Kyle's battle with the iron

[KyleSchuant]

No.

There are three different Aussie accents, basically. One is the ocker, which is what everyone knows and makes fun of. Think Steve Irwin. The other is a British-inflection, we used to get it a lot with Liberal Party politicians who wanted to sound posh but it's dwindling now and is mostly only found in academia and on the ABC. And the other's in between, where some vowels are flattened like an ocker but it's not as nasal. Apart from that there's just some regional variation of whether you "dahnce" or "dance", etc.

[Hanley]

No?

See @Nikipedia? Can't you hear the inquisitive lilt?

[Hanley]

You’re not an expert on this, Hanley. Kyle and I are.

Fuck yourself?

[KyleSchuant]

Yes, the Adelaideans (one of whom I married) are closer to the general British accent than Victorians are, but nothing can compare to the nasal tones of the northern half of the continent. Queensland didn't even have a state secondary school system until 1963, and was the last place to give Aboriginals the vote, about five minutes before the federal government made them. Plus it's humid. Fuck the northerners. #Vexit.

[KyleSchuant]

Not a bad year overall.

Using a simple progression, I cleaned and pressed, cleaned and front squatted 80kg. I only snatched 57kg but I didn't train it hard and anyway I'm 47. Bench matched my old PR of 110kg, that bursitis keeps popping up though.

Squats saw a PR. I'd been grinding away with HLM, and the workouts were taking ages, I got up to 140x5 though.

After that I went for my version of "easy strength" and in the first testing session squatted 165. In six weeks I did 24 workouts with 60-80% which was 100-132.5kg. I did 4 at 60% which was either a set of 10, or 5,5; I did 4 at 80% which was 3x3 except one time was 5 doubles, which took me ages. The other 16 were something in between. On 22 of those workout days I followed my advice of "oats for breakfast, 2 fruit for morning tea, 2 meat and 2 cups vegies for lunch", and the 5 grindy doubles with 80% was a day I didn't follow the advice, for breakfast I had eggs on toast, I ate no fruit, and for lunch I just had a sandwich, so there you go.

Anyway I ended up squatting 180kg.

Back on SS I was told that I would change my mind about the diminishing returns of strength gains once I squatted 400 or deadlifted 500lbs. I've done 396 and 490 (year before). Obviously the great insights must come in another 10lbs, since I didn't feel any benefit I hadn't got from 150lbs less. If it ever clocks over, "bing!" the lightbulb will go off, apparently. Being there was good, but achieving that dominated my life and left me very little for anything else, I was tired all the time, sore, getting fatter, you guys know the drill.

The other two lifts were presses and farmer's walks; the presses went nowhere and the farmer's walks are not really something we max out on.

The rest of the year was a bit of a writeoff, I got sick a lot, rarely had an uninterrupted night's sleep and always a total of less than 6hr30', etc. With irregular training, I lost a lot of strength and chubbed up.

This January I've joined a trainer friend's "28 day challenge." He's focused on over-40s males, basically it's just doing some cardio everyday and limiting carbs. He has some strength training in there but it's just bodyweight stuff. Nonetheless I've stopped any barbell work this month to do it. He wanted my feedback, and I can't assess it unless I follow it. So I'll drop a few pounds and return to the barbell in February, I'll still run, though. I'm 47, I can't ignore heart health.

The business keeps trundling along attracting more timid and broken beginners, and the gym's male-dominated for the first time in four years or so. I fulfilled my goal of talking to another trainer or coach every work day of the year, and one coaching friend got to turn his life around and asked me, of all people, for business advice; it's that balancing work and family thing. The kids are a year older and my daughter is a year closer to starting school.

[cwd]

Sounds like a good year.

My 19yo son plans to take up lifting again soon, and wanted a lower-stress program than SS. I recommended Easy Strength.

[KyleSchuant]

I don't know where your lad is, strength-wise. But complete novices need to do some sort of novice progression, picking a few lifts, starting with the empty bar, and adding small amounts each time for 3 months or so. ES is more of an intermediate programme because it relies on knowing your max, and novices don't have a max.

I found the ES book muddled and confusing. This is how I do it.

• every workout day at least, have 1 cup of oats for breakfast, two pieces of fruit for morning tea, and for lunch two palm-sized pieces of meat or fish and two cups of mixed vegies (or 4 cups salad). I don't advise about dinner; if they get breakfast right, they probably get lunch right, and if they get breakfast and lunch right, dinner will be fine. Anyway they can use dinner to adjust for other goals, like getting bigger or smaller or fuelling runs, etc.
• pick 3-5 lifts of the DJ 5 - squat, push, pull, hip hinge and loaded carry.
• find your "sorta max" in each, and calculate 60% and 80% of them
• 60% is your floor, you never do less than that, however awful you feel; 80% is your ceiling, you never do more, however great you feel
• 3-5 days a week you do a total of 10 reps with 60-80% of each lift. Get them out however you feel like on the day, whether it be 10 singles, a set of 10, 3x3, 5,3,2, doesn't matter. Though if you need to do singles with 60%, or can do 10 in one go with 80%, you messed up your "sorta max" test somehow.
• do this for 6 weeks

If you continue with ES then you do this,

• retest your "sorta max" in those 3-5 lifts
• you'll find 1-2 went up a lot, 1-2 a bit, and 1-2 stayed the same. Careful examination of the logs usually shows the one that didn't improve, the person spent all their time at 60%, or all their time at 80%.
• whichever improved the most, and whichever the least, swap out for "same but different", eg back squats swap for front squats, cleans for snatches, etc.

My experience and that of people who've tried this is that,

• most people can't handle more complicated dietary advice than that given above, but if they follow that, they're better than they are now. Only 47% of Aussies have the recommended 2 pieces of fruit a day, and 7% have the 5 vegies, or 2.5 cups, and only about 25% get the recommended fibre; the listed advice will get them at least 80% of the way there. More nutrients means more energy for life and workouts, and better digestion means better sleep.
• 3 lifts works best for pure strength gains
• If a hip hinge is chosen, the deadlifts exclude squats; you won't make progress on both. Cleans and snatches and lighter deadlift variations are fine with squats, though.
• If you do 4 or 5 then those extra 1-2 never improve anyway, you might still do them because you enjoy them or don't want them to decline, especially ones with a high technique component like the quick lifts.
• 2-3 days a week maintains strength (one lift might edge up but it's within the random variation you get with any max testing), 4 improves it, 5 feels good but doesn't seem to add anything more to the lifts compared to 4.

Squats are tricky, because they seem to need more practice than the other slow lifts, but they take a lot out of you. An 80% squat is a different experience to an 80% press.

[cwd]

Thanks, I'll point my son at this.

He's run SS a couple times in past years, never much past a bodyweight squat though.

[KyleSchuant]

Try him on the Victoria Method. This is what I'm doing with previously sedentary people, it starts stupidly easy to get them into the habit of exercise.

First fortnight
Front squat - start 20kg, add 2kg a time, 3 reps x 5 sets
Press - start 20kg, add 1.5kg a time, 5 reps x 3 sets
Snatch-grip deadlift - start 40kg, add 2.5kg a time, 5 reps x 3 sets

Later fortnights
Workout A
Front squat - keep adding 2kg a time
Press - now add 1kg a time
Snatch-grip deadlift - keep progressing this at 2.5kg a time

Workout B
Front squat - progress from A
Chinups for those of healthy bodyweight and young, total 5, add 1 to total each time; or barbell rows for the overweight or the older ones, for the rows start with the press weight but do 8 reps for 3 sets, slow and with a pause at the top
Farmer's walks - about 1/3 of the snatch-grip deadlift weight in each hand, do 5 laps of the driveway, it's fine to rest in between laps, but if you can't do 40m without stopping it's too heavy

For those who've never done them, in the second fortnight it can be good to do cleans with the presses; if they've great bodily awareness and are explosive, then clean the front squats instead.

With no stalls and 30-40 workouts in 3 months, this gets the guy to front squatting 90+ for work sets, pressing in the 40s, and snatch-grip deadlifting about 100kg. Farmer's walks will be 30-35kg a hand. This will translate to 110-120 / 70-85 / 120-140 of the traditional Big Three, which I introduce in the last session of the first three months, or the first of the next. "My god, these are so easy!" is the universal response.

You can start them heavier and progress them more quickly earlier on and then slow it, but they'll get stuck and have to deload and end up in the same place anyway. Obviously though you tweak it as you see fit, this will be too much for some, too easy for others, and adjust it as you go. But that's the general blind prescription.

If it's to be combined with endurance work, then I'd go for 2+2, two strength and two endurance sessions a week. An athlete or older beat-up type would do 2+2+2 - the last two being mobility work.

After the first 3 months, Easy Strength becomes more appropriate.

If I can help in any way, CWD, just fire me a message on the lamebook or by email.

[cwd]

Thanks, this is generous of you!

[KyleSchuant]

I've been working with Aron for years now. He has 3-4 overseas trips for 2-4 weeks each year. Honestly, I think this has helped his longevity in lifting. He'll never be a champion, but he keeps lifting.

With his permission, I say: he's late 30s, and the stocking on his leg is to control lymphoedema from cancer a few years back. The oedema stops proper muscle activation, on breaks from lifting early on he has quite literally fallen over in the street as his leg gave out from under him. So for him, lifting is not an option.

He also got doored on a bicycle two years back and had his right scaphoid out, they put a hubcap fusion in to hold it together. Of course he had physiotherapy for this, but the funny thing is: he couldn't do the exercises the hand therapist gave him to help him recover range of motion and use barbells. But simply using barbells improved his strength and range of motion to do the physio exercises. Barbells got him able to do the physio exercises that were supposed to help with barbells.

It's astounding what barbells can do. Barbells truly are big medicine.

[KyleSchuant]

Woops. I went out for my (I hoped, if the heart rate was right) last 2' jog / 3' walk run. Right after the third jogging part, I checked the time - and accidentally restarted the whole cycle. Oh well, I decided, a little extra work never hurt anybody, so followed the prompts.

The distance is slightly shorter than last time - for the full run - because I was improvising the route a bit and had to watch out for traffic. So the slightly lower heart rate of 135 (vs 137 last time) doesn't mean anything. I'll repeat the 2'/3'x6 cycles next week, hoping to see the average heart rate drop under my MAF of 128. Let's just call it a good warmup.

Brawn, not brains.

Interval Distance HR(avg)
01.08 Tue 1'/4' 3.50 121
01.10 Thu 1'/4' 3.69 121
01.12 Sat 1'/4' 3.78 120
01.14 Mon 2'/4' 3.93 143
01.16 Wed 2'/4' 3.93 137
01.19 Sat 2'/4' 3.87 135

[KyleSchuant]

Happy National Boat People Day! (aka Australia Day)

In 1629, the mutineers Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye van Bemmel were dumped on the coast of western Australia. They didn't want to be here.

In 1788, the First Fleet arrived carrying a bunch of sailors and marines, who didn't want to be here but were ordered to go, and convicts, who so much didn't want to be here they actually had to be threatened with hanging as an alternative, and even then had to be transported in chains. They were followed over the next several decades by over 100,000 convicts, none of whom wanted to be here, and most of whom fled back to Old Blighty at the first opportunity.

In 1793 came the first free settlers. The British Government had offered them hundreds of acres of free land, two years' food and supplies, farm tools and convict slave labour. All for free. With these offers, the entire British Isles managed to find five people willing to come along and drag their families too. Five. They didn't want to be here.

In later years Australia had Irish come, who thought so little of Australia that it took a famine killing millions to make them come here. Then Jews came, but it took death camps to make them come. Then Greeks fleeing civil war and dictatorship, and Italians fleeing miserable poverty. Then Hungarians fleeing Communist oppression. Then Vietnamese fleeing Communists, and Cambodians fleeing genocide. Then Lebanese fleeing civil war. Then Slavs of various descriptions, fleeing civil war and genocide. Now some Africans. None of them really wanted to be here.

"I love a sunburnt country, [...] Of droughts and flooding rains." This was written by someone who liked the place.

The history of modern Australia is that nobody really wants to be here. It's hot and bleak and the local wildlife tries to kill you and doesn't even taste good. Unless you're Aboriginal, your parents didn't really want to be here. We're almost all boat people. Let's celebrate that today.

[KyleSchuant]

No sumo layback.

[KyleSchuant]

The other day I looked around my gym and there were three people front squatting, one pressing, one snatch grip deadlifting, and there was a guy outside doing snatches. Nobody was using the bench press or back squatting. I thought, WTF, has my gym become a weightlifting gym?

And then a new guy signed up with ankylosing spondylitis and some hip and shoulder stuff. Another timid broken beginner, back to the basics for us both. I await the appearance of the mythical entirely healthy person.

[cwd]

Another timid broken beginner, back to the basics for us both. I await the appearance of the mythical entirely healthy person.

The beginners who think of themselves as sturdy and intact, probably don't hire a coach. Until they hurt themselves...

[KyleSchuant]

Well, they might do so in order to lift even more. But that's one of the PTC gyms around here, really, not so much my thing.

First 50%.

[KyleSchuant]

Now this poor guy is asking in the wrong place. He has a bar and plates, a bench, but no rack or stands.

"Your situation is so sub-optimal that it really doesn't matter."

He could clean, press, front squat, deadlift, row, bench press, snatch, and jerk. Plus all the other variations of those. The only thing he can't do is back squat. Someone PM him and tell him about this place. Or, basically anywhere else.

[Ragholmes]

Such a bullshit response. Sometimes I think Rip is perimenopausal.
Also, some bench press stands are adjustable and some of them adjust surprisingly high. On vacation in gyms that don't have squat racks I have unracked and squatted and pressed from a bench press. It's not great, but its totally doable. Better to lower the weight a bit and unrack from 3/4 squat height than not squat/press.

[KyleSchuant]

From my Chabad friends.