July 2021 edit: updated guide with now 70 pages total 3rd edit

Note: Reddit has a limit on how quickly I can post, so check back for more notes posted in the comments section.

4/4 2pm MST Update: Check back for notes on sumo deadlift form checklift, squat form checklist, vertical diet summary, and an updated women's advice section.

Quick Intro:

Over the past 6 months I've been reading books, watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, and trying new methods of training all in my pursuit to be more fit. That said, I've decided to share notes I've taken on the three coaches I consider to be the top teachers and doers of the strength, conditioning, and nutrition industry, whose pedigree spread across the experienced trenches of Olympians, US Special Operations, World Strongest Man, UFC, NFL, etc --just to name a few. Now, they are by no means the holders of the gospel of fitness, nor are they the only voices worth listening to, but here's why I chose who I chose:

Philosophy of Choice:

• Achievements in personal fitness - need to be fit, and have fitness results in their own life. Can't be all head knowledge or studies. No book worms or science nerds without the in-the-trenches experience.

• Achievements in client fitness - need to have produced results in others lives, because knowing what works for you is vastly different than being able to identify, correct, and advance what works for others.

• Renown and respected by the community - peers need to recognize contributions to the community

• Longevity - How long have they been in the game? How long have they stayed healthy? How long have they been training clients? All important questions in establishing reputation.

Why I Chose Stan Efferding:

To me, Stan is the summation of an average guy with absolute discipline who's taken the best advice from the best gurushe's personally trained with from around the world for decades, and becoming himself an absolute beast. I chose Stan because of his humble demeanor, and because he's also one of the strongest bodybuilders in the world. Additionally, he has trained the Mountain to win his first Arnolds Strongest Man 2018 this past March.

• Blue collar guy who presents some info. No tips or tricks. Turned over every rock looking for the secret. Spent loads of money, and there is only one answer: sleep, eat, and train.

• Matt Wenning calls him "the strongest bodybuilder on planet earth."

• Helped get Hapthorr "The Mountain" diet in check, where he set records in elephant bar (1000lbs+) and bag-over-bar, and take first as Arnolds Strongest Man 2018.

• Coached various bikini competitors, NBA, NFL, MLB, UFC, etc

• Worked with Brian Shaw's diet and helped him achieve second place at Arnolds Strongest Man 2018.

• Coaching Larry Wheels (aesthetic and powerful beast) and Dan Green.

• Has trained with almost every guru in the business, directly or indirectly.

• Former bodybuilding and powerlifting competitor.

• Squats in the 800lbs+ at 50+ years of age.

Why I Chose Charles Poliquin:

One of the first world renown and truly experienced strength coaches of the modern era. "Research catches up to Charles," has been said about his bleeding edge yet common sense approach to training. While considered by a few to be the king of psuedo-science, the ironic part of this claim is that from all my note-taking from the past 6 months --from books on Green Berets to interviews with the Mountain to 3-hour long seminars with various teachers-- Charles cites his sources and explains the history of what he's talking about more often than any other individual or source I've been reading, watching, or listening.

• One of the best and most distinguished strength coaches in the world.

• Trained various Special Operations (Seal Team 6, SAS included)

• Coached the US womens team to win their first Olympic gold in history, and defeated Japan in their 20 year reign.

• 38+ years of Olympian training across 23 different sports, went to 3 different Olympics as a coach. Also have trained various high-level professional athletes and coaches in the military, Crossfit, NFL, NHL, MLB, etc.

• Researches studies from as far back as 1890's

• Ability to recall information, facts, research papers, all to the date, location of study, and to the author/researcher, a skill second to no other fitness expert (reminds me of the level of expert recall Robert McNaramara displays in the documentary "Fog of War").

• Lectures around the world with book authors like Jay Papasanas, Ed Coan, and world renown athletes like Dmitry Klokov.

• Always ahead of the curve (attributed as first in the US to recommend BCAAs, fish oils, German Volume training, tempo training, cluster training, neuro transmitter profile training, etc).

• Stan Efferding, Matt Wenning, and Mark Bell have all implemented information from Charles into their personal training, and how they train clients, and all speak highly of him.

• Has huge biceps and abs for an old man.

Why I Chose Matt Wenning:

I chose Matt because of his personal and professional achievements. Hired to train various Special Operations for the military and is the first to be implemented at a large scale. His methods have reduced injury rates across the board for fire, police, and military (and thus saved money for those organizations), and is a master of training and preventing overtraining.

• Multiple records in the squat alone, including a 1196lb squat.

• Broke 4 world records; second highest RAW at 208 class with 2204lb total.

• Works with thousands of US military, including various Ranger regiments, 4th Infantry, and paratroopers out of Bragg.

• Developed Mountain Warrior Athlete program out of Ft. Carson.

• Clients include NFL, US Special Operations, law enforcement, fireman, professional athletes, universities, elderly (difficult to train and yield safe results) and kids with disabilities

• His training with first responders and military has reduced site budgets significantly, due to decreased injuries and insurance claims.

• Attended university in Indiana where NASA funded the strength and conditioning programs and recruited top-tier professors.

• Top ten in the world for almost two decades with no major injuries (rare in the strength industry)

• Masters degree in sports biomechanics under Dr. Kramer

• Trained closely and mentored by various powerlifting legends like Louie Simmons, Ed Coan from his teen years, and was one of the youngest to squat 900lbs

Notes on Notetaking:

Each section of notes will include everything I felt was noteworthy, even if it's repeated 3 times in 3 other podcasts. I did this as people will cherry-pick which seminars they want notes on, and I don't want them to miss out on key information just because I wrote it down elsewhere. Also, rehearing the same things over and over again just works as positive reinforcement and mentally conditioning good habits. Can't hurt to hear solid advice over and over again.

Additionally, these notes are taken as a stream-of-thought process and later revised and edited, so they may seem short, fluid, or lacking in information. I reread the notes a few times and tried to expand and clean up, but I will have missed some parts.

Table of Contents:

1. Stan Efferding Seminar P.1 - The Importance of Sleep, Nutrition, & Steroids

2. Stan Efferding Seminar P.2 - Grow BIGGER by Getting Good at the Basics

3. Stan Efferding KOMPLETTES Seminar in THOR's Powergym P.1

4. Stan Efferding KOMPLETTES Seminar in THOR's Powergym P.2

5. Stan Efferding - The Matt Wenning Strength podcast Episode 8: Effiting It Up With Stan Efferding

6. Stan Efferding - JuggLife | Return of the Rhino

7. Stan Efferding - Strong Talk Podcast 113: Stan Efferding - Training The Mountain

8. Matt Wenning - Ben Pulkaski's Muscle Expert Podcast Ep 48| The 300 Rep Warm Up and Expert Recovery and Programming Strategies

9. Matt Wenning - Absolute Strength Podcast Ep. 105 | Unique Powerlifting Techniques, Meet Prep, Sleep and Warming Up

10. Matt Wenning - Hammershed Podcast Episode 26 | Training the Military

11. Matt Wenning - National Strength & Conditioning Association | Sumo Deadlift: The Base for Tactical Strength

12. Matt Wenning - National Strength & Conditioning Association | Conjugate Periodization

13. Matt Wenning - National Strength & Conditioning Association | Programming for Tactical Populations

14. Matt Wenning - National Strength & Conditioning Association | The Squat—How it Improves Athletic Performance

15. Charles Poliquin - Training Volume, Nutrition & Fat Loss

16. Charles Poliquin - Aerobic exercise may be destroying your body, weightlifting can save it

17. Charles Poliquin - Interview (P.1) | The Tim Ferriss Show

18. Charles Poliquin - Interview (P.2) | The Tim Ferriss Show

19. Charles Poliquin - Powercast: The Myth of Discipline Pt 1

20. Charles Poliquin - Strength Sensei Part 1 | London Real Podcast

21. Charles Poliquin - Strength Sensei Part 2 | London Real Podcast

22. Charles Poliquin - Strength Sensei Part 3 | London Real Podcast

Misc Info:

• Example US Army Ranger conjugate workout split (towards the bottom)

• Vertical Diet, simplified (used for the Mountain, NFL, bikini competitors, etc)

Compilation of Notes Regarding Training Women: (work in progress)

• For the female lifter: 10-minute walks better than 40 minute treadmill. Doesn't breakdown muscle, still helps with fat loss.

• If on a limited calorie diet, then the caloric limit will yield results in body composition and performance based on the choice of foods, not just calorie choice. Choose nutrient rich foods like steak.

• 3oz of OJ or milk a couple times a day: liver and thyroid stimulus for metabolism.

• Long cardio has high water demand. Sends wrong message to body: body holds on to fat to endure the longer workload. Also, body thinks heavy muscle is bad, gets rid of it.

• Stan noticed how joggers carry fat. Body holds on to fat for fuel, gets rid of muscle. Body responds to stimulus you provide.

• Still need to develop cardio. Recommends HIIT under load: improves cardio while stimulating muscle. Weighted exercises with higher reps (why Matt and Stan recommend loaded exercise under distance). Performing 20 rep sets, or 30 second rest between weighted carries, running stairs (all concentric loading), pushing prowlers, 30s sprint/rest on recumbent bike (ten mins) are all great examples of cardio development.

• "How do you talk people into losing weight by lifting weights?" Cites his 60 year old women who lift weights and are lean. They don't have prior exercise experience, and they're stronger than most men.

• How much weight you have on you is 80% diet. Cardio isn't what gets bikini and stage competitors lean, it's they eat better. "Don't want to be huge? Don't eat huge."

• When you start training weights you start to retain water, so swelling occurs. Hypertrophy occurs, diet cleans up, everything will lean out.

• "Foam rolling is a waste of time, and also leads to more scar tissue." Evidence shows treadmill warmups insulin resistance by 46%.

• Research: Sleep loss limits fat loss. Insulin resistance goes up; blood pressure goes up; hunger goes up; cortisol (breaks down muscle tissue; decreases testosterone, effects your thyroid; etc)

• Juicing and detox is completely worthless. All you can do is optimize how your body filtrates toxins, which is the liver. Best way to detox is to just not put the processed foods and oils into your body.

• 10 minute walks for athletes wanting to gain weight, with caloric gain. Also female competitors in bikini, but with calorie deficit. Helps digestion and insulin resistance.

• Stan trained 40-50 minutes morning, 30 mins at night.

• Women tend to restrict and end of missing much needed fats and nutrients. Ability to absorb nutrients depends on using fats as a shuttle.

• "There's no black and white, there's only gray. Find out what fits you and do that"

• States foam rolling is a waste of time, and also leads to more scar tissue. Evidence shows treadmill warmups insulin resistance by 46%.

• If not yet deserving then stick to glutamine, amino acids, and whey. Losing body fat will make you more insulin sensitive.

• Steady-state cardio will cause you to get fatter.

• Restricting fats causes fat. Fats help with insulin sensitivity.

• Common mistakes with trainers and female clients: not wanting to get strong. Not enough time on overload with women (don't have goals for strength). Short term goals to comply to regarding big lifts. Lean muscle tissue leads to insulin sensitivity.

• Believes most women in the gym are busy, not productive

• Better glute development: split squats, squats, deadlifts (all of which develop horizontal and vertical jump).

TL;DR/Top Ten Changes I've Personally Made From These Lessons:

There's a million bits of info in these notes, but here's some ten takeaways I was able to implement over the course of two months.

1. Carbs: Carbs are not the enemy, but need to be heavily regulated and based on individual performance, digestive health, and body-fat. Ethnic background is a huge factor. That being said, Charles states "you need to earn your carbs," while Stan is more lenient, but still recommends you keep them low if you're not an elite athlete. If you do choose to eat carbs, white rice is the best carb as it doesn't cause inflammation or digestive issues like potatoes and brown rice can.

2. Sleep: The greatest anabolic, absolutely necessary. The elite performers sleep 10-12 hours a day, including long naps during the day. Important to muscle growth, fat loss, and hormone regulation. I dim the lights 2 hours before bed, do my best to not check my phone, tv, or any electronic screen to improve sleep quality.

3. Programming: I've split my workouts with 72-hours between muscle groups. Using a variety of exercises helps overall performance by choosing accessory work that addresses weaknesses. "Exercise rotation and having a big exercise library prevents injury while allowing constant key movements." Only 4 main heavy days, with the other days as options for accessory or cardio.

4. Food choice: Grass-fed meat research isn't proven yet, and doesn't justify the price. Eat quality cuts of beef, bison, and wild game. "Otherwise, the best diet is the one you stick to." Just eliminated processed foods and snacks, and choose vegetables and fruits that the body will digest easily (FodMap). Bought a sous-vide to prepare the Costco Steak, and a rice maker for the white rice. On it for two months and am seeing great results. Personally, I've added lots of berries, avocadoes, baby carrots, nuts, coconut oil, chia seeds to my daily diet. I also add kimchi and guacamole to some meals in order to keep the steak from being too routine. Also drinking 3oz of OJ multiple times a day.

5. Warm-Up: Stretching is apparently a waste of time, and cardio before your lift will cause you to be insulin resistant, preventing fat loss. Either do potentiation exercises, or follow this advice: "brain should know the range of motion, and weights should get heavier." Regarding potentiation: find where the weakest links are in the main lift, then pick a moderately light weight, and choose exercises that affect different muscle groups involved in the main lift. For example, the squat might be upper back (a), lower back (b), then hamstrings (c). Doesn't need to be heavy, just consistently volume with minimal rest. 4x25 with no rest: a, b,c, repeat 4 times total. Then rest 3-5 minutes, then you're ready attack the main lift (be if your heavy max or speed work). Matt noticed clients were getting stronger, and form was getting better over time. Matt started off light, but now can do 4x25's of 100lb dumbells on chest warmups. Work your way up. Here's the warm-up in practice with Mike O'Hearn, Stan, and Matt.

6. Walking: Not just for old people: Ten minute walk, after you eat a meal. Improves digestion, decreases DOMS, helps with insulin sensitivity. "Blood is the life force, brings in all the nutrients." Brisk walks with elevated heart outperforms leisure 10k step-walks in fat, heart, cardio benefits. Recommended is 3 ten-minute walks a day. Can replace all steady-state cardio with walks and HIIT. Recommended them to the women in competition and strongmen like the Mountain, both of whom saw fantastic results.

7. Cardio: Implemented rucks over distance running, along with adding swimming, cycling, and farmers carries. Long slow-distance work inhibits muscle growth and fat-loss. That said, some cardio is required, hence the HIIT, farmers walks, etc as they are recommended. Still learning to program into the workout regimen.

8. Build the Backside: If the muscle is behind you, chances are you need to build it stronger. The average person will have weak lower and upper back, hamstrings, glutes, calves, traps, rear delts, etc. Build those up by making them a priority in your accessory exercise selection. For example: Upperback not strong enough will change scapular position on bench press.

9. Salt: Upped the intake of my salt. Iodized salt, stimulates thyroid, immune system, stimulates the liver. When you hit a wall, it's because you're low on sodium, not carbs. Guaranteed. Single biggest thing you can do to impact performance, stamina and endurance at the gym is iodized sodium.

10. Post-workout drink: Body super-compensates after a workout, so you need immediate replenishment, especially for two-a-days. Fructose (Orange juice) for liver stimulation, dextrose (scoop off Amazon) for glycogen replenishment, sodium (600mg), 100mg of caffeine (accelerates all of that). No proteins or fats immediately as it slows absorption.

Edit: lot of questions about this topic specifically, so I rewatched the video. It's about the 1:25:00 of the Komplettes seminar. Didn't specify the amount of fructose and dextrose. Just says a scoop of dextrose and some OJ. I'd recommend 3oz oj since he always used that number.

As someone who was so influential to me, this one is tough. I’m going to keep this brief because I’m honestly not in the mood to write my usual lengths right now.

Thank you to someone who has influenced so many. The fitness industry just lost one of the best people in it.

Overview

Hi everyone, in 3.5 years of training I've found a few resources that have benefited me and I hope they will be of some benefit to you too. I compiled them into a few categories for readability. I am biased in what I chose as a Strongman, but even so I hope most people get something out of this. Even if you've read most of these, now the links are all in one place.

Enjoy and Happy Lifting!

Cardio & Conditioning

Jacob McBride: Cardio For Strongman

MythicalStrength: Cardio Vs Conditioning

Jim Wendler: Conditioning 101

Greg Nuckols: Avoiding Cardio Could Be Holding You Back

Diet & Supplementation

Greg Nuckols: The Three Laws of Protein

Eric Helms: Reflecting on Five years studying protein

JORN TROMMELEN: Perfecting Protein Intake for Athletes: How Much, What, and When? (and Beyond)

ERIC TREXLER: Not Another Boring Creatine Guide: Answers to FAQs and Lesser-Known Benefits

Dr. Mike Israetel: Dialing in Your Diet for YOUR Goals

Aadam: The Best Fat Loss Article on the Motherfuckin’ Internet

Nick Shaw: Sugar: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Dave Tate: If you wanna be the man, you gotta out-eat the man

Exercise Science

Mike Israetel: Fatigue Explained

Greg Nuckols: Size vs. Strength: How Important is Muscle Growth For Strength Gains?

Greg Nuckols: Speed kills: 2x the intended bar speed yields ~2x the bench press gains

Greg Nuckols: The “Hypertrophy Rep Range” – Fact or Fiction?

Greg Nuckols: High Bar vs. Low Bar Squatting

Greg Nuckols: Training Frequency for Strength Development: What the Data Say

Greg Nuckols: Training Frequency for Muscle Growth: What the Data Say

Greg Nuckols: Sleep, Pt 1: Wrecking Your Diet, One Night At a Time

Greg Nuckols: FFMI Refutation

Greg Nuckols: How Important is Muscular Symmetry for Strength Sports?

Greg Nuckols: The Lats and the Bench Press – Much Ado About Very Little

Christie Aschwanden & Mai Nguyen: How Shoddy Statistics Found A Home In Sports Research

Markham Heid: Why Weight Training Is Ridiculously Good For You

Greg Nuckols: The belt Bible

Fatigue & Recovery

Joe Defranco: Joe D’s “Limber 11” (flexibility routine)

Dr Mike Israetel & Dr. James Hoffmann: Fatigue Indicators and How To Use Them

Mike Israetel: Everything You Need to Know About Recovering

Jim Wendler: Deload to Reload

C.J. Murphy: 4 Quick Elbow Pain Fixes

Dr. Quinn Henoch: The Shoulder Health Essentials

Lifts & Technique

Chad Wesley Smith: Squat Pillars

Dave Tate: Benchipedia

Dave Tate: Dave Tate's Free Squat Manual

Dave Tate: Dave Tate's Free Deadlift Manual

Eric Spoto: How to Bench Press

MythicalStrength: THE FORM CHECK: TREATING THE SYMPTOMS AND IGNORING THE DISEASE

Chad Wesley Smith: Front Squat Pillars

Greg Nuckols: The Myth of Perfect Form

MythicalStrength: Form Is Overrated

MythicalStrength: DEADLIFTING WITH STRAPS: SECRETS AND TECHNIQUES

Greg Nuckols: Bench Press Bar Path: How to Fix Your Bar Path for a Bigger Bench

Greg Nuckols: How to Help Your Squat Catch Up With Your Deadlift

Dan John: How to Increase your Pull Up Power

Chad Wesley Smith: 7 Habits of Highly Successful Squatters

Kroc: Kroc Rows 101

Ben Pollack: When Should You Wear Squat Shoes?

Joe Giandonato & Todd Bumgardner: Building a Strong Neck

Justin Lascek (70's Big): 3 Press Fixes

Greg Nuckols: The Importance of the Lats in the Deadlift

Chris Duffin: DEADLIFT LIKE THE MAD SCIENTIST

Bill Starr: The Quest for a Stronger Overhead Press

Mindset

JP Carrol: Stay the Course

GZCL: Training through Adversity

GZCL: The Machismo Filler

GZCL: The Greatest Gym You'll Never Lift At

Henry Rollins: The Iron

Greg Nuckols: More Is More

Training

Jim Wendler: Effort Vs Knowledge

Chad Wesley Smith: Training is for Building, Not Testing

Mike Tuchscherer: You Are Not Overtrained

Chad Wesley Smith: Keep It Simple Stupid

Daniel Green: Bench More By Benching More

Chad Wesley Smith: Snowflake Training

Dave Tate: What is your Perception of Strength

MythicalStrength: In Defense Of Straps

Dave Tate: Wake Up! Injuries Are Part Of The Process

MythicalStrength: GOOD FORM AND BEING INJURY FREE IS THE PATH TO MEDIOCRITY

MythicalStrength: On Being Injured

Dave Tate: Under The Bar - Training Environment

Jim Wendler: 7 Truths about Strength Training

PurpleSpengler: Copying The Smart Kid's Homework

Mike Israetel: Compilation of Common Training Myths Debunked

Blaine Sumner: Fine Tune your Frequency

Mike Tuchscherer: How to Use RPE in Your Training *Correctly*

Mike Tuchscherer: Should you use Heavy Single in Training more

Dave Tate: How to Develop a Training Philosophy

Team Juggernaut: All About Hypertrophy

Gina Melnik: Don't Wait to Be Ready

Kalle Beck: We Mock Our Weaknesses to Mask Them

Zach Gallman: The Sumo Deadlift for Strongman

Chase Karnes: What you need to know before your First Strongman Competition

Opinion

MythicalStrength: The Fear Of Overtraining Is Pervasive

MythicalStrength: SIZE, NOT BODYBUILDING. STRENGTH, NOT POWERLIFTING

MythicalStrength: WHY ABBREVIATED TRAINING (STARTING STRENGTH, STRONGLIFTS, 5X5, ETC) FAILS: PART I

MythicalStrength: DON’T BE A MEME

MythicalStrength: EVIL ON TAP

MythicalStrength: THERE ARE NO INTERMEDIATES

MythicalStrength: IF YOU AREN’T POWERLIFTING, WHY ARE YOU DOING THE BIG 3?

Programs

GZCL: The GZCL Method, Simplified.

GZCL: Jacked & Tan 2.0

GZCL: Bench Press Wave Forms

Doug Hepburn: Hepburn Solution for Strength and Power

JP Carroll: Build Bigger Legs and a Bigger Squat (with 6-Week Accessory Split)

Jim Wendler: Building the Monolith - 5/3/1 for Size

Jim Wendler: 5/3/1: How to Build Pure Strength

Jim Wendler: Building A Bigger Yoke

Jim Wendler: Boring But Big: Beefcake Training

Bonus Chuckle: Dave Tate Inhaling Smelling Salts (NSFW)

Racism sucks.

Racist comments will result in permanent bans.

Here are some resources:

• NAACP

• Campaign Zero

• Equal Justice Initiative

Cheers

-The mod team

TLDR: I Deadlifted over 600lb every day for 50 days, and came out the other side stronger, and better for it.

In the process I took my 1RM from 712 to 752 (323->341kg), and hit a bunch of other PR’s along the way.

• Chart of my Daily Lifts

• Starting 1RM: 712 vs Ending 1RM: 752 (+40lb)

• 752 Sumo

• 700 conventional

• 702x8 sumo AMRAP (an 889 estimated max)

Background Info

I started lifting with my dad as a young kid. I am in my mid-thirties now. There were some extended breaks from training over the years, but I always maintained an active physical lifestyle playing sports, working construction, etc.

You can find more detailed background information in my previous program writeups.

• Simple Jack’d 2x

• Smarathlov

(Links are to removeddit, give them time to load)

So fast forward a bit, and we get to spring 2021. I just wrapped up ”Simple Jack’d”, and decided to sign up for a meet. Now I had to decide how to train for it.

Enter – DLED – Deadlift Every Day

Over the years I have experimented with many different setups for high frequency training. From my earliest attempts of mimicking the "Bulgarian Method" of maxing out every day, to "Simple Jack’d’s" more reserved setup of a 6 rep daily minimum, I have learned a lot. I decided to start this program with a new approach, similar to "Simple Jack’d", but with some rules.

1. Deadlift 3 reps at 85% Every Day.

2. Deadlift 1 Rep at 95% once per week.

3. No hype, no grinding on daily reps.

If the week goes well and all the reps are completed, add 1 rep, or 1% to the daily minimum, and move onto week 2. Maintain the weekly 1 rep minimum at the same intensity unless I set a new 1RM PR.

In the end, this is how my 50 days of programming looked.

• Week 1: 3 reps at 605 Every Day, 1 at 675+ Every Week

• Week 2: 3 reps at 610 Every Day, 1 at 675+ Every Week

• Week 3: 4 reps at 610 Every Day, 1 at 675+ Every Week

• Week 4: 4 reps at 615 Every Day, 1 at 675+ Every Week

• Week 5: 5 reps at 615 Every Day, 1 at 690+ Every Week

• Week 6: 5 reps at 635 Every Day, 1 at 690+ Every Week

• Week 7: 1 rep at 675 Every Day, 1RM Conventional and Sumo

• Day 50: 700 AMRAP

The increasing rep count was actually far more difficult than the increasing intensity. Weeks 5 and 6 started to wear me down a bit, but week 7 felt like a breeze.

I think I could maintain this setup for a longer duration/indefinitely if I stuck to the 3 rules above, and DIDN'T implement a progression plan beyond "3 reps at 85% per day, 1 rep at 95%+ per week, weights only increase with new 1rms"

DLED Accessories/Assistance

I decided to pair my high frequency low volume deadlifting, with the polar opposite for accessory work. A basic, single muscle group per day, “Bro Split”. I would hit that single muscle group with high volume of a single lift, and then move on.

Cardio I ran 171 miles over the course of these 50 days. An average of 3.4 miles per day. My longest run was 8 miles.

I strongly believe that a good base of cardiovascular fitness enables me to work harder, longer, and in the end, lift more weight.

Training Log/Highlights

My full deadlift training log for these 50 days can be found in this spreadsheet with videos of the top set each day hyperlinked in the log.

Here are some highlights of my favorite sets

• Week 1: 675x2

• Week 2: 625 Beltless Conventional

• Week 3: 684x1 Conventional

• Week 4: 727x1 Sumo PR

• Week 5: 675x2 675x3 Beltless Sumo Hook Grip, 645+chains conventional

• Week 6: 736x1 Sumo PR, 664x5 against bands

• Week 7: 700 conventional, 752 Sumo, 815 wagon wheel

• Day 50: 702x8 TnG Sumo AMRAP

Data / Summary

Overall I hit 187 reps over 600lb in 50 days, for a total volume of 120,252 lb. That's makes the average day 3-4 reps at 640+

The lowest daily weight I hit was 605, the highest was 752 off the floor, and 815 off of wagon wheels with the top set estimating out to 889 on day 50 (702x8)

Of those reps, 134 were hook grip, and 53 were strapped, 32 were conventional, and 155 were sumo.

Using Variation to combat Fatigue

If you look through the training log, or have followed any of my comments in the weightroom daily discussion threads, you’ll notice that I used a LOT of variation throughout the last 50 days.

These variations weren’t chosen entirely haphazardly. In fact, I put a lot of thought into what I was going to do each day/week ahead of time, and then paid close attention to how I felt to adjust along the way.

Here are a couple examples of how lift selection could facilitate recovery or increase stimulus without just adding/decreasing weight:

• When my thumbs were hurting I would use straps

• If my hips felt good I would pull sumo

• If my lower back was feeling good, I would pull conventional

• If my lower back and hips were both feeling good I would go heavier, and hit more than my daily minimum intensity

• If my upper back felt strong and rested, but I didn’t want to overwork my lower back or hips, I would add bands or chains, increasing the intensity at the top of the lift, without increasing demands at the bottom

• When my positioning felt sloppy, I would add paused reps.

Every variation had a purpose, and was chosen to fit that day based on how I felt when I woke up, and in the hours leading up to my training.

Diet, Sleep, Recovery

My starting weight was 228 and my ending weight was 225, a net loss of 3lb

I tracked calories for a bit at the beginning of this 50 day period, but stopped about halfway through. At the time I was eating around 4,200 calories per day and maintaining.

No, I don't meal prep or care about eating "clean" or organic or non-gmo or gluten free or low carb or any of that stuff.

As for what I eat... it varies, but I'm a big fan of carbs. I aim for 180g+ of protein, 100g+ of fat, and then fill in the remaining with 600+g of carbs each day.

I usually start the day with some sort of PB&J, my favorite is to Toast a Blueberry Bagel, add Chunky Peanut Butter, Honey, Raspberry Jelly, Fruity Pebbles and maybe a banana.

Mid-day I usually eat out, because I work pretty far from home. My go-to's are burritos, sandwiches, pizza, all the good stuff people tell you to avoid if you are a serious lifter... I eat it.

Dinner is usually whatever my wife makes, it changes all the time due to kids, and I don't worry too much about it.

If I am hungry, I eat more.

If I'm tired, I eat more.

If I'm sore, I eat more.

If I am feeling achy or run down? I'll eat a bunch of gummy worms and drink a half gallon of OJ, then go for a run.

I try to go to sleep before 10:00pm every night, and usually wake up around 5:00am

I don't take / never have taken steroids. Due to a pituitary tumor I have multiple recent blood tests showing my T levels, and offer my physique as further evidence.

I do LISS cardio as often as possible, preferably in more frequent, shorter doses

(I find that two 5ks are easier to recover from than a single 10k)

CNS fatigue and overtraining

You see it all the time on internet forums. “You cant do X, you’ll overtrain”, or “Deadlifts are too taxing on the CNS to do more than a single set of 5 per week”

Obviously that’s ridiculous.

Now, I am not going to say overtraining isn’t real, or that it doesn’t happen. It does. But it is just REALLY hard to get to that point if you are paying attention to the other variables.

If deadlifting 600-750 for reps every day for weeks on end, while also running 171 miles doesn’t result in overtraining, you are probably going to be OK adding that 3rd set of curls to the end of your 5x5 LP

The key is to focus on what I mentioned above in diet/sleep/recovery.

Eat, sleep, do your conditioning.

Pain and Injury

I’ve dealt with many injuries over the years, from broken bones and torn muscles, to herniated discs, jambs, sprains, and dislocations…. and I had a few little bangs and tweaks over the last 50 days as well.

Going into this, I hadn’t pulled with a hook grip on a regular basis. Within the first week I had bruising on both thumbs, a split in my thumb nail, and a tear on two fingers. It took some adjustment, but I learned how to fix my grip, and was able to train through the discomfort, to the point that I am now comfortable holding 750+lb without issue, and my thumbs are all healed up.

I also smashed my toes one day, they bled a bit and bruised badly. I thought that my middle toe may have been broken, but a bit of tape holding it to the other toes, and some caution while running was enough to let me push through it. Although it is still hurting to this day.

Then, on day 46 I tweaked something in my lower back pulling 700 beltless. I actually felt a bit of pop and immediately dropped to the ground. Everyone has heard of R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, elevation) but I refused to let a back injury sidetrack me again.

I immediately started working at it. Instead of RICE I opted for MEAT/METH, Motion, Elevation, Analgesics, Treatment/Traction, and Heat. What this means, is that I didn’t just lay down. I started foam rolling, stretching, taking Ibuprofin, working the area with a lacrosse ball, heat packs, hot baths, hot showers, walking, and even some light jogging, etc.

On day 47 I woke up in the morning STIFF and SORE. I immediately attacked the issue again with the same Methods. Later on I was able to Deadlift 675 off wagon wheels, which reduced the ROM to the point of less discomfort, and got out for a nice run without too much pain.

On day 48 I was already feeling significantly better, but I was still stiff and sore. Once again, I employed the same methods and rehabbed my way through the pain until I could touch my toes with straight knees, and pick up my kids without holding my breath. Later that day I would pull 765 pounds off of wagon wheels again. This time with even less discomfort than the day before.

On day 49 I woke up feeling like I was back to 80+%. But I took the time, and the medicine, and worked through the same drills and stretches. Later that day I would pull 675 off the floor for my first full ROM deadlift since the injury, and then go on to pull 765, and 815 off the wagon wheels, ending with a nice big PR.

On day 50, I felt great, and finished with a big 702x8 deadlift AMRAP for a new all time PR on my estimated max… and did so completely pain free.

I am still a bit tight and sore in the morning, but its improving every day, and I am diligent about working at it. Staying moving, working the area, taking basic meds like Ibuprofen, foam rolling, stretching, and even lifting all make a huge difference on healing faster.

Conclusion

This couldn’t have gone better. At the outset I had no idea I was about to put 40lb on my deadlift 1RM in only 50 days.

Starting 1RM: 712 vs Ending 1RM: 752

And better yet, I learned a lot about myself, about training, about diet, and recovery, about pain and fatigue management, and more.

Is your deadlift stalling? Should you go deadlift 600+ Every day now?

Probably not.

But if you look at your training, I'm sure there is room to do MORE...

I'm happy to discuss high frequency or answer any non-accessory related questions.

Special thanks to /u/BenchPauper for being a bad great influence on me and convincing me I could make it through this!

Hi Folks,

I’m the internet’s “MythicalStrength”, and I wanted to share a list of programs that I found the most effective for the goal of putting on size along with my experiences with these programs. I originally posted this over at r/gainit and u/ZBGBs asked me to share it over here, so many of the links inside go to r/gainit posts, but you can also find some of my reviews here in r/weightroom.

I will caveat in saying that I’ve been training for nearly 20 years, and, as such, did not set out to document each of these programs from the get-go, so I cannot provide you with before and after photos correlating to every single program (or really, for any program), but I do remember bodyweight changes during those times. I don’t take a whole lot of physique photos, but I have these ones from 3 years back to showcase what I’ve accomplished in this realm so far as a 5’9 195lb athlete starting from 155lbs.

Front photo

Back and legs photo

And I hit a deadlift workout last week where I looked kinda jacked in a tanktop

So take that for what it’s worth.

I’m going to write these from most effective to less effective, but keep in mind these are still my top picks for the goal of getting bigger. None of these are poor choices.

Without further ado…

JON ANDERSEN’S “DEEP WATER” PROGRAM

I’ve already written a very fully fleshed out review of the program here , so to keep this from going longer, let me sum it up by saying I went from 192-207 in 12 weeks on the program. It was the hardest I had ever worked in my life, and I ate like it was my job. Highly encourage everyone to run at LEAST the beginner and intermediate program. You can most likely bypass the advanced program and just re-run beginner and intermediate if you want a longer training cycle.

5/3/1 BUILDING THE MONOLITH

This is another program I’ve detailed extensively here, but again, to sum up, I put on 4.5lbs in 6 weeks, once again working VERY hard and eating VERY big. I’ve been training for 19 years, and this was the first program that ever made me want to quit, on Day 1, workout 1. Deep Water would later come by and make me want to quit every squat workout. Solid choice here, especially if you can only lift 3 days a week.

5/3/1 BBB

This program is one of the originals for me as far as getting bigger goes. To set the stage, I had been running abbreviated training programs (similar to Starting Strength, but mine was Pavel’s 3-5) for a LONG time, and had gotten very good at moving big weights but not terribly big. I was weighing in at about 187lbs after having dropped a good deal of fat. After a not great showing in a powerlifting meet, I decided to give Jim’s program a try, and locked on to BBB, since it seemed so easy. My goal was not to gain weight, but I wasn’t restricting my diet, and basically ate off hunger. Well, all the damn volume made me VERY hungry, and I ended up getting up to 202lbs over the summer. The change was so significant that one of my wife’s co-workers thought my wife had gotten divorced and remarried in the time between when he had last seen me.

I’ve linked the most current iteration of BBB, which is “BBB beefcake”, but when I ran it I used 50% of my TM for the BBB sets. Either method works, but I think Beefcake makes things simpler, and will be a good challenge for anyone interested. For the mainwork, stick with sets of 5 across (don’t go for AMRAP sets) and really push yourself on the supplemental work.

DOGGCRAPP

I linked the t-nation primer to the training program, as that is what I read to get started on it, but there is a LOT of material on DoggCrapp training. If you’re really interested in reading up on it, check out the intense-muscle forums. This is another great option for those that can only lift 3 times a week, and it’s a great crash course into some real deal bodybuilding training, because it breaks a LOT of paradigms. You need to be prepared to work hard, and you’ll also need access to a gym with LOTS of different equipment, because there is a lot of variety here. However, if you suffer from training ADD, this should satisfy your cravings.

I only ran this program for 2 months before I ended up competing in my first powerlifting meet and revectoring how I trained, but during that time I put on a solid 6-8lbs. I was playing around with nutrition then, using some weightgainers and trying a carb cycling approach. I also ended up setting the best bench press I ever had in competition following that program, and it took me almost a decade to realize that the bodybuilding approach to training bench seems to work out best for me.

SUPERSQUATS/20 REP SQUATS

This was my original foray into training hard and gaining weight. Did this back in college, some 13 years ago, operating off of a dinning hall and a gallon of milk a day. As such, I can’t give it the fairest of shakes, as my nutrition was nothing like what I use today, but I DID put on 12lbs in 6 weeks, going from 190-202lbs. This was a fantastic program for learning how to train VERY hard and become obsessive over my success in both the weight room and at the dinning table. Also a good way to quit worrying about 1rms, because you stay FAR away from that during the program.

I know I linked the book, but honestly, people need to read it to understand the program. I see so many people screw it up because they skipped the source material. You can find stuff online about it if you’d like. For a quick summary though, the program is built around the “breathing squat”, which is a squat perform with at LEAST 3 VERY DEEP breaths in between each rep. This is effectively rest pause training, as it allows you to perform a set of 20 squats with a weight MUCH heavier than what you would use for a straight set of 20, which, in turn, forces a LOT of growth. And, once again, good for the 3 days a week crowd.

Hoping that information helped. Be happy to discuss any of these programs.

Alright! So I'm a silly person and thought there was going to be a second 5/3/1 topic put up this week. So I prepped something to touch on things people had DMed me about as well as some down stream conversations. Which has now ballooned into what can only be described as a treatise on 5/3/1.

Now let's be clear. Nothing in here is revolutionary and I haven't re-invented the wheel. I just thought this might be useful.

If anyone is interested in my background you can find it here.

I also apologize for how fucking long this is.

Common Errors

This is the most boring part, because it's going to be me yelling at clouds and talking at people who are poorly informed on 5/3/1 or simply haven't read anything Jim has written on the methodology.

Training Maxes

I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but let's say it again: your Training Max (TM) has nothing to do with your One Rep Max (1RM). Once again for those people in the back: Your TM has nothing to do with your 1rm.

Yes, you set it up off a 1RM (or a theoretical one) but that does not mean that when your TM goes up by 5lbs that your 1RM has done the same. It might have gone up 10lbs or 20! Once you accept this it becomes a lot easier for you to manipulate your TM to better fit your goals, as it doesn't mean that your actual maxes are going down. This is a useful mindset to get out of. This brings us to the second most common fault...

Manipulating your TM too Soon

Why is everyone and their dog in such a rush to manipulate their TM? Stop it! So you're hitting 10+ reps on your 5/3/1 week and the reps are never really dropping off? That's awesome! What's the problem?

Just ride that wave and get in a bunch of really good practice.

That PR Set is where the magic happens. It's where you get in good technique practice which in and of itself will pay off in the long run. Most newer trainees need to understand that we want good clean reps. If half your reps are grindy and out of position you're not getting in effective work. Even Conjugate/West Side has Repetition Effort work to serve that exact purpose.

Moral of the story? Stop fucking around with your TM unless you're decreasing it. If you can get in better work by making that choice, it's a no brainer. After all, since it doesn't have anything to do with your 1RM what's the big deal?

Effectively using Leaders/Anchors and Deloads

This is going to lay the groundwork for that fun and magical thing I just told you not to do. Increasing your TM.

Within the current Leader/Anchor structure of 5/3/1 the deload serves as your bridge between them. This means that a typical block of training is going to be 11 weeks long. 2 leaders and 1 Anchor with a deload between the Leaders and Anchor and immediately following the anchor.

Yes there are other structures to work with. But 11 weeks is a good amount of time to plan a training block for and allows you to make changes more easily if problems begin to arise.

Now I know everyone likes to talk about how there's too much deloading in 5/3/1 and you really don't need to deload because blah blah blah blah blah.

Stop. Deload time!

With previous iterations of 5/3/1 I'd have likely agreed with you. Instead, with the current state of the methodology I can't agree with it anymore. Leaders/Anchors are just Jim's way of saying Accumulation and Realization. During the Anchor Leader you're putting in the work, you're keeping your fatigue manageable while getting in good reps and work. This is where you hammer volume. BBB/BBS with First Set Last (FSL) Weights, Second Set Last (SSL) etc.

That easy Deload is there to give you a breather so that you can absolutely brutalize yourself in the Anchor. That's why so many Templates from Forever use 5's Pro for the Leader and PR sets for the Anchor. You've put in the work and it's time to "test" yourself. That's the purpose that Anchor's serve. At the end of the day they're 5/3/1's version of testing a new 1RM. So instead of obsessing about your 1RM or TM obsess about your PR sets, they're how you're going to measure your progress. Nothing else.

Why? Because eventually your top set from your heaviest week will be a top set during your lightest week. Better to use that to measure your progress than always straining to set new 1RM`s to base your TM off of.

So how do you deload effectively within this structure? Well Jim is pretty clear so I'm going to parrot him. Do a normal Deload in between Leaders and Anchors and do a TM Test between Anchors and Leaders.

TM Tests

Unsurprisingly, this is where you test your TM. Now! Let's beat this dead horse again. A TM Test is exactly what it sounds like. You test your TM. Jim lays out a rep range for this test. Stick to it! Don't go over it, don't go under.

"I did that and my reps just didn't feel difficult and it barely felt like a strain to do. Should I increase my TM then?"

NO!

The only thing we care about in the TM Test is if the Reps of your TM are fast, strong and technically sound. We don't care if they feel light. We don't care if you could have done more reps. All that we care about is that your reps are fast, strong and technically sound.

If they are not all of those things then you lower your TM. Because 5/3/1 isn't about grinding out reps. It's about perfect practice so that when you do get under heavy weight your technique will carry you through.

PR Tests

This is the same thing as a TM Test except you go all out on it. In my opinion these should be limited to once or twice a year. Just like testing, your 1RM is relegated to once or twice a year.... if you're smart.

Now with that said. PR Tests lead us into the fun part... but before that!

Conditioning + Jumps and Throws

Stop skipping your conditioning work! It's 3-5 days a week. You're in the Gym already go do a WOD. It takes 15 minutes or less typically and it's good for you. The better conditioned person is going to win whatever contest they are participating in. Whether it's lifting, football or just punching someone in the face. If it's hard to gas you out you're going to win.

Plus it's free Volume. There's also a reason people who do CrossFit tend to be lean and jacked.

Jumps and Throws I'm sure will cue the eyerolls. It's silly and since we're not football players what's the point? Well here's the point. It takes 5 minutes and is really good for priming you to get some work done. Don't have boxes or med balls? Then do some Kettlebell work or a Dimel Deadlift. Just do something explosive for a few sets of something higher rep and then get to it. Most people already do a warm-up so it's not like you're adding that much time.

Ok. I've made you all eat your veggies. Let's get to the meat.

Manipulating 5/3/1 for your Needs and Goals

This is what everyone is after. We all want to take something that already works effectively and make it better. Most of the time we all know we make it worse, but I'm here to help give you an effective understanding of how to manipulate the methodology to get what you want out of it. First a disclaimer: If you are not a Powerlifter, Bodybuilder, Strongman or Olympic Weightlifter and are just trying to get big and strong. You do not need to manipulate this methodology at all. So you could skip this part if you wanted to.

First: Why do I keep saying to just do the Method Jim lay's out if you aren't competing in a Strength/Physique Sport? Because it's effective as a general Strength and Conditioning tool. If you're someone who needs some time in the weightroom but doesn't want it to affect your other sports, 5/3/1 is all you need. If you're just trying to be strong and look good naked, then 5/3/1 has you covered. There is nothing you need to change.

But since I know you're going to do it anyway. Let's do it smart.

What is 5/3/1

As of late a lot of people like to rag on the fact that 5/3/1 barely even has a 5's, 3's and 5/3/1 week anymore. Which, to me, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the methodology is. This isn't a "program" it's a method. And if you're going to tweak a Method you have to understand it's core tenets. These are as follows:

• Use a TM of 70-90%

• Increase TM by 5 or 10lbs for upper and lower lifts respectively after each cycle

• Main and Supplemental work that utilizes Multi-Join Movements

• Main work that is waved over a 3 week cycle using percentages of 65/75/85, 70/80/90, 75/85/95

• Supplemental work that fits your goals

• Training that culminates in setting new Rep PR's

• Accessory work of Push, Pull and Single leg or Core work done for 25-100 total reps each

• 3-5 Days of Conditioning

Yes, some of these are negotiable. I know Spinal Tap et al. exist and break some of this mold. But the points remain if you adhere to this checklist you will be able to make an effective 5/3/1 program. Now, with that in mind, here's how I'd advise people to go about making changes.

When to Ignore Jim

Let's see if I can continue being a broken record. If you're not a strength athlete then there's really no reason for you to ignore Jim. Do what he says and you'll come out the other side better for it. This is not really something that needs to be tweaked. Doesn't matter if you're hitting 20 reps on your PR Sets or 50. Just keep plugging away at it and you'll get good results.

No one is going to give you shit for Benching 225 for 20.

Now for everyone who's going to ignore that.

A lot of Jim's suggestions for 5/3/1 Templates comes from who he's working with currently. Namely High School football players. The whole point of their training is to get them the work they need without trashing them. Basically, what's the minimum amount of work we need to have them do to get them good results. For those purposes 5/3/1 is perfect.

So when should you ignore Jim? When it comes to accessory work. His Supplemental suggestions follow pretty conventional training suggestions and the main work is all you need for that. There's also an argument to be made about Frequency. However that can be solved by simply spreading out your Supplemental work, if you so desire. But we'll talk more about that in a bit. As for the accessory work, feel free to do however much of it you want.

Just make sure you can recover from it.

Manipulating your Training Max

In my opinion there are three ways that you can go about manipulating your TM. The first is self explanatory and my least favorite method for the general population, at the same time, I think is quite useful for the Strength Athletes mentioned above.

Re-test 1RM

I know, what a novel idea! How did I ever come up with it!?

This is my least favorite method because often people retest their 1RM's waaaaaay too much and I'd rather try to break people of that habit. If you're going to go this route I'd advise doing it once or twice a year and just riding out the progress that 5/3/1 will naturally provide between 1RM tests.

The Rep Max Test

Smart people will have considered this already. When you go to do a TM Test instead of following the rep guide that Jim has laid out you work up to a new Rep Max. With that said this Rep Max shouldn't be an absolute ball busting grinder. We're still looking for fast, strong, and technically sound reps. Now I suck at using RPE but using Mike T's chart I'd say you're looking for 1-10 reps @8-9. Then you use that number as your new TM.

You should pick a lower rep target if you're looking to do a strength block and a higher rep target for hypertrophy work. Personally when I use this with trainees we stick to 1-3 reps and most of the time we're looking for a double. But that's because we use this method to set up peaking blocks.

PR Test

As I mentioned above, we save this for once or twice a year. I like to set my trainees two rep goals that are pretty high. Usually 15 and 30. The lowest of the two numbers doubles their TM increase and the higher Triples it. At the end of the day those goals could be 10 and 15, 5 and 10. But I would strongly advise to take the silly high rep count to heart. 5/3/1 isn't about hitting grinders so upping your TM quickly is counterproductive.

PR Tests are my prefered method for non Strength Athletes. It minimizes the speed of your TM increases allowing you to work heavier while still chipping away at lifts.

Now with all of this said if you wanted to get clever with it you can even use each method as a stepping stone to the next. Example: Block 1 (11 weeks 2 leaders/1anchor) -> PR Test -> Block 2 -> RM Test -> Block 3 -> 1RM. It's 33 weeks of training culminating in a new 1RM. This is not something I would recommend for newer lifters. For the first little while just chip away at the program and use each one individually and sparingly.

Supplemental Work

So if we follow the methodology supplemental work is where the rest of the magic happens. It's where you accumulate Volume in the Leader (Accumulation Phase) and it's where you get in heavier work during the Anchor (Realization Phase).

Why anyone would feel the need to reskin this cat I have no idea. The supplemental work that Jim has come up with covers anything you could possibly need. So let's just define it for people who get lost. Y'all are smart and will understand where everything should, ideally, fit within the leader/anchor system though so I won't go too in depth:

First Set Last (FSL): After your main work you drop back to your First Set weights. Commonly done as 5x5, 5x10, 10x5, 1x20.
Second Set Last (SSL): Same as above but use your second set. Typically 5x5 or 10x5. The odd person might find it fun to do as a 5x10.
Last Set Last (LSL): One of the more slept on Supplemental ideas. You guessed it. Do your Last set for more sets! 5x5, 3x5, 5x2, 8x3 or anything else that you would usually utilize with higher percentage work will do.
Boring But Big (BBB): this is a set structure of 5x10 done at 50% and generally doesn't go above FSL weight.
Boring But Strong (BBS): Set Structure of 10x5. I wouldn't suggest doing it for anything less than FSL weight. SSL is also a good route to take. LSL would likely be dumb unless your TM is adequately low.
Widowmaker: 1x20 FSL weight suggested but you can go down or up from there based on your goals and how much pain you want to be in.

Now let's be clear. These are suggestions. If you find you respond best to 4x8 or 3x12 of anything above, do that instead. This is about making it useful for you. But that means it requires experimentation. The good thing about experimenting with 5/3/1 is that the main work will always work and lead to progress. The supplemental work just enhances it.

Accessory Work

It's always the accessory work. This is easily the biggest thing people reached out to me about during my last post. Mostly they were asking about how to "focus" their accessory work, since I talked about focusing on weak points instead of scatter shooting. But first, we have to redefine a couple of things.

Yep! I'm going to be that asshole.

In the common lifting parlance Push = Triceps, Shoulders and Pecs whereas Pull = Back, Biceps, Hamstrings and Glutes. Instead I'm going to suggest that you go by the motion. Why? Because this opens up a ton of possibilities and let's us focus on weak-points without just throw in stupid amounts of accessory work at you.

Example: Chest Fly's are a pulling motion. You're trying to pull weight across your body, not push it away after all. The same applies to Pullovers, rear delt fly's lateral raises etc.

This means that if we're looking to bring up our shoulders our accessories for one day might look like this:

Push: Arnold PRess or High Incline Press
Pull: Rear Delt Fly or Lateral Raise
SLC: whatever you're trying to bring up

Chest would look something like this:

Push: DB Bench or Incline Bench
Pull: Chest Fly or Pull-Over
SLC: whatever you're trying to bring up

This obviously isn't going to work for back. If your back is a weak point however just make it Pull Pull SLC and be done with it.

Here is how I would suggest choosing a load. For a leader, pick something that you can do for 5x6 or 5x5. Work-up to 5x10 then add 5 or 10lbs to get back into a lower range and do it again. Accessory work shouldn't be complicated after all. For an Anchor maintain your previous week's weight and aim for 5x20. Increase weight once that has been achieved. Rotate out exercises as they can't be progressed, when bored or when you decide that you need to focus on something else.

Single Leg or Core

This one needs a sub section. I'm not going to force anyone to actually do single leg work. It sucks, it takes twice as long to get through a set and one side is always weaker than the other making you feel like an idiot. So if you want to call this just Legs or Core go ahead.

But it really should be Single Leg for all of the reasons I listed above. One side of you is likely weaker and you don't even realize it because you don't do unilateral work. So do it Single legged, it's good for you.

Plus it might save you from an injury.

Adding an Extra Day

Some people want to be in the gym more than 4 days a week. Nothing wrong with that! If that's you though I suggest adding in a Back Day where the main work is a Row or Chin. Run it exactly the way you would any other day. Want to hit two birds with one stone, just do them both! Main Work as a Row with the Supplemental done as a Chin, or vice versa.

An extra day is also a good way to increase frequency. Make your extra day another day of one of your main movements. But drop the Main Work and just do another day of Supplemental Work. Great place to throw in some BBS SSL work or doing LSL work 5x5 from earlier in the week.

5's Pro and 3/5/1: When and How to Use Them

5's Pro seems to be the main addition to the 5/3/1 Methodology that people use to poke fun at the name 5/3/1. But quite frankly I think 5's Pro was a fantastic addition to the methodology. What's so great about 5's Pro? It keeps your effort down and stable. Now you're not laser focused on hitting PR's every week, you're just focusing on putting in the work. If you decide to play around and customize this I'd just do what Jim does with most of his templates these days. If it's a leader it uses 5's Pro.

Now I had a love hate relationship with the 3/5/1 set-up. As in I hated it and thought it was silly and my trainees thought it was the tits. I kept using it for them because it worked. When I went back over their training logs 3/5/1 templates we're always where the best results were coming from.

What's so great about 3/5/1? I didn't get it until I tried it during my Krypteia run recently. There's a built-in deload. Perfect time to do something stupid and really drive progress. Hammer yourself with intensity two weeks out of the cycle and do some lighter volume work in the middle. It's a solid way to get in good work and I think there's an argument to be made that this is the best default set-up for pretty much anyone.

Mixing and Matching Templates

This is where I'm really going to lose some hardcore 5/3/1 people. Especially since Jim tells you to focus on one thing at a time instead of multiple things. But here's the thing, lifts respond differently to training, what's good for your bench is not necessarily going to be good for your squat. I suggest trying a lot of templates running them as is to figure out what you respond best to for each list and then tweaking your programming to match with that. Your squat blows up when you do a Widowmaker with FSL but your dead responds best to Coffinworm with 5x5 SSL work. Then do that! The whole point of the 5/3/1 Method is to allow you to find what works best for you, Jim's templates are just guides for people who don't want to do things themselves.

At this point though I've written a short story worth of information down. So I'll leave it at this. Hopefully there's some useful information hidden in my rambling that has been helpful in navigating the 5/3/1 landscape.

Happy to answer any questions!

And a big thanks to /u/PlacidVlad for Beta reading this for me and making sure I didn’t completely miss the point of what I was setting out to do.

The intermediate period is an exciting time in a lifter’s career. It is the stage where the trainee can begin applying what he or she has learned towards making training decisions. The process of making these decisions can shape one’s lifting paradigms for years to come, and in order to make these decisions successfully, the lifter must have some requisite self-knowledge. Here, the trainee also begins to define his or her relationship with lifting. This write-up is geared towards the inquisitive, analytical, and thoughtful lifter who has some solid experience in the gym and is ready to examine his or her training as well as to consider some potentially difficult questions. Throughout this write-up, please remember that no answer to any of these questions is ever set in stone, because as you change and grow as a person, so may your answers. I also caution you against paralysis by analysis, because even though introspection and consideration are important, being in the gym and working hard are more so. The opinions expressed here are my own and are based on my personal experience and the experiences of lifters around me. As always, caveat emptor.

What do I want to do?

As a beginner, your primary job was to build a base. First and foremost, this base contains several sets of foundational knowledge regarding training. For example, the motor skills for performing the big lifts, the tenets of recovery and nutrition and the understanding of principles such as progressive overload that drive your programming, as well as the psychological skills necessary to push yourself are all parts of your psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains of learning, respectively. You have also likely undergone some physiological changes as an adaptation to training. You’re more muscular, leaner, and stronger than you were when you first walked into the gym, possibly much more so than you imagined yourself becoming when you put your hands on a barbell for the first time.

Because most beginner programs strive to build this base (at least if they’re worth following), your “beginner base” is probably not too different from another person’s beginner base. If your initial program was focused primarily on, say, improving low-rep strength on squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press with some low-volume, medium-rep assistance lifts and your friend was on a higher volume “bodybuilding” type program, you might look and function slightly differently, but at the end of the beginner stage, both bases are perfectly appropriate for whatever type of training you choose to pursue. The main point is that the foundations must be built by the end of the beginner stage, and if they aren’t, they need to be developed further until they are solid enough to progress to the intermediate level.

This is an excellent time to consider the question I propose. Another way to think about this question is “What do I most want to get out of training?” There are lots of possible answers including strength, aesthetics, sports performance, health, stress relief, fun, challenge, and self-improvement. This is not an exhaustive list, and your answer will likely contain elements from more than one of these items. However, the answer you come up with is going to guide the general direction of your training. The program or method you use to attain maximal numbers in the squat, bench press, and deadlift will be drastically different than one used to make yourself stage-ready or as healthy and fit as possible, and it will result in different physiological and psychological adaptations over time. Of course, you always have the option of changing your direction at any point in your lifting career, but if you don’t pick one to start with, you’re more likely to flounder and stall early on.

How far do I want to go?

Lifting, like any pursuit, can be taken as seriously as you like. It can be something you enjoy recreationally, something you choose to take as far as you humanly can, or it can fall anywhere in between those two extremes. None of these options are superior to any other, because our worth and value as human beings don’t hinge upon our performance in the gym, nor are they based upon any achievement-based criterion. The only person who decides how this hobby fits into your life is you, and at the end of the day, you have to be at peace with yourself and the choices you’ve made.

Now, answering the question of how far you want to take your training will dictate the size of the space in your life you will have to carve out for it. Big goals and high achievements will naturally demand a larger space for lifting and thus larger sacrifices. If you find yourself watching videos of freaks lifting inhuman weights and wanting more than anything to be able to do better, ask yourself if you’re willing to put in many years of brutal, meticulous training that leaves you too drained to pursue most of your other hobbies, if you’re willing to give up your enjoyment of food so that you may optimize your nutrition, and if you’re willing to restrict your social life so that you can have the proper recovery, amongst other things…without the guarantee that you’ll ever even approach that level of performance. Honest introspection can lead you to a yes, a no, or a maybe, all of which are valid. Perhaps you envision yourself eventually hitting a 1300 gym total, or being lean and healthy at 12% bodyfat, you feel a sense of satisfaction and “completion,” so to speak, when you imagine these things, and you don’t feel like you have to go further than that. That’s perfectly fine, too, because it is the pursuit of becoming more than what you are in any domain of your life that ultimately makes you better. It means that your “internal lifting space” probably won’t have to be as expansive as that of the person chasing massive goals. But the sooner you can answer this question, at least in the medium term, the sooner you can appreciate what it’s going to take to get there, and the quicker and more efficiently you can begin preparing for the road ahead. Your goals and your vision can always change, but you need some to start.

What have I found to be the most rewarding aspects of lifting? The most challenging?

Lifting is hard. If it isn’t yet, it will be. For many of us, its inherent difficulty is a major reason we choose to pursue it. Chances are, you’ve experienced a plateau, a setback, or a moment in the gym where you were called to summon more than what you ever thought you had. These things are unavoidable, and as you progress, they will become more common. Ask yourself if the reward you reap from overcoming difficulties in the gym outweighs the frustration you experience from the process. If not, you need to change your mindset, because an imbalance of frustration to reward will lead you to burnout sooner or later.

Contemplate what brings you a sense of reward in the weight room and compare it to what you find the most challenging. If those two answers are closely related to each other, you’re probably in a good spot. Don’t forget to consider factors outside of the gym such as nutrition. Eating enough was always harder than lifting for me for the first several years. Consider how you can tie your frustrations into your rewards, and they will eventually frustrate you less.

What type of training do I respond best to? What type of training do I enjoy the most? How can I best join the two?
By now, you have hopefully run a program or two to completion. If you’ve finished more than one program and they were different enough to invite comparison between them, this is a good time to think about these questions. If you’ve only completed one program or have mostly trained with the same parameters for the major training variables (intensity, volume, and frequency), it may be more challenging to consider these questions as you might not have anything to compare yet.

The further along you are in your lifting career, the more fine-tuned the big three variables will need to be for you to ensure the best response to training. As a beginner, you respond positively to just about everything. As an intermediate, however, you should start to have an idea of whether you are an intensity-responder or a volume-responder. You should also start to appreciate how differences in frequency affect you. Generally, the higher you drive one variable, the more the other two need to be adjusted to allow for proper recovery in a medium to long term program. This is basic periodization, and if you don’t know about it, I recommend you read up on the topic. Some programs will keep two variables high and one low, while a select few intentionally overreach by having all three variables high (Smolov is a great example of this), but these programs are not sustainable except in the short term. Granted, as you progress, your work capacity (tolerance for an increase in the variables) should grow, but everyone has limits. Knowing what type of responder you are will let you choose or design the correct programs for yourself.

However, what do you do if you’re an intensity-responder but enjoy volume training more or vice versa? Progress is critical, and you have to enjoy your time in the gym at least somewhat. If this is the case with you, you’ll have to find a balance between the two factors. For some people, this compromise may be hammering out multiple sets on a main lift with a slightly submaximal intensity. Others may choose to gut out a high intensity set and then do lots of volume on assistance lifts. Eventually, if you start out with a discrepancy and spend enough time training with the style you respond best to, you may come to love it. The answer is in there, but you have to look.

How willing am I to explore different training paradigms?

This is a natural follow-up to the previous set of questions, because as you progress through training, you may respond better to different stimuli at different times. If all you’ve ever done is intensity-based training, for example, and you’ve been stalling for a while, despite other factors such as recovery being appropriate, do you have the insight to consider a totally different method? Can you face the unknown and the uncertainty of whether trying something new will work? Are you patient enough to see your effort through?

If you’re in the gym and you’re training with any degree of seriousness, you must be comfortable being uncomfortable. Intuitively, you know this, because you feel it every time you subject yourself to the weights. A major change in training, such as from an intensity-based to a volume-based approach, even temporarily, is a big step that forces you to think about training in a new way. You must have the mental flexibility and adaptability to deal with such paradigm shifts, because if you train long enough, it won’t be a question of “if,” but “when.”

Beware of taking this too far and becoming a program hopper. Being open to and able to change is a trait. Knowing when to do so judiciously and methodically is a skill.

Where do I generally struggle with my lifts?

You have probably identified some patterns related to how you miss your lifts. If you haven’t, start looking, because you will need this information in order to figure out how to improve.

Let’s consider a broad example. By the time you’re an intermediate, you can probably identify whether you are better at grinding reps or being fast. Most people are naturally better at one over the other, and one will seem much more natural and intuitive. Having both skills is necessary to lift big weights, but one (or both, if you’re unlucky) will take a lot of effort and practice to develop. Personally, I was always an explosive lifter, but it took me years to learn how to grind. To this day, I will lift just about everything fast, have a small range with maximal weights where I can grind successfully, and beyond that I will most likely miss the lift. That “small grinding range” didn’t start coming through until about six years into lifting for me, and it’s expanding ever so slowly so that I can grind just a little longer than I used to every year. Some people will be very fast with some lifts and be very good at grinding others. You have to hammer whatever your weakness is consistently. However, don’t neglect to continue to improve your strength. If you’re an explosive lifter, keep getting faster. The two abilities feed into each other, even if one is far ahead of the other.

This is a good time to assess your form deficits as well as to start thinking about “weak muscles,” weak movement patterns, mobility issues if you have them, how these factors might feed into each other, and how to rectify the issues. Going into detail here is beyond the scope of this write-up, and there are tons of resources out there for you to investigate once you have some hypotheses. Don’t forget about potential psychological reasons for missing lifts. I have touched upon these briefly in my AMRAPs write-up and may go into more detail at a later date.

Am I an animal, a technician, or a machine?

The terms “animal, machine, technician” are not my inventions, and were introduced to me by a fellow lifter about seven years ago. I do not know if these terms were this lifter’s creation, but I want to give credit where credit is due. I'll use these terms to broadly describe three types of lifters and their thought processes and behaviors while preparing for a set or while under the bar.

An animal is a lifter that frequently summons a great deal of emotion while training, especially in order to perform the most challenging set or rep(s). Animals frequently get psyched up and use this burst of emotion to increase performance. They can draw upon thoughts and memories that have nothing to do with lifting to access the emotions they want. These are the lifters that “take it out” on the bar.

Technicians pay a lot of attention to cues throughout the lift. They may rely primarily on a “master cue” that makes the lift come together, or they may use different cues at different points in the lift to optimize each portion of it. There’s a lot going on in the mind of a technician while he or she is lifting, and they usually keep emotional levels low, as high emotion can disrupt their sequences of cues. Technicians often visualize their lifts extensively prior to approaching the bar.

Machines approach lifts with very little emotion and very little cognitive processing. They usually have an idea of how a lift should feel and will aim to perform a lift in such a way that it fits into that paradigm. Their reps are usually highly consistent in form. A machine will be thrown off by both high emotion and an over-reliance on cues. If a machine is using a cue, he or she will try to integrate it and get it out of conscious thinking as quickly as possible. Prior to a lift, a machine will either try to become as internally empty as possible or might perform a brief visualization of the lift, but not to the extent that the technician does.

Most lifters trend towards one of these categories with some contribution from another or both, and their behavior tends to be consistent. Each style has advantages and disadvantages, which are important to consider if you know what type of lifter you are, and I’ll briefly list them here.

Animals are probably the best at taking a set to its absolute limit, and are the least likely to stop a set because of a lack of self-confidence or another psychological reason. They tend to train hard and are easy to push to train harder. On the other hand, constantly summoning intense emotions in the gym is mentally exhausting. An animal can take a set too far-I have seen lifters like this grinding out rep after rep with progressively deteriorating form and being unable to do anything useful afterward. Excessive emotion can also decrease performance on a motor task, if the task hasn’t been mastered yet. The best animal-type lifters aren’t animals every time they touch a weight. Still, knowing how to be an animal at the right time can be a very powerful tool.

Technicians tend to have good form, are knowledgeable about the lifts, and can explain and analyze them well. They’re good at correcting themselves and determining their weaknesses. Sometimes, though, technicians can fall victim to paralysis by analysis. The over-reliance on cues can throw a lift off, especially if it is becoming automatic, or if the cue in question is no longer suitable or necessary for successful performance of the lift in question. Technicians should take periodic inventory of their cues to determine how appropriate they are and replace or eliminate superfluous or unhelpful ones. Finally, technicians are much more susceptible to psychological factors during a set than animals and must learn to deal with them quickly.

Machines, once they find the technique that works best for them, usually perform the lift in question with a high degree of consistency. Because they use the lowest levels of emotion and conscious cognitive processing while lifting, training takes the least mental toll on them compared to the other types of lifters. Machines, however, may have difficulty describing and explaining a lift or why it felt good or bad. It is much harder for a machine than a technician to notice subtle errors in technique or to see something in their lifts that would call for further analysis or for the exploration of a potential weakness. Like a technician, if a machine experiences excessive emotion during a set, it could throw him or her off. A machine is also vulnerable to being distracted by a cue or by fleeting thoughts and thus needs to learn to keep his or her mind empty during the set.

How is my recovery?

This question was, perhaps, not very important to you when you were a beginner and could make progress regardless of what you did outside of the gym. Now, it’s going to start to matter. Refer to the “how far do you want to go?” question. The harder and more you train, the better your recovery needs to be. It may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to forget. Take an honest inventory of your nutrition, sleep, stress levels, and identify factors that could detract from your recovery. Then, after considering this, decide if your level of recovery is commensurate with your answer to “how far do you want to go?” If not, you have some work to do. There are countless resources out there to teach you about improving your recovery. Utilize them.

Do I train too hard? Not hard enough?

Though your initial reaction may be “I train exactly as hard as I need to,” how hard you train must be proportionate to your goals and your recovery. Those of us who love training for the sake of training, those of us for whom it provides sanity, clarity, and release, often fall into the “train too hard” category. Training, like many things, can provide an escape, and there are few escapes as powerful and visceral as the feeling of your soul leaving your body after a proper set of squats. If “release” is your number one answer to the question of “what do I want to do/why am I in the gym?” then perhaps lifting like that is appropriate for you. Just be aware of the limitations that being human comes with, and appreciate that such training is not sustainable forever. Training too hard is easy to glorify, and sometimes it feels really fucking good despite its potential for destruction. Now is a great time to learn moderation if excessive training is holding you back.

On the other hand, if you’re not progressing, and yet you never feel a sense of accomplishment and relief when you leave the gym, or if you can comfortably wear your gym shirt after you’re done, then perhaps you need to give yourself a kick in the ass. Again, your training needs to be proportionate to your goals and your recovery. Your answer to the question of “why am I in the gym?” might well be “to enjoy my time there and to do fun barbell movements.” I’m not going to shit on you for that answer and neither should anyone else, because if that is honestly what you want, then that’s what you should get. But if your answer is “I want to get significantly stronger” and you can relate to what I have said here, or if you spend a large portion of your workout doing “mobility work” and an equally large portion of it bullshitting with your buddies, then you have an incongruency to resolve. In lifting, as in life, we must seek to resolve such incongruencies wherever they rear their heads, because left unattended, they lead to cognitive dissonance, which nobody wants to live with.

Is lifting taking over my life?

This will not be an issue for most of you, but because it will be for at least one of you, it’s worth discussing. What I am going to write here are things I wish I had heard (or listened to) before it was too late for me. For much of my training career, until two or three years ago, lifting completely dominated my life and my identity. It caused my personal growth in all areas of my life to come to a halt. I wasn’t living my life intentionally, but was instead going through the motions, thinking about nothing but what I wanted to experience under the bar. Though I completed college, worked, and appeared to function like a normal person, I wasn’t all there. My relationships suffered, my creative potential was decimated, and I lost touch with most of my many other interests. I was never happy and felt, at best, brief moments of relief when I accomplished my daily goals in the gym. When I had a bad workout, I was devastated. Ironically, once I realized that my relationship with lifting was holding me back and had to change, and once I started to work on improving myself in all the areas I had neglected, my lifts went up significantly. It was only then that I feel I started to come into my own as a lifter.

Seasoned lifters reminisce about the proverbial “bite of the iron bug” with reverence and fondness. This bite is the moment that a lifter realizes that he or she has begun a love affair with the barbell. Like other loves, this one can be profound, powerful, complex, and lifelong. It can be healthy and enriching, or it can be destructive with the potential to lay waste to all the domains of your life. You must take careful inventory of your past relationships, addictions, and behaviors regarding how you participate in the hobbies you enjoy. Be especially diligent in this process if you have an addictive personality, if you tend towards extreme behaviors, and if you have a history of dysfunctional relationships. If you related to the “I train too hard” section, do this right now.

Training, like anything that offers an option for total immersion into itself and a release, can be addictive. It can creep into areas of your life that you might think are completely unrelated to it and take them over. Consider this: Do you have hobbies besides lifting? Can you hold a long conversation about other topics? Can you spend significant periods of time thinking about things completely unrelated to training? How often do you find yourself sacrificing things you don’t want to sacrifice for the sport? Are you still growing as an individual and making progress in other domains of your life? These are hard questions, but they are necessary. If you can’t honestly answer them in a way that reflects the idea that you are a balanced, well-rounded person, I invite you to work on your relationship with the barbell sooner rather than later. Like any relationship, the longer it is unhealthy, the harder it is to change.

Can I imagine myself being done? What does that feel like?

Your training career will one day come to an end. Perhaps this means you will be done lifting altogether, or perhaps this means that you won’t be able to train like you can now. Injuries, illnesses, and old age will happen to all of us. Someday, the space that lifting occupies in your life will shrink or disappear completely. This could be due to circumstances completely beyond your control, like the ones I mentioned, or you might choose to fill that space with something else. You do not know who you will be five, ten, or twenty years from now. You also do not know what your relationship with lifting will be at those junctures. Whatever feelings you have towards it today may not be the same, because you won’t be the same.

Can you picture your wrist wraps hanging on a nail in your garage?

Consider two scenarios. In the first, your connection to the barbell is suddenly severed. You can no longer train. The second scenario is a slow fading away. The Iron still calls you, but the best you can do is to sit with it over coffee and remember the best times until it’s gone. Maybe you will be fortunate enough to enjoy that relationship until your last days, or maybe it will stop calling you after your meetings become too brief for too long. How are those different for you? What thoughts and feelings does each possibility inspire?

Imagine yourself with the identity of a lifter stripped away. Do you still exist? Can you go on?

I think about these things often, and I feel a strange combination of terror and relief. Coming to terms with these questions is tough, and I have a feeling that I won’t have an answer for them until one of the two scenarios is staring me in the face. I hope that you can confront them and find peace with them early on. There is no love without letting go. I wish that you, after many years of growth and self-actualization with the barbell as one of the countless tools in your arsenal, can look upon your lifting career and upon your life and honestly say, “that was beautiful.”

Thank you.

TL;DR: I propose a bunch of training-related and philosophical questions for intermediate trainees to consider in order to have a fruitful lifting career.

I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions. If you would like me to elaborate on any of these points, please let me know, and if there is enough interest, I'll expound upon them in another write-up. I appreciate suggestions for future write-ups as well.

TLDR

Age: 36

Years lifting: 13

Height: 5’5”

Weight: 158 to 196.

1,000 no-rest days.

In this period I accomplished numerous goals. Including a 1RM Press of 235 lbs. (+10 lbs. PR), a 315 lbs. 20-rep max squat (both at 175 lbs. bodyweight), gaining size (about 20 lbs. of lean mass), and stamina (I can shovel snow literally forever). To celebrate the 1,000th day, I completed 33 rounds in a 60-minute AMRAP of a 1,000 lbs. total (345 squat, 243 bench, 412 deadlift).

Introduction

Hello! /u/GZCL (Cody) here. Creator of the GZCL Method and many popular programs derived from it. A good intro to the method is linked in the /r/Fitness Wiki.

For over 1,000 days I have worked out without rest days. That means no days out of the gym, and no counting steps as a workout, nor yoga, and not even shoveling snow… quickly becoming my least favorite activity.

All my workouts used resistance training in some way. Workouts were 99% barbell based and all but about 30 were above 10,000 feet elevation, where my gym is nestled. My training is structured by and progressed through my General Gainz training framework.

I accomplished these things by using a simple training framework, being consistent, and patience – the three foundational elements of progress.

Goals

· To see if I could.

· Assess potential for overtraining.

· Better regulate my training.

· Improve strength, size, stamina, and the condition of lingering injuries.

· To test and refine my General Gainz training framework and programs derived from it. (Read the above linked reddit post to get an idea of what that looks like.) All my personal training clients have also been lifting within this training framework.

One client has surpassed a year without a rest day. Read his fantastic write up:

365 Days and Counting.

Results

No missed workouts for 1000 consecutive days (closer to 1,050 now). Nearly all workouts consisted of lifting weights. Only one was bodyweight only (while on vacation, a fast paced, high volume, nauseating bodyweight circuit). Running, hiking, snow shoveling, etc., did not count as a workout, nor did yoga or other such activities. On many days in the winter because I live at over 10,000 feet elevation, I must shovel snow for hours. This I counted as survival, not training. Same for chopping and hauling wood in a sled. Training is the means to survive easier.

Because I was working out daily, I grew more aware of my recovery limits, thereby avoiding overtraining. This allowed me to better regulate my training as the days continued. Previously, when I was taking rest days, I counted time out of the gym as being a major aspect of recovery. That is a false notion. Because of that former belief I would go too hard in some workouts, figuring that “I would be out of the gym, and so recovering for the next session.” This was not always the case, as some workouts would go on for hours, often performing excessive amounts of sets and needlessly high intensities at all to frequent occurrences.

I had the mindset that a hard workout was always a beneficial workout and that a hard workout meant that I must be puking, shaking, or crawling out of the gym – I was wrong. A beneficial workout is one that produces a positive training stimulus while not increasing recovery debt so much that it inhibits the next workout. As I continued to train within my General Gainz framework I grew to understand this distinction and apply it consistently to my training. This improved the quality and consistency of my training. Compounding interest, but for gains.

I set personal records across rep ranges, from 1RM to 20RM, particularly for press and squat. These are the two lifts that I have favored because they are less stressful on previously injured joints. Six weeks ago I hit a PR 203 lbs. behind the neck press at random. It was just feeling good that day, so I went for it – an unusual decision for me lately – but old habits die hard. This lift improving shows me that my regular pressing is also, despite not currently being in an intensity directed training phase.

This was not my first bulk. But I do consider it my best. I gained 38 pounds between Day 31 and Day 1,000. Going from a low of 158 pounds to a high of 196 pounds, with about 25 of those in 2021. I committed 2021 to a long bulk and a body building phase. The words are separated because I do not mean the sport, rather the goal of building muscle, particularly my arms and shoulders, as those were my goals.

Fat mass increased by about 5%, going from approximately 12% at 158 pounds bodyweight to 17% at 196 pounds bodyweight. This increased how much lean mass I am carrying by about 23.5 pounds (158*.88=139, 196*.83=162.6). This means that in about 1,000 days I gained on average 1.4 pounds of muscle (and associated water weight) per month, or .35 pounds per week average. This is the biggest I have ever been.

(1000 days / 365 = 2.739 years * 12 months = 32.868 months / 23 pounds = 1.42) If my math is wrong here, let me know. I’m a pleb history major, not a king math wizard.

Math correction (I knew my math was wrong...): I gained 23 lbs of lean muscle of 32-ish months, hence about 0.7 lbs/month (or 1.4 months per lb). (Thank you /u/itsgilles )

Additionally, I achieved the goal of rehabbing a hip and shoulder that would often cause pain while lifting and during daily living. In 2017 and 2018, before these last 1,000 days, I could not even do a bodyweight squat, or bench, or deadlift one plate without pain. That is no longer the case, as I can now squat four plates and deadlift five without those prior issues. Not my best weights for those lifts but considering what they were rebuilt from – it is great progress for me.

This was accomplished without training either of those lifts with powerlifting-esq training intensities during 2021. Likewise, despite bench pressing maybe five times in 2021, I still managed an easy 293 pound paused single. This lift is the one that causes my shoulder the most grief, so I have not trained it much in the last two years (a mistake discussed in the following section).

Lastly, during this period I exclusively used General Gainz as the basis for every workout. Doing so improved the concept by expanding and refining the framework. Throughout these 1,000 days it became easier to plan, execute, and assess workouts. Since I began lifting in 2008, my training evolved from random everything to percentage-based powerlifting focused, to volume, intensity, effort relationship based, with a general strength and conditioning focus. In my early powerlifting years, from “OG GZCL” to Jacked & Tan 2.0 to UHF and later VDIP. The last of which grew into what became General Gainz.

Injuries

This section is not a prescription or advice. It is meant to describe how I improved the conditions physically ailing me. Consult your physician regarding your specific problems.

Do not use reddit to diagnose and treat your injuries!

During the 1,000-day period I sustained no major injuries. Only aggravating a previous tear to the right trapezius and rhomboid, and a left groin strain. Both were caused by pushing too aggressively in a single session, causing old injuries (hip and shoulder) to flare up. When this happened, I trained those areas using light resistance and high rep exercises to improve the affected muscles. I would then focus on unaffected muscles and movements, training them with more weight and/or volume.

For example, when benching caused my shoulder to stiffen or ache, I began to do more overhead pressing, a movement that did not cause such problems. Likewise for deadlift, which affected my hip more than squatting – so I squatted more.

When a movement or muscle was giving me problems, I simply ‘worked it out’ in a very literal sense. In fact, years ago I bought a specialty leg press (Shuttle Systems MVP) to help rebuild my hip strength after the joint sustained multiple injuries; the worse of which were not due to lifting, but by falling (I am clumsy and unathletic).

Through exercise I was able to improve the deteriorating condition of my two problem areas, left hip and right shoulder, thereby gradually improving the lifts that tax them most. Granted, I am not at my peak powerlifting strength, but I have not been training for powerlifting for years now.

Where I could have done better is the bench press. Between 2012 to 2016 I had strained my right pec numerous times. This coupled with a once dislocated shoulder resulted in a total dislike of the bench by 2017, for even 135 pounds caused serious discomfort. Disheartened (as I once enjoyed the lift) I abandoned it almost completely these last three years. That I should not have done. Instead, I should have committed to regularly benching very light weights, alongside the other kinds of pressing that I had redirected towards (predominately the strict press).

Apart from those things described above I sustained no other injuries. Symptoms of overtraining, considered by some a kind of injury, were only experienced after months-long bouts of doing the same lifts daily (squat and press, later deadlift and press). Those symptoms were slight (and perhaps more psychological than physical) and came on the heels of testing High Frequency Undulating Progression (HFUP); a training program detailed in a link below. After ending the HFUP training cycle, symptoms of overtraining disappeared within days. Therefore, I do not think I had overtrained, I was just carrying more fatigue than I was used to at that time.

Training Organization

Workouts were built using my General Gainz training framework the entire period. From that framework, various training plans were built, tested, and improved. Training ranged from periods of high frequency and specificity, where I would do the same lift daily for a month or more (HFUP). Such periods resulted in all-time personal records for press, behind the neck press, and pause squat (linked above). Throughout 2021 I largely stuck to a body building training plan to achieve the goal of gaining size, especially to my arms and shoulders.

I have not done the same program throughout these 1,000 days, but I have stuck to the General Gainz framework, using it to construct numerous progressions to achieve various training goals. Example Training Plans:

Generally Strong: A flexible upper/lower split. (Post includes details on applications and adaptations of General Gainz; ideas to implement GG and improve your training.)

High Frequency Undulating Progression: (HFUP) Training the same lift(s) daily by changing the reps/sets/weights each workout.

Wave LP: 4x Week Full Body. (Built by /u/ctye85) I’ve built and ran a similar progression to Wave LP.

General Gainz Body Building: (GGBB) A body part split using supersets. This is the training plan I followed for most of 2021, in some form or another, as I was tinkering with what seemed to work best and changing the workouts as my recovery dictated. This means I was adjusting or changing exercises, order of exercises, volumes, and intensity, so that I could workout frequently – without training an under recovered muscle group. The linked post describes in greater detail a weekly progression outline, schedule options, exercises, supersets, etc.

With GGBB, I followed (mostly) a split of this nature:

Day 1: Legs

Day 2: Shoulders

Day 3: Back

Day 4: Arms

These were the muscle groups that were the focus in the workout. I would often do abs alongside legs or back, for example. (I did not train chest intentionally, but if that is your goal, then you can tailor GGBB to suit you.)

I would progress volume first, then once I hit a designated Rep Max (RM) target I would add weight and try to push that new weight to a higher RM. If in a workout I could not add reps to an RM set, I would do more reps in the sets that came after it.

Lift variations were used and rotated as I trained with GGBB. Such as doing SSB squat or Romanian deadlifts instead of the standard variety. Same for football bar press or incline bench. I used barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, cables, bands, TRX, etc.

The above linked posts detail the training plans I used during this period. Each was developed using General Gainz, which works by performing one or a combination of four actions to progress: Find/Hold/Push/Extend. Those concepts and associated progressions are also detailed in the above linked posts. (The GGBB post has a good intro to General Gainz.)

You can develop your own training plan using the GG framework. If you do, I have high confidence that you will be successful in achieving your lifting goals. GG provides a simple and intuitive organization and direction. Your consistency and patience produce the results.

My training is based in GG and so is my client’s training.

How to Train Daily: Prioritize Recovery

“Gains are made out of the gym” is a cliché.

One should not consider such a cliché the dominate factor in improving their physicality. People who say such things are often better at giving unsolicited advice than lifting weights.

To physically improve, it takes physical training. To consistently train, you need to recover – but that does not necessarily mean that sedentary days are required. There is nothing magical about staying out of the gym. Doing so does not guarantee an increased recovery rate.

If lifting regularly leaves you hobbled for a few days after, then you likely need more physical activity, not less. (And you also need to reassess how your training is set up. Follow a proven plan. Read the /r/fitness wiki.)

Do more general physical preparedness (GPP) work, like snow shoveling, my favorite, not.. If you don’t have snow, then just dig and fill the same hole in the dirt. If you don’t like those options, then push and pull a sled in the gym for an hour a few times per week. The point is that recovery is just as much about your work capacity as it is about your practices and habits outside the gym. None of which require staying out of the gym as a condition for success.

If you don’t want to lift weights or do manual labor daily, that’s fine. Go for walks, runs, bike – do something!

I have been able to recover from my workouts by prioritizing:

1.Eating and hydration.

2. Sleeping.

3. De-stressing.

People confuse not going to the gym with recovery because not doing something is easier than working on improving recovery habits. Knowing I had a workout tomorrow, I made those three things bigger priorities in my life. I was also able to better regulate my desire to absolutely crush myself, because I have the weekend off and need to earn it. (So I would say years ago.)

Time out of the gym is not the most important aspect of recovery. If it is for you, then you’re probably not prioritizing good recovery habits. An easy workout is better recovery than a hard night out partying, or a late night of Netflix, or a day full of stressed-out consumption of “news.”

Of the things listed above, I did the worst with eating. This has always been trouble for me, but I do think I improved a bit in this aspect these 1,000 days. Having always been a scrawny manlet, getting to 200 lbs. was my goal. I barely missed that. This is due to the many days where I forgot my lunch or was just too consumed by work to eat. I could do better here, and if I had, I know I would have had better results.

When it comes to nutrition, I have a consistent diet that is made up of rice, salad, eggs, and various meats. Often in the shape of a burrito.

I also eat a fair share of potatoes and bread but will limit those during a cut period when I am trying to lose weight. I do eat out a few times per month on average, but rarely more than once a week (if that). My most common meal is a salad with rice and beef. Since I was bulking for all of 2021, I simply increased the serving. In 2022, I’ll eat less, but typically the same kinds of foods.

Generally, my motto is: “If bulking, never be hungry. If cutting, always be.” And I try to bias my eating to the “Green Faces” practice (if it is green or had a face, eat it).

I tend to not track macros closely, nor calories. If I did, I would have had better results. 13+ years of training has developed my ability to gauge my own eating and practice good habits somewhat accurately and consistently. I could do better here, I admit.

As for hydration: I pee so often it sometimes annoys me.

Alcohol consumption is rarely more than a six pack per week. If I averaged out the number of beers drank over these 1,000 days, it would probably be one to two per week. Some weeks have more than others, especially if I find a beer I have not tried, and it turns out to be good.

I regularly get 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. If I do not, then I try to squeeze in a nap. I try to nap as much as I can. One to three a week on average.

De-stressing can be hard. To do this I have tried to limit my media exposure, which I determined to be the greatest source of stress for me. Doing so has reduced worrying about things I cannot control. I admit that I could do better, and just delete every social media account and stop watching and reading any current events whatsoever – perhaps later down the road.

I have found that spiritual and philosophical practices are helpful in de-stressing and am working on improving this aspect of my life. Same for reading literature. My favorite book from last year’s reading was Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Regarding supplements, I infrequently consume protein powder. Perhaps 3 to 5 scoops per week. Many weeks not even that much. I try to focus on whole foods as best as I can, and supplement as may be necessary (they’re called supplements, after all). More protein powder is consumed during bulking periods for this reason, as it is easier to get in a few ounces of fluids with 30 grams of protein than it is to eat that much more beef, chicken, or fish. On reflection, I should always have an emergency shaker of protein, just in case I forget my lunch.

Additional supplements I use are creatine, vitamin D, ZMA, Arginine and Ornithine. I had (have) an unhealthy amount of caffeine daily, but I have recently switched to half-caff and have drastically reduced my energy drink consumption. I try to keep it less than 300mg daily.

At no point in these 1,000 days have I used prescription or otherwise obtained performance enhancing drugs such as hormones, SARMS, pro-hormones, or steroids. I am not a “lifetime natural.” For about one year, ending in 2016, I tried TRT. I did not find it that helpful and I could no longer justify the cost. Well before that I was a crackhead addicted to Jack3d, which was basically crystal meth… remembers the good ol’ days (they were, in fact, not).

Summary

Over 1,000 days ago I started lifting daily and have not stopped. I gained size, strength, and stamina. I have not overtrained. The condition of pre-existing injuries has improved and were only aggravated on occasion that I became a knucklehead and did more reps than I knew better to.

Additionally, I worked through my General Gainz training framework, further developing the concept, and many successful training plans in the process. Several are linked in this post. GG improved my training and my client’s training too. I hope this post improves your training similarly.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I hope you’ve found this information helpful. Below are more links to posts I’ve written along the way to 1,000 days.

100 Days

200 Days (Also linked above for Generally Strong.)

300 Days (Also linked above for HFUP.)

500 Days

600 Days

1000 Days

Lastly, /r/weightroom – thank you. It was about 11 years ago that I started sharing my training with you here. Now people around the world use my training to get bigger, stronger, and more fit. Moderators, you have a thankless job that you do wonderfully. I appreciate you. Without your help I would not be as successful at doing my part in improving humanity.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank u/ZBGBs for approving this idea and allowing me to summon the requisite amount of narcissism to write a post of this magnitude.
BACKGROUND AND GOALS: 5'7, 29, 208 lbs on a day that I'm not full of shit. I come from hardy Eastern European and Mediterranean stock, but my whole life believed that I got the short end of the genetics stick, until, amazingly, my genetics started to improve alongside my lifts. As a kid, I did karate for about five years, which did little for my ability to engage in hand to hand combat but did certainly provide me with a base of flexibility and motor intelligence, as well as tennis during the summers, which gave me a cardiovascular base that was quickly lost between the ages of 16-19 because the only thing I played in those years was RuneScape.
I started lifting seriously at age 19 because my back hurt and because I wanted to be sexier, and kept lifting despite far surpassing my aesthetics goals. My goals changed as I progressed as a person and as a lifter, but they were, with some semblance of order, as follows: To be sexy, to not have back pain, to get stronger, to get bigger and stronger, to get as big and strong as possible, to break records, to be healthier, to be sexy again, to be happier, to be more sane, to be wiser, to enjoy the experience, and to pass on the torch.
BEFORE - AFTER: All weights in lbs. The initial weights are estimates. They happened a long time ago and too many things happened to my body and brain in these ten years to remember everything correctly.
Bodyweight: 130----->208, with a peak of about 232 in the fourth year and trough of 190 in the fifth.
Squat: 135----->615
Bench: 95----->430 TnG, 415 paused
Deadlift: 185----->715
Front Squat: 105----->505
Press: 95----->290
Body Fat %: ~8%----->~12%, with a peak of around 30%.
Caloric Intake: 2000----->3500, with a peak of around 6000.
Aesthetics: I went from being an absolutely shredded skinny kid to absolutely shredded moderately muscular young man, to a fat, bloated powerlifter aesthetic, to being very jacked, and to being quite jacked and relatively lean. Also, I improved my hairstyle in my 8th year of lifting, which improved me from a 4/10 to a solid 6 more than anything.
Annual Income: Fluctuated between 0 and $25,000, now a little closer to something decent as I prepare to enter my career. For about six of these ten years, I have been in school.
THE PROGRAM: My principle for this past decade has been the idea that the gym is a place that I go to bust my ass and to bust my balls if I don't succeed. The fear of failure, weakness, smallness, and inadequacy drove me much harder than the taste of success, and it showed in my training. I have never followed a "program," except 5/3/1 for about a month in my first year, which I found terribly boring and unstimulating, and Westside for about 3 months in my 4th year, which I didn't understand enough to properly employ, and so I always reverted to "do what you want, but try really fucking hard and try to PR something every time you're in there."
I have trained anywhere from 2-7 days a week. I have squatted 7 days a week, run Smolov for back and front squats, pressed 3 times a week for 15 heavy working sets under time control, deadlifted anywhere from once every 2-3 weeks to 3-4 times a week, done upper back work from 1-5 times a week, and benched as little as once a month to 3 times a week. I've done conditioning from never to every training session. I've worked a physical job alongside my lifting, and I've also done no other physical activity other than walking to the kitchen and bathroom. I've done training specifically for powerlifting, for strongman, and for bodybuilding, and I've learned and taken from all those disciplines.
As I've gotten older, I'd like to say that I have begun to train smarter, but I'm not going to lie to you. I have not been able to train with anything other than intensity. I squat >85 or 90% every single week, usually more than once. I pull over 600 every single week. I just get bored doing weights that are light for me. That's not to say I don't occasionally decrease the intensity and bump my volume. I do, but it only lasts a couple months at most before I'm back to lifting weights that scare me. My "programming" has been a complete lack of programming. I would like to think that I am an example of what happens when you try very hard, prioritize lifting above most things (often with detriment, as I will describe later), eat for performance, and take the right supplements. I believe that most anything will work if you really work, but you need to be a little unhinged with your training to get there.
I have deloaded only out of necessity, whether it was due to injury, an upcoming meet, or when my body physically couldn't handle what I demanded of it. During my deloads, I would get anxious and dream about the weights that I wanted to lift.
My entire life I have trained in hardcore gyms. For several years, I had a squat rack and a bar literally in my bedroom. I stopped using a belt about six years ago because I outgrew mine and couldn't afford a new one. One thing remained constant. Not a single day has gone by that I didn't think about what weights I was going to lift and felt both the fear and the excitement they promised me.
DIET, SLEEP, RECOVERY: My diet was variable and dependent on my goals. When I was bulking, which I was for about a third to a half of my career, I did what I needed to do to get the calories in. This involved using psychological strategies to blunt the sensation of fullness, using Pavlovian triggers to associate unrelated stimuli to increased hunger, and learning about stoicism to better tolerate the suffering I was putting myself through to put on mass. Generally, I aimed for my bodyweight in protein-grams +50 (so when I weighed 160, I would shoot for 210g protein/day). For the first year or so, I tracked everything I ate, and then, I was able to reliably predict how much I was eating by weighing myself several times a day.
Sleep was often times an issue. I have dealt with varying degrees of insomnia since I was 16. At times, I needed several medications to get to sleep, as well as a different one when I woke in the middle of the night. My sleep disturbances were very correlated with whatever else was going on in my life at the time. Overall, my sleep quality hasn't been great, but I have managed to get 7-9 hours most nights, usually with the aid of medications.
In terms of recovery, there are a few topics to discuss. Diet and sleep, of course, were the primary factors that I tried to keep constant. I used to foam roll and stretch a lot more than I do now, but don't do them much anymore as I don't find that I usually get tight. I do a bare minimum of "mobility work," probably less than 3 minutes a day, as I have always been mobile and flexible from karate.
When I was 24, I began using PEDs. I ran a few cycles of test, which helped me recomp from 232 at 30% or higher to about 205 at 16-18%, and then I went off until I was 26. From 26 to 28, I permablasted (stayed on cycle) for essentially two years straight. My lifts steadily increased, as did my muscle mass, as my health and sanity suffered. At the peak of it I was around 215 at 10% or less. But, like anything that is potent, has effects on the entire body, and is potentially toxic, I couldn't keep doing it indefinitely. In late 2018, I had to come off for physical and mental health reasons, and I have been on testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) ever since. It is highly likely that I will be on TRT for the rest of my life due to the damage I have done to my endocrine system. I got a taste of what it was like to be more than the human I was, to have the capacity to really myself beyond my natural capabilities, and to reap rewards that turned heads. Those memories tempt me daily, and to not return to what I was doing is a daily decision.
My best lifts that I have written above were performed either towards the end of my permablast or during this long phase of TRT. I feel there is still progress to be made in all the lifts, even without heavy chemical assistance. I am still learning about technique, tweaking my form, changing my assistance lifts, and fixing weaknesses. Above all, I train hard. I will not sugarcoat it-PEDs worked, they gave me an advantage that I still carry, but I paid a price and will likely continue to do so, because I don't know if that debt can be fully paid off.
I have had one major injury throughout my career, which was a herniated L2 disc that I sustained in September 2017 while deadlifting 635x4 with form that I had been warned would give me such an injury. I had chosen to ignore those warnings until I couldn't anymore. I tried taking it easy, but I couldn't. I further herniated the disc a couple weeks later, and at that point I did the necessary physical therapy, backed off the weights, and did a lot of assistance lifts. Within 3 months, I could squat over 500 and deadlift over 600 again. I am sure that my chemical enhancement helped me out. Since then, I have been more careful about protecting myself from injury and taking my form more seriously.
WHAT I LIKED: I like the feeling of anxiety washing away from me as I hit the hardest planned set of the day. I like knowing that I've come this far by using my way, and I like knowing that my training will take me further. I like the fact that I am literally a different person because of all this-for better or for worse-but that I had the ability to effect such drastic change in myself.
I enjoy the looks I get in the street, and I enjoy the fact that I carry the evidence of this pursuit with me everywhere I go. I reap the benefits of the confidence that facing a weight that you are afraid will kill you and surviving bestows upon you. I like knowing that I am strong, and that I wasn't always this way, and that my strength is universally useful. I enjoy the knowledge that I have come this far without much help or anyone watching over me or telling me what to do or how to train.
I enjoyed the time a retired professional wrestler spotted me on a 225 bench, a weight I had failed many times, and told me, "control the weight. Don't let the weight control you." I still remember getting the weight for a double.
I have met best friends, brothers, and lovers in gyms, and I have bonded with them not just over the iron but over the character traits that drove us into the same place so that we could intersect. I have felt a deep sense of belonging in gyms, because they are places that strip away externals and reveal the fundamental nature of those who allow this process to transform them.
I do not think I could have learned as much about my strengths, faults, and shortcomings had I not subjected myself to the rigors of training. No personality test can tell you these things like a barbell can. With the insights I have gained, I feel ready to become who I am meant to be.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: I am not going to tell you I enjoyed this process. It contained a multitude of wonderful moments, but more often than not, it was hell. Lifting weights completely and utterly dominated my life for a decade and stunted my personal growth. There was a period in my life, lasting several years, in which I did nothing but work just enough to survive, and pounded the weights and wrote fiction in all my free time. I could have begun pursuing my career and living my dreams much younger, but I suppressed them for the sake of this pursuit. For this, and for all else that I have to say here, I accept full responsibility.
I did not enjoy sitting at my desk, sweating through shirt after shirt, distracting myself with whatever I could find on bodybuilding.com, trying not to vomit, forcing myself to eat more, night after night, only to step on the scale the next morning and see "130" on it. I did not enjoy the anxiety attacks that the idea of not eating enough and being small gave me. I am not happy with the fact that I worked my way into body dysmorphic disorder, which I had to take care of during an already difficult time in my life. I did not enjoy lugging around a gallon jug of milk, stealing food from the university cafeteria, and eating in the back of the lecture hall. I did not enjoy the fact that after several months at 6000 calories a day, all food became tasteless and repulsive, and that it took me years to enjoy eating again.
I did not like being bent in half, unable to catch a breath, thinking that I was going to die when I got Tren cough. I did not enjoy the sweaty, sleepless nights, the nightmares, the anxiety, the hot flashes, the short fuses, and the distorted thoughts that the various compounds I have consumed produced in me. I could have done without the constant bloodwork and the mini panic attacks I would have before opening up my results. I wish I could have made a different decision on the days that I felt myself literally losing my mind from the gear, but choosing to continue it because I was so close to a goal. I did not enjoy the injection site reactions, the breakouts, the paranoia I felt every time I felt a clump of hair come loose in the shower. I do not enjoy my twice-a-week ritual that will likely continue for the rest of my life where I administer to myself the testosterone I can no longer make on my own, and resist the urge to pull just a little more oil into the syringe.
But god damn, at least I got that PR!
I did not enjoy going home from parties at 9 so that I could eat and sleep. I did not enjoy turning down women because I was too focused on my training. I did not enjoy missing get-togethers, family time, time with significant others, and time with myself because I had to train or prepare for training.
I do not regret anything, but if I could do it all over again, I don't think I would. Being a lifter consumed me. I could have been much happier, healthier, and more successful if I had learned to treat training as one of the many things that I was interested in, instead of my defining feature, because by adopting the identity of a lifter above all else, I excluded many other identities that would have been good for me and closed many doors that I should have kept open.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I have had a lot to say, and I have said a lot. Becoming a lifter, training, and developing this domain of my life has been my number one priority for ten years. It has been the one consistent element in my life. And yet, I am but protoplasm compared to the greats. At the end of the day, I know that I am nothing, and these achievements, though they mean a lot to me as they have been my experience, pale in comparison to the achievements of many natural, more talented lifters, many of whom likely approached lifting with a much healthier outlook and kept their lives in balance. I am, after all, an n=1, and my story is not the story of lifting, but of a lifter, a gym rat, a meat-heart that has, over a decade, found some peace with the iron.
I mentioned before, in passing, of wanting to pass on the torch. As it stands, the torch that I want to pass is firmly nailed into my hand, and the only way I see it becoming dislodged is if it ripped from me by a catastrophic injury or illness, or if some life-changing realization weakens the nail-torch-hand junction. I have tried to walk away from the identity of a lifter many times without success and have always returned to training, though, over the years, I have been able to develop other interests, I finished my undergraduate and graduate education, and I found a little more balance. Perhaps the nail will gradually rust and fall out, or perhaps I will slowly loosen my death grip upon the torch. As it stands, I have been very fortunate to help ignite the torches of others with mine, and I hope I will continue to have the privilege of doing so. But it is also my responsibility, knowing what I know now, to help those who wish to bear this torch understand what it means to do so and to carry it in a way that will bring light into their lives rather than a nail into their hands.
I'd like to end with a little anecdote. I was eating lunch when a classmate of mine asked me how I got into lifting weights.
"Well, my back hurt, I wanted to get stronger, and I had heard that lifting weights could help me with both of those things," I said.
"So is your back all better now?" she asked.
"No, my back still hurts," I said, "but at least I'm fucking jacked."
Thank you for reading my novel, and I hope that you got something out of it.
TL;DR: Lifted weights with no program for 10 years, worked very hard at it, adopted the identity of a lifter to the exclusion of all others, completely changed everything about myself for better or for worse to be good at lifting, and slowly came to learn that there's more to life and happiness than this.

Hey folks,

u/TheAesir requested I post the link to my book here on the main page, so HERE YOU GO

This is a rough cut of what may one day be a bit more polished. It covers several unique and semi unique ideas I have had on the topics of getting bigger, stronger and better conditioned. Hope you all enjoy!

Intro

Bracing is a fundamental skill to learn for every lifter. It’s the most universal skill in the weight room because no matter which strength pursuit interests you most, bracing correctly is necessary for doing it safely and effectively. Improper bracing is a major contributing factor to technique issues (AKA form breakdown), missed lifts, and injuries. Many lifters, myself included, have struggled with it at some point in their careers, and I have personally re-learned the skill several times and am continuously improving it. I’ll cover elements of a good brace, cues for individual elements of the brace and for putting them together, troubleshooting common issues, and ideas and exercises for improving bracing. To the best of my ability, I will integrate science, studies, personal experience, and the experiences of others. Nothing in here should be construed as any sort of medical advice. Follow any suggestions at your own peril. Caveat emptor.

Purpose

The purpose of bracing is to create a strong, stable trunk to allow for safe, efficient, and effective transfer of force from the prime movers into the object you are lifting. Correct bracing increases intra-abdominal pressure, which adds to the trunk’s stability. The trunk is generally not a prime mover itself during compound lifts; instead, it’s usually contracted isometrically and shouldn’t move or change position unless required for proper performance of the lift (for example, forward lean during a squat, slight lean-back during a press, or straightening to stand erect during a deadlift). There are some exceptions such as stone lifting where using the trunk as a prime mover is unavoidable for at least part of the movement, but you must still brace correctly to prevent injury and to safely execute the lift.

When you don’t brace correctly, your lifting suffers. You can’t get around it. Just like you can’t out-train shit form past a certain point, you can’t get away with poor bracing forever. Because your trunk is less stable, you’re more prone to injury since structures that should be transmitting force end up bearing the brunt of it. Your technique can never approach “optimal” if your bracing is bad. Name one high level athlete in any strength sport who can’t brace correctly. To brace badly is to hamper your lifting potential at every step, from your first day in the gym to the day you hang up your wrist wraps for good, not only for the first two reasons, but because of the laws of physics. Let’s get right to it.

Elements of the brace

Most people who are first learning to brace think about two things: Taking a deep breath and holding it and pushing their abs out. That’s a fine place to start, but there’s a lot more.

Diaphragmatic breathing: This is the first cornerstone of bracing. It refers to using your diaphragm and intercostals to draw your breath (which allows for a big breath and a full expansion of your chest and abdomen) rather than muscles such as the pecs and the sternocleidomastoid which produce small, shallow breaths. Think of your diaphragm as a bellows that makes your lungs bigger and thus draws air into them. A common misconception is that your chest shouldn’t move at all when you’re breathing to brace. If you are taking a big, full breath, your intercostals will expand your chest, causing your ribs to move outward, and your upper chest may rise slightly. However, if you pull your ribs down correctly, which I’ll describe later, your chest should return to its starting position.

Try this: Lie down with your knees bent, put one hand just below your ribcage, and put the other hand on your upper chest. Now, breathe into the hand that’s on your stomach. Your stomach should expand. That’s a diaphragmatic breath. Is your upper chest moving a lot? If so, you’re using a lot of accessory muscles. Now, move the hand on your stomach a few inches to the right or left so that your palm or fingers are on your lower ribs and try taking a bigger breath while maintaining the diaphragmatic pattern. You’ll notice that your ribs move outward and your upper chest may rise a bit. This is a full expansion. Try doing this in different positions-90/90 as recommended by Alexander Bromley, quadruped, sitting, and standing.

The question of “how do you breathe into your sides?” was asked to me here. I’m going to assume that this means “how do you breathe into your lateral chest?” rather than breathing into your obliques, which isn’t really possible. If you are having trouble getting your chest to expand, you can use your hand as a cue. Gently press into your lateral ribs and breathe against that resistance. Move your hands around and learn to breathe wherever they’re providing resistance. This will help you take full breaths and ultimately to brace better.

Neutral spine: The second cornerstone of bracing. This refers to the three natural curves present within the spine, which are cervical lordosis (C-shape made by the vertebrae of the neck), thoracic kyphosis (Reverse-C-shape of the upper back vertebrae), and lumbar lordosis (C-shape of low back vertebrae). Note that these curves are slight, and an exaggeration, even if it’s in the “correct” direction can be detrimental. We’ll focus mostly on the low back here.

Why is this important? Neutral spine is the safest position for your back under load and places your prime movers in the positions of the most advantageous muscle lengths. Many people, both lifters and non-lifters alike, have significant anterior pelvic tilt (which manifests as over-arching of the low back). It’s commonly thought to be a consequence of tight hip flexors and weak abs and glutes (if we are speaking from a purely biomechanical perspective, as it’s also possible the person doesn’t know what neutral spine is). The opposite, posterior pelvic tilt, is more rare and is thought to be caused by tight hamstrings, glutes, and lower abs as well as weak hip flexors and quads. People used to be obsessed with throwing all sorts of exercises at these issues, especially in the physical therapy world, but now the tide seems to be turning towards simply teaching neutral spine and doing functional activities (including lifting) with it. This is good: it gets down to basics, doesn’t overwhelm the patient or trainee, and immediately gets them doing useful things and getting stronger.

Here’s a simple test. Stand up against the wall with your shoulder blades touching it and your heels a few inches away. If you can slip more than 2-3 fingers between the small of your back and the wall, you’re probably in excessive anterior tilt (unless you have a huge ass which forces you to be further away from the wall). Conversely, if you can’t slip 1-2 fingers, you have posterior tilt. Let’s focus on anterior tilt since it’s much more common. Imagine you have a tail, and you’re going to tuck your tail between your legs. You’ll feel your glutes and your abs activate, and if you’re still at the wall, you’ll feel your low back contact the wall or press down on your fingers. This should not be an aggressive, all-out max effort contraction; just enough to get your pelvis to rotate is plenty. Doing it too aggressively will put you in excessive posterior tilt. If you find yourself unable to perform this in standing, go back to lying down on your back with your knees bent and practice there, then work up to a standing position as you did with breathing.

Once you’ve got a handle on what is neutral, the next step is to integrate it with proper breathing. Work on maintaining the neutral spine while you take diaphragmatic and then expansive breaths. If your back gets fatigued, good! You know what you need to work on. As before, progress from lying down to standing up.

Bellybutton in: A quick disclaimer. Some of you will find this to be a useful cue to try while others will find it a waste of time. Either is fine because this is just a teaching tool. If it doesn’t work, drop it. The goal is to lift weights, not improve our bellydancing.

Drawing your bellybutton in activates your transverse abdominis, which is your deepest abdominal muscle layer. This muscle is shaped like a corset and acts like one: it compresses your abdominal cavity and adds stability to the spine. When you do this, it should be a small movement. You’re not doing a stomach vacuum, because that won’t allow you to bear down with the rest of your trunk muscles. To see if you’re doing it correctly, put a finger on each of your anterior superior iliac spines (look it up if you don’t know where it is) and move your fingers towards your midline about an inch. Press down very gently, draw your bellybutton in, and you should feel a muscle contraction kick your fingers out. Your abs should stay quiet throughout this. This is difficult for a lot of people to learn, so practice! After getting it on its own, integrate it with the previous two cues.

This cue can be faded out as your bracing improves. Once you can effectively brace the entirety of your trunk, your transverse abdominis is certainly going to be active. As with other lifting, the more we can reduce the number of cues (towards either a master cue or automaticity), the better.

Ribs down: This cue tightens the upper portion of your abdomen and gets your obliques involved. The key is to NOT think of it as a standing crunch. Your back should not change position at all here. Here’s a manual cue you can try. Find your xiphoid process (the pointy end of your sternum), put a finger from each hand there, and move outwards a couple inches until you’re over a rib. Now, with your fingers, draw a straight line in the direction of your hip crests. You’ll pass over your abs and obliques. Imagine yourself using those muscles to connect those two points. Concentrate on putting pressure through those lines, and you’ll pull your ribs down and brace more strongly. This cue should be done once you’re in neutral spine, because if you’re not, you’ll have a devil of a time making it happen. Don’t believe me? Arch your back as hard as you can, then try to do it. It’s almost impossible.

Tight upper back/engaging lats: The way you execute this element of the brace is going to vary depending on what lift you’re performing. However, you want to think about your shoulder blades moving back and down. “Pinch a pen between your shoulder blades” is a common cue. The goal is for your upper back to become rigid and to stay in position throughout your lift. With squats, many people achieve this by actively pulling the bar down into themselves. With deadlifts, I like to think about flaring my lats and at the same time trying to crush a soda can in the top of my armpits. There really isn’t a universal cue that works for everyone for every lift with this element of the brace, so experiment and figure out what works, keeping in mind that the point of it is to create upper back rigidity.

Pelvic floor: If you think of your trunk like a pop can, the diaphragm is the top, the muscles of the spine are the back, the transverse abdominis is the front, and your pelvic floor is the bottom. To engage this, pretend you’re going to the bathroom and you need to stop the flow of urine. You will feel some muscles in your groin and perineum tighten up. As with the “bellybutton in” cue, this one is a good candidate for fading out eventually, as it will likely become automatic.

Total pressurization and putting it all together: We’ve covered a lot of elements, so let’s run through a drill to integrate all of them. In standing, take a big, full, “total expansion” breath. Feel your abdomen and chest expand. Find neutral spine. Now, pull your ribs down, bear down with your abs and obliques, and at the same time, purse your lips and think about compressing the air you just inhaled with all of your trunk muscles. You must push at it from every direction! Run your hands down your torso as you did with the ribs down exercise, and increase the tension as you move towards your hip crests. You may feel pressure (muscle activation) in your back, and your upper back may tighten reflexively. If not, visualize the pressure wrapping all the way around you, bear down harder until you can feel it everywhere, and tighten your upper back. Now activate your pelvic floor. You should feel like you can take a punch from any direction-from the front, the side, and even from behind you-and if you touch anywhere on your torso with a finger you should feel a powerfully contracted muscle. This is a total brace, and it is the foundation for all your lifting. Though there are other ways to brace for high rep work that I’ll discuss later, they are based on this, and if you’re ever in doubt, default to the total brace.

This should not feel good nor comfortable. You will be tired after practicing this if bracing correctly is unfamiliar to you. When you lift with a good brace, you will be sore at first. Some of the heavy-duty exercises to improve bracing will initially make you so sore that you won’t even want to laugh. Deal with it. You can either learn to brace, or you can spend your time bitching about stalled lifts and back pain. Your choice.

Translating to lifting

Attaining a solid brace on your own is a great start, but you must be able to apply this skill in the gym. You must be able to maintain your brace against the resistance of a heavy object as your body is moving. After about ten years of training, I found a master cue that made sense for every lift.

“Your torso is a tank. Don’t let it change position.”

This floated into my mind as I was about to descend into a heavy squat. It made the rep smoother, faster, and far easier than expected. I ended up hitting a 20lb PR that same day. I find it effective because the comparison reminds me that my trunk should be impenetrable and “armored” on all sides, and it should only move as much as it needs to. When you lift weights, the bar likes to stay over your midfoot. Your trunk angle needs to accommodate that and no more. This means that you need to resist the weight from pushing or pulling any portion of your torso out of the position you attain at the start of your lift beyond the basic requirements of the lift itself. For example, you must lean forward during a squat to keep the bar over the midfoot, but your upper back shouldn’t round to get you there. You can deadlift with a neutral or rounded upper back, but it should stay consistent throughout the pull. There are exceptions, such as in strongman, but I don’t know those movements well enough to discuss them.

With any movement where you take the bar out of the rack, you need to be braced before you start moving with it. It is much harder to brace properly under the bar if you haven’t braced before you take it out. Similarly, on movements like the deadlift where you don’t start with an eccentric, you must be braced before the bar starts moving. There’s no way to effectively fix a poor brace mid-lift.

Belts

Belts work. I don’t use one, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I stopped because I got too fat for mine at one point and was too broke to buy another, so I just went without as an experiment with n=1. Having something to push against increases your intra-abdominal pressure, and the belt itself can provide a tactile cue for pressurizing in every direction. There’s no difference in executing the brace when the belt is on. However, for the belt to be truly effective, you need to know how to brace in the first place. It doesn’t replace the skill, which is a mistake many beginners and early intermediates make.

When you wear a belt, you should still be able to fully expand. If you can’t do that, the belt is too tight. I have noticed that trainees who struggle with bracing tend to crank the belt even harder, which makes the problem even worse. Generally, it should be a bit tighter on squats than on deadlifts due to the different starting positions, and on deadlifts it is usually worn a little higher, closer to the ribcage.

When should you wear or not wear a belt? As with many things in the gym, the answer is “it depends.” I would personally recommend knowing how to brace first so that you don’t develop any bad habits. Ideally, you’ll be able to develop your brace to an acceptable level by the end of your beginner stage, which would be an appropriate time to put a belt on. You should be consistent when you use it. If you are working up to a high intensity set, put it on during your warmups. Find a reasonable warm-up weight where you feel that you would benefit from a belt and stick with it for a while. As you get stronger, that initial weight might creep up…or it might not. There are guys squatting a grand who put a belt on at 405. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter too much.

However, if you do end up using a belt, it’s worth ditching it occasionally, with appropriate adjustments to your intensity, to challenge your bracing. You can use beltless work as assistance, as core lifts in your program, or you can even run a beltless training cycle. As with any exercise selection, always consider the following questions: “What is this going to teach me?” and “which factors will this improve?” This will help you fit it properly into your training.

Low vs high rep bracing

This topic arises from a multi-part question that was asked here, namely “How do you create and maintain tension throughout the set, and what’s the difference between bracing for a low rep versus a high rep set?” Let’s address it sequentially.

Regarding creating tension, I have already described how to brace. However, the question of how to maintain it remains. Well, as much as I would love to give a detailed, step-by-step answer, the real answer is,

“Don’t get loose!”

That’s really it. You need to keep doing whatever you were doing (utilizing the necessary cues) to get tight in the first place. Become aware of what braced vs. loose feels like, whether that’s in your upper back, lower back, or abs/obliques, and when you feel yourself loosening, tighten up! Go through your bracing cues between every rep until the process becomes automatic. The other thing to consider is your breathing pattern between reps. Don’t completely deflate because you’ll lose tightness and your upper back position. Instead, keep some air drawn into your stomach the whole time and breathe “on top” of that. These breaths will sound like short, forceful puffs. Then, perform another full expansion and total brace before you begin your next rep.

The total brace should be your default until the process of bracing is automatic and for all low rep work. However, with high rep work, if the weights are light enough and you need to perform a lot of reps, there is another option. If you need to ask, “how light should the weight be” or “how many reps is a lot,” then you aren’t ready and you should just use the total brace. I’ll discuss high rep squats. Consider that you normally let out a little air at some point between starting to come out of the hole and finishing the lift, usually as you’re getting through the sticking point. You’ll perform your first rep with a total brace like normal (because this will establish your tightness for the whole set), but instead of waiting and re-bracing at the top, you’ll inhale the moment you finish letting out that small volume of air, effectively breathing “on top” as you’re finishing the rep, and then you’ll brace again the moment you start to descend. If you need to take some time to catch your breath mid-set, then stand and breathe as you normally would, and then create a total brace on the next rep. This strategy can let you crank out a lot of reps in quick succession, but the weight needs to be light enough to permit you to not be 100% braced 100% of the time. If you’re not sure, use the total brace!

Common mistakes

Not bracing: This is painfully obvious, but if you don’t know how to brace or what a strong brace feels like, you won’t brace correctly. That’s why you should practice it both with and without weights.

Accessory muscle breathing/not using the diaphragm: This makes it impossible to fully pressurize your torso. You can’t create the necessary rigidity without a diaphragmatic breath, so drill it until it becomes automatic.

Excessive low back arching: You can’t get your ribs down correctly in this position, it puts the prime movers of your lower body in a bad position, and it doesn’t allow for an even distribution of force throughout the low back. This is a potential reason some people complain of sharp low back pain after lower body movements. Practice neutral spine in all positions until it becomes your new normal and address biomechanical issues if you need to in order to get there.

Only pushing your abs out: While this is better than nothing, it’s not enough. Ribs down, bear down. You should feel pressure all around your torso.

Exhaling at the wrong time: The correct time to let a little air out is as you’re getting through the hardest point of the lift (the sticking point). The key word is “a little.” This is done so that you don’t pass out, and you will do this automatically if you’re holding your breath correctly in the first place. The bottom of a squat is not the place to do it, regardless of what your gym teacher told you.

All of this will take practice. It took me a decade, several injuries, and relearning the lifts multiple times to put it together. Hopefully, this won’t be your experience, which is why I’m writing this.

Exercises to improve bracing

Before we begin, I’ll invoke the famous Jim Wendler quote: “Don’t major in the minors.” You should do the exercises we’ll discuss to improve your brace and get stronger rather than to try to get really good at the exercises themselves. Once an exercise has served its purpose, namely, once you’ve learned what you need to from it and have integrated the knowledge into your lifting, it becomes obsolete and should be advanced, replaced, or retired. Being a dead bug champion means nothing if you can’t translate it to your squat if the squat is important to you. However, mastering the basics will allow you to get more out of the more challenging exercises and will help you brace correctly where it counts the most, under the bar.

Neuromuscular control exercises: These are widely used in the physical therapy world to teach patients diaphragmatic breathing, transverse abdominis activation, neutral spine, and the pelvic floor contraction. Once you can perform all those elements together in the basic supine with knees bent position or the basic quadruped position, you can progress. You can also start to drill “ribs down” in either one. As you advance, you need to make sure you’re still doing all those things with the more challenging movements, otherwise you’re missing the point of the exercises. Here is roughly how the supine progression goes (feel free to Google alternatives if you like):

Supine with knees bent muscle contractions---bridge---supine march---straight leg raise---bridge with march---alternating knee to chest with leg extension---dead bug---double knee to chest---double knee to chest with double shoulder flexion and extension

It is not necessary to do things like adding unstable surfaces to these exercises. You’d be better served finding more challenging ones or doing more “functional” movements. Don’t major in the minors.

There is also a prone progression. As with the supine progression, the focus is maintaining neutral spine and activation of the relevant muscles.

Quadruped (on hands and knees) muscle contractions---arm lifts---leg lifts---opposite arm opposite leg lifts (bird dog)---planks and plank variations

Exercises to resist flexion/extension: Because the goal of the brace is to create a strong, rigid trunk, you need to know how to resist both flexion and extension of your lumbar spine. With all these, you must maintain a neutral spine throughout.

Planks: The standard plank is a wonderful exercise because it requires correct performance of all the elements of a good brace. Opinions differ, but according to Dan John, a healthy male should be able to hold a plank for two minutes without the low back changing position (most people’s hips will sag and the low back will extend under fatigue). Beyond that, there is no point. It’s also a perfect opportunity to practice breathing under tension: the breathing “on top” of a partial breath that’s consistently held for tightness works great here. Dr. Stuart McGill and others advocate for the side plank as well. Planks can be loaded with weight, made more challenging by moving your limbs as you did in the quadruped position, or done on unstable surfaces. Don’t major in the minors.

Fall-out/ab wheel: These are, fundamentally, plank variations because you are maintaining a rigid trunk as you move into a challenging position. A fall-out is basically a standing ab wheel done to a preset height (and thus a preset difficulty). I have found these exercises to be the most useful of all. They significantly improved my bracing and caused my trunk muscles to grow. Prepare to be extremely sore the first few times you do them. The progression is as follows:

Ab wheel from knees---weighted ab wheel from knees or high fall-out---low fall out---standing ab wheel

You can add pauses in the bottom position to make it more challenging and to practice maintaining maximal tension. Don’t do these off an unstable surface, that’s dumb.

Anti-rotation exercises: These movements help you resist rotational forces and thus to be more resistant to injuries. These are especially important if you regularly lift objects that aren’t perfectly balanced (most things other than barbells and dumbbells) or if you play sports. The supine and quadruped progressions have some anti-rotation components, but here are some other ideas. These are NOT listed in order of progression:

Dumbbell rows, renegade rows, woodchoppers, farmer’s walks, unilateral carries, unevenly loaded carries, overhead carries (especially unilateral), landmines, single-leg work

Active extension exercises: While these don’t drill bracing directly, they develop the low back and hip musculature, which contribute to a strong brace. Not listed in order of progression:

Glute ham raises, reverse hypers, good mornings, back extensions, kettlebell swings, pull-throughs, variants of all these

Lift-specific: These are variations you can make to the fundamental lifts of your program to make them a greater challenge for your bracing. They include beltless work, paused work, the use of specialty bars, and combinations thereof. Because they so closely approximate the fundamental lifts, they can be treated as high-tier assistance work or even as core lifts in and of themselves. Definitely don’t do these off an unstable surface.

This should give you plenty of ideas on where to start. Always remember that your bracing skills get put to the test not when you’re doing a plank off a Bosu ball, but when you’re squatting heavy. All these movements should be regarded as teaching tools, so don’t get too attached to any one of them.

Thank you for reading. I hope this has been useful for you. Bracing is a skill that can be consistently improved regardless of the level of lifting you’re at, and its rewards are immediate and sustained. I welcome your questions, comments, concerns, and discussions and I wish you all bountiful gains.

Preface: This will likely be edited in the future based on your suggestions, comments, and discussions. Treat this as version 1.0. Please give me your feedback in regards to anything in here, as I am always looking to improve.

Does the press feel like a mystery to you?

Do you feel like you’re going to be stalled forever?

Do you spend more time crying into your delts than pressing?

Fear not! You’re not done crying yet, but I am here to help. We are going to turn those tears into sweet, sweet gains…together. Welcome to Mike’s Center for Kids Who Can’t Press Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too!

I get asked more questions about pressing than any other lift, and I love writing about it. People seem to struggle with it disproportionately more often compared to other lifts, and they also seem to give up on it more quickly. I often wonder whether those two things are correlated, but I’m a meathead, not a statistician. This write-up is for people who are serious about improving their press, and I will provide information and ideas for all levels of lifters here.

Let me present some credentials. I’ve pressed 305 at a bodyweight of 225, pressed my bodyweight for a set of twelve, and trained the press with far more volume than any other lift. Over a decade of training, I estimate I’ve done over 20,000 working reps. I also got lucky in the sense that I happened to be good at the lift starting out, as I was always able to press at least my bodyweight after learning how to do the lift (granted, I weighed about 135 lbs when I learned it). I acknowledge the possibility that you may get more value out of reading something written by someone who wasn’t naturally good at it and had to work hard to get to a “good” press, so I will keep this in mind as I write and do my best to put myself into the shoes of someone for whom the lift doesn’t come easily.

For part of this discussion, I’ve created some “benchmark” poundages, which I don’t normally do. Those benchmarks were created with the average male lifter in mind-average build, average “genetics,” etc. They don’t account for very tall lifters. I haven’t worked with enough female lifters, especially on the press, to feel comfortable setting benchmarks for them. If you feel like you need to adjust them, that’s your prerogative, but I’m not going to be entertaining discussions along the lines of “I’m X tall and have Y length arms and 4/10 genetics, what should my benchmarks be?” I am also assuming that you’re not extremely skinny, because if you are, it makes pressing quite a bit harder. Then again, if you’re reading an article about improving your press, I’m going to assume you don’t plan on staying skinny forever. This write-up is mostly based on my own experiences and the experiences of lifters around me. Caveat emptor.

Why get good?

Before the popularization of the bench press and the removal of the press from Olympic competition, the press was THE measure of a lifter. It was the primary upper body lift in training programs, and there wasn’t much debate about whether it was “good” or “bad” for you. It was a staple, and it was treated with respect.

The press develops more total body strength than the bench. When you press, you’re standing upright and pushing the weight into the most inherently unstable position available. The distance between the bar and your center of gravity is longer than in any other lift, which means you must execute the lift with a great degree of stability and precision. This requires you to be strong and coordinated: your lower body must provide a strong, stable base, your trunk must be braced well to transmit force and reduce unnecessary motion, and your upper body must fire as a unit to give the bar the necessary velocity and the correct bar path to finish in the right position. It’s probably healthier for the shoulders, especially in the long run. The book Starting Strength and other sources give good, detailed overviews of the lift, and I won’t spend more time here.

It also looks really fucking cool. Can this even be argued? What better way is there to make a weight your bitch than to press it overhead? You can survive a squat or a deadlift, but you don’t “survive” a press. You dominate that shit or you die trying.

A few choice words

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Before we begin our discussion in earnest, I would like to get a few things out of the way. This is a rant, and it may not apply to you at all, but I am writing it because some people need an attitude adjustment when it comes to pressing. Set your sensibilities aside and bear with me.

I understand that pressing is hard and that it can be incredibly frustrating. It’s a technically difficult lift, it’s unforgiving of even small errors, and progress on it, especially once you’re past your beginner gains, is usually slow and tortuous. I am happy if I add ten pounds to it a YEAR at this point; it took me five years to go from 265 to 305. In those five years I re-learned it several times to integrate new skills such as improved bracing and to make my technique the most efficient for my build and my strengths. I’ve missed countless reps, including ones I fully expected to make. I feel your pain.

That said, if you spend more time bitching about how hard the press is and wallowing in self-pity than you do pressing and learning about what will make you better at it, you need to shut the hell up, get inside your nearest squat rack, and press until you can’t lift your arms from the disgusting pump in your shoulders and lats. Then, rip your shirt off, do the douchiest flex you can muster in the mirror, and yell “That was hard, but it was good for me, and I’m going to get better at pressing!” Stop reading defeatist shit online. If you start reading a Reddit post by someone who is bitching about pressing, cover your eyes! How can you have a positive attitude if everyone around you is being a downer? Don’t be one of them, don’t engage with them, and don’t entertain their misery. You have better things to do, like pressing.

You need to erase any ideas you have about what constitutes a “good” press and of what your “pressing potential” is. How can you ever press 165 if you’ve internalized the belief that 155 is amazing and have made that into your lifetime goal? Let me tell you something. You can press 165. You can press your bodyweight. Countless people have done it, so can you. It might take a long time, but that’s fine. You can do it. I firmly believe that a significant portion of my pressing ability came from the fact that nobody told me that the press is hard and that “pressing bodyweight is a lifetime goal” when I started, and that I didn’t read any of that crap online. I simply went to the gym, put weight on the bar, pressed, and added more weight when I could. Erase all this garbage from your mind, start with a clean mental slate, and see what happens to your press after training it hard for a few years. You will surprise yourself, and it won’t be with a “lifetime PR” of 155.

Stop worrying about how long your stupid arms are. Seriously, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think, and I don’t care. What’s that? I can’t empathize with your lanky limbs because of my T-rex privilege? Well, maybe you can explain to me how it so happens that I both have short arms AND somehow manage to finish my deadlifts barely above my knees. Huh, guess I was born with adjustable-length arms that get longer the better I get at deadlifting and shorter the better I get at pressing. I don’t care if you have “narrow shoulders” or a “light frame” or you’re an “ectomorph.” Holy shit, I started out weighing 130 pounds without an ounce of muscle on my body, and guess what? I lifted the weights and I ate the food, and a few years later I was a hundred pounds heavier with a 250 press before I ever stuck a needle into myself. Crazy, right?

You’re going to have to press, and you’ll have to press more than you think. You have no right to complain that your press isn’t progressing if you train it once a week as an accessory to bench and do two working sets on a good day. Do you think your squat or deadlift would progress if you did that? Start respecting the lift and take it seriously. If you’re skinny, you’ll need to get bigger, just as you would to perform well on your other lifts. Getting more jacked makes you stronger (citation needed), so if you’re finding that your collarbones hurt after a press workout from supporting the bar, you need to eat.

Finally, if you’re reluctant to train the press because “nobody is ever going to ask you how much you press,” why are you even training? To provide impressive answers to idiotic questions from strangers? Why don’t you just bench and forget about everything else? It’s not like anybody gives a shit how much you squat, either.

All right, that’s enough. Let’s press.

Technique considerations

This isn’t a guide on how to press, and you would do well to review sources such as Alan Thrall’s YouTube guide or the Starting Strength chapter that deals with the lift. Those explanations are sound, and the cues they provide are useful and will help you fix most common errors or to establish foundational technique if you’re just starting out. Instead of spending too much time writing about something that’s already been written about extensively, let’s consider some of the most common technique errors. Again, they’re covered in the above sources, but this is my own spin on things.

The press is not a shoulder lift: If you treat it like one, you’ll have a weak press and sore shoulders. What gives the bar its initial velocity is the “snapback” from your hips and the “pop” from the tightness in your lats. Your shoulders will still get plenty of work, but they’re not even close to the only things lifting the weight.

The bar path is not exactly vertical: If it were, the weight would finish in front of you and you’d lose your balance. The correct path is slightly backward, THROUGH the front of your head. That’s why you have to get your head out of the way.

You can’t NOT lean back at all: The lean back lets you get tension in your hips, helps get your head out of the way, and allows for the correct bar path. We’re not talking about the kind of lean that got the press removed from the Olympics, be reasonable. It’s just enough lean to accomplish what was just stated.

Don’t grip it too wide: This creates an unnecessary moment arm. Try this: Raise your arms straight out in front of you like you’re a zombie. Don’t think too hard, just do it. It should feel “natural” and comfortable. Now pull your shoulder blades towards the midline of your back (retract your scapulae). Your arms will move outward slightly. That’s your grip width.

Be tight when you take it out: Too many people unrack the bar with no tightness or bracing whatsoever and then wonder why they can’t get tight to press. Before you even remove the bar from the hooks, you should be stacked, leaning back slightly, with a breath in your belly, your chest up, your torso rigid, and your glutes tight. My personal rule is if my setup feels off when I take the bar out, I put it back and approach it again. It’s worth it because it could mean the difference between a missed and made lift.

Training to limit of tolerability

I am by no means an expert on programs, and if you’ve read any of my writing, you know that I believe in figuring out what works for you through trial and error, especially past the intermediate stage. Beyond that, it’s important to know how to make modifications to training plans and programs to get the most out of them.

There are plenty of programs that can get you to an “intermediate” press. If you press correctly with enough volume and intensity, say, twice a week and attain appropriate muscular development in the process, you’ll get there. However, if you want to get beyond that, you will probably have to press more. With the press, I have found that training it as much as I could handle worked out a lot better than trying to figure out how to get more out of training it less.

What constitutes “as much as you can handle?” It’s getting to the highest possible combination of volume and intensity that you can sustain for that session. This is particularly important if you don’t press frequently (at least twice a week). If you work up to a set of six and you feel like you have a rep in the tank left, do another set and hit seven. If you have a top set planned that’s a rep PR and you make it, take some weight off and get some volume in, and if you happen to miss it, try the same weight for fewer reps. These are just some ideas, and if you’re using this strategy, you should be knowledgeable enough to figure out what works and doesn’t. You should not be missing reps (or causing yourself to miss more reps) with this, nor should you injure yourself with this. The more frequently you press, the more judicious you’ll need to be. Just remember, pressing more is always an option to try.

Volume and density method

This is an option I have used to train to the limit of tolerability. I started experimenting with it when I had around a 235 press and wasn’t getting more progress out of hammering intensity only, but it will certainly work below this number. This method is for people at the end of their intermediate progression or beyond, because, as you’ll see, you will be doing a LOT of pressing.

There are three main prerequisites you need to have in place before attempting this. First, you need to be free of any acute shoulder issues, and if you have chronic ones, be very judicious here and do not attempt this if they are flaring up. Second, your technique must be excellent. This is non-negotiable. If you’re reading this and asking yourself, “do I have excellent technique?” then this isn’t for you. Doing a ton of shitty reps under fatigue won’t help your press. Finally, your work capacity needs to be good, otherwise you are going to hate yourself. You should have some experience doing a lot of volume for the press, and you should ABSOLUTELY NOT do this on a cut.

Pick a weight you can do for, say, ten to twelve reps. If you’re in doubt, err on the side of being too light. Do a set of five. It should feel very easy. If it doesn’t, you’re using too much weight. Rest just long enough to catch your breath or for around 90 seconds at most. Do another set. Repeat this process for 15 sets. It will be tougher by the end, but it should still be very manageable. Next time you press, which should be in about 2-4 days, you are going to do the exact same thing with five more pounds. And then, a few days later, you’ll do it again with five more.

This is going to start to suck very quickly. That’s OK, you’re going to get through it anyway. When you feel like you can no longer handle the density of the sets, increase your rest times until you can. DO NOT MISS REPS! You will eventually hit plenty of painful, soul-crushing reps while running this method, but you should be able to confidently make every single one. Keep increasing your rest periods as the weight goes up. Once you are resting more than 3-4 minutes between sets, start reducing the number of sets. The minimum number of sets you should complete is 10. Microload if you have to towards the end.

You will get to a point where you are doing 10 sets of 5 and each set beyond the first two or three is miserable. When you feel like you have no reps left in the tank on most of your sets and your last reps are turning into grinders, congratulations! You’ve finished the “run!” Now, you should deload. Once you do, see if you can make some PRs. After all, if you’ve done this correctly and completed, say, 7-10 workouts, you’ve done close to or over 500 solid presses. At this point, some heavy work will do you good, because you don’t want to lose the skill of dealing with top end weights.

But we’re not done. The method continues. Reset everything and return to the original weight you started your 5s with, or go a little lower. You are now going to do 15 sets of 6, again keeping the rest periods short to increase the density for as long as you can sustain it. Follow the same instructions as you did before. If you end up with 10 sets of 6 at the same weight (or above) where you had finished the first run, you’ve made an excellent improvement. Deload and repeat with 7s. Deload and repeat with 8s.

You’ll notice I didn’t discuss assistance work here. That’s because pressing this much is going to take a lot out of you. If you are going to do more work, it should mostly happen while the weights are still relatively light, because once they’re not, you’re really not going to want to do any. Some light, innocuous stuff like lateral raises or face pulls won’t hurt and might help you recover faster, but please don’t go off doing heavy dips and then wondering why everything hurts so bad. Obviously, keep doing your lower body work and training your upper back throughout.

Some considerations: I have run this method several times and have always kept the rep range between 5-8. That was my personal preference. I don’t see a reason why you couldn’t start with, say, 15 sets of 3, but I wouldn’t go below that. Similarly, if you’re very masochistic, I suppose you could increase reps to more than 8, just make sure your technique doesn’t decay. In regards to when to do heavy, low-volume work, it’s really up to you: Doing it after a deload may give you a better shot to hit some PRs, but you can certainly intersperse it as you see fit. This method will put mass on you if you’re eating to support growth. At the very least, you must be at maintenance calories. Finally, this method works best if the press is your main upper body lift. If you try to aggressively advance your bench while doing this, you will have a bad time. If you must bench, be reasonable. Read on to find out when this method becomes appropriate.

Benchmarks and ideas

Finally, let’s look at some milestones in the pressing progression, keeping in mind that they’re fairly generic and designed for the “average” lifter, and consider what strategies can help you get to each one.

<95 lbs

Everybody can press 95 pounds within about three months, give or take, of learning the movement. If you’re not at 95, you haven’t lifted for three months yet, AND you have the absolute basics of technique down, just keep going! You’ll get there. You just need to get more practice. Your form will improve, you’ll get stronger, and you’ll press 95 in no time.

If you’ve been lifting for more than three months and you’re not within 5-10 lbs of 95, chances are you learned the lift incorrectly, you’re making some blatant technique error (including very poor bracing), or you simply don’t practice enough to make progress. Consider relearning the lift. That might be enough to remedy the problem. You may also want to try increasing the frequency with which you press, especially if you only do it once a week. Try twice a week. The extra practice could get you there.

95-135 lbs

You should be able to hit a 135 press within a year of starting training. This benchmark is still a beginner number, and if you’re not there after a year, there’s no need to overthink it at all. You need to evaluate your technique, train more often, and gain weight if that’s an issue. Use the beginner-single lift case from the plateau-busting guide and go from there. You don’t need to worry about anything like a specific weakness yet. You just need to press and get stronger. Your beginner program should contain enough well-rounded assistance work for your needs at this level, so don’t look to change things there. Just press.

135-165 lbs

Attaining a 165 press from 135 shouldn’t take longer than a year. The only exception (and this applies to future benchmarks as well) is if it’s close to or over your bodyweight. If that’s the case, it might take a bit longer. In my opinion, 165 is still a number that everyone can reach regardless of ability, genetics, leverages, or other factors.

This is the first time that looking at anything resembling a specific weakness could be relevant or logical. You should only do this if you can honestly tell yourself that your technique and bracing are good. Then, look to see if speed or grinding are issues. Some people at this level haven’t yet developed the ability to stick with a heavy press for long enough to finish it. Conversely, if you can’t generate enough speed off the bottom to get it into the position where you can press it out, your grinding ability won’t be useful. Remember, it has to clear your head before you can grind effectively. It’s appropriate to start adding in arm isolation work, delt work, lat work, even some basic prehab exercises for the rotator cuff (especially if you have a history of shoulder issues), and don’t forget about “core” work. As you’ve undoubtedly learned by now, it’s very hard to press well if your trunk isn’t rigid. Again, your program should already contain appropriate assistance work for the upper body.

Finally, keep becoming more muscular. I can’t stress this enough. At this point, you’re a couple years in at most, so guess what that means? You have room to improve. You haven’t hit your muscular potential after two years, trust me.

165-185 lbs

If you have reached 165 and you weigh at least that much or plan to keep getting bigger, 185 is attainable within 9 months-1 year. This is also the first benchmark that can be very challenging for lighter lifters (lighter than, say, 185) to reach. However, if you weigh between 185 and 200, you should almost certainly be able to reach it eventually, and everyone who weighs over 200 can do it.

185 is a good press for an intermediate lifter. At this level, your technique and your bar path should no longer be issues. Do you know what happens if you shove a 185 press out in front of you? You miss it. You can’t get to this point with significant technique flaws. Refining technique as well as addressing specific weaknesses will be your focus. You should be working the same muscles that you were to reach 165. If you have a weak chest and a weak bench, it will be worth it to start improving those as well. Again, keep getting more muscular because you have room to grow.

I’m ambivalent about the push press as an assistance lift to help the press, and have personally only found it to be helpful to get past mental barriers. However, if you want to try it and see if it works, this would be the first point in your journey to consider trying it. The exception is if you are competing in an overhead sport (strongman, weightlifting, etc), in which case you should learn the push press sooner. I think the movement can be good for building confidence, “overloading” the press, and hitting the triceps hard, but whenever I did it too much it always messed with my press technique.

If you are a lighter lifter and are already at a bodyweight press, this is also the first place to consider trying the volume/density method. Otherwise, save that tool for at least the next benchmark. Should you choose to go this route, I advise you to still press heavy occasionally so that you don’t lose the skill of grinding out heavy reps. Remember, your technique has to be impeccable if you’re going to do this, because otherwise you’ll be practicing a lot of bad reps under fatigue, which is an awful combination.

185-205 lbs

We are getting into some serious weights here. 205 is at the very least a strong intermediate press, a significant achievement for someone weighing 185 or under, attainable by most who weigh at least this much, and almost everybody who weighs 220 or more. It should be reachable within a year of 185 if you are dedicated, continue to train the lift seriously, and if the benchmark doesn’t weigh much more than you do.

This benchmark is a very common place to stall hard. I suspect there are a couple factors contributing to this that have nothing to do with how heavy the weight actually is. First, a lot of lifters weigh around this much. If you have put the idea of a bodyweight press on a pedestal like many do, it’s going to psych you out. In addition to this, it’s over 200 lbs, which, in some people’s minds, appears mythical and unattainable.

How might you know you’re psyching yourself out? Well, if you can get, say, 195 without an excessive struggle (as in it doesn’t feel or look like a limit lift), but you can barely get 200 past your eyes, it’s probably mental. Similarly, if you can grind 195 to completion but have nothing to give with five more pounds, it’s also probably mental. We’re looking for a large discrepancy in performance with a small increase in weight. If it takes you six seconds to push through a 195, and then you struggle with 200 for five seconds and just barely miss, that’s probably not mental, that’s you needing to get a little stronger.

So, if you think you have a mental block, how can you overcome it? You can attack the problem from many angles. First, as I said earlier, clear your mind of any preconceived notions of what constitutes a “strong” or a “big” press. Essentially, you need to remove the weight from its pedestal and ingrain into your mind that what’s on the bar is just another number, one of many that came before and many that will come after. If this benchmark is bodyweight for you, stop giving a shit. Seriously, don’t approach the bar thinking “Oh my god, I’m about to press bodyweight.” Stop getting psyched up or highly emotional. Come at the bar totally calm in as blank of a mental state as possible. I have never hit a milestone PR when I was angry or feeling like I had something to prove. Finally, if you’ve missed the weight a lot, like more than twice or three times, just do what it takes to get it. Push press it. It’ll be easy. Rep it out if you want. Then, walk away from the rack and think to yourself, “Wow, I just made that weight my bitch.” You’ll press it soon enough.

The volume/density method is appropriate here. Remember to use it wisely, make sure your reps are good reps, and eat to recover. The amount of work in the method is more than enough to put some mass on you, but you’ll need to eat correctly for that to happen. The same assistance work applies as before, and make sure that speed or grinding ability stop being limiting factors if they still are.

205-225 lbs

A 225 press is a strong press, period. It’s a significant achievement for anyone under 200, and an incredible lift for someone weighing 185 or less. For the bigger guys, I believe more than half of those weighing around 225 should be able to reach it eventually, and more than 3/4 of guys weighing 245 or more can get there. This is not a fast process, and a reasonable time frame for reaching this from 205 is between one and two years.

Few people will reach a two plate press “accidentally” unless they’re very large, naturally gifted at the movement, or both. Getting to 225 is a process and often a test of patience. Like 205, 225 gets into people’s heads. By this point, you have all the tools you need to achieve this milestone. It just takes time. You can even try a “mini-peak” (a short deload for the upper body) after hammering the press extra hard to make the lift in a fresher state.

Beyond 225

I do not have much experience helping people increase their press past 225 for two reasons: Not many want to, and those who do usually don’t need my help. Here, I can only talk about what I’ve seen and experienced. Getting past the 245-255 range requires years of dedication to the press and consistently treating it as your main upper body movement. Even if you are great at pressing, you probably won’t hit this range “accidentally.” If you have reached 225 and you want to keep going, I commend you. Rest assured that you know what you’re doing and have the necessary skills to keep making progress until you physically can’t.

You cannot have weak links at all to press big weights. At this level, you won’t be asking if you “should strengthen your rear delts” to improve. You’ll just be doing what you need to do. You will also be very muscular-I’ve never met someone pressing 225 or above that wasn’t well-developed.

Expect slow progress. That’s just the nature of the beast; it’s a patience game at this point. Presses beyond 275 are rare, and I’ve only seen them accomplished by either strongmen, guys who put everything they had into the lift, or overall very strong, talented pressers/benchers. Whether more people could achieve this number if the press were trained seriously more commonly is difficult to answer because the press gets left behind, but it’s a fun thought experiment.

In conclusion, go forth and conquer. The press is a wonderful lift that’s often misunderstood and given up on prematurely. Changing your mindset about the lift if you’re struggling can go a long way, and when paired with consistency, effort, and an honest desire to improve can give you surprising results. If you don’t know where to start, start there. You’ll be miles ahead of anybody complaining about it rather than putting in work and pressing.

I’ve been here for awhile. I’ve been here in multiple forms. Many wouldn’t recognize me, but I hope most will. Today I’m here to talk to you about advice. Recently we lost a prominent and instrumental member in our community. We lost this individual from the same frustration that we often feel: giving advice to individuals who simply are not willing to receive it.

I’m here to talk about why it is not a fruitless endeavor to give new/inexperienced individuals advice.

Many of you will probably recognize that I am in the medical field. Many people in real life have told me that my job involves “saving lives”. I’ve “saved” no one’s life, nor will I ever “save” someone’s life. My job is to put more time on the board. I’m here to extend the amount of life that my patients have. Ultimately, I lose. I lose every damn time. We have never won in medicine, yet why do we spend so much time and effort if we lose?

In fitness, we lose every damn day. We lose every time someone finds a silly and stupid pursuit. We lose every time that someone finds a silly diet. We lose every time that an individual does not follow a program. We have our work cut out for us. Phoning it in means that more individuals will fall to suspect supplements, more individuals will follow poor or dangerous advice. When I think about how I’ve learned the most about my Fitness, it wasn’t from a textbook, it wasn’t from a Youtube channel, it was from reading highly upvoted individuals on Reddit who have had serious and significant progress.

Your words matter. Your words matter more than you can imagine. When you type others will listen. That’s called power. Many of the usual individuals who are regulars here don’t recognize their power, but most silently follow your lead.

I ask you to not give up on your pursuits to help others even though it may feel like a losing battle; even though you will ultimately lose every damn time. I ask you to think about where you were 1, 5,10 years ago and what you would have wanted to know. I think about what Purple said where he keeps the Fittit Wiki alive because he wishes he had that resource when he started. I wish I could have had one of you when I started. I wish I could have been guided away from my idiocy. I wish that one of you would have told me how stupid my programming was. I wish one of you would have educated me on how to progress and recover. Instead, I didn’t have any of that. I had garbage results because I had garbage information; I lacked a fraction of your knowledge.

I’m saying this because I’ve had patients in real life who have had garbage advice that will truncate their lives. I’ve had patients who have stopped taking their ACE-I because they heard that their red yeast is more effective. I’ve had patients abstain from getting vaccinated because they heard from a random individual on Youtube that vaccines may cause complications years from now. FYI complications from vaccines happen within the month you’re vaccinated, there are next to no (~1/1,000,000,000) complications past a month and at that point we ascribe those problems to other etiologies because something else is likely causing them. I fight to give them accurate information every day because they matter. You mattered when you started.

Every newbie who is lost and confused matters. That was me 10 years ago and that was you when you started. Every single person here needed a helping hand when s/he started. I’m asking for us to remember where we were at our start so that we’re reminded of why we should continue to extend a hand. Put more time on the clock for someone else so we don’t have another loss today.

Before anyone starts saying "someone isn't ready" homies, 1/5 of my patients smoke and I still plant the seeds every single day that s/he should quite. Oh, do I plant seeds, just like you're able to plant seeds on how to truly lift.

Be the change you want to see in the world; It is OK to lose, it is not OK to give up.

Hey! The mods here at my old stomping grounds were generous enough to ask that I steal a bit of your time to chat about stuff. Probably about lifting weights I guess.

Below might help those who are unfamiliar with my training method or background.

OG GZCL: The GZCL Method for Powerlifting

The much needed and requested GZCL Method: Simplified

Jacked and Tan

A very recent and quite lengthy addition. Applications & Adaptations

Released yesterday. Jacked & Tan 2.0

So yeah, AMA?

Edit: It's 12:30 mountain time so that means lunch! I'll be out momentarily.

Edit 2: Got back about 2! Let's keep rocking.