Breakfast was 2 omelets made with 3 whole eggs, stuffed with shaved steak, a combination of cheddar, gouda and havarti, topped with sour cream, alongside some charcuterie rolls, a beef Polish sausage and a strip of steak cut bacon.
Dinner was a generous portion of pork spare ribs, beef brisket (sliced and chopped) with some butter
Greetings Gainers,
THE PROBLEM
Gainers frequently lament the “food” aspect of the gaining process, and specifically the obtaining, cooking and preparing of it in a manner that supports the goal of gaining.
Quite frequently, these gainers are young, inexperienced in manners of cooking, and restricted in access to cooking equipment. They are operating out of dorm rooms with “no cooking” rules, or share a living space with others with a desire to not create noise/clutter, or, even with full access to equipment, they lack the knowledge and confidence to be able to actually cook food in a manner that it is both enjoyable to eat and has a low probability of giving the eater some manner of botulism.
THE SOLUTION
WHAT IS SOUS VIDE?
WHAT IS A SOUS VIDE CIRCULATOR?
One of these babies!. There are plenty more out there, but I figure most folks can access amazon. Prime days are coming up too!
A sous vide circulator is an electronic plug in device that clips onto a pot/container filled with water. It’s specific function is to keep the water at a consistent temperature while also keeping it in constant circulation/movement. Contrast that with a slowcooker, which does not maintain a consistent set temperature and leaves the water stagnant.
WHY IS THIS THE SOLUTION?
The sous vide circulator requires no flame source and maintains a consistent temperature while occupying a very small amount of space. Additionally, because the food that is cooked by sous vide is vacuum sealed, there is no odor while it is cooking. This means food can be cooked in a small/shared space without fear of upsetting co-residents, alerting “the authorities” to one’s activities, and in a manner wherein the food is cooked to the EXACT temperature (to the degree) that the individual wants to cook it to. There is no guesswork or need to monitor the cooking as it occurs: just put the food in a vacuum sealed bag, put it in the water, turn on the circulator, and come back when you need the food.
To the point that you can use sous vide circulators for multiple DAY cooks. I’ve had one run for over 48 hours to produce a VERY wonderful brisket and ribs.
This also opens up the opportunity for VERY easy meal prep, as one can seal up large batches of food, give it a sous vide bath, take it out, hit it with an ice bath to instantly chill it (you don’t want it to slowly get to room temp, as this increases risk of bacteria growth) and store in the fridge or freezer for later use.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?
The immediate question is “won’t I need a vacuum sealer as well?”, to which the immediate answer is “No, but it’s nice to have”. You DO want to ensure that there is as little air as possible in the vessel you are cooking the food in, as otherwise, you’re not sous viding it, but just “boiling it in a bag”, but there are plenty of “DIY vacuum sealer” hacks out there that you can employ with just traditional ziplock bags (get the heavy duty ones, to be able to withstand the temps of the sous vide bath), to include sucking all the air out with a straw and a water immersion trick.
The follow-on question is “Don’t you need an oven/stove/smoker/grill to finish off the food?”, to which, again, “No, but it’s nice to have.” Once the food is done in the sous vide, it’s fully cooked and ready to eat. It just doesn’t LOOK great, nor will it have the same texture that comes from traditional cooking methods. But if you’re in a situation where cooking is NOT permittable, the sous vide will render you plenty of safe and enjoyable cuisine.
And finally “Do I need a sous vide container?” Again, “No, but it’s nice to have.” I did all my initial sous vide cooking using the metal pot from my instant pot, and have seen all manner of jury-rigging to make them work, to include cooking in bathtubs, plastic storage containers, etc. Just make sure your container can withstand the temp of your cook (especially concerning if it’s a plastic container)
The other self-perpetuating benefit of the sous vide is that cheaper cuts of meat tend to respond better to “low and slow” cooking approaches, in order to render the fat into a gelatin state, which can’t be accomplished with fast approaches like a microwave/frying on the stove top. This will open up avenues to make the most of these cheaper cuts, which will save on costs compared to buying more premium cuts that respond better to faster methods.
WHAT CAN I COOK WITH A SOUS VIDE CIRCULATOR?
Just about anything. Seriously, “Sous Vide Everything” is the absolute right name for that youtube channel and Guga is the man. I learned a lot from him.
I use my sous vide circulator pretty much every week, multiple times per week, and have cooked steaks (sirloin, filet mignon, ribeye [to include a 3lb tomahawk], chuck, etc), ribs (beef, pork and lamb), pork chops, chicken thighs/breasts, beef cheek, burgers, brisket, rib fingers, corned beef (yeah, that’s also brisket, but still), leg of lamb, and many many more.
And yes, this means, if it’s what you REALLY want gainers: you can cook chicken, rice and broccoli. But man: why would you?
SUMMARY/OPEN FOR QUESTIONS
BLUF
In the world of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches vs Uncrustables, 5/3/1 is the traditional PBJ. It’s on you to make sure you select the appropriate program, movements, and conditioning protocols for your goals, and to then rotate all of these as appropriate in order to continue to progress and grow without experience the consequences of “going stale”
Tactical Barbell is the Uncrustable. You open one box, open the package, and start eating. The box could be Strength, Mass, Conditioning or Base Building, but once you finish the box, you open a new one and get started with that one. The ratio of strength to conditioning is already established, as is the frequency of training and all the other variables: we just have to do what we’re told and we’ll do just fine.
BRIEF INTRO
EXPLAINING THE ANALOGY FURTHER
BREAD:
PEANUT BUTTER:
JELLY:
WHY 5/3/1 IS A TRADITIONAL PBJ
5/3/1 is a programming system, and the books could best be understood as “cookbooks” if I were to continue with this sandwich metaphor. They give you the guidelines of how to build your sandwich, but it’s still on YOU, the sandwich maker, to go buy the ingredients and assemble the sandwich. In turn, this leaves open a wide avenue of choices, options and, unfortunately, opportunities to completely foul up the whole process.
The first foul up: not actually READING the cookbook, and instead relying on second/third hand sources to tell you what is in the cookbook, or just plain old winging it based off what you THINK is right. We see this all the time in the world of 5/3/1, where people don’t even know that conditioning is PART of the program, or they’re relying on an app to tell them how to run it and it’s relying on old crowd sourced information itself. There are all sorts of videos on youtube of people trying to make AI recipes and turning out culinary abominations: this is no different.
But for those that read the cookbook, you need to actually FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS, and this is the second area where people tend to screw up 5/3/1. Either they don’t follow it because they don’t understand it (people say Jim is hard to understand, but I imagine these people never read anything Louie Simmons ever wrote) or they don’t follow it because they don’t want to. In the case of the latter, it’s because these people approach the system already knowing how they WANT to train, and they just keep “modifying” 5/3/1 until it becomes this terrible Frankenstein’s monster of a program that is exactly how they like to train, never appreciating that the reason they came to 5/3/1 in the first place was BECAUSE they needed to do something different, since what they WERE doing wasn’t working. I was very much one of these people, again inside and outside the metaphor, making terrible sandwiches with way too much peanut butter compared to the ratio of bread and running 5/3/1 programs with WAY too heavy of a training max and a poor balance of main, supplemental and assistance work along with conditioning. Ratios matter, in sandwiches and in training.
But assuming you read, understand and (attempt) to follow the instructions, you can still screw up by using low quality/poor ingredients. There is a WIDE range of peanut butters out there, with the Peter Pan brand notorious for having salmonella, natural brands that are so oily that they run clear off the sandwich onto your clothes, and highly processed brands that are more “peanut frosting” than peanut butter. There are jellies with so much sugar added that they technically qualify as candy, and honestly some breads out there that are just as guilty. This runs true as far as the metaphor goes: you can select strength and conditioning exercises that are absolutely inappropriate for you, the trainee, despite TECHNICALLY being within the realm of acceptable as far as 5/3/1 goes, permitting you to construct a program that “follows all the rules” and STILL gets terrible results, just like making a wonderbread peter pan and eggplant jelly (it’s a fruit..) sandwich.
And continuing with THAT metaphor even further: ingredients eventually expire as well, and need to be replaced. Jim Wendler understands this, and his cookbook even TELLS you to swap programs every 2-5 cycles…but you have to listen to that. You need to buy and use new bread to change the programming, and get new jars of peanut butter to swap out the strength exercises and new jars of jelly to bring in some new conditioning. And though I DID eat PBJs every day of high school for 4 years, we at least bought new stuff if the old stuff went bad, but some of you cats running 5/3/1 will do BBB for 14 months straight like you stocked up on a bread sale at your grocery store but didn’t think to put any of the loaves in the freezer and have just been eating stale moldy bread sandwiches. After a few weeks, that’s going to start causing you some serious harm, and you’re going to move backwards rather than forwards.
Which, speaking of freezers, let’s get to talking about those Uncrustables now.
HOW TACTICAL BARBELL IS AN UNCRUSTABLE
Whereas the 5/3/1 books can be understood to be cookbooks, Tactical Barbell is more like a catalog (which most likely alienates my younger readers to bring up such a concept) or a grocery delivery website. No one is telling you HOW to make the sandwich: you just pick which one you want. Once you do, it’s delivered to you, and all you have to do is unwrap and eat it.
What are the implicaitons of this? Ultimately, we’ve outsourced the sandwich making process to the “experts”, and though the folks at Smuckers may not be the greatest culinary artists in the world, they for SURE did the necessary degree of research to make their product as palatable as possible within the budgetary constructs they set in order to maximize profits and their return on investment. This means that the ratio of peanut butter to jelly to bread is exactly “right” in terms of making the most people possible satisfied with their product by appealing to the tastes of the greatest percentage of the population. And then they went and maximized shelf stability of their product by allowing it to be stored frozen, reducing the potential of spoilage and harm to the consumer.
What does this mean in the realm of Tactical Barbell? Like the Smuckers company, K. Black has put together something that should be able to be applied to the vast majority of trainees in order to satisfy the general needs of that populace, but per his own admission, the programs in TB aren’t meant to achieve extremely specific training objectives, like a top marathon time or elite powerlifting total. Rather than giving the reader “all the tools” to build their program, Tactical Barbell has multiple preset options that one selects (Operator, Zulu, Fighter in the realm of TB1, or General Mass, Grey Man, Gladiator, Fighter in Mass, etc etc) pairs it with the appropriate conditioning protocol from TBII or other source materials, and then executes it until the duration of the training phase before moving onto the next one (Operator-Mass-Specificity via Mass Protocol, or the fully fledged out “Activation” from TBIII). We don’t need to be making any sandwiches here: we just unwrap and eat.
But continuing the metaphor even further: there isn’t just ONE Uncrustable, much like there isn’t just ONE Tactical Barbell program. And that’s how we seamlessly move between the Tactical Barbell programs: one we’ve eaten all the uncrustables out of one box, we order a new flavor and start with that one. This is the periodization of OMS or Activation understood through the lens of PBJs: there are PB and honey uncrustables, PB and raspberry uncrustables, PB and Nutella, and yes: even just plain PB uncrustables, similar to how we can have TB programs built to emphasize mass, strength, conditioning, power, strength endurance, etc. The difference between how 5/3/1 handles this and TB is that the Uncrustable is STILL prebuilt to the specs designed by Smuckers: they’re just a different flavor, where with 5/3/1 we’re having to build it from scratch each time and hoping we know what the hell we’re doing.
And therein is the fundamental difference between the two systems: 5/3/1 allows the reader the necessary degree of latitude to be able to achieve a wide variety of specific training goals, as evidenced by Vincent Dizenzo using it to achieve a 600lb raw bench press across various weight classes or how Jim himself uses the system to train highschool football players. However, this freedom is predicated upon the premise that the individual knows how to actually make a decent sandwich in the first place. As I’ve demonstrated on multiple occasions: I cannot make a decent PBJ. Both the actual sandwich, and through this metaphor, the training program itself. Left to my own devices, my bread is basically a saltine cracker on one side and a tortilla on the other, ineffectively holding behind a tsunami of peanut butter alongside a small river of jalapeno and pickle jelly. I have to rely on someone else to make me a sandwich, while it’s MY job to simply dutifully eat them and make sure I buy a new box in time to open up when the old one runs out. And THIS is why I’ve stuck with Tactical Barbell for 2 years and don’t see myself changing any time soon.
MY PBJ BACKGROUND…
PROGRAM CHECK IN: TACTICAL BARBELL OPERATOR PRO FOR STRONGMAN PHASE II
INTRO
RESULTS UP FRONT
THE STRUCTURE
As I wrote in my previous check in, I was able to use the guidelines of Operator Pro to turn it into a multiphased training strategy for competition prep. Pro allows for “hypertrophy” ranges for the secondary exercises (10s, 8s and 6s) along with “strength” ranges (5s). For the first phase, I employed the hypertrophy ranges, and for the second phase I used the strength ranges. By doing so, as I transitioned into Pro out of Specificity, I was able to use lighter weights on new exercises as I redeveloped the motor skills for the exercises, AND I was able to continue to work to preserve lean tissue in a phase where food was restricted. In the second phase, prioritization of lean tissue was reduced as the focus was shifted more toward performance, and the low reps allowed me to groove more “perfect” practice on the lifts I’d execute in competition while also meaning that I’d be accumulating less fatigue due to reduced volume. Emphasis was on explosive/strong reps and to limit grinding. This also meant a greater emphasis could be placed on performance in general as part of my conditioning work, as I would not be splitting recovery demands on hypertrophy lifts.
Aside from the change in reps for the secondary exercises, I made no change from the previous set-up, aside from the loading exercise (to be discussed shortly). This meant a cluster of SSB front squats, log clean and either ROM progression deadlifts or loading implements to a platform. Per Op/Pro, I’d have one day where I set a 2-3rm for the front squats and one for the log clean, and then I’d pull deadlifts on the middle day using my own ROM progression protocol. I keep the sets the same, with the deadlift day using 3 sets for the secondary exercises and otherwise using 5 sets. I also continued to implement my daily dips and chins, ending the final week with 3 sets of 18 and 1 set of 17 spread across the day. I DO feel these daily bodyweight exercises went a long way in preserving upper body mass, as typically getting this light tends to have my arms and shoulders looking small, but that was not the case this time.
For the loading exercise, I had to execute an audible that ended up being a blessing in disguise. In phase I, I was relying purely on the Stone of Steel as my loading implement, increasing the weight each week. Eventually, conditions became so sweltering in my garage that, even with a grip shirt and receiver gloves, the stone was too slippery to safely load. I’ve already torn one bicep: I don’t need a matching set. So I switched to the Power Keg, which is much easier to wrangle, which is a blessing and a curse when I’m trying to train to lift natural stones, as it meant I was able to develop the basic strength for loading stuff but not the “chaos strength” that comes with trying to load awkward objects that don’t want to move.
This led me to use MULTIPLE implements during the loading exercise. I couldn’t load the stone for 5 full sets, but I could get 1-2 out of it before it got too slippery, so I would swap between the stone and the keg between sets. I also recognized the value of the keg for developing strength and the stone for technique, so I left the stone unloaded and loaded up the keg heavy and used a “1 minute on/2 minutes off” approach to make it a goal to get in as many reps as possible with each implement. This tended to break down to 7 reps with the Stone and 3 reps with the keg. To finish it all off, after a total of 4 sets (stone-keg-stone-keg), I’d break out my Ironmind sandbag at a fixed weight of 200lbs and load it for max reps in a minute, for a total of 5 sets of loading.
I love this discovery, and want to use it moving forward. I noticed that 5 full sets of loading the same implement was beating the hell out of me, whereas switching it up within the workout has a similar effect to the conjugate approach of switching up the ME lift each week: I was still pushing my body hard, but specific parts of it weren’t getting mashed over and over again. I can employ a wide variety of resistances with the loadable nature of the implements I have, but also swap in fixed weight stuff as needed in order to expand variety. This definitely has some wings, and it’s why I’m always tinkering away.
X-FACTORS
As noted: I was leaning out during this process. This was driven by multiple factors, one being that the competition I was training for was a charity event without weight classes being done strictly for fun, so I had no compelling need to get heavier. Along with that, it’s summer, which is a time when I engage in more general activity, so getting leaner is pretty natural for me. Along with THAT, the fall tends to be the kick off for my gaining season, with a late October birthday leading into Thanksgiving leading into Christmas. It’s a great time for feasting, which is a great time for gaining, and per Dan John, Jon Heck, John McCallum and many other authors: getting lean is a great step to take before getting big. All that said, had I been eating to GAIN during this training block, I know I’d see even more progress.
Which, on that note, I’ve picked up a few non-training related injuries during this training block which impacted performance on a few days. I’ve noted in my experience that I tend to get more injured as I get leaner, which is most likely a result of inadequate nutrition to support healing/recovery and a reduction of necessary “fluff” around my connective tissues to provide support. The two most significant ones are an instance where I legit got out of bed too quickly and wrenched something in my back so badly that I thought I needed to get to the hospital, which ended up taking a week to resolve due to recurrence of nerve pain. The second one was an injury to my left knee from trying to run down the stairs to let one of my dogs out before it had “disaster poops” on the floor…while the OTHER dog decided to use that opportunity to nip at my toes. For 2 weeks after that, my knee would click/pop and slide out of place, but it seems to have some stability now. I’m currently still recovering from that, with my knee in a brace, but able to still squat and do lifting stuff. But, again: this is getting in the way of being able to effectively execute.
THE NUTRITION
CONCLUSION/WHAT’S NEXT
Operator Pro provides the most streamlined manner to adapt Tactical Barbell to strongman training/preparation. I didn’t have to violate the protocol or cheat to make it work, and the phasic structure is incredible simple to map out. This is the strongest I’ve been at this level of leanness in quite some time: typically weighing this little comes with a degree of stringiness that I’m not a fan of.
I compete at the end of Aug and have a cruise that starts the next week and continues into Mid-Sep. Upon my return, it may be time to do some TBIII Basebuilding, or perhaps a work capacity block (that looks fun), or just get a head start on mass building and really ride that through the fall. As always: chaos is the plan.
$10 off at the register meant this was $5.35 per pound: an absolute steal, especially for Grassfed.
Salt and pepper before putting it in the sous vide at 134 for 5 hours. Took it out, painted it with some melted ghee and put it in the air fryer at 450 for 5 minutes to give it some color and finish. Let rest for a few minutes, slice against the grain, and try to not eat all 5+ pounds of it in one sitting.
I WANTED to treat it like a brisket, because of the beautiful fat cap on top, but it's really like a picanha roast.
I was blessed to marry a beautiful woman who was born and raised on Maui and introduced me to her culture, to include the "Loco Moco". For those that are unversed in this creation, the Loco Moco is traditionally a hamburger steak topped with a sunny side up egg and beef gravy, served a top a bed of rice and grilled onions.
This is 3 Costco grassfed beef burger patties topped with a sunny side up egg, covered with beef stock (started off in a wonderful jellied state which I heated up to turn liquid) atop a mound of egg whites for rice.
I had this in celebration of 808 day yesterday. IYKYK.
We were going out to celebrate, the kiddo picked the roadhouse, and I really enjoyed my one meal today.
BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF)
WHERE I’M COMING FROM
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT THIS BOOK?
WHAT’S NEW/WHAT EXCITED ME?
INSPIRED IDEAS FROM THE BOOK
WHAT ISN’T THERE?
WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED?
IN SUMMARY
Greetings Gainers,
INTRO
WHAT WAS HE TELLING US?
WHAT DOES THE BULKING DIET LOOK LIKE?
BUT AT WHAT COST?
HOW AM I GOING TO COOK ALL THESE EGGS?
CONCLUSION
I love how, with the sous vide, I can whip this up in minutes on a weeknight. Ribs were in the sous vide at 150 for a little over 24 hours, then took them out, brushed them with some tallow I rendered from the last time I smoked ribs (giving them a smoky flavor) and in the air fryer at 450 for 4 minutes. Cooked the eggs in the same tallow, so it was an indoor BBQ.
1 meal today, end of day, after an outstanding training session at 0400.
INTRO
THE DEMANDS
THE PROGRAM (OVERVIEW)
To meet these demands, I selected “Operator Pro” from Tactical Barbell Green Protocol. It features 3 days per week of lifting weights, with the remaining training days available for conditioning (or, in my case, events). One selects a cluster of lifts, and trains each lift in that cluster each training day. What is particularly unique about Operator Pro is that ONE lift of the cluster is trained for a 2-3 rep maximum for that training day, while the other lifts are trained at lower percentages for reps. So, if one had a cluster of Squat, bench and deadlift, Squat would be trained for a 2-3rm while bench and dead would be for 3-5 sets of reps on Monday, then wed would be Bench 2-3rm with squat and deadlift for reps, etc.
What is of particular note here is the rep work though. The percentages are low, ranging from 65%-75% and originally prescribed for 5x5. HOWEVER, there was an option included “for hypertrophy”, which used a system of sets of 10 on week 1, 8s on week 2, and 6s on week 3. Seeing that gave me a real lightbulb moment, which I will explain later.
HOW I LAID IT OUT
The two primary lifts of the cluster are the safety squat bar squat and the log clean and press away. On the rep days, it’s a strict press, on the 2-3rm day, it’s a push press. The other lifts in the cluster are the Stone of Steel loaded to a platform on lifting days 1 and 3 and the Texas Deadlift Bar ROM progression mat pull on day 2. I also have axle curls programmed for my deadlift day.
On Day 1, the front squat is my 2-3rm lift, while log and stones are trained for 5 sets. On day 2, the deadlift is my primary lift (following ROM progression protocol, which is different from what TB lays out), while squats and log are trained for 3 sets. On day 3, the log is my 2-3rm lift, while squats and stones are trained for 5 sets (squats for higher reps than stones).
Which, speaking of reps, THIS is where Operator Pro shines: for the first 6 weeks of the training cycle, I used the hypertrophy reps for the secondary exercises (so sets of 10 for week 1, 8s for week 2, 6s for week 3). My intent for the final 6 weeks is to go to the standard Op Pro approach and just do sets of 5. The exceptions to this approach are for the deadlift (trained using ROM progression protocol) and the stones, which I do for the hypertrophy sets on workout 1 while doing for 5x5 on workout 3. I find trying to do high reps of stones twice a week tears up my SI joint. In turn, for workout 3, I use the weights that I will use for the next week’s hypertrophy workout, in order to get my body accustomed to it ahead of time.
Between lifting days 1 and 2, I do Fobbits on a rower, performing a martial arts kata (technically a hyung) between rounds, and between lifting days 2 and 3 I do prowler sprints (4-5 sets, long rests). On the weekends, I walk.
Daily, I perform 4 sets of chins and dips, increasing the rep total by 1 per week (not 1 per set: 1 rep total). I also train martial arts 3x per week, typically on Tues, Weds and Thurs, but this is traditional martial arts rather than combat sports, so not incredibly intense.
WHY I LAID IT OUT THE WAY I DID
The most significant “strongman prep” element of this is the phasic structure of the programming. I get to spend the first 6 weeks of the program using lighter weights for the rep work and rebuilding technique and the specific muscles necessary to get better at events. At the same time, I still get a weekly opportunity to regularly practice moving heavy weights as well. Every 3 weeks, I can adjust the training maxes to make them heavier, which means that, as I move into the final 6 weeks of the program, my weights will have increased but I’ll then be using lower reps, focusing on grooving perfect technique without experiencing significant fatigue.
Which, on the topic of fatigue: it’s why I use the SSB front squat. It’s not because front squats are more “strongman transferable”: it’s because they don’t fatigue the lower back as much as a back loaded squat will. Given I’m doing log pressing and stone loading/deadlifts whenever I lift, my lower back is already getting plenty hammered. The front squat allows me to still train A squat without compounding fatigue, and I use the SSB because my ability to maintain a rack position is pretty poor.
The stone/deadlift pairing is pretty simple to explain away. Stone loading and deadlifting recruit a LOT of the same muscles, to the point that I was at a Kaz seminar where he postulated that modern strongman use wider stance deadlifts for conventional because they spend so much time loading stones, so they’re stronger with their feet further apart. In turn, even for NON-strongman competitors, I think there’s a LOT of value in employing some sort of implement load in place of a deadlift in programming. There is no eccentric whatsoever to deal with, so it won’t beat up the trainee quite as much, which I feel is what allows me to train 3x a week compared to deadlifting, which I would keep at just 1x a week as well. Difficulties exist in adjusting the loads if you don’t have a loadable implement, but the Stone of Steel and Power Keg CAN bypass that. One could also do an old fashioned stone trainer by using a loading pin and some bumper plates to achieve a similar effect.
On THAT topic: the deadlift is the reason I use 3 sets of the secondary work on the second lifting day. The deadlift just takes SO MUCH out of me that trying to stack more work on top aside from the bare minimum is a poor strategy. But this has a pretty neat downstream effect. My weekly structure shakes out that, for the press, I start the week with 5 sets, then cut down to 3, then finish with a 2-3rm single set: like a mini-taper. For the front squats, I end up setting a 2-3rm, then progress to 3 sets, then up to 5: like a small accumulation block. The stones end up being for 5 sets on high reps on the day where I’m only front squatting for a single set, which is allowing me to make up some volume on the back end, whereas the day I’m doing the highest volume of front squats, the stone volume is kept moderate by keeping the reps at 5. Each training day is unique and gives me something to look forward to, and it all builds upon itself.
I’m strict pressing the log on the rep work, because it’s helping me build up the muscle I need to be strong and stable in the log, whereas I’m push pressing the heavy work so that I re-learn the skill of moving heavy weight with the implement.
I use the ROM progression deadlift because it works. I’ve tried messing with success and it goes poorly. I also train the deadlift LAST on the deadlift focused day, rather than first, because once I’m done with that lift I’m pretty much exhausted. The only thing left in me is curls and small assistance work.
I’m doing nothing to train for the caber toss. I’ve never done one before, and it’s just a bucketlist item for me. I’m going to show up to the competition and have fun.
The prowler sprints are there to improve my ability on the tractor pull. I SHOULD be doing these with a harness and a rope, but since I train so stupidly early in the dark, I don’t want to deal with trying to hitch up to my truck. I’m noticing significant improvement in my conditioning and ability just doing high handle prowler sprints on a LONG track with 5 minutes of rest between sets.
The Fobbits on the rower are effectively recovery work, but also continue to contribute to my conditioning and cardiovascular capabilities. I’m sticking with the martial arts because I have a tournament coming up in July, am getting close to black belt testing, and we run a summerlong “hyung competition” that I am part of, so it all works out.
Even though I used programmed percentages for axle curls, I consider them assistance work rather than primary or secondary. I just use the percentages for force me to actually train hard on them, as otherwise I’ll blow them off. Those get trained once a week, after deadlifts, for 3 sets. I otherwise prioritize ab work for assistance, followed by rear delts, and then lateral delts. If I STILL have more time after training all that, I’m just going to go for a walk. Most days, the only assistance I do after the heavy lifting is 2-3 sets of ab work.
THE NUTRITION
IN SUMMARY
The only unfortunate part is that one of the farm fresh eggs I used had such a massive yoke that the sheer weight of it hitting the bowl caused it to split before I set to frying it.
3.25lb Tomahawak ribeye, on sale from Father's Day. Sous vide at 133 for 4 hours, then seared in tallow for a crust on medium high heat in cast iron. It was glorious.
Sous vide bath at 150 for 24 hours, then 2 hours on the smoker at 220 just to give it a kiss. I saved the drippings from the sous vide bag and used that when I wrapped the rib to rest for 30 minutes...then resaved it in a mason jar to use when I cook eggs.
These are such a treat. And, of course, completely untrimmed, because people who trim ribs/brisket don't actually like meat.
This and 3 eggs made a wonderful post workout meal.
With smash patties, this is what "carnivore pancakes" are all about. Topped with butter and salt with little crispy edges. A total treat.
As beef prices continue to rise, finding ways to turn cheap cuts into magic has become a fun experiment, and I wanted to share this one with you.
Got 3lbs of beef cheek from Sam's club. Left it UNTRIMMED, because I actually enjoy the taste of animals, and seasoned with only salt and pepper.
Put it in the sous vide bath (double bagged) for 60 hours at 155 degrees.
Took it out, pat it dry, them straight into the smoker (I have a Ninja Woodfire, so it's like a compression smoker) for 1hr 45min at 225.
Wrapped it in foil with the contents from the sous vide bag to do a pseudo-confit and let rest for an hour.
Sliced it like a brisket and served it alongside eggs (fried in the fat rendered during the smoke) and a little bit of steak from my kid's plate. Really wanted to eat the full 3lbs: it's THAT good.
