Finding a Way
The Journey is the Destination.
5/3/1 BBB
Posted by on May 23, 2012
On Monday, I started Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program with the BBB (Big But Boring) option. This is a very structured program that allows for continual, gradual progress without experiencing burnout. It isn’t a program that you should expect to give you quick gains. It takes time to build a fortress, and your body takes time to adapt.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I’ve been plagued by a number of injuries…some new, most old. One of the reasons for the injuries, I believe, is that I progressed a bit too rapidly. I made jumps up in weight that I COULD do, but probably shouldn’t have done. This program helps keep that problem from happening. I had wanted to start this program a while back, but a couple of small injuries sidelined me for a couple weeks. But it’s time to get rolling now.
The program is built on four principle lifts. These lifts should be done by EVERYONE – no exceptions. They are the core of building a balanced body and are critical for ANY athlete…or couch potato for that matter. These lifts are Overhead Press (OHP), Deadlift (DL), Bench Press (BP), and Squat (no abbreviation for Squat because it’s only five letters long…and abbreviating it would be a dishonor). The reason for these four lifts is that when combined, they provide perfect balance in physique development.
If you don’t do these lifts, you are not my friend.
I might be kidding about that last sentence. Maybe.
There are other recommended exercises for each training session, and they are important, but nowhere near as effective as the four principle lifts. You will see these other exercises when I post my workouts.
Every month there is a deload week, which means I still train, but at a very reduced level. The idea is to give your central nervous system a chance to recover. This will be especially important for me as I do BBB. The BBB component adds in 5 sets of 10 reps of the principle exercise after the work sets have been performed. The work sets are the heavy sets. So this means that I do a whole LOT of work. I am choosing a four day training schedule so that I do just one principle lift each session. I think (hope) that this will enable good progress on each lift.
I am still working through some nagging pain in my IT band, but I feel well enough to start this program. If there is one thing that is consistent, it’s that there will always be annoying pains and twinges. But most of the time, you just have to push through it.
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What Recovery Looks Like
Posted by on May 15, 2012
I just wanted to give you all a glimpse into what my current high volume deadlift day looks like:
- 135 lb x 20 reps
- 135 lb x 10 reps
- 185 lb x 10 reps
- 225 lb x 10 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 275 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 315 lb x 3 reps
- 315 lb x 3 reps
- 315 lb x 3 reps
- 335 lb x 3 reps
- 335 lb x 3 reps
- 335 lb x 1 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
- 295 lb x 3 reps
I’d say my knee is pretty well recovered. There are still some issues when it comes to doing dynamic movements or open chain exercises, but I’m pretty close to being ready for those, too.
On Thursday, I plan to do a heavy deadlift day. This will be much lower volume than what you see above, but will involve heavier single reps. On Friday, I will do squats. I’ll be testing out the knee with some heavier stuff, and will also be keeping an eye on how my IT band responds.
I am finding that doing some training doesn’t seem to make anything worse as long as I take necessary precautions and roll out the IT band and stretch for a significant time both before and after the workout.
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Progression!!!
Posted by on May 11, 2012
It has been just over a week since I experienced an injury that I thought was going to require surgery to fix.
Yesterday, I deadlifted a personal record not once, but twice!!
So what happened?!?
Many people recommended that I go see a health professional immediately. It’s understandable. That is what most people do. Well, I don’t do much of anything that makes sense, and I just waited to see what would happen.
Before I go into detail, know this: I have had just about every type of injury that there is to have except for a broken bone. So I am very familiar with the kind of pain and symptoms associated with muscle strains and tears, as well as tendon and ligament strains and tears. I am thoroughly experienced in inflammation and it’s treatments. I know the way my body responds to these various problems.
So, last Thursday, when I felt and heard the pop in my left knee, I thought the worst. I’d heard that kind of pop before when I tore the ACL and meniscus in my right knee. The difference was that I had zero swelling…even after several hours. This was encouraging. If swelling was present, then I was sure to have a tear. No swelling meant no tear and minimal strain.
As I researched the muscles and ligaments in the knee, I started to put some pieces of the puzzle together. As many of you know, I had been experiencing inflammation in my IT band. I had been experiencing pain on the outside of the knee and back of the knee. Some of that could be attributed to the IT band inflammation, but not all of it…specifically the back of the knee pain. It looked like my biceps femoris was also inflamed. As I looked at the anatomical arrangement of these muscles and their attachment points, I realized that it was highly probable that the biceps femoris tendon had slid across the distal head of my femur. So my knee really just needed rest and recuperation and gentle stretching. And ice. Lots of ice.
On Saturday, I was able to perform 100 body weight squats with no pain. I did this in 5 sets of 20 reps throughout the day. I didn’t see any increase in inflammation or lack of mobility the next day, so I planned a weighted squat workout on Tuesday. I continued doing some light leg work over the weekend to test my knee and keep it mobile. I performed the Tuesday squat session with no pain, and walking was now becoming much easier and more fluid. I planned a deadlift workout for Thursday.
Each day of this last week, I performed extensive stretching for my hamstrings and calves. My concern with doing deadlifts was straining the posterior chain and aggravating the biceps femoris. So I kept things as mobile as possible. I also spent a lot of time rolling on Charlotte, my 4″ PVC pipe. This breaks up adhesion on the ligaments and fascia of the muscle, allowing for better movement.
As I started the deadlift workout, I could tell things were feeling pretty good. I had zero pain during my initial warm ups, so I decided it would be good to go ahead and try some heavier work. As I moved up into working with 275, I could tell I was feeling really good…the weight felt light. I tried 315 and did a triple with overhand grip – this was the first time I’d ever done that.
At this point, I had to decide whether to keep making smaller jumps or just go ahead and try for a personal record. Since hitting a new PR is like chicken noodle soup for the soul, I decided to attempt a 400 pound pull, which would top my previous best by 10 pounds. I took some time to stretch my lower back out and work some hip mobility.
Whenever I try a new PR, it is easy for The Doubt to kick into high gear. Naturally, my brain doesn’t want me to die. And The Doubt sees pulling or pushing large amounts of weight as a perfect opportunity to die. So I have to quiet the useless chatter by visualizing a successful pull or push. In this case, I visualized myself standing fully upright with the weight firmly gripped in my hands.
A positive mindset is critical for progress. Rather than thinking the worst about my injury, I took positive action to figure out just what was going on. Once I understood the injury, I knew what I needed to do to correct course and overcome the limitations of the injury. Frustration was no longer a part of my mindset.
That 400 pounds came off the floor slowly, but I was able to stand up straight. And then do it again.
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FRUSTRATIONS!!!!
Posted by on May 3, 2012
Most of the time, I have to ponder on a post before it is complete and ready to go…or before I even start writing it.
Sometimes, inspiration hits and I can hardly hold myself back from writing the amazingness that is this blog [sarcasm]. Usually, this is a good thing.
But sometimes, the post writes itself for all the worst reasons. This is one of those posts.
This morning, I was all set to do my deadlifts. Since I was a bit sore from my last workout, I wanted to warm up and loosen up my body. I decided to jump rope since it gets the whole body involved and does a great job of raising the heart rate.
About 1 minute in, I heard and FELT a pop in my left knee. I almost hit the floor, but caught myself on my right leg. I could barely put any weight on my left leg. It got progressively more painful over the next hour or so, but there was no swelling. I think this is good. Maybe.
Needless to say, I aborted my plans to deadlift crazy amounts of weight.
At this point, I don’t know what this will mean for my lifting plans…or even my general fitness plans. I will certainly be watching my diet a little closer. And I may have to investigate alternate methods of lifting in order to keep my body active.
I am certainly having my patience and fortitude tested to the max. I will keep you posted on what happens. For now, it’s time to research.
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Limitations
Posted by on May 2, 2012
May has arrived and finds me nowhere near ready to take on the lifting program that I wanted to. My plan had been to start Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 training program, but I can’t squat and can’t press or pull. There are just too many limitations right now.
Injury. Schedule conflicts. Overtime at work. Car problems. Life problems.
The list can go on and on. Life is full of limitations. There will ALWAYS be something that gets in the way and forces you to alter or even abandon your plans. The key is to make that alteration. And if plans must be abandoned, you must make new plans. You cannot just do nothing.
Right now, I can deadlift. It’s the only exercise that I can load up without being incapacitated the next day due to crippling joint pain. I am able to do other movements with very little weight, but it’s barely enough to maintain muscle endurance. Unless I do some kind of heavy lift, I risk losing muscle – and that means it will be VERY easy for me to gain fat.
NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN!
Due to my IT band inflammation, working through a complete range of motion (as in a squat, power clean, lunge, etc.) is out of the question. Even body weight squats really aggravate the condition. Walking extensively aggravates it. Running is definitely out. Cycling is one of the main culprits (in combination with the heavy lifting) for my inflammation, so that’s out.
I’m also dealing with an inflamed biceps tendon. So most pulling movements are out, as well as most pressing movements. Again, I can go light – very, very light – and maintain some muscle endurance by doing 20+ reps on all these “off limits” exercises. And I do. I do what I can.
However, I am not content with sitting still. No progress is not an option. And before anyone says, “Well, maybe you just need to rest!”, you can only rest for so long before the gains of the last six months become distant memories. I realize that strength loss and fat gain don’t happen overnight, but are the result of a series of choices. Bad choices (like resting too much) will lead to undesired results. And it is very, very easy for a couple bad choices to turn into an ugly habit.
So, with limited ability to lift heavy and do cardio, I am left with a couple options. As I mentioned before, I can deadlift. On Monday, I did 25 sets of deadlifts with varying weight and reps. I totaled 19595 pounds for the workout. I think that ought to help me maintain and maybe even grow some muscle. I am also able to swim. On Saturday, I swam 1500 meters. Next up, I’ll do a mile swim. This is obviously good for the whole body. It’s boring only being able to do two things in the gym. But that is what I’ll do for as long as I have to.
So here is my plan going forward: Deadlifts twice a week (M + TH), Swimming twice a week (W + F or Sat), High Rep Barbell Complexes for upper body maintenance (T and/or Sat). Other miscellaneous stuff may get thrown in here and there depending on how I feel.
The plan for deadlifts will be very high volume on Monday. This will typically be 25 sets of singles and triples with a few sets of 10 on either end for warm up and cool down. This will also take me to grip fail, which is a good thing. The Thursday workout will be a bit of speed work and really heavy work along with rack pulls (upper half of deadlift). I’ll also begin doing Kroc rows if my bicep tendon allows. I may just do Pendlay rows with a wide grip.
So…don’t let limitations put a big brick wall in front of you and then let yourself believe there are no options. Find a solution. Find a way. There is always a way.
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The Grind
Posted by on April 16, 2012
I have to admit that I’m feeling like a failure. No significant workouts in two weeks. No personal records – unless you count the hours I’ve spent icing muscles in the last couple weeks. No fat loss. No muscle gain. The smallest amount of lifting sends me running (or hobbling) for the ice pack. Even body weight exercises make me miserable. How am I supposed to be an example of health and strength when I have difficulty getting out of a chair and walking down the hall???
Life throws us curves all the time. How we respond to those curves determines whether we survive the grind and come out the other side stronger or weaker. I have a choice of how to respond to this curve – tendon inflammation and muscle strength imbalance (most likely are related issues). I could let myself go to a place of frustration, disappointment, and depression about my inability to push hard and heavy in the gym. I could throw all caution to the wind and eat everything in the house, because after all, what’s the use? I’m just gonna get fat anyway!! I could go buy some fat pants in preparation for my impending fatification. Sound crazy? A little insane? I would agree. It’s what I used to do anytime I had an injury, illness, tough situation, etc.
On the other hand, I could choose to take action. I can try reducing inflammation, stretching tight tendons and ligaments, exercising weak muscle groups, and doing what exercises that I can. I can choose to scale back my calories to maintain health and avoid putting on fat. I can focus on changing what I can change. I can’t change the fact that I sustained this injury. I CAN change how much it affects my life. I just need to grind it out on the rehabilitation steps that are necessary to regain my health and get back to hard training.
I won’t be injured forever. It’s just a short time in the grand scheme of things. This current situation teaches me to take things a little slower – I believe that progressing too rapidly is what landed me in this mess. So just as I can’t rush the good stuff (lifting more, lifting heavier), I can’t rush the healing process. These things take time. Time to grind.
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Reset
Posted by on April 3, 2012
“There are no do overs in life.” Ever heard that one before? It’s pretty much true. If you’ve messed something up in any kind of way, you know that you can’t just undo what you’ve done. There is no do over. But that doesn’t mean you are stuck where you are.
Set: to resolve or decide upon
When it comes to your personal fitness, you arrived there in one of two ways – a passive decision, or an active decision.
Passive Decision – you just kind of woke up one day and realized things weren’t what you wanted them to be. Active Decision – you wake up every day knowing what you have to do to get what you want.
In passive decisions (and yes, it is a choice), your course in life is determined more by chance, random events, and whim. You are choosing by taking the easy course of action. You are resolving to go the weak route. It doesn’t take any fortitude to be average. It takes doing little or nothing. Have you looked around at what is average in America? Average height and weight for the American male is 5′ 9 1/2″ and 191 pounds. That means the average American is solidly in the overweight category with a BMI of 27. Yes, I know the BMI is not the best way to measure health, but there is no denying that the average American is just plain fat. Everywhere you look, you will see very big people. I am one! (but not for long!)
On the other hand…
In active decisions, you set your course of action by making a series of positive choices of what you WILL do each day. You don’t just sit back and let life happen to you – you go out and MAKE it happen! You choose to go to the gym or ride your bike. You choose to double your vegetable intake and buy natural foods over fast (unnatural) foods. You choose to order your life through discipline because you have a goal. People who make active decisions get desired results. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” – heard that one? It’s true!
Reset: to set again
The best news I can give you today is that you always have the option to reset your course of action. You always have the choice to start making active decisions. You don’t get to go back again, undoing all that you’ve done, but you DO get to start a new course of action that will change your life.
I am doing this each day. I am making decisions that help me to burn off the fat, build muscle, and improve my health. Will you join me?
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Trench Warfare Techniques
Posted by on March 13, 2012
So yesterday, I posted about my progress over the last couple months when it looked like there really wasn’t much progress. And to be honest, there was definitely a period in there where I really wasn’t making any changes despite training hard. But training hard is not going to get best results. I began to make some specific changes to get things moving again.
Your training in the gym is only as effective as your nutrition techniques and recovery techniques are complete.
So let’s get to some of those techniques to survive trench warfare (otherwise known as fat loss and/or muscle gain).
1. Training – there are volumes written about this, and I’m pretty sure you could find several dozen effective (translation: moving heavy stuff) training programs for body recomposition on Google in a millisecond. And since I don’t want to focus on this today, I’ll just say this: Work HARD. Train with INTENSITY. Keep it SIMPLE. If you are new to training, or have been training less than two years, you really don’t need a super complex training regimen. And don’t confuse SIMPLE with EASY. Stay with basic compound exercises.
2. Nutrition – if you’re struggling with following an eating plan, or wondering why the scale never goes down (or up), or why you are feeling weak under the iron, or tired on a regular basis, then you need to TRACK your calories. Anyone who knows me well, is probably picking their chins off the floor after that statement, but I have seen the error of my ways. I hate tracking anything. I really don’t enjoy the minutiae of a food journal or training log. I DO, however, enjoy making progress in my fitness journey. So now I track everything I do.
Tracking what you eat is the surest way to make sure you aren’t way off base if you want to lose fat or gain muscle. It reveals in cold hard facts just exactly where you’ve screwed up. And when the fat starts to disappear, you’ll know why. When your sleeves start getting tight (um, because of muscle), you’ll know why. When your energy never seems to run out, you’ll know why. When the scale tells you that your weight hasn’t changed, you can look at your food log and see whether your nutrition is supporting or hindering your training.
Honesty with yourself in your food journal is critical for this to work. Lying to yourself will just keep you in the bottom of the trench, so own up to that bag of doughnuts and log it if you ate it. You can correct course with the next meal. If you don’t know how much food is worth in calories, use an online tracking system like MyFitnessPal.com. My username there is djkreger. Add me and I’ll help you stay on track.
Tracking isn’t something that you have to do forever, but once you see how it helps you, you may not want to quit. At the very least, do it through a big fat loss effort or muscle gain program. I think you’ll like the results you get.
3. Recovery – while nutrition is certainly a big part of recovery, actual rest is critical to the recovery process. You need to establish good sleep habits. Darken your room as much as possible…the darker, the better. This means covering alarm clocks, blinking LEDs, computer lights (best to get them out of the room if possible). Lose the night light. You’re not five any more. Apologies to any five year old reading this.
The hours before you go to bed are part of your preparation for quality sleep. Try to avoid watching movies, TV, video games, etc. for an hour before going to bed. Read instead. Study up on the science of eating, lifting and resting. Read something that will train your brain, make you think, or challenge your beliefs. Use the time to train your mind just like you are training your body. The rhythmic pattern of reading is very good for helping you get to sleep and helps you sleep more deeply. And when you sleep more deeply, your body heals up more quickly.
Remove any stimulus from the area where you sleep. Turn off the music unless it’s something very quiet and soothing. Personally, I like no noise and will even use ear plugs. Also, lay off the stimulants that you may use in the last half of the day. Back off the amount of coffee (I heard the collective gasp!), tea, or heavy foods. And please, tell me you’re not drinking soda at ANY point in the day. Thank you. I knew you weren’t.
So, in a nutshell: train hard and simple, eat well and track it, and sleep deeply.
If you have any questions, you can always drop them at dan [at] djkreger [dot] com. I’m happy to help!
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Fitness Update – Trench Warfare
Posted by on March 12, 2012
It’s been a while since I’ve done an update on the state of things in my progress. I’m afraid it will sound much like my last similar post. I’m not tremendously lighter (maybe five pounds or so). But much has changed in the last month. I’m much stronger and adding significant muscle.
The last time I checked (in January), I had lost about 40 pounds of fat and gained close to 10 pounds of muscle. The current body fat tests suggest that I’ve now lost about 60 pounds of fat and gained close to 15 pounds of muscle since I started this trek in September 2011. I’m pretty happy with that.
For the last month or so, I’ve seen little movement on the scale. Taken at face value, this could be really discouraging! I think a lot of people make the mistake of believing that their bodies aren’t changing because the rate of muscle gain and fat loss is the same. They are training hard and eating well and just don’t see the changes they think they should, so they give up on the plan. Don’t let this be you!
This is trench warfare. Change comes at an incrementally slow pace sometimes. You just have to keep pushing, digging, and doing the work. The rewards WILL come!
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Balance
Posted by on March 5, 2012
How hard do you go? How far do you push? How obsessed do you get? Where is the balance?
Life is busy. Understatement of the year, right? If you have made the effort to carve out time for your exercise habit (and you are, right??), you’ve found that you want more. You want to run a little farther, lift a bit more weight, ride a few extra miles, get some extra reps. Why? You are seeing positive results as a consequence of the work, and you want more results! The problem is that you may be running up against the limits of the time you have available to train. You may also be coming up against physical limits. We call these plateaus. You might be stuck at a certain 5K running time, or your squat just won’t budge over 300 pounds, or you can’t seem to get one more pound of fat off your body.
It comes down to efficiency and effectiveness. Since there are so many demands on our lives, we need to make sure we get the most bang for our buck. You need to pick exercises that do the most in the least amount of time. You need to choose training methods that develop the desired result. More of the same is almost never the best way to do that.
I recently had the opportunity to show a friend how to increase his efficiency and effectiveness in the gym. While I was training, I spotted him working his way through several machines. I couldn’t help myself, so I went over and yanked him off the machine and dragged him over to the rack. There, I introduced him to squats. I taught him that one exercise and put a little weight on the bar when I was satisfied that he wouldn’t crumble because of bad form. I had him do three sets of ten with that weight. When he was finished with that, he reported that his legs felt like jelly. Mission accomplished. His original plan had been to work through about ten machines to train the same muscles. Those ten machines would not have had his legs feeling like jelly. Squats are far more efficient at working the leg muscles.
Increasing efficiency and effectiveness leaves you with more time for optimal recovery and doing that little thing called life. If you have questions about how to make your workouts more effective and efficient, leave a comment! I’d be happy to help you learn to bring a little more balance to your life.
