wearing a lime green t-shirt bearing the words "Dance so that the Lord can see it" in a bookstore while drinking some sugar-laden coffee concoction and wondering why you have man tits, like the sorry motherfucker before me right now. Dogmatism is bad.

For comparison, some big deadlifters' routines:

SHW Andy Bolton, the only man to ever deadlift over 1000 lbs, current record holder with 1009 lb DL:
Monday
10 min on bike to warm up.
bench press: 10x 3 to 5 reps using 3 different height boards on chest 2″, 4″ and 6″.
close grip bench: 3 x 5 reps
light shoulder press: 2 x 8 reps
light front and side delt’s.
heavy vbar pushdowns working up to max at 6 to 10 reps.
abs: 5x10

Tuesday: rest day.

Wednesday:
squats:10x3-8
1/4 squats: sets of 3 reps
deadlift:. 10x3 to 5
partial deadlifts pulled from shin height: (with straps) for an array of reps and sets

Friday:

Lying leg curls 4 sets 8/10reps
Single leg curls 2 sets 8/10reps
Leg ex 3 sets 12/20 reps
Leg press max weight 600kg 20 reps
Seated calf raises 2 sets 20 reps
Barbell shrugs 4 sets 10/12 reps max weight used 410kg/900lbs
Hammer rows single arm 3 sets 8/10reps max weight used 200kg
Vbar pulldowns 3 sets 8/10reps
Dumbbell concentration curl 3 sets 12 done for pump only
Dumbbell hammer curls 3 sets 10reps max weight done 130lb
Abs floor crunches 4 sets 10/12reps

Konstantin Konstantinovs (#1 ranked raw powerlifter, 847 lb raw DL at 275 lbs)
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.

After this the microcycle is repeated.

Two brutal lifters, two wildly different methods, and both completely different from Ed Coan's widely utilized deadlifting methodology.

There are no universal truths in lifting- there's only what's working for you right now, and what have and haven't worked for you in the past. All else is fucking horseshit.

Heavens! You Say I've Worked My Shoulders Too Many Times In a Week?!?! Part Two.

I'm fairly certain that I heard a bunch of you screaming "bullshit" in your heads while reading my last post, so allow me to elucidate a few of the more salient points from that one.

First, as a recap, there are two basic types of muscle fibers- type I (slow twitch) and type II (fast twitch).  Type II can be broken down further into IIa and IIb, which are intermediate and true fast twitch fibers, respectively, but for the sake of brevity, I'm going to address them together as type II.  Type I fibers are slow to contract, have more mitochondria, and are surrounded like the Texans at the Alamo by capillaries, except the capillaries pretty much serve the purpose of bringing in live strippers and dragging out the dead ones from Ben Affleck's trailer, rather than killing those valiant Type I fibers, Mexican style.  I know, that was a bizarre analogy.  In any event, the capillaries illustrate exactly the purpose of those fibers, as they carry in nutrients and rid those fibers of the waste generated by aerobic activity.  As you'd guess, they're fairly weak, and far less dense than Type II fibers.  By contrast, Type II fibers contract and relax far more quickly, have higher glycolytic activity, and store a shitload of phosphates and glycogen.  They suffer from a paucity of the capillaries you'd find in the type I fibers, but they replace them with glycogen stores, which allow you to look huge and ripped during a supercompensation phase, and store quick-draw energy directly in the muscles for explosive, heavy lifting.

Not designed for jogging.

Everyone has a blend of both types, which varies based on a combination of genetic and ontogenic factors.  Basically, you've got the frame of the house built but your genetics, and then the details filled in by lifestyle and training history.  On the genetic side, you're obviously going to display the characteristics associated genetically with your ethnicity, so that people of West African descent, for instance, will display a more muscular physique, "with a smaller natural lung capacity and .... 70 or 75 percent of [type IIb muscle fibers] when they are born." (Chicago Tribune)  Ontogenic factors then play a role, so that one's level and type of activity throughout one's youth can play a major role in the development and distribution of muscle fibers.  Thus, you could have two guys who are virtually the same size and shape, following the same programs for a three months at the outset of lifting, but with remarkably varied strength levels at varied lifts at the end of the three months.  They'd find, however, that the longer they trained together, and the more they followed similar or identical training plans and diets, they'd make headway at closing the gap between them.  They would never, ever, have identical builds or lifts, but they'd close the gap a bit.  This would occur because all muscle fibers can respond to athletic training by improving their ability to perform, according to the manner in which they're trained.  Doing a shitload of cardio like you're a low-rent Lance Armstrong would cause your musculature to transform itself accordingly, increasing the mitochondria and capillaries in Type II fibers until they came to resemble Type I fibers.  Conversely, murdering the weights will enhance one's phosphagen system, making one's type I fibers begin to resemble Type II fibers in form and function.  They'll never make a full transition, but your body will do it's damnedest to keep you in the game. (Nutrient Timing, p.151)

 No amount of training is getting this chick into the Olympics for weightlifting, unless it's because she's impaled on someone's cock.

Adding to this disparity in muscle fiber percentages, and the efficiency of non-ideal muscle fibers for the type of exercise in which one is participating, are a variety of biochemical factors.  No two people are exactly alike in the manner in which their body processes any nutrient or hormone, to the point where medical doctors admit that "what we can't do yet, is to identify the most appropriate modality of management for individual patients, based on the specific abnormalities each person has." (Metabolic Man, p.157)  If doctors can't even get dosing regimens exactly correct for dying patients, due to interactivity issue with both the patient's diet and existing pharmacological regime, in addition to their individual biochemistry, you'd be hard pressed to show me a single fucking "expert" who can tell me exactly what an exercise will do for me when I utilize it, especially when it's broken down further into frequency, loading, and rep scheme.  Additionally, they're not going to be able to accurately predict what my recovery time is, because there are far too many factors that contribute to that beyond those I've already mentioned, like one's nutrition and sleep.  Insofar as nutrition is concerned, that's not even an accurate indicator, due to the fact that gastric juices have extreme variations in enzyme content from person to person, which would drastically affect their rate and level of individual nutrient absorption.  (Biochemical Individuality, p. 83)  Additionally, people utilize amino acids very differently, ranging from 2% utilization to ~99%, and the enzymes necessary to bring about the oxidation of certain amino acids are almost wholly absent in some people (Biochemical Individuality, p. 81)  Bizarre, right?  That's how it's possible for you and a buddy to eat exactly the same things for two weeks and have completely different patterns for shitting and pissing, in addition to wholly different volumes of excreta, the entire fucking time. (p. 112)

...making it very hard for these chicks to predict how many people they'll need to provide their next meal.

Thrown in on top of the fucking mess you've got before you is the fact that your organs aren't the same size or shape as anyone else's, or even in the same place.  Heart size, shape, and function vary widely in individuals due to genetics, diet, and exercise, which obviously has a massive effect on the metabolism in every part of the body, as every function in your body is limited by the quantity and quality of blood it receives ( p.32)   Thyroids also vary in weight from 8-50 grams, and the shape of them varies to the point where in many people the glad is actually two glands connected by a narrow isthmus. (BI p. 93) As you can imagine, the function in one's thyroid would necessarily be just as varied as it's shape and location.  Your pituitary gland, which controls GH production, also varies widely, and there's a 58 fold excretion range in steroid excretions for males- so even if everything else is the same, your excretion and uptake of testosterone and GH can differ so widely that there's no way a program will affect two individuals exactly.

By now, if you remain unconvinced that 6 x 3 x 3RM three times a week on any lift would affect me wildly differently than it would you, you should shut off your computer and go drown yourself in your fucking bathtub, because you're unequivocally severely retarded.  There is no humanly possible way to predict what effect a given volume of any exercise will have on an individual, unless it's so extreme that it will definitely have a negative impact due to its severity or laxness.  Thus, when someone says you lack balance in your program, save your breath and simply curb stomp them, because they're fucking parrots who are wasting decent oxygen and your time.

It should also be readily apparent at this point why I suggest that you err on the side of excess in terms of nutrition and supplementation- it's FAR less likely that you're in the tiny minority of people who are able to utilize high percentages of every nutrient you ingest than you are on the opposite side of that scale.  Furthermore, there's so little evidence to support the idea that you'd suffer from hypervitaminosis or the alleged ill-effects of "protein overdose" if you consume what mainstream society considers megadoses of vitamins and protein, that you can hardly go wrong.  If you are one of the proud few whose hair falls out from vitamin A or shit out a kidney from excessive protein consumption, that'd be a good sign that you're overdoing it, but good on you for getting the fuck after it.  Now, go eat a steak and squat until you feel like fucking stopping, and if anyone tells you that you're overdoing it, channel your inner Ed Norton and let them taste-test some concrete.

Heavens! You Say I've Worked My Shoulders Too Many Times In a Week?!?!

One common criticism of my training methodology is the fact that I lack "balance" in my program design.  People point in particular to the fact that I have a primary emphasis on quadriceps and deltoids, to the detriment of everything else.  It's their contention, I suppose, that this creates muscular imbalances that will eventually manifest themselves in injuries.

Behold the awesome power of leg extensions. HAHAHAHA. 

Bullshit.  It's these same dunderheaded, magazine-reading, bro-science dripping goofballs who will pontificate endlessly about dumbbell bench presses, the utility of which ranges between negligible and nonsensical for most people.  For whatever reason, they seem to think that every exercise has precisely the same effect on everyone,  regardless of size, shape, relative strength levels, and leverages.  Additionally, they think everyone wants to look like whomever's in vogue on their ridiculous site that day, be it Francis Benefatto or Frank Zane or Steve Reeves or Arnold or whatever.  It's rare that you'll see strength training enthusiasts blather on about this, because they know better.

 

Stripper shoes + drinking + one arm deadlift with her tits out = always in vogue.  Probably what Valhalla would look like, only without the crossfitters. 

First and foremost, I take issue with the idea that any program should be based around bodyparts, and think it's fucking ridiculous that anyone would attempt to parse the body into individual parts.  Planes, maybe, I can see, but parts?  What bodypart does the power clean work, primarily? Most people would say, unequivocally, back.  Well, not for me- my powerclean is all traps and legs.  Since the back and traps are all part of the same basic bodypart, this is mere quibbling, but I'm trying to illustrate a point, alright?  Settle the fuck down.  Now, given my relative strength disparity between my traps and every other part of my body, it would stand to reason that they can handle a greater workload, and they'll take other nearby bodyparts out of the equation, wholly or in part, simply due to the fact that they're able to do so.  This will occur with anyone who has a dominant bodypart.  As such, 6 sets of cleans will hit my body in a wildly different way than they would a tall guy with a swimmer's build, leverages be damned.

Dmitri Klokov. 6', 231, and actually has good form.  He and are aren't hitting ANY of the same shit while doing snatches, or my amusing approximation thereof.

Which, of course, brings us to Biochemical Individuality.  You might think that one's biochemistry doesn't factor into this equation, but it's one's biochemistry and genetics that determines, by and large, bone length and density, one's dominant muscle fiber types (at least initially), location of insertion points for muscles (and thereby determine that muscle's length).  Given the massive disparity in organ size and placement, it stands to reason that one's musculature would also differ from everyone else's, as would their intramuscular production of ATP, rate of creatine utilization, neuromuscular efficiency, and the like.  Given that we know training alters the rate at which protein is absorbed in humans, and the rate of creatine utilization, we can thus derive further evidence of differentiation between the workload and the stress placed on a body by a given workload between individuals.  Thus, attempting to organize a program by bodypart seems like a remarkably simplistic systems, which could be described as insipid, ignorant, and lazy by anyone less inclined toward love for his fellow man than I.

Now that I've obliquely insulted virtually every person you've ever met, consider that athletes train exercises, by and large, and their physiques generally reflect the exercises they choose.  As the Bulgarians have insisted for decades, form follows function.  As such, it seems that the bodybuilders might be onto something, since they train ridiculously, and generally look ridiculous as well.  For anyone interested in moving weights in the gym, however, that sort of a methodology is patently absurd.  Certainly, training all of the same planes and movements would diminish one's ability to successfully complete lifts at a high percentage of one's 1RM, so maxing on bench, OHP, and BTN press in the same workout would be about as unproductive as something could be.  That's not to state, however, that training all three exercises in a rotation over the course of the week would be, however.

Next time, way more BI shit, a hell of a lot of insulting the cumulative intellects of bodybuilders, and hopefully more chicks of reasonably hot broads in strippers shoes, drinking and lifting simultaneously..

The B in Beginner Doesn't Stand For "Bitch"

Recently I read a letter response from Rodney Roller to a beginner, who was inquiring of Rodney the frequency with which a new jack should train(it's in this month's Muscular Development, if you want to check it out).  Rodney lamented that he lacks the drive to train all day that he once possessed, but stated that young lifters should avoid the temptation to train too much, as they'd suffer from the dreaded overtraining and find themselves stricken with polio, penniless, and possibly a derelict drunkard.  Instead, they should pace themselves to avoid this ephemeral yet uniformly dreaded condition and stick to a traditional one-bodypart-a-week programs.

I respect Rodney Roller for being a freak, and he's a strong fucking guy, but this advice is pure, unadulterated horseshit.  I've posted at great length about what a load of fucking bollocks overtraining is, and that it's generally mental burnout that's what gets lifters, rather than actual physical overuse issues.  For those of you who can't be bothered to click links, here's the crux of that post: overtraining has exactly the same symptoms as the phenomenon known in the Eastern Bloc as "staleness".  According to Zatsiorsky, "staleness" occurs due to the psychological (not physiological) stress that is created by continually training at near-maximal training volumes.  Doing so frequently is incredibly mentally exhausting, and this mental exhaustion, as mental issues are generally wont to do, manifests itself physically. (Zatsiorsky, Vladimir, "Intensity of Strength Training Facts and Theory Russian and Eastern Approach", p. 15)  Overuse, on the other hand, generally manifests itself as actually injuries, rather than a general malaise, and is thus far easier to diagnose, and easier to avoid.

"It's all about doing the right shit", said Franco as he shit his pants in front of several hundred people.

One of the great benefits to being a beginner is the excitement and enthusiasm one has for training, and it's important that we encourage new lifters to harness, rather than stifle, this enthusiasm to ensure that they build an awesome foundation for the future with their training.  Additionally, new lifters get what's known as "beginner's gain", in which they have massive gains in muscular size and strength as their bodies adapt to to the workload placed upon them.  Provided that they eat and sleep enough and lifting in the right way, this is the best opportunity to train until their fucking faces fall off, rather than huddling in the fucking corner with a Goosebumps book, a flashlight, and their blankie, hoping the light will scare off the overtraining boogeyman that Mark Rippetoe assured them would arrive at any moment to steal their souls and the left sock from every pair in their sock drawer.  For those of you who remain unconvinced, and truly believe that overtraining is coming for you, some things to consider:

•  it is "easier to cause a performance decrease in athletes dependent on prolonged monotonous extensive training at a high training load than on intensified training of 1-2 hours per day."(#1, pp. 9-10)  Thus, if you're not boring the shit out of yourself with high rep, low-intensity bullshit like three sets of ten for eight hours a day, you're probably going to do just fine busting your ass in the gym as a beginner.
• it's characterized in a nation that lacks a phobia to physical labor (China) as "generally a condition or status which is caused by constant severe training that does not provide adequate time and modalities for recovery." (#2)

Thus, it would stand to reason that provided that one avoided weightlifting with low loading protocols for extended periods of time, daily, they should be able to avoid overtraining.  Add in the enthusiasm and extreme adaptation that all new lifters exhibit to training, and you've got ground zero for a full-scale nuclear war on the weights, rather than the limited-scale war that some goofballs, Roller included, suggest.  I say throw caution to the wind, because you only get those gains once, and after you stop being a beginner, you're never going to see strength gains and muscular growth like that again.

I've stated before that I don't generally deal in beginner routines, due to the fact that beginners rarely listen to anyone with a modicum of education in strength training in nutrition, tending instead to devote the entirety of their attention to the guy they see curling and benching the most.  That sad fact aside, here are my recommendations for male beginners:

• eat your motherfucking face off.  Unless you're fat as shit, no calorie is going to be a bad calorie for the first 6 months you're in the gym, provided you're murdering weights like you're a modern day Vlad the Impaler and the weights are Turks who want you to adopt their desert mythology in lieu of whatever else you might feel like doing.  I went 351 consecutive days of eating Taco Bell my junior year of high school, because I could get 10 tacos with just meat on them for $4 after figuring out a loophole in their pricing system, and I've got massive calves to show for it, since I had a fascination with weighted calf raises that defies explanation.  Just make sure you're getting protein with EVERY meal, and a shitload of it.  The old adage that you can only absorb 30-40g of protein at a sitting defies both science and common sense.  More is better.  
• spend the majority of your time getting stronger, not prettier.  If you really want to get pretty, save that for the second half of the year.  The first 6 months should be all about getting as strong as you possibly can.  The heavier you go, the better your neurological adaptation to lifting will be, and the more gains you'll see in the future as a result.
• skip the pansy-ass machine bullshit.  Great strength and physiques are forged in heavy free weight exercises.  You'll get much bigger arms from heavy rows than you will from machine curls... and as we all know, getting bigger arms is the primary, secondary, and tertiary goal of every new jack in the gym. up. 
• make sure you're squatting, deadlifting, cleaning, and overhead pressing more often than you're engaging in any other lifts.  These lifts will have the greatest carryover into other exercises, will have the best crossover into sports training, and will precipitate the most extreme metabolic changes.  In other words, the more you do them, the leaner, stronger, and more muscular you'll get, faster than you would anything else.
• have fucking fun.  Lifting should be a good time.  Thus, if you have an exercise that you like doing, or at which you want to get good, have the fuck at it, provided it's not cable crossovers or hercules curls.  If you love those exercises, go take a shit in the toilet, don't flush, and then jam your head into the bowl and drown yourself, because next to Sarah Palin, you suck more than any other person of whom I can think off the top of my head.

If you're a female new jack, squat.  Then squat some more.  Then eat a massive amount of protein, constantly remind yourself that you don't need to eat ice cream or macaroni and cheese, and then squat more.  For whatever reason, chicks get away with far fewer dietary shenanigans than do males, and are wholly averse to eating protein.  If you spend a couple of months eating steak and squatting, you'll see that you're not ever going to look like Mariusz Pudzianowski, no matter what sort of craziness you get up to, and you'll have your head right for lifting.  That stated, I rarely train women, but I've recently been informed that some actually read this blog for whatever reason, so that's my two cents.

I realize, for the sticklers, that I've not generated a routine.  There's a reason for that- I don't think beginners need one.  Instead they need to be pointed in the right direction, need to find someone who can teach them good form, and then go lift some weights.   Beginners rarely follow routines, so it's useless to design them anyway.  I just want people to realize that just because they're beginners, they don't have to lift like bitches.

 Tell beginners to err on the side of maniacal.

1. Lehmann, M. J., Lormes, W., Opitz-Gress, A., Steinacker, J. M., Netzer, N., Foster, C., & Gastmann, U. (1997). Training and overtraining: An overview and experimental results in endurance sports. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 37, 7-17.
2. Bin Bu, Quansheng Su, Junzhi Sun (2003) "Overtraining research advances in China."Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness (2003), 1(2):125-128, citing Qu & Yu 2003; Cheng 1996; Chinese Medical Encyclopaedia 1989. 

Finally... the PR or ER T-Shirts.

Shipping begins next Tuesday, and I'm ordering limited runs until I have a clear idea of how many you fuckers are going to order.  To you fat fucks, it sucks that they're more expensive, but when little kids are going unclothed, and the printer has to steal bedsheets and destroy big-top tents to make them, you pay a little extra.  To whoever wanted the 4XLs, I didn't put any in the first run, but if you and anyone who wants smalls email me, I'll place another order shortly and ensure that I get some of those sizes in there.

Represent yo' shit muthafuckas!

Sizes

S $16.00 M $16.00 L $16.00 XL $16.00 2XL $17.00 3XL $17.50 4XL $18.00

Before You Go On Vacation From Your Diet This Weekend...

Some food for thought. Yeah, I'm a witty motherfucker.


Going off your diet every now and again is not the end of all things, and can actually help with fatloss, your overall sanity, and with your recovery time. Thus, when you're hanging out at a barbecue hollering at bitches, you can stuff your face with burgers and beer to your heart's content. Here's why:

1. Stressing about your food at what should be a casual event will cause a release of cortisol, which as we all know is catabolic. Therefore, obsessing over your diet in a place over which you have no control of what will be served can actually make you smaller and weaker, in addition to definitely making you look fucking stupid. Having a bit of a vacation from your diet allows your mind to return to a state of what can sort of be considered normalcy, but if you read this blog with any frequency, you're likely nowhere near "normal" by societal standards. Clinical sociopathy isn't normal, I'm told. I stabbed the bitch who happened to mutter that in my direction, though, so I didn't really get a clarification on that.
2. Going off your diet in a planned manner for short periods of time (under a month) has very little negative impact on bodyfat, and will not inhibit your ability to go back on your diet thereafter. In a study in 2003, a bunch of people were put on a typical diet for a while, and then told to plan to go off their diets for 2-6 weeks, after which time they'd go back on. The scientists conducting the study saw little negative change in metabolism or body composition in the test subjects. The key, however, is to plan to do this, and not treat it like a fucking trip to the all you can eat buffet, but rather that you're just going to eat like a normal human being for a while. If you treat it like a multi-week cheat meal, you're going to get fat. (Wing RR and RW Jeffrey "Prescribed 'Breaks' as a means to disrupt weight control efforts." Obes Res (2003) 11:287-291.
3. Taking a short break from a strict diet shouldn't really affect the hormones involved in the physiological response to dieting, especially if you've already dieted for a long enough period of time that you've significantly lowered your bodyfat set point into the single digits. Both Duchaine and McDonald recommend this, and do so with some force. They recommend, however, that you do essentially what the dieters in #2 did- eat reasonably. Keep the fats reasonably low, and bump up your carbs over 100g a day for a while. This will speed your metabolism and make your dieting, once you resume it, far more effective.
4. If you've been dieting fairly hard for a while, and you've been taking fewer than two refeeds a week in an effort t get extra lean, you're probably suffering from metabolic slowdown, and could use the metabolic boost that taking a break from your diet will provide.
5. Whining about your diet in front of chicks, or discussing your lifting program, is just about the fastest way on the planet to divest yourself of any and all interest the opposite sex might have in you. As such, you should probably refrain from discussing your exploits in the gym, as chicks likely will have no frame of reference for the weights, you'll like like a half-moron meathead (at best), and that conversation leads nowhere. As for discussing your diet, or bringing your own food to a barbecue (which I've seen happen), makes you seem like a vain, shallow, and possibly retarded, or a combination thereof. As such, just eat whatever's there and enjoy yourself, and leave the solipsism at home for the duration of whatever public gathering you're attending. Once it's over, you can go back to plotting the downfall of the government without the use of the internet, playing with your Troll dolls, or whatever it is that you fuckers do in your free time.

Now, go eat some fucking burgers and celebrate the fact that you're not drinking piss warm beer and eating a Ploughman's Lunch while wearing a powdered wig, and that you've never lost a war to the French. To you foreigners out there, continue about your business and lament the fact that you've either lost a war with the French or you're not eating burgers and getting shithoused this weekend.

The irony of this pic being manga was not lost on me, but it was apparently lost on the creator of this poster.

1.